with the Jacobites and the Assyrian Christians. I have been much interested in noticing traces of them* in India. It appears from other evidence, that in 778, when a council of the Nestorians was held, the bishop of their mission in China was excused from attendance, as it is said, "by reason of mountains infested with robbers, and stormy seas.' Gibbon says, in his "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire"-"The zeal of the Nestorians overleaped the limits which had confined the ambition and curiosity both of the Greeks and Persians. The missionaries of Balk and Samarcand pursued without fear the footsteps of the roving Tartar, and insinuated themselves into the camp of the valleys of Imaus, and the banks of the Selinga." In Southern Hindostan, as is well known, a community of Jacobite Christians, one of the divisions of the Greek Church, exists. It is also known that a community of Nestorians exists in China. It is very affecting to note, that when the Nestorians in Syria heard of their brethren in China, the patriarch wrote immediately an affectionate letter to them. In this letter, after many expressions of Christian interest and sympathy, there follow the names of the bishops, and a postscript, giving an account of what they believe and do, what their festivals are, and asking their brethren again that they would send to them, and tell them after the lapse of so many years what they were, and what they did, and how they kept the faith.

I think it is impossible, from all we have seen of the history of the Greek Church, to avoid a conclusion somewhat like this :-It had been well for it if it had never been afflicted with the desire of domination, but yet that the blame of this was scarcely to be laid at its own door. Rome had to the full as much, if not more blame, in the schism between the Eastern and Western Churches; and in those sad fruits which flow from division-confining down the truth of God to innumerable creeds, councils, and canons, to certain strict forms and observances, and abolishing the free preaching of the Word, and that con

*See "Missionary Researches in Armenia," by Revs. Smith and Dwight; also, "The Nestorians," by Asahel Grant, M.D.

fidence between man and man wherein the free preaching of the Gospel can alone flourish-the consequences were to be laid at the door of Rome quite as much as at the door of Greece. But Rome has been prosperous; she has said in her heart, "I sit a Queen-I am no widow-I shall never see sorrow;" she has committed fornication with the kings of the earth, and lived delicately, and enjoyed a career of almost uninterrupted worldly prosperity. Greece has known very different things. Under the sword of oppression of the Infidel— for a long time weighed down by exaction after exaction, by blow after blow, and living in continual fear-her decline from truth has been brought about more by adversity than by the wind of prosperity. An opening is bared before us. We ought not, in occupying that opening, to look at her in the spirit of anger and contumely; we ought not to say we despisé her, and will rather turn to the more moral Mohammedan, on the poor plea that he acknowledges Christ as well as ourselves." But how acknowledges him? Says that He was a great man among others, but that Mohammed was God's prophet, and superseded them all; puts him on a level with Moses and others. But we should go as those who sympathize with the Greek Christians, pity their darkness, feel the responsibility of having the truth of God and the Gospel with us, and occupy that opening which the Turkish war, and the Russian aggressions, and the stirring of the nations generally, are certainly making wide for us, by the Gospel of peace, and by an active propagation of that seed and that light which, as I said, we originally received from them; and I have yet to learn, dear brethren, and you have yet to learn, that our obligation to return the benefit is obsolete because it was conferred long ago. Let us remember what we owe them, and give back, I repeat, that truth and that light which has so blessed us, and which first rose upon us, like the sun rises upon us every day from the east.

I have to thank you for the patience with which you have listened to me-to beg pardon for any observations I have made which may be corrected by better experience, or which may seem to those who have a fuller knowledge

of the subject than I have, to be in any way wrong-and to impress upon you the main truth which I have laid down, pretending to no infallibility or final conclusion in the matter, and especially that responsibility, which I have dwelt upon at greater length than I should have done, were it not for the prevailing feeling of the timethe responsibility that rests upon us to go forth and occupy those countries which, perhaps, God is now stirring and afflicting in order that he may, through us, have mercy upon them.

In reply to some observations from the Chairman (the Rev. W. Cadman), the Lecturer said:

I avoided in my lecture, speaking on the Russian portion of the Greek Church, and my reason was simply this, that it is in so bad a moral state, and so difficult to arrive at anything like a good view of it, that I thought it better in a lecture of this character to avoid it. I thoroughly agree with Mr. Cadman's views of the Russian quarrel; and in speaking as I did of the Christians in the Turkish Empire, I did not mean to pronounce upon the war at present-that it was an opening for missionary labours among the Greek Church, by means of the Turks being subdued, or anything of that sort; but I meant, that whatever the issue of this might besupposing diplomacy settled it-that still the stir among the nations would be a very great opening. I also thoroughly agree with Mr. Cadman, that if the Russians once get hold of the Greek Church, it would (as I said) perpetuate the reign of darkness which now exists in the East. I wish to say this, because I feel that I may have given room for false impressions on a point on which I desire to avoid pronouncing an opinion as a Christian, viz., wars and their issues.

LECTURE IV.

THE CHURCHES OF ENGLAND AND ROME COMPARED, AND THEIR DOCTRINES EXAMINED BY THE STANDARDS OF AUTHORITY IN EACH.

BY THE REV. J. E. COX, M.A., F.S.A.,

VICAR OF ST. HELEN'S, BISHOPSGATE.

MR. CHAIRMAN, AND PROTESTANT FRIENDS,—It seems to me scarcely necessary to preface the business of this evening's meeting with any remarks commending to you its importance. No one can have watched the signs of the times in which our lot is cast, and which I may well call eventful, without perceiving the progress of Roman Catholic doctrines in this country-and, hitherto, of Roman Catholic influence in the British Senate. I need but to refer to one portion of the United Kingdom, which testifies, with trumpet tongue, of the dreadful system of Popery, as carried out in full force and vigour, which is a living witness of the pernicious tendency of those doctrines, which are now being endeavoured to be riveted on Protestant England, to foretel what the event would be—if ever, unhappily, the time should come, when the same fearful system should again attain the ascendancy in this land. It is no longer concealed-it is no longer denied that the purpose of the Papacy is to gain that ascendancy. Open aggression has already commenced with a view to that end. Formerly, when such a declaration would have marred the purpose in view, the bare supposition of such an object-the mere expression of the fear on the part of any member of a Protestant community, would have been characterized as folly, and stigmatized as the grossest absurdity. Its

cry then was, "Give us equal rights, and we shall be content," and many of us are not too young to remember the time, when, yielding to a false and succumbing expediency, we listened so far to the voice of the deceiver as to believe its insinuations. We took the serpent to our bosom to foster and to cherish it, in return for which it has already turned upon and stung us. But those days have passed away-they are gone. Deceit has served the turn of Rome-she requires no longer to "speak lies in hypocrisy." The cloak is, at length, cast off; and she stands forward with open, undisguised, and avowed intention, and boldly asserts, that the subjugation of Protestant England to her pernicious and false faith, is her end and purpose. Until the time seemed to be ripe for open and positive aggression, she condescended to offer prayers for our conversion to her tenets-she hailed with pretended thankfulness to the Giver of all good, the near approach of many from within our own walls, who, she openly avowed, were pioneers, making the way plain for her entry, whom she still encourages with soft speeches and words of winning flattery, and congratulates upon their apostasy. But, now, her open declaration is"Supremacy." Nothing less than the entire subjugation of this land to her dominion and authority, will satisfy her! And what are the Protestants of this land about? Are they sleeping? Are they deluding themselves with the idea, that this avowed intention of Rome is but a braggart boast that people's minds are now much too enlightened to be enslaved by such an absurd and ridiculous thing as they are pleased to fancy Popery to be? This has been the too common feeling this was, but a short time since, the idea entertained by multitudes, who ought to have known better. God forbid that I should speak uncharitably of any class of individuals; but this I must say—and I would say it with all humility, and in Christian love,—that such lukewarmness, and such indifference to the encroachments of our common foe, bespoke not the watchfulness we are commanded to exercise against every enemy of Christian truth-bespoke not the resistance we are exhorted to employ in faith against every