than 900, for we have above that number of converts already!" We now hear of the church having been built and consecrated in August last.

But I must bring these remarks to a close; not because I have done with the subject, but because I am afraid to detain you longer. I will only just say that I believe this is a most remarkable crisis at the present time in the history of Ireland. I am truly convinced of this; and it is the result of observations which I have made in almost every part of Ireland, that there is at the present moment an awakened spirit of inquiry amongst the Roman Catholic population there, which puts that population into a most favourable condition for the faithful loving proclamation to them of the truth according to God's own Word. There is at the present time a remarkable lull of political agitation in Ireland. There is no great Agitator there now, and no great political agitation is going forward. People's minds are not distracted as they were some few years ago; and they are, therefore, in a better position to receive the faithful proclamation of Christ's Gospel amongst them. Then, again, the success which God has given to our work already, I regard as a loud and imperative call to us not to relax our endeavours, till, from north to south, and from east to west we have traversed the entire country with the message of the blessed story of peace; and I firmly believe that if we go forward in the spirit of love, and at the same time in the spirit of fidelity to God's truth, having no compromise on the one hand, and no bitterness on the other, but with the simple weapon of "the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God,' in our hands,-I believe we shall be instrumental in doing for Ireland what all the Acts of Parliament that were ever framed have failed to do, namely, to convey to her the blessings of righteousness and peace, and to exalt her to the place which she ought to occupy in the scale of nations, as the sister of the very mightiest country under heaven. I believe, if we seize the present opportunity which the finger of God points out to us we shall be instrumental in bringing about the true regeneration of Ireland, that we shall be able to stanch the wounds from

which she has been so long suffering, and apply to her that only "balm of Gilead" which is the one panacea for all the wretchedness and all the misery of fallen humanity. But we must seize the opportunity at once; we know not how long it may last. Everything in the world around us seems to be ripening for some mighty crisis; all seems to be proclaiming that our time of proceeding in the Lord's work may soon expire, that our present dispensation may soon give place to the brighter dawn, a better and nobler dispensation, the consummation of the believer's hope as identified with the coming of Christ. Meanwhile the sound is to go forth through the vast empire of Papal Christendom-"Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sin, and that ye receive not of her plagues." That is the sound we are proclaiming in Ireland, that is the sound to which thousands in that country are responding, and joyfully throwing off the fetters by which they have long been enslaved, that they may walk at liberty in the light of God's own truth. Let us help forward this grand consummation. Rome, once speaking in the plenitude of what he conceived to be his infallible authority, said that when the Roman Catholic Church falls in Ireland it will fall all the world over,-God speed the day! God hasten the time when all error and false doctrine shall be banished from the earth, when every system of antichrist shall be swept to perdition, that the true Christ may reign in glory from pole to pole, as King of kings and Lord of lords!

The Pope of

LECTURE VIII.

COLONIZATION VIEWED HISTORICALLY AND

SCRIPTURALLY.

BY THE REV. V. W. RYAN, M.A.,

PRINCIPAL OF THE METROPOLITAN TRAINING INSTITUTION.

THE subject before us is one of the most comprehensive and important that could occupy our attention. The history of colonization is bound up with the records of universal history. It meets us in the earliest notices that we possess of the doings of the human race. The advertising columns of the "Times" of this day are full of practical information about it. The Scriptural view of it is one which teaches us how to trace and to value our civil and religious privileges, and how to impart them to others, and to help in sending them to the extremities of the earth.

The difficulty of treating such a subject arises from the large amount of materials which present themselves for selection and arrangement. The encouragement is that a lecturer's duty is more to suggest than to instruct; rather to indicate fields of study than to give the information fully himself; to endeavour to present in one view several features of a question in their connected bearing on some one point, leaving the outline to be filled up by individual research, rather than to show each part in its own separate completeness. With this impression, therefore, I shall proceed to put before you some of the most prominent facts respecting the colonies of men at different ages of the world. I shall endeavour to do so as briefly as may be consistent with the object I have in view, viz., to enable us to form a comprehensive estimate of the

principles on which men have acted, and of the value of the methods adopted, as well as of the importance to be attached to the natural and political advantages possessed in various degrees by different nations.

Our inquiry may be ranged under two large divisions -the first period, before the fifteenth century of our era, embracing nearly three thousand years;-the second, since that date, nearly four hundred.

Now it is very convenient in study, as in other departments of labour, to have our work definitely separated by clear lines of demarcation. In tracing a historical subject, it is of immense assistance, not only to have the time of it broadly marked out, but the place as well, the chronology, and the geography. Both are very distinctly to be seen here. Our first period is the time before the fifteenth century, and the geography of it is comprised in the countries bordering on the Mediterranean Sea.

Before I direct your attention more particularly to this part of the subject, let me quote Dr. Johnson's remarks:

;

"The grand object of travelling is to see the shores of the Mediterranean. On those shores were the four great empires of the world-the Assyrian, the Persian, the Grecian, and the Roman. All our religion, almost all our laws, almost all our arts, almost all that sets us above savages, has come to us from the Mediterranean."

All that we know of navigation during the early period, with one or two exceptions, is confined to the Mediterranean Sea.

Suppose a curtain drawn over that great globe in Leicester-square, hiding from view the vast expanse of the Pacific from east to west, nearly the whole of the Northern and Southern Oceans, with the Indian Ocean and the adjoining seas; and while you read the history of colonization, you need not move from the spot on which you can see the Mediterranean and the countries bordering on it.

Looking to the east, we are led to the historical account in Scripture. Famines and political changes, as well as

increase of population, led to the emigrations there recorded.

Thus we have the descent of the Children of Israel into Egypt, because of a famine.

The town of Luz, in the land of the Hittites, was built by a man who escaped from the destruction of the Canaanites. (See Judges i. 25, 26.) But the chief cause was the need of relieving an overcrowded population, expressed in such phrases as these :-"Families were spread abroad;""The land was not able to bear them, that they might dwell together."

Taking up the thread of secular history, we connect the eastern shore of the Mediterranean with one of the peninsulas running down into that sea, and from that connexion trace the most extensive and enduring results in the colonization of the world.

Greece (I am now speaking of the ancient country) was comparatively of very limited extent. But while its territorial magnitude was not so great as Portugal, its coast line was greater than that of Portugal and Spain put together.

To this peninsula foreigners came from Egypt, from Phenicia, and from the southern and eastern shores of Asia Minor. In some places a factory was set up, which was abandoned when a more profitable opening presented itself elsewhere; in others it would seem that an exiled prince with a few followers landed, and persuaded the barbarous inhabitants to own his authority and obey his laws. In others again, a larger number subdued by force the aboriginal inhabitants and took possession of their lands, allowing them to remain as their serfs, and modelling the government and institutions of the land after the plan of their mother country. Such an accession had the effect of adding at once to the power and importance of the place. The arts of civilization, the transactions of commerce, the operation of superior laws, all tended to elevate the native mind. The mineral and vegetable resources of the country were explored; its natural capabilities developed, its rivers and harbours used, and an immense impulse given to the energies of its people