every effort to give to the colonies the very same advantages which we possess ourselves. Do we believe that for ourselves at home it is a duty and a privilege to keep up the worship of God-to support those institutions which tend to encourage religion, education, morality, learning, liberty? Then as citizens we are bound to endeavour to secure for our fellow-subjects the same social advantages as far as we can-as Christians to help heartily, gladly, every effort to open for them wells of salvation, like those from which we draw water with joy ourselves. But for a Christian nation to allow of settlements of its citizens to be made without due provision for the ordinances of religion, is an insult to God of which He takes notice. Compare our conduct in this respect with that of the ancient Greeks. Whether under Royal or Republican auspices, the foundations of a temple were always laid at the same time with those of the hall of justice and the buildings of the market-place; and it is the Bible which leads us to make such a comparison. Jer. ii. 10, 11: "Pass over the isles of Chittim, and see; and send unto Kedar and consider diligently, and see if there be such a thing. Hath a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods? but my people have changed their glory for that which doth not profit." Apply this to the Greeks and to ourselves. What has been done by us as a nation? Some things have been well done. Throughout the vast extent of our colonies the fetters have been struck off from the slaves at a cost of 20,000,000l. sterling, and that was a scriptural view of the matter, letting the oppressed go free and breaking the yoke; and our colony of Sierra Leone now promises to be the seed-plot of the regeneration of many of the tribes of Africa, through the efforts chiefly of societies befriended to a certain extent by Government.

Throughout India, many vile practices have been abolished; our last acquisition has just been freed from a disgraceful and hideous custom. The chieftains of the Punjaub have been assembled together to bind themselves by solemn agreement to put down the practice of the murder of female children, and many such results have followed the establishment of British supremacy. But here

the nation has not acted as a Christian nation. Societies have laboured even under the frown of the Government; but hitherto as a nation we have done nothing for India which might not have been done by Greeks and Romans. We have a right to expect more beneficial results to India than the better administration of law-the security given to life and property-the construction of railways, and the improvement of commerce. Pagan Rome and Greece might have left behind them such monuments as these-more is looked for from Christian England.

The tone of the debates in the last Session of Parliament, gives the hope that more will now be done to vindicate our profession of attachment to the religion of Jesus Christ.

The good effected by societies is the chief feature of satisfactory consideration. It has been fully admitted in the debates on India; and many facts may be adduced like that pleasing one connected with Ceylon, that while other European nations had had intercourse with and power over it for 200 years, none gave the people the Word of God in their own language, which has been done now by the British and Foreign Bible Society.

Australia tells a fearful tale of the way in which crowds of human beings, of the most degraded class, have been thrust, till recently, on its shores without anything like an adequate provision for the teaching of that truth which alone can truly reform the criminal and elevate the degraded; and we cannot survey without alarm the crowds now congregated at or hurrying towards its mines with so little provision for spiritual supervision. While England has 15,000 clergymen, there are scarcely more than 1,400 in the whole extent of the colonies.

It is quite clear that we need to be awakened to a sense of our wonderful position, to a feeling of our deep responsibility. The course of events may even in our day effect great and startling changes in the connexion between our colonies and the mother land. it be our aim and endeavour to do our part in helping every agency which seeks to diffuse a knowledge of God's saving health amongst them, and to establish the founda

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tion of the Christian Church wherever the rule of Britain extends.

The history of the American Church suggests the most encouraging reflections in this connexion. Its foundations were laid before the political causes of the separation of the colonies from the parent State began to work; and its extension at home and diffusion abroad give a cheering prospect of what New Zealand and Australia may become, if only due pains are taken to plant the faith within their borders to keep it pure and to diffuse it widely.

The subject is a vast one-painful in its grand outline -intensely painful in many of its minute details; but still presenting many points for thankful retrospect of the past, and for encouragement in the future. It is not one of those distressing subjects of thought which sometimes present themselves, wherein we feel that we can do nothing.

I would say to young men, attend to the subject-seek information respecting it-regard it as a matter in which you have a personal concern. Who can tell what the effect might be if all the young men now connected with this Society, of which you are a branch, were to be wellinformed and rightly directed on this momentous question? Each succeeding year is adding to its interest. Ten years ago, the annual average of emigration was under 70,000. For the last six years it has exceeded 250,000. In 1852, it was 368,764. As if all Liverpool were to be emptied in one year, and the population sent forth to distant shores. Every ten years witnesses a large accession to our colonial dominions. It will not do to allow that our work is over when the blessings of liberty and laws, literature and science, and art and commercial development have been secured for these vast portions of the globe-for these myriads of families of the human We are concerned to pray and act; to help by our influence, or our money, or personal exertions, the mighty work of evangelizing these extensive fields of population. It is our part, as Christians, to aim at securing for those who are connected with us as fellow-subjects to an earthly

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sovereign, the abiding benefits of the communion of saints and to strike deeply into every soil the roots of that tree, the leaves of which are for the healing of the nations that tree under the shadow of which one generation after another may sit down with delight and find its fruit sweet to their taste.

Such results would indeed be a glorious memorial hereafter of what Britain did in her day of opportunity; a proof that her power had been exerted for the noblest ends, and her wisdom shown in seeking the most enduring results of earthly endeavour; that God, her own God, had indeed blessed her, and made his face to shine upon her, in using her as the honoured instrument of making his way known upon earth, his saving health among all nations.

LECTURE IX.

HALF A CENTURY'S EXPERIENCE OF EVANGELICAL EFFORT IN THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

BY THE REV. J. RALPH, M.A.,
RECTOR OF ST. JOHN'S, HORSLEYDOWN.

I. THE term Evangelical most surely expresses the spirit or principle of Bible Christianity. Whatever modification there may be in the divinely revealed religion of the Bible; and, however progressive, as it certainly is, step by step to maturement-from its germ in Eden, when it was promised that the woman's seed should bruise that old serpent's, Satan's, head, all through its patriarchal, Jewish, and properly Christian stages, until it shall be perfected by the glorified Son of man in his restitution of all things-the whole is a magnificent economy of grace to humankind.

The true religion of the Old Testament, from Abel downward, is all recorded in the eleventh chapter of the epistle to the Hebrews as a matter of faith, in a greater or less degree; and the true religion of the New Testament is, we all know, more fully so, so that the whole of what God has pleased to reveal of salvation in his Word, being "of faith that it might be by grace, to the end that the promise might be sure to all the seed," therefore we can have no doubt, no hesitation whatever, in affirming that the spirit or principle of that only true religion which is of God and His Christ, is gracious; breathing out to us, sinners, "good news," glad tidings -Evangelical.