heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils. Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron;-forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving, of them which believe and know the truth." Ending with the solemn injunction to all teachers of Christianity, "If thou put the brethren in remembrance of these things, thou shalt be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished up in the words of faith and of good doctrine." (1 Timothy iv. 1.)

Finally, we have the denunciation of the prophet, declaring the divine judgments:

"And I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory. And he cried mightily, with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils; the hold of every foul spirit. And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities. (Rev. xviii.)

ye

This language is not used to give offence to the Roman Catholic. His religion is reprobated, because it is his undoing; the veil that darkens his understanding; the tyranny that chains his natural liberty of choice; the fatal corruption of Christianity, that shuts the scriptures upon him, forces him away from the worship of that Being, who is to be worshipped alone in spirit and in truth; and prostrates him at the feet of priests and images of the virgin, and the whole host of false and unscriptural mediators. But, for himself there can be but one feeling;-a feeling

of the deepest anxiety, that he should search the scriptures; and, coming to that search without insolent self-will, or sullen prejudice, or the haughty and negligent levity to which their wisdom will never be disclosed, he should compare the gospel of God with the doctrines of Rome.

But, whatever may be the lot of those to whom error has been an inheritance, wo be to the man and the people to whom it is an adoption. If England, free above all other nations, sustained amidst the trials which have covered Europe before her eyes with burning and slaughter, and enlightened by the fullest knowledge of divine truth, shall refuse fidelity to the compact by which those matchless privileges have been given, her condemnation will not linger. She has already made one step full of danger. She has committed the capital error of mistaking that for a purely political question, which was a purely religious one. Her foot already hangs over the edge of the precipice. It must be retracted, or the empire is but a name. In the clouds and darkness which seem to be deepening upon all human policy, in the gathering tumults of Europe, and the feverish discontents at home, it may be even difficult to discern where the power yet lies to erect the fallen majesty of the constitution once more. But there are mighty means in sincerity. And, if no miracle was ever wrought for the faithless and despairing; the country that will help itself—the generous, the high-hearted, and the pure, will never be left destitute of the help of heaven.

THE

CHRISTIAN LADY'S MAGAZINE.

AUGUST, 1837.

CHAPTERS ON FLOWERS.

To write a Chapter on Flowers appears no difficult task, when the whole earth, teeming with them, presents one gorgeous carpet of rich dyes and exquisite design. On the present occasion it is only difficult from the overpowering emotion that accompanies the contemplation-the bewildering delight with which I look abroad upon the glowing scene. The flowers are scattered around me in wild profusion, always sweet, always pleasant to my eye: how much more so now, when every one that I look on has its root fixed in the green sod of dear Erin, and the welcome which they smile upon me is the 'cead-mille-failthe of that hospitable land! Years have rolled by, in lengthened exile, until I verily thought I was never more to gaze upon her fair fields, never more to taste the balmy breath of her zephyrs-but, thrown at a long distance, to love her and to work for her alone,

It is not so. I am feasting in all the luxury that my heart can desire: her magnificent mountains rise before me, in endless gradations of height, form, and distance, shutting me in, as it were, a most willing captive, dreading nothing but deliverance from my beautiful prison. The long hedge-row stretches away, where the golden furze retains many a cluster of bright blossoms, intermingled with a profusion of honeysuckle, wild roses, and the ever-precious flower of May, which seems to have lingered thus long to add an endearment to my welcome. The stately fox-glove rising from the bank below, intersperses its rich depth of tint, while the smaller flowers that lie basking in the beam actually defy enumeration. Then the pure, cool, emerald green, mantling the earth beyond; the lovely abundance of delicate foliage in some wooded spots, the deep, steady flow of the majestic Slaney, as it widens towards the sea; the mighty relics of sterner days, frowning, even in ruin, defiance from their rocky heights; all these, and much more have combined to fill my spirit with an enjoyment that derives its highest zest from the consciousness that it is upon Erin my eye rests, and the tear of delight that often dims it, springs from a source unknown to any but those who have learned to love and to mourn over her as I have done.

Alas! who can love her, and not mourn? Ireland is, in natural beauty, the garden of Eden; in the spiritual desolation of her native race, a howling wilderness. Look on the former, and all is harmonious beauty, towering sublimity, unequalled grace examine the latter, and your heart will quail before the horrors of that midnight gloom which wraps the souls and perverts the minds of her child

ren.

I speak of those who lie beneath the yoke of bondage, beguiled by the mystery of iniquity; the miserable tools of an incendiary priesthood, taught to saturate the earth which bears them, with the blood of their best friends, and to resist as an intolerable evil, the only sure means of their temporal and eternal welfare.

The tales that are told of scenes yet fresh in the memory of some, in almost every village, are harrowing: and, in illustration of this, I will relate a story, exactly as I received it, on the spot where the event occurred. It has added another to my reminiscences, calculated to stir up the most sluggish spirit on behalf of these deluded beings, whom the present policy of infatuated England is delivering over, in tenfold helplessness and hopelessness, to the grasp of the destroyer.

I had long wished to visit the spot where, through God's mercy, the terrible rebellion of the year 1798 was stayed, though at a fearful cost of life; and the priest-led troops of insurgents utterly routed, had abandoned the field, never again to assemble in any force. It was on a lovely morning that my wish was gratified, and we started for Vinegar hill. The road, wild and rough, lay through a beautiful track of country, diversified with mountain, field and grove, to almost all of which belonged some tale of blood. At one spot it was remarkable, displaying to the left a field completely overspread with Heartsease, the little innocent flower smiling sweetly to the sun, while on the right, beneath the shade of a few trees, stood a solitary tomb: the tenant of which had been there murdered and buried. His offence, Protestantism. It was here that one of my companions