them. The names, too, of malefactors, | pared with the gigantic evils which and the nature of their crimes, are stalk over the world in a state of war. subjected to the Sovereign;-how is God is forgotten in war-every prinit possible that a Sovereign, with the ciple of Christian charity trampled fine feelings of youth, and with all the upon-human labour destroyed-hugentleness of her sex, should not ask man industry extinguished-you see herself, whether the human being whom the son, and the husband, and the she dooms to death, or at least does not brother, dying miserably in distant rescue from death, has been properly lands-you see the waste of human warned in early youth of the horrors affections-you see the breaking of of that crime, for which his life is for- human hearts-you hear the shrieks feited" Did he ever receive any of widows and children after the battle education at all?-did a father and-and you walk over the mangled mother watch over him- was he bodies of the wounded calling for brought to places of worship? - was death. I would say to that Royal the Word of God explained to him?- child, Worship God by loving peace was the Book of Knowledge opened to it is not your humanity to pity a him?—Or am I, the fountain of mercy, beggar by giving him food or raiment the nursing-mother of my people, to -I can do that; that is the charity send a forsaken wretch from the streets of the humble and the unknown to the scaffold, and to prevent by un-widen you your heart for the more exprincipled cruelty the evils of unprin-panded miseries of mankind-pity the cipled neglect?" mothers of the peasantry who see their sons torn away from their families— pity your poor subjects crowded into hospitals, and calling in their last breath upon their distant country and their young Queen-pity the stupid, frantic folly of human beings who are always ready to tear each other to pieces, and to deluge the earth with each other's blood; this is your extended humanity—and this the great field of your compassion. Extinguish in your heart the fiendish love of military glory, from which your sex does not necessarily exempt you, and to which the wickedness of flatterers may urge you. Say upon your deathbed, "I have made few orphans in my reign—I have made few widows

Many of the objections found against the general education of the people are utterly untenable; where all are educated, education cannot be a source of distinction, and a subject for pride. The great source of labour is want; and as long as the necessities of life call for labour, labour is sure to be supplied. All these fears are foolish and imaginary; the great use and the great importance of education properly conducted is, that it creates a great bias in favour of virtue and religion, at a period of life when the mind is open to all the impressions which superior wisdom may choose to affix upon it: the sum and mass of these tendencies and inclinations make a good and virtuous people, and draw down upon us the blessing and protection of Almighty God.

-my object has been peace. I have used all the weight of my character, and all the power of my situation, to check the irascible passions of mankind, and to turn them to the arts of honest industry: this has been the Christianity of my throne, and this the gospel of my sceptre; in this way I have striven to worship my Redeemer and my Judge."

A second great object, which I hope will be impressed upon the mind of this Royal Lady, a rooted horror of war -an earnest and passionate desire to keep her people in a state of profound peace. The greatest curse which can be entailed upon mankind is a state of All the atrocious crimes com- I would add (if any addition were mitted in years of peace-all that is wanted as a part of the lesson to spent in peace by the secret corrup- youthful royalty), the utter folly of all tions, or by the thoughtless extrava-wars of ambition, where the object gance of nations, are mere trifles com- sought for-if attained at all-is

war.

commonly attained at manifold its real | ble, and how wise it is, to render the value, and often wrested, after short solid advantages of a National Church enjoyment, from its possessor, by the compatible with the civil rights of combined indignation and just ven- those who cannot assent to its doctrines. geance of the other nations of the world. It is all misery, and folly, and impiety and cruelty. The atrocities, and horrors, and disgusts of war, have never been half enough insisted upon by the teachers of the people; but the worst of evils and the greatest of follies have been varnished over with specious names, and the gigantic robbers and murderers of the world have been holden up, for their imitation, to the weak eyes of youth. May honest counsellors keep this poison from the mind of the young Queen! May she love what God bids, and do what makes men happy!

I hope the Queen will love the National Church, and protect it; but it must be impressed upon her mind, that every sect of Christians have as perfect right to the free exercise of their worship as the Church itselfthat there must be no invasion of the privileges of other sects, and no contemptuous disrespect of their feelings that the altar is the very ark and citadel of freedom.

Then again, our youthful Ruler must be very slow to believe all the exaggerated and violent abuse which religious sects indulge in against each other. She will find, for instance, that the Catholics, the great object of our horror and aversion, have (mistaken as they are) a great deal more to say in defence of their tenets than those imagine who indulge more in the luxury of invective than in the labour of inquiry-she will find in that sect, men as enlightened, talents as splendid, and probity as firm, as in our own Church and she will soon learn to appreciate, at its just value, that exaggerated hatred of sects which paints the Catholic faith (the religion of twothirds of Europe) as utterly incompatible with the safety, peace, and order of the world.

It will be a serious vexation to all loyal hearts, and to all rationally pious minds, if our Sovereign should fall into the common error of mistaking fanaticism for religion; and in this way fling an air of discredit upon real Some persons represent old age as devotion. It is, I am afraid, unquesmiserable, because it brings with it the tionably the fault of the age, her youth pains and infirmities of the body; but and her sex do not make it more imwhat gratification to the mind may not probable, and the warmest efforts of old age bring with it in this country of that description of persons will not be wise and rational improvement? I wanting to gain over a convert so ilhave lived to see the immense improve-lustrious, and so important. Should ments of the Church of England - all this take place, the consequences will its powers of persecution destroyed-be serious and distressing-the land its monopoly of civil offices expunged will be inundated with hypocrisy — from the book of the law, and all its absurdity will be heaped upon absurdunjust and exclusive immunities le-ity-there will be a race of folly and velled to the ground. The Church of extravagance for royal favour, and he England is now a rational object of who is furthest removed from reason love and admiration-it is perfectly will make the nearest approach to discompatible with civil freedom-it is an tinction; and then follow the usual institution for worshipping God, and consequences; a weariness and disgust not a cover for gratifying secular inso- of religion itself, and the foundation lence, and ministering to secular am- laid for an age of impiety and infidelbition. It will be the duty of those to ity. Those, then, to whom these matwhom the sacred trust of instructing ters are delegated, will watch carefully our youthful Queen is intrusted, to over every sign of this excess, and lead her attention to these great im-guard from the mischievous intempeprovements in our religious establish- rance of enthusiasm those feelings, and ments; and to show to her how possi- that understanding, the healthy state

of which bears so strongly and intimately upon the happiness of a whole people.

:

struggle of parties, looks to it as a source of permanent improvement. A great object of her affections is the preservation of peace; she regards a state of war as the greatest of all human evils; thinks that the lust of conquest is not a glory, but a bad crime; despises the folly and miscalculations of war, and is willing to sacrifice everything to peace but the clear honour of her land.

Though I deprecate the bad effects of fanaticism, I earnestly pray that our young Sovereign may evince herself to be a person of deep religious feeling what other cure has she for all the arrogance and vanity which her exalted position must engender? for all the flattery and falsehood with which she must be surrounded? for all the The patriot Queen, whom I am soul-corrupting homage with which painting, reverences the National she is met at every moment of her ex- Church-frequents its worship, and istence? what other cure than to cast regulates her faith by its precepts; herself down in darkness and solitude before God-to say that she is dust and ashes-and to call down the pity of the Almighty upon her difficult and dangerous life? This is the antidote of kings against the slavery and the baseness which surround them: they should think often of death-and the folly and nothingness of the world, and they should humble their souls before the Master of masters, and the King of kings; praying to Heaven for wisdom and calm reflection, and for that spirit of Christian gentleness which exalts command into an empire of justice, and turns obedience into a service of love.

A wise man struggling with adversity is said by some heathen writer to be a spectacle on which the gods might look down with pleasure: but where is there a finer moral and religious picture, or one more deserving of Divine favour, than that of which, perhaps, we are now beginning to enjoy the blessed reality?

A young Queen at that period of life which is commonly given up to frivolous amusement, sees at once the great principles by which she should be guided, and steps at once into the great duties of her station. The importance of educating the lower orders of the people is never absent from her mind; she takes up this principle at the beginning of her life; and in all the change of servants, and in all the

but she withstands the encroachments, and keeps down the ambition natural to establishments, and by rendering the privileges of the Church compatible with the civil freedom of all sects, confers strength upon, and adds duration to, that wise and magnificent institution. And then this youthful Monarch, profoundly but wisely religious, disdaining hypocrisy, and far above the childish follies of false piety, casts herself upon God, and seeks from the Gospel of his blessed Son a path for her steps, and a comfort for her soul. Here is a picture which warms every English heart, and would bring all this congregation upon their bended knees before Almighty God to pray it may be realised. What limits to the glory and happiness of our native land, if the Creator should in his mercy have placed in the heart of this Royal Woman the rudiments of wisdom and mercy; and if giving them time to expand, and to bless our children's children with her goodness, He should grant to her a long sojourning upon earth, and leave her to reign over us till she is well stricken in years! What glory! what happiness! what joy! what bounty of God! I of course can only expect to see the beginning of such a splendid period; but when I do see it, I shall exclaim with the pious Simeon,—“Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation."

A PRAYER.

FIRST LETTER

ΤΟ

ARCHDEACON SINGLETON

ON THE

ECCLESIASTICAL COMMISSION.

1837.

MY DEAR SIR,

Prebendaries, many Rectors, and many
Vicars, who would have come to the
Reform of the Church with as much

As you do me the honour to ask my opinion respecting the constitution and proceedings of the Ecclesiastical Com-integrity, wisdom, and vigour, as any mission, and of their conduct to the Dignitaries of the Church, I shall write to you without any reserve upon this subject.

Bishop on the Bench; and, I believe, with a much stronger recollection that all the orders of the Church were not to be sacrificed to the highest; and that to make their work respectable, and lasting, it should, in all (even its minutest provisions), be founded upon

The first thing which excited my surprise, was the Constitution of the Commission. As the reform was to comprehend every branch of Church-justice. men, Bishops, Dignitaries and Parochial All the interests of the Church in Clergymen, I cannot but think it would the Commutation of Tithes are enhave been much more advisable to have trusted to one parochial clergyman*; added to the Commission some mem- and I have no doubt, from what I hear bers of the two lower orders of the of him, that they will be well protected. Church-they would have supplied Why could not one or two such men that partial knowledge which appears have been added to the Commission, in so many of the proceedings of the and a general impression been created, Commissioners to have been wanting that Government in this momentous -they would have attended to those change had a parental feeling for all interests (not episcopal) which appear orders of men whose interests might to have been so completely overlooked be affected by it? A Ministry may -and they would have screened the laugh at this, and think if they cultiCommission from those charges of in-vate Bishops, that they may treat the justice and partiality which are now so other orders of the Church with congenerally brought against it. There tempt and neglect; but I say, that to can be no charm in the name of Bishop -the man who was a Curate yesterday is a Bishop to-day. There are many

*The Rev. Mr. Jones is the Commissioner

appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury to watch over the interests of the Church.