AFFIRMATIVE.

YES. Religion dea's with the most important of human concerns. It overrides all considerations except those of missionariness and proselytism. Herce it regards any means of bringing about uniformity of faith as justifiable. It withholds from Nonconformists- of whatever description, Protestants in Catholic countries, Catholics in Protestant ones-equal rights and equal liberties. In proportion as religious zeal increases, so the desire of victory for the creed embraced grows, and every means seems justifiable which promotes the ends aimed at by the prevalent sects.

It is in the very nature of religious difference to interfere with the wholesome exercise of legislative power; and the parliamentary action of sects-Established, Nonconformist, or Catholic-requires most jealous watchfulness.-JOB PIP

PIN.

Liberalism in politics is often made the advocate of sectarian aggressions -on the Church, for instance. Almost as frequently Churchmen's prejudices induce them to hold to the old religious disabilities against Dissent with all the tenacity of Conservatism. Both alike impede free legislation; for that ought to do justice between man and man, and leave the sects to work their own way by the suasion permitted by Heaven-the conviction of the reason.-S. G. N.

Equitable legislation consists in giving "to all their due." It is impartial and unswerving. It cannot enter into any other question than the essential justice of the arrangements proposed. Religious differences are of all things

the most disturbing to impartial thought. Indeed, religious impartiality is an impossibility. On this account it cannot be denied that there is an essential hindrance to equitable legislation wherever religious differences are brought into activity.-P. L. MORGAN.

Never have such horrid iniquities been perpetrated in any name-not even in freedom's-as in religion's. A whole statute-book of religious disabilities have had to be repealed to bring our modern legislation nearer to equity. Can proof be more positive, therefore, that religious differences impede equitable legislation?-NONCON

FORMIST.

Men cannot but carry their religious differences into legislation. The Churchman must maintain the Church; and the Dissenter must not only attack it, and strive to defeat measures in its favour, but also endeavour to advance the cause of Nonconformity. Look at all the attempts made to settle the question of Church rates, to provide for Church extension, but chiefly to the endeavours to provide an education coextensive with the national wants. Religious differences have kept the country without equitable legislation upon these points. Every question in the least linked with or bordering upon religion interferes with the equity of man to man, and excites such differences among politicians as hampers and impedes legislative action. - JOHN PYM.

Sects are more jealous of each other, and more anxious to overreach each other, than men are in their individual capacities. No selfishness equals the

"To do justly and to love mercy" is the teaching of every religious community, whatever minor differences may exist among them. Equitable legislation cannot therefore be impeded by religious differences.-OSMOND H.

Religious differences concern themselves with matters quite apart from those in which legislation exercises itself. The fields of their action lie quite separate from each other. Religion is engaged in exciting in men's minds a faith from which right action shall spring. It is pure and peaceable. requires the cleansing of the hands and the holiness of the heart. Legislation is employed in regulating the outward conduct, and laying on men the duties they owe to the State. Religious differences do not make men traitors or rebels, unless legislation declares religious differences to be traitorous and rebellious, in which case it ceases to be equitable. Civil liberty is one thing, and religious liberty is another. They can never be used as one and the same without injurious consequences. If ever religious differences have made themselves felt in legislation, they have made themselves so in favour of equitable legislation, not against it. Every truly religions man feels that equity is the right of every human being, and he labours and prays for the spread of everything that tends to make men free and equal,-in legislation as in everything else.-T. J. PUGH.

A patent though potent fallacy deceives men's minds upon this question. Legislation is the highest expression of

justice that the whole mind of a nation has reached. It precedes religious differences. These grow up either under its provisions or in opposition to its requirements. If the former, they cannot be said to impede equitable legislation, for legislation existed before them; if the latter, they cannot impede equitable legislation, because they have grown up under it. When they manifest themselves at all, they must act against legislation, which has become inequitable through the changes in men's minds. Religious differences, when they do affect legislation, affect it on the side of equity and in behalf of it.-L. M. G.

Religious differences, instead of impeding, have furthered and advanced equitable legislation. Freedom of thought and worship were claimed by those who differed from the Romanist forms of devotion. The laws which they forced from their tyrannous lords were such as to make men more equal, and every step towards bringing men to the enjoyment of equal rights and equal liberties has had a religious origin. Even now religious men are vying with each other in regard to their liberality. Our great lawgivers in the Church are holding out the right to free thought as guaranteed by the very intent of the Church formularies. The keerest opponents in regard to free thought in religion are the Nonconformists. But this very contest of sect with sect-this bidding against each other-is favourable to freedom and equality in a political sense. If the right of private judgment is claimed in the highest possible affairs, men will not consent to forego them in those which are less important; and hence equitable legislation is not impeded, but advanced, by religious differences.ROBERT HALL.

526. I shall feel obliged to any of your correspondents who can give me the meaning of the term "iolof." It occurs in the opening chapter of " Paul and Virginie." I have searched French dictionaries in vain. I have not the book by me, but the passage, I believe, is this: describing Domingue, it says, "C'était un noir iolof."-R. S.

527. Demosthenes is said to have formed his style of oratory by frequently copying the history of Thucydides, and the first Earl of Chatham by the repeated perusal of Barrow's sermons, until he knew the majority of them by heart. I shall be glad to know whether the modes above alluded to are the best adapted to the acquisition of the power of public speaking; and shall feel obliged if some correspondent will name a book or books, the thorough mastery of which will facilitate one's power of speech.-A STUDENT.

ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.

519. The Scottish Napiers are named in the fashion indicated in the joke about one of them being told, "Sir, ye're nae peer."-T. W. M.

520. Bernard Gilpin's biography was written by his contemporary, Bishop Carleton; by his descendant, William Gilpin, author of the "Life of Latimer," "Essays on Picturesque Beauty," &c.; and it has a place in

every dictionary of biography. Briefly it may be summed up thus:-Bernard Gilpin was born in 1517, of a genteel family, related, by the mother's side, to Cuthbert Tunstall, Bishop of Durham, by whose advice he was educated for the Church. He was first appointed to a small living in the diocese of Durham; but he preached the doctrines of Protestantism so boldly that he was compelled to resign his living, and abscond to the Continent on the death of Edward VI. There he consorted with the reformers for three years.

On his

return, while Mary was alive, Tunstall received him with welcome, made him Archdeacon of Durham and Rector of Houghton-le-Spring, a cure afterwards held by Joseph Butler. He so inveighed against the popular vices of that time, that he was informed against to his bishop; but his episcopal uncle protected him against the virulence of his accusers. They carried the case before Bishop Bonner, of London, who summoned him to his presence. Never doubting, from the nature of that prelate's unpitying persecution of others. that he would be called upon to suffer a martyr's doom, "Give me," said he to his steward, a long dress, that I may die decently." Accompanied by the messengers of Bonner, he set out, and as they journeyed his leg was accidentally broken. Before he was able to be moved Queen Mary expired, the system was changed, and he was at liberty to return to his parish. Elizabeth heard of his piety with pleasure, and offered him the bishopric of Carlisle. This he refused. From the incessant labours he underwent for the diffusion of Christianity along the border-lands of Redesdale and Tynedale, and the bounteous rate in which he gave of his goods to bless the hungry and the

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wretched, he was called the apostle of the North and the father of the poor. His pious and unwearied exertions have been beneficial, not in their immediate results only, but as examples to others to "go and do likewise." This saintly Christian died 1583, and his memory was so embalmed in the North that centuries have not exhausted its power. -R. M. A.

521. The O. P. riots were theatrical. Covent Garden Theatre was burned 20th Sept., 1808, and rebuilt so quickly as to be opened 17th Sept., 1809. The proprietors announced that, as the cost had been great, they would raise the prices of admission. John Kemble, the manager, opened the season with Shakspere's "Macbeth," but the house was so full of a rebellious mob, shouting "Old prices!" that no hearing could be obtained for the performers. Great excitement occurred; for ten weeks the playgoers assembled in crowds, demanding the reduction to the old price, many of them wearing the device "O. P." on their hats. The proprietors hired prize-fighters to quell the opposition, and police prosecutions began. Two volumes relating to these riots have been issued by Stockdale, London, entitled "The Covent Garden Journal." Such verses as these excited the mob:

"John Kemble would an-acting go, Heigho! says Rowley. He raised the price, which he thought too low,

Whether the public would let him or

no;

With his roly-poly, Gammon and spinage, Heigho! says Kemble." R. M. A.

523. "The Mastership of Trinity College is in the appointment of the Crown. The master is required to be a member of the Church of England in holy orders, and a Master of Arts, Master of Laws, Doctor of Medicine, or some superior degree in the university. He is

to exercise a general superintendence over the affairs of the college, to preside ex officio at all meetings, whether of the fellows or seniors, and to have power, in all cases not provided for by the statutes or by any college order, to make such provision for the good government and discipline of the college as he shall think fit." His official income is £1,000, and six shares of the dividend of the revenues of the college. He is required to take an oath, on admission, to perform his duties faithfully and well. These particulars we gather from "Liber Cantabrigiensis," by Robert Potts, A.M., of Trinity, Part II. The present holder of the mastership is one, perhaps, of the most universal scholars of the age-not even excepting Lord Brougham or Sir John Herschel. Wm. Whewell, D.D., F.R.S., &c., was born at Lancaster in 1795, where his father was a working joiner, who intended to train him up in his own trade. The head master of the grammar school of Heversham, near Milnathorpe, in Westmoreland-where he was educated, on an endowment founded in 1652 by Edward Wilson, Esq., of Heversham Hall, for pour men's sons, whose fathers are not able to provide them with a maintenance-prevailed upon his father to allow him to proceed to Cambridge, where, after graduating in 1816, he obtained a fellowship. He was chosen Professor of Mineralogy in 1828; of Moral Philosophy in 1838; Master of Trinity in 1841, and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge in 1855. He has issued quite a library of books: e. g., "Mechanics," "The Mechanics of Engineering," "Conic Sections," a series of researches on the Tides in the Philosophical Transactions, a Bridgewater Treatise on "Astronomy and Physics," "Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences," 'History of Scientific Ideas," "Elements of Morality," ""Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy in England," "Systematic Morality," "Philosophy of Discovery," editions of Newton's "Principia," Plato's " Dialogues," for English readers, Goethe's "Herman and Doro

tioned in its pages, which are thus converted into a minor gazetteer. London: Simpkin and Co. 3s. 6d. 2nd, "Class-book of Geography," by Robert Anderson. London: T. Nelson and Co. 1s. 9d. This is also a revised edition of a former work, and is very complete and instructive. Both these books are distinguished for fulness of matter and excellence of arrangement. They are each rendered more useful by the fact that the respective authors have provided atlases adapted to the text-books, so that the study of them is much facilitated. We can commend each with a good conscience.-G. W. D.

Kandy Young Men's Christian Association. On the 2nd August the Rev. G. Schrader delivered a lecture, "A String of Shells," to the Young Men's Association. The Rev. F. D. Waldock commenced the proceedings with prayer. Mr. G. D. B. Harrison, the chairman, introduced the lecturer. The lecture commenced as follows:"I shall seek, my friends, to beguile an hour of your time this evening by "bringing before you what I will call, not a string of beads, for that might suggest moral and religious topics for your graver thought; nor a necklace of pearls, for you might suppose that I was about to bring before you some beauties of the poets, culled with the choicest care; nor certainly a string of nuts, for then you might look out for some hard problems of science or politics, which it would try your jaws to crack; but if you will, some threaded shells, empty toys doubtless, yet very suggestive, suggestive of strange thoughts concerning things gone by,

former inhabitants of this world of ours, who, like our fathers, have played their little part in a transitory scene, have answered the purpose of their day, and being dead yet speak, and leave their memories to point a moral or adorn a tale."" Mr Schrader closed his lecture in the following words:"Young men, members of this Association, nearly fifteen months have passed away since we first met in this room. I can never forget those happy gatherings that we have often had here, and can never forget you. When far away I shall think of you, I shall pray for you. I shall plead ou your behalf; and I cannot but hope and believe that the Spirit of God will grant you His presence. I pray that the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ may be with you to keep you unto death. All your strivings would be in vain it this grace were not with you. Young men, farewell! I pray that you may be kept steadfast in the faith, that yon may be made the children of God and