"What would the King of Great Britain say, were I to demand the prisoners of Newgate from him!"-"Sir, (replied the Ambassador,) my master would give every one of them up to your Majesty, if, as we do, you reclaimed them as Brothers." SPEECH OF CHARLES PHILLIPS, ESQ. We have not been induced to insert the following speech, from any persuasion that it will be entirely new to the generality of our readers. The celebrity of its author, and the commanding eloquence which it displays, have already gained for it an admis- | sion into many of our public papers; and the same passport will ensure for it a safe depository in several of our periodical journals. On any occasion, such a burst of eloquence as this speech contains, could not but render it highly acceptable to an enlightened public; but at the present moment, when the friends of infidelity are using every effort to diffuse mental poison through the vast body of our population, and even endeavouring to infect the infant just rising from its cradle, the claims of this antidote are too imperious to be resisted. The Seventh Annual Meeting of the city of London Auxiliary Bible Society, was held in the Egyptian Hall, Mansion-House, on Thursday, the 4th of November, 1819, for the purpose of hearing the Report, electing new officers, &c. At half-past twelve o'clock the Lord Mayor took the Chair; by which time the hall was more numerously and respectably attended than was ever recollected on any similar occasion. The immense number of elegant females added much to the brilliancy and interest of the scene. On the third resolution being moved, Mr. Charles Phillips (the celebrated Irish Barrister) was called upon by some persons on the platform. He immediately rose, and bowing to the Meeting, by which he was very warmly greeted, spoke as follows: 66 May it please your LordshipLadies and Gentlemen-Although I have not had the honour either of proposing or seconding any of your resolutions, still, as a native of that country so pointedly alluded to in your report, I hope I may be indulged in a few observations. The crisis in which | we are placed is, I hope, a sufficient apology in itself for any intrusion; but I find such apology is rendered more than unnecessary by the courtesy of this reception. Indeed, my Lord, when we see the omens which are every day arising-when we see blasphemy openly avowed-when we see the Scriptures audaciously ridiculed— when in this Christian monarchy the den of the Republican and the Deist yawns for the unwary in your most public thoroughfares-when marts are ostentatiously opened, where the moral poison may be purchased, whose subtle venom enters the very soul-when infidelity has become an article of commerce, and man's perdition may be cheapened at the stall of every pedlar, -no friend of society should continue silent; it is no longer a question of political privilege of sectarian controversy-of theological discussion; it is become a question, whether Chris tianity itself shall stand, or whether we shall let go the firm anchor of our faith, and drift, without chart, or helm, or compass, into the shoreless ocean of impiety and blood! I despise as much as any man the whine of bigotry —I will go as far as any man for rational liberty; but I will not depose my God to deify the infidel, or tear in pieces the charter of the state, and grope for a constitution amongst the murky pigeon-holes of every creedless, lawless, infuriated regicide. "When I saw the other day, my Lord, the chief Bacchanal of their orgies-the man with whom the Apos tles were cheats, and the Prophets liars, and Jesus an impostor-on his memorable trial in Guildhall, withering hour after hour with the most horrid blasphemies, surrounded by the votaries of every sect, and the heads of every faith-the Christian Archbishop, the Jewish Rabbi, the men most eminent for their piety and their learning, whom he had purposely collected to hear his infidel ridicule of all they reverenced-when I saw him raise the Holy Bible in one hand, and the Age of Reason in the other, as it were confronting the Almighty with a rebel worm, till the pious Judge grew pale, and the patient Jury interposed, and the self-convicted wretch himself, after having raved away all his original impiety, was reduced into a mere machine for the re-production of the ribald blasphemy of others I could not help exclaiming, 'Infatuated man! “But, indeed, my Lord, the fate of this half-infidel, half-trading martyr, matters very little in comparison of that of the thousands he has corrupted. He has literally disseminated a moral plague, against which even the nation's quarantine can scarce avail us. It has poisoned the fresh blood of infancy-it has disheartened the last hope of age; if his own account of its circulation be correct, hundreds of thousands must be this instant tainted with the infectious venom, whose sting dies not with the destruction of the body. Imagine not, because the pestilence smites not at once, that its fatality is the less certain -imagine not, because the lower orders are the earliest victims, that the more elevated will not suffer in their turn the most mortal chillness begins at the extremities; and you may depend upon it, nothing but time and apathy are wanting to change this healthful land into a charnel-house, where murder, anarchy, and prostitution, and the whole hell-brood of infidelity, will quaff the heart's blood of the consecrated and the noble. You My Lord, I am the more indignant at these designs, because they are sought to be concealed in the disguise of liberty. It is the duty of every real friend of Liberty to tear her mask from the fiend who has usurped it. No, no; this is not our island goddess, bearing the mountain freshness on her cheek, and scattering the valley's bounty from her hand, known by the lights that herald her fair presence, the peaceful virtues that attend her path, and the long blaze of glory that lingers in her train: it is a demon, speaking fair indeed, tempting our faith with airy hopes and visionary realms, but even within the folding of its mantle hiding the bloody symbol of its purpose. Hear not its sophistry; guard your child against it; draw round your homes the consecrated circle which it dares not enter. will find an amulet in the religion of your country-it is the great mound raised by the Almighty for the protection of humanity-it stands between you and the lava of human passions; and, oh, believe me, if you stand tamely by while it is basely undermined, the fiery deluge will roll on, before which all that you hold dear, or venerable, or sacred, will wither into ashes. Believe no one who tells you that the friends of Freedom are now, or ever were, the enemies of Religion. They know too well that rebellion against God cannot prove the basis of government for Man, and that the loftiest structure Impiety can raise is but the Babel monument of Impotence; its pride mocking the builders with a moment's strength, and then covering them with inevitable confusion. Do you want an example? only look to France. The microscopic vision of your rabble blasphemers has not sight enough to contemplate the mighty minds which commenced her revolution. The wit-the sage-the orator the hero-the whole family of genius, furnished forth their treasures, and gave them nobly to the nation's exigence; they had great provocation they had a glorious cause-they had all that human potency could give them. But they relied too much upon this human potency-they abjured their God, and, as a natural consequence, they murdered their King-they called their polluted deities from the brothel, and the fall of the idol extinguished the flame of the altar. They crowded the scaffold with all their country held of genius or of virtue; and when the peerage and the prelacy were exhausted, the mob-executioner of to-day became the mob-victim of to-morrowno sex was spared-no age respectedno suffering pitied: and all this they did in the sacred name of Liberty, though in the deluge of human blood they left not a mountain top for the ark of Liberty to rest on. But Providence was neither" dead nor sleeping." It mattered not that for a moment their impiety seemed to prosper-that Victory panted after their ensanguined banners-that as their insatiate Eagle soared against the sun, he seemed but to replume his wing, and to renew his vision-it was only for a moment, and you see at last that in the very banquet of their triumph the Almighty's vengeance blazed upon the wall, and their diadem fell from the brow of the idolater. "My Lord, I will not abjure the altar, the throne, and the constitution, for the bloody tinsel of this revolutionary pantomime. I prefer my God even to the impious democracy of their Pantheon-I will not desert my King, even for the political equality of their Pandemonium. I must see some better authority than the Fleet-street Temple, before I forego the principles which I imbibed in my youth, and to which I look forward as the consolation of my age-those all-protecting principles, which at once guard, and consecrate, and sweeten, the social intercoursewhich give life happiness, and death hope-which constitute man's purity his best protection, placing the infant's cradle and the female's couch beneath the sacred shelter of the national morality. Neither Mr. Paine, nor Mr. Palmer, nor all the venom-breathing brood, shall swindle from me the book where I have learned these precepts. In despite of all their scoff, and scorn, and menacing, I say, of the sacred volume they would obliterate,' It is a book of facts, as well authenticated as any heathen history-a book of miracles,incontestably avouched—a book of prophecy, confirmed by past as well present fulfilment a book of poetry, pure, and natural, and elevated even to inspiration-a book of morals, such as human wisdom never framed for the perfection of human happiness.' My Lord, I will abide by the precepts, admire the beauty, revere the mysteries, and, as far as in me lies, practise the mandates, of this sacred volume; and should the ridicule of earth and the blasphemy of hell assail me, I shall console myself by the contemplation of those blessed spirits who in the same holy cause have toiled, and shone, and suffered. In the 'goodly fellowship of the Saints,'-in the 'noble army of the Martyrs,'-in the society of the great, and good, and wise, of every nation,if my sinfulness be not cleansed, and my darkness illumined, at least my pretensionless submission may be excused. If I err with the luminaries I have chosen for my guides, I confess myself captivated by the loveliness of their aberrations. If they err, it is in an heavenly region;-if they wander, it is in fields of light;-if they aspire, it is at all events a glorious daring; and, rather than sink with infidelity into the dust, I am content to cheat myself with their vision of eternity. It may indeed be nothing but delusion, but then I err with the disciples of philosophy and of virtue--with men who have drank deep at the fountain of human knowledge, but who dissolved not the pearl of their salvation in the draught. I err with Bacon, the great confidant of Nature, fraught with all the learning of the past, and almost prescient of the future, yet too wise not to know his weakness, and too philosophic not to feel his ignorance. I err with Milton, rising on an angel's wing to heaven, and, like the bird of morn, soaring out of sight amid the music of his grateful piety. with Locke, whose pure philosophy only taught him to adore its Source, whose warm love of genuine liberty was never chilled into rebellion with its Author. I err with Newton, whose star-like spirit shooting athwart the darkness of the sphere, too soon to reascend to the home of his nativity. I err with Franklin, the patriot of the world, the play-mate of the lightning, the philosopher of liberty, whose electric touch thrilled through the hemisphere. With men like these, my Lord, I shall remain in error; nor shall I desert those errors even for the drunken death-bed of a Paine, or the delirious war-whoop of the surviving fiends, who would erect their altar on the ruins of society. In my opinion, it is difficult to say, whether their tenets are more ludicrous or more detestable. They will not obey the King, or the Prince, I err or the Parliament, or the Constitution; | rality.' Who can prescribe limits to but they will obey Anarchy. They will a desire thus delusively created and not believe in the Prophets-in Moses fostered? Is that person who dares -in Mahomet-in Christ; but they thus to lull young persons into this believe Tom Paine! With no govern- practice, sure that they will never ment but confusion, and no creed but read, or have a desire to read, any scepticism, I believe, in my soul, they thing more flagrant? would abjure the one, if it became legitimate; and rebel against the other, if it was once established. 66 Holding, 5, my Lord, opinions such as these, I should consider myself culpable, if, at such a crisis, I did not declare them. A lover of my country, I yet draw a line between patriotism and rebellion. A warm friend to liberty of conscience, I will not confound toleration with infidelity. With all its ambiguity, I shall die in the doctrines of the Christian faith; and, with all its errors, I am contented to live under the glorious safeguards of the British Constitution." During the course of this speech, Mr. Phillips was frequently interrupted by the loud and enthusiastic applause of the Meeting. Never indeed did we witness a more powerful or successful display of eloquence; it seemed to have charmed every individual present. When Mr. Phillips sat down, the applause continued for several minutes. ON NOVEL READING. October 29, 1819. MR. EDITOR, PERHAPS the following may be deemed worthy a place in your valuable Magazine. I am, Sir, Yours, &c. A READER. It is a well known truth, that the call for novels of every description is daily increasing to an alarming degree in this country, to the disparagement of religion and every moral virtue.Novels appear no where to have a more dangerous tendency, than when put into the hands of young persons, especially those who have not had the good fortune to be instructed in the principles of strict morality. 66 At all times and in all ages, man is by nature unstable," and inclined to waver; but more especially in youth. It may be objected, "such and such novels are not mischievous in their effects, and are, at the same time, amusing and instructive to young persons, without endangering their moNo. 10.-VOL. I. Novels never can contribute to the acquisition of useful learning, nor the maturing of good sense, for they are (without exception) replete with trifling, ludicrous, and fabulous bom→ bast; the production of a heated, vain, and futile imagination. It were to be wished, that the writers of novels in our own country, would either employ their time and talents in writing something useful to the community of which they are members, and worthy the Christian name, which they profess to bear; or so far restrain that "cacoethes scribendi," as at least not to injure the morality of it. If novels, &c. do no more for England, than stage-plays did for Athens, she will have little reason to boast of their utility. What then is the use of novels? to hold, as it were, a mirror up to nature?-say rather, to present a picture, instead of the original, which, if it were a likeness, might be borne with: but the features of virtue are so distorted in this pretended mirror, the image of vice so altered and adorned, that readers of this class, having already entered into temptation, by sanctioning and giving their hearts to these amusements, have become darkened to that degree, by the god of this world, that they mistake the latter for the former, and gaze upon the fascinating chimera, till their once hopeful spirits become deformed into the likeness of its author. B- -H. ANSWER TO THE QUERY OF J. O. YOUR correspondent says, that he thought it very strange the conduct of Judas should be taken up in the future tense. The reason of this is certainly not very unintelligible, if the circumstances be considered. The apostle is relating the history of a certain individual, whose acts he details in the order of time in which they happened; but wishing to designate Judas in particular, he borrows an epithet from a transaction that happened posterior to 3 R the event he was then recording, | ing (hodden grey) for baith laird and which was an act of Jusdas's life ante- lady, and was far afore the twittery rior to the circumstance that gave him worm-wab made now-a-days." The the name of Traitor; for, at the time broad national bonnet was invariably that Judas spoke the words in the fol- worn by men of every station in this lowing verse, he was not the traitor; quarter then, except by the Earl of but the act that constituted him one Galloway and Colonel Agnew, of Sheuwas then in futurity. This certainly chan: "they introduced the thriftless justifies the apostle in using the future fashion of wearing hats in this country. time; and indeed if he had not so Linen sarks were only worn by the tap done, he would have spoken incor- gentry; an' nane o' them had either rectly. neck or hanbans." Looking-glasses were then so scarce, that "gin a bonny lass wanted to see hersel, she had, like my joe Janet, either to keek into the draw-well, a cogfu' o' water, or a dub at a dyke-side.” Many of the supports of Heterodoxy are derived from wrong translations; and the defenders of it often argue from the translation, without regarding the import of the original. Oftentimes argumentation is entered upon, not with a design of eliciting truth, but for the purpose of establishing a favourite opinion or system. The word should certainly implies necessity or obligation, independently of its future signification but the word in the Greek thus rendered, simply means futurity; nor is there the least obligation contained in the passage. Literally translated, the verse stands thus: Then said Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, (¿ μɛλλwv,) he about to betray him. Thus there is no foundation for the supposition of Judas being raised up to betray Christ, as much so as the other apostles were for the conversion of the Gentile world. LONGEVITY. J. S. THERE is at present at Pinkell Cottage, near Newton Stewart, Wigtonshire, the seat of General the Hon. Sir Wm. Stewart, Alexander M'Cready, of Sorby, whose corporeal and mental faculties seem but little impaired by the wasting hand of time, although he is at present in the 106th year of his age. This singular specimen of antiquity possesses such a youthful cheerfulness in conversation, and such a fondness for relating the manners and customs of the people of Galloway in the early part of his life, as to make him not only an amusing, but likewise a very instructive companion. When he was a young man, about ninety years ago, he says, "there was not a spinning-wheel to be seen frae the brig-end o'Dumfries to the braes o'Glannap, nor were the people of Galloway acquainted with dying any other colour than black, which, when mixed with white wool, was made into cloth This curious chronicler was born in the parish of Kirkinner, in the beginning of 1714, and has always been a laborious and hard-working man. When he was 102 years of age, during the harvest season, he bound up the grain cut by four able shearers; and to the present time, he cooks all his own victuals, casts his own peats, and manages all his own affairs, and can read the smallest edition of the Psalms of David, without the help of spectacles. Prior to this time, he was never out of Galloway except once, and then only a few days. His present journey from Sorby to Pinkell Cottage, was undertaken at the desire of Sir W. Stewart, who would have conveyed him in a carriage; but the old man preferred travelling on foot, and performed the last nine miles of his journey with great ease in about four hours. Nov. 10, 1819. W. L. Observations on the Substratum of MR. EDITOR, |