EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE. admirable and useful society. The Rev. S. of which were given in the "Transactions" Minton, minister of Percy Chapel, London, explained the principles of the Alliance, which sought to heal the divisions in the Protestant Church-not by any compromise of ecclesiastical views, but by rallying round those doctrines which are held in common by all Evangelical Christians. The Rev. Hermann Schmettau detailed the great benefits which the Alliance had conferred on Christians on the Continent. The Rev. J. Davis, one of the Clerical Secretaries, and formerly of this city, gave a deeply interesting statement of the operations of the Alliance in this country, showing that as the embodiment of united Christianity, it could effect a work which no one section of the Christian Church alone could accomplish. As an illustration, Mr. Davis referred to the case of the Protestants at Arras, in France, the particulars last month. The Rev. W. Conway, Vicar of St. Nicholas, moved a resolution, approving the principles and objects of the Alliance, and the proceedings terminated with the Doxology. Several subscriptions were received at the close of the meeting, in addition to which a number of persons expressed their intention to become members of the Alliance. ERRATUM.-We are requested to correct a typographical error in Mr. Davis's letter, inserted in our last month's number. Instead of "I left town on Sunday evening," it should read Monday evening. Those who know the Secretary's religious principles, as well as those of the Alliance, must have felt assured that the statement was erroneous. MEETINGS IN AUSTRALIA. The following brief items of intelligence will afford much pleasure, notwithstanding its brevity. It is very gratifying, and an omen, as we cannot but think, of their future religious prosperity, to find the Christians of that great colony of Australia, so earnestly desirous, while they carry to those foreign shores their different ecclesiastical and religious peculiarities, not to import with them the dissensions in spirit and unbrotherly alienations to which they have been too much led in the mother country. They have our earnest prayers and best sympathies while they are striving after a godly union, and all the more because we feel a moral certainty that their influence will powerfully react upon the various denominations and sections of the Church at home. -ED. BALLARAT.-A public meeting was held at the Council Chambers to welcome Mr. Binney to this place. About a hundred guests were present. After tea, J. Oddie, Esq., was called to the chair, and the proceedings of the evening opened by prayer by the Rev. Mr. Henderson. The Rev. Mr. Bickford moved, and the Rev. Mr. Searle seconded the resolution, "That this meeting regards with satisfaction the progressive development of the principles of the Evangelical Alliance, and especially does it welcome the Rev. T. Binney among the Churches of Ballarat." Mr. Binney then addressed the meeting at considerable length, and expressed himself as being much interested in the colonies. He prayed God to bless the Churches, and establish in this infant nation all the blessings of social and political liberty. The meeting was afterwards briefly addressed by Mr. Fulton, of Melbourne, and the Rev. Mr. Bradney. VICTORIA. On Monday morning, Jan. 30, a special meeting of this association was held in the large hall of the Criterion Hotel, Collins-street. Upwards of thirty members sat down to breakfast. After partaking of a well-arranged and neatly-served repast, the company adjourned to another apartment, considerately placed at their disposal by Mr. Wedel. His Honour Judge Pohlman, as President of the Alliance, took the chair. After a hymn had been sung, the Rev. Dr. Perry, Bishop of Melbourne, offered prayer; and the Rev. James Taylor read the Scriptures. Dr. Cairns then addressed the company, and in a few appropriate and emphatic sentences introduced the Rev. Thomas Binney. Before Mr. Binney rose, Dr. Perry offered a few remarks, expressing his great satisfaction at meeting with the honoured guest of the morning, and his anxiety for the promotion of Christian union among the followers of the one Lord Jesus, The Rev. Thomas Binney delivered a long and most interesting address, full of wise counsel, genial humour, and manly eloquence. The Rev. R. Fletcher, of St. Kilda, was the last speaker. He referred to his long friendship with Mr. Binney, and to the great delight he had experienced in being permitted to renew intercourse with him EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE. in Australia. Mr. Fletcher closed the pro- | holding different views of Church order and various sections of the Christian Church in OBSTACLES TO MEMBERSHIP. To the Editor of Evangelical Christendom. My dear Sir, I am one of the London clergymen whom Sir Culling Eardley honoured with an invitation to meet Dr. M'Neile and the deputation of the Evangelical Alliance on the 3rd of March. As, like the greater part, I was silent on the occasion, it has occurred to me, upon reading in your last number an account of the Conference and subsequent correspondence between Sir Culling Eardley and Dr. M'Neile, that it might be of some use to state my individual impressions, and perhaps to throw out a suggestion or two on the subject. As to the Conference itself, it was conducted in such a spirit of Christian courtesy and godly charity as to show how pleasant and how profitable it is for Christians who, are one in the great things of salvation, to meet, and converse, and pray together. The meeting was, indeed, worthy of its great object, and of the Christian goodness and zeal which brought us into communion on the occasion. If the Alliance had accomplished nothing more than to bring together those that fear the Lord to speak often one to another, it has performed a blessed work, and deserves the thanks of all Christians and the help of all who can afford to give towards defraying its expenses, as Dr. M'Neile has so practically suggested by his handsome donation of five pounds. I trust that many will follow that example, and not leave the burden of support on the few who are ipso facto ministers. With respect to the obstacles in the way of joining the Alliance, I am satisfied that with Evangelical Churchmen these are not its articles of subscription; for we who have signed ex animo the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England can have little scruple about the nine of the Alliance, which are involved in the former; nor yet its apparent want of practical aim, for every year the history of the Alliance has proved it increasingly and eminently practical, and shows, moreover, that the great Head of the Church has owned its labour. I believe the great difficulty lies in our Ecclesiastical Establishment, and, as we can never desire to see this substantially altered, the progress of the Alliance amongst us must always be a failure. We have no difficulty in meeting Evangelical Christians in London or New York, Geneva or Berlin, but when it comes to fraternise with Christians and Christian ministers in our hamlets and villages-the oversight of which is entrusted to us only by the Constitution of our country-we are at once met by obstacles of the most serious kind. A clergyman in my position, indeed, has not had this difficulty; but have always felt it due to the great body of Evangelical Churchmen to act with them in the matter, and as if I had their parochial difficulties in common. But not to be tedious; is it impossible to devise a plan by which may be conciliated a large number of this body of Churchmen who now stand aloof, and, at the same time, the present members of the Alliance be secured in holy and loving brotherhood, to the greater benefit of the Church and the world? I conceive that it is not impossible by any means; and I venture to offer the following for the consideration of your readers on the subject. Let the Alliance be received as an important preliminary arrangement only, towards the attainment of an object of universal interest to the Christian Church, viz., the better mutual co-operation of Christians and Christian societies throughout the world, and the more frequent opportunities of conference on the progress of Christ's kingdom on earth. Such a society might be designated "The London Society for Promoting the Better Co-operation of Protestant Christians and Societies at Home and Abroad." I should hope that an Association formed with some such designation and object, would secure the adhesion of the present members of the Alliance, and of many more, and steadily, with the Divine blessing, increase in acceptance and utility. Such a society should have central rooms, a library to which the missionary societies and individuals would contribute and use, EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE. where information on all subjects connected with the progress of religion in the world could be interchanged, and Christians of all countries meet and know each other, and, at stated times, consult and pray together. I am, my dear Sir, Yours truly in Christ Jesus, JOSEPH KINGSMILL, Chaplain of the Government Model Prison. To the Editor of Evangelical Christendom. Dear Sir, I have been a constant reader of your very interesting publication for several years past; and I have often wondered why you do not from time to time set forth in its pages the Rules of the Evangelical Alliance, and the conditions of membership in that body. Moreover, as far as I remember, I never was asked to be a member, and never had the matter suggested to me, directly or indirectly, by friend or acquaintance, by deputation or prospectus, nor even by so much as hearing of an Alliance meeting within my reach. I am aware that if I wished to join it, I was bound to inquire the mode of proceeding. But I refer to the above circumstances, as grounds for suggesting that it is possible to be over-scrupulous on the subject of making proselytes; and that it would be well to make some use of a publication so intimately connected with the Alliance as yours is for the purpose of giving information as to its constitution and rules. I have often felt much inclined to become a member; but have hitherto been deterred by a consideration which I take the liberty of adverting to, although I now feel that it must deter me no longer. It may probably still weigh with others as an insurmountable objection; and I am the more disposed to mention the matter now, because I see that it is not touched upon in the correspondence between Dr. M'Neile and your President, lately published. The objection to which I refer is this, that whereas the Alliance purports to be a bond of brotherhood, connecting individual Christians of every Evangelical communion, it imposes no direct restraint on the practice of denouncing, with unbrotherly asperity, one another's denominational distinctions. It may be, that without any rule bearing directly on this point, membership in the Alliance does tend to check needless reference to these differences, and to mitigate undue severity in referring to them at all. I sincerely believe it does. I firmly hope that it will do so more and more. But I would fain have the Alliance avow this object, as one at which it distinctly aims. I would fain have each member pledge himself, not indeed to contend less earnestly for whatsoever he may hold to be the truth, but to abstain from unprofitable and irritating reflections on any of those Churches whose members are admissible into the Alliance. In the attitude now assumed by the common enemy of every Evangelical branch of Christ's Church, we have an urgent motive to become more enlarged in our charity, more earnest in our brotherly kindness, without being less steadfast in our faith; and to contend earnestly for a more close, brotherly communion amongst all who hold that there is no salvation out of Christ, and that as many as are safe in Him are members of His Church. Under this conviction, I for one, though still lamenting our unhappy divisions, have long refrained from laying the blame of them, as I used to suppose it right to do, on those who differ from my own communion; but am rather apt to express thankfulness, and to feel thankful, that the Gospel is preached by them as sincerely as by us, and instead of testifying against divisions for which we are quite as much to blame as they, I deem it better to testify, with them, against sin and Satan, against Popery and her twin brethren neology and infidelity. I confess that I should like the Alliance better, if it would recommend some such silence to its members, or, at all events, would seek to moderate their utterances, as to points of distinction between the several communions to which its members are attached. But I like it so well as it is, and I look on it as so well suited, at the present crisis, to become a rallying point for all who desire to uphold the Gospel against those who pervert, nullify, or gainsay it, that I shall be obliged if you will let me know what steps I ought to take in order to become a member.-Very truly yours, CHARLES GIRDLESTONE, April 18, 1859. The Secretaries of the Alliance will probably act upon the suggestion in the foregoing letter, and give, through the medium of our pages, such a statement of the Constitution and Rules of the Alliance, and of the mode of admission to membership, as Mr. Girdlestone desires. In the meantime we subjoin two of the standing resolutions by which its EUROPEAN INTELLIGENCE. members profess to be governed, and which were adopted at its formation in 1846, particularly referring to the point to which Mr. G. adverts in the second paragraph of his letter: "That in this Alliance, it is distinctly declared, that no compromise of the views of any member, or sanction of those of others, on the points wherein they differ, is either required or expected: but that all are held as free as before to maintain and advocate their religious convictions with due forbearance and brotherly love." "That the members of this Alliance earnestly and affectionately recommend to each other, in their own conduct, and particularly in their own use of the press, carefully to abstain from and put away all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking with all malice; and in all things in which they may yet differ from each other, to be kind, tender-hearted, forbearing one another in love, forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven them; in everything seeking to be followers of God as dear children, and to walk in love, as Christ also has loved them."-ED. THE PONTIFICAL European Intelligence. FRANCE. GOVERNMENT JUDGED BY THE PARISIAN PRESS CONFERENCES OF FATHER FELIX AT PARIS-TWO NEW MIRACLES-REPORT PRESENTED TO THE EMPEROR ON THE PUBLIC EXERCISE OF PROTESTANT WORSHIP-INTERNAL AFFAIRS OF OUR CHURCHESBIOGRAPHY OF THE DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. France, April, 1859. THE PONTIFICAL GOVERNMENT JUDGED BY The quarrel which has occurred between France and Austria on Italian affairs has permitted our journals to speak freely respecting the Pope and his ministers. Previous to this time, an attack on the Romish chair would have exposed the poor journalist to the rigours of the law; now, this barrier is removed and the caustic spirit of France does not spare, I assure you, the Pontifical Government. The author of the famous semi-official pamphlet entitled Napoleon III. and Italy, had already, while giving utterance to a vain oratorical precaution, expressing his profound respect for the virtues of the Holy Father, energetically exposed the intolerable abuses of clerical authority. Another writer who had been sent to Rome on a mission from our Cabinet, has just published a volume of three hundred pages, entitled The Romish Question, in which he unveils the same excesses in language most piquant and humorous. domestic life, indifferent to the future of the nation, and refusing to listen to the wisest remonstrances, because they believe themselves endowed with a portion of pontifical infallibility. .. All situations conferring power or money belong first to the Pope, then to the Under Secretary of State, then to the Cardinals, and then to the prelates. Every one of these spiritual masters takes to himself, in hierarchical order, the most lucrative employments, and when these parts are distributed, the nation may eat the crumbs which fall from the table of the Government; she obtains the little employments which no ecclesiastic will undertake. Do not be astonished at such a distribution. Remember that, in the Government of Rome, the Pope is everything, the Secretary of State is almost everything, the bishops are something; but the lay nation, the married nation which brings up children, is nothing." The author passes in review the various branches of industry which constitute the prosperity of a people, and proves that these are dried up at their roots. No industry; no important manufactures. Some privileged individuals have purchased for the priests the right of fabricating-and they fabricate very badly, the articles necessary to the material wants of the population. Commerce is in the same position; there are no houses of discount, and all negotiations are subjected to iniquitous EUROPEAN INTELLIGENCE. monopolies. Agriculture is crushed by taxes. All large properties are in the hands of monastic communities, who do not know how to render them productive; and the poor peasants still use the agricultural instruments employed in the time of Numa Pompilius or the elder Cato. The means of inter-communication are shocking. Thus, between Rome and Bologna, letters are longer on the road than between Paris and Berlin. "The fault," says a journal which gives an account of M. About's book, "is in the institutions more than in the men. A society of laymen exclusively under the administration of ecclesiastics is a contradiction. The priests, in their education, manners, ideas, interests, and wants, differ essentially from the duties interests, ideas, manners, and education of the laity. When a country of 3,500,000 laymen is governed by 2,000 or 3,000 ecclesiastics, the immense majority is necessarily sacrificed to an imperceptible minority.' From all these observations, the Parisian press concludes that the temporal power of the Pope ought to be abolished. This is, in fact, the logical consequence of all that is occurring in the Pontifical States. But how is such a measure to be executed? Will the Pope ever consent to possess only a spiritual authority? And will those men who still profess to be Roman Catholics dare to despoil their supreme pontiff of temporal sovereignty, which he regards as an institution of God? discourse in Notre Dame, the cathedral of Paris. This Jesuit is not deficient in talent. He is abundant in ideas, orderly in the arrangement of his discourses, and has an easy style, sometimes becoming warm and vehement. His auditors are numerous. It is considered fashionable to be present at his preachings, and the Univers publishes them from week to week. But whatever may be the merits of Father Felix as an orator, his conferences are singularly defective. First, the essential verities of Christianity never appear in them. The preacher does not address himself to the consciences of those present; he does not speak to them of sin, of repentance, of the duty of conversion, of salvation in Jesus Christ crucified-that is to say, of that which fills the teachings of St. Paul. Again, Father Felix is animated by a violent controversial spirit; he is continually attacking Protestants, philosophers, and all those who do not bow their necks to the clerical yoke. Finally, his grand aim is to make the most of the interests of the present time, and not to set forth the conditions of eternal happiness. All this indicates a deep decline in the piety of the Romanists; it is no longer a religion; it is a system of politico-ecclesiastical institutions. Father Felix's subject for this time was Authority, and in his first conference he endeavoured to show what have been the revolts against authority during the last centuries. He has found four-first, the revolt of Luther against the authority of The only solution of this serious difficulty the Papacy and the Romish Church; second, is in the progress of Evangelical faith. If the revolt of Voltaire against the authority the French and the Italians, opening the of Jesus Christ and the revealed Word; Holy Scriptures, reject the superstitions of third, the revolt of demagogues against Popery, and accept the fundamental doc- royalty and all civil magistrates; fourth, trines of revelation, then the temporal power the revolt of Socialists against property. of the Pope will fall; it will fall the same Thus, the Reformation of the sixteenth day with his spiritual power, and from the century has been the source of all the insame causes. But so long as France and surrections and of all the calamities which Italy continue as they are, Romanist in have desolated the Christian world! Father their habits and practices, the Pope will Felix employs the old tactics of Rome, remain seated on his throne. which consist in confounding Protestantism with impiety and demagogy. He plainly declares that Luther was the most culpable, the most detestable of rebels. "Luther," says he, "was a rebellious monk-that is, a religious revolutionary. He committed the greatest crimes; it is he who, in modern times, has inflicted the deepest wound on authority." We will not refute these vulgar calumnies. A single remark will here suffice. It is evident that the Popish preachers endeavour, by every means, to provoke new persecutions against the Pro CONFERENCES OF FATHER FELIX AT PARIS. You are aware that, during Easter, conferences are held in the Popish churches, or discourses, half-religious, half-political and philosophical, are pronounced by the ablest of their orators. This is a means of attracting to these sacred edifices men of all classes and of every degree of education, who would never come to mass, but who like to hear a good piece of oratory. Father Felix, member of the Company of Ignatius Loyola, has again been chosen to |