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for some account of its success, and for a general and comprehensive view of the field open for the spread of the gospel, is, to a very great extent, satisfied by the information contained in this work.

To many the book will be of more than ordinary interest. Much has been done, but very much yet remains to be accomplished. Whatever else has been done, the distribution of the Scriptures will surely produce great results. "Our Waldensian brethren in Turin passed through the press an edition of 2000 copies of Diodati's Testament. As the government of Italy has refrained from noticing this breach of an unjust law, the work of printing the Bible may now be expected to proceed in Italy without interruption." The whole number of copies of the Scriptures sold in Italy during the year 1860 has been 24,000. This fact alone proves that Italy is arousing from the spiritual sleep in which she has been ever since Alaric laid Rome in ashes. We have no room for details, and refer our readers with pleasure to a very interesting and well-written book, and full of information.

Another work, in three volumes, on the Acts of the Apostles, deserves at least a short notice. This is, An Exposition on the Acts of the Apostles, by the Rev. John Fawcett, M.A., late Incumbent of St. Cuthbert, Carlisle. Hatchard, London.-This exposition, in the form of lectures or sermons, was preached many years ago, and had it been printed at the time, would probably have been as popular as the lectures of Mr. Blunt of Chelsea, of which, indeed, it frequently reminds us. It will still be acceptable to the many surviving friends of the excellent author, whose reputation in his day was great, and whose memory is still revered in the north of England. They are "wholesome words," wisely fitted together by one who was no mean preacher of the truth, nor one unblessed in his labours. We cannot read them without asking ourselves whether the pulpit has made any real progress in the last thirty years. And we are not sure that the candid reader of these volumes would make an affirmative reply. We cannot say that our style is simpler, or our thoughts deeper, or that we diverge less frequently from the plain high-road of text and context. We are more ingenious, and more elaborate, and seem to be more original,and yet in most cases, it is but seeming after all.

Autobiography of Miss Cordelia Knight, Lady Companion to the Princess Charlotte of Wales. With Extracts from her Journals and Anecdote-books. 2 Vols. Allan and Co.-To the lovers of scandal these volumes will be a rich treat. Envious republicans, if they should fall into the hands of any such, may find them a savoury morsel. The rest of the world will receive them with that indifferent curiosity which leads us all to take a certain interest in the domestic habits of royalty. We needed nothing to convince us that George the Fourth was a heartless profligate, and his daughter, the princess Charlotte, the idol of the nation, a cruelly-injured girl. And these are the facts which Miss Knight has made it her business to record. She was the confidential attendant upon the princess, and we doubt the propriety of any person in her situation taking notes of the proceedings of the family into which she is admitted, not as a spy, but as a companion. We hear many complaints that governesses are not treated with proper consideration; perhaps one reason may be a want of discretion on

their part. For ourselves, we can only say, that we should be sorry to have a Miss Knight in our family, whatever her accomplishments.

Memorials of Serjeant W. J. Marjouram, R.A. Edited by Serjeant W. White, R.A. London: James Nisbet & Co. 1861.-These memoirs are very interesting, not to say entertaining; and display, moreover, in the subject of them, a great degree of manliness, generosity, and humble dependance upon God. The work consists chiefly of extracts from Serjeant Marjouram's diary. It is edited by Serjeant White, the preface being written by Miss Marsh, with her usual piety and good feeling.

PUBLIC AFFAIRS.

THE Prince Consort is dead, and the Queen of England is a widow. In this abrupt and melancholy form the sad tidings have gone forth, which have covered the land with mourning, and overwhelmed it with the deepest distress. After a few days' illness-a severe cold, followed by fever-Prince Albert has been taken from us. He expired at Windsor Castle, on Saturday the 14th of December. Happily, he was conscious to the last, and the Queen, the Prince of Wales, the Princess Alice, and others of the royal family, stood round his bed, and received his farewell look of love. He was attended by the ablest physicians, but the summons had arrived; all human power was in vain; and his spirit returned to God who gave it.

England has only once felt a sorrow to be compared with this. When the Princess Charlotte died, the grief of the nation was perhaps more passionate; now it is more deep and still. When it was made known that she lay a corpse, with her new-born infant in her cold embrace, the nation felt that its fondest hopes indeed had withered in the bud; the personal character of the princess, her youthful domestic trials, too well known, and her recent happy marriage, threw a sentiment of inexpressible tenderness over the anguish of a mourning people. But in public life she had taken no share; what she might have been as a sovereign, was all conjecture. The direct succession to the throne was lost in her; and her personal qualities had secured a nation's love. The loss was bitterly felt, and none dreamed, then, how God would graciously repair it. Yet he was preparing the way for brighter scenes in this very calamity. He was about to raise up in Victoria a sovereign, as much superior in every great quality to the Princess Charlotte, as she herself to the court in which she lived, and the parents from whom she drew her breath. But now we have lost a prince, in the midst of life, and scarcely beyond the full maturity of manhood, who has been for one and twenty years the guide and stay of our beloved sovereign. In grieving for Prince Albert, we are grieving for our Queen. For that whole period she has been the most popular of all our English sovereigns, and the most revered. Popularity has been purchased by no artifice, no affected

condescension. There has not been a single instance in which the throne has sacrificed its dignity to humour a faction or a mob; not one in which it has become the patron or the instrument of a party in the state. Never has it lagged behind in an age of progress ; never has it, with injudicious haste, urged on the restlessness which mistakes a mere love of change for social progress. And we know that the wisdom of Queen Victoria has been aided by the wisdom of her consort. He shared, we have been aware, in all her counsels; how much he contributed to sustain her in her difficulties and in the pressing anxieties of state, we may, perhaps, conjecture; but the whole is known only to herself, and to herself never fully known till now. Never was a foreigner so popular in England; though popularity feebly expresses the admiration and respect he had secured from all classes; and never did a foreigner more thoroughly comprehend either the duties of his own position in his adopted country, or the genius and character of the people amongst whom he had made his home. His remains were consigned to the grave with as little parade as was consistent with his high estate, at Windsor, in Wolsey's tomb house, now used as the royal vault, on Monday the 23rd. The day was everywhere observed with the utmost solemnity. Church and chapel were open, and crowds of every class, attired in deep mourning, filled the houses of prayer, to testify their reverence for departed worth and virtue; and above all, in many thousand instances, to pray for our beloved sovereign, in that solemn hour of her anguish. Let it not be forgotten, when the first burst of feeling has passed, that it is our duty to intercede withal for the nation at large, that a call so solemn, a chastisement so unlooked for, may impress on us the nearness of eternity, and the vanity of all things without an interest in the kingdom of God. That interest, we humbly trust, the Prince Consort had secured. The nation has presented few instances of a happier household than that of which he was the husband and the father. Nowhere have the domestic virtues shone more brightly than in the Palace, for it has been a family in which the Bible was not forgotten; night and morning, it is said, the most illustrious pair in the realm, whatever their engagements, read together some portion of the word of God. May that word now cheer a bereaved widow with consolations such as spring from no other source!

With aching hearts we turn away from the sad, though not unprofitable scene, but only to look upon another, where our sorrow is mixed up with just indignation. The outrage of the American frigate, San Jacinto, on Her Majesty's mail steamer, the Trent, is known by this time to half the world. The news of it reached England just as our last number was in the press. A month is a long interval now; and events crowd on with hurrying pace. We need not repeat a story which has brought the flush of righteous anger into the calmest face, and united England almost to a man in the determination to protect, at whatever cost, the honour of our flag, or in other words the safety of the British Empire. For a nation which submits to such outrages invites a repetition of them, and provokes aggressions which can terminate only in one result, her final ruin.

We have now, at the close of the month, the American version of

the affair, which agrees in every particular with the statement made, on their return to England, by the captain of the Trent, and the officer in charge of the mails on behalf of the British government. Instead of the usual blank cartridge, the Trent was brought to, first by a cannon shot, then by a shell, both fired across her bows, but falling near her. This alone was insolent, it was an outrage on the ordinary courtesy of all civilized nations. The packet was then boarded by an officer, who demanded the persons of two gentlemen, Messrs. Slidell and Mason, with their secretaries, who were passengers coming, it was understood, as commissioners from the Southern states to the English government and to that of France. They had embarked at a neutral port, and were received as ordinary passengers in their private character. The commander of the Trent most properly refused to give them up; on which the lieutenant who had been sent on board made a signal, and a second boat, filled with marines armed with cutlasses and bayonets, came on board. Resistance was useless, and under an indignant protest on our part, the passengers were forcibly removed, but not without a display of violence towards Miss Slidell, which might have, and probably would have, terminated in bloodshed, but for the heroic conduct of the English commander, who threw himself between her and the bayonets of the marines. Whatever may be said of the right of search, it is now clear, after a full discussion on both sides of the Atlantic, that a gross outrage was perpetrated. Instructions were immediately sent out to Lord Lyons, the British ambassador at New York, the purport of which is well understood, though not officially made public. He will demand an apology from the American government, and the immediate restitution of the commissioners. If this be refused, he will return home, and we see no alternative before us but a war with the Federal States.

In the meantime, Captain Wilkes, of the San Jacinto, has been received with acclamations both at New York and Boston; a subscription and a public dinner are but the least important parts of the ovation he receives-he is the hero of the day. The House of Representatives has passed a resolution applauding his conduct. The board which controls the navy has done the same. The newspapers, of course, which now govern the government, are loud in their applause; and the ignorant mob are imposed upon by the assurance that England, whatever she may feel, will not dare to resent the injury.

Such is the dismal prospect with which the year opens. Peace and war vibrate in the balance; and in all probability a few days will decide the momentous issue. There is something terrible in the quiet with which it is expected. There is no excitement, no discussion; for there is no difference of opinion amongst us. Every man loathes the war; yet if America persists, all see that it is inevitable. The national repose arises from a perfect consciousness that might and right are both on our side. Our naval and military preparations are hurried on ; the guards are on their way to Canada; and the result is left with Him who orders all things, both in heaven and earth, according to the counsel of His own will.

What we write at any time may have little weight in national affairs: at present, in determining this quarrel, it can have none. The decision will have been made before these pages meet the reader's eye. Vol. 61.-No. 289.

M

Yet we must record our solemn conviction, that if England has sinned at all, it has been on the side of too much forbearance. We have been too much afraid of wounding American sensibility, too forbearing to her preposterous arrogance. Homely rebukes, kindly but firmly given, might have spared both nations the horrors of war-a war of uncertain duration, but of inexpressible wretchedness to us; and, we can have no doubt, both of wretchedness and disgrace to her. For some time past we have noticed with regret the apologetic tone even of the religious press in speaking of America, and their censures of all who have not sufficiently respected her ridiculous pride and national vanity. Why is the vanity of a nation to be respected, when that of an individual is to be reproved? Where is the Christian fidelity of this? By what authority is the distinction drawn? Had we but shown half the sincerity and plain dealing in speaking of America, its arrogance and bluster, its contemptuous disregard of the rights of other nations, and especially of our own, which we have used in speaking of every continental nation, and which every continental nation habitually makes use of towards us, we should have stood upon a much happier footing. Our forbearance has been construed into pusillanimity; we have given up everything to the spoiled child, and America really thought that we were afraid.

These are the times, no doubt, for action; but not the less are these the times for prayer. Before the first week in January has closed, the solemn issue will, as we have said, in all probability have been determined. May it still be peace. But be it peace or war, our duty is the same. The week set apart for prayer, by an invitation issued from the Evangelical Alliance, but bearing, too, the signatures of a great number of excellent men who are not members of that association, will, we have no doubt, be kept with more than usual devoutness. Whether He who ruleth on high is about to reveal Himself as the God of battles or as the God of peace, our duty and our privilege is the same,-to pray for our enemies; amongst whom, let it not be forgotten, should the sore judgment of war be let loose, many thousands are to be found, hurried on by a violence over which they have no controul; brethren still, who are one with us in the bonds which no war can break asunder. This is our duty. Our privilege is to abide under the shadow of the Almighty till this storm be over passed. God is our refuge and strength; a very present help in the time of trouble.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

THE subject to which An Old Subscriber requests us once more to direct our attention, has been well weighed, with the assistance of several parties of great experience, more competent to judge than we can profess to be; and they strongly dissuade us from attempting the change which he thinks would contribute so much to our advantage.

In compliance with our fixed rule of admitting nothing intentionally, not written for the "Observer," we must again decline papers read before Clerical Associations. We have one on hand read at P -h, which we should have returned, but that we cannot make out the direction of the writer.

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