though painful discussions. The Essays and Reviews have been bearing fruit. It is true, "their vine is of the vine of Sodom and of the fields of Gomorrah; their grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter, their wine is the poison of dragons and the cruel venom of asps;" they undermine all the foundations of social happiness and private morality, and present no foundation on which the foot of man can rest for time or for eternity. The flood-gates once opened, the tide of unbelief is rushing in with a fiercer torrent, and we have no reason to suppose that it has reached its height, or that our duty of resistance is approaching to its close. Then again, Dissenters, whose boast it is that they "keep the law" in a degree of purity unknown to us in the Church of England, have, as it seems to us, broken it in one of its strongest links. They have cast aside that "love" which is the fulfilling of the law." They were of course quite right, if they thought fit, in observing the bicentenary of the fatal St. Bartholomew's Day of 1662; and had that been all, we are not sure that we should not have been willing to join with them in a solemn act, at once of praise for the example of the 2,000 ejected ministers in patience and in suffering, and profound humiliation for the severities they underwent. But it has been made the occasion of a rude assault upon the Church of England, and especially upon the Evangelical clergy, who are charged with positive dishonesty and other misdemeanours of the baser kind. We have had no great difficulty in dealing with these attacks; and had our mood been such, we should have had none whatever in showing that Dissenters of almost every class have far more to be ashamed of in their own short, though by no means simple, annals, than we of the Church of England. We know there are Dissenters not a few, who appreciate our forbearance, and who feel, as we do, that Dissent has gained but little, while the Church of England has lost nothing, in this unprovoked and unnecessary conflict. In one instance, we have felt it necessary to become the assailants. We believe that all the Plymouth Brethren are wrong in their views of Church government; and not only wrong, but utterly unscriptural. Their theory of a perfect Church is impracticable; and further, it is contrary to the canon provided by the Lord of the Church Himself: "Let both grow together till the harvest." We never knew, never heard of, any

rigid system of Church government, which did not immediately expose itself to the charge of "rooting up the wheat" in its rude endeavours to "weed out the tares." But it was not to this point that our censures were directed. Under the plea of a spiritual religion, one large section of the Plymouth Brethren have adopted errors in doctrine of the most serious kind. Some of these, we have pointed out, and we hope not without a good result. We have received cordial acknowledgments from several quarters for our cautions, from those who felt that there was something wrong, as they tell us, in the writings to which we have referred, and who yet were allured to their perusal by the air of superior sanctity with which they profess to be invested.

But it must needs be that offences will come. From one quarter or another the Church will always be assailed; it will be a Church militant while here on earth, until the Lord come. We cannot indulge the flattering hope, that our conflicts are ended, or even near their close. Some enemy will always lurk under the walls of Zion, and the faithful watchman must still stand at his post upon the tower. Even this watchfulness is not without its dangers, we admit. Truth herself, incessantly assaulted, may become censorious. In every shadow she may begin to imagine danger, in every new face she may learn to see a foe. Retaining her fidelity, she may forfeit her genial, loving spirit, and her catholic heart. But "the grace whereunto she is called" is sufficient for all her wants; resting upon this, she speaks the truth in love, and with her Lord's fidelity, catches something of His tenderness. It is in this spirit that we would resume our work, commending it to the reader's prayers and to the compassion of our Great High Priest.