rage them to offer their services. With regard to visiting the sick, I hope I am not inattentive to this duty; but my domestic engage. ments oblige me generally to confine my short visits to my immediate neighbourhood. My daughters are at present too young to be of much use to the sick poor, except that I send them occasionally to inquire into their wants. In the mean while, they are daily reminded that they may, at some future period, be called upon to be more active and useful than they can be now, and to look forward to the duty as a privilege; and when I can safely leave them more to themselves, I hope to be more active abroad my self."-Mrs. paused when she had said this, and I believe she wished me at home; but though all she said condemned me, there was something in her manner so unassuming, so pious, and so pleasing, that I could not leave her without hearing something more from her: I therefore said, that I feared she thought all my labours but little worth: "and yet I hope," said I, "I have been of some use; and as to their stories about my fol lowing the curate, I care nothing about them." Mrs. resumed "I think you ought to care, Miss

because we are commanded to avoid even the appearance of evil and I am constrained to say that your conduct may have been injurious to Mr., as well as to yourself. He is a single man, and a young man; and though I hope he is a truly pious man, yet, like all frail mortals, he may be open to flattery and whatever has a tendency to fill a minister with selfcomplacency, and to divert him from the sacred duties of his office, must be very hurtful both to himself and his parishioners."-I felt a good deal provoked at these remarks, and replied, "Surely, madam, you do not doubt the piety of this excellent young man? Where is there a better or a sounder preacher of the Gospel?" I by no means in

tended to judge uncharitably of Mr. or to criticise his sermons or manner of delivering them. I simply meant to say, that every clergyman has important duties to attend to, and that young ladies should take care how they interfere with them. St. Paul felt the ministry of the Gospel to be so weighty an affair, that he exclaims, Who is sufficient for these things?' And if he, with all his extraordinary gifts and graces, was insufficient, what must a young man be who is but just ordained, and who a short time ago did not know any thing of the value of his own soul?" Mrs.

now got up to ring the bell, to give some order; and feeling that I had sadly intruded on her time, I thanked her for her advice, and took my leave.

You will perceive, Mr. Editor, that I could not be put into very good humour with myself by what passed during this visit. I returned home with a heavy heart, and rushed up to my own room in much agitation of mind: for, to tell you the truth, I began to have some misgivings as to the real state of my heart; I mean, with reference to God. Not willing, however, to condemn myself, it occurred to me, after long musing on the subject, to address myself to you. I have, therefore, stated my case with much truth and simplicity, and earnestly request the advice of yourself, or some of your excellent correspondents. It is a case of conscience, not, I hope, below their notice; especially as other young women may, like myself, feel puzzled as to their true path of duty, amidst the contending claims of apparently opposite obligations.

HARRIETT.

ON PLEADING NOT GUILTY.

Tothe Editorofthe Christian Observer.

YOUR correspondent, X. Y., while very justly reprehending Sir Walter

Scott's untrue negation respecting the Waverley Novels, seems to imply that "the denial of a robbery on the part of a culprit, before a judge," is not a moral offence. An offence, however, it doubtless is; and it is therefore the more to be lamented, that our laws still continue most wantonly and unnecessarily to provoke its perpetration. We constantly find judges urging prisoners to utter falsehood: when they have truly pleaded guilty, they are urged to withdraw their plea, and to deny the charge. Is this justice? is it policy? is it humanity? is it religion? And is it not most extraordinary that our government and legislature will not abolish this absurd and useless practice of making prisoners plead guilty or not guilty, when, as X. Y. justly says, no person believes their asseveration, even if true; and an inducement is held out to the guilty to aver a solemn falsehood in the presence of Almighty God. The custom is the more reprehensible, because a prisoner is often not really aware whether or not he is guilty of the exact charge laid in the indictment. He may, for instance, have caused the death of a person, and in his remorse plead guilty to a charge of murder when technically it was only manslaughter, and so on of many other cases. It is earnestly to be hoped that the evil will not be allowed much longer to disgrace our courts of justice.

A. F.

QUERY ON A PASSAGE IN HOOKER.

Tothe Editorofthe Christian Observer.

IN the Seventh Book of Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, the objection to Episcopacy drawn from the testimony of St. Jerome, is considered and refuted. At the close of this discussion, we find the following remarkable passage: "This answer to St. Jerome seemeth dangerous:

I have qualified it as I may, by addition of some words of restraint; yet I satisfy not myself, in my judgment it would be altered." I should be obliged to any of your correspondents who might be able to suggest an explanation of the author's meaning. Y. M.

QUERY ON THE TEN TRIBES.

Tothe Editorofthe Christian Observer.

IN reading the paper of Exarnus, in your last Number, with some friends, a conversation incidentally arose respecting the supposed lost Ten Tribes, and where they are now to be found. A previous question, however, being started as to the evidence that these tribes have really been lost; it was found that most of the party took the matter for granted, without being able to assign any very satisfactory reasons for their opinion. To resolve their difficulty, it was proposed that the inquiry should be submitted to the correspondents of the Christian Observer; through which channel a reply is respectfully solicited, by

ONE OF THE PARTY.

LETTER FROM A HIGH CHURCHMAN.

WE cannot withhold from our readers the following brief communication, both as illustrating the force of early prepossession over an apparently candid and ingenuous mind, and as an honourable instance of a successful effort to discard longcherished prejudices at the approach of the light of truth. Our correspondent is, perhaps, not the only instance of a person professing himself through "a long life," a HighChurchman, from the mere influence of hereditary and educational bias; denouncing perhaps what are called

a thousand errors and morbid symp-
toms known exclusively to himself.
It is also passing strange, that he
finds such dreadful matter of com-
plaint in the deviations of modern
life from the manners of our an-
cestors, strongly reminding us of
certain stanzas, preserved among
Percy's Reliques, called Time's Al-
teration, and which are almost lite-
rally some of Mr. Irving's charges
put into metre.
Good hospitality

Was cherished then of many;
Now poor men starve and die,
And are not helped by any:
For charity waxeth cold,
And love is found in few;
This was not in time of old,
When this old cap was new.
We took not such delight
In cups of silver fine:
None under degree of a knight,
In plate drank beer or wine:
Now each mechanical man
Hath a cupboard of plate to shew,
Which was a rare thing then,
When this old cap was new.

We quote these rude lines only in order to illustrate the peril of descending into such minuteness of censure, as may vulgarize the dignity of Christian instruction, and turn a sermon into a ballad. Mr. Irving says, for example,

"If now I descend a step lower, and consider the pleasures of eating and drinking, I must enter my solemn protest against the comparison to our advantage which in this respect is wont to be made with our fathers; and I hold, that, if our fathers indulged in greater excess, they fell far short of us in nicety, delicacy, and sensual indulgence; and their excess, also, was not the fruit of epicurean pleasure, but of robust health, hospitality, and good cheer. Their tables groaned with plenty, because they were generous and noble; but the like plenty descended upon the lowest menial of the house, and diffused itself to the cottages around them. Tell not me that it was the same love of pleasure which now must entertain a foreign cook, prime minister to the diseased constitution of our body tell not me that the slaying of the fatted calf, and the broaching of the home-brewed liquor, and the making of a feast, as Abraham did when Isaac was weaned, as Isaac did to entertain Abimelech and Phichol, is ever to be likened to that effeminate daintiness, both in eating and in drinking, which now ruleth the corporations of our cities, and formeth a chief burden of their charge. Why

should these things not be discoursed of? They are a disgrace unto the city in which we live. I declare, that with half the waste of their luxurious entertainments, I would keep the families of almost all the clergy necessary for the churches of our cities. They talk about sensualists: I wot well they would have our fathers, as if they were all a set of been ashamed of us their children. They ate their meal like hungry men, and went about their work refreshed again; but indulgence, have thrown our meal into the we, whether from our love of labour or of luxurious evening, that we may not have any after-interruption, but slide gently and softly from the banqueting-house unto our downy chamber. Brethren, blame me not for entering into these things: they are the characteristics of the times which I have taken to me to unfold." pp. 370-372.

There is another old copy of verses in Percy, about a gentleman of the Elizabethean age,

"That kept a brave old house at a bountiful rate,

And an old porter to relieve the poor at his gate;

With an old buttery-hatch worn quite off the hooks,

And an old kitchen that maintained half a dozen old cooks;"

all which is contrasted with the manners of his degenerate descendant, as thus:

:

"With a new-fashioned hall, built where the old one stood,

Hung round with new pictures that do the poor no good;

With a new buttery-hatch that opens once in four or five days,

And a new French cook, to devise fine kick-shaws and toys," &c.

Not that we admire either of these minstrels, or either of these establishments; and these idle verses are here cited only to shew that such declamations are the mere common places of every age; fit enough for satyrists and songwriters, but not gravely to be urged by divines, as characteristics of their own particular era. poetical countryman, Burns, in his Epistle to a young Friend, felt the possibility of his verse becoming a homily::

Our author's

But how the subject-theme may gang, Let time and chance determine; Perhaps it may turn out a sang, Perhaps turn out a sermon:

Our author should beware of the