Imágenes de página
PDF
ePub

lips unclosed to taunt and to menace. The recent affair was but a shadow of what we must expect: and it strikes me as an especial mercy that we are put, as it were, into a preparatory school, and forewarned of the difficulty, that we may be forearmed.'

But do you think such outrages will be repeated on future occasions?'

'I think the precautions that will now be taken must, humanly speaking, be effectual in preventing their recurrence for some time to come; but my couvictions are deep that whosoever may be put forward as the perpetrators of these violent acts, the originators have a far higher stake in the matter. We are great troublers of some people-great marplots of their darling schemes. They cannot put us down either by scripture or reason; they cannot influence us by bribe or by intimidation: brute force is all that remains, and by that they hope, at least to thin our assemblies, and to hold up as an object of terror the meetings which they may not again be able to transform into a bear-garden.'

'But what excited this particular outburst of ruffianism, uncle?'

'The most ominous event that has yet crossed their path, niece: the junction of a very large and most influential body of our dissenting brethren on this momentous occasion, with the established church, in a matter so deeply affecting PROTESTANTISM, that all who deserve to share its blessings will and must put out of sight the peculiarities of varying creeds and forms, to rally round that citidel of our faith. It was much regretted that the organ of those our true brethren was withheld to so late an hour from addressing the meeting: but curtailed as he was by a

needless prolixity in other quarters, he said enough to justify the worst fears of our enemies, and to infuse new energy into the hearts of his hearers, who hailed with rapturous cheers the accession of such a host of allies.'

'What a violent prejudice some good people entertain against the Wesleyan body!'

'Yes, I have heard them denounced as worse than Papists by very devout Christians, who, if they would take a leaf out of dear old Gideon Ouseley's book, and go work in the Lord's vineyard, as he for half a century did, in the face of all that man and Satan could do to daunt and deter him, would find little leisure for the splitting of straws on points not essential to salvation. But it matters little now: the hour is at hand when the summons shall go forth, not who is a Calvinist, who an Arminian-who is an Episcopalian, who a Presbyterian, who a congregationist ?—but simply and largely, Who is on the LORD's side, who? These restless spirits, who in the violence of their mischievous zeal for innovation are agitating the whole body, ecclesiastical, politic and moral, are but as a fan in the hand of the great Husbandman wherewith he is even now purging his floor, causing the chaff to separate from the wheat, and to fly away in all directions, while the latter approximates, forming a heap which he will safely house for himself."

'What a strengthening thought is that, dear uncle, when heart and flesh begin to fail under the severity of the blast! But have you a good hope for the

country?'

'Don't ask me: I would fain encourage myself and you, but at present it cannot be. Our ship is

tossed between two seas, with the wind contrary, the pilot incompetent, the crew incapable. A leak is gaining fast, which must ultimately sink us, unless effectually checked; and our case is that of passengers who are thrown on their own labours and prayers. We must work the pumps while ability is given us of God, and permission conceded by man. Less than this we ought not to attempt: more we cannot achieve.'

'This education plan, uncle, will, if ever it be carried into effect, seal the vessel's doom.'

'I doubt it not: did you mark the insolent brag and defiance of O'Connell addressed to the opposers of the measure? "He was there," he said, " in the British parliament, in spite of them, and let them turn him out if they could." How striking was the link thus vauntingly pointed out between the great national sin of 1829, and this frightful project of unchristianizing the whole mass of our youthful population started, and likely to be carried out, within ten years afterwards! We had an overpowering majority of English votes against this atrocious scheme-it is forced on us by the refuse of Irish Popery and treason.'

Five years and a half ago, when we commenced our conversations, uncle, what an assault the editor had to encounter from various quarters, on the score of our being alarmists, illiberals, and anxious to bring before Christian ladies the importance of subjects which our reprovers deemed unsuited to them. Yet to this day we have, alas! proved but too correct in our prognostications; and events have forced even the most retired females to watch with anxiety the daily intelligence of a legislature that is now bent

on counteracting every effort of theirs for the promotion of God's cause, at home or abroad.'

'Yes,' replied my uncle, and when on the recent occasion in Exeter Hall I looked from the platform to the spaces filled by delicate females, whose dearest connections were exposed to the hostile aim of those infatuated Chartists, I cannot say that I at all repented my own little share in rousing those ladies to a sense of the awful importance of that sacred cause in which their fathers, brothers, husbands, sons, were at the moment placed in peril before their eyes. I wished you had been there.'

[ocr errors]

Nothing kept me away, sir, but a mistake as to the day of meeting.'

'Protestant feeling is not half roused yet,' observed my uncle. 'McGhee's last masterly exposure of the system by which Popery is gliding on her rapid path to domination in these lands, ought to be circulated in every village--read in every house. Yet when a publisher', zealous for this good end, ventures on printing a large edition of the corrected report, and offers it at as low a price as could be desired, he is unable to get the impression off his hands. This does not shew well for the cause.'

'It is difficult, perhaps, for those who were not present to estimate the importance of that day's disclosures. To me they were startling, and I knew something of the enemy's devices too.'

'Well, the time is at hand when we must needs submit to have our eyes opened. Meanwhile a solemn duty devolves on you, Christian ladies, for the performance of which you are accountable before

1 Baisler, of Oxtord-street, has published a full and correct report of all the speeches, at 16s. a hundred.

God. You are aware that the grand object in view, in this insidious scheme of national education, is to leave the people as much neglected as possible with regard to religious instruction, and to provide that where it is required it should be so given as to nourish up every child in the peculiar errors of his parents or guardians. Thus the youthful member of a Romanist family is to have a Douay Bible, full of the fulminations of Popery against what she deems heretics, and of exhortations to idolatry. The offspring of a Socinian is to be accommodated with a mutilated version, where the Lord Jesus Christ is undeified, and the sole hope of a sinner taken away. The child whose parent unhappily belongs to the increasing thousands who have imbibed the deadly poison of the socialists, is not to be insulted by having any Bible at all placed before him, seeing that the sect disclaim all belief in a divine revelation. In like manner the unhappy little one whose father knows not, or confesses not, the being of God, will be allowed to continue in the gross darkness of Atheism; for such must be the actual working of this atrocious device!'

'And another class, uncle, you have not named, concerning whom the Lord will, as he ever has done, shew himself jealous. Oh, what must that plan be which would spurn at the blessed opportunity of setting before the Hebrew child his own Messiah already manifest in the flesh, and gathering the tender lambs of outcast Israel into the fold!'

'I should not have omitted them, my dear, had you not interrupted me: for the crowning sin would surely be to rend asunder the inspired volume, and give the infant Jew the shadow, while the substance was with

« AnteriorContinuar »