Belgium.—The Evangelical Society.

Extract of a speech of the Rev. Mr. Anet, of Brussels, in the General Assembly of the Free Church in Edinburgh, in May last:—

The Church of which I am pastor in Brussels, does not belong to the Evangelical Society. Thank God, its own resources are sufficient for its support. Thus my mission to you has reference solely to the Belgian Evangelical Society. I regret that necessity compels me to solicit your co-operation in favour of Belgium.— But you will consider this. We ourselves are strangers in Belgium, and we have come to it for the sole purpose of endeavouring to unseat two usurpers, Popery and Infidelity, and to establish in it the sale authority of our Lord Jesus Christ. Were it possible for us to accomplish this alone, we should not seek to share our triumph with any. We should be too glad to have all the honour of it to ourselves. But we are compelled to beg you to share with us the labour and the triumph. If you will help us to sow the seed, with us you shall reap the harvest. And the field which we ask you to aid us in cultivating is no barren or ungrateful soil. Already it yields the first fruits of an abundant harvest. Already many churches have been formed in connection with the Belgian Evangelical Society; and thousands of persons are inquiring after the way of life. At no former period has Belginm been visited with so remarkable an awakening, or offered openings so inviting. Our Society has now twenty-six labourers in the field as ministers of the gospel, teachers in the schools, venders of tracts. All the parts of our work continue to prosper. In all our churches piety is taking root, and by its fruit the growth of faith has been manifested. This growth in spiritual life is developed in the midst of great difficulties, and is frequently accompanied by violent sensations and spiritual struggles. But these struggles prove the presence of the Divine spirit; and we can say with shouts of triumph that God thus marks all our stations with holiness and spiritual life, which attests that we have not laboured in vain. Our colporteurs, conveying tracts and religious books through the country, discover very frequently places fully ripe for the preaching of the gospel. If we had but means to support ministers, we could assemble congregations in all directions to attend the preaching of the Cross. And what is particularly worthy of attention, and makes us feel the necessity of redoubling our activity is, that those souls who, in a hundred different directions, oceupy their minds with serious subjects, are actuated, not by negative wants, but they come to us because they find no solid food in the Church of Rome, They cannot find rest to their souls,—they come to us to direct them to the fountain of living water, that they may drink and thirst no more. The important and industrious town of Verviers is now the theatre of a remarkable revival. One of our Missionaries page 208 has visited this station twice a week for more than twelve months, preaching the Word of Life to numerous and attentive assemblies. There is an urgent want of a stationary missionary. In another important town of the province of Namur, we have a small body of serious persons earnestly desiring that the Lord may send them messengers of good news; and at a small distance from thence resides anobleman, formerly a Roman Catholic, who has already built a chapel, although he has no minister to preach in it. We have many more localities which present stations fully prepared to receive the gospel of peace. In order to distribute tracts and religious books more abundantly and generally, we have just opened a religious bookshop in Brussels, which was much wanted, so that we find ourselves pressed on all sides for ministers of the gospel and school masters. The spirit of God breathes upon dry bones, life is created, and a fervent demand for nourishment is the consequence. Besides, our enemy presents himself in all shapes and on all sides; he must be combated to the last; the kingdom of Christ must be defended foot by foot, inch by inch. Unbelief in all its force,—immorality in all its hideous forms,—superstition with its numerous convents, and houses of education under the direction of the sons of Loyola and their associates, who seek, in great numbers, in our liberal country, a refuge from all parts from whence they are driven; these are the enemies which we must face and fight, and whom, with your assistance, we desire to fight with increased erergy and devotion.

Germany.—The Jews.

The German Jews have always participated very much of the spirit that has reigned in the Christian Church. When the Spirit of God breathed in the Church, the Jews also inquired into the truth of the Word of God; but when infidelity spread amongst the Christians, the Jews became infidels like their neighbours. I can scarcely say that I have ever met a Jew in Berlin that believed in the Divine authority of the Old Testament; and in a pamphlet lately issned by the Rabbi, or,—as he would call himself, by the minister of the Reform party of the Berlin Jews, the following sentences occur:—“We believe that the frist three chapters of Genesis are but a myths. We do not believe, therefore, that God created in seven days the heavens and the earth.— We are ready, with the majority of our countrymen, to adopt the first day of the week instead of the seventh. We do not wait for a personal Messiah,—equality of political and civil rights is the Messiah we are looking for. We believe that we have been dispersed among the nations, not because the wrath of God is abiding on us, but rather in order to lead these Gentiles to the only one God.” All the press is in the hands of Jews, or in their pay; and for years they have led public opinion, and all their teaching has been directly or indirectly that the wretch must be crushed, and Christianity must be destroyed. Christians have given them the page 209 sharpest weapons to fight against the gospel; and a minister of the Established Church in Germany went even so far as to declare that there was no difference between Christian and Jewish ministers. Hence it comes that they preach openly that the time will soon come when all men will become Jews, and the wild branches of Christianity will be cut off; and it is very possible that all that believe that it is not necessary for a Jew to be circumcised, nor for a Christian to be baptized, will unite, and jointly make a stand against the gospel. Would that the Jews hated Christianity; no, what is worse, they despise it, and contempt is even worse than hatred. Remarkable it is, that at the same time Austria with its ten thousand of Jews is opening just now, no doubt in answer to the prayers of Christians that have been offered up, one might almost say for centuries. There are two hundred thousand Jews in Hungary; in Bohemia, the cradle of the Reformation, where the Hussites were so dreadfully persecuted,—there are ten thousand of Jews who have never heard the sound of the gospel; know nothing of Christianity, but that they have been continually oppressed, persecuted, burdened, with high taxes, and calumniated, and have seen nothing of Christianity, but the abominable and idolatrous practices of the Romish Church.

—Rev. Mr. Schwartz, Missionary at Berlin.

Prussia.—The King.

The Government of Prussia is very favourable to religion and religious liberty, and great results may be anticipated from this cause. The king is a truly good man. He may have been misled as to measures, and he certainly has been in the affair of Cracow; but he is the most religious, the most protestant, and the best disposed towards Christianity, of all the sovereigns of Europe. The population of Prussia is about 14,000,000, of whom about 10,000,000 are protestants.

The speech with which his Majesty, Frederick William IV., opened his first parliament, has naturally been the subject of most lively interest, and as naturally of most widely differing comments, although all parties hear testimony to the energetic eloquence which it displayed, (a gift which the Prussian monarch possesses in an eminent degree,) the high-souled courage which breathed in its uncompromising language, and the honest conviction from which it emanated. To one paragraph especially, every Christian heart must throt a joyful response—I mean that in which, alluding to the efforts made by disloyal and infidel writers to inveigle and misguide the people to their temporal and eternal ruin, the king said, “Yes; even in our national Church the fruits of this tree of death have manifested themselves, by the twin poisons of indifferentism and fanaticism. This indeed (he continued) is no place for religious discussion, our ecelesiastical confessions both possessing their legal and authorized organs; yet I cannot possibly refrain from this day making my confession, in reference to the fearful attempts which have been made to rob my people of their page 210 most sacred jewel—their faith in our common Saviour, our Divine Lord and King. And this my confession (Fredrick William rose from his throne, and held up his right hand to heaven as he spoke these words, this my confession is—'As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord!'”

—Evang. Christendom.

France.—Reformed Church.—Meeting of Synod.

After a cessation of nearly 200 years, the Synod of the Reformed Church of France, met in Paris in August last, about 80 members present. It is a church amall in number, considerably divided in sentiment, and that on vital points, yet rich in historical recollections, endowed with high and varied talent, and possessing many cheering prospects. They have formidable difficulties, and gigantic labours before them, And while the eyes of Christendom gaze with interest upon these successors of the Huguenots, the prayers of the church universal should rise with earnestness to the ears of the Lord of Sabbaoth in behalf of this small, but interesting and important church.

England.—The Pearl of Days.—the Labourer's Daughter.

In our last number we gave a brief account of the Prizes of £25, £15 and £10, offered, for the best three. Essays by “working men,” on the temporal advantage of the Sabbath. We have sines learned that owing to the great number, nearly a thousand, and the singular merit of a large portion of the Essays, a subscription has been commenced, under the immediate patronage of the Queen and Prince Albert, to raise funds sufficient to give a hundred additional prices of £5 each.

Another singular and interesting circumstance has occurred in connection with these Essays. One of them was ineligible for competition, the writer being a woman, and bearing the signature of “A labourer's daughter.” The Essay was found to be a very interesting and beautiful production, worthy of any daughter in the land, and deserving of publication. Lord Ashley showed it to the Queen, and obtained her Majesty's permission to have it dedicated to herself. It was published, beautifully printed, elegantly bound, and adorned with various appropriate illustrations, fit for the the tables of either royalty or nobility. It contains a sketch of the Author's life. The first edition was all sold in a fortnight, and a second was in the press. Its title is “The Pearl of Days,” an appropriate title. Well might the poet say.

“Hail! Sabbath, thee I hail, the poor man's day!

Ireland.—The Ursuline Nuns.

From the centre to the extremities of the Empire, the periodical protestant press is calling attention to the Ursuline Nuns, as affording a striking illustration of the unchanged spirit, and workings of Popery. The leading facts of the case are these:

In 1843, A. M'Carthy, Esq., died in the city of Cork, leaving ten children, and property to the value of £100,000. In 1828 one, and in 1829 another, of his daughters entered the Nunnery of St. Ursula, at Black Rock, near Cork. They entered with their own full consent, and with the approbation of their father. One of the vows of admission to these houses, is a “Vow of Poverty; “by this vow the sisters gave up all claim to their father's property. It is a rule of that convent to receive £800 with each candidate from persons of that class; the father's generosity in this case exceeded the rule, and he gave £1000 with each of his two daughters.

Some years afterwards the father framed first one draft and then another of a will, in which he left all his property to his other children, leaving these two in the one case five shillings each, and in the other one, in consideration that they were already provided for in the convent; but as these drafts were never executed, the father died intestate, and the eldest son proceeded to administer the estate according to the known designs of the father, Immediately a bill was filed against him in the Irish Chancery by two Abbesses, claiming two-tenths of the property, or about £20,000 on behalf of the Convent. To make their claims doubly sure they compelled the two sisters to put their hands to a deed of agreement, by which their portions were made over to the institution, and inserted the name of one of them in the bill, making her a co-plaintiff with them against her brother in the suit. The Lord Chancellor did not enter into the real merits of the case, whether or not nuns could inherit property, and convents claim their portion; but he gave the Abbesses the choice of having the question tried by jury, whether or not the sisters were compelled to sign away their right, or did this of their own accord. To this trial the Abbesses would not consent, and on the case being decided against them, they carried it before the House of Lords. Here again it was dismissed on technical grounds; that the Abbesses, as trustees of the convent, and the daughters of the deceased could not sue as co-plaintiffs. It is quite possible that as the laws of Britain in all semi-ecclesiastical matters, are deeply tinctured with popery, and the spirit of the canon law,— witness the Irish marriage question a few years ago—it is possible, if brought up in another form, that the property may be adjudged to the convent

During the trial in the House of Lords, it came out, that the father uniformly understood that his two daughters were to have no further claim on his estate—that in consequence of their “vow of poverty,” they could inherit nothing—that this arrangement was cordially agreed to by the daughters—that the younger sister, being told by her brother that their father had left no will, re-page 212marked, that “in that case she was sure the convent would set up a claim for herself and her sister, and she was bound by her vows to do as her superiors ordered her; but,” said she, “John, I give you every right and title that I have to my share of the assets, to divide among my four younger brothers, and blame yourself if the convent ever get a penny.” They were both, however, compelled to sign a deed in favour of the couvent. The elder stated that she did so “with the greate-t pain,”—that “she cried all night long,” after signing it—that “she had no free will of her own,” — that “her act was like the act of a dead person,”—and that “the operation of her vow was like the presentation of a pistol by a highwayman.” The elder sister stated to her brother who called at the convent during this time, that “the younger sister was unwell, that she had suffered much from the censure of the Bishop, and was undergoing punishment,” and on the younger appearing to her brother, she looked very ill, and said that “having accidentally procured a book containing the rules of her order, she had found therein that the penalty awarded on the Continent for a serious crime, was to be immured between two walls in a standing posture and fed on bread and water,—and that in some cases parties had been known to die from the punishment.” She applied both to the lady Abbesses and to the Bishop for relief, but as the Bishop declared “it was too good a thing not to look after,” she remonstrated and implored in vain. The utter absence of moral principle and common honesty—the nefarious arts resorted to, to gain possession of the money by the convent, are in perfect keeping with the doings of the dark ages—and the worst days of Popery.

“Had the Lady Abbesses of the Ursuline Convent,” says the Edinburgh Witness, “instead of being functionaries of the Romish Church, been simply two gipsy women, who had succeeded in stripping a child of its clothes, or in robbing an adult female of her purse, through the application of half the amount of threats and personal violence which has been employed in compelling these two poor nuns to assign their claims to the convent, the civil magistrate would have sentenced them to transportation for life. And on what plea, we ask, should Lady Abbesses be protected in acts for which gipsies would be banished or hung? These two old ladies, instead of being now suffered to enact the part of plaintiffs in the House of Lords, in behalf of their convent, should be beating hemp in Bridewell in behalf of the liberty of the subject.”

Scotland—