it be remembered that our two Independent champions plead that the power of rule is in the hands of the pastors. Dr Davidson seems fond of a plurality of pastors over one flock, which he thinks is more like the primitive model; but he is quite clear that there must be some invested with official rule. "When a Church has been formed, it will naturally be the duty of the members composing it to look out for persons possessing the requisite scriptural qualifications, whom they may invest with an official character. No corporation can exist long without office-bearers, or without persons who virtually become such. A worshipping society may, indeed, recognise no officer-it may repudiate the very name of ruler or overseer; but there will soon be persons who, in reality, and for all practical purposes, will obtain the authority possessed by ordinary office-bearers; else the society will fall into disorder. The light of nature, no less than the Word of God, prompts the appointment of a class of men to bear rule in a Church." -P. 142. This is good sense, though it is not exactly the sense we have been accustomed to hear from Independents. They have generally scouted the name of "rulers in a Church," and contended that every Church was to rule itself. In fact, the grand point which our Presbyterian writers have laboured to prove against them, has been the distinction, clearly stated in Scripture, between the rulers and the ruled in a Church. And, so much were we startled by this admission, when we met it in the pages of Dr Davidson, that we were inclined to suspect that, owing to the recentness and suddenness of his conversion from Presbytery to Independency, he had not had time to recover from some of his old Presbyterial leanings; but, on looking into Dr Wardlaw's volume, we find the same view pervading it. He uniformly proceeds on the idea that the pastors alone have the official rule or superintendence of the flock-that the ruling of the Church must belong to the teachers of the Church; and he enlarges on the reasonableness and naturalness of this arrangement. "It is by their very competency to expound these principles, and to elucidate and carry home these motives, that pastors and teachers' give their people confidence-enlightened confidence-in yielding obedience to the power with which the Divine Head of the Church has invested them; or, in other words, in going unitedly, intelligently, and heartily along with them, in following out the mind and executing the will of the Head."-P. 187. it is impossible to understand the above language in any sense different from that in which Presbyterians often teach that it is the duty of the people to " yield an enlightened confidence" in their rulers, and to "go unitedly, intelligently, and heartily along with them in following out the mind and executing the will of the Head." If the pastor is to do nothing without the explicit consent of his people--if his decisions are subject to be overruled by them-why talk of their "yielding obedience to the power with which the Divine Head has invested him?" If by their consent is meant nothing more than their duty to "go along with him" intelligently and cordially, when he rules according to the Word of God, we are not far from agreeing with Dr Wardlaw; but what becomes of the boasted autonomy of Independent Churches? That the latter is Dr Wardlaw's meaning is obvious from the whole tenor of his reasonings, in the course of which he has expressly applied all such admonitions of Scripture, as, "Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves," to the duties which the people owe to their pastors.* But let it be remarked, in the next place, that while these Independent Doctors plead for the power of government being in the hands of the pastor, they insist that he must rule alone. Dr Wardlaw's princi ple is, that none shall be allowed to rule except those whose office it is also to teach. He will allow " no brother near the throne." Even the deacons must not interfere with him in his official administration. He attempts, indeed, to compensate for their summary exclusion from the bench of authority by magnifying their office, and assuring the crest-fallen dignitaries that "it is very far from being an entirely secular secularity that pertains to the office of deacon."-P. 140. But, alas! secularity it must be at bottom. Let not these self-important functionaries lift up their heads on high, or look as if they had any share in the spiritual management of the flock. They also must veil to the dignitary in the pulpit. Serving tables" is their "business," though it should be done spiritually, of course-like any other business. "But," says the Doctor, with a special eye to the end of their office," they have a charge of the treasury; and it is incumbent on them to see to it that it is not defrauded of any of its dues, but in its several departments, suitably replenished."-P. 45. The part of the people as we have seen, is to "yield obedience." And as for Presbyterian elders, the Doctor huffs at the very mention of them." Ministers and elders," he remarks," is a very unscriptural phrase;" and drawing himself up with an air of modest and graceful dignity, he says: "Let it not be placed to the account of the high-mindedness of office (a feeling to which, we humbly trust, we have no very over-weening propensity) when we add, that we are not prepared to admit the identity of the office sustained by the teaching and ruling elder, and by the elder that merely rules; to admit, that is, the latter to be the same office with the former, minus the teaching."-P. 188. In other words, Dr Wardlaw scorns the idea that the humble" ruling elder" should be placed on an equality, in point of official authority in the Church, with him-the "teaching elder." He must not only both teach and rule, but rule because he teaches, and therefore rule alone! We would not ascribe any "feeling" to the Doctor which he disclaims; but call it what you please, if this is not the "feeling" that distinguished Diotrephes, it is beyond all question the principle which led so soon to the gradual absorption of the powers of jurisdiction out of the Church into the person of the diocesan bishop. Dr Davidson perceives the tendency of Congregationalism towards this result, and therefore pleads strenuously for a plurality of bishops in one Church;+ but this only shows his sense of the danger, and betrays a consciousness that the true primitive government really consisted in a council of presbyters; as it is quite ridiculous to expect that, It *The same doctrine is laid down by the excellent Mr James of Birmingham. "Real Congregationalism is not democracy. maintains, indeed, that every separate congregation of believers has the entire power of government within itself; but it does not teach that that power is vested in the private members of the Church. It admits and affirms, in common with other systems, that pastors alone are the rulers of the Church,”- Christian Fellowship, p. 164. † Dr Davidson would have all the congregations in a city, for example, to be viewed as one church, to be served by a number of pastors in common, and meeting occasionally altogether in one tremendous Canonmills Hall!!! rule? Why is the gifted member or deacon, whom Dr Davidson would permit to preach, thrust down among the laity, as they are called? Dr Wardlaw insists on the inseparable union of teaching and ruling; and, upon his own showing, all that are allowed to teach should surely also be allowed to rule. Dr Davidson talks of the incongruity of elders confining themselves to the administration of law, and abstain in practice, there can generally be more than one teaching presbyter in a congregation. Where is the use of all the learning on this point, of which this gentleman has given a somewhat ostentatious display, if, after all, Independent congregations will be content with one pastor, and that pastor will rule alone? He is evidently sorely puzzled to account for the primitive Churches maintaining so many pastors, while ours can hardly support one. He may not accepting from that of the Word. How is it that he did not our solution, but it is a very plain one--that if there were many pastors, there must have been many flocks; or if there were many presbyters, one or two might have taught, while all governed the Church in com mon. We now come to the point of ruling elders, to which both of our authors attach an immense importance. Dr Wardlaw thus states the difference: "Our Presbyterian friends divide the former of the two descriptions of offices (elders) into two classes: namely, elders that both teach and rule, and elders that rule only: elder, the genus-teaching elder and ruling elder the two species; or elder the species-teaching and ruling elder the two varieties. Independents question the Scripture authority for this distinction; holding not only that bishop and elder are designations of the same office, but that in every case that one office includes both the departments of teaching and ruling; that in all, bishops and elders alike, these twofold powers are vested; that there is no Scripture authority for elders that rule but do not teach. On the subject of the OFFICERS of the Church, this is THE GREAT POINT OF DIFFERENCE."-P. 178. We accept this statement of the difference as correct, so far as it goes; and would have the reader to remark that it follows from the words which we have given in the Doctor's own capitals-that the only difference between us on this point is, that while our pastors rule the Church with elders, their pastors rule without them. The Independent pastor views himself, not only as embodying the powers of the ruling elder (which we grant) but as monopolizing them. Like the "lean and ill-favoured kine" in Pharaoh's dream, he devours the whole of his companions, and stands" alone in his glory." Dr Davidson has deemed it necessary to administer a reproof to us poor Presbyterians, for having "metamorphosed those who ordinarily refrained from preaching into laymen or lay elders,” and informs us that there was no such distinction between laity and clergy in the apostolic period. He might have known, from his previous education, that no such distinction is recognised by Presbyterians. But we beg to ask, Is no such distinction made by Independency? They may permit a pious member or a gifted deacon occasionally to hold forth in their assemblies; but will they allow any of them to meddle with the spiritual administration of the Church? Dr Wardlaw will not; Mr James will not; and thus, under the pretence of granting them some latitude of speech, they deny them all power of action; and under pretence of admitting all elders both to teach and to rule, they in reality cut off all from official duty but the clergy. We consider our elders as spiritual officers; they look on their deacons as merely secular. And this suggests another remark by the way. Dr Davidson asks, “Even on the supposition that the phrase 'He that ruleth' denotes the ruling elder, by what process of interpretation is it discovered that he who 'ruleth' has no right to teach? Why is the presiding elder thrust down among the laity, as they are called?" We would answer this, after the Scotch fashion, by putting another question: By what process of interpretation is it discovered that he who "teacheth" has no right to | see the equal incongruity of members being confined to the administration of the Word, and abstaining from that of law? Into the controversy about ruling elders, embracing as it does so many disputed passages and philological distinctions, we cannot enter particularly. After the masterly treatise of Dr King on "The Ruling Eldership," the discussion may be said to have been exhausted. Both of our authors profess to have read this book, but it is difficult to believe that they have done so with sufficient care to understand it: they have certainly left its main positions undisturbed. Dr Wardlaw has followed his favourite mode of dealing with the arguments of his opponents-a mode which may be compared to a process of gradual strangulation. Seizing first on some of the subordinate proofs, the strength of which depends on their connexion with others, he attempts to strangle them in the absence of their relatives, and then laying hold on the stronger ones by themselves, he tries to squeeze the life out of these by a succession of innuendoes and suspicions, none of which are fatal, and the last of which may be subversive of the first, but which have the appearance of gradually extinguishing the argument, while in truth it remains as sound and lively as ever. Thus, he commences by dismissing the whole argument drawn from the constitution of the Jewish Church, as "altogether unwarrantable, and of necessity fruitless." Dr Wardlaw should be made aware that this cavalier style of dealing with an argument which, to say the least, has certainly the strongest presumption, not to speak of the suffrage of great names, in its favour, however easy to himself, and pleasing to his friends, is far from being satisfactory to the candid inquirer after truth. He then takes up the subordinate proofs, appearing in Rom. xii. 6-8, and 1 Cor. xii. 28, and declaring that these give no certain sound," he comes to 1 Tim. v. 17, as entitled to a somewhat closer examination," but as, " in the present argument, really standing alone." Thus, according to him, the whole framework of the Presbyterial eldership hangs on a single isolated and doubtful passage in the New Testament, which he sets himself to show is quite inconclusive! Now, we might tell him, in the first place, that even should lay elders, as they have rather improperly been called, be withdrawn, Presbyterial government would still remain, though in a mutilated form. Elders are not essential to the constitution of Presbytery, inasmuch as the teaching presbyter embraces all the functions of the rul ing presbyter. We could even point him to some parishes in the Highlands, which must, in the Doctor's eyes, be the very models of apostolic simplicity; for there they have no elders at all, but have to borrow them from their neighbours when their services are required; there the pastor rules alone, being prophet, priest, and king, in his own domain; and there the " Church" is as independent of its neighbouring "Churches" as the Doctor's heart could wish, or as twenty miles of wave and mountain_can_make it. Again, why make so much 66 THAT THERE WERE NONE WHO RULED, WHO DID NOT AT THE SAME TIME TEACH."-P. 185. Dr Davidson, on the other hand, maintains that "SOME ELDers in the PRIMITIVE CHURCHES RULED, WHILE OTHERS PREACHED." And this is a position, he says, "too manifest to be called in question." Dr Wardlaw, however, will no doubt call it in question. He seems incapable of forming the idea of a person employed in ruling, who is not also, at the same time, employed in teaching. We leave the two Doctors to settle the point between them. To us, as indeed to all candid readers of the New Testament, the position is too manifest, as Dr Davidson says, to be called in question, that some of the primitive elders were employed in teaching, others in ruling. But let us see how he attempts to rob us of the benefit of his admission. ado about the term elder, as applied by us distinc- | ing against our ruling eldership. He argues,“ That all tively, and for mere convenience' sake, to the presby- elders or bishops are scripturally commissioned both ter who rules, but does not preach? Everybody to teach and to rule" (p. 179); that teaching and ruling knows that bishop and elder mean the same office; are inseparably united in the same office (pp. 180-184); and we are quite ready to agree with Dr Davidson that the bishop, or episcopos, was the phrase used when speaking to the Gentiles; and the elder, or presbyter, when speaking to the Jews. All we plead for is, that both terms were descriptive of the office of rulers or overseers; that when Paul, for example, addresses his Epistle to the Philippians more especially "to the bishops and deacons," he just means the rulers or overseers, and the servants of the Church; that when he describes the qualifications of a Christian biskop, he has in his eye all the duties incumbent on an overseer of the Church, whether as a ruler or teacher, and his description applies equally to both, though, of course, more applicable, in its full extent, to those who both rule and teach; and, in short, as Dr King observes, " that the presbyters as such were properly rulers, and that preaching was a distinct and superadded function, which a presbyter might want without annulling, or have without enlarging, his strictly presbyterate character."-Ruling Eldership, p. 65. Dr Wardlaw, however, is so much led away by the modern sense of the term bishop, that he cannot for a moment suppose the person so designated to be anything less than a pastor; just as if a person could not be an overseer of an establishment, unless he became at the same time its teacher! With regard to the much-agitated passage in 1 Tim. v. 17, "Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honour, especially they that labour in the word and doctrine" we may safely leave our readers to the treatise of Dr King for a satisfactory solution of all the objections that have been made to it, including old Principal Campbell of Aberdeen, a writer whom the Independents are fond of quoting on this and other points affecting their discipline, but to whose interpretations on almost any other point affecting the Christian faith they would be among the last to subscribe. After all that Drs Wardlaw and Davidson have advanced, we still regard the passage, taken in connexion with other places referring to the Christian ministry, as indicating all that Presbyterians plead for, viz., that in the early Church there were some that merely ruled, and others that both ruled and taught, or who, besides ruling well, laboured in the word and doctrine.* This is candidly admitted by Dr Davidson, though he is pleased to say we gain nothing by the admission. "Presbyterians gain nothing by proving that some elders in the primitive Churches ruled while others preached. That is a position too manifest to be called in question. Other parts of the New Testament would warrant that conclusion, had the text in the Epistle to Timothy been wanting. In each Church there was a plurality of elders. Some were chiefly employed in teaching, others in ruling."-P. 186. Now let this be compared with the doctrine laid down by Dr Wardlaw, as the foundation of his whole reason "By these words," says Dr Whittaker, a zealous and learned Episcopal divine," the apostle evidently distinguishes between the bishops and the inspectors of the Church. If all who rule well be worthy of double honour, especially they who labour in the word and doctrine, it is plain there were some who did not so labour; for if all had been of this description, the meaning would have been absurd; but the word especially points out a difference. If I should say, All who study well at the university are worthy of double honour, especially they who labour in the study of theology, I must either mean that all do not apply themselves to the study of theology, or I should speak nonsense: therefore I confess that to be the most genuine sense by which pastors and teachers are distinguished from those who only governed."-Miller's Letters, p. 121.) "But when it is maintained that the latter (that is, those employed in ruling) did not teach because they were officially set apart to another work, and therefore had no right to do so, the view has no countenance in the New Testament. Those who ordinarily refrained from preaching are thus metamorphosed into laymen, or lay elders, in opposition to clerical or preaching elders." Again: "It is curious to observe how the main point is kept out of sight in King's Treatise on the Ruling Eldership, where the real fact [point?] of debate between Congregationalists and Independents is never stated. In this modern production, the entire argument is occupied with showing that there was a distinction among the elders of the primitive Churches-some of them labouring in one department, others in another. When a new work shall be written on the same side of the question, let the matter be properly treated. Let it be candidly stated that ruling elders have nothing to do with the duties of the pastoral office, except with government; that they have no authority, divine or human, to preach or teach, or preside at the Lord's supper, or at Church meetings, or to baptize; for this is the true doctrine of the Presbyterian Church."-Pp. 186, 187. To this challenge, couched in a style which appears to us as silly as it is supercilious, we beg to reply, that the whole of what Presbyterians plead for is virtually granted, when it is allowed that "there was a distinction among the elders of the primitive Church." That distinction, it appears, consisted not in the office properly, for they went under the general name of elders or presbyters, but in the nature of the employment-some labouring in ruling, others in teaching. And all that we maintain is, that this distinction should still be kept up in the Church; that some should be set apart to the labour of ruling, and others to that of teaching. If these two departments of labour were distinct in the primitive Church, why not keep them distinct still? and why not set apart and ordain individuals to them distinctly, according as their gifts may be found suitable and sufficient? This is exactly in accordance with the rules of Christ, and is necessary, that "all things may be done decently and in order." If the person is found "apt to teach," by all means let him, in the orderly way, be set apart to that function. But let no man "take it upon himself;" and let none complain that he is kept within the limits of the sphere allotted to him. We are wholly at a loss to know what Dr Davidson means by our not treating the question properly. Presbyterians never at any time or in any way have hesitated "candidly to state that ruling elders have nothing to do with the duties of the pastoral office, except with government; that they have no authority, human or divine, to preach or teach, or preside at the Lord's supper, or to baptize." This, in fact, is the very thing we state in opposition to our Independent brethren. Only, Dr Davidson would state it in the most invidious form. The main point of our difference lies in this, that while we admit some of the people to participate with the pastors in the government of the Church, Independents would systematically and peremptorily exclude them; while we grant that some may rule without preaching, they will permit none to rule but those that preach. Theirs is truly the exclusive system; we exclude none from their proper "department of labour," to use Dr Davidson's expression. The main thing we plead for is what he admits, a distinction among the elders-some of them labouring in one department, others in another." 66 THE CROWNED HEADS OF ITALY. BY ONE WHO HAS SEEN THEM. SINCE the 16th day of June 1846, when Giovanni Maria of Mastaï Ferretti was chosen Pope, and became Pius IX., we have heard little concerning him but unlimited ovations; he has well-nigh eclipsed all his brother potentates in Italy. There were some men of discerning minds, indeed, guided by the Word of God, who questioned or denied the propriety of the eulogies thus so copiously pronounced. They could not be persuaded that any thing really conducive to the wellbeing of man could emanate from one who shielded the Jesuits from merited indignation, or even heaped encomiums on their order, and whose general policy appeared to be to do the least possible that was consistent with notoriety and liberal pretences. Such minds, accordingly, warned us to wait ere we formed a judgment of Pius, lest it should appear that we were duped by Papal craft, rather than gladdened by the discovery that even Infallibility could change for the better, and the perfect Church be, after all, found rotten like " the state of Denmark." Dr Wardlaw, who will not thank his brother controvertist for this fatal admission, will no doubt be ready to argue, as he has done in reply to others, that, according to our mode of reasoning, we should confine the teacher simply to teaching, as well as the ruler simply to ruling. Our answer is, that the office of teaching is superior to, and inclusive of, the office of ruling; while the office of ruling is not necessarily inclusive of that of teaching; in other words, that those hold the more honourable office, who, besides ruling, "labour in the word and doctrine."* It follows from this, that teaching must always be united with ruling; but it does not follow that ruling must always be united with teaching. The pervading fallacy of Dr Wardlaw's reasoning on this point lies in his overlooking this distinction. To make it plain, let us take a case as closely analogous to the present The character of the sovereign pontiff is not even as things spiritual and temporal will admit. Doctor yet fully developed. Whether is he deceiving or deis a general term, frequently applied to all exercising ceived? Has he succeeded in imposing on himself? the medical profession. But under that general desigor is he still playing a deep game in the hope of ennation we have physicians and surgeons. The physician's snaring others! Is he a vain, ambitious man, who department, as the higher, includes the surgeon's; would fain be notable, but wants wisdom and courage the surgeon's does not include that of the physician; to act with energy and decision? Is he making a vioand yet both belong to the same profession-the medi- lent effort to adapt the Papacy to our age? Is he one cal. In like manner, presbyter is a general term, of those weak personages who are sometimes tossed including the departments of teaching and ruling: to the surface of society in times of ferment and comand hence the apostles, in addressing the presbyters motion, and who have restlessness enough to originate or overseers of the Church, inculcate both duties. or prolong, but not power to guide and control, the But the pastorate or teaching department, being the excitement? These are questions suggested by the superior, and including the other, is naturally more position of Pius, which, perhaps, history must be left directly addressed; while the other department, that to answer, for future events alone can furnish a right of inspectorship, as being the inferior, is included reply. Meanwhile it would be wrong to let Giovanni under the directions given to the superior. Dr Maria engross all the notoriety of our day. Let us Wardlaw, however, would have all the spiritual therefore glance at some of the other crowned heads officers of the Church reduced to one faculty-would now figuring on the arena of Continental Europe; have them all to be physicians, and no surgeons. He and for the present we confine attention to those will allow none to be associated with him, or to assist whom we have enjoyed opportunity of personally him in the labour of superintending the Church; and studying. because none can be a pastor without being a ruler, he will admit none to rule but the pastor! This is the theory of Independency, as taught by Dr Wardlaw: what the practice may be we cannot so confidently say. Much diversity, it is said, prevails in this respect among Independents. All of them, however, find it necessary to have some sort of substitute for our eldership; many lament that they cannot find a suitable one, and secretly sigh for the Presbyterian The critical comments of our authors on the word honour in this text, as meaning "maintenance," and on the term "especially," comments which are as "old as the hills," do not affect the above reasoning in the least. Whatever interpretation be put on these phrases, all must acknowledge that the text gives a pre-eminence to the teaching department above the ruling. Next to the Pope, the first place is undoubtedly due, at the present hour, to Ferdinand II., heretofore king of the two Sicilies, but now of only one of them. He succeeded his father Francis I. in the year 1830, when he was only twenty years of age-and sat down on a throne which had been restored to his house, after the temporary tenure of Joachim Murat, mainly by the influence of British blood and treasure. Ferdinand partakes of all the worst peculiarities of the Bourbons, from whom he is descended. He is constitutionally ungenerous, narrow-minded, despotic, and wayward; and perhaps there is not now a reigning sovereign in Europe so far behind the spirit of his age as the author of the recent massacre at Naples. In appear ance he exhibits all the sensuousness and lack of mental development peculiar to his family, and resembles | an overgrown boy-fat, heavy, stolid, and dull, rather than one who is born to reign, or stamp an influence for good on those for whom he holds the sceptre. Ferdinand has been trained in opinions of kingly prerogative which far outrival even those of the Stuarts. He is fond, moreover, of war, and loves and rejoices in such displays as reviews and field-days afford. We should say that that is the element in which he mainly delights. Near his capital he has a Campus Martius, in imitation of ancient Rome, and morning after morning the obese royalty of Naples may be seen playing at soldiers with his nobility in that favourite resort. His relish for such employments, and the fatigue we have seen him undergo, both on foot and horseback, explain how ready Ferdinand would be to issue such orders as have recently made his name infamous in Europe, and filled his capital with thousands of corpses-with tens of thousands of mourners. Nor is there any redeeming quality that we know in the King of Naples. Reigning over 6,000,000 of people, exclusive of the island of Sicily, he has been trained in all the ignorance which Popery delights to foster; and his notions of kingly absolutism are of the most despotic order. The delusion, now fast passing away, that monarchs wear their crowns for their own sake, and not for the good of the people, or that a king is an end, and not a means to an end, is understood to be deeply seated in his mind-it is cherished there by his haughty and oppressive nobility, and gives a character to many of his proceedings. Add to this his natural doggedness, his unyielding and stolid pertinacity, as evinced. for example, in the banishment of his brother Charles on account of his marriage, and we have at once the character of Ferdinand II., and a temperament which, in these times of commotion and radicalism, may soon make Louis Philippe, his relative, not the only discrowned wanderer among the sovereigns of Europe. The blood-thirsty severity practised against certain misguided liberals in the Abruzzi, Calabria, and other parts of the kingdom of Naples, the malignity with which they were persecuted, and the remorseless vengeance inflicted on them when captured, at once tell the despotism that reigns in that kingdom, and explain the loud, deep murmurs of its people for deliverance and a constitution. But while we thus describe the concentrated despotism that occupies the throne of Naples, it should not be forgotten that the Neapolitans are not ripe for a free government. Though Ferdinand had sagacity to grant it to its full extent, it would speedily be turned into licentiousness. Popery has there perpetrated even more than its usual ravages on the minds of men. In both the Sicilies, gross darkness, in consequence, covers the people-abject poverty reigns among myriads-and half-a-century of training would be needed to fit such men for freedom by endowing them with virtue. But that is no reason why they should continue to be ground down at a despotic tyrant's bidding; and it needs no seer's gift to tell that, sooner or later, in an age advancing like ours, by an inevitable, irrepressible law, outraged and indignant humanity will arise to assert its rights, and make them good, even though it should cost Ferdinand II. his diadem and sceptre. The case of Sicily, where Ferdinand has been dethroned, and a constitution proclaimed, might convince him of the frail tenure by which he holds his right to oppress In In spite of him, his subjects will weigh kings in the balance, and, when the set time has come, he must pass away, the victim of his own despotism. describing Naples as it now exists, one has exclaimed “A Naples, une cour, un opera, une armée, quel luxe!" These are, in truth, the strength of the kingdomare they not weakness? Next to the king of the two Sicilies, if not before him, in point of notoriety, stands Charles Albert, king of Sardinia. He is in his fiftieth year, and has reigned in his noble capital, Turin, since 1831. In youth he is well known to have been a liberal, the friend and hope of the Italian Carbonari, pledged to their principles before he mounted the throne, and idolized on that account, but subsequently stigmatized or execrated as an apostate, when he came to his kingdom. He is married to a sister of the Grand Duke of Tuscany: his eldest son is Duke of Savoy, and his second Duke of Genoa. The famed Mazzini is one of his subjects, and an exile for holding the opinions which Charles Albert himself once seemed to espouse, and has now so strangely resumed. We have seen that monarch in his capital of Turin, at a period when it was scarcely safe for him to appear even on the balcony of his huge brick palace. The wounds inflicted by his apostasy had closed, at least they had ceased to rankle much in the minds of men. But other causes of commotion existed in his kingdom; and though the Sardinians are phlegmatic and sedate, in contrast with the mercurial Sicilians, one cannot easily forget the excitement that reigned. The vast quadrangle, of which the palace forms a side, was filled with a heaving mass of troubled men, agitated or fretted by their sovereign's procedure, which indicated an increase of oppression or despotism. From time to time a clamour for Charles Albert ran through the mass-and from time to time he appeared amid his officers at a window of the palace; but the Italians want energy and concentration of character they frown and fret for a little, and then too often subside into indolent submission. The affair was a mere effervescence, and passed away with the day which occasioned it. Charles Albert is, after a sort, devout. Both in the cathedral of Turin, and in the Alloggio of his palace, we have seen him and his queen Theresa, with apparent solemnity taking part in the gaudiness of what Italians call their worship; and it was there that one could best make a study of the king. His countenance is vulgar and un-Italian. Its leading expression is that of uneasy suspiciousness, mixed with a cunning that tries to conceal it. Apart from his history, his expression speaks of instability of purpose. Latterly, however, he appears to some to have redeemed the promise of his youth; and the jubilee with which his concessions to his people have been hailed must have carried joy to his heart, if it sprang from the reviving influence of the opinions which he had cherished so fondly in his younger years. Above all, his concessions to the long-oppressed Waldenses have brought down on Charles Albert the blessings of thousands. We do not suppose that that tardy justice was at all conceded on Christian principle. It was purely the effect of pressure-it was the passion of the day, and the king made a virtue of necessity. Had it been called for, he would have slaughtered as readily as emancipated the Christians of the Valleys. But from whatever motive it flowed, the freedom now enjoyed was one of the first-shall we say it is |