which will say it was the noblest act of our day, and through the bay. It is from the sea that one obtains the best view of Vesuvius, sweeping up sheer and majestically from the water's edge to the height of nearly four thousand feet, and it was our good fortune to see it in a state of unwonted activity. Snow had fallen and nearly covered the cone-but from beneath that hoary veil, there were shot into the air, at brief and irregular intervals, like intermittent pulsations, huge masses of red-hot lava, some of which appeared as large as an ordinary cottage, spreading, amid the dense smoke of the crater, a lurid light which has no analogue in nature. On a subsequent evening, we saw the volcano still labouring in its tremendous vocation, and amid the darkness which then enshrouded Naples, the effect was at once magnificent and appalling. "He looketh on the earth, and it trembleth; he toucheth the hills and they smoke"-"The mountains flowed down at thy presence," are texts which acquire a deeper meaning, and convey a more lasting impression, after such a spectacle has been seen. The pent-up power which expends itself in elaborating materials for such eruptions in the enormous abysses of the mountain, tells of the ineffable resources which Omnipotence has in store for accomplishing its purposes with our world when the set time has come. Glancing over the tideless Mediterranean, we passed the island of Capri (Capræ), famous for its THE ISLAND OF SICILY-ITS LATE KING, genial climate, and infamous as the abode of the AND ITS NEW CONSTITUTION. tyrant Tiberius. For nine years did that emperor sojourn there amid pleasures the most gross, and scenes the most revolting of all that stain the history of the past-but the ruins of his palaces and baths, and his multiform machinery for ministering to imperial vice, tell the stranger who gazes on the scene, the portion that awaits the profligate, however lordly. What a tale could Capri tell of past luxury, and crime, and bloodshed! What a tale do its scarred ruins unfold of sin found out, the sinner swept away, and God avenged! A breeze which a landsman easily mistook for a tempest, hastened us towards the shores of Sicily. We swept past the rocks of the Syrens, We had sauntered for a month in Naples and its neighbourhood, sometimes amused, but oftener pained by its lawless lazzaroni. Vesuvius had been climbed, and the horrors of its crater explored, as far as sulphur fumes and safety would permit. Pompeii had been visited and visited again, because of the strange emotions produced by lounging in its disinterred streets and dwelling-places, where one can scarcely help expecting to meet an old Roman at every turning, so numerous, so real, and life-like are the spectacles which there connect the present with eighteen centuries ago. Herculaneum had been examined; a pilgrimage had been made to Pozzuoli, Difficiles quondam, multorumque ossibus albos, the Puteoli of Paul; to Baia; to the Sybil's cave and the scenery of Virgil's Elysian fields; to the the Eolian isles; and next morning's sun arose on us, the islands of Ustica (gina) and Alicuri, one of Land of Fire, where one can hear, as if at a short disembayed in the gulf of Palermo, called "the happy," tance from the earth's surface, the roaring of the between the promontory of Zafferano, and Mont element which is destined at last to wrap our world in a winding sheet of flame. The temple sacred to Pellegrino. the arch impostor, or rather the tool of arch impostors, St Januarius, had been seen in all the gawd of a Popish holiday. The Bourbon museum, with its amazing collection of exquisite remains, disinterred from Herculaneum and elsewhere, had been studied. The music of Naples had been listened to in some of its noblest operas. The bay, with its waters of beauty, and its air of balm, had been enjoyed in the cool of many evenings-but all could not detain or satisfy; something fairer and better than the present was longed for still. It is not what we have, but what we hope for, that really gladdens man-the reason is that his home is not here, and his longings are in truth presentiments-and we turned from Naples with its delicious climate, its classic haunts, and its ineffable filth, to visit the island of Sicily, to witness its fertility, and roam amid its colossal ruins. The Re-Ferdinando steamer bore us swiftly See Speech of Hon, and Rev, B. W. Noel, at Exeter Hall, 11th March 1844. After Naples, Palermo appears mean and paltry, We begin our account of Sicily, then, at its capital. yet the immense fertility of its neighbourhood, which reminds one, in some degree, of tropical luxuriance, redeems it from the charge. The summits of the mountains are bare, but the sides are covered with the prickly pear, and other aloetic plants; while, in the valleys, the orange groves, or forests, laden with an abundance which bends the branches to the earth, and the gigantic size of its vegetable productions, tell that it is indeed the land of the sun. At the same time, the physical condition of the inhabitants and speak only of the fact; but groups of the poor is abject. We do not tarry here to trace the cause, various nooks and dens, some of whom, grown up to we saw huddled by the walls of churches, and in maturity, were absolutely naked, with the exception * with brocoli for the market. It carried but two heads of that We saw a donkey in the neighbourhood of Palermo, laden plant, one on each side, and they were each the size of a large pannier. In an orange grove, we once bought a dozen lusciou oranges for a half-penny. of a tattered and filthy stripe of cloth wrapt around the loins. It carried us away in thought to the South Sea Islands, and the sights with which missionaries are familiar. The immunities of the grandees, and their hereditary despotism, have reduced the people to a state of serfdom, and poverty daily grinds its timid, skulking thousands. Many of the public buildings, in some places of the island, carry us back to the times when the Saracens were its lords. The arabesques of the cathedral of Palermo, and a few other structures, are of that period; and, bizarre as they appear, it were hard to say whether they, or the grotesque edifices of more modern date, are the most offensive to taste. Yet it was not always so. Some of the statues, and other works of art preserved in the museum of the stirring university of Palermo, which were excavated in the island by certain of our countrymen, prove that in former times taste was no stranger there. The king seized on these antiques, paid the cost of their disinterment, and then placed them in the museum. Palermo is said to contain about 165,000 inhabitants, and the district or Intendancy attached to it about 250,000, exclusive of the city. The impression made on a passing stranger, by the conduct of the Palermitans, is that of abjectness and sycophancy. The poor literally howl, amid their wretchedness, for help the better conditioned have little in their bearing to persuade you that there is much of solid or enduring principle among them, and everything on the island is grand but man. We saw obtrusive specimens of their immorality; and though sweeping charges founded on individual cases would be wrong, yet when such things as we beheld occur even during a brief sojourn, one cannot help concluding that they are not infrequent. We had not been many hours on the island, when we saw some soldiers quarrel, and draw their swords on each other in such a way as led our northern composure to conclude that death would ensue. Yet these men, so fiery and ferocious, tamely submitted after all to the strapado of their superior. They were caned and buffeted without exhibiting any feeling but fear, or attempting any defence but flight. But what can be expected but degradation-not Christian submission, but abject bondage-in a land where the truth of God is all but unknown? The reformation made considerable progress in Sicily, but its lights were extinguished in blood, and now Popery, in its grossest forms, reigns paramount in that providentially teeming, but spiritually dry and parched land. Rosalia (a poor creation of superstition) is the patron goddess of Palermo. The daughter of one of its ancient kings, she withdrew from her father's court to immure herself in a cave on Mont Pellegrino. In 1624, her remains were opportunely discovered, while a pestilence raged in the city-they stayed the plague, of course, and the apotheosis of Rosalia ensued. Her bones were deposited in the cathedral— she was proclaimed the protectress of Palermo-the cave where her skeleton was alleged to be found was transmuted into a church-a pathway was built rather than made from the city up the rugged ascent-and now an annual festival is celebrated in honour of the mimic goddess by the ignorant and abject thousands of the capital of Sicily. The rivalry between the worshippers of Rosalia here, and of the Virgin at Messina, burlesques religion, and causes its friends to blush before the infidel. How strange that the finest and the fairest island of Europe should be thus so mercilessly trodden down! Contrasting the present state with the antiquity of Sicily, one is forced to confess that scarcely any portion of the globe has experienced so sad a reverse. The child, perhaps, of Greece-for a time the rival, and then the prize of Carthage and of Rome, that island was long the home of science as it was the granary even of Italy. But how debased now! Long attached as an appanage to the kingdom of Naples, and governed by a viceroy, it is subject to despotism at once in Church and State. Even the lightning glare of the first French revolution shed no light on Sicily. The British held it for the legitimate King of Naples against Murat; and except in a few fitful gleams, it has continued for centuries sunk in a darkness that might be felt. We passed from Palermo to Messina, on our way to Mount Etna, and traversed the district where the British were long encamped, when defending the island against progression and Murat. Lipari, Stromboli, Vulcano, and other islands forming the Æolian group, may be said to line the coast as we approach Messina, at least some of them are within a few miles of the shore. Both the sea and land have here been the scenes of battle after battle, in ancient and modern times, while Theocritus, Sappho, and Virgil combine to throw classical associations over the whole. Traces of the English encampment are still visible, and it is not unusual to hear English words among the Messinese, while they speak of our fortysecond as "Il reggimento d'eroi"-the regiment of heroes. It is at the entrance to the straits of Messina, that fiction places the fabled Scylla and Charybdis. The former is on the Calabrian side of the Straitbut though we crossed it to see the classic rock as Virgil described it, we cannot say that we heard the classic barking of the dogs. Sailing from the Troad to Latium, Æneas had the rock on his right, and Charybdis on his left Dextrum Scylla latus, levum implacata Charybdis and the dangers might be imminent to a shallop, but to nothing else. The swell is sometimes considerable, and when the wind blows from certain points, there may be commotion; but, on the whole, the scene is one of poetry and invention. The "arvaque et urbes" are there-but we were constrained to admit a fable in the "Corruleis canibus resonantia saxa," and do not wonder though Cluverius had to visit the spot, to fix the site of the legend and its marvels. Messina may be regarded as the Naples of Sicily. It contains about 60,000 inhabitants, and the entire Intendancy about 240,000. It is the chief harbour of the island; though the plague (1743) swept away thousands of its people, and an earthquake (1783) laid the city in ruins. The neighbourhood of Etna keeps the inhabitants in terror, and hence perhaps their abject superstition. It has been computed, that to a population of about 1,730,000, Sicily contains nearly 20,000 priests and monks-and a large proportion of the number are found at Messina. It was to the Messinese, that the noted letter was sent by the Virgin Mary from Jerusalem-containing impieties the most revolting, or in synonymous words, pleading for, and designed to uphold the heresy of Antichrist. The document is of course an impudent forgery, and could be employed only among an ignorant people, by a bold, unblushing priesthood; yet from time to time the imposture is renovated, and priestly connivance at least, perpetuates the fraud. The people believe that the Virgin wrote to them. They in consequence worship her as their Mediatrix, and though Jesuitism may equivocate, or explain away the fact, it convicts all concerned of Idolatry. The character of the citizens-beautiful for situation, and favoured by climate as the city is-appeared in perfect keeping with the grossness of the reigning superstition. The route to Mount Etna from Messina is grand and imposing. The whole district is volcanicthough the hills are now covered with woods of deep luxuriant green. The names of some of the mountains carry us back to the ancient legends concerning Etna and Cyclops, and the whole region tells that we are near some great focus of fire. A ride of four or five hours brought us to Fiume di Nissi (Ænisis), where we were forced to take shelter for the night. The people of the district were poor, haggard, and in aspect half savage. Few of them can read-the very priests of the lower class seem as abject as they are filthy; and all around exhibits that strange combination, which is so often witnessed in the South-namely, utmost productiveness in the earth, and extreme squalor or debasement in man. Yet some of the Sicilians freely spoke their minds in favour of a change -they are bent on, and they anticipate it. War from some quarter appeared to be their hope, and their fiery spirits, under an adequate leader, might be overruled to work out some measure of freedom. After passing the night in the condition which often reminded us of the punctures of Gulliver from his Lilliput assailants, although we were lulled to rest by the murmurs of the "Sea of Adria," we remounted, and hastened forward to the base of Etna. We passed a fortress built by the English, and saw various traces of our countrymen's sojourn in the land of Cyclops. But nothing startles or interests the visitor more, than the eyrie-like position of many of the towns and villages in Sicily. They are perched on the summit of steep crags, reminding us at once of the Scripture figure for a living Christian-"a city set on a hill” -and of the time when man had to flee, like the coney to the rock, for defence against his brother man. Forza, Mola, and other places partake of that character; and so complete is their isolation, that one was pointed out in which the children are prisoners during several of their earlier years. Such as venture abroad unguarded, often meet a Tarpeian fate. It was at Taormini (Tauromnium), that we began the ascent of Etna, without the hope, however, of reaching the crater, owing to the snows that still covered the mountain to within four thousand feet of the base. At that ancient city, Paul is fabled to have founded a church as he sailed from Syracuse and "fetched a compass to Rhegium." The remains of temples to Venus and other divinities are found in the vicinity; but its chief attraction is its theatre, deemed, and justly, one of the most perfect monuments of antiquity. Its position is noble. The Me diterranean, with its multitudinous waves, stretches away to the south, and the east, and the Adriatic to the north. Mount Etna, living, lurid, and discharging lava and death, formed the background of the stage, so that the majestic people had at once reality and fiction for their exciting sport. Our purpose to ascend the mountain had not been very sanguinely entertained, and the forinidable obstacle of sojourning for perhaps three days among snow, made it impossible to attempt the ascent. We had climbed two or three thousand feet, however, or as far as our mule could carry us; and there could enjoy the view from the summit only in fancy, but from the spot where we stood, in magnificent reality. Malta dim and just visible; Syracuse and its bay in the distance; Catania, so often entombed by the mountain, at our feet; the Mediterranean sleeping in beauty, and away up the Levant, the fleets of Britain and America hovering, at the time, on the coast; Rhegium, Tarentum, and a thousand classic scenes, all crowded upon the view-giving rise to ruminations which made the whole scene in a sense unheeded, so busy was the mind with its own meditations. The world within is nearer, dearer, and more influential still than the world without, and one felt all that amid the ruins of Taormini on the slopes of Mount Etna. If the earth be so beauteous even when defaced by sin, how surpassing glorious, had it never been cursed for man's sake! And if that earth, the home of the fallen, evoke such feelings as the view from Etna did, how grand its effects had it been still untarnished! It is painful to enjoy amid such a people as the Sicilians. The bright bloom, or the rich fruit, and the quarterly harvests of Sicily-the almond tree without a leaf, but sheeted in blossom-and the vine, luxuriant and productive as may be supposed in such a climate, might minister to happiness, but despotism and superstition, ignorance and filth forbid it. A fatherly king, political and social rights, schools, God's truth, and a preached gospel, --what a land would these make Sicily! The convents and a few proprietors are said to hold the entire island as their own, and the people are in a measure serfs. At the sight of their abjectness, one exclaimed years ago: "If Ferdinand II. (the present king), would declare his Sicilian subjects free, he would go down to posterity as one of the greatest of princes-as it is, he will probably live the life of a despot, and die of apoplexy-to the great joy of his subjects." Passing events appear to disprove a portion of the saying; yet we cannot help feeling that while Sicily might become the Britain of the South, it is indeed the Fernando Po, or the Sierra Leone of liberty. There is scarcely more than twenty miles of inland road in Sicily, and few travellers penetrate to the interior. We need not trace the route along the sea-board by Catania, so often the victim of the overhanging volcano; by Syracuse, the home of Archimedes, once the seat of power, now delapidated and decayed, and containing only about 15,000 inhabitants; by Girgenti (Agrigentum), now a poor village, though once the capital of Sicily, and the rival of Carthage-where the fragments of the temple of the Giants, and of Concord, still tell of ancient grandeur-where the largest piles of ruin that exist in Europe may be seen, proclaiming the feebleness of man's works when nature in its earthquakes and volcanoes assails them, or of man himself, when the breath of his Maker's displeasure sweeps over himand to which, according to an impious Popish legend still circulated by the priests and believed by the people, the devil once sent a letter by a venerable sister-nor lastly, need we speak of Trapani (Drepanum), near the ancient Lilybæum, where Anchises died, and his son, according to Virgil, celebrated his In ancient times, the city of Syracuse contained about as many inhabitants as the whole of modern Sicily. funeral rites. The last is still tolerably entire, and has some appearance of activity; but in most of the others, decay, ruin, and gloomy depopulation, prostrate pillars, and yet more prostrate man, have taken the place of elegance, the arts, fertility, and trade. Why this wide desolation? Is it because the gospel was offered there but rejected? Was it because Popery corrupted truth, and substituted the religion of man for that of God! Is it because bigotry with a tiara, and despotism with a rod of iron, have crushed the spirit of man? Let us rest for the present with the fact, and learn the lesson. Sicily had a day of visitation it did not know it-and it is, perhaps, on that account, strewed with ruins. Has the Almighty Maker of heaven and earth any similar portion in store for the favoured island of our home? But is there no hope for Sicily? The events of the past few weeks or days would indicate that there is. The stolid and unrelenting despotism of Ferdinand II. has prompted him to deny or postpone all rightful redress, and the result has been reaction. Buoyed up and onward by the revolutionary tide that is rolling over Europe, and stretching even into Asia, the Sicilians have asserted their freedom, and, amid enthusiastic applause, their House of Commons but a few days ago declared that "Ferdinand of Bourbon and his dynasty are for ever fallen from the throne of Sicily; that Sicily should govern herself by a constitution, calling to the throne an Italian prince as soon as matters shall be ripe." What will the end be? War, pillage, bloodshed? Or peace, developed resources, the Overruler's blessing, and Sicily herself again? In other words, is the island to advance, or is it to be yet thrown back on the effete and feeble systems which have turned so many parts of Europe into moral desert? We wait till He, who sees the end from the beginning, shall, in his providence, develop a reply. Meanwhile, there is encouragement in the fact, that simultaneously with the political change, some of the friends of truth have resorted to the island. Signore Zacharis, formerly a Popish priest, but for some time an exile in Malta, inquiring the way to Zion, has lately gone to Sicily, and the little one may yet become a thousand, even in that abject and superstitious country. CAPITAL AND OTHER PUNISHMENTS. It was the saying of a sensible judge, "When I hear strong appeals to sympathy on behalf of criminals, I always put in a plea in my own mind on behalf of society." And it may be said with truth, that a morbid and excessive sympathy for criminals indicates a very low moral state on the part of any community. When the apostle Paul would wind up his fearful climax of wickedness, on the part of the Gentile nations, who were "filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity, whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant-breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful," he puts this as the top stone, that they "not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them." It is a notorious fact that, in the West Indies, for example, where a very low tone of morality prevails, there seems to be great sympathy for the perpetrators of flagrant crimes. We extract from a Jamaica "The recent trial of Minchin Stewart, for the alleged murder of Dr Tuthill, calls for a few brief but plain remark.s Last week we were prevented from noticing the subject-we purpose doing so now. The case is of too horrible a nature not to excite a deep and anxious desire to prevent any similar catastrophe in future. Here is a young man educated at Cambridge-of all places the best for initiation into the mysteries of heartless prostitution and iniquity-brought to this country where 'better-class' society is generally in such a state as to develop, to their fullest extent, inclinations to evil, and this by a process so uniformly rapid and steady, as speedily to sink its victims to degradation, ruin, or the grave. Look at the case of this young man, whose father is a clergyman and rector, and whose brother is a curate; he becomes an overseer, and the example of that class, acting on already vitiated principles, led him into the most shocking excesses, and to the commission of that deed which has made him the inmate of a penitentiary. The particulars of that deed cannot be stated. They would violate decency. They would outrage propriety. Rum thrown on the body, ignited-death was the result. The crime was one of the most atrocious character-of the blackest die. The evidence was revolting; but to the point. He was found guilty of manslaughter, and he has reason to be for ever thankful that a sentence more severe was not recorded against him. As it is, that sentence is lenient-most lenient-only two years' imprisonment in the penitentiary, with hard labour, and a recommendation to mercy, and yet we have heard, not without astonishment, that two petitions are in course of signature for a modification of a sentence already modified to an extreme!-one from the clergy, and another from the laity. We most indignantly protest against such proceedings. In the name of justice we do it; in the name of humanity trampled on by such an appeal; in the name of mercy abused by such petitions; in the name of social order and propriety, first outraged by the culprit, and next by his apologists; in the name of the community, whose interests would thereby be sacrificed, we protest against his being further relieved from the penalty he has invoked. He has set humanity at defiance; mercy has been a thing of nought with him; the country has been disgraced by this unworthy youth, and yet a commutation of punishment the last to palliate crime, and crime marked with terrible must be sought for him! Clergymen, of all men, should be obscenity, or plead for the release of the criminal. We hope the governor will turn a deaf ear to such petitions, on the ground that the sentence has been already modified, that the public interests require that no further leniency be shown, and for a terror to evil-workers of a similar stamp." We need not inform our readers that a similar spirit is beginning to prevail extensively in our own land. The most horrible crimes are palliated, and every kind of punishment which deserves the name is anxiously declaimed against. It was only the other day that a jury in Forfarshire, in the case of a young man, who, after being guilty of the grossest impurity, had murdered his own infant, recommended him to mercy on the ground of "the candid way in which he had confessed the deed." A man on this theory only requires to be bold and unblushing enough in his iniquity to secure a favourable verdict. The truth is, that the public sentiment of the country on the subject is being regulated very much upon infidel principles-a parcel of visionary Unitarians are endeavouring to substitute their own false theories on the subject of human depravity for the solemn statements of the Word of God, and arighteous hatred of crime is being gradually displaced by a mawkish sympathy for the criminal. We do not say that all who are opposed to capital punishments are infidels. We are aware that some Christian men take the same view, although we cannot well see on what ground of Scripture they rest their case. But the mass of those who have put forth the late novel views on the subject of capital | punishments, are evidently men who scout the idea of taking the Word of God as the rule of human government. To us nothing appears more manifest than the Divine warrant to put all murderers to death. Let us just advert to some of the heads of evidence. No sooner does the first murderer perpetrate his crime, than his conscience points to its just result. 'Every one that findeth me,” says Cain, “shall slay me." The murderer sees now in every man he meets an excutioner, and it requires a miracle to prevent this. "The Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him." We need not dwell on the well-known passage, the plain force of which has never been evaded, "He that sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed;" and for this reason that "in the image of God made he man;" that is, he that strikes wantonly now at the life of man, still strikes at an effaced image of God. But let our readers turn to Numb. XXXV. 31-34: "Moreover ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a murderer, which is guilty of death: but he shall be surely put to death. And ye shall take no satisfaction for him that is fled to the city of his refuge, that he should come again to dwell in the land, until the death of the priest. So ye shall not pollute the land wherein ye are for blood it defileth the land: and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it. Defile not therefore the land which ye shall inhabit, wherein I dwell: for I the Lord dwell among the children of Israel." Here we have a very striking view of the relation of a land to the murderers within it. The matter is generally viewed simply in its relation to the miserable murderer himself. But "blood it defileth the land, and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it." In other words, if the land in which a murderer dwells will not put him to death, and thus cleanse the land of the blood, it takes to itself the guilt of the murder. The blood continues to lie at the nation's own door, and will be avenged upon it by God. There is a principle involved here which is not peculiar to any economy, but of universal application. Hence the magistrate is still said to have a sword as the emblem of his office; and it is said he is “a revenger to execute wrath." proper use of a sword is to kill. If the magistrate had only been entitled to imprison, a key would have been a sufficient emblem. But he has received, under both dispensations, "a sword" as his emblem, to prove that under both he is bound to cleanse the land of blood, by putting murderers to death. "He is not to bear the sword in vain," which he would do if he were prohibited from using it thus. The Speaking also of the New Testament, it is very im. portant to notice what Paul says: "If I be an offender, or have committed anything worthy of death, I refuse not to die." (Acts xxiv. Il.) This is manifestly irreconcilable with the notion that the punish ment of death is unlawful, under the Christian economy. Had it been so, the apostle would have peremptorily denied the right of any man to put him to death he would, so far as he could, have "refused to die." In short, it seems perfectly plain that capital punishments are fully warranted by the Word of God. But the modern views of which we speak are equally absurd in reference to subordinate offences. The general idea of a magistrate in Scripture, is of one who shall be a "terror to evil-doers." But the great anxiety of many of our modern legislators, is to deprive the methods of dealing with crime of this element of terror altogether. Hence all corporal punishment is not only abolished, even in the case of gross offenders; but our prisons are made so comfortable, that they are points of considerable attraction to the more reckless members of the community. A worthy provincial magistrate lately informed us that one of her Majesty's Inspectors of Prisons had a dispute with him and his colleagues, as to whether the prisoners should have more than one pair of slippers. One pair it seems they all have, but this well-fed functionary insisted that, in case of their getting their feet in the least damp, they ought always to have a spare pair at hand-of course, at the public expense. The prisons are fitted up with ventilating and heating processes, and comforts of every kind, like first-rate hotels. The consequence is, that crimes are daily committed for the very purpose of getting into such comfortable and well-furnished lodgings. Boys publicly tell our judges that they would much rather go to jail than to the ragged-school, because there is no whipping in the jail." Criminals multiply on all sides, and the community is crushed under heavy taxation to uphold a mass of insane folly. The punishment is, in fact, transferred from the comfortable criminals to the oppressed community; and men are beginning to rub their eyes, and to awaken as from a confused dream, to discover how their simplicity has been abused by infidel visionaries. At the same time, let no one suppose that we advocate unnecessary harshness. We are convinced that crime can only be removed by the diffusion of Christian principle. Hence the vast importance of ragged and other Christian schools, and all Christian appliances. But if punishments are inflicted, let them be such as shall be felt; let the magistrate be really a terror to ecil-doers, and let us not trifle with crime, and nurse it into fearful prevalence, and gigantic proportions, by a system of so-called punishments, which are open and manifest premiums upon vice. CHALMERS. BY PROFESSOR LEWIS, NEW YORK.* "No man," says one of the deepest thinkers of modern times, 66 can have been conversant with the volumes of religious biography-can have perused for instance, the lives of Wickliffe, Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer, Wishart, Sir Thomas More, Bernard Gilpin, Bishop Bedell, or of Egede, Swartz, and the missionaries of the frozen world, without an occasional conviction that these men lived under extraordinary influences, that in each instance, and in all ages of the Christian era, bear the same characters, and, both in the accompaniments and the results, evidently refer to a common origin." In no case will the truth of this more come home to the soul of the serious reader, than in studying the life of Chalmers. What can this be--this "extraordinary influence"-under which he, and those mentioned above, and multitudes of others that might be named, and tens of thousands more without a name in political or ecclesiastical history, have lived and died? What is this which makes so striking and characteristic a difference between such men, for example, as Chalmers and Wil * This forms part of an able and elaborate paper which appeared in the Biblical Repository for April, |