To the Editor of the

MY DEAR SIR,-I feel assured that the following extract from a letter I have received from a friend, will be considered by you both so interesting and edifying, that you will hail the opportunity of presenting to your readers so remarkable an interposition of Divine Providence as that displayed in the circumstance which forms the subject of the extract I enclose :

One

"Last Monday evening we met at the Committee of the London City Mission, (you must know that the last Saturday in every month, a sum of money must be forthcoming to pay the missionaries, and this amount is £1200,) the accounts were read by the Secretary, by which we saw that although two weeks of the month were elapsed, we had only £200 to meet £1,200. What was to be done? member said, 'Let us pray unto the Lord;' but I do not think this remark was heard by the chairman, Mr. RThis latter was obliged to leave the committee before the business had concluded-but he rose from his chair, called attention, and then said, Gentlemen, before I leave this chair, I would make a few remarks for your consideration; although I am aware that the missionaries meet together for prayer, yet I do not think that the committee, as a body, are mindful enough of this; (we always begin and end our meetings with solemn prayer for general blessings.)' He continued, 'I merely say thus much for your consideration'-and then left, and went away. We were all much impressed, and resolved to have a general meeting for prayer, at which all the Missionaries, General Superintendents, Clerical Examiners, and Local Superintendents might attend (D. V.) on Saturday, 4th of December, at Exeter Hall; but in the mean time we resolved that on the next Monday, we should meet as usual at 4, and at 5 o'clock have a prayer meeting for a blessing on that to be held on 4th of December. Thus ended the meeting for

Christian Guardian.

that evening. Mr. G

went home

and talked to his wife, I went home and talked with mine, and I dare say many went away and did the same; for these sad times haye affected many of the Religious Societies besides the London City Mission. Well, next morning Mr. G came to Red Lion Square, as usual. The first person he saw was a gentleman, who said, 'Are you Mr. G -?' Yes.' I have the pleasure to inform you that a gentleman is just dead, who has left the London City Mission £1,400. I believe it will be paid directly, and I also believe duty free." I have only two remarks to make. Is not this a proof of the Lord's blessing? and does it not remind us of Before they call, I will answer'? I hope this will be brought before the world in some shape for the glory of God. 'Daniel's God is our God, and for ever and ever.'

And now what becomes of the Infidel? who dares say that there is not a God who ruleth in the heavens, and can dispose all hearts and all circumstances as he pleases! It is indeed most truly "THE FOOL that hath said in his heart there is no God."

But the Christian may learn a lesson here. "Ah! yes; how weak is my faith," may many a Christian cry, "when I have so many proofs before me that my God is a prayer-hearing God! How feeble my prayers! How little do I look for answers to the petitions that I daily offer up at a throne of grace, though my great High Priest and Mediator-through whose hands all my prayers pass, and who presents them at the mercy-seat, perfumed with the fragrant incense of his own allprevailing advocacy-has declared himself that 'whatsoever we shall ask the Father in his name, that will he do."" Oh! who can say what we lose for want of asking! The praying Christian always has been the receiving Christian.

I am yours truly, B.

tolic age, and intended for a very wise and merciful purpose. Here Rome and St. Paul are at variance. According to the theology of the Vatican, it is not simply a separation from the body of the congregation, but an interdiction ab aquá et igne. A crust of dry bread or a cup of cold water is a favour which no Roman Catholic is allowed to administer to the

F

The dialogue is held between a monk and the author. The former says, "read yourself the following extract from the Moral Theology of Sanchez." "It is perfectly reasonable to hold that a man may fight a duel to save his life, honour, or property-when there is no other way of preserving them, and nothing to prevent one's adversary in a private way. Indeed, in the circumstances referred to, it is advisable to avoid employing the duel, if it is possible to settle the affair by privately killing our enemy; for, by this means, we escape at once from exposing our life in the combat, and from- participating in the sin which our opponent would have committed by fighting a duel.'*

"A most pious assassination !" said I. "Still, however pious it may be, it is assassination, if a man be permitted to kill his enemy in a treacherous manner."

"Did I say that I might kill him treacherously?" cried the monk, "God forbid I said he might kill him privately, and you conclude that he may kill him treacherously, as if that were the same thing! attend, sir, to Escobar's definition. We call it killing in treachery, when the person who is slain had no reason to expect such a fate. He, therefore, that slays his enemy cannot be said to kill him in treachery, even although the blow should be given insidiously or behind his back. He that kills his enemy with whom he was reconciled, under a promise of never again attempting his life, cannot be absolutely said to kill in treachery, unless there was between them all the stricter friendship."

"I grant you this is something quite new to me, I replied, "and I should gather from that definition that few, if any, were ever guilty of treachery; for people seldom take it into their heads to kill any but their enemies. Be this as it may, however, it seems that according to Sanchez, a man may freely slay, (I do not say treacherously, but only insidiously and behind his back,) a calumniator, for example, who prosecutes as at law?"

Certainly he may," returned the monk, "always, however, in the way of giving a right direction to the intention: you constantly forget the main point. Molina supports the same doctrine; and what is more, our learned brother Reginald maintains that we may despatch the false witnesses he summons against us. And to crown the whole, according to our great and famous fathers, Tanner and Emanuel Sa, it is lawful to kill not only the false witnesses, but the judge himself, if he had any collusion with them."

*Sanchez, sec. 2. chap. 39.
† Escobar.

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'Well, father," said I, "I think I now understand pretty well your principle regarding the direction of the intention; but I should like to know something of its consequences, and all the cases in which this method of yours arms a man with the power of life and death. Let us go over them again, for fear of mistake, for equivocation here would be attended with dangerous results. Killing is a matter which requires to be well timed, and to be backed with a good 'probable opinion.' You have assured me, then, that by giving a proper turn to the intention, it is lawful according to your fathers, for the preservation of one's honour, or even property, to accept a challenge or give one; to kill in a private way a false accuser, and his witnesses, and the judge who has been bribed to favour them, and you have also told me that he who has got a blow, may, without avenging himself, retaliate with the sword. But you have not told me to what length he may go?"

"He can hardly mistake there," replied the monk," for he may go all the length of killing his man. This is satisfactorily proved by the learned Henriquez, and others of our fathers, quoted by Escobar, as follows: 'It is perfectly right to kill a person who has given us a box on the ear, &c., &c.' Nay, it is allowable to prevent a buffet, by killing him that meant to give it, if there be no other way to escape insult. This opinion is quite common with our fathers. For example, Azor, one of the four-and-twenty elders, proposing the question, 'Is it lawful for a man of honour to kill another. who threatens to give him a slap on the face?' replies, Some say he may not; alleging, the life of our neighbour is more precious than our honour, and that it would be an act of cruelty to kill a man for a blow. Others think it would be allowable; and I certainly consider it probable, when there is no other way of warding off the insult.' The same opinion is given by our great Filicitius, by father Hecean in his Treatise on Homicide: by Hurtado de Mendoza, in his Disputations: by Becar, in his Summary: by our fathers Flahault and Leo. In short, the opinion is so general, that Lessius lays it down as a point which no Casuist has contested."

Then follow various other decisions of the Jesuits as to the propriety of killing persons, having slandered another-defamed, or affronted any one-and that "the great and incomparable Molina," according to Escabar, "laid it down as a general rule, that a man may be killed quite regularly for the value of a crown piece!"

Who can wonder that a people instructed by a body of clergy, trained in such false morality, can be capable of any deeds of cold-blooded barbarity!

SWITZERLAND. Our readers will not quarrel with our referring so largely to the condition of this interesting country, when it is considered under what obligations we lie to extend to them our warmest sympathies on account of the benefits our forefathers have formerly received from theirs; and when also the development is considered which their sufferings afford of those principles of persecution which may be expected as well from infidel as from Popish Antichrist. The following extracts are chiefly taken from the invaluable foreign correspondence in "Evangelical Christendom." We begin with Dr. Alexander's very intelligent view of the religious aspect of recent eventsin Switzerland.

"I believe that a mistake has been extensively committed by religious people in this country, in reference to the bearing upon religion of the recent conflict between the army of the Sonderbund and that of the Federalists in Switzerland. Regarding the former as the bulwark of intolerance, superstition, and bigotry, and the latter as the defender of enlightened religion and free government, they have rejoiced in the downfall of the former as a benefit to the cause of liberty and truth. I believe this to be an entire mistake. The success of the Federalists fills me with alarm and grief; not that I approve of the Sonderbund, still less that I wish well to Romanism and Jesuitry, but because I am convinced that, in the providence of God, the cause of evangelical truth and religious liberty is bound up with the success of their arms in this struggle. The defeat of the Sonderbund party will be followed, I fear, by the reign of tyranny over conscience, and the persecution of true piety, all through the Protestant cantons of Switzerland. The Demon of War has retired, I suspect, only to make way for the Demon of Spiritual Oppression. I love neither of them; but

must say, that, if I had to choose between them, I would rather have

the former than the latter. 'Let me have the hurricane rather than the pestilence; the fierce struggle of man to man, in the open field, rather than the dark, malignant, pitiless, cruel, crushing tyranny of persecution, that does its work in secret; that spares neither age nor sex; that stays not its merciless hand for any entreaty; and that never says 'It is enough,' so long as one victim remains to immolate.

"Abstracted from the purely pontical bearings of the recent struggle, it will appear that the question at issue between the parties is, Shall the people of any canton be at liberty to observe such religious ceremonies, follow such religious instructors, and establish such religious institutions, as they see meet, without control on the part of the Federal Government? This is the general question, involved in the special details about Jesuits, nunneries, &c., which has really called the Sonderbundists and the Federalists into the field in the late campaign. Now, it is easy to see, that this question in fact involves the still more general question, Shall any man or body of men be at liberty to exercise free choice in the matter of religion, or must religious profession and worship be entirely under the control of the governing power? And this is felt in Switzerland to be the real question fundamentally at issue in this contest. The Catholic party are not in heart or in purpose the friends of religious liberty; but in asserting their right to choose and follow their own religious convictions, they are thrown, for the time, upon the assertion of the broad principle that man's conscience is not to be forced. This principle, on the other hand, the Federalists oppose. It is one which they hate with an unmingled hatred. Thoroughly imbued with the ungodly maxims of French Infidelity and Communism, they regard it as a first principle of all good government, that, religion, to be safe, must be controlled. They are the

advocates of Erastianism in its most unmitigated and repulsive form; and they mean to use their ascendancy for the purpose of placing all religious teachers under the most rigorous State control. Already have they shewn what are their intentions by the arreté recently published in the Canton de Vaud, forbidding the holding of any assemblies for religious purposes except such as are conducted in the churches of the Government. A similar act of tyranny is expected by the Dissenters in the other cantons. An esteemed and most devoted brother, in the canton of Berne, wrote to me a few days ago as follows:-'Si le radicalisme continue â triompher, nous avous à nous préparer à des persecutions religieuses. Deja elles ont recommencé dans le Canton de Vaud, &c. Et dans, notre canton on nous menace de la meme defense." It is not, therefore, Protestantism which has triumphed over Romanism in this struggle, but Infidelity and Tyranny over the rights of conscience and liberty of worship.

"It is not in this case, for the first time that philosophical Infidelity has been found the persecutor of spiritual religion. The first who systematically, deliberately, and on principle, persecuted the Christians was not the furious Nero, but the sage and philosophic Marcus Antoninus; and every one knows how the philosophers who urged forward the revolution of the last century in France, sought the downfall of religion, and the apotheosis of reason, as the grand end of all the changes to which they stimulated the minds of the people. Their confederate, Hume, in one of his writings, gives utterance to the feeling which influences all philosophic infidels, in reference to the place religion ought to hold in a community when, he says, 'the most decent and advantageous composition which the civil magistrate can make with the spiritual guides is to bribe their indolence.' Here it is: religion will exist, but governments should keep it under; and, as it is difficult to do this by constraint, do it by cajolery and bribery. This is exactly the doc

trine of the dominant party in Switzerland at this moment; only finding force cheaper than bribery, they prefer using that.

"I cannot conclude these hasty remarks without earnestly commending Switzerland and its many pious and holy ministers, with their attached flocks, to the sympathy and prayers of the brotherhood of Evangelical Christendom. It is with them a season of rebuke and blasphemy; be it ours to cheer, comfort, and sustain them as we have opportunity. It may be that worse trials than any they have yet experienced are before them; imprisonment, mulctation, exile, may await them for the cause of Christ. Judging from the past, it is not impossible that even life itself may in some cases be demanded as the penalty of their stedfastness. Should these sad anticipations be realized, oh! I pray Englishmen and Scotchmen not to forget that, when the band of persecutors drove their pious ancestors from their altars and their hearths, it was in Switzerland they found a refuge, and from the Protestants of Switzerland a welcome and a home!

"P. S.-Since this was sent to press, I have received a letter from a minister in the Canton of Neuchatel, from which I translate the following statement. It will shew clearly the animus of the victorious party. Only a few days ago, there was a conspiracy among the soldiers on returning from the war to kill all the Christians. [This was in the Canton de Vaud.] Happily, however-thanks be to the fatherly interposition of Him by whom the hairs of our head are all numbered a misunderstanding arose among themselves, and the scheme was abandoned. On the other side of the Lake of Neuchatel, a soldier fired on a pious minister, one of the Demissionaires. Here also appeared the interposition of Him who loves

us.

The musket burst in the hands of the soldier, who fell bathed in blood. Our brother, hearing the report, made for the spot, and, without being in the least aware of the man's bloody design, had him conveyed to his own abode, where the soldier confessed to him, whilst receiving