required to be expunged, leaving the parent the small liberty of conscience to choose in which of the schools his child should be educated.

This issue of religion, or no religion, the enemies of the former seek to conceal or obscure under the indefinite and delusive phrases of secular' or 'denominational' teaching. They pretend that their conscience suffers under the imposition of rates for any denominational teaching; but they slur over the truth,-that secular or irreligious schools are as much denominational' as any religious school whether Church or dissenting. They wish to blind us to the fact, that compulsory rates for the denominational' schools which exclude religion might as well be termed an invasion of the rights of conscience, as rates for denominational schools from which religion is not excluded.

In such confusion of the term denominational' and such war against religious teaching, it seems that the sensitive and convenient elasticity of conscience, which strained at a gnat but could swallow a camel, may have survived the generation of the Jewish Pharisees. A new calendar of martyrdom has been instituted for the cause, not of religion, but of irreligion. And under the mockery of an invited seizure of some trifling articles of furniture, with the solemn farce of an ostentatious public auction, resisters of School Board rates as well as resisters of Church rates have been canonised as martyrs.

PRINCE ALBERT

THE following extract from a sermon preached by Dr. Molesworth at the parish church, Rochdale, on Monday, December 23, 1861, on the occasion of the funeral of Prince Albert, may be of interest:

'And the children of Israel wept for Moses' (Deuteronomy xxxiv. 8).

Seldom do we find that the value of friends or benefactors is fully understood, or sufficiently appreciated during their lives.

This remark may be applied particularly to men of exalted station, or to those who are engaged in the conduct of public affairs. In the misrepresentations and prejudices which follow such men, we see a pertinent and frequent illustration of the 'judicious Hooker's' maxim: He that goeth about to persuade a multitude that they are not so well governed as they ought to be, shall never want attentive and favourable hearers.' And it sometimes happens that men in office are more subject to censure and calumny in proportion as their abilities and station are higher, and their self-sacrifices and services are greater than those of others.

But the time generally comes, sooner or later, when, even by erring and fickle multitudes, justice is done to wisdom and worth. Death removes the object at which the missiles of slander and envy can be aimed.

When Moses was dead the children of Israel wept for him. Yes, they wept for him; they both privately felt, and publicly mourned, his loss. Those who had formerly, in their impatience and folly, murmured against him now forgot their resentment.

Him whom they once reproached with having 'killed the people of the Lord,' they now discovered to have been the guardian of their liberty, the depository of their truths, the author and exponent of the counsels of the Almighty, the special minister of His laws, and the ever ready and earnest pleader for pardon and mercy when they had violated these laws.

He whom Korah, Dathan, and Abiram had enviously accused of taking too much upon himself, was found to be as meek as he was mighty; deserving of all honour and obedience, holding a sacred commission, of which God, not His servant, was the vindicator, and for invading which his accusers drew down upon themselves the penalties of Divine displeasure. Death presented him to their consideration in his true light as law-giver, intercessor, and prophet, a prophet, to whom none superior, none like, should be seen, until the coming of that Messiah Himself, of whom Moses was only a type and representation. Calumny was stricken dumb,-envy was prostrated,ambition no longer beheld its competitor and superior.

I do not pretend to contrast the office and life of the Prince Consort with that great Jewish prophet and lawgiver. The only parallel I draw between them is the lively sense of their public benefits, aroused by their decease and the proper mode of first commemorating their good examples, and afterwards profiting by the solemn warnings of the universal sentence from which neither their station nor their virtues could exempt them.

To estimate the advantages publicly derived from Prince Albert's good sense and integrity of purpose, and to do justice to his character, we should bear in mind the peculiarly delicate and difficult nature of his public position. We must not forget that he came to this country a foreigner, liable to the jealousies and suspicious watchfulness to which the strangers, amongst whom he came, might be not unnaturally prone, especially in the position which he was to occupy.

That position was one of great exaltation and trust, without direct authority. But it was the position in which he would be able to exercise powerful influence, and in a form and quarter in which influence without responsibility would be of necessity regarded with fear, especially by people sensitively alive to their constitutional safeguards against the abuse of Sovereign prerogatives. Raised as he was, above the ancient nobility of this Realm, without previous national associations,-invested with sudden and chief rank without constitution or authority, in either the executive or legislative departments of the State, very slight deviations of judgment or taste might have given rise to distrust and envy.

His education had been in foreign habits and in foreign institutions. His bias would be naturally in the direction of these. He might have been tempted to use his influence in forcing them upon the people of this country, or at least he might have regarded our institutions, if not with aversion, at least with indifference. He might have felt that his duty was done, if he enjoyed his high fortune and consulted his ease, without taking a lead, or giving himself trouble to promote undertakings merely for the good of a people who might not claim, and possibly might even resent, his interference.

Even errors and injuries, had they occurred under such difficulties and trying circumstances, should be leniently judged, and criticised with every allowance for previous habits and foreign prepossession. But I need not now state how little there was to blame, and how much to praise; how steady and safe a course he steered through the difficulties of his station. The public sense of the benefits conferred by him have been plainly and unmistakably expressed. Great national projects, and well-recognised schemes for the amelioration of the condition of the working classes, are memorials of his patriotic desires, and of his ingenious and original conceptions.

Nor is it least of all the national benefits for which we have to respect his memory,-that he has in the Royal household displayed a blessed example of the duties of domestic life; that he has placed them in a position to be duly honoured, and, it is to be hoped, generally emulated. In the poorest family, in the humblest sheds, domestic union and purity present a glorious Christian example.

MUSIC AND RELIGION

ON Sunday, November 14, 1869, annual collections were made for the choir. Dr. Molesworth preached in the morning, taking as his text the fifteenth and sixteenth verses of the third chapter to the Colossians :

Teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.

He commenced by referring to the number of times that he had previously addressed the congregation on the subject before them, viz. the practical purpose of music, an art which seems, he said, to be instinctively associated with our very nature, since all people, whether superstitious or highly religious, whether savage or civilised, have recourse to music to express or intensify their passions and affections, whether of joy or sorrow, of love or hatred, of faith or fear, of reverence or defiance.'

He then spoke of the sanction given by God to the use of music in the highest and holiest exercises of piety and adoration; adducing the several tokens of Divine and angelic sanction for the use of songs and hymns in connection with religion.

Under the representation of Songs of Joy, He expressly refers Job to those bursts of praise and piety, with which heavenly hosts at the beginning witnessed the wonders of creation.

When the Almighty Creator out of chaos called into existence the terrestrial globe and furnished it for the first life of man, then He declared that the morning stars sang together and the sons of God shouted for joy.' Under the same authority, and through the like heavenly choir, holy songs took their part in the announcement of man's second life, viz. the redemption of Jesus Christ. Then also did the hosts of heaven shine forth in the morning dawn over the newborn Babe. Then they sang their hymns of piety and love; praising God and gratefully acknowledging the