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ment, with an indefinite idea of bettering their condition, would have its weight with almost all. While this motive was prevalent, it would produce, of course, only nominal converts; but some influence of it, I apprehend, has been unavoidable. For fifty years after the battle of Plassey, and during the gradual aggrandizement of the British Power, the Natives thought we had no religion; and indeed the weight of Government was thrown into the scale of Heathenism and Mahomedanism. A Native knew that he should lose its favour, if it were suspected that he had embraced Christianity. For the last thirty years, things have gradually altered. The connexion with Idolatry has been dissolving. The sentiments and feelings of the Government and of the Services, defective as they now are, have been incomparably improved. The thirty Churches erecting or erected over India, are in the face of the sun. The new Cathedral at Calcutta is known in every bazaar. As therefore, at the first promulgation of the Gospel, the Governing Powers were adverse to the new and despised Religion, and this went to depress the doubting inquirer; so I conceive it to be inevitable that the Christian character of Britons now must have encouraged these numerous converts. Nor is this wrong. Kings the nursing fathers, and Queens the nursing mothers of the Church is an object of prophetic expectation. The general and progressive weakness also of the native superstitions-their decrepitude-the contempt into which they have gradually fallen-the props of secular authority knocked away from under themscience, literature, commerce, jurisprudence, sapping insensibly their very foundation-must have, doubt

less, facilitated the transition to the profession of Christianity on the other hand.

Indeed, wherefore should we not say, that all the subordinate means which I have enumerated, and many others, have contributed, in the never-failing providence of God, which governs all things in heaven and earth,' to the grand result? and why should we not trace with gratitude some of the intricacies and combinations of a thousand "wheels within wheels" in the stately march and triumph of Christ? Were there not such sub-arrangements in the conversion of our own Druidical and Saxon Ancestors in the second and sixth centuries? Were the first converts of Augustine and his followers uninfluenced by the royal example? Were the defects of that first age of Christians a barrier to a better class in the succeeding periods? Or was the blessed Reformation less important in its result, because of the mixture of motives in the age and race which first witnessed that glorious revolution in matters of Religion?

To God alone, in his grace, we nevertheless ascribe all the glory of hearts renewed, sins pardoned, souls saved, in all these European movements of old as in these Oriental now. We guard, sedulousy, indeed, against proposing secular motives, or being satisfied with nominal Christianity. We aim at the purest and most spiritual and consistent Christian doctrine, experience, and practice. But we thank God for the least real success, and the least preparatory steps for bringing men under the means of grace, and extracting them from the mire and pitfall of nature's darkness and pollution.-Bishop Wilson's Letter to the Earl of Chichester.

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LECTURES ON THE CHURCH SERVICE.

No. 1.

PSALM LXV. 4.

"We shall be satisfied with the goodness of thy house."

GOODNESS shewn generally in the provision made by our Church for the holy, humble, and joyful worship of her children.

Objections-Length and Sameness.

Its length is fully accounted for and compensated by its variety, comprehending all the spiritual wants of ourselves and others; so that if we advance in a scale from the needful length of private prayer, through the increasing needful length of family prayer, till we come to the largely increasing wants of public prayer, we should scarce know how to shorten our service without abridging something either of thanksgiving, or praise, or hearing his most holy word,' or asking those things that are necessary as well for the body as the soul;' which could ill be spared.

Remedy-Enter into its spirit-heart and voice.

Objection to its sameness answered by analogyThe bread we eat, why do we relish it? The daily necessity of our bodies brings with it a daily appetite, and the man who cannot welcome plain food day by day proclaims that his appetite, or his digestion, is weakened by disease or excess. So spiritually, appetite and digestion are what we want.

Again, a man of sound and sober appetite if bidden

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