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She

therefore more than she could
reckon up; but yet she hoped
that God, for Christ's sake, in
whom she put her whole trust,
would be merciful to her.
felt, she said, the want of such
discourses as her minister had
given; for since her coming to
Paris she had been somewhat re-
miss in hearing such exhortations
from the word of God; and there-
fore, said she, "I am more glad
to receive comfort thence in this
my extremity." To some questions
by her minister, she replied, "I
believe that Christ is my only
Saviour and Mediator, and I look
for salvation from none other,
knowing that he hath abundantly
satisfied for the sins of his people,
and therefore I am assured that
God, for his sake, according to
his gracious promise in him, will
have mercy upon me."

to linger here below in this world, where I see nothing but vanity."

Among other friends, Admiral Coligni visited her, and two ministers read the Scriptures to her, prayed with her, and addressed holy advice and consolation to her, during the greater part of her last night, till she sweetly yielded up her spirit into the hands of her God and Saviour.

We have felt much pleasure in thus dilating upon the life and character of this truly Christian queen. It were too long to relate the afflictions which befel her Protestant subjects, after her death, during a century of persecution. We will pass on at once to that nefarious decree which nearly exterminated true religion in France- the revocation of the edict of Nantes in 1685. The effect of that decree in Navarre, and the present lamentable religious condition of the people of that once-favoured kingdom, are succinctly described by Mr. Jameson in the following passage.

"In Bearn, the Protestants had al

During her illness she often uttered these words, "O my God, in thy due time deliver me from this body of death, and from the miseries of this present life, that I may no more offend thee, and that I may attain to that felicity ready been dragonaded into exterior which thou in thy word hast proconformity, but many fled into the fastnesses of the Pyrennees for shelter. Only mised to bestow on me." When fifteen days were allowed by the deshe saw her ladies and gentlemen cree of revocation for conformity to the weeping around her bed, she said, Romish church, or the infliction of pe"I pray you do not weep for me, nalties for recusancy. Those who did not at once 'fly from the wrath to since God doth by this sickness come,' which their fellow-men had imcall me hence to the enjoyment of piously taken upon them to fulminate, a better life, and I am now entering were compelled to bear the loss of the desired haven, towards which either life, liberty, or religion. Troops were dispersed in all directions, in purthis frail vessel of mine has been suit of fugitives, to whom no quarter so long steering." To some ques- was given; and, to prevent escape by tions she replied that she expected sea, a penalty of three thousand francs neither salvation, nor righteous-tered by captains or owners of vessels. was imposed for every Protestant shelness, nor life, from any but only her Saviour Jesus Christ, being assured that his merits alone abundantly sufficed for the full satisfaction for all her sins, although they were innumerable. Upon being asked if she was willing to go to Christ, she replied, "With all my heart...... Yes, I assure you, much more willing than

"The events that occurred at this period, and the cruel results occasioned by the revocation of the edict of Nantes, are registered in the history of every Protestant nation, to whose refuge and sympathy many thousands of the unfortunate Huguenots were enabled to fly. A medal struck in memory of this Romish act of faith by Louis XIV.,

states that 2,000,000 of Calvinists were brought back to the church ('ob vicies centena millia Calviniarorum,

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&c.); by which it would appear that they constituted a tenth part of the then population of France. At least two hundred thousand escaped, but the computation on the medal appears to be inclusive of the aggregate number. In the south of France the Protestants at the time, on the increase, a were, circumstance which, probably, led to the apparently sudden determination to stop their progress. Eighty temples' had been built in Bearn during the reign of Jeanne d' Albret, and the first ten years of that of Henry IV. At the period of the revocation of the edict of Nantes, nearly three hundred Protestant places of worship existed in that country. These were probably mere upper chambers,' unostentatious places of assembly for the most part, and yet publicly known and designated as Protestant temples.' Many parts of Navarre must necessarily, from the severity of the edicts, have been without any ostensible places of worship, and the shrinking Protestants have assembled only in dens and caves of the earth.' The number of known places of Protestant worship equalled those of the Romanists; it is not, therefore, an unfounded assumption, to calculate the former at two-thirds of the entire Bearnoise population. The town of Salies, the second of size and population in Béarn, is mentioned as having suffered much from the dragonade, on account of the majority of the inhabitants being Protestants. As the population of Bearn, at that period, only amounted to about half of its present number (450,000), it is probable there were nearly 150,000 Protestants subject to the tyrannous edict of 1685.

"At present, there are scarcely five thousand nominal Protestants in this district. Persecution and patronage having been removed, they have dropped, in the absence of excitement, into an apparent state of lukewarmness. Here and there a zealous minister' prophesies upon the bones,' and 'a shaking'

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is visible. But the French character is not disposed to be sectarian in its humbler sense, of separation and inferiority. The hubbub of concourse, or exterior distinction, are requisite to engage them. If a coup de religion' could be effected with sufficient notoriety in any part of France, the excitement of a spirit might possibly spread; or, if Protestant temples' could be reared, like their stately prototype of Charenton, they could no doubt be speedily filled. But these very considerations are arguments for increased missionary efforts; and, happily, they are now in operation in several parts. of France. CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 18.

Within the last few years, Protestant congregations have been formed at Avignon, Rheims, Tours, and other places; humble indeed as to number, but still forming links in the chain which may one day receive the electric fire from heaven, that may corruscate over and enlighten the whole of France.

"The French reformed church is divided into sixteen synodal districts, having eighty-five consistories, and two hundred and eighty places of worship. There are also thirty-one consistories, and two hundred and eight churches of the 'Confession of Augsburg,' or Lutheran faith. The Société Evangelique de France has, likewise, fourteen settled ministers, and eight Evangelistes, or missionaries. The European, or Continental society of London, and the Société Evangelique of Geneva, are also in the field, independently of the Société Biblique, and other bodies of auxiliaries.

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"The estimated number of Protestants in France, at present, is about a million and a half. Some raise the amount higher, but they are not all Israel which are of Israel.' The droppings from the Romish church do not much swell the stream; but there are many of the Guizot school (such as in England, are called 'rational Christians') who roll with it. of the Laodiceans' has many followers here.

'The church

"In the south-west of France (particularly the ancient Bearn), the mild plastic character of the people, and historic recollections), seem to invite missionary exertion. The sun that has set has left some warmth in the soil. May it rise again and endure, not merely as in former days, during the course of a polar summer, but until time shall be no longer.'

Having closed the case of Navarre, we are not about to enter at similar length into the history of continental Protestantism in other places; though ample and interesting materials are not wanting. If one such narrative does not open the hearts of British Protestants to endeavour, by the blessing of God, to revive the Protestant churches of Europe, no multiplication of such details would effect that object. Yet, to our minds, the condition of Switzerland, and the Protestant portions of Germany, is even more affecting than that of the Protes3 C

tants of France; seeing that the abject state of the reformed churches does not arise from external violence, but from internal

corruption. Heretical Geneva is a far more appalling spectacle than the desolation of the Hugunots by the fires of persecution. (To be continued.)

OBITUARY.

THE RIGHT HON. SIR ROBERT GRANT.

WE feel a mournful satisfaction in presenting to our readers the following memorial of the late Sir Robert Grant, which occurs in a letter to the Bishops of Madras and Bombay, by the Lord Bishop of Calcutta, prefixed to his Lordship's charge delivered at his last visitation. The charge may furnish us with some valuable matter for remark or extract on another occasion; but we rejoice promptly to add his Lordship's testimony to the notices which have already appeared before the public respecting this excellent man. We should be glad to see, even thus late, a larger account of his life and religious character, with extracts from his letters and other papers. Bishop Wilson's estimate of his piety, his talents, his attainments, and his anxiety to promote the glory of God, and the temporal and spiritual welfare of mankind, though glowing, is not exaggerated. Some of his addresses at the anniversaries of religious and charitable societies, were not only eminently able and eloquent, but were marked by a high tone of devotional feeling, which bespoke the deep interest which he felt in promoting their holy objects. We ought to add our own private debt of gratitude, as he, occasionally, in former years, contributed to our pages, and once kindly superintended the work, for two or three months, in the absence of the Editor. We shall rejoice if the above suggestion should induce his relatives and friends to draw up a fuller memorial. The following is Bishop Wilson's state

ment.

"But there is one class of sorrows to which I would beg particularly to call your attention. Amidst all the personal trials we have to meet in India, none are more oppressive to the inmost soul than those separations in families, those avulsions and banishments of the dearest objects of our affections, and those yet more appalling occurrences of sudden deaths, which our uncongenial climate from time to time occasions. Yet these we must be prepared to bear,' through Christ which strengtheneth us.'

"One instance of this has just taken place, and thrown all India, and especially the heart of my dear brother of Bombay, into the deepest dejection— the sudden death of his and my mutual friend, the late Governor of that Presidency. You must forgive me if I pause for a moment on the loss of so distinguished a person. I had hardly given utterance to those expressions, which you will find in the commencement of the Charge, on occasion of the death of two of the leading personages in my own diocese, when the tidings of the fall of Sir Robert Grant struck a coldness to my very heart. (Sir Robert Grant died July 9th, 1838.) I had passed, as the Lord Bishop of Bombay will well remember, a fortnight under his hospitable roof, when on my primary visitation in the winter of 1835. There

I had learned something of his devotion to India, his indefatigable application to business, his attention to moral and religious character in his promotions, his love to the native population, his high conception of the capabilities, in almost every repect, of that fine country in the government of which he had been called to share, his zeal to raise its position amongst the nations of the world, his ceaseless activity in diffusing that information, and exciting that spirit of inquiry and enterprise in commercial pursuits, on which national greatness so materially depends.

"I had witnessed also the transcendant importance which he attached to Christianity, as the most stupendous benefit ever vouchsafed by Almighty God to a lost world, and for the promotion of which, in every safe and discreet method, he fully believed India was intrusted, almost miraculously, to the sceptre of the greatest, and freest, and most enlightened of the Western nations. Nor had I omitted to notice his family happiness, his personal and domestic piety, his prayers daily with his household, his attendance twice on the Lord's Day on the public worship of God, and the honour he always put on religion in his most ordinary converse.

"It is soothing to my feelings to dwell on such christian excellenciesgratitude demands it of me. The ebullition of grief and sympathy which your Lordship witnessed at the public meeting (the most numerous ever recollected at Bombay) at which you presided after his death, did not so much surprise me; but I confess I read with no little emotion the simple but affecting testimony borne by different persons to the efforts he had made to serve India. A whole life seems to have been crowded into his very few years of government (only three and a half-March 1835 to July 1838). The enumeration of public measures which he either originated or carried into effect,' to use the terms of one of the Resolutions, for improving the agricultural resources of the country, facilitating communication with Europe, and also between the different towns and provinces of the Presidency, and advancing its commercial and general prosperity,' had scarcely been made by one public functionary, when a similar series of proceedings was detailed by another distinguished person for his putting himself in communication with individuals of all classes, and eliciting information on the subject of education; for establishing schools and promoting the interests of science; for founding medical colleges and native dispensaries, and for encouraging, by public employment and private munificence, the rising native youth.

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"Nor was it the least affecting to me to read the declaration of the Archdeacon of Bombay, (the Rev. H. Jeffrey,) towards the close of the meeting:

For my own part, I should be very ungrateful indeed, if I did not bear testimony to his personal kindness and courtesy to myself; and not only to myself, but to the whole body of the clergy of our Church establishment, in whose name I now speak, and whose unanimous feeling and opinion I am certain that I faithfully represent. But his praise stood on far higher ground than this-on the ground of genuine piety and love to God. The general interests of religion, and of our own Church Establishment in particular, occupied a large share of his attention; and when I consider the vast amount of correspondence which passed under his own eye, as stated by the Secretary, all of which he examined for himself, I am quite astonished at the readiness with which all correspondence was answered which passed through my department; and I cannot but feel bound to acknowledge that, amidst his various and extensive engagements, the Church

occupied even more than its share of his attention.'

"The allusion to which this statement refers, as made by one of the Secretaries of Government, to the sources of his premature disease and death, is indeed most touching. Yes, our noble-minded and lamented friend fell a sacrifice to his exertions, somewhat increased perhaps beyond the strictest necessity by a scrupulous, an over-scrupulous anxiety we must say, to examine every thing for himself, to save the feelings of every individual with whom he had concerns, and to wait till he had the time and materials for a rigid and impartial investigation into the merits of each case, which carried him far beyond his strength, though it inspired such unlimited love and confidence in those placed under his authority. The proceedings of the Bombay Government, in only one or two departments, occupied 24,000 folios in the year 1837. Embarrassing circumstances may possibly have concurred to harass his mind. The arrangements of his Government with the Supreme Council at Calcutta, in consequence of the Charter Act of 1833, are supposed to have created, from their novelty, continual impediments to his exertions. If he incurred any unpopularity on this score, either at home or with the Government of India, it adds at least to the proof of his zeal for his own Presidency. The secret of all this distinguished reputation and success was not so much his fine talents, nor his diligent habits of public business, nor his zeal and perseverance, as his thorough knowledge of India, and the high and elevated principles which di rected his whole conduct. He had not to acquire as other Governors, he brought to his Chair an acquaintance with the most minute affairs of his Presidency. He inherited from his eminent father (the late Charles Grant, Esq., whose life and character are far too little known: what he accomplished for the religious interests of India during a period of fifty years, will only be fully disclosed at the last great day;) an inextinguishable love for the country which he left at the age of nine, to return to it as Governor after a lapse of forty-seven years; having not wholly lost the language of Hindostan during the long interval, whilst he had been collecting the most copious and valuable stores of information.

"Such a Governor soon becomes known, especially in our Eastern empire. When it is once understood that there is a zeal and promptitude in the head of the State equal to the most

ardent wishes of every applicant-a passion for India-a determination to promote, not private objects, nor the aggrandizement of a family, nor the accumulation of wealth, nor even the ordinary ends of Government only, but the good of the prostrate millions committed to its care-and especially when this is seen to be connected with a thorough understanding of what Christianity really is, and what it demands of man, it operates like a charm-it penetrates the remotest ramifications of the administration. It elicits and rewards individual enterprise of every kind. Sir Robert Grant's years in Bombay, few as they were, are the brighest spot in his life. The period of peace during which his Government fell, afforded him the fairest field for his beneficent labours. Unlike some of his most eminent predecessors, his attention and resources were not diverted from the one grand object of his heart.

"For myself I can only say, that a friendship of nearly thirty years, thus suddenly snapped asunder, leaves me desolate indeed. I feel as if I had lost a brother. His private tokens of affection I dare not, and ought not, to particularize. It may, however, interest his friends to know that his able pen may be traced in the large aid he afforded me in the two Sermons on Habit, in my first volume of Sermons of 1817; in my Defence of the Church Missionary Society in 1818; and in the Funeral Discourse for his honoured father in 1823. It is known, however, that I owe to his honoured father's friendship, continued in the present generation, the appointment which Lord Glenelg, his eldest son, when President of the India Board, was pleased to intrust to me in this country. I may add in this connexion, that it fell under my own notice to witness,

before I left England in 1832, Sir Robert's zeal in preparing a Bill for the erection of two Bishoprics, now so happily filled by my Right Reverend brethren, and which was incorporated into the New Charter Act the following year. What share he took in the general enactments of that Charter, as well as of the preceding one of 1813, and in the provisions more especially for the freest diffusion of Christianity, all acquainted with the details of those great measures well know. The two large and valuable volumes on the subject, which he published in 1813, testify his powers of mind, his elegance and force in composition, and the vast fund of information on which he could draw.

"It has pleased, however, the Almighty to remove him from us. Happy for himself the transition from an earthly to a heavenly kingdom! He has 'served his generation according to the will of God. Nor did his humble, holy, pious death, his poignant confessions of sin, his fear of himself, his delight in hearing Holy Scripture, his firm but trembling reliance on the alone merits of his Saviour, leave any thing to desire to his family and friends in the way of alleviation for his irreparable loss. Irreparable to them it undoubtedly is; nor can it be soon even partially supplied as to his public station; for it is the confession of all who can best judge of the case, that for capacity and variety of talent, for sincerity and singleness of purpose, for purity of private life, for a bright example as a husband and parent, for deep religious principle, for calmness and impartiality in his decisions, for undissembled and active philanthropy, and for a statesman-like knowledge of India, no Governor has surpassed, and few have equalled, Sir Robert Grant."

VIEW OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS.

THE circumstances under which her Majesty's Ministers resigned and reassumed their functions, seem to indicate more than a mere parenthesis in their official life, unconnected with any change of plans or intentions. It has long been notorious that the Melbourne cabinet has stood, not by its own inherent strength, but by the antagonist policy of two parties of opponents; just as a fainting man is kept from falling in a crowd by persons pressing

on him from opposite sides; whereas, had they united their pressure in the same direction, or even had one side receded, and left it to the weight of the other, it would have fallen powerless to the ground. Whenever her Majesty's Ministers have voted on steady principles, they have been upheld by the Conservatives against the Destructives; and when on unsteady, by the Destructives against the Conservatives; and thus they were kept in the focus of office

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