of Parliament, endeavour to dissuade his Majesty's Government from the establishment of a system founded upon a supreme Board, vested with absolute and despotic power; a measure which we believe to be contrary to the soundest principles of political economy, and which, by its contemplated interference with the integrity and unrestricted use of the Scriptures, we believe to be opposed to the positive declaration of the word of God.

The Synod, at a subsequent sederunt, adopted the following Resolution, and ordered it to be forwarded to congregations in conjunction with the preceding resolutions :

Being instructed by the word of God, that whilst it is the duty and privilege of the church, at all times, by prayer and supplication, to make her requests known unto God; her members are especially encouraged to call upon him in perilous times, that he would be pleased to avert threatened judgments, or over-rule them for the furtherance of true religion;-and looking upon the present to be such times of peril, this Synod recommend it to all their Ministers, Elders, and people, that, in their public, domestic, and private devotions, and, where it may be practicable, by special prayer-meetings appointed for the purpose, they wiil especially bear upon their hearts before God, the present momentous situation of the church and of the world, praying that the Lord would graciously direct our Rulers into wise and godly counsels, and mercifully teach the people to lead quiet and peaceable lives, in all godliness and honesty.

"JAMES MORGAN, Moderator.
"JAMES SEATON REID, Clerk."

To the Honorable the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in Parliament assembled, the Petition of the Rev. the Moderator, the Clerk, and other the Ministers and Elders of the General Synod of Ulster,

"HUMBLY SHEWETH,

“That Petitioners feel sincerely grateful for that liberal provision which, during the last twenty years, your Honorable House has been pleased to extend towards the support and advancement of the education of the poor in Ireland.

"Petitioners, however, have learned, with deep regret, by means of an official letter from the Chief Secretary for Ireland, that a great change has lately been adopted by the Government, in the management of this parliamentary provision.

"Petitioners, therefore, being specially convened to consider this important change, beg leave to approach your Honorable House with an humble statement of their principles on the subject of education, and also of the constitution of the Presbyterian Church, which render it impossible for them to comply with the conditions upon which alone grants of assistance from the parliamentary fund are, in future, to be made to public schools.

"Petitioners, in common with all Protestant Churches, maintain, that every man is endowed with an indefeasible right to possess and read the whole Scriptures; and that it is every man's bounden duty, as a being accountable to God for the use or abuse of his gifts, to examine and judge of their requirements, and both to "teach them, and have them taught

diligently to his children," for their "instruction in righteousness, that they may be thoroughly furnished to all good works."

"Petitioners farther believe and maintain, that no man or body of men possess right or authority to expurgate or mutilate the Bible, or to presume to approve and license, as a school-book, one part in preference to another, seeing that God has inspired and delivered the whole under one equally divine authority.

Petitioners, professing and holding the Presbyterian discipline, farther believe and maintain, with all possible respect to those who support another order of church government, that all Ministers of the word are perfectly equal in point of rank and degree, each individual being Presbyter or Bishop of his own particular Church; that all ecclesiastical power, under Christ the Head of the Church, is lodged in the hands of the Presbytery, or united council of Ministers and Elders; and that no one can receive, claim, or exercise any power over his brethren, in matters of conscience or duty.

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"By the newly adopted system of national education, the Government have, in the judgment of Petitioners, seriously interfered with the foregoing principles, which, whether common to them as Protestants, or peculiar to them as Presbyterians, they hold as matters of conscience, from which they are not at liberty to recede. To a Board professedly consisting of three Protestants of the establishment, two Roman Catholics, one Unitarian, and one Presbyterian, Government have committed an tire control" over all school-books-the Bible, consequently, included. This Board propose to confine the scholars, during the period of literary and moral instruction, to read only as much of the sacred writings as they may approve-exercising a decided veto over the remainder;-a power which Petitioners can never concede, so long as, by the grace of God, they continue to be Protestants. Farther the Government have proceeded to invest one member of the Synod with a similar "entire control" over all books employed by his brethren, for the religious instruction of the children of their congregations who may attend any of the endowed schools, an arrangement which destroys their essential ministerial parity, and establishes a spiritual supremacy over them, to which they can never submit, so long as, by the grace of God, they continue to be Presbyterians.

"Petitioners beg leave farther to state to your Honorable House, that the plan of education adopted by the Government of Ireland, deprives parents of all real power in the election or removal of schoolmasters, vesting the whole in the hands of the Board. Now Petitioners have ever been accustomed to consider it as one of the soundest principles of political economy, that, in every concern, whether public or private, men should always possess an influence of management proportionate to their interest; and to hold it as a fundamental principle of Scripture, that parents standing directly accountable to God for the education of their children, possess, therefore, an absolute right to the choice of books and teachers, with which no free and Christian state should ever authoritatively interfere.

"Petitioners beg leave to state to your Honorable House, that the system of education adopted by the Government in Ireland, absolutely cuts off from participation in its benefits, all consistent Protestants, whether of the Established or Presbyterian Churches. Petitioners would therefore humbly entreat, that if your Honorable House be pleased to patronize

any plan of education, it may be one which, adopting as its basis the Scriptures complete and unmutilated, will proceed upon divine authority, and to which they can render a conscientious approval. But should the difficulties, in the way of such a system, be pronounced insurmountable, Petitioners then pray, that your Honorable House may be pleased to abstain from all legislative interference, leaving the choice of teachers and books in the hands of parents, to whom the Allwise God has primarily committed the trust; and the ordinary support of schools to parents who are able to pay; and, in the case of the really poor, to the voluntary contributions of the friends of education-an arrangement by which Petitioners and their people will be relieved from any compromise of religious principle; and by which, as has been abundantly proved by the experience both of education and missionary societies, the great cause of national instruetion may be happily and efficiently promoted.

Petitioners farther beg leave to state to your Honorable House, that they undoubtedly speak the sentiments of the great body of the Presbyterians of Ulster, holding the doctrines of the Church of Scotland; and do confidently hope, that the divine authority of the principles they have pleaded, the interests of that scriptural education which they are anxious to retain and promote, the number of the people amongst whom they minister, characterized by loyalty, peaceableness, and industry, will obtain for their requests a favourable consideration.

And Petitioners, as in duty bound, shall pray.

Of the foregoing resolutions we will only say, that the greater part were passed unanimously-and that when not unanimously, the minority consisted but of one-the Rev. James Carlile, one of the Government Commissioners.

The petition, so far as we know, has not yet been presented. When an arrangement had been made to present it at an early hour on the night of the principal debate on the education question, the arrangement was defeated by one of the Grattans-we believe the hero of Coldblowlane. The substance of the petition was, however, twice repeated by Lord Acheson, to whom it had, most unhappily, as we think, been intrusted for presentation. We know not his lordship; but he seems to us to possess, in great perfection, that useful statesmanlike quality of blowing hot and cold with the same mouth. We are not cognizant of parliamentary etiquette; but we think his lordship treated the Synod of Ulster rather unkindly. We believe it is a kind of parliamentary law that members should present any respectful petitions intrusted to them; yet we believe it is not uncommon, where they do not concur with a petition, to tell the petitioner their objection. His lordship did not do so; but contrived, as we understood him from the report, to pour out upon the Synod a quantity of oblique and most undeserved abuse. In a subsequent explanation his lordship denied the imputation of impro

per motives to the Synod. But the noble and eloquent reply of Sir Robert Bateson proved that his immediate auditors understood him as we did. We are told his lordship is friendly to the Presbyterians of Ulster; if so, we heartily wish him a better way of showing it. The Presbyterians will never have decided friends in Parlia ment, till they learn to befriend themselves. And if we could persuade them to shake themselves out of their, lethargy, and combine their mighty moral energies in some common effort-a consummation to be wished, and an event that we see in progresswe believe that, within a few years, the ranks of their friends would not be so deserted; and perchance the men that overlook or abuse them now, might live to acknowledge their importance to the interests of the empire. After all misrepresentations or misapprehensions, the Presbyterians of Ulster are the inseparable link that binds Ireland to England; and they form the concentrated and invincible garrison that gives protection to the scattered Protestantism of the southern provinces. It is but justice to Mr Stanley, the Chief Secretary, to say that, though opposed to the views of the Synod, he yet bore the most ample testimony to their "piety, moral conduct, and discipline-and to their earnest and successful endeavours to enforce habits of good order, loyalty, religion, and morality amongst their people." We thank him for his good opinion: we believe it was sincere; and we bless God it was, in some wise, well deserved.

Meantime, unmindful of Protestant petitions, Government go forward with their experiment. Mr. Carlile, it would appear from his own account, is now operating in the conjoint capacities of translator and extractor of Scripture, adding, as we understand him, a moderate sprinkling of the Douay and Rhemish notes. We call him as yet merely an extractor; time will tell, whether under the guidance of his Roman Catholic and Unitarian colleagues, he may not turn mutilator likewise.

We are heartily sorry for the attacks Mr. Carlile has now twice made against Captain J. E. Gordon, respecting his speech at the great Education Meeting in Exeter Hall, London. The attack upon Captain Gordon commences with these words-"The whole statement is one tissue of misrepresentation; and it forms one of those portentous examples, of which the present day is so fertile, of persons

professing zeal for religion, manifesting nearly as little regard for truth and decency in prosecuting their measures, as the most unscrupulous opponents of religion." In a subsequent publication against Captain Gordon, Mr. Carlile has been pleased to extend his indictment thus"The statement is one of those falsehoods in which the professing religious public of the present day so liberally indulges itself." Of such charges we grieve to speak, when they fall from the pen of a brother. From an enemy we could have borne them; but to suffer them to pass unrebuked, we cannot. The charges themselves are portentous examples of the lengths to which, we will not say, the "professing religious public" may be led, in "prosecuting their measures," but of the lengths to which sincere Christians (for such we believe Mr. Carlile to be) may be carried by passion, when opposed in the prosecution of their "measures." We are sorry-heartily sorry for this unreasonable ebullition, especially because Mr. Carlile attacks a gentleman distinguished for talents, and piety, and zeal; we are sorry, because he has thereby lent himself to a vile infidel faction, by whom that gentleman is so hear. tily hated; above all, we are sorry, because Captain Gordon, in his place in Parliament, has been compelled, in selfdefence, to retaliate upon Mr. Carlile, and most satisfactorily to refute every accusation. Mr. Gordon proved himself innocent of every charge advanced by Mr. Car. lile.

We are sorry for Mr. Carlile; and we think by this time, he himself is sorry for his precipitate and unfounded attacks. We hold Mr. Carlile bound not only to beg Mr. Gordon's pardon, but that of the "professing religious public," whom, at the same time with Mr. Gordon, he has so wantonly and unjustly libelled.

To the the petition of the Synod we add the following, which we consider the best we have seen; and we believe there is not a commissioner at the Board, a member in Parliament, nor a partizan out of it, able to break one link of its chain of argument:

To the Hon. the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in Parliament assembled,

The Petition of the undersigned Minister, Elders, and Members of the Presbyterian Congregation of Broughshane, in connexion with the General Synod of Ulster, in the county of Antrim, Ireland,

"RESPECTFULLY SHEWETH,

"That your Petitioners regret much that an imperious sense of duty compels them to trouble your Hon. House with a complaint against any