GENTLEMEN,-I have read, with much delight, as have doubtless many others of your readers, the account of the religious movement in and around the city of Sens, in France, copied into your journal of the 16th instant, from the "Continental Echo." How gratifying, how encouraging to exertion, the facts there narrated! A young man, "weakly in appearance, and of timid deportment, calls on M. de Pressensé, the general Agent for France of the British and Foreign Bible Society, and requests that he may be employed as a Colporteur. With a view to test his motives, and the strength of his religious principles, M. de Pressensé represents to him the difficulties, the mortifications, the fatigues to which this work would expose him, and which appeared too great for his feebleness. "I have weighed all that," replies the candidate; "but it has not moved me.

The Lord will strengthen me I must labour for his sake." At length, satisfied that he had counted the cost, the Agent, "fearing to go contrary to the will of God," consents to employ the young man; and proposes to send him into a field already occupied by others, in order that he might profit by their directions, and only have to enter into their labours. "I ask nothing better than to be placed under the direction of a brother of greater experience than myself," answers the candidate; "but my heart would lead me to Sens. I cannot hinder myself from thinking that there is something to be effected in that city." "To Sens, my friend!" replies the agent: "you do not consider. Nothing, as yet, has been done in that city. It is peopled only with Roman Catholics. It would be to commence with the greatest difficulties." "This is true, Sir," was the rejoinder; "but I have a notion that many of the inhabitants of Sens are sighing after something better, and that they will inquire after the word of God." The young man continuing to insist strongly on this point, M. de Pressensé yields again, "from the same motive as before," "fearing to go contrary to the will of God,"-commits to his care one hundred and fifty copies of the New Testament, and sends him to Sens. At the expiration of a week, the

Agent receives a letter from the new Colporteur, stating that he had sold the whole, and requesting two hundred additional copies to be sent to him by the quickest conveyance. M. de Pressensé, who had not ventured to anticipate such success, "asks himself what this could mean; yet he complies with the request. Another week passes, and the Colporteur writes again for three hundred copies more, stating that the second supply was sold off. This time the Agent hesitates. He suspects some trap had been laid for the inexperienced Colporteur; that perhaps the books had been purchased by the Priests in order to burn them. While he ponders the subject, another letter arrives. The Colporteur now asks not only for books, but for a Minister of the Gospel; stating, that he was not able to satisfy the numerous inquiries which were addressed to him; that a lively attention was awakened, and that it was absolutely necessary that a Minister should come, to meet the felt need of spiritual nourishment. On this, M. de Pressensé convenes the Committee, the letter is read, and the Rev. Pastor Audebez offers to set off immediately to Sens. Arriving in this city, the Rev. Pastor finds "that all the Colporteur had written is accurately true." "Eight hundred copies of the New Testament had been sold in three weeks," and many persons were desirous of having a meeting opened for evangelical worship. He immediately takes steps to meet their wishes; and, under the auspices of the Mayor, convenes a meeting. The place, which was capable of holding several hundred persons, is filled. This shortly becoming too strait, the Mayor lends the Town-hall; which, however, on the interference of the Prefect, is shortly closed against the meetings. Another room is hired, which also proves too small; when, by a concurrence of favouring circumstances, the building of a chapel is begun, to cost 25,000 francs. The work continues to advance; instances of conversion take place; the spirit of inquiry still extends.

A very promising religious awakening has thus evidently commenced, the description of which, in the article you

have copied into your columns, will dispose many to offer to God the praise which is due for such a manifestation of

his saving power. It is, however, a matter of regret, that the information contained in the article is defective on one point; which is the more remarkable as the article is given in the Echo avowedly as an account of the "origin" of the gracious work which it describes. Now, the preparation of the chosen instruments whom He employs is as much the work of God, as the good which He effects by their instrumentality; and those who rejoice in the one, are naturally interested in the other. In studying the religious movement resulting from the labours of Wesley and Whitefield, or the glorious Reformation of the sixteenth century, we, as a matter of course, turn to the men whom God saw fit to employ for the accomplishment of his gracious purposes, and we bless him for the grace by which he fitted them for their respective tasks. Who does not follow with intense interest D'Aubigné, the accomplished and pious historian of the Reformation, as he traces with a masterhand the means by which the mind and heart of Luther were graciously prepared, in the providential arrangements of the Great Head of the church, for entering upon the work which he was destined to achieve? The same principle is involved, whether the religious movement is confined to a single locality, or extends over a kingdom, or a continent. In every case, God first prepares the instrument, then uses it for his own glory; and we are bound, if we would offer to him the fuller meed of praise which is his due, to trace his previous work in the instrument of his power, as well as in the religious movement itself.

Under this view, some of your readers do not regard the circumstance of a young man's offering to go to Sens, in the capacity of a Colporteur, as the origin of the interesting religious revival which the writer in the Echo describes. They are rather disposed to consider the commencement of the work of divine grace in the heart of the young man himself as the origin of the movement. Our attention is called by the writer to an occurrence, most obviously not of an every-day character. A young man presents himself. His physical appearance is altogether unpromising; but he is found so full of high and holy resolve, so calm and steadfast in his purpose, that M. de Pressensé is constrained to act contrary to his own judgment, by the fear that, if he did not

meet the wishes of the candidate, he might "go contrary to the will of God." The young man is sent to Sens, and God manifestly goes with him. Now, the question forces itself upon the reader, Who is this young man? In what religious community was he trained for such hallowed enterprise? Where did he receive that baptism of the Holy Spirit which enabled him to speak those words of power, which, in three short weeks, thrilled through the hearts of so many hundreds of Romanists, inducing them to buy the word of God, and sue for a Minister to explain its meaning to their inquiring minds?" The narrative which you have copied furnishes no answer to this question. It is equally passed over in silence upon the platform. Not long since, a leading individual prominently connected with the movement at Sens, when on a visit to Guernsey, gave, at a public meeting, a detailed account of the movement itself, but afforded no clue to the previous history of "the young man."

Now it would not have extended his narrative to an undue length had the writer in the Echo merely said, that the young man in question, Jean Prunier, is a member of the Wesleyan Society in the Bocage, and was trained under the teaching of the Missionaries of that body. That alone would have enabled those who can thankfully admit the exercise of the sovereignty of God, and bless him for the instrumentality he pleases to select, as well as for the work in which he employs it, to recognise with gratitude the good providence of God which introduced a religious body, whose system is so eminently Missionary, at so early a period after the pacification of Europe, into that field for evangelical labour which France presents; and it would have proved a word of encouragement to the friends of the Wesleyan Missionary Society, as showing that their "labour is not in vain in the Lord." The success of the Wesleyans in France is not to be estimated merely by the number of communicants at their stations. The larger amount of good which they have been instrumental in effecting would be found in that indirect influence which has been exerted upon the general state of religion in that country. Not a few distinguished Pastors, and leading members of other churches, as well as subordinate agents of other societies, are the fruits of Wesleyan instrumentality; while the impulse given by the same means, in the hand of God, to the general work of religion in various parts of

France, is by no means inconsiderable. A considerate recognition of such facts, by those who undertake to describe the progress of religion in France, it is obvious, ought to be made. Let God be acknowledged in the choice and preparation of his instruments, as well as in the work of grace in which he uses them, and consistent praise and glory may then be offered to his name; and his several servants, while they "thank God" for past success, may "take courage their future efforts.

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I cannot conclude without remarking that I anticipate much good from the Evangelical Alliance, of which some of

the excellent French Pastors are members. I am persuaded, that as the spirit of the Resolutions passed at the London Conference, on the morning of the 26th of August, obtains prevalence,—which spirit I would prayerfully endeavour day by day more fully to imbibe,—a growing disposition will be cherished by Christians, not merely "to discourage all envyings, strifes, and divisions," but, also, more openly to manifest a brotherly sympathy with each other in trouble, and thankfully acknowledge and rejoice in the success which God may please to vouchsafe to their respective communities.

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THE POPE, THE JESUITS, AND MR. NEWMAN. A Clergyman Rome writes, under date of December last, as follows:-"The Pope is hated by the Clergy, especially by the Jesuits. As to them, this will show you the popular feeling. On the Pope's going to visit their convent, the people shouted again and again, Holy Father, do not take any chocolate there,' (lest he should be poisoned). It is a fact, that letters have been sent to each Jesuit here, and each Cardinal, forewarning them, that if the Pope fall sick they will be murdered." From the same letter we copy the following:-"Mr. Newman at Rome. I heard Mr. Newman make a funeral oration over a Miss Brien. In matter it was meager, in doctrine barren, and in manner ungraceful and unimpressive; altogether a failure." Record of January 14th, 1847.

LORD THURLOW AND HORNE TOOKE. It is not generally known that after his retirement from the woolsack, Lord Thurlow frequently visited Horne Tooke, whom he had prosecuted and sent to Newgate; and it is still less known that in conversation he had great ascendancy over the mind of the exClergyman. Though divested of wig and robes, his sonorous voice, emphatic mode of delivery, enormous eye-brows, and peremptory tone, had yet something portentous for one who had suffered from him:-"Lady Oxford, who then (1801) had a house at Ealing, had, by Lord Thurlow's desire, I believe, but at all events with his acquiescence, invited Horne Tooke to dinner to meet him;

Lord Thurlow never having seen him since he had prosecuted him when Attorney General for a libel in 1778, and when the greatest bitterness was shown on both sides; so that this dinner was a meeting of great curiosity to us who were invited to it. Sheridan and Mrs. Sheridan were there, the late Lord Camelford, Sir Francis Burdett, Charles Warren, with several others, and myself. Tooke evidently came forward for a display; and as I had met him repeatedly, and considered his powers of conversation as surpassing those of any person I had ever seen, (in point of skill and dexterity, and, if at all necessary, in lying,) so I took for granted old grumbling Thurlow would be obliged to lower his top-sail to him; but it seemed as if the very look and voice of Thurlow scared him out of his senses from the first moment; and certainly nothing could be much more formidable. So Tooke tried to recruit himself by wine, and, though not generally a drinker, was very drunk; but all would not do; he was perpetually trying to distinguish himself, and Thurlow as constantly laughing at him." Horne Tooke, after he had escaped the greater peril to which he had been exposed by another Attorney General of being hanged, beheaded, and quartered as a traitor, had taken up his abode at Wimbledon; and thither Thurlow used to ride from Dulwich, that he might pass a morning with him in talking over the trial of Rex v. Horne before Lord Mansfield, and in discussing some of the questions started in the Epea pteroenta. The ex-Chancellor would likewise occa