composed an assembly of thegns of each grade. It was a revival of the Teutonic concilium in its antique freedom.

The feudal bond which united the dead King and his vassals, and had formed a barrier between them and the unpromoted gentlemen of the land, was dissolved, and in dignity all thegns became the same, and met on terms of equality. As soon, however, as the inauguration of the Monarch had taken place, his honours were diffused and his vassalage adopted. The medeme thegns relapsed into their former political dependence, and the new King and his comites held the helm of the State.

In reading the foregoing observations it cannot be otherwise than gratifying to the admirer of the old Germanic freedom to find that the event we have been considering arose, not from the violence of fellow-citizens, but from the natural and more permanent force which an absolute change of position brought into play upon the social life and relations of the invaders. In that tacit surrender of the right to legislate and govern, the medene thegns did no more than accommodate themselves to the circumstances which new times and new events had produced. The personal attendance of their class was impracticable, and they therefore fell back upon the only mode of representation which was then conceived-the representation which feodality gave; and the assembly of the King's thegns thus, in law and in theory, became the meeting of the integral German nation.

Whatever may be the difference in respect of comparative liberty, the witenagemot is undoubtedly the descendant of the concilium which Tacitus has described, its shrunken and diminished, but still real and genuine, issue. It performs the same functions, and is applied to the same purposes; and no other council of a more general nature or fabric can be traced to dispute or invalidate its identity: and, finally, it still preserves a tradition of its former character; for, in name at least, it boasts to be general-to be a gemot of all the witan. H. C. C.

Doctors' Commons.

THE FALLS OF NIAGARA.

WE first came in sight of the Falls of Niagara when they were about three miles distant. The sun was shining full upon them-no building in viewnothing but the green wood, the falling water, and the white foam. At that moment they appeared to me more beautiful than I had expected, and less grand; but after several days, when I had enjoyed a nearer view of the two cataracts, had listened to their thundering sound, and gazed on them for hours from above and below, and had watched the river foaming over the rapids, then plunging headlong into the dark pool,-and when I had explored the delightful island which divides the falls, where the solitude of the ancient forest is still unbroken, I at last learned by degrees to comprehend the wonders of the scene, and to feel its full magnificence. Early in the morning after our arrival, I saw from the window of our hotel, on the American side, a long train of white vapoury clouds hanging over the deep chasm below the falls. They were slightly tinted by the rays of the rising sun, and blown slowly northwards by a gentle breeze from the pool below the cataract, which was itself invisible from this point of view. No fog was rising from the ground, the sky was clear above; and as the day advanced, and the air grew warm, the vapours all disappeared. This scene

reminded me of my first view of Mount Etna from Catania, at sunrise in the autumn of 1828, when I saw dense volumes of steam issuing from the summit of the highest crater in a clear blue sky, which at the height of more than two miles above the sea, assumed at once the usual shape and hues of clouds in the upper atmosphere. These, too, vanished before noon, as soon as the sun's heat increased.-Lyell's Travels in North America.

STORMY SABBATHS.

AN American Minister, Dr. Bushnell, of Hartford, Connecticut, recently preached a sermon to his people on the "Uses and Duties of Stormy Sabbaths," from the text, "Fire, and hail; snow, and vapours; stormy wind fulfilling his word." From this text he lectured them very plainly on the evil habit of staying away from worship on stormy Sabbaths. After alluding to the fact that every created thing, pleasant and terrible, including "the flying artillery of the weather," were invoked to praise the Lord, he turned to his "fair-weather hearers," for whose special benefit he had prepared the discourse, and chosen a fair and genial day on which to deliver it, and told them in the outset that he meant them, by introducing his subject after the following strain :

"There is a class among you who visibly enough cannot sympathize with all the sentiments of this glowing and lofty psalm. The principal significance of the weather, or at least of all foul weather, appears in their estimation to be that it excuses them from worship. The snows, and vapours, and stormy wind, do not so much fulfil the word of Jehovah, as call them away from his word and the worship of his house. Their seat is sure to be vacant every stormy Sabbath, and too often when there is only a slight promise of rain, or of any other kind of unpleasant weather. If the wind blows, or the walks are wet, or covered with a little snow; if the cold is uncomfortable, or the heat a little too intense; if a fog damps the air, or an east wind chills it, they take out an indulgence from the weather, and consider the worship of God as relieved by a dispensation.”

The Preacher then went on to prove that stormy Sabbaths are not only very harmless to all persons but invalids, but that they really have a high religious purpose. It is very desirable, according to his doctrine, to have stormy Sabbaths, and we ought to improve them as opportunities of special blessing in attending on the public worship of God. Toward the close he applied his subject in this strain :

:

"I hope that all my fair-weather hearers are present, and, being present, that they will receive the salutary lesson I give them. I have not said, and did not mean to say, all that could relate to a subject so unpleasant. I have not rebuked your self-indulgence as I might have done. I have not spoken of the chill our worship often suffers by the thinness of the assembly, and the many empty seats displayed; for I was not willing to ask your attention here as patrons of the place. I have not dwelt on your excuses, and removed them; the plea that you had better sometimes spend the day of God by yourselves-for you know that you spend it in no such exercise as worship, or preparation for a better world; the plea often present to the giddy heart of vanity, that a stormy day is no fit occasion for the display of your person-a plea that you cannot yourselves utter, because of its conscious want of dignity, but which, nevertheless, has power with many; the plea that it will injure your health to encounter the rough weather-for you

all expect me to be here in every storm that blows, and you can as well be here as I; and if in thirteen years' attendance on my duties here, without any consideration of the weather, in its wildest storms and fiercest cold, I have never suffered the least injury, there is not much reason to fear for you -certainly not for any who are in equally sound health. To invalids I will make allowance, though even they would commonly suffer by no exposure incident to their attendance. There is no such poison in wet and cold, as many love to suppose; and if we were not so self-indulgent, so ready to shrink from the rough moods of nature, we should have clearer minds and stronger bodies. The worst and most dangerous poison is confinement, and the pent air that simmers all day in heated rooms, unchanged."-Christian Treasury.

"THE CHRISTIAN WITNESS."

(To the Editor of the Wesleyan-Methodist Magazine.)

I HAVE now to request insertion for the additional observations which I promised in my former letter on the paper in the "Christian Witness." I have already remarked on the standard by which the author of that paper would measure the results of ministerial labour, and shown, I think, its inadequacy. That labour may be both great and efficient, although, during some given brief period, its numerical issues may not be so large as at other times it has been. I do not believe that the body of Wesleyan Ministers ever laboured more assiduously than during the year ending at the last Conference. For that blessing which has rested on their labours, let them and the people of their charge praise Him by whom it was bestowed; and let them, likewise, by earnest and ceaseless prayer, beseech Him to grant them quickened zeal, and heavenly wisdom, and yet more abundant success; let this be the united, universal petition, that He would revive his own work, and in his own way. True zeal is ardent, but it is enlightened; it is active, but it is patient. It asks, it implores, but it never dictates. However much it seeks, that which it has it will always diligently improve. If, on the one hand, indifference be offensive to God, as most assuredly it is; so, on the other, with equal certainty, is the offering presented with strange fire,-human passion, instead of the pure flame of love. A true revival of the work of God may be as effectually hindered by the last, as by the first.

There is one subject to which the "Christian Witness" adverts, on which, for want of some mutually-admitted standard, it is not easy to remark. It is intimated that perhaps there would have been, in the Wesleyan societies, a numerical decrease, had it not been for the labours of Mr. Caughey. With these, in the present paper, I have nothing to do. But I wonder how long what have been sometimes termed Methodist revivals, have been in favour with the writer and his friends? I have not heard of any among them of late years. I have heard remarks denoting opinions which, to say the least, have not been very favourable to them. But perhaps there is going to be a change. At all events, we will not be hasty in taking for granted that this mention of Mr. Caughey's name is to be regarded as a proof. I have witnessed, in my own days, very painful expressions of disapprobation of similar proceedings. Some years ago, I happened to be tarrying for a few weeks in a Circuit town, in which, among the

Ministers of different denominations, a "Union prayer-meeting was held monthly. It had pleased God, as the Wesleyans believed, to revive his work among them. A concern for religion, much deeper than ordinary, rested on the minds of many persons; and to meet their anxious desires, frequent services were held, mostly in the vestry of the chapel. According to the views of some, these meetings were not very orderly. There were those who professed to be powerfully awakened to such a view of their sin and danger as they had never before experienced; and being, as they supposed, met together as they were in a sequestered place, quite retired from the world, assembled with those who either did feel, or had felt, as they themselves then did, they put themselves under no particular restraint. They gave utterance to their feelings. One evening, several strangers entered the chapel, and stood listening for a time to what was going on in the vestry. To those who had no sympathy with the proceedings there, the earnest prayers, with the frequent and loud responses, the utterances of penitent distress from some, and of grateful joy from others, would come only as a disorderly noise. So, it seems, thought one of the principal Ministers in the town, a Congregationalist, like the "Christian Witness" writer. He had been standing in the chapel; but, after remaining a short time, he vehemently struck the floor with his stick, exclaimed, "If this be Christianity, I prefer infidelity," and left the place. But this dislike of such a revival did not stop here. The next day, a letter, written by this Minister, and signed by himself and the other Calvinist Ministers who belonged to "the Union," was sent to the Wesleyan Superintendent. It was a long one, and expressed in very strong language the disapprobation with which the writer regarded the proceedings at the Wesleyan chapel, attributing the whole to sheer enthusiasm. The writer then said, that as he and his brethren believed it to be their duty to protest against the whole, they could not associate as heretofore with the Wesleyans in "the monthly Union meeting," and that the Superintendent was to consider himself as no longer a member. I read the letter the day it was received, and have never forgotten it; especially as observations of a kindred character have sometimes refreshed my memory. But, as I said, perhaps things are changing. Perhaps the writer in the "Witness" may desire a hearty revival in his own chapels, even though it should come in a Methodist form. Scotland and America prove that a revival of religion, connected in its progress with much that mere rationalists and lukewarm professors may call disorder, has been found beyond the limits of Wesleyan Arminianism. The worst wish I have for the writer of the paper in question is, that such a revival may speedily break out, and long continue, in the congregations to which he ministers, and that he may fully enter into the spirit of it. He would then have something else, and much better, to do than to be seeking for letters from the factious and discontented among other churches, and writing articles depreciating the labours, and underrating the success, of other Ministers, not less desirous of winning souls than he himself may be.

There is one thing, however, which I fear would stand in the way of such a revival being welcomed. On a subject inexpressibly dear to the Wesleyans, the writer is so completely opposed to them, that he believes it to be necessary to put even children on their guard. In a small Catechism which he has published, a large proportion is devoted to the purpose of showing that, on the subject of the "direct witness of the Spirit," the Wesleyans are all mistaken. Even in such a work he mentions them by name, quotes from Mr. Wesley on the subject, and insists on it that the only

witness ordinarily enjoyed by the believer proceeds from the perception, by the light of the Spirit, of the conformity between his temper and disposition, and the requirements of Scripture. Notwithstanding this passing reference to Mr. Caughey, and whatsoever it might be intended to suggest, he would not be exactly at home in a meeting in which the penitent sinner was exhorted to expect, and pray for, a present pardon, directly witnessed to the heart, and thus turning sorrow and anxiety into joy and peace. The very children in the families and schools which use this Catechism, are to be taught that the Methodists, by name, are, on this subject, all in the wrong; and the catechist even pauses to show how it was that Mr. Wesley and his followers fell into the mistake which the present Methodists likewise hold, and seem so resolved to perpetuate. In the "Christian Witness," therefore, so far from looking for those statements concerning religious experience which they believe to be scriptural, and which they have found to be so beneficial to their own souls, they are to expect such as are of a contrary character; statements which will tell them that though, in very peculiar cases, as of opposition and persecution, requiring peculiar support, a direct witness may be vouchsafed, yet that most decidedly it is not the ordinary privilege of the believer.

Let me not be misunderstood. I am not controverting the doctrine of this Catechism, nor denying the right of the catechist to guard against what he sincerely believes to be error. No such thing. I am only stating a fact, and informing the Wesleyan reader what kind of divinity he may expect in the "Christian Witness." They who have little time for reading, and who read to find aliment for their souls, should be told, beforehand, the character of the books they may be asked to read.

The writer of the paper speaks of his Wesleyan correspondents; and from the letters from which he quotes, it is evident what these are. It would be a most surprising thing, when St. John himself had to complain of the opposition of a Diotrephes, "prating against” him and his brethren "with malicious words," if at the present day, and in the present circumstances of society, a Connexion which contains more than three hundred and forty thousand persons in direct church fellowship, besides stated hearers, had among them none who were discontented, either through mistake or faction. Are there no such persons among the Congregationalists, none among the Baptists? What church is without them? But is it right for other churches to afford them the opportunity of at least seeking to disturb the peace of the community to which they belong; and to bring its Ministers, especially, into public disrepute? Is it right, for the conductors of the religious periodicals of other communities so to open their pages to their complaints and grievances, as they represent them, as evidently to invite such communications? Is it consistent with Christian honour and affection to do this? What would be the consequences, were such conduct to become universal? Most unscripturally as the term schism has been used by Romanists and High Churchmen, still, such a sin as schism there really is, and most decidedly do the Scriptures condemn it. Now, unless separate churches are always to sustain hostile relations to each other, and to consider a state of angrycontroversy as their natural state; then does each church owe it as a sacred debt to all other churches, to do nothing that tends to foster schism, and encourage schismatics. It is not in the existence of separate communities, merely considered as such, that the true evils of division are found. I have no difficulty in conceiving of separate communities existing in such relations to each other, that not only would the church at large receive no