THE PROTESTANT.

'You have got something there that does not please you,' said my uncle, seeing me glance over the contents of an enclosure that came by post.

'In one sense it pleases me well, uncle. I am always glad of any information enabling me to put others on their guard. Some one has sent me a circular, setting forth the establishment of a mesmeric dispensary for the poor.'

'A what?' said my uncle, staring very broadly.

'A dispensary in London, where the poor are to be cured of various diseases by means of mesmerism, while, for the benefit of the higher classes a weekly lecture is established; tickets issued with annexed privileges, and all the details of a regular establishment on principles that every Christian ought to hold in the deepest abhorrence.'

'And I see they have addressed you as "Miss" soand-so. The young and thoughtless will be the principal victims, no doubt, of this frightful delusion.

'I fear it spreads widely. Many truly excellent persons are beguiled into regarding it as a harmless and amusing absurdity, if not as a valuable discovery; others laugh at it as a mere juggling trick, by which the simple are befooled, while the more rational laugh at their folly. Yet it is none of these. The deception which trifles with disease, and uses bodily suffering as a means to delude the

mind, is sinful cruelty under no ordinary form of aggravated crime: that such, to a very great extent, is indeed the case among its public exhibitors cannot be doubted-there is a palpable, and in many cases an openly exposed collusion but the thing itself, in the depths of its mysterious reality, I am more than ever convinced is the offspring of Satanic agency. I speak of the so-called clairvoyance, when it really exists: as in some instances it most assuredly does.'

"That is a controverted point.'

'Decide it as you will, it settles the question. These mesmerizers all assert its existence and power. If they speak falsely, then we know who is the father of lies, and to him all liars belong. If they tell the truth, there is no way of accounting for the fact otherwise than by the agency of super-human powers; and to say that the Almighty God so interposes, working miracles to grace the words and actions of most ungodly men, with no possible end but to invest them with authority and dangerous power over their fellow-beings, and to give weight to the infidel doctrines that they are known to promulgate-I speak particularly of the French infidels among whom it originated, and by whom it is still practised most successfully,-to say this, who shall dare?'

'Not I, for one. I view with unmitigated horror the whole system, believing it to be, as you say, in both its branches, the pretence and the reality, most decidedly of the devil. I do not regard as a dead letter any commandment given of God: and certainly when both under the Mosaic and under the Apostolic dispensation sorcery is again and again prohibited,

We do not praise the work because we well know and dearly love the writer; nor because he is a son of Abraham according to the flesh, and an heir by faith too; but because we see and feel its intrinsic worth, and conscientiously believe that it will, both to old and young, be a real boon, of great and permanent value.

THE SABBATH QUESTION ILLUSTRATED: By a Roadside Enquirer.-Seeleys.

WE have often wished to see this momentous subject treated in a popular style; and graphically set forth in some of its more prominent features. The volume before us does so: a worldly, thoughtless young man, being asked to sign a petition in favour of Sabbath legislation, demands a reason why he should do so; and is persuaded to devote some summer weeks to a home tour, in search of such reason. He falls in with various parties, under a variety of cir cumstances, all of which bear on the subject in question; and he brings back with him not only very abundant reasons for strenuously aiding in the good work, but a far deeper insight into his own heart, and a purer mainspring of motive and action than he before possessed.

We think and believe that the book will do much good: it can hardly be called a fiction, seeing that every thing represented is actually taking place throughout the country; and though an imaginary person is introduced, it is merely that the reader may sce, with another pair of eyes, what must otherwise

be set forth in dry detail. We hope the work will circulate among our parliamentary gentlemen. It is calculated to set them thinking, and that too in a right track.

TRACTARIANISM NOT OF GOD. Sermons: by Charles B. Tayler, M.A. Rector of St. Peter's, and Evening Lecturer of St. Mary's, Chester.-Longman and Co.

We know of none who has made a more open and unhesitating stand against Tractarianism than Mr. Tayler, who has now given us a volume of sermons, valuable for the sound, scriptural doctrine propounded in them, apart from controversy; and doubly valuable as bearing strongly on the controverted truths that Tractarianism seeks to undermine or to batter down. The sermons referring to baptism are especially valuable.

DIFFICULTIES OF A YOUNG CLERGYMAN IN TIMES OF DIVISION.—Seeleys.

A WELL-TOLD tale, setting forth some of the conse quences that do and must result from the introduction of the pestilent heresy known as Tractarianism. The writer knows his subject well, and has given a fair exhibition of it in the character and conversation of a parochial minister, whose antitype, alas! may be found in almost any diocese into which we choose DECEMBER, 1844.

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I dare not put such dishonour on the Most Highest as to assert, or to imply, that he has forbidden what was impracticable, or denounced that which has no existence. It is not many months since we discussed this matter fully; and I can truly say that my impressions as to the infernal, and therefore utterly unlawful character of mesmerism, are strengthened rather than otherwise since that time.' 'Then, uncle, how deplorable is the fact announced in this circular!'

'It is disgraceful to the national character that such a thing should be permitted. Nevertheless, I am glad you are enabled to put parents on their guard, and again to repeat the solemn admonition to the young, not to be partakers in other men's sins. I suppose you have seen the puffing announcement that Miss Martineau has been miraculously cured of some ailment, by these means.'

'I have, uncle; and the fact of her being an open unbeliever in the divinity of Him in whose name alone we can defy, and in whose power alone we can defeat, the might of Satan, was painfully, awfully present to my mind. I should be less inclined to doubt the asserted cure than to mourn over it.'

'I perceive your precious circular announces this institution to be "under medical direction; but no medical man has seen fit publicly to attach his name to it. Again, one of its objects is "the alleviation of pain under surgical operations; " Do you believe that pain can be so alleviated?'

'A very powerful opiate, slily administered, might produce the torpid state necessary for the purpose in slighter cases; but in any of a very severe character it could not: neither is it within the scope of