tion.-See Deut. vi. 6. Psal. cxix. 9. John v. 32. 2 Tim. iii. 15. But where will Mr. Stanley discover in the Bible, that Mr. Carlile, or any other man on earth, is to be investwith a "complete control" over the very book enstamped with the imprimatur of God? The warrant of such an appointment may emanate from the Irish Office, London; but it must come from a higher source before it will be honoured with Presbyterian submission.

This Letter, like the Bill, plays the Jesuit on the Report. The Report demanded a certificate of attendance of the children at their several places of worship; the Letter enacts the keeping of a REGISTRY of attendance or nonattendance. This will succeed, as effectually as the other, in converting the Protestants, as we said, into the mere watch-dogs for Rome. But the worst feature of all is most cunningly concealed. The Board is vested with an uncontrolled, and full power of making BYE-LAWS, according to their own will and fancy. Now when we consider the constituency of the Board, we are more afraid of this power than of all that has yet been exhibited. It arms a majority of dangerous men with a kind of omnipotence in mischief. It enables them, finally, to withdraw the stream of life from the fountain head of education, or to commingle it with that poison by which its healing virtues are completely counteracted. We confess we are of that number who depend more upon past experience than upon untried experiment. Experience shows us how the education of France, when it passed under the control of the Voltairian philosophers, soon became a leaven of scepticism and infidelity, that continued to pervade the whole mass of the nation, till the Bible was rejected as a fable, unworthy of credit, and reason worshipped in the person of a prostitute, in the frantic rites of the Champs Elysees. Things, we do confess, are not yet so bad in Ireland; but there is a beginning made. Popery and Unitarianism have broken ground before the fortress of our common Protestantism; and woe to the watchman who sees the sword of the enemy, and does not proclaim, with trumpet tongue, the danger to the people.

We have taken an humble, but an earnest part in "sounding the alarm" to the ears of our Protestant countrymen. We rejoice to find, by letters from various quarters, that the danger is deeply felt. Several congregations have already prepared petitions; the Synod of Ulster has

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been promptly called to consider the subject; and we trust, that even at this inclement season, there will be zeal enough to bring forth a full and a free representation of Presbyterianism. If England had a right, Bible education bas a better right to "expect every man to do his duty." We now feel that we have a right to be heard; for the correctness of our statements and opinions is put beyond all question. We shall hear no more about our coufounding the Report of 1828 with the Bill of 1831;" but we shall hear of our detecting the imposture. We were not to be deceived by false appearances. We saw that the Bill was to the Report as a mask is to a face; and the Report was to the Bill as the evil spirit is to the possessed. To prove this true, we beg to repeat the following demonstration which we have already laid before the public in another form:

We shall confine ourselves to a few plain statements, calculated to detect the necessary commixture and inseparable affinity of the Bill and its parent Report. 1. We knew from the Roman Catholic Bishops (see first Report of Commissioners of Education, p. 1, 1825), that “in the Roman Catholic Church the literary and religious education of the youth are universally combined, and that no system of education which separates them can be acceptable to the members of her communion; that schools wherein the sacred Scriptures are read, without note or comment, are subject to a regulation which does not accord with the discipline of the Roman Catholic Church; that schools, wherein the master professes a religion different from that of his pupils, or from which such religious instruction as the Roman Catholic Church prescribes for youth, is ex cluded, oannot be resorted to by the children of Roman Ca tholics," and that "any system of education incompatible with the discipline of the Roman Catholic Church cannot possibly be acceptable." 2. With all this before our eyes, we knew moreover that Mr. Wyse (the ostensible author of the Bill) was a staunch Roman Catholic, a zealous son of the Church, and as much subject to the aforesaid Bishops in all matters of faith and discipline as ever was a Don Cossac to the Emperor of Russia in matters of peace and war. 3. We knew, from his own public speech (and we were not without other means of knowing his mind), that Mr. Stanley, the government patron of the Bill, was fully prepared to carry into effect any measure that

might promise to conciliate the Roman Catholic Bishops. 4. We saw that the Bill embodied a Board with a settled majority in favour of the interests of Liberalism and Popery. 5. We saw that the Board, while apparently confined to literary education alone, were by the back door of the BYE-LAWS, permitted to adopt whatever religious system they pleased. 6. And we saw that they were willing to obey the Roman Catholic Bishops, and we saw that the Bishops would receive no plan short of the Report— and we saw that Government were willing to grant whatever the Bishops demanded-and we therefore penetrated at once the thin and flimsy veil of the Bill, and denounced, without fear or shuffling, the destructive system of the Report which the Bill was intended and fitted to establish.

We have thus given to the public that sort of practical sorites by which we arrived at our conclusion: a conclusion whose correctness Mr. Stanley's letter has now put beyond question.

We never yet saw the good of shuffling, crouching, and half measures; and we mean not to try or recommend the experiment. We heartily detest the system developed in the Letter; and we trust the Government will yet see cause to listen to our petitions, and new model their plan; but if they refuse to do this, then there is no course for honest and consistent Protestants but one, and that is, to have nothing to do with it. Protestants were educated before the Government gave a farthing. They will continue to be educated when every grant is withdrawn.

P. S.-At last the absolute "correctness" of all our statements concerning the Report and Bill stands above doubt or contradiction. It will now be seen that we did not "confound" these two precious documents. but that we detected and exposed the secret links by which they were connected. Mr. Stanley has enabled us to establish our accuracy, by reasoning and inference; but Mr. Wyse, in a letter to Mr. Stanley, comes to complete our victory by avowed and open confession. Mr. Wyse's letter is employed in proving, that "the instructions are, in many particulars, an equal transcript of the Bill." But no one can doubt, that the "instructions" are, in many particulars, "an equal transcript" of the Report; therefore the identity of the Report and Bill are in these particulars acknowledged by Mr. Wyse.

Indeed, it was only upon one point that their identity could be doubted, viz. that relating to religion. And it was upon this point that the charge of "incorrectness" and "confounding" was maintained against us.

But on this subject Mr. Wyse stands our friend; and, as the best revealer of his own secrets, he completely confirms our accuracy. After contrasting, in paralell columns, "the Instructions" and "the Bill," he goes on to say

"I have now gone through, I believe, every regulation conveyed in your Instructions, with the exception of one only, that relating to religi ous instruction. On this head you are particularly ample and specifie the Bill perfectly silent. The reason is obvious. It is a subject which can only be regulated in a manner consonant with its delicacy and importance, by the Board itself, or by such an Institution as yours. To introduce it into a Bill, would give rise to endless controversy, and require numerous details which might minister, without efficiently provid ing for the ends in view, finally to endanger the success of a measure upon which so much of the real morality and religion of any country must depend. Far from wishing to exclude religious instruction from Education, the only object I contemplated was, how could it be best united with it, without offending the opinions of individuals, or disturbing the good order and harmony of the system, which it was intended to establish."

That is, Mr. Wyse, you left the matter of religion to "the Board and the Bye-Laws," which you well knew must be regulated by the principles of "the Report." Charmed with Mr. Stanley's "Instructions," Mr. Wyse declares, that "too much praise cannot be bestowed on Mr. Stanley's gradual concession to an enlightened and sound policy on the subject of Irish education;" and he concludes with announcing the speedy reintroduction of his Jesuitical Bill for the first step in the establishment of Popery by Act of Parliament.

PHILOSOPHICAL EDUCATION.

REMARKS ON SOME MODERN DOCTRINES OF METAPHYSICS AND MORAL PHILOSOPHY, OCCASIONED BY A REVIEW OF THE LETTERS OF "ERASMUS," BY "A STUDENT," &c.

[We feel it necessary to state, that we have not been made acquainted with the name of the writer of the following "Remarks," and that we have never read a word of the letters of "Erasmus" or of "The Student of Moral Philosophy." But if our Author have quoted accurately; and if he have represented the Student fairly; and if the Student have so wantonly vilified the Gospel ministry; and if he have advanced the neological principles with which he is charged; and if the writer's hint, as to the identity of "The Student," be correct, then we adopt the question of the day-What will the Synod of Ulster do?

Yet how can we believe the surmise of the author of the "Remarks ?" Is it possible that any philosopher of the nineteenth century could, in the same sentence, associate "religious tracts and blackguard boys?", Is it possible that any Christian divine could teach, that we are to be guided rather by reference to the visible than the invisible world? We cannot believe it, since the apostle has expressly declared, that we walk by faith, not by sight," which faith is the "evidence of things not seen." We insert the "Remarks" out of regard to the over

whelming importance of the subject, and the respectability of the chan. nel by which the article was communicated; but we suspend our own judgment till we see more of the matter.-EDIT.]

SIR,

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ORTHODOX PRESBYTERIAN.

A CORRESPONDENCE has lately appeared in a Belfast Periodical, to which I wish to call the attention of the Presbyterians of Ulster. Professor Ferrie having delivered, last spring, a course of Moral Philosophy to a class of Ladies, a writer, using the signature of "Erasmus," published a series of "Letters to a Literary Lady," questioning the suitableness of that study for females, and impugning the doctrines of some writers, whom the Professor was known to have recommended. An exposition and vindication of some of those doctrines, appeared in the shape of a "Review" of the letters of Erasmus. It bore the signature of "A Student of Moral Philosophy," and is understood to have come from a person who ought to know well what the course contained. This Review appears to me to contain statements subversive of christianity. I have no design to thrust myself into the place of Erasmus. That writer will, no doubt, defend himself, if he thinks that the very petulant attack on him merits any consideration. My design is to call the attention of the Presbyterians of Ireland, to the dangerous nature of that system, which, from the above production, appears, under the name of mental and ethical science, to be instilled into the minds of those who are designed for the ministry. The remarks on Erasmus I will notice no further, than as they hear on the character of the writer, as a guide in the science of mind.

I agree with the Reviewer, that the knowledge of the attributes, operations, and laws of the human mind, as far as it is certain, may be called a Science. But the fantastic systems of speculation, not legitimately based on selfevident first principles, which have been dignified with this title by their fanatical authors, and are no more entitled to this august name, than the travels of Gulliver are deserving of the character of authentic history. It is against them, I imagine, that the hostility of Erasmus is principally aimed. No doubt the science of mind is capable of being applied to most important uses; yet it is equally true, that bedlam itself has not exhibited more