TESTANT in all our services; even in that for the fifth of November, as remodeled in the reign of King William, and again from the protest of the Lower House of Convocation at that date, on this very subject, which would have had no force, except as proceeding upon recognized usages. The circumstance here alluded to was as follows:In A. D. 1689, the Upper House of Convocation agreed on an address to King William, to thank him for the grace and goodness expressed in his message, and the zeal shown in it for the Protestant religion in general, and the Church of England in particular.' To this phrase" (the one in italics) "the Lower House objected, as importing, as Birch in his Life of Tillotson says, their owning common union with the foreign Protestants. A conference between the two houses ensued, when the bishops supported their wording of the address on the ground that the Protestant religion was the known denomination of the common doctrine of such parts of the west as had separated from Rome. The Lower House proposed, with other alterations of the passage, the words, 'Protestant churches' for Protestant religion,' being unwilling to acknowledge religion as separate from the Church," (i. e., the Church of England.) "The Upper House, in turn, amended this,' the interest of the Protestant religion in THIS'" (i. e., the Church of England,)" and all other Protestant churches;' but the Lower House, still jealous of any diminution of the English Church by this comparison with foreign Protestants, persisted in their opposition, and gained at length that the address, after thanking the king for his zeal for the Church of England, should proceed to anticipate that thereby the interest of the Protestant religion in (not this, and, but) all other Protestant churches would be better secured. Birch adds, The king well understood why this address omitted the thanks which the bishops had recommended, for.... the zeal which he had shown for the Protestant religion; and why there was no expression of tenderness to the dissenters, and but a cool regard to the Protestant churches.""

Surely, if there is any meaning in words, we can come to no other conclusion than that the above extract, whether as relates to the transaction itself, in King William's days, A. D. 1689, or in its concurrent adoption at the present time by the Oxford divines, fully justifies our view that the British Church and state, first symbolized in the apocalypse as the two-horned beast, is correctly represented, in the second place, as the false prophet; and in thus showing the identity of both symbols with the same antitype, who can doubt the accuracy of our whole exposition of this part of the

The ecclesiastical assembly of the Church of England is called the Convocation. It consists of two bodies, or houses; the upper, consisting of the bishops; and the lower, of a certain number of the inferior clergy, selected for this object according to ancient customs or laws. There has been no convocation of the English clergy for business since A. D. 1718.

apocalyptic vision. The subject, however, with all its inferences, we leave to the serious consideration of our readers, be they of what denomination of Christians they may.

Our identification of the Church of England, arrayed as an ally on the side of the Romish beast in the predicted great battle of Armageddon, unavoidably leads us to conclude that great mystical event cannot be far distant from its fulfilment, since the preparatory movements already indicate future action. Let us add to this, that the Church of Rome is now actually employed, for the first time, in the active emission of popular tracts, advocating, with all her plausibility, the peculiar dogmas and superstitions of her antichristian foundation. The Church of England, by the Oxford Tracts, and similar productions, is zealously engaged in a similar work, that more or less directly justify the Romish pretensions as being matters of common interest. At the same time the immediate servants of the dragon, the Owens, Fanny Wrights, and such like, by the publication of all manner of obscene and irreligious books, are doing all they can to oppose the influences of genuine Christianity. Now, are these triple efforts prefigured by the thirteenth and fourteenth verses of the sixteenth chapter of Revelation? Let the reader judge :

"13. And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet;

"14. For they are the spirits of devils working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth, and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.

"16. And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.

"17. And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air, and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven from the throne, saying, IT IS DONE.

"18. And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings, and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great."

Christian men and brethren! if we are correct in these views, are you aware how near at hand these things are? Most commentators consider the fifth apocalyptic vial has been poured out, (Rev. xvi, 10,) and the recent commotions in Turkey, Syria, and Egypt, the wars of the Russians in Caucasus and Central Asia, the British invasion of Affghanistan, and possibly ere this of the

Chinese empire, will fully justify us to suppose the effusion of the sixth vial "upon the great river Euphrates" has already commenced. If this be so, who can be but startled to find at what age of the world we have arrived, and what are the mighty things of God that may be fulfilled in these our days! "Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name? for thou only art holy : for all nations shall come and worship before thee; for thy judgments are made manifest!"

ART. V.-The Rich against the Poor. The Laboring Classes. By O. A. BROWNSON.

THIS strange production first made its appearance in the Boston Quarterly Review, but has been since circulated in the form of a pamphlet, with a view, no doubt, to its influence upon the then pending presidential election. As, however, this political struggle will have been over before these strictures will make their appearance, they can have no bearing upon that agitating question, whatever may be their character. But this does not supersede the necessity of exposing the dangerous doctrines set forth in the pamphlet before us. They are of a general character. They strike at the root of social order. And the main principle which the author aims to establish, according to his own showing, is of such a startling character that it will require a long time to bring it into practical operation. He does not, indeed, "propose this as a measure for the immediate action of the community." He only means to discuss it now, with a view to prepare the public mind for its full development and for final and decisive action. What this main principle is we shall see presently.

The following are the principal points which our author seems to think are essential to accomplish his object :

1. That property must cease to be hereditary.

"As we have abolished hereditary monarchy," says he, "and hereditary nobility, we must complete the work by abolishing hereditary property. A man shall have all he honestly acquires, so long as he himself belongs to the world in which he acquires it. But his power

"And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates, and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared," Rev. xvi, 12.

over his property must cease with his life, and his property must then become the property of the state, to be disposed of by some equitable law, for the use of the generation which takes his place."

And this is so essential for the accomplishment of his object that he adds

"We see no means of elevating the laboring classes which can be effectual without this."

2. The laws of matrimony must be abolished. This preliminary step to the consummation of his wishes is so contrary to the common sentiments of civilized society, that our author, with all his boldness of thought, seems afraid to take it with his customary independence, lest he might shoot so far ahead of the public feeling as to produce a shock in the community, and thereby defeat his benevolent plans of reform. He therefore hints at this rather obscurely; yet it is sufficiently plain not to be misunderstood. It is to be one of the rounds in the ladder on which he is to ascend the throne of popular dominion. Speaking of the iron sceptre which custom, religion, and civilization hold over the freedom of man, he says―

"He cannot make one single free movement. The priest holds his conscience, fashion controls his tastes, and society with her forces inrades the very sanctuary of his heart, and takes command of his love, that which is purest and best in his nature, which alone gives reality to his existence, and from which proceeds the only ray which pierces the gloom of his prison-house."

The meaning of this passage, though veiled in obscurity, cannot well be misunderstood. It teaches, as an indispensable preliminary to freedom of thought and action, and to that equality of condition for which the author most strenuously pleads, that society must be broken loose from the shackles of wedlock, that instead of having love centred in one object, it may roam at large, and mix its longings among the many hearts which may, each in its turn, solicit its wild and ungovernable embrace. This is freedom from the restraints of the laws of matrimony. This is turning our youth loose to graze and luxuriate in the field of licentiousness, and to choose their pastures as the lawless instinct of their natures shall dictate. And to enforce this wholesome precept Mr. B. says

"It is not strange, then, that some should prefer the savage state to the civilized. Who would not rather roam the forest with a free step and unshackled limb, though exposed to hunger, cold, and nakedness, than crouch an abject slave beneath the whip of the master?"

This writer seems to forget, in his eagerness to emancipate the race from the manacles of civilization, that woman, in the hands of a savage, is the slave of a brutal appetite, and of a lordly, lounging despotism, as relentless as the tiger, and as lawless in its rule as the ferocious bear. But we shall have occasion to recur to this topic before our remarks are closed.

3. The next step in Mr. B.'s race of reform is the annihilation of priests the utter extermination of this order of men from the face of the earth. Indeed, this seems so essential for the consummation of his grand object, that he dwells upon it with a peculiar zest, as if he enjoyed the pleasurable emotion of their utter annihilation by anticipation. Hear him in the following language :—

"But, having traced the inequality we complain of to its origin, we proceed to ask again, What is the remedy? The remedy is first to be sought in the destruction of the priest. We are not mere destructives. We delight not in pulling down; but the bad must be removed before the good can be introduced. Conviction and repentance precede regeneration. Moreover, we are Christians, and it is only by following out the Christian law, and the example of the early Christians, that we can hope to effect any thing. Christianity is the sublimest protest against the priesthood ever uttered, and a protest uttered by both God and man; for he who uttered it was God-man. In the person of Jesus both God and man protest against the priesthood. What was the mission of Jesus but a solemn summons of every priesthood on earth to judgment, and of the human race to freedom? He discomfited the learned doctors, and with whips of small cords drove the priests, degenerated into mere money-changers, from the temple of God. He instituted himself no priesthood, no form of religious worship. He recognized no priest but a holy life, and commanded the construction of no temple but that of the pure heart. He preached no formal religion, enjoined no creed, set apart no day for religious worship. He preached fraternal love, peace on earth, and good-will to men. He came to the soul enslaved, cabined, cribbed, confined,' to the poor child of mortality, bound hand and foot, unable to move, and said, in the tones of a God, 'Be free! be enlarged! be there room for thee to grow, expand, and overflow with the love thou wast made to overflow with!'

"In the name of Jesus we admit there has been a priesthood instituted, and, considering how the world went, a priesthood could not but be instituted; but the religion of Jesus repudiates it. It recognizes no mediator between God and man but him who dies on the cross to redeem man; no propitiation for sin but a pure love, which rises in a living flame to all that is beautiful and good, and spreads out in light and warmth for all the chilled and benighted sons of mortality. In calling every man to be a priest, it virtually condemns every possible priesthood; and in recognizing the religion of the new covenant, the