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On the Duty of Redeeming the Time: a Sermon preached at Newport, Isle of Wight, &c. By Edmund Kell. 1s. PUBLIC AFFAIRS. THE past month has been productive of important events, and the hopes and fears of all who feel an interest in the policy and prospects of the country have been excited by the dissolution of Lord Goderich's administration, and the delays which have occurred in the formation of that which has succeeded it. That the reins of government would fall from the feeble and inefficient hands of the late Premier, might have been anticipated, even if dissension had not arisen among his colleagues, and his resignation would probably have occasioned little regret if a bolder and more vigo rous successor to the plans of Mr. Canning had been selected, and the members of the late ministry had thus been kept together. In the arrangement of the present administration, there is, it will be confessed, just cause for apprehension. The country has beheld with surprise and jealousy the union of the highest civil and military offices in one person, the Duke of Wellington, intrusted by the King with the task of remodelling the government, having taken upon himself the post of first Lord of the Treasury, retaining at the same time the command of the army. Most of those who seceded from Mr. Canning have returned to power, and it cannot be supposed that their influence will be beneficially exerted on some of the great questions which must occupy the attention of Parliament. They will probably be, as heretofore, the decided and unyielding opponents of any relaxation of the civil disabilities which affect the Roman Catholics and the Dissenters, and even if they continue the present line of foreign policy, we cannot expect from them that unsparing and effectual economy in the public expenditure which is demanded by the present state of the country. In their ranks, however, we find Mr. Huskisson and one or two others who are separated by a wide interval from the principles or prejudices of their colleagues. We will not believe that they will desert the opinions or relinquish the measures which they have recently and powerfully advocated. They will be opposed to their associates in power on some subjects of the first importance, and it is obvious, therefore, that the government, as at present formed, contains many elements of dissension, if not of dissolution. The change, which has damped the hopes of the Roman Catholics, has increased and invigorated their resolution to press their claims upon the attention of the Legislature. Simulta neous meetings have been held through out Ireland, and petitions to Parliament are in preparation from all parts of that country. A meeting of the British Roman Catholics has been held in London, and rendered remarkable by an interesting speech from Lord Rossmore, a Pro testant Peer, in which the fact that Mr. Pitt, through Lord Cornwallis, promised emancipation to the Irish Catholics, as the price of their consent to the Union, was established beyond further controversy. A petition to both Houses of Parliament, in favour of a repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts, was unanimously passed at this meeting, and we are happy to record it in our pages as an evidence of the liberal views of our Roman Catholic brethren, and an important recognition by a large and influential body of the great principle of universal religious liberty. The petition to which we refer is as follows: "The humble petition of the undersigned Roman Catholics, "Sheweth, That a numerous class of their fellow-subjects, Dissenters from the Established Church, are deprived of liberty of conscience by the operation of the Test and Corporation Acts. "That while your petitioners are ex erting themselves to procure their own emancipation from the operation of the unjust laws of which they are the victims, they entertain an anxious desire that all classes of their fellow-subjects may enjoy the same rights of which they themselves are in pursuit. "That, accordingly, your petitioners respectfully but earnestly entreat your Honourable House that the said Acts may be forthwith repealed." In France we have to notice the expulsion from office of an able minister who has found himself incompetent to encounter the opposition which he has justly excited by his compliances with the will of the court, and by his efforts to restore, as far as possible, some of the worst privileges of the old regime. He has been succeeded by ministers who, probably, will not have sufficient influence or energy to confer any important benefits on France; but the noble example of disinterestedness and patriotism which has been recently given by the electors, and the growing influence of public opinion in that country, are the best and most satisfactory pledges of future improvement. Official accounts have reached us of the departure of the European ambassadors from Constantinople. The Sultan is making every preparation for war, but as it will be merely defensive on the part of Turkey, and all the objects of our intervention in the affairs of Greece can be accomplished without aggressive hostilities, we may hope that the contest will be soon and quietly terminated. The message of the President of the United States to the congress has been received. It contains, as usual, a clear statement of the resources and expenditure of the Republic, and it preserves a friendly tone towards England, while it notices the disagreements which have occurred on the subject of the New Brunswick territory, and on the question of trade with our colonies. CORRESPONDENCE. An old and respected Correspondent must not consider that he is "sent to Coventry," because there has been a delay in inserting some of his communications. The account of the Salford Meeting did not arrive till that now inserted had gone to press. The Conductors wish to mention in the commencement of their articles ou political events, that they do not purpose to continue them uniformly, but to resume the subject only as suitable topics or particular events may render it desirable. Several communications have been received as to which, from particular circumstances, the Conductors ask the indulgence of correspondents in delaying for a short time their acknowledgment. THE MONTHLY REPOSITORY AND REVIEW. NEW SERIES, No. XV. MARCH, 1828. A DISCOURSE, BY MRS. BARBAULD. "They are without fault before the throne." Rev. xiv. 5. THERE are many circumstances in this vale of mortality through which we are travelling, which, however exalted, or however prosperous we may be, continually put us in mind of the imperfection of our fallen nature. But of these none is so humiliating, none so mortifying, to an ingenuous mind, as that mixture of sin and pravity which debases and defiles our minds, dims the lustre, or contaminates the purity, of our good actions, and renders the characters of even the best of us too like Nebuchadnezzar's image, of which part was of fine gold and part of clay. There is nothing, therefore, in a state of future blessedness which a good man looks to with more ardent longings, than the prospect of being still better; he shall be without fault before the throne. How sin had its entrance into the works of God is a question of high antiquity and difficult solution. Certain it is, that it is there. Original or actual, moral or constitutional depravity, by whatever name we choose to call it, has laid waste or sullied at least the fairest images of the Creator here below. Place the standard of moral perfection as low as we please, there is no man who acts up even to his own ideas of it. Let the bands of duty and obligation be twisted as loosely as they may, they will still be too strict for our impetuous passions. It may, therefore, be assumed as an undeniable truth, that all men, more or less, fall into sin, and by so doing incur that most painful feeling, the censure and disapprobation of their own minds. Even those characters to whom, in the warmth of a just approbation, we perhaps give the epithet of blameless, on a nearer inspection discover many blemishes and failings which greatly cloud their good qualities. Or should they escape our search, we may be assured such characters discover them in themselves. While the world is praising their virtues, they are mourning over their faults. While the world is admiring how much they have done, they are lamenting that so much is left undone. They are deeply conscious of invaluable time wasted and lost, of the repeated mischiefs of procrastination, of the secret, silent sap of undreaded, and therefore unresisted, indolence; of the leaden weights which earth and sense hang upon the mind, when she would mount upon the wings of faith and love towards her divine original. They have performed, it may be, splendid actions, but they are sensible on examining their hearts, that some secret vanity was mingled in the motives which prompted them. They have even done good to their enemies, but they have not been able truly to forgive them; the swellings and workings of angry passions are not suffered to boil up, but they too well feel their inward fermentation: they discern, at times, a taint of envy and selfishness lurking in those bosoms from which they had hoped such bad passions had been long eradicated. If the human heart was laid open in all its secret folds and inward recesses, much would be found to be ashamed of in the most perfect characters. The life of a good man is a continual warfare. How often is he surprised by sudden temptation! How often overcome by habitual frailties! How difficult does he find it to mortify his lusts, to quicken his zeal, to steer between dangerous extremes, to preserve the tender sensibility of his conscience amidst his necessary commerce with a loose and scornful world! Many are the noiseless conflicts he sustains with his inward enemies: when he falls he rises again, and when he is beaten he scorns to yield; and this is his utmost boast, his whole triumph. How delightful must be then the idea of a state in which he shall be without fault! How cheering the hope of seeing the enemy subdued with whom he has had so many painful contests! There is nothing a good man hates like sin; nay, to speak properly, there is nothing he hates but sin; his enemies may injure, may irritate-but they cannot make him hate them. Misfortunes, disappointments, these he considers as incident to a state of imperfection, necessary to a state of trial; but sin is his extreme dread, his most settled aversion, the thorn that has so often wounded the bosom of his peace; remorse is the feeling that most hurts him, and the disapprobation of his own mind he is more afraid of than of any thing else. He is glad to think that in that blessed land he shall be sick no more, glad he shall be free from the many humiliating infirmities of mortality, glad he shall no more feel the stroke of separation from those he loves, or the pangs and agonies of dissolving nature; but he is infinitely happier to think that he shall sin no more, and this it is above all other things which will make the future state a heaven to him. But before we indulge in this delightful contemplation, it will well become us to consider of what colour that guilt is which death will wash away, and who they are that in the life to come shall sin no more. And, first, it is certainly not they who have been doing nothing else all their lives here, they who put far from them the law of their God, and have drunk up iniquity like water, who by long habit of vice and open violations of every moral law have almost obliterated in themselves the traces of right affections, and confounded the very ideas of good and evil; it is not for these to expect that the ambiguous sorrows of a late, perhaps of a death-bed, repentance, will purify and fit them for a state of perfection, will restore to them the innocence of children, or create in them the holiness of saints. Heaven is not a pool of Bethesda to cleanse such foul and leprous souls from the corruptions they have contracted; the stain is gone too deep and spread too far. To such the Scripture speaks in those awful words of the Apocalypse, He that is unjust, let him be unjust still; and he that is filthy, let him be filthy still. It is, indeed, self-evident that what is completed above, must be begun, at least, below; that we must be good here, to be perfect hereafter; the sketch must be drawn, the fair outline must be correctly traced, of that lovely character we aspire to, though it is to receive its finishing and nicer touches from the hand of the great Master. But not to dwell upon what is so obvious; it is, secondly, not those allowed sins which people of a general good character may indulge themselves in, which we are here promised shall be no more. There are many whose moral character is, upon the whole, commendable, who may be said to be prevailingly good, who do not love sin; but, on the contrary, often wish they were better, who yet are very far from being consistently virtuous, or yielding full obedience to the laws of their Maker. They are secretly conscious of some habitual faults which they have not the resolution to conquer; some improper indulgences which they cannot persuade themselves to give up; some practices which they know, or very strongly suspect, are not quite right, but which they cannot well tell how to avoid; bad passions which they have ceased to strive against, because they have always found them too strong for them. They do but partially see these things, because, having made a covenant with themselves not to contend with their hearts about such trifles, they seldom turn their eyes that way; but they can, whenever they please to examine their own hearts, find that they do not walk sincerely with God; that they have reserves and exceptions in the obedience they pay to him; that there are many points in their conduct which must be tenderly handled or glossed over; they know, in short, that there is much wrong within them; but they think the balance at last will turn out in their favour; they plead for their sins as Lot did for Zoar, Is it nɔt a little one? and they piously hope, that in a future state all these spots and blemishes will be cleared away, and that they shall all at once attain a perfection which they are conscious they have not even aimed at here below. But it does not appear that we have any warrant from Scripture to expect those sins will be subdued hereafter, which we have not at least declared war against here, or any rational ground, from the nature of habits and associations, to hope for such sudden and miraculous changes. A change of state cannot alter the fixed dispositions of the mind, or eradicate rooted habits. If there be any provision in the eternal providence of ever-during ages to wear out stains so deeply imbibed, the process must be long and painful; nor does it make any part of the revealed mercies of God to us. God can do all things that are possible; but we have every reason to suppose it is not possible even for Omnipotence itself to wear out sin from a moral agent, but by gradual degrees and repeated efforts. Worlds may be created by a breath, but virtue must be the slow, late-ripening fruit of trial and moral discipline. We have no right, therefore, to presume that the air of heaven will purge away allowed and habitual violations of duty, even in favour of those in whom they are balanced by a prevailing number of good qualities. In respect to such also, Where the tree falls there it lies. What, then, are the sins which the good man may expect to fall into no more upon his entrance into a future state? And what is the extent of the consolatory promise in the text, that they shall be without fault? It extends first to sins of infirmity and inadvertency. Notwithstanding all the vigilance of the good man, he is continually deviating from the straight line of rectitude. He is not of that class who make their religion merely a closet religion; no, he endeavours to make it enter into all his concerns; but in spite of his utmost care, the great objects of his attention will not be always equally present to his mind. He has always such a deep and habitual sense of them as would be called forth upon any great occasion; but in the more gay and careless moments of life, like the god of the Canaanites, it is sometimes asleep and must be awakened. When, in the stillness of his evening meditations, the candidate for heaven, with a holy jealousy, inquires of his soul, and makes up his daily accounts, he finds many unintentional slips |