taking care to exclude all who were scandalous in their life, or Anabaptistical, or not orthodox in their principles. All whom they approved, were granted a legal right to the tithe of their parishes. Three commissioners from the Council of State in England were then in Dublin, and sat as members of the convention; "it was by their authority properly that ministers were settled and had maintenance, and this authority they owned, as derived from the Council of State, which had been appointed by authority of a parliament in England a little before this."* The marked change in the sentiments of the Dublin convention, when it was ascertained that the king had no leanings to Presbyterianism, seems to have struck forcibly the unsophisticated mind of Adair : "When things were in doubt and suspense," says he, "before the king's return, the convention seemed to favour the covenant and the Presbyterian party, and matters seemed to be in a hopeful course. But when our grandees had intelligence of the pulse of the court at Breda, and especially of the king's arrival in London, they altered their course. Then they began to court the few old bishops who were in Ireland, and who then had repaired to Dublin. Some bishops who, at my arrival there, had scarcely access to the commissioners upon any business, nor one seeming to own them in the streets, and who had been content with the countenance of any private person, before I left, had become high, and much courted, and their titles given them. All things then turned just as the king's inclination was observed to be."t The Irish Convention did not mistake the intentions of the king. Once firm in his new position, Charles threw off the mask, and established the Episcopal Church in all its ancient glory. A dozen years in poverty and exile had failed to teach him wisdom, or to disabuse him of the notion, that kings had a right to do as they please, and that to subjects it belongs only to submit. Ireland was again handed over to the Prelates. Bramhall, who, as Bishop of Derry, was the prime mover in the persecutions of the Nonconformists before the troubles, was now made Archbishop of Armagh, and primate. Leslie, son of him who had deposed the ministers at Belfast in 1636, and whose spirit strongly resembled that of his father, was appointed to Dromore, and afterwards to Raphoe; while over Down and Connor was set the celebrated Jeremy Taylor, whom Adair, who had good reason to know him well, describes as a man pretending civility and some courteous carriage, especially before his advancement, but whose principles were contrary to Presbyterians, not only in the matter of government, modes of Jeremy Taylor's Liberty of Prophesying. 569 worship and discipline, but also in doctrine. He had sucked in the dregs of much of Popery, Socinianism, and Arminianism, and was a heart enemy, not only to Nonconformists, but to the orthodox."* The bishops, untaught by the adversity which they had suffered, and panting for revenge, commenced their congenial work by inducing the Lords Justices to issue a proclamation prohibiting all Presbyterian meetings. The Presbytery met to deliberate on the crisis, whereupon Sir George Rawdon, then in command in the North, sent a troop of horse to disperse them; but before the troop arrived, the meeting had dissolved, having appointed a deputation to go to Dublin to seek liberty of worship and protection from the persecution of the Prelates. Adair describes the reception this deputation met with in Dublin: "They were but unkindly entertained by the Council, divers bishops being then privy councillors, besides other unfriends. They were reviled and mocked by the Episcopal party in Dublin, and the substance of their desires was not granted."t Meanwhile Bishop Taylor had arrived in his diocese, and lost no time in summoning all the Presbyterian ministers in his bounds to attend his first visitation. At a private conference with some of their number at Hillsborough, he questioned them if they held Presbyterian government to be of divine right. On their answering in the affirmative, he said there need be no farther discourse about accommodation if they held to that. He questioned them if they could take the oath of supremacy; they judged if that oath were moulded in the sense in which Bishop Ussher explained it, and wherein King James acquiesced, none of the brethren would refuse it." The following day was the bishop's visitation at Lisburn. Only two Presbyterian ministers went to hear his sermon, which he construed into contempt. They were called, but did not appear; whereupon he declared the thirty-six churches in which they ministered to be vacant. He did not suspend, or silence, or excommunicate; he simply held, that they were no ministers, on the ground, that they were not ordained by prelates, declared their charges vacant, and procured priests and curates to supply their places as he best could. The other ministers were treated in a similar way in other dioceses, though not with so much haste and violence as by Jeremy Taylor. In two months after the visitation at Lisburn, all had to desist from preaching, except two, who, through the influence of Lord Massareene, were allowed to continue for six months longer. Sixty-one ministers were thus ejected in Ulster in 1661. It will thus be seen, that three times in the space of fifty * 66 True Narrative," 244-5. years the Presbyterian ministers of Ulster were in possession of the tithes :-First, under James I. and Charles I. from 1614– 1636, when, by a lax administration of the existing law, they were admitted to parish churches without coming under any obligation either to approve of Prelacy, or to conform to the Liturgy; secondly, from 1646-1650, under the Long Parliament, when, after the Episcopal Establishment had succumbed under the atrocities of the Irish Rebellion, the Presbyterians for several years had the most civilised part of the province to themselves; thirdly, from 1655-1661, when, at first, they had a salary from the Commonwealth, in lieu of tithes, and, afterwards, the warrant of the Commissioners at Dublin, acting under the authority of the Council of State in England, for receiving the tithe of their parishes. Presbytery and Prelacy struggled against each other in that seventeenth century as to which of them should be, in future times, the Established Church of the nation. The Restoration brought that struggle to an end. Henceforth with Presbytery it was a struggle, not for power, but for life, against prelates, and penal laws, and parliaments. Henceforth Presbyterianism came under the ban of the law; and it was the aim of its enemies to use their power so as to make it a poor and degraded sect. They succeeded only too well. Nevertheless, it is to its credit that, in face of disabilities imposed by Parliament, and of the frowns of the aristocracy, and the persecution of the bishops, it has kept its place for two hundred years; that it still retains in its communion almost half the Protestants in the country; and that it has outlived that Establishment which once cast it from its bosom, and from which, in every generation since, it has suffered so much. ART. VII.-Rationalism in French Switzerland. Manifeste du Christianisme libéral. Neuchâtel. 1869. Une réforme urgente dans l'Instruction primaire. M. F. BUISSON. Neuchâtel. 1868. Principes du Christianisme libéral. M. F. BUISSON. Paris, Genève. 1869. La Sainteté de l'Ancien Testament. F. GODET. Neuchâtel. 1868. La Suisse romande et le Protestantisme libéral. C. PRONIER. Genève, Lausanne. 1869. Jagesse ou folie? F. de ROUGEMONT. Neuchâtel. 1869. 1869. F. BUNGENER. Genève. La Bible dans l'Instruction primaire. E. BARDE. Genève. 1869. THE THE name, French Switzerland, as every one knows, has been given to the three cantons, Geneva, Vaud, and Neu Mutual Influences between France and Switzerland. 571 châtel. Situated between France, whose language their inhabitants speak, and the Swiss cantons where the German tongue is spoken, French Switzerland always maintains continuous relations with France in regard to its literature, manners of the inhabitants, its industry and commerce; moreover, it reminds us of the empire from which it is separated in its political predilections, which are distinctly stamped with the most jealous democracy. French Switzerland is Swiss, and by no means desires to become French. It denies having any sympathy whatever for the Imperial Government. The agitation which was produced at the time of the annexation of Savoy, sufficiently demonstrates the ardent love of liberty which animates it. It is, however, quite impossible that the events which agitate France, the ideas that move, and the commotions that shake her, should not make themselves felt in this little corner of the globe. This is strikingly evinced by the revolutions that have occurred in these little republics, which in many respects resemble those that have disturbed the French nation. But it is particularly as regards their religious interests that French Switzerland and France influence each other. In the 16th century the reformation of the French countries began in France. But Francois I., Richelieu, Louis XIV., and Louis XV. succeeded, each in his turn, in crushing Protestantism and in making Popery the only national religion. But the odious persecutions which chased from the três chretien kingdom so many heroes of the evangelical faith, enriched the neighbouring countries. The citadels of reform were erected even at the very gates of France. Holland welcomed the refugees. An active, learned, and courageous Protestantism was established there. The churches prospered, and were adorned with some of the most illustrious names to be found among theologians of continental reform. French Switzerland accomplished the same grand object. Beza, Calvin, Farel, and Vinet, the first French propagators of the gospel, effected a lasting work here. It was consolidated by the confessors of the faith who, escaping the stakes of Italy, and the sabre of the powerful king's dragoons, found warm hearts and a secure asylum within the walls of ancient Geneva, freed from Popery and accustomed to the contest, on the romantic hills of Lausanne, the peaceful city of Vaud, and at Neuchâtel, whose reformer, Farel, is always kept in hallowed remembrance. Thus, from the very earliest days of reform, these three cantons have been for French Protestantism a place of assistance and refuge. And even though the legal situation of Protestantism in France has considerably suppressed the influence of this little independent country in the religious destinies of that mighty empire, yet it has by no means ceased to be for France what it was for her in the 16th century. In fact, it is here that the traditions of the Reformation are preserved in their greatest purity. The habits of zeal and devotion formerly moulded in days of difficulty and trial, still endure. The Bible is widely circulated, read, and studied. Numerous societies, important for their religious interest, always occupy public attention. There are active preachers in the pulpits, and evangelical professors in the colleges. It is at Geneva and Lausanne that many young French pastors receive their theological training which is to prepare them for occupying in France, posts very often rendered difficult on account of being situated in the midst of a Roman Catholic population. It is here, also, that those who seek pecuniary aid for the churches are well received, and find some of their most important subscribers. In a word, it is evident that French Switzerland is for France a resource of the greatest utility. God has undoubtedly placed this land, freed from the grasping power of Popery, at the gates of a mighty papal empire for the interests of his kingdom. For the evangelisation of France, for the formation of the kingdom of God in this country, which to-day is the most powerful support of Popery, the maintenance of the evangelical fire kindled in French Switzerland, is a consideration of primary importance. What passes here in the religious world is not so decisive to-day as it was in the 17th and 18th centuries, but it cannot be a matter of indifference. If Rationalism, which has recently developed itself among the Protestant clergy of France, and in the German cantons of Switzerland, should invade French Switzerland and predominate there, then, indeed, a brilliant light would be immediately extinguished, and a powerful centre of evangelical life destroyed on the continent. Neither England, Scotland, nor any one who loves evangelical truth, can be indifferent in the face of this eventuality. If, on the contrary, the faith is to prosper in French Switzerland, if the activity of zealous believers is not to relax here, if Rationalism recedes or is conquered here, in a word, if the churches of Geneva, Vaud, and Neuchâtel are kept in sound activity, there will be every reason to rejoice, whether for the population of these countries themselves, or for France, over which they necessarily exercise a great influence. It is for this reason that the late events which have occurred in French Switzerland deserve to be made known. But before relating the facts themselves, let us glance for a moment at the state of matters and of minds when they broke forth. I. At the end of the 18th century, the churches where the French language was spoken languished, some in their life, some in their faith, and others both in life and faith. In |