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That any of the BAPTISTS should be displeased is surprising, because the parts relating to them were subjected to the inspection and revision of the late Dr. Ryland, before they were published. They are usually classed with the Independents, and what is said of one denomination is intended to apply to both. When they are spoken of separately and distinctly, it is with the respect and attachment which are due to a sound and excellent part of the Christian church. Perhaps the offence is, not what is said of them, but that no more is said, and that a more conspicuous station is not given them in the groupe. Dr. Toul min has manifested how differently he thought, by relating the history of the Independents in seven pages, and by extending that of the Baptists over eighty three pages of his work.

The fault and the offence of the History of Dissenters is its honesty. The authors have proved the truth of what Archbishop Newcome has said, “He who cannot sometimes flatter, is very likely to displease." Undeviating honesty and courageous fidelity are the qualities most to be admired in a book which also is distinguished for extensive theological learning, sound judgment, fervent piety, and solicitude for the prosperity of the dissenting interest, only so far as it is subservient to the great and paramount interest of Christianity. "There are," said Mr. Griffin, of Portsea, "more important general principles connected with the welfare of the state, the prosperity of the

kingdom of Christ, and the good of the world, in those four volumes, than are to be found in any work of a similar extent." These qualities have carried it through the assaults of the present age, and will recommend it to the favour of future generations. When my father had finished the perusal of it, he said, "This book will live, if the dissenting cause live.”

HISTORICAL SKETCHES.

THE TIMES OF THE COMMONWEALTH.

WRITTEN AFTER READING GODWIN'S HISTORY.

"There was ambition, there was sedition, there was violence mixing in the public cause, in the civil war between Charles I. and his people; but no man will persuade me that it was not the cause of liberty on one side, and of tyranny on the other."

Lord Chatham.

"Through ill advice or want of honesty, Charles acted with great duplicity. He was either to reign or die; there was no alternative. None dared to trust him; the axe was the consequence."

Cowper.

"If there be any truth in any historian of any party who has related the events of that reign, the conduct of Charles, from his accession to the meeting of the long parliament, had been a continued course of oppression and treachery."

T. B. Macaulay.

"The king's violence became the cause of a civil war, and his insincerity prevented any hope of peace."

Lord John Russell.

"How many books are still written and published about Charles the First and his times! Such is the fresh and enduring interest of that grand crisis of religion, morals, and government." (Coleridge.) Of that monarch, the prominent quality in his character, and the ruling passion of his soul, was the love of arbitrary power; and the object which he laboured to attain, with unwearied diligence and inflexible determination, was to establish an absolute government. He wanted to give to a royal proclamation the force

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