would that that portion of the press, which has long assailed the Clergy with much unmerited severity and abuse, could be persuaded to make a tardy reparation for the wrong they have done,—for the injury they have inflicted on society! The public journals now reach the remotest corners of the island; and in many distant parishes, in which the incumbent alone spends the income drawn from the soil, alone dispenses his charity, visits the sick, instructs the ignorant,—even there the blighting influence of calumny extends, and the work of Christian benevolence and charity is neutralized by the splenetic effusions, or foul and false charges of the public press. Oh! that the awful circumstances of the present times would teach forbearance, if not justice,—would induce silence, if not commendation. If they love not religion for its own sake,—if they respect not its ministers for their own sake,—let the value of both be admitted in stemming that fearful tide of sedition and infidelity which threatens to overturn the civil as well as religious institutions of the country. And there is another consideration not to be forgotten: in times of pestilence, the ministers of God have ever proved faithful to their trust, and a blessing to the sick and dying: that scourge of the Almighty is now upon the land; let the press then seek to heal the breach they have made between the pastor and his flock, lest by the baleful suspicions and hatred they have caused in the minds of the latter, they may be the means of intercepting the stream of Divine mercy,—of darkening the light of Divine truth. Vain will be all the efforts of the friends of religion and order to counteract the present evils, which endanger the best interests of society, and to introduce a better order of things, if a large proportion of the public journals continue not only to excite the public mind, but to prejudice it against the Clergy, by imputing to them unworthy motives, and by bringing against them heavy and unsubstantiated charges. In many places at present, the plans of the Clergyman for the benefit of his parish are entirely frustrated; a large proportion of his parishioners being like men labouring under a fever caused by injudicious treatment,—the wholesome aliment, which would give nourishment and strength in a healthy state, injures rather than benefits; and even the medicines which should cure the disease are rejected, through distrust of the physician who prescribes them. But let those who have injured the patient, by supplying stimulants when they should have administered sedatives, by exciting suspicion when they should have inspired confidence, endeavour to repair the evil they have produced, and then the ministers of the Great Physician of souls will recover their proper influence, and will be able beneficially to exercise their important functions.