The tent prepared for the King of the French at
Compiegne is one of the sumptuous follies of Marshall Soult. It costs nearly 400,000 francs (16,000/. sterling)! It required sixteen horses to convey it to Coinpiegne, and every time it. is pitched the expense is from 7000 to EJ00 francs.
The India ship the Lord William Bentinck, about whose fate there has been much anxiety, arrived at Bombay, from Sydney, on the lath of June. The crew and passengers were all well.
The press has found its way to UltimaThule ! Shetland has at last got a newspaper ; and, judging from the second number, which has been sent to us, we may add a very good newspaper too, although of rather small dimensions. The Shetland Journal is to appear once a month only, for the present. It has therefore no need of a stamp, and
its price is twopence. As a specimen of its politics, we quote a passage from the leading article of the Shetland Journal, in reference to the English Church Bill " The temporal interest of Churchmen has been consulted at the expense of the spiritual interests of the Church. What, for instance, will our sober-minded
Presbyterian readers think of that reform which allots fifteen thousand pounds a year, a palace to live in, a throne to sit upon, and a rank and station among the princes of the land, to a so-called minister of the gospel,—a self-proclaimed successor of Apostles who earned their livelihood by the work of their hands,— a would-be disciple of him who taught that his kingdom was not of this world ? It must, however, be confessed, that if wealth and pomp have been lavished
profusely on one set of ministers, ample compensation has been made in the penurious measure which has been meted out to another. The real ministers of the gospel—the real imitators of the Apostles—those godly men who are instant in season and out of season to instruct the poor, visit the sick, and comfort the afflicted, have been treated with truly apostolic frugality. They have been left to sweeten their brown bread—if they can get even that—with the testimony of a good conscience. Talk of the corruptions of Popery, indeed ! what can be more corrupt, what more alien from the purity and simplicity of the gospel, than such a system as this ? It is heathenish all over."
Success to the Shetland Journal!
Previous page
