Rothebay, Isle of Bute,

Dec. 14, 1849.

My Dear Friend: I lately heard a popular preacher, who opened his sermon with the axiom that "Christianity was the religion of a gentleman;" and he admirably maintained his proposition by the teachings and the deportment of its founder and its early votaries. Well, then, if the above proposition be a truth, in what category are we to place the arrogant and the rude? Both incompatible with the attributes of a gentleman, and consequently with those of a Christian.

It is a striking fact, that the Almighty made choice of men remarkable for meekness to be the founders of the two great religious systems anterior to Christianityーthe Patriarchal and the Levitical. How beautifully is this attribute displayed in Abraham's conduct towards Lot, in surrendering to him the right of choice of land.

The meekness of Moses has become a proverb. In one memorable instance it forsook himーhis resentment of the cowardly maltreatment of a child of bondage, by his oppressor. He had looked upon the burdens of his enslaved brethren, and the miseries of their condition caused his meekness to be in abeyance during a moment of indignation.

The whole life of the Saviour was a personification of this virtue. Superficial observers have confounded meekness with pusillanimity. Was the exposer of the Pharisees, the purger of the temple, ever pusillanimous? Never. By him meekness was elevated to an elegant refinement, a dignified complacency; and the meek will commonly be found to possess the fortiter in re, as well as the suaviter in modo.

It is seen, in the majority of instances, that those persons who have suddenly risen from a low station in society, to a higher, are more arrogant and assuming than those who are born in the higher spheres of the community. And the United States seem to exhibit nationally the characteristics that the low-bred manifest individually.

Why will the Americans, by their coarse rudeness, remind a stranger that their existence among civilized nations is of a recent date?

M. Guizot has said that France is the only country in a perfectly civilized state. Either his assertion is untrue, or Christianity is not an instrument in civilization; for in France, vainglory and arrogance are much more conspicuous than humility and meekness.

Outward polish is pleasing, and the observance of conventional forms convenient, but to deport oneself as a complete gentleman, requires something more. These are mere outward displays of good breeding; but a gentleman acts from a sentiment and an inward perception of propriety. He will so demean himself in his intercourse with those of an inferior grade to himself, as to cause in them a cheerful acquiescence in the inequalityーa conviction that it is for the well-being of society that it should be so.

How beautiful would be the social intercourse of Christian principles, were innate and Christian precepts carried out? Christianity supplies rules for all conditions, all circumstances, and all contingencies. But, alas! the votaries of false religions often by their conduct put self-styled Christians to shame.

Contrast the recent acts of the Mussulman towards the Hungarian, the Polish, and the Italian refugees, with the bloodthirstiness of the Russian and the Austrian Christianity. The contrast almost palliates the apostacy of a Bem and his ninety comrades.

Until there be on earth "peace and goodwill to men," the adaptation of benign Christianity to restore a fallen world, will not be seen; the extinction of war and slavery will be the precursor of the suppression of all other ills.

In mentioning slavery, contrast the feelings of Lawrence Sterne with those of the citizens of the United States. Ignatius Sancho, who was an emancipated slave resident in London, wrote to Sterne his gratitude for Sterne's denunciation of slavery, thanking him for advocating the cause of his African brethren. Sterne in reply says, "My dear Sancho, the Africans are no more your brethren, than mine."

I close this letter with a quotation from the "Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation," by a "Citizen of America:" "The soul finds rest only in meekness; never in pride or selfishness."

E. B.