in marriage, "doing" your unsuspecting neighbour with art, ability and success, living wholly for the present and its gains, are alone the subjects of thought. The conscience of man is swamped or plaistered over; the spiritual side of his nature is never looked at. In fine the "Supernatural" is boldly and totally denied. Even Mr. W. H. Lecky allows that "the whole edifice of the civilization which exists rests upon an enlightened selfishness," while the Pall Mall Gazette for Oct. 12, 1869, most frankly declared that "it is impossible to reconcile any Form of Christian Theology with what we call 'Civilization and Progress.'' Nothing which the modern "philosopher" (so-called) cannot ascertain by his senses, can, in his infallible opinion, be dealt with. We need not, therefore, stay to point out the marked difference between Progress and Civilization carried on upon these lines, and the divine and beneficent Christian Civilization of former ages. One is based on a low and derogatory selfishness; the other on self-sacrifice; out of one comes order and light; out of the other, chaos and darkness; one is from the devil, the other from God. Church; and Dr. Wordsworth's overtures are certainly conceived in a large-hearted spirit. The Wesleyan Conference is asked to tolerate the conferring of Holy Orders in the Church of England upon those members of the Conference, and the licensing by the Bishops of those Wesleyan preachers, who may desire it. In the same spirit, the Conference are asked to sanction the Episcopal licensing of Wesleyan chapels, and the resort of the congregations to their parish churches for Holy Communion. The proposals do not, be it observed, necessarily involve the corporate absorption of the Wesleyan body into the Church, though that would probably, in the course of a few years, be the result of the scheme, if carried out. We desire to do all credit to the good Bishop's motives in this matter; but we fear that he, like many others, is misled by a name. The identity between the old Methodism and the new is really only a shadow: it has ceased to be a reality. It has been too much the fashion of late years to blame the Church herself, and especially her Bishops, for the Wesleyan schism. It is too frequently alleged that the Wesleyans were "driven" out of the Church. Nothing could be farther from the fact; and John Wesley continued his ministrations in the Church of England until his death. The Methodist body, however, very soon became utterly steeped in the spirit of schism, and has remained so to the present day. The existence of the same spirit amongst modern Wesleyans is the sole bar to a reconciliation; and we greatly fear that it will prove too strong a foe even for Dr. Wordsworth. I SIR, FORMATION OF AN UNIAT CHURCH. LETTER THE FOURTH. HAVE, in the last place, to consider the advantages which would flow both to ourselves and to the Roman Catholic Church, from a Uniat Church. Even amongst the least shallow of English Churchmen, Politics are now regarded as quite independent of the Christian Law. The people who can scarcely see beyond the length of their noses, of course cannot perceive that the true basis of Government (a love of God and one's neighbour) is thus unsettled, and its proper sphere dangerously contracted. Modern Tractarians and Ritualists having, under Dr. Pusey's and other similar guidance, become Whigs and Gladstonians, -ever ready to join in chanting the Liberal chorus and in aiding Liberal schemes,-now allow what that literary Whig, FOUR LETTERS TO A. P. DE LISLE, ESQ., ON THE Lord Macaulay, taught, viz., that the sole function of Government is the purely material one of protecting persons and property. Consequently, Vice and Virtue are now entirely outside the sphere of the Civil Magistrate. Expediency is, by consequence, the sole and single test of Right and Wrong. Religion is carefully and purposely eliminated from the administration of Public affairs, from the Throne down to the cottage. God-written of as an "inconvenient incumbrance"-is carefully put on one side, as useless. His Presence, or "supposed Presence," as some scribes have it, is resented as an undue interference with the "Rights of Man." The Almighty Dollar takes His place in America, while Capital is apparently the new Centre to which in England public action is now alone to be referred. By consequence, the only "Religion" to be tolerated, the only "Religion possible, under this new Progress and Civilization, is the Religion, vague, misty, nebulous, which Mr. Harwood holds ought to be painfully established. Such can never attain either the confidence or respect of men. Such a sham could never last for any time, even though its aim should be "to keep things as they are," to "keep things quiet "the highprincipled aim of the House of Lords in passing the P.W.R. Act. Let our readers study the grave words of Archdeacon Denison-quoted in another column-as to what we have lost, under the guidance of certain unprincipled and timeserving generals (officially placed in the House of Lords to defend the Established Church, but too often scheming to destroy its spiritual character), and they will soon see whither "Reform," "Progress," and "Civilizing Improvement" are about to land us. In the coming certain struggle here, "within the confines of our Island Home," between Capital and Labour, between Riches and Poverty, the Establishment, we fear, will aid Truth and Justice but slenderly, because Truth will have been bartered away, and Righteousness deliberately banished from the Nation. IN DR. WORDSWORTH AND THE WESLEYANS. N spite of the violent outburst of intolerant bigotry with which the Bishop of Lincoln was assailed a few months ago, in consequence of his refusal to give to Methodist preachers the title of "Reverend," it is a fact that no one has laboured so perseveringly and so consistently as Dr. Wordsworth has done, to bring about the reconciliation of the Wesleyan body with the Church. The Irenicum Wesleyanum, which he has just addressed to them, is really a proposal that they should, at least, partially return to the identical position which John Wesley himself intended his society to occupy, namely, that of a brotherhood or religious society within the I. To ourselves. (a.) We should gain cohesion and authority: all the blessings that flow from union with the centre of unity and the great bulk of Christians throughout the world. I do not know what form the Unia might take: whether we should have, as "A Roman Catholic," in a letter to the Church Review suggests, a Metropolitan of our own-which I believe was the course pursued in the case of the Eastern Unias; or whether we should be regarded as a kind of "Confraternity," something such as Wesleyanism would have been in the Church of England had she had the wisdom to retain the original Methodists within her pale, or had the well-meant efforts of some in our own day brought about a re-union :having chapels and a rite of our own, but under the jurisdiction of the ordinary Bishops of the country. This is a matter of detail which it is not for us to decide. In either case we should be under Bishops whom we could respect. It is impossible, Sir, for outsiders to realize, or understand, the feeling of bitterness which years of persistent misrule and want of sympathy on the part of the Anglican Bishops has produced in the minds of our lay people. Professional etiquette binds the tongue of the Clergy: but it is otherwise with the laity. I am not speaking of party action as long as parties are recognized, Bishops (who, after all, are but men) have a right to be partizans. I allude to acts of highhanded tyranny and the grossest one-sided injustice which have marked the Anglican Episcopate in its dealings with "Tractarianism" and "Ritualism" from first to last. future historian of the "Movement" will have to reserve a section of each chapter to the Episcopal misdoings of each year. When they come to be told they will astonish the public, and seem well-nigh incredible. The result of these doings is that the laity, naturally inclined to uphold the Episcopate, have come to regard it almost as a necessary evil-necessary to perpetuate Orders and administer Confirmation, but, beyond that, part of the daily "Cross" of these troublous times. The laity would be thankful for an organization which officered them with Bishops whom they could venerate and love. This would be our first gain. The (b.) We are in an unnatural state, both of alliance and of divorce. Bound up in the Establishment with heretics of various kinds,-equally members with ourselves of the National Church,- -we are separated from our national allies and brethren, the Roman Catholics of England. A “Ritualist” may be severed from all Church privileges. He may have been accustomed to "hear Mass weekly-perhaps, even daily; and through change of place may find himself in a parish where there are infrequent Communions, a closed church, and heresy openly taught from the pulpit. Close beside him may be a Roman Catholic Church, with its daily Mass, frequent Benedictions, &c. Yet his position, as an Anglican, compels him to worship in the Established Church, or nowhere, and to avoid the Roman Church as he would a Wesleyan meeting-house. Surely, Sir, this is a state of things that cannot long go on! Its abolition would be our next gain. (c.) Great as has been the success of "Ritualism"-wide and unexpected as have been both its area and its influence -its working has been most seriously curtailed by the "parochial system." Every rector or vicar in the kingdom has the right to shut the door of his domain in its face, and keep it at arm's length. Again, numbers of the Clergy are in the position of curates, and are obliged to carry out their vicar's conception of Church work, rather than their own, or the Church's. And where vicar and curate are at one, and Catholic principles are at work in the parish, the death or the promotion of the former may any day bring the whole fabric to the ground. From all these evils a Uniat Church would be free. The strength of Ritualism is congregational, rather than parochial; and the Uniat Church would be congregational. This would be our third gain. Wherever a priest could be got, a mission could be planted. Any halfdozen Uniats might form the nucleus of such a congregation. Surely, bearing in mind our great successes in the past, weighted as we have been by such serious drawbacks, it would be hardly too much to look forward to the time when every town-nay, almost every village-would have its Catholic mission as much a matter of course as its Dissenting meeting-house. 2. And this brings me, Sir, to a consideration of the advantages which would accrue to "the other side." Once united, our successes are yours, and yours ours. As it is, we are told, on authority which ought to be competent, that "it may be fairly questioned whether, in proportion to the population, the Catholic body has numerically increased within the past twenty years. It is the opinion of many of the older and more experienced of the Clergy throughout the country, that the losses we have sustained by our former want of elementary schools, by mixed marriages, and by the fewness of our priests and missions, have scarcely been compensated for by the number of converts."* The mission of the Catholic Church is not to this or that town but to " every creature." Ritualism has found its way where the Roman Catholic Church cannot hope to extend for years. Remote country villages, no less than the busy centres of our population have owned its sway, and wherever it has planted itself willing hearts have been found to rally round its standard. Churches we cannot offer you, for the State in extruding us from the Establishment will lay claim to our fabrics, even to those which we reared with our own money and for our own use. In the too great security of enthusiasm, we suffered them to be consecrated, and we must bear the penalty of our sinfulness. We can offer you souls more precious than bricks and mortar, and labourers for the vineyard of the Lord. Be it that we are a small numberwe shall not be found wanting in zeal and devotion to the Church. And it must be borne in mind that our original numbers should not count for much. We are the nucleus of a much larger body. Neo-Ritualism, with its new found hatred to the Holy See, may be the fashion just now, but it will not be so long. And for Ritualism, new or old, the Established Church is evidently getting too strait. As their position grows more and more untenable, we may reasonably expect large accessions from the ranks of Clergy and laity. If, as the writer just quoted affirms, "it is certain the High Church party is preparing thousands whom we could never reach for submission to the Church;" if they are breaking down prejudices, and unwittingly bringing back our countrymen to the faith once delivered to the Saints,"" how much more would they act as feeders for the Uniat Church, if, by the blessing of God and the favour of the Apostolic See, such were to be established. * Monsignor Capel. Preface to "The Threshold,” p. vi. In the time of persecution, martyrdom presents itself to individuals as a crisis. They are not free to choose or reject the crown at discretion-as they might choose whether they would observe or forego a fast of devotion, or any other voluntary good work. It comes as a sharp alternative-the martyr's crown or the guilt of apostasy. Similar crises arise in the history of Churches, when the Church must take a high line or fall from her high estate. Such a crisis has visited the Church of England. Confronted with the alternative of obeying God or yielding to Cæsar, she has chosen the latter. You, Sir, would say she did this at the Reformation; I should assign a more recent date, but as to the fact we shall agree. Mr. Mackonochie assures us "the Church possesses vitality enough to shake off the chains of slavery.' If she do, she is most blameworthy in not exercising it? Where, I ask, has she even made a feint of attempting it? We protested against the Gorham Judgment, but the Gorham Judgment is law to this day; and the Church at large, and in her corporate capacity, accepts it as such. The same may be said of the Essays and Reviews'" Judgment of that in "Martin versus Mackonochie," and Hibbert versus Purchas. After forty years of hard fighting, have we even scratched the Privy Council? Is the whole principle of Erastianism a whit less strong in 1876 than it was in 1850? Nay, has not the Public Worship Regulation Bill rendered it infinitely stronger? We have not succeeded in killing Anglican Erastianism, but it will succeed in killing us. And, then, what is there to fall back upon, but alliance with Rome, or open schism from everything and everybody but ourselves-to be followed, I venture to predict, by speedy extermination ? Ritualism and Erastianism are already incompatible; and as the latter is triumphant, the former must succumb. Assured as we are of your sympathies, Sir, we cannot expect you to regard our position as other than an illogical We must appear to you to accept premises while shrinking from their legitimate conclusions. If not to yourself individually, at least to many of your fellow-Catholics, individual and immediate submission may seem our more obvious course. But obvious courses are not always the right ones. We cannot shut our eyes to the great and solid work which Ritualism has been permitted to do in the past thirty years; and without a clear and unmistakable call from God, we dare not, by self-will or impatience, jeopardize a work which we believe to be His, and which He has blessed. Each one of us is, of course, mainly and primarily responsible for his own soul; and such considerations as that ought not, and cannot, weigh a feather's-weight with any of us who are convinced that immediate individual secession is our bounden duty. With such a conviction, we should dally at the peril of our salvation. But they may be allowed to have very great weight with those who, firm as to their principles, are waiting for light as to their legitimate application. We cannot forget that we owe a duty to others as well as to ourselves, and that the conversion of England should be only less dear to us than our own salvation. Anyhow, we are not more illogical than were the Eastern Uniats. On them, as upon ourselves, controversialists might have pressed the duty of individual and unconditional submission, and the absurdity of being ready to accept under conditions, that which the mere fact of that readiness ought to have sufficed to point out to them as the path of unconditional duty, and so forth. The Eastern Uniats might have acquiesced, and where the Church's net enclosed its thousands, its line would have captured units. It is not by logic, but by love, that the Church wins souls for Christ. I am, with respect, your faithful Servant, one. Reviews and Notices of New Books. DISESTABLISHMENT; OR, A DEFENCE OF THE PRINCIPLE OF A NATIONAL CHURCH. By George Harwood, M. A. London: Macmillan and Co. 1876. A [SECOND AND CONCLUDING NOTICE.] NOTHER reason why Mr. Harwood's volume is of such importance to the most thoughtful amongst us is, that it will promptly help to force upon the attention of Churchmen the stern and obvious alternative already before them:-Will they have a true Church, separated from the State, or a quasi-religious department of the State, under the misleading name of a "National Communion?" Whether we look to the author's laborious sketch of the connection between Church and State, or to his dreary and uninteresting account of the rise and progress of the different vulgar sects and sectarian communities, whose members cackle and scream so loudly, this leading question stares us in the face. Mr. Harwood's plea for the maintenance of a National Church is one that no Christian-no believer in an old-fashioned but true Historical Christianity-could for one moment admit or tolerate. What the new and modern religion shall be he does not vouchsafe to declare; who shall frame it; of what it shall be composed; who shall alter it; who shall interpret its creeds, formularies and "Articles of Religion," he does not think it necessary to state. All that he maintains is that the chief and absolute control of it shall be in the hands of the State; and that henceforth the Head of the Church shall be the noble, intellectual and infallible British Public. The title of Chapter V. is a pure misnomer. The objections here dealt with are not religious at all, save and accepting those which come from men who honestly believe in the Christian Creed, who would loathe such an 66 Establishment' as is pictured, and are, by consequence, disgusted at the attempt here made to throw dust into the eyes of the ignorant and shallow. Оп p. 164 we note that in Mr. Harwood's ideal Church "the religion to be taught" is to be "settled by the people's convictions," from which it follows that it is also to be unsettled as often as those convictions alter and fluctuate -a change which happens about twice a year. When going into details Mr. Harwood constantly argues in a circle, begs grave questions, and having done so with great boldness and ability, manfully jumps to most unwarranted conclusions. Many of the headings of this chapter might have been omitted as regards their practical use; for the author is constantly "off his head" and frequently in the clouds; and, though appearing to be practical is marvellously visionary. Mr. Harwood does not like the supremacy of the Church: he hates it with an intense cordiality: he desires the supremacy of the State; and knows well enough that if the National Church were cut adrift from the Tudor Supremacy, and similar exploded and insane ideas and schemes, she must be well robbed, and sent out into the wilderness naked, so that she should not become politically powerful, either alone or in alliance with Cardinal Manning. All his reasonings, however, lead us to contemplate the future. Some amongst us dream that when Disestablishment comes, the Millennium will have mercifully arrived. They see, or think they see, the cathedrals and churches in the quiet possession of the Church of England, still richly endowed. But the Church of England, split into antagonistic sections, would have ceased to exist. Dr. Pusey's school, led perhaps by Dr. Liddon, would represent one phase; Dean Close's school (if Disestablishment comes soon, but not otherwise, for it is dying out,) would represent another; and Dean Stanley's a third. But there might, and possibly would, be thirty "churches" instead of three; for if the principle of Authority be given up-as it seems to be even by Ritualists -for the more convenient and popular principle of "counting noses," we do not at all see why each individual may not be a "church unto himself, with the popular but selfish motto over his tabernacle-door-" Every one for himself and God for us all!” To ordinary laymen Mr. Harwood has some needful words of warning:-"The facts of History verify the conclusions of reasoning, for no self-governed Church of long-standing can be found in which the lay element has not been subjected by the clerical. Real courageous representative lay-influence can only operate through one organization, because lay interest is only capable of attaching itself permanently to one, and that is the State; this is the only abiding lay entity in the land. Lay influence must act in religion by the representative system which it uses for everything else, or it must not act at all." Again, on a very practical question, the question of discipline and dogma, we read thus :-" As a matter of fact, 'turning out of the ungodly,' resolves itself into turning out heretics, and to give such a power to the Church of England would only be to transform it into a sect, from which all would be excluded who could not profess to believe in a certain [Athanasian] Creed." Furthermore, it is again and again asserted-and with greater truth than ever, now that persons from a much lower social grade than heretofore seek the ministry in the Establishment, that, "the worldly advantages offered by a National Church induce men to enter the ministry from unworthy motives; " to which Mr. Harwood answers:-"Granting that the incomes received by the Clergy are larger than those of what are called 'the ministers of all denominations,' the only conclusion reasonably to be drawn is not that these large incomes should produce more worldliness, but that they should bring forward a better class of men; for it is a fact, the frank acknowledgment of which by both sides would greatly help the discussion of this question, that with ministers of religion, as with everybody else, the amount of salary, with its attendant social circumstances, regulates the quality of the supply. If a Dissenting minister receives £100 a year, and the corresponding clergyman £500, the real truth is not that the clergyman is subject to worldly temptations from which the Dissenting minister is free, but that as a general rule the minister will come from a class to which £100 is of just as much importance as £500 is to the class from which the clergyman comes. Differences of salary do not imply differences "This of worldliness, but only differences of social condition.' is a retort, shrewd enough, and containing several half-truths, but it will not be consolatory to the restless tribe of preachers of all kinds found amongst the sects. Nor will they hold it to be a compliment. To the objection, partially noticed already," that a National Church cannot sustain definite religion," Mr. Harwood replies by showing what its destruction would involve. "If we suppose the National Church to be destroyed, there would then soon be left no religious organizations except private ones, most of them created to vindicate some isolated doctrine or practice. We can imagine what would then be the painful condition of those who, while personally attached to religion as a whole, do not care especially about these doctrines or practices, and in general have a strong dislike to the associations of sectarianism. They would be compelled either to ally themselves to some one sect, or else to have no religious services at all. No doubt many would take the first course, some of whom would degenerate into narrow-minded fanatics; but the most would in all probabilty prefer to fall back upon their own resources, and in consequence their religion would gradually grow weaker and weaker, and often die out altogether.' -are We venture to think that he is totally mistaken in his prophecies and predictions here. What would really happen would be this:-Thousands of persons,-disgusted with the ever-increasing divisions of a repulsive Protestantism, sick unto nausea with the vulgar Erastianism, dressed up with such fine words and sweet phrases in this imposing volume; holding the policy of Tait, Thomson, and Temple to be inherently anti-Christian, -would fall back on the wellorganized and unflinching Church of Rome; quite prepared, and watching for the collapse. They would argue that, if Mr. Harwood's enlightened and progressive notions, so very lofty, so truly elevating, so noble, and so impressive, those alone which the Establishment in its corporate capacity would embody in the future; such a society would not only be of the earth earthy, but would have become a little too loathsome and odorous into the bargain for any Christians to have anything to do with it. Shaking off the dust from their feet, they would leave it; and when True Principle, Energy, Truth, and Zeal depart, its final decomposition would have arrived; and its coffin would need to be at once ordered. Mr. Harwood might pin up the emaciated and distorted corpse in an unsoiled copy of the Public Worship Regulation Act (if he could find one), and it might then be buried in Archbishop Tait's cabbage-garden at Lambeth, with His Grace's new and truly charitable Service for "unbaptized Christians," read by Dr. Parker of the City Temple-Dean Stanley and Mr. Harwood, each with an onion enclosed in a black pocket-handkerchief, supporting Her Most Sacred Majesty the Queen, as Chief and Hearty Mourner. But jesting apart,-and surely we may be pardoned if we jest on such a ludicrous and preposterous theory as that enunciated by Mr. Harwood,-it is impossible that on the new lines the National Church can hold together for long. Radical change is inevitable through Conservative stupidity and Tory blundering. The Christian Public will neither be gulled nor mesmerized much longer. At present High Churchmen, by laborious self-denial, repair and restore churches, and Broad Churchmen are appointed to serve them. Believers in Christianity found Bishopricks, while believers in Dean Stanley fill them. Confiding High Churchmen throughout the land support Church Societies-e.g., the S.P.G. and S.P.C.K.,-while semi-infidels or shameless Erastiars too frequently manipulate them. Several London pulpits are at this very time filled with "cultured animals, adorned with natural hair," whose conception of the primary rules of common morality and manly decency is such that on Saturdays and Mondays they are found in what is called "Scientific Society," with gross sneers or withering scorn, noisily denying that very Revelation which on Sundays, at least, they are officially bound to teach. The day will soon dawn, however, -firmness, patience, and charity are needed in the interval, -when the recent legislative work of Dr. Tait will righteously and abundantly bear fruit; while the truly-comprehensive Establishment which Mr. Harwood seeks to maintain on such rotten and corrupt principles as those set forth in his elaborate volume, will (alas! for the country parishes,) have surely gone the way of all flesh. A VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS: Being the Substance of Sermons preached between the years 1862 and 1872. By the Rev. Morris Fuller, M.A. London: B. M. Pickering. 1876. "The The volume before us is not at all of this type. Mr. Fuller has not published because he has nothing, but because he has something, to say. As regards sound solid Principle, based on Authority, however, it is evident that he has not yet even apprehended the necessity of contemplating its existence; much less has he adopted it for himself. Dangers he appears to see of remedies he apparently knows nothing. The crucial questions are everywhere and ever rising up-What is the Faith of the National Church; and on whose, or what, Authority do the Clergy teach it? In disputes concerning dogma, rites, and morals, who is to be the final arbiter? Who, when partizan parsons differ, and when the aggrieved and cantankerous parishioner rises up, is to eventually decide their disputes? Is it the individual Bishops, or the Bishops combined? Is it the High Court of Parliament, or the Provincial Synod of York, or Lord Penzance, or the Canterbury Convocation, or the Privy Council, or everybody for himself? Which of these? We ask these questions because, remembering Mr. Fuller's remarkable and bonest volume on Court of Final Appeal," we rather expected to find this pressing and perplexing question considered, even if not solved. It would be well that clergymen of Mr. Fuller's standing and ability would give their attention to this subject. He does not belong to the younger breed of parsons, who apparently look upon the E.C.U. as an Anglican Popedom-in-commission, and the penny Church newspapers as infallible guides, giving forth utterances each week in every fix and controversial perplexity. There is nothing either coarse or vulgar in his style and sentiments. The alien gymnasts have not at present influenced him. He, therefore, would do well to ask himself this question: Is it wise, or right, or politic, to take no steps by which we can regain actual intercommunion with the rest of Western Christendom? Surely isolation, and an accursed nationalism (bred of Henry the Eighth's matrimonial necessities), have done mischief enough already. Are we never to look beyond "the silver streak?" Are we never to make respectful and earnest proposals to Rome for peace and reunion? We have looked in vain for any sound statement of the principle of Authority, such as might lead us back to a much-needed and blessed intercommunion, in Mr. Fuller's volume; but, alas! have looked in vain. The twenty-third Sermon treats the question as one of "balance" between Church and State. What Mr. Fuller expects and recommends is the "readjustment of the balance." He, however, owns the present state of things to be simply intole rabie, and, to his great credit, writes plainly. May he be rewarded for his outspoken and brave sentiments! Concerning the Privy Council, these are his words :-" Subservient to popular opinion in the highest degree, the reverse of impartial, comprehensive on one side, intolerant on the other, astute, hasty, shuffling, vacillating, wishing to please, yet carrying in its manifold utterances a deep under-current of the odium theologicum-that bitterest of all enmities-it has earned for itself the scorn of opprobrium, not only of Churchmen, but of the whole nation; it has brought a slur on the whole administration of justice in England; and sounded the death knell, I fear, of Church and State in England." (P. 456.) Noble words are the above, which we commend alike to the blind followers of the younger race of Ritualists, and to the two National Primates. But they surely mean more than they state; for they obviously imply the need of a Court of Appeal beyond the Province of Canterbury. Now beyond that Province Dr. Tait has no more jurisdiction than the Lambeth parish beadle; so that we must extend our vision, and widen our scope of action. Peddling away in the mere national groove is only bolstering up a loathsome and antiChristian Erastianism. But to details, as regards these Sermons. Generally speaking, they evidence study, careful and not one-sided reading, much reflection, an honest appreciation of an opponent's position and difficulties, and an earnest desire to meet and overcome them. The author has been painstaking throughout, and there is not one uninteresting or dull discourse in all the 538 pages. We feel bound to say that the important doctrine of communicatio idiomatum has neither been duly realized, nor in our judgment properly applied, in the seventh Discourse; for there are one or two questionable passages, in which the train of thought is not exactly what we could have desired. "The Fall" and "The Consequences of the Fall" are very able, and contain most careful and comprehensive statements of God's Truth. "Christ Weeping over Jerusalem is very powerful and beautifully graphic. The Sermon on "Justification" is a good specimen of the author's powers. Occasionally he is led into exaggerated statements of man's unworthiness, which the heretick Luther first propounded; and there are various inexact and slipsbod expressions here, as well as in the ninth and tenth Sermons, which jar somewhat on our faith. Where the Anglican Church has left questions open, it is not for private Anglicans to close them. The Eucharist, Confession, the Conception of Our Lady, Purgatory, are all practically open for on these, and others of a kindred nature, Anglican can controvert and contradict Anglican to his heart's content, without let or hindrance. Even the Eternity of Punishment, and the Inspiration of Scripture, are now open questions likewise; while Dr. Tait's shameful and scandalous proposal, made to Convocation, to bury the unbaptized with a Christian service goes to make more fundamental points open too. This by the way. The Sermon on "The Kingdom of God," we are bound to remark, is singularly unsatisfactory, the argument with Rome being most unfairly and most insincerely put (p. 480), no notice being taken of able and important retorts; while the open and rancorous divisions amongst ourselves are scarcely alluded to. Mr. Fuller has here imitated the ostrich in time of danger, and carefully buried his head in the sands. The last five Sermons on public events are excellent-that on the "Recovery of the Prince of Wales" being especially so. They are each charmingly constructed, and most agreeable and profitable reading. It is a mistake that some of the footnotes are so vaguely given. In fact, they are practically useless. "Hilary ". 66 Alford," why not St. Hilary? Tennyson," "Manning's Sermons," "Grotius," and "Stanley in loco," convey to us no idea at all. If such notes are worth giving in any form, they are certainly worth giving fully and properly, so that reference can be readily made to them; and the reader of this volume can conveniently consult others. Occasionally Mr. Fuller glides into what we may term the new and magnificent "barley-sugar style" of writing, of which there are some bad specimens on pp. 86, 113, 134, 140, 304, and specially so on p. 360. This is not a style that is attractive, however earnestly Dean Stanley, the Daily Telegraph "picturesque reporters," Canon Farrar, and others, may revel and royster in its saccharine luxuries. The dignified simplicity of Father Newman's writings is always a better 10 a certain class of Christian readers-a class which consists mainly of the passing generation-the name of Henry Melvill will immediately recall hours spent in rapt attention to earnest, energetic, and eminently personally interesting discourses by a preacher whose very tone of voice, as well as his every characteristic, thoroughly attracted and held entranced what they believed to be their spiritual instincts. To such good people, whose religious attitude may be described as a restless craving for spiritual excitement in the form of intellectual pabulum-showing itself in an unconquerable desire for homiletic novelty-the present volume will be most acceptable. This class of earnest seekers after what passes as spiritual consolation, is by no means extinct, although a taste for the older forms of Evangelical theology has very generally given way before the narrower and more bitterly controversial tone of the wouldbe followers of a once powerful religious party, on the one hand; or before a "Broad Church" more Germanico, rationalism on the other. This volume of posthumous sermons will, however, find a ready sale amongst Evangelicals of the older type of the school. And deservedly so for Melvill was not only a zealous and stirring preacher of the Gospel, so far as he apprehended its message to mankind; but he was also an original thinker of exceptional power, whose speciality lay in ability to fasten upon texts which were more or less commonly ignored by the pulpit orators of his day, and to develope therefrom in polished-although occasionally a somewhat verbose, flowery and high-flown-style, deeply important truths in the subjective order. Thus there is much which is curiously fascinating in the volume before us, and many a point in the spiritual life is handled with refreshing earnestness. Nevertheless, we lay the lectures down with feelings of mingled disappointment and sorrow. Of disappointment, that such evident spiritual capacity should have led the preacher to nothing still deeper in the deep mine of Biblical truth; of sorrow, that a Christian, such as Melvill was, should have been so manifestly partial in his apprehension of the cycle of Christian theology-so utterly ignorant and, apparently, so lamentably prejudiced, regarding everything connected with that which is, undoubtedly, the essence of Christianity. We mean the revelation of a Sacramental Gift of life eternal, in which a new humanity is communicated; by which we become sacramentally engrafted, through a real impartation, into the Divine Life of the Sacred Humanity; which impartation can alone enable us to realize the promise of the sublimated state of existence which we look for hereafter. Melvill's Christianity is a Christianity of ideas, sensations, and self-consciousness, in which "a lively faith" does duty for all the seven sacraments at once. The admirers of Melvill, we take it, are all but totally ignorant, as a class, of any other Christian theology or philosophy than that of the school of which he was 80 eminent a leader. Did their exclusiveness allow them merely to glance at such works as, e.g., Newman's Anglican discourses, they would be in a position to estimate that absence of solid theology and power to deal adequately with the whole body of Revealed Truth, which so painfully disfigures even the most "faithful" example of so-called Evangelical deacon's indictment. Here is a record of scandals, for which the Archbishops and Bishops are mainly responsible : I have seen the Doctrine of Holy Baptism more than tampered with in the "Gorham" case. I have seen the National Church robbed of its National Rate. I have seen the same power that proposed, and in the end effected the robbery, marching on with flying colours to appropriation of Churchyard and Church. I have seen the plot for gradually eating out the Schools of the Church and breaking up the Parish netand for a time "unostentatiously" promoted, carried out to its triumphal work spread all over the country, first conceived some forty years ago, issue by the "Elementary Education" Act of 1870. I have seen the value of the Act commonly tested by how many pounds a-year can be got out of Downing Street under it, and not by its anti-Christian character. I have seen State Schools almost universally usurp the place of the Parish Schools. I have seen "Religious Education" publicly done away; "Religious Instruction" foisted into its place under false colours and pretences. I have seen the children of the Church sacrificed, with consent of B'shops, Clergy, and People, in the name of "National Education," whatever that may mean, at the shrine of the children of all denominations and no denomination. I have seen all done that could be done by Public Authority, Ecclesiastical and Civil, under provisions of Act of Parliament, to tempt the children of the Church to indifference in respect of their Belief. I have seen the like leaven pervading "Public Schools" and Universities. I have seen the Endowed Schools of the Church robbed of their "salt;" and turned into things which no one of their founders ever thought of; or, if they did, would have given a farthing of their money to found. I have seen the Priest's Office in Cure of Souls in his Parish School, the nursery of his Parish Church, almost universally sold for a Government grant. I have seen The Name of God cast out of the (so-called) Schools of the Church twenty-three hours out of twenty-four. I have seen a "Time Table Conscience Clause." Looking back upon my Letter to Mr. Gladstone in 1874, I find every step of the ruin of Church Schools at the hands of the Civil Power which has been taken from that time to this predicted in that Letter, save only and except the crowning enormity of the "Time Table Conscience Clause." My mind had not then fathomed the depths of this thing. I have seen School Boards, and School-Board Schools-places, all-places with qurgoyles all turned inside. I have seen the attempt to at the best, of "natural religion" only-at the worst, of no religion at make a people a better people, better prepared to do their duty towards God and man, by beginning with them in their childhood with as little I have seen the human "regeneraReligion as may be, or with none. tion scheme thrust into the place of the Divine. I have seen "Compulsory Schooling." I do not say "Education," because that is gone with dethronement of Religion. I say Schooling." It is difficult to say, touching the component parts of "Compulsory Schooling," which is the biggest part; the tyranny, or the wrong, or the cruelty, or the folly. 66 I should much like to see the "Compulsory Schooling" Propaganda, and the legislators who are its slaves, brought fairly under the rod of stringent operation of the rule with which, with so great complacency and virtuous indignation about secular ignorance, they are flogging the poor. In that case I do not think we should hear much more of "Compulsory Schooling." I have seen, what indeed is no marvel, under the circumstances, the rapid decay of all authority, parental and other. I have seen ultraProtestantism, when assaults upon the Doctrine of "The Real Presence" despair upon Persecution for use of the "Ritual" of "The Real had collapsed ignominiously one after the other, fall back in frantic Presence;" and this with much applause, and hearty concurrence and active support, Spiritual and Temporal, in the highest quarters. I have seen a Secular Court provided by Parliament confessedly for the express purpose of "putting down Ritual." I have seen men who care only for this or that bit of "Ritual" speak with pity, very like contempt, of their brethren who care for all of it. These are as much their own Pope as they say the "Ritualist" is: I should say a good deal more. I have seen the "Public Worship Regulation" Act. In itself enough to condemn a time. THAT Mr. E. T. Vaughan's Hulsean Lectures for 1875, published under the title of Some Reasons of our Christian Hope (London: Macmillan and Co.), are the work of a painstaking and pious writer, of somewhat nebulous principles, is evident throughout their perusal. But their method is so entirely different from that which has been current amongst old and orthodox theologians; the arguments embodied in them start from such a low and unsatisfactory platform; they deal so entirely with the feelings and phantasies of their readers; and, by reason of the divisions of Christendom, the notion of calling upon the visible Family of God to bear a clear and consentient testimony to the facts of Historical Christianity, never seems to have entered into Mr. Vaughan's head. To him the Church is a school of debaters rather than a Divine kingdom. But our manifold schisms are rapidly producing chaos, infidelity, and atheism. Tides of this kind will not be stemmed with a second-rate literary mop. The fourth Lecture strikes us as the ablest and best reasoned; the second as the weakest. Mr. Vaughan sometimes combats the unbeliever from a common platform; while some of his remarks are shrewd and forcible. His style is cold and classical. He writes good English, and maintains sober and sensible propositions; but is seldom eloquent, and |