to the indictment preferred against "the Clergy," we can only profess our lack of information as to what these precious "conclusions" are, and our profound scepticism as to Mr. Gould's ability to enlighten us. What we do know is, that a variety of crude and extravagant theories, each clashing with the rest, have from time to time been put forth by different people-sometimes by the same people at intervals of a year or two. We know also that not only is the existence of the "facts " which are supposed to prove the theories utterly denied by persons whose opinion is entitled to at least as much weight as any which belongs to the opposite view, but the deductions drawn from them are, on equal authority, pronounced to be unsound. Therefore it is, at the very least, premature to ask other folks to accept the so-called "conclusions" of science and criticism until the scientific men and the critics are fairly agreed amongst themselves.

So much by way of preliminary reply. But Mr. BaringGould, in the second place, seems to have forgotten the distinction between Science and Philosophy. The special sciences deal with concrete facts: philosophy seeks to reduce them all to their one common principle. Mr. Herbert Spencer has defined Philosophy as "completely unified science," and this unification is the reducing of facts into their order-the classification of them according to analogy. Each of the special sciences Each of the special sciences tells us the details of its own department: philosophy must gather them all up into one. It is necessary to insist upon this, because it has become of late the custom of mere men of science to arrogate to themselves the authority of philosophers; whereas the philosopher is exactly opposed to the specialist, and every scientific man is a specialist. Nothing, for instance, could be more intolerable than the attempt of Dr. Tyndall, in his Address at Belfast in 1874, to pose before the world in the character of a philosopher; while nothing could be more pitiable than the display which he made of second-hand erudition.

Now we take the liberty of telling Mr. Baring-Gould that his friends, the scientific people and the critics, have not as yet arrived even at the preliminary stage of gathering a harvest of undisputed facts; whilst, if they ever should do so-a sufficiently improbable event-it would still remain for philosophers, comparing together the various sets of facts supplied by the different departments of science, to draw conclusions from the facts.

But when all this has been, if it ever is, accomplished, Mr. Baring-Gould's task will be not much nearer its completion than it is now. Theology claims to have brought, by means of Revelation, new facts to the knowledge of man. It assumes these facts as first principles; and, if there be a Revelation at all, it must, vi termini, claim to control human reason on all points where they come into contact, unless human reason is to claim to criticize Revelation.

This, then, is our general answer to Mr. Baring-Gould's appeal to Christians-why he speaks only of "the Clergy" we are at a loss to conceive-to remodel their faith at the bidding of certain scientific and critical speculations; and it would hold good even if these speculations were, as they certainly are not, stamped with the approval of those qualified to judge.

The author of these lectures stands therefore convicted, at the very outset, of begging the whole question at issue. His exhortations and warnings are utterly meaningless unless they are based on the assumption that these particular speculations are true. Yet this is the very question in dispute; and it is one which must be settled on its merits, and not in the offhanded à priori manner in which he has chosen to deal with it. When these theories are denied, it is simply no reply whatever to say that some other theories, now admitted to be true, were once denied also; as though the fact of Galileo not being wrong afforded a presumption in favour of Darwin being right.

It is true that, with strange inconsistency, Mr. Gould hints, in one place, at the possibility of some of these scientific and critical theories being mere hasty deductions from inaccurate data. But this grudging admission rather aggravates the case than otherwise. It is for these shifting sands, forsooth, that men are asked to give up the firm Rock upon which their faith is founded! Yet Mr. Gould feels quite equal to the occasion, and he calmly and blandly polishes off the whole business in the most airy style possible:-"It may be," he says, "it is, shocking to some minds, that what they have

regarded since infancy as God's Truth should be summoned before the bar of reason."

"Before the bar of Reason!" We thank him for the admission. It is Reason, then, that is to decide matters of faith! The Very Truth itself was once arraigned at the bar of a ruler who, sitting as the representative of the World, asked, with unconscious irony, the scoffing question, "What is Truth?" And Pontius Pilate remains, for all time, the typical representative of all Rationalism. "Before the bar of Reason!" Yet the author of this book professes to hold the Catholic Faith-provided always that its "imperfections" be supplemented by the Gospel of Science.

We have neither space nor inclination to follow Mr. Baring-Gould through all the details of his argument. Nothing could be more tedious or wearisome than the involved obscurities of his style; whilst the jerky, spasmodic structure of his sentences irresistibly reminds the reader of a rather poor specimen of a French novel. Now and then his sublimity borders on the ridiculous, as when his pathetic apostrophe to the tiny grain of sand finds its climax in the touchingalmost tearful-enquiry, "Why are you not soluble in nitric acid?" Honoured with a paragraph to itself we find this oracular declaration :-" What is a mystery at one time of life is not a mystery at another." But Mr. Gould's sense of the ludicrous is not very keen. Otherwise we should not have found him (pp. 67, 68) quoting with approval the conduct of a certain Bishop whose tribute to his Sovereign, poured out "over the purple stair of his throne," consisted of a snowdrift! We wonder what Mr. Gould would say to a friend who should empty a "snowdrift" on to his drawingroom carpet.

In his lecture on the "Mystery of Creation," Mr. BaringGould attributes to Theism the doctrine that, when the Almighty has created, "He stands outside, apart from His work, as an artificer who makes and regulates a watch." We do not allow that Theism is committed to any such notion. It does not follow, because you reject the Pantheistic idea that the universe is identical with God, that you believe that God stands outside of His work. We deny that the alternative lies between an "external" artificer or a "spontaneous force. When Mr. Gould implies, therefore, that the choice lies between these two, his logical alternatives are not complete. Christian Theism, at all events, teaches that Almighty God brought the universe into existence, and still keeps it in existence, by an Act of Will, which includes in its effects the working of all the forces of nature. Certainly He is independent of His works, but they are not independent of Him. He has not cast them adrift to get on as best they may. Of course the reason of Mr. Gould's misrepresentation of Theism is obvious; it is in order to make room for the Pantheistic doctrine of spontaneity, for which no logical necessity would arise if, in accordance with true Theistic doctrine, God's continual preservation of, and energizing power within, the universe be recognized. Mr. Gould shirks the real issue between the two systems, which cannot possibly be reconciled; while his Pantheistic sympathies of course lead him onwards to spontaneity and evolution.

As to Evolution, it seems to us that he fails fully to grasp the fact that it is quite possible to deny the actual genealogy of a man out of, say, an amoeba, whilst admitting what is called the logical procession or evolution of the Divine idea, which is nothing more than another way of saying that God has arranged creation in a beautifully-gradated series of stages. It was this latter doctrine which was held and taught by the great Christian Platonists of antiquity.

In his lecture on "Primæval Man," Mr. Gould affords a marked instance of the eagerness with which he is willing to cast away old opinions, and to accept any substitute that may present itself. The "scientific" authorities differ, it seems, as to the age of man to such an extent, that, while some have calculated it at twenty thousand years, others have put it at just five times as long a period. We are unable to do more than just to note here his extraordinary doctrine, that the possession of a living soul merely implies the indwelling of “a sense of the infinite." So that a soul is, we presume, nothing but a subjective condition; and man is differentiated from the brutes by being more civilized than they.

We may just add, that this lecture once more, and in direct teeth of the evidence, re-states the now exploded and wellnigh abandoned fallacy that man has developed from barbarism

to civilization, a position refuted in an able article in the Quarterly Review for July, 1874.

The sixth lecture, on "Biblical Inspiration," rejects both the "Protestant position" of an infallible Bible, and what he terms the "Roman position" of an infallible Church. The latter view he sums up as follows:-"The Church was infallible because the Bible said so, but the Bible was only infallible because it was authorized to be so by the Church. The argument revolved in a circle." Now, first, this position is not distinctively "Roman," for it is held by the Church of England, and is taught in her Sixth Article. And, next, the argument does not revolve in a circle. To borrow Bishop Forbes's wellknown illustration :-If an ambassador bears his credentials in a letter, he is the authority for the genuineness of the letter, whilst it defines the powers, plenipotentiary or otherwise, of the messenger. The application of this to the question before us is obvious (See Forbes : Art. VI. vol. i. p. 93). Details apart, we must profess our inability to understand how Mr. Baring-Gould, who avows his belief that the Church is inspired, can consistently hold that the Canon of Holy Scripture has not been authoritatively settled. Such a position really takes away the value of his admission of the Church's authority. To put the matter briefly :-If it be true, as he affirms it is, that the Church is inspired, then it follows that, in her settlement of the Canon of Scripture, we have an authoritative and infallible warrant for believing that the books included in the Canon are inspired. There is positively no logical escape from this conclusion; and Mr. Baring-Gould either declines to accept the conclusion of his own premises, or else which we suspect to be the case-he does not really believe in the living authority of the Church.

In short-and this touches the whole gist of his book-it seems to us that he is now brought face to face with the question whether there exists in the world any Divine Teacher whatever. That is a question to which an Infidel Liberalism To deny the existence of a Divine Teacher on earth is to deny that the Incarnation brought The Truth into the world. This is indeed the "spirit of Antichrist."

has its own answer.

We finish the perusal of this most mischievous book with feelings of unqualified amazement and regret. The author is, we believe, a prominent member of a small knot of Radical Ritualists, and his book affords one more indication of the direction matters are taking in that quarter. For some years past it has been sad to see how the principles of Liberalism have been eating their way into the core of, at least, a great portion of the High Church party. In the sphere of Politics, the principle of Authority has long been cast away by many of the Ritualist leaders and by their organs in the press. The result of this is now beginning to show itself in their religious tenets also, in the shape of open Rationalistic heresy. For some time past Universalist doctrines, for example, have found increasing favour with some of them. The book before us is a bold step in the direction of Liberalism in religion; and if the author's views are shared, as we believe they are, by other members of his party, the speedy break-up of the Ritualist school cannot be far off.

THE DISCIPLINE OF CHRIST AND THE DISCIPLINE OF DEVILS: A Letter to a Clergyman of the Church of England. By a Layman. London: W. Ridgway, 1876.

NO

ONE of our readers should be without this pamphlet. It states certain pressing and practical difficulties with great force and vigour, and indirectly hints at an efficient mode for their solution. The portentous and complete Revolution effected by Dr. Tait, and his episcopal allies, notoriously affects us laity quite as much as our clergy. The former-if they are Christians and own any principlecannot possibly submit to such a Court as that over which the ex-Divorce Judge presides,-and, having made up their mind not to do so, must look out for some policy, when Brute Force, as it soon will, triumphs. If Lord Penzance is quietly accepted as a veritable chief judge in causes Ecclesiastical, by the Council of the E.C.U. and other Whig and Gladstonian Ritualists, the great and gallant captains who apparently have nothing to say or advise,-they may depend upon it that the laity will decline to participate in the degradation.

We do not think it fair to the author to set forth at length the details of his remarkable Letter-it should be procured,

studied and preserved. But we take three stirring passages as good specimens of the whole ::

This brings me to a consideration of your question, What (in my opinion) ought to be the attitude of the Ritualists towards the present Courts? You will have anticipated my answer: but I will give itChurch and the discipline of Christ, or Lord Penzance (I mean no disUncompromising resistance. To me the issue is plain :-the Catholic respect to him) and the discipline of devils. The Court of Final Appeal is essentially and admittedly a lay Court. The Lower Court has a quasiecclesiastical character, but it breaks down upon examination. All its belongings, except the accident that the Judge is appointed by the Archbishop-though he so little represents the Archbishop of necessity, that the latter recently felt himself called upon to appeal from the decision of his own Court-are essentially lay; and were it ever so eccesiastical in composition, its position towards the Court of Appeal would deprive it of all Church authority. Those, then, who believe that to the Church, and not to the State, belong by Divine appointment the office of decreeing rites and ceremonies, and authority in controversies of faith, must resist the Courts as at present constituted. The principle of resistance is the same whether the Courts concern themselves with the

shape of a chasuble or the existence of Satan.

Mr. Charles Wood, the amiable and placid President of interest: the E.C.U., will, no doubt, read the following with some

What a

The clergy enslaved by an astute society, which values expediency and diplomacy above principle, playing fast and loose with the Courts, now obeying, now disobeying, now yielding, now retracting, doubling and shifting at the dictation of the wire-pullers at Burleigh-street. sight! Unless my estimate of Ritualistic laymen is very wide of the mark, the laity are getting heartily sick of the appearance of these Reverend Defendants" in Court, pleading before a tribunal which they do not intend to obey, or know they can only obey by denying the faith. Little wonder if they are tempted to contrast what they see around them with the simple and dignified Non possumus of the Vatican, and the bearing of Roman Catholics in Germany under State interference in

matters of conscience.

:

Tudor imposture, the Royal Supremacy-which now only Finally those who are still enamoured of that hugh means the supremacy of Public Opinion, as variously expressed by a House of Commons, in which moneyed and half-educated nobodies are becoming the majority, -may do well to ponder over this, our last, extract:—

The Royal Supremacy," from being regarded as a mere paper theory, has been sadly proved to be a living power, doing all (or more) for the Church of England Pope or Patriarch has ever claimed to do for West or East. True it may be, that "we give not to our Princes the ministering either of God's Word or of the Sacraments;" but we give them, or they assume to themselves, the right to interpret the former, and to settle the ceremoniale of the latter. Forced to choose between the Crown, as advised by the Senate, and the Pope, as advised by his theologians, or to sink into a sect ȧképaλos and avouos, increasing numbers of us are learning to prefer the Bishop to the Crown, the rules of the Sacred Congregation of Rites to the dicta of the Privy Council. The rule of a Catholic Metropolitan, with right of appeal to Rome, is at least preferable to the rule of Archbishop" Penzance, with the sorry right of appeal to my Lords of the Judicial Committee, a body which is, now aud henceforth, the "Holy Governing Synod" of the Anglican Church.

ANIMAL TORTURE: Evidence Given before the Royal Commission on Vivisection. By G. R. Jesse. London: B. M. Pickering, 1876.

IN

N this book Mr. Jesse implies, firstly, that parts of his evidence are not unlikely to be suppressed; and, secondly, that he was snubbed by some of the Commissioners-more especially by Lord Cardwell and Mr. Huxley -when that evidence was being given. The author is well known as an upright gentleman, who has most benevolently befriended the animals, and largely aided in the noble and much-needed crusade against the barbarities of scientific demonism. His book is thus dedicated-" To the Friends of the Weak; the Defenders of the Oppressed, and those who open their mouths for the Dumb," and it is one that ought to be largely circulated and carefully read. The position taken up is thus clearly set forth :-" The hideous cruelty of dissecting living animals or inflicting on them, though innocent and defenceless, multitudinous deaths of excruciating and protracted agony has secretly grown up in this nation-a nation which for ages past has been nobly distinguished by the courageous and unsanguinary character of its people. This moral ulcer has spread widely, and (whether it be or not a dreadful form of insanity) become dangerous and demoralizing to Society, a blot on Civilization, a stigma on Christianity. The public has little idea what the horrors of Vivisection are; its crimes in studied, ingenious, refined, and appalling torture, in wantonness, uselessness, and wickedness, cannot be surpassed in the annals of the World. It therefore calls for extirpation by the Legislature, cruelty being not only the worst of vices in itself, but the most retributive to mankind,

more especially when perpetrated by the refined and educated." Mr. Jesse provides examples of this atrocious practice recorded in no less than fifty-three medical and other volumes; while the frightful evidence in detail makes us shudder and turn sick. The most efficient remedy in rooting out such abominable wickedness would be a liberal and frequent application of the cat-o'-nine-tails to the red-handed perpetrators of it. SCRAPS FROM MY SCRAP BOOK: comprising Rambling Recollections of Cardinal Wiseman, &c. London: R. Washbourne, 1875.

T

HIS slight volume, accurately enough titled, contains 16 short papers on various interesting subjects, written simply and well, from a Roman Catholic point of view. That on Cardinal Wiseman, though obviously from the pen of a personal acquaintance, sketches His Eminence's character very fairly, discreetly, and with good taste. The "Grave of Thomas Beaufort, Duke of Exeter," is also full of interest; while the other attractive essays and poems help to make up a very pleasant book, eminently suitable for a present, or for the reading-room of a religious confraternity or parish guild; for there is nothing of controversial bitterness about it.

their national development, and unsympathetic with their genius. We recommend the Essay to all Churchmen who, from whatever point of view, are interested in Re-union.

IN

N a Sermon recently preached before the University of Oxford, God and Human Independence (London: J. Parker & Co.), Dr. Pusey, with all his wonted vigour of thought, has put forth one of the most weighty and telling refutations of Liberal principles-religious and political-with which it has ever been our lot to meet. Admitting that the spirit of independence has in it much which, by Divine grace, might become a power for good, Dr. Pusey points out that entire independence is plainly incompatible with complete responsibility to God. At the present day responsibility, except to obey the will of the majority, seems to be the thought most remote from men's minds, and God is not even denied, but simply ignored. An instance of this is seen in the anti-religious, Liberal tyranny over the consciences of our poor." Dr. Pusey combats, with the keenest acumen, the late Mr. Mill's doctrine, that adaptations of means to an end in the universe are "so much evidence against the Omnipotence of the Designer," by showing how God's great law of mutual dependence can be traced throughout nature; from which it follows that it cannot be impossible that the same naturally, a general defence of the Church's Sacramental system; and Dr. Pusey concludes with a telling appeal to his younger hearers not to neglect the Sacramental means provided in the Church for the Remission of Sins. We cordially recommend all our readers to procure for themselves a copy of this masterly discourse, which affords ample proof of the undiminished intellectual power of its venerated author. This being so, as regards the pregnant and pressing question of Erastianism, let him tell us whether it is right to resist on principle, or to be squeezed and to succumb.

Exposition of the Church, in view of Recent Difficulties and Controversies, and the Present Needs of the Age (London: Pickering, 1875), is from the pen of a master-mind. If we are not mistaken, we recognize in its telling sentences the hand of a Roman Catholic Priest whose graphic and soulstirring expositions of the Catholic Faith, and its unique adaptability to the aspirations of all seekers after Truth in the present restless age, met with a warm reception a few years since in America; and which are by no means unknown to some of our English Roman Catholic brethren. We allude to "Questions of the Soul," and "The Aspirations of Nature." Basing his views of the future of the Roman Catholic Church on certain quasi-Prophetical utterances of the present Pope, he sees in the dogma of Infallibility and the future action of the Vatican Council, the promise of a new phase of existence and a new triumph; of deeper spiritual life and intellectual activity consequent upon her return to the "usual orbit of her movement," after the renovation and the perfection of her out-works rendered necessary by the contest of the 16th century; of the reconciliation of the light of faith with the light of reason, and a consequent triumph (not in the material, but) in the spiritual order. To quote his own words,-" -"the increased action of the Holy Spirit, with a more vigorous co-operation on the part of the faithful. will elevate the human personality to an intensity of force and grandeur, productive of a new era, difficult for the imagination to grasp, and still more difficult to describe in words, unless we have recourse to the prophetic language of the inspired Scriptures" (p. 34). This "Pentecostal effusion of the Holy Spirit on the Church," we are told, is the personal presentiment of the Holy Father himself; and the following

words, spoken in 1871, are quoted," Since we have nothing, or next to nothing to expect from men, let us place our confidence more and more in God, Whose heart is preparing, as it seems to me, to accomplish, in the moment chosen by Himself, a great prodigy, which will fill the whole earth with astonishment." The author has many interesting remarks upon such men as the age seems to demand; the mission of races-in the varying characteristics of which he sees the Hand of God appointing them the places they are to fill in His Church; the return of the Saxon races to the unity of the faith, which event he predicts as the fulfilment of the general law of persecution, i.e., the conversion of the persecutors; whilst that section of his essay headed "Some of the Causes of Protestantism," well deserves our readers' most attentive perusal. The chief of these he traces to the inability of the Saxon mind to understand the constitution of the Church and the essential necessity of her external organiza

tion, to which their energetic individuality and great practical activity in the intellectual and material order, opposed the excesses of the Latin-Celts, and charges of formalism, superstition and Popery; the Saxon reformers, it is said, taking advantage of the antipathies between the races, raised a false issue, leading their followers to believe that the Roman Church did wrong to their natural instincts, was hostile to

HE two Sermons preached in Westminster Abbey on the

Death of Lady Augusta Stanley (London: Macmillan and Co.) are respectively from the pens of the Master of the Temple and the Dean of Christ Church. Though they by no means come up to our ideal of funeral discourses, being flashy and pietistic rather than sound and solemn; yet they suitably set forth the unsatisfactory character of Broad Church opinion. Dean Liddell informs us that Lady Augusta was very "courageous and generous" (p. 30) in recommending Père Hyacinthe to break his vows of religion, and "boldly declared that for him it was right," (ibid.) even helping to officiate as attendant when he did so. We are glad that the Father-now a father in quite another sense-did not adopt her Ladyship's loose views as to vows, and apply them to what Dean Liddell terms the "yet dearer confidence of wedded life." (p. 40.) Yet if one kind of religious vow may be broken with impunity and commendation, why not another? Philanthropy, of whatever kind, and rotten sentiments, are very poor substitutes for Christian principle.

A CONSTANT and unvarying interest in the Temporal, rather than the Spiritual relief of the poor, seems to be now the leading feature of most of the High Church Missions. Bodies, not souls, appear to be of primary consideration. The priest is sunk in the relieving officer. Certainly such a policy is not so sound or commendable as that which obtained of old,-nor is it likely to secure God's blessing or advance Christ's kingdom. Mr. W. H. Langhorne's Mission Life in East London (London: J. T. Hayes) reads like Mr. Mayhew's well-known books on the metropolitan poor, and is therefore interesting: but of the Spiritual, we find next to nothing. The World to come is allowed to take care of itself: and the World that is, and its pressing requirements, are here well advertized, in pious phraseology, and with a great blowing of literary trumpets. Mr. Langhorne wants money, it appears; and no doubt this pamphlet will help him to obtain it.

MR. BOYS'S volume, The Trinity of Man, (London: J. Parker and Co.), is a religious treatise on a wide variety of aubjects, from an evidently well-meaning and pietistic amateur theologian, who is to be congratulated on his piety and good intentions rather than on his performance,—which is both disjointed and unsystematic. If Mr. Boys would study St. Thomas Aquinas "On the Incarnation," he might easily

learn to write with more point and with a better method. The use of large-type capital-letters and small-type capitalletters in such irritating abundance, gives an appearance of weakness and not strength to the many sentences made up of them. Under-dashes, whether single, double or treble, are rather feminine than masculine, and make a book very unreadable. It is dedicated to the earnest and pious Mr. Canon Furse of Cuddesdon.

THE HE Dean of Chichester's two Sermons, Home Missions and Sensational Religion; and Humility (London: J. Parker and Co.), with the ugliest title-page we ever saw in print, are distinguished by all the writer's usual arrogance and dogmatism. Their literary style is Burgon-ese not English,-full of jerks, italics and exclamations,-and the oblique and ungenerous attack on Bishop Mackarness throughout the first sermon is simply scandalous. By consequence the new Dean is hardly the person to flagellate the Ritualists for want of obedience to their Bishops. The Ritualists are not more lawless than Mr. Burgon's favourite "Reformers: "whether they own truer principles than himself is open to discussion. He is a Tory, with a strange mental twist. The "Reformers" were destructives.

CANON

ancient "Court of the Archbishop" becomes a mere nominis umbra, and

is now to all intents and purposes a lay Court administering (or professing to administer), the law of the Church. The independence of the Archbishops is gone, for the power of appointment of the Judges of their own Courts has been taken away by Parliament. If this is denied let us suppose they cannot agree to nominate the same person on a vacancy. What happens? The appointment will be made by the Crown under the authority of the Act. If this is not creating a new Court (though trying to preserve the old names by a fiction) I do not know what is. It is "Church and State" with a vengeance, but not "our glorious Constitution in Church and State" toasted at Conservative dinners. In my humble opinion, and in that of many well-read lawyers, nothing short of the repeal of this hastily-passed Act will restore that A TORY LAYMAN. Law Institution, March 11th.

to us.

THE NEW LAMBETH COURT.
(From the Guardian, March 8, 1876.)

SIR, Since the Times has refused to receive any explanation of a severely criticised it, or any reply to a correspondent who attacked it, former letter of mine (which you also kindly admitted), although having will you permit me to state in your columns the grounds on which the assertions made in that letter rest?

I submit that it is simply impossible to accept Lord Penzance's statement that the Public Worship Regulation Act "did not create any new court, or indeed any court whatever," or that of the Times' correspondent, that nothing more was done by that Act than what was done many years ago in the case of the Queen's Bench, when the "number of judges, which had previously been four, was increased to five, and since then to six." It is true that the creation of a new court is not spoken of in the Act, but proceedings are ordered to be taken and powers exercised which could only be in a court of law.

THE

HE Second Volume of the English translation of Bishop Hefele's great work on the Councils of the Church (T. and T. Clark, Edinburgh) is announced to appear shortly, edited by the Rev. H. N. Oxenham.-We are also able to state that a third edition of Dr. Döllinger's deservedly popular work, The First Age of the Church, translated by Mr. Oxenham, is in the press, and will be shortly published by Messrs. W. H. Allen and Co. He is likewise about to reprint his able and remarkable papers in the Contemporary Review on Catholic Eschatology and Universalism, which have excited considerable interest both among Roman Catholics and ourselves; with additions and a preface discussing the bearing of modern Rationalism on the subject.

WE E learn, with satisfaction, that Mr. Hodges has just published an English translation of a portion of the Commentary of Cornelius à Lapide-edited by a competent scholar, Mr. Mossman of the Diocese of Lincoln, who has been aided efficiently by others in his preparation of it.

Endications of Current Opinion.

"We all like to see what the World says; though, perhaps, the World's sayings would not be so highly regarded, did we know who guided the pen and registered the opinion.”—Coleridge.

IS IT A NEW COURT?

(From the John Bull of March 18th, 1876.) SIR,-We are being repeatedly told in various quarters that the "Public Worship Regulation Act" did not create a new lay Court for the disposal of ecclesiastical causes. It is true that Lord Penzance is now the sole judge of both the Arches Court of Canterbury and the Chancery Court of York, but as the appointment of the one Judge is virtually taken away from the two Primates, by requiring them to concur in a joint appointment under pain of lapse to the Crown, the

Lord Penzance's succession to the deanery of the Arches depended on a vacancy in that office, and this vacancy depended on the passing of another Act-the Judicature Act. If that Act had failed or been delayed, or other hindrance had occurred, Sir Robert Phillimore and Lord Penzance would have acted contemporaneously as judges, each in his own separate place, and according to his own distinct method of procedure. It was only "whensoever a vacancy shall occur in the Arches the new judge was to succeed. The contingency of the two judges acting separately and hearing causes in their separate courts was so imminent that Clause 18 in the Public Worship Regulation Act was framed to prevent such a possibility, providing that an incumbent proceeded against in the one could not be proceeded against also in the other. In fact, the Arches still survives as a separate court, distinct from the one constituted by the Public Worship Regulation Act, and cases may be heard in it. Lord Penzance sits in both, but he sits in the Arches only as Dean of Arches; he sits in the new court as judge under the Act. The Folkestone case was not heard in the Arches at all; it was heard by Lord Penzance in the anonymous court constituted by the Act.

The question arises how, if this be so, Lord Penzance's late "judgment" could claim to have been "delivered in the Court of Arches." It was simply by a legal fiction ordered by Parliament. The Act decrees that after the new judge has succeeded to the deanery of the Arches, "all proceedings taken before him in relation to matters within the province of Canterbury shall be deemed to be taken in the Arches Court of Canterbury." Confessedly, therefore, the proceedings were not taken sought to give to its new work the semblance of a prestige by this forced in the Arches; they are only ordered to be so deemed. Parliament and purely nominal association with the old Church court.

2. As to the appointment of the new judge. It is said that he has become legitimately "a judge of the Provincial Courts of Canterbury in such a statement is clear. The Archbishops do not appoint as Archand York," because he is appointed by the two Archbishops. The fallacy bishops, by the right of their Sees independently, as their provincial judges have always been appointed until now. They appoint under the Act, as instruments of the State, and their appointment is "subject to the approval of Her Majesty, to be signified under her sign manual," "during good behaviour," and if the Archbishops fail to appoint within six months after a vacancy Her Majesty appoints without consulting them. The judge thus appointed becomes ex officio by the Act Dean of Arches and Chancellor of York without the Archbishops having anything more to do in the matter.

Since, then, the appointment of the judge and the existence of the new court are due to Parliament alone, and Parliament as a secular body can give no more than a secular authority, it appears to me clear that a tribunal thus constituted is a purely civil one, though by a legal fiction clothed with an ecclesiastical semblance. Nor can it be gainsaid that great violence has thus been done to the rights of the Church as hitherto recognized in this country. Previously to the Public Worship Regulation Act the State had confined itself to dealing with the final court of appeal. Now, for the first time since the Reformation, it claims to have control over the appointment of the persons who are to sit as judges in the first instance to determine all Church questions, whether of ritual or doctrine, both diocesan and provincial courts existing, indeed, as shadows of the past, but practically superseded by the new State arrangement. Clewer Rectory, March 3, 1876. T. T. CARTER.

SHAM ANTIQUITIES.-The Berlin Museum bought, some years ago, in Jerusalem, for about 28,000 thalers, some Moabite antiquities, the age of which was pretended to amount to 2,500 years. It has turned out now that these monuments are not genuine, but probably the work of a potter still living in Jerusalem. The inscriptions on the different vases, plates, and statues are said to be nonsense, although the letters are very distinct. Two learned antiquaries in Basle have just published an interesting statement proving the fraud. Great indignation is naturally expressed in so-called "scientific circles," especially as amongst acquisitions of the last few years other counterfeits are supposed to exist,

Recent Anti-Erastian Publications.

1. CHRIST OR CÆSAR: A Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury. By the Rev. Chancellor WAGNER. London: Rivingtons, 1874. Price 6d. 2. CANON OR STATUTE; A Correspondence on the Public Worship Regulation Act, between Lord SELBORNE and a SUSSEX PRIEST. London: Hayes, 1874. Price 1s.

3. THE LAW OF GOD AND THE LAW OF MAN: A Sermon. By G. A. DENISON, Archdeacon of Taunton. London: J. Parker and Co. Price 2d. 4. CHURCH AND STATE; or, Christian Liberty. By A. W. PUGIN. London: Longmans. Price 1s.

5. RECENT LEGISLATION FOR THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND AND ITS DANGERS: A Letter to the Bishop of Winchester. By Rev. F. G. LEE. London: Mowbray, 1875. Price 1s.

6. THREE RECENT DECISIONS: A Letter to Lord Selborne. By

Rev. C. S. GRUEBER. London: J. Parker and Co. Price 2s. 6d.

7. OUGHT WE TO OBEY THE NEW JUDGE? By Rev. ORBY SHIPLEY, M.A. London: B. M. Pickering. Price 6d.

8. CHRISTIANITY OR ERASTIANISM? A Letter to Cardinal Manning, by PRESBYTER ANGLICANUS. London: Batty, 1876. Price 1s.

9. REASONS FOR NOT OBEYING THE STATE COURT IN ECCLESIASTICAL MATTERS. By Rev. J. R. WEST, M.A., Vicar of Wrawby. London: Masters. Price 6d.

10. CAN CHURCHMEN RECOGNIZE THE NEW JUDGE? London: Masters. Price 1d.

11. LIFE OF ROBERT GRAY, THE FIRST BISHOP OF CAPETOWN. In Two Vols. Edited by the Rev. C. N. GRAY. London: Rivingtons. Price 32s.

12. THIS CHURCH AND REALM; or, the Rights of the Church and the Royal Supremacy. London: Hayes. Price 28.

NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS.

The Letters criticizing the E.C.U. from "M.P.," " A. D. B.," "W. C.," "T. J. B." "G. M.," and "Pro-Action," are declined because they are anonymous. We fully agree with W. C.'s" powerful argument, and shall be ready to print it if he is prepared to affix his name and address,-but not otherwise.

The Rev. O. Shipley's M.S., for which we are much obliged, has duly reached us, and it shall be printed in our next issue.

ENT being here, London just now is very dull, and so

it ought to be. But, at the turn of Easter, it is to be hoped that the Royal Family may be good enough to honour the Metropolis with their presence. As it is, the Prince of Wales will soon return: but Her Majesty and the Princess Beatrice are off to Germany, the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh are in Russia, the Duke of Connaught is in the Mediterranean, and Prince Leopold is in Italy. Scotland no doubt is a delightful place, and the people there are most delightful and loyal; but both England and Ireland may reasonably regret Her Majesty's continual and persistent absence (even during the season) from London, on the one hand, and her total disregard of the Green Isle and its loyal Catholic inhabitants on the other.

who are worth influencing.

C. R. T.-A frank and plain spoken Declaration from its members, if signed by 1,000 (as it surely might be,) would serve the good cause greatly. But it should neither be equivocal nor feeble. It should be strong.

As a rule, we must decline to insert both personal attacks of every sort and kind, and anonymous letters. If people want to ventilate their opinions (and a news

paper is certainly a proper vehicle for such action,) they must be good enough

to sign their names to communications forwarded.

We beg our correspondents and supporters to address all Letters relating to the literary portion of this paper to "The Editor of THE PILOT, 143, Strand, London, W.C.;" and all communications regarding the sale and advertising, to Mr. J. H. BATTY, Publisher, at the same address.

THE

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 29, 1876.
Published on Every Alternate Wednesday.

"Has not all our misery, as a Church, arisen from people being afraid to look difficulties in the face? They have palliated acts, when they should have denounced them

And what is the consequence? That our Church has through centuries ever been sinking lower and lower, till good part of its pretensions is a mere sham; though it be a duty to make the best of what we have received."-P. 274-"HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS." BY VERY REV. J. H. NEWMAN, D.D.

A

BROAD the Emperor of Germany has attained his 79th year, but does not show any signs of regret or repentance for persecuting his Roman Catholic subjects. In Spain the latest Protest of the Pope against a dangerous "religious toleration " is so disliked by the Alphonsists that they are going "to send an energetic despatch" to the Holy See. Since the departure of Don Carlos, the Red Republicans and Communists have become unusually active. A correspondent informs us that they are "secretly importing arms in considerable numbers, and that, within a few months, a rising is imminent." Thus "when thieves fall out honest men may come at their own." An interesting and evidently authoritative account both of the last Carlist campaign, and of the present political position of the Carlist party, appeared in the Times of Wednesday last, from the pen of General Kirkpatrick. The General proves--as we think, satisfactorily two things: first, that the scale was turned against King Charles in the recent war by the unjustifiable and treacherous interference of France; and, secondly, that the political strength of Carlism throughout Spain is greater

"philosophy," who has been dead for some time, and is now almost forgotten-used contemptuously to speak of all Tories as "stupid." We always resented the insolence; but certainly some members of Mr. Disraeli's party seem to be painfully striving to merit the disagreeable epithet. What its Parliamentary parents style "a Divine Worship Facilities' Bill" has been introduced by Mr. Wilbraham Egerton, Mr. Birley, and Mr. Rodwell; but the Morning Post maintains that it ought to be called "A Bill to Afford Increased Facilities for Disturbing the Peace of the Church." Those who drew it have put into the hands of any five parishioners the power of compelling the Bishop to licence a strange clergyman in any parish-the result of which would be increased bitterness, legalized contradictions in teaching in the same parish, and perfect and complete chaos. It would be only one step further-after such a principle had been adoptedto have allowed any five parishioners to erect a new pulpit in any part of the church, and licensed any perambulating parson to preach in it; or what would have been more completely effective-any number of parsons from any number of pulpits in the same church at the same time. It is singular that when the Roman Catholics are building up their parochial system, patiently and painfully, people who think themselves Tories-and who no doubt wish other people to think them Tory legislators-are doing their best to destroy it in the National Church. Happily, for the present session, this mischievous Bill has been talked out, and so has become "a dropped order."