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Provincial judge any more than it can make a layman a priest, or a heathen a Christian. It cannot lay down statutory conditions as to the qualifications of a Provincial or Diocesan judge without mutilating the true character of the said judge, and fettering the action of the Archbishop or Bishop whose delegate the judge ought to be.

Up to the year 1874, this had never been attempted by Parliament. Up to that year each Archbishop had enjoyed what was a sacred trust, held in behalf of the Church, viz., the right to a free and unfettered appointment of the judge of their respective Provincial Courts. The judge in question derived his authority altogether from the Archbishop's Commission; and the Archbishop in appointing the said judge was bound only by the conditions laid down in the Canons as to Ecclesiastical Judges.

These are facts which have been often stated and never disproved. They establish a wide distinction between the office held by Sir Robert Phillimore and that which the present pseudo-Dean of the Arches Court holds. This latter must, as we have seen, be appointed for each Province by both Archbishops conjointly; their appointment must be approved by the Crown, so that they are no longer free in their choice; and if they do not appoint within six months, the Crown appoints for them. That a man appointed in this way holds the same office as Sir Robert Phillimore held could only have been seriously maintained in connection with the Public Worship Regulation Act, which seems to impart its inherently unreal and fallacious character to everybody and everything which comes under its influence.

Lord Penzance, then, is not a Provincial judge in the canonical sense of that term; and hence it is manifest that he is a new kind of judge, and his Court "a new Court." A Court derives its character from the authority from which it springs and which it wields. The old Court Christian derived its authority from the Church, and no Act of Parliament laid down what manner of man its judge was to be: Lord Penzance's Court derives its authority from the Act of Parliament. The old Court Christian was not a Court of Record: Lord Penzance and his Court can fine and imprison to his heart's content, like the High Commission Court. The old Court Christian was liable to prohibition from the Temporal Courts at Westminster on the obvious and express ground that it wielded an alien jurisdiction: if any one were to dispute Lord Penzance's authority in the Queen's Bench, the Act of 1874 would be immediately quoted in justification of it.

Therefore we affirm in contradiction to Lord Penzance that his Court is " a new Court;" that the Provincial Courts, as understood by Churchmen and Canonists, have ceased to exist with the resignation of the last Official Principal of each of them, who was appointed in the only way in which an Official Principal can be appointed. We affirm, furthermore, that Churchmen ought never to suffer Lord Penzance's claim to be "Dean of Arches" to pass unchallenged; that his office is essentially different in character from that held by Sir Robert Phillimore, and that the divorces ab officio et beneficio which Lord Penzance will pronounce in the future will be as invalid, canonically and spiritually, as the divorces à vinculo matrimonii which he has pronounced in the past.

In conclusion we would refer our readers to an Article in the Times of February 26th on the Court of Final Appeal which, mutatis mutandis, admirably describes the grievance of Churchmen in regard to Lord Penzance and his Court :

"It is impossible not to be moved by sympathy with the Lord Chancellor in being made the sponsor of such a measure as the Appellate Jurisdiction Bill. Circumstances have compelled him to devise a tribunal of ultimate appeal which is one thing in reality and another thing in name. It is, in truth, a new Court, somewhat cumbrously constructed, but still, as we hope, efficient to do the business for which it is formed. Being thus new in fact, it is to be called by a very old name, and it is, happily, found that this identity of name is sufficient to satisfy men who are unable to detect the fact that a total change of substance has been effected. Lord Cairns may so far defer to the opposition which has thwarted him as to call his new ultimate Court of Appeal the House of Lords; but it is not, and will not be, the House of Lords, and in the course of ten or twenty years this may come to be understood."

And further on we read,

“The scheme of the Chancellor is, again, open to grave objection, because, although it cannot even at the outset generally deceive observers, and its real nature must soon become apparent when it is set working, yet its immediate tendency is to mislead the nation."

Surely it is a most significant and ominous fact that the attempt of Parliament to impose a counterfeit Arches' Court upon the Church should so soon have been followed by the invention of a counterfeit House of Lords for the nation.

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WHAT IS CONSERVATISM?—No. I.

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HERE is no religion so completely reasonable as that of the Catholic Christian. This religion lays it down as a comprehensive precept for our guidance: "Render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, and unto God the things that are God's.' And in amplification of this we are taught that "every" (human) "power is from God"—and therefore he that resisteth the power" (in those things which pertain to its order) "resisteth the ordinance of God." Accordingly, Christianity covers with its divine sanction, the social arrangements of man. The full recognition of this truth is what we understand by Conservatism.

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We shall endeavour in this and further articles to demonstrate the complete reasonableness of this teaching. The word "Conservatism" means a keeping together-a maintenance of the existence of a compound being, as such. The full significance of the term depends chiefly upon the object to which it refers. In the sense now being considered, that object is the Body Politic. It is this which is referred to when we speak of Conservatism in politics. And by the body politic we mean that external organization by which mankind are enabled to secure their common good as social beings.

The word body is of course here used in an analogical sense, -a sense, however, which infers much more than a common allusion or figure of speech. Every body, or object, of which we have sensible experience, is compound, consisting of parts. But every composite thing must depend upon some definite force for its united subsistence. Atoms must be held together by cohesion, which is a force. In all societies or associations of men, by whatever name they may be called, the force of cohesion may be ultimately stated as Authority." The formulation or expression of authority is law. Law then, regarded in its essence, is the statement of the modus operandi of the force by which any society or body of men is held together.

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Every organized body is dependent upon certain conditions, -the fulfilment of which are essential to its existence; they indicate the relation subsisting between structure and function, between the forces, that is and the matter constituting it; or, as the schoolmen would say, between its form and its matter. These laws are called organic laws.

The force by which the particles of any portion of amorphous matter are held together is termed "the force of cohesion;" this is the lowest kind of force, being simply a determination of unity, shape, hardness, weight, and the like. A somewhat higher force is shown in the crystal, in which the force of cohesion is to a certain extent controlled by a superior force, which results in a definite shape. Ascending the scale of forms we pass from the vegetative to the sensitive, from that to the intellectual or rational, and so on to the volitional, or (as being manifested in conformity to the customary environment of volitional existence) the moral.

Now, as we mount up this scale, we find ourselves confronted by a new phenomenon. Not only do the superior manifestations of force display an individual increase of control over those of all the lower stages, but this increase is intensified in a kind of geometrical ratio, by a tendency in the powers of the separate organizations to act in combination; thus there exists among many plants an inter-dependence and reciprocal subservience, so that the effect produced on the rest of creation by the whole vegetable kingdom is intensified by this combination, insentient though it be. This process of concurrence is in a higher degree true of animals, whose instinct in many cases, especially in such as are of a gregarious nature, displays it to a remarkable extent. But, when we come to the rational animal, man, the observation is one of common experience. And, which is a fact perhaps not equally noticed, the human race, as a great whole, may in turn be

regarded as constituting one great depositary of a controlling organic force, whereby its influence on the universe is made to contribute to a definite result. Regarded in this light, we may consider the entire human family as one body, having its own laws, the expression of the regular operations of which is contained in "laws," commonly so-called, political, social, moral, which are the object of the science of jurisprudence. What is true of the human family at large, is so far true of all distinct branches of that family. Thus, then, we are able to appreciate the importance of law, as dependent upon the nature of its object,-the Body Politic.

Reviews and Notices of. New Books.

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LIFE OF ROBERT GRAY, Bishop of Capetown and Metropolitan of Africa. Edited by his Son, the Rev. Charles N. Gray, M.A. In Two Volumes. London: Rivingtons, 1876. HESE two handsome volumes will be sought after and read by all who know and value the important work done by that noble Colonial Prelate, whose life and deeds they put on record. The first volume contains 532 pages, while the second is even larger, and consists of no less than 662 pages. The former, which contains seven chapters, and covers that portion of Bishop Gray's life between the years 1809 and 1863, is illustrated with a forcible, but not very pleasing likeness of the Bishop on steel, and a useful map of the dioceses of South Africa. The latter volume contains the remaining five chapters, detailing his works and words from 1861 to 1872, when he was lost to the Church Militant, and taken home to his reward. An engraving of "The Graves at Claremont stands as a frontispiece to this. We may say of Bishop Gray, that of all those Colonial Bishops first appointed, (owing to the earlier and healthy influence of the Oxford movement,) no single Prelate has approached him for depth of principle, vigour of action, independence of State influence, and ready suffering for the Truth's sake. Others have done well, have laboured patiently "in quietness and confidence"-Mr. Keble's favourite motto,-but no one to the end and so consistently, has fought so good a fight; no one so obviously towers over his official contemporaries in the memory of Christian men as the high-principled and much-lamented Metropolitan of South Africa. "His name liveth for evermore.' The broad and grand policy adopted by him throughout, in endeavouring to unbind the trammels of undue State interference, has been crowned with success. The wearying, wearing struggle, spread over so many years, was, we now know, too much even for his strong frame. The malignant bitterness of certain of the State Prelates at home, whose cruel policy and heartless bearing were always before him, touched him deeply but, notwithstanding their plots and pitfalls, he bore up bravely in his Master's cause and by his Master's aid; and it is only now that he is lost to the Church of South Africa, that men at home are able duly and fairly to appraise and acknowledge his value.

Before Bishop Gray went out thither, Church organization was simply unknown. On his lamented death the spiritual building, traced on old and tried foundations, had risen in fair and beautiful proportions throughout the whole of the land. As circumstances permitted, new bishoprics were founded; new plans unfolded; fresh schemes carried out; and, by consequence, fresh life and activity were infused into Missionary work. In Capetown the Church now holds her own.

But it was the Bishop's keen instinct regarding spiritual independence, and his cordial detestation of the Erastian principle fondled at home, that enabled him to fight so good a battle, and finally to come off victorious. His Episcopal brethren in England were always beating about the bush or proposing to drape the dark hoof decently, and not to call too-particular attention to its ugly form and figure. But Bishop Gray was not to be misled. He knew instinctively that it was the limb of no good angel. Wherever and whenever Erastianism came in to hinder the Church's progress, therefore, there was he ready to make a good stand; if needs be, to do battle with the enemy, and so, as it turned out at last, to win. All this is set forth in detail in these volumes very fully, some would say too fully but those who went below the surface of public affairs, and were not hood-winked by misleading issues

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and sham fears, saw the importance of lending every possible assistance to the Bishop while he lived, and know well enough, now he is gone, that if Posterity is to judge him fairly, it can only be by a full knowledge of all the facts, details, and principles here set forth; and not by the personal scurrilities of anonymous writers hired to malign his motives or blacken his memory. For ourselves, the book is not one page too long. A careful and patient study of it will greatly aid those who follow Principle rather than Expediency, to shape their course in the present troublous times. From its attentive study will be seen that, in the celebrated cases of Long and Colenso, the Bishop was as true as a bell. While other people seemed theologically colour-blind, he instinctively saw the true points at issue, as if by special revelation; and ever acted with integrity and vigour. His was no see-saw policy, nor feeble course. He took his stand as a determined anti-Erastian; and, because of this good and noble work, his memory is sacred and blessed.

Our limited space renders it impossible to review this delightful book at length: but we cannot do other than give a few examples of Bishop Gray's principle and foresight on the one, but most important point, of State aggression and Erastian tyranny.

When the Rev. H. J. Pye, Bishop Wilberforce's son-in-law, joined the Church of Rome eight years ago, it became almost certain that the then Bishop of Oxford would never be promoted to the See of Canterbury, which, considering his great and eminent services to the National Church, he so thoroughly. deserved to have been. Bishop Gray, in condoling with Bishop Wilberforce on his son-in-law's secession, wrote thus :

"When will the Church of England learn that she cannot retain her children if she will not retain her full heritage of the Faith, and act, in the exercise of discipline, whatever Courts may say or do, as the Bride of Christ? I feel sure that the last thing which has slain the [Pyes] is the tolerated infidelity of Voysey. If I were his Bishop I would try and condemn him and place another in his room, and call on: the faithful to receive him. If this had been done in Williams's case, we should have broken with the State, and have been persecuted; but thousands of true hearted men would have rallied round the Church, and many now in Rome would never have left. Men lose all hope and confidence in the Church because of these things. I have had a mournful letter from poor It is this loss of faith in the Church which is killing him." (Vol. ii. p. 463.) Again, in a letter to the Right Hon. J. R. Mowbray, in 1869, Bishop Gray wrote as follows:

"I do not believe that the Church of England, in its present relations to the State, can continue long truly to witness to not destroy her Final Court of Appeal, it would destroy her. Christ. I have publicly said these fifteen years, that, if she did It will, I am sure, be a chief element in the overthrow of her as an Establishment; because her most devoted sons feel must be antagonistic to the Faith.” (Vol. ii. that it represents not the Church but the World, and as such P: 468.)

me.

And to his son, the Rev. C. N. Gray, in the same year:—

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From a letter of the Archbishop of Canterbury [Tait] to some persons in Natal, advising them to keep aloof from both parties, I learn that Colenso has petitioned the Queen against Nothing will induce me again to go to law before the Judicial Committee of Privy Council. There is no justice to be obtained by the Church from the Secular Courts: they are entirely governed by their prejudices and popular opinion. We shall probably have, in our Provincial Synod, to protest against the Act of the Archbishop of Canterbury for

"I. Interfering uncanonically with the affairs of this Province, with which he has no concern ecclesiastically or legally. "II. Assuming a quasi-universal Episcopate over our Communion.

"III. Defying the judgment of his own Provincial Synod, which (he alone dissenting) declared Colenso canonically deposed.

"IV. Apparently encouraging Our people not to hold communion with Us.

"There seems to be no real end of our troubles and trials." (Vol. ii. p. 480.)

These extracts are mere "samples of the sack" of unpalatable but most necessary truths, If our readers desire to

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learn for themselves what a high-principled Prelate and a competent judge thought of the present deadly bondage of English Churchmen, let them procure and read these most engrossing and attractive volumes. Their story is well and simply told; the writer has evidently aimed at recording the truth and nothing more. At the same time they give a deep insight into the noble character and inner life of Bishop Gray; and we could not have spared a single detail or even one of the many frank and pious letters preserved and printed; because they will assuredly help all readers of his life, to appreciate the aims and labours of a true Church-ofEngland confessor, both under shadow and sunshine; and at the same time, to measure accurately the motives and policy of his deadliest enemies, who were found,-alas! that we should have to write the sentence,-amongst the Archbishops and Bishops of the Church at home.

THE SPIRITUAL BODY: An Essay in Prose and Verse. By John Charles Earle, B.A. London: T. W. Kolckmann, 2, Langham-place, 1876.

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HIS interesting volume was much needed. Its object, particularly in the Preface, is to show that the soul cannot exist after death without a form and an organism; to meet the common objection that the natural body cannot rise again in its natural condition because it will have been resolved into the elements, and will have entered into the material structure of a countless number of other bodies; that to reclaim it at the Last Day for the original proprietor would be to rob a multitude of other bodies of some of their constituent parts. Mr. Earle might have added that St. Thomas Aquinas maintains quite as distinctly as he does that the same unaltered material body will not rise again "Quicquid fuerit materialiter in membris non resurget totum." (Summa Tom. v., page 239.) He then proves from the writings of St. Paul "the present existence in us of the "spiritual body, which will clothe the spirit at the moment of death." He shows how completely the spiritual body of our Blessed Lord after His death and resurrection was a type of that of His redeemed; and adduces, text after text, the Scriptural evidence to be found in the subject in the New Testament and in the Old. The entire argument is then summed up at p. xxxvi. in propositions so distinct and luminous as to leave no doubt of the author's meaning. In the poetical part of the work the subject is treated more in detail, and its philosophy is more completely wrought out. The opposition which it has excited calms down before a patient examination. Obviously nothing unorthodox is intended, or, as we maintain, advanced. The entire teaching was sketched by Mr. Earle in a former volume called "Light Leading unto Light;" and what was there scattered through sonnets and miscellaneous poems is here re-cast and reproduced in a poem of between seventy and eighty pages, which is really continuous and argumentative, though broken into seventy-four parts of unequal length, and each with its appropriate heading for the sake of greater perspicuity. The solemn and stately metre is that of Gray's "Elegy in a Country Churchyard," so peculiarly adapted to the expression of serious thought. We quote a few stanzas On recognition hereafter," from p. 57, which, though by no means the most striking, give a fair and faithful idea of the author's powers :

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Is there a hand thine own has fondly pressed
More dear than any other, quick or dead,

Is there a bosom where alone found rest

The fevered throbbing of thine aching head?

Is there an eye whose depth of tearful light
Was to thy soul a well of joy unique?
And are there lips, now closed by death and Night,
That sipped the honey of thy blossom cheek
In pure affection? Thou shalt grasp that hand,
And on that faithful bosom shall recline;
Those eyes will single thee from any band
And those fond lips again shall close with thine.

For in the spirit-body is contained

A strict resemblance to its former shell;
Old beauty in new beauty is engrained,

And old emotions in new pulses swell. The prose and the verse mutually throw light on each other; and it would not be fair to judge of either apart from its companion. Mr. Earle, we may remark, entirely rejects the atomic theory, and holds that all matter, as Mr. Greenwood says in his "Creation and Modern Science," is force.

The bearing of this on his main argument must be gathered from his own pages. He disclaims advocating a new doctrine, but observes that, in this volume, the belief in the spiritual body is, so far as he knows, for the first time rescued from extraneous surroundings, and set in the framework of ancient dogma (p. xxxix.). By rescuing it from extraneous surroundings, we suppose he means divesting it of Swedenborgian and spiritualistic vagaries. Thus, from this brief analysis of the method and aim of the volume before us, may be gleaned something of the author's deep purpose and obvious grasp of his subject. He ever writes most lucidly, with great felicity of diction; as a scholar, a poet and a Christian philosopher; and his arguments deserve the careful attention of those of our readers who are interested in the broad and engrossing subject discussed. For ourselves, while earnestly recommending it for study, we may frankly confess that its first perusal fixed and rivetted our attention; and we are much mistaken if it does not leave a permanent impress upon modern theological thought. We add, for the convenience of our readers, that it may be obtained for three shillings, post free, from the author, 82, Ladbrokegrove-road, W.

FRANCISCAN MISSIONS AMONG THE COLLIERS AND IRONWORKERS OF Monmouthshire. London: Burns and Oates, 1876.

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HIS touching record of an uphill but very successful work is evidently from the pen of an eye-witness, and of one moreover who has borne a personal part in the labours of which so simple and yet so graphic a description is given. There are thousands of Irish employed in the Collieries and Ironworks of South Wales, to whom the ministrations

of the Clergy of their own faith must be invaluable. And religious mind can grudge them the accession of such Protesconsidering the state of the Established Church in Wales, no

tant converts as appear from these pages to have occasionally sought at the same hands the spiritual guidance and consolation not easily to be found elsewhere. But of proselytism there is little, in the offensive sense of the word nothing, in this homely though almost romantic tale of genuine and devoted work for God and the souls of men. The good Capuchins, whose missions are here described, can have little time or heart for controversy amid their daily toils. This Superior, Father Elzear, who is, we believe, an Italian, is clearly no ordinary man. The account of the change which has taken place during the last fifteen years, under his auspices, is truly wonderful, though it has been, like all really great works, quietly accomplished, without any flourish of trumpets, and but for this unpretending narrative might have remained unknown to all but those immediately concerned, until the results appeared at the Last Great Day. Where there was formerly but a solitary priest, with one small church at Pontypool, helpless and almost paralyzed in the midst of responsibilities so far beyond his strength, there has now grown up a perfect network of missions and schools throughout centre. the neighbourhood, worked from this commom Thousands who had almost forgotten the very rudiments of their faith are again brought within easy reach of its ordinances, and the rising generation of children are receiving a sound religious education, combined with all the secular requirements of the Government code. The Franciscans may well take an honest pride in so real a success, thus patiently and unostentatiously achieved, and they have certainly every claim on the liberal support of their co-religionists. readers, whether Roman Catholic or Anglican, will find the half-a-crown asked for this interesting little volume, which is admirably printed and got-up, well expended, and none the less so, because any profits of the sale are to be devoted to the wants of these missions. We can only find room here for one touching story which may be taken also as a fair specimen of the author's style :—

Our

One Sunday afternoon, during the month of May, when the air was unusually close and oppressive, I was teaching the children at Cwmbran about our Blessed Lady, and trying to stir them up to have more devotion to her in her own month. They were all very heavy and stupid that day, and seemed as incapable of retaining an impression as if they had been a row of India-rubber balls. Amongst other things I told them to say, as often as they remembered it during the day, "Holy Mary, be a mother to me," but they seemed so sleepy and listless I did not expect they would remember it at all. I had an idea when he dismissed them that, so far as they were concerned, the afternoon's work

was wasted. A few weeks later, however, I was told that a little Protestant child, whose parents lived next door to one of our Catholic families, had died after a very short illness. The night of her death she was heard saying to her mother, "Mother, if I say, Holy Mary, be a Mother to me,' shall I go where Nellie is?" (Nellie was a Catholic child who had died a short time previously.) Her mother understood nothing about it, but said "Yes," to soothe the child; and all night long the little one repeated again and again, "Holy Mary, be a mother to me." It was the only prayer she knew, and she had learnt it the very afternoon I deemed my lesson wasted, having quite accidently accompanied one of our Catholic children to the chapel.

One little seed had taken root. We may hope that Mary took the little way-side flower, and planted it in her garden in heaven (pp. 78, 79). THE CHURCH BELLS OF LEICESTERSHIRE: their Inscriptions Traditions and Peculiar Uses; with Chapters on Bells and Leicester Bell-founders. By Thomas North. Leicester: Samuel Clarke, 1876.

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HIS is a handsome volume of more than 300 pages, small quarto in size, printed in the country,-but exceedingly well printed, in the best of taste,-and illustrated with some vigorous and very useful sketches. Independent of containing the whole of the inscriptions on the Leicestershire bells, it gives the diameter of many of them, with their weight, &c., and reprints any existing records concerning their casting, character and local uses, throwing light on the subject. All this comes at the end of the book. Previously we get, amongst others, chapters on the "Church Bells of Leicestershire," The Leicester Bell-founders," "Peculiar Uses of Leicestershire Bells," "Latin Inscriptions with Translations," and other interesting local and personal information. Mr. Thomas North, the Secretary of the Leicestershire Archæological Society, who writes simply and unaffectedly, has done his work well. Setting forth no crotchets, letting off no literary fireworks, he carefully and wisely follows those wellknown antiquaries of repute, who have already made this subject their especial study; and by applying his acquired knowledge judiciously, has produced a very useful and commendable volume. While the book will, of course, be mainly interesting to Leicestershire people, it also deserves to be known and possessed by that wider and increasing class of students who, as a recreation, make archæology and antiquities the subject of their attractive research.

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[OT always quite fair or just to members of the Church of England; sometimes over-stating a good case, (pardonable in a convert,) and at other times conveniently forgetting that clerical discipline as regards marriage may be changed by Authority, and might become again what it was in times gone by, the Letters Addressed to an Irish Gentleman, by A. M. (Dublin: McGlashan and Gill,) are nevertheless very brilliant and most interesting. Their author, whoever he may be, is evidently a man of rare ability and considerable power. His felicity of diction is as notable as his forcible reasoning; while his airy satire and biting wit are certainly of a very high order. That the principle of Authority is repudiated by some of our would-be leaders we need not stay to prove. We therefore appropriately recommend the following graphic sketch to the notice of those Irish "purveyors of Ritualism who have settled down amongst us. For-without being at all personal-it evidently specially concerns, if it does not accurately describe, them :

To state the theory of Ritualism in the fewest possible words, I should say it is the private judgment of the Bible, plus the private judgment of the Early Church, plus the private judgment of the Fathers of the Living Church, of all Councils, of all Popes, of all doctors, of all saints, of all heretics, of all schismatics, of everybody.

It is the most judicial phenomenon ever known. It summons to its bar-that is, each Ritualist summons to his bar-everybody who ever lived or does live, and passes final judgment upon all. Ritualism does

own Early Church. He has killed-by his theory-this interesting institution, having put it to death in an early century; but he has revived its authority in his own gifted person, and now reigns as the Reverend Early Church. It is singular that an individual should have. the power to reanimate the corpse of a buried institution, and still more singular that he should make himself incarnate with the recovered body and spirit of the past (p. 13).

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THE poet Wordsworth said of the late Sir Aubrey de Vere that his sonnets were amongst the most perfect of our age." We believe this flattering judgment to have been both just and true. Consequently, we are prepared to welcome most heartily a new edition of Sonnets by Sir Aubrey de Vere, Bart. (London: Pickering), which has recently been issued from the press of Messrs. Whittingham, and which we take the liberty of recommending to all those of our readers who admire true poetry, sound principles and poetical accomplishment. This new volume, slight in size, is a truly golden book, evidencing, on its author's part, thought, reflection and great power of expression. The prefixed memoir by Sir Aubrey's younger son (who bears his father's honoured name, and more than exhibits his father's poetical capabilities), is written with due To all refined feeling, judicious wisdom and excellent taste. Irishmen the book will be specially acceptable for many of its national sentiments and local touches. Its merits may be truly gauged by the following characteristic specimens of the author's powers:

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DESPONDENCY IN BAD TIMES.

O that the Spirit of my thought could spring,
As with an eagle's pinion, to that height
Where, in the golden palaces of light,
Your Type of Freedom dwells, throned like a king!
So might 1 catch upon extended wing,

And the replenished fountains of the sight,

Gleams fresh from heaven, and stoop my earthward flight.
The thunderbolts of vengeance scattering.
But, as it is, sorrow, and shame, supprest,

Bow down my heart; and Fancy droops forlorn,
(Like young birds by rude tempests overborne,
Or flowers in autumn winds fading full fast)—
So I, amid this deepening gloom, unblest,

Sit in my Country's shade, and silent mourn! (P. 15.)
PRINCIPLE, NOT EXPEDIENCY.
Shall it be said, O Lord! shall it be said

That men must be incited on their path

Of trial through this world by hope, or dread,
Of human accident in life or death?

Why on this world's vain wisdom waste we breath,
Follies of false philosophy, inbred ?

Why preach the recompense that virtue hath-
The worth of character-the glory shed
On patriotic deeds? Should we not ever

Make Right our rule, which is immutable;
Nor fear a fall when strong in Principle?
Good works are Acts of Faith. Christ does not sever
The deed from the design, and the endeavour:

But makes the basis of His law God's will! (P. 76.)

T is not often that a volume of Sermons reaches a fourth edition. Many of such productions are too flabby, colourless and flat to merit consideration or study. Yet the honour of a fourth edition has just been obtained by The City of the Lost, and other Short Allegorical Sermons (Parker and Co.), a volume which thoroughly deserves it. The joint authors are the Revs. W. A. Gray and B. Kerr Pearse-two cultured writers of good English and sound theology, who are not madly over-mystical, (so as to become comic); moreover, their style is simple, uninvolved and not verbose; they have studied their subjects well, are evidently not anxious to over-crowd or confuse their canvas; and so have produced an attractive volume of great merit,-of which, in these days of pulpit decadence, we earnestly wish there were more.

not do this collectively because it has no collective existence. Ritualism THE

is not a Church; it has no corporate being; it is a section of the Anglican Establishment held together by private opinion. Each Ritualist takes himself for his teacher; and would no more think of obeying his "Diocesan " if his Diocesan happened to disagree with him, than he would think of obeying the Grand Lama, or any other Asiatic notability. He obeys only those who obey him. If his bishop were to be a fully developed Ritualist, he would obey him in thought and deed; but if Dr. McNeile were to be appointed to his diocese, he would proclaim him to be a heretic, "a Protestant," and would render him flat disobedience. The excuse is, that the Ritualist renders obedience to that Church which he mysteriously designates the "Early Church," an institution which has been defunct for fifteen centuries, and which exists, therefore, solely in his imagination. This Early Church is interpreted by the Ritualist according to his individual fancy; nor would he accept the interpretation put upon it by a fellow-Ritualist of a modified school. The Early Church is, therefore, himself. He is his

HE Rev. F. H. Dunwell, well-known as the author of the best Commentary on St. John's Gospel,-is about to issue a volume entitled "The Four Gospels as interpreted by the Early Church," in which our own version is compared with the Sinaitic, the Vatican and the Alexandrine MSS. Besides the works of the Fathers and Early Church writers, references are given to the Commentaries of Jansenius, Maldonatus, and Cornelius à Lapide; on the ground that their object was the same as the author's, namely, to ascertain that interpretation of the Gospels which was held by the Early Church; and because their deservedly great reputation rests mainly on their acknowledged success in this. On questions concerning the chronology and order of events in the Gospel history the authority of several of the most distin

guished modern Harmonists is cited. For to this portion of Scriptural exegesis the early commentators devoted less of their attention, than many who have written later. We most earnestly commend this work, to be completed in 18 monthly parts at 1s. 1d. post-free. The author's address is Hensall, Snaith, Yorkshire.

NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS.

We regret to state that the Letter of our Correspondent from Rome has not reached us. The empty envelope, which may have contained it, alone came to hand just as we were going to press. We deeply regret its miscarriage. Several communications have been duly received, and will, if possible, be used.

As a rule, we must decline to insert both personal attacks of every sort and kind, paper is certainly a proper vehicle for such action,) they must be good enough

and anonymous letters. If people want to ventilate their opinions (and a news

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,

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OST disappointing it is to find our able and generally consistent contemporary, the Tablet, adopting such an unsatisfactory policy regarding Spanish politics, as has recently been taken. The Weekly Register is far more generous and consistent. For ourselves, being cordial admirers of the Principle of Legitimacy and Order, we

London, W.O.; and all communications regarding the sale and advertising, to rejoice that Don Carlos,—after having fought so bravely, and

Mr. J. H. BATTY, Publisher, at the same address.

OTICE.-Messrs. Chatto and Windus, Piccadilly, announce that

NOTI
Dr. F. G. Lee's new book, the "Memorials of the late Rev. R. S.
Hawker, sometime Vicar of Morwenstow," price 12s., is now ready for
delivery.

Just published, fcap. 4to, cloth, red edges, 320 pp., with nearly 100 Woodcuts.
Price 15s., post free.

been checkmated in so underhanded and dastardly a manner, -reserves all his known rights in the future. A remarkable Letter addressed by Viscount St. Asaph to the Tablet, printed in another column, puts the point at issue in its true light and position. Bismarck the Brutal is the great and main gainer by the Alphonso triumph. He, no doubt, understands the question a deal better than the Editor of the German gold

HE CHURCH BELLS OF LEICESTERSHIRE: Their Tablet, as future events may possibly prove.

TH

Inscriptions, Traditions, and Peculiar Uses, with Chapters on Bells and the Leicester Bellfounders. By THOMAS NORTH, F.S.A.

Leicester: Published by SAMUEL CLARKE, Gallowtree Gate.

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"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.

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state of affairs in Germany is so

has done its dark and dirty work well in Navarre. Only we cannot congratulate the bribed.

CRUF

RUELTY seems to be on the increase, and no wonder— considering the "Report on Vivisection" just issued. In last week's papers we read that four boys were charged at the Balsall Heath police-court with stoning a horse to death. One of the witnesses said: "The horse got out of the field, and went through a gateway into another field on the opposite side of the road. The boys continued to throw stones at the horse until they drove it into a corner where there was a signpost and a large tree. They then stoned it vigorously until it fell to the ground," and was found groaning in great agony. "I could see," said another witness, "that it would never look up again," it never did "look up again," but lingered a few days and then died. It was asserted by an officer of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals who assisted at the post-mortem examination, to be a mass of bruises. "About every six

Tshocking to all persons of right feeling and true Chris- inches, during the skinning, there were found patches of con

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tian instinct, that we are astonished to find so little interest taken in it by the English clergy. It is not to their credit that this is so for the Apostle's statement "If one member suffers, all the members suffer" is as true now as it was when first spoken. Some of the Ritualistic newspapers, in their ungenerous and heartless indifference, have only cried out "Serve them right! The exact case of the German clergy has been thus temperately and faithfully described :--The schools are subjected to a system of compulsory education; all Religious are banished from them and the country; 914 of their houses, whether for education or for the purely religious life, have been suppressed: their members, male and female, to the number of 8,795 have been turned adrift, and all their property confiscated, except in the very few cases where they had previously been able to realize it. The ecclesiastical seminaries have been closed, and all education of clergy, for a time at least, suspended. bishops, Bishops, and Priests throughout the country, have been stripped of everything; not only of their benefices, but of the money which, by Concordat with the Pope, the Government was bound to pay in lieu of the Church property which they had formerly seized and alienated :-stripped, observe, on the plea of laws enacted of late by an overbearing Liberal majority, for the very object of stripping them; laws that make everything penal which a Bishop or Priest can and must do in discharge of the most ordinary spiritual duties. For appointing to a church, for saying Mass, for administering baptism, for preaching, &c., fine and imprisonment awaited them, and multitudes have willingly and courageously suffered both, rather than swerve from their duty. There was only one more act of oppression possible, short of taking life, and that act they had the sad courage to perpetrate: they made it illegal to assist their victims with voluntary contributions. Surely it is a Catholic duty to send to our persecuted brethren a help to live, and to keep the faith alive, though it be by

Now

gealed blood. The head and nostrils were very badly injured, and the ribs were covered with bruises." The bench fined two of the boys 20s. and costs each, or a month's imprisonment, and the other two 10s. and costs each, or fourteen days-one of the magistrates observing that "it was one of the worst cases of cruelty he had ever heard of." could anything be more inadequate? Is this such a punishment as the ruffians in question deserved? Yet this stoning is positively merciful in comparison with what the Vivisectors do. These scientific cruelties, alas! have been introduced from France into this country. England has for years past been nobly distinguished by the humanity of its people. In the Government Veterinary Schools of France it has been a regular practice to cut up old horses alive. Six to eight, fast bound in iron vices, have been seen there at once, with six or seven pupils performing surgical operations upon each Arch-dissecting out the ears, the eyes, the hoofs, inserting setons, tying the arteries, ripping open the loins, and burning and irritating the nerves. One Frenchman has been known to torture the same dog for sixteen days, and then beat it for howling in its unbearable agony. A very eminent Frenchman said of his own countrymen that " they were either monkeys or tigers." It is a libel to compare such debased beings as the above so-called "Scientific_men " with any other creature whom God has made. Do not let such beings as these taint the English Nation. Many of the Scientific men would be roughly handled if they dared to do such crimes in public as they practice in private. One London Doctor admits that in about two months, in 1873, he tortured sixteen cats to death. They were from two to twenty-eight days in dying. He does not state whose cats they were. And yet when our Tory Government instituted a Royal Commission, they placed upon it men who were avowed Vivisectors and defenders of such demoniacal atrocities.

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