Oriental Church calls itself the Orthodox, for the very reason that it considers its whole system of doctrine closed and rendered for ever unalterable by the decisions of the seven ancient Ecumenical Councils, and the teaching of the ancient Fathers in agreement with them." Why a final and infallible authority should be ascribed to these seven Councils which no later Councils can ever share, was not explained, and would not be easy to explain, but it obviously follows that the Church is deprived of all power for the future of explaining or developing her Creed, or resisting the inroads of any fresh heresy. And inasmuch as the Procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father alone is held by the Easterns to be included in this unalterable code of doctrine, no reconciliation with the West is possible except on condition of an absolute surrender of the Western doctrine of the Procession. On the other hand Bishop Reinkens, who went the length of denying the dogmatic character of the Filioque, maintained that either the Eastern or Western formula might "become dogma through the decision of an Ecumenical Council," and that meanwhile both views "remain provisionally only scholastic speculations." But that is just what the Greeks declined to admit of their own view, while they also declined to explain it, as Greek theologians in other days have been willing to explain it, in a sense accordant with the Western doctrine. We close this notice with an extract from a speech of Dr. Liddon's, manifesting a sense of the gravity of the doctrinal issues at stake which we desiderate in the utterances of all, or nearly all, the other Western members of the Conference, whether Old Catholics or Anglicans, who seem to have very imperfectly apprehended that unity, however important, can never be purchased at the cost of revealed truth: We all know that the Filioque was inserted in an irregular way. But we also believe that it expresses a revealed truth with regard to the Divine Nature which can be deduced by a chain of necessary reasoning from Holy Scripture, and is sufficiently testified to by tradition from the carliest times. Now that the expression of this truth has been for so many centuries incorporated with the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed throughout the whole West, to expel it would give offence to believing minds in Western Christendom, and perhaps would have still worse consequences. The rectification of an ecclesiastical irregularity is by no means all that is involved. The expulsion of the Filioque from the Creed would in many circles produce the impression that God had not really revealed a relation of the Son to the eternal Procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father. It is a much less serious thing to commit such a wrong"-to use that expression-than to rectify it. Facilis descensus, but the return is perilous. I do not for one moment believe that the General Convention of the American Church would be competent to remove the Filioque from the Creed, and I hope it will not do it. We will merely add that there is evidently some misprint at p. 92 of the Report (p. 83 of the German text), where Dr. Döllinger is made to say that "The Council of Ephesus pronounced no dogmatic decisions." DO THEY WELL TO BE ANGRY? A Second Letter, Addressed IN has been committed by her rulers, and to advocate a remedy in the formation of a Uniat Church in communion with the Holy See. Whilst we cannot by any means agree with many of his arguments, we cordially admire his high-principled and spirited protest against the perfidy and treachery of those who have taken advantage of their high position in the Church of England to betray the Faith entrusted to their keeping. Meanwhile, in spite of much valiant talk, High Churchmen, he says, have done absolutely nothing, since the Public Worship Act became law a-year-and-a-half ago, by way of effectual protest. As to his proposal with regard to a Uniat Church, which has been stigmatized as "a Romeward movement," and which has called forth so much angry abuse, he very pertinently remarks: : It is held to be permissible for Broad Churchmen to coquet with Infidels, for Low Churchmen to unite with Dissenters, for Anglicans of the most approved type to associate with Old Catholics or Easterns: for some, even Anglican Bishops, to advocate the alteration or surrender of the Creeds to suit those who cannot accept them. Why is it not permissible for "Presbyter Anglicanus" to say to other units who may be as bewildered and disgusted as himself with this theological chaos, "Let us also work for Reunion, but wish those with whom we have most in common; let our action be (as all action for unity should be) centripetal instead of communion with what has always been the chief and the central See of centrifugal; let us seek for incorporation into that body which is in Christendom, which still constitutes the main portion of Christendom, and with which we are at one in holding all the great central truths of the Catholic faith, and especially the Sacramental system; and not the Vatican Council, which is probably the only point upon which those merely agreed on some negative basis, such as hostility to the Pope and present at the Bonn Conference were or could have been both explicit and unanimous." (Pp. 11, 12.) He reminds the High Church party that they have long since committed themselves to a Reunion policy, and he illustrates this by citing Dr. Pusey's "Eirenicon" and certain Resolutions passed at a great Reunion meeting held in 1870, which affirmed "the paramount importance of the Reunion of East and West round the Primacy anciently recognized by both alike." Ritualism has, he declares, been "a gigantic mistake" if it was not to be "a Romeward movement." Charging, therefore, the High Church party with inconsistency, he nevertheless states, with fairness and candour, his opponents' answer :-(1) that the promulgation of the dogma of Papal Infallibility has altered the bearings of the Reunion question; and (2) that the Reunion desired by High Churchmen was to promote intercommunion between the Churches, and not their own absorption into the Roman Church. And first, as to the question whether their change of front is justified by the Vatican Decrees, he says:— I do not hold it to be the duty of an individual to sit in judgment upon each doctrine of the Church or Communion to which he belongs, or into which he seeks admission. I hold it indeed to be the duty of each individual to adopt the exact opposite of this course. As an Anglican Clergyman having taken steps to satisfy myself that the Church of England was the Church to me, I then resigned my right to sit in judgment upon the particular doctrines or propositions which she imposed upon me. I should advise (and I presume all those who hold the principle of Church authority would advise), any person who should come over from, say, the Wesleyans, or the Independents, for admission into the Church of England, to do the same. I should "If you are satisfied that the Church of England has a claim upon your allegiance, accept what she puts before you, and believe that you are more likely to be mistaken where you may think her wrong, than the Church." (Pp. 17, 18.) say N fulfilment of the pledge given in our last issue, we now proceed to review this remarkable pamphlet at length. It owes its origin, as our readers are aware, to the reception accorded to a former tractate from the same pen, entitled " Christianity or Erastianism?" The treatment-In support of this mental attitude he quotes a passage from probably without a parallel in journalism-which "Presbyter the "Eirenicon" to the effect that, upon any point which a Anglicanus" has received at the hands of his anonymous General Council, received by the whole Church, should proassailants, has already formed the subject of our comments. nounce to be de fide, private judgment is at an end; that it is He is well able to take care of himself; and what we must for the Church to decide upon the evidence, and that whatbeg leave to call the dastardly ruffianism of certain "Church ever she decides is not only then to be explicitly accepted, but journals towards him, is soundly and deservedly exposed in even implicitly to be accepted beforehand. Here, we venture his "Appendix," which, in simple justice to him, we were at to think, "Presbyter Anglicanus" fails to do justice to the the pains to reprint in full a fortnight ago. It is, perhaps, position which he opposes. High Churchmen may justly needless to add that, although there has been ample time and rejoin that to uphold the Primacy is very different from opportunity, since the publication of this Appendix, for his upholding the Supremacy of the Holy See. If the claim to bitter-tongued accusers to offer some kind of apology for, or mere Supremacy be, as it always has been, a chief Anglican explanation of, their conduct, they have had neither the difficulty, much more so must be the claim to Infallibility, manliness nor the honesty to do so. Judgment, therefore, which, therefore, so far from removing the great obstacle to goes against them by default, and their injustice and their Reunion, has intensified it. And surely it is no answer whatcalumnies may now be left to the well-merited contempt of ever to say, "If you recognize the general claim of the Holy all decent people. See on your obedience, you must submit to its individual doctrines, including Papal Infallibility." Why, the very ground of the claim to our obedience is this same doctrine of Papal Infallibility. The argument seems therefore to revolve in a circle. When Dr. Pusey admits and maintains the In sketching the character and scope of the pamphlet before us, we shall, as far as possible, allow the author to speak for himself. His aim may be described as two-fold: to expose the Erastianism to which the Church of England infallibility of the Church, the question still remains behind, as to what constitutes the Church. 'Presbyter Anglicanus " perceives this, and gradually merges his argument for the infallibility of the Vatican Council in a discussion as to its Ecumenicity. He contends that it cannot with justice be said that the Easterns were unrepresented at it, since they had been summoned. If we recollect rightly, however, the invitation was so worded that to accept it would have involved an admission of Papal Supremacy. Even if this were not so, the omission to summon the Anglican Bishops seems to us of itself quite fatal to the claims of the Council to be considered Ecumenical-an objection which is not satisfactorily met by our author's private opinion that they would not have accepted the invitation, or that their presence would have been useless. As to the large and imposing number of Bishops assembled at the Council, it is obvious to remark that the number of petty Italian Dioceses is of itself very large, so that in this case numbers did not carry as much moral weight as some might imagine. We must confess to some surprise that, from first to last, Presbyter Anglicanus" does not discuss the question whether subsequent reception by the whole Church is not a necessary condition to the infallibility of a Council. The Acacian Council of Ariminum numbered no less than 400 Bishops, and yet the result of it was that, as St. Jerome says, "the whole world groaned in astonishment to find itself Arian; " whilst, on the other hand, the Councils of Nicea and of Constantinople, recognised by all as Ecumenical, mustered only 318 and 186 Bishops respectively. Again, the great "Robber" Council of Ephesus, properly summoned, and attended by an immense number of Bishops, is a palmary illustration of the fact, upon which it is impossible to lay too much stress, that the test of the value of a Council is its subsequent reception by the Church. We cannot help expressing our regret that these considerations, so familiar to all students of Church history, should have been overlooked in the pamphlet before us. The suggestion that those who deny the Ecumenicity of the Vatican Council should try to assemble a rival Council, is not a very practical one; nor can we admit the existence of any such obligation. The second plea urged by High Churchmen in behalf of their consistency on the Reunion question-that they desired intercommunion with, not absorption into, the Roman Church —is plausibly met by the following rejoinder : holds it to be the duty of the faithful to come out of her, and to cease continuance in an utterly false position. With the principles underlying his remarks we heartily concur, although we still have not yet abandoned all hope that the plague of Erastianism may, even now, be stayed : A consistent High Churchman cannot, I maintain, be satisfied with the theory that the Church of England comprises two or three "schools of thought," having an equal right to teach in the name of the Church of England diametrically opposite doctrines. "Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter?" Yet this Latitudinarian theory is, beyond a doubt, being largely accepted by many of the Ritualists, and especially by the more prominent among them. (P. 33.) He concludes that the only alternative before consistent High Churchmen is that of submission to Erastian discipline, or of secession from the Establishment. Be this as it may-and if our own view of the position is a little less gloomy and despairing, it is accompanied by a conviction that the alternative here set forth can only be averted by immediate and decided action-we have nothing but unqualified approval for our author's remarks on the duty of Churchmen with regard to the Public Worship Act : The first prosecution under the Act, therefore, would seem to be a call upon all men to declare themselves either for it or against it: to be content with evading the operation of the Act, by the connivance of the Bishop in one place, while others are suffering under it elsewhere, does not seem reasonable or satisfactory. The one case of Jenkins v. Cook ought to be sufficient to make the whole Anglican Clergy declare whether or no they recognize in the Judicial Committee the true Custos of the Blessed Eucharist; the one prosecution of Mr. Ridsdale is a sufficient challenge to them to say whether or no they accept the jurisdiction of Lord Penzance. (P. 35.) And again :— . I do not myself see how any Catholic-minded Anglican Priest can yield obedience to the New Court or to the Judicial Committee in any matter, however trivial, and retain either his own self-respect and peace of mind, or the respect of his fellow-men. I have attended meeting after meeting of High Churchmen in which one speaker after another spent his power in balancing the relative value of this or that detail of Ritual observance, "drawing the line" at the Eastward Position, or at the Vestments, or at the Lights, according to the temperament, fancy, or circumstances of the speaker, and ignoring all the while that to yield on any one point is to acknowledge the jurisdiction of the Court or Courts, and to admit the principle of Erastianism. . . Submission to the Courts is, I venture to say, incompatible with honour or duty on the part of those who deny the jurisdiction of the Courts. (Pp. 36, 37, 38.) Most excellent and telling are the remarks on the probablenay, the certain-effects of Disestablishment,-a word at communion, which have been made in the past, could be carried into which, as he says, "some Ritualists have caught, as drowning Can anyone maintain that any of the proposals for Reunion or inter effect without offending and repelling one, perhaps two, out of the three principal camps into which the Church of England is divided? Can it be supposed by any practical or candid person, that the Archbishop of Canterbury could carry out any plan for the comprehension of Dissenters without rendering the position of the High Church party in the Established Church untenable? or, again, that the Bishop of Winchester and Dr. Liddon could establish intercommunion with Old Catholics or Orientals without causing a secession of the Low Church party? or that Dr. Stanley could abolish the Athanasian Creed without shaking the Anglican Church to pieces? Surely the proposal that those who could not accept the new Erastian discipline should secede and place themselves under the protection of the Holy See, was a proposal not dissimilar in kind, but of a far less sweeping or fatal character to the Anglican Establishment than any of the rest. It was more practicable; it would disturb none but those who voluntarily assented to it. (P. 25.) But we must, nevertheless, take leave to think that the writer here misses the real drift of his opponents' contention, in which it is obviously implied that such authoritative explanations should be given on both sides as should lead to a restoration of intercommunion between the Churches. This is a very different thing from proposing that all Anglican objections should be waived and all Roman claims unconditionally conceded, which seems to be the plan here advocated. On the subject of Erastianism our author's remarks are excellent. Those who stigmatize the suggestion of a Uniat Church as disloyal to the Church of England are challenged to say what and where they consider the Church of England to be, and how its voice is heard:: As an individual clergyman I have long been asking myself: "What is my authority for what I teach and do?" To my mind the responsibility of teaching others in matters affecting their salvation-a responsibility at all times great and overwhelming-becomes absolutely insupportable when there is no living authority to which the individual teacher can refer and by which he can be guided and fortified. Now where is this living authority in the Church of England? (P. 26.) His assailants being, he says, unable to give a satisfactory answer, he himself replies that the Church of England speaks and acts through her Episcopate, and that the Episcopate has committed her to hopeless Erastianism. This being so, he men catch at a straw": It is commonly assumed by the secular journals that the power claimed by Parliament to legislate for the Church, and by the Courts to decide spiritual causes for the Church, is a necessary consequence of "Establishment." If this were true, the Church was not established when Convocation passed Canons regulating, and exercised a control over, the Ecclesiastical Courts; and when Canons of Ecclesiastical Discipline, as well for the laity as for the clergy, were passed in Convocation subject only to the Royal Assent and not to the sanction of Parliament. (P. 39.) The existence of the Established Church in Scotland affords a proof that an Establishment does not necessarily involve Erastianism: In this Kingdom of Great Britain, and in that part of it called Scotland, there is an "Established Church" which has retained its autonomy, whose ministers are tried for ecclesiastical offences in their own assemblies and by their peers, and which can legislate for itself in spirituals although "established." The meaning of this magic word is not different, I presume, on one side of the Tweed from what it is on the other: and the Erastianism under which we groan in England is not a necessary consequence of Establishment, but is due to the fact that politicians and lawyers take liberties with the Established Church in England which they dare not take with the Established Kirk in Scotland, and that (to our shame be it spoken) the Bishops and clergy of the Anglican Establishment know and care less about " rights of the Church and clergy" than do the ministers of the Scottish Kirk. (Pp. 39, 40.) he cites the case of the Irish Establishment:— Again, to prove that Disestablishment would not cure our ills, When the Irish Church was disestablished how was it done? By Act of Parliament, and by Act of Parliament alone. The Act of Parliament virtually created a Governing Body for the disestablished Church. It superseded the ancient and legitimate synodical assemblies of the Irish Church by this Church Body, as to the composition of which it gave to the laity a voice. The disestablished Communion is more completely the creature of an Act of Parliament now than it was when established. Nay, it is an Erastian sect, dating from the year 1870. Now if the Church of England is to be disestablished after this method, the disestablishment of it will involve Erastianism no less than the acceptance of the Public Worship Regulation Act involves Erastianism. Between giving to the Church a novel judge and Court by Act of Parliament and giving her a novel governing body, the difference is one of degree, not of principle. (P. 40.) When this reign of chaos commences is it not a "wilder dream" than the conception of a Uniat Church, to suppose that an unpopular minority will be able to control, or even to influence, the march of events? When the Church of England is disestablished (if that time ever comes), how can it be expected that the various "schools of thought now within her pale will keep together? What concord is there between him that believeth and an infidel: between one who accepts the Sacramental system and one who rejects it? Those who clamour for disestablishment are (it may be unconsciously, and no doubt, by a longer process, yet practically) advocating and compassing only what I proposed in my first Letter to your Eminence: the separation of consistent High Churchmen from those who have nothing in common with them but the name of Churchmen. (Pp. 41, 42.) His conclusion is that High Churchmen should "Disestablish themselves," and that, when they have left the Establishment, the experience of the Nonjurors proves the wisdom of now seeking Reunion with the Holy See. After defending himself from the charge of "servility," he thus explains his position : I wish to avoid pronouncing judgment upon the Church of England as to the past; as to the present, I am sure she is making shipwreck of the Faith, by consenting to be governed on Erastian principles; and that she does so consent is shown by the events which are happening. I do not believe in the indefectibility of a local or particular Church; and the Church of England herself has warned me not to do so. There is nothing inconsistent in defending the Church of England in the past, and in admitting, at the same time, that after recent events her present position is no longer defensible. (P. 45.) 66 Holding, as he does, the validity of Anglican Orders, he wishes, if it be possible, to see some way of being reconciled to the centre of Unity, which will yet spare him the necessity of repudiating the past." The letter concludes with a welldeserved tribute of gratitude to Cardinal Manning for the kindness shown towards the writer by His Eminence. Our own judgment with regard to this pamphlet is, that its appearance can result in nothing but benefit to the English Church. So far from committing ourselves to everything contained in it, we have not hesitated to express our divergence from some of its arguments. But we are profoundly convinced that if anything can now save the Church of England in the terrible crisis through which she is passing, this can only be done by rousing all her faithful children to an immediate sense of their danger. To this result "Presbyter Anglicanus," by his outspoken honesty, has largely contributed; and he has therefore earned the warmest thanks of all good and earnest Churchmen. QUEEN MARY: Two Old Plays, by Decker, and Webster, and Thomas Heywood. Newly Edited by William John Blew. London B. M. Pickering. 1876. up THE HE historical and literary interest which has been recently stirred in regard to that period to which these two plays relate, has been mainly occasioned by the Laureate's dramatic effort, "Queen Mary." Its recent representation at the Lyceum has certainly added to that interest. Our own opinion of Mr. Tennyson's drama may be concisely summed up in a single sentence:-It displays his usual graphic power, his great command of suitable and simple language; but it is cold and too classic as a whole, too frequently wanting in interest, and wholly deficient in dramatic art and the law of climaxes. The late Sir Aubrey de Vere's older composition, "Mary Tudor," comes out well in the ordeal of comparison; for it is stately, dignified and very carefully composed; while the two interesting Elizabethan dramas reprinted by Mr. Blew, though perhaps a little heavy, are not deficient either in picturesque or dramatic power, and quite deserve study and consideration. The "Preface," from Mr. Blew's pen, is an interesting and satisfactory critique; indicating, and worthy of, the accomplished scholar and the student who wrote it in illustration of his reprint. In this, Rowe's once-popular play, "Lady Jane Grey," is referred to and quoted from-some of the quotations being of high merit. THE "IMAGERY" AT BRISTOL.-The Dean of Bristol, in a pamphlet just published, states his intention as to the works of the Cathedral, which are now stopped by the resignation of the Restoration Committee. The Dean says he shall recommend the Chapter to accept the responsi bility thus thrown upon them to invoke the aid of the public to complete the works, and to urge upon the subscribers the appointment of a Com NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS. Our Keble College correspondent is warmly thanked for his generous letter. Any such document, which would suitably come from Oxford, if forwarded here, shall be duly transmitted as suggested. P. H. C.-W. H. B., and R. C. (Leeds) are thanked for their communications. So, too, are P. C.-R. P. C.-P. H., and W. B. T. We are glad to announce that a series of Letters from the pen of Mr. Charles Walker, addressed to Mr. de Lisle of Garendon Park, having for their subject the proposal for an Uniat Church, will shortly appear in these columns. No. I. will probably appear in our next number. R. P. W.-(Wednesbury). A greater flasco than the so-called "Working Men's Petition was seldom known. We are astonished at your gullibility. W. R. C.-Do not be angry! Argument is out of place when facts are undisputed. Should Lord Penzance, as the lay judge of all the Bishops, settle a point of doctrine or ritual, could your Bishop either repudiate, evade, or over-rule his decision? If the Bishop has not therefore resigned his jurisdiction, words have lost their meaning. Facts are facts. Avert your gaze, if you please; but there the If that is not resigning "the things of God" to Cæsar we know not facts are. what is. H. P. G. (Bournemouth.) We have no desire to make matters worse by showing up its infirmity. The President means well, but others are the real leaders. Better do that than do nothing. A. W. C.-Nearly three thousand. PONTUS.-Send it, and we will use it if worthy of being used. CLERICUS.-C. A. R.-It is published by Hayes.-St. Thomas's, Regent St. 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 newspaper 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, 376, Strand, London, W.C." and all communications regarding the sale and advertising, to Mr. J. H. BATTY, Publisher, at the same address. "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. S reason Fortnightly Notes. ELDOM has Mr. Disraeli spoken out so plainly or so vigorously as when castigating Mr. Lowe, whose political standing will scarcely be improved by of his Retford speech. The Prime Minister remarked that the really important circumstance was that a politician of distinguished character, who had held high and responsible office, should have taken that opportunity to make statements which were monstrous if they were true, but if not true must be described by an epithet which Mr. Disraeli could not find in his vocabulary. The question was, did the right hon. gentleman, or did he not, state that the Royal Titles Bill was introduced into Parliament by the unconstitutional and personal influence of the Soveor did he not reign; and did he hold up to public prejudice and public infamy the chief Minister, whom he had described as "the servile instrument of the Crown?" Who, then, were the two Ministers to whom Mr. Lowe had referred? Naturally, Mr. Gladstone was one immediately in the public mind, but he had positively denied that he had ever been asked for, or refused his sanction to, the introduction of such a measure; and he (Mr. Disraeli) was justified in saying that no proposal of the sort had ever been made to the late Lord Derby. Mr. Disraeli also remarked that he had the authority of Her Majesty to make a statement to the House on her part to the effect that there was not the slightest foundation for the assertion that she had made propositions, such as had been described, to any Minister at any time. In fact, added Mr. Disraeli, it was utterly unfounded. It was merely that sort of "calumnious gossip" which unfortunately must always prevail, but which one would not suppose could come from the mouth of a Privy Councillor who had been a Cabinet Minister. An amusing double-couplet on the general subject is being now circulated, thus Sidonia made a Duke his reign to grace; mittee which shall associate itself with the Chapter and act under the SINCE the above was written it is only fair to Mr. Lowe to presidency of the Dean. put on record the fact that he has, from his place in the House of Commons, fully and frankly withdrawn all his charges against Mr. Disraeli, and apologized to Her Majesty for his inaccurate and unfounded statements-an apology which, greatly needed, has been at once unconditional and complete. MR. R. GREVILLE J. CHESTER, an English Clergyman, a has recently published a most remarkable paper on Egypt in the Fortnightly Review for April. He is thoroughly outspoken, and writes with singular vigour and scholarly power. Of his own personal knowledge he maintains that the Turkish rule in Egypt is a curse to the population, that the Pashas have no intention of abolishing slavery, that the Conscription is carried out in the most brutal manner, that the corvées are most cruel, and that the Khedive is a thorough Oriental, who taxes his people excessively to keep up a harem of 900 wives, concubines, and female slaves. The account which we quote below of the forced labour (confirmed by every traveller not interested in praising the Khedive) is simply awful. That England should in any way favour a country in which such atrocities are indulged, is sadly ominous : "What takes place in this: Some hundreds of hands are wanted at one of the Khedive's estates or works. An order is issued. A steamer with soldiers on board is sent up the Nile, towing several huge barges of iron or wood. It anchors opposite a town or village, and soon hundreds of men, boys, and girls, many of tender age, are seen hurrying and being driven down to the river-bank, clutching such small bags of bread or fragments of rusk as they can collect in haste, and accompanied by their parents, friends, wives, and children, who rend the air with their shrill screams and lamentations, for they well know that many a dear face will never be seen again. Neither the only sons of widows or of blind and aged parents, nor the fathers of helpless infants are spared. The despot requires them-the bastinado and the prison are the cost of refusal. The whole crowd are rapidly swept into the barges, where, without regard to age or sex, they are packed together like herrings in a barrel. The steamer and the barges then start with their living freight, many of whom will never return to their homes from the distant sugar or cotton estate to which they are conveyed. During the process of their being driven on board and during the voyage no more account is taken of the occupants of the barges than of brute beasts. Arrived at the scene of their labours, an incessant mill-horse grind of toil ensues. There is no Friday rest, no moment's space allowed for recreation. Both sexes labour under the eye of taskmasters armed with sticks, whips, konobashes, which are freely and needlessly applied to the often naked and at all events only one-shirted backs of those poor 'free' labourers, whom the charity of England has not yet learned to pity, and whose brutal taskmaster-in-chief she has not yet learned to condemn. I have myself seen little, tender, emaciated girls staggering under heavy loads of earth, who have been lashed each time they ascended the high bank at which they were at work, and even prodded in the naked breasts with sharp palm-sticks. I have seen them sinking upon the earth, fainting under their loads. No sort of shelter is provided for these unfortunates, though the nights of an Egyptian winter can be very cold, and a single shirt is their only garment. Many have not even this. On the filthy floor of the sugar factory, or on the bare stubbly ground of the cane-field-where they cease working, there they lie down to take their scanty rest, and are succeeded on the instant by other gangs awakened to relieve them." THE HE Church Synod of the new Irish Church, which Mr. Gladstone by Act of Parliament made into a Corporation, has recently been in full session; but, after what has been done, uncommonly little interest is taken in what is now being effected, or in what may be attempted in the future. A contemporary's correspondent writes thus:-"By the Journal and Official Report-I perceive that the subscriptions are slackening, and the supply of suitable Levites threatened with suspension. One cannot help feeling a touch of sympathy for the prelates, dignitaries, and parsons now seen in the streets. Disestablishment is stamped on their whole ensemble. Their air, their bearing, their tailoring, their whole appearance and presence proclaim disestablishment of seven years' standing. It appears that the Church Representative Body upbraid the hollow barrenness of Irish Protestantism, seeing that the members of the Disestablishment decline to subscribe even a penny-a-head annually to support their Church." Of course, far-sighted people, such as the Archbishop and Archdeacon of Dublin, have long ago known what was coming. But they were laughed at for their warnings and abused for their pains. Des-truction is easy enough. Con-struction, with Protestants, is at once absurdity and an impossibility. A an AST Wednesday there was a very interesting debate at the London School Board. Prebendary Irons, to whom all credit is due, made the following proposal, which we cordially commend to all Metropolitan ratepayers:"That the scheduling of new sites for schools, which must throw on the Board the obligation of re-selling them, or the odium of a Rate largely in excess of the present 44d., be suspended during the present year, as being not demanded by any immediate pressure, and unjust to our successors." Dr. Irons contended that the Board had no business to spend money until they knew clearly what amount of expenses they were incurring, and to what margin they were bound. Now that 44d. in the pound had been reached, the ratepayers were justified in concluding that that would not be exceeded without some good Instead of that, they were going on adding to the expenditure, until there was no knowing where it would stop. Nothing could have exceeded the tact and boldness with which Dr. Irons made his onslaught on the wilful extravagance and wanton waste of the crew of Secularists, Dissenters, and weak-kneed Churchmen, who have been spending the money of the ratepayers at such a shameful rate. the tyrant majority would not regard Dr. Irons-whose speech and arguments, however, are not likely to be lost. upon his Marylebone constituents. They will thank him for his outspoken honesty. cause. But BOTH the she- and he-School Board Inquisitors seem to be thoroughly inquisitive and inquisitorial, if we may judge from the following-for the truth of which one of our A Paul Pry in pettisubscribers has personally vouched. coats recently arrived at the private residence of a family, of which the head is engaged during the day in the City, and insisted on seeing his wife. "How many children have "Are you sure that you you?" Ans. “One little girl." are telling the truth-only one?" Ans. "Yes, only one." husband?" "Does she go to school, and where?" "What is your meekly. "Pray how long have you resided here?" A true The person questioned answered truly and his income?" and humble response likewise was given. "And pray what is vouchsafed, and the she-Inquisitor was promptly warned off. To this extraordinary question no reply was Englishmen boast of the liberty of the subject; but, if this British race must have given place to coagulated jelly. A kind of thing is tolerated, certainly the backbone of the horsewhip, the toe of a strong boot, or a pail of dirty water from suitable elevation, would be the most practical arguments for such School Board Inquisitors, whether male or female. a WE E do not presume to fathom the depth of Mr. Disraeli's Tory policy. No doubt it is based on some occult principle and is the result of great observation. But facts are facts, and the result of recent elections is quite conclusive that both the farmers and the parsons are not best pleased with Ministers. The ominous utterances of the latter in various counties, and the openly-expressed dissatisfaction of the former, are becoming well-known to the Ministerial Whips, and better known to Mr. Disraeli's private secretaries. At the recent meeting of the Middlesex Conservative Association Dr. Worthington spoke out plainly on one pointEducation. He remarked that "the clergy did not feel that they had that support from the Government which they ought to expect. They felt that it was not fair that the education of the country should be taken from the clergy and handed over to the School Board, thus allowing secular education destroy their own courts, as part of the scheme for putting to supersede religious education. He also stated that the down' by way of Act of Parliament the ritual of the Real demands for accommodation made by the School Boards Presence,' had nothing left them but to become subordinate were unnecessarily large, and thought they ought to be officers and servants of the secular court, and to carry out its stopped by the Government." At the recent Salisbury judgments' whatever these might be." Now, when two such Conference Lord Bath might have heard divers grumblings eminent generals of the "Church Militant here on earth". at the appointment of Dr. Farrar; and similar complaints, to quote a tautological expression-take such wholly antagoneither feeble nor few, have been made in the Dioceses of Elynistic views of the actual position, can there be any wonder and Rochester by those who are at once true-principled and outspoken. that the rank and file are perplexed? By passive submission are we not, to all intents and purposes, ranging ourselves with the avowed enemies of our Master? A THE May Meetings are in full force. Speeches, parsons, THE opening of Keble College Chapel-which, we note with satisfaction, the Authorities prefer to have licensed rather than consecrated-was what it is now so common to style a great success." Many people of rank were there: the services were at once stately and sober: the sermons instructive and eulogistic to Mr. Keble's memory; while the speeches of the great political luminaries at the luncheon, considering the true state of Ecclesiastical affairs, were more-applying the butter-brush to, and sprinkling the soft sawder hopeful as to the future than appears to some amongst us to be justifiable. When, in 1613, Wadham College was founded, and when, a century later, Gloucester Hall was turned into Worcester College, no one could then have imagined that the distinctively Christian character of those two post-Reformation institutions could have been rudely swept away by an Act of Parliament. Yet this is so. And what was recently done in the case of Wadham and Worcester Colleges may, of course, be readily effected by the like omnipotent authority in the future, as regards Keble. The speech of the Archbishop of Canterbury was perhaps the most extraordinary that has been uttered for some years. That such a man should have thought it decent to appear at all on such an occasion is beyond our comprehension,-a man who, of all others, has been foremost in opposing, checkmating, and (where these policies were impossible) persecuting the party of which Mr. Keble was one of the leaders. His Grace must own a good stock of what is vulgarly termed "brass to have shown his face amongst such a company at all. For was not he the one sided and narrow persecutor of Dr. Newman? Has he not steadily and consistently pretended to maintain that the Oxford movement was a traitorous reformation, and-gauged by His Grace's sole measure of truth-totally unpopular with the British Public? The "loud cheers" which so properly greeted Dr. Newman's_name,-scarcely second in vigour to those with which Dr. Pusey was welcomed,-ought to have taught him a lesson of anti-bigotry, breadth, and toleration. But no "Liberal" can ever get rid of his sham liberality. It is a phase of original sin which nothing can either blot out or wash away. THE recent Annual Meeting of the S.P.G. was painfully THE HE most wonderful and involved statement regarding the present crisis which we have read on the subject, is from Dr. Pusey's sermon at the opening of Keble College, in which he thus refers to the P.W.R. Act: "I trust we shall not on our own side be guilty of the injustice done to most of our Fathers-in-God, as having endured this new law; since, whatever else its faults, it makes them to be protectors instead of being mere judges of their accused clergy; judges also powerless, on account of appeals, really to acquit them; whereas they may now, and I trust they will, finally stop vexatious proceedings, where the clergy and the people are of one mind in the worship of God." We stand aghast at this passage. Surely Dr. Pusey never can have read the P.W.R. Act, or he could not have so misled his hearers. Self-delusion"prefer the ministry of Anglican clergymen in the tribunal is certainly a dangerous gift. A THE absurd, and we believe wholly unfounded, statement of the Church Times that some Roman Catholics of penance," is one of those kind of paradoxical assertions, for which the too-scrupulous conductors of that serial desire to become notorious. Dr. Pusey's well-known theory that any clergyman may confess anybody, and that everybody may go Catholic practice concerning the jurisdiction of confessors; to every clergyman is notoriously the exact converse of Ř. and all Roman Catholics, even the least-educated, know it as by instinct. For our own part, we believe that the statement in question is only one fresh sample of the bounce, brag and buffoonery-from the Little Queen-street manufactory: adequately appraised, however, by persons of honour and principle. |