her cause? Hers sincerely, affectionately hers be this poor effort of an obscure and unworthy priest whom she has commissioned. To her LORD in her be every line inscribed. In Him be it written, and perish every word not in accordance with His Word and will."

We are not going to enlarge upon those points of doctrine which we wish had been treated with more reserve; but must remark briefly on "a surprising instance of the extent to which the Puritan leaven has spread.". It is this, that "a Catholic incumbent" can feel any objection to a priest saying that he "believes to the full" both these propositions :

"I. That CHRIST Himself is offered in the Eucharist upon the altars.

"II. That the Sacrament, or CHRIST's Presence in it, is adorable." As to the first, unless it is to condemn such statements as those of S. Chrysostom in Hebr. x. t. xii. p. 168, and of S. Augustin in Ep. 98. ad Bonifac. Episc., not to mention other authorities, it means something very different from what Englishmen in general will understand it to mean.

As to the second, we accept the statement of Bishop Andrewes, "Nos et in mysteriis Carnem Christi adoramus cum Ambrosio, et non id sed Eum qui super altare colitur; nec Carnem manducamus quin adoremus prius cum Augustino, et sacramentum tamen nulli adoramus."

We would gladly have made some extracts from this writer's very forcible, and in the main, lamentably true statement of the evils of the Royal Supremacy, which means (as he rightly observes) the Supremacy of Downing Street. As to the actual amount of the grievance hitherto, we believe he has omitted to notice many extenuating circumstances; but we fear he gives no more than a faithful picture of what it may be, and will be, unless we bestir ourselves as men who are struggling for their life.

We have read "The Morality of Tractarianism, a letter from one of the people to one of the Clergy," with no less surprise than pain; and can only say that if such a state of mind as is here described is at all common among our people, nothing can more imperatively call for a remedy. It cannot continue without the destruction of all that makes any doctrine valuable. And yet we must profess ourselves very greatly at a loss how to deal with it, since we are totally unconscious of any approach to such feelings ourselves: nor has the perusal of this melancholy statement excited in us any misgiving as to the morality of what we understand by Tractarianism; and we supposed ourselves to know what is meant by it, for we have long borne the odium and inconvenience which attaches to that ridiculous appellation, and have no expectation that we shall shake it off for a long time to come. Most assuredly "there is a vast difference between reserve and deceit,"*

* Page 26.

so wide a difference that no deeply religious person can either allow himself to practise the latter, or avoid practising the former.

We do not acknowledge that the only way of holding all necessary truth in the Church of England is by the use of non-natural interpretation, and can therefore maintain that "these truths are the heritage of the people" without having to begin by "spreading the spirit of casuistry among our village schools, and labourers' cottages; and making our wives and daughters students in scholastic niceties ;"* though even this, highly undesirable as it would be, need not involve any immorality. We deny that we must either leave our people Protestants, or else make them false. Our alternative is that we must either leave our people mere Protestants or else make them think, but they may think as honestly as any Roman Catholic can. We are sure that such as we have dealt with experience no sense of concealment arising from fear of avowing their belief, which is deceit; but only such as comes of charity towards those who, from prejudice, or wrong education, or evil life, are incapable of appreciating sacred truth: we are sure they are not "weighed down with a sense of guilty secrecy:" nor do they "tread a weary path of subtilty which leaves their conscience burthened with deceit." If it be meant to assert that the faith once delivered to the Saints embraces the whole cycle of Roman doctrine that is a proposition to which we cannot assent: even if it could be conceded that no Roman doctrine can be shown to be false; there is much of it, which does not rest on such evidence as would justify us in imposing it upon our people, supposing we had the power.

True unity of doctrine must reach through all time as well as all places. Is there no difficulty in reconciling the practice of Communion in one kind, and the doctrine involved in it, with the doctrine and practice of Scripture and antiquity? Does the Roman doctrine of sacrifice harmonize with the language of S. Paul, more naturally than the ancient doctrine of sacrifice with our liturgy? Does one who ventures to think about what he professes to believe find no difficulty in reconciling transubstantiation with the undoubtedly Catholic verity, that according to the natural mode of a body's existence, our blessed LORD's glorified Body is in heaven and will remain there till the day of judgment? Is there no "scholastic subtilty" in this? and does not the attempt to impose belief in propositions which men may not think about, furnish some clue to the state of the population of Rome, in spite of a Clergy many times as numerous as ours, and the whole cycle of Roman doctrine without let or hindrance? Is there no such thing in this system, we must sorrowfully ask, as "an infidelity more subtle than an open denial."+ We do not "break up a great

system and take the parts that suit us, and call that truth," but we take the parts, which existed in it in those ages when it was thought necessary to have warranty of Holy Scripture for every thing required as necessary to salvation. We do not "know very well that the same authority gives us other things which we do not choose to receive." We cannot deny that some few things, which we are bound to maintain, have been obscured in our Prayer Book, or withdrawn, but not forbidden; and our duty is, for the present, to point out these in Scripture as interpreted by the undivided Church; and not "to take joy in the weakness and vacuity of our formularies, because we can twist them as we like," but profess our desire to amend every defect, yet not without great consideration for those of our brethren, whom the miserable circumstances of our times have filled with distrust, but whose heart's desire is only to be conformed in every respect to the will of CHRIST. We deny that we give up anything lest we should offend, or conceal anything lest we should be found out. It is no principle of ours not to risk all for the truth, nor to abstain from doing right for fear of consequences; but we do assert that there is neither cowardice, nor meanness, nor evasion, in taking Him for our example, Who would not break a bruised reed, nor quench smoking flax: Who has sent us forth as sheep in the midst of wolves, with the injunction, "be ye therefore wise as serpents and harmless as doves."

If it be asked "is this a time for half-measures and fears to give offence?" We cannot say but one whose wisdom will not be disputed has told us that there are times in which "nil bonis restat nisi lacrymæ et gemitus,"* and haply it may be given to the most fearless singleness of purpose to see in his description of such times no faint resemblance to our own. Nothing need make us fear to wish our Prayer Book better; but there is neither cowardice nor dishonesty, in thinking that it has a poor chance of being made so just at a time of unparalleled excitement and panic, and we are quite sure that no book whatever, neglected as our Prayer Book has been, could have corrected the evils here charged upon it, which are no more produced by it, than Roman hatred of Priests is produced by the liturgy of S. Peter. We too "will hope against hope," and by GoD's help we will "be sober and hope to the end."+

We are truly glad to see that Mr. J. C. Robertson and his friends are resolved not to allow their dread of being thought to acknowledge certain persons as their leaders, to deter them from acting in the right direction in the present crisis. This is as it should be; it carries with it the strength of an independent testimony, and ought to have its influence on all those who have a nervous dread of being called by nick-names. We are quite sure that the said sus

* Vid. S. Aug. Serm. 351.

+ Page 27,

pected individuals desire nothing less than to be party leaders: their sole wish is that God's truth may prevail. We entirely agree with Mr. Robertson on many points, and will mention one of great importance. He says, "The immediate concession to Puritanism is not all. The door which has been opened for Mr. Gorham may soon be found wide enough to admit yet more questionable persons; the Lindseys and Fysche-Palmers, the Blanco-Whites, and Sterlings. The real gainers are the philosophist party-a party small indeed in numbers; connected by bonds rather intellectual than religious, and very much divided in opinion; yet in high favour with statesmen; very active in its endeavours to acquire influence by all means;† and having in all its subdivisions an impatience of whatever is objective or traditional, with a desire to get rid of tests, whether by abolishing the very letter of them or by explaining it away into nothingness. they know that whatever tends to lessen the force of tests, is so much in their favour. And if we would not play into the hands of this party, we must, I think now make a stand."

Lord Redesdale, in "Observations on the Gorham Case," also maintains that the moderate party must not endure Mr. Gorham. His Lordship's useful pamphlet however will scarcely bear comparison with Mr. Robertson's. Dr. Wordsworth has been preaching "Occasional Sermons," in Westminster Abbey, which were listened to attentively by crowded audiences, and have been published: but these with a host of others, have not reached us.

We have received just in time for perusal "Two Sermons on Holy Baptism," by Henry William Egan, preached at Newcastleupon-Tyne. They contain a very clear statement of the extent to which the doctrine of Baptism pervades the teaching of the New Testament.

Mr. John Hartland Worgan, in his "Plea for the Church of England," is keenly alive to the peril to which she is exposed, and does not shrink from stating plainly what she has suffered and is suffering, as well from State oppression, as from that "heterogeneous jumble of teaching which was brought in by foreigners, Bucer, Peter Martyr, and the like; or by Englishmen, who being exiled in the reign of Queen Mary, came back, in Elizabeth's reign, with a system of divinity utterly at variance with the doctrine of the Church of England," and have maintained it by "evasively and dishonestly garbling and misquoting," " till at length with an effrontery only equalled by their perverseness they have assumed to be the Church's interpreter." This writer professes to have no sympathy whatever with the Church of Rome; nor can we detect any;

Bearings of the Gorham Case, page 18.

+ See in the last number of the Quarterly Review, the exposure of the attempt to influence our female education, by means of "Queen's College, London."

but possibly the keen sight of Mr. Goode will not be so easily satisfied.

The very able and conclusive "Review of the Gorham Case, in its aspects moral and legal, with a critical examination of the Judgment: A letter to the Lord Bishop of Salisbury, by John David Chambers, Recorder of New Sarum," after stating the principles on which the judgment ought to have proceeded, as for example, that the Acts of the Reformation ought to be construed as Remedial Statutes applied to the previously existing law of the Church, &c. sums up and concludes with these four propositions, which we cordially accept.

"1. That the decision in the suit of Gorham v. The Bishop of Exeter violates the rules of law, grammar, reason, and equity; is therefore binding only in the particular instance, and can never form a precedent in any future case.

"2. That if it were legally unexceptionable, still it does not settle what is the true, just, and honest construction of the Formularies of the faith of the Church of England; but only declares that the fantastic theology of Mr. Gorham is not absolutely contrariant or repugnant thereto in other words, that he has secured a loophole through which he may evade their stringency.

"3. That it ought not and cannot, therefore, affect the individual conscience of any single member of the Church of England, however it may in foro exteriori deform and wound the temporal status of that Church.

"4. That it is, nevertheless, a serious affront and indignity offered to the catholicity of the faith of the Church of England, and pro tanto a denial of that faith; and this denial having been made by the autho rity of the Chief Magistrate of the nation, the Laity in their sphere, the inferior Clergy in theirs, and the Bishops in theirs, are bound to repudiate and disaffirm the same; and that the Bishops especially, as the heads of the spirituality ought, in their corporate capacity, to reinstate in its pristine position that great truth which the temporal power has endeavoured to overturn."