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Canton, in Captain Niesh's boat. My feeble state of health, the heat of the weather, and a headache into the bargain, made the journey extremely uncomfortable. To-day I have been very low. I thought I must give up the king's service from entire inability to bear the fatigue of it in Canton. God help me, my dear love. I will do nothing rashly. But in walking through the hot sun to-day from this house to the Company's, where Lord Napier is, I was like to drop in the streets, and have been groaning on my couch ever since-being now past eight in the evening. Oh, that I may have cheering accounts from you soon! Good night, my beloved wife! Oh! my beloved

children!

God be with you all 'Vol. ii. p. 528.

Dr. Morrison had written in his journal on his voyage homeward, December 7th, 1823, I have some misgivings or appre'hensions, that I may not live to return, and be buried in China.' God was better to him than his fears. He was spared to return and labour; and now the closing scene was to fulfil his desires. On the 30th of July he was no longer able to record his own expressions. His son with great feeling and tenderness watched by the bedside; and when the last moment of suffering had passed, recounted the circumstances attending the dissolution of a beloved father.

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Friday, 1st of August,' the bereaved youth thus writes, Lord have mercy upon us. Be thou a supporter and helper to us! Let us not repine or murmur; but rather rejoice that the dear, dear sufferer was removed from the evil to come, that he has found rest in Thee! The night was now advanced--so also was the night of affliction. He was in the dark valley of the shadow of death,-but he was about to emerge into the unspeakable brightness of heavenly glory, in the presence of God and our Saviour. The exhausted body now rapidly sank cold and pale was that cheek, which till then had retained the appearance of health. I can say no more-it is as a dream-but mortal shall put on immortality,' &c.

We shall close our extracts by one other brief portion-the testimony of the Rev. Edwin Stevens, of the manner in which Dr. Morrison was called away to his reward.

"Our departed friend fell suddenly from our sight. In the afternoon of his death I was with him some time; and though weak he could walk into another room, talk feebly, and unite in supplicating the Divine mercy. He said that he thought his life was in danger: but I did not, and I think he did not, anticipate so speedy a change. I sat down by him, and he repeated many passages of Scripture, which he revolved in his mind continually I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.' We have a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens;' and such like. He then prayed aloud for all of us, if he should be taken away; that God would be merciful to Eliza and the dear children, and bless them with his protection and guardian care.' He

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prayed that the Lord would sustain him, and forsake him not in his feebleness. He prayed for the Chinese mission--that grace and peace might rest upon all the laborers. And having said these things, he laid down to rest. He was to have a sick certificate, and I was to go down with him to Macao; but how affecting! that night he was released from sickness and suffering, and we went with him to Macao indeed; but it was only his dead body that went, for God had taken the spirit. We buried him beside his former wife; there will the Lord's beloved sleep till the day of resurrection. Dear John M. was with us, and felt the supporting hand of his father's God in all these trying scenes.'

It may seem to some of our readers, that rather than a critical analysis of the work under review, we have presented an abridgment of Dr. Morrison's biography; and, instead of strictures on the style and workmanship of the author, we have been drawn out in a celebration of the virtues and achievements of the first Protestant missionary to China. We confess we have been influenced by a desire to pay a tribute to the exalted worth and distinguished and consecrated talents of Dr. Morrison, more than to provide an elaborate essay on missions, or the claims of the heathen. It has been our aim to develop the character and progress of a faithful missionary rather than to measure his attainments by the standard of other men; or compare his eminent and successful labors with the efforts of other illustrious ornaments of the church. Dr. Morrison, as distinguished by the grace of God, has been our subject, without any desire to magnify his name at the expense of his early colleague, or to disparage the great talents and versatile abilities of Dr. Marshman, who seems to have been regarded as his rival in the beginning of their devoted and honored course. There is room for them all to shine in the brightness of the kingdom; and in the glorious circuit in which they are made to revolve, as separate stars for ever and ever, they have sphere enough without marring their harmony or disturbing their order. They have now no unholy ambition, no jarring interests, or jealous rivalry, if ever such infirmities encompassed them here. Nor have they any controversy about that language in which the Song of Moses and the Lamb should be sung, or those distinctions by which his sanctified ones shall be known as redeemed out of every kindred, and nation, and people, and tongue. They fear not how large will be the several shares of glory, honor, and immortality, which their blessed God will assign them, when he shall come in the glory of his holy angels. They knew in whom they had believed, and, as they were persuaded so has it been proved, that he was able to keep that which they had committed unto him until the great day. And as in their Father's house there are many mansions, and they each one

meet with his Lord; so in the church upon earth and in the thrones, which may be set for them who have suffered for the word of God and the witness of Jesus, there will be found places for them all, to live and reign with Him who shall sit on his throne King of kings and Lord of lords.

Art. V. 1. Reports from Commissioners of Inquiry into the Ecclesiastical Courts of England and Wales. 1832.

2. Report of an Interview between the Committee of the Church-Rate Abolition Society and Viscount Melbourne. 1839.

THE Minister has announced the intention of government

to bring in a bill for the abolition of the civil jurisdiction of Courts Ecclesiastical. The country will rejoice to see the execution of this tardy act of retributive justice, by which the hands shall be broken off from Dagon, and the axe and the fetters that hung in his court shall be fused together, and beaten into a pruning hook. The Ecclesiastical Courts have been a disgrace to us as a protestant state; and have been a sarcasm upon the British constitution. A bench filled by ignorant judges, men necessarily ignorant of the laws-rendered by their profession sycophants and dependants, and what is worse, active partizans; a bar without qualification; a court, the jurisdiction of which is defined by no general law; Englishmen tried, condemned, and imprisoned by process of these courts without a jury! From the reign of Charles II. (to ascend no higher) to the incarceration of Thorogood, cases of the most flagrant wrong and barefaced power, have occurred in connection with these odious tribunals, and few will refuse to join in a pæan over their fall.

But however we may be gratified by the abolition of the 'civil' jurisdiction of these courts, the abolition of 'civil' jurisdiction only ought not, and indeed cannot satisfy the country. What has occurred since the publication of the Report of the Commissioners in 1832, to prove the utility of Ecclesiastical Courts? Without entering at length into a question on which the public mind is happily so fully made up, we must for a moment invite back attention to the Report of the above year.

Strictly speaking, the jurisdiction of the Ecclesiastical Courts is in every case a civil jurisdiction; but it looks as if an attempt were to be made to retain part of their jurisdiction; else why not say at once, and unequivocally, that it was intended to bring in a bill to abolish them, or all of them, with the exception of the two provincial courts? Their jurisdiction at present comprehends

testamentary causes; matrimonial causes for separation and for nullity of marriage; suits for tithes; church-rates; seats and faculties; criminal suits pro salute anima, embracing offences committed by the clergy themselves such as neglect of duty, immoral conduct, advancing doctrines not conformable to the articles, &c., suffering dilapidations and the like; also by laymensuch as brawling, laying violent hands, and other such irreverent conduct in the church or churchyard, neglecting to repair ecclesiastical buildings, incest, incontinence, defamation, &c. Now which of these are civil' and which are not? Who is to define this most equivocal of all non-univocal words? Churchmen will declare that the making of a will is a religious act; and therefore they have a right to tax widows and orphans; and by the same illicit process of ecclesiastical logic, every other branch of jurisdiction is un-civilized and brought into the church category. It must be recollected that these Ecclesiastical Courts consist of three different kinds :

1. Three hundred Courts peculiar. 2. The Diocesan Courts.

3. The two provincial Courts.

These peculiar courts, in many cases presided over by parsonjudges, appointed and removable by the lord of the manor, are burlesques upon justice :-does the minister contemplate sparing them? Will he hesitate in crushing them? Are they to be only re-constructed and deprived of their civil' jurisdiction? The thing is ludicrous; and the notion must be scouted by parliament. If any of the Exeter school demand why we object to the continuance of their ecclesiastical authority; we reply, because they are utterly incompetent to perform the ends of justice. The Commissioners declare that 'the jurisdiction to be exercised in these different courts is not defined by any general law. It 'is often (they add) extremely difficult to ascertain over what description of causes the jurisdiction of any particular court 'operates.' The Lord Chancellor during the debate on the Church Discipline Bill, on the 4th of June last, thus described the Courts peculiar :

'The only power that now existed for correcting the offences of the clergy resided in the ecclesiastical courts, and what did their Lordships think was the nature of those courts? He spoke not of the courts of the Archbishop, for they were well known, nor yet of the courts of the Bishops, because those were also known; but perhaps their Lordships were not aware that besides these principal courts there were nearly 300 other ecclesiastical courts, all of them having jurisdiction for the trial of ecclesiastical offences, the great difficulty consisting in defining what that jurisdiction was. These minor courts were wholly incompetent for the duties they had to discharge; the

officers were in many instances deputies, at a salary of ten guineas a year, men of no experience or learning, of little or no knowledge of the principles of the law they were called upon to administer and yet the inquiries instituted before them might involve, not merely the fortune and worldly interests of clergymen, but their name and character. The average number of the causes that came before these courts in a year, did not give more than one-half cause to each court, so that there was no opportunity of obtaining the advantage of experience and practice; and, at the same time, from the multitude of the modes of appeal that existed, there were caused the greatest delay, expense, and vexation.'

And then, just fancy a man of piety and learning summoned before the court,' seated at an oak table in the blue parlour of 'the Rose and Crown,' the head, because the only public house in the village or the manor, to give an account of his doctrine, and to answer to the charge of having preached tenets contrary to the articles, homilies, &c.; is this seemly?

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But the Report of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners must be regarded as conclusive on this part of the case. We think,' they observe at page 22, that the whole jurisdiction of these 'peculiar, both contentious and voluntary, should be ABOLISHED; ' and we are induced to come to this conclusion by the following 6 among other reasons :—

With respect to the contentious jurisdiction, it is wholly impossible that justice can be administered efficiently, and with satisfaction to the public. In the majority of the peculiar courts, and perhaps in all, there neither are, nor can be, efficient and experienced judges, officers, advocates, or practitioners. The emoluments are too small, and the number of causes too few, to insure these requisites for the due administration of justice. Consequently no confidence is reposed in these tribunals; and delay arises, and expense is incurred, in applying for letters of request, or in resorting to other means of escaping the jurisdiction. In some cases too, the grievance is enhanced by the multiplication of appeals.

'With regard to testamentary cases, the inconvenience is, perhaps, the greatest. There cannot be expected, and, in fact, there are not to be found, safe places of custody for the wills to be deposited in the registries; and thereby the most important titles to real and personal estate may be endangered. In admitting testamentary papers to probate in common form, according to the existing state of the law, an accurate knowledge of the rules which ought to govern the practice is very essential; but where the opportunities of acquiring experience are few, such accuracy cannot be attained. In cases where it is necessary to make searches, the multiplication of courts for the probate of wills, of course greatly increases the trouble and expense. On the question of bona notabilia, many difficulties result from these searches, and sometimes more serious injury.

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