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nervous energy and imaginative power, as to make still more unsettled the soul rocked to its centre by anguish. At the best, the system founded is one which has no solid liturgical basis, and in many instances is dissociated from an orthodox confession. It is not that which is taught by the Anglican communion, by her who should be the true national church of the Anglo-Saxon race. But whose is the fault? On whom is the guilt of the schism? Let the impressive warning of Bishop Jeremy Taylor be taken as an answer.

"Men would do well to consider whether or no such proceedings do not derive the guilt of schism upon them who least think of it; and whether of the two is the schismatic, he that makes unnecessary and (supposing the state of things) inconvenient impositions, or he that disobeys them because he can not, without doing violence to his conscience, believe them; he that parts communion because, without sin he could not sustain it, or they that have made it necessary for him to separate, by requiring such conditions which to no man are simply necessary, and to his particular are either sinful or impossible." (Liberty of Prophesying, sect. 21. Eden's ed. Taylor's Works, vol. v. p. 601.)

To Christian laymen the order of duties, in the view that has been just given, is as follows:

1st. If you have adequate education, suitable gifts, and are not too advanced in years, the call to preach is with you a call to the ordained ministry; not to be turned away from except under the strongest Providential indications to the contrary.

2d. If, from the period of life being passed in which you can well prepare yourself for a new and learned profession, and adapt yourself to its requirements, or if, from other just reasons, you are excluded, in your judgment, and in that of those authorized to advise you, from the ordained ministry, be it yours, laboring in your secular occupation, to work for Christ in the field in which it has pleased God to place you. There you will find your first obvious spiritual duties. In your parish there will be the assistance and support of your rector, who will abundantly need both. There is the Sunday-school. There is tract distribution, and visiting the poor and sick. If the rector invoke such aid, there is the parochial social meeting. If he do not, there is abundance of work open among the neglected, the poor and ignorant and careless.

There is the school-house, the union meeting, the public street or road. Thither proceed. Speak of the Lord to those to whom none others speak. It is your baptismal pledge, that you will not be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified. It is in accordance with the opinion of your own communion, whose highest council has specifically designated unoccupied ground, even though such ground be ecclesiastical, for lay-labor.* But recollect that whatever you do is merely preliminary. It is not to found a church, but to prepare a foundation on which a church is to be built. It is not to supersede, but to invite an ordained ministry.

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[3d. So it will be, should it be yours to go forth to the great valley which has been the subject of the foregoing remarks. Thither emigration rapidly hurries, and many are the Christian laymen who are carried along in its current. A great work is theirs. Some have given an apostolic sanction to such a work. A beloved physician once not only carried the Gospel with him to every spot which he visited, in long and ilous journeys, but has placed that Gospel on record for the comfort of believers of all times. Laboring men and their wives, whose business, led them from point to point, spoke of the Lord Jesus where they tarried and where they went. So did Aquilla and Priscilla. So did Phebe. So even did the poor runaway slave, Onesimus, who was profitable to Paul the aged when the latter was a prisoner at Rome, and who, the apostle hoped, might "minister" as a brother to his master to whom he was sent. So it may be with you. As a teacher, in one of those school houses with which those remote regions are being filled; as a physician, as a mechanic or farmer, it may be yours, supporting yourself by your daily labor, to glorify God by telling of His Son's name, and opening the

* Reason given by the House of Bishops in 1820, for declining to concur in the repeal of the 35th canon:

"The Bishops further declare their opinion concerning the Thirty-fifth Canon as it now stands, that it does not prohibit the officiating of pious and respectable persons, as lay-teachers in our churches, in cases of necessity or of expediency, nor the lending of any church to any respectable congregation, on any occasion of emergency."

way for the establishment of the Church. If so, yours is a noble work. It is one of no human honor. Preferment, whether secular or ecclesiastical, will not be yours. The ordinary responses and encouragements of the ministry—the regards of earthly ambition-will not be yours. But none the less bright will be your crown on high.

CHURCH ABROAD.

ENGLAND.

MR. POOLE'S CASE.-Mr. Poole, a Romanizing curate in London, found his license revoked by the Bishop of London, in consequence of his (Mr. Poole's) attempts to establish the Confessional. The Archbishop of Canterbury affirmed, on appeal, the Bishop of London's decision. Then Mr. Poole, with remarkable inconsistency with the Tractarian idea of the Episcopate being an "apostolate," though with equally remarkable consistency with Tractarian practice, applied to the Court of King's Bench, presided over by a Scotch Presbyterian, for a mandamus to compel the Archbishop and Bishop to reverse their decision. In this course he has been cheered on by the whole Tractarian party. In other words, Tractarianism has discovered a fourth order in the ministry. The regular grade now is: 4. Deacons.

3. Priests.

2. Bishops.

1. The Court of King's Bench-an entirely secular body, which may be composed, so far as any thing in its constitution requires, of Jews, infidels, and heretics.

The result of Mr. Poole's appeal has been the obtaining of a rehearing, but on merely technical grounds. The whole question of doctrine has been reserved. THE SUNDAY-NIGHT SERVICES at St. Paul's, and at Exeter Hall, continue crowded. Abridged services are used at each. It is to be noticed also, as showing the progress of rubrical relaxation, that at the recent consecration of the Bishop of British Columbia, the service was divided. Morning Prayer was pushed up early in the morning. The full service, at which the congregation as a mass attended, began at eleven o'clock, with the Communion Service.

REVIVAL AND LAY AGENCY.-Very cheering intelligence reaches us of a general revival of religion in the English Church. Prayer-meetings are being largely held in all quarters, in which pious laymen take an active part. Notwithstanding the Bishop of Exeter's success in suppressing all reference to the Scripture-reading movement in London, that movement has received the most unequivocal approbation in all quarters. The Bishop of Ripon, the Bishop of London, and even the Rev. Dr. Hook, have invoked, as a prior article in our present issue shows, similar

agencies. Men of high birth and social position, such as Mr. Brownlow North, are engaged in preaching, either as itinerants or as local aids to the ordained ministry. "ALTARS."-The Bishop of Oxford has been compelled to exact a compliance with the law against stone "altars;" and in Holywell, where one of the latter was erected, it was removed in consequence of an application by the people, and a communion table substituted.

STATE SERVICES.-The "State Services" are at length, by royal mandate, exscinded from the Prayer Book. This takes away those great blemishes, as well as political absurdities-the commemoration of the "Martyrdom" of Charles I., and of the Restoration of Charles II.

NEW APPOINTMENTS.-Lord Derby's principal ecclesiastical appointments are from the old-fashioned classical high and dries-the fine Greek scholars, and comfortable diners-out, who regard Puseyism and Evangelicalism with equal dissatisfac tion, though in party matters coöperating with the former.

CONVOCATION.-The Archbishop of Canterbury has taken the bold step of becom ing patron of an association at Cranbrook, for lay coöperation in all Church matters, especially in reference to Convocation.

The Convocation of Canterbury has again met, and again disbanded. It has done nothing, except to emit its usual amount of preliminary talk, though in this year the talk is of a weaker and less definite character than it has ever been before. It is now six years since the alleged "revival" of Convocation. What it has done, its own friends can best answer. And in this all agree-those most ardent for its restoration think it has turned out a failure. The English Churchman (ultra-Tractarian, and of course peculiarly summary in its discipline of refractory bishops) tells the Right Reverend Bench, and their associates, that they they might as well have staid at home. The Guardian (still more ultra) attacks their inaction with bitter invective. The Record thus sums up the question:

"If any evidence were needed of the utter futility of these meetings, it is abund antly supplied by the thorough barrenness of their results. One of their first reports, three years ago, was on the subject of clergy discipline. What has come of it? Literally nothing. They passed resolutions on the subject of the Divorce Acts. Did they weigh one straw in the debates or decisions of either House on that important matter? Not at all."

Now, does this come from the inability of the Church to govern herself? Not at all. The real difficulty is, the utter incompetency of the present mechanism as a legislative body. From the Episcopal Bench much might be expected. It is in the main liberal, capable, devoted, and enlightened. But the Lower House, as a body, represents merely the obstructivism of the past. Until it is so reformed as to admit (1) of the laity as a coordinate power, and (2) of a just representation of the working clergy, it is better that Convocation should continue to be a mere pageant, or should be finally abolished.

The Convocation of York was prorogued at once, without even a “talk."
Dr. Hook has been appointed Dean of Chichester.

Mr. Walpole has introduced a Bill for the final settlement of Church Rates. The bill is welcomed by the Christian Observer, and is thus explained by the Guardian: "Mr. Walpole proposes, as a 'just, moderate, and reasonable settlement' of the Church-rate question, a Bill framed on the basis (which is by no means a bad one) of giving assistance and encouragement to the voluntary principle in favor of the

Church, and pretty free scope to it against her. On the one hand, no one is to be called on for a rate who alleges to the collector a 'conscientious objection' to pay it-which is next door to abolition; on the other, landowners are to be enabled to turn their rates into a rent-charge, and voluntary subscriptions may, notwithstanding the mortmain law, be invested and secured for the same purpose. And the rate is to cease whenever and wherever an income equivalent to it is thus obtained. The conscientious objector is not to vote at vestry meetings called for imposing a rate, but is not, it appears, to be excluded from intermeddling in the management of funds to which he does not contribute. The House received this compromise very favorably. Is is a hard bargain for the Church, but her friends will act wisely in adopting it, resisting all attempts to make it worse, and trying, if possible, to make it better."

CHURCH AT HOME.

DIOCESAN INTELLIGENCE.

Maine.-At a meeting of the Standing Committee, held in Portland, Rev. Alexander Burgess, of Portland, was chosen President, in place of Rev. James Pratt, removed from the Diocese, and George J. B. Jackson, Esq., of Portland, Secretary. Testimonials were signed in behalf of Rev. John Barrett Southgate, missionary to China, applying to be admitted to the sacred order of Priests.

Massachusetts.-Rev. George M. Randall, D.D., has been elected President ef the Standing Committee of the Diocese of Massachusetts, in the place of Rev. Dr. Vinton, removed to Philadelphia.

Pennsylvania.-The Annual Report of the Female Protestant Episcopal Prayer-Book Society of Pennsylvania, presents the following result of the labors. of the Society during the past year:

Distributed gratuitously, 949 12mo; 688 18mo; 109 German; 6 French; 11 quarto; 19 officers; 9 Psalms and Hymns. Sold 413 11mo; 87 18mo; 8 German; 2 French; 1 quarto; 4 offices. Total 1352 12mo; 775 18mo; 117 German; 8 French; 12 quarto; 23 offices.

At a meeting held in St. Andrew's Church, Pittsburgh, on Monday evening, Dec. 13, 1858, it was resolved:

"That it is expedient to establish in this city, or immediate vicinity, a Home for the aged and infirm members of the Church."

A committee was appointed to recommend a suitable plan of organization, form of charter, etc., whose report, presented at an adjourned meeting, was unanimously adopted. The following gentlemen were appointed a Committee to obtain a charter of incorporation for the Society: Hon. H. Hepburn, F. R. Brunot, and T. I Bigham, Esqs.

Illinois. At a meeting of the Executive Committee of the P. A. Society, held in Chicago, on Tuesday, the 25th ult., Mr. Alex. G. Tyng, of Peoria, President of the Society, in the Chair, the Secretary reported $1800 of subscriptions to the uses of the Society, and that advance payments had been made of the first quar

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