And

and schism, and his very writings are tinctured by it. so, if it should seem fit to choose hymns from schismatical sources, as expressing the true christian mind, we, for our own parts, should feel not the slightest repugnance to using them, on the ground of their origin. Much as schism itself is to be blamed,-still we must own that true feelings of devotion are granted by our gracious Father to those who (ignorantly, we may trust) are guilty of it; and when such feelings are expressed in suitable language, why may not the Church appropriate them to herself, and make them useful to her children? Are they not her Lord's gift, upon whomsoever bestowed? Is it not the grace communicated (how ever indirectly) through her, by virtue of which those who are separate from her, live in the sight of God? But until such compositions are (in a manner) purged of their schism by the authority of our prelates, or, at least, unless the Bishop of the diocese in which they are proposed to be used, should give them his express sanction, we should have great doubt of the propriety of any clergyman's appropriating them simply upon his own judgment.*

Undesirable as is the present state of things, it is as well, perhaps, that no restriction should be placed upon the attempts which, from time to time, are made by various clergymen to produce collections of hymns for congregational use. All this will tend to bring in, sooner or later, the accomplishment of our wishes. Another and another attempt will still be made, until a selection is formed upon such principles as can approve themselves to the judgment of sound-minded churchmen, and then we trust convocation will have been once more permitted to sit for despatch of business, and will authorise one standard book of hymns for all our congregations. If another hand should be disposed to attempt such a selection, we think we have indicated the principles on which it ought to go, and have shown that means exist for carrying out those principles.

We will only add, that until this is done we have little hope that the Psalter will be sung in its proper and authorized form, as it has ever been used in the Church, or that the musical part of the English ritual generally will assume its right position. But when it is brought about, there seems little doubt that such

The Hymns, "Hark! the Herald Angels," "Jesus Christ is risen to-day," by Charles Wesley. "My God, and is thy table spread ?" by Doddridge. "Where high the heavenly temple stands," by the Presbyterian Logan, are to be found in almost every collection. Mr. Dodsworth, we perceive, has borrowed largely from the collection of hymns and paraphrases by Logan and others, authorized by the Scottish Kirk. No less than seventeen of these will be found among the hymns in his volume—many of them certainly very beautiful. Mr. D. has likewise, we can see, drawn to some extent upon the collections of Watts, Doddridge, Madan, and the Olney, though it is proper to add that these hymns occur, for the most part, in the appendix, entitled, "Hymns chiefly for private use.'

will be the result. Considering the progress which vocal music is making, and the reviving taste for a better and more solid class of compositions, in sacred no less than in secular music, there is every reason to believe that the chanting of the Psalter by the whole assembled congregation, priest, and people, will, in the course of a few years, be a matter of easy attainment. There will then be the chanting of the psalms, canticles, and responses, by the people; the anthem sung by the choir,-and the metrical hymns, such as we have suggested, completing the whole.

The Missionary Crisis in the Church of England. The Substance of two Addresses, delivered severally at Liverpool and at Leeds, in May and June, 1842, to the Friends of the Church Missionary Society, preparatory to the Annual Meetings of the local Associations. By the Rev. ALEXANDER R. C. DALLAS, A.M., Rector of Wonston, Hants. With a Documentary Appendix. London: Nisbet.

A Letter addressed to the Reverend the Presbyters and Deacons of the United Church of England and Ireland, residing in the Archdeaconry and Diocese of Madras. By W. T. HUMPHREY, Presbyter, a Missionary of the Church Missionary Society, at Myaveram, printed for circulation among the Reverend the Clergy of the said Church, and the private friends of the Author. Madras. THERE are two verses in the Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew, which contain within themselves, or involve in their practical application, almost all that can well be thought, or discoursed of, or acted upon, by the Church of Christ, in her missionary character. "Go ye," said our blessed Lord to his apostles, when he was just about to be taken from them into heaven-" go ye, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost teaching them to observe all things, whatsoever I bave commanded you and lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world."

*יי

Some important doctrines we think we see in these sacred words, and those, too, doctrines which nearly touch the theory and practice of missions, which those who are the most loud in the support of all kinds of missionary labours, and Missionary Societies, will not readily admit; but we will not, therefore, deny their first inference, that the Church is-and must be, to fulfil the ends of its institution—a missionary body. We will not accuse them of overstraining this great truth, or the divine sanction which it receives from the words of our Lord just rehearsed. On the contrary, we do and will declare, most unequivocally, that the doctrine cannot be too strongly expressed, or

* Matt. xxviii. 19, 20.

too forcibly inculcated, nor made to hang too unreservedly on our Lord's express command.

But while we maintain that the Church of Christ is, and must be, missionary in its character, in its objects, and in its exertions, we yet reserve to ourselves full right to doubt whether all missionary societies are acting upon the divine rule in this matter. We reserve to ourselves full right to look beyond professions to principle; and to decide, if need be, that even the self-assumption of the title "Church" does not unequivocally determine that the society which assumes it is wholly regulated in its laws and actions by the command of our blessed Lord to the Church: and still more do we reserve to ourselves full right to expose the absurdities of individual emissaries of any society whatever, without being accounted enemies to truly Christian Missions. Nay, we trust to acquit ourselves rather as humble servants of the Church, in the true exercise of her missionary office, by exposing those absurdities and bad practices, wherever they may be found, which tend to bring into disrepute the work committed to her by her Divine Head.

Mr. Dallas's Missionary Crisis of the Church of England demands our attention with this view; for, certainly, if the principles which are there assumed were true, there could never be any obedience at all to the divine law, by which the Church is appointed to evangelize the world and as certainly, if every attempt to support missionary societies were pervaded by the like spirit, the bitterness of party at home would quite destroy all hope of propagating a religion of harmony and love abroad. And, first, for his principles;-let us see what is the foundation, according to Mr. Dallas, of all missionary exertions in the Church of England.

"The Church," says he, " is a 'congregation of faithful men,' each of whom, in his character of Christian, is charged with certain duties. It is not (as some have appeared to suppose) a corporate body, having a conventional existence and personification, with privileges and duties of which the individual members in separation are incapable. Any number, therefore, of individual Christians are at full liberty to devise lawful plans by which to accomplish that which is the duty of each."—P. 2.

From these novel principles, Mr. Dallas deduces the charter of missionary societies. Surely, from such premises, he ought to deduce that there can be no such thing as any society at all for any religious purposes; if, indeed, any conclusion at all can follow from such premises. For the second of his propositions, in which he denies to the Church personality and a corporate existence, absolutely nullifies the other two; and these, again, are either nonsense, or inconsistent the one with the other: for when it is said that each individual is charged with certain duties, it is either meant, or ought to be meant, that each individual has his peculiar and distinctive duties; whereas, when mention is made of the duties of each, it is either implied that all have the same duties, or it is nothing at all to the purpose. Now we do not stop to prove that the Church is

*

"a corporate body, with privileges and duties of which the individual members are incapable," because we do not believe that any one but Mr. Dallas (except, perhaps, a few very ultra-Independents) ever entertained a thought to the contrary, all persons who hold that there is a church at all, holding it to be just that which Mr. Dallas denies it to be; but this we do say, that, if she were not such a body, even the Church herself could not engage in missionary labours; and that, à fortiori, no self-formed society within the Church, (which, at the most can have no greater powers and privileges than the Church,) must be utterly incapable of any such exertions. It results from the very fact that the Church is a corporate body, with corporate privileges and duties, that each Christian "is charged with certain duties," in the distributive sense of those words. We repeat it, that if it were not distinctively the duty of some to send, and of others to go of some to teach, and of others to hear,—that if it were not the privilege of some to rule, and of others to obey-of some to minister, and of others to be ministered to, there would be no mission. at all; and that it is just that divine constitution of the Church, which gives to her, in her corporate, collective, mystical character, both duties and privileges of which no individual is or can be capable, which makes the Church the great missionary society of the world. Or, to say the same in words which no Christian will gainsay directly, though many unconsciously reason as if they were not true,-" The body is not one member, but many. If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body? And if the ear shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body? If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling? But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him. And if they were all one member, where were the body? But now are they many members, yet but one body. And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you." And again, (but we should have to transcribe the whole chapter,† to place the argument in its full light;)" Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular. And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of teaching, helps, governments, diversities of tongues," &c.

In real truth, when Mr. Dallas enounced his great principle, he was not thinking how it would subserve the missionary work of the Church in general, or even of missionary societies in their several fields

* We omit the words, "having a conventional existence and personification," because we believe they are the representations of no ideas in the author's mind, and are introduced only for their sound. He is dealing with those who think highly of the Church; and they would be the last to hold its existence and personality merely "conventional."

+ 1 Cor. xii.

of labour; but he was thinking how it would tend to account for the want of missionary fervour, which he fancies he discovers in good Churchmen; and how it would serve a polemical purpose against "the Tractarian heresy." He is so fearful of " the infusion of a refined idolatry, through a personification of Mother Church,' in the place of the grosser abomination of image worship," that he must deny to the Church a corporate existence, notwithstanding St. Paul's assertion that "there is one body;"*-that he must deny it an impersonation, notwithstanding the figure which pervades the Sacred Scriptures, perhaps more than any other, whereby the Church is called the Bride of Christ;-that he must sneer at Mother Church," though St. Paul saith, "Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all." But let us again hear Mr. Dallas himself.

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"The leaven of the principles set forth by the authors of the Tracts for the Times' has spread its influence with alarming rapidity over a large portion of the Church. It has not, however, reached the counsels of the Church Missionary Society. The executive of that body has, through God's mercy, been preserved even from the suspicion of favouring the new opinions, or of helping them on, through that treacherous indifference, which, by heedlessly admitting the approaches of the enemy unobserved, betrays the post which should have been defended with watchfulness. It is the reality of conversion to Christ which the Church Missionary Society has in view, not the infusion of a refined idolatry, through a personification of Mother Church,' in the place of the grosser abomination of image worship. And in carrying out this design, the Lord has raised up faithful men, who, under the direction of his own Spirit, have been unobtrusively watchful against the admission of Tractarian influence. From the very formation of the Society in 1800, its path has always been characterized by a godly jealousy for the simplicity of evangelical truth, and for a distinct protest against all the forms and degrees of that principle of merely external religion, in combination with unscriptural doctrine, which, since the year 1833, have been condensed into Tractarianism. This is an unpardonable offence in the minds of Tractarians, and it may be feared, that the constant opposition which has been manifested by those who now approve of the Tracts for the Times, may be traced to the feeling engendered by this offence, however little the opposers may be aware of the root of their own motives."-Pp. 16, 17.

In another passage, Mr. Dallas fairly confesses that the Church Missionary Society has been all along the organ of a party in the Church, and acted altogether on mere party or sectarian principles.

"The history of the Church Missionary Society, from its very formation, testifies that it has ever been carried on under the direction of one ruling principle in all its active agents; and that it has united for its object the great mass of those members of the Church of England who openly and boldly profess to be actuated by the same principle. That principle is the pre-eminence of spirituality as the real life of a religious professor-the distinctive separation of spiritual Christians from the walk of worldly though orthodox professors;-in a word, the principle of evangelical piety as contradistinguished from merely formal profession-essential Christianity, as opposed to what has been termed 'Sacramental religion.' It is at once the strength of the Church Missionary Society, and the comfort and boast of its friends, that it is characteristically evangelical, as well as correctly ecclesiastical. This is its glory; and if it were to lose that character, the hour that saw this Ichabod stamped upon it would