precedent and tradition. We should much like to know the history of that clause about foreign Protestants; for we know that since 1851, when the foreign pastors were chased from our pulpits by Bp. Blomfield, there has been a sore feeling among Puritans on this score. Our readers have not forgotten the lamentable exhibition at Berlin of a certain Dean, and his childish playing at Unity. And lately we believe the whole subject has occupied the thoughts of the new Dean of Ripon. There is quite sufficient evidence that the party are responsible for this movement; and that wilfully forgetting that the Church of England had at the Restoration repented of her former connection with the foreign Reformers, and deliberately introduced words into the Preface to the Ordinal which effectively prohibit such communion, have resolved by a side wind to return, under cover of an Act of Parliament, (as far as an Act of Parliament can do it,) to a practice the Church has formally condemned. Of course we cannot expect Lord Shaftesbury, or "those who act with him," to care anything for the Ordinal or the Preface, and possibly the new Royal Injunctions may set aside this preface; but we earnestly ask all churchmen, is there not cause for alarm at this proposed surrender of any of our churches to foreign Protestants? So wide are the sympathies of Puritans in the direction of Geneva, that this clause has been drawn wide enough (as the Bishop of Oxford pointed out) to admit Socinians or Mormons. All that is required is, that those to whom the churches are given be Protestants, and do not worship according to the order of the Book of Common Prayer-a strange qualification for using our English churches.

And whilst Puritanism is thus sapping the foundation of the faith, and thinking to sit as a queen when the Oxford movement is put down, there arises in the distance another danger, gendered indeed by Puritanism, and really a development of its inherent lawlessness, which, if once we are removed, will very soon make short work with Puritanism. The " Essays and Reviews show in what direction the intellect of England is working. Puritan systems" and "schemes" can have no hold upon the very highly educated; and if there is nothing else to meet them, rationalism will claim them as its own. There is another danger which it behoves Churchmen steadily to look in the face.

We have enumerated several of the dangers which at this present threaten the Church, and to a sense of which we would arouse all Churchmen. We fear there is still too much apathy and indifference amongst many who once contended earnestly for the faith. Disgusted by opposition, harried and worried on all sides, when attempting to improve evils around them, many clergymen have sunk into an easy-going listlessness, satisfied if things go on at all decently, and sacrificing much which once they valued for a quiet life. The temptation to do so is very great. It is not pleasant to be thwarted, opposed, suspected, bullied. Men of gentlemanly and

refined habits shrink from coming into contact with the coarse unscrupulousness of Puritanism. Its loud tones, its bullying insolence, its domineering intolerance, affright the more finely strung, and they avoid rousing it as they would a wild beast. But of this they may be assured, that let them be as quiet as they will, Puritanism will not spare them. If it has the opportunity,

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derate men "will fare no better than so-called extreme ones. Selfpreservation should rouse all to action, if nothing else can. And rampant as Puritanism is, insolent as it has become, breathing out fire and slaughter against all who cannot frame their mouths to say shibboleth right, there are not wanting signs that a bold front may yet save us from falling victims to it. We speak now only from the human point of view, for God's protection will be vouchsafed in the use of means.

Recent events then have shown in the first place that the power of the political faction which at present rules the country is much weaker than it was a few months ago, and probably another session may see Lord Palmerston's very small majority converted into a minority. There is a strong anti-whig feeling pervading the country, a dread of change, a fear of a reformed Parliament, and of direct taxation, to which the whigs are, to all appearance, committed. It is not likely therefore, that a weak Government will commit itself to any very violent measures to disturb the status quo in Church matters, or that Lord Shaftesbury's bill can pass-and not passing, we stand better than before-for we shall have extorted from the adversary a confession, that the present laws are on our side, and the position we shall assume will be that of defenders of the existing state of things, and maintainers, and guardians of the old English laws. And this is no mean advantage; a gain which skilfully handled will enable us to make much of the rising conservative feeling and at any rate we shall maintain our own. Add to this, that the former great assaults of Puritanism have been repelled with success; that Mr. Westerton established the legality of the Catholic arrangement of our Church in all essential points: that George Anthony Denison is still Archdeacon of Taunton, and Vicar of East Brent, although the Primate of all England did pronounce his deprivation; and finally, that the question of liturgical revision has been set at rest, by the declaration of 10,000 clergy, and the ignominious snubbing which Lord Ebury received at the hands of his brother peers. These things show that resistance is not hopeless, that Puritanism is rather noisy than capable of doing much real harm. 'Barking dogs," saith the proverb, "seldom bite." And besides these, we cannot but draw hope from even that most hopeless case, S. George's in the East, for the Puritanism of the present day differs from that of former times in this, that it partakes less of a religious and more of a worldly spirit. The representatives of the Puritans a generation ago were, though very narrow-minded, yet earnest and religious men.

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We

may deem them mistaken, but we cannot despise the Simeons, and Venns, and Cecils, whom our fathers knew. They made a deep impression on the age because they were found on the side of GOD against the world. But their mantle has not fallen upon their successors. It were an insult to the memories of those good men to suppose them capable of acting as their representatives are doing. They are glad to use every weapon that comes to hand; they hesitate not to sow strifes and divisions: to multiply slanderous calumnies and vile lies; to join with evil-livers, blasphemers, infidels, the very dregs of the lowest populace, to gain their end. But in this their apparent strength lies their weakness. No cause ever yet prospered which was fought with weapons with the devil's mark upon them. No party has ever leagued with the powers of darkness and not rued the day. A party which has to use the tactics of the Puritans of our own time, must feel it is playing a desperate game, and that it has staked its all upon the die.

Nay, even this very opposition which Church principles experience may not unfairly be considered affording some grounds of hope. A hundred years ago, the people raged as furiously against the Wesleys as they do now against the Churchmen; the authorities were as unjust; the Bishops as unsympathizing. Every outrage at S. George's in the East could be paralleled and exceeded in the history of their times. Yet Wesleyanism was not only not put down, but it has very materially leavened and affected the Church, and may we not hope, truths at present unpopular, may commend themselves to another generation, and if we are faithful in sowing the seed, our children's children may reap the harvest. We say then to Churchmen, "Nil desperandum." Be not dismayed, work on, remember the great work to which God has called you-the vindication of the blessed truths connected with His Sacraments. These are especial objects of attack from Puritans: against them their spite and malice are especially concentrated. Round them we must cling: to their preservation all else must give way. And as if now to encourage us, God has granted to our prayers the restoration of the powers of Convocation. This generation will witness an English Synod occupied in revising the Canons of the Church. And this permission once granted, great things must follow.

And while the present dangers call loudly upon all Churchmen to rally once again round the standard of Catholic truth, they also impress upon us the importance of union. We have hitherto been working too much apart from each other, and first one has stopped working and then another, till at last there was no body possessing the confidence of Churchmen to organize opposition, or present a rallying point for the oppressed. Church Unions seem to have died a natural death. As we pointed out at the time,1 the protest against the Divorce Bill was not the work of any "Union," and

1 Ecclesiastic, Vol. XIX. p. 480.

we also took occasion to press "the formation of a General Church Defence Association, whose seat should be in London, and which should supersede the Local and Provincial Unions." This we at last see; and the first report of the English Church Union now before us is an evidence that Churchmen are beginning to be alive to their danger, and are gathering together at the trumpet's call. The spirit which gave birth to the Gorham protest is surely not extinct; it cannot be that the clergy of England will stand by waiting for their own turn, while the wolf is busy devouring their neighbour. It cannot be that we are so craven as to blench before Lords Shaftesbury and Palmerston. United (and the new Church Union is our natural rallying point,) we shall be able to teach whig lords, and whig bishops if necessary, that we will not surrender the heritage of our fathers; that neither episcopal tyranny nor raging mobs shall terrify us into compliance with the popular will, nor drive us to worship the image which an erastian Government or time-serving Episcopate may set up. The greater the danger the more honourable the defence; a manly stand now made may be the prelude to a great victory. At any rate we are not called to anything new or unheard of. Those before us have suffered, but they won the day.

"And we know, too, that it is not so long since other men did for the pulpit in the Church of England that very same work of restoration which we desire to do for the altar and the choir. They restored preaching from the cold and lifeless formalism into which it had fallen, and we are but doing the same thing for the Sacraments and worship of the Church. And abundant need there is that we should do so, since, from their apparent lifelessness, some are even now striving to remodel, on uncatholic principles, the services of the Prayer Book, and to get rid entirely of those Sacramental truths which have been so long allowed to lie as a dead letter in its formularies. What they did for preaching, we wish to do for prayer and praise. And if they, in their day, were hated by the world, for 'there are persons still living' (I quote from a recent review) who can remember the time when if a clergyman raised his eyes off his sermon-book, he was at once accused of enthusiasm,'—if they, in their day of labour and suffering, were hated by the world, surely we may well endure the same lot: they succeeded at last, with GOD's blessing, in their work,-all honour to them for it!-and so, please GOD, shall we, too, in the end succeed in ours.”1

"Vidi impium super-exaltatum et elevatum sicut cedros Libani. "Et transivi, et ecce non erat, et quæsivi eum et non est inventus locus ejus."-Ps. xxxvii. 35, 36.

CHURCH FESTIVALS.

The Worship of Christ's Church a Shadow of Heavenly things. A Sermon preached at the Third Annual Festival of Parochial Choirs of the Nottinghamshire Church Choral Union in Southwell Collegiate Church, May 3, 1860. By the Rev. J. M. WILKINS; M.A. London: Parkers.

It is, perhaps, hard to say with whom the blame of our present low standard of religious zeal mostly rests, whether with clergy or with laity. The former can certainly allege that they are not adequately supported (as a general rule,) when they attempt to raise the tone of religion in any considerable degree among their people: and yet in many places the people seem to have gone beyond their pastors in the appreciation of dogmatic Truth and Catholic Ritual. trials which large numbers of persons are called upon to undergo, arising out of the lax and careless habit of the clergy in the conduct of Divine Service, we can affirm from a large personal experience, are at this time a very heavy burthen.

The

The improvement in our Church Worship is, upon the whole, less than might have been expected: less than the improvement of the material fabric of our churches would have led us to look for.

The main reason for such shortcoming is probably to be found in the fact that the more zealous clergy have been located in country parishes rather than in London, and in those larger centres of intelligence which create and lead public opinion.

It is an important inquiry to discover how we may inform and raise the tastes of our people. And for ourselves we know of no instrument so efficient as the multiplication of Church Festivals. We do not refer to one type of festival alone; but to all such gatherings as provide for the religious education of the eye and ear, in clergy and in laity alike. Such was the series of services that were connected with the consecration of All Souls', Halifax, last year; such are those Choir Festivals which are celebrated an