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first notable case, for Mr. Voysey's may be left out of view, in which the highest tribunal known to the law has attempted to narrow church comprehension, or abridge the legitimate liberty of any party within the Church. It virtually decided, according as the Ritualists put it, that the Rubric prefixed to Morning Prayer, which, having the force of law, provides what ornaments, including vestments, shall be retained and be in use,' viz., those legally in use under 2 Edward VI., must be construed to mean that some of these ornaments' shall not be retained and be in use.' Extra-judicially, an effort has been made to prove that the alb, cope, and chasuble were not used at that period; but the court certainly took no such ground. On the point at issue we cannot be expected to offer an opinion; but here the question arises, why should not an effort be made at conciliation, 'instead,' as a liberal church writer puts it, of trying to establish an impossible uniformity.' The Ridsdale judgment will certainly be disregarded by the whole party compromised by it. High Churchmen who are not Ritualists, the venerable Dr. Pusey for example, unite with the latter in counselling passive'. resistance. This is a serious state of things, and since it is the immediate fruit of pushing matters to extremes, it would seem to be a sufficient warning to churchmen here, where no such important casus belli has arisen, to bear and forbear.

It

Now, in the diocese of Toronto, the breach has been growing wider year by year, especially since the death of Dr. Strachan, who controlled the disturbing elements with firm yet gentle hand. was almost a pleasure to receive a check from the late Bishop, it was given so good. humouredly. Bishop Bethune has, no doubt, strong inclinations in favor of one party, but he has endeavored to hold the balance with faithful impartiality between both disputants. Notwithstanding the attacks made upon his latest Synodical utterance, we believe that to be his earnest desire still; his intentions are as upright as ever, although they may have been warped unconsciously by prejudice, when put into practical effect. It is not at all necessary to defend either the principles or the practice of the soi-disant Evangelical party; there is much in both to render them

distasteful to every liberal-minded man. At the same time, they are entitled to justice and fair play; their sincere convictions should be scrupulously respected; and their efforts, by organization and liberal contributions, to aid the work of the Church, and thus demonstrate the earnestness of those convictions, should not be lightly, still less evil, spoken of. If they are satisfied that the theological teaching of Trinity College is unsound or incomplete, they should have a right to establish, out of their own resources, a college of their own. Therefore, it appears to us that the Bishop was ill-advised when, in limine, he placed his ban upon it, and declared his intention of refusing ordination to any who may hereafter study there. If such students, on examination by his examining chaplain or by himself, shall prove to be unsound in their views, the remedy is within his own person, in each individual case; but to proclaim, in advance, that no student will be ordained, under any circumstances, if and because he has attended a particular institution, not yet in working order, is a step which we venture to say no Anglican Bishop has taken before. There are many training colleges in England supplementing its three Universities, some, if not the major part, of which must have been established without the direct sanction of the diocesan; yet no Bishop has yet deliberately censured one of them. Whether a candidate has been trained at a college, educated by private tutors, or by his own. study, should be of no moment, so long as by character, culture, and soundness of opinion, in the liberal Anglican sense, he proves himself fitted for the sacred office.

We are free to admit that to the missions of the Church Association, which is the bete noire, there are some valid objections. Concentration in effort, especially in a country like ours, is of incalculable importance, and it would be decidedly better that the energies of the Church should not be frittered away by diverting them into numerous channels and thus entailing a lamentable waste of motive power. Division of labour is a good; but dissipation of energy is unquestionaby an evil, even though, by division, you increase the aggregate amount of force. It is stated, evidently by a High Churchman, for he hails from Keble College, Oxford, that, even

amongst the heathen, the rivalry between the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, &c., which is High Church, and the Church Missionary Society, which was established by the Low Church, has worked incalculable mischief. Where the one has already a flourishing mission, the other steps in, and establishes another; since there are really not two churches merely, but, in effect, two denominations; for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.' In England, where there is unlimited wealth, so much of which is spent indiscreetly in religious and charitable work, this maiming of the vigour at command is inappreciable; here it is far otherwise. From the same authority may be quoted an extract from a speech of the Low Church Bishop of Durham, published in the Guardian of May 9th, in which he held that the management of the C. M. S. was preferable to that of a Bishop, of a Board of Bishops, of Convocation, or of Synods. He showed Evangelical men that they could never hope to be adequately represented in these assemblies.. That Evangelical work must be done by Evangelical men, who would not overlay the truth with rubbish from Rome.' That, expressed with all the brusqueness of South, is, in the diocese of Toronto, the attitude of the 'Evangelicals; and all we contend for is, that these views -prejudices, if you prefer it—should be respected, and that one party in the Church should have rights recognized as equal by the other, no matter which of them may happen to be dominant—a singular word in the Christian vocabulary. That strange sort of power which possesses the Evangelicals' may, after all, compensate for divergence in the mode of action, as between the parties. Their watchwords are fanciful, and are entitled to less weight than they imagine. 'Sacerdotalism,' 'Sacramentarianism,' 'Ritualism,' are, all three, generic and not specific terms; for they may be found everywhere. Sacerdotalism is Methodist and, as we learn from a motion by an elder in the General Assembly, Presbyterian, as well as Anglican; in fact, wherever you have a priest or a parson, there is sacerdotalism in practice, if not in theory. Sacramentarianism descends in a stream from the time when the tables were fenced to the days of the close-communion

Baptists. Ritualism may be illustrated by the objurgatory speech of the Rev. Dr. Robb, whose notions of the order of public worship were shocked by an organ accompaniment at the opening of the General Assembly, in a church where it was ordinarily used, and where the assembled wisdom of the Presbyterian Church sat as guests. There is a negative as well as a positive pole to what is known as Ritualism. Yet, although we have no confidence in their battle-cries, we insist that the 'Evangelicals' are entitled to fair play, and that was not accorded to them at the Synod.

Even when the prayer for unity had hardly lost its echo, in ever-widening ripples through infinite space, the mockery of it appeared. Whether from heedlessness. or doubt of the power of prayer it is difficult to say, but the spirit of disunion. made its appearance at once, and partyism raised its head and put forth with its voice what had been uppermost in its heart when it was pleading at the throne of grace against itself. Neither party was to blame, perhaps, more than the other; both came for combat, not for concord, and it was immaterial which of them commenced the fray. It is of course open to the majority to plead that Dr. Hodgins, having held the office for a number of years, should give place

another. Subsequently, the arrière-pensée appeared, when a member revealed the fact that the proposed change had been disingenuously submitted, and that the real cause of it was the lay Secretary's adherence to the Church Association. Dr. Hodgins made a grave mistake in commenting on the result; because, if Mr. Murray's election was filling the office from one party of the Church, his own would have been similarly objectionable. Still it is clear that the sudden change in the lay Secretaryship, without substantial reason, was not merely an undeserved slight, so far as Dr. Hodgins is concerned, but a bold first move in the policy of Thorough mot de guerre the dominant party appear to have adopted from Archbishop Laud and Strafford. The very fact that the office had been so long held by one member, so far from being a justifiable cause for his removal, as alleged rather lamely by Ald. Boswell, was the best possible reason why he should not be superseded, except for

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question would have arisen on the subject but for an unforeseen change in the relations between the red men and their ecclesiastical parents. According to the French papers, the Indians of Oka were in a state of innocent happiness, only less enviable than that of our first parents in the garden of Eden; but the serpent, in the shape of a Methodist minister, entered Paradise and tempted the Iroquois to sin by forsaking the true Church and embracing Protestantism. This, of course, was, in the Catholic view, fons et origo mali; and the fathers of the Seminary and their agents soon made their rebellious children sensible of the fact. The 'perverts' were harassed in every conceivable way, by law, and without law. Charges of trespass were the ordinary legal methods, and the destruction of the fences which enclosed the common falls under the other category. The three chiefs purchased from an old Indian woman, sixty years in possession, a plot of land in trust for the Wesleyan congregation, and upon it a chapel was erected. The Seminary immediately brought an action of ejectment, and, after prolonged litigation, the Fathers were held to be the owners of the church site. With malicious glee, some French Canadians immediately demolished the Iroquois place of worship, and the feud was rendered more violent than ever. This took place a year and a half ago, and the breach has been widening ever since. Now, although the Seminary had the law upon their side, their action was cruel as well as impolitic, as recent events have shown. The spirit shown by the Church throughout has been the reverse of Christian; in fact, when it was considered that they were harassing and maltreating a handful of helpless, semi-civilized creatures, their conduct throughout deserves the severest censure. The odium theologicum may not, in our time and country, be as bloodthirsty as the odium barbaricum, but it is just as bitter and relentless. Chief Joseph, who seems to be a man of great shrewdness, appears to have no hope of any satisfactory arrangement with the Seminary; he was unwilling to trust himself and his tribe to Col. Amyot and the Provincial Police, and declared plainly that he had no confidence in M. Chapleau and his Government. Of law, they have had enough since their 'apostacy,' and the very name of

Ste. Scholastique, the local seat of justice, must be hateful to them. If no compromise can be effected, the matter should be immediately taken in hand by the Dominion Government, the constitutional protectors of the native tribes. It is whispered that a fear of finally alienating the Quebec Ultramontane party will tie the hands of Mr. Mackenzie and his colleagues, and hinder them from taking action. Surely this is an invention of the enemy, utterly false and baseless, since it would be exceedingly discreditable on their part to shirk a plain duty because those people on whose behalf it should be met and discharged are so weak as to render it safe to neglect them. Upon Mr. Mills, especially, devolves the duty of bestirring himself in the settlement of this unhappy embroglio. No one doubts his integrity, and it would be gratifying, at this juncture, to receive some evidence of his tact and firmness. It will be a great mistake to lose sight of the equities of the case, or to deal with the Indian by rigid legal rules, when he is contending with an enormously rich and powerful ecclesiastical corporation, backed by all the potent influence of the hierarchy. Still, a case, we believe, might legally be submitted to the Supreme Court, after some pro forma proceedings in the Quebec Courts; if so, this should be done. Unfortunately, this is just one of those matters one would scarcely care to submit to such a Minister of Justice as M. Laflamme, who is peculiarly anxious to prove the fervour and reality of his Catholicism at any cost.

The calamitous fire at St. John, New Brunswick, is one of those 'current events' which the chronicler would fain have been spared. That so terrible a misfortune has excited the warmest and deepest sympathy all over the county, it is scarcely necessary to say; it is more to the purpose that the feeling of commiseration has proved its intrinsic value by prompt and liberal assistance to the sufferers. Nothing could have come more unexpectedly upon the sister city, and the wide-spread destruction could hardly have been wrought in a shorter time or with greater completeness. In the middle of business hours-at half-past two in the afternoon on the brink of the harbour, in a boiler-shop, in the suburb of Portland, the conflagration began. Portland has a

separate government of its own, in whose eyes economy is of greater importance than security. Close to the place where the fire broke out, there is an extensive rookery of old wooden buildings, dry and well-seasoned for the burning. If St. John had been built over a huge gunpowder vault, with Guy Fawkes as its custodian, the constant danger of its destruction could hardly have been less threatening. It was, in fact, but

a question of time; and unfortunately the fire occurred at the worst possible time. There was a violent north-west wind blowing, and it needs but a glance at a plan of the city to tell what that would mean, when the conflagration began at York Point Slip, with plenty of dry material ready laid by the hand of man. In a few hours the allied elements, fire and air, had reduced the entire business portion to a mass of ruins, as well as the better class of dwelling-houses to the south and south-east. Public buildings, houses of business, hotels, printingoffices, churches, and theatres, were involved in a common ruin with the residences of the middle-classes and the humbler dwellings. of the poor. Whether of stone, brick, or wood, made no difference; for the fire was no respecter of material. On and in the neighbourhood of the Ballart Wharf, near the promontory to the south of the city, between the bay and the railway, as many as fifteen thousand homeless people, for the most part destitute and without food, passed the night of the 20th. Happily there is no need to urge liberal contributions in aid of the sufferers. Corporations and trade boards, public meetings and churches, are fully alive to the important duty required. The great desiderata are promptitude in giving and transmitting, and the widening of the scale of liberality. There should be no delay, both because the needs are urgent, and also because it would greatly lighten the work and responsibility of the relief committees on the spot, to know the extent of the fund upon which they may draw. It would also ensure a more equable and effective application of relief. Some of the ecclesiastical bodies have promptly directed collections in all the churches under their jurisdiction, and this will go far to ensure the widening of the area of liberality so as to include the whole country. It is of no slight importance to impress every portion of the Dominion with a feeling of com

mon brotherhood, as members of the same nationality, and this unhappy occasion may well be embraced to give it practical demonstration. If for this reason alone, it is highly desirable that every locality, so far as may be, should be enrolled in the list of contributors to the Relief Fund.

The French Monarchists who have managed to beguile Marshal McMahon and draw him into devious paths, continue to pursue the fatuous course expected of them. The coup de tête, as it has been called, of May 16th, was but the first overt move in a conspiracy which had been long in contemplation. The proof of this is the fact, that M. Fourton, the Minister of the Interior under De Broglie, knew immediately where to lay his hands upon refractory Prefects, and was quite ready at a moment's notice to replace them by men who could be depended upon. On the re-assembling of the Chamber, a medley of constitutionalism, Bourbonism, and Bonapartism, under the guise of a message from the President, was read, to which little heed was paid by the majority. So long as the discussion failed to reach fever heat, all went well; but the moment Frenchmen get excited the best ordered plan of moderation is temporarily sacrificed-suspended, they would probably say. Still, on the whole, the sections of the Left were unusually moderate, even in the face of M. Fourton's contemptuous remark, that the Government did not care for the Chamber or its orders of the day, because they intended to appeal to the country. M. Gambetta's calm reply was:

The country shall judge between us.' It is, in fact, altogether owing to the studied moderation of the dictator of Bordeaux,' as he is contemptuously termed by the Right, that the country, especially Paris and the large towns of the South, have remained tranquil during the impudent interregnum which now exists. The leaders of the party are no doubt convinced that moderation in language and action is their prime card; and the efforts of the Monarchieal and Imperial parties to ruffle their temper and drive them to excesses prove that De Broglie deems it necessary to do so by some means or other. Hence the mysterious seizure of M. Duverdier, head of the Municipal Council, at dead of night, without the knowledge of his family, and