confining its attacks to civil government, has extended its influence to ecclesiastical establishments, and sought to endanger the permanence and safety of our own. Such a spirit as this is apt to regard all privilege as usurpation, and all power as misrule. The circumstances which occasioned these remarks probably induced the author to notice a distinction which it appears equally desirable to us to preserve, but which we think requires to be drawn with a very nice and careful hand. We allude to a spirit of conciliation, and one of compromise: the former may promote order and union, the latter tends to disunite and confuse. To concede privilege, is often to invite encroachment: its effect is often to acknowledge weakness, or to produce it; and we apprehend that the subject under consideration furnishes an illustration of these statements.

In tracing the history of these ecclesiastical functionaries, the author remarks:

"The appointment of lay officers in the Christian church is of very ancient usage; so that the very antiquity of the institution may seem to give a veneration to it, even were it less intimately con nected with the promotion of morals, and with the sacred rites and services of our holy religion, for the better administration of which, and for the main tenance of decency and order in their performance, it was originally intended. "In earlier times, the bishops, at their stated synods or visitations, were accustomed to cite from every parish some given number of the most discreet and respectable inhabitants, to report on the state of religion and manners in their respective parishes, and to present such offenders as might be amenable to the canon or ecclesiastical law; that by censores and penance they might themselves be reclaimed, and that others, admonished by their convictions, might be protected from that baneful infection which vice uncontrolled, an irreverence for religious institutions unregarded,

or a profane impeachment of Christian

doctrine and faith unrestrained, caunot fail to diffuse through the different tanks of society. The men so cited

were denominated Synodsmen, and, by corruption, Sidesmen, and sometimes Questmen, from their duty of inquiring, as a kind of special jurors, into such clesiastical court, and of making preoffences as were cognizable by the ec sentments, or, agreeably to the civil law, a return of true bills, accordingly. While this practice continued, the office of Church warden, as the title implies, was confined to a due repair of the church, to the preservation of the church and church-yard from profane abuses, and to the providing, as well as to the custody and care of such articles bration of the ordinances and rites of as were required for a reverend celereligion-and to whatever could promote a greater decency and solemnity in all the acts of public devotion and worship. In process of time, however, and under a laxity of discipline which preceded the Reformation, the citation of synodsmen was discontinued, and their duties transferred to the churchwardens by a special canon; from which time the offices became consolidated, and have so remained to the present

day." pp. 7, 8.

There must be, we think, some little inaccuracy in this account: at least we recollect no special canon transferring the duties of the sidesmen to the church-wardens. In the last collection of the canons in the time of king James, A. D. 1603, the 119th and others speak of questmen and sidesmen as before, with a particular reference to the duties we have been adverting to: and although, in the few canons made in the convocation in the reign of king Charles, A. D. 1640, the mention made of these officers, is in the words, "Church-wardens and other sworn men," (which may by implication identify the offices, though to us they seem rather to recognize a distinctness of persons qualified for them,) yet there is no special canon whatever that we can find uniting them, and transfering the duties of both to one, unless it be one in the year 1571, where this duty is enjoined more particularly on them; but church-wardens had presented many years before this.

We also think the reverend author

to ascertain on what principle the custom can be justified. They are not suspended as trophies; still less, we should imagine, can they be intended as decorations: the church-warden, therefore, should not allow the practice. The house of God, the temple of the Prince of Peace, should be preserved; as far as possible, from all secular associations, and most of all so from those which recal ideas of war and human glory.

On the Archdeacon's observations respecting the mode of assessing the parochial rates, we must make one remark, as a mistake may possibly arise, and occasion a difficulty which a little previous caution would prevent. The repairs, for which rates are assessed upon the parishioners, should not be made before the rates are collected, but the repairs and assessment should be co-temporaneous with each other. We do not say that in no case would the church-warded be justified in first incurring the expense, and afterwards demanding the reimbursement: but as a difference is known to exist in the doctrines maintained in the spiritual and temporal courts in relation to this matter, it is better to make the rate coeval with the repairs, not to reimburse the church warden, lest the account might be regarded in the light of a private debt.

In advancing to the duty of presenting, as forming part of the church-wardens' obligation, the reverend author, while he admits the difficulty attending its fulfilment, strenuously urges the duty of so doing, on account of their oath, which pledges them to its perform ance. It is true the sentiments and usages of the times are changed. It is true, that obstacles of a formidable nature stand in the way; but the oath remains-remains unaltered, unmodified. We do not say we do not regret this; for it is a subject of deep regret to us, as it must be to every considerate mind. We regret it, because he

who acquits himself of his obligation, as a conscientious man, will involve himself in perplexities of no trivial kind; we regret it, because he who does not incurs the guilt-we can call it by no softer name-of perjury; and we regret it, because this oath is too often an effectual bar to the discharge of this important office, by such men as, from their characters and principles, are the most likely to be of service to their neighbours. We heartily wish that those who possess the power to effect some modification in so obnoxious a feature in our ecclesiastical discipline, would avail themselves of that power, and would not allow, we do not say a blind attachment to old forms, for that we are sure they disclaim, but a wholesome dread of innovation, to prevent their exchanging requirement, the compliance with which, in such a way as a religious man would interpret his duty, is, by the great increase of population, and other altered circumstances of the age, rendered impracticable for one of a less arduous and doubtful character. We say doubtful, because, after all, we consider not only the growth of neighbourhoods to be a serious impediment to the discharge of this duty, but that the very fulfilment of it might not in modern times be attended with all the benefit which formerly accompanied it. The censures of the church are now become almost obsolete: presentable offences are far more multiplied, and far less' gravely regarded, than in former times: the very proceeding upon presentment would be now considered an innovation, and it might, be prejudical, in the present spirit of the times, to attempt to revive it. Our author remarks as follows on this subject.

"In times when the hierarchy was in its strength and vigour, when the constitution of the church was unenfeebled by the empiricism of theorists in ecclesiastical polity, while the canon law was less restrained by the jealousies,

of the civil, before the spiritual courts were paralized by the prohibitions of the temporal, the procedure by presentment was easy, simple, and unperplexed and it may fairly be presumed that the censures and penalties which ensued on proof and conviction, were far from being inefficacious in checking those scandals against religion, and those offences against morals, which fell more immediately under the jurisdic tion of our courts. It is certain, how ever, that blasphemies and crimes of this description were then more serious ly considered, more unfrequently committed, more sedulously concealed from the public eye, less flippantly spoken of in common conversation, and less lightly esteemed in common opinion. It is true the canon law continues in

this respect in its former force; but having been rarely resorted to for nearly the last century, it may be said to be becoming obsolete. But while the oath continues in its present form, the church-warden cannot otherwise be discharged from it than by presenting such persons and things as according to his skill and knowledge are presentable. He will so far have done his duty and discharged his conscience; and it will remain with the Ordinary, whether bishop, archdeacon, chancellor, or commissary, to require or dispense with, at his discretion, the institution of such further proceedings as the case and age may justify, and the law has definitively pointed out." pp. 13, 14.

This last remark leads the Archdeacon to comment on the inequality which exists in the scale of punishments awarded to violations of the laws of the state and those of the church, or secular, offences and spiritual crimes.

"It is perhaps a singular anomaly in our civil code, that, while for the protection of the person and the security of the property of the subject, it has been considered as inflicting a punish. ment more than commensurate to the offence, some of the grossest crimes of the Christian institute, crimes more deeply affecting the happiness of the individual, more injurious to the wellbeing of the community, remain unnoticed and disregarded in the criminal, jurisprudence of the country. This

This last remark is strongly exemplified in the St. David's Prize Essay

is the more unaccountable, because the punishment should in all cases corre spond to the degree of guilt; and guilt, in the consideration of the law, is to be measured by the injury done to pub lic or private rights and immunities." p.15.

It is on this account, we doubt not, that our author has offered a suggestion, in which we cannot but agree with him, both because we think that the ends for which presentments are to be made, will, by its adoption, be much more certainly obtained, and because the unpleasant difficulties which might otherwise attach to the presenter will be thereby avoided. suggestion is, that in every case in which the law has given an election,

The

that is, in which both the civil and the canon law have provided a punishment for an offence, — church-wardens would do well to prefer an application to the civil magistrate, rather than to the ecclesiastical judge. This is noticed in p. 18, and repeated in p. 45. We could have wished somewhat more of detail in this part of the address; but there is sufficient to trace the author's meaning. There

are

cases where not only the church has pronounced her censures, but the statutes have imposed their fines. In these cases the latter are to be preferred. But the generality of cases which have excited animadversion, and call for the correction of the canon law, are untouched by the civil. These then are proper subjects for presentment; for, as our author remarks,

"The church-warden is to the eccle, siastical law, what the peace-officer is

for 1821, recently published, on the subject of adultery and divorce, by Mr. Tebbs, of Doctors' Commons. The nature of the work does not allow of

quotation in our pages; but the reader who wishes for information may refer to Mr. Tebbs's elaborate Dissertation, PP. 239-242, for some remarks on the defective state of our criminal laws with respect to the punishment of a crime most deeply offensive in the eyes of God and man.