6

and Christian kind office to them individually, as occasion might call for it; but give up the doctrines, or the discipline, or the ceremonies of my church to please them?-no, never! Such expediency as this it is which has given importance to dissenting preachers, (who are the real agitators of England, and begging-box men of our poorer countrymen, as O'Connell is of the Irish,)—an importance which their own rank or talents would never have earned, even among the populace. 3. The next excuse, that baptisms would be impossible in so large a parish,' only, of course, applies to large parishes, such as those in the manufacturing districts; but it is an excuse invariably urged in these parishes as a clencher to all other pretexts, and one which cannot be answered so well as the others in conversation, since it bears personally upon the minister's exertions, who, however, ought, for that very reason, to be the last man in the world to allege it. But really, Mr. Editor, is it so much more difficult to baptize twenty or thirty children on the Sunday afternoon, after the second lesson, than to sit to hear a long voluntary from a conceited organist, or two or three unauthorized psalms, hymns, or anthems, thrown into the service at the discretion of the clerk, or chief singer? I think not; and, indeed, this excuse reminds me of that mentioned by Solomon,-“ A lion is in the way." But, after all, the rubric has provided even for such an impossibility on Sundays. "The people are to be admonished, that it is most convenient that baptism should not be administered but upon Sundays and other holy-day, when the most number of people come together,. . . . . because in the baptism of infants every man present may be put in remembrance of his own profession made to God in his baptism..... Nevertheless, (if necessity so require,) children may be baptized upon any other day." So that there is not even this shadow of an excuse from the 'impossibility in so large a parish;' though I am sorry to say that the malpractice I am reprobating is not confined either to large or moderate sized parishes;-in fact, this is not any reason,it is a mere excuse, post factum, to parry off the deserved blow which the practice ought immediately and universally to receive from the hand of authority.

4. But it would be hard to enforce the rule of requiring sponsors on the poor, who have great difficulty in procuring them.' I answer, first, with respect to the hardship of the case, that it is like the dissenters' grievances, first feigned and dwelt upon by interested men, and then, if at all, but certainly not before,) felt and spoken of by themselves. In the village above mentioned, and no doubt in many other places not known to me, the rubric is observed, and the hardship is not felt; in fact, they would as soon think of baptism without minister as of baptism without sponsors; this idle idea never entered their simple heads; nor ought it to be allowed among us in any parish to be deemed even a possibility that the clergyman will so far neglect his vows as to dispense with sponsors and publicity in baptism. Then, again, as to the difficulty of the poor in procuring sponsors, I answer, that where it exists, it is mainly attributable to the faulty explanation, or the want of explanation, of the duties of sponsors. It is, for instance, no uncommon mistake (among the poor) in such ill

instructed parishes, to suppose that sponsors undertake to make the children" believe and do" according to its vows, and to interfere with the parents' duty in this respect; whereas they ought to be told, that they only engage to teach, or see them taught, "so soon as they shall be able to learn, what a solemn vow, promise, and profession, they (the children) made at their baptism by the mouth of their sponsors. But this is too long a subject to be dwelt upon further here. I only wish to assert, that where there is difficulty, it is from ignorance, or erroneous ideas of the sponsorial duties, and that the minister's office is to remove such ignorance and error from his flock, poor as well as rich.

In conclusion, allow me to invite, in your pages, any elucidation of this (in my opinion) suicidal practice in our church; and to solicit from yourself, sir, your own powerful and influential assistance in its condemnation, and, if possible, its total abolition. For my part, being a somewhat young, but a sincere minister of our church, as far as my knowledge will carry me, I can neither see liberty to laymen, uniformity among clergymen, nor propriety and due order in the church at large, if canons and rubrics may be broken at the discretion (or indiscretion) of individuals, whether those individuals be parish priests or episcopal. If laws exist, let them be obeyed: if they are bad and unsuitable, let them still be obeyed, till they be abrogated; but let that be done as soon as due consideration and a fair trial have been given to them. Yours truly,

Φιλοκάνων.

PROTESTANT MONASTIC INSTITUTIONS.-CHAPTERS.

SIR,-The truly Christian spirit in which your correspondent "Omicron" has noticed, though unfavourably, my Letter on Protestant Monasteries, calls for and has my admiration and my thanks. He will not, I am sure, expect that I should at once yield up an opinion deliberately formed; but I will endeavour to rejoin to his remarks in the same spirit in which they are written.

His main objections are, that monasteries are not needful, because the great ends proposed by their establishment are attainable without them; and that, as they do not date higher than the third century, they cannot claim the authority belonging to a catholic institution. The latter of these, as being less material, I wave for the present; but on the former I have a few remarks to make.

I am not at all disposed to deny that it is possible the daily service of the church &c. may be fully performed, and that many instances of laborious diligence and self-denying piety may be found out of monastic establishments. But I presume it is sufficient to justify my recommendation of such institutions that they are calculated to promote and facilitate the restoration of the one, and that they tend greatly to increase and to elevate the instances of the other.

These two points I will try respectively to make good.

One of the best methods of restoring the entire observances of the church seems to be by multiplying influential examples; the mainte

nance of the daily service, weekly communions, &c. in our cathedrals, is a constant protest against the discontinuance of these usages in the churches of every diocese. This example of the mother church is a most valuable standing reproof of the degenerate practice of her daughters. Every additional instance of this kind would give increased currency to the revival of ancient usages; and it would be likely to hasten the time of their general re-adoption, to see institutions rising around us in which they could at first be revived with more facility and effect than in ordinary parochial ministrations. I can conceive, indeed, nothing better fitted to bring under public notice, and recommend to general adoption, the usages in question, than the regular assembling of a respectable congregation, either in a chapel of their own, or, preferably, in the parish church, all animated by a more than common unanimity and ardour in the service of God. To proceed to the other point

Admitting that there have been many distinguished instances of persons who, like Bingham, have lived self-denying laborious lives, and produced great works in the midst of care and disquietude, it must surely be allowed, that far more numerous and more illustrious instances of both are to be found in the annals of monastic seclusion, either entire or, at least, occasional. If it be granted, as it surely must be, that devotional society and devotional habits have a tendency to promote a devotional spirit, that quietude, self-recollection, books, and the concert of learned persons, contribute to the efficacy of literary labour, then it can hardly be denied that religious societies have a manifest advantage over isolated individuals. I instanced in the inmates of Port Royal, and I think it would be hard to deny that they carried personal holiness and literary exertion to a much higher and more effectual pitch than is ordinarily done in the common intercourse of the world. With reference to literary labours, the Jesuits in their various establishments, and the Parisian Benedictines, might be honourably mentioned; the editions of the Fathers produced by the latter of whom far surpass any work effected by individual exertion. The nearest exemplification of the case in our protestant institutions that occurs to me, is the spiritual refreshment and opportunity of literary usefulness afforded to a man of piety and learning by his stated terms of residence as canon of a cathedral. The opportunity of daily worship, the use generally of an ample theological library, and not seldom the advantage of professional advice and co-operation, are benefits specially belonging to such a resort, and which must render those occurring periods truly "times of refreshing." Take the case of two parochial clergymen of equal and considerable degrees of holiness and erudition; from which of the two would you expect higher attainments in the spiritual life, and a more effectual fulfilment of his ordination vow "to be diligent in banishing and driving away strange doctrines contrary to God's word"-from him who is day by day laboriously engaged in parochial duties, or from him who has opportunities of occasional privacy and retirement? Can it be thought but that the result of Bingham's twenty years' lucubrations might have been accomplished in less time, with less injury to his delicate health,

and with more completeness in themselves, if he could sometimes have respired for six weeks in the learned retirement of a college green or of a protestant monastery, at a distance from his parochial and domestic cares? May we not even conceive that the immortal author of the ecclesiastical polity himself might sometimes have felt his meek wisdom confirmed, his contemplation plumed, and his humble spirit refreshed, by occasional refuge in such an institution from the importunities of his untoward helpmate, from rocking the cradle of his children, and from tending his few sheep in the common field ?*

I will not intrude upon you further than to beg that it may be distinctly kept in mind, that the monasteries and nunneries I advocate are places of occasional or of voluntary retreat, and under strict episcopal surveillance. I repeat this to avoid mistake or misconstruction. Inviting the further attention of your correspondents to this subject, and requesting the benefit of their remarks,

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

F. K.

ON THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE HOLY COMMUNION.

SIR,-In your Magazine of December last, I ventured to remark on a letter of the preceding month, signed "Canonicus," on the Administration of the Holy Communion.

I noticed that the view there taken by "Canonicus" seemed contradictory to the view of Mr. Palmer on the same subject, in his Origines Liturgicæ, iv. xx.

"Canonicus," in answer, says that I have missed the force of Mr. Palmer's statement; if I have, it may be well on many accounts to shew why it might seem I have not.

The passage in question is as follows:-" With regard to any words used at the delivery of the elements, we know not when they began to be used." Here I might remark, perhaps, that the very expression began to be used, leads one at once to think of a time when the words were not used. The next sentence is-"Our Lord made use of expressions in the delivery of the sacrament which the apostles commemorated in their thanksgiving and consecration; but there is not the slightest reason to think that these expressions were ever in any way used at the delivery of the elements in the primitive church." Now the chief force of this passage lies in the words "in any way," which in my first letter were printed in italics on that very account; for the expressions in question were used by the church afterwards in some way, as Mr. Palmer at once goes on to shew. "However," says he, "in the second and third centuries, it appears that a certain form was used in many, if not all churches. The minister, in presenting the bread to every communicant, said the body of Christ,' and the communicant, to signify his faith, said 'amen.' Here we have the church using our Lord's expressions at the delivery of the said elements, not

only in some way, but virtually, in exactly the same way as he himself used them. Christ said, "To owμá pov-Christ's ministers, Tò oupa Χρίστου.

There accordingly necessarily follows from Mr. Palmer's statement one of two things; either that the primitive church used no expressions at all at the delivery of the elements, or expressions differing altogether in kind from such as we find in the church afterwards; the latter alternative I had not thought of, and so closed perhaps too hastily with the former.

I might add, that in my former letter I used what appeared to me a softer form of expression than "impute the hateful errors of Zuingli," but Canonicus places those words in inverted commas, as though they had been mine.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

T. A.

H..m

Feb. 7, 1837.

AMERICAN PRAYER ON INDUCTION TO A CHURCH. SIR,-The suggestions of your correspondent," Presbyter S―," in a late Number, on the subject of the Ordination of Ministers in the. presence of their respective congregations, though weighty and interesting, are, I fear, impracticable, without a far more extensive change in our ecclesiastical polity than present circumstances are likely to permit. They have, however, recalled to my mind a kindred improvement of a more practicable nature, for which precedent and experience may be alleged. It will be obvious that similar benefits to those anticipated by "P. S." from congregational ordinations, might, in their degree, be expected from the public and solemn introduction of incumbents to the flocks over whom they are to preside. In this point the American church possesses a great advantage over our own. According to our ecclesiastical usages, the method of what is technically called "induction," is for the inductor to lay the clergyman's hand upon the key of the church door, pronouncing at the same time a short legal formula, and then to let him into the church, where he signifies his corporal possession by tolling a bell;-a method which, though perfectly satisfactory to the lawyers as far as livery and seisin are concerned, must be pronounced, in a pastoral point of view, as dry and unedifying a ceremony as could well be devised. In the American church, on the contrary, this act is performed with due and impressive solemnity. The last office in her Common Prayer Book is entitled, "An Office of Institution of Ministers into Parishes or Churches,"and it prescribes (besides a full service, with proper psalms and les-sons, a sermon, and a communion) a peculiar form of prayer, and significant ceremonies for the occasion. This is surely as it should be, and would realize, as far as it goes, the advantages which "P. S." wishes to secure on a wider scale. This plan has also the additional recommendation of being practicable. Ordination cannot be deputed to inferior officers, but induction may be so that the bishop is not here burdened with duties which could hardly be performed without the