the canons, or of canon law, is mentioned. But the case, as we have stated it, is not fairly put. The clergy, by their oaths, are bound to render canonical obedience to their bishops; but this does not mean that they are bound to obey every canon. Obedience to the canons is in some cases impossible, and in others absolutely illegal. The exact meaning of canonical obedience has, we suspect, to be yet defined. We believe that, upon examination, it will be found to mean little more than that the clergy are bound to yield obedience to the bishop, when such obedience can be proved to be a duty by some canon or canon law, the legality of which again may be proved from the common or the statute law. The canons, we need not remind our readers,-for we are only repeating what Lord Hardwicke and Judge Blackstone wrote a hundred years ago, are not binding proprio vigore, but only so far as they embody other laws of unquestionable authority, laws which have not since become obsolete or been repealed. Mr. Boultbee places the matter in an amusing light :—

"If any ask how far the canon law is binding, I give the following choice extract from the preface to Burn's Ecclesiastical Law. 'The business upon this head must be to enquire first what is the canon law upon any point: and then to find out how far the same was received here before the said statute (25 Hen. 8. c. 19): and then to compare the same with the common law, and with the statute law, and with the law concerning the king's prerogative; and from thence will come out the genuine law of the church.' So that, after this treble legal distilation, we shall obtain the purest refined essence of church law. How a lawyer's soul must rejoice in the description of the process! The result to ourselves, in plain English, is given in Mr. Dale's Clergyman's Legal Handbook. The 141 canons enacted in 1603 . . . constitute the present standard of the established church.'"

For ourselves, we heartily thank Mr. Boultbee for his bold and well-timed pamphlet. We cannot allow that it is rash; except that all reformers are rash men, so called not because they always see further than others, but that they have more courage in advocating change in the face of danger to themselves.

NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS.

The Wit and Wisdom of the Rev. Sydney Smith: a Selection of the most memorable passages in his Writings and Conversation. London: Longman and Co. 1860.

Most intelligent readers would like to know something of the writings of Sydney Smith, and few will care to know much. There is both wit and wisdom in them; but the wit is sometimes wicked, and the wisdom suffers from the alliance with grimace and folly. Yet the wit

which annoyed us most on its first appearance, is harmless now. We can read the gibes about a slice of cold missionary, or a help to a little pic-a-ninny pie, without the least apprehension that the New Zealand mission, or any other mission, will suffer the slightest injury. They remain high and dry; marks upon the weather-beaten cliffs, to tell us how high the tide of prejudice once ran; and they are not without their use, if they caution us against the infirmity, to which we are always prone, of mistaking wit for wisdom. In a wiser strain, though still not in the highest strain of christian wisdom, Sydney Smith preaches an assize sermon, from which we make one extract. There is no order of public functionaries in this country so perfectly removed from public criticism as our judges. The misconduct of a judge must be grievous, and frequently repeated, before it is thought to justify the slightest animadversion. Neither bishops, nor prime ministers, nor royalty itself, is treated with so much deference; for in the judge we see the law as it were embodied and represented. It is of the utmost importance, then, that our judges should be men of the purest lives, as well as of the most spotless integrity, and the highest judicial learning. And we will take the opportunity of adding, that the conversation at the judge's table ought to be such as becomes the sanctity of their high office; such as chaplains may hear without a blush, and waiters repeat without provoking a burst of unseemly laughter amongst the roysterers of the tap-room. We make this remark not without a cause; and leave the consideration of it to those who may have been present at some assize dinners which we could mention:

"He who takes the office of a judge, as it now exists in this country, takes in his hands a splendid gem, good and glorious, perfect and pure. Shall he give it up mutilated, shall he mar it, shall he darken it, shall it emit no light, shall it be valued at no price, shall it excite no wonder? Shall he find it a diamond, shall he leave it a stone? What shall we say to the man who would wilfully destroy with fire the magnificent temple of God in which I am now preaching? Far worse is he who ruins the moral edifices of the world, which time and toil, and many prayers to God, and many sufferings of man, have reared; who puts out the light of the times in which he lives, and leaves us to wander amid the darkness of corruption and the desolation of sin. There may be, there probably is, in this church, some young man who may hereafter fill the office of an English judge, when the greater part of those who hear me are dead, and mingled with the dust of the grave. Let him remember my words, and let them form and fashion his spirit: he cannot tell in what dangerous and awful times he may be placed; but as a mariner looks to his compass in the calm, and looks to his compass in the storm, and never keeps his eye off his compass, so, in every vicissitude of a judicial life, deciding for the people, deciding against the people, protecting the just rights of kings, or restraining their unlawful ambition, let him ever cling to that pure, exalted, and christian independence, which towers over the little motives of life; which no hope of favour can influence, which no effort of power can control."

Italy in Transition. Public Scenes and Private Opinions, in the Spring of 1860. By William Arthur, A.M., &c. Third Edition. Hamilton, Adams, and Co.

THE impressions which Italy makes upon such a man as Mr. Arthur, at such a period as the spring of 1860, are not likely to be unimportant. Leaving the incidents of travel, of which other writers say so much, Mr. Arthur takes us at once into the society of men. This is the end of travel. This made Ulysses wiser; he saw many men, and many cities; so Homer tells us. No doubt he saw much of nature toorocks, clouds, and waterfalls. These are the entertainment of travel:

its serious work is the study of men; and never was a more fruitful field open for such high pursuits than now presents itself in Italy.

Mr. Arthur is at Turin, and the pope has just threatened it with excommunication, and these were the consequences. "I resolved to try what Italians would say upon this subject. The first to whom I named it, was a thoroughly intelligent merchant. He simply laughed at it, and said that it might scare a few women in country places, but that was all. As to the men, or people of the towns, it would produce no effect upon them whatever. What did I think of it?' I was free enough to say that to me it appeared not so much in the light of a political absurdity as of a great wickedness. To curse ten millions of people in the name of the Christian religion, on account of a political movement, was surely a bad, a horrible action. If it had any effect at all, it put the souls of those people outside of the kingdom of grace. Cursing,' I said, 'is not a christian work, but blessing. Christ and his apostles suffered much at the hands of all kinds of men; they fearlessly and tremendously denounced sin and all classes of sinners, exhibiting against them the future judgment and just condemnation of God. But what persecutor or opponent did they ever curse?' He rubbed his hands, and said, 'Ah! Rome is used to cursing.' As several had said that perhaps the women would be frightened, I went into a shop where there were four, and no men. Having bought a trifle, I began to talk. How they all went off upon the national topics, like as many alarum clocks trying which would ring the loudest! 'What a moment for Italy! What a moment for Turin! What a grand union! The rest of Italy would soon be with them too. Italy was to be a nation. England had been their friend.' After giving them time to effervesce, I threw in a little cold water in the form of a question, What they would do if the pope should place them all under excommunication? They broke out again with as much eagerness as ever, mingled with a dash of indignation: Let him, let him! Does he think it will frighten any one? No, not in the present day. Those were tricks for old times,' &c. . . . The rest struck in. They declaimed with hearty goodwill against the wickedness of such a threat, and said, if the Pope did it, all the churches would be forsaken. Several times I reminded them of the gravity of coming under the censure of the Holy Father, but always provoked only fresh indignation. At last they appealed to me, and asked if I really believed that it would do them any harm? 'Well,' I said, 'as to us English, we have lain under the curse of the Holy Father for the last three hundred years; and we have an idea that, after bearing it so long, we are not worse off, nor much worse. people either, than the Neapolitans and the Romans, who have been so constantly favoured with his benediction.' They burst out into a laughing shout, 'O, only think! the English under the pope's curse, and the Neapolitans with his blessing, and that is the effect of it!'... One of the last men with whom I talked in Bologna, looking out of an eye where consumption gleamed, said, 'SIR, THE ALMIGHTY IS TIRED OF ROME.''

We might quote fifty passages quite as interesting. There is "A Chapter on Rome in Holy Week ;" another, "On Papal Government in Rome." But, to use our author's language, we must recommend a "transition"-from our pages to his own volume.

A Primary Charge to the Clergy and Churchwardens of the County of Surrey. By the Ven. J. J. Utterton, Archdeacon of Surrey, Canon of Winchester. Hatchard and Co., Piccadilly.

A Primary Charge! Then there has been a new archdeacon appointed -an event, in these days, of more than ordinary importance, especially among such a body as the laity and clergy of the metropolitan county of Surrey. Mr. Utterton, long and favourably known in Surrey as an able and efficient pastor, was selected by the bishop of Winchester; and it is not too much to say, that his lordship's choice has been fully ratified by the clergy. The archdeacon at once threw himself with energy into his work, and made a personal inspection of the churches of the county. In his interviews with pastors and churchwardens, he seemed not to be a novice, but an experienced observer, by the close scrutiny which he brought to bear on every defect. These were pointed out, not with the bristling energy of a new broom, but with candour and courtesy; and not a few churches already testify to the force of his recommendations, by the removal of unsightly abuses and the improved state of the fabric. A Charge followed soon after his personal visitation, and this is now before us, printed at the unanimous request of the clergy. It touches, with a wise and judicious skill, on various topics of the day. It has an earnest practical tone, which commends it to the feelings and judgment. The archdeacon forgets not that he is chiefly a minister of Christ; and though dealing with subjects usually and suitably pertaining to archdeacons' Charges, he shows that he does not consider the shell of a church's edifice, however comely, more important than the kernel, or gospel message of salvation. He comes forth as a true churchman, regarding his church as an instrument for making known the gospel of his Masteras a lantern containing the true light, which it is bound neither to obscure nor conceal, but which it is in fidelity called on to keep trimmed and pure, and then to diffuse as far and widely as possible.

Mr. Utterton has also, by a great effort, set on foot a society for aiding pastors, for enlarging and erecting churches, and for promoting education in the county. It is founded on a basis specially intended to combine the lay element, both of sympathy and direction. Under a council thus composed, and guided by the venerable bishop, it cannot fail to be of vast benefit to the teeming population of the metropolitan suburb of Southwark, as well as to the destitute portions of the remote but lovely regions of Surrey. The Charge and its varied topics are of deep interest, and the perusal has drawn forth our sympathy and prayer for Mr. Utterton in his new office: May the work of his Master prosper in his hands.

PUBLIC AFFAIRS.

DYING, Hooker said, "I have lived long enough to see that this world is made up of perturbations." A man need not live long in these days to arrive at the same conclusion. A single month like the

last may supply the moralist with many texts, and the divine with many sermons. The empress of France, pale and dejected, leaves husband and child, and the glitter of royalty, to seek for health in the cold mists of Scotland, and the obscurity of an incognita. The prince of Wales, returning home from the most flattering and joyous progress ever made perhaps by youthful royalty, is tossed about for three-and-twenty days upon the deep, which, like its great Architect, is no respecter of persons. It was almost a happy circumstance. If anything were wanting to satisfy the queen of England of the depth of the affection of her subjects, it was abundantly supplied in their sympathy with their sovereign in her maternal anxiety. Mr. Lincoln has been elected president of the United States; and Garibaldi has retired to his farm on the rock of Caprera. But the president of the United States finds himself upon no bed of roses; and Garibaldi summons Italy with a million of bayonets to be ready by the 1st of March. The dethroned king of Naples still lingers at Gaëta, and the pope is still at Rome. But Victor Emmanuel has made his triumphal entry into Naples-its elected sovereign; and the emperor Napoleon has not yet disclosed his policy, on which the future existence of the pope, as a secular prince, depends. The war in China is concluded, it is said, by a peace made under the wall of Pekin; but of this nothing is known with certainty. And there is a rebellion in New Zealand. These are the perturbations of a single month.

All of them yield matter for reflection. Of some of them the consequences cannot yet be told. The election of an anti-slavery candidate, by a large majority, to the presidential office, is certainly an epoch in the history of the United States. The horrible atrocities of the slave-holders have produced the same effect in the free States which the cruelties of the Neapolitan Bourbons have produced in Italy. God has mercifully ordained that there is a height of human wickedness beyond which it is impossible to travel; it then becomes reactionary; it defeats itself. At this point the slave-holding estates seem to have arrived, and the reaction has begun. It is honourable to America; and not the less because it is brought about in a manner perfectly legal and constitutional. We see without surprise, and, as regards the best interests of the American republic, without sorrow, that the slave states threaten a dissolution of the Union. By all means; let them carry out their threat, if they think it well to do so. The free states will be happier and safer, quite as powerful, and even more respected, without their alliance. But alone they cannot stand. Their wisdom lies in retracing their steps, and by a humane treatment of their slaves, and a gradual process of emancipation, conciliating the respect they have forfeited, and regaining the confidence and protection in which their only security will be found to lie, whenever the day of conflict with their slaves may come, -as come it must, unless averted by timely concession.

The obstinacy of the pope and cardinal Antonelli seems to have suggested to the emperor of France a project which, if he should have the courage to effect it, may prove the greatest with which his name will be associated. A pamphlet has appeared in Paris recommending that the emperor should "become his own pope," and thus put an end to the impertinence of his meddling clergy, as well as the interference of Vol. 59.-No. 276.

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