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according to the rites of the Church of England; and that the incumbent has the sole and exclusive right, as well as duty, of performing such offices. Even a clergyman episcopally ordained could not perform any ceremony within the churchyard without the leave of the incumbent, nor even then, except according to the forms of the Church.

"I have read the statement drawn up by the Baptist minister. It does not alter my opinion-that opinion being, that no person, save the incumbent, or other clergyman of the Church of England, by his permission, can perform any description of funeral rite in the churchyard, and only such rite as the Church sanctions. "STEPHEN LUSHINGTON."

"Aberystwith, Sept. 7."

PARISH CLERKS.

DR. LUSHINGTON has recently given the following opinion in respect to the appointment of a parish clerk for the parish of Castle Cary:-"I am of opinion that the parishioners have not a right to appoint the clerk, except they have acquired such right by immemorial custom; that is to say, unless it can be distinctly shewn that they always had appointed the clerk. In all other cases, the right of appointing the clerk belongs to the incumbent. There is no particular form of appointment necessary; but, by the 91st Canon, the appointment ought to be signified to the parishioners on the ensuing Sunday. The omission to do so, however, will not be fatal to the appointment. The appointment may be in writing or verbally, by the incumbent. The clerk is not entitled, of right, to any salary. He is entitled to ancient and accustomed fees, and to nothing else of right. The parishioners cannot be compelled to pay the clerk any salary."-Bristol Mirror, Oct. 17th.

INCORPORATED SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING THE ENLARGEMENT, BUILDING, AND REPAIRING OF CHURCHES AND CHAPELS.

A MEETING of this Society was held at their chambers in St. Martin's Place, on Monday, 19th of October-Newell Connop, jun., Esq., the treasurer, in the chair. There were present the Rev. Dr. Richards, the Rev. H. H. Norris, the Rev. Thomas Bowdler, Benjamin Harrison, Esq., H. J. Barchard, Esq., J. S. Salt, Esq., and others of the committee.

Among the business transacted, grants varying in amount, according to the exigency of the case, were voted towards enlarging the church at East Chinnock, in the county of Somerset ; a second increase of accommodation in the church at Witney, in the county of Oxford; enlarging, by rebuilding, the church at Earsdon, in the county of Northumberland; building a gallery in the church at Flitton, in the county of Bedford; enlarging the chapel at Hindon, in the county of Wilts; enlarging, by rebuilding, the chapel at Admarsh, in the township of Bleasdale and parish of Lancaster; enlarging the church at Brill, in the county of Buckingham; enlarging, by rebuilding, the Chapel of St. John in the Wilderness, in the parish of Halifax; building a gallery in the church at Harrow, in the county of Middlesex; enlarging the church at South Cadbury, in the county of Somerset; increasing the accommodation in the chapel at Lango, in the county of Lancaster; building a chapel at Hulland, in the parish of Ashborne, county of Derby; enlarging, by rebuilding, the chapel at Newtown, parish of Wem, county of Salop.

CHURCH MATTERS.

CLERICAL LIBRARIES.

THERE are few conditions more unfavourable, in one material respect, for an extended course of reading, than that of a young man placed in a country curacy; while it is most desirable for himself, and most advantageous for others, that he should have both the means and inclination to carry on that course of study on which he has only just entered. What is alluded to here is, it is hardly necessary to say, the miserable deficiency of all books, except the most ordinary ones, in all parts of England. The riches of this country make its poverty in this respect. Very many are able to buy the common books, and therefore there is not a pressing need of public libraries, as there would be in a poorer country. But, then, as there are no public libraries, and nine Englishmen out of ten are not readers, in any extended sense of the word, a private library in England means a set of shelves with Hume and Robertson, Locke and Adam Smith, Malthus, Annual Registers, an Encyclopædia, certain poets, the Spectator, &c., some modern novels, Moliere, Racine, a selection of French Sermons, Paley and Lardner, a few common classics, and so on. Books, in short, that are no books, are the only books that are found everywhere, and other books nowhere. This account is not caricatured, as every one will acknowledge. Without looking to divinity for a moment, it may be said most truly, that even history cannot be pursued in the country, in England, by any but a man of fortune. In a county which the writer has known all his life, and which is nearly eighty miles long and twenty-five broad, there are not, perhaps, half-a-dozen copies of such a book as Rushworth, or of any collections of a similar kind. In the catalogue of a library of eighty years' standing in the county town, which is very hot in pursuit of liberalism and the march of intellect, there is the same total dearth of all but the very commonest books. If this is true as to history, it is far more true of divinity. In the same county,-and it is, doubtless, no worse than others, the writer would have been at a loss to know where to borrow an Augustine or Chrysostom; and Baronius, he would have considered it perfectly hopeless to expect. There are a few books in the chapter library at one extremity of the county, but these belong to the members of the chapter only.

Now, perhaps the unlimited command of books is not an advantage. But, on the other hand, a total inability to get any books which supply more than ordinary information, is an entire destruction of all reading. The overcoming small difficulties is, perhaps, an useful exercise for a student; but studying church history without access to original documents, or divinity without access to the masters of it, is not only difficult but impossible. After a few years, or perhaps months, of vexation and disappointment, the student contracts his plans of study or resigns them, and, if he does not sink into indolence, loses all relish for study. This is bad enough at all times; but in the state of things in which we now are, and in that to which we

are fast coming, it is stillmore deplorable. The whole tendency of the present state of public opinion is to depreciate all severe study. The demand is for ready, outside, presentable knowledge, and for active exertion, with or without knowledge, as the case may be. The obvious tendency of church reform, whether Whig or Tory, is the same. In these days, statesmen do not seek to guide, but to follow, public opinion. Now, public opinion (under the guidance of Mr. Hume and Co.) says, that the true wisdom is to extract the greatest possible quantity of work for the least pay, and, at all events, to have the fullest and completest proof of so much work actually done. Consequently, the cry is, that we ought to have none, or scarcely any, situations where competence may give leisure,-especially as such situations have been abused, and will, if tolerated, be so again. We cannot, therefore, be blind to what parliament will, in all human probability, demand, or to what ministers (whoever are ministers) will allow. As to those parts of the church which (although they may have been sometimes abused) have, nevertheless, as Mr. Pusey and Mr. Harrison have shewn most fully, borne fruits of unspeakable value to the well-being of the church. In the universities, again, the number of divinity students among the fellows of colleges is too small an one, because, among the residents, the time of a large number is (rightly or wrongly) consumed (? wasted) in teaching undergraduates the rudiments of knowledge; and the peculiar pursuits of the day have induced many others to devote their splendid powers-not to their professional studies-but to the prosecution of physical science, which perhaps might be prosecuted better elsewhere.

In this state of things, the real study of divinity must sink lower and lower,* unless some vigorous efforts are made to raise it; while the very distaste for it, and the depreciation of its value in the public mind, are, in fact, the loudest calls for its cultivation, as they are the surest proofs of the real need for it. If any proofs are wanting, let us only turn to nine volumes out of ten that are published on divinity, and to the debates in our legislature on any subject in which religion is concerned. Let those who do not think much of the necessity of deep study of divinity and church history, for any other reasons, consider well how far more favourable our situation would have been if our statesmen and legislators had been as well instructed as they ought to have been in the real merits of the various questions connected with the nature of a church which have come before them. Let those who can rise even one step higher, consider how a real and enlightened view of the privileges, duties, and responsibilities of a church, would have exalted our zeal, guided our efforts, and saved our divisions. Let those who see how certainly, in all human probability, we are to fight the battle over again with the Romanists, consider how it is possible to do this in our present condition, except with the utmost danger of defeat for the good cause, from the want of habits

It is true enough, that, in the examination of candidates for orders, the standard has been much raised; but obviously that standard, as in all such cases, can only determine the minimum, but can neither give a taste for the study, nor shew the length to which it should be carried.

of deep reading and study in its champions. Can we, for ex· ample, who are to keep the safe and true, but narrow, way, as to church authority and tradition, between the errors of Rome on one side, and the opposite and equal, and often worse, errors of protestants and ultra-protestants on the other, (by whom every man is deemed perfectly able to decide for himself,) can we do so if we are blind to the light shed on the matter by the great lights of Christ's church from age to age? Let us consider what must be the result if the battle is fought by those (and there are such) who are dreadfully offended and affrighted by the copious extracts from the Breviary in this work, who conceive, in short, that all before Luther is popery, and thus give over all the precious words and thoughts of ancient piety to the exclusive possession of Rome. The Moderator at Cambridge said to the writer of these lines, years ago, when he was keeping in the schools, and considerably puzzled by a long mathematical expression in his opponent's arguments, "Intelligis ne argumentum? Si non intelligis, non potes disputare." This caution it would be well for zealous protestants to remember,-to remember, in short, that there is a great deal to be known, and learned, and canvassed, and weighed, before they can engage in this greatest of all church controversies; and that if they dispute without this preparation, i.e. without understanding the matter, they will certainly be beaten, and their cause put to shame. But how can they know, and learn, and canvass the Romanist controversy, or any other controversy, without books?-For those who can look yet higher, the total want of any substantive, masculine, school of divinity in England, as it is one of their deepest subjects of regret and shame, so is it one of the reasons why they will strain every nerve and make every exertion which can remedy this sad state of things.

If these arguments shew the necessity for study; if, in times to come, we can hardly hope to look to any particular quarter of the church for learning, or venture to hope that, for some time to come, public opinion, or public taste, will leave fellows of colleges to discharge the first business for which those fellowships were founded-the study of divinity,-the clergy must themselves make what provision they can for the acquirement of that learning which is essential, and which, when the fury of the day for physical science is gone by, will be expected from them. Much must be done to secure this great end. Among the steps to be taken, the formation of small, but well-chosen libraries, (which should contain the fathers and councils, the best works of reference, the great writers on church history, the works of the great lights of our own church first, and then of those of other countries,) in several places in each county, is almost indispensable. Nor is there anything very difficult in the matter. There are many clerical societies for the purchase of modern publications in divinity. If they kept, instead of selling, their books, as a foundation, and then added a small subscription for a very few years, they would find that their library grew very fast. Many persons would give books, many would bequeath them. At country sales of the books of deceased persons, a judicious purchaser would for a small sum often get very much valuable matter.

The aim must not be too great at first. Suppose the object were to collect only 1200 or 1500 volumes of well-chosen books in each library;-how great a comfort would it be to every student to know that within an easy morning's ride he might find such a collection, and not be baffled at every moment by the impossibility of finding references. A good vestry room would always supply a library, and 21. or 31. per annum would give an attendant on one day in the week to give out and receive books, if no better arrangement could be made. In some counties, there exist collections which only require to be brought forward and a little increased. Essex has several,-as, for example, at Maldon and Colchester. The new Town Councils at Ipswich and elsewhere would probably sell all the divinity in their old libraries at a very easy rate. There are libraries at Brent Eleigh, and Milden, and probably elsewhere, in Suffolk. There are several, also, in Leicestershire, and some in Kent. Will the clergy think this suggestion worth consideration?

Mr. O'SULLIVAN, DR. MURRAY, AND DENS'S THEOLOGY.

MR. O'SULLIVAN has had the rare good or ill fortune to be attacked lately by persons of very opposite opinions. His chief assailant has been Mr. Moore, the well-known writer, who has for some years amused himself with writing comic songs on the sufferings, dangers, starvations, and murders of the protestant clergy in Ireland. Some persons wonder that a poet should be capable of what they venture to call cruelty. But it is hard to know what room there is for wonder. A sensual youth naturally produces a selfish and hard-hearted old age; and it is only in that natural course of things, that he who could write Little's poems as a young man, should, as an old one, celebrate Captain Rock's performances as "fun."* Mr. Moore is probably not at all aware now, that, if he suffers nothing himself, there is any cruelty in laughing at any possible sufferings in others. It is equally in the natural course of things, that he should attempt to sneer down the man who, more than almost any other, has brought the sufferings and wrongs of his brethren and his church to public view, and, in the total absence of all ground of fact, should amuse himself by representing a married man as coming forward in public only as a fortune-hunter. But it is hardly worth while speaking of Mr. Moore. At best, he is a clever man in a small way, a sparkling, second-rate poet, quite incapable of valuing morally, or understanding mentally, one half of what Mr. O'Sullivan says. They who have taken the trouble to attend to

* It is very rarely indeed that one differs from the editor of the "Standard,” (one to whom it is difficult to express the extent of our obligations as a great Christian philosopher,) in any moral judgment; more rarely indeed, if possible, than one can venture to differ from him on any question of the Philosophy of Human Nature. But it is not possible to coincide in his eulogy on the granting a pension to Mr. Moore. It was in a spirit of generous chivalry that that eulogy was passed; and they who could not have praised the act openly, might, in the same spirit, have been silent, had he not spoken. Mr. Moore is quite welcome to the money, without any envy; but should a government have given one farthing to a man who has corrupted more young persons than any living writer?

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