whom the priestly office is a mere accident; and who, moreover, are not ashamed to let people see they think so?

Still, there can be no doubt in the main Bishop Selwyn is right, and that the standard of clerical zeal is much higher than it was. And while acknowledging this, it has not escaped the Bishop's observation, that this very increase of zeal has induced the raising of numberless questions which never could have been brought forward in an age of torpor and lethargy. When churches are regarded as mere assemblies for hearing a man lecture on some point of theological learning, it matters not how they are built; the only thing to be considered is, very fairly, how many they will hold. If the edification of man be considered the end of public prayer, why then "impressive reading" may find a powerful apology. If the Holy Communion be a mere rite in commemora→ tion of an event that happened 1800 years ago, it matters not much in what manner it be celebrated, so long as nothing is done to shock decorum and good breeding. But if our churches are the dwelling places of the Most High, our instinct bids us rear them "exceeding magnifical;" if divine worship be an act of homage rendered to God, it cannot be performed too solemnly, too carefully, too reverently. If Holy Communion be the appointed means whereby the real presence of the SAVIOUR is continued in the world, we cannot hesitate to surround it with everything that is imposing, grand, or splendid. The costliest marbles, the most precious metals, the rarest gems, the finest linen, are all too poor attendants of that mysterious presence. The lowest adoration is but an imperfect homage to its awfulness. And the difference between the times of this movement and those which preceded is, that great truths have been revived in our day, in a manner in which they have never been since the days of Archbishop Laud. And, of course, they have provoked opposition. What religious restoration, from the rebuilding of the Temple by the Israelites, sword in hand, has not done so? And thus even Christian zeal may and does tend to religious strife; and this will account for a feature of our day which we indeed regret, but cannot deny. It has not escaped our Bishop

"It is easy to see how Christian zeal thus tends to religious strife, by the error of confounding the general blessing of the Spirit of GOD with the private and special mode in which that blessing may have been obtained. One who has felt his soul raised up to heaven by the harmony of cathedral worship, goes forth and denounces the services of the parish church as cold and defective: another, whom GOD has enabled to pray with the spirit in the simple words of the Liturgy, condemns the cathedral service as formal and ostentatious. Each man, in that state in which he has experienced the power of the Spirit of God, believes his own rule of worship to be not only the best, but the only safe way of life and the next step to feeling it useful to himself, is to

attempt to enforce it upon others. And thus there is nothing so minute which does not become a new occasion of strife. Music, vestments, rubrics, services, architecture, even gestures of the body and tones of the voice, become elements of discord to rend the peace of the Church.”

We need not dilate upon the evils of this state of things. We all feel them too acutely. And all right minded persons must be anxious for a remedy. The Bishop offers us one. He bids us all work. He sees we are all quarrelling very often about words; he sees questions raised and hurried before incompetent tribunals which can only be solved by an ecumenical council; he notes the plexity, the heartburnings which ensue, and he thus speaks

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When other tribunals fail, the best interpreter of Christian doctrine is Christian work; the inward working of faith, combined with the outward working of charity. For faith, untempered by charity, may soar too high as if the soul, wrapped in the contemplation of its own powers, were to forget the body, and to take thought only of itself. But while faith raises us towards heaven, charity brings us down to the homeliest duties of our daily life, to the care of our children, to the instruction of the young, to ministering to the sick, to comforting the widow, to visiting the prisoner, to reclaiming the drunkard, to the binding up of wounds, and the washing of feet; and in this region of practical duty we find our test of necessary doctrine. Whatever is really necessary to reform the sinner, to comfort the sorrowful, and to guide the dying on their way to heaven; that, and that only, is the doctrine which God calls upon every man to receive.

"Thus, for instance, in our mission work, our standard of necessary doctrine is, what we can translate into our native languages, and explain to our native converts. This we know to be all that is really necessary to their salvation.

"There may be a higher heaven to which some chosen servants of GOD may be raised: there may be unutterable words which only they can hear visions of glory may be opened to the view of some, which are denied to others: but the range of necessary doctrine we believe to be that which is attainable by all: because the promise is to the wayfaring man, and to the simple, to the poor, and to the blind.

"The comfort, then, which I would offer to every lay member of our Church in these days of undecided controversy, is this: pray for Divine grace, cultivate your own spiritual blessings,-' covet earnestly the best gifts and yet show I unto you a more excellent way.' Go to the nearest school, even among your own children, and try how much you can teach a child. Let charity bring down your mind from its intellectual flight to the level of that little child, whom you have undertaken to teach. Whatever that child can comprehend is necessary to salvation: all beyond may be the goodly setting of the pearl of great price, but it is not the jewel itself.

"And to every young clergyman I would say in like manner: Go to the bed of the dying man; some simple peasant who has read his Bible daily, and walked with GOD from his youth up; join with him in his

last communion; hear his fervent ejaculations; witness his perfect peace; you will not doubt that he has spiritually eaten the flesh of CHRIST, and drunk His blood; that he dwells in CHRIST, and CHRIST in him; that he is one with CHRIST, and CHRIST with him; but to find words to define more closely that real presence, and that sacramental union, will be as impossible as to tell by what path his spirit will depart to be with his LORD in Paradise.

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Brethren, let us pray for united minds. Let us set an example of Christian men, denying themselves even the luxury of controversy, to do GOD better service. Let us seek for increase of faith by largeness of charity. While some denounce one another, and bring railing accusations, and use party names, let us meekly pray for the spirit of counsel; that spirit which, when it has been scared from the higher assemblies of the Church, has lighted upon the lower. Your clerical meetings, I find in every part of England, have brought together men, once thought to be of opposite opinions; and thus charity has led to counsel, and counsel has brought forth truth. These are the signs that the Church thirsts for unity. She feels herself to be separated from CHRIST, while she is divided against herself. It is not the nature of the sheep of CHRIST to be scattered abroad. Every beast of prey may range alone, but the sheep must flock together. We have common dangers and common duties enough to bind us together in one body.

"May God then give us grace to abjure all party distinctions, and all religious strife, and resting upon the broad basis of our own Articles and Liturgy in their plain and natural sense, to unite cordially, Clergy and Laity alike, in the great work which GOD has given us to do, a work too vast and too important to allow a single moment to be lost in unprofitable discussion. The scope of that work, reaching even to the ends of the world, it is my purpose, if GOD will, hereafter to sketch out; but let it suffice for to-day to recognize the duty of taking care that all our works be done with charity, to the edifying the Church to which GOD has granted this outpouring of His Spirit. Better than all tribunals of heresy or boards of doctrine, will be the interest of an all-absorbing work; the expansiveness of a fervent charity; the single eye to the one great duty of life; the great cause for which God gave His Son, and for which the SON of GOD died. 'If any man will do God's will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of GOD.' If any man has this single eye, his whole body shall be full of light."

These are striking words, beautiful words, which we can read again and again; and they are the key-note of the four sermons. What is more, they are true words. No one but those that have tried it can tell of the power of united work in a good cause, to soften down asperities, and take the edge off differences.

But may we, with all deference, suggest that the Bishop's advice is not complete? He should have told us how to work; for there is a right and a wrong way of working, and it is very important not only that we should work, but that we should work properly: otherwise we may work in vain. It will not, therefore, be thought presumptuous if we endeavour to suggest one or two conditions of

successful work at home, and to hint at one or two hindrances which impede us.

Our work, then, is by no means an easy one. We have to evangelise the large, degraded masses of our large towns, our ports, our mines, our manufacturing districts; to raise men and women from the very lowest depths of corruption to the knowledge of their LORD and SAVIOUR. The country districts, however sentimentalists may lisp in rhyme of rural innocence and rural simplicity, are, it is well known, emphatically unclean. Their ignorance, too, is proverbial. So that here is work enough,-the Christianising of these masses, the teaching them the first principles of religion, morality, decency. But, besides this, there is another work of a very different character, requiring infinite tact and delicacy in handling, viz., the bringing back again to the outward communion of the Church those thousands who, by Baptism, are her members, but whose life is spent amid self-constituted societies, in direct antagonism to their spiritual mother. Hopeless as it may seem, the Church surely should try to do this. She should try to reclaim her wandering children, wandering often through her own carelessness, and receiving, even after their irregular manner, that care for their souls which their natural parent has allowed to be denied them. All who long for unity must be interested in this. We must, if we are to do our own work, look it in the face. But the question is, how to do it. It cannot be done by rude aggression, or by avowed proselytising; it cannot be done by denouncing the punishment of Korah upon those who, although not called of GOD externally, have nevertheless been the only heralds of good tidings in many a dark corner of this land of ours,-e.g., our mining districts in Cornwall; and who, however defective their teaching, have impressed upon these rude men the fear and love of GoD and His SON. It is undeniable, too, that the greater part of whatever religion which exists among the working classes in large towns, has been learnt in these irregular bodies. We have been informed by the Chaplain of an asylum in London, which has been provided for the elder journeyman members of one large London trade, that the great proportion of the most religiously disposed, and even most regular attendants at Church, have been in middle-age Dissenters; and that it is a rare thing to find the same amount of religious principle or knowledge, combined with steady adherence to the Church. The testimony of the excellent layman, who has carried out such admirable plans for the spiritual welfare of the people connected with Price's candle manufactory, is the same. We cannot make the reference, but remember to have read, that the chances were very considerable that when a man or boy of their work people became at all seriously disposed, they joined a Dissenting body. If, then, in these cases, Dissent has been doing the Church's work, we must, as our deserved punishment, bear gently with it, and bear its presence patiently. We must try to learn the secret

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of its success,-in what its power of attraction consists,-the state of mind to which it most appeals,-its peculiar charm for the illiterate, the half-educated, or the bustling shopkeeper. The Church ought not to allow any of her children to be withdrawn from her influences. Whatever portion of the truth has by itself been powerful with the sects, would, combined with its correlative truths in the Church, be more powerful, if we knew how or when to apply it. Is Methodism successful through its promise of a present forgiveness?-the Church has the power of absolution. Does Congregationalism or Presbyterianism meet wants by its recognition of laymen as part of the Church ?-guilds, brotherhoods, associations in houses of charity, and penitentiaries, can supply this to the sons and daughters of the Church. Putting aside positive heresy, of which but few of the various bodies can be charged as wittingly guilty, surely each of their peculiarities might be met in the Church. Even in a very extreme case, we are not aware that to bring one's infants to baptism is a necessary condition of Church membership. It was not in the ancient Church,-witness S. Ambrose and S. Augustine; it is not by any decision of our own; while strange and inconsistent as it appears at first sight, intelligent members of the Society of Friends readily apprehend the grandeur of the offering the Christian Sacrifice for all, while each is occupied with his individual wants and needs, as distinct from common prayer. Or if it be supposed that the dwelling upon the personal relation between the SAVIOUR and the individual soul is that which gives Dissent its energy, and crowns its efforts with success, where is that so fully, so entirely set forth, in all its varied parts and bearings, as in the Church's sacred round of services,-her solemu seasons of penitence and joy, her sacraments and sacramental ordinances? Above all, what higher manifestation of the SAVIOUR's love for each separate soul can there be than the mystery of the altar? The Church really combines in herself all the elements which give Dissent its power. Whatever principle of truth underlies each religious body (exaggerated there and pressed beyond its proper limits), is blended harmoniously in the system of the Church; and there are symptoms that thoughtful Dissenters are beginning to feel that the Church can' best satisfy the wants of the human heart. The movement among them in favour of Church architecture and Church music, or a set form of public prayer, are so many utterances of this conviction; while we have known more than one instance of religiously minded Nonconformists (in the absence of their own minister, or when hindered from attending their own place of worship) deli

1 What is here meant is, that a person does not by any law of the Church render himself liable to excommunication for not having his children baptized in infancy. He may still be a member of the Church, though not a sound member. Such a person would indeed be acting contrary to the spirit of the Church, which strongly recommends infant baptism. But his scruples might arise from a very high view of baptism, and the plenary remission conveyed in it.