on alternate Sundays, at an early hour. 2ndly. That when the celebration is before Matins, no part of that Service should be repeated. 3rdly. As regards the Litany, it had better be said after Matins, at least on those Sundays when the celebration has been early. 4thly. It will be best for the Sermon, if intended (as with us it usually is) for a miscellaneous congregation, to follow immediately after Matins or Litany, and not to come in the middle of the Communion Office, which should be reserved exclusively for the faithful.

A large part, and by no means the least interesting part, of Mr. Ward's letter is occupied with describing the use made of preaching by the continental Churches. And this further leads to a very impartial comparison between the results of the respective systems in the hold that has been gained by the Church in the different countries referred to. On these points Mr. Ward is justified in speaking by a large personal experience of the continent: and his recommendations fall in with what his diocesan has since advised, viz., the expediency of training an order of men who shall be qualified to preach to large audiences in the open air or elsewhere, as it may happen.

The following extract will show the spirit of the writer :

"We may say of the English Church, with the omission of one clause and the insertion of one word, what, with the omission of that word, Archdeacon Denison says with considerable truth of ourselves : in a late sermon on National Unthankfulness,' he says,

"I set down what the Church of England has had, what she has. still. I set down what she has not.

"She has the open Bible. She has each and all the doctrines of the Catholic faith embodied in her formularies. She has Apostolic order. She has a sovereign a communicant. She has her own lawful assembly of Bishops and Clergy. She has the seats of her Bishops in the House of Lords. She has the Cathedrals; the Deans and Chapters. She has the parish churches; the parish schools. She has the parsonage-houses; she has her lands and her tithes-But she has not the people.'

"This in a large measure is true; and it behoves us to look to it. But while we have lost one portion of our people in this our stronghold of England, has not Rome lost another portion of hers in her stronghold of Italy?

"I will set down what the Church in Italy has; I set down what she has not.

"She has each and all the doctrines of the Catholic faith embodied in her formularies. She has Apostolic order. She has sovereigns communicants. She has her Pope, her Cardinals, her Synods. She has her Bishops in the high places of the land. She has the Cathedrals and the Chapters. She has all the churches, all the schools. She has the colleges, the monasteries, the nunneries. She has her lands; and she alone has the religious offerings of the people. She has, moreover,

immemorial prescription: the prestige of a long unquestioned infallibility; the press in her own hands; temporal powers wholly on her side, at her feet rather. She has the women, she has the poor.

"But she has not an open Bible. "She has not an Italian Ritual.

"And she has not the educated men.

"Let us learn from one another. At least we will not be so unwise as to refuse to receive a salutary lesson. To the poor the Gospel is preached' was the earliest mark of the true Church. The Church of Italy has the poor; we have not. Let us look to it. And while we strengthen those things that remain; while, without change or alteration, we improve and enlarge our English Ritual; regaining our hold thereby on many of our educated people now gone, or ready to go from us; thereby also making more fast and sure our hold on those still with us; while we do this, let us open our Bible still wider; let us be instant in season, out of season; with all the weight of real order, but with the energy of perfect freedom, let us be instant in preaching the Word. And we will not fear: the poor shall again be ours."-Pp. 27-29.

And again:

Compare that empty Cathedral with our own Westminster Abbey of a Sunday afternoon; and we shall learn to value our English Ritual even still more highly than we do. Compare, again, the choir chapel of S. Peter's at Rome with the choir of S. Paul's in London, either on a week day or a Sunday afternoon; and with all its faults S. Paul's will bring immeasurably greater delight to the Christian heart."P. 37.

REVIEWS AND NOTICES.

Tales. By HENDRICK CONSCIENCE.

Lambert and Co.

THESE are charming tales translated from the Flemish, and we should be glad indeed to see them imitated by some of our own writers; they are precisely what the light literature of good Christians ought to bealways interesting and often amusing, written with a genial warmth of feeling and a frank simplicity of style which are very captivating, and at the same time exhibiting in every page a high tone of religious principle which cannot fail to take effect on the reader. Some of the historical tales demonstrate great tragical powers in the author, whilst others show that this talent is in his case as it is in most others accompanied by no small degree of humour. We may, possibly, on some occasion, when our pages are less full of matter, return to these tales in a longer notice which will allow of a few extracts from them, but meantime, we heartily recommend them to our readers.

Mr. Ryle, the author of countless heretical Tracts which intrude themselves everywhere, like the frogs of Egypt, has brought upon himself a well-deserved rebuke from the Rev. Mr. SALKELD, in a Tract intitled, The Godly sincerity of the Prayer Book vindicated. (J. H. Parker.)

A brief History of the Christian Church from the first century to the Reformation, (J. H. Parker,) by Mr. J. S. BARTLETT, is a nicely written and interesting sketch. And, though some of the authorities to which the writer expresses himself as chiefly indebted appear questionable, we have not much fault to find with regard to the tone of it. An English Churchman however, we would suggest, need not scruple to acknowledge that the Pope was right in the controversies about Baptism and the time of Easter; nor is he bound to express unqualified approbation for Wickliffe or Luther.

Legenda Domestica (Masters,) is a small work that will repay careful examination, in connection with Mr. Ward's Pamphlet, before noticed. It is a consideration that will have forced itself upon many, whether they should advise devout families and persons, among the laity, to use the Daily Office in private, or whether some more suitable order of devotion might not be found for them.

The Liber Cantabrigiensis, (J. W. Parker and Son,) together with a useful account of Exhibitions, &c. at Cambridge, contains a good deal of matter that might as well have been omitted, viz.: (1) a collection of some seven hundred "maxims, designed for the use of learners ;" and (2) the opinions and prejudices of the editor and others against Theological Colleges. It reflects but very little credit on the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge that they should oppose these most necessary Institutions, which we are glad to see, nevertheless, have gained the commendation of the Cathedral Commission.

The Theology of Mr. FILLEUL, the Rector of S. Helier's, Jersey, seems about on a par with his notions of ecclesiastical propriety. In his church, as we saw it about two years since, there was neither altar nor font; and accordingly in his Sermon recently published, Poor made Rich by Faith, there is no allusion whatever to the Christian Sacraments; and as in the same venerable structure all its architectural beauties are disguised by whitewash, so in the aforesaid Sermon, all the objective truths of the Gospel are obscured by a tissue of unmeaning conventionalities. The ecclesiastical condition of the Channel Islands is a perfect disgrace to the Church of England, and specially, of course, to the Bishop of Winchester. Meanwhile, we would counsel the Rector of S. Helier's, that nothing can become him so much as silence.

441

THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD.

Intramural Burial in England not injurious to the public health its abolition injurious to religion and morals. A Charge addressed to the Clergy of the Archdeaconry of London, May 16, 1855. By W. H. HALE, M.A., Archdeacon of London. (Rivingtons.) THE great changes which have recently been made by the legislature, both in the principle and practice of burying the dead, furnish another example of the suddenness and extent with which the hold of the Church on her people may be loosened, if she herself has neglected to make her grasp firm, by doing her duty towards them. The irruption of "extramural," and non-Church burial places has been almost as rapid and complete as that of railroads. Twenty years ago, all Englishmen except a few Jews, Quakers and Baptists were carried to rest, as their forefathers for fifteen centuries and more, under the shadow of their churches: to-day, half of them are laid in enclosures of land, distant from their Parish Churches and their homes, and it may be from all human habitation; and the old Churchyards are fast falling under the control of the Home Office.

Some little research and penetration are required to trace out the exact course of this change, and the causes, which have given rise to it; but we think the historical view given of it by Archdeacon Hale, will place it clearly before our readers.

After remarking that the practice of interring the dead in Churchyards is coeval with the erection of Churches, and universally prevailed throughout the Western Church until the French Revolution, Mr. Hale goes on to say of Intramural Burial, that,

"Attention was first drawn to this subject about thirty years since by Mr. Walker, who described the irregularities and indecencies of the graveyards, and which chiefly took place in those unconsecrated cemeteries, which were the property of individuals or were attached to Dissenting Chapels. The Church considered herself not greatly affected by an inquiry, which caused the Churchwardens to take greater pains in the care of the Churchyards, and which led in some instances, to their enlargement; whilst the building of new Churches with Burialgrounds attached to them, provided places of interment apparently proportionate to the increase of the population. These inquiries into the method of conducting funerals, revealed to the public the extent of the expenditure upon burial: whilst the profit, which thence accrued, not merely to the Clergy, but to the Parishes and the Undertakers, attracted the attention of the capitalists, and caused the formation of those Cemetery Companies, who, with the aid of the Legislature, have nearly succeeded in securing to themselves the monopoly of burial within the metropolitan district."-Pp. 3, 4.

VOL. XVII.-OCTOBER, 1855.

3 M

The Cemetery system was at first unpopular. It clashed with time-honoured associations which bound the living within the Church, and the dead without, in an external communion, at the least, such as the common instinct of our Christian nature was unwilling to destroy. But then came the cholera carrying off its thousands weekly; and the fears, no less than the supposed necessities of the time, did for the "capitalist" what all the attractions he could offer had not yet succeeded in doing. In 1842 a report was made upon the subject of Intramural Burial by a select committee of the House of Commons, which decided that the interment of bodies was injurious to the health of the inhabitants of large towns, and recommended that it should be prohibited after a certain date, except in certain cases which had the nature of vested interests.

"The Report caused little anxiety. The Clergy and the Parochial authorities were gratified by the assurance that their rights would be respected, and private persons, who had purchased the right of burial, considered themselves secure in the possession of their property." -P. 7.

Alas, for short-sighted self-interest, when there is no better motive near to help it in taking a glance at futurity. The Clergy and the Parochial authorities-may we most respectfully add, the Bishops and the Archdeacons,-were duped by the cautious words of the innovators, and step by step, all vested interests were cast to the winds. Gradual encroachments were made by act after act, until the "special inquiry into the practice of interment in towns, made at the request of the Secretary of State, Sir James Graham, by an individual, Mr. Edwin Chadwick," was developed into the full-blown legislation of "an Act amending the laws concerning the Burial of the Dead in the Metropolis," which has since been practically extended to most large towns in England.

"Such has been the course of legislation on the subject of Burial for the last ten or twelve years. Beginning with the metropolis, it has been extended to other parts of the country, and will most probably, in another year or two, have within its grasp every Church and Churchyard in the United Kingdom. It has destroyed the common-law right of burial in the Churchyard, which has been heretofore the right of every inhabitant of a Parish: it has wholly impoverished some important Benefices, and deprived all the Incumbents of the metropolis of some part of their maintenance; it has transferred the control of the Churchyards from the Bishop of the diocese to the Secretary of State; and it has taught the people to regard the burial of the dead, as one of 'the nuisances' appendant to a dense population.”—P. 14.

1 It is to be noticed that all the legislation which has taken place, has been avowedly founded on the principle that the Burial of the dead is a nuisance. Hence it is included in "Nuisances Removal" Acts. It used to be accounted one of the seven works of mercy.