scripture and upon the human understanding to believe that a priest can at his will locate the presence of Christ in bread and wine, than to believe, by the touch of water he can, if he so will, impart to an unconscious infant "the vital principle of a new life," or that change spoken of to Nicodemus, without which one "cannot see the Kingdom of God." To repudiate the first error and tolerate the second, is like straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel.

IV. NON-CONCURRENCE OF DEPUTIES WITH THE BISHOPS IN MEASURES FOR RESTRAINING IRRELIGIOUS CONDUCT IN THE MEMBERS OF THE CHURCH.

The matter came from the House of Bishops in the shape of a proposed additional section to Canon 19, Title I, and in the following words:

SEO. 2. Bishops, Priests and Deacons, in their respective offices and cures, shall be diligent in the inculcation, both publicly and in private pastoral teaching, of Christian holiness of life, by the due maintenance of family worship, the religious training of children in observance of the baptismal vows, and such abstinence from gaming, amusements involving cruelty to the brute creation, theatrical representations, and light and vain amusements tending to withdraw the affections from spiritual things, as is required by the Apostolic injunction not to be conformed to this world.

This could not be carried through the Deputies' Committee on Canous without being changed to read as follows:

SEC. 2. "Ministers shall also be dilligent in teaching the people committed to their charge, according to the doctrine of Christ, observing and inculcating Christian holiness of life, rebuking gaming, intemperance, licentious theatrical amusements and all amusements involving cruelty to the brute creation, reproving all ungodliness, covetousness and worldiness, exhorting to the maintenance of family worship and the due observance of the Lord's Day, and calling upon sponsors and parents to train their children and Godchildren, both by precept and example, faithfully to observe their baptismal vows."

In the General Convention of 1817, May 22, Francis S. Key, Esq.,' submitted the following resolution:

'Mr. Key was a distinguished lawyer of Washington City, and one of the brightest ornaments of the Church, commonly spending Sundays in preaching in destitute places-around Washington. He was the author of Hymn 150, Prayer Book. "Lord, with glowing heart I'd praise Thee."

Resolved, "That the Clergy of this Church be, and they are hereby enjoined to recommend sobriety of life and conversation to the professing members of their respective congregations, and that they be authorized and required to state it, as the opinion of this Convention, that conforming to the vain amusements of the world, frequenting horse races, theatres, and public balls, playing cards, or being engaged in any other kind of gaming, are inconsistant with Christian sobriety, dangerous to the morals of the members of the Church, and peculiarly unbecoming the character of communicants."

This resolution was defeated at the instance of the Rev. Thomas Y. How, D. D.,' who proposed as a substitute the following:

Resolved, That inasmuch as ample provision is already made for the purposes of Christian discipline in the cases specified in the foregoing resolution, by the Constitution, Canons, Rubricks, Homilies, and Liturgy of the Church, it is unnecessary at this time to pass any resolution on the subject of the discipline of the Church.

On the 27th, the House of Bishops passed the following resolution:

Resolved, That the following be entered on the Journal of this house, and be sent to the House of Clerical and Lay Deputies, to be read therein:

The House of Bishops, solicitous for the preservation of the purity of the Church, and the piety of its members, are induced to impress upon the Clergy the important duty, with a discreet but earnest zeal, of warning the people of their respective cures, of the danger of an indulgence in those worldly pleasures which may tend to withdraw the affections from spiritual things. And especially on the subject of gaming, of amusements involving cruelty to the brute creation, and of theatrical representations, to which some peculiar circumstances have called their attention, they do not hesitate to express their unanimous opinion, that these amusements, as well from their licentious tendency, as from the strong temptations to vice which they afford, ought not to be frequented. And the Bishops cannot refrain from expressing their deep reg ret at the information that in some of our large cities, so little respect is paid to the feelings of the members of the Church, that theatrical representations are fixed for the evenings of her most solemn festivals.

A copy of the foregoing was accordingly sent to the House of Clerical and Lay Depnties.

It is manifest from these proceedings that the Bishops, including White and Hobart, were in advance of the Lower House in their concern about the "worldly pleasures" indulged in by members of the Church. None of the members of that Convention are now alive.

'Dr. How was Assistant Minister of Trinity Church, New York. He was the next year degraded from the Ministry for immorality.—Journal of Convention of New York, 1819, p. 452.

The necessity for some additional prohibitory legislation, is found in the notorious fact that, notwithstanding the above, communicants of the Church not a few, attend borse races, which not only involve cruelty to the brute creation, but are the common resort of gamblers, and meeting places of all that is demoralizing. Not a few are given. to excessive drink. Not a few indulge in shameful dances, and witness the most licentious exhibitions upon the stage, the paths in which they walk being the traveled and beaten road to perdition. To bring some additional discipline to bear against these things has been the endeavor of every Church in this land — the Roman Church included, and now of our own, so far as the Bishops are concerned-doubtless under the just conviction that the worst heresy is a bad life, and that that cannot be a Church of Christ, or other than a decayed and fallen one, in which such "notorious evil living" is permitted to escape discipline-"living" which would have subjected a communicant of the primitive Church to instant expulsion. Shall we expend our strength in council to procure law against genuflexions and such like things, while all disciplinary aid for improving the morals of the Church is withheld? A worshipper of the host may be in the road to Heaven, whereas the Apostle exclaims again and again touching some of the very specifications enumerated by the Bishops, "Know ye not that they which do such things shall not inherit the Kingdom of God."

We suppose that the mind of the Bishops was chiefly upon the already mentioned; first, what that large-minded Christian and evils statesman and philanthropist, the late Bishop of Pennsylvania, wrote of so powerfully, " the drinking usages of society," and the late Bishop of Virginia made the subject of sermons and speeches from end to end of his Diocese, before Diocesan Conventions and temperance societies from the year 1828 to the year of his death; a subject which has roused the English Bishops to the same work, far in advance of our own now living, or it is said, of the Ministers of any Church in England, though the highest English ecclesiastic of the Church of Rome is also a temperance speaker. And is it beneath the dignity of a Church Council to raise any voice of warning or of instruction when confronted by a great iniquity growing to unprecedented proportions before its eyes, not only costing the country $200,000,000 a year-more than ten times the

amount expended for charities and the support and propagation of the gospel at home and abroad, but which, if the statistics are to be credited, destroys more souls than any Church is the instrument of saving! Is it a sufficient answer to all this to say "let ministers teach the Catechism as they are already commanded," and vote down every remedial proposition!

Another and great scandal supposed to have been specially aimed at is the immodest dancing and theatrical exhibitions. As to theatrical exhibitions we supposed there was no dispute whatever among serious christians about the stage. Not only have Churchmen of highest name of all parties, Romish or Protestant, with council upon council, lifted up their voice against it, but writers upon morals, professing no religion, have denounced it as a school of vice, whether as conducted in Pagan or Christian countries, in ancient or modern times. The apologists for it who profess any serious religion are apologists of an ideal stage, not the real one with its accompaniments as it exists in any country, so that even those who occasionally go to the opera, though apologetically like Naaman to the house of Rimmon, give their countenance to an institution which is one of Satan's chief instruments for corrupting the population of cities. But after the canon intended by the Bishops to censure all theatrical exhibitions had been limited to "licentious theatrical amusements," and calling only for teaching, not discipline, upon being presented in the house, the whole was laid on the table-by what vote is not stated. A single voice only it appears (that of the venerable deputy from Wisconsin) being raised in its behalf.

It is with profound regret that we review this part of the proceedings of the House of Deputies. It is some alleviation, however, to know that the vote was taken after more than twothirds of the House had left, and the remainder were apparently wor ried out with debate. We do not affirm nor would by any means be understood to intimate that they who voted against concurring with the Bishops did so from any sympathy with the practices supposed to be chiefly aimed at, as none of the speakers declared themselves on those points, and the contrary may have been true. But so far as objection had been urged, previously and elsewhere within our hearing, it turned entirely upon the specifications last

named. Reasons were of course to be assigned for what might bear the appearance of screening such gross offences. Let us examine these reasons, for the whole church is interested in the question of their validity.

1. "The Prayer Book names 'pomps and vanities' and 'notorious evil living,' but makes no specifications." To which it is answered that the rules in the Prayer Book are general, have continued for ages and may continue indefinitely. New pomps and vanities and new forms of evil living are continually arising. The work therefore of applying, by specifications, the general laws to current forms of violating the confirmation vow, belongs to the legislation and discipline of the church for the time being, and its legislative authorities are primarily responsible for the notorious evil living of its members, when they refuse to supply the rules which experience proves necessary for carrying into effect the generalities of the rubric, in order to promote the moral purity and good name of the church.

2. "As it is impracticable to specify all pomps and vanities, or decide which are worst, and as the singling out of some would seem to imply the toleration of whatever is not named, it is unwise to specify any."

Of this proposition it is enough to say that it not only strikes at the root of all human legislation, but is a censure upon the divine wisdom, and if the proofs of this do not suggest themselves to the reader it would probably be vain to adduce them.

3. "The Bible is a book of principles, not of rules." This is relied upon as the chief argument against specifying offences for church discipline, though the Bishops only suggest the points for instruction by pastors and not for discipline.

But we are not a little surprised at the unacquaintance with Scripture which this objection indicates. What are the Ten Commandments and the whole Old Testament? Principles indeed they are, but they are also RULES and specifications without number, from the prohibition in Eden to the last chapter of the last prophet. Or if we turn to the New Testament, from the Sermon on the Mount (to which we are singularly enough referred) to the Apocalypse, we find not only principles but RULES, not only all which are moral in the Old Testament reaffirmed, but new rules added, as