cathedrals, but ignoring all the other habits of former times. The canons of 1604, now binding upon the clergy, correspond with the advertisements; hence, the albe, the tunick, the vestment, and the pastoral staff, are uncanonical. The bishops, in their visitations, forbade such habits. The question with the Puritans did not concern the above habits, but simply the surplice. The uncanonical vestments were never introduced, even in Laud's time, into the Church; and their use is a perfect novelty." (p. 305.)

After this, little need be added with regard to the dress of the preacher. Neither rubric nor canon, but custom, has the regulation of this. Preaching was rare before the Reformation; and after it, as well as before, the preacher usually appeared in his ordinary dress. Except in cathedrals, whose laws are peculiar, the gown has ever been the dress of the preacher. It is not unusual to hear Tractarians declaim against "the Geneva gown." But how unreasonable is such declamation! In addition to this, the gown was recognized by the Canons of 1571, and by the Articles of Episcopal Visitations. The Divine Canon, respecting all such matters as these, we conceive to be summed up in these words: "Let all things be done decently and in order." Even where there is an intention to bring back the gorgeous drapery of the apostate Church, seldom or never was zeal more unworthily expended than on such trifles as these.

"Lo, Ceremony leads her children forth,
Prepared to fight for trifles of no worth;
While truths, on which eternal things depend,
Find not, or hardly find, a single friend.
As soldiers watch the signal of command,
They learn to bow, to kneel, to sit, to stand;
Content to fill religion's vacant place

With hollow form, and gesture, and grimace."

The chapter on Ancient Liturgies is much more concise; and for this obvious reason: different churches had different liturgies. The most ancient appear to have been learnt orally; and of the eleven oldest liturgies that can be found, this only is certain, that none of them can be traced up to apostolic times. "The words liturgy, mass, and sacrifice," says Dr. Blakeney, "anciently denoted not merely the Lord's Supper, but every part of divine service. There is no liturgy which can be traced to apostolic origin. The liturgies of St. James, Mark, and Peter are not genuine." (p. 317.) And yet a special pleader for Church principles, who professed to show, in a lecture, "the true spirit of the Prayer-book" to the inhabitants of Ipswich and Norwich, has not scrupled to speak of these four liturgies in these terms:-"They had one common origin, dating no

doubt from the commencement of the Church on the Day of Pentecost"!! He also adds,-"On the principle that the eye assists the ear, I have prepared a table of contents of these four early liturgies." Hence, we are told, a diagram was hung in the hall, showing, in a tabular statement, the contents of these four liturgies, as well as a fifth, which is the Anglican one. In all the four, but not in the last, among the items we find "Prayer for the Dead"! (See "Lectures in Defence of Church Principles, delivered by several Clergymen at Ipswich and Norwich.") Now Dupin, though a Romanist, after minutely examining each of these four liturgies, attributed to evangelists and apostles, proved indisputably that they "are not theirs in reality," but the production of some centuries after them. Dr. Blakeney has given us at length the elaborate arguments of Dupin. (pp. 314–316.)

رو

The title of the fifth chapter is "The Rubric, Sentences, Address, Confession, and Absolution." Here, again, we launch at once into another controversy, which is now most unhappily dividing and distracting our Church. The Rubrics direct some part of the service to be "said," others to be "sung," and others to be either "said or sung.' Is this a sufficient warrant for any clergyman to intone the service, if he pleases, from beginning to end; and to think that, even in a village church, the appointed worship is imperfectly conducted, until he has matured it into a regular choral service? We must refer our readers, who wish to answer this question fully, to what Dr. Blakeney has here adduced on the subject. For our own part, we are extremely jealous of the almost general effort which is now being made to change a devotional service into an artificial performance; and while we readily admit that the best singing, like the best of everything else, should be brought into the sanctuary of God, we deprecate greatly the responses, which should come from the hearts and the lips of the whole congregation, being delivered only in the measured and musical tones of the choir. When we consider that exceptions were made for choral services in cathedrals, and that the last Act of Uniformity invariably refers to the reading of the service, we have grave doubts whether such services are not even illegal in parish churches. But, however this may be, we have not the slightest doubt or hesitation in saying, that to make the cathedral service our model, and to introduce it into all our parish churches, would contribute perhaps more than anything else to unnationalize the Established Church. Most cordially do we arree with Dr. Blakeney, when he says, "The introduction of intoning and choral services generally into our parish and district churches, is very inexpedient, and calculated to drive

people to dissent." (p. 322.) With regard to the Sentences, the Confession, and the Absolution, little need be said here. The first words that we hear in the house of God are the words of God. The Address, as well as the Confession, is severally the work of the Reformers; and both of them are worthy of those eminent men. Some of the expressions in the Absolution they have taken from another service. The pardon pronounced is so clearly declaratory of God's pardon to the penitent, that the only marvel is how it could ever be tortured into anything else. Although the custom has generally been otherwise, there appears, from Dr. Blakeney's arguments, no reason whatever why a deacon should not pronounce this absolution.

The sixth chapter goes on to "The Lord's Prayer, the Versicles, the Psalms, Lessons, and Canticles." We believe there are few students of any elaborate and standard book, who have not often wished for a good analysis, or faithful digest, of what they were reading. It is a wonderful advantage to have all the important matter, that is elaborated in a chapter of twenty or thirty pages, condensed into a summary of about as many lines. Such an advantage is possessed by the students of this history and interpretation of the Book of Common Prayer. The chapter before us is a most happy illustration of this. Here we have condensed into a few lines the most material particulars of twenty pages:

"The Lord's Prayer is to be repeated by the minister in an audible voice, as distinguished from Romish mutterings. This prayer is truly the Lord's. The Versicles are composed almost in the words of Scripture. The doxology is apostolic in its doctrine, though not derived as a form from the Apostles. The Psalms were sung in the temple, and were also used in the public services of the primitive Church. In mediæval times they were mutilated; but the Reformers provided for their consecutive use every month. Antiphonal reading or singing of them was introduced at an early date. The reading of Scripture was regularly performed in the Jewish and primitive churches. In mediæval times the public reading of Scripture, and that in a dead language, became a mere form. The Reformers restored the Bible to its proper position in the public services. The Canticles, with the exception of the Te Deum and Benedicite, are inspired compositions. Both of the exceptions are perfectly in harmony with Scripture." (p. 353.)

With reference to the three creeds, repeated in our service, Dr. Blakeney gives due prominence to the decisive reason assigned by our Church for retaining them:-"They ought thoroughly to be received and believed, for they may be proved by most certain warrants of Holy Scripture." (Art. viii.) The Apostles' Creed was not made by the Apostles; but it is in strict

conformity with their doctrine. The Nicene Creed did not find its way into the Liturgy of the Greek Church until about the middle of the fifth century. The Athanasian Creed contains the known sentiments of that eminent man, though it was not compiled by him. The Ecclesiastical Commission of 1689, appointed to revise the Liturgy, appended the following words to the rubric which precedes the Athanasian Creed:-"The condemning clauses are to be understood as relating only to those who obstinately deny the substance of the Christian faith." A man may not receive all its particular explanations, but if he hold firmly all its substantial verities, he is not to be condemned. Turning to the east when the creed is said or sung, is nowhere enjoined, and consequently is done without any authority.

The Versicles, and Collects in general, form the subject of the eighth chapter. The word Collect is differently interpreted; but we quite think with our author, that it is a prayer collected from the Scriptures which went before, more especially the Epistle and Gospel of the day. It is sometimes objected, by Romanists and their apologists, that the best parts of our Prayer Book are taken from the Romish Missal; and hence they ask why we speak so bitterly of a Church to which we are so greatly indebted, and from which we have been so largely enriched? Now, throughout our whole Liturgy we know of nothing better than the Collects of the Church of England; and we never met with a person of real piety who did not readily admit their inimitable excellence. If every one of them, in their present state, had come from the Romish Missal, we should neither have loved nor prized them one whit less than we do. But what is the fact? Dr. Blakeney has given us in this chapter the history of all the Collects of the Church of England, with the sources from whence they were derived, and the dates of their composition. Then he adds,-" It is very important to observe, that our Collects are derived either from a period anterior to Popery, or from the pen of the Reformers and revisers, who carefully rejected whatever was not consistent with divine truth." (p. 375.) The vessels of silver and of gold which Nebuchadnezzar rifled from the temple of God, and carried away, neither ceased to be silver and gold, nor lost their relative sanctity, either by their long detention in Babylon or the unworthy use that was made of them there. When purified and brought back by the children of the captivity to Jerusalem, they were as much the beauty and glory of the second temple, as they had been of the first. This is exactly what our great and wise Reformers did with everything precious (everything that would stand the test of Scripture) wherever they found it,

when the Lord turned the captivity of His people, and the pure and reformed part of Christ's Holy Catholic Church, by God's grace was established in these realms, and succeeded to the desolation that had been made by the mystical Baby lon.

THE MINING DISTRICT OF SOUTH STAFFORDSHIRE: ITS CONDITION, SOCIAL AND SPIRITUAL.

THE moral and social condition of the English farm-labourer has long occupied the attention of our philanthropists, and it is well that it should have done so. As the world journeys on, things change and circumstances alter. Agriculture is no longer the mainstay of England; nor is the condition of the farm labourer what it once was. Our manufactures are, and for some years past have been, the great source of our national wealth. Twenty years ago it was proved by official returns that the manures laid upon our fields were equal in value to all our exports; they are at this time scarcely equal to our exports to America alone.

Americans are well aware of this, as evinced by their conduct in withholding the supply of cotton, in the beginning of their distressing war, in the delusive hope that rather than throw a great part of our population out of employment, and curtail our revenue, we should take a decided step and embark in their quarrel. Cotton, they said, was king. Much more might be said to prove that manufactures are the general source of our wealth; but it is unnecessary. The manufactures of our country are too various to enumerate, but the chief of them may be easily classified: there are the cotton and woollen manufactures; and then the ironware and pottery mafactures. The few following statistics will give our readers some idea of the vast number of men employed in mining for coal, and also in mining for and manufacturing iron. When it is known that we are raising annually about ninety million tons of coal, and that in 1864 we exported nearly a million and a-half tons of iron, besides machinery to the value of between four and five millions sterling, the importance of this branch of industry will be clearly understood.

To enter at large upon matters of purely social and national economy would be foreign to our purpose. Yet a passing glance is necessary; and we have already said enough to remind