does in fact come between the ten commandments, epistle, and gospel, and the solemn service of the communion. I conceive the words in question can mean nothing but this, inasmuch as the sermon is not introduced except in the Communion Service, and then it does occur "between the reading of Scripture and the prayers."

It will be said that our custom is not conformable to this "direction" of the church, for the sermon comes last. But surely the writer appeals to the church's principle and intention, and defends it by "the example of primitive usage.' The word "authorizing" implies the same, the actual "directions" of the church, "whether for catechising or for the sermon," leading to the rule or principle. Perhaps he would farther suggest to the reader that our forefathers' intention is better than our own practice. This, indeed, is not his direct reason for touching on the subject, which on the face of the paragraph was to account for defects in composition in his own sermons which follow ; yet it is certainly suggested by the passage. His mode of delivering his lecture on a Saint's day has been adopted "with a view of making it duly subordinate to the more direct religious duties of the day." Accordingly, "he has usually confined himself to a few remarks introduced without text." What is established by custom as the order of our Sunday service must not be altered, though it run counter to the spirit of the church's directions; but when there is no custom, as in the case spoken of, it is surely allowable, instead of eluding, to act as "authorized" by them. Now, as things are, it is a discomfort to some preachers that the sermon does not occupy that modest and subordinate place in Christian worship which it was intended to do, and this feeling may be at the bottom of the paragraph. The usual introductory prayer and text (highly seasonable, indeed, were a sermon the whole of the service, and were the alternative between a sermon with them and without them,) answer no important purpose when the sermon is meant to be but a part of a whole service; rather they seem like an appendage and a kind of set-off to the sermon, instead of uniting it in a dependence on the prayers and lessons which have preceded. We discover the spirit of things in their tendency; the grandiloquent addition to the concluding prayer now in vogue, of "as far as it has been agreeable to Thy inspired word," is but a development of the original act which emancipated the preaching from the prayers. The homilies are evidence of the reformers' intention surely very different from the received practice. The sermons of the primitive church were often expositions of Scripture, commonly of the Psalms or lessons of the day,—often had reference to the festival celebrated,—often did not last above eight, nay, four minutes in delivering. If they were often longer, yet bishops were commonly preachers, who had the authority of office and years, and the times were not those in which worship ran the risk of being undervalued.

It may be asked, how the people would be taught if sermons were not more than ten minutes long. I answer, that I am not dreaming of any change in our Sunday service, nor denying that ten minutes is not enough for eloquence, nor blind to the uses of long sermons,

in the present disuse of catechetical instruction; not at all,—I am but making a remark, and pointing out what seems to me an important principle. What are the right occasions, places, modes, degrees of putting it in practice, is quite another question. Yours, &c., &c.

PREACHING PREVIOUSLY TO MORNING PRAYER.

SIR,-A correspondent in, I think, the November number of the "British Magazine," inquires as to admissibility of a practice of administering the communion and preaching without having previously read the morning prayers. In reply I beg to refer him to the Act of Uniformity (14 Charles II.), printed before the preface of our Common Prayer, wherein he will find it expressly provided and enacted " that at all times... when any sermon is to be preached, the Common Prayer and service appointed to be read for that time of the day shall be openly . . . read by some priest or deacon in the church, chapel, or place of public worship ... before such sermon or lecture be preached, and the lecturer then to preach shall be present at the reading thereof."

The next clause excepts the universities. Presuming that your December number would have conveyed a line to him in answer, I forebore to trouble you. As such was not the case, you will probably excuse my sending this. I confess I wondered at the question.

And now permit me to put a query or two. Is there any authority for introducing into the Litany, after "all women labouring with child, all sick persons," the clause "especially those for whom our prayers are desired," as it stands parenthetically inserted in the prayer for all conditions of men? When I say authority, I mean is there any warranty for it,-any propriety in the transposition of the sentence from one prayer into another?

And let me ask, while in an interrogatory mood, one question regarding the Rev. Blanco White's "Poor Man's Preservative against Popery," (Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, Tract 252.) What is the meaning of the caveat respecting the former editions of that work contained in the author's address to the reader in 1834, as touching statements, opinions, tendencies? And against whom is directed the passage, p. iv., from "I now perceive that the profession," to "on those who profess them"? Except on one supposition, it is a plain enigma (if such a thing may be), and Davus sum non dipus. I am, Sir, your most obedient servant, December 21, 1835. D. A. V. U. S.

CONFIRMATION.

SIR-A correspondent in your November Number, under the signature of "W. D.," has asked the question-What does the church hold respecting confirmation? I was in hopes the subject might have been VOL. IX.-Feb. 1836.

::

taken up by some abler pen than mine in the succeeding Number; but that not being the case, I offer the following observations on your correspondent's letter rather with a view of eliciting the remarks of others than of doing anything like justice to the subject myself. I think he almost answers his own question, by what he has proceeded to state— that he has endeavoured in vain to find a tract explaining what he considers its true nature; though it appears he has found explanations in old divines corresponding with his views. From this, then, it would appear, that modern divines universally, and the church generally, has held what he would call low views of this ceremony; and I think he has therefore advanced an unsupported, if not contradictory, assertion, in the beginning of his letter, when he says, "it can hardly be questioned that she (the church) has ever regarded it (confirmation) as an apostolic rite, employed by her first rulers, under immediate inspiration from above, as one special mean and instrument (the Italics are not his) of communicating to the faithful the gift of the Spirit; that we have, consequently, great reason to expect in the use of it a blessing different from that which would attend any becoming ceremony whereby our youth might renew their vows, and dedicate themselves to the service of God." "W. D.," it will be observed, avoids the use of the term sacrament; but if he means anything more by the above definition, than what the generality of the church now holds, he can mean no less confirmation, therefore, is in his estimation "an outward visible sign of an inward spiritual grace, given unto us, ordained by the apostles, under immediate inspiration from above, as a means whereby we receive the same, and a pledge to assure us thereof." Now, Sir, I am far from denying the tendency of the age to take a low view of ordinances, and I will add, as to the church itself, to form very inadequate notions of the special nature and efficacy of the sacrament,—a misfortune I know nothing more likely to increase than a tendency, on the other hand, to exalt any other ordinances of the church into the same rank; but to be resolutely bent either to take what are called high church views, or low and liberal ones, on every subject that offers, alike leads to the danger of missing the truth. On one side is priestcraft, by which, in the end, the virtue of all ordinances becomes endangered, from a tendency to attribute all their efficacy to the ministerial office and the opus operatum, and nothing to the internal disposition of the recipient; and, on the other hand, arises indifference to those very means of grace, which the head of the church has appointed as special, and a consequent loss of Christian privileges, as well as a neglect of Christian duties. Of these two parties, the papists and ultra-protestants are the representatives. It is not from any disposition in myself to take a low view of ordinances, that I must differ from "W. D.," but from a conviction that his opinion on confirmation cannot be sustained on inquiry at the only two sources of authority-the scripture for the catholic church of Christ, and the rubric and service for the church of Christ in England; but that it is a religious ordinance and ceremony, analogous, but not identical, with the imposition of hands by the apostles, introduced into the church in early, probably in their times, and by them-a necessary consequence

to the practice of infant baptism, and of general necessity and great importance, attended with a blessing, though not special; i. e., what can be no otherwise obtained, and peculiar to that special means, yet commensurate with the highest expectations that can be entertained of it by the faithful, whilst publicly professing their faith in the Saviour, joining his body, the church, dedicating themselves to his service, imploring his grace and blessing with the united prayers of the brethren, and having that grace and blessing assured to them, by a significant action, at the hands of the successors of the apostles. Whether this view be considered high or low, I believe it consonant alike with scripture, and the mind of the church. It is, at any rate, by your correspondent's shewing, as high as is held by the generality of the clergy in the present day; and if it be wrong, it is time we should be better informed. Your constant obliged reader,

Φ

CHURCHING OF WOMEN.

SIR,-Perplexed with some doubts in regard to churching of women, I send you a statement of what has occurred to myself, in the hope that I may receive information upon the subject which may serve to guide me in future. A married woman of the worst character applied to me to be churched. The child for the delivery of which she was about to return thanks was professedly not by her own husband, but by another man, in whose house she had been for a long time living, and still continued to live. To admit of an open adulteress to partake of one of our church's sacred offices, appeared to me a profanation of such office, and I accordingly refused, under the influence of that revolting feeling which was with me irresistible. That she was unfit to be admitted to the Lord's table there could be no doubt, and yet had she been churched she might have claimed to come there, according to the direction of the rubric. My refusal in this extreme case I trust few will disapprove of, though some may be inclined to tell me (as I have been told) that I have no authority to refuse the churching of any woman who is not excommunicated. My object in sending this letter to your Magazine is not to learn whether I may not expose myself to legal penalties by refusing to church any woman who may apply, but whether it is my duty to make a discrimination, and to what extent this discrimination is to be carried. I am desirous of ascertaining whether it is the practice with my brethren in the ministry to refuse the churching, not only of the open adulteress, but of the unmarried woman. In country parishes, the unmarried woman shrinks from presenting herself to be churched, from a sense of shame; but this is not the case in the populous district I am acting in. Looking to the spirit of this office of our church, does it not, I would ask, appear intended as a thanksgiving upon the birth of a child in lawful wedlock? Is it not a profanation of the words of the psalmist for the mother of an illegitimate child to say, "Lo! children and the fruit of the womb are an heritage and gift that cometh of the Lord. Like as

the arrows in the hand of the giant, even so are the young children. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them; they shall not be ashamed when they speak with their enemies in the gate." Was not the 128th psalm one of those formerly appointed in our church, as it is still in the Church of Rome. If so, one of the marriage psalms forming a part of this service surely looks as if it was intended for the use of the married woman alone. Some perhaps will argue that the unmarried woman may be a true penitent, and therefore fit to be churched. This I will not deny; but, if I mistake not, the church in its purer ages did not admit short intervals of time as the proof of true repentance, nor do I think it wise she should alter her course in this respect. But, independent of the early penitent who claims so high a privilege, is not the situation of females who stand exposed to the danger of falling as she has done to have some weight upon our decision? Will not their danger be greatly increased upon seeing their erring sister admitted by the church to the privilege of a married woman, without any acknowledgment of her fault, and without a sufficient interval to ascertain whether she truly repents of the sin she has committed? Again, is it not due to those in honourable wedlock that we should preserve this office from all profanation, lest they come to think lightly of it, and disregard the use of it, thinking the privilege unworthy their acceptance, since it may be equally enjoyed by her who has set at naught the ordinance of marriage, and given no proof that she is sensible of her shame?

Such, Mr. Editor, are my own musings upon this subject; and if some of your obliging correspondents will give me information as to their practice, I shall be thankful. I am, Sir, your grateful reader, Christmas Day, 1835.

F. D.

LEIGHTON'S WISH TO DIE AT AN INN., DEAR SIR, It was only yesterday that I observed a letter in the last Number of the "British Magazine," to which you kindly challenge my reply. I confess I am perplexed how to answer it without giving the matter, or rather one's own opinion on it, more importance than it deserves. Certainly, when I quoted Leighton, and his desire that he might die in an inn, it was, as a sentiment, memorable and worthy of notice, not in the least, as a desire, commendable, or otherwise, still less as one to be proposed as worthy of imitation. If I might refer to the verses themselves I would say, that the aim of the passage was to explain how Leighton should have come to indulge in such a feeling; and the moral was, that the Christian, in his last hours, should desire to have such a sense of the presence of God as should make it to him a matter of comparative indifference by what outward circumstances he was surrounded, since that of Pascal, in one sense, must ever remain true, "Je mourrai seul," though, in a higher sense, it ceases to be true for him who can also say, "I am not alone." Might I observe, too, that when we weigh this sentiment it is not to be forgotten that Leighton had none of those near and intimate relations upon whom his death might have had that lasting influence for good on which