effect of which will be, to compel clergymen to marry persons who have been divorced for adultery. The thing was causing great agitation. The Primate, in a speech on the subject, regarded it as a great hardship on the clergy, to be compelled to perform such marriages. The Literary Churchman talks in a manly and sensible style, thus:

If, in spite of petitions, arguments, and urgent representations, the Bill becomes law, there will be no alternative for the clergy, that we can see, but that of absolutely refusing, at all hazard, to desecrate the Marriage Service of the Church by using it to join together those who have already vitiated the solemn bond in another instance by their abominable iniquity. The cases may perhaps only be rare when such decision may be required, but that is no reason why, when they do occur, the clergy should not show how prepared they are to sacrifice all, and to brave any amount of popular displeasure or personal loss, rather than fail in their duty to their Church and their God, in a matter of such moment.

More than 7,000 of the clergy, including men of all parties, had signed a remonstrance against the Bill; and the English Churchman says the number might be easily increased to 10,000 or 15,000. The Commons were receiving many petitions against the Bill, but none in its favour. Nevertheless, the Government was persisting in pressing the measure as it stood. A preliminary debate was had on the 28th of July, with a view to its postponement till the next session. Mr. Henley led off in favour of postponement, and was supported by Mr. Gladstone and Lord John Manners. The Government was strenuous against the motion; Palmerston declaring that he would keep Parliament in session till the measure were disposed of, "whenever that might be." The vote was taken, and the motion lost by 217 to 130. On the 30th, the debate on the merits of the bill was opened by the Attorney General in an elaborate speech. He was followed in opposition by Sir William Heathcote, Mr. H. Drummond, and Lord John Manners. The next evening, Mr. Gladstone opposed the Bill in a strong speech; and after a spirited debate the Bill went to the second reading by a vote of 208 to 97.

Should the measure pass, as is most likely, it may reasonably be expected to have one good effect; namely, that of weaning the clergy somewhat from their miserable dotage of the State. After being driven in a few more such cases to the alternative of losing their livings or else of doing any dirty work the Government may impose, it is to be hoped that they will think more of acting on the Government through the people, and less of acting on the people through the Government. We fear that a pretty hard discipline will be required, to teach them this important lesson. Well, they have got to learn it some way or other.

THE DENISON CASE, as we noticed some time ago, was carried up to the Court of Arches on an appeal by Mr. Ditcher; whereupon Sir John Dodson ruled that the proceedings would not hold in law, as they had not been instituted within the time required by statute. The indefatigable Ditcher lately came out in the Record, announcing that he has appealed from Sir John to the Judicial Committee. Of course, if they should overrule Sir John, we shall have another long siege in the case.

THE REV. DR. M. B. HALE, Archdeacon of Adelaide, was consecrated to the new See of Perth, Western Australia, in Lambeth chapel, on the 25th of July; the Primate officiating, together with the Bishops of London and Ripor.

THE EVENING JOURNAL announces that the Government has confirmed the election of Dr. Cronyn as the first Bishop of London, Canada West; and commissioned the Bishops of Toronto, Quebec, and Montreal to proceed in the consecration. It is stated, however, that Dr. Cronyn has gone to England

to be consecrated.

THE

AMERICAN CHURCH MONTHLY.

VOL. II.]

OCTOBER, 1857.

[NO. 4.

HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND SINCE THE REFORMATION.

NO. VII.-CONSECRATION OF THE SCOTCH BISHOPS.

JAMES was warmly received by his new subjects, who accom panied their demonstrations of joy with an exhibition of respect and courtesy to which he had hitherto been a stranger. Amid festivity and the weighty cares of the regal office, however, he did not lose sight of the welfare of the Scottish Kirk. With more earnest zeal than ever, and with increased confidence arising from his elevated position, he applied himself to its better establishment and the remedying of its deplorable deficiencies. We must not suppose that it needed a personal acquaintance with the English hierarchy and ritual to open his eyes to the frightful disorders and lamentable defects of the Scotch Reformation as hitherto conducted. In his Basilicon Doron, addressed to his eldest son Henry, and first printed in the year 1600, he expresses himself in very plain language as

to the ultra-Presbyterians. They were, he says, "a people which, refusing to be called Anabaptists, too much participated of their humours, not only agreeing with them in their general rule, the contempt of the civil magistrate, and in leaning to their own dreams, imaginations, and revelations; but particularly in accounting all men profane that agree not in their fancies; in making for any particular question of the polity of their Church as much commotion as if the article of the Trinity was called in question; in making the Scriptures to be ruled by their consciences, and not their consciences by the Scriptures; in accounting everybody ethnics and publicans, unworthy of enjoying the benefit of breathing, much less to participate with them in the Sacraments, that denies the least jot of their grounds; and of suffering king, people, law, and all, to be trodden under foot, before the least jot of their ground be impugned; in preferring such holy wars to an ungodly peace; and not only in resisting Christian princes, but denying to pray for them, for, say they, prayer must come by faith, and it is not revealed that GOD will hear their prayers for such a prince." "They used commonly to tell people in their sermons that all kings and princes were naturally enemies to the liberty of the Church, and could never patiently bear the yoke of Christ. Therefore he counsels the prince to take heed of such puritans, whom he calls the very pest of the Church and Commonwealth, whom no deserts can oblige, neither oaths nor promises bind; breathing nothing but sedition and calumnies; aspiring without measure, railing without reason, and making their own imagination the square of their conscience." (Stephen's Hist. Vol. 1, p. 413.) In this beautiful and masterly portrait we see the results of much painful experience, which enabled him to draw from the very life.

In the Hampton Court Conference, held in 1604, he displayed a decided Church spirit, combined with much shrewdness and sagacity, and a clear appreciation of the questions put in issue, and of the ultimate scope of the demands of the Puritans. At the opening of the Conference he expressed his thankfulness to Almighty God "for bringing him into the promised land where religion was purely professed, where he sat among grave, learned, and discreet men; not as before else