grave, Canon Residentiary; the Rev. A. Clive." Stewards! What of? God's fold? I will leave you to judge. Then followed a long list of "performers," amongst whom I observed the names of Madame Castellan, Poole, Hobbs, Lockey, Phillips; some of these gentlemen best known for their comic songs at public dinner-parties. Then is announced that "the Cathedral Organ will be completely restored and improved," &c. "On Tuesday morning full Cathedral Service, when will be performed the Hundredth Psalm, Duttingen's Te Deum and Utrecht Jubilate, 'Blessing and Glory,'' Blessed is He,' 'Not unto us,' "—(Query ?)—&c, &c. "A Sermon by the Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of the Diocese. On Wednesday, Elijah.' Thursday, the Oratorio of Calvary!' and the English Version of Stabat Mater. On Friday morning the Messiah' will be performed," &c. "Evening performances in the Shire Hall. Beside the above Works, the Programme will consist of Selections from the OPERAS! of Bellini, Rossini," &c., &c. "A BALL after the Concerts, on Tuesday and Thursday Evenings." Stewards, I ask again, of what? Why, by the Programme, amongst other things, Stewards to see that the arrangements announced are carried into effect; that "Elijah," the "Messiah," and "Calvary," are duly performed. But we do not stop here: popular Operas next follow; and then-what? why, a BALL! And on what evenings are these Balls to be held? The first on Tuesday evening, after full Cathedral Service and other attractions; but on Thursday, after the performance of "Calvary," a BALL! Is this really true? While I write, my heart seems to say, It must be a dream. What! the Successors of the Apostles Stewards of a BALL, and after the performance of "Calvary!" But, no! no dream, but a stern and awful reality presents itself to the mind of every thinking man; and the question should be asked, Can these men be the Successors of those Apostles who witnessed that awful scene-who made it a season for lamentation and mourning, as it is now in the heart of every true disciple of Christ, rather than a source of recreation and amusement? Can any one imagine the disciples, after that awful day, or after any event which forcibly brought before their mind's eye all that "dread reality," meeting afterwards in an upper room, to spend the time in feasting and revelry, in dancing, jesting, and wine? The thought is abhorrent to every one who remembers those drops of blood that were expended for man on Calvary's mount: "Follow to the judgment-hall, View the Lord of life arraign'd; A fit subject this, verily, for Christians to derive amusement from, and a good introduction this to the Ball-room! Might we not expect to see a hand come forth against the wall of that Ball-room, and write, as on one memorable occasion, "Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin ?" Gloucester, Sept. 3, 1849. H. *We call the attention of reflect. ing men to this faithful picture of only a single feature of what is called the Apostolic Church of England, and put it to them to say if it, in the remotest degree, resembles any feature of the church described in the New Testament? Does any man believe that Paul would have shared in this im pious phantasmagoria? Would he not have wept over this mirthful medley of preachments and prayers, songs and dances? And who with his spirit but must mourn and lament the profanation? Such scenes as these do more to fan the fires of infidelity among the upper and middle classes of all the places where they occur, than all other things united. The Bishops who are parties to this project deserve more to be prosecuted, were prosecution a thing at all allowable in such matters, than some of those against whom the Attorney-General has once and again | must take at least another £20. Medi deemed it his duty to institute proceedings.-EDITOR. PASTORAL MAINTENANCE. To the Deacons of Churches in our IT is in regard to your minister's salary cal aid, with other kindred expenses incident to an increasing family, will average annually more than £5. His contributions to various objects, which, for his own gratification and the effect of his example, he cannot and ought not to withhold, together with the cost of the correspondence connected with his ministry, cannot be less than £5 yearly. He has now left for all other purposes £25-not 10s. a week. With this sum all the necessaries of life, and everything pertaining to respectable housekeeping, have to be provided. Your minister is also expected, and often necessitated, to entertain strangers, to introduce new comers and other parties to each other at his house, with a view to promote friendly and social intercourse amongst his people. He ought to be able to do this. It is a privilege which is his due, and a means of usefulness of which he ought not to be deprived. You ought also to take into account the requisite cost of his reading. For the current periodical literature, and for such new books occasionally as are indispensable to ministerial usefulness and progress, your minister ought to be able to ex I address you, brethren, because, as deacons, it is your acknowledged duty to attend to your minister's income and necessities. It is a matter in which you are expected to take a lively interest and to act a liberal part. The people commit it to your care and management. They expect you to sympathize with and to encourage your minister; to anticipate his wants, and to promote his comfort, to the utmost of your ability; proportioned, in some measure, to his necessities on the one hand, and, on the other, to his labours and deserts. He himself asks no more. Yours, then, is a just, rea-pend £10 a year. The advantage of sonable, and benevolent service. this would be felt as much by his people as by himself. The freshness and variety of his teaching would generally be found to be commensurate with his means. Let me now ask you, What is your minister's salary, and in what style is he expected to live? Suppose him to have a family of only two or three children, and his salary £100 a year. Perhaps some people in your churches and congregations may think that an ample income. So it is for such a family, if they can live accordingly. But your minister cannot. His position, and the credit of his church and calling, forbid it. To ascertain how ample such a sum is, consider, first, what rent he has to pay. He must have a house becoming his station, or he will be degraded, and you and his people censured. Where rents are high, he cannot have a suitable house for less, with rates, than £20 per annum. The cost of a servant, with other occasional needful help, at the lowest estimate, will be £25 more. You also expect your mini-ster. ster, and his wife and family, always to appear respectably clothed, which Last of all, but not least, what is to become of the wife and children of your minister, in case of premature death? He has not the means allowed him of providing a single farthing for the future, either by insurance or otherwise. Suppose he were to preach that no persons in his congregation ought to make any provision for future contingencies, or for their widows and fatherless children; that every person should give or expend in the service of God every farthing except what is required for the necessaries of life. What would be thought of such a doctrine? This doctrine, with all its practical grievances, is imposed upon your mini And why? Is it right? Is it unavoidable? Ought he and his family to suffer privation, for the support of 1 the gospel, more than others who are benefited by his labours, and that they may be excused? Ought he to bear the burden for many, when such a trifle from each would remove it? Now, brethren, what have you to say to this? Your profession as Christians, and your position as deacons, require you to adopt immediate, becoming, and practical measures. Do not say that your minister has as much or more than others. It is not a question of custom, but of Christian duty and Christian justice. For one individual £50 is a better salary than £100 for five or six; and other things being equal, there may be necessarily a great difference in their expenses. Look again at the figures and statements above. Is there any exaggeration? Can you in anything materially diminish the supposed expenditure? You cannot. Then, how is your minister to live? I can assure you that there is not a common labourer, nor sailor, nor weaver, that walks your streets, who is half so distressed about the necessaries of life as many of your respectable-looking ministers. This is the case, too, with ministers who have the professed affection of their people; whose labours are acknowledged to be abundant, faithful, and successful; and whose congregations consist of considerable numbers. Many individuals there are, in their churches and congregations, who are laying up for themselves treasures on earth, and others who pride themselves on their appearance or possessions, who do not give twenty shillings a year for the support of their much-praised minister. The people of the world are both wiser and more generous in the management of their affairs. If in any worldly business an individual be made the responsible agent for the good of many, and if success depend upon and be secured by his efforts, it is always acknowledged to be their interest, and his right, to give him a sufficient remuneration. Let Christian communities adopt the same principle, in association with higher, more devout, and more disinterested motives. This is all that is required for the comfortable support of your ministers in the sources referred to. And you, brethren, can accomplish this in their behalf. Call together the principal people of the church and congregation, or speak to them more privately, as you deem best; lay the case before them. Ask them if they wish their minister to live by the gospel that he preaches, and in a manner becoming his position and their credit. Tell them what he has, and what he needs. Ask them if it be right for him to spend all his time and energies, during the best period of his life, in serving them, in promoting their best interests, and in making many rich, to be himself in a state of anxious poverty, and to have no means of making any provision for the calamities that may in future befal his own family. Surely all who are capable of forming an opinion in regard to this matter will acknowledge that, in an expensive town, and with an increasing family, no useful ministry ought to have less than from £130 to £150 a year. He cannot with less meet the claims that press upon him, or be freed from distressing anxiety. This sum can easily be obtained in the places supposed, with very few exceptions. It would require some self-denying effort, which would greatly promote the happiness and usefulness of both people and ministers. Their mutual confidence, affection, and obligation, would be very much increased; the Divine approval ruore largely experienced. To be just and generous to the ambassadors of Christ is an absolute requirement of the gospel. You cannot expect your minister to study and preach with spirit and effect when he is discouraged and oppressed: nor can you retain a useful minister. He has duties to perform with regard to himself and his family, as well as to others. He must endeavour to procure an existence; and should he remain, he will lose spirit, and slacken his efforts. His ministry will, in all probability, become powerless. He will often be cast down, when he ought to be buoyant with life and energy: he will often feel indignant, when he would otherwise be affectionate. It is not a charity that he craves, but a right that he claims. God requires him to contribute to your spiritual support to the utmost of his ability; and you are re How quired, by the same authority, and ac- We readily insert this truthful and very important letter, which requires not one word in support of its object; but if the matter rest here, the labours of the writer, with our own type and paper, will be so much waste, additional to all that has gone before. On this subject there have been many such appeals, all most able, most unanswerable, all conceded, all admired, and all-neglected! It is, therefore, folly to go on much longer with this sort of appeal. Neglect has already wrought its punishment in the ruinous condition of many churches, which, had pastors been treated with anything like justice, might have been flourishing; but churches have been incurably covetous and cruelly unjust, and as they sowed so they have reaped. Pastor after pastor, crushed by what they could not bear, has been compelled to remove, and each removal has but deepened the desolation. The bulk of that most valuable body of men, British Schoolmasters, are much better supported than a portion of the Christian ministry. The reasons of this are obvious. Would adults lay down, for their own spiritual instruction, but the half of the trifle they pay for the secular tuition of their children, it would meet the necessities of the humble and self-denying men whom penury is now grinding to the dust. The blame is not with the people, who are never backward to follow in anything reasonable. With whom, then, does it lie? Gentle Reader! tell us, Where? -EDITOR. The Counsel Chamber. PICTURE OF A SOLDIER'S LIFE. A HIGH authority has said, "Judge not by appearances." To form an accurate judgment of anything, especially of any course of personal conduct, it is necessary to take all parts of the subject together. For example, some of our readers have stood upon a pier, amid a multitude, when the Whale-ships of a port-say Leith, Dundee, or Aberdeen—have been rigged, and ready to proceed to Greenland. There they are; streamers flying, the crew mustered, dressed, halfdrunk, full of hilarity, shouting and cheering, as they weigh anchor to proceed upon their perilous voyage, some of them to return no more! How often have little boys and young lads thought, "Oh! what a fine thing to be a sailor! I wish I were there!" Think, my little lad; where will that ship be ten weeks hence? Amid the frozen seas of the North, far from land, and man, and every human comfort, perhaps to be swallowed up of the Polar Sea, frozen amidst its ice, or by that ice dashed to pieces! So, too, you have seen a recruiting sergeant, with a dozen men behind him, colours flying, drums beating, the piercing fife thrilling, and the trumpet sounding, strutting along with a gleaming sword in his right hand, and stopping at every turn and shouting, Who will serve his king and his country? and on the drum-head counting out ten guineas, with a promise of promotion, honour, glory, and victory!-Who will be a soldier? Who will not? We have seen the gaping crowds of young lads around him, weary of what they have thought burdensome labour, impatient under the salutary control of their parents or their masters, rushing forward and receiving the bounty! Behold them, then, a troop of twenty or thirty strong, with a ribbon each dangling from his button-hole, going to be soldiers; and soldiers they become. They are away to the army, prepared by drilling for service, and in a few months, it may be, they are at the Antipodes, gone to fight the Chinese, or the Turk, or the Sikh. Well, then, let us hear one of those who has been fighting the Sikh, that we may see what sort, of thing this glory is. A young man who has been to the Punjaub, and who survived the terrible carnage of the fights which took place there, has thus recorded the things he saw and suffered. Let our young readers ponder the following facts, and for ever abjure warhorrid war! THE WARRIOR AND HIS MOTIVES. Picture to yourself a scene in the wilderness, all barren, bleak, and sandy to the edge of the horizon, reflecting the rays of the burning sun with a glaring heat that almost puts your eyes out; not a tree nor bladed herbage in sight-nothing but some scanty stunted shrubs, that make you hot to look at them. Oh! for the shade of the scented limes-for the refreshing coolness of the evening breeze, rich with the fragrance of the sleeping flowers-and all that sort of thing! which means, I wish I were out of this, and walking up and down the long walk with my sisters; or what, to my shame be it spoken, I should like little better, playing cricket in the Lion's Close. Not that I would give up the chance of gaining a ribbon, to wear in my button-hole in the coming campaign. HOW THE RIBBON IS EARNED. General Cureton's death is a' great loss; he was a splendid officer, much heloved, and a personal friend of the Chief's. Two of his sons are with the army. I saw him, poor fellow, just before his death; he was riding along in front of our regiment, when a round shot passed close over his head. Somebody remarked, "Rather a near shave that, general." "Oh! I am used to it," replied he, smiling, and stroking his moustaches. In three minutes more he was lying on the sand with a ball through his head, and many a brave fellow by his side. We are to wait for the arrival of our heavy guns and Thackwell's brigade. Bivouacked the whole day in the open air, without anything to eat or put our heads under. The enemy kept up an incessant firing all day, as if in derision of us, and we certainly have not done much good this time. I got my head underneath a saddle, and slept till sunset, when I had to go with my company on outlying picket. Marched them off five hundred yards to the front, posted my sentinels, and lay down on the ground, until the dew falling, and the chilliness of my limbs, warning me of the danger of doing so, I got up and walked about, and by this means managed to keep |