but of a spirit "in the body," and the lesson to be gathered is that, in estimating our spiritual state, health and circumstances are to be taken into the account; the body is to be presented a living sacrifice as perfect as may be, while the soul is still the object of our deepest solicitude. The letters are full of tenderness, and seem, as we read them, as if, like sensitive plants, they would recoil from the public eye. But they will be read chiefly by those who love the Saviour loved by this holy family, and they will understand what we fear we shall attempt in vain to explain to others. "We do not think," says the bishop, "that any who read the following letters will be tempted to ask, Why have they been published ?" Are there not many in the church militant, whom the Lord hath chosen in the furnace of afflic tion? Are there not numbers of His own children to whom His loving wisdom has appointed days of anguish and nights of weariness? May it not comfort some of these to know how other pilgrims, along the way to Zion, who have gone before and reached the everlasting rest, suffered in like manner, and were upheld by the grace which flows from the fulness of Jesus ?"

The Voluntary System; can it supply the place of the Established Church? With recent Facts and Statistics from America. By William C. Magee, B.D., Prebendary of Wells, and Minister of the Octagon Chapel, Bath. Second Edition. London: Bell and Daldy. 1860.— We had begun to entertain the hope that the contest between churchmen and dissenters was laid at rest, at least for the present generation; but the unprovoked violence of the Liberation Society seems to have torn open the wound afresh; and we are compelled to acknowledge that Mr. Magee's pamphlet is well timed, and to recommend it to our readers. As far as the necessity for a national church, as opposed to the voluntary system, can be proved by facts, it seems to us that in these pages the question is finally disposed of. Mr. Magee takes the arguments of the voluntary advocates, and shows, one by one, how totally they fail. The boast of Mr. Miall, that amongst voluntaries the willing ministration of the people furnishes an abundant supply of temporal things for their pastors, is answered from the lips of Nonconformists. And a sad array they furnish of good men crushed by a griping poverty, and insulted by a cold neglect.

On the other hand, we are sometimes told that the poverty of ministers has its advantages; it guarantees the sincerity of their motives in entering the ministry, and it secures their spirituality after they have entered it. Mr. Magee's reply deserves serious attention from members of the church of England, not only in connection with this controversy, but with reference to the slender provision made but too frequently for our own clergy:

"Never was there a greater mistake than this. You do not gain more spiritual men by lowering the inducements to enter the ministry; you only obtain your supply of ministers from a lower class of men. There are men to whom fifty or a hundred pounds a-year is relatively as great wealth, and as great a temptation to take orders for the sake of gaining it, as five hundred a-year would be to others. Cut down the incomes of the clergy to the lowest point, and you will still have unspiritual and worldly men ready enough to accept them. The only difference will be, that you will have ignorant and ill-bred, instead of educated and well bred worldliness."

Again :

"But, after all, what a meanly cruel argument is this, that the ministry must be kept poor to preserve their spirituality; that wealthy laymen are to profit by the piety which their minister learns in the bitter school of poverty; that their spiritual life is to be enriched by the struggles and anxieties, the blighted hopes and overtasked energies, the weary life and early death, of their poor pastor."

A few years ago the advocates of the voluntary system appealed with confidence to the state of religion in America as conclusive in their favour. We have heard little of this of late; and if our friends of the voluntary school will but read Mr. Magee's chapter on the voluntary system in the United States, we shall never hear of it again. It ought to be studied, even by those who have no love for controversy, nor any disposition to enter upon it. It will enhance their sense of the value of our constitution in church and state, and lead them to reflect on the unspeakable worth of those blessings in possession, which visionaries would have us to part with for the sake of that for which Frenchmen, it is true, according to Napoleon, go to war, namely," an idea." The plain sense of the great bulk of our countrymen will, we trust, save them from so pernicious an example. Religion, as archbishop Leighton has said, is a strange plant in an unkindly soil; and, left to the voluntary system, though it will live and thrive in the soul of the believer, as it would if he were in Daniel's den of lions, or the dungeons of the Inquisition, its influences will soon perish from amongst the masses of mankind.

PUBLIC AFFAIRS.

OUR House of Lords has made itself popular. It has refused to repeal the paper tax, and England is delighted. A glow of satisfaction pervades the nation, for we are a strange people and made up of contradictions. We dote upon our House of Commons; it is our pride and darling. Yet we are congratulating each other that the House of Peers has for once rebuked its forwardness. We like to see our ancient aristocracy putting forth its powers occasionally; and it is a positive satisfaction to us that now and then they should resist even our own House of Commons. There is an apprehension too, that before the financial year is out the money may be wanted; so we are well pleased to be compelled to pay another million into the exchequer. The two branches of the legislature will, no doubt, still work in perfect harmony, after a protest, perhaps, from the House of Commons; and the ministry, it is understood, will accept their defeat, possibly without much reluctance. On other questions of general policy no serious differences have arisen. The ministerial Reform Bill has been read a second time without a division, for all parties are anxious to dispatch it quietly. The general feeling is, that no great necessity demands it. It is unfortunate that in the strife of parties

both sides are pledged to a measure which the country, now that it has been well considered, fears rather than demands; and the only feeling generally expressed is that it may be made safe and moderate.

The month has been productive of meetings and discussions in which the interests of religion are concerned. Foremost amongst these we place the anniversaries of our great societies, which have now become a feature even in our political year. On these occasions truths are thrown down from the platform which, though they may seem to die out for a while, seldom perish. This is the nature of truth: once launched upon the stream, it perhaps never sinks. Colonel Edwardes' speech at the Church Missionary Society, and that of Dr. Miller at the Bible Society, are illustrations. It is impossible that our government in India should continue to be what it has been, after the eloquent protest of the illustrious soldier. Neology, whether in the church of England or amongst dissenters, will no longer stealthily creep over us, and distil its poison unobserved, after the manly exposure of Dr. Miller, and the discussions to which it has already given rise. On the whole the May meetings were highly satisfactory; the cause of evangelical truth prospers in our church and in almost every orthodox communion. We are sorry to add that the funds of the Pastoral Aid Society have slightly fallen off, and that the modest Moravian Missions are deserving of more support than English Christians seem at present willing to extend to them.

In parliament there have been several interesting debates. Lord Ebury renewed his motion for a revisal of the liturgy in the House of Lords. The debate took a wide range; including the shortening of the services, the omission of objectionable expressions in the Prayer-book, alterations in the canons, and, in short, almost every one of the points now discussed in so many other places. The archbishop of Canterbury felt bound, he said, to oppose the motion, while admitting that, were the Prayer-book now to be framed a-new, there were some things which it might be desirable to alter. But, besides the hazards of change, always great, and to some extent uncertain, he thought that the attempt would tend rather to widen than to heal the breaches of the church. After a long debate, Lord Ebury withdrew his motion. The bishop of London intimated, that a clergyman may, even now, omit any part of the services-the much discussed clauses in the burial or baptismal services, for example-with the sanction of his bishop. This is a new view of the matter, but we believe it will be found correct. It is an unforeseen consequence of a late act, which forbids the law to be put in action against a clergyman without his bishop's consent. So that, of course, the bishop can, at any time, shelter him if he thinks proper. But we doubt whether this ought to satisfy the conscience of the clergy. It certainly was not the intention of the Act; which we have always considered to be, on this and some other points, crude and objectionable. Lord Shaftesbury has brought forward a short bill for restraining such extravagances as those which disgrace the name of divine worship at St. Barnabas' and St. George'sin-the-East. It has been drawn with great care, with the assistance of some of the most learned of our liturgical and historical divines, and we hope it may meet with a favourable reception. Mr. Ewart, in

the House of Commons, gave notice of a motion, that our cathedrals and parish churches should be open through the day for the devotion of casual passers by. We like the suggestion, though we feel that it is not quite free from objection. Vigils kept in the first century at the graves of the Martyrs, led, in the second and third, to devotions offered before their shrines, and, soon after, to prayers addressed to them as intercessors. It might be so again; superstition might learn to connect the act of devotion with the sacredness of the place, and to make the former dependent on the latter. But this need not be so ; and the poor man without a chamber for retirement, or the wayfaring man covered with the dust and saddened with the fatigue of his midday toil, might be often led to retire, for a few minutes, into the sanctuary, and thus refresh himself in silent communion with God.

The education question once more vexes the Irish church. The Lord Primate, who has been all along an opponent of the national system, and who is still on principle opposed to it, has issued a charge or circular in which he suggests that the clergy should so far give way as to accept the government grant and comply with their conditions if they find it impossible to support their schools without such assistance. His grace lays no injunction on the clergy; he merely suggests that when their own consciences do not protest against the concession, it may be wiser to accept government aid than to leave the children of their parishes in total ignorance; better, in short, to instruct them in but a few portions of scripture, than to allow them to grow up in ignorance. This view of the question is supported by many firm Protestants, staunch opponents hitherto of Lord Derby's educational system; by Dr. Verschoyle, for instance, chancellor of Christ Church, and by the eloquent and learned late Lord Chancellor of Ireland, the Right Hon. Joseph Napier. Undoubtedly the difficulties of the Irish clergy are very great; out of a thousand parishes into which Ireland is divided, five hundred cannot raise more than ten pounds a year for educational purposes from all sources. The battle has now been fought with successive governments for a quarter of a century, and the cause seems hopeless.

We feel the force of these arguments, and we acknowledge the respect due to those who use them. But, on the other hand, men equally entitled to our esteem and equally considerate of the wants of Ireland, utter a solemn protest. The bishop of Ossory leads the way in a temperate, well reasoned remonstrance. The bishop of Cashel and many others are decidedly against yielding the point. It must be evident that if any considerable number of the clergy give way, the cause of pure scriptural education is hopeless, and henceforward the compromise triumphs. There are many of the Irish clergy who will never yield; they consider-and who shall blame them?—that no expediency can warrant the systematic exclusion of any portion of the word of God, far less of many of the most precious portions of it. They think it better to adhere to a great principle than to gain any advantages, however great, from what seems to them a hazardous if not a sinful compromise.

Whatever other conclusion we may form, all sound-hearted men will deplore the infatuation of the English government. Had the bible

been introduced into the schools five-and-twenty years ago, not all the power of the popish priesthood could have prevented its very general adoption by the Roman Catholic population. It would probably have happened just as in India, where the natives prefer the bible school, simply that their children may be taught all that other children learn. When we compromise with popery, we crouch before an opponent whose sole policy is that of an insolent pauper, to demand more from those who give freely, and to shrink with ignominious haste from a stern rebuke. At this moment, the Irish priesthood are draining the ignorant peasantry of their few hoarded pence to make an offering to the Pope, and even raising a battalion to fight for the recovery of the Romagna side by side with the assassins of Perugia. From such a country no wonder if the inhabitants fly as from a land smitten with a moral pestilence!

Garibaldi, the Hofer or William Tell of Italy, has effected a landing with several thousand men in Sicily. Contradictory telegrams announce his enthusiastic reception and brilliant success, or his disgraceful defeat and the dispersion of his followers, just as they happen to come from Naples or through other channels. The general impression is, that the whole island is in a state of revolt, and that the king of Naples, if he should even retain his crown, must be content to lose no small part of his dominions. What consequences may follow, no human sagacity foresees. Will Italy form a great nation under Victor Emmanuel? or will fresh complications arise, and war again desolate these fair regions of Europe? The wisest men cannot tell us what a day may bring forth; but the purposes of the Most High are in the course of their accomplishment, and every change prepares the way of the Lord. The Pope is still protected against his own subjects by his French guards, and he is indebted for his existence to the sovereign against whom he mutters his anathemas. Even the papacy itself seldom underwent a deeper humiliation, or exhibited a more contradictory and perplexing aspect to the world. It is in vain to hazard probable solutions of this strange condition of affairs. Time only will unravel its complications, and that probably in a method which none of us anticipate.