the midland counties. He is very particular, Sentiments must be 'decidedly' evangelical, for which he will be munificently rewarded with 30l. a-year-not equal to the earnings of many a mechanic. There follows, next in order, another advertiser who wants a curate. He, too, must be 'decidedly' evangelical. This is a slight improvement on the foregoing, as the incumbent is resident, and 70l. a-year is offered. But there is a qualification not specified in the others. 'Good references as to personal piety are indispensable.' A curate is also wanted in a large parish near Birmingham to assist in the duties of the parish, and to teach a boy under 12 years of age. 'Zeal, energy, and a clear voice are necessary; and for all this is to be given- 'a title.' An archdeacon wants 'a really valuable curate, whose ministry, public and private, will be at once awakening and edifying; the population is 6,000 and the church is large.' That is to say, a gentleman, a scholar, a pious and a successful preacher is wanted-a very high standard is set up—and all this superiority is to be rewarded with £110, the highest salary offered in any of the cases now under notice, but a sum totally and disgracefully inadequate. No wonder that the Church is, to so large an extent, the refuge for those who are deemed by their parents or friends unfit for the army or the navy, the senate or the bar, that it has passed into a proverb. No wonder that the pulpit is charged with being 'behind the age,' 'unsuited to the times,' &c., and that the masses of the people are discontented with its want of talent, and absence of adaptation to the state of things which obtains amongst us. The next is an offer of £100 for a man of 'evangelical views, active habits, in full orders.' A non-resident rector wants a curate of independent means,' to do his duty for him, free of charge, while he resides abroad. It is but just to state, however, that the responsibility and duty to be undertaken are comparatively light. The parish is small, consisting of only forty souls, five farm houses, and no other house or cottage besides the rectory,' which is a comfortable residence, unfurnished, with large drawing, dining, and other rooms, large garden, &c., &c., half-an-hour's journey (eight miles by rail) from the West end of London. The situation, in fact, is described as rural, healthy, and delightful. Communications are to be addressed, postpaid, to a place near Baden-Baden. The next is an inquiry for a gentleman of independent means and evangelical principles; and the last is an offer, evidently made by a party who thinks it liberal for a curate to preach one sermon on Sundays, and interest himself in the schools on the week days, as well as specially to attend to domicilary visitation. No renumeration is specified. While such is the condition of our 'working clergy,' and while in the ranks above them there is the grossest disproportion in the distribution of the wealth of the Church, who can expect the condition of that Church to be at all satisfactory, or, in fact, to be other than it is? This is a question for the serious consideration of all those who desire the preservation of the Church of England in its integrity. LYING WONDERS; OR, MINOR SIGNS OF THE TIMES. Sir,-The following, among other intimations were given from the pulpit of the Romanist Chapel, Spanish place, on Sunday evening, directly after the sermon: The prayers of the confraternity are requested for a clergyman of the Irvinite community, who is about to join the [Roman] Catholic Church.' 'Particularly for ten clergymen of the Protestant Church, about to renounce their errors, and join the [Roman] Catholic Church.' I inclose, in confidence, my name and address. S. [There is no doubt, but that the above notices were made from the pulpit of the mass-house; but the intimation is a fudge, nevertheless. It is a weak invention of the enemy, to keep up the delusion of the Roman schism, and to alarm the protestants of this City, at the apparent defection of ten clergymen of the Protestant Church.-Ed. C. W.] 'The Catholic Telegraph and Irish Sun,' is the title of an Irish newspaper, the continuation of one to which the suicide Sadlier contributed his ill gotten wealth very liberally, for the purpose of propagating slander abroad on the Church of England and Ireland. How false their accusations are, may be guessed at by the relative amount of population and of crime in Ireland, where the papists are about four to one; but the statistics of crime give fully eight convictions of papists to one of protestants; beside the still greater numbers of popish criminals, against whom neither evidence nor verdicts can be obtained, owing to the perjury of both witnesses and jurymen ; nevertheless, with the brazen front of a harlot, the following extract from an article on the execution of Palmer, has been circulated on the continent, and devoutly believed as a criterian of the faith and morals of old England. 'Most desirable will it be if the death of Palmer will produce this effect, steeped as England now is in an abyss of guilt unknown in either ancient or modern times. Child murder, wife murder, stabbing, poisonings, are the daily record of this immoral people; and the only remedy which could change the nation from this frightful criminal character is the voice of religion, which the masses despise, which, according to Governmental reports, they never hear, and which (from the contempt in which they hold their clergy) they reject with an invincible hatred. The laws of the Bridewell are really their own gospel; the police their only guides and teachers; the treadmill, their only check against vice; and the gallows the only motive to good conduct.' Again : 'The true Christian, the sound politician, the sage statesman look upon this insane spectacle with terror; it is the true criterian of religion in England; the true commentary and cause of their present criminal national character.' 'When they can look on the hangman with admiration; when they can make the death of a human being, agonised and wriggling in the fatal rope, a recreation; when they can travel fifty miles and behold the scene as an enjoyment, with their families; when a violent death is an amusement, is it any wonder that in every day's news you hear of a husband cutting his wife's throat? a butler choking his fellow-servant, the housemaid, for a drink of beer, cutting up her limbs, and burning them in an out-house, one by one, till the whole country smelled the roasting flesh! When the terrible moment of death by hanging is an English festival, can any man wonder that murder is an English practice? In truth, the wealth of England has made her drunk with vice; her conquests have inflated her with insolence and pride; and her infidelities have banished Christianity from her heart; and all have placed her, in the presence of the civilised world, as a specimen of Pagan crime and cruelty in the midst of civilisation, of Christianity. The finale of this picture is the character which they assume on the Continent, where their paid writers represent them as the most moral, the most righteous the most religious people on the face of the earth. The Lord protect poor virtuous Ireland in its contact with this most perfidious and iniquitous race.' HARRIET LONGLEY sat in one of of the apartments in Bloom House. She was seated near the window, and her eyes were fixed on the heath, which in all the rays of the summer sun, lay stretched before it. A table, with some writing materials, a book, and a vase of flowers stood beside her. The room in which she was sitting was sparingly furnished, and the shelves around were all covered with books. It was, in short, the schoolroom of Bloom House. That respectable establishment consisted of Lord and Lady Bloomfield and five children (the eldest was a son of whom nobody knew much), a scolding cook, two ugly sour-tempered housemaids, a good tempered little kitchenmaid, a nurse, nursemaid, two footmen, grooms, and a stable boy, and Harrriet Longley, the governess. Harriet was just considering whether she might ever be enabled to leave off her drudgery, when a soft little hand was laid on hers, and a gentle little voice said, 'Miss Longley, do go with me into the nursery, for Nurse and Lucy-Lucy was the nursemaid-are out with baby and Kitty, and I want some one to have a good game with us; oh, pray come.' 'Well,' replied Miss Longley, 'I will come willingly. What are we to play at?' Kitty said that we should play at hide-and-seek, if you had no objection.' 'Very well, dear Clara,' she replied, 'that will be a very nice game.' Miss Longley played for an hour with the children, who were very much amused by the clever way in which she hid the things. By that time, Nurse and Lucy arrived, and little Clara and Kitty were hurried off to bed, while Master Charles, according to custom, went an hour later. Harriet retired to the lonely schoolroom, and finished writing the letter which her meditations and the child's entry had prevented her doing, and soon she retired to her bedroom; but her sleep was disturbed by deep and anxious thoughts that night. At last, however, wearied nature prevailed, and she slumbered. While she sleeps so sweetly let us see who Harriet Longley was. Her father had been a naval officer; he had lately died, and left her mother, herself and an idiot brother to fight the battle of life by themselves. The maintenance of these two entirely depended upon Harriet, who, seeing an advertisement in the paper, applied for the situation of governess at Bloom House; and, as we have seen, her application was successful. She had been at Bloom House three months when my story com mences. CHAPTER II. Harriet Longley awoke next morning, refreshed and happy; but when she looked round her and remembered where she was, her joyous feelings melted, even as does the snow before the noonday sun. The blast of wintry sorrow had chilled all the hopes of her young heart. Her proud and sensitive nature felt only too deeply the situation, to one who had lately lived in affluence and plenty. The scenes in which she now moved were perfectly distinct from those to which she had been accustomed. At home there was in winter the comfortable fireside, where all met and sat in a circle around; there all was easy and comfortable-the very room looked warm. Here there was the chill schoolroom, and Harriet generally alone in it. How cold it looked! VOL. X. 2 A |