submit themselves to the dictation of the priests. The duty of Confession is avowedly inculcated; and, as the practice is utterly unregulated, it is attended by none of those safeguards which alone render it tolerable in the Roman Catholic Church. The weakness of women and the docility of youth are subjected to the uncontrolled domination of young and inexperienced clergymen; and, to judge by some recent publications of the party, this power is not very scrupulously used. Now, when matters have come to this pass, we think it is time that some decided measures should be taken to repress such pernicious extravagancies. Folly might have been left to cure itself, but deliberate and systematic perversion ought to be encountered by stringent repression. No doubt, as soon as it is once understood what these innovations really mean, they will be sharply checked by the mere force of public opinion. The circumstances to which Ritualism owes its first spread had probably very little to do with doctrinal influences. In London, for example, the increase of wealth has produced a vast number of unemployed young ladies and half-employed young men, who, for various reasons, were denied a sufficient vent for their energies in the amusements of fashionable society, and who were only too thankful if the clergyman would occupy their fingers, and turn their musical taste to account. Fathers and husbands were probably glad that the women should find something to do, and, in the absence of any religious disturbances, they could see no danger in a little half clerical, half feminine excitement. We suspect, however, that they will look upon such amusements with a very different eye when they appreciate what is now the fact that their easy consent is being abused to inculcate among their children the most obnoxious doctrines of Roman Catholicism, and to accustom their daughters to the practice of Confession. This is not the first time it has been attempted to insinuate these doctrines into English society, and in all cases the attempt has no sooner been appreciated than it has been very summarily put down. In the same way, let it be but. understood what Ritualism means, and English fathers will soon interdict. the unemployed young-ladyism of their households from having anything to do with it. But, though the evil might in time thus cure itself, we cannot help asking what is the use of Bishops, if they cannot at least make some attempt to put a legal prohibition on these obnoxious practices and doctrines? It is their express business to protect the public against notoriously unlawful teaching, and we have some right to complain if we are so entirely left to take care of ourselves. It is not as if this were a doubtful point. It would be reducing Articles and ecclesiastical laws to a mere farce, if it could be proved that they were incapable of repressing the very errors against which they were expressly designed. Indeed, in a recent instance in which this sort of teaching was challenged, the offender, a notorious Archdeacon, was condemned by the only Court which considered his doctrine on its merits. He escaped on appeal by a legal technicality, and the judgment was never reconsidered; but the result was, nevertheless, to leave on record a primâ facie judgment against him. The issue ought at least to be definitely tried, or people will be asking what is the use of an Established Church if it cannot maintain established doctrines. It is ridiculous to plead that these new-fangled practices are popular. In point of fact, they are only popular among a certain class; but if a clergyman were to preach Mohammedanism, and declare it was Anglicanism, he would, no doubt, find followers, and have some ground for the customary excuse, that he was meeting a want of the day. The supposed use of Bishops and Articles is to see that people are taught, not what they like, but what is good for them. It is time this pernicious nonsense was stopped, and, whatever the noise which these innovators might make, the authorities of the Church would have the general support of the English people, if they would but summon up resolution to do their duty. BIBLE-CLASS PAPERS. TIME A TALENT.-Luke xix. 12-27. Time is the commonest talent, yet the most inexpressibly valuable, because in it all others can be employed, improved, and made to yield durable riches, which shall last for ever. It is little set by; we have had it at our command from early life; it comes unceasingly. As soon as we open our eyes in the morning there is another day waiting, with all its precious hours and moments, for our use. It is only when a departing spirit stands in uncertainty on the brink of eternity, with only a few more moments or hours, that the worth of it is felt and known. To be a true economist of time is the most valuable and rarely-attained acquirement; yet it may be acquired by us all, though it will not until we are first deeply impressed with a sense of its high importance. To help us to a more just conception of this, let us remember that we shall "In eternity reap as in time we do sow." As certainly and as exactly as effect follows cause, "whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." Now I want each of you to make a fresh proof in your own experience of the truth of this Divine word; and to the believer it is indeed a blessed word, fraught with the richest mercy, cheering hope, and strengthening faith. When the child of God takes such a text as this from his Heavenly Father's sacred book, he feels it to be as sure as an eternal rock, and that it can never fail him. It is this that gives "joy, as well as peace in believing." He has found out that faith in God's Word is a real thing, and he is experiencing it, to the honour of God, and the rejoicing of his own heart. But we are speaking now of faith -our subject is “redeeming the time;" the apostle says, 66 'because the days are evil." We meet with this expression in two places in Scripture: Eph. v. 16, "Redeeming the time, because," &c.; Col. iv. 5, "Walk in wisdom towards those that are without, redeeming," &c. The word "redeem," as here used, signifies to gain, or, the recovery of that which was lost, and buying it up, as it were a most precious commodity, though held cheap by many. Let us buy it up out of the hands of sin, Satan, sloth, ease, pleasure, and worldly business, which may be done by watchful zeal and diligence. Many, I doubt not, would more successfully redeem their time, if they had a better idea how to set about it. Each day is of the same length to all, yet what a vast difference there is in the amount of real good done by different individuals! If we would redeem it, therefore, and consecrate it to its highest end, we must first inflexibly exclude all that is bad or wrong, in every shape, that may solicit our attention. But when this is done, there is much that appears of a questionable nature, or even quite lawful and right, which asks a portion of our time; but if we give it too largely and freely to those engagements which are innocent and lawful in themselves (yet not of the highest value and importance), we shall find that we have greatly curtailed, or perhaps wholly lost that portion which ought to have been sacredly devoted to our eternal interests. For instance, if we allow a pleasing or a useful book to keep us when the hour of private retirement is come, or the conversation of friends to prevent our private study of the Word of God, we do greatly err, and shall assuredly reap that which we thus sow. In this case, we shall have no time for meditation and self-examination before we pray, and our prayers themselves will be but the hurried utterance of unfelt words; and instead of the hour of secret prayer having refreshed us, and renewed our strength, we shall rather be conscious of added guilt in having thus gone unthinkingly into the presence of our Heavenly Father, and come away without receiving a blessing; having rather contracted further sin to be forgiven, than received a fresh application of the blood of Jesus, to fit us for duty and for trial: and thus we go unprepared into the world without our armour on, and shall be sure to fall into less or greater trangression. So it is that every sin brings more in its train, whether it be sin of omission or of commission. Again, if we abridge our time for the study of God's Word, we shall, in like manner, be unequal to meet the foe. It is with the "sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God," that we are to be armed, to enable us rightly to meet every event of life. Let us take care of our moments, then, our precious moments, in which, if rightly employed, we may secure so much grace and help, at the same time that we escape the host of evils to which an unoccupied mind is ever exposed. While each of you is placed by God in her own particular position in life, the circumstances of which position mark out the line of life which you are to pursue, and the duties which are especially incumbent upon you, it will be your wisdom to look well how every circumstance will admit of the highest possible improvement, striving to weigh the comparative worth of things, and then to draw out a plan in your own mind on which to act, so that all you are engaged in shall tell upon the one great object you have in view, the raising and expansion of your intellectual and moral being, and above all, your advance in spiritual life. This will be living while you live; none other is. It is a great assistance in this, indeed quite necessary, to map out the day and its duties beforehand, allowing so much time to one duty, and so much to another, till the day is filled up completely with interesting and important engagements of one sort or another. This diligent use of time will make us prize our moments as we never did before; and we shall even 66 gather up the fragments, that nothing be lost," and in a thousand ways turn even these to profit and pleasure. Nor is it one of the least of the advantages arising from this conscientious apportioning of our time, that it gives a zest and energy to all we do, that it is in itself one great element of improvement and enjoyment. In any rules which we may lay down for ourselves in this matter, it will be well to look back constantly to see how far we have succeeded in carrying them out, and, where we have failed, to examine why, and endeavour for the next day so to shape our plan that we may keep it. For it has a highly injurious effect upon the mind, habitually to form plans and resolu tions, and as often to break them. It destroys a right self-confidence and self-respect, produces a vacillating and unsatisfactory state of feeling, and weakens all our purposes of good. Circumstances will not unfrequently occur which we cannot foresee-these we shall yield to as in the order of Providence, and seek to improve; but as a general rule, we ought to be able to form a tolerably correct calculation as to what we can do, and what we intend to do. It is very important that we should correctly estimate our own powers, as well as privileges and opportunities; and nothing will tend so fully to this, as a diligent and conscientious employment of every one we possess. Without this, we shall never be fitted to fill any situation of usefulness or importance in the world. Promptness in doing what we intend to do, is the great secret of success. Solomon gives no idle time; he tells us there is a time for everything, but no time for doing nothing. Again, redeeming the time. We have already lost a great deal that might have been better employed. Most of you, according to the general estimate of life, have passed already a fourth or third portion of your time, even supposing you are to live for threescore years and ten. Now, how much of that time has been really preparing you for eternity-an eternity with God? Perhaps a very small portion of that time you have been in real earnest about your souls; and if some of you should be even now very near the end of your short journey of life, how is it with you? Have you made sure work for that long, long, long eternity which is before you ? How many minutes have you spent in heartfelt repentance before God? How many hours have you spent in the prayerful study of God's Word ? How many times have you knelt, when no eye has seen you, in earnest prayer at the feet of Jesus for His grace and blessing? We can imagine a spirit in heaven looking back with intense interest to the time it spent below. O! what golden moments do those now appear when it first sought the Saviour with full purpose of heart !—when, by the grace of God, it was enabled to resist every temptation to remain halfhearted and careless, and tore itself away from every earthly entanglement that would have hindered it in coming to Jesus! Must not those hours now appear of priceless value ? "In eternity reap," &c. Oh, that this might be the hour "But the wisdom that is from above, is first pure, then (eirenike) peaceable.”—James iii. 17. About twenty-five years ago, we went to see the Bodleian Library at Oxford. When examining its rich stores of learning, certain huge volumes of Patristic theology were pointed out to us as in great request at that time, in preparing the "Tracts for the Times ;" and in going from the building, we met a load of elephantos, which were being wheeled home, after having been used for that purpose. Little did we think then that the duty which we now undertake would ever devolve on us. But so it is. Before we left the library, we observed with much interest the dark lantern, worn and rusty and decayed, which Guy Fawkes used in his attempt to blow up the Imperial Parliament of England. The one thing is suggestive of the other. The "Tracts for the Times" have proved a dark lantern, a concealed light, and it is feared by many that there is "a conspiracy" (we employ the Bishop of London's phrase), ready to use it for very destructive purposes. If it be so, we hope those purposes will be defeated, and that the "Tracts for the Times will be laid by in the Bodleian, or some other appropriate receptacle, where it is not uncharitable to hope they may, with the lantern, rust and decay together. Among the "Tracts for the Times" there stands up one a head and shoulders taller than the others we mean "No. 90," written by the Rev. J. H. Newman, who has shown its natural tendency, and his own sincerity, by going over to Rome, and is now a priest in her communion. The "Eirenicon" by Dr. Pusey is nothing more nor less than an extended amplification of Mr. Newman's "No. 90." The 66 Eirenicon" bears the same relation to the Tract No. 90, as the flower does to the bud-the fruit is yet to come. What that will be, remains yet to be seen. The word "Eirenicon " means a thing tending to peace; and as it has special reference to Rome, it means peace with Rome. Its general principle the main thought which runs through the book-appears to be, to use the writer's own words, a "conviction that there is no insurmountable obstacle to the union of the Roman, Greek, and Anglican communions." This appears to be "the main drift and objects of it, which underlies the whole." This is very natural to one who, again to use his own words, "has long been convinced that there is nothing in the Council of Trent which could not be explained satisfactorily to us [meaning by "us" the Church of England], if it were explained authoritatively-i.e., by the Roman Church itself, not by individual theologians only. This involves," he says, "the conviction on my side that there is nothing in our Articles which cannot be explained rightly, as not contradicting anything held to be de fide in the Romish Church. "The great body of the faith," he continues, "is held alike by both; on those subjects referred to in our Article XXII., I believe our maximum and your minimum might be found to harmonise." Dr. Pusey in the "Eirenicon" draws a very broad distinction, which he invariably keeps up as essential to his argument, between the doctrine of the Roman Church de fide -that is, what she pronounces "of the faith" in the decrees and canons of the Council of Trent, surrounded and defended by her tremendous anathemasand what he calls "the practical system, encouraged at present everywhere in the Church of Rome, taught in her name and with her authority." Our argument, therefore, in reply to the "Eirenicon" will recognise this distinction, and will be drawn, first, from a comparison or rather contrast of the Articles of the Church of England and of |