grade and order, but the majority are laymen, most of them by virtue of official station necessarily acting in concert, and some of them, it may be, dissenters from the established church, the perpetual ownership of all the lands, hereditaments, and other endowments belonging to all non-capitular prebends in all dioceses, and to all ecclesiastical rectories that are without cure of souls, and of the larger part of all the revenues belonging to all capitular bodies in England and Wales.

Perhaps, had the commission of inquiry continued in existence, some consideration would have been had of the solemn oaths by which the present holders of cathedral preferment have represented themselves bound to resist alienation of their property, and in deference to those oaths means would have been devised" to secure the efficiency of the established church," by such distribution of the revenues as should be in accordance with the wills and purposes of founders: our successors would have been deemed as worthy as ourselves of the patronage and revenues which we now hold in trust for them, and no bribe would have been offered to induce us to surrender rights which we are in conscience bound to maintain, and which in reversion already belong to them.

But we must take the document as it is. Think, then, on the nature of its propositions while yet there is time. In begging you to think on it, we have no personal, no political, no factious object in view, no opposing of one party or of another. We ask you seriously, whether you deem the propositions in themselves just and equitable?-for the interest of religion?-or for the security of the established church? Temporary expedience is, we conceive, no sufficient plea for setting aside men's wills, or alienating their gifts. We cannot understand how religion is to be benefited by a neglect of the obligations imposed by oaths, or how the security of any church is to be maintained through the agency of a body so constituted as is that of the "ecclesiastical commissioners for England."

If you agree with us in deeming the propositions unjust, injurious, and insecure, whenever they shall have assumed the form of a bill before the legislature, be prepared, as we will be, to present petitions, praying, not merely against their enactment in any shape, but that you may be heard by counsel, before both houses, as well against their enactment as against the permanence of the ecclesiastical commission for England, and the extension of its powers; and, where you can, address your diocesans, entreating them to solicit of her Majesty that they may be heard by counsel before the privy council, praying for the speedy dissolution of the existing commission.

We press the petitioning against the permanence of the commission. Were the body constituted otherwise than it is, the creation of a permanent ecclesiastical commission might be deemed a questionable expedient, and an unsafe disregard of the solemn prohibition contained in the act of parliament which dissolved a former high court of commission, and the warnings of a subsequent period. Such as the ecclesiastical commissioners for England now are, and enabled, with the consent of the Queen in council, to make laws for the regulation of episcopal duties and revenues, it seems to us, that their existence, as a permanent body, is opposed to the constitution of the church. But, consider the new and extended and dangerous powers with which it is proposed to invest them. For the propositions of "the draft" must be viewed in conjunction with the provisions of a bill already before parliament, entitled the "Benefices Plurality Bill." If these propositions and provisions shall pass into a law, the commissioners will include the whole clergy of the realm within the sphere of their operation. Theirs it will be to give validity to statutes, to unite and disunite, to limit and to value benefices. The parochial no less than the cathedral clergy will find the possession of their revenues and the extent of their duties mainly dependent on the pleasure of the commissioners, whose reports, from time to time presented, though neither house

of parliament will have been cognizant of their provisions till they shall have been published in the Gazette, will have all the force of law, if they shall be sanctioned on presentation by the Queen in council.

The difficulties, indeed, of our times, may have induced many good men to advocate changes, which, on reflection, they cannot approve, and to propose experiments of which, perhaps, they now see reason to fear the consequences. But let the expression of your sentiments be heard in high places. We venture to hope that your voice will not fail of its effect with the legislature and the public, if it be raised in firm, but temperate, remonstrance against measures, which while they tend to lesson the security of all property, tamper with the constitution of the church, and the rights of the clergy, and are too likely to weaken the power of true religion, by degrading its ministers from their present honourable and influential station in society. We trust that thus, under the Divine blessing, the object of our present exertions may be secured; that no change in our ecclesiastical institutions will be sanctioned which shall involve a sacrifice of principle; and that no experiment will be made of which the result shall not promise to be righteousness and peace. Canterbury, Jan. 19, 1838.

LETTER OF DR. J. P. SMITH, RELATIVE TO UNIVERSITY
COLLEGE, LONDON.

QUESTION Submitted to Dr. Pye Smith by Dr. Sims :

"Would you, or the body of dissenters with which you are connected, object to one of the Four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, or one of the Epistles, and also scripture history in general, forming a sine quà non in the examination for degrees in arts by the University of London?''

This is Dr. Pye Smith's reply

Homerton, Dec. 1st, 1837. "Sir,-My son has requested me to address you upon the desirableness, or the contrary, of introducing examinations in the Greek text of the New Testament into the trials of ability and attainment proposed to be instituted in the University of London, for the granting of degrees in art, and in the faculties of law and medicine.

"I feel myself much honoured by this opportunity; for though I cannot take upon me to give any assurances as to the opinions of others, I think it highly probable that dissenters generally entertain the same sentiments which I take the liberty of submitting to you.

So far as I can form a judgment, the proposal is ineligible; for the following reasons:

"1. It seems to involve a violation of the understood principle of the University; a principle which appears to me, so far from being open to the objection of being atheistical or irreligious, to be favourable to the interests of true piety, by implying that is of the highest obligation, as a matter of previous and concomitant culture, in early and continuous habits, domestic and personal. "2. It would rather be a degrading of religion than a practical respecting of it. To construe and even critically to explain some sentences of the sacred volume would be no evidence of piety, virtue, or morality, and would not be, of itself, any proof that the person daily and privately read the scriptures devotionally, and with a faithful application to practical results-a condition of mind and conduct which is essential to real religion.

"3. Under the circumstances of occasion, place, and avowed object, it would become a mere formality; thus being in truth an irreverent treatment of the holy writings, wearing the semblance of being employed from a motive of expediency, and having a character of hypocrisy or religious affectation, than which nothing is more offensive to God.

"4. It would be nugatory. The proposal is not, I presume, to put to the test proficiency in any course of academical instruction which the candidate has been attending, similar to the theological, biblical, and ethical courses, in our dissenting colleges. It would not be a proof of piety, or an exercise of piety, or calculated to honour and diffuse serious religion. It would be putting on an appearance of religion, which those persons whose party-spirit has led them to decry the University would not fail, if they had any discernment, to lay hold of as a concession to themselves, and springing out of unworthy motives.

5. It would be giving sanction to the most ignorant and pernicious notion of religion and religious education, which, I lament to say, is very prevalentnamely, that religion is to be taught by insulated hours of technical instruction, like an art or a speculative science. On the contrary, religion is a vital spirit, which should breathe through the whole system of life, communicating its internal purity and its practical character to the motives, tempers, and actions. This implies the care and example of parents and others in private intercourse, especially from the earliest period of a child's life; it is to be nourished by secret devotion, public worship at the proper seasons, and the habit of mental piety and virtue carefully cherished by the individual. This I regard to be the proper sphere and the ample scope of religion as a matter of education: and the deplorable notion which I wish to see rejected is, that a few hours in a week, employed in what is called teaching religion, in which the vital principle is wanting, and all the movements are heartless, formal, and either superstitious or profane, constitute the true idea of religious education.

"I doubt not that other reasons may have occurred to your own mind, and to the minds of the other gentlemen and noblemen who form the senate. But these are sufficient to determine my own sentiments; and I feel sincerely gratified for the opportunity of laying them before you.

"I have the honour to be, Sir, your obedient and faithful servant,
"J. PYE SMITH."

"To John Sims, Esq., M.D., Cavendish Square."

PETITION OF THE MANX BAR FOR THE PRESERVATION OF THE SEE OF SODOR AND MAN.

The humble Petition of the Members of the Manx Bar,

HUMBLY SHEWETH, That your petitioners humbly beg leave to approach your right honourable house, upon the first meeting of her Majesty's parliament, with this early declaration of their loyalty and attachment to their Sovereign, and their respect for your right honourable house.

That your petitioners, in common with the great body of their countrymen, are filled with the most lively regret at learning that, by an act of the British legislature, in which they have neither voice nor influence, the ancient see of Mann, which has been a distinct bishopric from the earliest ages of the Christian church, is, upon the decease of our present bishop, to merge into the see of Carlisle. That your petitioners are duly impressed with those higher and holier reasons for the retention of their spiritual head, which are expressed in the general petition from this island to your right honourable house, and to which your petitioners have also affixed their names; but in addition thereto they respectfully offer, as a professional body, such further observations, as (they with diffidence submit) their personal knowledge and practical experience qualify them to lay before your honourable house. That your petitioners, from a thorough conviction of their theoretical excellence and practical utility, are devotedly attached to the ancient institutions of their country, which, after every brief interval of interruption in time of

trouble, have always reverted to their present condition; and are now, as (with those few exceptions) they ever were, in all their leading features, That the constitution of this island, as handed down to us by our forefathers, is based upon an intimate and felicitous union of church and state. That the bishop has ever been an influential member of the legislature; and your petitioners cannot, in their knowledge or experience, point out a single instance in which that influence has not been exerted to the public good; whilst their daily practice as lawyers calls upon them continually to remember, with gratitude, that it was the benevolent counsels, persevering exertions, and benign influence of their excellent bishop Wilson, which were mainly instrumental in procuring the most important act of the Manx legislature-the permanent settlement of their estates, descendib'e from ancestor to heir.

That to the personal exertions of her bishops, in past times, the island is indebted for the institution or endowment of the most important of her public charities.

That to the personal exertions of our present bishop we are indebted (amongst other things) for the timely erections of new churches, and the rebuilding and enlarging of old ones, to meet the wants of our growing population. That the history of our island proves that our bishops have been our best friends and benefactors.

That these exertions of our bishops for the benefit of our island have ever been superintended by perfect knowledge of our wants, derived from personal observation during actual residence on our shores.

That the bishop is ex officio a principal, or sole trustee, in the most important of our public institutions and charities.

That, not to weary your honourable house with reference to minute particulars of the legal and constitutional objections to the measure, your petitioners have further to state, that the bishop of the island is, ex officio, intimately connected with the guidance of her councils, the enactment of her laws, the administration of justice in departments of consequence; and that practical inconvenience must necessarily arise from his permanent non-residence, and the fulfilment of important trusts.

That your petitioners do, in conclusion, most humbly and respectfully submit to your honourable house, that to take away their bishop, and to deprive them of the benefit of his wisdom in council, his impartiality in the administration of justice, his faithfulness in the performance of trusts, and his sympathy with the wants and afflictions of the people, whilst it would confer no earthly benefit upon the see of Carlisle, would inflict a grievous injury upon the people of the Isle of Man.

Wherefore your petitioners humbly pray your honourable house favourably to receive the representations of your petitioners, and to preserve to the Manx people the full enjoyment of the benefit and privileges of their distinct and ancient bishopric.

And your petitioners will ever pray, &c.

CHICHESTER CHURCH BUILDING ASSOCIATION.

THE outline of the diocesan association is as follows:-Two separate accounts will be kept, the one for the increase of church accommodation, the other for giving aid to clergy in laborious benefices.

Donations and subscriptions may be restricted by the contributor to either account; where no such restriction is expressed, will be equally divided. The sums given may be restricted in their expenditure to any particular church, or to the diocese exclusively. After deducting sums so restricted, one-tenth of donations and one-sixth of subscriptions will be annually transmitted from the account for church accommodation to the incorporated society in London, VOL. XIII.-Feb. 1838. 2 c

with which this branch of the diocesan association is in union. The account for assisting the clergy is wholly confined to the diocese, and will be applied to the maintenance of additional curates to be nominated by the incumbent, and sanctioned by the bishop, and also to augmenting by grants not exceeding 201. a-year the incomes of poor benefices, where such assistance may promote the spiritual welfare of the parish.

The funds will be administered by a general committee of official and elected members, the latter being twelve clerical, and twelve lay members. District committees will be formed throughout the diocese to raise funds, and to investigate local wants and applications.

Donors of 100l. or upwards, or of 50l. with an annual subscription of 21. 28., will be vice presidents. Donors of 201. or upwards may at their option pay the same by four equal annual instalments.

CHURCH MATTERS.

CONDITION OF THE CHURCH.

On

THE Commencement of a new year is rather a favourite time for journalists to attempt exciting a little fresh interest or gain a little applause by some strong and piquant article,—a review of the past year, for example, or prognostications and promises as to that which is to come. And truly, temptations, on all sides, are not wanting to recommend such a course. Writers in such a work as this are cut off from very many topics,-from some because they would excite too much interest, and from others because they excite too little. principle, they refrain from the useless and provocative stirring of the questions touching on certain doctrinal controversies, and they know by experience that if they could command the soundest and most accurate scholarship for the discussion of the original text of the New Testament, they might as well stop the Magazine at once as use it. Half a dozen numbers, with half a dozen papers in each, requiring even a moderate skill in Greek criticism, would stamp on any unfortunate periodical, a character of dullness and pedantry, against which, in these learned and enlightened days, nothing could stand. Then journalists cannot be always assaulting the schismatics, whether protestant or popish. So that the range of subjects which may, can, or should be, treated of, is a good deal curtailed. And consequently, any occasion which might furnish strong topics ought, it might seem, to be gladly taken advantage of. A review of the state of religious parties, containing a brisk attack on the evangelical party, a discussion of the Oxford tracts, or their opponents, with an assault on the church commission, and some reflections on Lord Radnor and Dr. Hampden, all well mixed up, not with personalities exactly, but with caustic remarks which do almost as well, would make a "dainty dish" to set before the reader. Perhaps many readers complain of the want of such a thing in last month's Magazine, and think the year did not begin right for want of it. Such articles are very easy and, in some moods of mind, very amusing to write. But unfortunately, as years