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This may be said of all that appeared during the latter years of the last war; some more, perhaps, and some less deserving of this censure.

As it would be uninteresting to your English readers, and as the difference is perfectly clear to Welch clergymen, I shall not compare the Welch with the English, by inserting phrases, &c. but merely mention facts in one form, viz. for the 19th of October, 1803.

This Form of Prayer is set forth as being appointed to be read" on Thursday the 19th of Oct. 1803 (" i'w harfer a 'ddydd Iau y pedwaibumthegfed o Hydref 1803.") Again, there is this direction in the morning Service, "then the prayer for the High Court of Parliament" ("yna y Weddi dros Oruchel Lys y Parliament".) But the rubrick in the Common Prayer directs, as well as the prayer itself shews, that it is to be used only when Parliament is assembled. It is hardly necessary to remind your readers, that Wednesday was the 19th, and that Parliament was not then sitting. These certainly are evident marks of neglect and inattention, and worthy the notice of our spiritual rulers. A clergyman might easily have been misled and appeared ridiculous in the eyes of his parishioners, which in this levelling age ought to be guarded against as much as possible.

The mode generally used by Welch clergymen of proclaiming a fast, is by reading from the desk or communion table the title-page of the Form of Prayer; for we have not the benefit of the Proclamation in Welch. I know an instance of that Form being delivered to a clergyman as he was going to church on Sunday, October the 9th, and his giving notice of the fast as in the Form of Prayer, and did not find out his mistake until he went home, Another, obeying the directions, read the prayer for the High Court of Parliament as far as the words " now assembled." These are certainly very natural mistakes, and the consequence of the incorrectness of the Form.

The Form of Prayer for the last fast is different in style, diction, and orthography. The stiffness and singularity of the other are a good deal expunged, and indeed it surpasses most that have appeared for some years. But still this is by no means what it ought to be, and what religion demands. What may be said of it, is, that it is better than the other; but there is a quaintness throughout it which shews that the translator has not a sufficient command of language. The errors of the press

in this Form, without noticing punctuation and circumflexion, are thirty-five; and in that for the 19th of October, thirty-seven This likewise shews great carelessness either in the printer or corrector of the press.

Living as I do in a remote corner of the principality, I know not whom I am censuring; and it is the persuasion, that these observations are not unjust or unnecessary, which has drawn them from me. For whatever may lower the church, its ministers or its service, in the estimation of its members, should be carefully avoided and immediately corrected. For the increase of sectaries within these few years in the principality has been very great, and no circumstance that was advantageous to them has been neglected, and indeed no means to undermine the established church left untried. You gave a true picture of methodistical conduct in your review of the Bishop of London's Charge, but perhaps not sufficiently coloured. One means employed you did not mention, and that is the procuring regularly ordained persons of methodistical persuasion appointed to preferment. An instance of this happened lately in a diocese in the principality. A clergyman whose property placed him in a state of independence, but whose methodistical turn probably prevented his being lately employed, was by some means or other appointed to a perpetual curacy. The presentation was in the gift of an honourable baronet, who is as highly as he is deservedly respected, and who would have been the last man knowingly to have preferred any person inimical to the established church. The bishop hearing of the persuasion of this clergyman, summoned him before the ordinary; and, in consequence of what appeared there, a licence was refused. Upon this he goes, and still continues, preaching about the country at methodistical meetings. Wishing you success in your endeavours and exertions,

I remain,

Your most obedient servant,

July 3, 1804.

A WELCH CURATE.

ANIMADVERSIONS

ANIMADVERSIONS ON THE MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

TO THE EDITORS OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCHMAN'S MAGAZINE.

I

GENTLEMEN,

HAVE been a constant admirer and reader of your truly, excellent Miscellany since its beginning. When I first saw the Prospectus of your Work, I do assure you, Gentlemen, it gave me infinite pleasure; for I had long wished that some able champions of the purest Church in Christendom would step forward in it's defence, against the numberless vile things with which the press teems monthly in opposition to it, and which, by their friends, are industriously dispersed and read in every corner of the kingdom.

From the confined circumstances of my income, I have been rendered unable to purchase every book necessary for the library of a Student in Divinity, and till the appearance of your Magazine, was almost without a Guide to point out the most useful and most necessary ones, without overshooting my limits; but, by the assistance of your valuable book, exclusive of the information to be derived from the other matter inserted, I have, by .means of the Review, been informed of Publications, the existence of which, without your aid, most probably, I should never have been acquainted with. Several books of your recommending I have procured, and read many more, lent me by a worthy gentleman, (an admirer also of your valuable work) a pious Christian, and a valuable ornament of the established Church.

Reading lately the Supplementary number of the 12th volume of the Monthly Magazine, (No. 82, Jan. 31st. 1802,) I was struck with the writer's observations (p. 575, 576,) in the Retrospect of Campbell's Lectures on Ecclesiastical History, a copy of which I annex, and which, I doubt not, will make a similar impression on the minds of your readers, as they did on mine. I have not seen Dr. C.'s Lectures, and therefore, as to the merit or demerit of them, I cannot speak; but had the writer of that article laid down his pen at the place where I begin to quote him, it would have been well. I have always admired every department of the Monthly Magazine, except the Theological; and I must beg leave, here, to say, that I doubt the sincerity of the sentiments

of

of the writer of that department, if not respecting revealed religion in general, yet very much towards the doctrine and discipline of the established Church or England.

Where will he find, let me ask him, liberality of principles, if they are not to be found in the Church of England? Does he want his readers to suppose vice virtue, if they have but hearts so vitiated, as sincerely to think it so? Does he want candour and liberality so much refined, as to banish from the bosoms of the fair sex their distinguishing character Chastity, which is the greatest addition to their charms, and which makes them more lovely in the eyes of their beholders *?

Is he afraid that the slumbering embers of piety will not be quite extinguished by the blazing philosophy of Voltaire and his late friends, who have strutted their hour on the revolutionary stage of distressed France, and will no more be mentioned but with detestation and horror?-I fear he is no friend to the propagation of the Gospel, or he would not censure the conduct of those who are. If the children of the manufacuring and other poor are not, on a Sunday, at school, to be instructed in the principles of religion and morality, where are they? not at home, for their parents are incompetent to the task, and, if they were capable, too many would be totally too indolent to employ themselves in so necessary a work.

If this be retrospection Gentlemen, I have done; if railing accusations be brought forth, in such a manner, against the best of governments and the best of churches, it is time to weep, as our blessed Saviour did, when he foresaw the impending judgments just going to burst over the heads of the Ill-fated inhabitants of Jerusalem.Myriads of enemies we have of every description placed around us, all combining their otherwise opposite forces, with an intent to overthrow us.-Whilst we see indifference to every thing that is sacred, and ridicule of every thing that is good, so artfully interspersed in various enticing publications, need we be astonished to find infidelity and neglect of religious worship, particularly a refusal of the celebration of the Lord's Supper, so prevalent in all ranks, and in all quarters of the kingdom!

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*See a View of the Moral State of Society at the close of the 18th Century. By John Bowles, Esq.

My

My stile, as well as my years, may perhaps, Gentle men, be discovered to be juvenile, which, in truth, they are; and if it were not for a sincere regard to true religion, and the encouragement of your invaluable book trusting, at the the same time, to your candour, I should not dare to step forwards among such worthies as Mr. Pearson, Inspector, The London Curate, Jonathan Drapier, and others.

I humbly beg, Gentlemen, your erasure and emendation of any part of what I have said, if you think it necessary, and worthy insertion.

I am,

Gentlemen, your well-wisher,

R. A. S.

Middleton, 7th July, 1804.

"This (that is Dr. C's.) judicious work is peculiarly sea- . sonable, when the claims of Church authority, and the conquests of spiritual jurisdiction, are every where so rapidly progressive. May it continue, by the liberal principle, which it temporately attempts to revive, somewhat to interrupt, and for a while to defer, that relapse toward the servile crédulity, and docile ignorance of the darker ages, which seem likely a second time to attend the supercivilization, and to absorb the intellects of Europe. Popery and despotism have re-conquered France, and the more accessible literature of the Continent is likely henceforward to promulgate the vindictive intolerance and arbitrary policy of Jesuitism. Yet alarms are still professed at the by-gone dangers of infidelity. Superstition of every fantastic kind is become a title to favour, not discouragement. Prejudice apologizes to Papism for the deviation of its forgotten hatred. An affected apprehension of the judgments poured out on France yet drags into our churches the indolence of the great; week-day prayers are become a prelude to the breakfasts of our gentry; and men apparently the most indifferent to futurity, lend the authority of their presence to assemblages for supererogatory devotion. A very numerous soldiery is regularly conducted to increase the pomp, and to imbibe the unction of the Sabbath Lecture. Sunday schools, the only places of education for most of the manufactoring poor have been organized into classes of ca

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A Scottish vulgarism.

ED. techumens;

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