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seem remote, insignificant, or even uncertain, but in both cases it is sure. The history of the Catholic Church is one continuous record of the punishments she has had to undergo for her neglect of a portion of the truth committed to her safe-keeping. If sect after sect has arisen to vex her, it has been as a judgment on her for her indifference to that one portion of the Faith which that sect has tenaciously fought for, and which alone gives it vitality. Every sect holds a portion of the Truth, however infinitesimal it may be, and that portion supplies such life as that body has. Let us fight for the honor of our LORD, for the right to worship in the beauty of holiness, for the powers of the Yes, a thousand times yes, but let us not priesthood. forget to fight for the plenitude of the Episcopal power through which all authorised means of grace can alone come, either through the laying on of hands to separate those whom the HOLY GHOST has called to His work, or through the laying on of hands whereby the children of Adam are made "an holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices," having hereby "restored to them in CHRIST what they lost in Adam.”

To all who are endeavoring to bring home to their people the mission of the HOLY SPIRIT as the in-dwelling Presence in the Individual, and the abiding Presence and Corrector of Errors in the Church, this series of tracts will be found simply invaluable. They are, we are informed, recommended by the examiners for several Bishops in England. We only hope that we may, before long, have the Second Part of the Continuity from Apostolic Times: The Opinions of the Fathers. The author would put the Church under a double debt of gratitude if he would undertake a series dealing with Confirmation, as viewed by the principal Protestant religious bodies, especially those who practise in their opinion "Confirmation." We know of no one work, large or small, that covers that ground. Yet, on this side of the water, where we have immigrants from the Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, and Lutheran, and other Churches, we need very much some work showing what the founders of the question, and what these

bodies officially teach at home. We say at home advisedly, since the offshoots in America do not, in many cases, if in any, adhere strictly to the doctrinal standards of their parents. The principle upon which such a work ought to proceed, so it seems to us, is the same as that adopted by that telling tract of the S. P. C. K., giving the ipsissima verba of John Wesley on what he desired the Methodist Society to be. From the recent correspondence in the Church Times, it is evident that such a catena from Wesley's writings on Confirmation is deemed desirable. The present tracts under review are admirable for strengthening the faith of the children of the Church, for convincing strangers of the Scriptural, primitive and continuous teaching on that Apostolical Ordinance, but do not meet the case of persons, who in their opinion, have already been "confirmed." It is a delicate and painful matter to convince (say) devout Lutherans that their Confirmation is not valid in the eyes of the Universal Church. Still, it has to be done. If possible, the best way would be to prove that the very Reformers, whose memories they revere, regretted the then impossibility of Episcopal Confirmation-an impossibility, however, which they deemed only temporary, and to be remedied when they had a lawful Episcopate. We have, it is quite true, several incidental allusions to this line of argument in these tracts, especially in the statement quoted above, that Melancthon and others based their low estimate of Confirmation on an imperfect appreciation of the Seventh Canon of Laodicea, and of the Eighth of the First Council of Arles; and in the quotation from Calvin; but the object of a tract is to do the thinking for others on a given subject, and a special tract is needed for each branch or line of argument.

Bishop Kingdon, the author of the series under notice, who evidently fulfils the prophetical inspiration that a "priest's lips should keep knowledge," and who is obedient to the Apostolic injunction "to prove all things and hold fast that which is good," is especially fitted for this work, where wide reading and accurate scholarship are essential.

It would be indeed laying the Church under a double debt of gratitude.

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We deem a Diocese especially fortunate in having a Bishop who not only holds to the Truth as revealed in Holy Writ, and interpreted by the Church Universal, but who is able and bold enough to set forth that Truth so convincingly.

SIGNATUS.

How the Church may Retain Her Hold upon Young Men after they Emerge

How

from the Sunday School.

OW the Church may retain her hold upon young men after they emerge from the Sunday School is, in these days, one of the most perplexing problems of parish life. If Christianity be the Universal Religion, and the Church the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth, our signal failure to reach this class indicates that there must be something abnormal and unnatural in our methods of instruction.

Of course, the fault does not lie exclusively on the side of the spiritual pastors and teachers. The negligence of Christian parents, during the earlier years of boyhood, is the beginning of the evil. When home influences are either directly or indirectly opposed to Church influences; or where a father, who is, by nature, the chief spiritual guardian of his boy, habitually acts and speaks as though religion were not the one thing needful, but the one thing to do without, it is almost hopeless to counteract the effect of this parental example. Persistent personal influence alone will avail here, and therefore the rector should always be the superintendent of his own Sunday School, devoting himself so assiduously to the work that he can not only call every boy and girl by name, but impress upon each the conviction that he is the scholar's personal and sympathising friend. The next step is for the Sunday School teachers to act as the rector's assistants in propagating such influences. There should be frequent conferences-prayerful conferences-between them and him, with a perfect understanding as to the work which they are all trying to do, and no person should be chosen to fill so responsible and confidential a position, who is not quali fied for this kind of effort.

When our rectors devote more time to the Sunday School, and regard the spiritual interests of the young as of

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higher importance than committee meetings and other professional duties, and learn to exercise the kind of care in the selection of their Sunday School teachers that the president or faculty of a College display in securing qualified instructors for intellectual education, then one great difficulty in the way of retaining our older scholars will be eliminated.

The analogy of secular education presents also another lesson. In every kind of intellectual culture, from the · Kindergarten to the elective studies of the University, the paramount aim, in these days, is to supply a demand, and adapt the course of study to the age and characteristics of the scholar. Now, it goes without saying, that secular and religious teaching differ distinctly from one another; the aim of one is the development of the Mind, the aim of the other is the development of Character. But can it be said that in our Sunday Schools we follow a boy's native bent and exercise as earnest a care in character culture as these other instructors do in intellectual culture? The children of this world are, in their generation, wiser than the children of light. We are unable to retain our hold upon young men, because we give the same kind of instruction to the boy of sixteen that we do to the boy of ten. Hence, our boys and girls outgrow our Sunday Schools. Our whole method of teaching is to them an unreality and an anachronism. It is we, not they, who are to blame for the result. And the only way of righting the wrong is for us to give up our theories and follow their needs. The mind of youth is quite as open to spiritual teaching as that of childhood, but it is to teaching of a different kind. The time has arrived when the boy is beginning to think for himself. He has been grounded already in the principles of the Christian Faith, and he now needs to be shown the application and bearing of those principles upon character and society. He is impatient of vague generalities. He is wearied with lessons upon the Collects or the Geography of the Holy Land or the History of the Bible. He craves something which relates to the practical duties and issues of daily life. And this craving