ment of their virtual compact with the public' ever to allow the latter to preponderate in their estimation. Where especially the office to be filled up is one of very high importance, the conscience of a patron ought not to be satisfied with the mere negative plea of not having presented an improper person, while a more proper one might have been found. If public men of every class could be induced to act upon this principle, the benefits to religion and the church would be beyond all calculation.

These remarks apply with peculiar force to the new patronage created by the late Act for building additional churches and chapels in populous parishes. These new churches are very peculiarly circumstanced. They originate in the wants, and are provided for by the liberality, of the public. Wherever they arise, they proclaim their own necessity; for if there had not been multitudes on the spot " perishing for lack of knowledge," they would not have been erected. Benefices like these are consequently of very great importance-of far greater im> portance indeed, in many cases, than the incumbency of thinly populated country parishes of several times their pecuniary value. The practical utility of these new churches and chapels will depend almost entirely on the character of the ecclesiastical functionaries appointed to

them: an indolent, or unfaithful, or ambitious, or time-serving clergymen may render nugatory all that the wisdom of Parliament and the benevolence of Christian charity have devised for the benefit of a populous and indigent district. The Legislature has appointed that in the parishes and chapelries created under the Act the new patronage shall follow the old; and hence (unless by this provision the Act should defeat its own object) many persons will find their right of presentation greatly extended, and that merely in consequence of the religious wants of the vicinity. The wisdom of this particular measure it is not the object of these pages to discuss, or to inquire how far it was reasonable to anticipate that persons would build churches with so little inducement to do so, or indeed how far it was even right to wish it. But one thing at least is very clear, that in the exercise of patronage thus acquired a more than usually high tone of principle and disinterestedness is demanded. The right of presentation to a church erected by the hand of charity for the wants of a destitute population is of a peculiarly delicate and sacred kind, and surely ought not, in any instance, to be made subservient to party views or private interests; and if any person who shall step into this new source of patronage shall view it merely as a temporal

provision for one additional dependent, inst ed of a sacred trust, for the impartial exercise of which he will not only be responsible at the bar of public opinion, but must give a strict account to the Searcher of all hearts, he will defeat, as far as in him lies, the best hopes of his country, and will incur a degree of guilt far beyond the measure of an ordinary offence. Indeed, it would not be going too far to submit to the serious consideration of patrons thus circumstanced, whether, notwithstanding the power thus gratuitously conferred upon them it is not their bounden duty to yield, at least for one or two presentations, their prerogative, rather than throw an insuperable bar in the way of effecting the great object intended by the Legislature. Many destitute neighbourhoods would soon be supplied with churches, if the patrons would consent, for the common benefit, to wave their personal privilege, or at least to give the largest benefactors a voice with themselves in the presentation.

2. The beneficial uses to which Wealth may be applied, need not be specified. It is in truth as much the sinew of moral, as it proverbially is of military, enterprises; and the responsibility and obligations of a disciple of Jesus Christ imperatively demand, that wherever this powerful talent is bestowed, it should be rendered sub

servient to the cause of religion and the welfare of mankind. In the various objects which have been mentioned, to which many others might be added, wealth may find useful and unexceptionable channels for disposing of its superfluous accumulations*.

But in no way, perhaps, can a wealthy layman employ a portion of his substance more beneficially for the promotion of religion and church principles, than in assisting young men of piety and respectable talent in their academical studies. We shall advert, in the Third Section, to the importance of having a highly educated and competent as well as personally pious race of clergy; but it may not be useless, under the

* The institution to which these pages owe their origin may not unaptly be mentioned as an example. The St. David's Annual Prize Essays have excited much attention, especially among the younger clergy; and it is impossible to calculate the extent of the benefit conferred upon religion and the church, by periodically turning the attention of so many persons to the serious consideration of some important topic of Christian doctrine or practice. The writer of these pages feels grateful for having had his thoughts strongly directed by one of these subjects to the nature of the clerical character at a time when he was preparing for holy orders; and he considers himself bound to thank the Right Reverend President, and the Conductors of "The Society for promoting Christian Knowledge and Church Union in the Diocese of St. David's," for their liberal and enlightened conduct in allowing persons, like himself, unconnected with that diocese or the Principality, to send in compositions to their Society.

provision for one additional dependent, inst e d of a sacred trust, for the impartial exercise of which he will not only be responsible at the bar of public opinion, but must give a strict account to the Searcher of all hearts, he will defeat, as far as in him lies, the best hopes of his country, and will incur a degree of guilt far beyond the measure of an ordinary offence. Indeed, it would not be going too far to submit to the serious consideration of patrons thus circumstanced, whether, notwithstanding the power thus gratuitously conferred upon them it is not their bounden duty to yield, at least for one or two presentations, their prerogative, rather than throw an insuperable bar in the way of effecting the great object intended by the Legislature. Many destitute neighbourhoods would soon be supplied with churches, if the patrons would consent, for the common benefit, to wave their personal privilege, or at least to give the largest benefactors a voice with themselves in the presentation.

2. The beneficial uses to which Wealth may be applied, need not be specified. It is in truth as much the sinew of moral, as it proverbially is of military, enterprises; and the responsibility and obligations of a disciple of Jesus Christ imperatively demand, that wherever this powerful talent is bestowed, it should be rendered sub