Having now allotted to each of the three Sunday occupations, viz. instruction, devotion, and recreation, its due share; how best can we make these harmonise with each other in the arrangements of the day? A few months ago it would have seemed utopian, not to say unconstitutional and seditious, to make any suggestions, which would imply that Sunday-school children need not be kept in church for two hours and a half in a morning, and one hour and a half in the afternoon; but since the wise and considerate suggestion of the Committee of Convocation, that there should be short services for children, we see the way much more clear before us; and the Act of Uniformity, which before stood up like a tall ridge of snowy mountains to oppose any progress, at once assumes a less impenetrable, and a less ice-bound appearance. The details of such arrangements must, of course, depend on local circumstances and the staff of clergy. If the service for children is a special one, it would probably take place at nine o'clock or a little after, and be followed by the hour's schooling. In other places, where extra services were not convenient, the school might assemble at such a time as would allow the hour's work before morning service, suffering the schools to leave church after the third collect under some orderly superintendence. In the afternoon we would almost dispense with teaching in the school, but, in preference, would have the clergy catechise the elder and better prepared classes in the church (in company with any other young persons who would come), interspersing with his questions such words of address, as might form a practical sermon, more serviceable for schools than the two pulpit discourses, which at present are thought to be attended with so little advantage to them. A regular service would, of course, be connected with this, according to such arrangements as might best suit other suggestions now before Convocation; and where the afternoon service was continued in the present manner, there being no special one for children, they would leave before the commencement of the sermon, having already been addressed themselves. Thus their school and church day would end, not we hope-if the Church services had been spirited, and made cheerful by Christian music, in which they themselves take an active part-with that sense of dulness, which now seems, by concurrent testimony, to drive them away from Church, as soon as they are released from the obligations of school. Children's services, of the kind we imagine the Committee of Convocation to refer to, would require the Church to be more at their disposal, than any continuance of the exclusive pew system would allow. They must have thoroughly good parts of the Church for their use, in order that they may form a con nected body with all the feeling of the Church being their own, for the time being. The whole principle, indeed, of special services, now we presume under consideration, must assume, for its basis, the general idea of Churches being always open and available for various congregations, at different services and offices, of religion going on throughout the whole day. Again, the teachers of Church Sunday-schools ought to understand, that the main object of their work is to bring up those, whom they instruct, in the habits of prayer and worship to God. Their work then is incomplete, if they leave the children after a certain amount only of instruction. They ought to take their own classes to Church, and be examples to them of devout and reverential conduct. Under the present system this is too much to expect of them, but if the attendance of children were of shorter duration, and were their comforts more considered, in having better places and more fit appliances of devotion allotted, we cannot but think that teachers would easily fall into the system. The great objection now is, that they cannot listen to the sermon, if they sit with the schools; but if the children themselves were not present at the sermon, this at once falls to the ground. In concluding this subject, we would express a hope, that any special services for schools will be open also to all other children, and, indeed, to anyone who wished to enter the Church. We cannot but think that parents of all classes would avail themselves of these opportunities, of bringing their children to short and more appropriate services than at present exist; also, that old people and others, who feel their need of catechetical instruction, would attend, when such offices were going on. We cannot bring these statistics and remarks on education to a close, without some few comments on the present source of such energy as at present exists, and the light which may thereby be thrown on the measures that seem necessary, if we anticipate that the cause will progress for the future. The Inspectors of Schools all lament the indifference of real monied interest to the cause of education, and the difficulty of supporting schools from any voluntary contributions, that do not press with most unequal weight on the clergy. It is well known that the clergy are not a rich class, and that the property of the Church is becoming every day more secularised by the purchase of livings, and yet the burden of schools is suffered, in many places, almost wholly to fall on the parochial clergy. There has been a great agitation lately on the subject of schools, and a stimulus has been given to the clergy, who, in many cases, under the immediate pressure of the urgent requirement of a parish, have established schools, without really counting the cost of maintaining them in a state of efficiency. An unequal system of voluntary taxation such as this cannot, however, last, and is not a basis on which we can expect that the cause will flourish. Let us, however, on this subject, refer to Mr. Douglas Tinling's report: The present expense of these schools, inefficient as many of them are, falls so heavily on the parochial clergy, that they are unable to venture more largely without some additional local sympathy, or some exterior aid. I have been told by the clergy that the school costs them annually a sum varying from 10l. to 257., and that as they do not feel justified in risking a larger annual expenditure, they are therefore obliged to continue a system of school instruction which they are fully aware is insufficient and unsatisfactory. In speaking of the sum of 10%. to 25%., I am referring only to the smaller schools in many instances the expense of the parish schools falls far more heavily on the clergy; e. g., one clergyman in his published statement shows, on a greatly reduced scale of expenditure, the deficiency of 1237. 13s. in his annual income for his parish schools, which deficiency, when exceeding this amount, he for seven years cheerfully provided for. These schools for the most part depend upon the local funds, which are inadequate, being drawn almost entirely from the clergy, with the addition of a few very small subscriptions, and for this reason inefficient teachers are allowed to hold their places, and the school-room remains unfit for the teaching and training of the children of the poor.'-Minutes, p. 562. If education then is to progress, it seems to follow from these facts, that a stimulus is necessary to the owners of property, to make them supply the funds. It is most injurious to the services of the Church, as well as to the poor of a parish, that a clergyman should have continually pressing on him a heavy charge for the school. What he has to spare from his income, he would often wish to employ in some little church or parochial arrangements, which his own special interest in the parish may suggest; or in direct relief to the poor, according to his own irresponsible choice of objects. It is, indeed, a question whether, as a matter of pecuniary justice and right, property should not, in some form or other, be made to provide education for the poor. Wages, in agricultural districts, are calculated without any reference to the expense of education, and all agree that parochial schools cannot be self-supporting. If, therefore, the property of a parish is not forced, by local taxation, or its contribution to the consolidated fund, to provide schools, we fear that they will not exist. Education is a national requirement, and, therefore, he who neglects to educate his child is injurious to the community, as he is who will not vaccinate his child. Surely then means ought to be provided by which he can fulfil this obligation? The expense of vaccination is borne by local rates, and we do not see, so far as the ground we have mentioned is concerned, why schools, for those children who naturally fall on public funds for anything beyond food and clothing, should not be likewise supported by compulsory taxation. But, in deciding such a question as this, other considerations must be taken into account, besides that of pecuniary justice. The known tendency of State authority, local or central, to claim its quid pro quo for its pecuniary support, and control the use of the means which it supplies, suggests great danger to the Church from such an arrangement. 502 NOTICE S. ARCHDEACON CHURTON has bestowed great pains and care on another metrical translation of the Psalms. It is published, in commemoration of the excellent writer's Archdeaconry, under the title of 'The Cleveland Psalter,' (J. H. Parker.) Exhibiting great research, and a conscientious comparison of versions and commentaries, as well as a considerable command of poetical diction, if we say that the writer has succeeded as well as most, or even all, of his predecessors, we shall not, in our own estimation, award a very high praise. We believe that in this volume many of the Psalms are metricized as well as they can be: but after all we conclude, as in Mr. Keble's wellknown judgment, that the thing is simply impossible. The genius of Eastern poetry is totally irreconcilable with the Western forms; and while we are free to admit, that graceful and useful poetical and religious exercises may be produced under the form of a metrical Psalter, they do not in any sense reproduce the Book of Psalms. For example: Archdeacon Churton has sought the widest variety in his metres. Does the Hebrew poetry contain in its various forms-for we are free to admit that it has syllabic varieties in length of the lines-anything equivalent to the palpable changes from the iambic to the dactylic and trochaic metres which we find in the present Version, as in many of its predecessors? However, we will let the 'Cleveland Psalter' commend itself, as, indeed, it deserves to do, to such of our readers, and we believe they are many, who do not share in our own dislike to all metrical Psalms. Here is the beginning of Psalm cxix.—one in our judgment eminently unsuitable to the four-line stanza; inasmuch as this particular Psalm is condensed, gnomic and terse in form, therein resembling the Proverbs. Whether its close moral tension and sharply-cut utterances are not, from the nature of the case, diluted and slackened in any stanza, we leave to the judgment of critics : 'Ps. cxix. There is a way, where blessing meets The pilgrim journeying on: The saint, whose life was undefil'd, 'There is a law, whose rules of truth And blest are they, whose heart adores 'No love misplac'd beguiles their souls |