Page images
PDF
EPUB

character, and which continually lead him to forebode a fatal result. Now what were the objects which incessantly occupied his mind; what the topics on which he wrote and conversed; what the recreations and amusements in

which he engaged? There is to us a most painful absence of every thing truly holy and spiritual. We have noticed the rare occurrence of the name of Christ in his sermons;

there is the same omission in his private journals. The editors themselves feel the omission, and they write a note to intimate, that when Mr. Froude spoke of God or Lord, he includes an allusion to Christ under those titles; (vol. i. 68.) but it is a singular, and to us a melancholy fact, that neither in his sermons, his journals, his sacramental and Good Friday meditations, or in any part of his remains, is there any distinct recognition of a hope of pardon through the atonement of Christ; any intimation of a delight in communion with Christ; any anticipation of heavenly rest and enjoyment in the presence of Christ. If it be true that to them that believe Christ is precious, and that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh; this absence of all distinct reference to the Saviour is of an alarming character. Mr. F. is alive to the beauties of nature and art, but of the beauty of holiness he seems to have little idea. All his ideas of holiness seem to have consisted in shutting out the world, rather than in exhibiting before the world, the holy tempers, the heavenly conversation, the devoted character of the servant and the follower of Jesus Christ.

From Mr. Froude's personal religion, we turn to the effect which his principles had on his character and conduct, as one of established the clergy of the

church. Now there is no point which the advocates of the modern

Oxford schism more invariably assume than that they especially are high churchmen-vindicators of apostolical succession-advocates of episcopal authority, &c. Whereas it is quite clear that Mr. F. (be it remembered, one of the prime movers in that schism) has adopted on all these points, language of the most improper, not to say irreverent character. Whether indeed he exactly intended what his language implies, we are not prepared to affirm; but after every allowance for badinage, &c. enough still remains to shew that he was any thing rather than a consistent and devoted member of the establishment.

Take the following extracts on the character, appointment, &c. of Bishops.

I wish you did not set your face so pertinaciously against any alteration in the mode of appointing bishops; that is the real seat of the disorder of the church; the more I think of it, the more sure I am that unless something is done about it, there must be a separation in the church before long, and that I should be one of the separatists. It will not do to say, that you see great evils in any proposed new plan; that is a very good argument when the present state of things is good; but when a man is dying, it is poor wisdom in him to object, that the plans the surgeons propose for his relief are painful and dangerous. There is another reform which I have been thinking of lately more than I did before, though I have long thought something should be done about it; and it is one which every clergyman can make for himself without difficulty.

Some months ago, before I had repented of my radicalism, I was devising a scheme for you which was knocked on the head by my finding from the British Magazine that you were ordained by the bishop of

For my part I had rather have had my orders from a Scotch bishop, and I thought of suggesting the same to you. The stream is purer, and besides it would have left me free from some embarrassing engagements.

It seems to me that if the laity were as munificent as our Catholic ancestors, they could do nothing for the church as things are, except in their life time. Any churches they might build, any endowment they might make, would be as likely as not to become in another generation propagandas of liberalism. Certainly we cannot trust the Bishops for patrons; for

however good the present may be, the next may be a. The present church system is an incubus upon the country. It spreads its arms in all directions, claiming the whole surface of the earth for its own, and refusing a place for any subsidiary system to spring up. Would that the waters would throw up some Acheloides where some new Bishop might erect a see beyond the blighting influence of our upas tree.

So also Mr. Froude boldly censures the existing and almost universal practices of the Church of England.

I believe it to be the most indispensable of all the duties of external religion, that every one should receive the communion as often as he has opportunity; and that if he has such opportunity every day of the week, it is his duty to take advantage of it every day of the week. And farther, as an immediate corollary from this, I think it the duty of every clergyman, to give the serious members of his congregation this opportunity as often as he can, without neglecting other parts of his duty. Now at if you had the communion every Sunday, you might make sure of a sufficient number of communicants: and I don't know of any other duty you would neglect in consequence. Or at any rate you might have it every month without the slightest difficulty, and need assign no reason for the change; indeed people would not find out at first that there was any change. I wish you would turn this over in your mind. I dare say you will think my view overstrained, and very likely it may be a little. Yet the more I think of it, the less doubtful it seems to me. I know that neither N, nor T. E., when I left England, saw the thing in the light in which it now strikes me; they thought that it was desirable to have the communion as often as possible, but still that the customs of particular places ought not to be changed without particular reason. But it really does seem to me that the Church of England has gone so very wrong in this matter, that it is not right to keep things smooth any longer. The administration of the communion is one of the very few religious duties now performed by the clergy for which ordination has ever been considered necessary. Preaching and reading the Scriptures is what a layman can do as well as a clergyman. And it is no wonder the people should forget the difference between ordained and unordained persons, when those who are ordained do nothing for them but what they could have done just as well without ordination.

I am sure the daily service is a great point: so is kneeling with your back to the people, which by the bye seems striking all the apostolicals at once. I see there are

letters on it in the British Magazine. I was very strongly impressed about it this time last year at Caraccas. I was with when they were consulting how the Consecration Service should be performed at the new burial ground, so as to have the most imposing effect.

I am more and more indignant at the Protestant doctrine on the subject of the Eucharist, and think that the principle on which it is founded is as proud, irreverent, and foolish as that of any heresy, even Socinianism.

Some few classes of ultra Dissenters will doubtless highly approve of the plebeian character and provision to be desiderated for ministers, as described in the following extract.

It has often occurred to me, that something attractive and poisonous could be made out of a History of Missions.'.... The matter should be, that in primitive times, the missionaries were bishops, and that their object was to educate a native clergy; then a little ingenuity might be applied to detect in this circumstance, the cause of their success, and to account for modern failures by its omission. Also it might be advantageous to point out by the way, that in a missionary church such as that in Yankee land, it is very stupid to insist on the clergy having no secular avocations. Honest tradesmen who earn their livelihood, would be far more independent or respectable presbyters, than a fat fellow who preaches himself into opu

lence.

There are about fourteen students here, very little for so expensive an establishment. If I were the bishop I should not make it a place for the exclusive education of gentlemen; but should let the respectable coloured people, who had time and inclination to study divinity, come here and prepare for orders, without insisting on Latin and Greek. These colonies are not ripe for supporting a learned clergy, the wealthy are too irreligious to pay towards the maintenance of any thing like a sufficient number to look after the population. The bishop should take people of the caste in life that the Wesleyan ministers come from, and take care to keep a tight hand over them, should ordain all who have sufficient zeal and knowledge to undertake the burden. I will not even insist on their giving up trades; for if a parish priest can keep a school, I am sure he may make shoes without giving up more of his time; and if St. Paul could maintain himself by tent-making, while he discharged the duties of an Apostle, I do not see why other people should not be able to maintain themselves as well, while they do the duties of a parish priest. The notion

that a priest must be gentleman is a stupid exclusive protestant fancy, and ought to be exploded. If they would educate a lower caste here, they would fill the college directly.

As to any reform of · I expect little good except indeed on the head of pews. If we would do away with them it would be a real step gained. Church discipline too, though only affecting the clergy, will be something; as it will remove the only good objection to the ordination of people below the caste of gentlemen. As to the other points, I rather regret that anything should be done about them, as they will delay, not avert, what seems to me our only chance, a spoliation on a large scale.

As to the religious prospects of these colonies, I think them very bad indeed. If the church were thrown on the voluntary system, and left to make its way as the Wesleyans do among the poorer classes, it would make sure as it went; the progress might at first seem slow; but now all is mere show and rottenness. The persons who hold the purse care little (that is, with few exceptions,) for religion, and absolutely nothing for the Church. contrives to get on, in appearance, through the immense sums he derives from England; but as to weaning the Colonial Church from its mother, he dreams not of the possibility of it and

call the Holy Eucharist " the Lord's Supper," nor God's priests' ministers of the Word,' or the altar the Lord's Table,' &c. innocent as such phrases are in themselves, they have been dirtied; a fact of which you seem obvious on many occasions. Nor shall I even abuse the Roman Catholics as a church, for any thing except excommunicating us. About convocation, I think you have hit the right nail on the head. The high churchparty had cut the ground from under their feet by acknowledging Tillotson. Would that the non-jurors had kept up a succession and then we might have been at peace;-proselytes instead of agitators. How came Bull among the Tillotsonians?

Our readers will observe the scrupulous care with which the compilers of our Liturgy invariably avoided calling the Lord's Table an altar; and contrast their deliberate conduct with Mr. F.'s flippant remarks.

The following pungent questions on church authority, may perhaps have conduced to that disposition which some of the Oxford schismatics have lately evinced to throw Mr. Froude overboard. They are

in fact, unless the Establishment is given certainly any thing rather than

up entirely, and the Church made independent of the higher classes, it is impossible. Another difficulty arises from the views of the clergy, those who have any deference for church authority are mere cyphers; while the very active ones are to a man, either from ignorance or conceit dissenters, in theory, feeling, practice, in short every thing but name.

The Romanists will of course, to a man, reiterate Mr. F.'s remarks on our Reformers.

As to the Reformers, I think worse and worse of them. Jewell was what you would in these days call an irreverent dis-. senter. His Defence of his Apology disgusted me more than almost any work I have read. Bishop Hickes and Dr. Brett, I see, go all lengths with me in this respect, and I believe Laud did.

The pre

face to the Thirty-nine Articles was certainly intended to disconnect us from the Reformers.

Also why do you praise Ridley? Do you know sufficient good about him to counterbalance the fact that he was the associate of Cranmer, Peter Martyr, and Bucer? How beautifully the Edinburgh Review has shown up Luther, Melancthon and Co. What good genius has possessed them to do our dirty work?

Pour moi, I never mean, if I can help it, to use any phrases, even, which can connect me with such a set. I shall never

favourable to the doctrine of tradition, and the authority of the Fathers.

And first, I shall attack you, for the expression, "the Church teaches us so and so," which I observe in the Tract, as equivalent to "the prayer-book, &c. teach us so and so." Now suppose a conscientious layman, to enquire on what grounds the prayer-book, &c. are called the teaching of the Church, how shall we answer him? Shall we tell him that they are embodied in an Act of Parliament, so is the spoliation Bill. Shall we tell him that they were formerly enacted by convocation in the reign of Charles II? But what especial claim had this convocation, &c. to monopolize the name and authority of the Church? Shall we tell him that all the clergy assented to them ever since their enactment? But to what interpretation of them have all or even the major part of the clergy assented; For if it is the assent of the clergy that makes the prayer-book, &c. the teaching of the Church, the Church teaches only that interpretation of them, to which all or at least the majority of the clergy have assented; and in order to ascertain this, it will be necessary to enquire, not for what may seem to the enquirer to be their real meaning, but for the meaning which the majority of the clergy have in fact, attached to them. It will be neces

sary to poll the Hoadleians, Puritans, and Laudians, and to be determined by most votes. Again supposing him to have ascertained these, another question occurs. Why is the opinion of the English clergy, since the enactment of the prayer-book, entitled to be called the teaching of the Church more than that of the clergy of the sixteen previous centuries? or again than the clergy of France, Italy, Spain, Russia, &c. &c. I can see no other claim which the Prayerbook has on a layman's deference, as the teaching of the Church, which the Breviary and Missal have not in a far greater degree.

Next, the Tracts talk a great deal about the clergy teaching authoritatively.' Do you think that on any fair principles of interpretation, the texts which claim authority for the teaching of inspired persons, and those in immediate communication with them can be applied to the teaching of those who have no access to any

source of information which is not equally open to all mankind? Surely no teaching now-a-days is authoritative in the sense the Apostles' was, except that of the Bible; nor any in the sense which Timothy's was, except that of primitive tradition. To find a sense in which the teaching of the modern clergy is authoritative, I confess baffles me. Do you mean if his lordship of taught one way, and Pascal, or Robert Nelson another, the former would be entitled to most consideration? Or do you only give the preference to ordained

persons cæteris paribus? The former assertion would be startling, the latter does not come to much.

As to our controversies, you are now taking fresh ground, without owning, as you ought, that on our first basis, I dished you. Of course if the Fathers maintain

that nothing not deducible from Scripture, ought to be insisted on as terms of communion," I have nothing more to

say. But again if you allow tradition an interpretative authority, I cannot see what is gained for surely the doctrines of the priesthood and the eucharist may be proved from Scripture nterpreted by tradition and if so, what is to hinder our insisting on them as terms of communion? I do not mean of course that this will bear out the Romanists, which is perhaps the only point, but it certainly would bear out our party in excommunicating Protestants.

But we have done. Are such the sentiments, we ask, which any member, much less any minister of our Church can consistently avow? The Bishops are an incubus! Their ordination is defective! The ser

vices wrong! It is evident that the author himself, had he lived, must ere long have renounced these principles, or seceded from our Establishment. Go back, we would

say

to every one who for a moment is dazzled by the pretensions of these Oxford schismatics-by their parade of learning their voluntary humility, their unscriptural penances and mortifications. Go back to the fountain of truth-the word of God, the Articles, Homilies and Liturgy of your own church. There you will find rest for your souls; for they exhibit in his glory and his beauty, that Saviour who says, "Come unto me, all ye that are weary and havy laden. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me; for my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

HINTS ON STUDY, and the Employment of Time, addressed to young persons setting out in life, with a supplementary view of the several professions and commerce, and remarks for assisting the selection. By a late Member of the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple. 12mo. Pp. xii. and 190. Simpkin.

HINTS ON READING: addressed to a Young Lady. By M. A. STODᎪᎡᎢ. 18mo. Pp. viii. and 176. Seeley and Burnside.

THESE are both valuable publications, well deserving the attention

of

persons of either sex; though the former is more especially calculated for young men, and the latter for females. The writers of both appear to possess sound principles, considerable experience, and deep religious impressions. The observations on the importance of or

der, habit, and regularity, and on the acquisitions which may be made in short portions of time, in the former publication, and the mischievous effects of much of the French and Italian literature, and the historic novels of modern days, contained in the latter, deserve especial attention.

Entelligence.

AUSTRALIA.

THE national guilt incurred by our utter neglect of the religious instruction of the transported felons, is strikingly evinced by the following extract from a speech delivered at Bath, by the Rev. A. M. CAMPBELL, Secretary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts.

'With regard to Australia, the same duty owing to the people of Canada was due to the inhabitants of Australia, there being also this peculiar exacerbation in this case, namely, that Australia was a penal settlement, that we sent our convicts there without having, until within the last three years, attempted to make an adequate provision for the spiritual wants of the population. Nothing could justify us in transporting felons to the new world; we had no right to inflict such a moral pestilence on any country. It was the practice of the husbandman to sow good seed in his fields; but here we had been sowing our colonies with the worst of seed. It was a most monstrous system; for forty or fifty years we had been sending felons to Australia, and the consequences were most dreadful. The labourers there, were, without exception, felons; they went on without any proper restraint, without any religious instruction, so that they became worse every succeeding year. No fewer than 100,000 convicts had been sent to Australia from this country, at the expense of 10,000,000l. and four years ago, there were not in the whole colony more than eight acting and efficient clergymen. The immorality which prevailed in Sydney was frightful; some idea of it might be gained from the fact that, in that town, containing only 16,000 free inhabitants, there were

219

public-houses, while the spirit shops were so numerous, that the magistrates had declared that they could not even guess at their number. It had been ascertained that the consumption of ardent spirits in Australia, amounted annually to four gallons for each person. The state

of things in the country districts was nearly as bad as in the towns; the proportion of convict men to convict women, was seventeen to one; they were, in fact, unlike any other peasantry in the world; they lived without the common affections of human nature, without family connections, without wives, children, or homes; having less of feeling, and being more unattached to the soil than the negro slaves of the West India planters. All the papers which had been laid before the House of Commons contained the most frightful statements on this subject. It was impossible not to perceive, on serious consideration of the matter, that Australia must ultimately become the great governing power of the South Sea; if, then, there were a demoralized population in the British settlement on the continent of Australia, what would be the effect upon the inhabitants of the South Sea islands? Already in New Zealand, pirates, being runaway convicts, had become so formidable, that the merchants were gravely taking measures for their suppression. We had founded a new empire in Australia, and it threatened to become an infidel empire, and what would be the consequences? They were indeed most dreadful to contemplate. Even in Botany Bay there was a deeper still." The accounts of the state of Norfolk island were most horrible. Five years back the convicts there had no religious instruction whatever. There is even now no Protestant minister of the Established Church in Norfolk Island; but they have among them a Roman Catholic Priest and a Wesleyan minister, who had called them to some sense of their wants. Judge Burton, who visited Norfolk island in 1834, gave an appalling description of the total absence of all means of religious and moral improvement. How could we enjoy the comforts and blessings which God had bestowed upon us, and not make every effort in our power to alleviate such destitution as this? We talk about

66

« PreviousContinue »