on every side, with no offers of assistance save from those whom they regard with antipathy or distrust, the Nestorians again recur to us, imploring us in the most heartrending language to come over and help them.

The question now arises, Are Churchmen to turn a deaf ear to this appeal, and by so doing leave the Archbishop and Bishop no alternative but to send a reply which will virtually amount to this: "Be ye warmed and filled?" We hope better things of our Church, and especially of that laudable desire which has grown up amongst us of late for union with other Churches. The objection on the ground of "direct interference" cannot fairly be urged here, since our intervention is invoked under circumstances leading us to hope that it may be blest not only to the reformation of the Nestorians and to our intercommunion with them, but eventually to their and our own reunion with other Christian Churches in the East. As to the terms of such intercommunion, that is a point which should be submitted to the Church, and now that Convocation has been revived a more important subject could not occupy its deliberations. Mr. Badger's work, pronounced by the late Dr. Neale as treating "more satisfactorily of the rituals and theology of the Nestorians than any book yet published in Europe," may be assumed to afford sufficient data whereon to form a judgment respecting the doctrines now held by the Nestorians, and what concessions to primitive truth would be required of them before we could admit them to full intercommunion with ourselves. This is a matter beyond the competency of any Church Society, but it is. undoubtedly within the province of our Church, and it will reflect discredit on Convocation if it hesitates to take it up. Might it not also be desirable to consult our sister Church in the United States on such a topic, and to frame a decision in concert with her General Convention?

In the meantime, however, the appeal for aid is urgent, and something should be done forthwith. As the undertaking seems scarcely to come within the scope of any of the existing Church Societies— except so far as they might feel disposed to contribute towards its prosecution-his Grace the Primate has suggested:1

"There may be some wealthy and well-disposed people who may be inclined to contribute to a Mission to these poor Nestorians. It would be entirely an independent Mission, because there is no existing Society that can exactly take it up. It need not belong to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel or to the Anglo-Continental Society; but I

1 At the recent annual meeting of the Anglo-Continental Society. See further for his Grace's remarks the Report in our present number.

think a separate committee might be formed, and that it might send out two Missionaries-that is a very modest petition-who might bear comfort and consolation to those who are now really in very great distress."

Most earnestly do we hope that this proposal will be adopted, and a Committee of Bishops, presbyters, and laymen formed without delay for collecting funds and organizing the Mission. Two presbyters from home would suffice at the outset, and we learn that there is an ex-Chaldean presbyter at Mosul, who was one of Mr. Badger's native coadjutors, whose services might also be secured. Their first object should be, after delivering the English Church's reply, to consult with the Nestorian Patriarch and Bishops, and to decide, in concert with them, where to take up their abode, where to plant schools, and how to meet their other pressing wants for elementary and other books. This done, it would be their duty to establish friendly relations with the clergy and people generally; to make themselves thoroughly acquainted with the Nestorian doctrines, rites, and ceremonies; to exhibit those of our own Church practically and by precept; and eventually to come to some definite understanding with the Patriarch, his clergy and people, with regard to terms of intercommunion. It would greatly facilitate the task of our Missionaries in making our Church better known to the Nestorians if they were provided with the Book of Common Prayer in Syriac. We understand that a translation into that language was made under Mr. Badger's superintendence, and that the manuscript was deposited with the Christian Knowledge Society. That Society might greatly aid the proposed Mission by undertaking to print it.

It would be desirable that the Mission should confine itself at the outset to Turkish Kurdistan, in order to avoid any collision with the American Independent Missionaries established at Urumiah. Whilst recognising, as we do most cordially, the zeal and perseverance of those Missionaries to disseminate Scriptural education among the Nestorians of Persia, and to support them against the persistent efforts of Rome to bring them into submission to Papal supremacy, we are persuaded that none feel more strongly than they how much greater progress they would have made had their system of doctrine and Church government been more in accordance with that of the Nestorians. If, as we will not doubt, they would hail with pleasure a corresponding Mission of ours on the Turkish side, designed in no way to interfere with them, time will show whether they would not be consulting the best interests of the Nestorians generally by committing to our Church the perfection of a task for which, by her doctrine and discipline, she is better adapted.

We most heartily commend this good work to the support of all earnest Churchmen. Those who long for reunion with the East may find in it a medium precluding the temptation to concede unduly to such as at present meet our overtures coldly, and who, if approached only directly, may for a long time to come be indisposed to accept from us equitable and Catholic terms. Those who entertain strong prepossessions in favour of ancient rites and ceremonies, such as have gone into disuse amongst ourselves, will find in the ritual of the Nestorians much to interest and gratify them. And those whose sympathies are more decidedly bound up with the Reformation will meet with much in the doctrines and practices of the Nestorians to commend and admire; for like our own Church-barring the Christological question-the Nestorians are both Catholic and Protestant, and their Protestantism dates from ages antecedent to ours. Let us all join heartily in this labour of love, and, with the Divine blessing upon our co-operation, the Nestorians may not only be reformed and restored to the communion of the Catholic Church, but may become, like their forefathers in the early ages, pre-eminent as evangelists to the benighted nations around them and to those in the far East.

THE HAWAIIAN MISSION.

Ir has been our object from time to time to notice such facts in the history of the Anglo-Hawaiian Church as we thought most likely to interest and inform the minds of our readers. We purpose now briefly to review the work which has been accomplished, touching upon some of the difficulties which it has had to encounter during its progress, and the reasons that seem to justify, or rather necessitate, increased effort on the part of all friends of the infant Church to sustain its position and strengthen its influence.

At Honolulu, the capital, situated in the island of Oahu, is a population of from thirteen to fourteen thousand, of whom nearly onefourth are foreigners, chiefly British, American, and German residents. Services are therefore held, on Sundays and daily throughout the week, in both the Hawaiian and English languages. We may remark that the composite character of the population cannot fail to add greatly to the labours of the limited clerical staff employed in that city. Besides the Bishop, who is occasionally absent on his episcopal and missionary visitations, there are only two young clergymen stationed there, one of whom is fully occupied as Master of the College, where Hawaiian and other boys of a higher class are being

educated in the English language. The boarders, who form the majority of the scholars, are assembled in a little chapel attached to the institution, morning and evening, for common prayer, which is choral; and it is only on Sundays that the assistance of the Head Master can be secured in any Church work extraneous to his own scholastic duties.

About a year and a half ago a wooden temporary church was erected, to be used until the completion of the cathedral, the foundation-stone of which was laid early in 1867 by the present King. This structure stands on the land given for the church by Kamehameha IV., one of the very best sites in Honolulu, and near to it are the Clergy House on one side, and the Female Boarding School on the other.

The services are choral, attractive, and hearty, and are attended by a regular and devout body of worshippers, both foreign and native. The "aggrieved parishioner " appears to be a character happily rare in these sunny islands. There has been opposition, but from without rather than from within. "Protestant " Congregationalism, at Honolulu, has sought to add religious to national animosity; and, from the first, has pursued there towards the Church, without intermission, a course of systematic abuse and misrepresentation. We had occasion to dwell on this painful subject more than two years ago, and have no wish to re-open it now. Enough is it to say that no effort has been wanting on the part of the Puritan enemies of the Hawaiian Church to shake the loyalty of its members and create among them a spirit of disaffection on the subject of its very moderate and judicious ritual, and soundly Catholic teaching, one free alike from Roman and ultra-Protestant error: we are happy to learn, however, with little success. Last year five of the foreign residents of Honolulu gave their names as annual subscribers of 20l. to the Clergy Fund, of whom two had been brought up as Scotch Presbyterians, and one as an American "Episcopalian." And from a Statement brought home by the Bishop, audited in the Islands (where there is a Finance Committee and Treasurer administering all Church funds), it appears that up to the end of July last, 4007. a year on the average had been received from local sources in the capital alone, since the arrival of the Bishop in 1862. This includes 2001. a year given by the King himself; but it does not include a variety of other calls upon the members of the congregation in the form of subscriptions for special objects; take for example, the one at Christmas 1866, which amounted to 30l., and was devoted to the Female Industrial School at Lahaina. Nor does it include upwards of another 2007. a year devoted by his Majesty out of his own purse to the education of boys and girls in the several

English schools of the Mission. We are told that it has been ever a constant source of complaint among those who—

"Si liceat magnis componere parva,”

manage the Hawaiian "Civil List," that the Church is a continued drain on the King's very limited resources. With an income which would be thought very modest for a country squire in England, we have Kamehameha V. giving upwards of 400l. a year to the cause of education and religion. The Bishop recently showed us a letter which he received from that Island chieftain a few weeks ago (a letter in all respects such as might have been written by any European ruler) one sentence in which we are permitted to make public:-"I hope also for the success of your Lordship's visit to England, not only in getting funds for the cathedral, but in interesting the National mind there in aiding and sustaining the Church so happily reared by the agency of your Lordship principally." Such language, we may be permitted to think, he is fully justified in using, when he is showing the value which he attaches to the Church's presence in his kingdom, by his willingness to sacrifice for its sake so largely of his own substance.

We have spoken of the Female Boarding School. The attention of the Hawaiian Government had long been directed to the value of such institutions, and the Board of Education, of which the Bishop was appointed a member by the present King, arranged in 1865 a system of capitation grants with a view to encourage their formation and aid in their maintenance. The rules under which the Board assists schools of this kind were drawn up by the Bishop, and have met with general acceptance and approval. One of them is, that "Such industrial boarding schools shall be conducted on distinctively religious principles; but it leaves to their founders full liberty of action with regard to the forms of doctrine and worship which they may adopt." The result has been greatly to multiply these establishments in the Islands, so that the last year's Educational Report stated there were already fivefold as many children under training in female boarding-schools as there were previously. It is evident that the evils which not only militated so fearfully against the prosperity of the nation, but threatened its speedy extinction, are being at length fairly grappled with. In bringing about this happier state of things we are glad to find the English Mission has taken a leading part. The sisters and wives of the clergy from the first devoted themselves, as far as they could, to the training of Hawaiian girls, both at Lahaina and Honolulu. And now at both places are "Sisters of Mercy," who have gone out from this country for the purpose of spending their lives in