Pascal the Pilgrim, by Mr. Monro, is scarcely an allegory; though it much resembles one. It is, for the most part, a series of conversations between the Pilgrim and the Saviour on the road of the former to the heavenly city. The author calls it A Tale for Young Communicants. It has nothing particularly to do with communion, and is rather a chapter on perseverance. However, the name matters little, as we can very confidently speak of it as an excellent gift book to either a beginning communicant, or to one preparing for confirmation. Mr. Monro acknowledges his obligations to the "Divine Master."

The Report of the English Church Union, which has been sent to us, as well as the letters which have been appearing in several of the Church newspapers, seems to show that a good deal of difference of opinion has arisen among the members. The Church Review has for some time ceased to be the organ of the Union, and now the Church Union Kalendar, a really valuable repertory, is to be sacrificed. We are sorry for this, though probably it is impossible to avoid clashing where so many men of different principles are brought together. The number of members is now 1674.

Miss Pollard has, in her tale of Imperial Rome called Avice, shown that she has the faculty of investing a story with interest. Further than this, she makes her characters living and breathing men and women. If she has failed to reproduce the life of the past, she has accurately enough represented some of its accessories. There are some unexpected mistakes, e. g., when she makes a deacon consecrate the Blessed Sacrament and give the blessing. The book is well adapted to lending libraries, and would greatly interest a Sunday-school class.

The Bishop's Visit: by the Author of the Bishop's Little Daughter, is a thoroughly hearty little tale, full of good feeling, the slight materials of which is redeemed by a heartiness of feeling and a pleasing lucidity of style which makes a well written lady's letter so universally acceptable.

The Children of the Chapel is a more ambitious tale. It reproduces, apparently from authentic records, the mode of managing the children of the Chapel Royal in the days of Queen Elizabeth. The birching, we should hope, is overdone. Master Thomas Gyles has apparently that instrument of torture ever in his hands. Several of our best early composers appear in these few pages as children; William Byrd, Thomas Morley, John Radford, being among them. Tallis is organist at the time, but does not appear prominently in the story. The manners of the age are well reproduced.

Will ye also go Away, is a short address on the duty and privilege of attending at Holy Communion, edited by the Committee of Clergy. It is enough to announce the publication.

We certainly never fully estimated the furore with which the people received Garibaldi, until in Mr. Liddon's sermon, Witness for Jesus, delivered in St. Paul's Cathedral, at the special service, on the third Sunday after Easter, we read a eulogium introduced, with a semi-apology indeed, upon that intense hater of the Church. No doubt there are good points about Garibaldi-the world says But a preacher of rightousness is bound to remember other things too before he holds him up with unmitigated praise to the admiration of men. For the rest, the sermon is of Mr. Liddon's usual excellence, and this is high praise.

No doubt Protestantism is a very bad thing. Whether, however, it is the Beast in the Revelation, or the mystic Babylon, is a question. We cannot say that Father Rawes, in his tract entitled Protestantism, is quite sure that either of these symbols does typify Protestantism, for he proceeds to prove, whereas before he had simply stated. Nevertheless, in spite of his own doubts, he boldly affirms that both these representations are fulfilled in Protestantism. With all humility, we prefer Mr. Rawes's doubts to his assertions.

Mr. Mackenzie Walcott's Interior of a Gothic Minster is a learned epitome of all the uses-also abuses-of the various parts of the larger churches, especially of England. Wherever we have tested this well-filled pamphlet, we have found it very correct, and we doubt not it is equally trustworthy throughout. There is a vast deal of work here in a very concentrated form. If the pamphlet does not add to Mr. Wallcott's previous fame, it at any rate assures us that it was well earned.

We fear an unreality pervades The Evening Meetings, or the Pastor among the Boys of his Flock, which nullifies what good there is in them. The boys are, for the most part, unusually good, and talk ascetic theology quite fluently. The conversations carry us through the daily prayers. Those who have read Miss Wetherall's Stories on the Beatitudes, will be able to form some notion of the style of these conversations.

The Association for Intercessory Prayer have published a tract on the subject by the Rev. W. H. Ridley, a well-known and very successful tract-writer. Among existing religious Associations, there is none more useful than this. It has brought, and is bringing daily, blessings to many an afflicted household.

The little Prayer-Book, intended for beginners in devotion, is the very best and most complete manual of the kind we know. Its tone and teaching are most thoroughly Catholic. It is published in Oxford, Exeter, and Aberdeen.

We have often wondered why other large cities could not keep up something like the Norwich Spectator. There is good healthy reading given at a small price, Catholic in tone, with sufficient reference to the district to make it locally interesting.

A useful little Tract, twelve for a shilling, entitled Daily Communion an Ordinance of God, has been published by Mr. Palmer.

ART. XXIV.-The Panoply, Vol. III., No. 2. The English Baptismal Offices. Burntisland at the Pitsligo Press. 1864.

THE REV. G. H. FORBES, certainly among the most learned of Scotch divines, does not command that amount of attention which his abilities and acquirements would seem to demand. Why is this? There is a general opinion that he is crotchetty and opinionative; but still this is not sufficient to account for the disregard with which his English theological treatises are received. We have been at some pains to ascertain the reason; and we think that, in addition to the obvious cause we have already mentioned, we may specify the following peculiarities, which will strike any one who will be at pains to read through the treatise at the head of our article. Crotchettiness is not by any means an unusual failing, and yet men's lucubrations are read in spite of their peculiarities. But notwithstanding a transparent clearness of expression, Mr. Forbes sins against the nineteenth century, in being undoubtedly a heavy writer. He knows nothing of footnotes, and less of appendices. Hence his text is loaded. with all sorts of extraneous matter. His most elaborate arguments are interrupted by long digressions on points which have occurred to him during the process of writing. Then, he accumulates proofs of things which require merely stating, with references below. Apparently he has never thought his subject fully out, hence he leaves hammer and nails in the middle of the room, to show how industrious he has been in fixing the carpet; in other words, he does not only give you results, he recites also the process by which the result has been arrived at. And lastly, what seems strange in one who prints so well at his private press, he discards the modern way of displaying the argument to the eye by well developed divisions of type. Hence, unless you scribble over the margins, or make copious references at the end of his books, it is next to impossible to find again any given passage to which you wish to refer. Nor, again, is Mr. Forbes a courteous writer. As a speaker, his deferential manner is, as we are informed, quite unequalled. But he has small compassion to bestow on any unlucky man who may chance to come across his argument in writing. It is needless to say how much this prepossesses a reader against his author. A courteous, deferential style is in controversy of immense importance. Mr. Forbes

does not believe in any modern or mediæval writer, not a Nonjuror-though he is deferential to the Fathers.

Mr. Forbes is a Scotch Episcopalian, and glories in it. He is haunted by an idea that every English High Churchman is unduly influenced by the Lutheranism which mixed with the English Reformation. If we remember rightly, he has brought this charge not against Dr. Pusey alone, but against the late Archdeacon Wilberforce also. A closer examination of the English service-book, however, reveals an amount of Zuinglianism for which he was not prepared. Lutheranism has disappeared, and, through Bucer's influence, he holds that the Baptismal Offices are disfigured by a worse heresy than that-plain, unmitigated Zuinglianism. He admits that changes subsequently made have softened down its ugly features, but that beneath the surface the heresy lies hiding under specious phrases which High Churchmen have misunderstood, and which were intended to beguile them. Popular instinct has, however, been truer than scholar-like acumen, and the people generally believe what the Offices, as altered by Bucer, were intended to teach.

Before we can allow Mr. Forbes, however, to regard himself as external to this inquiry, we must see in what position the Scottish Canons of 1838, by which he professes to be bound, place the Baptismal Offices of the "Anglo-Bucerian Prayer-Book," as Mr. Forbes delights to style it. So much of the 17th Canon of that code as bears on this question we will therefore quote: "As uniformity in the administration of this Sacrament is as desirable as in the other services of the Church, the private administration shall be no reason for any departure from the form prescribed for public use, to which the Minister shall always strictly adhere, except in cases of extreme danger, where the form of private Baptism shall be used as directed by the Rubric."* It then goes on to prescribe the hypothetic form to be used in the case of adult converts who are doubtful about their Baptism.

Possibly Mr. Forbes might argue that this Canon only provides for exceptional cases, and that if he was to be ever guilty of baptising in a private house under the circumstances we have detailed in the foregoing note, he would be justly

From the distance at which many members of the Church resided from their place of worship, the custom has grown up, not always to be explained on the score of distance, of having children baptised at home. In these cases, the whole household, with the sponsors, are accustomed to assemble in the drawing-room, making a congregation. A large China bowl is kept for these occasions, with appropriate linen. The public form of Baptism is ordered to be used for this ceremony.

punished by being tied to the ipsissima verba of the English Ritual. This, however, as all will see, is a simple evasion. "The Form prescribed for public use" evidently means that which the Scottish Church has so prescribed, and we cannot see that the new Canon, against which Mr. Forbes protests, binds this particular Office upon him more than the old one. Nevertheless, Mr. Forbes tells us that he administers this Sacrament not by the words of the authorised Formulary, but by another of his own invention. Mr. Forbes may think that he has a right to do this. Most persons, we should magine, will think that he is as much bound in conscience by the "Anglo-Bucerian Formulary" as any of those whom he pities. We must, however, leave this point to be settled between Mr. Forbes and his Bishop; and meantime we undertake the more pleasing duty of thanking Mr. Forbes for the extremely painstaking labour he has bestowed upon the subject of our Baptismal services.

It is of course well known to all scholars that our Service

Book was drawn up under very difficult circumstances. The Royal Supremacy was not a theory merely-it was actively put in force. Whoever happened to be Archbishop, in fact, used the King's Supremacy to advance his own views. Thus Cranmer, having changed his sentiments during the two years following the publication of the first Prayer-Book of Edward VI., determined, in spite of an Act of Parliament and the authority of Convocation, to make alterations in concert with Martin Bucer and Peter Martyr, one Alesse, a Scotchman, assisting them. Convocation, says Dr. Cardwell, “was not permitted to pass judgment on the second Service-Book put forth by authority of Parliament in the reign of Edward VI., and for this plain reason, that it would have thrown all possible difficulties in the way of its publication."-Synodalia, Preface, p. x. Its ecclesiastical authority may, therefore, be doubted. Mr. Forbes seizes upon this book to prove that in the matter of Baptism it has been entirely Zuinglianized through the influence of Bucer; that these errors have not been since greatly remedied; and that many of the changes made in 1662, having been introduced without sufficient consideration, are in themselves objectionable. The writer says, how

ever :

"I need hardly add that, grave as these errors are, and much to be deplored, they do not affect the right of the Church of England to be a Branch of the true Church of Christ, any more than the numerous errors in the rituals of the Roman Churches can be taken as a proof of their apostacy; nor do they imperil the