are but the models on which others are framed. We will not further specify those others. Rugby glories in the possession of a head-master whose religious opinions were grave matter of suspicion before he undertook the office; who has written, if the weakest of the notorious Essays, one that contains all the poison of the rest within its feeble fangs; and whose volume of Sermons since published has, more by its faulty omissions than anything else, confirmed the belief in his unsoundness, if, indeed, the fact of the support he has given to the infidel opinions of his brother essayists, by permitting his Essay to go through eleven editions along with theirs, were not strong enough without further confirmation. Of the influence exercised by Mr. Jowett at Balliol it is quite unnecessary to speak; that of the other tutors is well known to be all but absolutely powerless by the side of his. Any one who reads that author's works attentively may easily conceive how his graceful and apparently earnest style, his bold though borrowed Rationalism, his suggestive and insinuating scepticism, gains an overpowering ascendant over the young and ardent minds, many of them already too well prepared at Rugby and elsewhere, submitted to his manipulation. And those who are acquainted with students of that college may easily learn how the devotion of his time and powers to the cultivation of the talents of his young admirers gives him a claim, in itself not illegitimate, on their affection, while the permission granted him in his college to lecture on that very Bible which he perverts and parodies affords him all the opportunity he requires.

What is the result, what will be the result of this unchecked declension in the standard of English educators? Can it be expected that the pupils will be wiser than their tutors? Is it not the fact that the ablest and most industrious of our youth, being the most impregnated with unsound principles, are spreading them in every direction? Are not high-churchmanship and low-churchmanship alike deemed by them foolish enthusiasm, and the more moderate sections of those parties old-fashioned and slow? Morality-how often is it in truth a real immorality!takes with them the place of religion, reason, (so called) of faith, common sense, or at best a subtle Platonism, of creeds and primitive institutions; Christianity in all its essence evaporates, and of the residuum some monstrous form is now and then created which commands the senseless worship of those who have drifted away from all safe holding-ground. For, as has been often remarked, faith revenges itself even in this life. No true development of intellect takes place except under her influences. A shallow cleverness and a plausible logomachy are the counterfeit coin presented where she is not; and already, even at the chosen seats of the new school, there are not wanting symptoms of premature decay in the intellectual eminence. they have hitherto sustained. And let any one consider the mathematical rule of geometrical progression by which such teaching as that of the essayists is propagated; how many colleges are inoculated from one school; how these men when they take a distinguished degree become the tutors of those colleges; and how many others they are then in a position to influence. Again, how many pulpits are seized by those who have had this training; how largely the press of this country is in their hands; and through these two tremendous machineries how vast a sphere is opened to their agency. It may be easy to hold such fears up to ridicule-such is the usual and the most effective weapon with which they are met, and Englishmen are proverbially too easily cowed by such means; but thoughtful men and logical reasoners will none the less entertain fears that the future Christianity of this country will be seriously affected by what is now going on amongst us. If the springs are tainted how can the stream but be foul? And if the general hold of Christianity thus becomes feeble and lifeless, for it will extend to all literature and the education of all classes,-what about the political future of our country? He has read history to little purpose who can contemplate without shuddering the advent of another age of "light without life," the reaction from the improved Christian tone, introduced by

the Evangelicals first, and carried forward by High-churchmen next, to the dull carelessness of the last century in England, or the glittering apotheosis of intellect which the same century witnessed in France. The state too surely suffers when the Church decays, and future generations will pay for the criminal shortsightedness of this.

a happy thing that the remedy, an indirect one it is true, is in the hands of all who are willing to use it. The places of education to which we have referred have, in our own times, gained their prestige by a good start, by making a name, by thus attracting the highest intellect, the best material, and by their acuteness in securing the most efficient staff possible to keep up the standard. The whole amazing energy of these establishments has been brought to bear on the achievement of success at the universities. We may not think it the worthy object of such vast, sustained, and painful labour, to gain such rewards; we may consider the system overstrained, and the results of such hot-pressure unsatisfactory; but we must take things as we find them. There is much to be said on both sides even of the abstract question, but the fact is that the demand exists; it will no doubt follow the universal law and be supplied. We see how it is supplied at present. What has been done by some may be done by others. A great responsibility rests on those who are capable of raising the intellectual standard of the places to which they belong. Every boy and man sent forth with a sound foundation of earnest religion, and gaining high distinction at the universities, will plant a standard round which others will rally, and by degrees roll off the reproach at present attaching to orthodox training. Why should not those who have this end at heart clear off obstructions as unsparingly, work as zealously, and be as successful, as men of a different stamp? There could be no nobler service to Church and State than that which might be done by able young men offering to perform their part in such work for the work's sake, and not with a mere view to emolument.

But this is open only to a few. If there is any truth in what we have advanced, let parents, guardians, trustees of schools, and heads of colleges look to it. We implore them to consider well the consequences of letting any consideration whatever interfere with the one main point. Occasionally a youth may pass through the perils of a pestilent atmosphere without suffering. There are some such cases. But, as a rule, fatal disease is too surely fixed in the very constitution of the spiritual system. And let churchmen, one and all, unite in proclaiming, wherever their voice can be heard, that the ancient doctrine, the inseparability of religion from secular training, still zealously guarded for the lower classes, shall be preserved intact for the sons of gentlemen. Let them show themselves determined to have some guarantee for what that religious part of the training is by insisting upon steady and faithful adherence to the standard of the Church of England.

Convocation.

CHURCH and State Review would be imperfect without at least an occasional survey of the state and prospects of Convocation. It is true that fifty, or even twenty-five, years ago there would have been little to say on such a subject. The outer framework indeed remained, but the machinery was rusted by the disuse of nearly a century and a-half. Most persons, if they ever thought of Convocation at all, regarded it as an effete institution; and none but a few thoughtful and well-informed persons looked upon it with reverence as the great representative body of the spiritualty of the realm. But the last quarter of a century has witnessed a surprising change. With the new life which has been stirring in the Church of England, her Southern Convocation has been quickened into strength and efficiency.

Slowly but surely its dormant powers have been developing; and every session it is winning increasing confidence by the wise and practical issue of most of its deliberations. It would be tedious to enumerate the various points on which Convocation has spoken, It must be enough to say that much has been done through the reports of its Committees, that many important subjects have been debated with ability and eloquence, and many useful decisions - have been arrived at on matters deeply affecting the interests of the Church, The fears which some entertained of unseemly strife in debate, or of attempts to exalt unduly the authority of the Clergy, have been proved to be without foundation; and its members, whether official or elected, have shown that they can meet and differ with due respect for one another's opinions, and with a hearty allegiance to the Crown,

Convocation has even advanced some steps towards the alteration of one of the canons, with a view to its re-enactment in an amended form. But here it has received a momentary check, in consequence of another event, which, while it also indicates the increasing vitality of the Church, opens fresh questions, and involves important considerations. We allude to the revival of the sister Convocation of the Northern province, which has an equal interest in the discussion of the twenty-ninth canon, and has been directed to take it into consideration. The Canterbury Convocation has thus an opportunity of reconsidering the whole question; and it is most desirable that both Convocations should confer together upon the true statutable method of enacting canons in an English Provincial Synod; a subject of great moment, as bearing both upon the rights and privileges of the Church, and upon the due maintenance of the Royal Supremacy,

The Act of Submission (25 Henry VIII. c. 19) may be considered as marking a new era in the history of Canon Law. It brought the whole body of Canon Law, whether foreign or English, so far as it affected the Church of England, under the cognizance and control of the Crown of England, giving validity to such part of it as was not contrariant to the customs, laws, and statutes of the realm, or to the Royal prerogative, and restraining the clergy in their Convocations for the future (such Convocations being always assembled by authority of the King's writ) from enacting any canons without the Royal assent and licence first obtained. It will appear from hence that this important act was not intended to deprive the Church of her ancient right of self-legislation; but to restrain that right within the limits absolutely necessary to the union of Church and State; withholding the Convocations of the Clergy, first, from assembling at all without the Royal licence, and next, when assembled, from executing any canons which should be contrariant to the Royal prerogative, or to the common or statute law of the realm. From this it would seem plain that when any matter is proposed to be treated of with a view to a Synodical act, it is the business of the Convocation, first to determine what it wishes to enact; then that the canon or constitution so agreed upon should be submitted to the Crown, who, as the supreme governor in the realm, should by its law officers determine whether such proposed canon is within the limits laid down by the aforesaid Act; after which, supposing it to be approved, the licence of the Crown would be granted to the Convocation to "make, promulge, and execute" the canon. This appears to us to be the meaning of the Act of Submission, a statute which, with admirable wisdom, lays down the principle upon which a Church in union with the State may exercise the right of self-legislation with due submission to the supreme authority in the State.

But the revival of the York Convocation has revived also with it an old difficulty, namely, by what means a joint and harmonious action of the two Convocations may be obtained. We speak of this as an old difficulty; for it has been felt whenever the two Synods have been active; and various expedients have been adopted to meet it.

The first and most obvious course would be the fusion of the two bodies into one; and to such a conclusion the

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Lower House of the York Convocation appear to have arrived at their last session. We highly respect the desire for unity, and the mutual confidence of the two Synods which this resolution indicates; but we venture to think that the decision was hastily formed, and that the Lower House of York can hardly have considered with sufficient care the difficulties of such a step. There have, no doubt, been instances of the two Convocations sitting together; but when so assembled, they sat, not as two Provincial Synods merged into one, but as a National Synod, under some authority superior to that of either of their presidents. They were, in fact, so held only when either York was in subjection to Canterbury, or when a Legatus à latere exercised a primacy over both archbishops.

We doubt much whether the proposed amalgamation could take place without a serious disturbance of the old foundations on which the Synods of the English Church The independent existence of the two Provincial Synods is a part of the ancient Saxon institutions of our country; and such a change might imperil the very existence of Convocation, at least in its present form.

rest.

Another course has been to debate simultaneously, but separately, in the Houses of the two Provinces; a mode which could hardly lead to united action.

A third course has been to discuss and transact the required business first in the Canterbury Synod, and then to send drafts of the proceedings to the York Synod for their

concurrence.

It was thus that the Canons of 1603 were passed, They were first debated and ratified in the Convocation of Canterbury, and were then sent down to the York Synod, and obtained their consent.

A fourth mode has been the sending of Proxies elected by the Synod of York into that of Canterbury. This mode of proceeding was adopted on the occasion of the revision of our Book of Common Prayer in 1661. The Canterbury Convocation met on May 8th, in that year, in London. On November 21st the question of a revision of the Prayer-book was entered upon. The following day the Archbishop of York, then in London, received a communication from the King, pressing the subject upon the attention of his Synod; whereupon the archbishop sent a letter, signed by himself and his suffragans, requesting the Prolocutor of the York Lower House to procure a vote from the whole house for proxies to appear in the Canterbury Convocation to represent and act for the whole house. This was accordingly done; and on the 20th of December the Book of Common Prayer received the assent and subscription of both Convocations thus represented by proxy.

These are the precedents gathered from the history of Convocation. It may be doubted how far any one of them could be conveniently followed at the present time. The first seems to us impossible, and the second unpractical. And of the third and fourth it may be questioned whether, considering the great advance of the Northern Province during the last 200 years in population and wealth and intelligence, the Convocation of York would now consent either to occupy so subordinate a position, or to be represented by a small executive,

It has been suggested whether joint committees of the two Convocations respectively might not be appointed who should confer together as to the questions to be brought forward, and as to the general principles upon which such questions should be determined. It is obvious that if there were any subjects on which these committees failed to come to an agreement it would be hopeless to expect it in the Synods themselves; whereas, if agreement were obtained in the committees, the same might reasonably be looked for in the bodies represented by them. Moreover, might not joint committees of both Convocations be occasionally appointed to draw up reports to be presented in the houses of both Provinces simultaneously? Generally speaking the reports of committees are adopted. Such at least has been our experience of the practice of the Convocation of Canterbury; and we may fairly expect that such will be found to be the practice of York: and

thus through the action of joint committees the two Convocations may preserve their own independence, and yet arrive at the same result.

We have no space to enter here upon the relations of the English Convocations to those of Ireland. It will probably not be long before the examples of Canterbury and York will be followed by Armagh and Dublin. And when all the Provincial Synods shall have been quickened into action, it will be time to consider seriously of a National Synod of the United Church of England and Ireland.

tion.

We should like to add one word upon the question of admitting a lay representation into Convocation. This subject has been frequently brought forward; but it does not, as yet, appear to be sufficiently understood. There is something very plausible in the idea; for all, both clergy and laity, must feel the great importance of lay co-operaBut when we seek for lay co-operation, let us seek it through the proper channels, and by legitimate modes of communication. And this cannot be through the Convocations of the clergy. What we have urged against the amalgamation of the two Convocations may be urged with even greater force against the introduction of a lay representation into either body. It would be the admitting into it of a new element. Convocation is essentially a spiritual body. As the laity are represented in Parliament, so the spiritualty are represented in Convocation. Such a change, therefore, as that desired, would be far more than a reform; it would be a revolution of Convocation. It would not be an extension of its influence; it would be a change of its very nature. We should therefore at once pronounce such a proposal to be impossible. At least, it could not be effected without the intervention of Parliament; and it may be doubted whether Parliament, powerful though it is, could address itself to such a measure. And further, supposing such a change to be made, how would it affect the relations of Church and State? A representation of A representation of laymen, not in Parliament, must tend, sooner or later, to the overthrow of the Church as an establishment. It would be one step, and that an important one, towards that catastrophe. Let us not then, for want of a little consideration, encourage the designs of those who seek to do us hurt. The foundations of our Provincial Synods lie deep in the ancient constitution of our polity, and we cannot disturb them without harm and loss; for thus we may most unintentionally help those who seek a severance of Church and State, and imperil those liberties which have come down to us by a prescription of more than a thousand years.

Judgment in Synod.

HE revived powers of Convocation, within those limits which they have reached, entail a duty and responsibility upon the body commensurate with the life restored. And here, as is continually seen in other things, God's providence appoints special work to be done so soon as power is given to do it. Where human will has a part in the performance it is another question whether the work is done, or done as it should be. This is the present trial; or, at least, one great present trial of the Church of England. If the responsibility be acknowledged and accepted, very great blessings will follow; if it be ignored in blindness, or shuffled off through sloth or cowardice, ill consequences beyond our calculation will ensue.

We approach this subject painfully in connection with some recent proceedings of the Convocation of the Province of Canterbury.

In the year of God's Grace 1860 appeared a certain volume entitled Essays and Reviews. The now somewhat hacknied descriptive criticism, that "what in it was true was not new, and what in it was new was not true," however just as a general estimate, was not perfectly ac

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curate. There was at least an exception. There was one point which, alas! was true as well as new. that a book so wholly contrariant to the faith and teaching of the Church of England should bear the names, in six out of seven of its writers, of men sworn to abide by and teach her doctrines only;-men in Holy Orders in that Church, and not a few of them in places of especial trust and authority within her pale.

It was this which gave its real importance to a work otherwise of no weight or power. It was this which attracted to it particular notice. The very same thing which made the Church's censure suitable made it also imperative that such censure should issue; because the above-named novelty withdrew the book from obscurity and fixed men's eyes upon it. "What manner of Church is this," they began to say, whether as friends or foes, "which can tolerate such a latitude in the exposition of her faith-from whose ministry, as compared with her articles and formularies, proceed such various and contrariant voices, from whose fountains issue such different waters?"

The magnitude of the question and of the evil forced itself on the notice of the world, and could not be hidden from the Church herself. It is true there were some who, without defending the Essayists, yet wished that things might run their course, trusting that the panic, as they called it, would subside of itself. It is a questionable policy, or, at any rate, one very difficult in its application for lawful authority to pass by treason on the plea that to condemn it is to give it notoriety, and so to create the evil against which it would provide. But, at any rate, here the case was disembarrassed of any such perplexity before the Houses of Convocation had any opportunity of touching upon it. Whatever evil there might be on the score of notoriety, this was already un fait accompli. Many and rapidly successive editions of the volume; innumerable notices in periodicals and other works; the outstretched throat of infidelity everywhere rejoicing in its appearance— raising shouts of jubilee, not simply that such statements should be made, but made by men in the position of these writers-hailing the publication as "the beginning of the end," the harbinger of the overthrow of the faith of ages in the Church of England, perhaps of the Church itself, as the defender of "the faith once delivered;" last of all, a combined censure, agreed to at a private meeting of the Episcopal body, by the two archbishops and all the bishops of England and Wales; these things, and especially the last, though in itself a great mistake, had cut away all force from the plea that it were well to let the book alone, lest it should be drawn from obscurity into light by the fact of a Synodical Condemnation.

Under these circumstances the Convocation of the Province of Canterbury met on the 26th of February, 1861, and was immediately called upon to take action in the matter. On the motion of Dr. Jelf, in the Lower House, the standing orders were, with hardly a dissentient voice, suspended, for the purpose of giving priority over other business to a motion (moved also by Dr. Jelf, and seconded by Dr. M'Caul,) for "an address to the Upper House, praying the official attention of His Grace and their Lordships to the volume entitled Essays and Reviews, with a view to Synodical action in reference thereto, inasmuch as, in the judgment of this House, the book in question contains many erroneous statements, and inculcates principles contrary to the Holy Scriptures and to the Articles of Religion of 1562."

The mode of proceeding was not quite clear of difficulty; for the censure of the 12th of February publicly, though not Synodically, put forth with the names of twenty-six archbishops and bishops of the English Church, gave some awkwardness to the form of the proposed address, seeming almost to preclude the Lower House from asking the Upper to do that which they had already done, viz. consider the book with a view to its condemnation. Whilst, on the other hand, a strong desire that, if possible, an unanimous adhesion might be given to whatever resolution should be passed, was felt to throw a

difficulty in the way of an immediate condemnation, inasmuch as many members of the House declared they had not read the work, having been wholly unable, from the demands upon the booksellers, to obtain a copy. The result was, a compromise in the form of a very milk-andwater censure; an expression of thankful concurrence with the bishops in what they had done, instead of a request to them to proceed in Synod assembled, and a pious hope that pernicious effects would be averted.

It was felt by many very strongly, after the passing of this resolution, that the proceeding was unworthy of the Houses and of the grave nature of the case; and although hereupon the standing orders were not again suspended in order to re-open the question, a gravamen and petition, numerously signed, was sent from certain members of the Lower to the Upper House, praying for the appointment of a Committee to make a full examination of the book and report thereon: a proceeding which, though possibly a little awkward in form, (for the Committee should evidently have been asked for in the first instance,) was yet in substance the right thing, and indeed the only thing to do. The Upper House complied with the prayer of the petitioners, and a Committee of the Lower House was accordingly appointed "to examine the book entitled Essays and Reviews, and to report thereon to the Lower House, in order that the Lower House may communicate to the Upper House its opinion whether there are sufficient grounds for proceeding to a Synodical judgment upon the book."

On the 18th of June the Committee presented their report, to which, however, the House was not asked to assent in detail; but from it to draw the conclusion that "there were sufficient grounds to proceed to a Synodical judgment upon the book," and that the House should so report its opinion to the Upper House. After a prolonged and animated debate, extending over the session of two days, and conducted with a moderation and temper well-fitted to the gravity of the occasion and the assembly, the resolution pur et simple, as proposed by the Archdeacon of Taunton, and seconded by Dr. M'Caul, was carried by a considerable majority. No one of those who proposed amendments making any attempt to defend or excuse the book.

This done, it remained with the Upper House to say what further proceedings should be taken. And here we approach its determination with the deepest regret. The archbishop and bishops of the Upper House, after having themselves put forth a censure, though unsynodically after having received the addresses of numerous and anxious petitioners on the subject—after having replied to the address of the Lower House, and the numerously-signed petition from certain members of it—after having appointed a Committee thereof, to examine and report upon whether there were grounds sufficient to proceed to Synodical judgment on the same-after having received the report of the said Committee and the resolution of the Lower House in connection with it ;-after all this the Upper House stayed its own hand, and stifled its own voice, and nullified its own previous action, on the ground that, as proceedings against one of the writers had been commenced by his diocesan in the court of the province, it was inexpedient, pending those proceedings, upon the ground that the archbishop and the other bishops being Privy Councillors might have to sit in the Appeal Court, to come to any Synodical judgment upon the merits of the book-its heresy or the dangers connected with it. There are two grave questions which demand an answer here. First, is the ground alleged by the Upper House sufficient in the case? Second, if sufficient, was there any room for it under the circumstances?

To both questions the reply is clearly in the negative. Whether or no the archbishop and bishops being Privy Councillors could sit in the Appeal Court is a matter of no importance when weighed against the incalculable mischief of not proceeding straight forward to a Synodical judgment. And whether it be of great importance or of none makes no difference under the circumstances, because

the censure already unanimously agreed to at the private meeting at Lambeth would be as strong an instance of having prejudged the case, and as complete a ground for a recusatio judicis, as any Synodical judgment could be. We cannot hide what is notorious to all men, and we dare not hide it if we could. The proceedings invited by the Upper House have been suspended for no reason; and Churchmen are asking themselves everywhere, sorrowfully and painfully, whether the truth of all this be, not, as is stated, an adjournment, but an abandonment, of proceedings.

There has been so much said in and out of Convocation which shows an entire misconception of what a Synodical judgment is that we must add a few words here. Proceedings in Court Ecclesiastical and proceedings in Synod are perfectly separate and distinct, have nothing to do with one another, and therefore cannot clash. They are not in pari materiâ. They do not judge the same thing. They have not the same object, and they do not go about to compass their object in the same way. For the duty and office of the Synod in such case is to preserve intact the Faith by dogmatic declaration. It is to act as a promulgation of the Church's judgment on a matter of doctrine, irrespective of persons: as a warning voice against error, heresy, or schism, as such, and especially if found within in the Church's own pale; but still looking not to the writers as individuals, but merely to what is written, and to the position, not the persons, of the authors. It is thus to bear witness to the truth; to warn the unwary; to confirm the doubting; to restrain the over-bold or presumptuously-disposed; to help the unlearned; to teach the children of the Church where danger and sin lie, that they may not, even inadvertently, fall into the pits and snares which," in these dangerous days," beset their path. It is to mark the error or the sin, not to try the criminal. But the office of the bishop in his court is, (though all this also incidentally,) yet in its nature and essence, judicial on his part, and personal as to those proceeded against. His course is directed not against the book as a pernicious book, but against the writer as an offender against the law of the Church. The one condemns the book as an exposition of heresy, contrary to the Faith of the Church;-the other condemns the man, as a transgressor against his legal obligation. It is but a shallow philosophy, and a faulty logic which, confusing the accidents with the essence of things, does not see this distinction, and so keeps saying that if you condemn the book you do, pari passu, condemn the writers. It is a failure of discrimination between a legal penalty and a moral consequence. No one indeed denies, as a fact, that an authoritative condemnation of a book may reflect upon the writer also, and so in a certain sense be said to carry with it a penalty. But still this is not a penalty in its essential character. It is not the writer as such that is dealt with :

and it is most important that this logical distinction should be borne in mind, unless we would introduce a fatal confusion of thought tending to the total abnegation of the Church's function as "having authority in controversies of Faith," and of her great duty of "bearing witness unto the Truth." Why! it is even conceivable in any given case that the writer might obtain a just acquittal as not having actually placed himself within the letter of the law, and yet the condemnation of his deed-his bookmight be not only a righteous act, but an imperative duty on the part of the Church in Synod assembled. And here it is not unworthy of notice how this distinction was marked in the Lower House of Convocation. there suggested, in the course of the debate to which we have before alluded, that it would be hard to condemn the writers of the Essays behind their backs; without a hearing, without a citation to them to appear and explain their meaning. The answer was,-"We are not sitting in judgment upon the men; we have no need, and in fact no power, to cite them to appear. If we did so, they might, and probably would, refuse to come; and even were it otherwise, it would be a confusion of ideas to seek to bring them personally before us. We merely say the book is

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