laudable attempt," the petitioners contend, "was frustrated by the Lower House of Convocation, representing a clergy at that time notoriously disaffected to the Government and the Protestant Succession." The petitioners, encouraged by the publication of the document just alluded to, conclude by praying for the appointment of a Royal Commission, after the precedent of Edward VI., or for a select committee of the House of Commons, "to carry out the principles and designs of the most enlightened reformers in a further revision of the Book of Common Prayer," by which the petitioners believe that "tender consciences may be relieved, erroneous teaching prevented (?), present difficulties removed, many sincere Christians be enabled to teach and worship in the Established Church; and, above all, the language of the Liturgy be more plainly conformed to the only unerring standard of religious truth, the Holy Scriptures.' We have here three parties acting in this matter of Prayer Book Reformthe Evangelicals, represented by the Archbishop, or the Bath Society-the Puseyites, by the Bishop of Oxfordand the really orthodox Church, by him of Exeter. The petition embodies the views of the first, the resolution those of the second, and the negatived amendment indicates those of the third. the With respect to the first, the charitable design of its promoters is to purge the Prayer Book of things inconsistent with Scripture, and thereby stay progress of Dissent. It is thus candidly admitted that Dissenters have reason for their dissent, a fact of which they themselves are well aware, but which is reluctantly drawn from the clergy by the alarming "increase of nonconformity." Dissenters may well be proud of their position. It is acknowledged that there are many sincere Christians," in the ranks of Nonconformity, although not made such by baptismal water, nor yet by the "imposition of hands." 66 Whilst it is true that the heresies of the Book of Common Prayer form a ground of Dissent, this is not the only ground. The stereotyped service, the Establishment principle, and the temporal head, form equally strong reasons; and we can assure the petitioners that, however scriptural they may make the Prayer Book, Nonconformity would be very little weakened, so long as that system obtains which Dissenters believe "destroys more souls than it saves." But even were the hopes of the petitioners of bringing back "tender consciences," by the proposed reform, well founded, we answer for it, that the prayers of their petition will never be granted by the State Church; so that, if they are true men, they will carry out the reformation among themselves, and join the ranks of the very Nonconformity which they now seek to destroy. And what of party No. 2, which so unanimously passed the resolution in the Upper House? What this party wants is "modification," not reform. The wording of the resolution, coming, as it does, from Bishop Wilberforce, sufficiently indicates the design. Let the reader observe, that although this resolution would retain the Prayer Book" entire and unaltered," it at the same time asks for an "exceptional " power to "recombine," to "form anew," to "divide," to "alter," and "to make such alterations in the Psalter and Table of Lessons as may be judged needful!" What a vast amount of Jesuitism is here! What with recombining, forming anew, dividing, and altering, under the master hand of the Bishop of Oxford, we should soon have such a precious piece of Puseyite patchwork as would Romanise every Church service and altar throughout the land. Honest Churchmen, beware! The bishops passed this resolution. "It is better to bear the ills ye have, than fly to others that ye know not of." So thinks stout Exeter; witness his amendment. The honest gentleman believes there is Romanism enough in the Rubric, the Prayer Book, and the Canons of the Church, if fairly carried out, to keep or drive from it all that is evangelical, without calling to his aid the sinuosity of the Puseyite school. A plain-spoken, straight-forward man is this Bishop, and he is to be commended. The Archbishop was president, and could not vote; what he thought does not appear. Twelve bishops were appointed a committee, to prepare the heads of an Address to the Queen; the evangelical prelate of Winchester, although present, was not of the number; but the Bishop of Bath and Wells, though absent, was nominated. The house is divided. There is an old saying, "A house divided against itself cannot stand." But whilst there is both amusement and instruction from the Upper House of Convocation, there is equally as much to be found in the House inferior. The Very Rev. the Dean of Ely acted as prolocutor on the occasion. Archdeacon Denison appeared prominently on the stage. He now feels himself a persecuted and injured man, and he wanted the House to stand by him. He said, "I stand here to-day in a very painful, and at the same time a very peculiar position. At first I hesitated whether I should come at all. It was originally my intention to have gone into the whole of the facts in connection with my case; for I feel sure that, although I might be somewhat out of order in doing so, my rev. brethren would bear with me, considering the position in which I am placed, and grant me the same indulgence which is frequently allowed to members of Parliament. I maintain that no man has greater gravamina than I have at present; and I was about to show how the clergy stand at the present time with regard to the Church Discipline Act, but I will content myself with a short statement as to how I stand with respect to it. A general representation upon certain principal points of the existing position of the Church of England was made to this House, at its Session in 1852, and was referred, by order of this House, to a committee. No. 5 of that representation is as follows:-That it has been publicly stated by the framer of the Act, which constituted the existing Court of Appeal in ecclesiastical cases, that he never contemplated its having to deal with questions affecting the doctrines of the Church; that the unfitness of that tribunal for the discussion of such questions has been generally acknowledged in the House of Lords, and even in the Court itself; that divers attempts to amend the constitution of that Court, made year after year, have failed, and this seems a matter which specially and urgently calls for the deliberation of the Church in her synod, previously to its being submitted to the civil Legislature.' In the spirit of the representation (continued the Archdeacon), a committee was appointed by the Upper House, on November 16th, 1852. The report of that Committee is, that the existing state of the law touching the discipline of the clergy is unsatisfactory, and that it needs amendment. The report goes into divers details, and among them the application of the law to cases of heresy and false doctrines. Another committee-a joint committee of both Houses-has since been appointed on the subject. In the face of their public condemnation, of the Act 3rd and 4th of Victoria, chap. 80, as applied to cases of doctrine by this House, by its framer and in Parliament, and I may add by any one who has any knowledge of its provisions, it has very lately been applied to such a case. This, of itself, nevertheless, might be fairly allowed not to contribute a legitimate ground of complaint to this House; but when the manner of such application is taken into account, in this particular case in question, it appears impossible to say that such legitimate ground of complaint does not exist, and more, that it does not become the necessary duty of the House to entertain and promote such complaint. Indeed, it would appear that unless this House is prepared to abdicate its proper functions, and to endeavour to deal only with the repairs of the superstructure of the fabric of the Church, without due, and constant, and careful regard to the basis upon which alone that fabric can securely rest, this House cannot refuse-I do not say to entertain, for this much, I suppose, no member of this House will refuse to entertain-to promote the complaint which I, as one of its members, now lay before it." When the venerable gentleman had proceeded thus far, the Rev. H. Vincent rose to order. He wished to know whether the matter was to be submitted as gravamina; because, if so, it could not be entertained: and if the Venerable Archdeacon wished to lay a statement before them for redress, it was certainly not in the power of the House to assist him. The Prolocutor gave it as his opinion that it would be injudicious to allow Archdeacon Denison to proceed; upon which the latter fired up and said, "If I am forced in this way, I shall be obliged to bring a charge of heresy against this House." After some further discussion, the Archdeacon replied, "I did not come here for the House to interfere, but to publish before the House the facts that are in my statement. I will now read the statement, as I am not allowed to make a speech." He then read a document, in which, after referring to the charge of false doctrine against him, he said that he reserved to himself the right of going into the whole case on a future occasion. Chancellor Martin doubted whether the House could re ceive the paper. The Archdeacon wished it to be allowed to go on the minutes. His wish was refused. These proceedings offer some curious topics for remark. In the preliminary inquiry instituted by the Archbishop of Canterbury, it was decided by the Court that there was a prima facie case for further steps made out against the accused. By the fiat of the Bishop of Bath and Wells, further inquiry is stayed. Tainted with heresy as he was, according to the judgment of the Preliminary Court, the Archdeacon boldly appeared in the Convocation. In order to vindicate both himself and his diocesan, he alludes to the "Church Discipline Act," under which, we presume, proceedings were taken, and on the authority and in the words of the framer of that Act, assumes that the Court of Appeal in ecclesiastical cases "was never contemplated by him as having to deal with questions affecting the doctrines of the Church; that the unfitness of that tribunal for the discussion of such questions has been generally acknowledged," &c. He endeavours to strengthen his case by making the Lower House of Convocation a court of conscience, by getting it to indorse his gravamina, and thus justify the Bishop and himself in obstructing the due course of law. How far even the venerable body of theologians in convocation assembled constitutes a proper tribunal in doctrinal difficulties, is seen from the votes in this case. The House divided on the proposition to receive (that is, indorse) the Archdeacon's document, when there appeared thirty-three for suspected heresy, and thirty-six against it. A pretty forum conscientia, truly! And yet these are the men who meet and scheme to bring the religious mind of England into unity. The Archdeacon may be excused for threatening to "bring a charge of heresy against this House." Good! There would be no lack of evidence to sustain it. That the existing state of the law touching the discipline of the clergy is unsatisfactory, nobody needs to be told; and if they wanted proof, Mr. Denison's own case would be "quantum sufficit." What is there, we ask, in these doings of convocation calculated to impress the public mind with its theological wisdom? or with the unity and stability for the good of the Established Church? In all things, except the State principle, it is as a rope of sand, a thing impotent in discipline, heterogeneous in doctrine, slow in useful action, and contemptible as an ecclesiastical body corporate. There is not a Dissenting community in the land. (Mormonites excepted) whose theology is so confused, whose action for good is so slow, whose discipline is so lax, and whose unity is so intact for all the purposes of aggressive movements upon sin and error, the principal end for which the Church of Christ is called into existence. And what gives the Dissenting bodies their superiority? The very thing which these men of many opinions wish to destroy,—their Dissent and freedom from the trammels of the Convocation and the State. We say again, Nonconformists may well be proud of their position, and assure them that they have nothing to fear from the Convocation, whilst there is much to hope for in the cause of truth, from the very absurd positions in which their triplex foes, from time to time, place themselves. Let them once touch the Prayer Book in Convocation, and they will very soon "biting and devouring one another." commence MINISTERS' WIVES. SOCIETY (says the Springfield Republican) is a concrete intelligence an indefinite, aggregate humanity of "large expectations." It expects the "good time coming," progress in all that is good and great, and an undefined amount of service from the wives of the pastors of the churches, forgetting, meanwhile, that these same ladies have a lively interest in the good time coming, and would like to make a little progress on their own hook. A pastor is hired to preach to a respectable church for (we will say) £100 a year, depending on the wealth of the organization, and on the expensiveness in living. This is poor pay for well-trained and industrious brains, but it keeps body and soul together; though the library stands a poor chance for reinforcement, and the children for toggery. This hires the pastor; but, somehow or other, people have an idea that it hires the pastor's wife as well. From the day she enters the parish she is a marked woman. Her dress is supposed to be of the most saintly pattern. The colour of ribbon may endanger the peace of the whole community. She must be the best woman in the world, the head of all benevolent enterprises, Sunday-schools, ladies' fairs for procuring flannel shirts for Hottentots, sewing circles, Bibleclasses, etc. She must be the politest woman in the world, receiving calls at all times, and visiting from house to house, and make herself generally agreeable. She must be the most exemplary woman in the world, never laughing above the prescribed key. In short, she must be the paragon of all excellence, and possess a constitution like a horse, patience like an ox, and good nature like a puppy, to meet the wishes of what Carlyle would probably call the Expectational Epoch in the Sublime Cosmos. And why? Simply because her good husband has consented to do a most important, a most holy work, for small pay. We appreciate fully the desirableness of having, in the wife of a pastor, a pattern of the feminine proprieties and Christian virtues, as much on account of the pastor as the people; but we protest against the too common notion that the pastor's salary makes the wife a missionary, who is to labour with equal assiduity and earnestness for the good of the place, and to bow to the caprices, tastes, and prejudices of the people, without a farthing's consideration. She has her household duties to perform, and we know not why more should be expected of her than any other good Christian woman, who has the care of a family, and a toiling husband to kiss, comfort, and console. AGED MINISTERS. YOUR minister is superannuated, is he? Well, call a parish meeting, and vote him a dismission; hint that his usefulness is gone; that he is given to repetition; that he puts his hearers to sleep. Turn him adrift like a blind horse, or a lame house-dog. Never mind that he has grown grey in your thankless service that he has smiled on your infants, and, as years passed on, given them lovingly away in marriage to their heart's chosen, and wept with you when death's shadow darkened your door. Never mind that he has laid aside his pen, and listened many a time and oft, with courteous grace, to your tedious, prosy conversations, when his moments were like gold-dust; never mind that he has patiently and uncomplainingly accepted at your hands the smallest pittance that would sustain life, because the Master whispered in his ear, "Tarry here till I come." Never mind that the wife of his youth, whom he won from a house of luxury, is broken down with fatigue and privation, by your thousand unnecessary demands upon her strength, patience, and time. Never mind that his children, at an early age, were exiled from the parsonage roof, because there was not "bread enough and to spare" in their father's house. Never mind that his library consists only of a Bible, a concordance, and a dictionary; and that to the luxury of a religious paper he has been long years a stranger. Never mind that his wardrobe would be spurned by many a mechanic in our cities. Never mind that he has "risen early and sat up late," and tilled the ground with weary limbs for earthly "manna," while his glorious intellect lay in fetters for you! Never mind all that; call a parish meeting, and vote him "superannuated." Don't spare him the starting tear of sensibility, or the flush of wounded pride, by delicately offering to settle a colleague, that your aged pastor may rest on his staff in grateful grey-haired independence. No! turn the old patriarch out; give him time to go to the moss-grown churchyard, and say farewell to his unconscious dead, and then-give "the right hand of fellowship" to some beardless, pedantic, noisy college boy, who will save your sexton the trouble of pounding the pulpit cushions, and who will tell you and the Almighty, in his prayers, all the political news of the week. A HINT TO DESPONDING MI NISTERS. A certain minister, who had been very successful in his labours in the Gospel vineyard, at length saw but very little fruit attending his ministrations. To be useless, he could not bear-his soul was bowed down under the discouraging prospects around him. Nothing on earth was so gloomy to him as a spiritual dearth, for he had been used to showers of reformation and mercy; and nothing else could satisfy his mind. Seeing no outpouring of the Spirit, no sinners converted under his preaching for some time, his soul was beset with desponding and melancholy fears. While thus exercised, he dreamed a gentleman hired him to work for him, and the price of his labour, per day, was stipulated. On inquiring what his employer would have him go about, he was informed he must go and hammer a certain rock to pieces. "That," he replied, "will do no good, for the rock is large and hard; I could never break it to pieces." "That is nothing to you," said the gentleman, "follow my direction, and I will pay you your wages." The labourer then went to work; and though it appeared an endless, and therefore useless task, he laboured with diligence and patience for the sake of his wages. After awhile, contrary to all his calculations, the mountainous rock broke into shivers. The minister saw the dream contained instruction for him. He felt the reproof, resumed courage, and was again blessed with seeing the rocky hearts of many of his hearers broken by the hammer of God's word. PREACH CHRIST. WHEN that faithful minister of Christ, Mr. Venn, was vicar of Huddersfield, in Yorkshire, he told me that a neighbouring clergyman, the Rev. Dr. L-, then vicar of H- -x, one day addressed him nearly in the following words: "Mr. Venn, I don't know how it is, but I should really think that your doctrines of grace and faith were calculated to make all your hearers live in sin; and yet I must own that there is an astonishing reformation wrought in your parish; whereas I don't believe I ever made one soul the better, though I have been telling them their duty so many years." Mr. Venn smiled at the Doctor's ingenuous confession, and frankly told him, "he would do well to burn all his old sermons, and try what preaching Christ would do." But it is to be feared that the advice was never followed. THE RIGHT KIND OF PREACHING. It was a beautiful criticism made by Longinus upon the effect of the speaking of Cicero and Demosthenes. He says the people would go from one of Cicero's orations, ex claiming, "What a beautiful speaker! what Thy glorious warfare's past: Essays, Extracts, and Correspondence. SPIRITUAL AND WATER BAPTISM. IN compliance with an oft-repeated wish, that instruction on the subject of Christian ordinances might be occasionally blended with the general matter of the Magazines, on the present occasion we send forth an Essay on a subject of the highest moment, the Baptism of Water and of the Holy Ghost. We start with the incontrovertible principle, that the outpouring of the Holy Spirit is really and truly baptism. It is plainly and repeatedly called so in the Sacred Scriptures. The baptism of the Holy Ghost, and that of water, are so blended in the predictions, promises, declarations, and histories of the Old and New Testaments, as to furnish a very strong presumption, that both were administered in the same manner. It is inconceivable, that the baptism of the Spirit should be by pouring on the people, and that of water plunging them into it, seeing that the word is the same in both cases. If, then, it be indubitably certain, that pouring was baptism with the Spirit, the conclusion is surely inevitable, that pouring is baptism with water. Indeed the argument arising from this consideration alone, possesses a strength so great, that in our opinion, it suffices singly to settle the whole question respecting the mode. In examining the subject, VOL. XII. The declarations of the Old Testament first deserve our notice. These are universally such as to support pouring, and to overthrow the doctrine of immersion. In the following samples from Scripture the Holy Spirit is represented as 1. Coming upon men. Num. xiv. 10; Judges iii. 10; vi. 34; xi. 20; xiv. 6, 19; 1 Sam. xvi. 13; xix. 20, etc., etc. 2. Poured out upon them. Ezek. xxxix. 29; Prov. i. 23. 3. Resting upon them. Num. xi. 26; 2 Kings ii. 15. 4. Put upon them. Isa. xlii. 1. Num. xi. 17, 29; 5. Given to them. Neh. ix. 20. 6. Put within them. Ezek. xi. 19; xxxvi. 27; xxxvii. 14. All these passages refer to the baptism of the Holy Spirit; and surely there is nothing in them that bears even the remotest analogy or allusion to immersion, or plunging, while they yield the strongest support to the usage of pouring or sprinkling. We shall also find, that this view of the declarations is most powerfully confirmed by the phraseology of The promises of the Old Testament. The following are precious specimens: "Until the Spirit be poured upon us,' Isa. xxxii. 15. "I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the N |