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donations into the disposal of those who apply for them; may make briefs themselves more popular. As the matter stands at present, nearly one half of the money given, is absorbed by other channels, and never finds its way into that in which the charitable donors intended it should flow.

I am glad to see attention paid to this matter. "The Lord Chancellor's directions" are very good, so far as they go. Perhaps the worthy secre tary is not aware that the briefs at present pass into the hands of ministers, and churchwardens, in an illegal form. I have examined those at present lying in the Vestry of the Church, where I am Curate, and the injunctions of the 4th of Anne, contained in the very first section have not been complied with in a single instance. Section 1. enacts, that all the printed copies of briefs shall be endorsed, or marked in some convenient part with the name of one or more of the trustees or commissioners named therein, written with his or their own hand, and the time of signing the same. Not one of the briefs abovementioned is so endorsed or marked. I am, Gentlemen,

October 7, 1803.

Yours, &c.

A LONDON CURATE.

P. S. I conceive that the intention of the Legislature in ordering MS signatures to be affixed to briefs, is to identify and authenticate them.

JONATHAN DRAPIER, AND OBSERVATOR.

TO THE EDITORS OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCHMAN'S MAGAZINE,

GENTLEMEN,

AM sorry your valuable correspondent Observator, is offended at my presuming to venture into the company of learned men, and elegant writers in the pages of your Magazine and Review." Truly, gentlemen, I wonder much at my own temerity. I feel, to use an ancient proverb, like "Saul among the prophets;" and yet, although Saul was not one of the sons of the prophets, or of the college of prophets,-he prophesied nevertheless, as Observator may find on consulting the Bible. Even so, although I appear but in homely guise among the eloquent and the erudite I hope I serve, in some degree, the cause of Truth, Religion and the Church.

It is a difficult thing for an old man to lay aside his habitudes. Is it not Mr. Locke, that tells us of a person, who having practised dancing in a room where a chest occupied a corner; by the association of ideas, and the domination of fancy, could not dance a step unless in that room, and before that chest? now unless I have liberty to talk in my own way, and use my peculiar quaintnesses, I am dumb; unless my pen be allowed to trace its accustomed phrases, and to traverse my paper unshackled, it must stand stock still.

If, as Observator is pleased to admit, I have communicated any thing worth attending to, pray let him pardon the mode in which I write, for the sake of the matter. A pearl is not a bit the less beautiful or less valuable, because it is found in an oyster. "Sweetest nut (said one who wore motley) hath sowerest rind." So that I express myself but strongly, I am indifferent about the tinsel of language. Gold bedded in clay, is gold notwithstanding, and will answer the severest test of the assayer. If my arguments be such as are not to be subverted, I beseech the learned and the accomplished to pardon my poor style. I dare say you shall find sea-weed and slime afound the margin of the Eddystone rock; but the rock itself is deeply seated in Ocean's bed, made fast" to the bottoms of the mountains," which Jonah mentions, and held in its place by "the bars of the earth." Let no man despise me for my old fashioned language. Perhaps I, too, am an ancient born after my time." Instead of carping at my phraseology, let any man try to subvert my arguments, if they do not please him; but let him take care how he goes about it. It is not an easy thing to overturn the Eddystone. One of our kings, poor Henry VI. expresses my sentiments, exactly, in the following lines-

"Who meenethe to remoofe the rock
Owte of the slymie mudde,.

Shall myre hymselfe, and hardlie scape
The swellynge of the Flodde."

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Men have different complexions, features, and statures; and why not styles. If the men be honest and sensible, we care not for the length of their noses, or the colour of their cheeks. Let Observator bear with my out-of-the-way style; which nothing but indignation now and then raises; mending my prose, just as it once made verse:

"Si natura negat. facit Indignatio Versum,

Qualemcunque potest: quales ego, vel Cluvienus."

There is variety in the world, gentlemen, why should not your pages present a little variety; what can be more cloying than the continual recurrence of Mr. Gibbon's measured periods? It is not necessary, I humbly presume, that all the contributors to your miscellany should mold their sentences after the fashion of Dr. Johnson. Let little men now and then have the gratification of reading their lucubrations in print.

"He that high growth on Cedars did bestow,
Gave also lowly mushrooms leave to grow."

Do not esteem the papers of your friends only in proportion to the flowers of rhetoric they bear; a plain style may convey sound sense, and the language of the olden time" may confute the new-fangled follies of these days. Daisies and Corvslips are very pretty in a meadow, (as I remember, for I have not slept out of London forty nights, for nearly three and twenty years. "O Rus! quando ego te aspiciam!) but grass is bet ter; for as the same old ditty I have just quoted, says"

"We trample grass, and prize the flowers of May;
Yet grass is green when flowers do fade
away."

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So sung Master Robert Southwell, who was sent out of this world in the year 1595 and I think I cannot conclude better, than by recommending to Observator's attention, the title of the little Poem which contains those four lines

"SCORN NOT THE LEAST.".

I am, Gentlemen,

October 1, 1803.

Your most obedient servant,

and obliged Friend,

JONATHAN DRAPIER,

BUONAPARTE,

WE insert the following extracts from the fifth number of the Alarum Bell; shewing 1st. a signal discomfiture of that vain-glorious boaster, Buonaparte, and, 2dly. his shocking and most perfidious treatment of the religious, at Jerusalem.

"Two days after the assault of Jaffa, Buonaparte issued a proclamation, in which he declared to the people his intention of carrying the war to Acre. In this proclamation he said, "It is proper you should be aware, that all human efforts against me are useless; for whatever I undertake of necessity succeeds. Those who declare themselves my friends prosper; those who declare themselves my enemies perish."

As if signally to manifest the emptiness of these pompous words, Buo naparte had no sooner written them than he commenced his march to Acre !

This was answered by that brave Captain Sir Sidney Smith, who with a few Englishmen and 2000 Turks, obliged the Envoy of God, with 10,000 men to run away, after besieging Acre 61 days.-Mark Sir Sidney Smith's dispatches, Religion against Blasphemy." My Lord, the providence of Almighty God has been wonderfully manifested in the defeat and precipitate retreat of the French army.

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2. When Buonaparte was compelled by the truly heroic valour of Sir Sidney Smith, to abandon the siege of Acre, he had the precaution to detach a body of 1500 men from Jaffa to Jerusalem. The commander of the column was charged to inform the patriarchs, prelates, and all the religious of distinction, that the general in chief, being forced almost instantly to abandon Jaffa, wished to give them a proof of the lively interest which he took in their welfare. The enraged Turks, he told them, had sworn to revenge themselves upon the Christians of Jerusalem; they had not a moment to lose in the attempt to save themselves and the most valuable of their property; and he was come to escort them to a place of safety. As usual, these good easy people, yielding implicit belief to the assertion, loaded their camels with the plate and ornaments

belong❤

belonging to the religious houses, as well as with what money and other valuables they could collect from the more opulent of their pious followers. These unfortunate victims of avarice and barbarity, fully relying on the promise of having their establishments renewed at Cairo, carried with them likewise all their furniture and utensils of every description. On their approach, however, to the French head quarters, they made ready to present their grateful thanks to the hero of Nice; but the commander with the most honourable intention, ordered the column to stop, and those on the camels to dismount; which they no sooner did, than he enjoined them, on pain of death, to take the road to Jerusalem!The poor deluded wretches obeyed the severe command, raising their hands to Heaven in all the bitterness of extreme anguish, while their lost treasure filed off for Jaffa."

We cannot but lament that the fifth number closes the series of the Alarum Bell; a publication which was one of many compiled and written, printed and dispersed by Messrs. Cox, Son, and Baylis, Printers, of Great Queen Street, Lincoln's-inn-fields-Those gentlemen thought they could serve their Country's cause in no mean degree, by a gratuitous dispersion of patriotic papers, at this momentous crisis. Instead of subscribing at Lloyd's, they expended nearly £100 in this way; and, we believe, with considerable effect. We have no authority to mention their names, and we trust we shall not offend them by so doing; but we confess we feel a satisfaction in recording what does them great honour. October 1, 1803. THE EDITORS.

BANCROFT's HOSPITAL, MILE-END ROAD.

IT is with great satisfaction we announce to the friends of religion, and of our Church establishment in particular, that on Sunday the 31st of July last, the school belonging to the above, was opened for the maintenance of one hundred boys, when a sermon was preached on the occasion, before the Master, Wardens and Court of Assistants of the Draper's company, by the Rev. Thomas Thirlwall, whom they have appoint. Chaplain to the Hospital. It was founded by Mr. Francis Bancroft, who left the Draper's company the bulk of his fortune in trust to build, under the direction of his will, commodious houses for the reception of 24 poor men, a Chapel, two houses for the school masters, and a school room for one hundred boys, whom they have hitherto clothed, and educated. But the estates having been greatly improved by lapse of time, the expiring of the leases and prudent management, the Court of Assistants determined to extend their plan. They have accordingly erected an additional building for the reception of the boys, and formed their establishment upon the plan of Christ's Hospital. This undertaking so important to the interests of religion and humanity, reflects the highest honour on the zeal and liberality of the Court of Assistants, who, by the wise and

judicious

judicious regulations they have adopted, and, the minute attention they pay to its interests, render it not inferior to any endowed school in the kingdom, not even excepting Christ's Hospital.

On a future occasion we shall be able to furnish our readers with further particulars relative to this excellent and important esta blishment.

EDITORS.

ON THE MANNER OF DIVINE WORSHIP.

And the four and twenty Elders fell down and worshipped HIM THAT LIVETH FOR EVER AND EVER.-Rev. v. 14.

THE

HE only difference between the religious services of the glorified spirits in Heaven, and those of their brethren in the flesh, consists. in this, that they are employed in praising God for their complete redemption, while we are exercised in daily supplications to be made partakers thereof with them. With respect to the manner of performing divine worship there can, or ought to be no other difference between them and us, than that it is our duty to be, if possible, the most fervent and humble of the two. They are escaped from the snares and corrup tions of the world, as the bird out of the hands of the fowler, whereas we are set in the midst of many and great dangers, trials, and temptations from which nothing short of the grace of God can preserve us. However circumspect we may be in our practice, and watchful over the thoughts and desires of our hearts, still we shall find at the close of every day, if we examine our state as we should do, that in numerous points we have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and have done those things which we ought not to have done."

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Now if we sincerely believe that the state of the blessed is a state of purity, as being in the immediate presence of Him who is holy and who cannot look upon or endure sin, should not this beget in our minds. a very humbling view of ourselves, and bring us upon our knees in the most lowly posture at the footstool of grace, that we may obtain the pardon of our many and great offences?

We read that the souls of the redeemed fall down and worship Him that liveth for ever and ever; that they prostrate themselves in the most humiliating manner before the throne of God their Saviour, and that even the very Angels themselves, those pure Spirits which never knew sin, also fall upon their faces before him, saying, Amen, blessing and glory, wisdom and thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen."

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What a privilege is it for us to be brought into communion with this glorious assembly and Church of the first-born,' and yet such is the favour with which we are distinguished; for the visible and the

invisible

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