liberty to confirm her own Bishops, to declare her own doctrines, to enforce, vary, or repeal her own spiritual canons, and to grant or withhold participation in her own Sacraments. These are the four points, so to speak, of the Church's charter, in regard of which she is now grievously wronged; not, we will hope, by intention of any statesman or party, so much as by the unforeseen result of enactments made on other grounds. Still, the effect is what it is-oppression and profaneness-and now it seems as if we must add heresy also. For obtaining redress on these four points, we have sometimes wished that we could bind ourselves one to another, as in former days, by a holy Catholic League: if, indeed, we be not already bound enough by our baptismal vow of faith, and some of us by engagements at Ordination. At any rate, it is a work to which we cannot address ourselves too solemnly; there must be no hurry, no impatience; we may take a lesson from those who lie in ambush, from the deer-stalker, or the angler; determined to bide our time, be it never so tedious, but equally determined to lose no chance of striking.

We seem to have wandered very far from Mr. Monro, and, indeed, when we commenced this article, we had no thought of touching on such unquiet matters; but the truth is, they meet us at every turn; our spiritual, our pastoral, our parochial life hangs, as it were, in doubt before us, until this tyranny be overpast.' And with deep misgivings of conscience we perceive and acknowledge, that the whole danger and mischief is due, among other sins, to our own and our forefathers' neglect of parochial work-of parochial work on high sacramental principles, such as this volume is designed to recommend and exemplify. The remedy is obvious; but it is manifold, and we must have long patience for it. With patience, and the blessing of God, it cannot fail. So much the heavier will their burthen be, who shall mar it by fretfulness on the one hand, or by apathy on the other. Alas! it is what too many seem prepared to do. We wish them no severer penance, we can hardly wish them a more pointed and effective warning, than the careful perusal of Mr. Monro's work. May it be blessed in every way; by showing the discontented how much there is worth working for, and by stimulating the easy and self-satisfied, not just to the very exertions here detailed-for no two Clergymen, no two parishes are exactly like another:— but to faithful and religious industry, each in his own place, and in his own line! That course is the likeliest to tell upon the age, in preserving the outward framework of the English Church and what is more, it is morally sure to tell upon Eternity, in saving souls.

234

ART. VIII.-1. Report of Debate in the House of Commons, May 6, 1850, on Mr. Gladstone's Motion concerning the Colonial Church.

2. Report of Debate in the House of Lords, June 3, 1850, on the Bishop of London's Bill for amending the Court of Appeal in Ecclesiastical Matters.

Two important events, since the time when we last met our readers, have happened, in that struggle which we then said must commence between the Church and the Government. Two important debates have taken place on points connected with the established state of things on ecclesiastical matters; one in each house of parliament. A demand has been made distinctly and firmly on the part of the Church, and on Church grounds, for changes which all sides assume to be important ones; and important ones it cannot be denied they would be, important in their actual effects, and still more so in the principle which the concession would involve. The demand has been refused, as was to have been expected. But they show that Churchmen have begun in earnest to move; and further, while they show clearly the dispositions of the Whig ministry towards her, they also show the hollowness and inconsistency, as well as the undefined fear and perplexity, which accompany opposition to her claims.

The first of the debates alluded to, is the one on Mr. Gladstone's proposition in behalf of the Colonial Church. And though this but indirectly affected the Church at home, the place, and the character of the discussion, and the circumstance of its being the first move, gave to this debate a degree of interest equal, or even superior to that of another, which followed at a month's interval, in the House of Lords, on a matter which formally touched us at home more closely.

For it was the first step taken, towards regaining for the Church of England the power of speaking and acting for herself-the first public, practical step, as opposed to mere wishes or declarations or protests. The subject has now been mooted in the House of Commons. It has been brought forward seriously; not by some ardent parliamentary novice, but by men of experience and political importance, who are likely some day or other to have the government of the country in their hands. And it has been received seriously by the house-not more so

than its importance required, but more seriously than the first movements towards an important change are usually received by the House of Commons. The character of the debate, and still more, the division lists, disclosed no ordinary amount of interest in the question, and of strong opinion existing in the house; and the supporters of the claims of the Church, though a minority, had no reason to be ashamed of their show, either in point of argument or numbers. The immediate point in question had, it is true, no direct reference to the ecclesiastical system of this country. That which was asked for was, that the Church in the colonies, which has not the privileges, should be freed from the bondage, of the Church of the mother-country -a splendid bondage, it may be, at home, but bondage without the splendour abroad. Yet all parties felt, that the whole question of Church liberty was opened. The mother Church has been far more than repaid for all that she has done for the colonial Church, by the noble example, for which that Church has supplied a field, of episcopal faithfulness and zeal. She may, perhaps, have to thank the colonial Church, for the precedent of a freer, more elastic, and more effective constitution.

The debate of the 6th of May was a remarkable and instruc tive one in many respects. In the first place, it is not often that a debate takes place, in which the balance of argument was so indisputably on one side, as it was on this occasion with Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Page Wood, and Mr. Roundell Palmer. If we wished to point to a discussion, where the whole ingenuity of one side was employed in searching for various modes of expression to disguise the simple announcement, that they did not like a conclusion against which they could urge no valid reason, we should refer to this one. In various ways, according to their several characters and abilities, Mr. Gladstone's opponents struggled with the vexatious fact-that they had nothing to say-nothing at least that they could respectably say. Mr. Labouchere laboured under an unaccountable obtuseness⚫ his clear head, and his memory on ecclesiastical law and the 'history of Christendom,' were both at fault. Sir George Grey was equally pertinacious in maintaining the incomprehensibility of Mr. Gladstone's proposal. It was indeed highly amusing to see, how both gentlemen, when they found themselves at a loss, turned instinctively to the hacknied charge against Mr. Gladstone of being obscure. The expedient had, it is true, as they must have felt, something of the flatness and tameness of a worn-out joke, and was singularly unhappy on this occasion, for Mr. Gladstone was particularly clear in what he proposed-but Mr. Labouchere affected quite to lose himself in trying to follow the perplexing consequences of the

motion, and Sir George Grey represented himself as in the difficulty of a man not knowing exactly what he is to vote upon- 'he was not sure that he understood the motion correctly, on account of its obscurity.' On Mr. Roebuck, the effect of this obscurity' was quite oppressive-it tormented his clear and straightforward intellect-he staggered and reeled under the transformations and introversions suggested by Mr. Gladstone. United Church of England and Ireland,' 'Colonial Church,' 'Convocation,' 'Establishment,' 'Jumpers,' danced before his eyes in ever-changing union, separation, and substitution, and with apparently the same painful effect as the whirling of a thaumatrope would have on the brain of a man with a headache. Mr. Roebuck's speech represented, probably intentionally, the confusion and disorder which, as he alleged, had been produced on his mind by Mr. Gladstone's enigma. His rhetoric was of the mimetic kind. As the great musician represented the uproar of chaos, or the crawling of insects and swarming of flies, by strange combinations of dissonant sounds, so, probably, Mr. Roebuck, with refined and consummate art, struggled to convey the impression,-by studied incoherence, by bursts of impatience, by a servile imitation of that which he is known to hate most, the oratory of the platform,-of the hopeless entanglement of ideas into which he had been plunged by Mr. Gladstone. But much as we may admire the honourable speaker's art, we feel that it is art still. He is only acting the baffled thinker; he has lashed himself into merely artificial, and very transparent paroxysms of bewilderment.

But the difficulty of understanding, which these gentlemen profess to have experienced, shows that they do not like the subject--this is the next point to be noticed in this debate. Set the privileges of the Church, as they are now, at the highest, there yet remains a balance of disabilities, restrictions, and special penalties against her, which no Whig statesman could dream of removing, unless compelled, and which yet are embarrassing enough in argument to the professed champions of religious liberty. The Church has certain very strong legal and moral rights, which she is, and long has been, debarred from exercising-they have not hitherto been pressed; but when they are, they will be far more easily disposed of by force than by reason; and Whig leaders may well be excused for not wishing to be driven back on the rude measures of arbitrary government. Without distrusting the sincerity of their liberality, love of consistency would alone make this natural. So Sir George Grey uses that most convenient allegation of indistinctness against Mr. Gladstone, to understand him to propose for the Church new and excessive privileges. The Attorney General disposes

of the difficulty professionally; with the utmost politeness, he places his law at the service of the Church; and volunteers the comfortable intelligence that out of the United Kingdom præmunire is harmless-a piece of consolation, however, which after the doubts raised by Mr. Walpole's scepticism, it might not be quite safe to trust to, even on the assurance of the Attorney General. The suggestion no doubt marks the learned gentleman's good-nature; but it is very suspicious, as he must know, to meet claims against you with good-nature; and under such circumstances, the greater the good-nature, the greater the suspicion.

Lastly, the delicate and dexterous tactics of this debate are worth attention in another point of view. All indications given by the genuine instinct of parties are valuable. The dispositions manifested, and the tone of speaking adopted, disclose in what quarter spiritual power is felt to exist for practical purposes, and in whose hands it appears formidable to statesmen who do not wish to be interfered with by rival influences. Mr. Roebuck may affect to play at hide and seek with the subject of Mr. Gladstone's proposition; but his puzzle was, as we have suggested, a rhetorical figure. Underneath those various designations there lurked, as that clear-sighted and shrewd gentleman well knew, one and the same actually existing body, which as soon as he returned from his search for its definition in the clouds, he knew that he would find, waiting for him, and very much in his way, on the earth. Ingenious as was his counterfeited perplexity, it was not enough to hide either his knowledge or his feelings. Temper broke through its disguise, and condensed itself in some very clear sentences. Some of our liberal friends have been felicitously explicit, of late, in their sayings about the Church. They have put them in a bold shape, which impresses itself on the memory. We have been told of the 'sharp bit and tight rein, with which we are to be ridden.' In like manner, Mr. Roebuck has told us, in words which profoundly impressed the reporters, who have marked them as a sentence meant to be historical, what measure of liberty the Church may look for at his hands. The idea of 'Convocation sitting by the side of Parliament' acted like a sting on Mr. Roebuck; if the liberties of England had been threatened he could not have been more emphatic or oracular- We have put down that, Sir,' said the hon. member, (between inverted commas,) and we do not intend that it shall ever be revived.'

From Mr. Roebuck, therefore, the Church has nothing to look for but all possible opposition-on Church questions, be it understood, his ordinary liberal principles, and his sense of justice are to be laid aside for the time. He hates the Church,