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MISSIONARY TRAINING IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH.

From papers read before the Church Congress in 1862 and 1863, and since published, we take the following:

"Our own Church in Christian England and Wales has about 18,000 Pastors, and these are found too few; the missionary Clergy of our two great Missionary Societies, sent forth to evangelize well nigh a wORLD, number only 687! The students in our two Home Missionary colleges do not amount to 100. St. Augustine's has only 42, Islington not more than 55. Such is the Propaganda of our English Church! I am not unmindful that we have also some few colonial colleges."

"That University men, and men of gentle birth, make the best missionaries, we cannot for one moment doubt; the better the material the better the missionary. As yet, however, Oxford and Cambridge have not supplied their due quota for the Church's work abroad. With some most bright exceptions, their sons have not hastened to the help of the Lord against the mighty. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, lately founded four Exhibitions, two at Oxford and two at Cambridge, of the value of 150l. per annum, for those graduates who desired to qualify themselves for the work of an Evangelist in India. A day of election was fixed and announced, but not one single candidate in either University appeared.... We must turn our eyes elsewhere, and beat up recruits in other quarters. We must go to other classes of society, and see what they will give us. Here lies an almost untilled field-supplies as yet hardly drawn upon at all. Dissent has found in the middle class her preachers and emissaries: in the great influential middle class has lain hitherto her strength. Here she has found men of great earnestness and power and vigor; men willing to spend and to be spent for Christ. Here we shall find an almost inexhaustible supply for missionary work. Here is an opening, a vent for young and ardent minds eager to do God's work. They are ready to work for the Church if the Church will let them. If she wont, Dissent will. . . . An eminent colonial Bishop of our Church well said, The great difficulty of the English Church was to get across the counter.' Here seems a way of getting them to come across."

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It is gratifying to find that 260 clergy have been trained expressly for missionary work, in the College of the Church Missionary Society, at Islington, since its foundation in 1827; and 100 at St. Augustine's, since 1848. In proportion, also, to the increase of the colonial Episcopate, has been the increase of natives of the colonies and native Christians, converted from among the heathen, who have been ordained abroad. We believe the diocese of Madras, which now numbers thirty-eight native Clergy on its roll of missionaries, bears the palm in this important respect.

The "Calendar" of St. Augustine's for 1864, presents us with a goodly list of thirty-one English and three native students, now in residence, in addition to the hundred who are now laboring in all parts of the world. It also enumerates no less than seventeen English Dioceses, having Missionary Candidates' Associations, which thus become the best feeders of the noble institution at Canterbury.

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THE ORIGIN AND ANTIQUITY OF MAN: DARWIN, HUXLEY AND LYELL.

(1.) The Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection, by CHARLES DARWIN, M. A. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1860.

(2.) Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature, by THOMAS H. HUXLEY. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1863.

(3.) The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man, with remarks on Origin of Species by Variation, by SIR CHARLES LYELL, F. R. S. Philadelphia: Geo. W. Childs. 1863.

THESE three works are very closely allied, not only by the doctrinal sympathies and intimate relations of their authors, but also by the close relationship of the subjects of which they treat, and the common object proposed.

Mr. Darwin attempts to show, that all animals now in existence have been derived from the lowest and simplest forms of life, by transmutation of species acting through illimitable periods of time.

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Mr. Huxley adopts this doctrine of transmutation, and thinks that he has proved that Man is the nearly allied if not immediate descendant of the Gorilla.

Sir Charles Lyell accepts, with approbation, slightly modified, these views. of his friends, and undertakes to furnish them, from the records of Geology, all the time demanded by their speculations.

We propose to briefly review each of the above works, with a view to determine how much of scientific truth and philosophy each is entitled to claim. Preparatory to this task, we desire to give expression to some thoughts in regard to the nature and distinction of Species,-as this is the main subject of the first two works we intend to review.

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The question of Species-its origin, nature, and limits,— has always been a most vexed subject of dispute, upon which naturalists are now divided, and will probably always differ in their views. We may observe the facts connected with its phenomena, note its distinctions, and speculate on its nature, but the laws which govern its Origin and Extinction are beyond the reach of Philosophy. Its causation, if not revealed, must ever remain hidden in the mind of the Creator-for. Science holds no clue to guide her groping steps. Where Science ends, Faith begins.

Prof. J. D. Dana, in an Article as profound as it is original, which appeared in the November No., for 1857, of the "American Journal of Science and Arts," has established, in a conclusive manner, the existence of species as "essentially realities in nature." Reasoning from the general to the special, he shews that the true type idea, or notion of species, is not to be found in any one group, but in the potential element which lies at the basis of the existence of each individual of the group. He demonstrates that, in accordance with the universal law which governs all existence, and which pervades all nature, this potential element must be a fixed and definite unit, capable of multiplication in the inorganic world, by combination of fixed equivalents, and in the organic world, by selfreproduction. Thus he proves that permanency is a necessary attribute of species, demanded by the harmony of the universal

law of existence; and he also shews that variation from the normal type-whatever that may be-is demanded by the universal law of "mutual sympathy," which determines all change of composition or decomposition, growth or decay. Hence he deduces, with great philosophical severity, the essential idea of a species, to be "a specific amount or condition of concentered force, defined in the act or law of creation."

This stringent formula is intended to embrace all the departments of nature; but while it expresses, with severe accuracy, the logical type idea of species, as a real existence, it by no means, as Prof. Dana admits, gives us a conception of the material type form. Though species is a reality, no type idea of it can be represented in any one material existence, nor be designated by any one example. Nor can we ascend, by induction, from a study of the individuals, to a correct conception of the type of the specics,-inasmuch as "the variables," as well as "the constants," form an element of the type, and therefore the conception formed from the study of the individuals, is a conception only of its phases or modifications. Nev-ertheless, we may adopt this stringent formula as a safeguard against specious generalizations.

In applying it to the animal kingdom, we may construe it as meaning,-that specific degree and kind of vital organization necessary for the development of the individual under modifying circumstances, and which is defined by the act or law of its creation.

The above formula defines species in relation to its essence; but it is also desirable to consider it in relation to its manifestations of form, and to accompany the definition with some sure test, whereby to guide and correct our classification of individuals. Considered in this relation, we would define Species to be an original organized form, specific in its kind and immutable in its fundamental characteristics, but capable of developing varieties under modifying circumstances. The individuals of a species constantly reproduce their like with those of the same species; but their offspring, by generation with any other species, is incapable of continuous fertility.

This definition recognizes a special law of being for each in

dividual of a species, stamping immutability upon its generic seminal characteristics, in harmony with the general law of Nature, which determines, with mathematical precision, the component elements of all bodies and forces. But while it thus imposes constancy of fundamental characteristics on all, it allows to each individual great variety of development in accommodation to surrounding circumstances, and in obedience to that universal law of mutual sympathy and reciprocal action, which diversifies with change every department of Nature.

Could we ascertain with accuracy the fundamental seminal characteristics which distinguish one animal from another, we would be able to make our scientific classification of species accord with that distinction which really exists in nature. Our present classifications are, in no small degree, uncertain and arbitrary, based, frequently, on very slight differences of structure, form or color. Thus, for instance, "a slight peculiarity in the coloring of a minute part of the anterior wing" of a butterfly, (Vanessa atalanta,) is sufficient to create a doubt whether it should not be made the basis of a distinct species. So also the African, Indian and fossil Elephant, (E. primigenius,). are made distinct species in consequence of slight discrepancies of form in the markings on the wearing surfaces of their molars; which, in the first, are lozenge shaped, and in the last two, rather more rhomboidal.

Appealing to our present classifications, it is not strange that the advocates of the so-called development theory should find, in Nature, some few facts which apparently support their visionary hypothesis of transmutation of one species into another. These pretended instances of transmutation may be more correctly attributed to individual peculiarities, perpetuated under favorable circumstances, being simply varieties developed under certain conditions, and which present an apparent constancy, so long as the modifying conditions which developed them remain constant. Look at the vast changes that man has wrought by art in many domestic animals, developing varieties, but never altering species. See the striking differences which separate the races of dogs, many of which occur

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