January 1811, the rise on the latter generally following in nearly similar proportions to the depression of the former, and both de pending not on an over issue of bank notes, which had in the period alluded to still continued to increase; but on the state of our foreign expenditure for the purposes of the war. Thus it will be seen from the table annexed, No. 1, that from January 1811, to the time of Napoleon's expulsion from France, in the spring, 1814, the depression of exchange fluctuated 15.43, to 31.47 per cent., and the price of bullion from 10 to 18 per cent. above its usual price of 41. But in spring 1814, when the war ceased, the exchange was suddenly restored to within 4 per cent. of par, and gold bullion reduced to 4. 5s., at or about which rates they continued till the month of March 1815, when, on Buonaparte's return and the consequent renewal of the war, the exchange again fell to 18 per cent. below par, and the price of bullion rose to 57. 10s. its highest former price. But thanks to the heroes of Waterloo, these evils have been of short endurance; all our foreign exchanges. having within a month after that glorious victory risen from 18 to within 6 per cent. of par, and bullion fallen from 57. 10s. to 41. 8s. 6d., and in the month of October following, the exchange was a little above par, and bullion at 4. Is. 8d., the ounce, being not more than 1s. 8d. above the usual price of 41. Thus upon the whole of this branch of the subject, it is clear beyond the possibility of doubt, that the theory adopted by the bullion committee and most of the numerous writers on the subject, among whom may be enumerated, Mr. Canning, Mr. Huskisson, the Earl of Lauderdale, and even Mr. Malthus himself, inferring that the fall of our foreign exchange, and rise in the price of bullion, were owing not to any real unfavourable state of our exchange with the continent, but to the supposed depreciated state of our paper currency, has turned out altogether visionary and unfounded, while it is to be regretted that on a subject of such great national importance, they should have ever indulged themselves in such fanciful speculations, as if with the intention to draw off the attention of the country from the real cause of the evils under consideration, and the effect of which may have been to aggravate the ill consequences resulting from them, by inducing people to conclude that if the high prices of grain proceeded from a cause in the power of the legislature to maintain, and which could not be corrected without great inconve«, nience, as well to the landholders and farmers, as to our public finances, the bank restriction act might never be repealed, as cer tainly was the opinion of many people in this country, who despaired of ever seeing the circulation of specie restored to its former value. Indeed one of the supporters of the doctrine of the com mittee, went the length of suggesting that a new coinage should be made on the footing of the increased price of bullion, when it was at 51. 10s. the ounce, or to reduce the value of our coin forty per cent, a proposal which no doubt would have kept up nominal prices to that extent, but must have been an actual fraud on our public creditors to that amount." ART. X. A Charge to the Clergy of the Archdeaconry of Colchester, in the Diocese of London, in the year 1815. By J. Jefferson, A.M. and F.A.S. pp. 37. Colchester, Keymer. THE topics of this useful and interesting Charge are those suggested by the duties specially belonging to the archidiaconal office. Adverting to the Bishop of London's Charge recently delivered, Mr. Jefferson introduces his address to his clerical brethren with a well-merited eulogium on that truly episcopal production; and upon the respectful plea that it would be presumptuous in him to touch upon subjects however momentous which have been so profoundly treated by the Diocesan, he passes immediately to those which his own parochial visitation just compleated has brought before him. The first of these is the sacred edifices in which the members of the Church of England assemble for the public worship of God. It is the duty of the Archdeacon to visit once in three years all the churches within his bounds, to examine whether the churchwardens have maintained the structure in sufficient reparation, and, as the 85th canon, setting forth their duty, expresses it, "in that orderly and decent sort as best becometh the house of God." The faithful execution of this trust, especially where, through the infirmities of age or any other less justifiable cause, the due performance of it has been long neglected, does not promise, under the circumstances of the times, to be a very satisfactory undertaking. Such seems to have been the experience of Mr. Jefferson: for having paid a just tribute to our Reformers for preserving amidst the convulsions of contending parties, for our use and veneration, those noble Gothic structures which grace our country-the monuments both of the taste and pious munificence of antient days; a painful observation, as he justly describes it, is extorted from him on surveying their present state. "That an unworthy parsimony has often been as injurious as gross barbarism, and the hand of avarice, in some instances, more destructive than the hand of violence" insomuch that" in a large majority of cases, it is difficult to say, whether the genius of architecture will find more with which to be disgusted, or the genius of religion to lament." H 2 Accordingly, Accordingly, laying down as an impregnable position, "That religion, like man, must have two component parts, an external form as well as an internal spirit, and that these as the body and soul, will ever have an influence upon each other." He remonstrates at some length, and with great force of argument, against the contempt of this principle which our churches exhibit, and having contrasted their neglected state with the present grandeur of Mahometan mosques, and the past magnificence of heathen temples, and shewn by an induction of particulars, that in proportion as the influence of religion prevailed more or less at different periods, the sacred edifices both of Judaism and Christianity have been honoured with that dignity, order, and decoration, to which, from their very uses, they are entitled, he sums up this part of his Charge in the fol lowing words, which are, he justly observes, an evident deduction from his premises, and which he wishes therefore strongly to enforce. "That in every age and country, in a material as well as a spiritual sense, the supreme Being should be served, with the best things, not with the worst-that a reverence of what is dedicated to God is a reverence of God himself; that though the temple of Solomon cannot be a model for future temples, any more than idolatrous deities can be put in competition with the true God, who was worshipped there; yet that God having by his Spirit directed the structure-he expects, that we should honour them with our substance wherever he condescends to bless us with his more immediate presence;-that if the presence of the Shekinah resting upon the ark was to the Jews in their passage through the mazes of the wilderness to an earthly Canaan, a perpetual claim of reverence for the tabernacle-the presence of Christ, leading us through the difficulties and temptations of the world to an everlasting rest, must, and ought, to produce a tenfold reverence for his Church." It is no more than might be expected from Mr. Jefferson, that having expressed these sound religious sentiments, his own resolution should be formed to act upon them to the full extent of his powers. He does not, however, leave us to draw this inference for ourselves, but having sketched out the history of the canon law, and thus shewn the shelter to be found in it for the assertion of his authority and the claim which it gives him to his clerical brethren's hest exertions in his support, he delivers this public pledge of his intentions. "As far as these canons have reposed a trust in me, and enjoined a duty, I cannot consider it of inferior moment; and shall therefore use my best endeavours, if God is pleased to bless me with life and health, faithfully to fulfil it." The The Charge now passes on to other external circumstances in public worship subject to the cognizance of the Archdeacon, and in order to shew that uniformity in the public service has a closer alliance than many conceive it to have with conformity of doctrine, and thus to give a consequence in the estimation of the clergy to points which they may have been induced to overlook as insignificant, or to contemn as unessential, the Archdeacon. invites his clerical brethren to the following consideration. "Indeed if we consider from what shades of difference, distinctions have arisen in the Christian family; by what trifling variations, divisions have, in modern times, been introduced into the Christian Church; we shall easily perceive by what apparently trifling deviations, even in structure, or in forms, our Church,-scriptural as it is in all that belongs to it, may be assimilated to the Conven ticle; and being blended with it in superficies, may appear less distinct in essence; thereby facilitating the secession of the flock, and promoting a delusion which it ought to be our first duty and our first care to prevent." Proceeding to specify the particulars to which this general observation applies, Mr. Jefferson animadverts, in the first place, with great propriety, on the superseding our authorised Psalmody by Hymns, and our prescribed forms of Prayer by extempore effusions, and descending to a point of minor account, but by no means unimportant, he calls the attention of the Clergy to it as "Worthy of observation that even style and manner, as distinct from doctrine, may corrupt the taste of the hearers, and give a bias in favour of those preachers whose Creeds are spurious, and whose principles are as much at enmity with the tenets, as their practice is with the discipline, of the Church," The unvarying observance of the Canons and Rubrics is next enforced, and the peculiar claim of the Chancel to marked distinction, pointed out, as consecrated to the more solemn services of religion, and therefore commanding more than ordinary reverence. In this feeling we concur entirely with the Archdeacon, and never observe without lamenting it, that innovation of modern times, the removal of the pulpit from the side of the aisle, where our Reformers left it, to a position which throws the Altar into the back ground and takes away the impression of its preeminence, Of every Church where this change has taken place we have no hesitation in saying, in Mr. Jefferson's words, that "the character of the edifice" is destroyed; but here we see the natural alliance between form and spirit, for this innovation has grown upon us precisely in the proportion that the sacrament has fallen fallen into contempt and Preaching been raised in popular estį. mation. The state of the Communion plate is the subject of the Archdeacon's concluding observation. "He very frequently found it," he says "far from worthy its most holy uses," and we fear were he translated to any other archdeaconry in the kingdom his experience would be the same. His reflections upon this discreditable circumstance claim general consideration. "Appointed as it is to the most solemn act of Christian worship, to that sacred feast at which the Elder Brother *' of an infant family, afterwards to be multiplied as the stars of heaven, deigned to preside; to that Holy Supper which commemorates the greatest mercy, that has been or can be vouchsafed to man; to that high ordinance which carries the purified spirit, on faith, on hope, and charity to heaven; and raising the downcast eye of penitence to the cross, there cheers it with a certified atonement:-thus exalted above all things that are earthly in its use, above all that can administer to or decorate the most costly entertainment; it cannot be reverent, it cannot be satisfactory to the devout mind, to see it in rudeness or impurity of appearance, as well as in intrinsic worth, inferior to similar articles, which are appointed to the ordinary purposes of common life. While an encreased and becoming decency in all cases and in some a magnificent and sumptuous splendour, marking the character of the age, adorns our own tables, it would indeed be painful to behold the table of the Lord' alone devoid of decency in decoration, were I not persuaded that it has proceeded rather from a want of religious consideration, than of religious sentiment; and I am satisfied this defect needs only to be suggested to ensure its correction." Strictures upon the sacred vessels provided for the Communion naturally lead the thoughts to the holy Ordinance itself, and it is a reflection which the survey of them can scarcely fail to suggest that as, "by being made of the baser metals, they bear testimony of a less opulent, so they afford, in the quantity they are calcu lated to contain, marks of a purer age"-and the painful result of Mr. Jefferson's enquiries being to this effect, that "in some parishes not one in fifty; in others not one in twenty; and in a * We introduce this expression because so it stands in the passage which we cite, marked as a quotation; we cannot however suppress our repugnance at introducing it. Our Redeemer's infi nite condescension, we are aware, renders the terms legitimate; but if he is pleased to humble himself to an equality with us it does not therefore follow that we should so speak as to convey the idea of even an approach of equality with him. few |