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of the Apostle, "Grace be with all men that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity." A diversity of judgment on the best means of advancing Christian union was in his eyes a very subordinate thing; his longing desire for himself and for others, was a fuller and brighter exhibition of the reality, and the blessed fruits of a truly Catholic love to all the children of God.

The work, however, which sometime before his death had the foremost place in his thoughts and practical efforts, was the Church Missions to the Roman Catholics of Ireland. He may be viewed in some sort as a martyr to this work, since there is little doubt that his laborious correspondence, and the daily and hourly pressure on his thoughts, connected with this infant Society, was the immediate occasion of that disease, congestion of the brain, which was the messenger to remove him to his rest. He felt deeply that the Gospel was the only true cure for the miseries of Ireland. His hatred was intense of that false and fatal expediency which had made our statesmen endow and patronize the idolatries of Rome, in the vain hope of promoting national peace by sinning against the God of holiness. And hence he threw the whole energy of a heart, full of love to God and man, into the work for which the providence of God, ever since the panic that trod on the heels of the Maynooth endowment, had made so wide an opening. Without ceasing his deep interest in the other Societies, this infant work held the foremost place in his correspondence and his daily thoughts; and he rejoiced with a deep and holy joy, when a streak of light was seen amidst the dark cloud of benighted superstition that has hung so long over the sister island. We trust that his prayers will be largely answered, even after his death; and that the Lord, who has taken his dear servant to himself, will kindle in many hearts a growing zeal to carry forward the good work which he set on foot, with a few others, in the sure spirit of faith, prayer, and earnest love to the souls of men.

In his last illness, which continued about a month, the same grace was conspicuous which adorned his previous life. The nature of his complaint limited the opportunities of direct intercourse, since, while there was the faintest hope of recovery, it rendered it a duty to avoid the excitement of conversation. But the frequent memory of his faith and patience, and of his thoughtful love to all who were privileged to be near him, will not soon pass away. Even the slight wandering, sometimes occasioned by the nature of the disease, left the graces of the spirit as transparent as ever, and perhaps even rendered them more touchingly beautiful. But in general the intervals of consciousness were marked by quiet thoughtfulness and unclouded peace. The principles which had guided him through life, sustained him in his dying hours. The subjects of which he chiefly spoke were his confidence in Christ alone; the comfort derived from belonging to him; the preciousness of the Gospel; the finishing of his own work, and his desire to enter into his rest; the presence and grace of the Good Shepherd, his desire for the good of his parish, and that his own removal, with the sudden death of his younger brother in the ministry, might become a lamp to many in the dark valley of the shadow of death. In the "Churchman's Penny Magazine," and an Appendix to the Funeral Sermons, some fuller details of his illness will probably appear. It is enough here to say, that his last hours were a visible commentary on the Divine promise, "Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright, for the end of that man is peace."

We will not attempt here to give a full character of this honoured and beloved servant of Christ. His memory is embalmed in the hearts and affections of the children of God in every land. To glorify the creature would be a sinful idolatry, but to glorify the grace of Christ, where it was so brightly manifested, is a sacred duty and a high privilege. It was his own deep desire that Christ alone might be honoured and glorified, both in his life and his death. But this does not forbid us to bless God for the combination of graces rarely found, which marked his life, and shed their fragrance around his dying bed. He was a man of God, single in his aim, simple in faith, earnest in zeal, abundant in labours, and overflowing with fervent love. He was invariably Catholic in his spirit, free from all guile, prompt to share in every good work, wherever there was an opening to glorify his Lord, or do good to the souls of

men.

His countenance breathed an air of happiness and peace around him;

suspicion was disarmed in his presence; on his lips was the law of kindness, and his mouth was a well-spring of holy love. In the words of a distinguished and noble friend, no man in his own generation, and few in any other, has served God in a course of more signal usefulness. He now "rests from his labours, and his works do follow him." The Church of Christ, in these days, can ill bear the loss of such a teacher and guide. But the chief Shepherd is with us still. May we only have grace to follow him, as he followed Christ, that we may have a share in the same blessings, and be partakers with him in the glorious inheritance of the children of God.

VIEW OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS.

THE public affairs of the rest of Europe are not of sufficient interest to detain us for any length of time from the many subjects of interest at home. In France, some alarm has been created by three Socialist candidates having been returned to the Legislative Assembly for the Districts of Paris; but, on the principle of universal suffrage, such anomalies are to be expected; and they are not to be regarded as any sure evidence of the state of public feeling. A mob will swing with the pendulum of the moment; and the man borne on their shoulders to-day, may be dashed to the ground to-morrow.

Among the home incidents of the month may be noticed Lord Denman's resignation of the office of Lord Chief Justice, and Lord Campbell's appointment to the vacant seat. Neither the bar nor the public appear to us to feel entire satisfaction in the new appointment; except, inasmuch as it probably delivered them from something worse. Lord Campbell's perpetual wranglings with Lord Brougham have not added much to his reputation; and it is impossible not to fear that the habit of acting as a strong partisan may have in some measure impaired those high qualities so essential to a judge-candour and unimpeachable fairness. The partisan sees out of one eye; but the judge must see out of both. The partisan is ruled by his party: the judge must know no mistress but Truth. Lord Campbell has one admirable opportunity of signalising the first week of his reign. It is currently reported, and we have seen no contradiction to the charge, that the Judges and Sergeants are in the practice of dining habitually during term time in the consecrated room which, within the memory of man, was the chapel of Sergeants' Inn,that a part of their sideboard is the old communion table, and that the bread, and the rose-water for the hands, are handed about in what were the vessels for the administration of the Lord's Supper. If this be not a true charge, let it be at once contradicted upon authority. But, before it is done, let the old verger, now the waiter upon this learned assembly, be catechised. And if his testimony confirm the report, let Lord Campbell, -not, we suppose, a very high Churchman, put to rebuke the conduct of those who ought to know better; and restore the hall and the sacred vessels to their proper use, which these legal monarchs have perverted to the purposes of festivity.-Few men have carried with them from the Bench a higher reputation for integrity and manly independance than Lord Denman; and it is a happiness to think that leisure is now given him for pursuingand enlarging his researchesinto that Volume which is the true fountain of law, and which points to higher seats, and more enduring honours and enjoyments, than this world can bestow upon the noblest and the best.

We shall now attempt to give a brief summary of the proceedings in both Houses of Parliament-in which, however, the month has not been one of much interest. In the commencement of the month, Mr. Fox, the former minister of a Socinian congregation, proposed to Parliament a Bill to promote the general institution of schools without religious instruction; and that, as a preliminary measure, the Government Inspectors should report to Parliament on the present general state of education in the country. Lord John Russell agreed to the bringing in of the Bill, the second reading of which is to take

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place after Easter. But we venture to believe that his concurrence to this extent, in the measure, is no indication of his general acquiescence in it. Nor is the concurrence of the country at large to be feared, unless the educational storm raised by Mr. Denison and his sympathisers drive men to the conclusion that anything is better than contention; and that it is more desirable altogether to remove the Bible from schools than to set their managers quarrelling about it. The question of education was raised also in the House of Lords; where Lord Lansdowne reprobated, in no very measured nor perhaps accurate language, the spirit of the meeting at Willis's Rooms. We are bound to say, however, that if the "assertio falsi" did not prevail at that meeting to the extent affirmed by Lord Lansdowne, the "suppressio veri" was of the most offensive character. Whilst all the evils, real or supposed, of the Government educational measures were grossly exaggerated, the palpable and every-day benefits, of which so many of the clergy are deeply sensible, were wholly suppressed. The meeting at Willis's ought to have been a congress of fair and thoughtful men, assembled carefully to investigate, listen, and to judge. But it was more like the congress of the witches on a certain heath-meeting to heat a cauldron, into which every man present was to cast the most inflammable ingredients. There were men of all coats and colours;

"Black spirits and white,
Red spirits and grey,
Mingled, mingled, mingled."

What could be expected from such an assemblage but-
"Double, double, toil and trouble-

Cauldron boil and cauldron bubble."

In the same week, Mr. Hume's annual motion for Universal Suffrage was brought on, which was honoured by any thing but the universal suffrages of those who were all, as fully as he could desire, privileged, on that occasion at least, to give an unbought and unbiassed vote. Mr. Hume must have felt it to be a hard case indeed, when every man had a free vote, and almost all voted against him.

The Wife's Sister's Marriage Bill was again discussed with diminishing majorities in proportion to the numbers in attendance. The debate was signalized by two powerful speeches of Sir F. Thesiger and of Mr. Wood against the Bill.

In the next week of the month, the House of Commons extinguished Mr. Cobden's long-threatened motion for retrenchment, and listened to a strange speech on taxation from that eccentric legislator and quondam divine, Mr. H. Drummond.

The rumour was also noticed of the intended extinction of the office of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland; for which officer a Chief and an Under Irish Secretary are to be substituted; and instead of the sham Court at the Castle, a real Court is to be held by the Sovereign in person every few years. The measure, at first sight, appears to threaten the aggravation of one of the most serious evils under which that unhappy country labours, viz. the increased expatriation of her nobility and gentry, to whom the Court at present seems the only point of attraction. The alleged advantages of the change are the concentration of the powers of Government, more intimate union between the two countries, and less opening for jobbing and partizanship.

Amongst the next important proceedings in the House of Commons was the production of the Budget, when Sir C. Wood had the very strange and almost unnatural intelligence to convey to the House of a revenue exceeding the expenditure. As the country has contracted, within the last few years, an additional debt of twenty-seven millions, it might be thought that our first duty was to get rid of that debt. But it seems that the public are not of this opinion. The Chancellor of the Exchequer describes himself beset with projects, like the hunted deer in a pond, with the dogs around him yelling for his life's blood. We trust he will act upon the old-fashioned principle of being just before he is generous. The proposals for a remission of taxes are innumerable; but all that he feels able to achieve is a repeal of the duty upon bricks, to reduce the stamp duty, and to increase the loans to the cultivators of land for drainage and other improvements.

In the Upper House, Lord Mountcashel has again and again called the attention of the Government to the abuses on board of emigrant ships, with such earnestness as will serve, we doubt not, to quicken their vigilance on the subject.

A highly interesting discussion has recently taken place in the House of Commons on the subject of the new Constitutions to be given to the Colonies. The scheme of Lord John Russell is to give, in each case, only a single House of Legislature, one-third of which is to be named by the Local Government, under the sanction of the Government at home, and two-thirds are to be elected. We profess our adherence to the plan of the Prime Minister, on the ground not of choice but of necessity. No man can call in question, as to the abstract theory, that it is the duty of a mother country to give her own laws and political constitution to her colonies as soon as she safely can ; and this duty is doubly obvious where the institutions are as intrinsically valuable as those of Great Britain. We should, therefore, on every ground, feel disposed, if it be at once possible and safe, to give to Australia the double Houses of Lords and Commons without delay. But, then, where are the materials, especially of an Upper House, to be found? An Upper House supposes blood, inheritance, a name, property long possessed, minds habituated to dignity-refined, intellectual, Conservative in the highest sense of that term. But where do such men present themselves, especially in our Australian Colonies? The names, blood, descent, are, in many cases, somewhat of an equivocal character. The Dukes and Marquises assembled in the new House of Peers might occasionally remember to have met each other within other walls, and might a little awkwardly call to mind those melancholy moments when, instead of being the dispensers of justice, they were the subjects of it. What would be the authority of such an Upper House when opposed to the voice of the democracy?

But it is necessary that we should now turn to some of the subjects of interest at home.

Within the present month, the Report of the Sanitary Commission has come before us on the subject of Intramural burials: and it is one to which we feel it important to call the attention especially of our Clerical readers. We serve a Master whose eye was as intently fixed on the bodily as on the spiritual diseases of mankind; and almost all his miracles were devoted to the removal of the first as well as the last. And surely it is for his ministers to take the lead in the same great works of benevolence, and thus to pave a way to the consciences of men through their every-day feelings and sufferings. There can be no doubt that the system of extramural interment threatens a heavy blow to the incomes of some of the ill-paid Clergy of the large towns, whose subsistence depends chiefly on fees. But the nation are not likely to inflict so palpable an injustice as to ruin one part, and so important a part, of the population for the benefit of another part. At all events, however, the Clergy are not the more likely to suffer for the bold and disinterested discharge of a sacred duty. In the end, we believe that the first to sacrifice will be the last to want. And, at all events, let them do right, and confide their necessities to the loving care of the Master they serve. Let them "bear each other's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ."

It was our wish to have entered somewhat at length into the Educational Question, but our remaining space must be given to the great subject of the month -the decision of the Lords of the Privy Council in favour of Mr. Gorham.

And, first, we must surely bow our knees and our hearts in holy gratitude to the Father of mercies for a decision which we believe to be, at once, consistent with truth, and of immeasurable value to the Church and nation. We can scarcely contemplate without shuddering what must have been the result of a judgment against Mr. Gorham, inasmuch as it must have led to the present secession of many of the most faithful servants of the Church, and have constituted an invincible barrier against the entrance of many more such persons into it. It is obvious that such a decision would have differed toto cælo from this in its bearing

on the two opposite parties. That would have altogether excluded one party from the Established Church, whilst this excludes neither. Now, even the man who identifies the Popish and English Services for Baptism is allowed (if his conscience will permit him) to abide in the National Church; whilst the opposite verdict would have shut out all who could not bring their consciences to acquiese in the doctrines of the Council of Trent. For it is to be observed, that both the Bishop of Exeter and his advocate called for no half measures. Their claim was nothing less than a recognition of the complete identity of the two Services-vel Roma, vel nihil--Rome or nothing. Moderate men, therefore, on either side, had no chance. From this state of things, which we firmly believe must have issued in the utter disruption of the National Church (for it is obvious that the bulk of the Laity would have gone with the excluded party), the present Judgment has delivered us; and all words of ours must fall short of the feelings of gratitude with which we contemplate the event. For this, "let all that is within us praise the name of the Lord."

The length of the Judgment alone prevents us from giving it to our readers. It is, however, in every one's hands; and it will, we believe, take such hold of the national mind and memory, as to need little additional record.

There are, however, certain other documents, without noticing which we could not be considered as discharging our duty as the religious chroniclers of the month.

In the first place, Mr. Denison has, with all the pomp which a parish vestryroom and the presence of his astonished churchwardens could confer, issued two protests, from the latter of which we think it well to make a short extract.

"PROTEST B.

"In the name of the most Holy Trinity. Amen.

"I. Whereas the Church of England is a branch of the one Catholic and Apostolic Church, and in virtue thereof, holds, absolutely and exclusively, all the doctrines of the Catholic faith.

"II. And whereas George Cornelius Gorham, Clerk, B.D., Priest of the Church of England, has formally denied the Catholic faith in respect of the holy sacrament of baptism.

"And whereas the Judicial Committee of Privy Council has, in the case of Gorham v. Bishop of Exeter, reversed the judgment of the Church Court, and has pronounced, by final sentence, the said George Cornelius Gorham to be fit to be instituted by the Bishop to a benefice with cure of souls;

"And whereas such sentence is necessarily false;

"And whereas such sentence gives public legal sanction to the teaching of false doctrine, and therein and thereby has a great and manifest tendency to lead into error of doctrine, or to encourage to persevere in error of doctrine, or to plunge finally into heresy, all such as are tempted, in one degree or another, to deny the faith of Christ in respect of the holy sacrament of baptism;

"And whereas such sentence does injury and dishonour to Christ and to His Holy Church;

"And whereas all, who with a full knowledge of the intent, meaning, and purpose of such sentence, are, or shall be, concerned in promulging or executing it, and all who, with a like knowledge, shall approve of, or acquiesce in it, are or will be involved in heresy;

"And whereas it has become necessary-in consequence of such sentence-that the Church of England should free herself from any participation in the guilt thereof by proceeding, without delay, to make some further formal declaration in respect of the Holy Sacrament of Baptism ;

"I, George Anthony Denison, Clerk, M.A., Vicar of East Brent, in the county of Somerset, and Diocese of Bath and Wells, do hereby enter my solemn protest against the said sentence of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, and do warn all the Christian people of this parish to beware of allowing themselves to be moved or influenced thereby in the least degree; and I do also hereby pledge myself to use all lawful means within my reach to assist in obtaining, without delay, some further formal declaration, by a lawful Synod of the Church of England, as to what is, and what is not, the doctrine of the Church of England in respect of the Holy Sacrainent of Baptism. "GEORGE ANTHONY DENISON.

(Signed) "East Brent, 4th Sunday in Lent, March 10, 1850."

Such is the extract; and it may be well now to hear, instead of our own,

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