All thousand points, and differ mainly on one (unsettled by Scripture, and treated broadly and charitably by the constructors of our Church formularies), living together as brethren, and spending their energies upon the destruction of the common enemies of God and man. these points are pressed by Mr. Hare with a power and depth of feeling which it is not easy to find in any other writer. We have not, however, taken up the charge again to recur to the Baptismal question, but to call our readers' attention to the part of it which refers to the " admission of the Jews into Parliament." Mr. Hare, though coinciding with the present Government in much of their policy, is in no danger of incurring the charge of truckling to them for any selfinterested purpose. A bolder denunciation of Lord John Russell's views on the above subject it is not possible to conceive. And we are tempted to quote a few of his sentences. He begins by referring to the Revolutions in most of the principal states of Europe; refers them mainly to the neglect of the rulers to give the people liberty of conscience, the Bible, and pure religion; and contrasts the state of the Continent with our own calm and happy circumstances; in which he says, that, "for want of a stimulant," and that we might not sink into a state of complete torpor, we have got up a few domestic controversies. He considers the Jews, especially in Germany, to have been the direct authors of many of these disturbances abroad; and, in most of the continental nations, the large number of Jews mixed up with the Christian community, to have hampered the movements of the Governments. Having eulogized the conduct of that political party at home who have given freedom and equality to various Christian bodies, he thus proceeds to distinguish between granting privileges to Jews and to Christians. 66 Unfortunately however, when persons are earnestly engaged in striving against an error, the negative spirit is apt to run away with them. Hence the political party who had for half a century been contending against the practice of excluding any denomination of Christians from public offices and dignities, and whose efforts were at length successful, being deluded, many of them, by their success, have now slid on blindly into the mere absolute negation, that it is wrong, that it is bigotry, that it is persecution, to connect political privileges in any way with a man's religious profession; so that, as far as the law is concerned, it should oppose no impediment to the election of a body of Mahometans and Bramins and Buddhists, or of a body of avowed infidels and atheists, as the Legislature of the English nation. It is to be hoped indeed that the people of England will not elect such representatives; but they are to do just as they please: the law is to stand neutral, and not to interfere with the exercise of each man's absolute will. If a person chooses to vote for a Jew, let him and why not for a Gypsy? Why should not the Gypsies take their seat in the Parliament of the English nation? If every other qualification is to be abolished, why should that of property be retained? Unless it be held that, while the worship of every other god is a matter of indifference in the councils of nations, there is one god to whom they are always bound to pay homage, even Mammon. To this anarchical, chaotic condition has our political wisdom been brought in the middle of this nineteenth century." (pp. 12, 13.) : Again : "To common civil rights indeed all the inhabitants o a country may justly lay claim. But political rights pertain to the State, not to individuals. Νο person can prefer any claim to them, as of right, except those on whom they are conferred by the State, through the organs of its legislative will. "Let me illustrate this by the analogy of private life. We may suppose a person maltreating or oppressing another on account of some difference in religion. This would be persecution, and is condemned in our Lord's speech to the disciples who desired to see fire called down on the Samaritan village. Or a person may refuse on a like ground to exercise the common courtesies and charities of neighbourly kindness. This would be narrowminded bigotry, and is rebuked by our Lord's conversation with the Samaritan woman, and by His healing the Samaritan leper, and the Syrophenician damsel. But if a man is unwilling to employ a member of a different religion as a servant in his household, or if he thinks himself bound to withhold his heart and his hand from such a person, surely this is not persecution, nor is it bigotry, but a wise and righteous regard for peace and unity, and a recognition that the highest relations of our nature ought to have the chief place in determining our practical conduct. There may indeed be cases, where we may seem compelled to put aside these considerations, under the constraint of imperious circumstances but he who does this lightly, and without a strong reluctance, proves himself the slave of worldly impulses: his wisdom is éπiyeios, vxikη.” These are wholesome sentiments, and if the Prime Minister will not listen to them from antagonists, let him hear them from a friend. VIEW OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS. THE Continent, with the exception of France and Greece, has been in a state nearly of apparent quiescence during the month.--But the Emperor of Austria's summons to the Imperial Parliament to assemble at Frankfort may soon kindle a flame over every part of Germany.-Will Prussia, for example, obey the summons; and if not, how is the strife to be arranged between her and Austria, abetted by at least three others of the most powerful sovereignties of the Germanic body? France, as usual, has been anything but inactive during the month. The election of Eugene Sue, a violent Red Republican, and the grand pollutor of public morals by his infamous novels, is an event too indicative of the state of the lower orders of the elective body, not to be viewed with deep regret, if not with serious alarm.His majority over Le Clerc, who had the support of the Government and of the moderate party, was that of 127,812 to 119,726. -It is, however, not infrequent in the history of States, that violent proceedings carry their own cure along with them. And such appears not unlikely to be the issue in the present case. The election of such a man-we had almost said of such a monster-is laid as the ground-work of an extensive reform in the whole electoral system. The chief objects of a Bill just brought in by the French ministry, are to limit the right of voting to persons who have resided for three years in one commune-to disfranchise convicted criminals, as well as all persons who have been dismissed from official situations for misconduct-and to take the votes of the army, not separately as soldiers, but in the mass with the rest of the community; the votes being sent under seal to the prefectures of the department. Those the best acquainted with the state of France consider 443 that the first of these regulations alone will immensely diminish the The French Government have also found leisure, amidst these internal struggles, to turn their attention to the affairs of Greece, and the alledged double-dealing of Lord Palmerston. And with a spirit which became them, if they believed that our Foreign Secretary was playing them false, they have recalled, though not formally and absolutely, their ambassador M. Drouyn de l'Huys. It is not impossible that this measure is, in part, an expedient to create a diversion in the grand political drama now passing through its several acts in the French metropolis. The French are a most vivacious people. They pass with incredible facility from one matter of interest to another. The popular passions are always keen for a quarrel with England. And, supposing the steam to be got fairly up, we can conceive that the changes in the Electoral At all events, men cau Law may pass comparatively sub silentio. rarely afford as much intensity for each of two objects as for one; and the ministers will be thankful for the smallest draft of the angry When the game is once passions in the direction of England. played, M. Douyn de l'Huys may return; and, in the mean time, the electors of France may have settled down quietly to their new constitution. Thus much for France. But, next, what is to be said for ourselves? Not a human being, as far as we see, is found to vindicate Lord Palmerston as to his part in this transaction; and he has superadded to other offences the language of what must, even after his own vindication in Parliament, be regarded as prevarication and subterfuge in the House of Commons. Neither has the hitherto immaculate reputation for integrity of the Prime Minister altogether escaped reproach. His replies in Parliament, to say the least, breathed but little of the straightforward manliness for which even his political adversaries have hitherto given him credit. Parliament, independent of the Greek question, has not been the scene of much interesting debate during the month. In the last week of April, however, a Bill of some importance was introduced by the Government for taking the management and responsibility It is high time that the of Savings Banks' into their own hands. Depositors should have better security for their money than is likely to be given by unpaid Treasurers and officers.-Mr. Monkton Milnes has been defeated in a scheme on the subject of juvenile delinquency. -The Government have had to encounter fresh perplexities on the subject of the Stamp Duties Bill.-Lord J. Russell dealt a vigorous rebuke to Mr. D'Israeli on the subject of the disgraceful alliance between the Radicals and Protectionists in cases where no real union prevails, with the mere view of clogging the wheels of Government. There is something monstrous in parties combining to destroy a middle power, when they know that, after the first moment of victory, they must proceed to cut each other's throats, and ruin the country. On the 6th of May a debate took place in the House of Commons on the subject of the Church in Australasia, upon a proposition of Mr. Gladstone's, to give to a Synod of Clergy in those dioceses absolute power, as far as the Church of the mother country was concerned, to regulate their own Ecclesiastical affairs. Against any such measure, as long as the colonies are to be connected with the mother country, or their Church with the Church of England, we should give in our strongest protest, inasmuch as it must tend to rend the garment of the Church to tatters,-must give us an imperium in imperio,—and must have a tendency to graft on the mother Church all the absurdities and excesses of the Colonial Churches. What is good for the Church there, would soon, by the high churchman here, be deemed good for ourselves. Mr. Gladstone's measure may in fact be regarded as an expedient to multiply, in all parts of the world, such anomalous bodies as the Episcopal Church of Scotland, which, while claiming an alliance with the Church of England, when it suits her purpose, mutilates her services, grafts on them the doctrine of Transubstantiation, and provides a hospital for all the diseased or traiterous consciences of that portion of our Clergy who will not be satisfied till the Church of England is identified with the Church of Rome. Several of the Colonial Bishops are, we grieve to say, among the last persons whom we should wish to trust as legislators for the Church of Christ, either at home or abroad. The second and third weeks of the month, in part of which has been included the Whitsun holidays, have produced little of importance in Parliament. We will now, therefore, call the attention of our readers to a few topics of some importance which have been brought on the carpet during the month. In the first place, the Bishop of Exeter, dissatisfied with the decision of the Court of Queen's Bench, has carried the question of the right of appeal from the Arches Court to the Privy Council, into the Court of Common Pleas, where Sir F. Kelly has reopened his argument, and alledges against Lord Campbell great historical inaccuracies. It would be most presumptuous in us to venture an opinion upon a matter now subjudice, and when ample justice is sure to be done to it. A part of the same historical facts had been previously stated by Lord Campbell in his Lives of the Chancellors; a work of which all men admired the tone and temper, but few the precision and accuracy. It is devoutly to be hoped that the sentence of the Court of Queen's Bench will not be reversed: as this would lead to an argument before all the Judges, and a prolongation, and probably to an exasperation, of disputes so injurious to the public welfare. Lord John Russell may be unseated before the question could-be settled, and a Manchester administration may occupy his place; in which case, the last thing which the religious movement party could expect, we suppose, would be that the Crown would be "advised" to adopt measures more favorable to Church authority or influence. The Bishop of London's Bill for a new Court of Heresy is now more distinctly before the public. The substance of the measure is that in all cases "in which it shall be necessary to determine any question of doctrine or tenets of the Church of this realm," arising either in a criminal or civil suit, the Judicial Committee of Her Majesty's Privy Council shall refer such question in writing to the Archbishops and Bishops of the provinces of Canterbury and York, and the opinion of the said Archbishops and Bishops shall be binding on the Judicial Committee, and shall be reported by them to Her Majesty in Council, together with their advice to Her Majesty upon such appeal; and further, that in case of any difference in the Episcopal Court so constituted, the question shall be decided according to the opinion of the majority of the Archbishop and Bishops present that, moreover, the opinion of the respective prelates shall be certified in writing to the Privy Council. The alleged advantage of the Bill is that it refers questions of doctrine to a tribunal which must be conceived officially to be best acquainted with them. It is, of course, another matter whether it really is so, and whether what is gained in theological learning, would not be lost in caudour and freedom from party spirit. The real advantage of the measure as coming from the Bishops, is that, even supposing it to be lost, as it probably will, the mass of the discontented may no longer be able to rebuke the Bishops for their reluctance to construct an Ecclesiastical instead of a Civil Court of Appeal. And perhaps this is what the Bishop of London chiefly intended. It is obvious that such a Court has little approximation to the Courts of Convocation, where there was a double house, and where certain laymen had a place. The utter exclusion of the inferior clergy from such a Court of Appeal would, we believe, ill satisfy large numbers of the laity of this country, who may chance to think that, considering the ordinary source of Episcopal appointment, the "lower house" might be quite as satisfactory a Court of Appeal as the "upper." But this consideration seems to us fatal to the scheme. Any man pronouncing a heretic to be no heretic, is himself a heretic. Suppose, then, the majority to pronounce a man heretical, what is to become of the minority? If the offender is a heretic, so are they-and they ought to go out with the condemned man. We cannot but honour the anxiety of the Bishop of London to devise any safe scheme by which our agitated Church may be lulled to rest. But we cannot believe that, as yet, the true means has been discovered. And we are most anxious that the Bishop should not, in his laudable desire to conciliate those persons who are flitting between Rome and Protestantism, concede to them either a single point of Protestant doctrine, or rouse the laity of the country to measures subversive of the just authority of the Church. The movement as to the question of "Gorham, v. the Bishop of Exeter," (or, as we see it is worded in a pamplet, advertised for men of a Catholic spirit, "Gorham, v. Bishop of Exeter-Protestant v. Catholic,-Heresy, v. Truth;" so that Gorham-" Protestant," and |