receive the support which we asked to enable us to continue them, and only a very considerable increase of support would authorize the attempt to give such as have heretofore embellished the successive numbers. Those who conduct any publication can only act according to their experience of the encouragement granted by the public.

Our principles are specified in the pages of now nearly two years; but they are in some quarters mistaken. We belong to no party but the Church, and to no party in the Church. We are not Tractarian; far otherwise. We have neither adopted nor modified any opinion, so far as we know or believe, from perusing certain celebrated publications. We believe our Church to be scripturally Evangelical, faithfully Protestant, and happily Reformed; and so primitively Catholic in constitution, doctrine, and worship. We believe our Prayer-book, Articles, and Homilies, in their obvious and literal teaching, to be truly and purely Scriptural; and we wish no change, or deviation, or innovation, for we are attached to the Church" as she is." Such Evangelical and, if we must use the term, High-Church principles we desire to espouse and recommend.

MEMOIR OF THE LATE VERY REVEREND JOHN IRELAND, D.D.,
DEAN OF WESTMINSTER.

THE most dignified and responsible stations, whether in Church or State, have often been occupied by individuals whose origin was humble, yet whose virtues, usefulness, and talent, recommended them for such advancement. It is stated that another exemplification of this occurred in the lowly birth, and subsequent promotion, of the late Dean of Westminster. Such instances reflect honour on our Church and country, as well as on the meritorious individuals who have so been raised to rank and influence.

John Ireland was born at Ashburton, in the county of Devon, on the 6th day of September, 1761, and was educated at the Grammar School, in that place. We have indeed seen it asserted that Hereford ought to be substituted for Ashburton, but believe we are right in the above statement. He became a member of Oriel College, Oxford, about the year 1780; and we find him Vicar of Croydon, in 1796, when he published five discourses, containing arguments for and against the reception of Christianity by the ancient Jews and Greeks; and, in 1807, a sermon on the claims of the Establishment. In 1802, he succeeded Dean Vincent, as Prebendary of Westminster, but still continued Vicar of Croydon. In 1816, he was promoted to the Deanery of Westminster, on the death of Dr. Vincent. The estimation in which he was held by his learned predecessor, and by the Chapter of Westminster, was shown by their appointment of Dr. Ireland to the Theological Lectureship founded in the Church of Westminster by the Statutes of Queen Elizabeth. In his Lectures Dr. Vincent took great interest, from a wish to obviate the objection that the great schools were conducted without Christian principles, and on a system which might almost be called exclusively Pagan." We wish there had never been any ground for such an objection; we rejoice that the reproach has since in some degree been rolled away; and we trust that the late measures for an advanced theological education in our Universities may cause the great schools, nay every school for rich and poor, to become "seminaries of sound learning and religious education."

The lectures which Dr. Ireland undertook to deliver were continued by

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him until the year 1812. The first portion only was printed, viz., in the year 1809; a new edition of which was published in 1825, with a preface unfolding more fully his design and plans. We have not heard that the second part has ever been printed, but trust that it will be so; as we doubt not it would tend, equally with, if not more than, the former part -"to the formation of the CHRISTIAN SCHOLAR."

We fear that Dr. Ireland's Westminster Lectures are less known than they deserve to be. To draw attention to them has been the principal motive for this memoir, remembering, as we do with gratitude, the benefit we derived from the perusal of them, when pursuing our university studies. The title of the work is as follows: Paganism and Christianity compared, in a Course of Lectures to the King's Scholars at Westminster in the years 1806-7-8 (Murray). From his preface we will make several extracts, that students, and the parents and tutors of students, may see that the work merits their attention, as calculated to "unite the attractions of literature with the principles of Christianity," as Dr. Vincent, and his now deceased successor, desired. It abounds with much information and discussion, valuable and interesting to the scholar and the Christian. It embodies the reasonings of the Heathen and Christian Apologists; and quotes largely from the originals in foot-notes.

"The subject is chiefly historical, and divides itself into two parts. The event which serves as the foundation of the whole, is the capture of Rome by Alaric, in the beginning of the fifth century. Out of this arises, in the first part, a defence of the character of the Church against the slanders of Paganism. The true causes of the decay of the empire are contrasted with the false; the impotence of the heathen deities, to whom the prosperity of Rome had been attributed, is exposed in the arguments employed by the ancient apologists of the faith; and the beneficial tendency of the Gospel is asserted, in its connection with the condition of man in this present life. This part may therefore be called a Vindication of the Civil character of Christianity in the Roman empire, during the first four centuries.

"The second part is employed in discussing the opinions of the Pagans concerning the worship of a Deity, and the pursuit of happiness, as it was prescribed by the Philosophical sects. It may be termed a view of mythological and moral notions, as they are opposed to the everlasting promises of the Gospel; and it contains an examination of some of the more eminent systems of Theology, and the summum bonum which prevailed in the heathen world.

"With these are interwoven occasional appeals to the superior doctrines of the Scriptures; and to this purpose also is directed the first, or introductory chapter, which presents a general statement of the blessings annexed to the sincere profession of Christianity in the "life which now is, and in that which is to come." Pp. 6-8.

"Our faith is not injured by the accession of classical taste. Mythology neither taints the purity of the Gospel, nor endangers our salvation. Indeed, it suggests new methods of defending revelation; the superiority of which is rightly inferred from an exposure of the weakness of the religion of nature. We dwell for a while on classic ground. In our more mature judgment, we compare the imaginations of men with divine truth. We turn our collections to Christian profit, and offer the fruits of our studies on the altar of God.

"On the other hand, the too fastidious scholar would for ever confine his attention to those writings which exhibit the purest classical language. Something may be pardoned to those, who, in an early age of the Church, had to surrender the prejudices of an Heathen education, and the philosophy in which they were bred. They lingered for a while within the borders of the schools; and their opinions concerning the doctrines of the Gospel were sometimes marked with errors and imperfections, which the charity of criticism