ing to the latter, being fully persuaded of its essential validity, whatever canonical shade may rest on a portion of its history. Under which head the Oxford writers may class themselves in regard to the historical question is a matter of little moment, so long as they do adhere in a spirit of obedience and faith to the present church of England, a duty which I believe they perform themselves not less fully than they preach it to others. I believe this myself, and what is of much more consequence, their ecclesiastical superiors believe it

too.

Amid all his wrath at their conduct in regard to Hickes, our author has a tolerable stock to expend on another enormity,-a deed, according to him, of foul dishonour and deceit, though to what purpose directed I am unable to discover. They have styled the bishops of Edinburgh, and of Ross, and Argyle, as the "Lord" bishops of their respective dioceses; and their opponent imagines (with abundance of company in his error I allow) that our bishops take the title of "Lord" only in virtue of their temporal baronies, which source of honour the Scottish bishops are plainly without. He will find, however, that the title of AFOTOTηs, Dominus, or Lord, has appertained to the office of bishop from the earliest times; and that, accordingly, it is given as readily to our colonial prelates who have no baronies, as to our native ones who have.

With three pieces of advice, I will bid farewell to this writer of an article of which "the effects will not soon be forgotten."

One is, that while literature is sufficiently dishonoured by the modern spirit of personality and gossip, theology altogether revolts from the contact. Among the objects of his ire and suspicion (for he seems full of suspicions) is an article in a recent number of the "Quarterly Review" on Oxford Theology. Here, too, he has found the obnoxious phrase "Bishop Hickes," and therefore, in true newspaper spirit, he infers that it proceeds from one of the Oxford divines, that they have taken to reviewing themselves, &c. What does it signify who wrote it, to a mind really in search of truth? That it is the work of one who does not in all things coincide with the leaders of what is called the Oxford Tract party, is evident from its contents; and rumour assigns it to one of the most valuable contributors to the "Quarterly," who has never, so far as I know, been more mixed up with the writers of the Tracts than any one else who gives them his general approbation.

2ndly. A man should be cautious of thinking that he has made a discovery. Had our author, when the question "which were the schismatics?" dawned upon his mind, but reflected on the circumstance that he was not the first to consider it,-that the consequences which seemed to him to hang upon it must therefore have probably presented themselves to the attention of those who had been beforehand with him, -that it was of all things the most unlikely that they should have escaped the notice of the learned and acute divines against whom his attack is directed, or that such zealous advocates of the Anglican succession should have failed to provide against them, it is probable that we should have been spared his lucubrations.

3rdly. Let him remember the invaluable rule, "in necessariis unitas, in dubiis libertas, et in omnibus caritas." Dare he affirm

that any accredited high-church writer, whether in Oxford or out of it, has contradicted a single clause of a catholic creed, or a single article of the Anglican church? If not, then surely we may be satisfied as to the first article in the rule. Under the second head may well be ranged such points as the precise amount of esteem due to the primitive ages, the value of some early practices now discontinued, (the discontinuance being obediently submitted to,) nay more, by way of climax, whether or not Hickes and Collier should be designated as bishops. It remains for our author, and others like him, to remember the third point. Has he done so? Not most assuredly in the paper before us. Does he not know that it is sin to bring rash accusations against, or indulge in causeless anger with, a Christian brother? And if that brother be in the grace and favour of God, then may not the man who helps to swell a popular outery against him be haply found to be "fighting against God"?

F. G.

THOUGHTS ON MISSIONS.- No. I.*

REVEREND SIR,-Among the many evils which have taken their rise from the decay of a godly discipline and self-regulating power in the Anglican church, that is not the least whereby efforts to extend her boundaries, however well intended, have not been in unison either with our own church's principles or in imitation of the practice of antiquity.

This is a grave charge, involving, as it does, both of our so-called church societies in the imputation of unfaithfulness to the church which they profess to represent. I believe, however, it is too well founded.

In the first place, what is the object proposed by the Church Mis sionary Society and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, leaving out of the question the various other societies not connected with the church, with whom of course I have nothing to do? I will limit the question to India, since with that country my duty lies connected; what, then, is the design of these two societies with respect to India? The name of one suggests an answer for both "the propagation of the gospel." The name is good, the design benevolent, the object transcendently glorious. But this is no novelty, as some persons seem disposed to imagine; it is no invention of the nineteenth, nor yet of the seventeenth, century; it is coetaneous with the commencement, and will be coincident with the duration, of the gospel itself. The first efforts were of an extraordinary kind, and assisted by means which we now can barely hope for. Still, however, much was left for human agency to effect after the withdrawal of the miraculous gifts.

Missions have been conducted by men of like passions with ourselves, assisted as we are, or may be, with the ordinary operations of

The Editor inserts this letter under the impression that it may be both interesting and useful to his readers in Great Britain to see the views entertained by a clergyman resident in India, though they may not entirely concur in them.

the Holy Ghost. One would imagine, then, that to these patterns regard would be paid, and that some little trouble would be taken by those interested in the matter to ascertain what were the means by which so much was effected; but, no! regard is more kindly given to modern and untried inventions than to ancient and approved praetice; and even when tried and found wanting, there seems no looking back if haply they may light on first principles, but rather a throwing the blame on the all but reprobate condition of the heathen, as if no case of parallel difficulty had been presented to early propagators of the faith, and had been treated with success.

Now, so far from the natives of India being of a different or more degraded stamp than many of those who were brought into the early church, as might be urged by some, I conceive, and I believe I shall be borne out by every one conversant with ancient and ecclesiastical history when I state my conviction, that they were similar people, under very similar circumstances.

It should be borne in mind that we have to do with a people who, in the mass, are a very simple minded race, with but few ideas, which, with their habits and customs, have been handed down from remote ages with a kind of religious tenacity of observance. Let the case be supposed of conversion to Christianity from among such a people; is it in the abstract to be expected that they will at once throw aside as foolish and vain all that they have learned from their forefathers, and at once adopt our customs, and with a tremendous effort raise their habits of thought and mental attainment to a level with ours, which have been the growth of ages of Christianity and philosophy? Surely

not.

Leaving the abstract question, which, thanks be to the Head of the church, we may, what do we find in the actual state of native Christians? Why, that they are generally, save where pains have been taken to dispossess them of many of the laudable and excellent principles of nature, the fair traces of a primitive faith, surviving even the degeneracy of successive generations, and thus turning them adrift on the wide sea of error and infidelity without chart or compass,—generally, I say, they are very attentive and regular in their acts of worship, but having a great inaptitude for learning bare explanations and definitions without something tangible and real to serve as helps, and retaining, in a great degree, their social and civil distinctions, and attached to many of their former customs. Now, let those who, in utter neglect of their many positive acts of piety, would question the Christianity of such a people merely because their habits and other peculiarities do not accord with those generally received in western climes as fit and proper,-let such, I say, examine into many of their own allowed customs, their approved systems of etiquette and courtesy, then let them candidly consider, on the one hand, the real disadvantages of the native Christians of India, and their own superior education, with the no small advantage of the progressive civilization of some centuries on the other; and if the improvement of Christian privileges on the part of the Hindoo be not much greater than that of many who are loud on the subject, I am greatly mistaken.

Seeing, then, that the natives of India are not on the same footing,

and by justice should not be so treated, as the present race of British or other European Christians in respect of previous acquirements and freedom from bias against, and imperfection in the practice of, Christianity, it is worthy of inquiry whether the church has ever had to do with similar cases. There can be little doubt of this; our own land presented to the early apostle, whoever he was, a picture perhaps not very dissimilar to that which in India now greets the eye of the English missionary-a people wedded to the customs of their forefathers, having a sort of natural religion warped from its pristine form; and yet these and other obstacles as mighty were overcome. The cross triumphed, and the little band felt that their Lord's promise (Matt. xxviii. 20) was no idle nor unmeaning one, but a promise of actual fulfilment. And why should it not be so now? Has the church quite lost the spirit and the vigour of the early ages? Is there none among all the sons whom she hath nourished who can be content to lay himself out for this work, and become all things to all men in order to gain some? Two societies, it is answered, have arisen within the church of England to supply the church's place in this undertaking. But, alas! how are their efforts made often to jar, and seldom to work in unison. We have no grand rallying point. We are all aiming, it is true, at one object; and this might be thought sufficient to ensure unity and harmony of action, but it has not hitherto been so; each takes his own view of things and acts accordingly, the sum therefore of the varying acts being equal to the sum of the acts themselves.

The cause of all this, in my opinion, is the novel institution of societies, and the novel principles and practices adopted and sanctioned by them; and all this again has resulted from an imperfect acquaintance with, or proud rejection of, ancient practice.

The only proper missionary society is that holy body instituted by Christ himself, even his church. The only proper principles by which its practice should be regulated are the sacred scriptures, with what may be gathered from the holy men who managed its concerns for the first four or five centuries. All other institutions are intrusions; all efforts for the conversion of the heathen should emanate from the church as a body, and not from a few individuals in that church. I mean not to say that it is not the duty of private Christians to attempt the instruction of the ignorant; but I mean, to be effectual, the grand effort must be made by the church; it is nothing but the machinery of the church which can cope with or prevail against the powers of darkness. To say that a society self-originated has the authority to represent itself as the champion of Christ in a heathen country is almost as little reasonable as that a party of Hindoos should associate for the quelling, in the name of the queen, the Canadian revolt.

There seems to be quite a monomania on the subject of societies and committees in the present day, all too lamentably proving our unhealthy and precarious condition; instead of the ancient mode of reducing the nations to the obedience of the faith, which in our own land we at this day thankfully acknowledge not to have been partially successful, in a district among a few villages, nor yet superficially

so as not to outlive the generation, but we have seen every nook and corner successively permeated by Christian doctrine, and united by Christian fellowship, and we at this day reap the benefit and enjoy the comfort of the hope which was then enjoyed. Instead of this, a novel scheme has been adopted, the effects of which are but too well seen in the disorders in its actual working out, in the squabbles between societies and between the managers of the same society, and in the contempt and disregard of episcopal authority, besides the production among laymen of a desire for the attrectation of sacred things, with, moreover, the manifold evils produced in parishes at home, which are growing rifer and more pernicious every year, I mean the running after preachers who are invited to town or elsewhere to plead, as it is termed, the cause of this or that society, rendering parochial distinctions null and void, and the pastoral relation abortive,-a similar state of things, in fact, to that which preceded the Reformation, when the mendicant orders itinerated through every parish, bringing disorder and discord in their train, between whom and certain itinerants of the present day there exists more than a fancied resemblance.

Now, as regards India, my remedy would be this in outline that country is civilly divided into four presidencies, over three of which there is already a bishop, sent out for the European clergy, or those who minister to European Christians. I would subdivide each present see (as far only as the native or indigenous church is concerned) into suffragan sees, making the present bishop of each presidency or province archbishop or metropolitan, and the Bishop of Calcutta patriarch of the whole Indian church. I would recommend a general synod of the whole church to regulate the liturgy, offices, canons, and constitutions, all of which (though based of course upon our own Anglican model) to be modified according to the climate, customs, languages, and other circumstances of the people for whose use and edification they were intended; for nothing can be more absurd or contrary to the church's meaning than that the same liturgy and ceremonies will be suitable for all places, as may be gathered not only from a little reflection, but also from the Preface to the Book of Common-prayer, on Ceremonies, where I find it stated-"We think it convenient that every country should use such ceremonies as they shall think best to the setting forth of God's honour and glory, and to the reducing of the people to a most perfect and godly living." And again, the language of the 34th Article is, that " It is not necessary that traditions and ceremonies be in all places one and utterly like; for at all times they have been divers, and may be changed according to the diversities of countries, times, and men's manners, so that nothing be ordained against God's word." And, " every particular and national church hath authority to ordain, change, and abolish ceremonies or rites of the church ordained only by man's authority, so that all things be done to edifying."

To proceed, however, somewhat more in detail, we will take the Madras presidency for an example; and it is well suited to our purpose, seeing that the southern portion of it at least is studded pretty