The Ecclesiastical Almanac for the Year of our Lord, MDCCCXLVI. London: Leslie.

No Parish Priest should be without this Almanac in his study. The diversities of practice which prevailed in the Public Services of the Church on several occasions in last year were really most discreditable to the Clergy. And all might have been prevented by the outlay of a single shilling on the part of each Clergyman. It is a mistake to suppose that there are no rules by which to determine rubrical difficulties. They are few and simple, but amply sufficient; and in this Almanac they will be found applied to all cases that may arise.

A new Almanac, "The English Churchman's Kalendar " (Rivingtons) has also appeared. It is compiled mainly on the same principles as the one preceding; but, with the exception of some improvement in the tabular arrangement, it does not strike us as being so convenient and complete. Would it not have been better instead of publishing a second Clerical Almanac, to have provided one for the Laity on the same principles and in a cheap form?

Mr. Burns continues to cater for the public taste in his "Fire-side Library," with unabated vigour. Might we venture to suggest that Germany would yield something also of a solid kind to mingle with the "Ballads," (a most admirable volume) and many tales which have been imported thence with so much advantage to our popular literature?

ness.

"The Anglo-Catholic Library," we rejoice to see, is increasing in usefulIn the present year the Committee propose to commence an edition of Archbishop Laud's Works. We trust it may not be that our generation, while "building the tombs of the Prophets," shall prove itself the "children of those who killed" them!

Dr. MILL has published a volume of Sermons preached before the University of Cambridge, (Rivingtons,) which will repay a careful perusal. Indeed, the solid matter and the chastened eloquence of the Preacher are scarcely apprehended and appreciated on a first reading.

Reverence due to Holy Places. (Second Edition: Enlarged, Rivingtons) by a well known and right-minded layman of Bath, is a seasonable Tract. Reverence is what our worshippers want more than anything. We have one complaint, however, to make of our author-that he has most unmercifully emptied his entire Common-Place Book upon us. His tract is stuffed full of quotations and references.

ECCLESIASTICAL RECORDS.

COLLEGE OF ST. COLUMBA.

WE are glad to be able to lend our pages to the following appeal in behalf of S. Columba's College. It emanates, we believe, from the individual who may be called the Founder of the Institution. Would only that it had been established two centuries ago!

I must entreat your forgiveness for making another appeal in behalf of the College of S. Columba, in Ireland. But an appeal must be made to those who love the Church; and we have never yet found it fail, when we have been able to explain our case. And with the accompanying lists of subscriptions already given, it would be great want of confidence in Him, "to Whom the silver and the gold belongs," if we suffered ourselves to be cast down, or to despair of raising the sum which we now require.

As the College has, from the first, been under the immediate control of the Lord Primate of Ireland as its Visitor, and as I am now endeavouring to

raise the funds we require with his entire approbation and sanction, it is best to express the feelings which his Grace entertains towards the College in his own language, taken from a letter now lying before me. His Grace expresses in this the great pleasure which he feels at the prospect of success in our present application, "his sincere hope that the friends of the Church will lend their assistance to this good work," "the deep interest which he has taken in the College from the first proposal to found it, and the gratification which he derives from his personal visitation of it.' "If persevered in," his Grace proceeds, "in the manner in which it has been commenced, I look forward to its being the means, under the Divine blessing, of training up a body of youths in a system that is strictly religious, free from party spirit, and in accordance with the sound principles of our Church. In these times the value of such a training as is given at S. Columba's is incalculable, and it will, I trust, confer important benefits upon Ireland." His Grace then proceeds to attribute the success of the College, in a very great degree, to the "judicious superintendence of the Warden, which has merited his full approbation, and to express the greatest confidence in his prudent and able management;" words which only faintly convey my own sense, as one of the Governors of the College, of the inestimable services rendered by him to it. To him, in fact, aided by the zealous co-operation of the Fellows, the whole merit is due of practically establishing the system of the College, and therefore, though deeply interested in its foundation, I have less difficulty in speaking of its working as it deserves.

We have indeed this claim upon assistance; that, to use the words of the Lord Primate, "it is now no longer an experiment, it is proved to be a practicable plan." With regard to the first object proposed by the College, namely, the providing the future clergy of Ireland with the means of reaching the hearts and understandings of the people through their own tongue, even the experience of two years, since the establishment of the College, is full of cheering prospects. Though the language is difficult, the boys have taken great interest in it, voluntarily devoting time to it, in some cases, out of school hours. Five scholarships, founded by the Governors for the cultivation of the language there, have given a great impetus to the study. The College has undertaken the publication of a valuable grammar of Irish, by the first scholar of the day; a work much needed. A primer to assist learners has also been compiled and published by two Fellows of the College, and as more accommodation can be provided, we may be able to carry out still farther this branch of the original plan, in reference to the servants. Of its importance -its immense importance-little is known in England. Had it been attended to before, Ireland would not be now in its present melancholy state.

Not only along the western coast, and in the islands, is Irish in many parts spoken exclusively, but throughout the country, and even where the Irish population is settled in England and the Colonies, it is used in the familiar intercourse of the peasantry, and acts almost as a charm to open their hearts and minds, and to remove their animosities and prejudices. I speak from knowledge, in saying that clergymen in the midst of savage outrages, have saved their life by repeating the LORD's Prayer in Irish; that battles between the peasantry have been pacified by a single individual, who could speak to them in Irish. When nothing can induce them to receive or attend to an English Bible, they will listen to it in Irish with the greatest avidity; show their deep feeling in its most touching passages by crying over it; assemble at night in cabins upon the mountains for the purpose of learning to read it; that no denunciations will induce them to give up an Irish Bible, and that young and old, even grey-headed men, will learn their alphabet to read,it though exposed in consequence to severe persecution, and often to personal outrage and the loss of their means of subsistence. I may add, that the service of the Church, and particularly the Litany, possesses peculiar charms

to them, as was noticed at the time of the Reformation, when they can hear it in Irish.

No slight impression has been made upon the population already, in various parts, by the use of this language; though in a mode irregular and desultory. Whether it is desirable to place such an instrument of good in the hands of the Church herself, which is the immediate object of S. Columba's College; whether it may not be made available for much beneficial influence if possessed by landlords also, and generally by those who may be brought into contact with the peasantry, need scarcely be asked. Only it should be added, that to approach them by the cultivation of the language which is so deeply interwoven with their national and religious prejudices, is also, paradoxical as it may seem, the most effectual mode of removing all distinctions, even of language itself, as has been proved to be the case in Scotland. The cultivation of their minds in one form leads to their cultivation in others, and this to their ready study of English, when once their hearts have been opened by the right key, and those melancholy and bitter prejudices have been softened down, that now separate them from England, and keep them ready prepared at any moment to rise in rebellion.

No more striking testimony of this truth can be given, than that of the highly respected Bishop Mant, who, an Englishman himself, and at first indisposed to this view, has now been convinced of the importance of employing the Irish language in the Church, and has lately preached and published a sermon before the University of Dublin, in which he has dwelt with strong approbation on the establishment of the College of S. Columba.

But besides the Irish language, the College may now be pointed to as filling up, not only a most serious deficiency in the Irish Church, but a want in the Church of the whole empire. It not only enables the higher classes in Ireland to educate their sons in their own country, where they may learn, at an early age, association and habits of inestimable importance in attaching them to the scene of their future duties, and saving them from becoming absentees, but it exhibits an experiment in Church education of the deepest interest. S. Columba is at present the only school of the Church-may GOD grant that it may soon cease to have this distinction-where those who teach devote themselves to their duties upon the express principle of receiving from the emoluments of the school only what is sufficient for their necessary wants. All beyond is to be applied, first, to the gratuitous education of the sons of the poorer clergy, widows, and other objects of Christian charity, on a par with the children of the wealthy, and then to the improvement and maintenance of the general system. The whole income thus of a body consisting of a Warden and seven Fellows now at the head of the College, amounts only to £900 a year. And already the Warden himself has contributed to the funds of the College, in various ways, from his private means, more than has been expended upon this part of the institution since its commencement.

It has been resolved also to carry out the Church system in all the details of the plan. The full service is performed twice a day, and the whole school attend it. One of the Fellows instructs them regularly in music, so that a considerable part of the choral service is performed every day by the congregation, and on festivals the whole of it. And the effect upon the tone of the boys' minds is found to be most salutary. The fasts and festivals of the Church are uniformly observed. Catechetical instruction is given to the boys every day, and the whole system of rewards and punishments and general management is formed upon the model of the Church, so as to form a most interesting experiment, an experiment in its results most highly satisfactory -on the influence of the spirit of the Church, when duly and fully developed. The Warden and Fellows take all their meals, without exception, with the boys, only at a high table. The food is the same for all. Luxuries are studiously excluded. No wine is drunk, no delicacies admitted; and though

great attention is paid to a proper degree of refinement, the general mode of life is so simple, that the expense of the Fellows does not exceed £25 a year. At the same time an academical character is preserved throughout. All the members of the College wear caps and gowns, and surplices in chapel on the usual days. The dormitory of the boys is so arranged that each individual has his own little compartment to himself in strict privacy. Not a word is allowed to be uttered from the time they go to bed to the hour of rising. Their private prayers are secured, and this without the necessity of any of the Fellows sleeping in the room. It is enforced by the senior boys. Every thing in fact of good which Dr. Arnold and other eminent men have lately endeavoured to carry into effect in the public schools of England, has been attended to in the system of the school, but with the advantage of commencing from the ground, and carrying it on under a body of clergymen and others, living together in one society, and constantly mixing with the boys in their play-hours, as well as in their studies. I cannot better express the result than in the words of one of the most distinguished and devoted masters of Eton, who visited S. Columba for the purpose of examining its working. He wrote to me: "I cannot tell you how thankful and overjoyed I was and have been to have witnessed the real life and energy in the Church system thus developed in its application to education;" and after speaking of many points, of the earnest devotional character of the church services, the natural, simple, undrilled behaviour of the boys at chapel, the respectful, reverential manner in things human and divine, the calm mirth in hours of relaxation, the sympathy between all members of the College, and the elevated tone and temper of the authorities, he concludes: "All this impressed me with feelings such as I had never expected to have had called out by realities, and such as I had only dreamt of in my meditations. When I left S. Columba's precincts, I felt like a man going out of the Church into the world; and I feel deeply responsible for the privilege I enjoyed of witnessing such vitality in our Church."

It would be painful to me to repeat such words, however deserved and sincere, were it not that, if such testimony can rouse attention and interest in those who understand the value of such an experiment in education, it must obtain for the College the means which it now requires. The present number of its students, thirty-six, can scarcely be exceeded without great inconvenience. A site has been selected, with the " entire concurrence" of the Visitor, for building the College, which has hitherto been carried on in a house only occupied on lease, and which could not be retained. The purchase of this site, though in itself most desirable, will absorb a very large sum, and before it can be available as an endowment, a considerable mortgage must be paid off. Though there is a house already on the spot, additional buildings will be required for dormitories, chapel, hall, and school-room, which will render it necessary to obtain at least £10,000 for this purpose alone within the current year. And yet how many individuals there are who could supply this at once, as one munificent hand is supplying the wants of S. Augustin's. I do not ask assistance from the parochial clergy, for they are already too heavily burdened. But I would entreat them and others, who may not have means themselves, to mention the case to friends, and with GoD's blessing upon united labours, a very short time must be sufficient to secure to us our immediate wants. Even if we think only of the Church of England, S. Columba has no little claim. But the Church of Ireland at this moment needs also all our sympathy and energy to come over and help her; and if we abandon her, how can we expect GOD's blessing upon ourselves? To Him we must entrust this appeal; and He has already blessed our exertions so bountifully, that I cannot feel a moment's despondency, though the task of entreating aid has, by unavoidable circumstances, fallen almost exclusively on one, whose name can command so little weight as myself.

INTHRONIZATION OF THE BISHOP OF OXFORD.

This ceremony took place in the Cathedral on the 13th ult. The Right Reverend Prelate was conducted into the Choir by the Precentor at the end of the first Lesson. The Chapter Clerk then read the mandate of the Archdeacon of Canterbury, in which he asserted his undoubted right to inthronize all Bishops of that province, and, in consequence of urgent business preventing his personal presence, authorized the Dean with other members of the Chapter to perform all things pertaining to the ceremony. The Dean then administered two oaths to his Lordship, one declaring that simony had not been employed by him for procuring of the See; and the other, that he would faithfully guard the honours and privileges of the Cathedral. This done, the Dean conducted him by the south-aisle to his Throne; declared him duly inthroned, and made him the accustomed address. Te Deum was then proceeded with by the choir. No previous Bishop of Oxford, within the memory of man, had been inthroned in person.

THE BISHOPRICK OF JERUSALEM.

We last week announced the sudden death, by apoplexy, of Bishop ALEXANDER, on the 23rd of November, in his tent at a small village in the desert, about sixteen hours distant from Cairo, whither he was proceeding on his way to England. We regret to add that he has left a widow and nine children to deplore his loss.

In our remarks, suggested by this event, we shall abstain from all comment on the qualifications of the deceased; we will believe him to have been as admirably fitted for his office and position, as his warmest admirers supposed, and to have merited, during the few years of his episcopate, such an eulogy, as Dr. ABEKEN has lately pronounced on him,-reserving to ourselves a strong opinion as to the delicacy and propriety of printing such fulsome adulation in a publication intended to meet the Bishop's eye.*

Granting then, that Dr. ALEXANDER was not only the "proper," but "the only proper person for this office," we would suggest whether the fact of his removal does not afford an additional argument to those before existing against the appointment of a successor? The "anxious experiment" has been fairly tried: none who have attentively watched the progress of events, (except such as are wholly pledged to the scheme,) can hesitate to pronounce it a signal and decided failure. When, then, we consider that this measure "has had a most grievous effect in weakening the argument for our Church's Catholicity, and in shaking the belief in it of individuals" of no ordinary learning and piety, it is a serious question for those in authority to consider how far the losses which our Church has lately sustained, may be traced to the hasty adoption of this ill-advised proposal.

We cannot, indeed, agree with the writer, whose words we have quoted, in regarding the Church as responsible for the acts of its individual Bishops, unsanctioned by any formal act of convocation; but still, under present circumstances especially, the scruples of weak brethren must be respected if we would not sever from the Church its most vigorous and fruitful branches. It were little short of infatuation, as things are, to persist in so objectionable a measure, of doubtful principle and expediency-to speak very mildly-without a most imperative necessity. Can such a necessity be shown? Let a brief statement of facts furnish the reply.

When, at the close of 1841, a Bishop was consecrated and sent out to Jerusalem, there were there not more than six or eight souls subject to his ecclesiastical supervision, nearly all of them Germans. His own numerous family, household and staff, with subsequent importations from England, Germany, and the Levant, gradually swelled the numbers, until at the end of four years,

* Jewish Intelligencer for November.