Let, if aught this morning grieve thee,
Him relieve thee

Who doth like the blessed sun,

Which to light high summits careth,

Nor yet spareth

The low vales to smile upon.

To guard his gifts from foes without them,
Round about them

He will a flaming wall uprear;

'Mid angel legions shalt thou dwell,
From which all hell

And Satan's self shall turn in fear.

CORRESPONDENCE.

The Editor begs to remind his readers that he is not responsible for the opinions
of his Correspondents.

REV. DR. HOOK, ON SOME RECENT OCCURRENCES AT LEEDS. MY DEAR FRIEND,-Having been requested by several of our mutual friends to state the circumstances under which, a few months ago, I was induced to pour away what remained of the consecrated wine at the eucharist, and the principle on which I acted, I feel inclined, if you will permit me, to accede to the proposal through the medium of the British Magazine.

When attacked in the newspapers, I was silent; for I do not consider a newspaper to be the proper place in which to give instruction on a subject so sacred; nor would I sanction an appeal from myself, acting as the ambassador of my God, to the lay public. I knew, moreover, that the "Patriot," and the "Record," and other similar publications, in which what I consider a Socinian view of the sacraments is taken, instead of being convinced by what I might say, would only avail themselves of the opportunity to make a fresh attack upon the articles of a churchman's belief, in language which would shock the ears of the pious, and do injury perhaps to weaker brethren. It so happens that in the parish church of Leeds I found the old presbyterian way of administering the eucharist to prevail,-introduced, probably, at the great rebellion, and never since discontinued. The consecrated elements, instead of being delivered to the communicants at the altar rails, are carried to them in the pews. From this circumstance, where there are five or six clergymen officiating, as is generally the case with us, if a sufficient quantity of wine has not been consecrated at first, it becomes difficult for the presiding priest to know how much more may be required at a second consecration. Now it so happened that on the occasion to which I am alluding, when service was over, and all the people dismissed, it was discovered that in one of the cups there remained nearly half a pint of consecrated wine. The question

then was, what was to be done with it, all the communicants being gone. The churchwardens, of whom I think five were present, demanded it as their right, and offered to put it back into the bottle, and keep it till the next communion. This I declined to do, because it was evidently contrary to the rubric, which enjoins that the consecrated wine "shall not be carried out of the church;" and because, knowing as I did from the representations of the sexton that the churchwardens were accustomed to drink some of the wine provided for the eucharist in the vestry, I thought it not improbable that they might so dispose of even the consecrated element, for which they evidently entertained no respect. I ought to mention that the churchwardens, except the one appointed by myself, are, at all events, not churchmen, and that, without communicating, they were in the habit of remaining in the vestry, to watch over the property of the parish as they styled it, so that you will not consider caution as unnecessary. Thinking at the same time both to instruct and to conciliate them, I remarked, that all the wine offered at the oblation belonged by law to me, and was generally given by me to the poor; but this I would return to them in the present instance. "As to what has been consecrated as the blood of Christ, it is, I said, relatively holy, and the blood of Christ I cannot give to you, who have not been communicants."

Here I must pause, since I understand that, by Socinianizing churchmen, offence has been taken at my speaking of the consecrated wine as the blood of Christ, as if by so doing I countenanced the dogma of transubstantiation. Now those who hold Socinian views of the sacraments may be better logicians than I am, but I must protest against their making me answerable for their own conclusions. St. Chrysostom speaks of persons having their lips tinged with the blood of Christ; and yet we know that he did not hold the dogma of transubstantiation, since he also speaks as we should do of the consecrated wine as still wine. And so also our own Archbishop Cranmer, whose views of the sacrament were not considered very high, in the very year in which the book of common prayer and the administration of the sacraments, translated, revised, and compiled, was received by parliament, thus remonstrated with the Devonshire rebels:-"Oh, superstition and idolatry, how they prevaile among you! The very true heavenly bread of life, offered unto you in the sacrament of the holy communion, you refuse to eat but only at Easter. And the cup of the most holy blood wherewith you were redeemed and washed from your sins, you refuse utterly to drink of at any time."-Strype's Cranmer, p. 820.

In the township of Leeds there are eight churchwardens,-one appointed by the vicar, the other seven by the parish, or rather by a mob collected together on the occasion to offer every insult to the church. The desecration which has often taken place of the sacred building on these occasions is represented to me as awful. The spirit of the mob may be judged of by the fact, that on an offer having been made to give any guarantee that no church rate would be demanded, if only they would elect church people, the cry raised was, "No; we have got you down, and we will keep you down." And persons from the lower orders of society were selected, distinguished for nothing but their bitter hostility to the church.

I might refer to many or most of our great divines for authority in the use of the expression; but for those who reverence the Fathers, or for those who respect the principles of the Reformation, I have said enough; or if they wish to see the subject more fully stated, if they wish to see what is the Anglo-catholic doctrine of the eucharist, I will recommend them to Palmer's Treatise on the Church of Christ, part ii. chap. vii., a work which it would be superfluous to praise.

Having decided, then, not to return the consecrated wine to the churchwardens, I might have given it to the clergy who were present; but there was even then more than we could conveniently consume, and I feared that the churchwardens would have immediately written to the newspapers to attack the character of the clergy, if not to exaggerate the quantity thus employed. To primitive precedent, under such circumstances, it was necessary to refer. And I happened to remember that Hesychius, a presbyter of the church of Jerusalem in the fifth century, in his Comment on Leviticus, says, "God commanded the remainder of the flesh and blood to be burned with fire. And we now see with our own eyes the same thing done in the church. Whatever happens to remain of the eucharist unconsumed, we immediately burn with fire, and that not after one, two, or many days, but immediately." "From hence," says Bingham, "our learned writers observe two things-1st, that it was not the custom of the church of Jerusalem to reserve the eucharist so much as from one day to another, though they did in some churches. 2nd, That they certainly did not believe it to be the natural body and substance of Christ, but only his typical or symbolical body; for what an horrible and sacrilegious thing must the very Jews and heathens have thought it, for Christians to burn the living and glorified body of their God! And how must it have scandalized simple and plain Christians themselves to have seen the God they worshipped burned in the fire!" I do not undertake to defend the kind of argument here used by Bingham, but I quote the passage to shew that the fact of my intending to consume the elements by fire ought, on their own line of argument, to have convinced Socinianizing Christians that I do not hold the dogma of transubstantiation, though I do regard what has once been consecrated as the body and blood of my Saviour as relatively holy, not to be given to noncommunicants, and not to be used, as Justin Martyr expresses it, as "common bread or common wine." To this ancient precedent I had also the power of adding a modern one. The late Bishop of Hereford, Dr. Grey, acted precisely thus in St. Margaret's church, Westminster, not very long before his death. Some of the consecrated elements having been left, and all the communicants being withdrawn, he consumed them in the fire. But in the present instance, it being summer time, there was no fire in the vestry. I could only therefore explain that this would have been the course I preferred to adopt if there had been a fire. And I had again to refer to precedent. Now it is well known that in many of our churches is still to be found a piscina, a place appointed for the pouring away of the unconsumed consecrated wine. And although this has not been frequently used since the Reformation, the more proper custom being for the communicants to eat and drink what VOL. XIV.—July, 1838.

E

is left, yet the intention of our church is evident in an extreme case like the present, since she has not prohibited the ancient practice, while she enjoins that nothing be taken out of the church. In my church there was no piscina, and therefore I made one for the occasion, and poured away the wine at the side of the chancel. If any one says that he thinks I ought to have returned the consecrated wine to the bottle, taking care of it myself against the next communion, he is very welcome to his opinion. But for his opinion what precedent can he produce? For my opinion and proceeding I can produce precedent, and therefore my opinion is, at least, better founded than his, unless he also can refer, as I think he cannot, to some higher authority than his own conjectures. And even then how would he accord with the rubric, which directs that the consecrated wine shall not be taken out of the church?

I am aware that some persons who do not hold Socinian notions with respect to the sacraments are inclined to regret the occurrence, however much they may approve of my conduct. I confess that 1 do not. In this part of England, Socinian views of the sacraments prevail to a lamentable extent. The very fact that the present subject has been talked of, the very fact that it has subjected me to the ridicule and abuse of Socinianizing Christians, has done good, it has made many reconsider their opinions; it has consequently increased my number of communicants, it has caused them to inquire whether the eucharist is not something more than a bare commemoration, a kind of superior and more exciting class-meeting, a mere love feast; and many I know have embraced the scriptural doctrine, that the bread which we break is the communication of the body of Christ, and the cup which we bless the communication of the blood of Christ. Believe me to remain yours very truly, W. F. HOOK.

Vicarage, Leeds, April 5th, 1838. P.S. When I speak of that class of persons represented by the "Patriot," the "Record," &c., as Socinianizing Christians, I deal with them as they deal with churchmen. They contend that church principles lead to popery, and therefore, trusting on the infallibility of their logic, they call us papists. Now we think that it is only their ignorance of logic which prevents their perceiving how their principles, if properly carried out, lead on to Socinianism. It is therefore on the same principle that we call them Socinians as they call us papists. I will avail myself of the opportunity to remark also that it is a mistake to speak of a controversy between high churchmen and low churchmen; the controversy really is between churchmen and no-churchmen, though the no-churchmen have not actually quitted the church. For what are called low-churchmen are those who deny the visibility of the church-they are, therefore, either no-churchmen, or invisiblechurchmen, as they please.

CLERICAL ATTENDANCE AT BALLS.

SIR, I am always pleased to see any question argued with that calm philosophy of manner and reasoning which should be particularly

marked in a Christian's mind, and I do not like to see questions, often momentous ones, put off with a supercilious air, merely because they are not agreeable to the habits or unsettled opinions of the rejector of them. I cannot, then, but be gratified at the tone which your correspondent (Anglo-Cambrensis) has adopted, and I trust that I may be allowed to give my opposition to his statements, in a similar spirit. In the first place, he seems to uphold the meeting in a ball-room, sorely at the expense of morning calls and visiting, for he says, "it is quite certain that, in one half-hour, more of social kindness, or casual but useful information, may be enjoyed or obtained than in a whole month of calls and visiting." Now I must beg leave to doubt the certainty of the half-hour in the ball-room against the month of calls and visiting. I would decidedly reverse this sentence, and say, if I wanted to gain "useful information" from any one, give me the visit of half an hour, in decided preference to a month of queries in a ball-room. A fact came before me the other day, which, I fear, is common enough to form a frequent experience of the light converse of the ball-room. A young lady wished to obtain information from another respecting the management of a parochial clothing club, and they were shortly to meet at a ball. The ball passed, and the clothing club questions were not asked. "I really could not ask about it," said the young lady, "it did seem so out of place with the gaiety around me; and it must have been disagreeable to answer me anything about it. I must call some day soon to ask all about it in a quiet morning visit." This fact is not coined to illustrate my present argument; it is true, and with me it had its due influence.

to

Again, when we know, without resorting to the exposures given in fashionable novels, the vanities, the jealousies, and sometimes even duels and elopements, that are the results of the ball-room, I do not think "that the assembly room is the neutral ground for the expression of our kindly feelings towards each other, which without such intercourse might fade away." On reading these last words I could not but directly exclaim, "God forbid that our kindly feelings should hang on so slender a thread, that our love to man, that gift of the Holy Spirit of God, should depend upon our quarterly or half-yearly meetings on such questionable ground! What is to become of the active daily principle meanwhile? What is to become of those great numbers among the well-educated portions of mankind who never frequent a ball-room? And do we not rather neglect that real means of social union, that more certain mode of friendliness, which we frequently name as the communion of saints? It is true that politics may be churlishly renounced for a while, and it is true that the restraints of society may exercise an evanescent power; but I think it will be found that Christian love and friendship are not paramount in the ball-room, and that the exclusive nature of the entertainment must ever mar any attempt to give it a colouring of sociality.

Secondly, your correspondent says, "I have known arguments upon the weightiest matters both in science and morals carried on with perfect ease in the midst of a ball-room, when the animation of the surrounding scene appeared only to give more steadiness to the minds of the reasoners, and more gracefulness to their modes of expression."