donec Tu, Qui hominem doces sententiam, latentem veritatem servis Tuis manifestas. Tuum nunc est, hunc qualemcunque laborem benigno favore prosequi, ut fideles Tui, ad quorum manus pervenerit, tantum mysterium impensius colant, et profectu accrescente frequentent: reliqui vero, qui sectis adhæserunt, auspice Te, reducantur in viam, unde infeliciter aberrârunt."

THE HABITS OF THE CLERGY.-II.*

GREAT, and in many respects peculiar, as are the merits of the English Clergy, it is to no purpose to dwell upon them except upon the Aristotelian principle, that we should convince men of our good will before we attempt to be their counsellors. We believe however, that this is wholly unnecessary in the case of our readers, and proceed therefore, without any soft words, to add to our strictures upon the indistinctiveness of our Clergy, some remarks upon their want of professional studiousness.

It is indeed both true and clear, that our Clergy are as a whole a literary body. To them in the main we owe (or at least are beginning to owe) our classical and other educational works. To them we are indebted for histories, antiquarian researches; and, which is somewhat more out of their line, for works upon natural philosophy, for tales, and political treatises. Nor are these evidences of various pursuits in themselves condemnatory. Literary and scientific researches and occupations are what we would wish to be the recreations of the Clergy, their zapépya, but no more. A moment's reflection upon the objects of the Christian ministry, and upon the solemn vows of ordination suffices to shew, that any main object, studies, or pursuits not tending to God's work for the salvation of souls as all rivers to the sea, and all travellers to their home, are not only blameworthy, but highly sinful and perilous.

It is this that really colors and characterises the actions of a Clergyman. It is this which will try him at the last Day; the question, not simply whether any given interest or occupation is innocent or even generally laudable, but whether it is consistent with that entire devotion of heart and mind, of time and talent, to which the Curate of souls is bound before GOD and His Church. And if we are assured, that such will be the judicial inquiry at the last, it becomes of the utmost moment to search and examine into life and conduct even now, with whatever seeming invidiousness and harshness.

*Continued from the Theologian, Vol. III, p. 94.

Such being our conviction, we would rather state two simple results of our own experience, than cite disgraceful instances of negligence and ignorance, the heinousness of which would tempt the reader to consider them more as exceptions than as examples of a prevalent fault.

The two facts to which we appeal are these. That however agreeable society is made by the presence of the Clergy, however tempered its tone, and refined the tenor of the conversation given by their influence, yet it is rare to find a man sufficiently well informed upon Church history, or upon the agitated questions of the day to command the field of discussion, as the politician and the naturalist are able to do. Very agreeable, very gentlemanly, very well informed, are the terms which we apply to the Clergy whom we meet upon such occasions; but very rarely are we brought into contact with a man to whom we would appeal in any difficulty upon an intricate point of doctrine, or of practice. If the experience of our readers differs from our own in this respect, we lose their assent; and that this may be occasionally the case we doubt not; still on the whole, we rely upon recollection and daily intercourse to establish this assertion as generally applicable through the land.

Again, have our readers been in the habit of seeing the interiors of Clergymen's houses, their studies, their shelves, and their books? Have they noticed these things, and not observed how miserably inadequate are the libraries of our Clergy to the extensive range of information which their duties require? Deduet the books of general literature, the leading volumes, the devotional treatises, stray sermons and the like, and how poor is the remainder! how destitute of solidity! how patched and detached! how fortuitous and incongruous! and the total how ridiculously small! But one conclusion can be drawn from the libraries of our Clergy: namely, that their heads are like their shelves, empty of strictly theological information, and of professional learning.

Now the day is gone by when study was considered a dishonor to the inspiration of the Spirit. Though there be many who will repudiate any reading but biblical, there are none in the Church who require Bull's sermons upon the books and the parchments of S. Paul, nor South's caustic reply, that if God hath no need of our learning, He hath none of our ignorance. The answer which will suggest itself to such complaints as ours is one more in accordance with the spirit of the times, not enthusiastic, but practical, human, matter-of-fact; an age of business, of self-exertion, of manage ment and planning, and eking out too a doctrine of its own; and the answers which it gives to exhortation to long and patient study, are, that action will supply what is wanted, and will not admit of any thing but itself. In a word, a man's parish will teach him all he requires to know: and a man's duties are so numerous, and so pressing, that he has no right to sit down to books and thoughts.

A study is for writing sermons and hearing classes, and receiving parishioners, but not for reading.

There is so much of truth in these assertions, that we are not surprised at the influence they exercise, neither can we altogether regret it.

It is on the one hand a blessed truth, that intercourse with our fellow creatures reveals to us what we can never learn without it. By it we learn both them, and ourselves in them. We trace fears and hopes, joys and sorrows, growth and decay, strength and weakness in their varying stages, causes, relations, and effects. From our own sins and inadequacies we learn to be very humble, and very gentle in our treatment of others. From the complication of moral causes of good and evil, we learn to be far-sighted into the canker which is eating out the life of a brother in CHRIST. Our senses are sharpened to discern a pestilential atmosphere, a cutting wind, a dryness, a neglect, an oversight in the culture of graces. And back again, pastoral failures and personal sins are explained to the shepherd by the observation of the discourse of his flock. And thus in truth the cottage becomes the commentary, the casuistry, the moral philosophy of many a man, who but for these helps would be poor indeed. And as often as we find a Priest instructed in the things of the kingdom of Heaven, by his daily routine of parochial work, we may thank GOD and be humble, Nor is this all for amidst the wants, the sorrows, the comforts, the manifold emotions which the life of the minister of CHRIST educes, the words of Scripture, the Services of the Church, days and years come forth along the pathway, and in every peaceful waiting time, like stars, brighter and brighter as the darkness requires them so that humanity is not the all of contemplation. The lesson learned is not simply the lesson of the human heart, but God's workings in the heart, and the means and promises of His operations.

Yet for all this, the danger in such a life lies here. God is contemplated as He works, and not as He is; and as He works now and before us, rather than as He has worked, and as in His eternal character; so that without the greatest care, and the most happy preservation our plans, our systems, feelings, and experiences, will gradually be substituted for the divine methods of regarding and treating men's souls; and to a very fearful extent GOD Himself will be lost out of the mind and heart.

Besides, it is not every thing to be able to guide and instruct in the simple religion of the peasant. Controversies are afloat; changes in the Church are proceeding, upon which a Clergyman is bound to be informed and to be ready to act.

There are indeed some persons who, by a natural richness and fertility of mind, are enabled to strike out from their reading of Scripture, and from their daily experience, a freshness of thought sufficient to render their weekly preaching, and their school in

struction acceptable and effective. But their case is felicitous and rare. Even they, by their very gifts, need study to discipline their imagination, require decisions and authorities to check and regulate the inventive and discursive faculties. Else dangerous illustration, unbalanced statements, nay, grievous errors may be too often the consequence of a gift, very blessed in its nature and in its working, when duly ordered. Ordinary minds however, are not so gifted; and on them the routine of labor, the weariness and disappointment of life, the weight and work of incessant preaching, beat down into a hard and worn way the over-fresh fallow of their minds, so that there can be no growth, no ever-new clothing of verdure to refresh and sustain their weary flocks. And the result of this hardening and flattening is most miserably evident in the sermons which week after week resemble each other, and leave the congregation in the same state in which they found it, but for its increasing inattention and listlessness. In the sound words of Mr. Evans, "the consequence will soon be manifest in his preaching, which will proclaim an empty store more plainly and loudly still, than it proclaims the Gospel. He will be treading the same dull beaten track, dealing forth the same washy composition, will have fallen into the habitual use of certain words and phrases, and reduced himself to so limited a range, both of thought and expression, that he will resemble the decayed householder who is reduced to one servant for all work, and that one not among the most desirable. Let him begin with what subject he will, he will fall after a few scntences into his usual routine; and though a stranger will wonder how such a sermon could follow from such a text, almost every one of his congregation will anticipate him in nearly every sentence."* There is equal truth in the other reply to suggestions like these, when it is kept within just limits and rightly applied. We are indeed overwhelmed with work. With the luxury and softness of the nineteenth century, the whole body of labor belonging to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries has fallen upon us. Our schools and churches are like islands in a waste of ocean. Clergy are worn out, or inert through despair. Therefore it is true, and nothing can be more so, that the Clergy have no time to waste, and that everything is required of them which human powers enable them to supply; that there is work to be done up and down, right and left,

πολλὰ δ ̓ ἄναντα κάταντα πάραντά τε δόχμιά τ' ἦλθον

without end and without rest.

Our

There is indeed a harvest, and few are the laborers. There is a work, and few are the workmen. But we shall not alleviate our misfortune by hiring the incapable, or by spoiling the capable. The world in our times, and in our country, is very especially a *Bishopric of Souls, c. ix.

world of action, of bustle, and unrest. This is its evil. Quiet, slow, trustful ways are hateful to it. Speedy riches, triumphs of industry and talent rather than of principle, short expedient roads to objects which might be attained by safer but more lengthened ways, impatience of contemplation and calm thought and long research, or a desire, whenever these unpalatable means are tolerated, to bring them as speedily as possible to some advantageous conclusion; these are its badges. Poetry, and thoughtfulness, and prayer, and calm content with a lowly lot, unambitious, unrising, it has no heart for, neither any patience with.

And if this be its disease, what shall be its healing? Shall the Gracchi still sedition? Shall the busy bustling man calm the busy bustling man? The good committee man, the practical and able manager of meetings and societies, the reviewer and pamphleteerer, even the parochial visitant from house to house-if they are these simply, and no more, what can they avail against this evil by which themselves are overborne? No, we require men of calm minds, and matured thoughts; men whose happiness is contemplation, whose painful duty is coming out into the world; men who would be in the sanctuary or in the study as much as they may; men who are in them so much as to take their tone from them ; these are the persons who are needed to still the troubled waters, and being calm and restful to speak out of their peace of peace, even to the peace of others.

Trusting we have said enough upon the necessity of greater studiousness on the part of our Clergy, we pass at once to that branch of reading which we would now especially promote. And omitting therefore to recommend the study of history which would save from many errors-from such approaches, for instance, to heresy, as lately occasioned serious difficulties in respect of a Colonial Bishop-and which would arm its students with experience for daily use, and with weapons for controversy: omitting also to insist upon language and biblical criticism as fully admitted to be needful; or upon the study of biography which supplies proofs of the possibility of, and lively encouragement to the graces which are inculcated; nor even pausing upon liturgies which connect us with our deceased brethren in CHRIST after a marvellous manner, and which render us capable of appreciating and desirous of restoring our Services to their beauty and fulness of doctrine,-we would devote the time and space remaining to an earnest recommendation of the study of primitive writers. In so doing we intend to pass over the question of their use in controversy and interpretation. The subject is long and difficult, and the whole intent of this article is moral rather than doctrinal, and aims at inducing a moral influence, rather than establishing canons of interpretation or doctrines. Suffice it then to mention, by the way, that our Church most assuredly attributes a doctrinal use to the Fathers, and whatever their