part of our heritage as this. Mr. Stokes should have learned erc now that not the beauty of externals nor glories of all "manner of stones and buildings are the signs wherein Christians recognise the presence of their LORD as regards the assurance of His dwelling among us, we may still say the Most HIGHEST dwelleth not in temples made with hands; and were our churches even more unworthy through negleet than they are, even then are we beyond the reach of that saying, "Repent, and do the first works?"

The fact is, (and we say it with sorrow,) that if Communions are to be judged by such accidental notes, as the tone and temper of their Clergy, or the spirit of their periodical publications, Roman Catholics must not appeal either to Ireland or to England.

BISHOP GOBAT IN JERUSALEM.

THE appointment of Bishop Gobat to the Bishopric of Jerusalem was an event which filled all serious minds with dismay. They who had always looked upon the establishment of that Bishopric as unnecessary and unwarrantable, found therein, the fulfilment of their prediction respecting its failure, while not a few of the warmest advocates of the measure were filled with alarm at the appointment of a man to an Apostolic See, who was more than suspected of heretical pravity. We say "more than suspected," otherwise the Bishop of London would not have required before the admission of Mr. Gobat to the Priesthood, an express avowal of those fundamental verities which he was believed to deny. With this virtual recantation of heresy many parties were satisfied. Whatever might have been Mr. Gobat's former implied heresies, he had now, it was said, made the amends required of him:-he had signed "with unfeigned assent and consent one or two of our Articles. For ourselves, however, this protestation was not satisfactory. Knowing how common it is for certain persons to use formularies in a non-natural sense, that is, to put their own interpretation upon the words, not that of the Church Catholic, we felt a strong suspicion that this was a cord which a Theological Proteus, like Mr. Gobat, of Church Missionary Society and Gibraltar College notoriety, would soon break through. And granting that he had been sincere in his recantation, it seemed to us a grave violation of all ecclesiastical discipline, that a person charged with heresy one day should be advanced to the Episcopate the next. Any how, a long course of penance should have intervened between the recantation and ordination. For a man to ascend the Throne of S. James, as he was thought to do, even with

the suspicion of heterodoxy, was a dangerous stumbling-block to the weaker brethren.

In due time the Bishop's party, including Mrs. Gobat, set sail for his reputed Diocese; and on Wednesday, the 23rd of December last, a long expected messenger arrived with the interesting news that the Bishop, his lady, and family, had landed at Jaffa. It is upon the proceedings consequent upon this event, that we propose to make a few remarks, under the fearful conviction that if the Bishop's conduct on his arrival in his Diocese is to be taken as a precedent for the exercise of his episcopal functions there, all the good that was intended by those who founded the Bishopric, will be frustrated, and all the evil which the opponents of that anomalous measure predicted, be sadly realized.

On hearing of the Bishop's arrival at Jaffa, the Rev. J. Nicolayson informs the Secretary of what is called "the Society for Promoting Christianity amongst the Jews," that he started for that place the next day, and arrived in the evening, that is, on Christmas Eve. We should have been glad to have met with any indication that this day or either of the Festivals following Christmas Day were in any way religiously observed. But let this pass.

The most remarkable event was, as might be expected, the Bishop's arrival in the Holy City.

"It was the Bishop's wish," writes Mr. Nicolayson, "that the mission and congregation should assemble at our chapel to welcome him on his arrival in Jerusalem, and unite with him in solemn worship and grateful praise to GOD." And doubtless the chapel was the fittest place for the Bishop's first meeting and blessing his flock; but the mode adopted for welcoming him into his Diocese seems little less than a desecration of that holy place. The solemn worship and grateful praise to GoD, the appropriate service of GOD's house, was superseded by singing a kind of ode on the Bishop's arrival, and by the Bishop's returning due thanks for the honour done to him. "At the moment of his entering the chapel," we are told, "the whole congregation stood up, singing a hymn of welcome composed on the occasion by one of the members." Again we are informed, the Bishop declared "that he had been deeply touched by the hymn composed for the occasion, and sung by the congregation on his entrance into the church."

On reading these paragraphs we can scarcely believe our own eyes. We have often thought that the introduction of unauthorized hymns into public worship was of dangerous tendency, but we never suspected that they could be used for such an end as this. We have no doubt that if Mr. Nicolayson would oblige the Wesleyan Conference with a copy of the hymn composed by one of the congregation, that it would be hailed as a suitable addition to the Methodist Collection.

Thus far the Bishop may be thought to have been a passive

VOL. IV.

agent. He He may have been as much surprised as ourselves at the hymn of welcome which saluted him, and it might have been uncourteous to let his first words be those of rebuke. But, in the course of his address, the Bishop delivered words, for which he is himself responsible, and which disclose a bias of mind which proves that he has either strangely mistaken, or is endeavouring to pervert, the object of his mission. Unless we have forgotten the gist of the statement set forth by authority, the professed object of the English Bishopric at Jerusalem was to convert the Prussian Protestants to the Anglo-Catholic Church, and to restore communion between the English and the Eastern Churches. The former object is expressly set forth in the statement alluded to, while the relation in which the English Bishop was to stand with the Prelates of the East is not less plainly stated in the following passage from the "Letter Commendatory from the Most Reverend the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, &c., to the Right Reverend our Brothers in CHRIST, the Prelates and Bishops of the ancient and Apostolic Churches in Syria and the countries adjacent, greeting in the LORD." In the body of this really Catholic epistle, and which would have been quite unobjectionable had it been litera formata to an English Bishop about to visit the East, and not to introduce a kind of Ecclesia in Ecclesiá in another's Diocese,-the Primate of all England observes in reference to the object of sending out Bishop Alexander "to Jerusalem with authority to exercise spiritual jurisdiction over the Clergy and congregations of our Church, which are now, or which may hereafter, be established in the countries above mentioned":

"In order to prevent any misunderstanding in regard to this our purpose, we think it right to make known to you, that we have charged the said Bishop our brother not to intermeddle in any way with the jurisdiction of the Prelates or other Ecclesiastical dignitaries bearing rule in the Churches of the East; but to show them due deference and honour; and to be ready on all occasions, and by all the means in his power to promote a mutual intercourse of respect, courtesy, and kindness. We have good reason to believe that our brother is willing and will feel himself in conscience bound to follow these our instruc tions; and we beseech you, in the name of our LORD JESUS CHRIST, to receive him as a brother, and to assist him as opportunity may offer, with your good offices."

And more emphatically still the Archbishop adds :—

"We trust that your Holinesses will accept this communication as a testimony of our respect and affection, and of our hearty desire to renew that amicable intercourse with the ancient Churches of the East, which has been suspended for ages, and which, if restored, may have the effect, with the blessing of GOD, of putting an end to divisions, which have brought the most grievous calamities on the Church of CHRIST."

How far Bishop Gobat is calculated or disposed to promote this blessed end, the following extract from his inaugural address will show: a speech, be it remembered, delivered in a chapel-one of those holy places wherein should be heard, to quote the language of our great philosophical statesman of the last century, no sounds but those of Christian charity. In alluding to the Church planted in Zion, the Bishop "hoped it might be the means of drawing into closer union the Churches of England and Prussia: that even without any aggressive effort at proselytism the light of Protestant truth exhibited here, would shine with a happy influence upon, and into the darkness around,-both on that which brooded over the sadly corrupted Churches of the East, and on the branch of the Roman Church in the Holy City, as well as on the Mahometan population."

Now although upon expressions like these all comment is superfluous to show how grossly the person who uttered them has violated his instructions, or how entirely he has mistaken the object of his mission, we cannot quote this extraordinary passage without a few remarks. We flatly deny, then, that it ever was intended that the English Bishop of Jerusalem should consider the English Church and the Prussian Communion as forming two branches of the Catholic Church, so that they might be classed together under the designation of Churches. Any one at all conversant with the organization of Prussian Protestantism must be convinced that it cannot be correctly denominated a Church at all, and that to place the English Church upon a level with that communion is greatly to dishonour our spiritual Mother. To bring the English Church into closer union with Prussian Protestants, as such, was never intended, we candidly admit, by those of our Bishops who favoured this measure, the object undoubtedly was, after a solemn renunciation of their doctrinal errors, to admit the Prussians, not into closer union, for as yet, ecclesiastically speaking, they are not in union at all, but into union with the English Church. Of this fact the Bishop is either uninformed, or he is totally ignorant of the relation between the Church of England and the Lutheran sects, or-but we forbear to draw the other conclusion so obvious to all honest minds.

Again, what right has Bishop Gobat to speak of the English Church as the "light of Protestant truth"- -a term which our Archbishop studiously omits from his commendatory letter, in which he designates her our "holy and Apostolic Church." Be this as it may, we can scarcely hope that the specimen of "Protestant truth," as exhibited on the occasion on which we are commenting, would exert any favourable influence.

The misstatement about the "Churches of England and Prussia" is the more culpable, inasmuch as union with the

Churches of England and the East, was said to be the grand object of the mission, a desideratum to which Bishop Gobat does not only not allude, but which he renders entirely hopeless by denouncing "the ancient and Apostolic Churches of Syria," as the Archbishop describes them, as "the sadly corrupted Churches of the East," over which spiritual darkness broods, and classing these venerable bodies with the sectaries of Rome in the Holy City, and even with the Mahometan population and Jews.

If this be not a declaration of war, on Bishop Gobat's part, against the Eastern Churches, as well as an indication of the animus with which he enters upon his Episcopate, a more favourable construction must be put upon these words than they will honestly bear. And if this be so, in what an awful position has the Church of England placed herself. In the name of her Primate, at least, she has sanctioned the mission of one who is about to perpetuate divisions which have brought, to use the Primate's own words, the most grievous calamities on the Church of CHRIST. The only consistent course therefore, if he uttered the words imputed to him, is to recall Bishop Gobat from a mission the object of which he is perverting, the propriety of which was always questionable, which is now indefensible, and tending to results most deplorable, and decidedly subversive of Catholic truth and discipline.

This opinion is strikingly confirmed by the following passage in Dr. Wolff's "Journal to Bokhara," the fourth edition of which has just reached us.

"I consider the establishment of a Bishopric of Jerusalem the most disgraceful act ever committed by persons in the Church of England. "First, the Archbishop of Canterbury-perhaps without intending it-has, by consecrating a Bishop for Jerusalem, usurped Papal power, as Jerusalem is not within his Grace's diocese. 2nd. The former Bishop (Alexander), though a goodnatured man, was totally unfit to represent the English Church. 3rd. The Church of England ought to have been consulted, and also the Lutheran Clergy; and it ought not to have been a mere act of diplomacy. 4th. As the Russians have roused the energy and genius of Shamyl Beyk, in Circassia, and the French the fanaticism and patriotism of Abd-el-Kader, I am also afraid that the Church of England, which has already excited the hatred of the Church of Rome, and of the rest of the Eastern Churches, will also excite the hatred and fanaticism of the Arabs and Turks against her; and I should not be surprised to hear that some Bedouin of the talents and enthusiasm of Abd-el-Kader should start up and chastise the folly and presumption of the British Church."-pp. 501,

502.

The mention of Dr. Wolff's name reminds us to inquire if there be any truth in the rumour, that he formally protested against the consecration of Mr. Gobat on the gravest moral grounds.