was sought by the princes in this respect. How then, the author with reason asks, could this be a Lutheran measure? Further, and subsequently, Charles V., by his letters, edicts, and various recesses of the empire, recognising the document under consideration as of national authority, plainly expresses his approbation thereof. object of reformation pursued by the emperor in the diets—of Ratisbon, 1541; of Spire, 1544; of Worms, 1545; and by the Interim, 1548-shews that substantially the Gravamina of his empire employed his anxious thought. The correspondence between him and the pontiff Clement VII. presents in one of his letters (a long one) an express reference to the Centum Gravamina, as detailing the grievances of his nation, which he would have redressed, and which he represents as favouring the progress of Lutheran error. The conference at Bologna between these two potentates is entirely founded on the German grievances, and throws great light upon them as the act of the nation. The argument, if it were not already superfluous, might be corroborated by the similar complaints of the Duke of Saxony, a staunch papist, presented at the diet of Worms in 1521, twelve in number, embracing all the most odious charges, particularly under the head of Indulgences, in which money ruled everything, and charging the clergy expressly with sensual profligacy. The Twenty-seven Articles of Reformation proposed by the Emperor Ferdinand I. to the council of Trent in 1562, are to the same effect, although more restrained. In fact, the whole view of the case, as given by the learned Georgii, shews that there is just about the same motive and reason for attributing the Centum Gravamina to Lutheranism, as, in our own country, for calling the detestable popish powder plot Cecil's plot. One of the popes, on precisely similar ground, was called by some of the ultras of his church a Lutheran. Clement XIV. was, with more truth and real compliment, denominated the protes tant pope. But, to take leave of the unavailing efforts to nullify the strong attestation to the protestant cause afforded by the Nuremburg Gravamina, we may observe that it is irksome in the extreme to have nothing to look to from the generality of papal opponents but statements and arguments which it is impossible they can believe them, selves. There are a few exceptions, and but a few.

Sutton Coldfield.

J. MENDHAM.

MORAL EFFECT OF HIGH POSTAGE ON THE POOR,

SIB,-Amongst the arguments by which Mr. Rowland Hill's plan of postage reform has been supported, I do not think that its benefit to the poor has been enough insisted upon. As to the expediency of the particular propositions of his theory I am not competent to form an opinion, but for some years I have been convinced that no tax presses with more impolitic hardship on the lower classes of society than that of postage amounting almost to a virtual prohibition of their correspondence.

Many an absent child has been debarred from continuing to keep awake his interests in those who were most dear to him by the heavy pecuniary sacrifice which could alone effect it. The domestic affections, which we must all be ready to admit as amongst the purest and most constant motives to steadiness of thought and conduct, have been smothered in many a breast by the costly medium necessary to their preservation. The refreshing recollections of home, the honest hopes of being restored to it in creditable circumstances, the lessons of goodness which have been learned there, have died away in many a welldisposed heart, and been replaced by far less worthy objects,-and all because the price of the conveyance of letters is too enormous for any but the comparatively wealthy to indulge in them. Whilst we complain of the imperfect sympathies and hardened natures of the poor, it would be well to inquire whether it is God or man that has made them to differ from us; whether we do not, by preventing them thus from holding any intercourse with each other, when once they are separated, contribute most essentially to produce a deadness of feeling, which would in all probability arise in ourselves also had we no means of maintaining some such intercourse with our absent friends and relations.

A simple fact will prove that I am not wrong in my assertion that the present rate of postage amounts almost to a prohibition of their correspondence:-A poor woman, receiving the parish relief of 2s. 6d. a-week, told me, not long since, that a letter from her son, who was in one of our colonies, had arrived at the post-office, which she was unable to redeem; and indeed, had no one pitied her case, it seems impossible that she would have been ever able to do so, as its cost was, I think, 2s. 7d., or rather more than her week's income, from which it is almost entirely out of the question to save anything. For this letter a man of 50,000l. a-year would have been charged no more than her, though, had the analogy in such circumstances been preserved, and they had been equally taxed, (for it appears that postage bears no reference to the cost of conveyance, and therefore is not a quid-pro-quo, but positively a tax,) he should have paid about 10007., or a fraction more than his week's income. It is true that this letter was from abroad, and therefore unusually high-priced; but those who live amongst the poor know that the best and most industrious of our agricultural labourers, who would be most gratified by hearing of their children's welfare, and who are most anxious to do so, can rarely afford even the fourpence or sixpence which, even when they are nearest, their letters must cost.

I have long entertained a notion that magistrates, or clergymen, (though relieving officers are now-a-days the more fashionable officials, and would do as well,) should be allowed to frank a certain number of letters, or the letters of a certain specified class of persons; but should anything like Mr. R. Hill's plan be adopted, this would be an unnecessary act of justice, or mercy, whichever it may be called.

I have the honour to be, Sir, your obedient servant, S. P. R.+

FORBIDDING BANNS OF MARRIAGE FOR SCANDALOUS CONDUCT. SIR, With your permission, I will make a few remarks on Mr. William Palin's answers to my questions respecting the forbidding banns of marriage for scandalous conduct. He will not, I trust, object, though they are not made with the same description of openness as his own. In having incognito proposed this subject for the consideration of your readers, and not seeing how that would be assisted by an alteration of my signature, I must beg to be allowed to prosecute it, as long as I am so inclined, under the shelter of the same ambiguous initials I thought fit to adopt when I began it. Whoever answers me is of course free to give or withhold his own name at pleasure; but I do not see how any one can call upon me, should I reply, to adopt his conclusion as to what is right and proper upon that point any more than upon any other on which he may discover that we differ. To my mind, there is often great use in withholding the writer's real name from letters of discussion in a periodical. It liberates him from the necessity of noticing mistakes respecting his motives, general views, and other points that have no necessary connexion with the subject in hand. Thus, retaining the signature of "S. P.," I do not feel bound to trouble your readers with a vindication of myself from the charge of referring my "conduct and responsibilities only to acts of Parliament, to the exclusion of acts of convocation," or any other like unwarrantable insinuation in Mr. Palin's letter. As "S. P." I have no character to defend; and feel the obligation to bestow attention upon your correspondent's letter to extend no further than I perceive it to afford a rational answer or objection to each or any of my questions.

iny

In answer to Question I., Mr. W. Palin, taking for granted canons 99, 100, and 102 contain the only grounds upon which the church's blessing can be refused in accordance with her directions as at present existing, concludes that it is impossible a refusal for scandalous conduct should be desirable.

With respect to No. II., he seems to think that, because of the said canons, a clergyman so refusing must be punishable under the first clause of the New Marriage Act,-it stating that, notwithstanding anything in this act contained, all the rules prescribed by the rubric shall continue to be observed!

As to No. III., he is of opinion that, because it might be objected to a clergyman so refusing that he drove the parties into a union merely legal, such refusal must be improper; and, deeming the reason selfevident, does not add it.

And as to No. IV., the adequacy of his answers to the other questions he thinks sufficient to justify him in dismissing it with "a simple negative," and concludes, "pronouncing this, I leave it."

The only point, then, which I need notice is the bearing of the three canons here mentioned upon my first question. Mr. Palin says they contain the only grounds upon which the church allows her clergy to refuse marriage.

But one of these canons, the 102nd, respects only reasons for re

fusing licences, and is for the direction of surrogates, not of officiating ministers. It would not be good in law to shew that one had forbidden banns for a reason which the law had only stated to be sufficient for the refusal of a licence. If, then, these canons do contain the only injunctions of the church upon the point in question, then canons 99 and 100 contain them, for the other is not legally to the point. And if so, clergymen are bound to marry any who have had their banns published three times unforbidden, if they are not too nearly connected, or, if under age, fail to obtain consent of friends. Yet how easily does the imagination supply us with a variety of unseemly and even monstrous unions to which no such objections would apply, and which, therefore, if Mr. W. Palin is correct, have nevertheless a valid claim upon the ministers of our church for her solemn benediction-a claim, he would have us understand, which none could reject without breaking his oath of canonical obedience. But it would be trifling with your readers to say another word to shew that such a notion is untenable. These canons, as all must be, are supplementary merely to those that have gone before. If they contained a declaration that they were intended to supersede predecessors, or if our church was first called into being at the time of "the Reformation," and these her first and only decrees on the subject, (an heretical idea which I would not willingly accuse any educated man of entertaining,) the case would then be different. It is well known, however, that our ecclesiastical laws on this point, as well as others, never underwent any regular revisal during the revolution in the church in the sixteenth century. There was a commission for the purpose in Henry the Eighth's time, which was revived, I think, no less than twice afterwards, but its reformed code was never adopted, and the ecclesiastical law of the land remains what it was, under correction of the subsequent canons of the church, and so far as it is considered not at variance with the civil rights which Englishmen have acquired since they became protestants. But even if this fact was not sufficiently impressed upon the memory of your correspondent to prevent his making such a mistake, I should have thought that the subject matter of the canons he quoted would have reminded him of the abuses in respect of marriage which were principally complained of at the time of our separation from Rome, and that he would thence have gathered that they could never be intended to supply the country with a complete body of marriage law, but merely to put a stop to clandestine marriages, such as were improper on account of affinity or nonage, and the inconsiderate granting of licences, these being the points in which all knew the old law to be most defective.

Before concluding, allow me to substitute the three following in the stead of my fourth question:

I. Are not the clergy, so far as they are able, bound to act up to the spirit of the church, and not merely in accordance with the letter of her canons and rubrics?

II. Does not the church, in her office for Ash-Wednesday, shew incontrovertibly that she deems penance, as practised in the primitive. church, highly useful, connived with deep regret at its temporary dis

use in consequence of the state of the times when that office was compiled, and looked forward with ardent desire to a time when, by the efforts of her clergy, or other means, it should become possible to resume it?

III. Are not the clergy, therefore, bound to seek opportunities for forwarding this object of their church; and do not the circumstances related in my first letter afford a fit opportunity for that purpose? I am, Sir, &c.

S. P.

LEGISLATIVE INTERFERENCE.

SIR,-The third edition of Mr. Keble's Sermon on Tradition proves that the dispute he has undesignedly excited is of some importance; but after an attentive perusal of the whole volume I am convinced that, if the positions of both parties were more definitely expressed, it would soon be at an end. My object, however, in this letter is to draw the attention of your readers to another topic, which Mr. Keble has suggested; I mean "the jealousy of legislative interference" with the affairs of the church, which is supposed to be felt at the present crisis by many of the clergy; and I only regret that he has not informed us to what extent in his own opinion that jealousy is wellfounded. It was not, indeed, his immediate business; and he contents himself with remarking, that there is a material difference between the state of the church in this and the apostolic age. Undoubtedly there is; but without dwelling on any other very serious points of distinction, he might have glanced at two, which, as it appears to me, would have settled the question at issue; and those are, the union of the church with the state, and the acquisition of permanent property.

But let me not be misunderstood; for I do not mean to deny the propriety of the one or the benefits derived from the other. Certain indeed it is, that neither of them is derived from scriptural authority, from apostolic tradition, or from primæval practice; which may possibly be the cause of the dilemma in which we are now placed; and it remains to be seen whether such an anomaly may not justify a departure from that system which an establishment more strictly spiritual might naturally have demanded. The best political authors have decided, that the right to property depends on the law of the land; and the duties of the clergy are so mixed up with their temporal possessions, that it is impossible by any divided power of legislation to separate the one from the other. Not only the claim of the church on the property of the country, but the distribution of its revenue among its subordinate officers, requires to be limited and defined by laws which the civil courts will recognise; and accordingly more than half the clauses of 57 Geo. III., by which it is now governed, support the authority of its rulers, as well as the rights of the inferior clergy, by regulations which nothing but a statute could enforce.

To this it may be answered, that though the church is obliged to