generally disseminating the idea that sects and parties are things to be despised. The Association so far encourages this idea, that it has almost a distinct creed of its own, in a somewhat harsh and exclusive statement of the Vicarial Sacrifice, and an equally repulsive mode of appealing to the horrors of eternal punishment apart from the analogy of the faith. It thus becomes rather a gloomy religion of itself, instead of an helpmate to any other. There must indeed be very great risk in establishing any society with religious aims, on a wider basis than that of any one Church or denomination, lest the social principle of the one should clash with the social principle of the other. This may seem to contract our efforts; but such is undoubtedly one of the difficulties which are entailed upon social reformers by the discord which unhappily exists in the religious world, and which it is the object of the Church to calm down, on the sound and true principle of her own ancient faith, and her strong Catholic claims.

Of existing societies in our own Church we have little more to say than what already we have incidentally brought in, during the course of our remarks. We seem to have been approaching and hovering about this great idea as a means of encountering the many pressing evils of the day, but as yet we have hardly grasped it, beyond that use of societies which consists in receiving contributions and distributing money to appointed officers. The social vices that now claim so much attention have their Church Penitentiary Association; and various bodies of men exist under the name of societies or guilds for special objects; but at present we feel somewhat doubtful as to whether the authorities of our Church, with their fear of novelty, their dread of offending any prejudice or party, and above all their official habits and associations, have given sufficient encouragement, or opened their eyes to the existing need of the Church to possess some such motivepower, for the principle to have had any fair start, or to have been seriously entertained by the mass of sensible Churchmen.

The sense of Christian fellowship has indeed very much increased of late years in a way which it is most refreshing to contemplate, especially among the educated class, and also in rural districts. It has grown up on the simple and pure foundation of Church membership. As the claim of the Church upon the affection of her members, as the social and charitable duties of religion have been more and more appreciated, so has there arisen a greater notion of fellow-feeling among individual Churchmen, who happen to be associated together in the same parish, in the same church, or in promoting the same Christian works. The parochial tie is more felt than it was even in London, and congregations are everywhere springing up who look to their

clergy, not only as mechanical readers and teachers, but as the centre of a Christian socialism within the limits of the district. The abundance of parochial institutions, which an active clergyman gets around him, are a great means of fostering a good social understanding among those who are the administrators of charity as well as those who are the recipients: indeed, there are very many who, in this way, are more blessed in the giving than in the receiving.

But the more we become acquainted with what has been done, and the more we appreciate its value, the more we see a great mass of work before us, which our existing machinery is unable to meet. The world, we feel sure, is gradually coming round to the conviction that the parochial system by itself, admirable and successful as its fruits are where it can have full play, is wholly unable to touch the evils before it, in large towns, without a fresh army of recruits from the masses themselves, banded together in some special manner, to help in reforming their neighbours. The building of churches, which we may take as a fair index of the confidence reposed in the extension of the parochial system to meet the wants of the day, is suffering now from a decided check. The London Diocesan Church Building Society, at its late meeting, had only to report the consecration of one church in that vast diocese during the past twelve months, while no one can say that this arises solely from religious apathy. Energy has been expended in other channels, and plans proposed, we may also say triumphantly carried out, which have a direct tendency not to oppose, but to work independently of and in addition to the parochial system-we mean, of course, the Westminster Abbey services, and many other services and preachings called special, to distinguish them from the ordinary parochial type. The fact is, that our parochial type is so hopelessly overlaid with an exclusive system, is so connected with a class, on which indeed its income often depends, that its ideal must be content to encounter some rough reverses in these remorseless days. Not that we apprehend any actual diminution of its influence, or even anything but a steady increase; but it must not be jealous of other agents, or expect to do all of its own single strength.

Nor is there any occasion to look upon self-governed and independent associations or clubs, with more or less of a religious object, as at all a substitute for, or likely to supplant, any Church or parochial sympathies of a higher kind. We have already stated that, with regard to the more educated classes, this associating principle has full play in an endless variety of ways, and among them we find that the parochial system has its firmest supporters. It is among the poorer, the million, the masses, or

by whatever name we call them, especially-though not onlythose in towns, that we miss the wholesome effects of this most necessary moral principle. The forces of example, of shame, of emulation, of ambition and reproach, seem to have no sufficient play in the great crowd of our labouring and mechanic population. It is a strong sense of this deficiency, and the difficulties also which beset the parochial clergy in endeavouring to meet it, that have suggested our present remarks. We fully believe that the clergy have laboured, and are willing to labour more, to accomplish this end; but it is time the laity be strongly and earnestly exhorted to establish more social institutions among the working classes than now exist. At one time, labour itself was regulated by guilds and societies which accomplished this very end, at the same time that they governed the manufacturing world, such as it was; at one time the London apprentices were a compact, solid, and often noisy set; but now all labour has its market price and no more; and in so vast a community as this country, it is absolutely impossible that it should be otherwise. We have drifted into it with the same ungovernable force that involves small and once manageable streams of water into a great tidal river. How the social element thus lost is to be regained, we know not; except that every man, according to his influence and position, should exercise both his ingenuity, his good sense, and his hearty love of mankind, to promote the welfare of those around him. The laity also should remember the many facilities they possess, from which the clergy are debarred. They possess liberty and freewill: whereas, it is not too much to say that the clergy of this country live under a system of routine and a depressing subjection to public opinion. The life of an English clergyman is very comfortable so long as he keeps down any original plans for promoting the public good; but once let loose these unhappy instincts, once give play to originality and ingenuity, and he is exposed to all manner of suspicions, and bids farewell to peace. À layman, on the other hand, can do what he likes, and is always respected for any boldness of character he may exhibit. One concluding remark, however, we must make to the clergy. If the laity are expected to do things from the force of energy and with a manly heart, if they are asked to form combinations among working men; to set up clubs and associations, and to restore to that class, in any way which may occur to them, their lost social character, it must not be expected that the incumbent of each parish or district shall be the centre or governing power of every such institution, as a necessary conditions of any religious influence to be attributed to it. It is a universal rule of all real work and energy, that freedom, and a certain show of self-will, must have its way.

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ART. V.-1. Lenten Sermons, preached at Oxford. With Preface by BISHOP OF OXFORD. London: J. H. Parker, Strand.

2. The Destiny of the Creature. Sermons. By Rev. C. J. ELLICOTT. London: J. W. Parker & Son, West Strand.

3. Memoir of Rev. George Wagner. Cambridge: Macmillan & Co. THE inevitable march of civilisation and intellect, amidst all the changes which it effects in the mode of conveying thought, has brought about none more striking than that which has gradually arisen between the preacher and his hearers. The extent and character of his influence, the recognised nature of his authority, the relative amount of his knowledge and mental cultivation over theirs, with its effect on the mind of both, are all affected by the slow lapse of time, have all assumed a different aspect-may we not say, have all suffered a revolution?-since the time when he was supreme and undisputed on his own ground, since that golden age when, we are told by the worshippers of the past, the voice which announced the word of God was listened to as something different from a human voice, and the authority of each preacher clad in the sacred vestments was the same; since a saint sought to inculcate in others his own veneration for the preacher's office, by the saying, that if he should meet a priest and an angel descended from heaven, he would first kiss the hand of the priest, and then pay his reverence to the angel; since the Reformed Church was admonished, Judge not the preacher, for he is thy judge;' or even later, when it was still thought an indecorum to pass any sort of comment on either the matter or the manner of the discourse just listened to, which it was a point of sacred politeness and good manners to treat as perfect and unquestionable. A licence has come over the world since those days. Public opinion asserts itself, every where sets itself up in judgment on the judge. The criticism which, if formerly indulged in,—for, after all, when was it not in the secret recesses of thought?—was yet felt an illicit indulgence, is now open and self-justified; the sermon is discussed, not only with a view to extract its full edification, but to ascertain how far it is edifying at all; the habit of undoubted deference to the preacher's dictum is confined to a few worthy old-fashioned people, to some thoroughgoing partisans, and to the complimentary conventionalisms of

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the press, which linger still in the corners and outskirts of those journals whose heart and centre lead on and encourage, to a height unknown before, the gradual revolution we are describing.

The change, as thus stated, seems plainly for the worse: but if it is not well to sigh over the inevitable; if-though it is our duty to amend what is amiss-it is certain that the past never can come back again, and that nothing can ever be restored to what it was before; we may learn to reconcile ourselves in a degree to the present, as at least a feature of our times, and so to be restrained and modified, not to be merely set down as all pure evil. And, in the first place, it is quite certain that the preacher has throughout done his part in effecting the change; so that a state of public feeling which sounds to us so desirable, did not apparently satisfy him. Ever since the preacher, to gain his immediate end, appealed to private judgment—which has probably been the case in its degree on all sides ever since there was a private judgment to appeal to the discrepancy between theory and practice set in. The theory of submission and obedience is so innate in most religious minds, that even now it holds where there is nothing present to the senses to shake it; but the shocks it receives are so rude and constant, that few can stand out against them. In fact, deference to office is not enough; the teacher craves for individual sympathy and personal influence. Each man has, beyond his faith in the great fundamental doctrines of religion and morality, views and opinions on both peculiarly dear to himself, as falling in with his own idiosyncrasy: these his office has always placed him in a position to inculcate and enforce. The temptation was irresistible. We do not say that he ought to have resisted it; but so soon as controversy, and, following slowly in its train, secular interests, became matter for the pulpit, the preacher had already sapped his own foundation, had sacrificed the undisputed authority of his order to individual success-to the inculcation of the particular over the general, the views that influence him as being himself, above those great primary verities which hold and influence all alike.

The wider and more various the range of subjects submitted to the hearer, the slighter must be the claim on his implicit acquiescence. No man is authority except on his own ground; and if that ground is disputed, the edifice shakes to its centre. Thus, if from dogmatic statements on controverted religious questions, on which we know theologians differ with acrimony and to the knife, the preacher proceeds to dogmatize on science, history, or politics, we venture with the more courage to dispute his decision, however authoritatively pronounced, on foreknowledge, freewill, Churches, Fathers, and Maynooth