people are taught morality as Christians, they might almost as well not be taught at all, for any good they may get from it; though for the preacher's own sake we are glad he should say certain truths anywhere rather than not utter them at all, and the echo of them will also tell advantageously with his more forward hearers in the exposition of what he believes to be deeper and more enduring truths.

Sincere honest men of all parties preach morality; but we think it is not prejudice which leads us to the opinion that it is those who receive and act upon the Church's systern, and teach in accordance with the Catechism, who give such topics a vivifying, truly religious, and practical character; making the whole congregation feel themselves implicated, all under the same rule, as admitted to the same calling. Those classifications which are a feature of a certain kind of sermon-we find Mr. G. Wagner advocated them as essential to a right dividing of the word of truth-those curious analyses by which so many preachers divide and subdivide their hearersthose distinctions into believers, professors, formalists, nominal Christians, moral men, careless, profane, and downright unbelievers, are apt to be fatal to the effect of any comprehensive teaching. We find ourselves at best in a state of mere intellectual watchfulness, applying nothing till our turn comes, and placing ourselves more by what we conceive would be the preacher's estimate of our spiritual condition than our own. Indeed it is a very hard matter for individuals to locate themselves in a class. They are conscious of by turns filling all the parts except, we may trust, the last two. Each of us can sometimes conscientiously declare himself in heart, and reality, in his degree, a believer, while he is aware of periods and seasons when his profession is beyond the reality, and so on. The preacher has them all cut and dried in his mind's storehouse, and speaks as if he had no difficulty in the matter. Whoever works and preaches by this plan of operation, with his strong lines of demarcation, will never make way, except with a party, and that a narrow one, for he betrays an ignorance of the human heart: we feel that he has sought into one-sided theories of theology, but that he has never studied even himself, to verify what his books tell him.

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Perhaps, however, we should not treat this self-study as an obvious or easy one, for in reality the man who can face himself, and see what is in him,-who knows all the conflicts that pass unseen in one heart; who has traced to its source the fountain of his own weakness; who can realize all the changes of mood; all the various influences that sway him to and fro-he has made one great step towards being a preacher. If we may,

in our turn, draw distinctions, he may be classed amongst the influential, the powerful, the real. We recognise him as the owner of a treasury; he has something to draw from. He may make serious mistakes, as all men will who reason from themselves alone, but he is so far free from the trammels of system, as to understand the flexibility of flesh-and-blood humanity; the mixed motives; the good and evil influences which guide and distract; which work with or against; the heavenly inspirations which lead us to, the dark repellant powers which would withdraw us from, the right path for our souls. So far as his idiosyncrasy represents the common humanity; so far as he feels in common with his fellows; so far, that is, as he has large sympathies, will be his influence; and in proportion to their strength, and his power of expression, will be the extent of his real influence deserving the name. Men may be the fashion, and be followed at a less outlay of feeling and sympathy; but they will not mould minds.

But it is time to draw our somewhat desultory remarks to a close. Our general view of preaching, in its different aspects, has run to a length which precludes the possibility, even if it were in place, of entering into detail on particular examples. We have headed our article by two volumes, which we are quite willing should in their different ways tend to neutralize what we have said on the paralysing influence of seats of learning on the efforts of individual preachers. Mr. Ellicott's profound and interesting discourses on The Destiny of the Creature,' preached before the University of Cambridge, will certainly impress our readers by their mature reverential strain of thought, and the religious resignation of their tone, while they will be led to see the advantages that may accrue from addressing a cultivated audience, before whom a deep subject may be pursued through all its bearings, without any fear of overstepping the intelligence of the hearers. On the other hand, the Course of Lenten Sermons delivered this year at Oxford, under the auspices of the Bishop of the Diocese, certainly betray no check from the influences of the place on popularity of style, and freedom and force of thought.

The opening Sermon by the Bishop of Oxford brings back to those who have ever heard him, the singular power of his spoken appeals; that variety and felicity of thought and expression; that charm of voice and manner; that dignity, and yet freedom of address; that full, absorbed possession of his subject; that sense of unity with his hearers, leading him, by instinctive perception, to the arguments and illustrations which will best enforce his meaning, which constitute him master of the art of preaching, if we may thus designate the intelligent concentrating all the powers of mind and body to the great task to

which his peculiar and eminent gifts call him. We are glad to enforce our own convictions on the efficacy of preaching by the following strong words. No one could throw himself into a work so earnestly, without the abiding persuasion that it is a real work, from which good will certainly follow; that it has the Divine promise of fruit :

We know that He does work these miracles of His grace, through the weakness of our preaching. We know that this setting forth of His Word, to be brought home to the hearts of the listeners by His mighty grace, according to His blessed will, is, and has been, ever since St. Peter preached at Pentecost, by far the commonest means by which He does draw souls to conversion and to life.'-Lenten Sermons, preached at Oxford, 1858; p. 4.

Such should be the hope and confidence of all called to the preacher's office. He needs such support, who, subject to human error and infirmity, has God's work given him to do; has to touch the heart; stir the conscience; enlighten the understanding: to awaken men out of deadness and sin, to a consciousness, a love, a reception of spiritual truth.

It has been an ungracious task to point out what we have thought some of the hindrances to this work; the needless obstructions that custom, party, and individual apathy interpose. But we have wished throughout, we desire especially at the close, to express our earnest faith in the ordinance of preaching, the great part it has to perform in the evangelization of mankind, whether heathen or already Christian in name, and in sustaining and edifying the flock of Christ. Which amongst ourselves, even the most impatient and querulous, but has experienced, in his own heart, its power? Who but can recall, amongst the keenest moments of his life,-moments which have left a lifelong responsibility,-winged words which pierced his heart, and laid bare its secrets? And are there not many to whom the preacher's voice has been a very message from heaven, guiding to the Everlasting Arm, in seasons when the troubles of life have been all but insupportable? Every zealous, believing, affectionate pastor has it in him to impart to some one this divine healing; to inspire hope in the darkest day; to impress the conviction of supreme wisdom and mercy in the heart's heaviest perplexity. And such for have we not the inspired promise?-in spite of errors and mistakes, there shall ever be. The Church shall never be without her teachers, till human teaching shall give place to the fulness of knowledge, and the Divine Vision.

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ART. VI.-1. Jewish Intelligence, from the Year 1846 to the month of May, 1858, inclusive. London: Society for Promoting Christianity amongst the Jews, 16, Lincoln's Inn Fields.

2. Colonial Church Chronicle. May, 1858. London: Rivingtons. 3. Jerusalem: its Missions, Schools, Converts, &c., under Bishop Gobat. By JAMES GRAHAM, late Secretary of the London Jews' Society in Palestine. London: David Batten, Clapham. 1858.

4. Proceedings in re Hanna Hadoub. By W. HOLMAN HUNT. London: Masters.

5. Sundry Letters, under various Signatures, in the Daily News and Record, from October, 1857, to the current date, in reference to various Persons and Matters connected with the Anglican Church, &c., in Jerusalem.

WHEN the world opened its eyes in wonder on the spiritual effrontery of Mormonism in the West, there was little expectation of a religious phenomenon in the East, which should, like the notorious name with which we head this article, divide with the former the astonishment of Christendom. Before, however, we proceed to the details of this scandal brought upon our Church, through its unnaturally affiliated Eastern branch, it may be well to retrace briefly the gradual steps by which it rose. The Chevalier Bunsen was its reputed instigator, and we believe that his responsibility for its origin has never been repudiated. The first documentary evidence of the existence of the design to found the Bishopric in question, may be seen in extenso in Vol. XII. pp. 277-282, of the Christian Remembrancer, entitled 'The King's (of Prussia) Instructions to his Ambassador,' bearing date June, 1841.

The King sets out with a commission to his Extraordinary Envoy,' directing him to treat with the Primate of England and Bishop of London for a sisterly position in the Holy Land,' to be accorded to the Evangelical National Church of Prussia.' He points out the political necessity of union, if any proper recognition is to be obtained from the Turkish Government; and shows that, by presenting themselves as a collection of sects, the members of Protestant Christendom' would be refused by that Government such privileges as are accorded to Latins, Greeks, &c.; and would further present a disadvantageous contrast

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with those internally compact bodies already in prior possession of the ground.

To these political reasons, his Majesty adds his convictions that Evangelical Christendom' has in the East a prospect of influential action such as never before occurred, which opportunity will be certainly lost if that spot of ground which every Church holds sacred be sown with the sectarian discords of Protestantism. He then proceeds to state what he is ready to do.

He holds out his hand to the Church of England, and expects a like return. He will allow the clergy of the Prussian Church to seek Anglican orders (or, as expressed in a further paragraph, to join this episcopal arrangement'), and insure to those orders respect within his dominions. He urges joint operations on that 'ecclesiastical foundation' which the English Church holds on Mount Zion, from which centre results will soon, he anticipates, make themselves felt in Abyssinia and Armenia, independently of the value of a 6 Christian neutral ground' to be gained for

Evangelical Christians.'

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Having dwelt thus far on the prospects of Evangelical Christendom' generally, he reviews those of German Evangelical Christendom' in particular, the independence of which, as a National Church, he pledges himself to maintain. He regrets the suspended state of the Jerusalem mission owing to the Turkish war, and urges 'THE ENGLISH CHURCH TO ERECT A BISHOPRIC OF ITS OWN at Jerusalem,' which should 'comprehend all Evangelical Christians willing to take part in it.'

The summer and autumn of 1841 sufficed for maturing the plan sketched in the preceding instructions: and before the end of the year the Primate had issued a letter commendatory of Bishop Alexander to the Eastern Patriarchs. His authority is there limited to the exercise of 'spiritual jurisdiction over the "clergy and congregations of our Church, which are [now, or 'which hereafter may be]1 established in Syria and the countries adjacent. Not only, however, are the limits of the said jurisdiction marked, but all intermeddling in any way with that of 'the Prelates bearing rule in the Churches of the East' is studiously renounced. The Bishop is commended as 'willing,' and one who will feel himself in conscience bound to follow these instructions; and we beseech you,' adds the letter, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to receive him as a brother and 'to assist him.' An expression of a desire for the renewal of amicable intercourse, and a hope of the cessation of divisions as a possible consequence, concludes the letter. No officer, lay or clerical,

1 This clause is not in the Greek text of the letter.