general confederation of Christians in all lands, our readers shall not be deprived of the benefit of the information. For ten months we have entreated a reply to this question, but have received none. Can we offer more fairly? We are asked, “Would such pious and liberal Dissenters as Sir Culling Smith, Mr. Hinton, and others, stoop from the high elevation upon which they stand as conciliators.(men anxious to blend all members of Evangelical Churches in godly union-) in order to destroy National Churches ?" Our answer can only be an appeal to facts. We have elsewhere referred in our present Number to the proceedings of Sir Culling Smith in the Voluntary Society during the last five or six years. He is the President of that Society, as well as of the Evangelical Alliance; he was selected to preside over the new institution by those who well knew his sentiments in the old one; and how can we separate what he says and does in one room from what he says and does in another? He has urged that an alliance of Evangelical Churches is to be earnestly desired in order to abolish National ecclesiastical establishments; what reason then have we to suppose that the recently-formed Alliance is not regarded by him as a strong link in that golden chain of Evangelical union, for consummating which he declares the destruction of National Churches to be indispensable. And with regard to Mr. Hinton, why are we to assume, without one atom of proof, that he has altered his opinions since he exhorted the Dissenters, in such bland phrases as "Make a good row, and then you will get a sugar-plum." He may have learned that less obnoxious weapons are more politic; and that as the "good row" proved unavailing, it were best first to get a compact union among friends, and to weaken public attachment to National Churches, so as to prepare the way for the "good row with that "moral force" which his chosen prototype Mr. O'Connell attributed to "monster meetings." We refer to his famous antichurch-rate speech, during the Melbourne administration,-one of his numerous effusions of like character-and which it may be well to re-quote, now that Lord John Russell is prime minister, in order to shew what Mr. Hinton says "the Dissenters" expect from his Lordship, as the first step towards the legislative repudiation of the Church of England. He said :

Why should not Ministers, who have abolished the Church-rate in Ireland, do the same in England? The reason is this: the Irish are a little more troublesome than the English (cheers). The imposition is to be fixed upon the latter because they are quiet (hear, hear!) I tell Ministers that if they will not abolish the rate, we will be as unquiet as the Irish (cheers). The conduct of Ministers is saying to Dissenters, Make a good row, and then you shall get a sugar-plum' (laughter and cheers). I submit to Lord John Russell, whether it is not better to give the Dissenters the sugar-plum, and let the country escape the row (applause). It appears that the prospect of getting the Church-rate abolished is not so encouraging as to exonerate the Dissenters from making some little stir on the subject. I have no pretensions to be like Mr. O'Connell in any other matter, but I have no objection to resemble him in this,-to stand on the platform, and cry to the people of England, Agitate, agitate !' It is agitation that has done all that has been effected for Ireland, and it is agitation that must do all that is yet to be accomplished for England (cheers). I wish it to be explicitly understood, that if Lord John Russell does lend himself to any method for merely slipping the Church-rate out of the Dissenters' grasp, they will not consider it the act of a friend, but of an enemy (loud cheers). If that rate is not abolished in Parliament in three years, it will be abolished out of it. If Lord John Russell will not propose the extinction of the rate, he then should by all means let it alone (cheers). If he withdraw it from the Dissenters' controul, he will obliterate all his claims to their gratitude and love' (long-continued cheers)."

This was spoken in 1837. The three years' prediction failed; "the row," the "agitation," and the threat of getting the Dissenting repeal" in O'Brien fashion, without the aid of Parliament, if Parliament would not grant it, were impotent to extort "the sugar-plum." Mr. Hinton has grown wiser; experience has taught him that England will not be "rowed" out of her National Church, in whose communion he and various other Dissenters lately kneeled to receive the Lord's Supper, which we freely confess was a subjugation of prejudice. But has he altered his opinions respecting our National Zion? and if not, why are we to place confidence in him, when we know that he wishes to raze it to the ground? We might refer in like manner to various other names; but we think we have quoted sufficient to shew that, considering who are the old leaders in the Alliance movement, and not knowing what are to be the new measures, we are not without strong reason for refusing to join the movement.

THE ANGLO-AMERICAN CHURCH:-CENTENNARY OF TRINITY CHURCH, NEWARK, NEW JERSEY.

THE

For the Christian Observer.

HE interest which we take in the welfare of the Protestant Episcopal communion in the United States of America has led us on many occasions to relate various facts respecting the rise and progress, the encouragements and discouragements, of that beloved and goodly daughter of our own Anglican Church. These facts have referred for the most part either to the affairs of the church generally, or to the lives of individual bishops, presbyters, or laymen; but it will furnish variety, and lead to a more familiar acquaintance with the practical workings of the Anglo-American ecclesiastical system, if we take the case of some one church (using the word restrictively, as applied to a local society or congregation) and trace its annals from its foundation to the present time.

The history of Trinity Church, Newark, in New Jersey, which recently celebrated the hundredth anniversary of its establishment, will furnish a specimen apt to our purpose; and some materials for such a narrative were collected by the Rev. Matthew Henderson, the Rector, on that jubilant occasion. In the records of American churches, a century is more than an average length of duration;-it is a considerable depth of antiquity;-and the successive phases of a church planted and growing up in troublous times, are not unedifying or uninteresting. For a general sketch of the history of the Episcopal communion in New Jersey, the reader may advantageously refer to the "Historical Notices of the Missions of the Church of England in the North American Colonies," compiled by the Rev. Ernest Hawkins, Secretary to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, chiefly from the documents of that Society. New Jersey was first colonized by a party of Danes, who settled there in 1624. These adventurers were followed by bodies of Hollanders and Swedes. In 1644 the territory was taken by the English; and was called New Jersey, in honour of Sir George Carteret, Governor of Jersey, to whom it was assigned. The earliest English settlers were Quakers and Anabaptists. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel was formed in 1701, and in answer to its inquiries respecting the state of religion in America at that period, Colonel Morris gave a description of New Jersey more graphic than flattering. He CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 107.

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said there was almost every variety of sect; but very little religion. The Dutch were divided between Luther and Calvin; they were "a sober people," and "had a pretty little church;" and there was a place called" Anabaptist Town" (Piscataway), from "about twenty that agree in that persuasion; but all the rest were of no religion." The Scotch Presbyterians at Freehold are described as "sober people;" but the rest of the inhabitants were "generally speaking of no religion." Middleton was a large township, but with "no such thing as church or religion;" the people being "the most ignorant and wicked in the world;" in proof of which, the Colonel added, that "Their meeting on Sundays is at the public-house, where they get their fill of rum, and go to fighting and running of races, which are practices much in use on that day all the province over." At Shrewsbury there were about thirty Quakers, who had a meeting-house; but, says Morris, as usual, "The rest of the people are generally of no religion; the youth of the whole province are very debauched and very ignorant, and the Sabbath-days seem to be set apart for rioting and drunkenness." An attempt had been made to settle "a maintenance for ministers," but had been defeated "by one Richard Harshorne, a Quaker, and Andrew Browne, an Anabaptist." West Jersey, said the Colonel, was "a hotch- potch of all religions," with the exception of the Quakers. Colonel Dudley, Governor of New England, in a memorial presented to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel of the state of religion in the English Plantations in North America, in which he implores the Society to send out a large number of clergymen, says of New Jersey: "West Jersey: two thousand souls;--most Quakers; may yet have one minister; at present supported from England. East Jersey: six thousand, in about seven towns and parishes; may at present support two ministers; the rest being Dissenters."* George Keith (of whom see some particulars in our Volume for 1845, p. 286) attested the spiritual wants of New Jersey to the same effect. He had laboured zealously for many years as a Quaker preacher; but about the year 1691 he caused a large secession from the Quakers "by opposing (he says) some of their errors; especially their notion of the sufficiency of the light within every man to salvation, without any

*We are happy to say that Governor Dudley was able to attest as follows of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, and Connecticut: "By an early law providing for ministers and schoolmasters, I am of opinion there are no children to be found of ten years old who do not read well, nor men of twenty who do not write tolerably.' This was owing to that wise legislative provision, for the worship of God, and the religious nurture of children, which the godly forefathers of our modern Dissenters how unlike their Puritan and Nonconformist ancestors!- believed to be the bounden duty of a Christian nation. Dr. Dwight, and still more recent writers, bear testimony to the same important and encouraging facts. It is not to the absence of legislative provision for religion, but to the early adoption of it, and to what yet remains of its spirit, that the United States of America are mainly indebted for the spiritual advantages

which they at present enjoy; and had they duly followed the old system, all the new districts might have been as well provided for as the New England States when Governor Dudley drew up his report. The old schools were not merely secular schools, but schools of religious training. This was strikingly expressed two hundred years ago in the preamble of the Massachusetts statute, which required every township containing fifty householders to provide a public schoolmaster, "It being one chief project of Satan to keep men from the knowledge of the Scriptures; and to the end that knowledge might not be buried in the graves of our forefathers, in church and commonwealth, the Lord assisting our endeavours." The instructors were to be men examined and approved by the ministers. Alas! that in England, in the nineteenth century, everything tending towards such blessed ends, should be opposed by "Evangelical Dissenters."

thing else." He at length united himself to the Church of England, and became the first missionary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. Writing to the Society in 1701 he says, that those who had joined him in the secession from Quakerism in New Jersey would gladly receive Church of England ministers. He adds: "There is not one church of England as yet in West or East Jersey ;-the more is the pity!—and except in two or three towns there is no place of public worship of any sort; but people live very much like Indians." Having spoken of subscriptions in East Jersey (at Burlington and Ambry) for building churches, he adds: "There is a mighty cry and desire, in almost all places where we have travelled, to have ministers of the Church of England sent over to these Northern parts of America. The harvest is great, but the labourers are few. If they come not timely, the whole country will be overrun with Presbyterians, Anabaptists, and Quakers."

From the date of the establishment of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, the affairs of the Protestant Episcopal Church in New Jersey become too extensive for our present sketch; which we will restrict very much to the annals of Trinity Church, Newark ;-not the only Episcopal church in that town, nor the oldest or most extensive in the colony; but convenient, as we said, as an exemplification of American ecclesiastical affairs.

The earliest records relating to the history of Mr. Henderson's parish, now accessible, are those which are found in the Reports of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel.* The Rev. Mr. Brook was sent to Elizabethtown in 1704. This was then the largest town in East Jersey, and contained about three hundred families. Mr. Brook performed service at seven different places, embracing a compass of 50 miles, but it is uncertain whether he ever officiated at Newark. He was a man of great energy and singular diligence. He died in 1707. Measures also were taken to enlighten the Iroquois Indians, or Five Nations, bordering upon the colony of New York, and to instruct the slaves in the principles of the Gospel. Such was the religious destitution of these provinces, that, with the exception of Boston, Newport, New York, and Philadelphia, there were no Episcopal congregations "held to be of ability to support clergymen of themselves."

In the selection of missionaries by the Society, it is stated that particular inquiry was made as to their age, their condition of life; their temper and prudence; their learning, and pious and sober conversation; their zeal for the Christian religion, and diligence in their holy calling; their affection to the government, and conformity to the doctrine and discipline of the Church of England. They were required further to read prayers, and preach before some of the members of the Society. Ample instructions were given after their admission, to insure the utmost possible efficiency in their ministrations. They were charged always to keep in view the design of their undertaking, "to promote the glory of God and the salvation of men, by propagating the Gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ," together with "the qualifications requisite for those who would effectually promote" this design; a sound knowledge and hearty belief of the Christian religion; an apostolical zeal, tempered with prudence, humility, meekness, and patience; a

The Rev. E. Hawkins, in his Historical Notices, has enriched his volume with ample citations from hitherto unpublished letters in the archives

of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, of which he is Secretary. We shall embody some of his details respecting New Jersey.

fervent charity towards the souls of men; and finally, that temperance, fortitude, and constancy, which become good soldiers of Jesus Christ. In order to obtain and preserve these qualifications, they were enjoined "frequently in their retirements to offer up fervent prayers to Almighty God, for his direction and assistance; converse much with the Holy Scriptures; seriously reflect upon their ordination vows, and consider the account which they were to render at the last day.” It was no slight evidence of the far-reaching wisdom of the Society, as well as its single eye to the glory of God, that among the instructions given to their missionaries was the following: that they "take special care to give no offence to the civil government, by intermeddling in affairs not relating to their own calling and functions." Besides these instructions, which had more particular reference to themselves, there were others that pointed out the general mode of their intercourse with the people of their respective cures. They were to be conscientious and faithful in the discharge of every part of their duty, to be instant in public prayers and preaching; to insist chiefly upon "the great fundamental principles of Christianity, and the duties of a sober, righteous, and godly life;" diligently to catechise the children and others; circulate religious tracts and books, and encourage the establishment of schools, especially by the widows of missionaries, who might be found duly qualified.

The first services in Newark according to the rites of the Church of England, were held by the Rev. Mr. Vaughan, the Society's missionary at Elizabethtown, about the year 1729. In the Society's Report for the year 1731, occurs the following passage: "The Rev. Mr. Vaughan, missionary at Elizabethtown, N. J., writes, that his congregation increases not only at Elizabethtown, but also at Newark, Whippany, and in the mountains, where he sometimes goes and preaches to a numerous congregation, and administers the sacraments among them. In these several places, he hath baptized in the compass of the last two years 556 children, besides 64 adults; and finds a general disposition in the people to be instructed and settled in the Christian faith."

From this record Mr. Henderson corrects a statement made by Dr. Macwhorter, many years pastor of the first Presbyterian congregation in Newark, that the Episcopal church in that place originated from the secession of " one or two leading characters" from the Presbyterian church, about the year 1732. Dr. Macwhorter says, that the member of the church alluded to was Col. Josiah Ogden, whose grand-children are among the most respectable inhabitants of Newark. It seems that Col. Ogden's wheat had been cut down, and was likely all to be lost by long-continued rains. One Sunday the weather being very fine, he was induced to draw the grain into his barn; alleging that it was a case of necessity, and that he was justified in so doing. The Church thought differently, and tried and censured him. The matter was brought before the Presbytery, and the Colonel was acquitted; but the breach was too wide to be healed; and Col. Ogden and some other persons withdrew, and united themselves to the Episcopal communion; which, if the above were all the facts, was not honoured by their adhesion. But the question between Episcopacy and Presbytery had been already much discussed; though this particular incident may have hastened on the secession. In 1733 Mr. Vaughan writes, "that the congregations under his care in the several parts of the country are very large and numerous, in which great numbers of poor people are not able to purchase Common Prayer-books." Doubtless the Newark congregation was included among the number.