possible clamour consistent with due regard to the lungs and decorum, that there is the least chance of being heard. This is all meant for our friends, the Church Reformers, who are particularly bad listeners, and in whose case it may veritably be believed that it is necessary to vociferate twenty times as often and as loud what one has to say as in any other case whatever, before the least hope of making the due impression can be entertained. They have one exceeding bad habit, which is, that if any one opposes a particular plan of reform, they say that he opposes all improvement ;* and it is therefore necessary, for

In order that formal proof may be given of a proposition which, however, few would deny, let the reader have the patience to go through the following letter, which came forth lately at Cambridge. The political part is preserved only not to destroy the chain of argument.

"To the Editor of the Cambridge Chronicle. "SIR,-The ground on which the high Conservatives of Cambridge appear anxious to place the issue of the approaching contest for the University, is one which must necessarily prove fatal to themselves. If the church (they say) be, upon the whole, beneficial, preserve it such as it is; if otherwise, destroy it instantly and utterly. Their dilemma is entirely harmless; it will not entangle the understanding of a single clergyman. The argument is too shallow; the answer too obtrusively

obvious.

“In examining the general question of Church Reform, it is too little to say, that the immense majority of the people of England demand it, in most intelligible language. The truth is, (and it would be shameful to conceal or disguise it,) that there is absolutely no party among the laity which does not admit at least the expediency of some reform; while among the clergy themselves there is a very numerous body desirous of considerable change. The opposite opinion has scarcely any sympathy anywhere beyond these precincts-it is peculiar to some excellent, but not, perhaps, very clear-sighted Ecclesiastics, who compose, as they may presently discover, the minority of our constituency.

"Neither will it at all avail them now to assert that the opinions which were expressed eighteen months ago, are still binding on those who then expressed them. The opinions may possibly remain the same; but the questions are wholly different. On the last occasion the Members of the Senate were invited to declare their sense on a great political question. Now the ecclesiastical interests are more nearly concerned. Then it was proposed to make a certain virtual transfer of power from one branch of the Legislature to another. Now, the prominent difference amongst us seems to be, whether this establishment, of which most of us are ministers, is to be pronounced unalterable or not.

"The political measure, which they generally opposed, was carried in spite of their resistance; and, if there be any such thing as moral concatenation,—or let me more plainly say, if any one event ever took place from which it was possible to prognosticate any other-the Act for a Reform in Parliament must be followed by an Act for Church Reform. Be it for evil or for good (for I will not assume that question), be it for our humiliation or for our great spiritual advancement and purification, some alterations must speedily be made in the externals of the church. The majority of the clergy are far too enlightened not to see that necessity. There are many who hail it as the means of general improvement and renovation; and their present course is obvious. But to those who tremble at the approaching crisis, while they acknowledge its approach, only this alternative remains-either to lend their aid to mitigate what they think an evil, but what they know to be inevitable; or else to plunge into a desperate opposition, which will not retard the impending change one single hour, but which may exasperate its nature to an extent which no man can affect to prescribe. I sincerely trust that there is no clergyman who will not examine this subject with calmness adequate to its importance, and then seize the coming occasion to record his deliberate opinion by his suffrage.

"Trin. Coll., Dec. 3."

"A."

Now can anything be more unjust, more untrue, more ignorant of the opinions

the twentieth time at least, to say that the persons whom they call anti-reformers in the Church oppose no reforms but such as are unjust in principle and likely to be mischievous in practice. They certainly take the liberty of thinking that some reforms are not practicable, that the exaction of tenths is unjust and would be ineffectual, that the extinction of pluralities would be mischievous, and that seizing cathedral property to augment small livings would be both unjust and mischievous. One observation, indeed, on the first particular, it is impossible not to make, which is, that a large portion of Church Reformers plainly shew themselves unacquainted with half the facts of the case and with the practical difficulties which embarrass all changes and must prevent many. They are really children in practice, though giants in theory; very wise and clear on paper, but not altogether so wise and so clear when the scene of action is transferred from the clean sheet of white paper to the unclean unwashed working-day world. Pluralities are abominable, says the reformer; therefore they must be abolished, says a second, and consequently they can without difficulty, cries a third. Let it be done instantly! is shouted forth by all. How it can be done, what evils will arise from the change and the new system, and how that new system will effect the many important purposes which the old one effected with its partial evils, are matters far below their dignity to inquire. The new system looks well on paper. There is admirable symmetry in it; it wears a 'kingly crown' upon its baby brow,' and that is enough. Then, of course, the abominable Mr. M'Leod, who doubts whether this can be effected, and whether it will not do more harm than good if it can, is to be reviled and denounced forthwith as a bigot and anti-reformer, instead of the slightest attention being paid to his practical difficulties, or his careful survey of the case. Really, really, vile monsters as anti-reformers are, this request for an answer to their arguments, and a removal of their doubts and difficulties, is not a very unreasonable request on their part. And the proper answer to it is, not to give them a bad name and call them anti-reformers, but to demolish their arguments, and to shew that it is right to tax one living for the sake of another, &c. &c. Whether the reformers will listen to this request, on this twentieth time of asking, one does not know; but at all events a time will come when others (if not they, in bitter repentance) will see that it is only just and reasonable.

and the acts of the men whom it attacks than this letter? Is there any one who asks that the Church should be preserved as it is, in the sense which this unfair writer wishes to be put on the phrase, i. e. without improvement? Has he, or has that class of Church Reformers for whom he speaks, ever said or done one-twentieth part for the Church or its improvement which the bigotted anti-reformers have done, till party feelings entered into the question, and set them on a subject which claimed a very small portion of their regards before? Beyond this one artifice (not argument), what does this letter contain but what has been alleged in these papers, viz. a statement that the people will have reform, and therefore we are bound to join in the cry and the melée? In short, if an act will certainly be done, whether just or unjust, I am to join in it. This is not logic which one would expect, nor morality which one would wish, to come from an University.

Let the Church Reformers look to a paper called the Idle Church, in this Magazine, which, however imperfect and unworthy of the subject, contains an outline of what has been doing in some main departments in the Church for the last twenty years, and let them ask whose work this is. It is, in good truth, the work almost altogether of the ignorant, bigotted, prejudiced, selfish Antireformers; and certainly, whether they could have done more or not, it will never support the allegations made against them that they are inclined to do nothing. They have done this, too, in the face of all the difficulties with which the movements of very large bodies are always necessarily attended, and the inconvenient (though often most useful) trammels which encumber (but steady) the steps of an Established Church. The reformers may, therefore, be assured, whether they will listen or not, that there is evidence already produced, in the face of which it will not do for them to say that there is an indisposition in the Anti-reformers to all plans of reform, because there is an indisposition to theirs. The Anti-reformers claim to love the Church at least as well as they; to have been, and to be, as devoted in heart, thought, and care to its best and dearest interests. Yes, there are individuals at least in that calumniated party (but they would never forgive the writer who dared to praise them for what their noble natures consider as only the dutiful tribute of grateful hearts to God for the blessings of such a Church, or to call their names forth to public notice on such an occasion) who have for years and years, by day and night, in season and out of season, in joy and sorrow, given every aid which the devotion of wisdom and thought, and experience and munificence, could give, to promote improvements in the Church; and have kindled in feebler minds, and less richly endowed natures, some of the same hallowed fire which warms their own hearts. Long will the remembrance of their good deeds stamp the real character of their party in the minds of all who can really judge, and will really inquire, though they may be scouted by some, and branded, in common with those who act with them, as bigots and Anti-reformers, lagging behind the age, and blind to its requirements. But, in good truth, there is much more to be said on this score, though it could not be brought into the formal shape of such a paper as the "Idle Church." There are many minor matters in the Church which may admit of improvement, and on which a stress quite ludicrous is laid by those who have the microscopic eyes of reformers, and perpetually turn flies into elephants, when they are abuse-hunting. For example, peculiar jurisdictions occasionally admit of disorder. Such a peculiar as that of the Dean of Salisbury, comprising 120 parishes, does not. It is, of course, just as well ordered as any common archdeaconry, and it can matter little whether it is placed more formally under episcopal jurisdiction. But where a living stands by itself out of the jurisdiction which surrounds it, or where a college, or the crown, has a peculiar jurisdiction over a living in its gift, when such livings fall into bad hands, evils unquestionably arise for want of a power of control which it would be desirable to remove. When, again, the case of clerical delinquency occurs, either the jealousy once VOL. III.-Jan. 1833.

M

entertained of the liberty of the subject, even when he was a priest, or the peculiar desire once felt to surround ecclesiastics with an undue protection, has invested the accused party with a power of appeal, which, when he is desperate in character, enables him to ward off the definitive sentence in a way extremely to be deprecated. Rare as the case of crime requiring interference, and rarer still as the case of crime rather courting, at all events braving, the publicity of continued appeals is, no doubt this is an evil, although it is not what it is represented to be-is not, as the Radical and Dissenting journals represent it, a protection which confers entire impunity on scandalous clerks. Has the bigotted anti-reforming party shewn no inclination to set these minor matters right, and reform the ecclesiastical courts? Even the mob of the Tower Hamlets division, whose delegate Dr. Lushington is to be, heard from his lips, as the "Morning Chronicle" tells us, on one of those occasions when he went down to court the favour of his future masters, that 360 of the vile ecclesiastical courts belonging to the Church, carrying with them patronage to the amount of many thousands of pounds, are to be abolished, and the whole system altered. When a person pledges himself to be the delegate of the Tower Hamlets, or any other Hamlets, it is a matter of very little consequence what representation he makes, how just or how unjust, for he is no longer his own master, and it would, therefore, be mere waste of time to inquire what impression Dr. Lushington intended to produce by this representation of the abuses of the Church, to be corrected in the next Parliament, trimmed, as was observed last month, by a paltry compliment to the Primate for his willingness to surrender his rights of patronage. Let it be said, clearly and distinctly, that this bill for the correction of the evils alluded to emanates from a commission of bishops and lawyers ap pointed three or four years ago, at the wish of the bishops, and not in compliance with any clamour for reform; * that it proposes to remove the peculiar jurisdictions, so that no irregularities from that source shall

There are most important changes proposed by this commission on other than Church matters, viz., the modes of devising real property, and of trying the validity of wills. An abstract of it was given in one of the early numbers of the "British Magazine." Among other changes it proposes to do away with all country ecclesiastical courts, and bring all wills and administrations into the jurisdiction of one London court. The object proposed is, that all wills may be found in one place. But as it is quite clear that, the fees in country and London courts for acts of court as to wills being the same, the only effect of this change, besides throwing business into the hands of London proctors, and ruining all the country ones, will be to add to each executor's bill of costs for probate, the fees of a London agent, instead of the 10d. 6d. or Is. Id. now paid to a surrogate, (i, e. in cases of property under 100Z. just to double the expenses of probate at least,) it may be doubted whether, when the country tastes the sweets of this reform (with which the churchmen, of course, are not concerned), they will particularly bless the lawyers who recommend it. Every purpose would be answered by compelling the country courts to return a catalogue of every will proved in them to one office in London, so that by a single search it might be ascertained where probate was granted. At all events it would be enough for the country courts to send a copy of each will. But, in truth, the catalogue would be enough, for where one country will is to be examined by a Londoner, twenty are to be examined by country practitioners.

arise in future, and to introduce what (if directed against any class of his Majesty's subjects but poor priests) would unquestionably be reckoned a most arbitrary method of trying them when accused, and subjecting them to every possible loss of fortune and station in civil society. When, besides all this, it is remembered that the Antireforming prelates have carried a bill which enables them to allot some of their revenues to augment the poor livings, and that, as a statement in the last number goes to shew, they are doing this to a great extent; that they endeavoured to effect a composition for tithes; that they proposed to do away with all pluralities in cathedrals, and so many in benefices that it may be doubted whether even their proposal would not make the obtaining a due succession of fit clergy very difficult, it must be allowed that they who accuse the Anti-reformers with being Anti-reformers, have, to say the least, a very tolerable confidence in their own powers of talking louder than other people, and preventing the real state of the case from being known.

The Anti-reformers, it has been said, love the Church with a pure and ardent devotion; and though they will not revile her, to shew their love, like the Reformers, will make mountains of mole-hills, and dwell upon what is inevitable, they desire, because they love her, to see everything connected with her carried to its highest pitch of improvement. Ardently and anxiously do they desire, for example, to see the standard for the qualification of the clergy raised to the very highest pitch which shall be deemed feasible, as one of the methods most likely to produce increased activity and zeal in her service.* It is an idle fear which supposes that the lay patrons in the Church would object to this; the only difference would be, that the most highly gifted member of the family would be anxiously selected for the family preferment, instead of the matter being left to circumstances, as it is now, so that the selection is more or less fortunate, according to circumstances. Most heartily do they rejoice at witnessing the energy with which the bishops have for several years been enforcing the law which requires a resident minister to be placed in every parish where it is feasible, and at knowing by returnst which cannot be disputed, how much progress has been made in this good work. They may grieve that in many cases the Church is so ill

See, for example, the Bishop of Lichfield's Charge.

Many plans have been suggested for assisting in this object. One very simple one would effect much. If an examination in Divinity were introduced at each university at a certain period after the B. A. degree, and instead of the certificate of attendance at divinity lectures, a certificate of having passed this examination were required, the effects would soon be visible. This plan changes nothing, and avoids the question of continued residence. A B. A. might reside or not, as he chose. Very probably, far greater and more useful improvements might be effected. The advantage of this is, that it interferes with nothing, and, at all events, curtails no expense beyond one journey. It is only fair to say, that nothing has been more misrepresented (and for dishonest purposes too) than the expenses of the university. Many persons go through Trinity college, Cambridge, as pensioners, not sizars, for 1501. a-year, every thing included. Luxurious parents have no right to complain if their sons practise at college (as they would elsewhere) the lessons which they have taught them.