adopted as they must be admitted to be appropriate and just, the good Bishop would have pointed out the remedy, which can only be found in that exalted view of the duties and responsibilities of the pastoral charge, which he so emphatically recommends. Meantime, the measure which we have proposed would be at least a palliative; and it would be still more so, if the whole of the crown patronage were, as it ought to be, transferred to the several Diocesans in trust for the most deserving Curates in their own dioceses, of more than seven years' standing; a measure, which would be obviously useful, and I doubt not highly popular, and what with some would be quite as much to the purpose, not without a precedent in our own history.* Thus, leaving the statute of Simony as open to violations of its spirit and tenor as it now is, the traffic in livings would be greatly reduced; some, and those the most opulent, and often the least deserving of these spiritual speculators would be excluded by the condition of the previous service; others, and those the most efficient, would be content to await the reward of patient continuance in well doing; Patrons, who really desire to have the parish church the seat of an effective ministry, would be better able to attain their end; and above all, the connection between the Bishop and his Clergy would be strengthened and endeared, a consideration of peculiar

* See British Magazine, Jan. Feb. 1840, and previous num bers. "On the disposal of higher Church preferment."

importance, at a time when two important steps have been taken towards a real and effectual church reformthe abolition of episcopal translations; and the limitation... may it be at no distant day !... the extinction, of pluralities. For until these blots and blemishes, which are no integral part of our system, but rather innovations on it, or deviations from it, be removed, we cannot expect, even by our sound doctrine and scriptural formularies, to convince the gainsayers or to reclaim the separatists. "It is not our boasting," observes the Bishop, with that candour which forms the chief grace in his natural character," it is not our boasting that the church of England is the best reformed and the best constituted church in the world, that will signify much to convince others: we are too much parties to be believed in our own cause. There was a generation of men that cried 'The Temple of the Lord! The Temple of the Lord!' as loud as we can cry, 'The Church of England! The Church of England!' while yet by their sins they were pulling it down, and kindling the fire that consumed it. It will have a better grace to see others boast of our church, from what they observe in us, than for us to be crying it up with our words, while our deeds do deny it. Our enemies will make severe inferences from this, and our pretensions will be thought vain and impudent things, so long as our lives contradict them." (p. xlviii.)

The conviction then, that these sentiments are not

less just than candid, must be accepted as my apology for the remarks which I have presumed to offer. With regard to the Bishop's more immediate subject, the "Pastoral Care," into the duties and responsibilities of which he has so minutely and so effectually entered, it would be presumptuous in me to offer many observations, nor indeed do the circumstances of the case require them. It will be obvious, that the long interval of 120 years, during which the Anglican church has produced so many profound theologians, and acute reasoners, and able advocates of the faith, might well afford scope for alteration in the list of preparatory books (chap. vii); but whether this might not be done by addition rather than by substitution, I shall leave more competent authorities to decide. It might perplex rather than profit the Probationer for holy orders to specify particular writers, as it is customary for the examining Chaplain of every Bishop to furnish his own list to the candidates for ordination in that diocese.* And this is for the most part so judiciously and discreetly done, that the result affords a pleasing contrast to that part of the subject already considered, in which since the Bishop's age our church is "nothing bettered, but rather grown worse:" the standard of acquirements in the candidates for the ministry has been so elevated,

* A list of the principal books to be read, or referred to, in the "Diocesan College, Chichester," will be found in the British Magazine, No. 101, for April, 1840, page 457.

that none of our Prelates, it is trusted, would now need to adopt for their own the touching complaint of Bishop Burnet;

"Our. Ember weeks are the burden and grief of my life. The much greater part of those who come to be ordained are ignorant to a degree not to be apprehended by those who are not obliged to know it. The easiest part of knowledge is that to which they are the greatest strangers; I mean, the plainest facts of the Scriptures, which they say, in excuse of their ignorance, that their tutors in the Universities never mention the reading of to them, so that they can give no account, or at least a very imperfect one, of the contents even of the Gospel. The ignorance of some is such, that in a well regulated state of things, they would appear not knowing enough to be admitted to the holy sacrament: this does often tear my heart." (page 1.)

This reproach at least has been rolled away both from our Universities and our Church. It is now impossible to attain academical honours without a respectable knowledge of divinity; and nothing seems wanting but the institution of some school of pastoral training as well as of scholastic theology, that shall occupy the intermediate space between the degree and the ordination. Such has already been established for the diocese of Bath and Wells, under the immediate sanction of the venerable Bishop, as also in that of Chichester; examples worthy of all imitation, and which I feel

a

peculiar pleasure in recording, having recommended this very measure in a periodical publication more than sixteen years ago, as the subjoined note will testify.* An account of the Wells Diocesan College may be found in the Ecclesiastical Gazette of March 10, 1840, p. 188, which will speak for itself. It is only yet scarcely needful to add that the name of the excellent Principal (Rev. J. H. Pinder, M. A.) is a sufficient

* "Might not an Institution be advantageously established in every diocese, under the immediate sanction, and, as far as practicable, personal superintendence of the Bishop or his Archdeacons, into which every candidate for holy orders who has graduated either at Oxford or Cambridge, might be at liberty to enter? Without having recourse to actual compulsion, might it not be accounted an additional recommendation to the candidate for holy orders to have spent six, twelve, or eighteen months in this Institution? Might not some active and experienced clergyman be placed at the head of the establishment to whom the emoluments arising from the annual payments of the young men would be an adequate remuneration, or might not rather some living be annexed to the headship, in discharging the duties of which the principal might present a living example of clerical zeal and devotion to the members of his society? We merely throw out the suggestion, leaving it to those directors of ecclesiastical affairs, who we believe possess the inclination as well as the ability to supply all deficiencies in our church establishment, to judge how far it is expedient or practicable."Cambridge Quarterly Review, July, 1824. Art. Camb. Classical Examination.