PASTORAL LETTER TO THE CLERGY OF THE DIOCESE OF NEW JERSEY.

DEAR AND Reverend Brethren :-Regarding the death of President Taylor, as a great national calamity, and our whole nation as one afflicted family, I do not hesitate to request, that on Sunday next, the seventh after Trinity, you will use the Prayer which follows, before the two final Prayers of Morning and Evening Service. We shall do well to humble ourselves, under the chastening hand of Almighty God; and to beseech Him, for His dear Son's sake, to pardon our manifold transgressions, and turn away His anger from us, lest we perish. If prosperity have hardened the national heart; if we have been tempted to forget God our Saviour; in whatever way we have offended Him, who holds the nations in His hands, this signal Providence should be improved by us, in that humility of spirit, and with that consecration of heart and life, which becomes us, as ransomed sinners, and with which, alone, we can come acceptably before Him, through the propitiation of the Cross. Upon our hearts, thus softened and subdued, He will send down the blessings and the comforts of His grace, and restore to us, His pardoning and preserving love. Commending the bereaved household, of our late venerable Chief Magistrate, the honoured successor to him, in the highest trust which men bestow, his associates, in the several departments of the government, and the whole appalled and mourning nation, to your faithful prayers, and to the mercy and favour of God, I am, affectionately and faithfully, your brother and servant in Christ, GEORGE W. Doane,

Riverside, July 19, 1850.

Bishop of New Jersey.

In 1847 when the fearful famine desolated Ireland, he was the first to move the plan by which his native State should assert its sympathy. The following letter was the first thing.

TO THE EDITOR Of the Newark DAILY Advertiser:-The reports of suffering in Ireland continue, and increase in painfulness. Shall we not, as Jerseymen, do something for its relief? Surely, we owe it, in sympathy to our brethren, and in gratitude to God. I propose a Jersey Ship; to be chartered and freighted, with the least possible delay. I would suggest, that a Committee be raised for the purpose, among your enterprising merchants, and active business men; to correspond promptly with other parts of the State, and to accomplish the charitable work. I shall be glad to contribute for the purpose, One Hundred Dollars. Use this as seems best for the object; and believe me faithfully yours, GEORGE W. DOANE.

Riverside, 12 Feb. 1847.

And the first resolution of the Newark meeting was to adopt the proposition, as his.

Resolved, That we approve of the proposition of the Right Rev. Bishop Doane to charter a Jersey Ship, and to freight her with the least possible delay.

In the Burlington Committee which was formed, he was most energetic and active. Their circular plainly bears his mark.

It cannot be necessary to enforce this application, for a starving people. It speaks for itself. It speaks to every heart. It will open every hand. Let Jerseymen attest their grateful estimate of their" own goodly heritage," by giving of their bread to the hungry; by pouring out, from their abundance upon a nation perishing with famine.

It will be seen, that whatever is given here, will be received, at the scene of suffering, free of all charges of whatever kind. In the commerce of Christian Charity, there is neither cost nor charge, tax nor toll, Custom House nor Collector. Where love is, all is free. Beautiful influence of love, to re-assert the oneness of our race, in Adam; and to anticipate the fulness of its re-union in Jesus Christ! "Whoso dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, and God in him.”

And now, God speed the Jersey Ship!

He gave the columns of the Missionary freely, to kindle and keep up the interest. He addressed the Congregations of the Diocese, to secure the parochial co-operation. And the alms in his own congregation were $619.

THE FAMINE IN IRELAND.

But,

The undersigned had supposed that the pressure of this fearful Providence, on every Christian heart, would start a simultaneous and spontaneous action for its relief, which would outrun the promptest Pastoral. And he has no reason to doubt that it has been so. inasmuch as brethren of the Clergy and of the Laity, whose judgment he relies on, as of the best, have expressed the opinion, that a more efficient action would be brought about by an official communication of the subject to the Diocese, he now affectionately requests, that on the Sunday before Easter, the 28th day of March, the offerings of the Church, in any congregation where their sacred claim to sympathy and succour has not been fully urged, may be appropriated to the relief of the starving people of Ireland. Can there be a fitter object, or a more affecting motive, for our Lenten self-denial ? "Is not this the fast," says God, "that I have chosen, to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out, to thy home? When thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?" And that glowing promise! "Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily; and thy righteousness shall go before thee: the glory of the Lord shall be thy rereward." That, through the grace of God, the self-denial, which bears fruits of charity, may so abound in us, that for His dear Son's sake, the promised blessing may be ours, the undersigned will ever pray.

GEORGE W. DOANE, Bishop of New Jersey.

RIVERSIDE, 27th February, 1847.

It was so too, in little things. The Burlington Military Company drew forth his courtesy two years ago, which appropriated seats to them, in St. Mary's Church, and addressed them in words of stirring sense, on Sunday the 4th of July A. D. 1858. At the time when Burlington was one great hospital, for the sufferers by the railroad accident, in August, A. D. 1855, all of him and all of his were poured out, in the ministries of priestly consolation, in the gift of all that could add personal comfort, in the utterance of the solemn lesson of the scenes: "In the midst of life we are in death." And he in no way was behind any of all those, who with such disregard of self, gave themselves over, as every one did, to the one gracious work of comforting sorrow and soothing pain.

When the country fluttered in the thrill of joy, over the Atlantic cable, as passing and as pervading as the electric shock that caused it, he was ready at an instant, without any preparation, not expecting to do it, and after an all night's journey from Baltimore, with an address, equal to the reality, of which those rejoicings were the too sanguine hope. Passing by his 4th of July orations, and his celebrations of Washington's birthday, which were more in the line of his official duty, almost the last public act of his life at home, was the magnificent address delivered, at the request of the Mt. Vernon Association and many prominent citizens, with the fire and fervour of freshest youth, that seemed kindling to higher shoots of light; rather than flashing, in its best brilliancy, just as it should go out from earth. It was a great hand, that could lay itself upon the graves of Washington and Taylor and Harrison, and upon the yet unbroken wire in the unfathomed sea. It was a great voice, that lifted up its clearness, for the mechanics and apprentices of his own town; for the wise and great and honourable of his own State; for suffering humanity, the world over. It was a great heart, that nestled, in the warmness of its love, the starving millions of a distant land, the sorrowing citizens of his own country, the sufferings of strangers, and the wants of a beggar child. Its one secret was the largeness of his love; its embrace, the world; its example, the Cross; its objects, the Crucified, and all for whom He died.

CHAPTER V.

ENGLISH CORRESPONDENCE-VISIT TO ENGLAND.

A review of my Father's English Correspondence would, in many ways, be most interesting. Letters from and to, Hugh James Rose, Pusey, Keble, Newman and Manning, Dr. Hook, Archdeacon Harrison, Bishop Terrot, and Bishop Forbes, the Rev. T. H. Horne, the Bishops of Oxford and New Zealand, the late lamented Archbishop Howley, Sir Robert Inglis, Hope, Gladstone, Acland, and from Mrs. Southey, Wordsworth, and many others, would command, at all times, our interest. And most of them are the unreserved expression of the hopes and fears and interests of the men to whom, under God, we owe the new and glorious life of the Church of England and of this country. But as they were the recreation, rather than any part of the labour, of his life, and as many of them are both personal and private, I must, in great degree, forbear. On the 6th of July, 1849, Dr. Hook writes:

MY DEAR AND MOST RESPECTED BISHOP:-I have just been reading, with tears in my eyes, the Report of the Proceedings of the late Convention at Burlington; that emphatic *No! its sound has reached old England, and we echo it back with renewed emphasis to Burlington. That emphatic No, proclaims to the world that the Churchmen of New Jersey are true-hearted men, and will stand by their laborious and self-denying Bishop. May I be permitted to say, that your brief History of your Episcopate, is as dignified as it is eloquent.

It has pleased our Heavenly Father to visit you with bodily and mental afflictions; He has restored you to health, is it not that your diocese and the Church may see how a Christian struggles with adversity, and how by our sufferings as well as by our actions, the ends of God are accomplished. How can we assist you? Command my services in England.

Bishop Terrot, of Edinburgh, that same year writes:

MY DEAR BROTHER-I have received so many proofs that you have not forgotten me, that I cannot refrain any longer, from letting you know that I have not forgotten you.

* The vote, at the special Convention, on Mr. Halsted's resolution.

I regret to see, from your Missionary Paper, that your exertions in the cause of religious education have exposed you to pecuniary loss, and, as it appears, to malignant calumnies. In my own experience, the bitterest part of the latter trial, is the finding proofs of a wish to injure, in those whom one has never injured-it is very painful to feel that one is hated—and yet it ought not, after all, we are told, to take the Christian by surprise. May God guide and support you through this and all your trials.

EDINBURGH, July 21, 1849.

The late Justice Coleridge writes:

PARK CRESCENT, April 23, 1849.

* * * * Your account of yourself I was almost shocked to read-let me urge upon you, as not the least imperative of your duties, to relax somewhat in your exertions-if it were for self-indulgence, not an hour-but if it be only to enable yourself to do more— then for many days, every day.-I hope too, you are blessed with a quiet mind-and can trust the Institutions which by God'si blessing you have given birth to, to God's care and keeping, though you may not as yet distinctly see your way to their permanent endowment. J. T. COLERIdge.

The venerable Archdeacon of Maidstone, whose wife, with all the memories of Battersea Rise and Stisted, and Sir Robert Inglis, was my Father's most beloved friend, writes in 1852 :

66

MY DEAR LORD BISHOP:-I must send a few lines, though you will not need the assurance of sincere and deep concern for all the trouble you have been in lately. Yesterday afternoon brought the "Banner," which told the tidings of your special Convention having terminated so satisfactorily. It gives just the numbers-the proceedings we shall hear, I presume, hereafter. It is curious to see how you have been driven back upon the Council of Ephesus and the canon which we were thrown back upon, last year by the " Papal Aggression." I was quoting it, among others, against Pio Nono ;--and you have had to take it up as your weapon and defence against your triple-crowned invader-I was going to have said, three-headed Cerberus. Heartily, however, do I rejoice that your Convention has been so rightminded and loyal, and stood so steadfastly by their Bishop, who has stood so stoutly by them. Ever, my dear Lord Bishop, your faithful and affectionate, BENJAMIN HARRISON.

The Bishop of Brechin writes:

MY LORD:-There is a proposal to introduce, the laity into our synods similarly to the practice of the American Church.

I am very anxious to know from one so capable of judging as yourself, how such an experiment has answered with you.

I incline to resist the movement, though many names I venerate are to be found among its supporters. I think it likely that at our next synod a proposition to this effect will be brought forward, mean