will have no end, and the voice will reach thousands of hearts." And is Oxford, then, so bereft of Christian men and Christian principles as to require to be thus evoked?

The Westminster Review troubles Mr. Maurice greatly, and its approval of the Essayists and Reviewers as the most advanced freethinkers of the age, is almost too much for him, especially when the reviewer, demands as a matter of mere honesty, that the new lights should at once withdraw from the church. He tries hard to save them, and throws around them a cloud of mist about Origen, Augustine, and others, to allow them to escape, and is personally very thankful to the Essayists for raising so many doubts as to revealed religion! Then comes the National Review under his notice, as being ready to show, with these speculative modern gnostics before him, how utterly inconsistent all formularies and creeds are with "progress."

Mr. Wilson has startled the reviewer with a rather loose "theory of subscription to the articles of religion, and he therefore explains what are his own notions of his engagement to take the articles in their literal and grammatical sense; and they seem to amount to this, that Mr. Maurice may adopt and hold as much that is repugnant to those articles as he pleases, and yet be an honest man and a good churchman, and therefore Incumbent of St. Peter's, Vere Street. He may sit down with Mr. Wilson's loose principles very comfortably, if only he feels "a reason and a will binding him to the church of his infancy." (p. 37.) Mr. Wilson facetiously asks, “Is not that a Freemason's sign that we should all recognize ?" With Mr. Maurice as Grand Master of this New Lodge, who can doubt that the "Order" will extend and the "craft" increase!

An Inquiry into the Truthfulness of Lord Macaulay's Portraiture of George Fox. In Two Lectures. By John Stevenson Rowntree, Author of "Quakerism, Past and Present." London: A. W. Bennett, Bishopsgate Street Without. 1861.-The subject which Mr. Rowntree professes to discuss is one of considerable moment. Lord Macaulay, in the fourth volume of his History of England, sets before his readers a portrait of George Fox. "Glowing as this picture does with rich colouring, and sharp in its outlines (after the manner of the artist), it is marvellously different to that which has been transmitted from parent to son through six generations of Friends, and which, in its main features, has received the sanction of eminent historians; on which the questions arise, Is the veneration paid to the memory of George Fox merited? or has Lord Macaulay proved it to be undeserved? Is his picture a likeness, or a caricature?" (p. 3.)

Not a likeness, we answer at once, but a caricature. Lord Macaulay wanted that high reverence for truth which was necessary to chastise a brilliant imagination, a mind strong in prejudices, and an intellectual infirmity, for in him it was nothing less, which gave a sarcasm when it should have balanced a doubtful point, and led him invariably to depreciate the character of every man who represented a cause which, with or without reason, he happened to dislike. Mr. Rowntree does his work well; dispassionately as becomes a Quaker of the old school, and with much reading and research as Vol. 60.-No. 285.

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becomes a Quaker of the new one. George Fox advanced little, if anything, which had not previously, at one time or other, been maintained by various reformers, or innovators, in the church of Christ; so that Quakerism is but, as he expresses it, a new name for an old thing. "I maintain," he says, "that there was scarcely one doctrine or practice which distinguished the early Friends from their contemporaries in religious profession, which had not previously been upheld, either by isolated confessors, or by considerable bodies of men." The gravest moral charge against Quakerism has always been the fanaticism which displayed itself in the interruption of public worship during the early years of the existence of the body. It is only justice to hear Mr. Rowntree upon this point :

"It is far from my intention to stand forth as an indiscriminate apologist for George Fox. I am laying before you reasons for believing his memory to have been greatly wronged by Lord Macaulay, and writers of that class; an error hardly less grave-and perhaps more mischievous-has been committed by those who have represented him as an embodiment of every virtue. This indeed was not the fact-his treasure was in an earthen vessel; he was a man of strong natural feelings, of great intensity of purpose, and of marked individuality of character; thus the very order of his mind led him to do some things, which we, surveying him in the calm perspective of two hundred years, think would have been better undone, and to say some things which had been better unsaid. I doubt not this would now be his own opinion; it is in perfect harmony with his feeling expression, 'We are nothing-Christ is all.'"

"Amongst the acts of the early Friends (principally occurring in the times of the Commonwealth), which must be regretted, was their interruption of divine worship. Yet to judge of this matter with perfect justice, is not easy; and I incline to think it is not generally known, how very much the customs of the age palliate some of these acts of apparent indecorum. The extreme disorganization of society, occasioned by the civil wars, the universal interest felt in theological subjects, and their constant discussion in public and in private, made the divine services of the Protectorate as different from those of our day as are the solemn rites of an English Sabbath to the oddities of an American fast-day. It seems to have been no uncommon thing for individuals quite unconnected with Friends to address the congregations when the minister had finished his services; and those who are familiar with the journals of the first Quakers will remember many cases when they asked leave to speak, or were actually invited to do so. With hardly an exception, whenever Fox was imprisoned for speaking in the churches, it was for the doctrine he had preached, and not for disturbing the services. Any one who will take the trouble to go through his journal, and note the causes of his various imprisonments, will find no warrant for the assertion that he was repeatedly imprisoned for disturbing the public worship.' In the majority of cases, when he entered the 'steeple-house,' he remarks that he spoke when the minister had finished his discourse. These facts, while not sufficient entirely to exonerate the early Friends from censure, do greatly extenuate and explain their conduct in reference to public worship. Let it not also be forgotten, that they were them

selves again and again interdicted from meeting together in their own meeting-houses; these having been on some occasions even pulled down, and the desolated sites guarded by soldiers, who dragged to prison men, women, and children, attempting to worship on the ruins."

The Life and Letters of John Angell James, including an unfinished Biography. Edited by R. W. Dale, M.A. London: James Nisbet and Co., and Hamilton and Co. 1861.-The name of John Angell James is reverenced among orthodox dissenters as one of the great lights of non-conformity in later days. Far beyond the circles of dissent, he is known by his practical writings, which have been translated into many tongues, and read as perhaps those of no other writer on religious subjects were ever read during their author's lifetime. In his later years he was known as the esteemed friend and correspondent of many Churchmen, some of whom occupy distinguished posts. Thirty years ago, he wrote with some acrimony against the church of England; but though his principles remained the same, his feelings with regard to the established church were greatly altered, and "he longed," as he was heard to say in one of his most solemn and pathetic speeches for the Bible Society, "for that happy world where the very terms Churchman and Nonconformist should never be repeated." The life of such a man ought to be read; and we cannot say of this large octavo, from the pen of his fellow-labourer and successor, less than this: that it is written in a style, and with a degree of ability far superior to that which the public has hitherto been used to expect in similar biographies. If some parts of it are interesting only to personal friends and members of his own communion, there are others which all of us should read. The "autobiography," which occupies several chapters, is full of instruction; written, as it is, with great modesty, and with what appears, to those who knew him personally, a remarkable degree of self-knowledge, both of the strong and weak points of his own mind and character. His remarks on ministerial training and education, as they exist among dissenters, ought to suggest matter for grave reflection to college tutors and young clergymen, in some schools of learning more ancient and more renowned than those which owe their existence to Mr. James's exertions. Mr. Dale of course writes as a dissenter-at present a young and somewhat ardent one. But we have learned in the church of England to discuss our own faults so freely, that any criticisms from without are listened to, in these days, with great composure. Mr. Dale is at times a little sarcastic upon the church of England. He thinks our system of patronage a great blot: certainly it is not one of our strong points. "No minister of state," says Mr. Dale, "no patron, no ecclesiastical power, is permitted to interfere. Neither the trustees in whom the church buildings are vested, nor those seatholders who are not communicants, have any right to nominate a minister, or to place a veto on his appointment." Amongst Independents, "every church (by which is meant the society of communicants) appoints its own pastor." This reads well; but how does it work? Mr. Dale's book answers the inquiry. There are in Birmingham, at this time, two

large and wealthy Unitarian congregations; both were orthodox once; "but as vital piety declined, and lukewarmness prepared the way for errors of the judgment, Mr. Howell, an Arian minister, was invited by a majority of the people" to occupy the pulpit originally filled by one of the ejected clergy of 1662. A schism followed. The minority retired, and built the small chapel of Carr's Lane; a building associated for fifty years, in later times, with the ministry of John Angell James. This is not very promising. Nor was Mr. James's own appointment such as to make us enamoured of the Independent system of church patronage. He was a boy of nineteen when grave and gray-headed men summoned him to take the oversight of Carr's Lane chapel! He and they performed a long penance of seven years in consequence. Little fruit appeared, and no increase in a very scanty congregation. The boy pastor was all this while learning his profession, and that, too, at the expense of his hearers. At length, it is true, he surmounted his early trials, which few young men under the circumstances would have done; but he often expressed in later years -as, indeed, he does in this biography-his amazement at his own youthful presumption, and still more at the want of wisdom displayed by his early patrons. If there is one point in which, more than another, every church in Christendom falls short of the New Testament standard, or finds itself unable to discover and apply the New Testament precedents, it is that of patronage, or the appointment of the Christian minister to his post. Taken in its practical workings, the system, as it exists in the church of England, is at least as good as any other, though in theory it would, in many cases, be difficult to find authority for it on scriptural grounds. Mr. James's habitual modesty has led him to speak of his epistolary gifts as mean, yet his letters are sometimes not wanting in fire. We give one addressed to his friend, the Rev. Dr. Patton, an American minister. We make no comments; indeed, it needs none. He appears to refer to the Dred Scott decision, by which the free states were compelled to surrender a fugitive slave.

.. Beecher's name reminds me of the state of the anti-slavery cause, or rather, the negro's cause in the United States. This decision of your Supreme Court fills us with astonishment, horror, and indignation. It is indeed the most terrible outrage upon humanity that has been perpetrated for ages, and will do more to lower the moral character of your country than even the present system of slavery. All Europe, and the whole civilised world, will blush for you. It is the first time, that I know of, when a whole race was put without the pale of social life on account of the colour of their skin. Will your country submit to it? Can it be conceived that the descendants of the pilgrim fathers will bow to so horrible a rebellion against the precepts of Christianity and the dictates of reason? My dear brother, what are the Eastern States about that they do not rise en masse against this dictum of a few men upon the bench? However, there is one hope. It is so bad,-shews so clearly the advance of the slaveocracy in your country,-that it must help on eventually the cause of abolition. The American Union of the States appears to me to be becoming an idol before which your people are willing to make the most costly sacrifice of moral principle. Anything so that the Union be preserved. If it is attempted to be preserved in this way, God, with one of the thunderbolts of His vengeance, will by and bye shiver it to pieces!"

So wrote John Angell James from "Edgbaston," on the "9th May, 1857."

PUBLIC AFFAIRS.

THE death of the bishop of Durham, after a short illness and a few days of intense suffering, has thrown a gloom upon the past month. He expired at Auckland Castle on the 9th inst., filled with the consolations of that gospel which it had been the business of his life to proclaim with so much success to others. He had just entered upon his work in his princely diocese, and it was fondly hoped that for many years to come he would fill one of the most important Sees in England greatly to the advantage of pure and undefiled religion. Referring to the only act of his public life of which it could be said that it did not reflect honour both upon the man and his principles, it is sufficient to repeat the remarks which appeared the next day in the Times:-" However incautiously he may have acted on the occasion to which we refer, he never lost the esteem of those who knew him best, and the strong interest which vast numbers of people, dissenters as well as churchmen, have taken in his last illness, is the most eloquent of all comments upon his life and character. Not only in his diocese, but throughout the country, in all the large towns, dissenters of every denomination have combined with churchmen to offer prayers for his recovery. Seldom are ecclesiastical dignitaries the object of such affectionate solicitude; seldom is their departure felt so universally as a great public loss." The Record and other newspapers have given full accounts of the funeral sermons and other testimonies of private regard and public sorrow called forth by the mournful event; but with these our readers are no doubt acquainted. It is consolatory to learn, we hope on good authority, that the deceased prelate is to be followed by one of kindred spirit with himself. It is reported that Dr. Baring, the excellent bishop of Gloucester and Bristol, will be translated to Durham; and Dr. Thompson, the preacher of Lincoln's Inn, it is rumoured, will succeed Dr. Baring. But all this may be premature; we repeat only what we read in newspapers. At such a time let us remember the Lord's command: "Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He will send forth labourers into his harvest."

Parliament now stands prorogued, and the Queen, with the Prince Consort, the Prince of Wales, and other members of the royal family, is in Ireland. We hope rather than expect that her visit may be productive of beneficial consequences; for while popery, true Irish popery, is in the ascendant, the presence even of our beloved sovereign will wake up no lasting feeling of true loyalty. Even English Roman Catholics, the Low Churchmen of the papacy, do not affect to conceal their sympathy with the pope and the fallen dukedoms of Italy, and even with the infamous king of Naples. The Perugian massacre has not met with a word of reprobation from them. Sir George Bowyer, the English representative of popery, has, so far as his own audacity and the pent-up feelings of the House of Commons allowed him to proceed, defended the pope his patron, and justified the atrocities of his myrmidons; while Peter's pence have been collected, and even public meetings held, with the avowed