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upon which there appears to be much unanimity of opinion amongst the witnesses; and the suggestions made were, for the most part, incorporated into the amended Bill. These refer principally to the survey, the directorate, the power of giving up the business, the power of appeal in cases of dispute.

Mr. Gibbs, the Bishop of Chichester, Lord Alwyne Compton, and Canon Trevor, were unanimous in objecting to the necessity of surveying all the parsonages, to the placing the directorate in the hands of the whole body of the Governors of Queen Anne's Bounty, to the absence of an appeal or arbitration clause; it was also suggested that the parties affected by the Bill should have representation on the direc

torate.

Mr. Plummer, Secretary of the Wesleyan Assurance Society.We do not survey the buildings. It would never pay to do so. We send a schedule to be filled up with certain questions. Our staff is very small indeed. It consists of myself and two clerks. In case of losses we employ individuals not on our permanent staff. In case of a small loss, we should simply tell the individual to send an estimate of the cost of restoring the damage, and if we were satisfied that the estimate were a reasonable one, we should remit the money. Our Directors are not paid; we find no difficulty in obtaining the attendance of unpaid Directors. I think you have intrusted in the Bill far too much power to your surveyor. I would give a right of appeal against his decision, decidedly. I think the discretion which is given to incumbents in case of special risks to insure elsewhere, should be extended to risks in the second class, and to the farming and doubly hazardous class. In cases of differences with our Company, the matter is decided by arbitration. If such a power were introduced in the Bill it would meet the objection with regard to disputes between the insurers and the Company.

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Mr. Cornelius Walford.-With regard to parsonages, the vast majority of them being first-class risks, inspection would certainly not be necessary in most cases.'

On the conclusion of the evidence, the Committee passed the following five resolutions:

'1. That it is desirable that incumbents of ecclesiastical benefices in England and Wales should become their own insurers against loss by fire, through a system of insurance managed by some public authority.

'2. That when such system shall have been established, it shall be compulsory on the incumbents to insure, through such a system, all buildings comprised in the first class in the schedule of this Bill, provided the risk on any one building shall not exceed 2,500l.

'3. That the machinery at the disposal of Queen Anne's Bounty Board is not at present adequate for the purposes of the Bill, but may

be made competent by the appointment of a committee of management authorised to employ a suitable and efficient staff.

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4. That no part of the funds at present administered by Queen Anne's Bounty Board, ought to be applied, by loan or otherwise, to the undertaking of insurance, without the consent of the Board, subject to the sanction of the Lords of the Treasury.

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5. That upon the evidence submitted to them, your Committee have no reason to doubt but that the scheme of insurance proposed by the Bill is based upon sound financial principles.'

The resolutions do not seem to have been passed without frequent divisions. Mr. Cotton, a Director of the London, Liverpool, and Globe Fire Office; Mr. Freshfield, Director of the Law Fire Office; and Mr. McLagan, Director of the Queen Fire Office, supported by Mr. Monk, Mr. Bristowe, and Mr. Rowley Hill, opposed the resolutions. Mr. Monk and Mr. Freshfield both proposed contrary resolutions, which were lost.

The Bill was then reconstructed on the new lines marked out by the resolutions and suggested by the evidence. Very large alterations were made, which we will summarise under the following heads :

I. A permanent Directorate of twelve persons, three of whom were to be incumbents under the Act, was substituted for the Directorate of the general body of Governors of Queen Anne's Bounty.

2. The compulsory operation of the Bill was limited to those cases only in which the Directors could offer to the clergy cheaper terms of insurance than could be procured from the Insurance Offices.

3. The safety of the financial arrangements was secured by the exemption of large risks, i.e., those above 2,500l., from the compulsory clause.

4. The Directors were empowered to borrow money on the security of the future premiums, either from the Bounty Board, with the consent of the Governors and the sanction of the Treasury, or in the public market.

5. All the clauses referring to the surveyors were struck out. The statement of the incumbent was to be considered prima facie evidence of the value and condition of his premises, and a liberal arbitration clause for all disputed cases was inserted.

6. In case of fire, payment of the amount due under the insurance was to be made, as might be required, during, instead of after, the rebuilding.

7. The disposal of the profits, after a due reserve fund

had been accumulated, towards the reduction of the premiums, was made obligatory.

8. The conditions of the insurance, which correspond to the policy in ordinary cases, were inserted in a schedule to the Bill, in which losses occasioned by lightning were included. The immediate reduction of the premium on first-class risks from Is. 6d. to Is. per cent. remained as originally proposed.

Such are the leading provisions of the Bill, as it now stands. It is clearly one which requires an almost unanimous expression of clerical opinion in its favour before it can receive the approbation of Parliament. The pecuniary interests of powerful Companies are touched. The number of Directors of Fire Insurance Companies in the House of Commons is about forty. Many of them are gentlemen of the most influential position. It would be quite unreasonable to expect them to be consenting parties to such a blow to the special interests which it is one of their duties to protect, unless they were made quite sure that those in whose behalf the legislation was promoted were united in desiring it.

It is difficult to ascertain the exact opinion of 15,000 clergymen, scattered over the length and breadth of England and Wales. The usual channels through which the voice of the clergy is expressed are Convocation, diocesan and archidiaconal meetings, Church conferences and congresses. Some of these have passed resolutions in favour of the principle of the scheme, some have not discussed it, and not one, we believe, has opposed it. By petitions to Parliament the wishes of the clergy are also directly recorded. One hundred and fifty-four petitions were last year presented in favour of the Bill we are considering, and six petitions were presented against it.

Some idea may be formed of the area of the possible operations of the proposed scheme under the optional, as well as the compulsory clauses, and of its possible future, from the following figures, which we believe approximate to the truth :

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SHORT NOTICES.

The Annotated Bible: being a Household Commentary upon the Holy Scriptures, comprehending the Results of Modern Discovery and Criticism. By the Rev. J. H. BLUNT, M.A. Vol. I. Genesis to Esther, with the General Introduction. (London, Oxford and Cambridge Rivingtons, 1878.)

ANNOTATED editions of the Holy Scriptures are neither few nor infrequent. We can call to mind three, if not four such, each of some mark, which are in course of publication at the present time. It is a very hopeful sign that this should be so, and that each of these appeals to the care for and attachment to the Holy Scriptures should meet with, as far as appears, a considerable amount of public support.

The work before us has, we think, features which distinguish it from previous editions of the Holy Scriptures. The editor, Mr. J. H. Blunt, is widely and favourably known by his Annotated PrayerBook, Dictionary of Theology, and many other undertakings. The present work shows quite as conspicuously as its predecessors the qualities of sound judgment and unwearied industry, and will be not less valued, we should think, than they. This first volume contains the books up to Esther, with Introductions to each; and a General Introduction to the whole is prefixed, which is admirably calculated to supply necessary preliminary knowledge to a student of the Scriptures who is intelligent and fairly educated, but not versed in the history and antiquities of the Bible as a book among books. Indeed, we do not know any one publication in which the great mass of facts relating to the language, the transcription, the versions, and the extant copies of the Bible is contained in a form at once so comprehensive, so brief and succinct, and so pleasant to peruse. The fifth chapter, On the Liturgical Use of Holy Scripture,' is highly interesting. Chapter IV. On the Interpretation of Scripture,' is confined perhaps too exclusively to the use of secondary helps, such as arise from study and learning, to the understanding of the Scriptures; and it might have been well to deal expressly with the function of Ecclesiastical Tradition eo nomine. We think we see in the editor a tendency, which should be carefully guarded, to dwell on the unity of the Bible almost as if it was a single book, and without sufficient regard to the strong and remarkable diversities of language and thought which the various books present. The peculiar os of Genesis or Exodus differs widely from that of the Books of Kings, and both of them differ again from that of Job or Ecclesiastes. Neither the literary style, nor the details of national institutions, nor the currents of thought which underlie the narrative, and form its background, are identical even in any two of the historical books. If we grind the history down to a tame uniformity, we destroy its verisimilitude, or rather we have not entered into its inner meaning at all. The Bible

is never really understood unless (1) it is considered as a collection of ancient records, which show the progress of a nation from infancy to maturity and culture; and (2) unless the unity looked for, beyond, of course, its historical consistency, is in the divine purpose that guided and watched over the process.

The execution of the work seems to us unequal. Nothing could be better done than this Introduction, as a whole; but those to the several books seem to us brief and jejune. The annotation all through is just what it should be, brief, suggestive, and clear. Mr. Blunt might sometimes, we think, have made more use of natural analogies to the supernatural events of the narrative, as e.g. in the plagues of Egypt. The two forms of the Decalogue are apparently not compared (Exod. xx.) The note on xix. 22 states that the priests there spoken of must have been the heads of houses or 'patriarchal priesthood,' because the Levitical priesthood was not yet instituted. It would have been well to insert here or elsewhere an excursus on this earlier priesthood. The note on the Rock of Horeb (xvii. 6) is good, and gives a probable solution of a long-standing difficulty.

It is a merit not to be overlooked in these notes, that the devotional or homiletic element is not neglected in them. Care is generally taken to point out the mystical or typical import of the passage under consideration, and the use that has been made of it by the Fathers. At the same time this is only done to a certain extent; the commentary might be greatly developed by any one who would collate (say) the Homilies of S. Augustine or S. Chrysostom for this purpose. Mr. Blunt has, however, given his readers a glimpse of Patristic interpretation, which will be to their profit. We regard his work, as far as it has yet gone, with great satisfaction. It is not intended for scholars. But the intelligent and able notes will be to many persons a new light upon the pages of the older Scriptures; not unfrequently a help to clear up difficulties of interpretation, such as a school of critics in the present day delights to raise, and which seem to strike and fester sometimes in minds one might suppose the farthest removed from such dangers, and they will be found to tend always to help and to strengthen faith, never to weaken or diminish it.

The Englishman's Critical and Expository Bible Cyclopædia. Compiled and written by the Rev. A. R. FAUSSET, M.A., Rector of S. Cuthbert's, York. Illustrated by six hundred woodcuts. (London: Hodder and Stoughton.)

THE volume before us consists of seven hundred and fifty-three large octavo pages, of clear but small type, three columns to the page, and the remarkable industry of the writer strikes us with sheer amazement. No doubt much of the work had been done to his hand. He has not, however, contented himself with a mere redaction of previous researches, and the articles are, as a rule, marked by the individuality of the writer. Indeed, this characteristic of the work runs into an undesirable narrowness of view. This is not so apparent in the

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