"Our spirits braced, our thoughts Pleasant as roses in the thickets blown, And pure as dew bathing their crimson leaves." Unless this kind of superintendence be exercised over the holydays of the poor, all legislation will be in vain. Let kind gentry and good neighbours be the police on such occasions, and we doubt very much whether legislation at all on the subject would be of service. We want a spirit of good humour and pleasantry revived, which no Acts of Parliament can produce, but which it may be the office of the Church to inculcate, and which will follow on the love of truth and peace.* Of entertaining neighbours, and countenancing due mirth George Herbert fitly says, "There is much preaching in this friendliness." Let this course be recommended by those of official eminence in the country, and by the bishops in their pastoral charges, before Parliament be invoked to interfere: and let the beginning be gradual. Suppose half a holyday be claimed by the Church for every saint's day and holy festival, and nothing be said about games and sports. This would be a change, and such a change as would embody recreation, mental and physical. The evening, by a return to work, would be secured against the occurrence of any evil ways. Where a whole holyday could be given, let it be: but let it ever be borne in mind that a holyday, to be a blessing, and not a curse, must be well superintended and well spent. In towns now, mechanics keep their Saint Monday and Saint Tuesday-they have no lack of holydays, but they are certainly injurious to their health and morals; and we are sure it would be highly expedient, if the Church holydays are to be kept wholly, that every public-house should be closed at an early hour in the evening of those days. A public-house might still answer its original institution of being a place of rest and refreshment to the traveller, and of furnishing a beverage for the table of the poorer class at home, but it would be no longer an occasion of drunken brawls and cruel sports, such as neither the legislature nor humanity should for one instant countenance. With all our regard for the poor man and his amelioration—for his recreation and holydays, still we say, "Grant no holyday, unless the public-house be closed." Of too many of the poor peasantry we must humblingly exclaim :— "His country's name, Her equal rights, her churches, and her schools, * Zechariah, viii. 19. But, alas! what ruin, what dissension, what degradation, what dependency, what debasing ignorance, has not the public-house -aye, the village inn or beer-shop, inflicted and indelibly fastened on the life, and heart, and soul, of its unhappy victims ! And while discountenancing direct legislation on the subject of national holydays, still much of an indirect kind of good may proceed from the legislature itself, and from the several benevolent institutions now in force touching these matters. For : there is the Church-that " Total-abstinence-from-all-vice Society her name and counsel forms a tower of strength; then schools, clubs, and libraries; let all these present parochial systems be worked out and extended, and they will be found calculated to elevate the character of the humbler classes, and give them ability to enjoy a holyday. Let the land allotment system be more widely put in practice, and the labourer might employ some holydays in the lighter work of his own gardenhis piece of land, which is his for his life, if his conduct be such as it ought to be: and the landlord should never yield to the tenant the letting of the poor man's cottage. And let the legislature take in hand the more difficult task of raising the general prosperity of the people, as the Church ❝ in prays, wealth, peace, and godliness," by encouraging emigration-a better regulation of gaols and public-houses-a more strict surveillance over immoral Sunday newspapers and other inferior publications, which tend to lower the physical and moral superiority of a people. Let all questions of this sort meet with kind consideration, and then leave the people to their own consciences, and their own plans and wishes, in regard to an extension of public health and public morals, through the means of holydays, kept, it may be, after a different manner in different places, but in all, we may hope, marked essentially with public decorum, cheerful demeanour, and moral regularity, if not, as may be further hoped, in many individual cases at least, with that faith and reverence which cannot fail to effect a sober, godly, and righteous deportment in this present world -looking humbly forward in fervent gratitude and hope for the one blessed holyday which remaineth in reserve for the people of God. Let us observe the holydays of the Church. Let the Church, in the hopeful words of Lord John Manners," restore to us the strength and the glory of the old English character.” *The clergy would, it may be expected, be generally found to set forth such views, in regard to the spiritual celebration of holydays, as given by Bishops. Patrick, Hammond, Hooker, Tillotson, &c. &c. It may be as well to mention (for there is frequent enquiry on the subject) that by the holydays of the Church are meant, not all those holydays alluded to by Bishop Horsley_in_the ordinance of Bishop Niger, as ratified by Nicholas the Fifth, in the reign of Henry VI., after the interpretation by Archbishop Arundel and Innocent the Seventh, neither in the former provincial constitution of Archbishop Islip; but simply and only those days which have peculiar reference to our Lord himself, to the Holy Spirit, and to apostles and evangelists. These, including Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, Easter Monday, and Whit Monday, will be just twenty-eight days in the year, and in every year one or more of these holydays will occur on a Sunday, and in the year 1846, actually seven of them will thus occur. It will be a matter of arrangement whether these should be kept on a week day or not. Any holydays, such as the 28th of May, &c., might be omitted, as having a political bias. But let the purely religious and ancient holy days-days that were kept sacred anterior to any novelties of popery-be all kept-days which, as an Etonian (with king's visits in addition) the writer was always grateful for at that happy school (Lord John, p. 9). and would love to see "the children of larger growth" still entitled to enjoy. Would, too, that the people had liberty to rove in the fine parks of the gentry of England, as he loved to wander over Windsor and Stoke. Moreover, why should not the thirteenth canon of the Church of England be in practical use? Surely there is nothing preventive in the scanty number of the holydays. ART. III.-A Charge delivered by the Lord Bishop of LONDON, at his Triennial Visitation, in October, 1842. London: Fellowes. 1842. 2. A Charge delivered by the Lord Bishop of EXETER, at his Triennial Visitation, in June, July, August, and September, 1842. London: Murray. 1842. THE Bishops of London and Exeter, two of our most eminent prelates, having lately delivered their sentiments on all the subjects connected with the present agitated state of the Church, it is not to be expected that the matters under debate will be much longer contested. The Presbyters of the Church, after solemnly recording their opinions on the doctrine contained in these important charges, will retire from the contest, and the members of the Church, generally, will silently make up their minds on the great subjects which have been debated; and the whole Church will settle down into a calm, and we would ardently hope, a prosperous state of repose. Having taken a deep interest in the progress of the Church, through the arduous conflict in which she has been engaged since 1829; and having, more than once, contended with all our ability for her rights, her integrity, and her independence, we cannot remain silent at the present crisis, on certain statements respecting baptismal regeneration which have been propounded in the recent Charges of the bishops in question. We desire to heal the divisions amongst us, and to unite in heart and affection those who ought never to differ; nor ought we to be considered guilty of presumption in proposing to investigate a subject which has been so clearly and distinctly pronounced upon by such able divines, and they, too, chief pastors of the flock. We are not ignorant of our position; but we are not so fettered as not to be permitted to enter on the discussion of a doctrine of the Christian religion, because a certain opinion on that doctrine has been delivered by a bishop. We have no infallible cathedra in the Church of England. The bishop, as an officer of the Church, is invested with extraordinary powers; but he has no authority to dictate in matters of faith. The presbyter, in ordination, receives a free and full commission to proclaim the Gospel in all its truths. In this he has a common right with the bishop; and in the promulgation and defence of these doctrines the bishop has no higher prerogative than the presbyter. There is a rule of interpretation common to both, and a common standard of appeal. In the present case, however, it might be sufficient for us to urge our independence of the bishops to whom allusion has been made, belonging as the writer does to the diocese of Worcester. But as bishops of Christ's holy Church, we reverence them, and shall conduct our investigation of their statements in perfect consistency with that feeling. But our chief apology is, that we enter upon the examination with an ardent desire for the purity and prosperity of the Church, and with a devoted attachment to its ministers; and, with such a mind, we do not fear that we shall ever have occasion to be ashamed of our undertaking. We shall, in the course of our investigation, lay before the reader some statements made by these bishops on the subject under review, which appears to us to require the serious revision of the venerable prelates. The expressions in which they have delivered their sentiments are so clear and precise, that it is impossible to mistake their meaning; and in so doing they have discovered an honest integrity of purpose, worthy of their high character and exalted station; nor shall we attempt to affirm or deny the truth or falsehood of the position which they have taken-a method which is never productive of any substantial benefit, always irritating, and generally disposed of according to the weight of authority attached by the reader to the individual writers themselves. We are not disposed to risk the subject on such an adventure. It would be an easy task to set up a number of dogmatical assertions in affirmation or contradiction of the statements of these reverend prelates, but to what avail? We shall not attempt to deny the difficulties with which the subject is attended, nor to conceal the fact that the statements of the Bishops of London and Exeter are supported by the authority of a series of standard writers of the Church of England; nor shall we attempt to shake the opinions of these eminent writers by counter quotations of high authority; but we shall put them to the test, by entering into a more enlarged survey of the subject; and, by establishing, on firm foundations, the doctrine of the Church, show wherein they agree and wherein either may be supposed to differ from it. Our method is this: we shall lay down the character, dignity, and efficacy of the sacraments, and insist upon their requirements and obligations: we shall adduce the standard authorities of the Church herself; and, in illustration of these, we shall bring forward the testimony of three celebrated divines of the Church of England, whose reputation is above dispute, and who, for their piety and learning, are held in universal admiration. We fix upon these three, as a practicable number of authorities, and when we mention the names of Barrow, Tillotson, and Hooker, few persons will be found to think that more can be necessary. The two sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper are the mysteries of the Christian religion, and, partaking of the nature of the dispensation to which they are attached, are of a high and transcendent character. They are the visible records of redemption the mystical representations of the life, death, and resurrection of the Son of God. The holy Scriptures are the lex scripta; the sacraments are the verbum visibile. They rest on the same authority-the one dictated by the Spirit of God, the other instituted by the Son of God. The word is the precursor of the sacraments-the word proclaims, the sacraments seal its testimony-the word is to awaken, to convince and recover; the sacraments are to confirm and establish-the word is the light of the world, the sacraments are the lights of |