Wickliffe's argument is this: It is the duty of priests to minister to the people in spiritual things-it is the duty of the people to minister to the priests in temporal things; and the priests who neglect the duties of their holy office, and live in pride and open profligacy, are guilty of a far greater sin, and expose themselves to a much more horrible punishment, than the people do who neglect the payment of their tithes,-yea, even in the case when a refusal to pay them is without its usual pretext, viz.-" when their prelates do well their office;" therefore (he infers), those priests and prelates [and by prelates he generally means abbots and superiors of the religious orders, whose usurpations had, at that time, impoverished the parochial clergy, and deprived the people of their resident pastors,] who are so earnest in denouncing woes against the people, should consider, that much greater woes are denounced against themselves for their profligate lives, and neglect of their spiritual cures. Christ (he says) purged the temple with his own hands, to teach us that all reformation of the people must be effected by the clergy; it is by the hands of his priests, who are his representatives on earth, that he will have his temple purged. If, therefore, "the priests were good, the people should soon be amended; and it is for this reason (he adds) that true men say that prelates are more bounden to preach truly the Gospel, than their subjects are holden to pay their dymes."

I could bring forward, from the same source, many more specimens of this kind of misrepresentation of the venerable reformer's meaning, which doubtless arose more from the difficulty of consulting his works, in their present state, than from any intentional dishonesty on the part of his biographer. His prejudices as a dissenter, doubtless disqualified Mr. Vaughan,* in a great measure, from entering fully into the spirit of Wickliffe's writings, and hence it is that his work fails in giving us a correct notion of the times to which it relates, and modernizes too much, not only the age, but the character and opinions of the reformer.

Should these remarks obtain the favour of a place in the pages of the British Magazine, they may, perhaps, at some future period, be followed up by further specimens, and by some remarks on the volume of Extracts from the Writings of Wickliffe lately published by the Religious Tract Society.†

MORALS IN FRANCE.

T.

SIR,-Nothing will, I trust, be thought unworthy a place in your Magazine which can, in the least degree, tend to shew the vast importance of religion to individuals and to society at large, and the baneful effects resulting from infidelity and the absence of all re

In a note, vol. ii. p. 290, Mr. Vaughan quotes a passage from "The Sentence of the Curse Expounded," a MS. in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where the reformer is represented as advocating the Voluntary System. I have no means of comparing his quotation with the original.

↑ The Editor hopes to receive T.'s promised series of papers on Wickliffe without fail.

ligious checks upon the conscience. In the subjoined extract taken from a daily paper, we have presented to us a frightful picture of the state of things in a neighbouring country, arising from the source above alluded to. We see persons of both sexes, just entering into life—children, I may say-spurning their new-born existence as a worthless gift-nay, more-loathing it as a curse, and rushing unbidden into their Maker's presence.

What nerves the arm of the youthful suicide? We are not left to mere conjecture. Themselves avow it to be "infidelity”—that deadliest plague of the moral atmosphere. "They knew there was no hereafter!" What a lesson is here afforded to those who, by deprecating religion, vilifying its ministers, and scoffing at its forms, seek to tear down the barrier which alone can arrest the depravity which human laws strive to control in vain. Cherished by a Divine Providence, the flame of religion, " pure and undefiled," still burns brightly on the altars of England; and though, even here, the monster Infidelity dares to rear its head, it quails abashed, before the seven thousand "who have never bowed knee to Baal." Let those who value public order-who value the institutions of their country-take warning by unhappy France. So long as the voice of religion was heeded, so long as its ministers were reverenced, so long her throne stood firm ; but when reason usurped the place of revelation, when belief vanished before infidelity, and the will of man rose superior to the fear of God, the altar was overturned, and with it her throne fell.

I am, Sir, respectfully yours, R. S.

"Suicides in France.-The frightful increase of suicides and duels in France, but particularly of suicides, has attracted the attention even of the French press. Neither sex nor age are exempt from this horrible mania. I have examined the papers of the last month, and the horrible catalogue I could now present you is indeed so afflicting that I am no longer astonished at the cry of distress which is raised; and were I not fearful of disgusting your readers, and even of blunting the keenness of their moral susceptibility, I would transcribe the accounts. Young girls and boys of fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, and seventeen, have committed suicides for the most trivial causes, openly avowing, in their last letters, that as they knew there was no hereafter, they considered it to be the wisest course on their parts to put an end to their existence, and thus get rid of all past, present, or future troubles. I am sorry to add, that one of these cases is that of a young Frenchman with whose family I am acquainted. Their eldest son, eighteen years of age, had, without the knowledge of his father, speculated at the Bourse, and lost the sum of 28. His father is a wealthy and respectable man, though unfortunately wholly indifferent to the religious education of his children. Instead of avowing his error to his father, and asking his forgiveness (which would have been instantly accorded), he put an end to his existence with a pistol, which he borrowed from a friend, simply leaving a letter on his table, to state, that he was ashamed of avowing his fault, and that, to get rid of all future chagrin, he put a termination to his life. Fact after fact, and case after case, I could publish similar to this, which would make your blood chill as you read them. refer to them now in order to call public attention to the fact that, in France, the -progress of revolutionary and infidel principles has always gone hand in hand, and that the moment men begin to treat with contempt all that is venerable and illustrious in human associations, they soon go`on a step further, and treat with scorn all that is binding and influential in religion."

I

ORDINATION SERVICE..

SIR, The question was lately asked, by one of your correspondents, why the ordination service of bishops, priests, and deacons, was omitted in the books of common prayer generally distributed? It can be only accounted for, I presume, by the fact, that ordination is never administered out of our cathedral churches and collegiate chapels. But it has often occurred to me, whether very great advantage would not accrue if the bishops could sometimes administer the sacred rite in some principal town during a visitation, so that the solemn admission of their ministers to holy orders might be more known and considered by the people at large.

As I have ventured to throw out this suggestion, I will embrace the opportunity to ask, whether you could not, by means of your numerous correspondents, enrich your pages by some notice of the progress of episcopacy in America, where, I am told, it is very rapid? Yours, B. T. L.

NOTICES AND REVIEWS,

The Causes of the Corruption of Christianity. By the Rev. Robert Vaughan, Professor of History in the University of London. London: Jackson and Walford. 1834. 8vo. pp. 432.

sure.

Mr. VAUGHAN is a pleasing writer, and a man of good sense and reflexion. His two first Lectures on those defects in human nature which tend to corrupt religion display all these qualities, and will be read with pleaBut when he comes to the grounds of history, and endeavours to shew how Judaism and Gentile philosophy have tended also to corrupt our holy religion, good sense and reflexion are not enough. It has been almost always found that books which, in a small compass, survey a whole range of philosophical systems, or other large questions of the kind, prove failures. It is, in short, the rarest of all combinations that any man shall have deep learning. enough to have become thoroughly acquainted with a range of philosophical systems by original research, powers of thought enough to enable him to see all their bearings in a practical view, and skill enough as a writer to lay the result of his learning and thought before the world clearly. It is, therefore, no discredit to Mr. Vaughan to say, that his book is one of this class. The knowledge of philosophy which Enfield or Brucker supplies is quite sufficient for common purposes, but wholly insufficient where the knowledge of systems must be either full or useless. Very long consideration and very wide learning are necessary for so vast a field. In treating of Judaism, the third Lecture is a mere recital of the common information about Alexandrian Jews, Sadducees, Karaites, &c.; and the fourth goes in the same way into the ordinary disquisitions as to the Ebionites, (digressing indeed somewhat strangely into the historical inquiry about them,) Cerinthians, &c. It does not appear that any light whatever is thrown on the corruption of Christianity by Judaism, except that, at the end of Lecture IV., there is a page or two of loose assertion, tending apparently to prove that the ideas of church government &c. now entertained are derived from false notions about the per

The Editor will be exceedingly obliged to any one who will give this information. Through the kindness of the admirable Bishop Doane, he has lately received the Report of the last convention of New Jersey, and would be very thankful to any one who would extract what is most interesting to the English reader.

manence of the law. But this is so indefinitely and vaguely put, that it would not be easy to assent to it or to differ from it without laying oneself open to a reply. In the same way, Mr. Vaughan, in treating of the influence of Gentile philosophy, gives a recital of the most ordinary Breviates of the oriental and various Greek philosophies, which are to be found in every school book, and occupies one whole lecture on that operation. Now Mr. Vaughan is by far too sensible and well-informed a man not to know that such acquaintance with these philosophers is stark naught, alike for the writer and reader. It is really so in Mr. Vaughan's book. It leads absolutely to nothing, and it is difficult indeed to see to what else it can lead. In the sixth Lecture, when materials are supplied by Dr. Priestley and others, Mr. Vaughan comments sensibly on them in general, though it is impossible to agree with him in his censure of the early fathers for discussing the follies of paganism more than they expounded and vindicated the truths of Christianity. The fact is, that they did that which was requisite in their days-combated the errors which checked their course, and elucidated the truth where it was most obscured in their sphere. To study church history rightly, we should study their writings in order to see exactly what was the actual state of things, what the opinions most canvassed, what the 00s of the time, and then we are competent to appreciate the difficulties with which the fathers had to contend, and the wisdom or the error of their proceedings. But to complain that they did that which was especially necessary in their day is surely not reasonable. The rest of the sixth Lecture is rather the usual accounts and notices of the systems of philosophy of Origen, Clemens of Alexandria &c. than anything directly connected with the subject. The seventh Lecture comes upon the Schoolmen, and contains the same kind of view of them as of the Greek philosophy; nothing, in short, which shews any study of them, but the ordinary tale of their views and peculiarities. But there is a startling passage or two in this and the preceding Lecture which require notice. Is Mr. Vaughan aware exactly where Dr. Hampden's views would lead him? And what does he mean in pp. 29, 30, 31, 32, as to changes in the church? He is not canvassing tithes, or benefices, or chapters, but opinions. Are we to change from age to age in opinons on matters of faith? If not, to what do his remarks tend?

Mr. Vaughan is very strongly recommended to reconsider all this part of his work. If he will write of the Schoolmen, let him read, at least, one or two of them; and let him fully weigh Dr. Hampden's work and its inevitable tendency before he commits himself to its guidance. And, with respect to the fathers and the philosophers, original statements from original study on the part of so sensible a man as Mr. Vaughan will always command attention, but the mere republishing, in a form slightly varied, views and extracts which are familiar to every one, can serve no purpose. If Mr. Vaughan wishes to see how the influence of philosophy on doctrines can be really shewn with effect, let him read Mr. Newman's masterly work on Arianism, where this is admirably done in two or three cases.

The last two Lectures, on Paganism, with copious extracts from Dr. Middleton and Mr. Blunt, are more like the two first Lectures. The subject is one where much original reading is not required, and Mr. Vaughan's good sense comes in to his aid.

It is necessary to add that, in many portions of Mr. V.'s reflexions on particular points, where he thinks Christianity corrupted, no agreement is felt with either his premises or conclusions. But he generally puts all these so vaguely, that it would be hard to fight out any particular point with him.

Occasionally he allows his feelings as a dissenter to get the better of him. But the work is generally written in a highly creditable tone of temperance and good feeling. And every one anxious to promote Christian peace will rejoice that the congregationalists have established this Lecture. The more learned they make their writers, the more opportunities they give them of shewing real learning, the more catholic will they become, and the more will

they lose of sectarian bitterness. The church must always rejoice at this, because it is quite certain to what port real learning ever has tended, and will tend.

Essay on the Habitual Exercise of the Love of God. By Joseph John Gurney. London Seeleys. 1834. 12mo. pp. 165.

:

A VERY pleasing treatise, in which the ordinary and wholesome views of this most important subject are extremely well stated. The chapter on Communion with God is particularly valuable.

Winfill's Cathedrals (Salisbury.) By Thomas Moule. London: Wilson, Tilt, &c. 1835. No. I.

A REMARKABLY cheap and well executed work on cathedrals. Would that the familiar knowledge of their beauty and grandeur might kindle a wholesome feeling of affection to them! There are two plates and letter-press for one shilling.

A Charge, delivered in the Autumn of 1834, at the Visitation in Hants. By W. Dealtry, D.D., Chancellor of the Diocese. London: Hatchards. In this very valuable, candid, temperate, and clear Charge, Dr. Dealtry argues some most important questions-whether dissenters really derive no benefit from the church; whether dissenters compose the majority of the population; whether truth depends on majorities; whether our endowments are not voluntary; what is the character of political dissent, &c. &c. The Appendix is full of most valuable documents; and this Charge is an excellent companion to Dr. Dealtry's former one.

Narrative of a Voyage with a Party of Emigrants from Petworth to Upper Canada. By J. M. Brydone, Surgeon, R. N. Petworth Phillips.

1834. 8vo.

THIS is by far the most useful and satisfactory of the works on Emigration. Mr. Brydone is a very sensible and right-minded man, and tells what he saw. His account is very encouraging, while his cautions shew that what he says may be depended on. The Petworth Committee, and the munificent nobleman, (Lord Egremont,) who promote this object, deserve very warm praise.

Jerusalem and its Environs: a Chart, published by the Sunday School Society, 5, Paternoster Row.

A VERY well-executed Chart on a large scale, very likely to be useful.

Lessons on Scripture History: for the use of Teachers in Infant Schools, by Rachel Howard, to accompany 12 Pictorial Engravings. Picture I. Old Testament. London: Mimpriss. 1834.

THIS is, on the whole, sensible and likely to be useful. The engravings are good, but why are they not all selected from good masters? If pictures are to be used, why not accustom the eye to good forms? Some of these are wretched, theatric, and in the worst taste.

Nine Sermons on the Catechism. By the Rev. J. W. Hatherell, Rector of Eastington. London: Hatchards. 1835.

MR. HATHERELL does not appear to state very clearly his own views of doctrine; nor to be a very good writer. But he appears to be a zealous clergyman.