PRICES OF CANAL SHARES, DOCK STOCKS, &c.

At the Office of R. W. Moore, 5, Bank Chambers, Lothbury.

NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS.

"H. D." will find that Mr. Smith's Letters on National Religion were noticed at length some time ago.

"A Constant Reader" is received. So are "M. A.,” “T. B.,” “A. M.”

"N. N." recommends as Collects before Sermon, those for the festivals of St. Andrew and St. Bartholomew; and he states that he has occasionally omitted the Lord's Prayer before, and used it after the Sermon.

In consequence of the great length and importance of some of the letters in the Correspondence, others to which the Editor is anxious to give an early place are necessarily omitted. The Editor begs to call attention to a valuable pamphlet on Spade Husbandry, by the Rev. E. Dawson, Vicar of Alford, in Lincolnshire.

Mr. Leigh, the Incumbent of Bilston, has published an account of the desolation of that place by the Cholera last year. It is a very striking and affecting piece of history, delivered by an eye-witness. The liberal contributions sent by strangers to assist Mr. Leigh in his unwearied exertions for his parishioners are calculated to give real pleasure. It is painful to add, that Mr. Leigh differs widely from Mr. Girdlestone as to the moral effects of this dreadful scourge, and states, with deep regret, that he can see no improvement whatever in the habits of the people.

After all that has been said, the clergy and all the other friends of morality are to have the bitter sorrow of seeing the country delivered up for another year to the Beer-houses, and countless other unfortunate men seduced into crime in these vile receptacles of guilt and wickedness. Legislators are quite contented to do this, and the whole matter seems to be reconciled to their consciences by a little vulgar and common-place declamation against the magistrates by a Mr. Fysshe Palmer. The magistrates, it seems, abuse the Beer-houses only because they wish to retain power about the licenses! And this ignorant and grovelling view, which, in accordance with the taste of the day, supposes that no man ever acts but from base views, quite suffices legislators as an excuse for leaving unchecked what almost every competent witness has declared to be a fearful moral pest. Nothing can be more striking than the power which common-places have over us, and nothing can be a more complete test, that in whatever other directions our intellect may have marched, it has made no progress either in sound or wide views of human nature or of society.

"B. C.," "Zain," "A Non-resident Oxonian," "Vyvyan," Dr. Watkins, and Mr. Dixon are informed, that, in compliance with their requests, packets are left for them at the office of the Magazine.

"H. L.'s" request as to the Tithe Cause shall be complied with.

Пpeoẞurepos must really excuse the Editor. It is the fixt purpose of this Magazine, for obvious reasons, to avoid the discussion of those peculiar subjects which, to a certain extent, divide the members of the Church of England, as they have the members of every church. But it is a little too much to demand explanations because the existence of such divisions is recognised, and because it is stated that such and such a book or writer holds one or other side of the question. Is it really offensive to state that an European is an European, and an African an African ?

If" E. H." will give his address, the Editor will put him in communication with the author of the article, who will, no doubt, have pleasure in complying with his request.

THE

BRITISH MAGAZINE.

OCTOBER 1, 1833.

ORIGINAL PAPERS.

THE PRESENT STATE OF THE SCOTTISH EPISCOPAL CHURCH,

No. V.

(Continued from p. 260, vol. iii.)

HAVING already submitted to my readers a brief historical account of the Scottish Episcopal Church, from the year 1792 to the present time, I now proceed to describe the internal state of that church, its peculiar situation and mode of government, its institutions and jurisdiction, concluding with some observations on the present state and future prospects of episcopacy in Scotland.

At the period when the episcopal church ceased to be the national establishment of Scotland, it consisted of two Archbishoprics, St. Andrew's and Glasgow, and twelve bishoprics, Edinburgh, (disjoined from the see of St. Andrew's, in 1633, by Charles I.) Dunkeld, Aberdeen, Moray, Brechin, Dunblane, Ross, Caithness, Orkney, Galloway, Argyle, and the Isles. The Archbishop of St. Andrew's was primate of all Scotland, and the bishops of nine of the sees, in the order just mentioned, were his suffragans; the Archbishop of Glasgow was primate of Scotland, and his suffragans were only the three last, namely, Galloway, Argyle, and the Isles. All these sees contained stately and magnificent cathedrals,* which the violence and fanaticism of Knox's Reformation laid prostrate in ruins, with the exception of two-Glasgow, in Lanarkshire, and Kirkwall, in Orkney. And these two splendid memorials of the olden time escaped from the sacrilegious devastation solely on account of local circumstances; the cathedral of Glasgow owing its safety to the spirited conduct of the trades,

The Cathedral of St. Giles, as it is now called, in Edinburgh, still remains, but it was not entitled to that appellation till after the erection of the see of Edinburgh, by Charles I. 3 A

VOL. IV. Oct. 1833.

or corporations, of that city, who took up arms to defend it when the Reformers visited them to achieve its demolition; and that of Kirkwall, in Orkney, owing its safety to its distance from the scene of turbulence and discord, which, it must be confessed, characterized all the proceedings of the Scottish Reformers.

The overthrow of the church of Scotland, in 1688, altered, of course, the whole ecclesiastical distinctions of that kingdom. The Presbyterians divided the country into provincial synods, composed of a certain number of presbyteries, and each presbytery containing a limited number of parishes. The bishops deprived at the Revolution, continued during their lifetime to exercise jurisdiction among the clergy and laity of the fallen church, in the same manner as their successors, the present bishops, now do in their several dioceses. An attempt was, indeed, made in the earlier part of the last century, to govern the church by a college of bishops, and the party who supported this notion was distinguished by the title of the College Party. The intention of this party was to extinguish diocesan authority, as vested in a single individual, and to place the clergy under the jurisdiction of this college. It is evident that had this notion been carried into effect, innumerable evils would have ensued, while the whole would have been marked by a procedure totally at variance with the very nature of episcopal government. The party in question was successfully opposed, and gradually became extinct by the death of the persons who were its supporters.

On account of the limited resources of the church, it was not deemed expedient to have the same number of bishops after the Revolution which was necessary during her establishment as the national church. This has been the case to the present time. The old boundaries, as well as the ancient titles of the several sees, were preserved; but several of the sees were conjoined, and formed one united diocese. Hence, the present united diocese of Edinburgh, Fife, and Glasgow, as it is now generally termed, comprehends the two archbishoprics of St. Andrew's and Glasgow, and the bishoprics of Edinburgh and Galloway; the united diocese of Ross and Argyll comprehends not only those two ancient dioceses, but also the others in the northern and western Highlands, Orkney and the Isles. In these two last mentioned dioceses there has been no resident episcopal clergyman for many years, but if there were any congregations there, they would be under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Ross and Argyle.

The Scottish episcopal church, as it is now constituted, contains six dioceses, namely, the united diocese of Edinburgh, Fife, and Glasgow, the united diocese of Ross and Argyle, the united diocese of Dunkeld and Dunblane, the dioceses of Aberdeen,

Moray, and Brechin. The episcopal college consists of six bishops, of whom one has the additional title of Primus, or chairman of the college, that being the ancient title by which the primates of Scotland were distinguished before the erection of St. Andrew's into an archiepiscopal see in the fifteenth century. The number of the officiating clergy in all the dioceses is about eighty; the number of congregations about ninety. The apparent discrepancy between the number of the clergy and the number of the congregations is easily accounted for from two circumstances; the one, that, in cities such as Edinburgh, where the congregations are large and of the very first rank, there are frequently two officiating clergymen in one church; the other, that in country districts, especially in the northern and western Highlands, where the congregations are, on the contrary, either small or poor, and cannot afford to give an adequate stipend to an incumbent, one clergyman has the charge of two and even three congregations, in his immediate neighbourhood. To these he does alternate duty, and yet, it may be remarked, notwithstanding the consequent increase of toil and labour arising from this situation, from the people being widely scattered throughout mountainous and desolate districts, in many cases, as I shall subsequently shew, he receives, after all, only a mere pittance for his exertions. It is almost impossible to state the exact number of communicants as they are necessarily fluctuating and uncertain, on account of their particular avocations, which often lead them to a change of residence, a change of district, and even of country. I may safely state, however, that the number of episcopalians in Scotland, of both sexes and of all ages, belonging to the Scottish episcopal church, is considerably upwards of 80,000 souls.

The Scottish episcopal church may then appear a small and limited communion to the general reader, and so it confessedly is, when contrasted with some of the dissenting associations both in England and Scotland; but when we recollect that Scotland contains a population of not more than two-and-a-half millions, and that religious sects abound in it to an enormous extent, we need not be surprised at the limited numbers of the Scottish episcopalians. Various reasons may also be satisfactorily assigned to shew that the Scottish episcopal church has been denuded of many of her members, while in all cases she has had to contend with prejudices fiercer and more inveterate than those which actuate the keenest zealot for popery. In some of the large manufacturing towns, and in many populous districts, there is no episcopal chapel at all, and none probably within reach for many miles; the consequence, therefore, is, that as people must go to some place of worship, the English and Scottish episcopalians who chance to remove and settle in such towns and districts, or those who were originally educated episcopalians, betake themselves to the pres