can be devised which will not have this effect I cannot very well see. You will perceive, Sir, from what I have written, that my views correspond, or nearly so, with those of . as to the nature of the difficulties with which, should the events which he contemplates take place, the seceding clergy will be surrounded; and I am to the full as anxious as he can be to see the answers which may be given by the writer to whom he has more immediately propounded his questions. Most heartily shall I rejoice, if the solution of them shall prove the scruples we both entertain to be erroneous. But, although I agree as to the number and the nature of the difficulties, yet I can never acquiesce in the conclusion which your correspondent seems inclined to draw therefrom, I never can admit that it will be "our duty to submit in silence." We, surely, never can expect the blessing of God on our cause if we ourselves sit inactive, and aid it only "by our prayers." On the contrary, our Divine Master will expect us to "contend for the faith which was once delivered to the saints"; and, if his will be so, to seal our testimony to the truth with our blood. The manner in which the contest is to be conducted, although clouds and darkness are now round about us, we shall, in all probability, under the influence of his spirit, be enabled to discern when the hour for action arrives. Not only must we continue to do our Master's work in the world, and to look, as "long as we live," after the spiritual interests of our people, but we must endeavour to hand down the faith pure and unsullied to our children's children. It will not be enough to feed with the pure milk of the word the people of the present generation, who may in the hour of trial adhere to us, but it will be our duty to provide the means, as far as we are able, of similar spiritual nutrition being imparted to the generations yet for to come. As to there being "bishops enough with us to ensure the canonical transmission of our orders"-of this I have no fear. Surely, at the present hour, there are many more of the overseers of the church, on the benches of England and Ireland, who are for us, than against us,-and if any attempt shall be made to lessen their number, in future elevations to the episcopate, I trust the attempt will be regarded as the first signal for the battle. In our present ecclesiastical superior, we have, I am satisfied, not only an able and zealous, but an undaunted and uncompromising champion, who, in such a crisis, would instantly carry the remonstrances of the orthodox portion of the church to the foot of the throne; and who would rather incur all the consequences of a prosecution, than lay his hands on heads, of the soundness of whose principles he entertained a doubt. This, however, might nought avail; and the hour of professional deprivation, of trial, and of suffering, may arrive. Nay, I believe it will arrive. Still, Sir, if the orthodox ministers of the church be but true to themselves and to the cause of the Master whom they serve, if they make no compromises with infidelity, no alliances with sectarianism, no sacrifices to that modern idol of half-witted statesmen and spurious churchmen expediency, there are, I think, sufficient grounds, (the nature of them, if I receive encouragement from you so to do, I may here after more fully explain,) but there are sufficient grounds whereon to build a reasonable hope, that, under the providence of God, the church of England will be restored to her pristine eminence, and be permitted to finish her course as she began it-the pride and bulwark of the Protestant Reformation. I remain, Sir, with respect, yours &c., October 18th, 1833. H. H. THE CINYRAS AND AMMON OF LE CLERC. SIR,-When the profane or mythological legends, which are cited for their resemblance to sacred history, bear so very close a resemblance to it as to indicate some knowledge of the scriptural volume itself, as well as of the facts contained in it, we are led to suspect that it was invented subsequent to our era, and to serve some end. One of the most extraordinary of the kind is that reported by Le Clerc, a protestant divine, and retailed from him by Moreri. He says " "The story goes, that one day, Myrrha, wife (or, as others have it, nurse) of Ammon, being accompanied by her son, found Cinyras sleeping in his tent, all uncovered, and in an indecent attitude. She straightway ran, and informed* Ammon. He apprized his brothers of the circumstance, and they covered Cinyras, to spare him the shame of finding himself naked when he woke. Cinyras, having heard what had passed, bestowed his curse upon Adonis, and banished Myrrha into Arabia, where, after wandering nine months, she was changed into the tree which produces myrrh." He subjoins, " Ammon was Cham, and Adonis, Canaan." But he has the effrontery (in such a case, it is nothing less) to deliver this extraordinary narrative without any reference or authority. (Le Clerc, Bibliotheque Universelle, vol. iii. p. 8.) Mons. Fr. Noel, Inspecteur Général des Etudes, and Member of many learned Societies, in 1823 favoured the world with a "Dictionnaire de la Fable," in the alphabetical arrangement, of which there is the following edifying series: Messene, daughter of Triopas. The Inspector General has the following article:-"Ammon, son of Cinyras, or Cynira, married Mor, or Myrrha, and had a son, Adonis. Cyniras, having drunk to excess one day, fell asleep in an indecent posture in the presence of his daughter-in-law. She laughed at him before her husband, Ammon, who told his father. Cyniras, indignant at his daughter-in-law, loaded both her and his grandson with curses, and banished them. Myrrha retired into Arabia with her son, and Ammon retired into Egypt, where he died. It is Phurnutus who thus How so, if he accompanied her? 51 VOL. IV.-Dec. 1833. relates this fable, which the poets represent differently."-(Noel in Ammon.) The same author says, in Adonis, after giving that hero's usual legend, "Le mythologue Phurnutus raconte autrement son histoire."-(Voyez Ammon.) I am acquainted with no work bearing the name of Phurnutus, except a treatise "De Naturá Deorum, printed in Gale's "Opuscula Mythologica." That treatise does not contain the most remote allusion to the matters in question, nor even the names of the parties above mentioned. If any other composition by Phurnutus is extant, either in print or in manuscript, it has escaped the research of the principal historians of Grecian literature-such as Fabricius, Harles, and Schoell. In all this, there is somewhat to excite mistrust. It seems as if a literary imposture had been practised by Le Clerc; although it is difficult to divine for what motive. It is, however, possible, that Le Clerc may have read the story in some author of the lower empire, and withheld his name in order that his readers might suppose he derived it from the writers of antiquity. The citations in the " Dictionnaire de la Fable" are easily accounted. for. The Inspector General had seen that there was a mythological work bearing the name of Phurnutus; and, being entirely unacquainted with its contents, did not know that it did not contain the fables of Cinyras and Ammon. He went, perhaps, a step too far in affirming that it did. But his knowledge of the fact, that there was such a name as Phurnutus, was shared by so few of his countrymen, that he was in little danger of being taken to task. It is probable that he had never so much as consulted the Bibliotheque of Le Clerc; but extracted his article (very loosely) from the Dictionary of Moreri. If any of the readers and correspondents of the British Magazine can suggest the source of Le Clerc's statement, and so account for this strange, and seemingly most useless and gratuitous trifling, satisfaction will be afforded to something more than mere curiosity. If the most trivial thing be missing under circumstances of suspicion, it is of moment to ascertain whether, and by whom, it was stolen. And, where there is an appearance of literary fraud, it is essential for the police of the learned world to find out whether such fraud has been committed or not; and by what hand, if by any. Your obedient servant, ? CONFIRMATION. DEAR SIR,-In answer to the call of Dr. Burton, at p. 554 of your Nov. number, I beg to state that during, I believe, more than twenty of the last years that I was permitted to hold preferment in this diocese The pages concerning the labours of Hercules, which are ascribed to him, are not genuine, but are from the pen of Leo Allatius.-(See Harles Fabr. Bibl. Gr. iii. 557.) (Exeter), I followed the plan which has been adopted by the Professor; but, I am sorry to add, with no such fruits as he has happily reaped from it at Ewelme. At one time, in particular, I had many candidates for confirmation, and abundant time to press them-not merely, as Dr. Burton says, "to make the public profession of their faith in the death of their Redeemer" (p. 553), but to receive the Lord's Supper as a sacrament, and therefore as the means of obtaining inward and spiritual grace,-to receive in this, the renewing of the Holy Ghost, as they were, in confirmation, professing to believe respecting the other sacrament, that they were saved by the washing of regeneration. But my failure was the most striking, when, perhaps, in the pride of a bad heart, I was tacitly taking credit for what my labours would effect: so that I had to tell my flock how signally my God had humbled me among them. Let not this, however, prevent any clergyman from following the Professor's exhortation-to give the young persons an instantaneous opportunity of receiving, whilst the impression of confirming the engagements made for them by their sponsors may be vivid; and, as Dr. Burton well says, "before they have conceived any undefined and superstitious dread of the solemn ceremony." I was never myself led to forego the administration of the Lord's Supper on the Sunday succeeding a confirmation: and if my ministry had been allowed to continue, the custom would have continued also. And if there can be rational hope that one single person may be thereby led to obtain grace to help in time of need, for living a life of faith in our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ, surely that is enough. Talaton, November 12th, 1833. FRANCIS HUYSHE. CONFIRMATION. SIR,-The observations made by your correspondent, Dr. Burton, on the practice of administering the sacrament of the Lord's Supper on the Sunday next following the rite of confirmation, are so striking and forcible, that I cannot but be sanguine of their success; and should feel diffident of adding any observations to them did not the concluding paragraph of the Rev. Dr. invite his clerical brethren to confirm, by their testimony, the results of any similar experiment. On precisely the same grounds advocated by Dr. Burton, recourse was had to the same practise, three years ago, in the parish church over which his diocesan presides. Out of a population of little more than 400, the rite of confirmation was imparted to 27 persons; and the Lord's Supper administered, by the same hands, on the following Sunday, to 24 of that number (in addition to many others), with the happiest effect as to the devotional spirit, not less than to the increased number of communicants. One class of parishioners, to whom Dr. Burton does not particularly allude, appeared more especially from that time forward to be awakened to a sense of past neglect and to better resolution as to the future. I allude to the elder brothers and sisters of a family who, having, it might be on former occasions, received the rite of confirmation without attendance at the Lord's table, wanted only such an opportunity of making their first trial of those privileges to which many, it may be apprehended, would have continued strangers a great part of their lives, without the blessing of God on the example then to be set by their younger fellow-parishioners. Let but the practice so ably and feelingly recommended by the Rector of Ewelme meet with the success which such a cause in such hands deserves, and many a conscientious minister may, I think, not only look forward with gratitude and hope to an increase of future young communicants, but also hail the augmented facility and power with which he will recall, to a sense of their duty, many who have already too long delayed their first act of devotion at their Lord's table. C. USE OF CHURCHES. MY DEAR SIR,-A writer in the Christian Observer of this month, who signs himself a Consistent Churchman, has censured the conduct of the Birmingham clergy in holding a meeting of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, and Society for Propogating the Gospel, in St. Philip's church. The writer in question shews a laudable zeal against any thing like a desecration of the sacred edifice. But the question is, whether a church be desecrated by such meetings. Now, the ancients did not regard the subject in the same light as the Consistent Churchman, although their veneration for their churches far surpassed that which now prevails. So sacred did they deem a consecrated house of God, that they resorted thither to offer their private devotions; and few persons can be otherwise than pleased when they see this primitive practice still observed in foreign churches;-few but must regret that, in our violent dread of popery, we ever permitted this custom to be discontinued in our own country. But however zealous the ancients may have been in maintaining the sacred character of their religious edifices, it is clear that they would not have considered such meetings as those in question as inconsistent therewith. For as Bingham tells us, "They used their churches only as the house of God, for acts of devotion and religion, and did not allow of any thing to be done there that had not some tendency towards piety, or immediate relation to it. They might be used for religious assemblies for the elections of bishops and clergy, for the sitting of councils, for catechetic schools, for conferences and collations about religion." The sitting of councils for the catechetic schools must have been something like a meeting on behalf of the National Society for the Education of the Poor, and not very unlike a conference for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge and the Propagation of the Gospel. I may add, that the ancients at one time permitted their |