A Charge to the Clergy of the Archdeaconry of Durham. By C. Thorp, B.D., Archdeacon. London: Rivingtons. 1832.

THIS Charge ought to be generally known and read as a very sensible, temperate, and well-judged defence of the Church, and reply to the common assaults on it.

Lives, Characters, and an Address to Posterity. By Gilbert Burnet, D.D., Lord Bishop of Sarum. Edited, with an Introduction and Notes, by John Jebb, D.D., F.R.S., Bishop of Limerick, Ardfert, and Aghadoe. London: 1833. pp. 386.

THE value of Bishop Burnet's Lives of Chief Justice Hale and Lord Rochester is so well known that they need no encomium here. The writer will only give his best wishes that the life of a judge, equally eminent for learning and for deep religious feeling, and the history of the conversion of an infidel nobleman, may have their due weight in promoting the influence of religion in the classes of life to which these persons belonged. He may, however, add that the present edition is enriched with a variety of illustrative notes by the Bishop of Limerick. He has opened the copious and varied stores of his mind, and the grace and beauty which these have thrown around the work have given it a double attraction in the eyes of all who value sound learning and pure religion. The two Prefaces are the admirable work of the late A. Knox, Esq., and the Bishop's Introduction contains the record of some of the opinions of Mr. Knox on the Church of England, as exhibited in a conversation with Dr. A. Clarke, together with a letter from him, which ought to be read and studied by every clergyman. This letter needs no other praise than that the Bishop of Limerick calls it, "within a short compass, the best provision extant towards rightly forming the mind and heart of a young clergyman."

The characters, taken from Burnet's Memoirs, are Archbishop Leighton, R. Boyle, Queen Mary, Messrs. Nairn and Charteris, and some other eminent clergymen.

A Sermon preached for the Benefit of the Hertfort Sunday Schools, &c., by the Rev. C.W. Le Bas, A.M. Printed, by request, for the benefit of the Charity. London: 1833.

THIS is a sermon on the knowledge that profiteth not, and the knowledge that is really good for man; and, brilliant as every thing that comes from the pen of Mr. Le Bas usually is, we have seldom seen any thing more striking than these few pages. The theme is a common one; but it is only a master who can treat it thus.

Divine Visitations, and the Guilt of a Denial of God's Providence. Two Sermons. By Archdeacon Wix. St. John's, Newfoundland. THESE Sermons have a great deal of spirit and piety, and must derive great interest from the awful circumstances (the cholera and a dreadful fire) which gave rise to them.

Memorials of Oxford. Parts IV. and V. Oxford: Parker.

THIS very beautiful work goes on as successfully in execution as it begun, and has arrived in the last number at that most striking and beautiful College, Magdalen, which adorns the entrance to Oxford. There is one thing very valuable in all these plates of Le Keux's. They not only represent faithfully, but they give the character of all which they represent with perfect truth. The view of the grand Quadrangle at Christ Church, and of Magdalen Towers, as seen from the bridge, recall every feeling which arose in seeing these places.

Memorials of Salisbury. Five Parts. By the Rev. P. Hall.

THESE Memorials of one of the most curious and interesting of our cities do very great credit to the taste and industry of Mr. Hall, and the artists whom he employs, and deserve general encouragement.

Illustrations of the Bible, by John Martin. London, Martin: 5 Parts. MR. MARTIN, whose extraordinary pictures have caused so much conversation among artists and connoisseurs, has commenced a series of very valuable and interesting Illustrations of the Bible. There is very much about Mr. Martin's genius, his favourite subjects and manner of treating them, which render him a very valuable illustrator of the Bible. One thing at least is quite certain, that his pictures can never be looked at without exciting thought and reflexion. Some of his imitators are evidently trying to produce the same effect as Mr. Martin, by merely the outward features of his style; but they who study his pictures will find, that it is not merely general effect which is aimed at, but that there is deep thought expended on every part and portion of each picture. The Creation on the whole is a magnificent picture,-the Garden of Eden delightful,-and the Deluge (in which, as in his other picture on the same subject, Mr. M. has introduced the terror of the animal creation with great effect,) is really awful.

REMARKS ON WORKS ON CHURCH REFORM.

THE month's supply of this article is tolerably copious, although the markets are a little heavy. First comes a very valuable pamphlet, called "Reasons against a Re-distribution of Church Property," (London: Roake and Varty,) which is to be particularly recommended to the attention of all readers. They will find in it the arguments which have been from time to time offered in this Magazine, put with far more power. The writer of these lines, however, puts in his caveat against being supposed to concur in those hints for Church Reform which the pamphleteer gives. Agreeing with him in his negatives, he has far more doubt about his positives; and what can be his reason for prais ing Mr. Stephenson, and speaking of him as so distinguished and of such high honour, &c. &c.? Not to know Mr. Stephenson, may argue one's self unknown, but then, unfortunately, everybody whom the writer knows is unknown too, for nobody knows who the celebrated Mr. Stephenson is. And as to his honour, it may, no doubt, be as great as his fame, but his book gives one not a favourable idea either of his principles or his feelings. It is a vulgar attempt to sneer, in the lowest style, and with the least possible success, at Lord Henley, because Lord Henley is religious-and, odious as Lord Henley's schemes are, this method of speaking of him is more odious still. Besides which, Mr. Stephenson does not at all reject Lord Henley's plans, but merely hints that Lord H. is a hypocrite and would not really go as far as he pretends, and as Mr. Stephenson certainly would.

Next comes "Cui Bono," a Letter to the Right Hon. E. G. Stanley, by H. Cotton, LL.D., Archdeacon of Cashel. (Dublin: Millekin and Co. 1833.) This is a lively, curious, and valuable pamphlet, containing some very valuable particulars as to the church of Ireland. The Roman Catholics are perpetually crying out against it as so shamefully rich; when, as Archdeacon Cotton shews, one Roman Catholic archbishop has as much as the net incomes of all the Irish bishops. Archdeacon Cotton shews what was the wealth of the church in Roman Catholic times, and what is its relative wealth and influence compared with those of the Law. He then goes on to point out that it is not church wealth which is the cause of the Irish peasant's suffering

-that the priests themselves, who began the agitation with the hope of injuring the English church and raising their own, find, that as political agitation increases, their influence is decreasing, and that they are only tools in the hands of demagogues. With respect to the extortions of the Irish clergy, Archdeacon Cotton states, that the demand for tithes through the south of Ireland, is much below 2s. per acre, that, in short, the tithe demanded does not amount to a twentieth, often not to a thirtieth and even fortieth part; and that it appears by the best evidence, that it is not, through Ireland, more than one-sixteenth of the rent. He mentions too, from a pamphlet of Bishop Elrington's, that it was stated by Lord Maryborough in Parliament, that a friend of his received 10s. an acre more for his tithe-free land than his other, and that he paid in tithe for land of the same value, and close to it, fourteen-pence

an acre.

For other very curious facts, and for reflexions on the wisdom of establishing the Roman Catholic church, the reader should really consult Dr. Cotton's work, which will fully repay his trouble.

Great praise too must be bestowed on a very sensible and well written pamphlet, called "A Country Clergyman's humble and earnest Appeal to the hearts and understandings of the Lords and Commons," (London: Roake and Varty); and particular attention should be given to his curious and valuable extract from Archbishop Bancroft's "Remarks on the rights of the Temporal Estates to legislate for the Spiritual."

In "A Plea for Convocation," by Philo-Synodus, (London: sold by Rivingtons. 1833,) the author suggests entirely new functions for Convocation, making that body in fact the reforming and governing body of the church.

It is only justice to mention here with commendation a letter, by the Rev. F. Merewether, to Mr. Stanley, which, like all his writings, is full of zeal and good principles.

The "Book of Reform," Part I., by Wentworth Holworthy, (E. Wilson. 1833,) is one of a large tribe which affects to wish to preserve some things in order to gain attention to the most mischievous schemes. This volume is well worthy to come from the same quarter as the "Black Book." As far as the church goes, it is as false, as malignant, as vulgar, and as infamous.

MISCELLANEA.

DIVORCE. THE MONTHLY REPOSITORY.

Ir was pointed out in the last number of this Magazine, that the Monthly Repository, a work bearing the name of Mr. Fox, a preacher among the Unitarians, and speaker at the Political Unions, had been inculcating, openly and unreservedly, that the time was come when the nonsense of respecting the Marriage tie is to be given up-that it is dreadfully immoral for people to live together when their tempers and views do not agree, and that they ought to be allowed to part at once. This is a small step towards a blessed consummation indeed. Society will prosper exceedingly when directed by such mighty masters of morality; and one cannot feel too much envy for the advantages enjoyed by Mr. Fox's sheep whether in his chapel or at the Crown and Anchor.

It is not, by the way, quite certain that this curious and able paper is Bancroft's. It is No. 56 in the Records at the end of Collier's "Church History."

This month the attack on Matrimony is renewed in another shape, viz.— in a comment on Mr. Dove's Lives of the Wesley family. The article is below contempt, as far as its style and manner go—always pert, often exceedingly vulgar-sometimes aiming at sentimentality and taudriness (nothing higher), and then always arriving at fustian, or often at absolutely no meaning at all. The principal doctrines inculcated in it are, that everybody tyrannizes over everybody in his power (kings and priests of course, sans dire), men over women, and grown people over children. The code of government for children has been drawn up by their oppressors, the adults! and is consequently tyrannical and infamous in the extreme! Good man! how delightful a code would a legislative body of children draw up for themselves! What wholesome recognitions of the Imprescriptible Rights of Infants and the Sovereignty (not of the People, but) of the Nursery. Of course it would be idle to reason about such trash as this. But it is necessary to say that these doctrines are recommended by a wilful mis-representation of the characters of the senior part of the Wesley family. The father of John Wesley, who went through every kind of misfortune and difficulty with a patient and resigned spirit, and the warmest and most lively gratitude for every little aid afforded him, and who even from a jail wrote to his kind friend Archbishop Sharp with the utmost cheerfulness, is deliberately represented as one who had become stern and morose from the disappointments of his views and prospects. And his admirable wife, who, in a letter to her son, in explaining her way of bringing up her children, expressly says that she found it advisable to be master at once, because then there was no occasion afterwards for severity, which would be as painful to her as to the children, and because she could then pass over without notice many childish follies and inadvertencies; that no child who confessed a fault was ever to be beaten ; that all good conduct was to be rewarded, and all attempts to do well, though unsuccessful, to be encouraged with sweetness, is as deliberately represented as a sort of cruel and monstrous tyrant, whose only object was to rule her children with a rod of iron, and destroy every kindly feeling in their hearts. This amiable and truth-loving writer passes over the small fact that this family was reckoned the most loving in the county of Lincoln, (Dove, p. 156,) that every one of these ill-used children turned out to be of unsullied character, some of them with affections too warm for their own happinessthat one sister preferred, even as a child, to sit and hear her mother (her cruel mother) talk, to any amusement which could be offered,-that Sam, the eldest, whom he sneers at especially as the pink of orthodoxy, was of so kind and generous a nature, and that nature so little repressed, those affections so little chilled, by his mother's cruelty, that he devoted every farthing in his power to maintain his parents, his brothers and sisters, but would never bear more than an allusion to his kindness,-and that John Wesley himself, in one of his sermons on Education, expressly gives his sanction to some of these monstrous severities, and cruelties of his tyrannical mother, so little had he suffered by them. But, says this great reasoner, all Mrs. Wesley's daughters were unhappy! One died unmarried, (what proof of unhappiness he finds in her case, unless he thinks celibacy worse than even marriage without the right of Divorce, or unless Mrs. Wesley's cruelties in her childhood prevented any one from making her an offer, does not appear); and of the married daughters, one lost her husband, and one lost her life, soon after their respective marriages ;-both, doubtless, from their mother's cruelty! One married, contrary to the strongest wishes and advice of her brothers, a great scoundrel, of whom they had once had a good opinion, but found that when engaged to her, he offered to her sister; this marriage turned out as might have been expected, and she owned in after life that she ought to have taken her brothers' advice. Her misfortunes too were owing to her vile mother's cruelty! The rest of this writer's observations are much of the same kind. But his main object is to enforce the necessity of Divorce, from the

case of another sister of the family. Her's is, indeed, a sad history. Being disappointed in love, she resolved, as has often been the case, to marry the first person who offered for her. To this resolution it would appear, but it is not very clear, that her family required her to adhere. But we are told little beyond the simple fact that a man unworthy of her in every way, vulgar and ignorant then, and subsequently profligate, did offer for her, and that she reluctantly married him. She was a very admirable woman, of exquisite feelings and great poetical genius, delicate, refined, and sensitive. Her lot was in truth a heart-breaking one. The wretched man to whom she was married had not the means of appreciating her merits, and often neglected her for low and debasing pleasures. She struggled on for five-andtwenty years, having lost her only (earthly) hopes of comfort in her children, who all died in their infancy. It is, in truth, a sad tale, though not calculated to excite the thoughts to which it leads this moral and amiable writer. He tells us that the situation of this unhappy woman was even worse than if she had committed adultery, "for then she might have been liberated from an enforced and intolerable bond, and even have entered on a new state, perchance of the affection and enjoyment for which she was framed." "Her continuing through life in a sexual companionship where mutual affection was impossible," was "an immorality." His notions of doing right he tells us are, the doing that "which is for the greatest happiness of all concerned, at the present moment;" and his notion of a child's duties is, that they are its interests, and its interests are its affections. The disciples of this base and degraded system of morality seem always to labour under a judicial infatuation. They can never refrain from exhibiting themselves in a guise which must disgust every decent and well-regulated mind, not to say a word of those of a higher cast. Self-denial, self-sacrifice, are words not in their vocabulary; and of their meaning they can form no conception! Selfish and temporary gratification, they tell you plainly, the happiness of the present moment, is all to which they can raise their lofty aspirations. The patience and resignation with which Christians bear the evils which in their particular cases have arisen from institutions and ordinances attended, in their general character, by the greatest blessings, are a mere exhibition of stupid folly. Their philosophy and their ethical system is to renounce any obligation which you have contracted as soon as you find it troublesome to keep it!

Are we, indeed, come to a condition where such notions can be avowed without shame, and heard without indignation?

GROUNDS FOR UPHOLDING AN ESTABLISHED CHURCH.

THE Editor of The Standard (whether people agree with his politics or not) is, beyond all question, facile princeps of all the political writers of the day. Others have great talents, or rather cleverness and dexterity, in accomplishing base ends; but he has the powerful mind, the large views, the full information and the decided conviction (as to main objects) of a great statesman. So that he never treats any subject which comes before him as if new to him, but decides on it by long-formed principles and convictions. It is a sad pity that such a man should be destined to waste his great powers in a newspaper. The following extract (deprived of temporary and personal allusions) will give a fair, though by no means a very favourable, specimen of his powers:—

"The anticipated success of the church spoliation scheme in Ireland has already set to work the dissenters in this kingdom, and begun to magnify their numbers. In Wales they have grown already to comprehend two-thirds of the population; and, if any thing like so prolific as the Irish papists, who have always numbered (in political arithmetic) twenty-five per cent., at least, above the whole population in the island, the Welsh dissenters will soon amount