supporters-none have contributed more illustrious names to the rolls of our missionary chivalry, and none at this moment are doing a more important and interesting work.

The Moravian missions carried on in remote districts, and involving an amount of self-denial and labour almost unparalleled, deserve still what they have so long enjoyed, the sympathy of the universal Church. The Free Church, the United Presbyterians, the

Methodist New Connection, have also their separate foreign missions, and it is cheering to think that half a million is thus annually employed in this glorious work, a sum miserably small as compared with the grandeur of the enterprise, but large when contrasted with the doings or even the hopes of the Churches fifty years ago.

In future numbers we shall go more into detail, and hope to keep our readers informed of any great movements in the mission field.

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DR. SMILES' "Lives of the Engineers" (Murray) is one of the most remarkable books of the month. Neither cost nor trouble has been spared in its preparation. facts have been carefully collected, and the style is well fitted to the subject. The book in truth is a marvellous tale of our national progress, and cannot fail to be read with deep interest. Finlay's "History of the Greek Revolution" (Blackwood and Sons) is a painstaking, impartial, and reliable narrative of a great event, whose full effect on the destinies of the Eastern world is not yet developed. The author's style lacks brilliancy, and superficial readers will pronounce his volumes dry, but his thorough acquaintance with his subject, and his unquestioned fairness, are substantial merits which will render his work invaluable to every historical student. Blackwoods publish in three ponderous volumes the Lives of the last two Marquesses of Londonderry," by Sir A. Alison. To those who have any curiosity about political fossils, these drivellings of Toryism of the Sidmouth and Castlereagh type may be amusing. As a contribution to history they are utterly worthless. St. John's "History of the Four Conquests of England" (Smith, Elder and Co.) will be welcomed by many, and will find its own niche even among the numerous publications on early English history which have recently come from the press. Pauli's "Pictures of Old England" (Macmillan) is a delightful book, and in every way suitable for a Christmas present. The 'Life of De Tocqueville," published by the "same house, ought to be read by every one. The "Golden Treasury of Songs and Lyrical Poems," by F. T. Palgrave, for which also we are indebted to Macmillans, is the choicest collection of its kind in our literature. On the theological issues from the same press we cannot speak in the same terms of satisfaction. No. IX. of "Tracts for Priests and People" will do

little to convince Dissenters from the Church of the honesty or wisdom of the course pursued by Dissenters in the Church. With these tracts, and other works of the same class, we shall deal hereafter. Before leaving this Cambridge house we are compelled to add that the republication of "Tom Brown at Oxford" is a great mistake, and we fancy the time will come when Mr. Hughes himself will wish that he had suffered this very feeble story to remain in the obscurity of old Magazines.

Messrs. Strahan, of Edinburgh, are doing good service by providing literature of a healthy tone for the masses. The present volume of "Good Words" is worthy of the highest commendation. Dr. M'Leod's volumes, "The Gold Thread," and "Wee

Davie," belong to the highest class of children's books. Madame de Gasparin's "Near and Heavenly Horizons" has already established its reputation. It is got up by Messrs. Strahan in admirable taste.

"Christ, the Light of the World" (Clark, Edinburgh), is an admirable exposition of the early part of John's Gospel. The sacramental theories of M. Bisset, who is himself a Lutheran, will meet little sympathy in this country, but, apart from this, the work will be read with deep interest. "The Sabbath," by Rev. J. Gilfillan (Edinburgh: A. Elliot and Maclaren) is an exhaustive book, full of valuable facts and cogent reasoning.

We have some volumes of sacred poetry before us worthy of commendation. Bonar's Hymns of Faith and Hope" (2nd series) deserve, and shall receive, a fuller notice. We are sure they will be gladly welcomed by all Christian households." Lyra Anglicana" (Houlston and Wright), and "Lyra Christiana" (Edinburgh: Maclaren), are both admirable selections. The last is the most varied, and is free from the ecclesiastical tendency manifest in the first.

THE decision in the Brading case is hailed by many as the proof that there are limits to the heterodoxy in which Anglican clergymen may safely indulge. The margin is sufficiently wide, but it is satisfactory to know that there is a limit somewhere. Recent events must have led many to doubt its existence altogether. Here for nearly two years have all sorts of anathemas been fulminated against the authors of the notorious "Says and Views," as a witty university don calls them. Never were the bishops so unanimous or the Convocation so determined -never were protests more largely signed or condemnations more loudly pronounced-never were "High Church" and "Low Church" so thoroughly in accord, their only rivalry being one of holy zeal against men who, by common consent, have betrayed the most sacred interests of religion. Yet despite all, what has been done? Professor Jowett has, by a device which can only injure those who have resorted to it, been punished for his theological errors by being mulcted of fair remuneration for his collegiate work. Dr. Williams has been tried, and a wonderful amount of learning and ingenuity displayed both for and against the prosecution. Mr. Wilson is to be tried, and when his time comes, no doubt the lawyers will again astonish the world by their familiarity with the knotty points of divinity. But the issue must be confessed to be No. 2.-VOL. I.

doubtful. Meanwhile, the scandal to the Establishment remains unabated. The world looks on with mingled wonder and pity at a church, which, professing to be the conservator of orthodoxy has not yet been able to expel from her ministry one of those whom her bishops had branded as teachers of infidelity.

But deliverance has come. Under present circumstances, it is something to know that there is a degree of heresy, which, if the Court of Arches is to be trusted, the law will not tolerate. The Morning Herald felt assured that no judge could so interfere with the sacred rights of property, as to injure a patron by depriving an incumbent of a living, merely because he preached error. By the writer and many others, subscription was evidently regarded as a mere farce, kept up, because, while all parties agreed to trample it under foot, none dare venture to propose. its abolition. It is satisfactory to learn that it has some force and significance after all. Evangelicals and Puseyites, High Church and Broad Church have all been so conscious of the inconsistency of their own position, that they have all sought to make subscription as unmeaning as possible, and the result has been, that the notions avowed by Mr. Wilson, have been accepted by many who would not so boldly proclaim them. The idea had gained ground, that no minister was so free as a clergyman of the

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Anglican Church; that, in fact, he might believe anything, nothing, or everything, just as he pleased. Dr. Lushington has dispelled this dream. What bishops and convocations could not do, he has done. His decision has proved at last that there is still some reality about the Act of Uniformity, and that there is an obligation resting on the clergy to uphold the Articles of their own church in their true, grammatical sense, which, if conscience does not enforce, law will.

After the miserable special plead ings to which of late we have been accustomed on points of this character, it is refreshing to find a man able to clear away all the sophistries with which the question had been so ingeniously surrounded, and to discern the issue that was really to be tried. "Shall we appeal to courts of law to decide points of doctrine ?" "Are the clergy to be bound hand and foot ?" "Are these old Tudor formularies to be rigidly enforced now ?" These and other queries of an equally relevant character had been so industriously put forth that the real question-the only one with which the court had to deal-was well nigh forgotten. All that the judge was asked to do (as he very clearly perceived and indicated) was to decide as to the real meaning of the engagements into which, as a clergyman of the Church of England, the defendant had entered. The suit was, in plain words, nothing more or less than an action for breach of contract. Whether that contract was wise or foolish was not a point on which the court had to pronounce. Such as it was Mr. Heath had accepted it, and was actually enjoying substantial benefit as the reward of his compliance. He was not compelled to submit to these conditions at first; he could, if he found them oppressive, renounce them at any moment, and with them the advantages which his subscription had secured for him.

Like all other contracts it had two parts-obligation and privilege; he could retain both or sacrifice both. What he had no right to do was to separate the two-repudiate his vows, but hold fast by his emoluments-claim perfect freedom, while holding fast by the price paid to him for his submisssion to restrictions. The court had only to enforce this principle-a principle so equitable that it is difficult to see how it can be questioned.

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The work of the judge was, therefore, much more limited than many suppose. It was not his business to discuss the wisdom of those tests which the law imposes upon the Anglican clergy. Though he might deem them an oppression to the individual conscience, a hindrance to free thought, a relic of the tyranny of the past, an absurd attempt to stereotype modes of expression, he was not the less bound to enforce their observance. He had not to inquire whether the Thirty-nine Articles were agreeable to Holy Scripture, perfectly consistent with themselves, and harmonious with the Prayer-Book. had to only deal with the facts of the case, and these were very simple. There was no doubt as to Mr. Heath's subscription no doubt that the honest compliance with the conditions of that subscription was essential to his holding preferment in the Church of England; the only point of difference was whether or not the teaching of his sermons was a violation of the vows he had so solemnly taken. This was the only issue tried, and the sentence was pronounced not because Mr. Heath's doctrines were false, but because they were in direct contradiction to those which the Church of England requires, and which he had solemnly engaged to preach.

There is one flaw only in the reasoning of the learned judge. In laying down the principle that what had been allowed or tole

rated in the Church ought not to be questioned by the court, he concedes to the clergy the right of altering in their own favour the conditions to whose observance they are pledged. In our view this is an unwarranted latitude. The Act of Uniformity is a parliamentary enactment, and the subscription it requires a legal obligation whose nature and extent are accurately defined. The mere fact that a certain latitude has been quietly assumed by the clergy does not affect the state of the law, and ought not to have any weight in a judicial decision. The expense and tediousness of proceedings in the ecclesiastical courts are alone sufficient to account for the immunity enjoyed by transgressors; and if this is to be pleaded in defence of any who have exposed themselves to the penalties of the statute, then the law becomes a mere sham. There have been many moral offences which have passed unnoticed for the same reason. Are they to become precedents to be pleaded in justification of future defendants ? The truth is, such a notion would not be entertained in any other department of law, and it would not have been permitted here were it not for the utter rottenness of the entire system, and the desire of all parties to postpone, if they cannot avert, that inevitable collision which is so rapidly approaching.

But even such an allowance could not avail the Brading vicar. His departures from the line of orthodoxy were so wide that one result only was possible. In reading some of the quotations submitted to the court our only wonder is at the state of conscience which could suffer a man holding such opinions, to retain his position as a clergyman. Mr. Maurice, indeed, with his usual chivalry, desires to throw a shield over him, and to remove a great portion of the blame to the Evangelical clergy, against whose excesses his teaching has been a protest. "His language is

that of an ingenious, erudite, solitary, eccentric thinker. He has been annoyed by certain statements and phrases of his brethren, which seem to him not material but unscriptural. He has tried to correct them by philological crotchets, which half a dozen persons in England may understand, or may perceive to contain the hint of truths, which few or none will adopt." We must put in opposition to representations so misleading the defendant's own words. "The more I study the Bible for myself the more astounding I find how many of the fundamental ideas and phrases of modern theology have been foisted upon us without sanction. One after another, no less than twenty of them, such as guilt of sin, pain and penalty, going to heaven, going to hell, immortality of the soul, satisfaction, imputed righteousness, appropriating the work of Christ necessary to salvation, all these have vanished from my system, because, as a minister of Christ studying these matters, I see them to be phrases and ideas, not only absent from Scripture, but darkening and confusing Holy Writ." It is evidently not a mere question of language, for Mr. Heath twice tells us that "phrases and ideas" have been rejected by him. It requires no very profound knowledge of theology to say whether these are mere eccentricities," and it cannot need any insight into the subtleties of law to decide whether a man avowing such opinions has any right to continue a minister of the Church of England.

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Mr.Maurice seems to have looked at this case and others of a like character only from one stand-point. He tells us that the common plea for such prosecutions is this, "We cannot afford to lose great theological distinctions; we cannot let philosophical notions be mingled with revelation." This is doubtless the view of many, but it is one in which we (and we are sure that we represent the opinions of numbers) have

no sympathy. Those who look to courts of law to distinguish between truth and error, to defend the one and repress the other, will meet nothing but disappointment, and may possibly find at some future day the very weapons they now use against others turned against themselves. But there are others whose interest in these proceedings, and whose approval of this decision arise from an entirely different cause. They view them with the eye of citizens rather than of sectarians, of moralists rather than divines. They believe that any patronage which the State extends to religion, is an injury and not a blessing, and that the bestowal of its favours upon one chosen class of religious teachers is an act of gross injustice to the rest. But they hold also, that when the State has resolved on such a course, and has distinctly specified the terms with which the members of this privileged body must comply, it is bound by every consideration of right rigidly to insist on the maintenance of the conditions it has prescribed. The Nonconformists, whose refusal to meet the requirements of the law has deprived them of the supposed benefits, are doubly wronged if the subscription itself is converted into an idle mockery.

But there is a higher aspect even than this. Nothing can be of greater importance than that the teachers of religion should hold a moral position defying even the possibility of attack. If they incur the suspicion of insincerity if their secret convictions are understood to be at variance with their public professions-if they appear to trifle with the responsibilities they have voluntarily undertaken, and in order to do so make words mere playthings, to suit their purpose, the effect in weakening their own power and lowering the moral tone of the whole community cannot be easily estimated. It is on this ground that many sincere friends of religious

liberty welcome these prosecutions as a protest in the interests of public morality against a mode of evading unwelcome obligations, which, if adopted in the common business of the world, would sap the very foundations of commercial confidence. They say, "We cannot afford to sacrifice morality even at the shrine of liberty. Free thought is a good thing, but integrity is, at least, as good and as essential to the well-being of society. We value both too much to allow the idea that the one can be secured only by the abandonment of the other. We have no desire to tie any one down to sixteenth century formularies, but we protest against the flagrant dishonesty of those who, while disbelieving the Articles, can yet retain advantages which the law restricts to those who do believe them. We abhor the special pleading by which such a course is justified, and we rejoice to find the law interfering to vindicate the cause of morality and justice."

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The talk about persecution in such a case is simply absurd. man is persecuted if, for real or any supposed religious errors he is deprived of his rights as a man or citizen, or even if his opinions subject him to any social or political disadvantage. A certain measure of persecution is endured by all Dissenters. In this sense, and in this only, can it be maintained that Mr. Heath is persecuted. The violation of the law of religious equality is the injustice, an injustice which he sustains in common with others. But this, we fancy, is the last ground on which he or his friends would desire to rest his case. They believe in the divine right of a national church, and are quite content that it should possess a certain character of exclusiveness. They desire only that it should include them and tolerate all the vagaries in which they choose to indulge. They are among the last, therefore, who could fairly urge the arguments which a