The Pulpit.

If we desert our proper stations and rush into the world, if we consider our preferments merely as life-estates, without any regard to the personal services and personal duties with which they are charged, we shall most assuredly forfeit the good opinion, and, with that, the support of the state; the firm ground we now stand on will sink under our feet; we shall be left to combat our adversaries (who are neither few nor inactive) as well as we can; and we shall furnish them with arms against us infinitely more powerful than any they could fabricate themselves, and which they will not fail to use to our annoyance, perhaps ultimately to our destruction.—

Bishop Porteus's Primary Charge to the Clergy of the Diocess of London.

THE RIGHT REVEREND

BEILBY PORTEUS, D. D.

BISHOP OF LONDON.

REVERTING no farther back than to the era of our last political renovation, it is pleasing to recollect those episcopal characters, who, while enjoying the highest dignities and emoluments of our ecclesiastical establishment, have justified their distinction by their deserts. What

ever of imperfection is found to attach to the administration of its complex concerns, the Church of England may still be congratulated on the number of eminent ecclesiastics whom she has nurtured and exhibited. It is among these luminaries in the firmament of righteousness, these fixed stars, that the subject of our present notice will shine with perceptible lustre.

Many pious persons, however, seem to mistake the functions peculiar to the episcopal character. Blending the preacher with the prelate, or not separating the two, these men censure bishops for not doing what it is by no means their duty to perform. Preaching, it should be known, is merely incidental to episcopacy; since the mitre enjoins duties distinct from, but equally important with those of, the pulpit. Strictly the bishop of souls, the Christian Bishop, if he fulfils his part, is perfectly employed in superintending the spiritualities of the church to which he belongs, and watching the conduct of those pastors to whom the people look up for their religious instruction.

Nevertheless is it desirable that prelates should occasionally appear as preachers. Both the example and the effect of prelatical preaching are good. While the example stimulates the exertions of subordinate ecclesiastics, the public effect is beneficial to the interests of episcopal establishments. Christians, who are still men, do not contemplate with indifference their constitutional dignitaries; but if these are what they ought to be, characters equally distinguished for their ability as eminence, and for their piety as dignity, they must be considered really superior to the rest of mankind, and are entitled to our sincere homage. Never is the pulpit so filled as when it contains its prelate. When the prelate becomes the pulpit, it is then seen how much the pulpit becomes the prelate.

More than twenty years have elapsed since BISHOP PORTEUS was promoted to the see which he now fills. It has been his lot to occupy this elevated station, important under any circumstances, during trying times.

Assailed by philosophical infidelity, menaced by religious sectarism, and divided by internal schism, the Church of England needed the most effectual exertions of her best sons; and, happily for her prosperity, there has been found, among her children, ability equal to her actual exigency. Some of her principal dignitaries, her illustrious lights, are seen to be those who, in the language of one capable of estimating their worth,

"In trembling hope, walk humbly with their God!”

It is not for me, however, to produce a mere panegyric on the eminent prelate of whom I now speak. I desire seriously to appreciate his clerical character, connected with the state of religion at this time; and to draw some interesting inferences, particularly as to his pulpit powers and the influence of his episcopal example..

Beilby Porteus, of respectable birth, having enjoyed the right advantages of preparatory education, distinguished himself among his university contemporaries, at Christ's College,