cent are those names and ceremonials which she actually does retain, and endeavor, moreover, to satisfy him how much more convenient, as well as venerable, are those "ancient edifices," in all their pristine beauty, of which he complains, to the desecrated ruins which, in Scotland, mark the reforming hand of Knox and his followers. In this manner, too, does our author venture to speak of twelve thousand laboring clergy, of whom, perhaps, he scarcely knew one: "If we may judge of them by their fruit, they are mere men of the world in a canonical dress. They are so far from wishing to be thought to have ever experienced any other than baptismal regeneration, that hardly any thing would give them more uneasiness than the apprehension of lying under such a methodistical stigma." (p. 57.) Our answer to this, is — what are, and have been, the fruits of the English church, we may safely leave christendom to acknowledge; while what are the inward "wishes" of the hearts of her sons, we must be contented to leave to that day when alone they will be revealed. Christian charity forbids our taking them on the "showing" of Dr. Humphrey.

Our author appeared in England as the "American delegation [delegate?] to the congregational union of England and Wales." It was, therefore, natural he should speak well of his own, and, doubtless, what he says of their worth, talent, and devotion to duty, is well deserved, and we rejoice at it; but when we find all his praises reserved for what he terms the "bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh," we and others then feel that we have a right to complain, that he who speaks to the public, should thus forget the rights of the public - and that he should not make drafts on his readers at large, which are current, and will be honored, only within his own pale.

The traveller, we say, who can visit England without recognizing the christian blessings that have been secured to it by its established church, must be, in our opinion, both blind to the present, and deaf to the voice of the past. If he cannot see that dissent, in proportion as it has wandered from that fold, has wandered also into the wilderness of heresy and schism, he looks at the facts before him with other eyes than we do. It is, we think, in the shade and shelter alone of the establishment, that dissenters have found their safety. We will not put to Dr. Humphrey the case of the independents of England-their condition is a question too near home; but we will ask him what is the picture he himself has given of the presbyterians, the quakers, and the methodists. Of the first, he acknowledges that they are "chiefly unitarians;" to which we would add their own acknowledgment, in open court, in their late application for a share in Lady Hewley's benefaction, that, at the period of her death, that is, within fifty years after their secession from the established church, their departure from its orthodox faith was matter of such common notoriety, that she could not but have been cognizant of it; and as she did not notice it, it could not therefore, as they reasoned, have intended their exclusion. But our business is only with the facts.

Of the quakers, he says, that there as here, "a separation is approaching, and on the same grounds;" that is, a denial of the divinity of Jesus Christ. Of the methodists, too, he gives the following lamentable picture of that curse of schism which is daily working out in them its necessary fruits; we wish we could add, its sufficient cure. Wesley, during his life, kept his followers safe by keeping up his connexion with the church; but Dr. Humphrey goes on to add, "since his death, the Wesleyan connexion have receded still further from the establishment in their forms of worship and church polity." ... "Besides these, (the new connexion and the Wesleyan association,) there are some other off-shoots from the parent methodist stock, consisting in the aggregate, it is supposed, of seventy or eighty thousand; as the Kishamites, the primitive methodists, the independent methodists, the Bryamites," &c. &c. (pp. 70, 71.)

We will quote but one other passage in the way of blame, though that is too strong a word-it is but to show the contradictory workings of our author's liberal spirit and his narrow literary creed. In reference to the writings of Sir Walter Scott, he exclaims in holy condemnation: "could I safely put them into the hands of my children without note or comment? I wish I could, &c. But my conscience will not allow me to do it," (p. 89.) Such is his ex-cathedra decision; it is the voice of the artificial not the natural and true man, for when he comes to Loch Katrine his heart opens, and he pours forth with taste and energy the appropriate passages from the Lady of Lake, which frequent perusal had doubtless made familiar to himself, and we will trust also to his children. But we have done with censure. We close with his eloquent eulogium upon England, and one in which we fully accord; we approve of the sentiment, and admire the expression:

"Finally, England is an exceedingly proud nation, and it would be the greatest moral anomaly in the history of the world if she were not-for never had any nation so much to be proud of. England! whose morning drum beat,' to adopt the beautiful sentiment of our own Webster, keeping pace with all the hours of the day, never ceases to proclaim her martial glories! She is proud of her own little island, and the more so because it is so little and yet so mighty. She is proud of her London, her Liverpool, her Manchester, and all her great man. ufacturing towns and districts. She is proud of her princely merchants, of her immense commerce, of her enormous wealth, and even of her national debtfor what other nation on the globe, she exultingly demands, could pay the interest of such a debt without any perceptible check to her prosperity? She is proud of her navy, of her dock yards, of her arsenals, and of her Greenwich palace for invalid pensioners. She is proud of her vast foreign possessions and dependencies, of her Quebec and her Gibraltar, of her tributary princes and her emancipated islands. She is proud of her parliament, her Westminster Hall, and Westminster Abbey; of her Drakes and Nelsons, and Marlboroughs and Wellingtons; of her statesmen and orators and poets; of her Coke, her Littleton, her Bacon, her Newton, her Butler, her Locke, her Davy, her Arkwright, and a thousand other illustrious names that adorn the pages of her history. She is proud of what she has been, proud of what she is, proud of the anticipated verdict of posterity in her favor. And last, though not least, she is beginning to be proud of her once wayward daughter on this side the Atlantic, though she is still too proud very openly to confess it.". pp. 189, 190.

11.- Baccalaureate Discourse, delivered in Ross Chapel, Gambier, to the Senior Class of Kenyon College, on the Sunday immediately preceding the annual commencement, September 6, 1837. By the Reverend CHARLES P. M'ILVAINE, D.D., Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Ohio, and President of the College. Gambier, 1837. pp. 16.

THIS discourse, like all others from this right reverend prelate, is a strong and direct enforcement of christian duties upon christian principles. The occasion, too, is one that alike justifies and rewards such an appeal. The moment of passing from the college into the world, is one of deep feeling to every right-minded youth, and impressions there made may, and often do, under the grace of God, operate for eternity as well as time; we therefore wish that such discourses were more frequent than they are from the heads of our colleges, on such occasions, and that commencement day should be one of advice received by the young as well as given. With these views we cordially wish that the present may serve as an excitement, though not, we must add, in all respects as a model. In affectionate earnestness, there can be none better; but in an academic discourse from the president of a college, we would require (what the manifold duties of the episcopal head of Kenyon College forbid him to give) more of thought, labor, and finish. He should appear as was said of Chrysostom, Εν φιλοσοφε σχήματι τὸ Θεῖὸν διδάσκων,

12.- The Necessity of Religion to the Prosperity of the Nation—a Sermon preached on the day of Public Thanksgiving and Prayer appointed by the Governor of Ohio, in the Chapel of Kenyon College. By the Right Reverend C. P. M'ILVAINE, D. D., December 14, 1837. Gambier, pp. 31.

THERE are few productions from the pen of our gifted author that we should be inclined to rank above this. It is a clear and forcible argument on a vital and all important question, and one on which the public mind greatly needs instruction. The question here put is, "whether it be true that no religion, christian or any other, is recognized and espoused in the principles, framework, and laws of this republic." The affirmative of this proposition, that is, the denial of religion as the basis of our social system, is the fearful assumption against which he contends. After an eloquent expression of thankfulness for the official recognition of religion, involved in the appointment of the day and its purposes; the

1838.] Report of the Bishop White Prayer Book Society. 245

bishop proceeds to argue the general question, with a force and precision of argument and language, we think beyond his wont. The conclusion to which he comes is unquestionably the true and just one. Religion is our basis, recognized and acknowledged, and christianity is our choice-one involved by necessary implication in the whole frame work of our constitution and laws, the founders of them having "only exercised the right of selection where some selection must be made, and then chosen the only wise and good." In support of this conclusion, he adduces partly in the discourse, but chiefly in the appendix, the leading legal authorities on this question. The grounds on which he puts the essential connexion between religion and the true prosperity of the nation are twofold:

1. That the most powerful and permanent sources of disorder and wretchedness in the community, are those which no laws but those of God can reach and regulate.

2. That God has so determined it.

That this deeply interesting question, whether or no we be a christian government, has here received its full and satisfactory solution we have not asserted, and we do not think; not only do the limits of a pulpit discourse forbid such extension, but more than that, it is a question that runs so deep into our nature, as to require an analytic power of reasoning, and a depth of learned research to treat it as it deserves, such as few, very few, can bring to the task. To master that argument would require the learning of Warburton, the acuteness of Butler, and the moral force of Johnson, combined with the constitutional jurisprudence of a Marshall, Kent, and Story. We are gratified, however, to see rising up from so many quarters indications of right reasoning on this subject; and among others, a recent work from our city press, which will probably call forth a more enlarged expression of our opinions in the next number of the Review. In the meantime, we most cordially commend the discourse of Bishop M'Ilvaine, and above all his argument, to the serious attention of our readers.

13.-The Fifth Annual Report of the Bishop White Prayer Book Society, at its Annual Meeting, May 16, 1838. Philadelphia:

Pp. 15.

THE Bishop White Prayer Book Society has been in operation four years; during which time it has distributed 17,671 copies of that most excellent of all formularies of devotion, among the poor and the dispersed members of the church-among sailors in the navy, prisoners in penitentiaries, and some for the use of foreign

missions. This society, therefore, has been doing a labor of love, and doubtless of much usefulness; we regret to find that its funds, and consequently its means of action, are diminished. The reviving prosperity of the country, still more the reviving zeal of the church, we trust, and indeed doubt not, will soon restore them. The report, in addition to its general interest, may be further recommended as containing a just, however oft repeated eulogium, on the liturgy of the church In the appeal to churchmen by a prayer book society, such can never be out of place; and it is an argument beginning, we think, to operate powerfully far beyond those limits. The christian world has of late years, more especially in our country, had a pretty effective homily read to them on the Pauline text, 1 Corinthians, xiv. 40, "Let all things be done decently and in order."

14.- An Address to the People of New Jersey on the subject of Common Schools. Burlington, N. J.

We are no great friends to primary meetings, and self-constituted sources of legislation for the correction of evils in the community; but if there be a case excepted, it would be the cause of education; and if any fruit could justify them, it would be such an address as the present. Though emanating from a committee, it is unquestionably the production of the right reverend bishop of the diocese of New Jersey; and indeed it is easy to recognize in it the direct vigorous home style of his ever ready energetic pen, and we know nothing among his popular efforts more worthy of it. This address is the result of a voluntary school convention, that met in Trenton on the sixteenth of January last. Their powers devolving upon a general committee, sub-committees of correspondence were by them established, with a view to gather facts, diffuse information, and organize public influence in favor of the object. To these sub-committees, a circular and queries, from the central one, have been directed; and, finally, to "the people of New Jersey" the address now before us sent forth. All this, doubtless, is well done and skilfully done, and nothing but good can be the result; and yet it is a machinery that in other hands would be equally effective for evil. It presupposes "good," in order to produce "good;" and it is certainly a high test of the prudence or virtue of a people, when the ship of state can be habitually put under this high steam movement without endangering its safety or its course. But, after all, there is one practical defect in all legislation for schools, arising out of the popular will: the executive department