It appears that, on the 23d April last, Mr. Chirol "solicited, with more than usual earnestness, the office of curate in the parish of St. Paul's." * His reason for so doing is thus given by himself:-" In April last, as Mr. Bennet has stated, he kindly consented, at my earnest request, to appoint me one of his curates at Knightsbridge. At that time I was firmly convinced of the catholicity of the English Church. I believed that Anglicanism" (as it has been called-in other words, Tractarianism) "C was the true representation of the mind of the Church of England, and I wished to be placed where Church principles and doctrines were taught, and the Church system was fully carried out. For this and other reasons it was that I earnestly desired to be connected with St. Paul's, Knightsbridge."+ How cordially Mr. Chirol's "earnest request" was responded to by Mr. Bennet, is evident from the fact that Mr. Chirol was at once fixed on "to preside over the new (district) Church of St. Barnabas, and in the meantime got the charge of the new schools and district." Such an enthu siast for Church principles, who could serve with comfort only where "the Church system was fully carried out," was just the man for Mr. Bennet. His other curates, though doubtless of the same type, had probably given no such evidence of zeal for them as Mr. Chirol. Without trial, therefore, he is not only embraced with open arms, but appointed, over the heads of his brother curates, to the charge of the new district, there to expatiate and do his best for the development of the "Church system."

But alas for Mr. Bennet and the Church system! Mr. Chirol proves a broken reed. On the 24th of August-four months only from the time when he earnestly entreated to be appointed one of the curates at Knightsbridge, and but two months after he had entered on his duties-he intimates his intention of joining the Church of Rome. The purpose is soon completed, and Mr. Bennet, irritated to the quick, "comes out" immediately on the subject, in his sermon entitled "Apostacy." By the copy before us it appears that seven editions of it had passed through the press in less than as many weeks; which shows what a ferment the event had excited, and how eager was the desire to hear what the perpetual curate had to say for himself. And a precious production it is. We do not allude to the temper it displays. To this perhaps we should be a little indulgent. To have all the charges of semi-Romanism with which his views and his practices had been assailed more than confirmed in the person of one of his own curates-of one whom he had so lovingly embraced, and had with such breathless haste delighted to honour--was bad enough. But, ere his imprimatur had been well put upon him, to have his hopes from him cruelly blasted within the brief space of a couple of months-was too bad. §

Bennet, p. 11.

+ Chirol, pp. 3, 4.

Chirol, p. 4; Bennet, p. 11. Possibly there are other elements in the strong feeling which the sermon betrays. "It is a circumstance (says Caustic) well known to all conversant with the ecclesiastical movements of the last few years, that the Perpetual Curate' of that church, with its model services and rubrical minuteness, has long been hoping for Church preferment, and that his party have very significantly hinted his fitness for episcopal duties, as vide The English Churchman,' in reference to the newlycreated see of Manchester. Nor have they been slow to plume themselves on the fact that the Premier, Lord John Russell, is at least an occasional attendant on Mr. Bennet's ministry. How mortifying to have all these cherished aspirations dispersed these castles in the air destroyed!" (P. 13.)

On what topics does the reader suppose Mr. Bennet dwells on such an occasion? Is it the doctrinal errors and the anti-Christian character of the system which his curate had embraced, as contrasted with the reformed and scriptural character of the system he had abandoned? This would be rather too delicate ground for an Anglo-Catholic" priest. Accordingly, he tells us coolly in his preface, that he "has abstained most carefully from all topics of contro versy, because he has always thought that the gravamen of the sin of which our priests are guilty in abandoning the Church of England, is the violation of their oaths." Taking, therefore, for his text, Matt. v. 33: "Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform to the Lord thine oaths;" he spends his whole sermon in proving poor Chirol to be a perjured man; and what a shocking thing this perjury is, seeing that society cannot get on without faith.* No doubt Mr. Bennet imagines that the rapidity of the change may justify the suspicion of foul play, and fully warrant the peculiar line of discourse in which he indulges. But the weapon he uses is a two-edged one, and may prove more dangerous to himself, as a sworn subscriber of the Thirty-nine Articles, and eating the bread of a Protestant Establishment, than to the man who, by only ceasing to be inconsistent, has provoked his ire.

We can have no interest, of course, in defending Mr. Chirol; nor, from all we can hear of him, is he likely to prove a very valuable accession to the Roman Apostacy. But the very suddenness of his conversion speaks volumes on the true character of Anglicanism. Here, we think, Dr. Wiseman fairly has Mr. Bennet. He also has his theory of the rapidity of the change; and though it supposes an elevation of sentiment which we have seen no ground to believe that Mr. Chirol possesses, we cannot deny it the praise of more dignity and more verisimilitude than the gross insinuations of Mr. Bennet.

He

"Let us imagine (says the sleek Bishop of Melipotamus') a young Anglican clergyman disgusted with the appearance of his religion in its ordinary exercise [such as crippled services, the preference of a baptismal basin to a font, of a gown to a surplice,' and such like Protestant vulgarities, enough to disgust any Anglican ]. Damped in his ardour, crushed in his hopes, he turns his steps Romeward, meditating the while on the glorious services of the Apostolic Church, and the unity and peace of its disciples! But his career is arrested by learning that he has not yet seen or known the beauties of Anglicanism. He is drawn into new influences; the leader of the religious movement assures him that in the EstablishChurch-forgiveness of sin and peace of heart [done to order ment may be found all that he longs for in the Catholic by a priest-penitential observances and ascetic contemplation-fulness of doctrine and beauty of worship. hears of churches where all this is taught and observed; he thinks he has now found at home what he was going to seek abroad-a harbour, a shelter, a resting-place on earth. What wonder if he should address the head of one of these favoured spots, and solicit from him, with more than usual earnestness of entreaty, the office of curate in his parish.' His doubts for the moment are set at rest, his heaving breast is lulled into a calm. A holy work of zeal is before him. The Church (so he deems it) which he loves appears decked in her majesty at his side-his bride, his spouse; [for priests marry the Church] and, exultavit ut gigas ad currendam viam,' he starts on his course with a bounding heart, &c. And yet a few months have hardly elapsed, and he has sunk into new wretchedness-perplexity-almost despair, and he is found once more turning his eyes and his feet towards the peaceful realms of Rome. And what will the world say of all this?

* He is good enough, however, to put in a few saving clauses in his curate's favour. Among other charitable suppositions, he thinks it may be found that the poor man has been "bereft of reason."

Precisely what Mr. Bennet fears it will say in the present case, that it has all come from a false bias towards Rome,' given by the teaching and practice of this doubly reformed Church. It will say,See what comes of your Romanizing in doctrine and in worship- of your preaching up sacraments, the real presence, sacerdotal absolution, fasting, and works-of your high views of priestly authority and apostolical successionyour daily services and weekly communion, and observance of saints' days. These have been so many steps on his Rome.""

way

to

But Dr. Wiseman is not contented with this homage to his Church. It is not enough for him to say that Tractarianism brings its votary to the very edge of the line that separates Anglicanism from Romanism, and that going to bed one night an Anglican, he may find himself, to his own astonishment, a Romanist on awaking next morning. That is not the truth of the matter, according to him. It is that Anglicanism is a cheat, and that the poor devotee, disgusted to find, as he soon comes to do, that it has taken him in, goes over to Rome, just to get the reality of which this Anglicanism is but the shadow.

"No! (he haughtily continues), the world, [in thus judging of the man's change,] would be, as it generally is, wrong.. It is the disappointment tenfold imbittered, of generous hopes wound up to the highest pitch, that has caused the disgust, and led to its natural result. Even where he had fondly hoped to find a Church full of life, and of vigour, and of power, he has discovered, on trial, that all is hollow, unreal, and unsound. The staff on which he has been taught to lean, of apostolical authority, proves a broken reed, which, besides letting him fall, will pierce his hand.... The services to which he looked forward as fraught with stately majesty, are but sapless and tasteless in their monotonous repetition; and the attempt to throw ceremonial forms over their bare and dry observances is little better than to cast a purple robe over a skeleton or a corpse.

That the efforts which men devoted, like Mr. Bennet, to Anglicanism, are making to raise its character and position, lead many to the Church, there can be no doubt; but it is not, as the world may judge, by gradually raising their views-it is by disappointing them: it is not by familiarizing their senses and minds with Catholic forms and ideas, but rather by proving to them, without leaving room for further hope, that these can have no reality in connection with Anglicanism, nor out of communion with the Catholic Church. The experience of many past conversions will prove this. Instead, therefore, of Mr. Bennet's wondering at such a change occurring under his ministry, and without any variation in outward circumstances, he ought to learn that inward conviction may flash on any of his flock, and that THEIR CONVERSION MAY FOLLOW FROM

THE VERY MEANS WHICH HE IS EMPLOYING TO RETAIN

THEM." (Pp. 31-34.)

We think there is something more than ingenious plausibility in these remarks, intended to account for the suddenness of Mr. Chirol's conversion. Whether this individual be entitled to such a defence, is to us a matter of perfect indifference. But as against Mr. Bennet and the Tractarians, who can fail to see that the oily prelate has the best of it? Other extracts, if we had room for them, would illustrate this superiority in the argument still better. Nor can we resist giving in a foot-note one or two of the more striking passages, that the reader may see how ridiculous these Romanizing toys look in the presence of real Romanism.*

"Mr. Bennet does not hesitate to call 'holy orders' a sacramental rite; and yet he knows that his Articles, which he as well as Mr. Chirol has subscribed, reject that doctrine. He may explain away and refine upon the matter; but he knows as well as any one that the simple, straightforward, and commonly received by his own bishops, interpretation of those Articles is against him. Mr. Bennet calls upon you (Mr. Chirol) to go to confession to him, and be taken to the bishop for absolution; . . . . and yet he knows full well

From the foregoing statements the reader will be prepared, we presume, to go along with us in the three following remarks, which want of space obliges us to express with the utmost brevity:—

(1.) That there can be no ria media between that a few months ago a young clergyman at Leamington was not only reproved, but deprived by the Bishop of Worcester, for inculcating and practising confession. It is, in truth, a fact too notorious to need mention, that the leaders of this party, or aigos, in the Anglican Establishment, heed but little the wishes or the opinions of the bishops, nor even their jurisdiction. They go from diocese to diocese, taking on themselves the guidance of the consciences of others, whether personally or by letter, without the slightest regard to the views of the immediate minister of the parish or diocese: they solve their doubts; prescribe their penitential acts; absolve them; nay, go bondsmen for their very souls; staking their own salvation to keep them back from the Catholic Church, with a boldness that savours of desperation, and an assurance that claims infallibility. This autocracy, into which what is commonly called Puseyism, has degenerated or grown up (for there are morbid growths as well as ulcerous cavities in an unsound state of body), which began by prostrate submission to the episcopate, and has ended by utter recklessness of its wishes, is thoroughly displayed in Mr. Bennet's sermon. But the most amazing exhibition of it he has given to the world in a more judicial form. I allude to that celebrated Notice,' promulgated by him and his friends in various ways, and now printed at the end of his sermon. [This is nothing less than a priestly anathema, fulminated against Mr. Chirol, not unlike that emitted against Sir William Dunbar by We, William,' of Aberdeen, to whose especial attention we recommend what follows.] So long as gentlemen of Mr. Bennet's class amuse themselves and others by innocent imitations of Catholicity, so long even as they pretend to handle the keys of the Church, we may look upon their acts with complacency of hope, trusting that they may be led on to the desire of realities, with the shadows whereof they have become enamoured. But when they rashly lay their hands on the awful thunderbolts which she commits not to any but the strongest hands, and but to be rarely and awfully employed; when, like children playing with edge-tools, they wantonly thrust and hit around them, it is indeed a demonstration of discipline destroyed, which fills every calm beholder with wonder and dismay." (Pp. 17, 18, 20, 21.)

"It is not easy to discover what Mr. Bennet means by the Church... If the high-Anglican divine desire to exalt Churchmanship above Dissent, and dazzle the mere Protestant into admiration of Church principles, he passes over the limits both of insular and of insulated England, to the times when Catholic unity bridged over her sea, and made her one with distant lands. It is the Church not only of the martyrs and confessors, but of 'virgin saints' and monastic fathers, that is extolled; nay, the very Borromeos and Teresas, no less than the Bernards and the Aquinases, are flowers of that glorious tree; and the virtues of prelates and the conversion of nations, and the noble productions of art and of genius, under whatever sun and whatever hierarchy brought forth, are all evidences of the divine origin and heavenly destinies of that one imperishable Church. Nothing is said THEN of the glories of Anglicanism; they talk of the great and holy men in the old English Church who built our splendid cathedrals-I have never heard any one boast of the Church that built St. Paul's. They tell you of the Church that produced a Wykeham, a St. Edmund, a St. Wilfrid-not of that which brought forth a Parker, a Ken, or a Wilson. And why? Because they are speaking of 'THE Church,' that which is to overawe and convince the Dissenter. But it is the Church of England' that next comes forward to demand allegiance. And he is an apostate' who presumes to believe in England as it is true to believe in France. Such is the theory of the second Church-that of England. By a few easy substitutions, the National Establishment is invested with all the prerogatives of the first Church, and is spoken of as though no other existed on earth. Schism, which is a rending of Christ's seamless garment, yea, of his very body, means no longer a separation from that universal Church to which such a symbol would naturally apply, but a secession from the National Establishment." (Pp. 10-14.)

ROMANISM and PROTESTANTISM. If the "Church principles " of the Tractarian school be right, they have not gone far enough on the way to Rome; if wrong, they have gone a great deal too far. Apostolic succession, priesthood, the real presence, and the whole "circle of Tractarian ideas," must be repudiated, if the party would not be sucked into the vortex of Rome.

(2.) That by unchurching all Dissenters from the Church of England in Britain, and from the Romish Church on the Continent,* while themselves are held as schismatics by the very Romanists whom they caress, these Anglicans stand self-excluded from the communion of nearly all Christendom, and make themselves schismatics in the most contemptible and odious sense of the term.

(3.) That as Tractarianism has proved itself a bridge, by which earnest and simple-minded men get easily over from Protestantism to the Roman apostacy-sad indeed must be the state of that Church which has allowed such a bridge to be built, and sees its members in hundreds crossing it. "No dallying with Rome," must be the motto of the English Church, if it would stand in the evil day; and more than ever should out-and-out evangelical Protestantism be endeared to all the enlightened friends of religion.

THE SHIPWRECKS OF 1843.

MANY of our readers will remember the effects that were produced when The Lockhart Papers were first published some years ago. The veil was then withdrawn which had hidden, for upwards of a hundred years, that nefarious procedure by which Infidel statesmen and their creatures corrupted and weakened the Church of Scotland, in the reign of Queen Anne. That Church had for several years enjoyed a large measure of spiritual freedom, while its liberty was guaranteed by national deeds which rank among the most solemn that ever were adopted. But a pure, and therefore strong Institution, which stood in the way of Infidel and unloyal men, like Bolingbroke and his associates, must be corrupted, and so weakened. To accomplish that object, proceedings the most unprincipled were adopted, and efforts, which proved only too successful, put forth. A century rolled away, and the secret machinations were disclosed; a glimpse was given into the scenes, amid which rulers sit to plot so often against liberty; and it would be difficult to say whether the base cunning that planned, or the bold precipitancy that hurried the iniquitous measures of Bolingbroke through the British Parliament, should occasion the strongest revulsion in upright minds.

In 1843, the Church of Scotland passed through a somewhat similar process; but the results were more promptly matured. Instead of being the victim of

* Will it be believed that the "English Churchman” rates the French Protestants for being in a state of separation from the Gallican Church, and recommends them forthwith to terminate the schism? "Our Protestant brethren in

France' (says this Tractarian journal, for January 13, 1848), are upon a par with the lowest Dissenters in this country, and have nothing in common with the Church of England, either in doctrine or discipline. Let them join the Gallican Church, and endeavour to reform. This will be more beneficial to Christianity than making endless divisions in a country where there are, alas! very few Christians, and where the Church has to contend against an immense mass of infidelity!'

a deep-laid plot, which required about a century for the full development of its effects, she was violently disestablished by statesmen who appeared to be ready to leave everything free except the Church of Christ. Popery, trade, education-all may be left uncramped and unfettered; manacles are reserved only for the Church of the Redeemer.

and

The time has not come, when the secret and delusive information by which statesmen were blinded and misled can be laid before the public. It is reserved for our children, or perhaps our children's children, to read and be amazed at the private, perhaps the false and garbled, information transmitted by renegade churchmen to politicians, who were making their informants their tools. The communications of such men as M- and P, and S L-, important only as the men that now rule in Paris are important, because a strange combination of events had raised them to influence, may yet produce astonishment in ages to come as deep and as indelible in the disgrace which they affix, as that with which the revelations made by the Lockhart Papers have branded the men that plotted against the liberties of the Church of Christ about a century and a half ago.

But meanwhile, though it is not, and may never be, the privilege of the existing generation to have these things all explained, till the day when the secrets of all hearts shall be laid bare, we have the means of forming a general estimate of the deteriorating effects of unfaithfulness to their most solemn vows, which characterized not a few about the period of the Disruption. We need only look at the surface of society to see how the effects of principle abandoned, and consistency shipwrecked, have been felt among men. The shock thus given to principle; the unblushing front with which some among us braved public opinion, and rushed forward to solicit the posts vacated by honest men, whom they had abandoned in the hour of need; the consequent encouragement given to the godless; the countenance showed to men who reckon principle a cobweb, and conscience a cloak for hypocrisy;-all these are matters which may not be easily estimated, to their full extent, by us who have so recently emerged from the din and struggle of the controversy; but that a grave deterioration and damage has been inflicted, no one who even glances at society can fail to observe. There has been a loud, but not too loud an outery, against the dereliction of principle, which recent years have displayed among the aristocracy of France-What other estimate can be formed regarding doings much nearer home?

Yet one of the most remarkable features in the

66

renegadism to which we allude, is the promotion that has been heaped on those who abandoned their principles, when it became expensive or dangerous to maintain them. One, for instance, opposes Lord Aberdeen's bill in 1840; and subscribes the solemn engagement, as in holy covenant with God and one another;" soon thereafter he records his vote for the Claim of Rights in 1842; he attends the Convocation, and subscribes the first set of resolutions in November of that year; and then, as if by some Hindu or Druidical transmigration, or some Pythagorean metempsychosis, he becomes a candidate in 1843 for a church in Edinburgh. There were high-minded men, indeed, among the councillors there, and the unblushing apostasy was met as it deserved. It was too recent, too flagrant and notorious, to admit of success; but

men of kindred mind were found in the West who delighted to honour one so like themselves, though in doing so they only illustrated the adage, Like people, or like patron, like priest.

Another perhaps passes into Strathbogie, in defiance of interdicts; opposes Lord Aberdeen's bill, and subscribes the declaration against it, to the effect that "nothing short of a full recognition" of the two principles-non-intrusion and spiritual independence -could "bring about peace and harmony;" stedfastly contends for non-intrusion and spiritual independence; but in the hour of trial abandons all—he seeks, and of course easily finds, pretexts for giving his cherished opinions "to the winds." Nay, it is possible that, in a few brief years, we may see such an individual lifted into the chair where men preside over a dishonoured institute, which has consented to let an earthly Legislature supersede non-intrusion, and exterminate spiritual independence. The effacing of the distinctions between right and wrong, the abandoning of principle, and the desertion of a cause he most sacred, thus receive the solemnly deliberate sanction of the Establishment. It heaps the highest honour which it can confer, on one who had once stoutly opposed the principles of "stringent control on the part of the State," on which the Establishment is, according to Sir R. Peel, now avowedly based.

Yet another may exhibit to us a still more complex case of tergiversation in conduct, and plasticity of conscience. He is first of all a Moderate, and ranks for a season among its rising hopes. He sees, however, that Evangelism is gaining the ascendant-and he veers.

He becomes in due time a warm advocate for non-intrusion and spiritual independence. He is even active for a season in rousing the people to think of their privileges and rights. In 1840, he opposes Lord Aberdeen's bill; speaks and votes against it; broadly tells, in one of the debates on the Strathbogie case, that men must "cast their stipends to the winds," rather than compromise their principles; yet ends at last in making a thorough somerset, and becoming an active advocate of the views of "The Forty." He is now rewarded by being pushed

forward to defend, as such men can defend, the wholesale pillage of the quoad sacra churches. Men become bold by being familiarized with the dereliction of principle: the distinctions between right and wrong are more and more trodden down, and damaged characters, without blanching, hold the places which should be occupied only by men who "hold the truth in a pure conscience." When these things have mellowed into history, it will be difficult to credit the contents of the dark page on which such doings must be recorded.

The

We pass over many other examples of men who vacillated between conscience and interest, till their difficulties received a melancholy termination in the entire abandonment of principles, and the practical denial of opinions, often advocated with a boldness which seemed to bid temptation defiance. effects of such procedure among men who should have stood forward as standard-bearers, have been to lower the tone of public morals, to furnish the enemies of Christian truth with one of their sharpest weapons against it, and bring dishonour, as far as man can, on the holy name by which we are called. One or two men, who never made any such pretensions as some of the unhappy parties to whom we allude, declined presentations to vacant churches,

because they could not in conscience occupy the pulpits of those who had abandoned all for conscience' sake. How different their position from that of the men who committed moral suicide with deliberate resolution, first, in abandoning principle themselves; and secondly, by rushing into the pulpits of the men who had abandoned all for principle's sake! The

But we pass to another view of the case. time has not yet come when we can see the secret springs of that conspiracy which was formed in the spring of 1843 against the liberties of the Church of Christ, as it was then established. But, in the meantime, there are glimpses occasionally breaking in to enable us to understand the disclosures which will be made when some future M'Crie shall give his "Sketches of 1843;" or some future Palgrave, digging into the Home Office repositories, shall produce his "Documents Illustrative of Scottish History," in that memorable year. We have before us, for example, a letter sent by one of the Forty-a man who had been all stir, and nervousness, and bustle, for spiritual independence a few weeks before, but who abandoned his position, and falsified all his pledges, when danger grew imminent. Having sacrificed his own tenets, it was natural that he should seek to entrap and ensnare others—and he tried it. He thus writes to one whose principles he utterly mistook— whose firmness of purpose, by the grace of God, it was not in the power of renegadism to shake :

:

"You have adhered," says this reverend emissary, for reprobating whose procedure we can scarcely find words sufficiently emphatic

"You have adhered to the Resolutions of the Convocation; but I hope you are still ready to agree to such a settlement as would cover the principle of non-intrusion."

The writer of these base words had stanchly advocated, not merely non-intrusion, which every one knows eventually became of secondary importance in the controversy, but, moreover, the Church's munications corrupt good manners, and Spiritual claim to Spiritual Independence. But evil comIndependence is now prudently dropt. It is slurred 1843) that Government would not concede it, and it out of being. It was known by that time (February is discreetly never mentioned by one who had professed and blustered about it, like many more, when danger was distant.

The man who made this attempt on a brother's virtue, proceeds :

"I have every reason to believe that the Government would willingly give Sir G. Sinclair's clause with the clearest expression of Dr. Gordon's objection; and they would give it now, if they could be induced to believe that any considerable number of the majority would take it."

Let the reader mark what follows:"The Government will positively not give more, and they will not, I fear, give this without such assurance."

Here, then, is a glimpse behind the veil of mystery. We know not how our readers feel; but, in perusing this sentence, we are forcibly reminded of Sharpe, the infamous archbishop, while he misrepresented the too confiding Scottish brethren in London, and was all the while basely bargaining with Charles II. to sell the men who trusted the traitor, for a mitre. Here is a man professing to be a minister of Christ, who has coolly merged his Church's claim to independence of created power, and deliberately made up his mind-just to take what he could get, and cling to his temporalities. "The Govern