REVIEWS AND NOTICES.

Tales for my Godson; translated and adapted from the German of Franz Hoffman. By FRANCES M. WILBRAHAM. London: J. Masters.

THESE are pleasing little stories, to which full justice has been done by a correct and elegant translation. Reading for young people is perhaps the only branch of literature in which we can borrow with profit from our German neighbours. They certainly excel in the art of pleasing children, however much they go astray in their more important productions; and they are especially happy in their manner of clothing the most familiar truths of religion with a poetic beauty which is very attractive to the young mind. Tales for my Godson" are however more interesting than instructive.

We are glad to receive another Plain Statement of the Church's doctrine of Holy Baptism, by the Rev. J. FINCH SMITH. (Masters.) It quite justifies its title, and we trust that local influence may secure it a large circulation in the Potteries, the very unorthodox neighbourhood, it appears, of the author's benefice. It is only by the continuance of such efforts in detail, that the truth can under God ultimately be established.

In Higher Claims, or Catherine Lewis the Sunday-school Teacher, (Masters,) we are glad to observe the shadowing forth of an idea which might be worked out to a most profitable extent, viz., the great advantage that would accrue to the Church if the young persons of the middle classes were aroused to consider the full extent of her claims upon them, as well as on their superiors in wealth or station. So far as it goes this little work carries out the attempt very fairly; but it seems destined to have a continuation which will probably enhance its value. The Young Soldiers, Annandale, and other Tales, (Masters,) are excellent, as conveying important truths in the smallest compass and the simplest form.

The Monthly Packet, or Evening Readings for the younger members of the Church of England, (Mozley,) seems to us to give less, and less varied matter than our old friend" The Churchman's Companion." We do not say this to its disparagement; but simply because it appears to us that a publication is scarcely likely to answer unless it possesses some novel or peculiar features. We should ourselves advise the conductors of both these periodicals to give rather fewer tales, and more of solid practical instruction and information.

Whom has the Pope aggrieved? (Masters,) is the title of a very clever and telling tract, by the Rev. HENRY NEWLAND. It should be generally circulated.

Thoughts on the present thoughts of peace and comfort.

distress, (Oxford: J. H. Parker,) are

"Is there not a cause?"

GOD is love, (Hamilton and Adams,) is an indirect and most obscure method of stating the condition of parochial matters at Brighton, by the vicar. It appears that the levying of church rates, owing to long disuse, is very unpopular in that town, and there is a society formed there now for resisting them. We do not wonder at it: Church principles have never been taught at Brighton. In the sermon and notes, appeals ad misericordiam and “evangelical "formulæ mingle strangely with quotations from the law books of Westminster Hall.

We hail the appearance of The Plain Chant of 1. The Order for Morning and Evening Prayer and the Litany; 2. The Office of the Holy Communion; 3. The Chants or Tones, (Rivington and Darling,) as showing that, notwithstanding the puritanism of the late agitation, the feeling in favour of Catholic ritual continues still unabated. Both octaves of the plain tune are given throughout; and rightly, as we conceive, to obviate the general notion that in congregational music the air should properly be confined to the trebles; whereas, not only should both the tenor and treble voices of the congregation give the tune, but the choir too should lead them in both octaves. A great deal is here collected into a small space; and, by a simple arrangement at the end, all the tunes are made to fit only two copies of the words, without extra type. The whole is preceded by a useful preface vindicating the employment of plain song.

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The Meeting in the Wilderness, (Masters,) by the author of "Wayfaring Sketches in Greece," is an imagination" of great depth and beauty, and from its style of getting up, as from its internal merits, well fitted to grace the drawing room table. Those who are acquainted with the author's previous works, will believe too that it is not intended merely to minister to the intellectual gratification of the reader.

Mr. GRESLEY has published A Second Word of Remonstrance with the Evangelicals. It is written in a peculiarly kind and engaging tone; and we can hardly conceive a person of that party reading it without feeling ashamed of the injustice of the present outcry against "Tractarianism!" We trust that it may be widely circulated among them.

Archdeacon's HARRISON's Six Sermons on the Church, (Rivington,) form a seasonable publication. At the present moment, although resisting all retrograde movement, we must be content to review the strength of our foundations. It will tend to the ultimate stability of our work; and is the ordained trial of our patience. In this light Mr. Harrison's sermons will be useful. "I am deeply convinced," he says, "that in the firm unwavering maintenance of the distinctive principles of the Church of England is, under divine grace and blessing, the great security of England from Romish corruption and usurpation on the one hand, and from latitudinarian infidelity on the other; and that the greatest triumph which Rome can gain will be, if she can so alarm or mislead our people as to make them confound Catholic and Apostolic truth with Papal novelties and errors." The last sermon is a warning against the inroad of rationalism and infidelity.

ERRONEOUS VIEWS OF CONFIRMATION.

1. Catechesis; or Christian Instruction, preparatory to Confirmation and first Communion. By the Rev. CHARLES WORDSWORTH, Warden of Trinity College, Glenalmond. London : Rivington.

3. Confirmation Day. By the Rev. HARVEY GOODWIN. London: Rivington.

A MORE than commonly grave responsibility is incurred by putting forth works of the class to which Mr. Charles Wordsworth's "Catechesis, or Christian Instruction preparatory to Confirmation and first Communion," belongs. Such books, by the very nature of them, challenge to themselves completeness. It is not enough that they contain good matter: they must leave nothing unsaid that ought to be said. Imperfection is condemnation. They had far better never have been written (and in saying this we record our deliberate judgment) than be defective as to a single view or statement of importance. And wherefore? Because, in the much to be lamented absence of any authoritative "larger Catechism" in our branch of the Church, plain people naturally take up such a book as this and say: "Here is a book that professes to tell me all that I need to know, believe, or do, in regard to such and such a rite or occasion,-say first Communion. The book does not say, that it teaches only so much as it is safe to teach, or will be popular at the present day. I have therefore a right to assume that here is the whole truth, and the whole of the Catholic Church's teaching about the matter. If this book is silent about any particular dogma, it tells me by implication, either that that dogma is unimportant, and I need not trouble myself about it, or that it is not true, and that therefore I ought to repudiate it if it fall in my way."

Such is their argument; and we do not at all see how the force of it can be evaded. Writers of "Christian Instructions preparatory to Confirmation and first Communion," plainly profess to set forth all "those other things" (over and above, or in explanation of, the Creed, the LORD's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments) which the priest in the baptismal office tells sponsors that "a Christian ought to know and believe to his soul's health." We cannot afford to take lower ground than this in judging of Mr. Wordsworth's book; and on this ground we can pronounce no other sentence than one of condemnation. That it contains a large amount of useful instruction digested in a convenient form for use, we gladly admit; but we are prepared to show that it abounds in very grave omissions, and does consequently, by implication, inculcate positive error. There is, we need not say, a considerable amount of such error, VOL. XI.-MARCH, 1851.

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floating vaguely in the minds even of the better instructed sort of Church people in the present day; and this is but too often reflected, with a flattering but most fatal fidelity, in the little manuals and such like books which are purveyed for general instruction. We deeply regret to find that Mr. Wordsworth has taken up the note from his predecessors, and added one more to the number of those who give currency to these defective views. Neither on the subject of Holy Baptism, Holy Communion, Confirmation, the Creed, the LORD's Prayer, nor the Ten Commandments, does he altogether rise above our miserable traditions of yesterday.

To take one of the most marked instances. "Confirmation," we are told, "is the confirming, that is, the strengthening and completing of what took place in baptism," (chap. i.) This is true enough in a certain sense, and if left to itself; but we are referred to chap. ii. for the latitude with which it is to be understood. The gloss there is, "Confirmation means two things: 1. Our confirming and ratifying [our] baptismal vow. 2. God's confirming and strengthening us.

Now this is a common but mischievous error. Confirmation never did nor ever can mean more than one thing; viz. the latter of the two here set forth; and it is wresting the sole proper ecclesiastical sense of the word, and introducing confusion into the whole subject, thus to endeavour to make it cover the two meanings. We shall be told that the expression "confirm" is twice applied in our Confirmation Office to the public ratification of the baptismal vow; viz. first in the preface; "to the end that children may openly and before the Church ratify and confirm the same;" and again in the address of the Bishop: "Do ye here... renew the promise, ratifying and confirming the same ?" It is true; the word is so used in these places. But we are prepared to maintain, either (what we have no doubt will at once be set down as very paradoxical) that it is by the merest accident that the same word is here used in the sense of "ratify," which in the title and first rubric of the office ("the order of Confirmation"—" all that are to be confirmed") has been applied in its proper and ecclesiastical sense of "laying on of hands, in order to the reception of certain gifts of the HOLY GHOST;" or else, (we would gladly have been spared putting the alternative) that, if the word was purposely thus used and repeated by the framers of the rite, with the design of making the title of the office cover two distinct things,—why it was in the first place a most ill-timed and infelicitous paronomasia; and secondly, involved a serious and blameworthy departure from the ecclesiastical nomenclature, if not from the rightful Catholic and Apostolic conception of the ordinance itself. But to our proofs.

The history of the process through which the expression in question reached what we must be allowed to call its unhappy prominence in our present office in the sense of "to ratify," is curious

and instructive. Until the Reformation, it is well known, no public ratification of baptismal vows is even alluded to, in connection with the reception of the rite of Confirmation. The words of Eusebius about Constantine, that ἐξομολογούμενος, τῶν διὰ χειροθεσίας εὐχῶν OUTO, "on his confession he received imposition of hands," have been proved by Hammond (Practical Catechism) to refer not to confession of faith, but confession of sins; not to Confirmation, but to absolution. And it seems to be a mistake to suppose that earlier editions of the Book of Common Prayer provided any form for the purpose, or even contemplated any special declaration being made at the actual time of Confirmation.

The title and rubric prefixed to the office in the first Book of Edward VI. (1549) are so important in their bearing upon our subject, that we must crave leave to recite them entire.

"Confirmation, wherein is contained a Catechism for Children.

"To the end that Confirmation may be ministered to the more edifying of such as shall receive it (according to S. Paul's doctrine who teacheth that all things should be done in the Church to the edification of the same) it is thought good that none hereafter should be confirmed, but such as can say in their mother tongue the Articles of the Faith, the LORD's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments: And can also answer to such questions of this short Catechism, as the Bishop, (or such as he shall appoint) shall, by his discretion, appose them in. And this order is most convenient to be observed for divers considerations.

"First. Because that when children come to the years of discretion, and have learned what their godfathers and godmothers promised for them in their baptism, they may [i.e. can] then themselves with their own mouth, and with their own consent, openly before the Church ratify and confess the same; and also promise that, by the grace of God they shall evermore endeavour themselves faithfully to observe and keep such things, as they, by their own mouth and confession have assented unto.

"Secondly. Forasmuch as Confirmation is ministered unto them that be baptized, that by imposition of hands and prayer, they may receive strength and defence against all temptations to sin, and the assaults of the world and the devil; it is most meet to be ministered when children come to that age, that partly by the frailty of their own flesh, partly by the assaults of the world and the devil, they begin to be in danger to fall into sundry kinds of sin.

"Thirdly. For that it is agreeable with the usage of the Church in times past, whereby it was ordained that Confirmation should be ministered to them that were of perfect age, that they being instructed in CHRIST's religion, should openly profess their own faith, and promise to be obedient unto the Will of God."

Here let it be observed, first, that the catechism is indissolubly bound up with the Confirmation Office, and that it is expressly called a catechism for children. Next-that the catechism, that, and nothing else, was to be the formula for eliciting the belief and the sense of responsibility of the children. This is, if possible, still