dent in the history of the Pontificate of Gregory VII. As it is not the fact but its interpretation that appears important, we are content to take the popular recital of Sir James Stephen:

"On Easter-day, in the year 1076, surrounded by a small and anxious circle of prelates, William, the Archbishop of Utrecht, ascended the archiepiscopal throne and recited the sacred narrative which commemorates the rising of the REDEEMER from the grave. But no strain of exulting gratitude followed. A fierce invective depicted, in the darkest colours, the character and the career of Hildebrand, and with bitter scorn the preacher denied the right of such a Pope to censure the Emperor of the West, to govern the Church, or to live in her communion. In the name of the assembled Synod he then pronounced him excommunicate. At that moment the summons of death reached the author of this daring defiance. While the last fatal struggle convulsed his body a yet sorer agony affected his soul. He died self-abhorred, rejecting the sympathy, the prayers, and the sacraments with which the terrified bystanders would have soothed his departing spirit. The voice of heaven itself seemed to rise in wild concert with the cry of his tortured conscience. Thunderbolts struck down both the Church in which he had abjured the Vicar of CHRIST and the adjacent palace in which the emperor was residing."-Essays in Eccl. Biog., Vol. I., pp. 50, 51.

Assuming the correctness of this account, it condemns-as who must not condemn ?-the conduct of the Archbishop of Utrecht. Did that prelate really believe that he had spiritual authority to excommunicate the Bishop of Rome? If so, he claimed more than the most Protestant leaders of the thirteenth century. If not, he acted a part alike schismatic and hypocritical. But does his terrible end set the seal of divine approval to all the Hildebrandist claims and policy? Even Roman Catholics must shrink from such a conclusion. Numbers of their body deny all belief in the right of the Pontiff to depose kings. In Australia that denial has been formally read from their altars, to be responded to by the "Amen" of the congregation.

In like manner we must maintain that many Roman Catholic narratives of these times do, if we take for granted that the accounts are free from all fiction or exaggeration, very frequently go no further than to prove the presence of CHRIST with His Church, the fulfilment of the promises made to prayer offered in His Name, or the reality of the mystery of His holy Incarnation.

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THE BISHOP OF EXETER'S PASTORAL LETTER.

It would be worse than useless for us to attempt a review of this most important document. Every one who takes an interest in the affairs of the Church will peruse it for himself, and will feel, if we mistake not, while he does so, that here is now a challenge addressed to the Church by the ablest and most far-seeing of her Spiritual Fathers, which promises to test her whole framework and spirit.

The Bishop of Exeter, it is impossible not to see, is the individual round whom this whole crisis has gathered. The Papal Aggression clamour has been merely so much dust thrown into the eyes of the public, unhappily with too true an aim, by the Church's consistent, subtle, and mean enemy, Lord John Russell. For a season the plot seemed to succeed beyond all expectation. Foremost to fall into the snare were the orthodox portion of the Bishops (alas that we are obliged to make this distinction!) headed by the Bishop of London; and in all probability they will be the last to recover themselves. Such a season of awakening must, however, come at last. Hired mobs and dissenting Aldermen will be found not to be "the public" whom Bishops ought to "satisfy:" illegal acts, such as those done at Leeds and London, or arbitrary ones, as at Gravesend and Manchester, will be found not only to destroy confidence in individual Prelates, but to create contempt for their Order, and extreme danger to the Church. Meanwhile the struggle is hastening on a struggle not, as twenty-two Bishops would have us believe, about a few matters of Ritual propriety, (though Catholic Ritualism is the shell which contains the kernel of Catholic doctrine, and without which it cannot live,) but for the integrity of the Faith and the freedom of the Church.

This fact the Bishop of Exeter realises in its full force; and it is the great merit of his letter, (and for which we beg to tender him our most respectful and grateful thanks,) that he has brought it before the minds not only of his brethren on the episcopal bench, but of the whole Church. The stand which he has made in defence of the orthodox doctrine of Regeneration in Baptism, seemed indeed, to the outward eye, to have brought discomfiture and disgrace upon the Church; but we have confidence that he did not embark in that struggle without seeing his way further than to the decision of a lay Court of Appeal; and we trust that all who are in earnest for the preservation of the Church of England as a living member of the Church Catholic, will give ready heed to this summons, and laying aside all party and personal feelings, consider seriously if this letter does not seem to open the only available method of deliverance, so far as we can at present see, from the

great and increasing difficulties of our position,-whether the Bishop has not unfurled the flag under which we ought to be prepared to fight the Church's battle, and under which we may hope to conquer.

The substance of the Bishop's letter may be said to be contained in these two propositions, which we shall take leave to print in capitals, because we would have them never absent from the minds of Churchmen,-1st, THAT WHAT IS NOW IN PERIL FROM THE LIBERALISM OF THE DAY, WHICH HAS CONTRIVED TO FOIST TWO HERETICAL ARCHBISHOPS ON THE CHURCH AND IS FILLING HER OTHER OFFICES WITH PERSONS LIKE-MINDED, IS THE CATHOLIC DOCTRINE OF THE SACRAMENTS. And 2ndly, THAT, SEEING

ALL OTHER REDRESS IS DENIED TO US, WE CAN ONLY LOOK FOR SAFETY TO THE MEETING OF THE CHURCH BY REPRESENTATION

IN SYNOD. And further, his Lordship proposes to make the experiment, within the limits of his own jurisdiction, by convoking immediately the Diocesan Synod of Exeter. That God may direct the endeavour to a prosperous issue must be the prayer of every sound Churchman!

We had ourselves an article, it will be remembered, last year, recommending the revival of the Diocesan Synod, and giving abundant post-Reformation authorities for it.

The only passage that we shall quote is one in which the Bishop defines what he conceives to be the exact effect of the famous judgment of the Privy Council.

"The decision did not go the length, which has been commonly supposed, of pronouncing the clerk whom I had rejected, fit and worthy to be instituted to the cure of souls to which the Crown had presented him. They merely adjudged, that sufficient ground had not been laid by me for rejecting him; that, in consequence, my jurisdiction pro hác vice was null, and had passed to the Archbishop as superior ordinary. Thus it became the duty, no less than the right, of the Archbishop to decide on the fitness of the party: a duty and a right unalienable— judicial-spiritual: a right intrusted to him for the good of the Church by the Church's Divine Head-a duty inseparable from that right, and binding on him, as having voluntarily accepted the high responsibility of Chief and Metropolitan Bishop in this great section of the LORD'S vineyard.

Regarding the matter thus in its true and manifest aspect, and according to the express order of Her Majesty in Council, on the Report of the Judicial Committee, 'That the sentence of the Court below ought to be reversed, and that it ought to be declared that the Lord Bishop of Exeter has not shown sufficient cause why he did not institute Mr. Gorham to the said vicarage; and that, with this declaration, the cause be remitted to the Arches Court of Canterbury, to the end that right and justice be done in this matter pursuant to the said declaration :' it is plain that the Archbishop's judicial duty began when the judgment of the Queen in Council was made known to him. It was a duty, I

repeat, unalienable-one from which he could not, if he wished, escape -judicial, for it involved his sentence of the fitness or unfitness of the presentee to be intrusted with mission to discharge the office and work of a priest in a particular portion of the LORD's vineyard-spiritual, for the whole power exercised in giving the mission-the power conferred -the power received-had direct, mere, reference to the souls of menthe cure and government of the souls of the parishioners.' Need I cite authority in so plain a matter?

"And yet I grieved to read the statement of the Archbishop in answer to an address from a portion of you, my clergy, in which he declared that, in issuing the fiat for institution in Mr. Gorham's case, he had acted not judicially, but ministerially.”

This is an important distinction.

REVIEWS AND NOTICES.

Supplement on the Doctrine and Discipline of the Greek Church. By the Author of " Proposals for Christian Union.” London: James Darling.

66

WE have already favourably noticed the little work on the Greek Church to which this is a supplement, but we are disposed to consider this latter part the most valuable of the two; it contains that which is greatly required, a plain and simple statement suitable to all capacities of the rules and ceremonies of a much misunderstood branch of the Church Catholic, for although the extraordinary amount of prejudice and falsity which has been current respecting the Greek Church is beginning to be cleared away, great misconception yet exists concerning her. The present analysis of her system and teaching, is we may say wonderfully correct, to be the work of a foreigner: it contains nevertheless some important inaccuracies, which we will proceed at once to detail. The author says, on what fancied authority we cannot imagine, that while the Greeks entertain the highest veneration for the Nicene Creed, as to that of Athanasius they are wholly strangers to it;" in refutation of this erroneous statement we would refer the author to the META OPОAOгION, their most familiar book of prayers, where that form of sound words is found as one of the foundations of their faith. In describing the celebration of the Holy Eucharist, he says "the deacon reads the Epistle and Gospel in the appointed place in the nave," this is a mistake, -the Priest alone is entitled to read the Gospel, which is treated with the highest reverence. The same error occurs in a more important sense later; he states that the deacon after having communicated, "standing at the middle door with the chalice lifted in his hands invites the communicants to approach." This again is the work of the priest, which would by no means be intrusted to the deacon. Next he tells us that the Blessed Sacrament is

given in cases of imminent danger to newly baptized infants: it is always given to them when there is no illness in the case at all, but as a general rule which is invariably followed, they receive immediately after baptism. Mentioning that two persons who have had the same godfather or godmother cannot marry each other, he adds in a note "this prohibition shows that the rule about sponsors is not strictly observed; were there one only according to the sex of the child, the instance guarded against would not occur." He is mistaken, the rule is kept: for but one sponsor is at any time required and quite indiscriminately as to sex. Speaking of confession, he says, “after the penance inflicted has been undergone or commuted," &c.: it cannot be said that the penitent of the Greek Church ever undergoes a penance, as none other of any kind is ever enjoined, except the prohibition to partake of the Holy Communion. The last inaccuracy we have to notice is one more favourable to the Greek Church than the truth of her practice. The author states that "at their nuptials the bride and bridegroom receive the Holy Sacrament; " this error arises doubtless from the fact that the priest administers to them a small portion of bread and wine, but this is merely as a type of the plenty and prosperity which it is desired should bless the new married couple; it does not in any sense partake of the nature of the Eucharistic Sacrifice, nor are these the consecrated Elements.

With the exception of these few defects, which may be easily corrected in a second edition, this very useful pamphlet is quite accurate and extremely interesting.

The Pastor preparing his Flock for Confirmation. By the Rev. ALEXANDER WATSON. London: Rivingtons.

"

It gives us much pleasure that we are able to point to this little work as forming an exception to the strictures which we felt constrained to pass in our March Number upon the common run of publications on the same subject. The ratification of the baptismal vow at Confirmation is here kept in its due subordinate place, and the proper nature of the ordinance vindicated; as e. g. p. 58: The design of Confirmation is simply the sealing and strengthening of the regenerated soul:" and p. 61: "This" (the interrogation and answer)" does not enter into the design of the ordinance, but is simply a very proper accompaniment of it, which the Church had a right to attach." The work is otherwise one of the most complete, as well as correct, manuals we have seen. The Bishop of Brechin's " Seal of the LORD" is also, we need scarcely say, free from the error of which we complained.

We find that our meaning in one part of the article just alluded to has been mistaken. In speaking of Mr. Goodwin's Manual "Confirmation Day," we by no means intended to represent the author as denying or understating the grace of the ordinance; but only that in setting forth the motives to a devout and serious demeanour on the day of Confirmation, he had insisted almost exclusively, if not entirely so, on the solemnity of renewing the vow, instead of on the awfulness of becoming the recipient of a new sacramental gift, and responsible for it.