citated from continuing the duties of the diocese with any aid. It became necessary, therefore, that I should communicate this fact to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and to state it also to some of the members of the Administration; and when I saw that they scarcely knew how to meet the difficulty, I offered to continue, if the Archbishop of Canterbury would allow my signature, with his countersignature, to be the same as that of the bishop. It also appeared to me that, as the aged prelate had been obliged to continue through all the stages of incipient and advancing inefficiency, and that, at length, he could not move hand or foot (to speak with reference to diocesan duties), a suffragan bishop might have been appointed, and my father's infirmities suffered to remain unnoticed, and that he might be allowed to drop quietly into his grave. It has, however, been thought otherwise, and, at a very late period in the session, an Act was passed, called the Episcopal Functions Act; and under the provisions of that Act, very shortly, my father's infirmities and failings will be dragged forward before strangers; he will be deprived of his bishopric; all his funds will be taken from him; and I know not that another penny will be received on his behalf. That Act says, that unless there is some one legally qualified to receive, nothing will be paid. You will not, therefore, be surprised at my saying that I consider my duties at an end; for, having been the Special Commissary of this diocese on Church principles, you could not expect that, even if the situation were offered to me, I would ever become an Act of Parliament Commissary. You cannot expect that, when I consider that my aged parent has been cruelly treated, I would take any notice of that Act; but I will say that I consider he has been so treated, that aged prelate having been dragged through all the stages of infirmity, his bishopric having been taken from him, and another placed in his stead. To my friends I am thankful— those who think I have not acted kindly, I forgive; and in that spirit I pray, and wish you to join with me, that the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost,' maybe with us all, evermore, Amen.'" DEATH OF THE BISHOP OF LICHField. The Right Rev. Dr. Bowstead, Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, after a lengthened and painful illness, expired on Wednesday evening, the 11th ult., at Clifton Wells, near Bristol, where his lordship had resided for some weeks past for the benefit of his health. The right rev. prelate had attained only his forty-second year. It is well known that, for a considerable period, his lordship had, from his severe indisposition, been wholly unable to discharge the sacred duties of his bishopric, and the Bishop of Hereford was, at the last general ordination for the diocese, obliged to officiate for his rev. brother. It was only within the last fortnight that the friends of the deceased despaired of his eventual recovery, although disease had made destructive inroad on a naturally strong constitution. The deceased, James Bowstead, D.D., son of the late Mr. William Bowstead, of Beckbank, Great Salkeld, Cumberland, was born in 1801. He distinguished himself at Cambridge University, at a comparatively early age, as, in 1824, he was second wrangler and Smith's prizeman, and was afterwards fellow and tutor of Corpus Christi College, at that University. He was considered one of the brightest ornaments of that foundation, for his high attainments and piety; and since his elevation to the episcopal bench he has ever maintained an enviable character for the indefatigable endeavours he has made in promoting the interests of the diocese under his control. His efforts to extend church building in the various manufacturing districts of the diocese of Lichfield and Coventry gained for the deceased the admiration of the laity and the clergy, and proved his zeal for the Established Church. His lordship was consecrated Bishop of Sodor and Man in 1838; and, on the death of Dr. S. Butler, Master of Shrewsbury School, in 1840, he was translated to the see of Lichfield and Coventry. For some time he was Prebendary of Salisbury. The mortal remains of the Right Rev. Prelate were removed to Eccleshall Castle, Staffordshire, on Friday, the 13th ult., and consigned to a tomb in the chancel of Eccleshall Church on the following Wednesday. THE STODDART AND CONOLLY FUND. The object of the meeting held on the 17th ult. at the Hanoversquare Rooms was to give Dr. Wolff an opportunity of affording the public all the information he possessed concerning Bokhara, where the two gallant officers are said to have met their death, and which information Dr. Wolff derives from his residence there in 1832-34. In place of reporting a dry detail of the meeting, it will probably be more agreeable to our readers that we should furnish them with a compressed narrative of the Doctor's sojourn in that country-a more detailed account of which our readers may find in the curious book published by the author in 1835. He arrived, then, at Ichar Too, the frontier town of Bokhara, in February, 1832, after long wandering through a barren, cold, and unkind desert, drinking snow, and making tea with it. His arrival was immediately notified to the Goosh Bekee, or Ear of the King, to whom it was also made known that the traveller's purpose was to visit Bokhara and Balkh, to converse with the Jews upon Jesus, and to endeavour to trace there the ten tribes of Israel. After various cautions from different friendly governors through whose districts he passed, as to the conduct he should observe at Bokhara, he arrived at the latter city in fourteen months and six days from Malta. He entered the supposed Habor of Scripture on a horse sent for him by the Goosh Bekee, with his Hebrew Bible and Greek Testament in his hand. With this minister, who seems to have been a very acute person, and with the principal Jews of Bokhara (none of whom are permitted by their rabbies to learn either Persian or Arabic), he had many interesting but fruitless religious conversations; in the first of which he told the King's Ear that Christ would appear on earth in 1847! The people of Bokhara he found good-natured, but very effeminate; and, if we recollect aright, Burns described them as abandoned to the most horrible vices. The king, Behader Khan, Wolff speaks of as being a just man, principally occupied in reading, praying, and, as we have heard, grossly feeding; he is now about thirty-eight years of age. His Jewish brethren, Wolff' found ignorant both of their own religion and that of the people among whom they dwell. They thought, for instance, that the Koran was written by a monk and a Jew! Neither are they entirely a temperate race; his own host, Reuben, was so constantly drunk that he was obliged to leave his house. He also found three hundred Jewish families in Bokhara who had conformed to Islamism. The entire Jewish population believe that the English traveller, Morecroft, was poisoned by order of the late king; and the reason that Wolff received such ready permission to travel through the country was, as the present king observed, that they might get rid of the bad name which the death of Morecroft had cast upon them. The Jews of Bokhara informed him that a portion of the ten tribes was in China, and that they believed in two Messiahs-the son of Joseph, whom they believed to be already in existence, but living in obscurity, and who is destined to be slain; and after him the son of David is to achieve the government of the world. One of these Jews expressed to him a great desire to go to England and become a freemason. Goosh Bekee told Wolff, before his departure to Balkh, that it was the wish of the king and the mullahs to have an English ambassador living at Bokhara; and he added, that he might not only bring his wife with him, but what was contrary to all established law, he might take her out of the country again when he left. The king also expressed a strong desire to receive English officers in his army, and as many watches as the ambassador could bring with him. The subscription amounted to nearly 3007. SIR R. PEEL AND CHURCH EXTENSION. To the Ecclesiastical Commissioners for England. Whitehall, 26th Aug., 1843. My Lords and Gentlemen-The bill for making better provision for the spiritual care of populous parishes has passed into a law. I am desirous, in my capacity of a private member of society, of making a communication to you on the subject of that Act. It provides means for the endowment of additional ministers from the property of the Church, but not for the erection of places of worship, or for other objects connected with pastoral superintendece. When I introduced the bill into the House of Commons on the part of her Majesty's Government, I stated the reasons which induced her Majesty's Government, in the present state of the public revenue, and in the present state of public feeling in different parts of the empire in respect to religious subjects, to abstain from proposing any Parliamentary grant for the purpose of Church extension. I expressed at the same time a confident hope and belief that, if the means of endowment for additional ministers were provided, and especially if these means were provided at the instance and from the property of the Church, many persons would be disposed to pro mote, by voluntary exertions and voluntary contributions, the great object contemplated by this measure. I alluded particularly to those persons who are now connected by the ties of property with the manufacturing and thickly-peopled districts in which the evils of religious destitution chiefly exist; and to those also who (though any immediate personal connexion with such districts may have ceased) owe no small portion of their worldly prosperity to the successful industry of their forefathers, and to the employment of manufacturing labour. Standing in each of these relations towards certain of the manufacturing districts, and being desirons of acknowledging the obligations which they impose, I wish to place at the disposal of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners the sum of four thousand pounds, to be applied in furtherance of the purposes of the Act to which I have above referred, upon the following conditions, viz.: That the sum in question shall be advanced in aid of other subscriptions of at least equal amount, for the purpose of providing places of divine worship, either churches or chapels; or, should the Commissioners think it desirable in any particular case, temporary buildings, to be licensed by the bishop of the diocese. That it shall be applied to cases of religious destitution in the metropolitan district, and in the manufacturing and mining districts of the counties of Lancaster, of Stafford, and of Warwick, in the following proportions:-1,500l. to be allotted to the county of Lancaster, 1,500l. to the counties of Stafford and Warwick jointly, and 1,000l. to the metropolis. That preference shall be given to cases in which religious destitution prevails to the greatest extent, and in which also there are the smallest available means for remedying the evil, either on account of the poverty of the district, or on account of the circumstance that the possessors of property within it are not members of the Church of England, and are unwilling to contribute to the maintenance and extension of its doctrines. That it be not applied to the discharge of any existing debts on account of church building, or to the completion of any building now in progress, but to the provision of new places of worship, in separate districts and new parishes to be constituted under the Act, for the ministers of which endowments shall be provided by the Commissioners. I have the honour to be, my Lords and Gentlemen, THE (Signed) If the report of the English Churchman be correct, that "the writers of the Oxford Tracts have declined all further contributions to the pages of the British Critic," the fact suggests two subjects of profitable meditation to us-first, concerning them; secondly, concerning the Church. First, their retirement from controversy seems to be very creditable to them, as carrying out consistently in their conduct that deference to superiors and regard for the Church which in their writings they have generally inculcated. And it affords evidence of a truly Christian spirit, to run the risk of being misunderstood in doing so, and being willing to bear in silence any degree of contumely and reproach, rather than be instrumental in perpetuating a controversy from which little good could arise-by which many of Christ's little ones might be offended, and some might be tempted still further to offend against brotherhood and charity. And, secondly, these results tend to remind us all that the Church is founded upon a rock, and that the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. These gentlemen, no doubt, entertain this conviction, and can quietly give up contending for that which they may think to be the truth, knowing that truth shall ultimately prevail; and those who differ from them will regard their retirement as a sign of the stability of the Church. They, no doubt, intended to advance and benefit the Church; but we have as little doubt that their efforts were misdirected and have been prejudicial, and if continued would have become deeply, perhaps irremediably, pernicious. And they were checked first by the Bishop of Oxford, since which almost every individual on the Right Reverend Bench has, one after another, pointed out and warned the Church against doctrines and practices advocated by these Oxford divines, and which the Church of England, through her bishops, the living expositors of her mind, repudiated. The suspension of Dr. Pusey by the Vice-Chancellor was a still more unequivocal mark of the danger likely to arise from the further promulgation of these peculiar opinions; and, therefore, the closing of the last remaining channel for giving them publicity, in the stoppage of the British Critic, cannot but be regarded by us, and by all true friends of the Church, with great satisfaction. But we would deprecate all endeavour to make any of these occurrences subjects of triumph; and would rather call upon our readers, from their example, each in his own sphere, and in the simple path of duty, to emulate the consistency, self-denial, holiness, devotedness, and Christian humility of Dr. Pusey, Mr. Newman, and their followers. PAUPERISM IN IRELAND. Among the papers read at the meeting of the British Association at Cork, before the Statistical Section, we find a brief analysis of the results of the late Irish census by Captain Larcom, one of the commissioners, which contains some facts of especial interest with reference to the political and social condition of Ireland at the present moment. The census appears to have been taken with an unusual degree of care, with a view to eliciting not merely numerical results of the progress of population, but well-authenticated statistical data respecting the actual state of the population. The dwellings have been carefully classified according to their quality, and the number of families accommodated under the same roof, and the result shows the following startling fact:-Of the total population of |