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their own doctrines as here defined; but we cannot forbear noticing, on our own parts, what now goes forth to the world as an authorized account of the whole position of our Church.

It is first stated that there are, 'thirty-five different religions in England and Wales-twenty-seven native, and nine foreign;'which looks like thirty-six. The former are principally subdivisions of the four great non-conforming bodies, known under the titles of Presbyterians, Independents, Baptists, and Methodists, together with the Society of Friends, Unitarians, Moravians, Glassites, New Church, and Brethren. Among the latter are some small congregations of foreign Protestants; but the only important sect, in respect of numbers, is the Roman Catholic Church. The list concludes with the Catholic and Apostolic Church,' the Latter-day Saints, and the Jews, these three being apparently difficult of classification, and altogether rather unmanageable.

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As popular misconceptions are entertained of the tenets of these various bodies, Mr. Mann attempts to set each before the public in its true colours, commencing this large subject with the landing of Cæsar on the coast of Britain. After a short notice of Jupiter and Apollo, and then of the Druids, he arrives at the introduction of Christianity, giving various opinions as to when this took place, and the degree of influence possessed by the Church during the first centuries of the Christian era. The tribute given to the ancient British Church is fair and satisfactory. Its early struggles and its independence of Rome are acknowledged, though but few details of its history can be given. The tide of Saxon paganism drove, however, these early fruits of the Christian religion into Cornwall and Wales; and England, for a time, worshipped those different conceptions of divinity, which have by a singular fate left their trace in the names by which we distinguish the days of the week, and even the great Christian festival of Easter.

But the Sun, Moon, Woden, Friga, and Eostre, all in their turn, were banished from the island as objects of worship, and the Church was again triumphant. The landing of S. Augustine and his forty coadjutors, in the year 596, gradually prepared the way for the universal acknowledgment of the Christian religion about 681. The history of the Saxon Church, its unceasing efforts at national freedom, its methodical ordering of ecclesiastical rules and canons, need not be here discussed; nor shall we be drawn too far into the general subject of Church history by any such comments as the following, on a critical portion of our history, about which no one probably ever thought of consulting even the Registrar-General, much less his deputed officer:

Even the capacity and energy of Henry II. were unable to restrain the progress of ecclesiastical dominion; and his contest with A'Becket, though commenced under favourable auspices, and prosecuted for some time with spirit and sagacity, was ultimately terminated only by defeat and concession; the Constitutions of Clarendon-by which, amongst other things, the separate clerical tribunals were abolished, all appeals to Rome forbidden, and episcopal appointments made dependent on the king's approval-were virtually inoperative, and Henry was himself obliged, as an atonement for A'Becket's murder, in some degree to promise never to enforce them. It is evident that at this time the great strength of the papacy lay in its hold upon the popular veneration: the people hitherto had nearly always sympathised with clerical resistance to the crown: A'Becket was received on his return from exile with unbounded demonstrations of respect, and his tomb was yearly visited by thousands upon thousands who regarded him as a martyr and a saint.'-Census of Great Britain, p. xx.

Nor, again, is it necessary, with those who have read the last number of this periodical, to consider whether the following passage is a fair representation of the doctrinal views advocated by Wycliffe:

Apart from his assaults on clerical delinquency, he seems to have maintained that the authority of the king and the civil power was superior to that of the pope; that the state had the right to deal with misapplied Church property; that Christ alone was the head of the Church; that there were only two scriptural orders, viz. priests and deacons; that the Scripture was the sole rule of faith; that justification was by faith and the influence of the Holy Spirit; that baptism is not essential to salvation, nor can it confer grace or take away sin; that tithes are a purely voluntary offering, and ought not to be enforced by penalties.'-P. xxi.

The period of the Reformation is made the occasion of a singular mixture of axioms and statements, on the part of this Church historian, while in discharge of his official duties in the Home department. It is said:

All parties in the state appear to have been agreed that it was the duty of the head of the Church to distinguish truth from error, and thus frame the Church's creed; and also, this accomplished, that it was the duty of the civil power to enforce professed reception of the creed thus authorized. The only questions were (1) who was the proper head of the Church; and (2) what were the doctrines which ought to be enforced.'-P. xxii.

A noble answer is at hand:

The Parliament and Convocation gave, in 1534, their answer to the former question by declaring, in indefinite but comprehensive language, that the king was the supreme head of the Church in England. From 1534 this country, therefore, may be said to have possessed a National Church; for ever since, with the brief exception which occurred in the reign of Mary, all the civil laws by which, in England, Christianity has been established and expounded, have derived their force entirely from the sanction of the native government of the state, apart from any, the slightest, interference of a foreign power.'-P. xxii.

The alternatives of King or Pope are here, it would seem, inclusive of the whole case. No Home Church government is

recognised as a possible third contingency; nor is the position of the Church allowed to be in the least different under Elizabeth.

'Elizabeth at once replaced the Church in the position it had occupied before the reign of Mary. Parliament again affirmed the sovereign's supremacy as head of the Church, and punished with extreme severity all those who questioned this prerogative.'-P. xxiv.

Mr. Mann, however, being perfectly aware that this confirmation of the title, 'head of the Church,' is historically untrue, having indeed been wholly discarded, introduces the following note at the foot of the page by way of explanation :

The queen preferred the title of "supreme governor" of the Church to "supreme head." All the bishops except one refused to take the oath, and were in consequence deprived; 178 of the inferior clergy imitated their refusal, with a similar result.'-Ibid.

But why make the assertion, if so immediately to correct it?

The Church being thus quietly disposed of, as an appendage of the State, the remainder of the historical portion of the Preface consists in describing the various results of the fact, that 'Protestant Christianity was reestablished as the national religion.'

'It followed, almost of necessity, that multitudes, deriving their opinions from the exercise of private judgment on the Scriptures recently unsealed to them, and urged, by natural reaction, to the utmost distance from the Church of Rome, would find their ardent expectations of the new establishment unrealized, and would lament as well the absence from its constitution and its ritual of much which they desired, as the continued presence there of much which they disliked.'-P. xxv.

The rise of Puritanism is then discussed, with a justly introduced allusion to the persecutions suffered by that body, as well as by the Papists, under Elizabeth's Church government. The brief triumph and the overthrow of Puritanism are then reviewed; and the final settlement of the Established Church at the Revolution, since which 'not the slightest change has been effected in the Church itself, in its doctrines, polity, or worship,' is made coincident with the birth-day of religious sects.' The government of the Church is thus concisely described, keeping up, it may be seen, the previous idea:—

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The government of the Church is virtually committed to the sovereign, as its temporal head, and to parliament, as the monarch's council; the Convocation of the clergy, which, in former times, was used to legislate on all ecclesiastical affairs, has not, since 1717, been permitted to deliberate to any purpose. The Crown appoints the archbishops, bishops, and deans, and a considerable portion of the clergy.'—P. xxxvii.

From the Revolution to the present century it is remarked, with some truth, that a very brief description of the Church is sufficient. This is a period of but little extension and but little activity; a dreary waste in her history, during which her strength

lay in the retirement of a few righteous, who were then, as in all times of deadness, left to be witnesses to her life, rather than in her struggles at general utility. Indeed it is a reflection which ought not to be passed over, though some might use it with a hostile spirit, that if we trace the history of our Church from the Reformation itself to the present century, there are but few evidences of its ever being the religion of the people. That division of the Church was a shock that has made her quiver to her very foundation. The purity of her doctrines has too often been the cleanliness of desertion; while her freedom from superstition has been partly attributable to the lack of faith in her spiritual functions, on the part of the mass of her children, rather than from a well-directed confidence in her maternal guidance. Elizabeth had to check Puritanism, and induce attendance at church, by the fine of a shilling; after a brief interval of but a generation, Charles had to pay with his head for his support of Episcopacy, and for a time the Church even nominally ceased to be national. Charles and James following her reestablishment, have not left behind them very solid or satisfactory fruits even of a temporary turn in the Church's favour; and since the Revolution, it is but too true that schismatics have had a great share of the religious interests of the people, while the temporalities of the Church have been misused for private ends. How few of those memorials of affection which testify, in the language of Church architecture or decoration, to the zeal of her members, are left to us from these long periods, except the erection of family pews to the exclusion of the poor, and the occasional emblazonment of family monuments! We say not this from the love of disparagement, but because we can now afford to look the truth in the face, and it is better to do so. Let us boldly acknowledge that our Church never has recovered the allegiance of her people, or gained back their confidence, once so shaken at the Reformation era, and that the past three centuries have been but a transition from one state of things to another, during which she has maintained indeed her true vitality, as witnessed by many holy men and great theologians, but has failed to organise the religion of the country after her type and by her precepts. Such is the impression which a cursory review of the history of our Church, such an one as Mr. Mann has compiled, seems naturally to leave behind it. On some points he is undoubtedly biassed against certain aspects of ecclesiastical independence, such as others might think essential to a restored activity, but, in matters of fact, there is too much truth in the picture he gives; nor has the Church any cause to complain of her late efforts not being recognised. He speaks of the 'won'derful-almost unparalleled-achievements, in the way of self'extension, by which she has lately proved her inexhaustible

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vitality.' This prominent character so justly attributed to the present action of the Church, is suggestive also of future success, in gaining the hearts of the people, to some extent proportionate with the efforts made; if these are unparalleled, there is at any rate no past experience of failure to discourage us.

The progress of the Church of England during the last twenty years, in building and restoring churches, has been of a kind that, in spite of the much talked-of evil of party spirit now so dominant, will mark these years, for ages to come, as a period of great energy. From 1801 to 1811 the number of churches built was only 55 in England and Wales; during the next ten years it increased to 97; between 1821 and 1831 the number was 276; between the last date and 1841 the number swells out to 667; and in the ten years preceding the last census, to 1,197. This does not, however, at all represent the amount that has been done, for many more churches have been restored and vastly improved in all their arrangements than have been actually built. The funds by which these churches have been built also afford an instructive comparison between official grants from the Crown and voluntary benefactions. During the first thirty years of the century, 500 churches were built, at a cost of 3,000,000l., 1,152,000l. being from public funds, and the remainder private benefactions. During the following twenty years there have been no public grants for fresh undertakings within the period, yet five million and a half has been spent, and 2,029 churches built. Churches built by the Commissioners, between 1818 and 1831, cost on an average 10,000l. each, a fact which is partly accounted for by the price of materials, but which leaves a large balance for mismanagement, and affords a very good argument in favour of the economy of private benefactions, as well as their superiority in affording an index of real and selfsacrificing personal zeal. The principal counties where this great number of churches has been built are of course the metropolitan and manufacturing. In these districts, great as has been the increase of the population, the number of churches has more than kept up with it. In the year 1831, in Lancashire there was one church to 4,578 people; in 1851, we find this number reduced to 3,899; and about the same improvement is observable in Cheshire, Middlesex, Surrey, and the West Riding of Yorkshire, though if the whole country is taken into calculation, the proportion is slightly altered in the other direction. To show also the recent activity of the Church in other ways, a list of Societies is given, by which it appears that those connected with the Church raise 400,000l., out of which 250,000l. are applied to foreign Missionary operations.

Where Mr. Mann chiefly fails is in attempting definitions of doctrine. We accept on the whole his statistics, as being useful,

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