as probationary members, in the same way as those who never have been members.

III. Holy Communion-§ 1. All members shall be bound to comply with the first Rubric before the Office for the Communion, which requires that "so many as intend to be partakers of the Holy Communion, shall signify their names to the Curate (that is, to the minister) at least some time the day before." But if they are not able to quiet their conscience, the Church exhorts them to open their grief either to their own or to some other discreet and learned minister of God's word. [Exhortation in the Communion Service.]

§ 2. Any member who shall be aware that any other member has transgressed the bounds set down in the second and third Rubric before the Office for the Communion, by any notorious sin, or by doing any wrong to his neighbour, or by living at variance with his neighbour, shall be bound to exhort such person to confess his sin to the minister when he next comes to signify to him his intention to partake of the Holy Communion, and if he refuse or neglect to do so, such member shall himself tell it to the minister, who thus "having knowledge thereof, shall advertise him that he presume not to come to the Lord's Table until he hath openly declared himself to have truly repented and amended;" which declaration shall be made to the Society by himself or through the minister. But if he refuse, the minister shall signify to the Society that such person hath not complied with the rules of the Society, by which non-compliance he hath ceased to be a member, and his name shall be struck off the list accordingly. [S. Matt. xviii. 15-17.]

§ 3. Masters or mistresses of families, being members, shall exhort their household to partake of the Holy Communion, and shall signify to the minister the names of such as are willing to communicate.

IV. Holy Baptism.-§ 1. Members shall in no case procure their children to be baptized at their own houses, "unless upon great and reasonable cause to be approved by the Curate" (that is, the minister). Nor, without like cause, shall they defer the baptism of their children "beyond the first or second Sunday next after their birth, or some holy-day falling between." [See the 1st and 2d Rubrics before the Office for Private Baptism.]

' § 2. They shall provide for every male child to be baptized two godfathers and one godmother, and for every female child one godfather and two godmothers, who shall be communicants of the Church. It is expected that members shall be ready to undertake this charitable office for the children of their neighbours, whether members of the Society or not.

§ 3. Members, being "parents, masters, or mistresses, shall cause their children and servants to come to the church (or school) at the time appointed, and obediently to hear and be ordered by the Curate," in the Catechism and other instruction which he shall give them. [See Rubric at the end of Church Catechism.]

'V. Lord's Day.-§ 1. Members shall stand pledged to keep holy the Lord's day. They shall attend the full services of their parish church, or show cause to the contrary to the satisfaction of the Society. They shall promote the like attendance on the part of their children and servants, and shall employ themselves in training them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and in other charitable works.

§ 2. Any member not showing cause for absence from church to the satisfaction of the Society, shall be admonished thereof by the minister, when he next presents himself for the Holy Communion, (but will not, therefore, be excluded from the Lord's Table.) After having been thrice admonished within the year, such person shall cease to be a member of the Society.

'VI. Sickness." When any person (being a member) is sick, notice shall be given thereof to the minister of the parish," that he may receive the consolations of the Church. [See Rubric for the Visitation of the Sick.] If the Lord's Supper be administered to him, he shall procure the fit number to communicate with, (namely, three, or two at the least.) He shall also ask for the public prayers of the congregation in church, and shall not fail to return public thanks, as well for any other signal mercy, as for recovery from dangerous sickness. Members shall exhort their sick brethren, not being members, to send for their minister, and shall be ready, of their charity, to read to them and instruct them, and, if required, to communicate with them. N.B. Sick persons are to be moved "to make special confession of their sins, if they feel their conscience burdened with any weighty matter." [Rubric for the Visitation of the Sick.]

'VII. Family Prayers.-Heads of families, being members, shall have family prayers night and morning; or if they go to daily work, yet at the least every night. And their minister shall, at their desire, supply them with a form for that purpose. They shall not omit to pray for a blessing on this Society, on their bishop, and their minister.

VIII. Stewards and Church Collection.-§ 1. "Upon the first day of the week" (namely, the Lord's day) "let every member lay by him in store as God hath prospered him" [1 Cor. xvi. 2] some contribution, however small, for sick and poor members, which shall be collected by the stewards after divine service, when there is no church collection.

§ 2. Two stewards shall be chosen yearly at the anniversary of the Society. But if the churchwardens of the parish be members, or either of them, he or they shall be stewards by virtue of their office, and then only one other steward shall be chosen, [according to the Rubric, which says that "the alms of the people shall be collected by the churchwardens, or other fit persons."] They shall be the treasurers of the Society, and the collection shall be administered by them together with the minister, setting apart for missionary purposes such proportion of it as shall be fixed at the anniversary meeting. The benefits of the collection shall not be confined to members.

§ 3. The stewards shall also keep a list of members; they shall note on every Lord's day, after divine service, such members as have not complied with the rules of the Society, and shall signify the same to the minister, who shall adopt the same course in every other case as is provided by Rule V. The members shall assemble for these purposes after divine service, in the vestry or chancel, or other convenient place.

IX. Certificates.-Any person coming into the parish from any other parish where there is a Church society, and bringing with him a certificate of membership, signed by the minister, shall be at once admitted a full member of this Society, on his signing the Rules. And any member quitting the parish may take with him a certificate to the same effect, or to the effect of his being a communicant of the Church.

X. Anniversary-On Whit-Monday or Whit-Tuesday, or on some other Holy-day of the Church, the anniversary of the Society shall be held, when every member shall attend the full service of the Church, morning and afternoon; and shall partake of the communion of the Body and Blood of Christ. After service, probationary members shall be admitted to membership: the names of fresh probationary members shall be given in by their sponsors or two other members: the surplus of the collection shall be allotted by vote to missionary purposes, or to the bishop to be distributed by him. Stewards shall be elected, and other business transacted.

XI.-This Society shall not be established until the Rules shall have been submitted to the bishop, and approved by him (according to the primitive

injunction "to do nothing apart from the bishop"). Each member shall sign the Rules and keep a copy of them. Nor shall they be altered, except with consent of the bishop, and of two-thirds of the members. If any dispute arise about the Rules, it shall be referred to the bishop, and his award shall be final. The bishop shall have the power, at his pleasure, to dissolve the Society.

'XII. Church-Membership.-Forasmuch as it is declared by the Articles of the Church of England, that "the visible Church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men, in which the pure word of God is preached, and the Sacraments be duly ministered according to Christ's ordinance" [Article xix.]; and again, that "the Church hath power to decree rites or ceremonies, and authority in controversies of faith" [Article xx.]; it is therefore a fundamental rule of this Society, that it does not seek to form any new association, apart from that "congregation of faithful men," of which the Church consists; and that the members do no more than pledge themselves to observe those things which they are already bound to observe by their Baptism and Christian profession, renewed in Confirmation and in the Supper of the Lord.'

It will be seen that it was not intended under these Rules to hold any devotional meetings except in church. But this is not the only deviation from the design of the original Religious Societies. Those Societies were associations of young men only; and although Dr. Woodward remarks, in reply to objections on that score, that they had existed long enough for some of the members to attain the age of sixty, the principle involved in them was that they should be confined to young men. And if only so much as this were now to be attempted, we believe much good might result.

Perhaps the rule might be that young men should be admitted after confirmation until the age of thirty, after which age they should be honorary members,' not being obliged to submit to the calling of their names, but being of course partakers of all the privileges of the Society. As the Rules prescribe nothing which is not already prescribed by the Church, it might be presumed that by that time they would have got the habit of observing those ordinances-and this would be one safeguard against the danger of the Society degenerating into a sect. For the same and for other reasons it might be better not to admit young women at all. Religion has more hold upon the female mind, and if that degree of discipline which the Church prescribes once came to be generally understood, there would be little fear of their gentle nature not falling earnestly into the system adopted by their husbands and brothers.

But on the other hand it is not conceivable that such a Society should flourish without some sort of religious meetings. It is provided in the above Rules that the members shall assemble after Divine service in the Vestry or Chancel, when their names shall be called and the collection made. Would it be possible to connect with this the practice of saying private

prayers in common at the altar rails, or elsewhere, according to the course so often recommended of late, though hitherto with small success? We remember to have seen many years ago, in the Cathedral at Turin, a number of men of the middle rank in life kneeling together at the rails of a side altar, where no service was going on, no priest being present, and reciting in common a series of prayers in a plain tone. We believe they were the members of one of those charitable fraternities to which, as Samuel Wesley truly said, 'the Church of Rome owes so much.' Whether it might ever be thought fit to allow a number of collects from the Prayer-book to be thus recited in common in our churches, is a question for the rulers of the Church; and what may be the precise intention of the Bishop of Llandaff in the Committee of Convocation appointed on his suggestion, we do not know. But we will suggest another mode, which we think is practicable even now. The bishop has authority to permit the use of the Litany at other times than those prescribed. And that this power is deemed to extend to all hours of the day, and is not limited by the words, after morning prayer,' appears from the fact of its having long been the practice at Lambeth to have the Litany in the Archbishop's Chapel, when the Bishops dine with his Grace, and on other public occasions, before they go to dinner. Indeed it is wisely done to construe such permission as widely as the words will bear. We would therefore suggest that the Litany should be used at an evening service; and, if there was a village choir, it might be said or sung in the chancel with the choir. After this a psalm might follow, and then a lecture. After the prayer preceding the lecture, it might be permitted that all should kneel in silence for some minutes, and then join aloud in the Lord's Prayer. We should be inclined to hope that this might supply a sufficient substitute for those exciting prayer-meetings in which it is said that each in turn is permitted to lead the devotions of the rest, according to the impulse of the moment. After the lecture, it would be competent to use any number of the collects in the end of the Office for the Holy Communion, according to the permission of the rubric. Of course it is not intended that these meetings should be confined to those who should form the Society, but be open to all comers, like all other services in church. We believe there is, at least, one instance in London in which the Bishop allows the Litany to be used daily in Holy Week; and in which, whit such permission, the following services were tried at that season in the present year: 1, Morning Prayer, carly; 2, at the midday office, the seven penitential Psalms, the Litany, the office for the day in the Holy Communion; 3, Evensong, with sermon.

If it should be feared that even so much as this might lead eventually to division and sectarianism, the answer is that sectarianism and division exist already, and that the meetings of those among whom they exist are of a far more questionable kind than these would ever be; so that such proposals are not to be considered as if no such thing existed, but rather as a kind of ecclesiastical homœopathy.

We see and have experienced the way by which those who at least began as the most devoted members of the Church have been led into separation. Does not this fact indicate its own cure? Does it not indicate a want which is not supplied, a craving which is not satisfied, within the pall of our communion? And are we always to go on boasting of our exemption from what we stigmatise as enthusiasm, when the result is, not that enthusiasm is diminished-quite the contrary-but that those deep and often excited feelings which, under proper regulation, might be capable of the best results, are led to find their vent in unauthorized and schismatical courses because they can find no sympathy, or at least no bond of union and fellowship, where they first arise? For it is this that aggravates the evil, that these people are our own people, and that they often receive their first and most abiding religious impressions within the Church.

We hear much of proposals for influencing the masses of our people, and bringing them back to the Church. We have ourselves, in a recent article, suggested the possibility of preaching in the open air, and of a modified and regulated system of itinerancy. But we are satisfied that this will not do alone. Why is it that the preaching of Whitfield has left no abiding results, while that of Wesley has laid the foundation of such a vast and increasing fabric? We know of no other reason than this, that the one preacher combined his followers into a Religious Society, while the other was content with the transient impression on individual minds. And we may learn the same thing from our own Missions among the heathen. Bishop Middleton has left behind him this emphatic declaration in regard to Missions, that the progress of the Gospel in India is 'opposed by discipline and system; and by discipline and system alone, with the Divine Blessing, can it ever make its way.' And all experience verifics the correctness of his opinion, so much so that our Missionaries are constrained to have services and meetings which we at home should deem irregular. And yet if their converts are liable to the allurements of their former heathenism, who shall say that the allurement in their case is greater than that to which those are subject, who, in addition to the temptations of the world, the flesh and the devil, are