the Wesleyan Methodists of Ireland. Among the various proofs alleged of the great revival of religion in England, the reviewer mentions church-building :

"In this great effort to supply all England with churches, without waiting for the aid of the State, there is an example, which (except as a similar movement may be going on in the Kirk of Scotland; twenty new churches are thus being provided for in Glasgow) has not its like in any part of the Christian world. That it finds its parallel in any part of continental Europe, will not be pretended. Have we anything like it in this country? We need, unquestionably, in our large and rapidly-increasing cities, in our multiplying and fast widening villages, and in our vast territories, lately entered by a civilised people, and soon to be occupied, in all their length and breadth, by a vigorous and enterprising popula

tion, an immense increase of church accommodation. Much of it, as in our chief cities, will not be made by those who need it. Much may be expected to be done elsewhere by the people themselves, and certainly a great number of places of worship are annually erected in the land. It is certainly best that the people should do this for themselves, rather than by the funds of others. But to show the

peculiarity of the operation in England, as illustrative of the spirit that is now awake in her Church, it is necessary to note the wide difference between the motive that presides in the effort we have been speaking of, and that on which, for the most part, our places of worship are multiplied. Except in the few cases in which churches connected with the city Mission Societies have been built or purchased, we have no such thing in any effective operation as a church-building association, much as it is needed for many swarming suburban districts, many irreligious villages, and many scattered agricultural settlements. Our churches, to say the best of them, are built by those who need them, and who have a personal or family, though at the same time a pious, interest in their erection. But in almost every case a large part of the means is derived from those who give because the church is to be in their neighbourhood, and they have a worldly interest in its completion. But the beauty of the example which we are now endeavouring to hold up, so that it may provoke our own people to a similar work of love, is, that the immense sums contributed are not to par

ticular churches, but to Diocesan Societies, without designation of place or will best promote the supply of the people, to be distributed anywhere, as destitute. The contributor bestows his subscription, not because he is interested in a certain district where he has property to be benefited, or where any personal or family considerations may make him specially desirous of a church; but simply because churches are needed: thousands are destitute of receiving religious instruction: and a place for the worship of God, and for they can be supplied only through the gratuitous benefactions of the wealthy and pious. This disinterested attribute it is which so distinguishes the efforts we have mentioned, and claims for them our special admiration. Contemplating those efforts in their present magnitude and rapid increase; regard

cer

ing them as now only at their beginning, and anticipating the mature strength of the present with the past, we such a giant infancy; comparing, then, tainly behold a most striking evidence, among many, not only of an awakened, doing and of benevolent enterprise in but of a most energetic spirit of wellthe clergy and laity of the English

Church.

Having adverted to the prominent part which the clergy take in all these matters, and especially to the amount of their contribu

tions, Bishop M'Ilvaine adds :

:

"These statistics are certainly exceedingly honourable to the spirit of the clergy. Whatever may be the diversity of opinion as to the expediency of the tithe system, one thing is certain, the country receives back in charity far more than the tithe of what it yields to its clergy. Whatever the Church may say of the unequal distribution of her revenues among her clergy, the country has reason to be thankful for their ultimate distribution, as seed from the sower, wherever her poor want bread, or the ignorant have need to be taught.

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From all that has now been said, it is very manifest that the advancement of the Church of England of late years, in expansive benevolence and zealous activity for the interests of true religion, has been exceedingly great; that in no previous period of her history has she been found in a condition any way near so spiritual, so enlightened, so effectively engaged in the great work entrusted to her, of preserving, defending, and spreading our common Christianity at home and abroad."

"Still, something is, doubtless, re

quired for the right regulation, encouragement, and superintendence of the enlarged labours of her children. She needs more liberty-more room for action. We see not why she may not be an Established Church, if the State be really her friend, without being, as she is now, in a great degree, a disabled Church as to many of those internal arrangements for usefulness and discipline which inalienably belong to her as a spiritual body. If Dissenters may speak of disabilities and grievances from the State, she may much more. This is not the place to enter further into this subject. We have only adverted to it as an explanation of the evident absence of church-system and church-economy in various efforts for usefulness by which the strong excitement for Christian benevolence in the membership of the Church of England is constantly endeavouring to get vent, and to expand itself over the vast surface of human want. The evidence of the spiritual state of the Church is independent of snch considerations. Certainly, whether the best channels are provided or not, there is in the Church at this time an immense increase of the spirit of voluntary effort as distinguished from that which the State might be expected to set on foot and sustain; a spirit to do and give spontaneously what, in accordance with the theory of a Church Establishment, the public authority might effect by its action. Grown too powerful and active to wait for the movements of the State, the Church has determined to do not only its own works, but those also for which the State, were it true to its own principles as connected with the Church, would be forward to do. Assuredly the Church of England is in a fair way to prove that the voluntary principle may exist and operate, in great force and to great extent, under the walls of a church established. Our earnest desire is, not that the Establishment be cast down, but that it remember the vast difference between the times when its last corporate effort of adjustment to circumstances was made, and the present, when circumstances demand so much new and wise effort of adjustment; that the Church be so relieved from her subjection to the State as to be restored to the position she once held as a self-governing body in all spiritual concerns, so as to be capable of taking her true and rightful stand, as well in her unity as a Church, as in the individual efforts of her clergy and laity, in the fore front of all wellprojected enterprises for the promotion of Christianity."

"We now ask to what are we to asCHRIST. OBSERV. No. 13.

ascribe the revival of religion in the Church of England? We have quoted the testimonies of leading Dissenting ministers. One of them (Dr. Smith) has stated that the increase of vital piety in the Established Church, within the last thirty or forty years, has been proportionately, and comparing the measure of advantages, greater than among the Dissenters.' Now, we exceedingly mistake if there is not in this something sui generis, and peculiarly worthy of being remarked. The case of the Church of England is not like that of religious denominations in this country, which have been rapidly growing in extension with the growth of a new and enlarging territory; and which, while greatly increasing in number, and power, and efficiency, have, as denominations, especially in their ministry, experienced no very marked improvement in the grade of their spiritual character. Except in the Episcopal Church (and we mean nothing invidious or derogatory to others by the exception), we apprehend that the tone and elevation of religious attainment among the ministers of our various denominations, greatly as numbers and activity have increased, remain but little, if at all, above the mark at which they were some forty years ago. In expressing this opinion, not the least injurious reflection is intended. But in the Church of England the improvement has not been that of increase by the addition of churches and of territory; of the enlarging of power by the outspreading of her government; but, whilst occupying the same ground, retaining just about the same number of clergy and the same resources, she has become almost new in nearly every thing pertaining to an efficient Church of Christ. Her growth has not been that of a fire, strengthening by the putting on of fresh fuel, but of a fire reviving out of its own ashes. It has been remarkably a revival of religion among the clergy, and that, not by a gradual rolling onward of the wave of godly influence from one part to another, through an agency of second causes distinctly manifest, but by the starting up of the evidences of a new life, and the shooting forth of the fruits of new growth, simultaneously in various parts, without connexion with each other, and remarkably without visible influence. In no part of the history of the Church of Christ can so many examples be found of distinct spiritual change and marked religious growth in the clergy, as have occurred in the Church of England during the last half century. This has taken place at a time when in every Protestant Church

I

in Europe, out of Great Britain, the cause of spiritual religion has been deplorably on the wane; when Geneva was sinking lower and lower into Socinianism, Germany into Neological scepticism, and the Reformed Churches of France into a compound of both. Now we cannot help inquiring, what does all this mean? The of the Lord has eye certainly rested with special interest upon the Church of England. His hand seems to have been preparing her for some special service. It cannot be, that after all this, she is to fall."

It is Dr. Dealtry's own fault that we have exhausted our space upon another, not himself: but if men are so disinterested as to place their neighbour's house in front of their own, and to call us to admire it, we may do so till we have not time left to survey what lies behind in the manner it deserves. We must, however, present a few bricks, as a specimen.

The two principal topics of Dr. Dealtry's Charge are the duty of providing a scriptural education in the bosom of the Established Church for the infant population; and churches with all their accompanying means of grace for adults; and he shews that the Church has done much in both these respects; but that it may do much more.

He mentions that the population of England and Wales in 1831 was about fourteen millions; of which nearly five millions are contained in the four dioceses of London, Winchester, Chester, and Gloucester. In these dioceses 380 churches and chapels have been built within these few years, being at the rate of one for every sixth parish. Dr. Dealtry justly argues from this fact that there is great encouragement to proceed with the work, arduous as it is; and he urges the duty of also pro viding endowments for the port of clergymen, as well merely finding them work to do. This duty has been grievously neglected. It does not seem to be a popular belief that

sup

as

"the

Lord hath ordained that they who preach the Gospel should live of the Gospel." God does care more for oxen than some of the laity seem to care for those who minister to them in holy things. Chancellor Dealtry has so liberal a heart, that he thinks that not only might much more be done at home, but that we might extend large spiritual aid to our colonies and to the heathen, while he is grateful for what has been already so zealously effected, and with such manifest blessing from on high. One chief obstacle in the way of church building, we fear, is the adjudication of patronage. The Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol, in his recent Charge, strongly advises that Church Building Societies should not be precluded from aiding in the erection of churches which may be undertaken and carried on by parties who do not wish to place the patronage at the sole control of the Bishop of the diocese for the time being. We think that his Lordship takes a just and enlightened view of the matter. Innumerable benefits would result from having areasonable share of the new church patronage scattered abroad throughout the country; and some considerable evils may arise from its accumulation, to the number perhaps of several hundred new churches, in a single official hand; more especially in the absence of a convocation, or of any veto upon the nominations which secular statesmen may see fit to make for the episcopal office. When the church chose its own bishops, and bishops had little to appoint to but the hard preferments enumerated by St. Paul (2 Cor. xi.), the case was very different. There are individuals on whom a mitre may fall, to whom we should dread to assign the sole presentation to several hundred new churches.

Dr. Dealtry's important topic

of education has been so largely discussed in our pages, that we need not dilate upon it at present. Yet there is one particular alluded to by the Chancellor, to which we would most earnestly invite the especial attention of our readers. The National and other Church schools educate nearly a million of children; and Dr. Dealtry very forcibly asks why the number might not be doubled, or made to reach the extent of the necessity. But even if this were effected, the whole machinery of the schools is susceptible of great improvement; besides which, as Dr. Dealtry remarks, there is a very large class of persons, too elevated in the scale of society to avail themselves of eleemosynary instruction, who yet have not the means of obtaining education at our higher schools and universities. Can nothing, he says, be done towards establishing a middle class of schools to meet this exigency? and in proof that something can, he refers to the plan recently proposed by the Bishops of London and Winchester, for establishing "commercial schools." The whole question of popular education has been for some months under the consideration of the National Society, at the suggestion of several gentlemen who have proposed the following excellent scheme. First, to provide a better class of teachers, by improving the education, condition, and prospects of schoolmasters; secondly, to ascertain and bring into notice improvements in the management of schools; and thirdly, to offer to the middle classes, on moderate terms, a general education based on the religious principles of the established church. To accomplish these objects, it is proposed to appoint diocesan Boards of management under the presidency of each bishop; with local boards in each

deanery, or other ecclesiastical district; and also to form a central school in each cathedral, to train schoolmasters and parishclerks, and to educate the choristers. It is further proposed to set up a commercial school in some leading town in each rural deanery. The education in all is to be Christian and Anglican; the National Society providing suitable books with the sanction of its episcopal members.

Such a plan, if duly wrought out, will supply what is wanting in the present system of education, both as to its mechanical arrangements, and its moral, literary, and religious character. The great argument of the Central Society Committee, and of those who patronise Lord Brougham's Bill, is that we have not education enough, and that what we have is of bad quality. The proposed plan, rightly executed, would obviate both those objections; while it prevented the fatal evil of making education of a really bad quality, by detaching it from religion, and breaking up the whole machinery of an established church, in respect to the training of children, which would be an enormous stride towards abolishing its ministrations also to adults. But the education proposed, must be efficient; it must rise to the demands of the times; and, above all, it must be truly Christian; and that not in the sense of mere mental attainment, but of training the child by the Divine blessing as a candidate for eternity-a faithful, humble disciple of Jesus Christ. We heartily wish the National Society success in its momentous undertaking; and we trust that Chancellor Dealtry, and all who have taken an interest in it, will have abundant reason to rejoice. that their labour has not been in vain in the Lord.