having now experieneed the consolations of religion, was most anxious to communicate them to others. Nor were his labours in vain. His brothers Rowland and Brian, his sister Jane and others of his family appear to have been led to serious views of religion by his instructions. Mr. Richard Hill was educated at Westminster, and graduated at Oxford, after which he remained some time at Hawkstone; here he was deputed by his father Sir Rowland to rescue if possible his brother Rowland from his erratic course, but was so overcome by the effects of his brother's preaching to the Kingswood colliers, as for a time to follow his example. After a time however he discontinued preaching, became member of parliament, where he represented his native county in six parliaments, and maintained through his whole course the character of a religious and truly independant member, though he usually supported Mr. Pitt. Sir Richard took also an active part in the leading religious events of his day, of which Mr. Sidney has given an interesting narrative. He died at the age of 75, in the year 1808.

Mr. Walker was born at Exeter in 1714, and took his degree of B. A. at Exeter College, Oxford, in 1737. In the same year he entered into holy orders, though he had no suitable views of ministerial responsibility. In 1746 he -became curate of Truro, but it was not until the following year that he was brought under the influence of true religion. From that period to his death, in 1761, he became in labours more abundant-preaching, catechizing, lecturing, forming and attending select societies among his people, conducting an extensive correspondence, and preparing and publishing various useful works. In these undertakings it pleased God to honour him with great and abundant success. The various details on all those

points contained in the volume before us, are pregnant with interesting and instructive information, and are well calculated to stir up every reader to follow Mr. Walker

as he followed Christ.

We shall not detain our readers with any outline of the lives of Mr. Whitfield, or the Countess of Huntingdon. The former work we cannot recommend; the latter is as yet unfinished. But the reader who desires to be fully acquainted with the religious circumstances of the last century, should peruse Mr. Sidney's three volumes; the lives of Whitfield and the Countess of Huntingdon, together with Southey's or Watson's Life of Wesley, Whittingham's Memoir of Berridge, Wesley's Journals, the Life of Henry Venn, and the writings of some of Mr. Wesley's leading opponents, as Warburton, Lavington, &c.

The question however may be asked, to whom, under God, is the revival of religion in our establishment to be especially ascribed, to the regulars or the irregulars? Is Mr. Sidney right, in claiming this honour for Walker, Adam, Romaine, &c. or shall we concede to Mr. Philip and our dissenting claimants, that the revival was mainly produced by Whitfield, Wesley, Berridge, the Hills, &c. To us it appears that the honour belongs exclusively to neither party, that the labours of each were accompanied with a beneficial result, and that if either party had withdrawn from the field, the great work of national reformation would have been impeded. We have already intimated that beneficial effects will not justify disorder, since it ofttimes pleases Almighty God to educe good out of evil; but at the same time, when he sees fit, graciously to own and accept the services of any, it ill-becomes his servants severely to judge or censure the instruments who are thus honoured.

In considering the conduct of Wesley, Whitefield, Berridge, the Hills, &c. we should ever remember that their position differed very materially from our own. The former especially arose in a season of great darkness and destitution. A century before the great rebellion, drove out from their churches, above half the incumbents in the land; the universities were in great measure cleared of their students, the ministers whom the parliamentary commissioners approved, were men who justified the violence of their patrons, and countenanced their ungodly deeds. We speak with high approbation of Baxter, and Owen, and Calamy, &c. but it is impossible to forget that somehow or other they kept in with traitors, usurpers, rebels, and regicides; the result was that thinking men regarded them and their followers with well-deserved suspicion. The Restoration came, and amidst the licentiousness of the court, the prejudices of the cavalier, the folly and mismanagement of the dissenting leaders, and the intrigue of the Jesuits; real religion was scarce, and contemned, and craftily aimed at by the Bartholomew ejection; meanwhile the scarcity of students was such as to render it impossible to supply the vacant churches with suitable ministers; inferior men were necessarily introduced, even into many important posts, and thus at the time when Wesley and Whitefield appeared, the character of the English clergy was at its lowest ebb. It is impossible to read the journals of Wesley, without being shocked at the degraded state of religious feeling, through a large part of the land; while the style and language adopted by educated men, nay, even by ecclesiastical dignitaries in their attacks upon Methodism, have always given us a lower view of the state of religion at that period, than even the outrageous violence

with which the Methodists were assailed.

In such a melancholy period, Wesley and Whitefield arose. The times were peculiar, and their position was also peculiar. They were both educated for the church; they were regularly ordained ministers, and yet without any ecclesiastical censure legally pronounced, they were in early life excluded from the pulpits of the establishment. Whitefield especially was almost forced into the ministry by Bishop Benson, and then practically excluded from the church, and this at a time when religion was at its lowest ebb. We may condemn, but we can scarcely be surprised at the determination which he in consequence adopted to preach when and where he could.

In estimating their conduct, an important question arises, which is not very easy to answer. What is the extent of ordination? Our law regards it as communicating an indelible character. Once a priest, always a priest. He is to be a faithful dispenser of the word of God, and of his holy sacraments, and there he is to minister in the congregation where he shall be lawfully appointed; but if no such lawful appointment exists, Is he then to be silent? Is he to allow souls to perish in ignorance and sin, without making any exertion on their behalf, though he has authority to preach the Word of God? This would, it may be said, very much resemble the conduct of that idle and slothful servant who buried his talent in a napkin. Perhaps in such circumstances, the more unexceptionable way would be for the ordained minister who has no specific charge, to go forth as a missionary to foreign lands, but a century ago there were scarcely any missionary openings, the care of the heathen was seldom thought of, and subjects familiar to our ears, were strange

tidings to Christian men in general. We must not condemn men for not being in advance of their generation.

But it may be said, no circumstances can justify the intrusion of one minister into the parish of another, that Berridge was most inexcusable, having a charge of his own, which might fully occupy his attention. But was this exactly the case? Berridge had a small agricultural parish of a few hundred people; he appears to have preached and prayed and visited his own parishioners most effectually, and then he turned his attention to others. Complaints were made to his diocesan, and an interview took place; but the diocesan all at once ceased his opposition. Berridge knew not the cause, and might well infer, that his diocesan was in some measure disposed to connive at his proceedings, or possibly was convinced by his arguments. It is somewhat

curious that no one ever ventured to proceed against Whitefield, Wesley, &c. in our ecclesiastical courts, nor can it be any matter of surprise, that they should persevere in a course which they thought right, and which though clamoured against as irregular, was not declared by any competent authority to be wrong. Every priest of our Church is legally entitled to preach in any church to which the incumbent of that church may see fit to admit him, nor can he be legally deprived of this privilege, except by sentence of an ecclesiastical court; the verbal or written inhibition of a diocesan, is an arbitrary assumption of authority which is not in our own Church, conceded to the episcopal order. Nor is there any canon or ecclesiastical constitution, which prohibits a clergyman from preaching in the open air. In fact such public preaching took place regularly at stated occasions, at St. Paul's Cross, London; Stirbitch Fair,

near Cambridge, &c. and we are not aware that our ecclesiastical courts have ever condemned the practice, though civilians invariably pronounce it to be irregular. Their opinions however are not either statutes or adjudged cases.

Thus much may be said in extenuation of the irregulars, without entering on the positive good or evil which resulted from their exertions; it is however commonly remarked, that had Wesley, Whitefield, Hill, &c. been strictly regular, they would have effected greater and unmixed good; they might have been advanced to high and commanding situations, &c.; and this would by no means have been an improbable conjecture, had the times been more favorable; -but we must here again not lose sight of the peculiar character of their day, when a determined spirit of persecution prevailed and issued in gross and monstrous acts of injustice and violence. The impressment of some of Mr. Wesley's preachers, the expulsion of the six students from Oxford, the shameful lenity evinced at the same time to an intemperate blasphemer, show how little could be expected from the generally prevailing standard, either of equity or religion in those days. In fact, not only Messrs. Wesley and Whitefield, but even men of strict regularity, found extraordinary measures necessary. The societies formed by Dr. Woodward, Mr. Walker, and others, were all innovations, and though perfectly legal and regular, were established without any authority or instruction of the hierarchy. On Mr. Walker's Societies, full information is given by Mr. Sidney in his Life of Walker; and similar plans have been adopted in numerous other cases, and in the first instance there has generally been a fair prospect of advantage and edification, which has yet but seldom been eventually realized. When

all these points are fully considered, strong doubts may be entertained whether the adoption of the irregulars of a materially different line of conduct would have proved so decidedly advantageous to the cause of religion, as is ofttimes assumed.

The methodists,' said one, are a blistering plaster on the backs of the clergy.' The eccentricities, the irregularities, the doubtful, perhaps unjustifiable con`duct of Wesley, Whitfield, Hill, &c. excited attention, provoked enquiry, stimulated an exertion, troubled the sluggish writers, and had thus an indirect effect in the revival of religion in many pastors and parishes, who never countenanced their proceedings. Be it remembered also, however inconsistent it may seem, that these men really loved the Church, professed attachment to her liturgy, encouraged others to enter into her service, except the irregularities of their ministrations, they had no community of feeling with dissenters.

But how were our Diocesans in general occupied during this period. Of most of them it must be said, they were asleep. Of a few they were determinately hostile to Wesley and Whitfield, and very indisposed towards Walker, Adam, Romaine, &c. No efforts were made to provide new churches, to enforce residence, to exercise salutary discipline. It was not till Bible and Missionary Societies arose, that the Church seemed to awake; but now thank God, more has been done for the extension of our Zion, in the last twenty years, than had been done previously from the accession of the House of Stuart. It is impossible not to feel that a little practical wisdom might have kept the methodists in the Church; to unite them now

with the Church is a more difficult, though not as Mr. Sidney seems to think, a desperate undertaking,the difficulty is that there are no persons to negociate,—there is indeed the Methodist conference on the one hand, but there is no influential body to act for our Church. The parties however are approximating, the characters of each are better understood, and possibly some temperate and able individual may arise, who may point out some practicable plan by which Wesleyan chapels may become chapels of ease, and Wesleyan preachers be ordained as ministers. The Wesleyans, as a body, profess to approve of our Liturgy, Articles, and Homilies; and we are told that some of our highest churchmen, (such as Dr. Hook of Leeds for instance) go very far in the adoption of somewhat like the Wesleyan class meetings and private societies.

Meanwhile churches are building, and schools erecting, and Pastoral Aid, and Clergy Aid Societies are forming, and there is work for every man to do who is willing to work. The arguments therefore, or the pretexts for irregularity, no longer exist. The call goes widely forth, come over and help us, and if we mistake not, fresh measures will soon be necessary, to provide additional ministers and missionaries for Home and Foreign service. Let therefore our Christian youth be diligent in prayer, in the study of God's Word, in attendance on Divine ordinances, in instructing Sunday and Day Schools, in visiting the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and they may perhaps eventually find themselves called upon to serve God in the Gospel of his Son.

attend schools on the engagement that it should not be introduced; but all history, all biography, all geography, all chronology, is full of the preparations for Christianity, in the case of nations sunk like those of Hindostan. The annals of all the European world, the progress of civilization, the inventions of arts, the discoveries of science, the improvements in medicine, the advances of commerce, are full of the seeds of truth to such a people. The very laws of historical evidence, the certainty of objective truth, the rules of philosophy founded on experiment, the influence and consequences, in the ordinary providence of the Almighty, of good and false principles of morals on the happiness of nations and individuals, all touch upon Christianity. Nor is it a matter of small moment to prevent these tendencies being stopped or perverted by the insidious admixture of sceptical and atheistical principles. And we are to remember, that it is one thing for a Clergyman to be called in ab initio, and consulted in the course and order to be pursued in the education of a Heathen and Mahommedan population; and another to find a system actually at work on which his opinion is not asked, but which the just influence of a learned and pious Clergyman may render less inefficient and perilous.'

And afterwards, in speaking of the institution of the Martiniere, his Lordship says,—

AUGUST, 1839.

A very erroneous idea having gained currency at home concerning the share which the bishop of Calcutta took in fixing the principles of this institution, I think it right, in justice to the Indian Episcopal Church, to observe that I laboured strenuously to have its foundations laid on the express doctrines and discipline of the Church of England only; but, failing in this, I succeeded with great difficulty in preventing what is termed the Irish Government School System from being adopted, and in establishing in its stead all the great doctrines of redemption as held by the five main divisions of the Christian world-the English, the Scotch, the Roman Catholic, the Greek, and the Armenian churches-as our fundamental principles; leaving the ministers of each church to supply instructions on the sacrament and matters of discipline to the children of their own communions respectively.'

The following is the Report, signed by the committee, and adopted unanimously by the board. Report, &c. of the Committee appointed to frame a Plan, &c.

1. Your Committee submit that, in order to meet the first rule adopted by the Honourable Governors, the religious instruction of the children must be divided into two parts; the one general, the other particular;— the one embracing the fundamental truths of Christianity, as they are held in common by the five great existing divisions of Christendom enumerated in the Rule; the other relating to discipline, church government, the sacraments, and other matters on which differences more or less important exist. Your Committee consider that the first part should be taught daily and publicly to all the children by the head master of the school; the second, privately and on particular days by the ministers and teachers whom the parents of the respective children may, with the approbation of the Governors, select.

'II. The following are the main truths held in common, on which 2 S