the black and red-letter days, I proceeded to Nelson's fuller account of "Fasts and Festivals." I perceived that the observance of such days was peculiarly "Church," and found no favour with Evangelicals and Dissenters. I became zealous in observing them; attended service in Church whenever I had an opportunity on Saints' and other red-letter days, and devised sundry practices for observing them in private, which now I have forgotten.

As I read through Sir Walter Scott's poems and novels, it seemed to me that the priests and services of the Church of Rome (or of the Church of this country while in communion with Rome, which Sir Walter Scott never distinguishes,) had more than a due share of rich dresses, music, and accompaniments, as well as of influence with their flocks. The Puritans and Presbyterians were quite welcome for me to their Geneva gowns and bands, such were in my opinion good enough for them; but I should have wished my own Church of England to have had something grander, if not better than a surplice, prayers "read with undisturbed and decent gravity," and sometimes "the sound of an organ, with one or two flutes," while the intercourse of the Clergy with their flock, limited to "a sensible, energetic, and well-composed discourse," in the shape of a sermon, and, occasionally, a few words of "earnest and affectionate advice," expressed in private, seemed to me but poorly to supply the place of the ghostly relationship of Priest and Penitent, when Roland Græme kneels in confession before the Abbot Ambrosius, I never thought for one moment of joining the Communion of Rome; but I had my day-dreams, in which I delighted to imagine some such ritual and discipline as existing in the Church of England.

Indeed in those days to have contemplated leaving the Church of England would have seemed the desertion of the sinking ship; for her avowed partizans had been obliged to surrender, first to Dissenters and then to Roman Catholics, exclusive privileges, which, though in reality but the incidents of precedence, had been looked upon as the palladium of our Church; and if such things had been done in the green tree, by the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel in an unreformed Parliament, what might not be expected from Earl Grey and Lord John Russell and a reformed House of Commons in the dry? Friends and foes seemed to have made up their minds, that the days of the Church Establishment were numbered. Of course, in the expectation of its foes, the Church would come to an end on the destruction of the Establishment; and though hereditary High Churchmen like myself were unwilling to admit this, yet people had so accustomed themselves to identify the Establishment with the Church, that it was some time before we could realise, even to ourselves, what the position of an unestablished Church of England would be. I could imagine but one state of things, which I depictured as I had learnt it from "Woodstock"

and "Rokeby;" what had happened when Episcopacy was abolished by the Long Parliament, would I expected happen again

"The civil fury of the time

Made sport of sacrilegious crime"

Cathedrals would be gutted, churches desecrated, livings sequestered, the use of the Book of Common Prayer would be forbidden by Act of Parliament: and any "Episcopal clergyman" who ventured to say prayers for a private family would have to do so, like Dr. Rochcliffe, in a dilapidated cassock, and very likely with a black patch over his eye and part of his face by way of disguise. I had heard of the Non-Jurors, but their case was different from any thing I had anticipated; the Non-Jurors had not been violently expelled from, but deliberately left, the established Church, and they had since ceased to exist.

I have more than once1 alluded to Sir Robert Peel having to pay, in the loss of his seat as the representative in Parliament of the University of Oxford, a penalty for the repeal of the Roman Catholic Disabilities; a measure adopted and carried out by the Ministry of which he was the chief in the House of Commons. He was displaced by one whose only claim on the confidence of the University (independent of his straightforward honesty and truthfulness) was his devotion to the "Protestant Establishment;" but though High Church in politics, Sir Robert Harry Inglis was Low Church in polemics, and the movement which displaced Sir Robert Peel in the representation of Oxford was certainly worked by the Evangelicals, and his successful opponent was supported by the entire strength of that party. High Churchmen were divided on the occasion; many, like my own father, considered it necessary to record their votes against Sir Robert Peel, as a protest to surrendering any of the privileges of our Church-but others took a different view; and I had near relations who considered that after the admission of Protestant Dissenters to all political privileges, it was ungenerous to continue the exclusion of Roman Catholics,—that the political interests of our Church might even gain by their admission, since the strong Conservative bias of the Roman Catholic gentry would go far in new political arrangements to counterbalance the levelling principles of the Dissenters. I had a great respect for my father's opinion but when I had heard the opinions of others on this point I could not help sympathising with them.

Hardly, however, had Protestant Establishmentarian principles achieved this great triumph in the Oxford election of 1829, when it appeared that in that University were the men able to point out a position of safety for the Church in any political change. My first reminiscence of the "Tracts for the Times," was reading aloud

1 In parts of the MS. not here extracted.

to my father" No. 38, The Via Media." I do not recollect that it contained anything I had not previously been taught, and I recollect that my father warmly commended the tract. But it was soon generally known that the "Tractarians" were fully prepared to take higher ground in their apology than medio tutissimus ibis. They were asserting that our Church must claim recognition not as the reformed, but as the Catholic, Church of England, relying not on Acts of Parliament, but on the Apostolical Succession; that her people must be taught to value their Church not as an aristocratic establishment, but as the depository of the Sacraments; and to revive her daily services, her fasts and her festivals, and not think their observance was Popish. People of an elder generation were puzzled; they loved their Church and feared to submit her to any experimental treatment. For myself I was delighted; I had dreamt of such a Church as the “ Oxford Tractarians" advocated; and now it appeared that learned and good men of estab lished reputation were prepared to realize my ideal.

THE ENGLISH EPISCOPATE: A SOUND AND EASY PLAN FOR ITS EXTENSION.

ONE of the great questions of the day is whether our Episcopate, that is, our number of Bishops, shall be increased, in order to meet the growing necessities of the times.

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Now, at first sight, it seems somewhat strange that there should any doubt upon this point, for surely reason and common sense should be sufficient to guide us to a right decision; and the amount of Christian feeling already in the country ought surely to remove any difficulties of a pecuniary character.

It would seem obvious to any unprejudiced person, that necessity should regulate supply. We should suppose that a country that had benefited so prodigiously by the propagation of Christianity, would suffer no impediment for a moment to exist, which should hinder it from being spread, with rapidity and power, through the length and breadth of the land.

How is it then that we halt between two opinions? Is it that any among us doubt the Scriptural authority for such an office as that of Bishop?-is their faith weakened by seeing Churches, (so called) without them-and to all appearance thriving, as well as our own? Is it not evident unto all men diligently reading the Holy Scripture and ancient authors, that from the Apostles' time there have been these orders of ministers in CHRIST's Church, Bishops, Priests, and Deacons? Where then is the room for the difference of opinion which seems to prevail?

Surely this question must have some interest for us, laity as well as clergy; and certainly it is one of great importance, when the minds of men are more than usually on the alert, especially in matters pertaining to the Church, and when the laity are beginning to awake to a sense of their responsibilities, and render it therefore imperative that they should be imbued with a proper sense of their duties, and taught to see things in a proper light.

The recent remarkable Congress of Bishops tends to make this subject the more interesting. At present we cannot tell how much good may not result from such a precedent so thoroughly apostolical, however little good it may seem to effect directly. Certainly it will have a tendency to call the attention of the country more strongly to the fact of the existence of Bishops in the Church at large, and lead them to consider their true episcopal character and office. And truly it does seem a matter of deep regret that the number of Bishops should be so small in our own country, and the multiplicity of their engagements in some parts of it should be so great, that their existence has come to be in other parts a matter rather of faith than experience; and so the Episcopal office itself has become somewhat degraded in the national esteem.

But as the question of more Bishops will not be allowed to rest where it now does, we shall pursue this inquiry with a view to eliciting certain facts, bearing rather upon the title, than the function of the Bishop so called. For it will perhaps be made clear that in this case, as in many others, much of the controversy of the present day, and much of the disagreement that exists, is owing mainly to the uncertainty about the meaning of simple words.

Let us then inquire, in the first place, what is the meaning of the word Bishop. What was S. Paul's idea when he indited the words, "If a man desire the office of a Bishop, he desireth a good work?" Of course the Apostle did not use the word Bishop when he wrote in Greek-what word did he use? The question is, whether our word Bishop is an exact equivalent. Now he used a very simple word, and one which explains its meaning, and the apostolic idea at once. S. Paul used the word "Episcopus," the substantive, of which our word "Episcopal" is the corresponding adjective; and the meaning of the word Episcopus is, "he who superintends"-neither more nor less.

In Acts xx. 17, we read that S. Paul sent to Ephesus and called the elders of the Church,-the Greek word is presbyters. In v. 28 he calls these same presbyters or elders, overseers, so that to the mind of the Apostle the presbyter is also an overseer or episcopus. But when we come to the Epistle to Timothy, we find a new office, apparently created by the fresh word Bishop, but the Apostle used

no fresh word, it is the same as he used in Acts xx. 28, and we ought therefore to read, "if any man desire the office of an overseer." In the Epistle to Titus we have overseer again identified with the presbyter or elder. Thus in ch. i. 5, Titus is left to ordain elders; and in v. 7, these same persons are called overseers, i.e., episcopal, superintending persons. From all this it is clear that there were in Apostolic times three orders, viz., 1. Apostles, 2. Overseers, presbyters, and 3. Deacons ; but when the Apostolic function ceased, then, as was reasonable, overseers and presbyters became distinct, the overseers taking the higher function, and occupying as it were the vacant Apostolic ground. And thus the Church from the earliest times to the present day hath universally retained the three orders of Overseer, Presbyter, and Deacon.

There is, of course, nothing in a name, provided we understand the meaning of it; and therefore there can be no reason why any exception should be taken to our calling our overseers Bishops. It is absurd to object to the title of Bishop, because it is not to be found in Scripture. It is the office, and not the name which is the point to be maintained.

With such excellent grounds, then, as we have for the three orders of Bishop, Priest, and Deacon, it is difficult to see, unless we pursue the matter further, why there should be any objection to keeping up the system. No objection seems to be made to the increase of the number of Priests and Deacons-why should not the Bishops be increased to supply the same necessity which existed in Apostolic times, but now in much greater degree, and continually growing as Christianity itself developes? Surely there must be something wrong in the system-some error or misapprehension which causes this hindrance to the free working of our ecclesiastical machinery. Now it is a commonplace observation, but not the less true, that nothing is so likely to get out of order as machinery. Be it ever so good in the first instance, in course of time something will get out of order, and if not rectified, will throw the whole into confusion; or, if the apparatus is so good, and the attention so assiduous, that no external violence, or foreign substance be permitted to interfere with its free working, yet so imperfect is all human contrivance that it is impossible it should not require in process of time some fresh material to enable it to retain its powers in all their integrity. The friction arising from the most legitimate use of any machine is of itself sufficient to produce incompetency; and thus to introduce confusion and abnormal action in the whole.

Even in the human frame, so fearfully and wonderfully made, nothing is more true, than that a slight infringement of law in one department will bring disturbance and distress upon the whole