than he was to himself, declining to print his "Statement;" and unless we are much mistaken, that astute journal has all along been wise enough to abstain from identifying itself with a cause for which so little could be said, though always ready to have a fling at the High Church party. But though the doors of Printing House Square were closed against him, the local paper was only too glad to have such a document in its pages as a means of adding to its circulation; and from thence the letter was soon transferred to other prints and republished as the separate pamphlet we are about to notice.

We repeat that was happily the case, for it brought out Mr. Neale's justification of himself in a letter to the Bishop, which crushed the allegations of Mr. Scobell into the most contemptible nothingness, and has caused things to be revealed which without this necessity would never have become known.

The substance of Mr. Scobell's statement is, that Mr. Neale laid snares for the "capture" of Miss Scobell, that he held clandestine interviews with her (insinuated to be numerous), and that he kept up with her a secret correspondence extending to the number of some hundreds of letters. Mr. Scobell says the " number of" Mr. Neale's visits and letters to Miss Scobell, under cover to the schoolmistress, as a third confidential party, "amounted to hundreds," but this is probably only one of the many blundering expressions which characteristically abound in Evangelical literary productions. Mr. Neale saw Miss Scobell twice only at the house of the schoolmistress, having come to Lewes the first time on the supposition that he was to meet her at the house of a lady friend, and at the second interview (granted in consequence of her almost imploring request) he told her distinctly that another meeting under such circumstances could not take place, and it did not. The number of letters that passed during a three years' acquaintance amounted to fewer than forty; and a portion only of these were written with a continual protest from the writer-under cover to the schoolmistress. We mention these facts not so much for the purpose of refuting Mr. Scobell's audacious misrepresentation of Mr. Neale's conduct, but because they seem, on the face of them to require some justification. Although the lady concerned was by fortune and age in a quasi independent position, she was yet an inmate of her father's house; and it seems at first as if it were a just subject of remonstrance on the part of that father, when a clergyman strange to him, as it seems, consented to those two interviews. The answer to this is to be found in the extreme nature of the case. In the year 1853, when this lady became first.

1 As for the letter of Miss Parker to Mr. Scobell, it is 30 evidently composed in substance by the same hand which wrote the letter to Mr. Neale printed on the same page, that it is not worth notice.

slightly imbued with the doctrines and views of Dr. Pusey," she had opened her grief to a female friend;

"She then told me," this lady says, "the gay life her sisters led at home, making no complaints of them, but merely stating how distasteful the life was to her, and wishing her father would allow her to visit the poor and teach the young in his large parish; she also told me she could never go to church but on Sundays; could rarely communicate, and what a pleasure and comfort the frequent Administration and Daily Services here were to her. I saw a letter (gentle and loving) to her father before she returned home, merely begging she might go to a district church Wednesdays and Fridays, and not go to parties and balls. I also saw the answer, in which her father did not even address her as his child, but began Emily,' and to the best of my memory it ran thus; 'I make no comment on your letter: there is but one rule in my house; you must do as your sisters do as long as you abide in it.' . . . . In August I received a letter, saying that my letters were opened by her father before given to her; we then agreed to write but seldom. At a later date she wrote in great sorrow, saying her father had, under fear, extorted a promise from her not to see or write to any person holding high church views, or use books inculcating those views. Her mental journal, intended for GOD's eye only, was taken and read before her family, a cross on her table broken to pieces, no room allowed her for private prayer, or retirement, her only possibility of praying being to rise late at night, when others were asleep. Going to balls was a great trial to her also, she said. . . . . That promise preyed upon her mind she resolved to break it and determined to go to Mr. Gresley for advice, which her father prevented by forbidding her to go that side of Brighton or to S. Paul's Church. Her loneliness seemed to prey on her so much, that I feared she would leave our branch of the Church, and I was thankful when GOD graciously led you to her: from that time her letters were so calm and different."-Pp. 6, 7.

This hankering after Romanism is not uncommon in young persons thrown so entirely upon their own resources, and especially when they are so persecuted, as we are sorry to say is not uncommonly the case in low-Church families-that they are unable to avail themselves of the means of grace attainable in their own Communion. It certainly cannot be called less than persecution when the "private memoranda" on spiritual matters made by a young woman of thirty are taken from her by her father, after locking the door of her own room, and after a struggle by main force, and publicly read in the family. Such an action seems too atrocious to be common, but we fear analogous persecutions are not rare; and they, of course, tend to drive the subjects of them into Romanism.

To continue in great depression and distress, and no wonder, Miss Scobell was advised to apply to Mr. Neale for spiritual counsel. That gentleman made inquiry into the case, and becoming acquainted with some of its circumstances, consulted with several clergymen of the diocese on the subject of taking it up as

he was requested. Their advice was that he should do so, and we really do not see what loophole there is by which any priest can refuse to receive any person who applies to him with the avowed intention of opening their griefs.' Mr. Neale is not the only priest who has been compelled to give this matter anxious consideration, nor the only one who has felt that "while the Prayer Book stands as it does," he was bound not to refuse such applicants the comfort and counsel sought. And now, mark Mr. Neale's cautious regard for the peace of the family:

"Did I then think that it was possible that such a state of things should continue? Certainly not. In the conversation that ensued, after she had made her confession, I asked her to allow me at once to call on her father, and to tell him what had been done. But, brokenspirited as she was, she shrank from the very idea. I did not know, she said, what I was desirous of doing; I was not aware of his ungoverned temper; the very announcement might lead to some act of personal violence on his part. Very unwillingly (for I knew it was the best course,) but necessarily, (for I had no right to force it upon her) I gave up the design. I was obliged, therefore, to content myself with her promise that, within a week, she would herself choose her own opportunity, and tell her father.

"I wish, most heartily, that she had done so; but with the unkindness against which she had to contend, with her crushed spirit, and excessive fear of her father's violence, I cannot much wonder that she failed in keeping it. Her mother's death, which occurred shortly afterwards, occasioned another difficulty; and she put off from day to day what, had she taken my advice, she would have done at once."-P. 9.

Although glad, for some reasons, that these full disclosures have been made, there are others which make us regret that they were necessary, for it is quite evident that as much was meant only for the eye and ear of a spiritual adviser, so nothing but the consent of the lady-her request, indeed-and the extreme necessity of the occasion, could have justified the publication of such private communications. But, however this may be, they at least show that Mr. Neale acted in no other way than an English Priest and an English gentleman ought to have acted: that his conduct from first to last was kind, honourable, manly, and wise: and whatever theological difference of opinion there might be between them, it ought to have been frankly acknowledged as such by Mr. Scobell. Instead of this, that clergyman meets Mr. Neale by a "Statement," which contains much perversion of the truth, several base insinuations for which there is not the slightest foundation, and an ingratitude towards the clergyman who led his daughter to that peace of mind which he himself never sought to lead her to, for which we cannot find terms of censure sufficiently strong.

We have now done with this case, so far as it was necessary to

examine it as between Mr. Scobell and Mr. Neale. Let us once more revert to the Bishop of Chichester's letter. His lordship first of all remarks that the Institute at East Grinsted "has for some time past submitted itself to the unlimited influence of Mr. Neale, a clergyman in whose views and practices it is well known I have no confidence." It is well known that the Bishop of Chichester has no confidence" in Mr. Neale. It should also be well known why such Bishops refuse their confidence to earnest working clergymen of Mr. Neale's sort. It should be well known that some ten years ago that gentleman was made Warden of Sackville College by the representatives of its founder; that he immediately set about the work for which he had been put into that office, the work of restoring both the material and the spiritual fabric of a very excellent foundation, which was fast running to decay in both; that he re-established a constant service of Almighty GoD in the chapel of that College; that he put the damp and miserably-neglected Chapel itself into such repair as made it fit for Divine worship to be offered therein; that he ingratiated himself with the old people, for whose benefit the College was founded, by his kindness and ministerial care of them; and conducted himself in every way as befitted such an office. It should be "well known" that when this came to the ear of the Bishop of Chichester, his lordship took immediate steps for putting an end to the good work, did his best to throw the College back into its former state, and inhibited Mr. Neale from performing any ecclesiastical function in the diocese ; under which inhibition he is still lying, and has been for ten years.1 The Bishop of Chichester has evidently "no confidence" in those earnest people who by their earnest working for CHRIST break in upon that humdrum routine which alone he can recognize as the religion of the Church of England: and let every institution, every labourer of this sort in the Diocese of Chichester take warning, that they may expect to have their work utterly extinguished if they give his lordship sufficient power over them; that is, if by manifesting zeal they lose the Episcopal "confidence."

But the Bishop now discovers that Mr. Neale gives him reason for this want of confidence by a "frequent and regular way" of applying the practice of Confession. If Mr. Neale's way of applying it were infrequent and irregular; that is, if it were used " any how," without method, without anxious preconsideration, without, in short, the same earnest methodical attention to the object in view and the best way of attaining it which are appreciated so highly by the world at large in every thing but religion,-if he were to work listlessly and confusedly, instead of earnestly, and

1 We recommend those of our readers who have never seen "A Statement of Proceedings by the Lord Bishop of Chichester against the Warden of Sackville College, East Grinsted," published by Masters, in 1853, to procure and read it atten

with a clear head, then, we presume, he might find sympathy in his Bishop's heart-who knows but such qualifications might even win an Episcopal throne for him too?

The Bishop also denies that the Church of England sanctions the habitual practice of Confession, acknowledging it only in rare and exceptional cases, but his lordship's ex cathedra assertion is well confuted by the official opinion of an acute lawyer, which Mr. Neale appends to his pamphlet, and which we hope to see reprinted and generally circulated among the Clergy: and we need add nothing to what Mr. Chambers has said. When, however, his Lordship avers that "those who admit such application of it to themselves, manifest thereby the inadequacy of their direct faith in CHRIST'S promises," we cannot help replying with just indignation that if the assertion were correct in theory, the Bishop's own office would be utterly useless; and that such an assertion betrays an ignorance of Theological first principles which can be stigmatized by no lighter word than contemptible.

It is worse than contemptible,-it is wicked-when the Bishop of Chichester adds, "their resort to this unauthorised remedy, by a righteous retribution, issues in a continuous increase of weakness, and an accumulation of obstructions in the way of the true influences of grace upon their hearts. They trust more and more in man, and are less and less able without man to hope in CHRIST, i. e, truly to hope in Him." We accuse the Bishop of writing these words without the slightest foundation in fact for what he so strongly and broadly asserts. His lordship has not, we venture to say from such evidence alone, tried it in his own person; he has had no experience of it whatever as a confessor in the case of others he has had no opportunity beyond that of the most shallow observer, of examining and penetrating into its results. And yet, writing in what amounts to total ignorance, he can dare to write thus strongly of a matter which-take it how he will-concerns the welfare of a multitude of souls.

;

We are quite sure that there are many Priests and Laymen, who have had experience of habitual confession, whose opinions of its effects are entirely opposed to those of Bishop Gilbert; who have seen in others, and known in themselves that, instead of 'weakness' its chief result was such a strengthening and bracing of their spiritual nature as they had never been conscious of before using it; and that the "righteous retribution" of which his lordship so glibly speaks is practically unknown. On the one side we shall have the evidence of shallow, reckless theory; on the other of earnest reflection, and practical experience; and which will be of most value, let the reader judge for himself.

This is not a question to be set aside in the easy manner in which it is treated by the Bishop of Chichester. His lordship does not know it, of course, but those who have practical acquaintance