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nected with each other: a diminution in the number of candidates for the Ministry, and internal dissension.

The latter point is prominent just now, from the unusual fact that the most recent attack on part of the Church position has been conducted by one of her own Bishops.

Bishops, and particularly Colonial Bishops, enjoy a position of such peculiar immunity from any legal process, that it is very difficult to deal with such a case. But in itself, though it happens to be unusual in our Church, I need not say that it is a mere accident. In the American Church, one Bishop joined the Church of Rome, another joined the Southern army; and the annals of the Papacy are full of Bishops censured and chastised for heterodoxy.

In the general state of things, there is no cause whatever for surprise. Times of great intellectual activity always have been and always must be attended with danger, of one sort or another, to Christian doctrine.

Whatever may come of it, one main element of disturbance in the Church-the desire for a large comprehension, for simplification of formularies on the basis of some assumed scheme, of Fundamentals or the like -can lead to nothing.

No Church, certainly not one resting on the Bible, can ever be constructed to hold together long, on this supposed basis of simplicity. For the Bible, and the Christianity of the Bible, is not a simple thing, and cannot be, for the obvious reason that the subject with which it undertakes to deal, and to deal fully, is human nature surely no simple thing, but complex, manysided, mysterious, obscure.

Meanwhile railways are burrowing under the soil of London, and the telegraph wires passing along the roofs of its houses almost every town has its Station, almost every village its Post Office: letters, the Book Post, above all, newspapers, are in constant and rapid progress. "Many run to and fro, and knowledge is increased.”

Years ago, when this great material outburst was just beginning its career, a gloomy Tory writer in some magazine said, "So Nero danced and fiddled while Rome was burning." As long as good and evil shall co-exist in this world, and as long as men have different temperaments, some dwelling most on the former, some on the latter, so long will this kind of feeling and its opposite co-exist. What is a kaleidoscope to one man is a kakeidoscope to another. Ever will the dull, the apathetic, the satiated, look round them and say, "There is no new thing under the sun :" ever will the sensitive religionist say, "To her funeral pile this aged world is borne," and anticipate the near approach of the last days, nay, will announce that they are already arrived ever will the cheery and the sanguine hold the exact opposite, and believe that the world is in its youth, and just about to enter for the first time on its real destiny.

So, I say, it will ever be, "until the day break, and the shadows flee away."

Meanwhile let us at least hold fast our trust, that all around us tends or may be turned to good ;-" else," as I once heard it said, "else a man might as well spend his life sitting under a gallows, with a halter round his neck, reading a jest-book."

RELIGIOUS AND ECCLESIASTICAL

ON THE HOLY COMMUNION.

1843.

(Among the Tracts of the Christian Knowledge Society.)

THE duty of partaking in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, or the Holy Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ, is one which, though more attended to than formerly, is yet much neglected at the present day; particularly, perhaps, by men rather than women, and by the lower orders rather than the higher.

This Sacrament is administered in the church of this parish several times in the year, of which Christmas day, that is now approaching, is one. It is much to be wished that none should miss this opportunity of receiving it; and it may therefore be proper to consider now, first, the proof that it is a duty to be performed by all Christians; secondly, the reasons which, either openly or secretly, make so many people neglect it.

We all know that the proof of any duty which we are to perform lies in this, that we find it commanded in the Bible; and whoever wilfully perseveres in neglecting any duty there commanded, can have no right to hope to be saved after his death. And, with regard to the particular duties of Christians, whatever Christ Himself or His Apostles command, it is our duty to do; that is, we are to look for them, in the first place, in the New Testament. We may not by ourselves be able to understand everything that is there set down, but we

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