"look up with humble reliance to the source of all power and wisdom, whose spirit is strength to the feeble and light to the blind," for support and direction in the administration of his arduous charge. From these subjects, the Bishop proceeds to call the attention of his clergy in regular order, to all those important points, in the discussion of which, their professional duties and personal interests are so deeply involved. The first circumstance, which falls under his notice, is the relief granted by the equitable interference of Parliament to those unfortunate clergy, who were suffering under that persecution for non-residence, which the existing law, without the intention of its framers, had given too certain and too severe a sauction. "The equitable interference of Parliament has afforded relief in this emergency, empowering the diocesan to discriminate between involuntary error, or venial omission, and substantial violation of law. The result of the inquiries to which this arrange ment has led, I am happy to state, has been peculiarly creditable to the clergy of this diocese. In the numerous cases referred to my decision, the fault has, almost without exception, been found to consist, not in wilful dereliction or criminal neglect of duty, but in the disregard of those precautions, which are necessary to legalize virtual residence, or to confirm the claim of justifiable absence to the indulgence allowed by law. Among the objects of attack, it is bare justice to say, are many individuals irreprehensible in character, and exemplary in conduct, who have constantly resided in the bosom of their cures, and whose lives and affections have been uniformly devoted to the spiritual concerns of their parishioners. By men of this description, unaccustomed to reproach, the unmerited imputation of delinquency has been felt as a more intolerable grievance, than the pecuniary loss which would have followed the rigid execution of the law. But, whilst they stand acquitted of criminality, they have been deficient, it must be allowed, in that reasonable care of their own interest, which, in the complicated relations of civil life, becomes a duty to society, of stronger obligation perhaps on the Ministers of the Gospel, than on any other class of men. The salutary influence of the clergy, which gives efficacy to their exhortations, and weight to their instructions, is intimately connected with the general respectability of their persons. And the dignity of the sacred office will undoubtedly suffer in the estimation of the public, when men invested with this high character are placed in the humiliating situation of delinquents, and compelled to struggle with the disquietudes of mind, and the distress and embarrassment of circumstances which are the natural consequences of an expensive prosecution." P. 5. The same malignant spirit, which had instigated the profligate and vexatious persecution of the clergy, for the omission of formal notifications and venial omissions, was again, as we have understood, at work, and was preparing a new source of torment for its unoffending victims, under an obsolete act for burying in woollen, from which they were relieved by the wisdom and foresight of the legislature, who anticipated the designs of malice and rapacity before they were ripe for execution. "The kind and, I may add, the equitable concern of the Legislature for the comfort and respectability of the Clergy has been further evinced in a temporary bill, by which the provisions and penalties of former acts on the subject of residence have been so far modified and altered, as to afford, at least for the present, sufficient protection against the vexatious attacks of the informer. And the repeal of the acts for burying in woollen has relieved us from the terror of statutes which had long slept, but, like the insect which stings after death, might have been awakened to mischievous activity by the call of malignity or avarice. The best demonstration of our gratitude for these favours is unequivocal fidelity in the discharge of those high duties, to which we are pledged by the most solemn engagements to God and to our country. Yet, in acting under the impulse of feelings the most exalted, your course must ever be shaped by the strictest attention to the letter of the law; nor can we with safety for an instant forget, that neither the discretion of the Diocesan, nor the equity of the Judge, can dispense with the forms or mitigate the operation of a penal statute. On the importance of this caution I have insisted with greater earnestness, because this is a point on which the most conscientious Clergyman, engrossed by the duties of his charge, is not unlikely to fail; and I have found by experience, that the distress and vexation, occasioned by the late prosecutions, have not been universally efficacious in impressing the necessity of a more accurate acquaintance with laws, which in no single particular can be transgressed or neglected with impunity *. I am equally disposed by inclination and duty to watch over the interests and promote the welfare of my Clergy: but in this, as in all other private concerns, the security of the individual is to be found in his personal circumspection and vigilance." P. 9. The exhortation which is here repeated, will we trust, have its due effect upon the minds of the whole body of the clergy. Inoffensive, as their very enemies must allow them generally to be, towards others, they are too apt to conceive that the same "A collection of the statutes relating to the Residence of the Clergy and to Stipendiary Curates, including the Act which received the Royal Assent July 30, 1814, has been lately printed at the Clarendon Press, and may be had in London of Messrs. Payne or Rivington.” line of conduct will be adopted in return towards themselves. But, however secure they may be in most cases from annoyance, as long as one malignant heart exists, which either avarice or hostility may induce to make the attack, their security cannot be considered as permanent. We would not have the clergy immersed in secular pursuits, but we would have them thoroughly acquainted with every law which prescribes their duty, and concerns their interest; which may easily be effected by the possession of the volume which the Bishop so judiciously recommends. We are persuaded that this knowledge, so far from disqualifying their minds for the discharge of their spiritual duties, would have the contrary effect, by inducing that general activity, which applies itself to every professional object. Where negligence prevails in one department of the mind, there is at least a chance that it will gradually pervade the whole. We must also declare, that after this zealous and affectionate exhortation from the Bishop upon so important a point, that any such negligence or disregard for the time to come is even criminal, as involving not only their own individual ruin, but, by the sufferings and degradation of its members, shaking the temporal security of the establishment itself. Any future sufferings which they may endure for the neglect of forms, sufficiently easy of observance, cannot reasonably be deemed persecution. To recur to the past, we believe that the testimony of the Bishop, in favour of those who have fallen under the lash of the informer, will be confirmed by the united voice of his colleagues upon the bench, who will declare in how very few instances the fault has consisted, not in a criminal neglect of duty, but in an inadvertent omission of those forms, which the then existing law bad enacted under penalties of such excessive severity. Upon a point connected with this system, the Bishop speaks with a high view of ecclesiastical polity, worthy even of Hooker himself. "To me, indeed, I frankly avow, the principle of maintaining order and regularity in the church, by the casual and indiscrimi nating agency of the common informer, appears to be founded on complete misconception and ignorance of the nature and ends of ecclesiastical government and discipline. The efficiency of ecclesiastical authority, of all authority I might say, which has for its object to regulate the conduct of individuals in a multiplicity of emergent cases, depends on the rational exercise of discretion, acting indeed by regular forms, and insisting on the observance of general rules, but maintaining a proportion between the offence and the punishment, and not leaving the determination of innocence or guilt to the technical interpretation of ambiguous statutes," P. 6. Odious as the agency of the common informer must appear to every honourable mind, it must still be allowed to be a most necessary evil, particularly in those cases, where no other prevention or remedy can be procured. But in all ecclesiastical affairs there may be a source of redress open to those, who conceive that the duties of their minister, with respect to residence or other points, have been wilfully neglected or criminally omitted. To disarm the Bishop of this power, and to place it in the hands of a court of common law, is to confound affairs of the most unanalogous nature. The causes which are brought forward in the Court of Chancery, are not more essentially out of the province of the common law, than supposed offences against ecclesiastical discipline. A court of equity, or rather a judge endued with a wide discretionary authority, is especially required to decide upon all the varieties of complaint and modifications of guilt, which are liable to happen within a single diocese. The application of one degree of punishment to all these, without a power of mitigation or relief, is to embody, in the laws of Great Britain, the maxim of stoical jurisprudence, and to realize the absurd speculations of the Porch in the practice of the English Bench. The jurisdiction of the Episcopal Court can scarcely be too far extended in matters purely ecclesiastical. We cannot, however, too much admire the observations which conclude this part of the subject; they breathe a cheerfulness and simplicity worthy a Christian Bishop. 'se "To the system however established by the existing laws, whatever are its merits or defects, it is our bounden duty to conform and that, not for wrath but for conscience sake, not merely by scrupulous attention to the letter, from regard to personal curity, but in the liberal spirit of frank and loyal obedience to the injunctions of authority. By scrupulous attention to this admonition, and faithful performance of your professional duties without evasion or subterfuge, you will at once evince your gratitude for the protection of the Legislature, and prove to the satisfaction, of the world, that you act under the impulse of nobler motives than sublunary hope or fear." P. 7. The Bishop next proceeds to the consideration of the Bill for the farther Support and Maintenance of Stipendiary Curates. Our opinion on this act has been already declared at considerable length, nor do we find any thing in the present Charge which appears at variance with it. Of that part of the bill which we considered as most injurious to the interests of the Church, the Bishop speaks very delicately and concisely. "But the primary object of the bill is to secure a more adequate provision for the maintenance of stipendiary curates; and if its en actments actments be considered as pressing too hard on benefices of inferior value, they afford little cause of complaint to the wealthier incumbent." It is not our wish at present to renew our objections to this part of the bill; we shall, therefore, with pleasure pass to that portion of it which meets with our entire approbation, and join with the Bishop in acknowledging the propriety of that clause, which enforces the licensing of curates in every instance, and thereby places the officiating minister under the controul and the protection of his diocesan. Upon the discretionary power allowed by this act to the bishop of licensing a curate to more than one Church, the declaration of the Bishop is at once manly and considerate. In some few instances, where the necessity of the case appeared to sanction the concession, he has reluctantly allowed the union of curacies, reserving to himself the power of immediate revocation, should a change of circumstances render such a step desirable. After the discussion of these points, which can affect very few beyond the clergy, to whom it was addressed, he proceeds to enter upon subjects of a much higher importance, and of far deeper and more general interest. The following passage stands almost unrivalled for sublimity of conception and power of eloquence. "From these considerations of domestic prudence our attention is now called to concerns of universal importance to the interests of the Christian world. The convulsions which threatened to subvert the hallowed and ancient fabrics of religion, of social order, and of civil and political liberty, are happily allayed. The storm has ceased to roar. In the sight of the nations assembled from the ends of the earth to be the ministers of God's justice, and the witnesses of his power, the pillar of usurped domination, erected on the ruin of thrones and the wreck of principles, has crumbled, at the bidding of the Almighty, into dust, and the tyranny, which made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed its cities*, exists only in recollection, like the horrors of an oppressive dream. The restoration of peace has followed the triumph of truth and justice; and the moderation which has tempered the glories of victory with a milder radiance, may be hailed as an auspicious presage of settled and durable tranquillity. But prosperity has its dangers: the Spirit of evil is always busy :-though often confounded, he is never dismayed; though baffled, he returns to the contest with new arms; prepared alike to seduce or to intimidate, to succeed by violence or by fraud." P. 11., This splendid passage introduces us to a long aud masterly dis cussion upon a point which will justly engage the most anxious * Isaiah xiv. 17. attention |