It is not so easy as many people seem to think, to define what the office of a District Visitor is and what it is not; for there must necessarily be limits to it, yet those limits must not be hard and fast lines, but must admit of a certain amount of contraction and expansion. For that which one could do, it might be unadvisable to entrust to another, and on the other hand, that which one might be incapable of, another might find easy to carry out.

Speaking generally, it perhaps will be best to lay down the rule that the attention of a District Visitor should be principally, though not exclusively, directed to the temporal needs of the poor, and where she feels it her duty to deal with spiritual matters, every care should be taken not to interfere with the Office of the Priest.

So much for the general rule, but now for particulars. It will be best for the visitor to settle in her own mind as to how often she will visit each house in her district. The question should be determined after mature consideration, and the resolution so made never, if possible, be broken through. Casual visiting, when we feel inclined, when we have nothing else to do, is very nearly useless; there must be method in this as in everything else, if any good at all is to be accomplished. Once a fortnight is perhaps often enough in the general way, but special cases will arise which will require more frequent attention. What, then, is her work? What is she to attempt? And what is to be her aim in all her visits ?

Some there are who think it quite sufficient to leave tracts at each house, changing them at intervals, and that not very regularly, while there has been known a case where the duty was considered to have been duly discharged if a servant was sent round two or three times in the year to change the tracts. But this, surely, is a mere farce and perfectly useless, one who feels no more interest in what she has undertaken than this, had far better resign her office into the hands of another who will perform it with more efficiency, than try to preserve the outward form from which all power and life have vanished.

Not that tracts are to be despised; good wholesome tracts and books, enforcing Catholic principles and Church teaching, are most useful, not only on account of the good they may do in dispersing ignorance, disarming prejudice, and converting the sinful, but also on account of the opportunity they afford to the Visitor of gaining an entrance into the houses which she visits. Armed with these, which people are generally glad to receive, especially if they are interesting

and are illustrated, she has a purpose for going to each house, and can enter without any feeling of seeming an intruder.

Parochial Magazines, notices of special Church Services, and such like may well be circulated by the Visitors; and where it can be arranged that they should collect the money for the Parochial Clubs, not only is there an additional reason for calling at the houses, but the Visitor herself is also bound to regularity in her work.

But her chief occupation is undoubtedly to seek out the sick and needy, and report them to the clergy. In a large parish it is often long before the clergy hear of a case of sickness, and where the poor are careless and do not send for the priest, much time, which in the case of the dying is very precious, is often allowed to slip by. On such occasions the District Visitor may do an untold amount of good, and bring great blessings to many a soul.

And with regard to the needy, her office is none the less valuable. It is the duty of the Church to seek out her poor members and to relieve them, but often from ignorance of the different cases much relief is given where it is not really needed, while many, secretly struggling with real poverty, are passed by because they will not beg or publish their needs. But the District Visitor, visiting her district every week or every fortnight would acquire a knowledge of the different families, which the clergy unaided never could, and thus be able to point out who were worthy and who unworthy of support. What a vast amount of "serving of tables" would be taken off the shoulders of the clergy, if such duty were thoroughly and conscientiously discharged.

And then beyond this, which undoubtedly stands first, and is the most important, there is the seeking out the unbaptized, especially unbaptized children, which will be no mere trifle where Anabaptism has gained any ground, for it will by no means then be all plain sailing and a matter of a few words, if children are to be brought to the font and not to grow up as heathens. Much prayer, much earnestness, much love will be required if any impression is to be made upon the hearts of parents who have imbibed the unwholesome doctrines of Anabaptism.

Inquiries should also be made as to whether the children go to school or not, and in all cases where they do not, the parents should be urged to send them.

Such are the primary duties which naturally fall to a District

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Visitor, but there are many others which an earnest worker will find for herself. There are subjects on which a few words from a lady will be listened to with more attention than if they came from the parson,' while woman's softening influence may often be brought to bear on the men. A few hints on cookery, or on making home comfortable for the husband, judiciously given, will frequently do much good, and topics of useful conversation will never be found wanting if only the heart be full of earnest zeal and love.

The Bible may be read to the sick and aged, and such reading they will be found to value very highly, but exposition and prayers should usually be left to the priest as being part of his office more than that of the district visitor.

Gossiping, talking at all about the neighbours of the poor, should be sedulously avoided, and the conversation should be turned, except in the most exceptional cases, where there is the slightest approach to it. Curiosity, an unnecessary prying into the affairs of the poor, is sure to excite suspicion, and once allow them to suspect us, and our efforts henceforward will be useless. Kindness, courtesy-the very same courtesy which we should show towards the rich-and love, these will win their way anywhere and everywhere, and in time overcome all opposition.

Only let us look upon the poor as members of the Body of CHRIST equally with ourselves, only let us remember that our Blessed LORD identifies them with Himself, when He says: "Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye did it unto Me," and our work will not fail of reality, for it will have a foundation which cannot be shaken-the only foundation on which any Church work should be built-the Love of God.

We want our District Visitors to realise more fully that they are specially sent by GOD Himself. For is it not so? They have their authority from GOD's Priest who is set over them in the LORD; and surely an account will be demanded of them at that last Great Day, equally with the Priest himself.

Women alone have been referred to in treating of this subject, but why should not men do their part also? Why should not men give up portions of their evenings to visit the homes of the poor? They would then be able to make acquaintance with the husbands and fathers, and to gain an influence over them. Much more might be said about this -but enough for the present.

The Church of England has been waking up for some years, but she must wake up still more; the laity must learn their responsibilities more fully, and give their aid earnestly and systematically in the great mission of winning the mass of the labouring class over to the Church's side; for only thus can the course of infidelity be stayed, which is with so much subtlety creeping in upon us at the present day.

A. V. C.

THE CHURCH.

IV. THE CHURCH DOOR, (THE CURTAIN, S. ALBAN'S, HOLBORN.)

"A great gulf fixed."

BETWEEN man's life and death there hangs a curtain,
The angels lift it, and our days are gone ;
Faith waits without, gazing on things uncertain,
Which pass like shadows in the early dawn.

So, when we gain the threshold of God's mansion,
Hangs a dark veil to hide the house of prayer,
Fear bids us pause, but love with full expansion,
Lifts the dread folds that screen the mysteries fair.
Without the world goes on, the roar and rattle

Of sounds tumultuous from the busy throng,
Within faith arms her, silent, for the battle,
And ears attuned hear but the angels' song.

Pause and tread softly, ever at the close

Of restless life there comes a silence still :
Here then let earthly thoughts and sounds repose,
And cease the Æolian music wild and shrill.

ACCIPITER.

Reviews and Notices.

The Church Rambler, in two vols., published at the Office of the "Bath Herald," is a book much to be commended, the idea of which might be reproduced with great advantage in many neighbourhoods. It consists of a visit paid on a Sunday by a very competent and impartial writer to most, if not all, of the Churches within a radius, we should suppose, of nearly twenty miles of Bath. The building is described and a woodcut of the exterior given, the character of the service is sketched, and a very considerable amount

of archeological information appended. The account of Frome is the only exception that we met with to the writer's impartiality, a circumstance which we are disposed to attribute less to malice than to inability to meet with any response to his inquiries on the spot. We can quite fancy that newspaper reporters would be somewhat distrusted at Frome. With this exception the writer has a kind word for everybody. The account of the newly recovered Saxon Church at Bradford-on-Avon is singularly interesting. We may add that the book is remarkably cheap.

Mr. Murray (from whose establishment more theological works have issued this season than from all the other publishers combined) has recently brought out The Student's English Church History, by the Rev. G. G. Perry. The period treated of does not really include much more than the eras of the Reformation, the Rebellion, and the Restoration,—with sketches, more or less complete, of what occurred down to the end of the eighteenth century. Mr. Perry, who is well known as a diligent antiquarian, may be said to have done his work well, and the period is happily chosen. We could have wished nevertheless that more justice had been done to Archbishop Laud, whose work is beginning to be better understood even by secular historians. It is undoubtedly true that he erred by assigning too high a place to the king, just as the Church had done previously in the cases of Constantine and Charlemagne— but it is scarcely fair to say that he regarded “no rights but the Divine right of kings." He was a Reformer of an extreme type, and being supremely conscious of the rectitude of his own motives he thought it right to use all the power which was placed in his hands, for correcting abuses, and advancing what he considered the interests of the Church. But the world was too strong for him. At the same time it may be said of him, as was said of Samson, "The dead (i.e. the abuses) which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life." Mr. Perry thoroughly exposes the mare's nest on which Lords Cairns and Selborne ventured to stake their credit; for he shows incontrovertibly that the Advertisements of Archbishop Parker which those learned Lords declared to possess Royal authority, and so to supersede the Rubric, ordering the use of Vestments, had no sanction from Queen Elizabeth; and even if they had, the recent judgment of the Queen's Bench in the case of the Bishop of Oxford, plainly affirms that a later statute does not abrogate an earlier one, except it is declared so to abrogate it. But really these Advertisements never had authority beyond the Province of Canterbury, and are entitled to no more weight than the Visitation Articles of a dozen Bishops who might be named. Edward's Injunctions, ordering the two Altar Lights, are now ruled not to be law-much less are Parker's Advertisements. It is a figment invented for a purpose. If, as we trust may be the case, the Ridsdale Judgment can be brought for revision into the Queen's Bench, it is easy to imagine how it will be torn to rags and tatters by the Lord Chief Justice.

Mr. James Parker has just published a "Postscript" to his Letter to Lord Selborne on this same subject—which every one interested in the matter should