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to promulgate its peculiar doctrines. is destroyed. Our Lord accordingly appealed to the moral influence of truth in the lives of men as decisive of its claims upon the acceptance of all. "A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit, for a tree is known by its fruits." We propose to use this simple test, and to ascertain the worth of Anglican teaching by some of the forms of Anglican morality.

It

The case of the Rev. B. Jowett, Regius Professor of Greek in the University of Oxford, may well supply us with our first illustration. It is the boast of the majority of the members of that ancient seat of learning that it is pervaded by the spirit of the Church of England, and that it is the best exponent of the manifold virtues and excellencies of that Church. It is the shrine of Anglican orthodoxy, unsullied by the touch of Nonconformity, and unpolluted by the breath of popular opinions. There, at least, we ought to find the choicest fruits of that teaching in which it glories, and to discover in the truthfulness and scrupulous honour of its members the evidences of the fitness of Anglican doctrines to produce the noblest forms of English character. And when we recollect still further that the overwhelming majority of the members of Convocation are clergymen who profess to have been "inwardly moved by the Holy Ghost" to undertake the work of the ministry, and "do think in their hearts that they be truly called according to the will

of our Lord Jesus Christ . . . to the order and ministry of priesthood," we might expect such selected witnesses of the truth to be living epistles of Christ, which all men may easily read. In their votes we might reasonably look for an unworldly zeal for everything

that is right and noble and good; and might expect them to guide the Convocation, being animated by such a Divine impulse. So that, using our Lord's test, if the fruit exhibited by these men be "corrupt," we may be sure that the tree ou which it grows cannot be "good."

It is generally confessed that Mr. Jowett is qualified not only to fill, but to add celebrity to the Greek chair. His diligence in fulfilling the duties which are implied in an appointment to such a post, has stood forth in honourable contrast with the indolence of his learned predecessor, Dr. Gaisford, and commanded the respectful acknowledgment of his unscrupulous opponents. The stipend of the professorship is £40 per annum, a sum which stands in ludicrous contrast with the incomes assigned to the other professors in the University. It was not to be expected that such a disproportion would pass unnoticed, or remain unredressed, and various efforts have been made from time to time in Convocation to secure him a payment for his services in keeping with the salaries of his learned brethren in office. Every effort of this kind has hitherto failed, through the blind fury of country clergymen, led by the notorious Archdeacon of Taunton, the Venerable George Anthony Denison, editor of the Church and State Review.

The pleas upon which these clergymen have chiefly rested their opposition to any increase of Mr. Jowett's stipend from the University are mainly two:-first, that he is not orthodox in doctrine as a clergyman, and secondly, that as he is Regius Professor, and owes his appointment to the favour of the Crown, it is only fair that the Crown should adequately provide for its own nominee. It is worth while to examine each of these pleas in turn.

That Mr. Jowett has published two volumes on the Epistles of St. Paul to the Thessalonians, Galatians, and Romans, with critical notes and dissertations, and that he also contributed one of the ablest papers in the Essays and Reviews, is known to every wellread Englishman. Upon these productions of his pen his enemies rest their charges of heterodoxy, and declare him to be disentitled to adequate remuneration as the Professor of Greek. But everyone can see at a glance that the conclusion does not follow from the premises laid down. We do not for a moment subscribe to several of the opinions broached by Mr. Jowett, nor are we satisfied with his exegesis of various passages in the writings of St. Paul; but our differences of judgment do not convict him of an inability to teach Greek. His stipend is paid him not for teaching Anglican orthodoxy, but for teaching Greek; and we have never heard of a man who questioned his fitness to do that which he was appointed to do. A man's orthodoxy has nothing whatever to do with his attainments as a scholar. Porson was unorthodox, but he was such a master of Greek as any university in the world might be proud of. The late Dr. Donaldson was not orthodox, but who would deny him a place amongst the ripest scholars of the last thirty years? And the scholarship of Professor Jowett is to be determined by other considerations than his reputation for orthodoxy. If he did not know Greek, or could not teach it to all comers, or if his lectures were attended by men whose acquaintance with the language was far superior to his own, there might be fair grounds alleged for not increasing his salary, and even for a petition to the Crown to remove him from his post, and to appoint some other graduate who might be fit for it; but to refuse just payment for services rendered, on

the score of his opinions on subjects which he is not appointed to teach, is to make religion the cause of sin. And the mortifying fact is that in the majority of cases similar conduct would be denounced as an intolerable wrong to religion itself, whereas in this instance it is paraded forsooth as an act of homage to the truth of God! It is at least conceivable that instead of the present Boden Professor of Sanscrit at Oxford, a learned Pundit fresh from Benares might have been appointed to that chair. We can believe that he might have been as efficient a teacher of that marvellous language as the Rev. Monier Williams, or even as the learned Max Müller who coveted the appointment. But would any honourable man have refused the Brahmin payment for his services as a teacher of Sanscrit, because he was not sound on the doctrines of grace, or found it hard to hard to digest the terms of the Athanasian Creed? Newton did not write his Principia any the worse for his Arian proclivities, and we believe that Professor Jowett does not lecture on Plato a whit the worse because he is too honest to conceal his divergence from the beaten track which others love.

But then it is urged-"of course the Professor ought to be fairly paid for his services, but the Crown should provide the necessary revenues.' Even here we submit that the reasoning is unfair. It may be for the interest of the University itself that the nomination to its principal chairs should rest with the crown. The rivalries and jealousies which somehow struggle into existence, even in seats of learning, are not the conditions of the wisest choice for the chief places in them; and it is quite possible that if the selection of a Professor of Greek had been left to the University of Oxford, a gentleman might have been elected of

very moderate learning, and quite content to be as lazy as was Dr. Gaisford. The source of the appointment does not determine its value, and as the University derives whatever advantage is secured by the nomination of an efficient man to any office in it, there is good reason shown why the University itself should remunerate services which illustrate its usefulness and add to its renown.

But these considerations, and others of a kindred nature, have had no weight with the majority of the Convocation at Oxford. The Anglican divines, who have voted against the just claims of Mr. Jowett, have been holding up before England their practical interpretation of our Lord's command-" Whatsoever ve would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them," and have shown that, though with their lips they have owned Him as Master, in their conduct they deny Him. "A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth evil things." Injustice when perpetrated in the name of God, and under the cloak of austere piety, is aggravated in its criminality by the hypocrisy in which it is disguised; and no one acquainted with the merits of the case under review can hesitate in reprobating the immorality of men who claim to be the spiritual guides of the nation.

But there is something more to be added to these remarks if our readers are to judge aright of the conduct of these men. The University has been enriched by grants from the Crown and Parliament, and by remission of taxes at different times, avowedly for the advancement of literature in its precincts; and for the public benefit of the former, the patent granted by Elizabeth to enable the University to print the Holy Scriptures, and the compensation voted it on abolishing

the monopoly which it held for publishing the Almanac, may be cited as instances. The profits accruing in the present day from the first-named of these grants are estimated at £10,000 to £12,000 per annum, whilst the income arising from the other cannot be accurately stated, but must amount to a large sum. As for remission of taxes, not to dwell upon the exemption of the University from the provisions of the Mortmain Act-in itself an immense advantage-within the last ten years' taxes on taking degrees, &c., amounting to £2,400 per annum have been remitted, upon the distinct understanding that the University was to make provision for the endowment of certain professors named in the Act. In this last case, as that remission was not to take place until the specified endowments were made. the engagement has been fulfilled; but in spite of the other funds created for such a purpose, the endowment of the Regius Professorship of Greek is not increased! This is the honesty of Convocation! Does it speak well for the religious principles of its members?

Another illustration of Anglican morality is supplied by the conduct of Sir Roundell Palmer and others in connection with "The Church Building Acts Consolidation Bill," now before the House of Commons. The necessity of some such measure is admitted on all hands, and the great ability of the learned Attorney General pointed him out as the man who could best consolidate the various measures which have been already enacted. To that ability it was also felt must be added, in judging of his fitness for the task, the reputation in which Sir Roundell Palmer has been held for his delicate sense of honour and his unaffected piety: and bystanders, who were not forgetful of his opinions on various questions affecting the Anglican establishment

congratulated themselves that Nonconformists were safe in his hands, as too upright to take any advantage of them in his new Bill. It seems to us that they were justified in expecting fair and upright dealing from such a man, and we are the more grievously disappointed at the course which he

has taken.

From the introduction of the Church Building Act of 1828 to that of 1856, the House of Commons has always been assured that the Bills laid before it have not conferred upon the new parishes to be created by those measures the right of levying Church-rates, and it has required that assurance as the preliminary condition of discussing those Bills. The Marquis of Blandford (now Duke of Marlborough), in answer to a distinct question from Sir William Clay on this point, declared that his Bill (of 1856), would not give the right of levying Churchrates, and Sir George Grey volunteered his assurance that the Bill of the noble lord did not ask any money from the public, nor to create a power to deal with any property not the property of the Church. Upon these assurances the Bill became statutelaw, and soon afterwards it was discovered that both the Marquis of Blandford and Sir George Grey had we are willing to believe quite unintentionally-misled the House. In the opinion of such eminent counsel as Sir Fitzroy Kelly, Mr. Baddeley and Dr. Bayford, and others, the 14th and 15th sections of the Act, by constituting each district new parish "for all ecclesiastical purposes," did confer the right of levying a Church-rate by the parishioners in vestry assembled for their own parish; and that opinion has since been confirmed by the judgment of Dr. Lushington, in the Court of Arches.

Under these circumstances what

ought to have been the conduct of honourable men? Finding that the measure which had been suffered to pass on the strength of their assurances as to its nature and design was of the contrary tendency, is it too much to say that they should have striven to repair the mischief they had done? Were they not honourably bound to have introduced a Bill into the House of Commons to amend the Act which had been passed, by making its provisions accordant with the avowed intentions of its promoters? Yet to this hour they have done nothing of the kind!

But now that Sir Roundell Palmer brings in his Bill, instead of fulfilling the known intentions of the Legislature, he seeks to re-enact the very terms which, according to Dr. Lushington, give the right to levy Churchrates in every district church in the kingdom which either is, or may become, a new parish under his Bill. And he does this in spite of remonstrance, and of his accurate acquaintance with the intentions of the Church-legislators, whose various measures he consolidates! Would Sir Roundell teach his Sundayscholars that such conduct on the part of Dissenters towards Churchmen would be right? Yet the result of his Anglican theological training is simply this-that he acts as if it were right to secure the adoption of a measure in the interest of the Establishment by the most positive assurances as to its design, but that when those assurances prove to be false pretences, it is right to maintain the injustice which has been suffered to become law!

If these be the fruits of Anglican teaching we need not pursue any recondite inquiries as to its origin. It may be lisped by courtly divines, and be praised by lordly prelates as the perfection of grace and wisdom; it may be traced through schoolmen

and fathers back to a remote antiquity, but it is not the Gospel of Christ. It may be its counterfeit, but can never be confounded with the truth of God. It may prophesy smooth things, but it uses deceit. It is the patron of wickedness, and the abettor of injustice and wrong. The Church of Christ is always represented as a virgin attired in purity, beautiful in her lowliness of spirit, and girt about with truth and charity. Like her Divine Lord, her life is the counterpart of the doctrines she proclaims to the world, and all men

CHILDREN IN

I WISH here to put in a plea before Christian churches, in behalf of the little ones. I believe there is room for the lambs in the fold of the Good Shepherd. When He blessed the children he said, "of such is the kingdom of heaven." When He set a little child in the midst of His disciples, He spoke of "one of these little ones which believe in me." When He gave Peter his pastoral charge He named the lambs as well as the sheep. In the apostolic letters we find words addressed to children as well as to fathers. A child may know and trust the love of Jesus almost as soon as its own mother's love. The Good Spirit may surely have access to the child-heart as soon as the world can. And we should seek for our children, not that they may be converted by and bye, but that their hearts may be possessed by Jesus from the earliest dawn of reason. And I think it were well to have the piety of childhood represented more largely than it is in our Christian churches. It would be an additional element of spiritual beauty and power. If there is strength in the piety of manhood, and glory in that of old age, the piety of childhood is as dew and sweetness. It were well to have the simpleness of

know she is the bride, the Lamb's wife! But that confederation, which assumes the same glorious title, yet does not disdain the use of injustice and wrong in its own behalf-which cares more for outward pomp and power than for holiness of heart and life, may occupy a conspicuous place in the esteem of the worldly and the corrupt, but will be treated by all others as a wanton beauty that hath a brow of brass and the attire of an harlot-the natural progeny of the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth.

THE CHURCH.

childhood more largely represented in our churches. It would make us simpler and wiser ourselves. It would make the church more of a family. If the children were missed out of our houses, it might be a graver world, and a harder working world; but I am sure it would be neither a holier nor a happier world; and so with our churches. And it were well to have the weakness of Christian childhood among us, for defence and shelter. It would make us more gentle, and more tender of conscience, and would do ourselves good as well as them. It is not right that the tender and beautiful flower of youthful piety should be kept outside the garden fence; or that Christ's lambs should be kept outside the fold; they have a right to be within for defence and nurture. And we should find that, with all their weakness, they are a power: for out of the mouths of babes and sucklings has God ordained strength. What I contend for is the gathering of the little ones to Jesus; and when we have reason to believe that they have given their young hearts to Him, the gathering of them into the fellowship of the church. Culross's Divine Compassion.

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