has existed between these two eminent ecclesiastics. Mr. Church resided in Oxford until 1853, with the exception of one year, (1847), when he travelled in Greece, Constantinople and Italy. About this time he wrote in the "British Critic" an article which caused considerable notice on St. Anselm, and contributed much to the "Christian Remembrancer," which succeeded it as organ of the Church party. In 1850 Mr. Church contributed an essay on Dante which at once marked him as one of the most thoughtful writers of the time. Very recently he has furnished to Macmillan's series of "Eminent Men of Letters " a learned and charming life of the great Elizabethan poet, Spenser.

The general contributions to the leading magazines and reviews which appeared from time to time from Mr. Church's pen, evidenced to the cultured that no mean apologist for what was then called Anglicanism (now Anglo-Catholicism) was living in comparative retirement out of London. The expediency of transplanting Mr. Church from a rural to an urban sphere of work, was at this time made manifest; but it was not until 1871 (on Dr. Mansel's death) that this desideratum was accomplished. For nearly two decades had Dr. Church quietly, simply, and unostentatiously pursued his daily duty in the diocese of Bath and Wells. Like Keble, at Hursley, where he wrote in his magnificent canticle for Holy Communion

"For now Thy people are allow'd

To scale the mount and pierce the cloud,
And Faith may feed her eager view
With wonders Sinai never knew,"

the Dean of St. Paul's offered up the Holy Sacrifice living the peaceful life of a country clergyman.

As we have seen, Dr. Church was installed Dean of St. Paul's in 1871. Mr. Gladstone had exactly one year before testified his devotion to the Church by appointing Henry Parry Liddon, one of the greatest of living Anglicans, to a vacant stall in the cathedral, and now this righteous piece of preferment was followed within a twelvemonth by the equally happy appointment of Dr. Church. It was thought by some at the time that a remarkable volume of University Sermons on the relations between Christianity and Civilisation, which attracted a good deal of attention, and which had been published by Dr. Church two years before the death of Henry Longueville Mansel, had had

something to do with the Premier's selection, but we are in a position to contradict this. Mr. Gladstone had for years contemplated, at the first opportunity, giving the cultured recluse of the Isis a stall worthy of his acceptance, and now that opportunity presented itself. It is strangely true that scarcely could two so opposite characters fill the respective deaneries of St. Paul's and Westminster. The one, the typical representative of the Renaissance of spiritual life at Oxford in 1845: the other, the leader of the Broad Church Party. It is certainly an argument for the width and comprehensiveness of the Establishment that two such diverse divines should hold so similar positions within two miles of each other.

The work of the present-day successor of Dean Colet speaks far more potently as to his faculties for organising than any written words of our own. All we have to do is to point to the reforms in the cathedral. The Lent now closing is another milestone in these noteworthy innovations. The crowded congregations at mid-day, throughout the whole of the solemn season, touchingly point back to that Evangelical hiatus when the noble pile was but a fane januis clausis from morn till evening, with the exception of the daily choral services. Instead of continued coldness and apathy a flood of warmth and living heartiness was in store, and the dry-bones were destined to become reclothed with flesh, and live. During the last ten years Dr. Church has had the good fortune to be at the head of a Chapter who have all worked in common to make the great cathedral of London, and its services, useful and attractive to the people, and to carry on that revival from past lethargy and indifference, which was begun by Milman, and which would have been vigorously continued by Mansel, had he not been prematurely called away. The services, of one kind and another, which have been, and are, held at St. Paul's during Dr. Church's tenure of office are verily "for all sorts and conditions of men," and what is more pleasing, if anything, they are appreciated by those for whom they are provided.

Going to things outside the sanctuary, Dean Church during the recent imprisonments and prosecutions by the Church Association and similar persecuting machinery, he took a part, sometimes a very active one, in all except the first of the University Election contests between his friend Mr. Gladstone and his various opponents, and has from

first to last, supported with pen, voice, and suggestion, all schemes which had for their object the better understanding of the Ritual controversy. The sermons the dean delivers on the Great Festivals of the Church are gems of scholarship as well as of pastoral theology. It is to be, however, regretted that the cathedral rules only provide for his occupying the pulpit on the mornings of Advent Sunday, Christmas Day, Easter Day, and Pentecost. He preaches (that is to say, ex cathedra) too rarely.

To sum up the character of this scholarly Churchman, we may say that he, more than any living ecclesiastic, has brought the idiosyncrasies of the academic life into the closest unity with the pastoral function. Never once sacrificing the traditions of his antecedents, never yielding to the ad captandum "expostulations" of pseudo Churchmen in order to gain a dishonourable popularity, the career of this distinguished divine is beautiful in its consistency, and the appreciative faithful worshipping in St. Paul's Cathedral rejoice that at this critical conjuncture of affairs so orthodox a Churchman has, in the Providence of God, been called to watch over the destinies of the national basilica, a foundation which ought to be "the mother and mistress of churches" at any rate in the metropolis. Dean Church, however, is the last to take any personal credit for these ameliorative reforms at St. Paul's. He once stated that the work in the cathedral is no one man's work, “We have all worked together," said the dean, "and the credit, or discredit, belongs to all alike. It is the great advantage of St. Paul's that dean and canons are all agreed and are all of one mind in endeavouring to put things on a right footing, and keep them there."

Dean Church has filled the office of Select Preacher at Oxford in 1869, 1875 and 1880; and in 1875 the honorary degree of D.C.L. was conferred upon him by his University.

EARL NELSON.

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE HORATIO NELSON, Third Earl, Viscount Merton, and Baron Nelson of the Nile, is the grand-nephew of the celebrated Admiral, and was born at Brickworth Park, White-Parish, near Salisbury, on August 7th, 1823. His lordship was educated first at the Prebendal School at Chichester, then at Eton, ultimately proceeding to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was fifteenth in the Poll Degree, immediately afterwards graduating M.A.

In a sense it is to be regretted that Earl Nelson was not brought up for the Church, we mean that he was not ordained to the priesthood, for his unique exertions in matters ecclesiastical, and his contributions to the literature of the Tractarian Movement, have placed him on a platform of equality even with the leading theologians of the time Lord Nelson was blessed in the possession of a pious mother (she lived to the patriarchal age of four-score years), who had herself drank deeply of the well of spiritual religion, and who instilled into his mind her own spiritual intuitions, which were similar to those of the Tractarians. From his earliest years he and four dear friends always received the Holy Communion at 8 a.m. every Sunday, at Hutchinson Gurney's Church, over Magdalen Bridge, at Cambridge. At the age of eighteen Earl Nelson entered the Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry, serving in that regiment some four and twenty years, when he left it as Captain of the Salisbury Troop.

It is as a benefactor to religious institutions, and a staunch. supporter of the Anglo-Catholic school of thought in Anglicanism, that Earl Nelson's name will be best remembered. As was once happily remarked, "the Third Earl was as much Admiral of the Church as the First was of the Fleet." This is literally true; for, in strict seriousness, in these days of battle between controversialists on the one hand, and the crusade against Evil on the other, the (apparently) more peaceful Trafalgar of home conflict is fraught with its own peril to those engaged in it. One of the earliest of Earl Nelson's bellicose experiences was in connection with a public meeting at Brighton. This was in 1844 or 1845 (and soon after he had attained his majority), the object being to discuss the advantages of Emigra

tion. During the progress of the meeting, it soon became evident that the scheme was very distasteful to the majority of those assembled, and in the end the promoters of the movement were nearly mobbed, and had to break up the meeting. Earl Nelson is one of those few remaining noblemen who bade an affectionate farewell to those modern Canterbury Pilgrims who went out as a Church Colony to Christ Church, New Zealand. Continuing our resumé of Earl Nelson's more strictly lay efforts, we may state that he has ever been interested in the agricultural labourer, and has taken an active part in all the more sober and solid movements to better his condition, and the letting of allotments, cow-lands, &c. His lordship is a life member of the Royal Agricultural Society. The only strictly commercial undertaking in which he has embarked is the Chontales Gold Company, Limited, and which has not at present been a success. He is Chairman of this Company. On the death of the Right Honourable Sotheron Estcourt, Earl Nelson succeeded that gentleman as President of the Wilts Friendly Society. His lordship collected subscriptions for a statue and drinking-fountain at Devizes, which he was privileged to open in 1879, to Mr. Estcourt's memory. From the first, Lord Nelson has been a Commissioner of the Royal Patriotic Fund, and in August 1880, he was appointed Chairman of their Executive Committee. The noble subject of our sketch is also an active member of the Church of England Temperance Society, but is not himself a teetotaller.

Politically, like both the First and present Duke of Wellington, Earl Nelson is a Tory. From the inception of his political career he was opposed to Lord John Russell. The Nelsons, however, are not content with a merely passive position in any matter, and the better to give practical expression to his political principles he became one of the Tory Whips in the House of Lords in hopes of turning out that statesman. Mainly through his efforts a succession of adverse divisions were carried in the House of Peers against the then Government till he resigned the position of assistant Whip, on voting almost alone against the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, and which he has lived to see repealed, by universal consent (to use his own language), " as a great Isham from the Statute Book." He has also opposed the Divorce Laws and Marriages with a Deceased Wife's Sister Bill as interfering with the sacred laws of marriage.