longer upheld by the extorted contributions of the unwilling; that the wounded splrit of the conscientions has been healed; that the wall of partition which now divides brethren has been overthrown; that all classes of our beloved countrymen and fellow subjects have learned to venerate each others' rights, have resolved to make each other happy, and to dwell together in charity and peace. R. PEEK, Chairman. T. H. BOYKETT, Secretary. Committee-Room," Patriot"-Office, London, Nov. 1, 1836. CHANGES IN THE GREEK CHURCH. Our readers are aware that the Supreme Head of the Greek Church is the Patriarch of Constantinople, who is styled the Thirteenth Apostle, Archbishop of Constantinople or New Rome, and Ecumenical or Universal Patriarch, The great power possessed by the ecclesiastic who holds this office, and the known Russian bias of the present Patriarch, have led the Porte, with the boldness which characterizes all his measures, to render that individual comparatively powerless. Henceforth we learn from the papers the supreme authority of the Church will be wholly vested in a Synod composed of six Archbishops and two Councillors, and in which the Patriarch will only have a place as President. The Porte has retained a veto on the election of these dignitaries, by which he will be able to counteract Russian intrigue, and greatly lessen the power of one of the chief usurpers of Church authority in Europe. DIFFUSION OF THE GOSPEL IN THE While we have reason to rejoice in every new effort that is made to extend the knowledge of the gospel amongst the myriads of this city that are ignorant of God-yet it assuredly becomes the Pastors and Churches in the metropolis to sustain in full vigour, that Society which now for more than eleven years has made efforts quite unprecedented to effect that object. It will be recollected that when The Christian Instruction Society was formed, Messrs. Carlile, Taylor, and other advocates of infidelity were making the most open efforts to seduce the multitude from the Christian faith, and by their lectures, manifestoes, &c., were producing a powerful effect on the minds of the young and uninformed, that Society commenced its operations by a course of Lectures in defence of Christianity, which were attended by crowds, and also engaged the learned and able pen of Dr. J. P. Smith to write a reply to Robert Taylor's Manifesto, which they printed and sold at a price moch below their cost, to check the tide of infidelity which at that time threatened to inundate the community. Besides having thus stood "for the defence of the gospel," that Society made the first and most effective appeal on the violation of the Lord's day, by "A Statement," the value of which was acknowledged by the Bishop of London, in his important pamphlet on the same subject. In addition to these extraordinary efforts it has gradually extended its benevolent labours, till there are at the present time about forty-five thousand families under the visitation of nineteen hundred Christian visitors every alternate week, whose gratuitous and systematic operations thus secure the constant circulation of more than one hundred and twenty thousand Religions Tracts every month." One kundred and ten local prayer meetings and preaching stations are statedly attended by the agents of this Society in the different districts which they visit. During the past summer forty religious services were held in the public streets every week, which were gratuitously conducted by associated ministers of the gospel of different denominations. These services it is computed were attended by a weekly average of ten thousand persons, and not less than six hundred sermons were preached in the open air, or under the tents of the Society during the last season. The experience of each succeeding year since the Society has been in operation, proves that its instrumentality has been blessed, as each successive annual report records many instances of hopeful conversion to God. During the past six months the visitors have obtained suitable relief for 660 cases of sickness or distress-have induced 1300 children to attend Sabbath and day schools, and have promoted the circulation of 329 copies of the Sacred Scriptures. To strengthen the hands of the gratuitous visitors, stipendiary agents are employed by several associations, most of which are assisted in their support by the funds of the parent Society. The officers have corresponded with more than one hundred and thirty similar institutions, who adopt the plans of the Society in different parts of the kingdom, more than one half of which have been formed or aided by the assistance of the parent committee. With such varied and abundant labours we trust that the Committee will continue to enjoy the liberal support of the Christian public, which we are authorized to say is earnestly intreated, and will be gratefully received by Thomas Challis, Esq. Treasurer, 34, Finsbury Square, or by the Secretaries, the Rev. J. Blackburn, 11, Lloyd Street, Pentonville, and Mr. John Pitman, 6, Colebrook Row, Islington, or at the Depository, 60, Paternoster Row. DR. WILLIAMS'S SCHOLARSHIPS. The following gentlemen were appointed to three of Dr. Williams's Scho at larships, in the University of Glasgow, the last quarterly meeting of his trustees, held at the Library, Red Cross Street, Wednesday, the 28th of September, viz. Mr. William Wright, of Gloucester, late student in Highbury College: Mr. William Whitelegge, son of the Rev. W. Whitelegge, minister of the Presbyterian Chapel, at Platt, near Manchester: Mr. James D. M. Pearce, son of the Rev. James B. Pearce, of Maidenhead. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS AND MINOR CORRESPONDENCE. Favours have been received from the Rev. Drs. Payne-Reed-J. P. Smith— Bennett. Rev. Messrs. Ashton-Barfitt-R. W. Hamilton-A. Blair-G. B. KiddG. Smith-R. Slight-C. B. Gibson --R. E. May-E. Miall-J. Whitridge-J. Peggs-C. N. Davies-J. B. Innes-Herbert Smith-D. Davidson. Also from Messrs. J. Kelday-J. Snow-Candidus-John Bull. Mr. Gibson's communication has not reached us. We are much obliged by Mr. Whitridge for his friendly suggestions, some of which we shall remember. Cannot he occasionally contribute such articles as he describes? We commence a new series in January, the reasons of which are given in our advertisement on the cover, and must therefore inform our esteemed correspondents who are involved in the friendly controversies of the present volume, that it will not be expedient in the first numbers of a new series to insert papers discussing the merits of opinions inserted in preceding volumes. Should, however, any of the gentlemen referred to, feel himself called upon to reply, we must request him to state the questions anew, and to compress his observations into as brief a space as practicable, for many of our readers seriously complain of the length at which certain subjects have been discussed. As we are going to press we find that our paper On the Caffre War and the Wesleyan Missionaries is made the subject of a leading article in The Watchman of Wednesday, Nov. 23, the Methodist demi-official weekly newspaper. Our Wesleyan brethren crave for time, and the somewhat tardy movements of The Watchman certainly prevent our replying to his observations now, but he shall hear from us, Deo volenti, in our January Magazine. We have received a long letter from Mr. Adam Blair, expressive of his dissatisfaction with our review of his " History of the Waldenses." We are not surprised that an anthor should feel very jealous for the honour of his productions, but as our reviewer did not, we believe, in a single instance adduce a crimination unattended with proof, we cannot consent to the publication of his defence, as that would be to impose on our readers a very uninteresting detail. With the reading public must be left the final judgment as to the correctness of the strictures. Mr. Blair has hazarded an opinion that the review in question was written by a personal adversary, and has indeed ventured to suppose that his rival Mr. Jones, was the author of the obnoxions critique. We assure Mr. Blair that he is erroneous in both these suppositions. The author of that review is personally unacquainted with either of those conflicting gentlemen, and until the history of the Waldenses was submitted to his examination, had in all probability never heard of Mr. Blair. He formed his judgment of that work purely on its literary character, and was prepared to give an opinion by a tolerable acquaintance with some of the most considerable publications on the subject, and by a knowledge of the languages in which the documents illustrative of it are preserved. Some of Mr. Blair's errors in rendering those documents into English are pointed out, nor does the defence contained in the letter we now acknowledge, in any degree invalidate the proof. The reviewer stands prepared to bring forward many others if necessary. To convince Mr. Blair that our reviewer is not singular in his opinions respecting the general character of the work in question, we direct his attention to the following paragraph from a respectable clergyman of the Church of England. This gentleman, after having quoted a passage from Mr. Blair's History, says " I merely observe on this passage, that Mr. Blair represents Petras Siculus to say what he does not say. The laws of modern controversy do not always allow us to call things by their right names, and if I were to characterize such con. duct as this, I should be accused, with honest Peter, of writing with prejudice and passion.' But contempt for manifest ignorance ought not to absorb the libera indignatio' which should ever be felt at the detection of fraud." Dowling's Letter to the Rev. S. R. Maitland, 8vo. 1835, p. 31. It is high time that the Waldenses should be rescued from the merciless hands of the resurrection men who have lately trafficked in this business. A writer who would bring the learning and knowledge of the subject evidenced in a recent volume entitled "Facts and Documents," by Mr. Maitland to a full examination of the annals of this interesting people, would confer an important obligation on the students of church history. Till such a writer be found, we should prefer to rest content with the publications of Leger, Gilles, Perrin, Morland, and with the "Liber sententiarum Tolosance Inquisitionis." We have little doubt that Mr. Blair is a pious and exemplary man, and a devoted minister; as such he commands our reverence, and has our best wishes for his success: his sufficiency as exemplified in the production we have criticised, is the alone point on which we have given our opinion. That opinion we have had no reason to alter. From all that we have heard of Mr. Blair's character, we should feel inclined, if it were lawful in any case, to soften the rigour of criticism from respect to his moral excellencies, but this is a question of pure literature, and admits of no qualification on any other ground. That he has exercised a very praiseworthy degree of patience in his compilation we are not inclined to deny: but we demur in many instances to the accuracy of his translations, in many more to the structure of his sentences, and we cannot in any sense admit that his volumes contain a good history of the Waldenses. We cannot allow this volume and this series to close without expressing our cor dial acknowledgments to our many able correspondents, for their various contribubutions, and to solicit their unabated support in the new series; at the same time we take the liberty to suggest to all our readers who are interested in the success of the Congregational Magazine, the expediency of recommending it to their connex. ions, for were its circulation at all commensurate with the respectability and extent of the denomination it represents, the Editor would be enabled to make it in every way worthy of the position it occupies in the monthly congress of Periodicals. TO THE CONGREGATIONAL MAGAZINE, FOR THE YEAR 1836. As it is the constant wish of the Editor of this Magazine to render its pages permanently useful to the denomination for whom he labours, he has, after some consideration, resolved to devote the Supplementary Number of the present year to the insertion of those important Acts of Parliament for Marriage and Registration which in a few months will come into operation, and place dissenting Pastors in a situation at once novel and interesting. To render these legal documents as intelligible as possible, he has determined also to publish the notices which have been issued by T. H. Lister, Esq. the Registrar General, and to offer those suggestions which may simplify and explain these enactments. The Editor feels that he cannot thus occupy the present Supplement without offering some introductory remarks upon the observations which have been made upon the Marriage Act by several Episcopalians-the objections which have been urged against it by several Dissenters-and the best method to be observed in carry ing it into effect. He also proposes to offer some remarks in reference to the Registration Bill, especially as it affects the question of baptism, and trusts that the contents of the present Supplement will be interesting and useful to its various readers. I. Episcopal Animadversions on the Marriage Act. The meek bearing and christiau condescension of the clergy of the Church of England toward their dissenting brethren have often been the subjects of laboured eulogy in the ecclesiastical periodicals of the country. Without pausing to inquire into the truth of those oft-repeated commendations, it is pretty certain that since recent enactments have passed, not a few of them have lost not only their fees, but their temper and manners too. Dr. Phillpotts, Bishop of Exeter, has occupied thirty five pages of the forty-one which contains the charge he has recently delivered to his clergy, in discussing with apostolical propriety seven that were before Parliament during the present session. Of the Acts now before us he thus speaks : measures "Among the most important legislative measures of the session are, the Act for Registering Births, Deaths, and Marriages, and the Act for Marriages in England. I connected in their own nature, but beput them together, not because they are cause they are declared to be one Act by the legislature. The former is become comparatively harmless, since the unchristhe Bill, for the naming the child before tian provision, originally introduced into baptism, has been withdrawn. The other Act, I grieve to say, contains matter which, but a few years ago, it would have been deemed impossible to induce a British legislature to place in the statute book, and which hardly any sane person would then have had the hardihood even to propose, I say nothing of the provisions for guarding against clandestine matrimony though we can hardly believe that such provisions were seriously designed for such a purpose; but I dwell not on them, for they relate to a matter which belongs to the State rather than to the Church, and, as such, is not especially connected with the occasion on which we are here assembled. But I refer to the clauses relating to all marriages which shall not actually be celebrated within the walls of a church-marriages which, be it remembered, may hereafter be contracted by all persons whomsoever, by churchmen as well as by dissenters. No distinction is expressed-none is necessarily implied. The very name of dissenters is cautiously excluded from the Act: its object, as announced in the preamble, is not to give relief to dissenters, (that, it seems, would derogate from the dignity of dissent,) but to amend the law of marriages in England; and the effect of this amendment of our marriage law is as follows:-All may now marry with equal validity, and with equal favour in the eye of the law, whether they solemnize their marriage in the house of God, or in the office of the clerk of the guardians of the poor, whether they call God to witness their plighted faith, or own no higher sanction than the presence of one of the lowest public functionaries known to the State. Matrimony itself is degraded, so far as the act of a mortal legislature can degrade it, from a holy ordinance of God, to a simple contract between two human beings, beginning and ending with their own bare agreement; no recognition of the sacredness, much less of the indissolubility of the contract; no blessing sought, no vows of mutual fidelity given and received, nothing, in short, which can hallow, or honour, or endear that union, which is declared by an apostle to be a type and figure of Christ's own blessed union with his spouse the Church. "More than one attempt was made to prevent this lamentable result, securing, at the same time, what the authors of the Bill professed to be its sole object, though they refused to admit it into the preamble -relief to the dissenters Especially, it was proposed, as an expedient which might satisfy the views of all parties, that the State, leaving the marriage law unaltered, so far as it respects members of the Church, should allow all persons who are not of the Church, to contract matrimony in whatsoever manner their consciences might approve, provided it were done in their places of divine wor ship, and attested by the subscription of the parties, and of the registrar. But this was objected to, for a reason which will not readily occur to men of plain understanding; though, unhappily, throngh that bane of our times, a spurious political expediency, it was adopted, or yielded to, by some from whom better things might have been expected. The reason was as follows. It seems that there are some persons whose conscience is so very tender, that it would be wounded by going to any place of divine worship, at least for the purpose of marriage; and in deference to the scruples of these very refined spirits, it was deemed (or states men were found who professed to deem it) only just and proper, to set at nought all the conscientious objections of all those homelier minds, which could not but be shocked by witnessing such an outrage on an institution which has always hitherto, in this country, been regarded as sacred. I say, always hitherto. For even in the days of the Great Rebellion, when there was no king in our Israel, and when we know, from the writings and example of Milton, that very loose notions prevailed of the binding nature of the matrimo nial contract, still a religious form was, even then, scrupulously preserved. Englishmen, in short, were never, before this year, invited to enter into matrimony with as little solemnity as if they were engaging in some partnership in trade, or bargain of convenience. Even now, be it our consolation to think better of the people of this land, than their rulers appear to think. The feelings and principles of Englishmen (let us humbly thank God for it!) are not yet brought down so low, as this degrading and corrupting law would seem to contemplate. They will spurn the boon thus thrust upon them. All honest persons, certainly all honest women, will avail themselves of the option which is yet left to them, and will adhere to the religious rite. They will refuse to become parties to the desecration of that holy ordinance, on which all the sanctity of our homes and hearths, all the charities and even the decencies of domestic life depend; that ordinance which alone, under God, has rescued man from the brutal state to which his appetites would otherwise reduce him; alone has given to woman her true rank and dignity in life, as the helpmeet of man, the soother of his sorrows, the partner of his joys, the chastener of his earthly affections, the fellow-heir of his hopes of heaven." |