upon Mr. Caswell's "American Church," and upon his personal adventures while ministering within it. His plan differs widely from Dr. Baird's, since he confines himself to the details of his own Church and to the workings of its own peculiar system in the United States. These are in no little degree interesting to us now, because of the information they give of the practical effects of synodical action in the American Church-of the direct and relative effects of diocesan and general conventions. Here, such things are to us at the present merely speculationsthere, they are yearly occurrences; here we perplex ourselves with wondering how they would act amongst us-there we see them in full action and admirably on the whole accomplishing all that is desired of them. As to diocesan synods and a general convocation in England, these are subjects for the imagination to disport itself with, and not for the judgment to direct its thoughts to: such things will scarcely have an existence during our life, and certainly not, if it is in the power of the State and of the bishops as a body to prevent it. But, if public opinion decides that the system as pursued in America is in its general outline admirably suited to England, and that it would give a vitality and efficiency to the Church, which, without it, it was never likely to possess, that opinion would make itself so powerfully felt and through so many channels that those in high places would find it impossible for any length of time to withstand it. The system, with its advantages and defects, is in hourly operation over a vast continent-it exists only through the support of public opinion: it is upheld by no State laws and it would fall to pieces in a week if the people decided that it was not to their advantage to work it. Not that we have any need to import from abroad any system of ecclesiastical government, our own machinery being perfectly able, if put in motion, to accomplish all that we are commissioned to accomplish; but there is no question that in our present state we contrast unfavourably in several points with our transatlantic brethren-we have not their unity and general agreement to combined action. All parties from all quarters are not brought together under constituted authority and for essentially Church purposes with us as with them: they meet and deliberate for the interests of the whole Church-we, in all our May meetings, for particular sections of it, and too generally for sectarian purposes, to the especial profit of one party and to the total disregard of the necessities of the rest.

In the general convention the whole thirty-two dioceses at present existing are bound together in one fellowship: it is a legislative body exercising supreme authority over the whole

Church, and possessing powers which cannot be conveniently exercised by the several diocesan conventions. What those powers are we cannot here define nor comment upon, nor upon those belonging to the diocesan conventions, otherwise than to say that they secure to the several dioceses the best bishops that can be found, as the clergy of each diocese elect their own bishop. But, for the many important and interesting details on the subject, we must refer to the fifth chapter of Mr. Caswell's "American Church," and to the following chapter, for a brief history of that Church.

In the personal narrative of the author, who traversed the United States north and south, east and west-who officiated in its cities and its wildernesses-as a professor in its colleges-as a missionary in its hamlets, we have many facts brought under our observation explanatory of the state of the Church, of its working condition, and of the progress of religion generally throughout the union. Altogether, the work is highly instructive to the English Churchman; for we are so intimately bound up with the American Church in the exact similarity of our doctrines and ritual that her prosperity adds not a little to our own security and strength; and, if they can contend successfully where there are so many in the field to contend with-if they can establish themselves firmly as the most powerfully influential body of Christians within this union-it would act most beneficially for the interests and character and stability of the Church of England, and would strengthen the cause of Protestantism immensely throughout the world.

But our estimate of the qualifications of an American clergyman must not be grounded on anything we see around ourselves. It is absolutely essential to them that they should possess influential and cultivated minds-that they should be men of strong understanding, firm, courteous, and zealous-able and determined to fulfil all their spiritual offices strictly and regularly, and to lead on their congregations to any, however self-denying, and costly and difficult undertakings. Emolument is not the inducement to enter into holy orders in America, the average stipend of an American clergyman being about £100 a-year. In cities and large towns, however, it greatly exceeds this, and then much kindness is generally and respectfully shown to the American clergy. Medical men and lawyers seldom charge them for their professional services. They receive occasionally a waggonload of substantial housekeeping comforts, and fees of scores of dollars for marriages, baptisms, and funerals. The missionary bishops have been conveyed thousands of miles by steamers on the western rivers without expense to themselves, and in hotels the

clergy will be frequently accommodated with the best the house can supply and that as a gift in respect for the clerical character. Where the clergy are useful there seems to be no slackness in the American laity to acknowledge their usefulness, and to give them manifest tokens of their gratitude for kind offices and spiritual advantages; and the influence which the Church is generally exercising in America may be very well judged of by a few words from one who had joined the Church from the Presbyterian denomination "I was drawn towards the Church (he said), not so much by outward phases as by observing the influences on individual character of a hidden and inward life. I saw the happiest combinations of qualities in those individuals who had been moulded under the lofty and ennobling influences of the Church. I became acquainted with numbers of persons whose simplicity, fervour, and single-mindedness, introduced me to a religion which I had not supposed to exist on earth. I saw a piety without cant which I had never seen before-a zeal without noise-a charity without show-a character, in short, so formed by the precepts of the blessed Master that I could not but feel that here, indeed, was the Church of God. I had opportunities also of seeing many of those earnest and heavenly-minded curates in the villages of England who are spending and being spent in daily and unwearied alms-deeds to an extent that I had never dreamed of as existing. After what I had seen of my own dwindled, dwarfish, and degenerated faith in Switzerland, Germany, and Europe generally, I marvelled the more that a religion which I had despised could, even when established and favoured by the law, form hearts so true, lives so pure, neighbourhoods so happy, and a nation so good and great."

The chapter on the Canadian Church gives details that will be altogether new to English readers-and very painful details many of them are, fully confirming what we have elsewhere said of the hostile policy of the home Whig Government to the Episcopal Church in the colonies. We maintain that it has ever been the policy of the Greys, father and son, and of all connected with them, to legislate in ill-will to the Church of England; but in England the Church was too powerful to allow them to accomplish all their destructive purposes and therefore they turned their attention to the Church in the colonies; and in Canada they succeeded but too well in impoverishing the Church, and in subjecting her to all the insults and wrongs that could be wreaked upon her by Romanists and Dissenters. The Greys found men fully equal to all they desired in Lord Durham and Lord Sydenham, First, the Church was to be despoiled of

the clergy reserves, and instead of the whole there was allotted to her only five-twelfths, but, owing to the waste through the injudicious management of those in office, even this she did not receive, and in 1850 the whole was taken from her, so that the clergy in Canada are now deprived of every vestige of an endowment. And the Church has now lost her university at Toronto: this, through the influence of Romanists and Dissenters at the Colonial-office, was violently suppressed, and the Church's request for separate schools for the education of the children of her own members was rejected, the privilege refused to her being at the same time granted to the Romanists. Thus, the Canadian Church has found that the State, as represented by Whig Ministers, has been in reality one of the most powerful enemies with whom she has had to contend. Her loyalty was her offence, and she has been sacrificed by the Whigs to gratify the disloyal, and in furtherance of their habitual policy to sacrifice every sacred influence to political expediency.

It is very evident, however, that the Canadian Church, long after all these her hostile legislators have disappeared and been forgotten, will be exercising a very powerful and beneficial influence throughout the whole of the Canadas. She is showing a spirit worthy of her head and equal to the occasion. Made dependent now upon the voluntary system for the support and education of her clergy, she is yet endeavouring to provide for the education of all the children of her members in the Christian faith-Christianity and the Bible being expressly excluded from all the common grammar schools in the province, and a disbelief in Christianity being no disqualification to the schoolmaster in the schools, nor to the professors in the university. Equally, therefore, among the upper and the lower classes, the children are in some danger of becoming infidels, unless the Church comes to the rescue, and establishes Church-day and Sunday schools at every station, and carries them on solely from her own resources. To give efficacy to her system, and to make the widely-scattered members of her Church of one mind on all matters, and to enable all to combine their separate labours and efforts to one end, she has addressed the Crown for permission to hold diocesan synods: should this be refused, the animus of the home Government and its settled determination to insult, and injure, and distress the Church, will only be the more manifested. Notwithstanding, however, all the discouragement and hostility the Church in Canada has endured from the Whig Ministry, a fourth part of the population are its members, and in the larger towns churches and congregations are

multiplying with joyful rapidity. The Church Society has provided for Church purposes many valuable donations in land and money, and the parochial associations are most efficiently strengthening and supporting the clergy. Driven out from their own institution, "King's College," the bishop and his diocese determined to establish a Church university of their own, and with contributions amounting to 50,000l. are endeavouring to raise up "Trinity College" as a place of education for her clergy; but neither will the imperial nor the colonial Government grant the desired and petitioned for charter of incorporation.

Now, when we contrast the conduct of our home Government to the loyal Canadian Church, and the conduct of the American democratic Government to the Church established in its territories, we can only the more express our admiration of the high and holy principles of the men which still bind them in allegiance to a Monarchy which goes out of its way on every available occasion to insult and despoil them, when there is close at hand a powerful Republic which would receive them with honour into their union, and would grant them immediately every request they now make so fruitlessly of us. And, as Mr. Caswell remarks, we hope that the time is not distant when America and the Canadas will fully prove that a great and truly Catholic Church can exist and prosper without a Roman pontiff, without images, without fictitious miracles, and without mariolatry-when it will appear that no Government nor State influence, whether of Rome, of England, or of America, is of the least consequence to the full efficiency of that spiritual society which is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; and when the same episcopate to which in the beginning the work of diffusing Christianity was committed, and on which the gracious promises of the Redeemer were conferred, will show itself as the great bond of union and the main foundation of ecclesiastical strength.

ART. VIII-Wesley and Methodism. By ISAAC TAYLOR. London: Longmans. 1851.

IT is more than a century since Methodism took its rise; for it was in 1739 that the field-preaching of Wesley and Whitefield began, which is to be regarded, not only as the commencement of the two great communities which have adopted the names of