3. The Church in the Navy and Army. Edinburgh: Innes. 4. A Reverie of a Retired Officer on the Naval and Military Bible Society; addressed to Red Coats and Blue Jackets. London: Simpkins.

5. An Appeal to the British Nation in behalf of our Sailors. By Sir JAHLEEL BRENTON. Nisbet.

WE shall concern ourselves little with the literary merits of these unpretending volumes; it is the subject they embrace which gives them their importance. They are samples, amongst others, of the steadily increasing interest which wise and zealous churchmen, lay as well as clerical, are taking in the spiritual welfare of the gallant defenders of our country, both by land and sea. The period is not very long gone by when it might too truly be said of our soldiers and sailors, that refuge failed them no man cared for their souls. Though the spirit of Christian charity had woke from her slumbers, and had poured forth a loud note as from a trumpet, summoning men to the help of the Lord against the mighty, and though thousands and tens of thousands had responded to the call, so that the spiritual necessities of Jews and Turks, and Heretics and Infidels, of every description and of every degree, were engaging our sympathies and making large drafts upon our Christian benevolence, there was one field of labour,-and that constituting, strange to say, the very glacis-the fortification and defence, under God, of this great Christian nation-which was left almost overlooked and uncultivated. We sent missionaries out to Christianize the lands we had conquered, but we thought not of the souls of those who had conquered them for us. We cared not for the men without whom those missionaries could never have crossed the seas. There were two causes, says the excellent author of the "Retrospect,”* in another work of hist (alluding then more particularly to our seamen, though his words are no less applicable to our soldiers), which till very lately continued to operate in excluding them from the field of general improvement; and these were, first, a most complete indifference, on the part of worldly men, as to their future joys and sorrows altogether; and secondly, an astonishing degree of timidity, a strange want of lively faith and holy resolution, on the part of good men of every denomination. This unhappy" indifference and want of

*

1

"The Retrospect; or Review of Providential Mercies, with Anecdotes of various Characters, and an Address to Naval Officers. By Aliquis; formerly a Lieutenant in the Royal Navy, and now a Minister in the Established Church." + The Ocean Spiritually Reviewed.

resolution," complained of by the author of "The Retrospect," is, we rejoice to say, diminishing every day. A growing necessity is felt that something more should be done, and that particularly as regards our seamen; and it gladdens us, moreover, to know that the case of our soldiers is likewise engaging the attention of those in authority. But, if good is to be done for either army or navy, the immediate question is, "How are we to go about it?" The no less immediate and necessary answer is, that the benefit can only be effected by a system of direct pastoral superintendence, brought more fully to bear upon both services. This is a work which peculiarly requires to be effected by Church and State working together, hand in hand. It is here that your voluntary principle must remain for ever at fault. It may build here and there a church or a chapel, where the neighbourhood is crowded or wealthy; it may, to a certain extent, distribute bibles, and it may circulate tracts; but to bring a system of ministerial superintendence to bear upon our soldiers and sailors, collectively and individually, lies beyond its power. Even the Church, possessing, as she does within herself, the mighty advantages of organization and discipline; consisting, as she does, of a sacred imperium in imperio; presenting the sublime spectacle of a spiritual empire, a kingdom not of this world, which waves the sceptre of its benignant sway over the loftiest as well as the meanest—even the Church herself, so gifted and so constituted, has no means of bringing her mighty energies to bear upon the subject, without the assistance and co-operation of the State.

A bishop might send forth clergymen to preach to the soldiers in our garrisons, but who is to command their attendance on his ministrations? A bishop might nominate a priest to every ship in our navy, but who is to receive him on board, and allot him quarters and recognize him as an officer? Here the authority of the State must come in and co-operate with that of the Church. So that, while for the supply of our destitute villages we need look to the bishop alone, for the supply of our

We

As regards the circulation of tracts in the navy, there is a standing Admiralty Order, that no tracts shall be received on board the ships of the fleet, except such as shall have been approved by the Senior-Chaplain of Greenwich Hospital. Attention to this order becomes more necessary than ever in the present day, when Socialists and others are busily employed in disseminating their pernicious doctrines, by means of this ready form of distribution. would not, of course, be understood as classing with their vile productions the many excellent little publications which have issued from the pens of good men without the pale of the Church; but, as we can have no guarantee for soundness of doctrine in regard of those who reject creeds and articles of faith, as so many fetters upon "liberty of conscience," some such system of supervision becomes scarcely less necessary here also.

destitute garrisons and shipping, we must, of necessity, look also to the War Office and the Admiralty.

We shall present our readers with a rapid glance at the state of the army and navy, as regards the means hitherto provided for the spiritual instruction of our soldiers and seamen, throwing out such suggestions, for the improvement of the services in this respect, as may occur to us by the way.

As regards the army, however, we shall content ourselves, for the present, with chiefly stating its present deficiencies. Without bringing forward any particular plans for its improvement; only asserting, generally, that no remedy for its present condition can be of any avail, save such as shall recognize, as its leading principle, the placing the chaplains on a thoroughly efficient footing, without regard for contemptible pretences of economy, when "economy" is only another term for "the ruin of souls."

It is probable that chaplains were attached to the army at a very early period. History is full of notices of the attendance of ecclesiastics on military expeditions, generally as spiritual advisers and instructors-sometimes as attached to a particular office, when they received pay accordingly. Thus they were sometimes employed, in superstitious ages, in carrying sacred banners to inspire the troops with confidence. The standard of St. Cuthbert was so carried with the army of Edward into Scotland, and with that of the Earl of Surrey into Flodden Field. The bearer of the standard was a monk, named William de Gretham, who received pay accordingly, as we learn from the wardrobe account of Edward I., quoted by Grose.-(MIL. Antiq. vol. II., p. 53.)*

It does not, however, appear that any thing was done towards attaching them permanently to our military establishments till the reign of William III.; indeed it was impossible that anything could have been done till then towards placing them on a permanent footing, since we date from that reign the first origin of a standing army. We may say, then, that the existence of regular military chaplains was coeval with that of the army as at present constituted. They were originally attached to every regiment, and continued to be so till the end of the seven years' It appears, however, that the system of regimental chaplains did not answer, at least in time of peace, and garrison

war.

* Domino Willmo de Gretham monacho Dunolm, sequenti regem cum vexilla Sancti Cuthberti in guerra Scocie, anno presenti pro expensis suis, a 3 die Julii, usque 24 diem Augusti, utroque computato, per 35 dies morandó in exercitu regis ac eciam pro expensis suis per 4 dies sequentes redeundo versus Dunolm, de licentia regis.

chaplains were substituted in their stead. Wherever there was a garrison, there it was understood that there should be a settled resident chaplain, who would thus be independent of the wanderings of the various regiments, which pass from time to time under his care. It is a lamentable fact, however, that at the present time, in all England and Ireland, where there are 106 military stations, there are only six chaplains actually on duty! And in the colonies, which are thirty-seven in number, comprising amongst them at least sixty or seventy principal and permanent stations, besides a number of others of more or less importance, we have only eleven chaplains scattered over the whole! But the case is still worse, as regards the existence of places in which the troops may assemble for the performance of divine worship. In England, except at a very few stations, such as Chelsea Hospital, Chatham, the Tower, Portsmouth, and Woolwich, there is no regular place for the performance of divine worship whatsoever. In Scotland, the two castles of Edinburgh and Stirling are provided, indeed, with Presbyterian chaplains, under the terms of the Act of Union; but, at the former station, there is no chapel for the use of the troops, and at the latter there was a chapel, but it has been converted into an armoury! Windsor itself, the very seat and head-quarters of royalty, affords a lamentable case in point, to exhibit the deficiency of any regular means of exercising ministerial superintendence over our troops. There are never less than between 1,000 and 2,000 men quartered, and yet this large body has no place of worship provided for them, and their only service is one of about ten minutes in length, performed in the open air every other Sunday, and that by no regular chaplain, but by one of the clergy from the town. Yet the attendance of the regular appointed local clergy upon the troops of their several districts is the miserable "legal fiction" by which it is assumed that the lack of regular chaplains is every where supplied. We have, indeed, known those, and one in particular, the curate of a large manufacturing town-parish in Lancashire, who managed, amidst all their other heavy duties, to lecture regularly to the troops at the barracks, and likewise to visit those in hospital;*

It is an interesting fact, that though by far the great majority of the troops in this case were Roman Catholics, they gladly availed themselves of the services of this excellent young clergyman, and, there is reason to hope, were materially benefited by them. Indeed, generally speaking, it would be impossible to find any body of men more capable of being wrought upon by religious instruction, from a regular clergyman, than our soldiers and sailors. From their habits and manner of life, they are not likely to be deep politicians in matters either spiritual or secular. They are, therefore, tolerably free from

but in many cases, that they should receive such superintendence is physically impossible. Take the case of Manchester, for instance, where there are a large number of troops always quartered. The clergy there are overweighted with duty already. And how is a man to attend to the military when he has thousands upon thousands of regular parishioners under his charge already? We say nothing of all this additional duty being expected to be done without remuneration, as it is pretty well known now, in spite of the ravings of interested demagogues and scribblers of sedition, that the clergy are the men, taking them generally, who do by far the most amount of work for the least pay, and who are always the readiest to meet the heavy demands, whether for time or money, or gratuitous labour, which are continually being made upon them. We say nothing, therefore, of the duty having to be done gratuitously; the great body of the parochial clergy would cheerfully attend to it if they could, but they cannot-the thing is capable of being proved to be out of their power. Two thousand souls, or at the most three thousand, are by the best judges considered the extreme limit of the number which a clergyman can properly attend to. What then is he to do when frequently, having already a much larger number than that quoted above, one or two thousand more are thrown in upon him in addition? And even supposing him to be able to notice them in some measure during the week, as we have shown to have been done by some, in the teeth of all difficulty, there remains yet still another thing which renders their proper spiritual superintendence out of the question. The clergyman cannot divide himself on the Sunday; he cannot have two, or perhaps, as in some cases, three full services, besides the frequent routine of marriages, funerals, churchings, and christenings, at his church, and then a separate service for the troops in addition. And if it be said, why not at once march them to the parish church to attend divine service with the rest, the simple answer is, it may be possible to do so here and there -and where it is practicable we believe that this is done, but, generally speaking, the parish church will not hold them, it is already occupied by the parishioners, so that in every way the military are cut off from any thing like the certainty of religious superintendence, so long as such superintendence is not regularly provided for them.

all forms of schism, save that of the Romish; and where such is their persuasion, they have no difficulty in obtaining permission to avail themselves of the services of a Romish dissenting chapel. The above quoted instance seems however to prove, that in many cases, even soldiers professing the Romish faith, would gladly attend on the ministrations of a regular clergyman of the Church wherever the opportunity was afforded them.