shackle our efforts at every turn. It is needless to refer to the invariable success which accompanies all movements of which the offertory forms the first principle. It is possible large sums may be realized at bazaars, where worldly show and worldly machinery are introduced, but still larger sums will be realized when the matter is managed in a manner befitting the Church, and when a direct appeal is made to the conscience of those engaged in the work. If the work be the work of God, it will go on and prosper-if it be not, no bazaar nor making merchandise of the house of God will prop it up.

We might instance such cases as S. Alban's, London, and S. Barnabas, Pimlico, wherein in the one case £900 a-year, and in the other £1400 a-year, have been realized by mere offertories. In the provinces in England the results have been still more marked. The powerful

addresses of the Bishops of Durham and Carlisle are striking evidences of the prevalence of the popular feeling. We rejoice to see that the movement is no longer a party one, but embodies all sections of feeling in the Church of England.

In our case the evils attendant upon pew rents are not so flagrant, but there can be no doubt that many of the grave evils which have beset our financial question have originated in the pew system. In such towns as Edinburgh, Glasgow, Perth, and Aberdeen, the pew system has been the fruitful source of all those polemical controversies which have retarded the progress of our Church. The pew system is in fact an apology for giving to the Church as little as a person can. After the pew renter pays his pew, his conscience is perfectly at ease that he has done his duty. The offertory is an appeal to the conscience of each member of the Church. Pew rents are no longer to be the tests of a man's churchmanship.

It is possible that in corrupt ages of the Church the pew system may have been necessary and expedient. We are glad to see that the system is no longer necessary nor expedient. We trust to see it ere long expunged from our Scottish system as opposed to all the principles of a voluntary body, and equally opposed to one that aspires after an ultimate establishment in the country. The offertory system is the only system recognized by the Church, and until we fall back upon the legitimate system, we shall flounder in the dark. We doubt all the questionable expedients of a bazaar, and arrive at no satisfactory result, for the simple reason that no such expedient can have the blessing of God upon it.

THE TRIUMPH OF THE MOVEMENT.

THE financial returns of 1865 are the clearest evidence that the movement of 1863 has ushered in a new era into the history of our Church Finance; and that the most sanguine expectations of its friends have been realised. It is no longer a dream, but a reality. The opposition it has received, we regret to say, from some portion of high quarters, has imparted to it the greater stimulus. It is no longer dependent upon the patronage of this or that man, but it is the movement of the whole body. We are no longer dependent upon the alms of Dukes or of great men-we are dependent upon the voluntary subscriptions of all members of the Church, no matter who they are, or what they are. All are "members of Christ," engrafted into his body," and consequently bound to nurture that body. We are not ungrateful for past or present services of such men as the Duke of Buccleuch, Sir Michael Shaw Stewart, Mr Hamilton Nisbet, and others. We should be ashamed of ourselves if we were. But still there was no claim upon

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It was a shame to our com

them to pay for the whole Church. munion, as the legitimate Church in Scotland, that she did not realise her first duties as a branch of the Church of Christ, and to those who 15 years ago were so clamorous that we had embarked upon an Utopian scheme, we always have answered that if we failed, the Church, as a Church, must fail also. We were quite willing to run the hazard, and put an end to a state of things that was something worse than a sham. The awakening of the Church has, however, begun. No human power can now avert it, and the long and continuous labours of Dean Ramsay are meeting their reward. The coldness, the apathy, the neglect, the ridicule, the open opposition, which have so long impeded his efforts, are now, we trust, for ever at an end. The battle has been a hard one, but it has culminated in a glorious victory. Traitors and cravens there may have been even in the camp, as there are in all causes, and in all armies, but a noble band has at length rallied around him.

The financial triumph is a great one, but it is the precursor of triumphs that are to come. It is but the beginning of victories.

The approaching endowment of S. Andrew's bishopric is a great victory. Ere three years are over, we trust no bishopric in Scotland will be left un-endowed. It is the great foundation of all our finance, for it is the first great step to emancipate us from the tyranny of voluntaryism. The next great step is the raising of the current incomes of our clergy, to be followed, we trust, by the gradual endowment of the incum

bencies. But great as is the financial movement, it is only precursory to other movements much larger, and more congenial to the national mind. The lay question is still unsettled. The fact of the laity having no representation in the legislative or judicial tribunals of our Church, is undoubtedly a gross anomaly. It clearly cannot rest as it is. Recent events have shown the great evils attendant upon class legislation and class judgments. It is in the very nature of a class to be narrow, exclusive, and tyrannical. We trust, then, that the adjustment of the financial question will not be regarded as a satisfactory solution of our difficulties. It is well, ab initio, it should not be regarded as part and parcel of any other question, but the laity clearly are called upon to assert now their true position, and by a continuous, temperate, and respectful agitation, to regain those rights which belong to them, in common with all other members of the Church of Christ. In the days of a "dead" Church, and a "dead" faith, the laity were consistently excluded from all voice in Church matters. In the days of the Roman ascendancy and of Priestcraft, laymen were naturally regarded as outcasts from the faith. But these days have gone bye. Even Rome finds means of employing the energies of her lay children, and giving way to a pressure which she cannot resist; and we trust that once the financial movement in the course of adjustment is at an end, a bold and effectual move will be made to regain a right impressed upon the pages of Scripture, and defended by the clearest claims of common sense.

It is matter of great rejoicing that a majority of our Spiritual Fathers are upon the side of right. The example of the Churches in the Colonies and America, the growing opinion of the times, the very nature of our voluntary position, all point at the necessity of a concession which can alone consummate the triumph of the movement. We by no means advocate haste, precipitation, or undue pressure. All such means only force a reaction. The movement to be permanent, must be wary, progressive, watchful, and confident. No opportunity must be lost, but there must be no suspense. Intelligent conviction, resolute agitation, respect for authority, can alone insure success.

The victory of Finance has been thus gained. The victory of the laity will be gained by the same means. We must prove ourselves worthy of the franchise before we exercise it; and at an early General Synod, we shall be empowered to discharge the same functions as the laity at the First Synod of the Church, presided over by S. James, the Bishop of Jerusalem.

HUGH SCOTT OF GALA.

THE UNITY OF CHRISTENDOM.

THE various movements towards union amongst the at present disunited members of the Catholic Church, cannot but excite more than usual interest amongst all those who value the Church. There are doubtless many obstacles in the way, but these so far from acting as any discouragement to proceed with the work, only the more strongly demonstrate its necessity.

The union between the Eastern Church, and the Scottish, and Anglican communions, presents to our mind the most hopeful feature of all the movements which have at present been inaugurated in our Church, but whether hopeful or not, it is clearly the duty of all Catholic Christians to do every thing to further the union and heal the divisions, and we cannot but read with peculiar interest a very able sermon preached by Mr. Cazenove, Vice-Provost of the Cumbrae College, wherein a largeness of new and judicious boldness is manifested upon this important matter. The sermon was preached shortly after the defeat of Mr. Boyle in Bute, which was in a great measure occasioned by his having been prominently connected with the Association for the promotion of the Unity of Christendom. The cry that was raised against him, unreasonable as it was, was mainly based upon the absurd plea that the Promotion of Catholic Unity was inconsistent with the designs and principles of the Reformation. A more crushing condemnation of the Reformation there could not have been made, in addition to the clear contradiction to all the lights of history.

The early Reformers so far from wishing to divide Christendom, were most anxious to be heard before an Ecumenical Council, and it was only after the arrogant assumption of the Pope of Rome, and the final refusal of a fair and open council, that the famous protest was drawn up against the needless schism which the See of Rome forced upon the Church. The Church of the East is fully alive to the importance of unity, and hasha iled with cordiality the overture for union. The Churches in Denmark and Germany have shown an equal interest in the movement, and even in the Church of Rome there are indications of a more liberal and catholic spirit, than we could have conceived possible amongst so sectarian and narrow a body. In large portions of the Roman communion there are indications of great impatience with the centralised tyranny of a single Church. The political position of the Roman See has swayed against it the liberal mind of the age. No communion can now remain long with safety in swaddling clothes; and considering, that the doctrines of the Church of Rome are opposed to the great mass of early antiquity, it would be well for herself if she recoiled from a position opposed

to all the theory of the Church, in direct contradiction to the decrees of Catholic antiquity, and without any authority from scripture. We are by no means sanguine of Rome surrendering her arrogant claims, or loosing herself from her manifold errors, but we do trust that the ventilation of this great question, and an investigation of the true principles of the Reformation, will induce many to give up those delusive theories which would associate division with the Reformation.

Mr. Cazenove very skillfully contrasts the position of the opposition school. "Thus in a book of our day there occur the following words :'Fervid he was, fervently devout, and our notions would lead us in to a very perilous kind of uncharitableness, if they forbade our thinking of him as an earnestly good and Christian man.' Now of whom was this written? It was written concerning the founder of the Jesuits—Ignatius Loyola. Yes, you will say; but then it was written by some one of the so-called Tractarian school. No, indeed. It came from the pen of an English dissenter, who spent a great part of his life in writing against Tractarianism-the late Mr. Isaac Taylor. I repeat the sentence exactly as it stands. "Fervid he was, fervently devout," &c.

"But these it may be urged are all indications of generous sentiments on one side only. Was there any corresponding change on the part of Roman Catholics towards reformers and the reformation? In Germany there has arisen among Roman Catholic a peculiarly independent school of thought, of which Mohler may, perhaps, be considered as the founder. The most celebrated work of this divine entitled "Symbolism," (an enquiry into the tenets of various Christian communities) appeared in 1832; and its publication marks an epoch in the history of theology. For the first time there was sent forth from a camp hostile to the memory of the reformers, a work which not only aimed at giving a calm and candid exposition of their doctrine, which not only made the most ample admissions respecting the practical corruptions prevalent in that age, but which frankly recognised the purity of motive from which the teaching of the leader amongst the foreign Protestants originally sprang. Count Joseph de Maistre, in a passage which is now famous, declared his convictions, that if purity were ever to be restored, it must start from the Church of England because her situation was an intermediate one. If his views have any truth in them, I should regret to see Anglicanism attempting to extend its arms in one direction without making an attempt to extend in the other direction likewise. It is probable that all Christian communities have someting to learn from the others."

The great difficulty which we feel with regard to the Church of Rome is that under its centralised executive, individual openings are in no way representative of the feelings or doctrine of the Church. We trust, how