towns and cities. The great majority of all congregations would doubtless remain for all the services, sermons included, according to their life-long practice; but liberty would be afforded to more unruly spirits-those whose devotion would not sustain them, or health allow them to remain, during so long a period; and the necessity of hearing a dull discourse would no longer keep well-meaning men of the world and half-churchmen, such as Sir Walter Scott for instance, from participating for weeks together in the service of the sanctuary they would be able to come for what they could digest; and, we venture to prophecy, that scarcely a Sunday would pass over their heads without seeing them at their appointed posts; and such a voluntary service would, we should say, be likely to benefit their souls and to deepen their convictions. We do not want unwilling auditors who only stop because they must. Once break through the present inevitable routine, and the number of sermons preached, would, we are confident, diminish most beneficially. There is nothing more painful to the feelings of sensitive and at all imaginative persons than the boundless pouring forth of dreary and conventional words-words-words, on the most glorious themes, which they are now weekly forced to listen to if they would at all enter God's temple.

Dean Hirscher next proceeds to treat of a yet more important subject, after some general observations on the worship of the saints, which suggest more than they express; pleading, however, for mutual charity and liberty-liberty to sin. He then considers the so-called "Sacrament of Penance" -that is, private confession and absolution as practised in the Roman Church. Of existing Roman practice he strongly disapproves,

"The people"-(he says, and let us remember that he speaks from a ministerial experience of sixty years with a strong prejudice which he still retains and expresses in favour of confession)"The people, in the widest extent of the word, regard private confession as the only way to obtain the remission of their sins; and repeat to them, as often as you may, that amendment of life is the first and the indispensable condition of remission, it is of no avail towards destroying the convenient and deep-rooted notion that confession alone is the condition. The people examine their consciences as the catechism prescribes, and according to the formularies made and provided; excite themselves to sorrow and contrition, and, as soon as the absolution is bestowed, what more do they require? In one hour, or even less, the whole burden is discharged. As for any thoughts of not returning again to his sins, nothing is further from the penitent: he goes into them at once, reflecting thereupon that he must, and will,

return again to confession. Such is his practice, and when he has again received absolution, of course, he is once more in good order" (201-202).

Dean Hirscher goes on to affirm that such discipline is usually exercised, that, if a man's sins increase, absolution is at last denied him; but we cannot believe, with the facts that are known to us respecting Italian brigands, and other habitual sinners, who nevertheless remain "good Catholics" and communicants, that this stringent discipline is often applied, though the dean's regard for his brethren may lead him to assume that it might be so. But, even if absolution be thus refused, he says, "the ways of obtaining the benefit again are numerous, and in the very worst possible case there remains at least the death-bed, where it cannot be denied." What an awful description of an iniquitous system have we here! But we will allow the dean to speak further for himself:

"Such then are the many confessions, producing not only no beneficial effects, but spreading through wide circles most palpable corruptions. What is an act of contrition good for which is begun, continued, and ended in an hour or even a shorter time? The whole process involves an utter misconception of the nature of repentance. And then, how utterly superficial is the theology which regards the justification desired or obtained as consisting wholly in priestly absolution, and not at all in the state of the soul or its renewal, and which thus decides the question. How heathenish! To make reconciliation with God consist in mere external rites! How repugnant to all ideas of true repentance, when it is planned beforehand as to the time, the day, the place, and the priest-when, where, and from whom the pardon may be obtained! So then, life goes on, and such confessions are repeated over and over again. Sin, never conquered, becomes (obtains ?) a terrible force; and in spite of all sacraments the soul sinks deeper and deeper. These real evils want the earnest attention of the Church" (202-203).

We should, indeed, suppose they did. But are they not inherent in the Roman system? Do they not follow from that principle, now alike proclaimed by Romanists and many an English Churchman? Alas! Dr. Pusey and his immediate followers tell us that the declaration of pardon, which is admitted, on all sides, to be entrusted to the ministers of Christ, can only take effect after previous private confession, and that, confession of every sin; so that the public absolution appointed in our Church for the comfort of sinful souls (and we are all sinners), both in the daily prayers and holy communion, is regarded as wholly inoperative; as, at the utmost, statements of a fact that can convey no grace, that cannot operate, by the Holy Spirit's aid, to loose a sinner's

soul. We need not say that we, with those Plymouth clergy who addressed the Bishop of Exeter in refutation of Mr. Maskell's heretical teaching on this subject, utterly repudiate these Romish and Romanising fictions. We do not believe that a ministerial declaration of God's pardon is requisite to secure that pardon to true repentence; but we do believe it to be one great appointed medium of conveying grace to the soul; and we hold that our Church, both in her practice and theory, has insisted on this fact. We maintain that the only possible use of private confession can be so to quicken the faith and sorrow of the penitent as to make the absolution consequent thereupon more beneficial to his soul; but so alive are we to the great danger attendant on private absolution, howsoever administered, especially if it follow on private confession, as being liable to be accounted necessarily synonymous with God's pardon, as authoritatively proving the reality of the penitent's faith and sorrow, and so virtually substituting the opinion of the priest, at the best a fallible mortal, for the inward voice of conscience, that we are averse to it altogether, save perhaps under extraordinary circumstances. Public absolution conveys an equal degree of grace in our judgment, for the minister is the bare channel; and his knowledge of the sinner's sins, or his good opinion of the latter's penitence, cannot be requisite to attain the desired effect. Thus daily, in the morning and evening prayers, we would have Christians realize that God's pardon is pronounced for their daily sins, no matter by whom or with what intention, suffice it that his consecrated minister speaks, set apart for that purpose, and that grace flows for all who are able and willing to receive it. Probably there is no reader of this paper who has not at least striven to realize true repentance and receive God's pardon into his soul when the solemn precatory absolution was pronounced in the communion office.

And of private confession itself, even apart from private absolution, we are very jealous: if it be intended to extend to every action, word, and thought, we utterly repudiate it, as necessarily evil in its effects, in the great majority of instances we should say, if not in all; and even when used for the purpose pointed out by the Prayer Book to relieve the heart of some great burden, and quiet the conscience as to due participation in the Lord's Supper, it behoves us to be on our guard lest that evil leaven which Dean Hirscher denounces should make its entrance unawares into our working system. On the other hand, we are free to acknowledge that

English Churchmen do feel generally, both clergy and laity, the need of more direct intercourse betwixt pastors and people. It is not for romantic young ladies and sentimental penitents that we speak thus-no peculiar tenderness for morbid consciences has extorted this opinion. It is the state of the poor, of the heathenised masses about us, which fills us, the more we contemplate it, with deep alarm. Their consciences are so utterly unawakened, they are so devoid of selfconsciousness, they do not even know their sins; and though pulpit ministrations may reach individuals, and occasionally operate effectually even on masses, yet they must be high powers indeed which produce such effects; and in the majority of cases something like a regular order of pastoral intercourse does appear essential. At present the clergy are almost restricted to what private influence they may exercise in visiting from house to house; and this does not suffice, though it may be great of its kind.

But here, as ever, we should say, one good thing would bring another. Let us once obtain some approach to discipline, and pastoral intercourse, one would imagine, must follow, and that after this fashion. Conceive the masses to be informed by means of a ministerial round of visits from room to room, and house to house, that, after the expiration of a year, dating from a certain day, the names of all who called themselves members of the Church of England being collected in the mean time, all those who had not communicated once or twice, as the case might be, within that year, would be declared to be banished from the Church's communion-as persons who had forfeited the right of communion with their brethren until they were reinstated by giving some proof of their repentance. We pause not now to enquire what that proof might be, public or private, before the congregation or the clergyman. But suppose such a notice to be issued and acted on, by command of both clergy and laity met together, say in Convocation; for it is obvious to us, at least, that to entertain the feasibility of any discipline for a single instant, without contemplating previous debate and due consideration on the part of both clergy and laity, and the final assent of the latter, were altogether childish and unreasonable; but supposing, we repeat, that, in compliance with the desire of the educated and thoughtful laity, such a plan were acted on, vast bodies of nominal Churchmen might, doubtless, submit to their being denounced in their parish church, or temporarily deprived of Church communion, "for the saving of their souls in the day of the Lord Jesus," without

being much affected by the matter; yet not so many, we opine, as might at first sight be supposed. Tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands, and millions even, would, if we mistake not, be aroused to some sense of the privilege of Church-membership by such an exercise of Church authority. We are inclined to hope and believe that the great majority even of those who now content themselves with a nominal Churchmanship, rarely entering our temples, sending only their children to our schools, and only seeking the Church on the occasion of baptism, marriage, or funeral, would not at all like the idea of being thus publicly and solemnly declared outcasts from the Church's fold. On the other hand, they would be afraid, and rightly afraid to communicate without due preparation, lest they should receive unto themselves damnation, What then, under such circumstances, would they be naturally disposed to do, especially if the clergyman invited them? Manifestly, we should say, to seek his presence to obtain, if possible, a solution of their doubts, and some clue to their extrication from this painful dilemma; and we do venture to conceive that such spiritual intercourse might be very widely blessed by heaven. The clergyman would then have to explain to the perplexed enquirer that the adult Christian who did not obey his Lord's last command could— strictly speaking-could be none of His, and could lay no claim to his heavenly promises-could have no assurance that he was washed with the cleansing blood of the Lamb. On the other hand, he would have to tell him that a Christian, or nominal Christian, living in the practice of any one habitual sin, and not intending from the very depths of his heart to put that sin away from him, could not communicate without incurring the utmost peril of his final condemnation. Indeed, if communion thrice (according to the Prayer Book's rule), or even only once a year, were enforced on peril of open outlawry, it seems difficult to avoid the conclusion that personal interviews between the pastor and his parishioners of all classes would become desirable, in order that he might urge upon them the awful danger they would incur if they communicated with one unrepented sin on their consciences, or without a thorough purpose of amendment; and, on the other hand, to encourage the wavering and the faint-hearted. The poor need to be taught to know themselves, to practice self-examination; the rich might sometimes need to be led from morbid contemplation of their own delinquency, and rather to fix the of faith upon a crucified Redeemer.

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In fine, we repeat that the enforcement of any degree of