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as a christian grace. Fully carried out, this theory would prohibit the flagon of oil and the barrel of meal, and would reduce us all to the widow's cruse and handful;-for it makes little difference whether the hoard be in kind, or packed up in the portable form of money. It would justify the life of the anchorite who has no funded property, except the roots in the ground and the nuts on the trees; and it would suit very well such a state of society as Israel spent in the desert, when no skill could secure a week's manna beforehand, and when the same pair of shoes lasted forty years. But as it was not for a world of anchorites or ascetics,-as it was not for a society on which the clouds should rain miraculous supplies that the Saviour was legislating, - His words must have another meaning. And what is that? Live by faith. Look forward look upward. Let nothing temporal be your treasure. Whether your abode be a hut or a castle, think only of the Father's house as your enduring mansion. Whether your friends be high or low, coarse or refined, think only of just men made perfect as your permanent associates. And whether your possessions be great or small, think only of the joys at God's right hand as your eternal treasure. Lead a life disentangled and expedite,-setting your affections on things above, and never so clinging to the things temporal as to lose the things eternal.

Translated into its equivalent, money just means food and clothing, and a salubrious dwelling. It means instructive books, and rational recreation. It means freedom from anxiety, and leisure for personal improve ment. It means the education of one's children, and the power of doing good to others. And to inveigh against it, as if it were intrinsically sinful, is as fanatical as it would be to inveigh against the bread and the raiment, the books and the Bibles, which the money procures. It would be to stultify all those precepts which tell us to provide things honest in the sight of all men; to do good and to communicate; to help forward destitute saints after a godly sort; to make friends of the unrighteous mammon.

And as there is nothing in the Bible to prohibit the acquirement of wealth, there is much to guide us in its right bestowment. Using but not abusing God's bounties, the Christian avoids both the wasteful and the penurious extremes, and is neither a miser nor a spendthrift. With that most elastic and enlightened disciple, who knew so well how to be abased and how to abound, the believer can say, "I have learned in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. Everywhere and in all things, I am instructed, both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and suffer need. I can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth me.

It was a sultry day, and an avaricious old man, who had hoarded a large amount, was toiling away and wasting his little remaining strength, when a heavenly apparition stood before him. "I am Solomon," it said, with a friendly voice; "what are you doing?" "If you are Solomon," answered the old man, "how can you ask? When I was young you sent me to the ant, and told me to consider her ways; and from her I learned to be industrious and gather stores.' "You have only half learned your lesson," replied the spirit; “ go once more to the ant, and learn to rest the winter of your years, and enjoy your collected treasures."* And this lesson of moderate but cheerful spending, nothing teaches so effectually as the Gospel. Reminding the believer that the life is more than meat, and the body more than raiment, it also suggests to him that meat and raiment are more than money; and by saving him from the idolatry of wealth, it emboldens him to use it: so that far from feeling impoverished when it is converted into some worthy equivalent, he can use with thankfulness the gifts which his Heavenly Father sends him. Within the bounds of temperance and forethought, he subscribes to the sentiment of our text, "It is good and comely to eat and to drink, and to enjoy the good of one's labour; for the power to eat thereof, and to take his portion, is itself the gift of God."

But Christianity teaches a lesson
Lessing's Fables.

THE LIFE OF FAITH.

higher still. "Remembering the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive," the true disciple will value wealth chiefly as he can spend it on objects dear to his dear Lord. To him money is a talent and a trust; and he will feel it a fine thing to have a fortune, because it enables him to do something notable for some noble end. And whether, like Granville Sharpe, he spends it in pleading the cause of the oppressed and the friendless; or, like Howard, devotes it to reclaim the most depraved and degraded; or, like Simeon, purchases advowsons in order to appoint faithful pastors; or, like Thomas Wilson, multiplies places of worship in a crowded metropolis; there is no fortune which brings to its possessor such a return of solid satisfaction as that which is

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converted into christian philanthropy. Our houses tumble down; our monuments decay; our equipages grow frail and shabby. But it is a fine thing to have a fortune, and so be able to give a grand impulse to some important cause. It is a happy thing to have wealth enough to set fairly afloat an emancipation movement or a prison reform. It is a noble thing to be rich enough to provide Gospel ordinances for ten thousand people in a vast and world-wielding capital. It is a blessed thing to be " a man to whom God has not only given riches and wealth," but so large a heart,—so beneficent, so brotherly, that his fruition of his fortune is as wide as the thousands who share it, and the reversion as secure as the heaven in which it is treasured.

THE LIFE OF FAITH.

From a Letter found in the study of a Clergyman in New England. I THOUGHT on that question, How to live in this world so as to live in heaven? It is one of the common pleas of my heart, which I have often occasion to study, and therefore takes me not unprovided. It is hard to keep the helm up against so many cross winds as we meet withal upon this sea of fire and glass. That man knows not his own heart, that finds it not difficult to break through the entanglements of the world. Creaturesmiles stop and entice away the affections from Jesus Christ; creaturefrowns encompass and tempestuate the spirit, that it thinks it doth well to be angry. Both ways grace is a loser. We had all need to watch and pray, lest we enter into temptation. The greatest of your conflicts and causes of complaint seems to have their original here.

Temptations follow tempers. As there are two predominant qualities in the temper of every body, so there are two predominant sins in the temper of every heart. Pride is one in all men in the world. I will tell you, familiarly, what God hath done for my soul, and in what trade my soul keeps toward himself. I am come to a conclusion to look after no great matters

in the world, but to know Christ and
Him crucified. I make best way in a
low gale: a high spirit and a high sail
together, will be dangerous, and there-
fore I prepare to live low. I desire not
much; I pray against it. My study is
my calling; so much as to tend to that
I am bound to plead for; and more I
desire not. By my secluded retire-
ments, I have the advantage to observe
how every day's occasions insensibly
wear off the heart from God, and bury
it in itself, which they who live in care
and slumber cannot be sensible of. I
have seemed to see a need of every
thing God gives to me, and to want
nothing that He denies me. There is
no dispensation, however afflictive, but
either in it or after it I find I could not
be without it; whether it be taken from
me or not given to me, sooner or later
God quiets me in himself without it.
I cast all concerns on the Lord, and
live securely on the care and wisdom
of my heavenly Father. My ways, you
know, are in some sense hedged up
with thorns, and grow darker and
darker daily; but yet I distrust not
my good God, in the least, and live
more quietly in the absence of all by
faith, than I should do, I am persuaded,
if I possessed them.

Correspondence.

[The Editors are not responsible for every statement or opinion of their correspondents; at the same time, their object is to open the pages of their Magazine to those only, who seek the real good of that Protestant Church with which it is in connexion.]

To the Editor of the Christian Guardian.
DEAR SIR, Is it quite a thing im-
possible for Evangelical Churchmen
to think well of the revival of Convo-
cation? I imagine that I hear a
thousand voices reply, and that in
tones not of the softest character,
"The very idea is absurd, and alto
gether out of the question."

So, dear sir, once thought your present correspondent; and it has not been without much of reflection upon the state of the Church, and the perfect absence of all definite deliberative and executive power within the Church, that the subject has again seriously entered my thoughts. Will you grant a little space to a few words, more of an inquiring than of a suggestive character?

There are few, if any, of my brother members of the Church of England, who will expressly deny the abstract right and propriety of a Church to some degree of synodal action. To be without this power of self-government in spiritual matters, is confessed by almost all,—and in particular by one of no mean authority, the present learned Bishop of Ossory, (Dr. O'Brien,)-to be "an anomaly in the constitution of the Church, which is discreditable, and in many respects injurious to it." In the pamphlet from which the above sentence is taken, the learned prelate freely acknowledges that he "has long looked forward to the time when this anomaly shall be removed, as not merely rendering the Church more perfect in theory, but more efficient for the great purposes of its institution."

After these declarations, the bishop spends the remainder of his pages in ably arguing against the present restoration of the Church's powers of

"The Expediency of restoring at this time to the Church her Synodical power, considered, in Remarks upon the Appendix to the late Charge of the Archbishop of Dublin. By James Thomas O'Brien, D.D., Bishop of Ossory, &c." Seeleys, 1843,

Convocation, on account of the constitution of Convocation itself, and the bitter and divided state of parties within its pale. Eight years have passed away since the publication of the bishop's remarks, and during that period the conflict of parties has run higher and higher; while the temporary settlement of ecclesiastical questions, by what is considered other than strictly ecclesiastical authority, has caused the policy of the revival of the Church's powers of self-government to be afresh freely and seriously canvassed.

Now, sir, what I for one, amongst your own section of the Church, wish to have clearly in my own mind, is a right answer to this question,—How far are we defensible in continuing, year after year, to condemn the calling of Convocation, on the two grounds,-first, of the nature and constitution of the thing itself; and then, secondly, on the state of parties, and the character of the times in which we live? It does appear to me that we do, by this weakness of our position, give great advantage to that party which clamours for a revival of Convocation. We know full well that it is for their own ends and purposes, that they are strenuously seeking for the restoration of a court which they believe would infallibly declare them to be right, and us to be wrong; and we know that if Convocation were assembled after its present fashion, nothing is more likely than that such a body would not be slow in hurrying out of the Church all that opposed themselves to its authority. But there seems to be a remedy here, at once safe and ample. Who would be mad enough to ask for such a Convocation as once assembled for active ecclesiastical legislation; and which now yearly meets, to present the mockery of a hand and foot and tongue-tied body? Surely no one. The whole Church and country would rise and protest against such an antiquated injustice. But why are we

CORRESPONDENCE-ON CONVOCATION.

not calmly to deliberate upon reforming and extending this body, so that its constitution shall be applicable at once to the wants and requirements of the Church, and in perfect keeping with the civil and religious liberties of the country? I forbear, in this letter, to throw out any hints upon the re-formation of an ecclesiastical assembly which should present the reality of an equal representation of the lay and clerical interests, combined with those safe provisions which should, as far as possible, ensure the election of proper members from both orders. At a future time I may possibly offer some suggestions on these points, which may not be without use; at present it is my wish merely to refer for a moment or two to the "not now" argument which is so extensively used, to prevent even the consideration of this subject.

I most fully admit all that has been said of the manifold dangers and evils to be deprecated, were the Convocation to be summoned in its old shape; and more especially, without that preparedness of heart and temper so needful at the present crisis. But the parties who have staved off the consideration, or rather absolutely negatived the proposition, of the propriety of the restoration of the Church's self-government, have, in their anxiety to avoid possible evils, been altogether forgetful of the over-ruling

providence of the Great Head of the Church. Is it not possible for Him who guides and rules the world, to preside over, direct, and control an assembly of one branch of His Church, and so to over-rule their deliberations, that much of good to the Church, and glory to His great name, may be the result?

I cannot help thinking that we, of the Evangelical party, are often-times very faithless in our modes of thinking and acting upon Church questions. We look at what we judge opposing difficulties and overwhelming numbers, and in the face of these we dare not assume a bold, uncompromising attitude, or go forward in the promotion of truth or correction

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of error. It does appear to me, that in this very question of Convocation or no Convocation, the ground we take in altogether resisting its revival, without attempting to remodel its constitution, is of too low and unscriptural a character. Let us first be very sure that Churches have a scriptural right to the thing itself, in some shape or other, and if they have, let us not be deterred from seeking to realize that form of it which shall best embody and give expression to the doctrines and discipline of the Church of England, as a true branch of the Church of Christ.

A letter of the late Rev. E. Bickersteth to a friend, who, at the time of the proposed protest against Tractarianism, objected, on the score of the evil consequences that might arise from the number who would not sign the document,-is so much to my present purpose, that with the following extract I will close my letter:

"The matter on which we chiefly differ is here: you are fearful, that if our numbers are only four or five thousand, the remaining ten or eleven thousand will be claimed by the Tractarians, and the issue be perilous to the truth. Dear brother, this is not right. This is not the 'new man,' but the 'old;' you know it as well as I do. Twelve Apostles won the day, and the little flock prevailed over the whole Roman empire. It is truth, not num

bers, that prevails; and this is simply a

testimony to the truth, and it will and must grow, and spread, and triumph, because it is truth."

I have sent the above remarks in the spirit of a Christian and a Protestant Churchman, who is really anxious that neither High Churchmen or Tractarians should have the opportunity of saying that the Evangelical party are afraid of encountering a Synod of their Church. Christ in our midst and at our head, and with the Spirit for our Counsellor and Guide, I, for one, should_desire to fear nothing, but go forward. I am, dear Sir,

Yours, faithfully,

With

H. L.

Reviews, and Short Notices of Books.

A LETTER TO HIS GRACE THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY, on the Grounds of Union and Communion between the Church of England and Foreign Churches, holding the Essentials of Christian Truth. By J. H. MERLE D'AUBIGNE, D. D. Translated from the French. Seeleys. THE Occasion of the publication of this pamphlet is thus stated by the well-known and excellent author,

"One of the motives which induced me to visit England was an invitation to the Ministers of the Reformed Churches

on the Continent, which bears your Grace's name, together with the names of the Bishops of London and Winchester. The purport of that invitation was to testify the sympathy of the Rulers and Clergy of the English Church with the Foreign Churches, which, although they differ from you in respect of order, agree with you in protesting against the errors and corruptions of the Church of Rome.' 1 was anxious to respond to that appeal. I came to London; and last Sunday, a day on which our Reformed Churches on the Continent commemorate, as yours does, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, I was enabled to announce in my own tongue the Gospel of Christ in one of your chapels, one of your clergy, the Rev. R. Burgess, Prebendary of St. Paul's, having previously offered up to God the fervent and Christian prayers which are in use among you, and which have so often edified me.

"A correspondent of a London Journal remaks upon this, that it is the first time for two or three centuries that a service has been performed jointly by a minister of the Church of England, and a minister of the Reformed Churches of the Continent. My Lord, I rejoice at this commencement, if it be, indeed, the first time, as he asserts. I bless God for it. I am aware that, in consequence of the Act of Uniformity, there are Churches which cannot be opened to us. I hope that this law of exclusion will be repealed. It is no longer in harmony with the spirit and the wants of the Church in the age in which we live. But I did not think that this circumstance should hinder me from grasping the hand which was held out to me in bro

therly love. I considered myself happy in uniting in the worship of God with an Anglican minister and in an Anglican place of worship. Extreme Episcopalians and extreme Presbyterians might object to this Christian union. But as respects myself, it is so much in accordance with the dictates both of my conscience and of my heart, that, considering St. Paul's declaration, Whatsoever is not of faith is sin,' I do not hesitate to say that, if I had refused the invitation, I should have committed a sin."

The author then proceeds to explain the grounds on which the Union and Communion which he desires must rest and in so doing, he briefly and forcibly states some important principles, to which we desire to call particular attention, and which cannot better be stated than in his own words.

"I think that our union rests upon two equally good and firm foundations. The first is our common Protestantism. I shall not dwell upon this point, it is self-evident. Protestantism and Popery are now confronted together. Popery, which has plunged Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, France in some respects, and so many other countries into a state of ignorance, of distress, of bondage, and of weakness, is desirous of establishing itself in England upon the pretence of curing her of her maladies. I think, my Lord, that England might well reply to the Pope, Physician, heal thyself.' Popery must not be allowed to establish itself in England with all the train of evils which inevitably accompany it; but Protestantism, of which Great Britain is the stronghold, must establish itself on the Continent, and there produce that general information, that peace, that liberty, that prosperity, which it has given to you in such rich abundance. The Bible, that is to say, Protestantism, is at once the basis of your salvation, the spring of your power, and the standard of your liberty. Great Britain can never cease to be Protestant. But were such an event possible, a fearful ruin would be the result, not to your country only, but also to the whole world. Well, my Lord, it is on the basis of our common Protestantism that we are united, and this basis is at once acceptable to God and to men.

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