"I understood,' said Charles [forming his opinions, we suppose, from the Articles and Homilies] that the Church of England refused all traditions.' "Then, Charles,' said Henry, you were misled. She refuses the traditions of Rome-not all of them, indeed; but such of them as are incapable of proof, as their traditions for the supremacy of the Pope. She likewise refuses the principle upon which the Church of Rome holds traditions. She does not admit that unwritten traditions, even if said to be the traditions of the holy apostles, have equal claim as authority as the written word. Of course she gives to them all the weight they are worth, and this is very great; but she does not allow them to be equal in value to the Scrip tures, which from the concurrent tradition of the Church, she knows to be the word of God."

2

It is well, indeed, that our defence against the claims of Rome does not rest with such champions as Mr. Bellairs. The distinction he here draws is one merely of words. "It is true," says the lamented Bishop Shuttleworth, speaking of the Tractarian writers, "that many of them are very far from agreeing in the abstract principle of placing tradition on an entire level with Scripture; but assuredly, by introducing the rule of making it a test and criterion for the interpretation of Scripture, they are practically assigning to it an equality, if not a supremacy, real in substance, however it may be denied in words."

From this admirable work of one, the loss of whose powerful mind is greatly to be deplored by the Church at this time, we will make another extract. "The final, and, as it is imagined, the most cogent argument, is yet to come. It is, we are told, to nothing more or less than the tradition of the early Church, that we owe our belief in the authenticity of the canonical Scriptures themselves. In other words, that the New Testament itself is but primitive tradition in another form. Now this often-quoted argument, I own, appears to me nothing more than a piece of captious sophistry. True it is that the New Testament, like every other permanent gift of Providence, has descended through successive generations to our time; but then it has descended as an acknowledged historical fact, believed in by the early fathers of the Church, and not, therefore, deriving its authority from them. In fact, it would be almost as accurate an expression to call the pyramids of Egypt a tradition, as to designate the apostolical writings as such."

But stale fallacies, which have been a hundred times refuted, find refuge at length, after being driven out of respectable controversy, in religious novels.

Next, as to our separation from Rome. In answer to the question, "Whether unity with Rome is desirable?"

1 "Not Tradition but Scripture." Rivingtons.

"How Don't

"How can you ask such a silly question?' observed his friend. can you doubt for a moment of unity [with Rome] being desirable? we pray for it? Is it not the prayer of our blessed Lord himself? My dear Charles, there surely ought not to be a question upon this point. Unity is most desirable,-desirable for us, and desirable for Rome, desirable for all. Who can tell what evils we are suffering now, and what blessings we have forfeited, from our disunion? Where are the saints of old? Have we now living men holy as those who were on earth when the Church was less dis united than it now is? And may not this want of individual piety arise from a want of Christian unity? Where are the miracles wrought of old? Where are the martyrs? Are they to be found here? are they to be found there? Alas, the answer is humiliating! It is impossible to say how far our disunion is the cause of all this falling off; but since Christ's promises are made to his Church as the Church, we have certainly lost all claim to them when, as is the case, we are torn and rent into different parts.'

66 6

Whose, then, is the fault?' said Charles.

"Tis the fault of both, I fear,' answered Henry. 'Sin and wickedness produced the division, and sin and wickedness still foster it.

We ask, Is not this absolutely monstrous? And are the minds of our poor children to be bewildered with allusions to "the miracles wrought of old" by the Church, which Dr. Burton and, we apprehend, all sound divines believe, with good reason, to have extended only one age beyond the Apostolic. Rome, however, will not thank Mr. Bellairs for his lament over the absence of miracles from her; and it is some consolation to find that he is not a believer in her Ecstaticas and Addoloratas.

As to the other question, "Where are the martyrs?" we cannot answer that; since Cranmer, Latimer, Ridley, Hooper, Taylor, and their fellow-sufferers, must have been martyrs-to their own "sin and wickedness!!"

We shall allude but to one other matter, and that because it is assuming so serious an aspect, in other and more important quarters, viz. the subjection in which Mr. Bellairs keeps his laymen.. It is becoming more and more evident every day that this is the grand aim of that system to which Mr. Bellairs is endeavouring to advance, and of the party to which he belongs. It was not so of old-" We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake," Now it appears that the clergy are not made for the laity, but the laity for the clergy; and when they have been reduced to one vast ὄργανον ἔμψυχον, then will have come the consummation so devoutly desired by these successors of the apostles. But we believe their designs are becoming more fully discovered, and more accurately understood; and “surely in vain is the net spread in the sight of any bird."

These remarks we have felt it our duty to lay before our readers, simply because of Mr. Bellairs' official position, and we think it a happy circumstance for the Church that in the midst of his parochial engagements, in such a town as Stockport, he should have

found leisure to give his sentiments to the world, even in the form of a religious novelette. Had it not been for the above reason, he should have retained them unmolested by any remarks in our pages, and we shall be happy to hear that his practice is better than his principles, and that in his intercourse with children, so improving to us all, he has been led to dwell more on the fundamental truths of the gospel; and that his paramount aim in exercising his office, is to secure their being fully taught "the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make them wise unto salvation, through faith in Jesus Christ."

THE ENGLISHWOMAN IN EGYPT: Letters from Cairo, written during a Residence there in 1842, 3, 4, with E. W. Lane, Esq., Author of "The Modern Egyptians." By his SISTER. In Two Vols. London: Knight. 1844.

We have here two of the shilling volumes now issuing, at the rate of a volume weekly, from the press of those great caterers of useful knowledge, Charles Knight and Co. We have barely had time to glance at the titles of the thirty volumes or more which. have already made their appearance, the two excepted which we now introduce to our readers. They may, therefore, or may not, be useful in the true and proper sense of that word-a word 'so little understood, so lamentably abused: they may or may not provide "the recreation of genial and amusing reading.....in connection with what is solid and serious." If, as the prospectus again intimates, "original productions by authors of ability, conceived in a right spirit," are to form part of this new and cheap séries, we shall much rejoice. And we are bound to say, that "The Englishwoman in Egypt" goes far towards verifying this pledge. Though containing a smaller infusion of solid Christian sentiment than we could wish, it is but due to our fair authoress to say, that her work appears to have been "conceived in a right spirit," and had it been consistent with the design of the publishers, and the saleability of the book, we can easily conceive that we should have had less of pyramids and obelisks, with all the etcætera of works of modern travel, and more of what she could so easily have supplied, as illustrative of the moral and religious condition of the Arab, Turk, and Copt. We would venture to suggest, too, that this was the proper province of our Christian

countrywoman in Egypt, and the one in which she would have appeared to most advantage, as certainly she would have written to most purpose. Those of her letters which have least to do with history and antiquities, with what is recondite and learned, are unquestionably the most interesting; nor can we doubt that Mrs. Poole is capable of furnishing a work on Egypt, equal or superior to any which has yet appeared, in all the requisites which would commend it to a serious public. The hope that we should find such a work (however hastily indulged) led us, we confess, to take up "The Englishwoman in Egypt," a title as happy as it would be significant, if we traced throughout the guiding spirit of a Christian lady: for what more delightful, what more encouraging, than to think of enlightened Christian Englishwomen living as sisters, wives, and mothers in the heathen lands which have now, through the providence of God, been opened to British enterprise and British influence in every quarter of the globe. We anticipate much, very much, from female influence: and when we heard that a friend of our own, who some years ago consulted us as to the propriety of offering her services to the Church Missionary Society, had found her way into the Pasha's hareem as the instructor of his children, we could not but hail it as an omen of happier things than have been yet realized (to any extent at least) in our attempts to evangelize heathen and Mahomedan landsthe employment, we mean, of female talent in the various modes and forms for which it is so peculiarly adapted. The Church of Rome, "wiser in her generation" than the members of a purer communion, seems fully to understand the value of female influence. Her Sisters of Charity at home, or as appendages to her foreign, especially her Oriental, missions, are working out her designs, we fear, to an extent which is little apprehended; and it has often struck us, that in the missionary field the managers of our Church Societies have availed themselves far less than they might have done of auxiliaries who, we are persuaded, would be very ready to come to their help, were suitable means devised for attaching them to our foreign missions. We have not unfrequently heard ladies of high capability express their readiness to devote themselves to missionary work, could they be sent out under the wing of a Christian family, or put in the way of exercising their appropriate influence among the perishing heathen, the deluded Moslems, or their fallen fellow-Christians. Poole, ("The Englishwoman in Egypt,") went out, it seems, with her brother, Mr. Lane, an experienced traveller and resident in Egypt, impelled by sisterly affection on the one hand, (" the desire of shortening the period of their separation"), and by

Mrs.

"an eager curiosity" on the other. "Little persuasion," she tells us, "was necessary on his part to draw her to a decision: but the idea was no sooner formed than he found numerous arguments in its favour. The opportunities I might enjoy of obtaining an insight into the mode of life of the higher classes of the ladies in this country, and of viewing many things highly interesting in themselves, and rendered more so by their being accessible only to a lady, suggested to him the idea that I might both gratify my own curiosity and collect much information of a novel and interesting nature, which he proposed I should embody in a series of familiar letters to a friend." Hence the work before us. But are there not many sisters, and widowed mothers, like Mrs. Poole, or single Christian females, who would rejoice, under suitable protection, to set forth on a still higher mission, and eagerly embrace the like opportunity for ends far more important? We know there are. On precisely the same field we have heard of the devoted female missionary. Mrs. Poole, it seems, owes in great measure her opportunities to a female missionary; and we are much inclined to conjecture, that she owes still more-the correction and elevation of her own views on points of the highest moment, as connected with personal happiness and the right direction of female influence. We notice her work with peculiar interest in this twofold view, as impressing us very powerfully with the importance of Christian female agency in foreign lands, and the practicability of providing such agency and employing it in spheres of labour, which, at first sight, would seem least promising. The suggestion of this hint has chiefly weighed with us in calling attention to "The Englishwoman in Egypt." But it is time to offer an extract or two, which may satisfy our readers that the work has been conceived in a right spirit, and that it may be safely put into the hands of young persons or others, as a manual which may at once amuse, instruct, and, to some extent, edify.

The first letter of the series, written at Alexandria so far back as July, 1842, and containing a description of the modern town and its inhabitants, thus concludes:-the remark is pleasing, though open to criticism :

"I must endeavour in my next letter," she says, " to give you a general account of the town, and must close this by remarking on the affecting sound of the Mueddin's chant, or Muslim call to prayer. I should be grieved to think that we are impressed by the solemnity of their sonorous voices, simply because we hear them for the first time: and trust we may always feel a mixture of pity and admiration, when we believe our fellow-creatures to be in earnest in the service of God, however mistaken their opinions. The sight of the Muslim engaged in his devotions I think most interesting: and it cannot fail, I should hope, in impressing the beholder with some degree of veneration. The attitudes are peculiarly striking and impressive; and the