are ter Reta he par of I ng f de the the ofe الم "decent and comely habit for the clergy" is an object," our prelate somewhat despondingly tells us, " of the importance of which I have on more than one occasion expressed a strong opinion, but which I fear will not be attained, except by some authoritative regulation, to which the clergy, not of this or that diocese, but in general, shall be required, to conform." As far as we recollect, there is only one class of divines mentioned in the New Testament, as holding strong opinions and entertaining anxious wishes on the subject of clerical costume; and those are decidedly not the Christian apostles. This episcopal charge of 1842 is altogether a most remarkable production. As an index to the character of our bishop's mind, it is perhaps the most unworthy thing 011 It is curiously characteristic of our bishop, that, on every one of these things, as on the graver questions treated in his charge, we have a compromise. The gown-and-surplice question is compromised, after a luminous view of the evidence and authorities on each side surplice in the morning, gown in the evening. At least, this arrangement "would, perhaps, be most consonant with the intention of the church:" but the bishop does not dogmatise on the matter the question is difficult-good men must and will differ on points not essential to salvation and so, "upon the whole," he is "hardly prepared to give any positive direction on this point for this particular diocese, although it is certainly desirable that uniformity of practice should prevail in the church at large." The he has given us. It is evidently composed geographico-astronomical question was more with great care; after earnest, profound, and embarrassing, there being three claimants, patient deliberation, under an almost over-east, west, and south-and only two prizes powering sense of responsibility. It is a to distribute, prayers and lessons. We conmost episcopal composition. We have here, not a mere human Dr. Blomfield, with all the "peculiarities of an infirm and imperfect nature" but the successor of the apostles, the vicar of Christ, the ambassador of Deity, the divinely delegated and preternaturally gifted pastor of the pastors of the metropolis of an empire-speaking, in a time of distraction and perplexity, when men's hearts are failing them for fear of heresy and schism, "with the authority belonging to my office, upon the most important of the questions, respecting which the clergy are at this time divided in opinion." The plenipotentiary of heaven very properly eschews argument. He does not propose to "enter into a polemical discussion on the truth of the doctrines, or the propriety of the rites and ceremonies, which will come under consideration:" he can do without discussion, for he has an humble reliance upon the guidance of the Holy Spirit." His object is at once simple and sublime : " to act as an interpreter of the church's sense as to the one, and of her will as to the other." Now, after an opening of so much pretension, what have we? In ludicrous contrast with the grave pomposity of the exordium, we are presented (inter alia) with a series of elaborate disquisitions on the merest minutie of ecclesiastical decorum, the veriest trifles that could amuse the leisure of an idle man. We have an essay on clerical wearing-apparel, with especial reference to the conflicting claims of gown and surplice to the honours of the sermon; a dissertation on the proper point, or points, of the compasseast, west, or south-for a clergyman to read and pray to; a theory on reading-desks; and cursory remarks on candles. fess we think the bishop less happy here than on the gown-and-surplice controversy. His treatment of east is positively shabby; for, in open disregard of Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, and Bishop Sparrow, he leaves this most ancient and venerable of the competitors totally unprovided for, and divides the subject of contention between the modern upstarts, south and west. Tertullian, Clement, and Bishop Sparrow may say what they please: he, Charles James, is clear for giving reading-desks a south-westerly aspect, "by which the clergyman looks towards the south while reading prayers, and towards the west while reading the lessons." The altar-candles question is soon settled. Have your candles, by all means; but never light them, except when it is dark ;-" some doubt may be entertained as to the law in this particular;" but "I see no objection to them, provided that the candles are not burning, except when the church is lighted up for evening service." Lest, however, the Puseyites should unduly boast themselves of their triumph and candles, the bishop immediately hits them hard on another point. Though liberal and indulgent on candles, he is inexorable on flowers. He "strongly disapproves of the practice, which, as he has been informed, has been adopted by a few of the clergy, of decorating the communion table with flowers;" it is "worse than frivolous," and, in some of its aspects, even "approaches very nearly to the honours paid by the Church of Rome to deified sinners." Nothing can be more admirable than the tact with which, all through this charge, the bishop trims the balance between the Puseyite interest and the evangelical interest. The see-saw is kept up to a nicety. Pu seyism is very properly condemned in the contracted sympathies, mean aims, and a lar additions proposed, such as the revival of the are " ancient custom of the primitive church" of "doing obeisance on entering and leaving churches and chancels." Evangelicalism listens with delight to the emphatic assurance, so worthy of a Protestant prelate, that the "absolute completeness of the Holy Scriptures, as the source and proof of our faith," he holds to be "a vital doctrine of our reformed church :" yet Oxford Anglicanism is comforted on hearing that, "in searching those inspired records," we "to take the creeds received by the church for our guides," and the clergy for our " interpreters." Puseyites can bear much at the hands of a prelate who teaches that "in this country the clergy of the national church, and they alone, are entitled to the respect and obedience of the people, as their lawful guides and governors in spiritual things; that they alone are duly commissioned to preach the word of God, and to minister his holy sacraments." He tells them, it is true, that he does not like to see men "ashamed of the name of Protestant:" -but he seems more than half ashamed of it himself. The only sort of Protestantism which he recommends is " a sincere and immovable attachment to the Catholic Church;" and the word "Protestant" does not occur a second time in the whole charge. All guided by an unselfish purpose, and directed to objects of real and enduring public utility -as in the business of the poor-law inquiry and amendment-might have rendered society much valuable service. But of any of the higher mental qualities we see not a trace at any point of his life. On looking over the productions of his mind, so far as we have been able to trace them in two or three volumes of Sermons, upwards of a score of single Discourses, Charges, and Letters, together with twenty years of 'Hansard's Debates' we have found not one high and generous moral sentiment, not one vigorous and striking expression of moral truth, new or old; not one original thought on human nature and human life; not one of the things by which a man is known and remembered as a Light of the World. On no one principle in the philosophy of human rights and duties has this curator of our souls' health ever cast, that we know, one solitary ray of light. Of his apostolical succession we can say nothing: but we are clear that he has not apostolical inspiration. To the higher intellectual and moral experiences of his profession he appears an absolute stranger. We frankly own ourselves unable to meet the argument from Tertullian, and cannot at all see our way through Archbishop Bramhall: but we things taken together, it must be allowed are quite sure Providence never intended that this new ecclesiastical tariff, this improved sliding-scale of doctrine and discipline, is constructed with infinite ingenuity. It is mortifying to think that, like its great commercial prototype of the same year, it turned out a failure; unsettled everything and settled nothing; pleased neither of the "interests" whose rival claims it was designed to conciliate; and threw half the diocese into an ague of Protestant fear and trembling.* that this person should rule the beliefs and moralities of two millions of human beings. P. ART. VIII.-1. Report from the Secret Committee of the House of Lords, upon the Detaining and Opening of Letters at the General Post Office. On the whole review of this prelate's life -ecclesiastical and parliamentary-he gives us the impression of being a man of a 2. Report from the Committee of Secrecy of small mind; of feeble powers of thought, * On reading this episcopal charge of 1842, one is reminded of a learned German's criticism on Dr. Blomfield's 'Æschylus:'-" We find a great arbitrariness of proceeding, and much boldness of innovation, guided by no sure principle." GOTTFRIED HERMANN (quoted in the Rev. Sydney Smith's Third Letter to Archdeacon Singleton). the House of Commons on the same subject. THERE are some duties which it costs a painful effort to discharge, and we candidly confess that our present task is one we would willingly have avoided. We feel it incumbent upon us to denounce, in the strongest language we can command, a principle of administration which, if carried out, would 2 el be found subversive of all the moral obliga-Westminster Review,' a frank opinion of tions of society; and yet a principle now the character of Sir James Graham. The openly advocated, not merely by political opponents, but in some instances by men with whom we have been accustomed to act, and a class of politicians standing well in the world's regard for public character and private worth. sketch has not been considered so flattering that we are likely to be accused of any desire to screen from public observation a sin gle failing of the present Home Secretary; but we would not exaggerate his defects. He has not risen in our estimation by the recent exposures; but honestly let us state they make him appear no worse in our eyes for bringing down the dignity of British administration to the commission of felony and acts of dirty meanness, than other politicians of the same school, and of much higher reputation. We read with surprise, amounting almost to incredulity, in the Report of the We have long considered the state of our academical and university education to be the cause of half the errors committed in legislation; but of all the evils to be traced to this fruitful source, none are greater than the moral canker they occasion. The ethics of Archdeacon Paley and Professor Sewel, political expediency on the one hand, and blind submission to authority on the other, - | Committee of the House of Commons, the the transformations of Ovid and the history of the Punic Wars, leave no place for the decalogue, or any sound interpretation of its meaning; and the result in after life, when our high-born university graduates appear at to the council board, is, as the world has seen with astonishment, a formal recognition of PETTY LARCENY as maxim of state policy. a fundamental Enough, it might be supposed, has been said of the secret detention and opening of letters to exhaust the subject; but the question has been too much treated in reference solely to party objects, and involves far higher considerations. Let us begin by acknowledging that the case attempted to be made out against the present Government, as guilty of something worse in the shape of Post-office espionage than their predecessors, has not hitherto been sustained. We would go further, and say that the conduct of the Whig leaders in not interposing between their own party and Sir James Graham, but, on the contrary, all but leading on the attack, knowing, as they did, at the time, their own share in similar transactions, was ungenerous and indefensible. The moment the Marquis of Normanby stated in the House of Lords that he had opened letters while in office in Ireland, it became evident to all impartial reasoning men that the two parties (unless as regards the use made of the information obtained) were upon an equal footing. It was idle to attempt a wiredrawn distinction between the propriety of opening the letters of Irishmen and the letters of foreigners. The interests of England abroad are identical with the interests of England at home. A quarrel with Austria about her Italian possessions is, at least, as serious an evil to be deprecated and prevented, if possible, as any outrage upon property, originating in a conspiracy of Ribbonmen. We have given, in the last number of the following list of Cabinet Ministers who, within the last forty years, have stooped to the tricks (to some of them at least) of a Fouché administration. 1806-7. 1807. 1809-12. 1812-21. 1822-30. 1822-3. 1823. 1827. 1827. 1830-4. 1833-40. 1834. 1834-5. 1835-9. 1838. 1839-41. 1841-4. 1844. Earl Spencer. The Right Hon. C. W. W. Wynn. The Right Hon. Sir R. Peel. The Right Hon. G. Canning. Earl Bathurst. Lord Viscount Goderich. The Right Hon. W. Sturges Bourne. The Marquis of Lansdowne. Lord Viscount Melbourne. Lord Palmerston. Lord Viscount Duncannon. Lord John Russell. Lord Glenelg. The Marquis of Normanby. The Right Hon. Sir James Graham. To this list of statesmen of the 19th century (but the name seems to carry irony in its application) we should add the names of all the Lord Lieutenants of Ireland, not included in the above, by whom the same power has been exercised; as, for example, the Marquis of Anglesey, the Marquis of Wellesley, the Earl of Mulgrave, Lord Morpeth, Lord Viscount Ebrington, Earl de Grey, and Sir Edward Sugden. The facts discovered in this extraordinary revelation admit of but one explanation. The only apology for them must be sought in the tendency of the mind, especially when trained as we have described, to confound principle with precedent, moral law with legal custom. We doubt whether there has been any Secretary of State, or Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, who, if he had not found on coming into office the custom of prying into letters sanctioned by long usage as part of the ordinary routine of office business, but, instead, had been asked for the first time to violate the sanctity of a seal, would not have exclaimed in effect, and perhaps in the words of Haman, "Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing?" But behold a custom which may be traced back, as we are told, for 300 years; and, worse and worse, behold a committee of the House of Commons pleading the authority of this high antiquity against precept; a committee composed of men, not inadvertently betrayed into error, but deliberately weighing the merits of truth and the advantages of expediency, and coming to the conclusion that expediency in affairs of state is better than truth, and that what is morally wrong may yet be politically right. There have been two committees and two reports, as our readers are aware, upon this subject, both open to severe animadversion; but we differ with our contemporaries in the opinion that censure is less merited in the case of the report from the committee of the House of Commons than in that of the House of Lords. We have arrived at quite the contrary conclusion. In both reports there is an obvious disposition to palliate the faults of political friends; but the report of the committee of the House of Commons is an elaborate defence of a sophism which, at different epochs of human history, has been used to justify every enormity under heaven. The committee, after explaining the existing practice, and stating various reasons affecting it, pro and con, as if they under The moral feeling, of course, stands for nothing in every other class of cases, in which some real or imaginary benefit is to be attained by a departure from principle; and the committee therefore conclude their report with "a more yes than no" recommendation, that the Secretary of State should continue to hold the power of perpetrating a breach of trust, and that the proper occasions for doing so should be entirely left to his discretion. "Under these circumstances, it will be for parliament to consider whether they will determine upon any legislative regulation, or whether they will prefer leaving the power on its present footing, in point of law, in the hands of the Secretary of State, to be used, on his responsibility, in those cases of emergency in which, according to the best of his judgment, its exercise would be sanctioned by an enlightened public opinion, and would appear to be strongly called for by important public interests."* We never remember to have read a document of any kind which excited in us stronger feelings of dissatisfaction, a more irrepressible impulse of indignation, than the conclusion of this report. A great opportunity was given for vindicating the national honour against the dangerous fallacy of the maxim which all governments are too prone to adopt, that the end justifies the means, and the committee actually turn round upon the public, defend the maxim as a safe one, and only qualify it by observing, that when stood all the bearings of a question, which it objectionable means are resorted to, it is plain they have utterly misconceived, tell the world they can find nothing in the practice to condemn. Not a whisper of disapprobation escapes the committee upon the exercise of the power complained of in any even venture to one instance; but and let us avoid misrepresentation-they are too cautious to commit themselves to an approval of the principle in plain terms;-they express a doubt whether, in certain cases, the opening of letters and sealing them up again is not attended with more trouble than profit. Their reasoning is wholly utilitarian; after the practical philosophy, not of Locke, but of Sheppard. One can imagine Jonathan Wild with an opportunity presenting itself of betraying a confederate into the hands of justice, when nothing could be got by it, and debating the matter in his own mind in the very language of the com mittee: "It will be doubted by some, taking into account the strong moral feeling which exists against the practice, with its accompaniments of mystery and concealment, whether the power is worth retaining in this class of cases." should only be in "cases of emergency" Many of our readers have heard, or read, be law breakers;" that "justice, if it be * The report is dated Aug. 5, 1844. The following were the members of the committee: Viscount Sandon, Mr. Wilson Patten, Mr. Thomas Baring, Sir William Heathcote, Sir Charles Lemon, Mr. Warburton, Mr. Strutt, O'Connor Don, and Mr. Ord. gentlemen, or between a common clerk and, right? There is a sublime truth in the senhis employers, would be punished with a timent. How different from that rule of horsepond or a treadmill. Fraud, forgery, felony, say the committee (not indeed in direct terms, but in words which imply no other meaning), may all be practised in "cases of emergency" for the public good. We hold the doctrine to be deserving of - universal execration; and it is high time to expose it. From the recklessness of assertion exhibited by party leaders, and sometimes flagrant breaches of faith, as in the case of the New Zealand Company, the window duties, and other questions, an opinion is beginning to prevail, that truth with politicians is but a plaything. A fear미 ful lesson; for there are other classes than lawyers who follow precedents. Our criminal returns show the contagious influences of hexample: there is a fashion even in murder and suicide: the lad who first threw himself from the Monument had at once a crowd of imitators, and it would be vain now to expect that the opening of letters, and counterfeiting of seals, will be confined to Secretaries of State, and their knavish tools. people inevitably become national vices. The position occupied by a minister is more exposed to observation than that of any other human government which confounds all distinctions between virtue and vice as mere conventionalities, and substitutes for them, at the discretion of a minister, the shifting expedients of the hour, -a sliding scale of morality, subject to no check but the "responsibilities of office," and the fear of opinion. We would put no unfair or strained interpretation upon any of the expressions in the report. We are fully aware that those who prepared it, and those who signed it, so bewildered themselves by their own sophistries, that they did not, in fact, well know what they were about; but we feel not the less the necessity of stripping the principle advocated of all disguise, and we would present it to the reader in its naked hideousness. "A monster of such frightful mien, That to be hated, needs but to be seen." Here, then, is the moral creed of English statesmen in the 19th century; or, more correctly speaking, a portion of that craft of government which sets itself above all laws, human and divine. 1. THEFT is permissible, when information important to the public interest can being. Every action is watched, every only be obtained by STEALING it from a 10 word is chronicled; his opinions are seeds scattered by the four winds of heaven, sure at last to fall upon a fit soil for their nourishment and growth. We are told by divines (and the subject demands the strongest illustration we can find) that in the government of the world, so important is the principle that the fountain of justice should itself be pure, that even the Creator of the universe, the Omnipotent and All-beneficent, could not forgive sin until the claims of justice had first been satisfied through the atoning sacrifice of Christ. It is part of the creed of the Church of Eng land, that for God to forgive sin without an letter. 2. LYING is permissible to conceal theft; in the tacit form of resealing a letter, so that the fact of its having been opened may never be detected. 3. FORGERY is permissible for the same object; in the form of counterfeiting seals and imitating Post-office stamps. 4. TREACHERY is permissible in "cases of emergency." The servant may betray his master for the "public good;" the confidential agent may act as a secret spy. The bearer of a written communi cation, compromising, perhaps, the lives and fortunes of individuals, may carry it expiation of the offence, would be for God direct to their bitterest enemies, and be honourably commended for his breach himself to sin against his own immutable law. We will not discuss a theological of trust. question, but we would contrast this doctrine with the political latitudinarianism which y recognizes no fixed principles of conduct. ✓ Shall not the judge of the whole earth do 5. ROGUE-MAKING is also permissible; for the arts of knavery are somewhat distasteful to honest men, and forgery, in particular, is a SKILLED profession, which cannot be thoroughly acquired without many opportunities of practice. 6. TYRANNOUS INJUSTICE is permissible; in the form of secret accusations, *We allude to the clause in the 4 & 5 William IV., ch. 55, moved by Lord Althorp, July 30, 1834, to enable the occupiers of houses to open fresh windows, free of duty, one effect of which, he stated, would be " to prevent any further increase of the and secret tribunals for trying a man in the ✓ (SeeMirror of Parliament, page 3116.) The ✓ revenue, in the case of houses already existing." dark, upon the evidence of STOLEN docuclause has been set aside by a quibble, and subse- ments, of which the purport may be wholly quent administrations have refused to carry out the misunderstood. spirit and intention of the act. In using the word PERMISSIBLE, we have |