Imatges de pàgina
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Much idle merriment has been wasted on this strong fugitive phrase, and puerile triumph evinced that the seasons here should have experienced no perceptible change. The leading advocates for the measure, who prophesied that the grant of emancipation would be like oil poured on the troubled waters, and prevent all future agitation, that it would strengthen the Church in Ireland, that it would save the country fifty thousand bayonets, that all would henceforth be harmony and peace (these and similar prophecies were braved by the orators for concession), and who laughed at the notion of danger to the Church from some half dozen Roman Catholics, the maximum likely to stray into the House, are surely disqualified from sitting in judgment on Lord Eldon. When we recollect what has been attempted, and what accomplished, in the space of ten years-ten Protestant Bishops cashiered, to apply a military metaphor to a Church strictly militant— one-fourth of the revenues of that Church confiscated, and the remainder threatened-sixty Roman Catholic Members voting for the abolition of church-rates-every social institution tampered with; when we behold a people without confidence, and a government without power, domestic insecurity, colonial insurrection, and foreign dishonour, we may be excused for thinking that the light has been dimmed in our political horizon; and, if the sun of England has not set, that it has been in eclipse. Through the schism made by this fatal gift of unconditional emancipation, issued the Reform Bill. This aged peer, though no longer sustained by the people, hastened back to his place in Parliament to withstand the popular delusion with as much spirit as when thousands had been shouting encouragement. “His thoughts (he said) were how to serve, not how to please his countrymen. and so that he acted for them, he did not greatly care whether he acted with them." When taunted with returning to the House which he had threatened to quit for ever, he made this mild and memorable reply" I certainly thought

that this was the last opportunity I should have of addressing your lordships. I felt myself called upon by a sense of duty which I could not resist from the moment when my sovereign called me to a seat in this House, as long as my strength permitted me, to offer myself and my opinions to the suffrages and approbation, or the dissent and reprobation of my fellow-subjects, and to them I boldly appeal after the delirium of this day shall have passed away."-Law Mag. No. 43.

FLOATING CHAPEL. Mr. Henry Ward, merchant of Oxford, has recently built, at his own expense, a complete floating chapel at that place, capable of containing from one hundred and twenty to one hundred and forty persons, for the benefit of the residence at one end for a schoolwatermen and their families, with a master and mistress. A chaplain has been appointed, and the heads of the colleges and other friends have subscribed to his stipend. The chapel cost Mr. Ward £1,000 in building, and he has also invested £100 for its repairs.-Ber

row's Worcester Journal.

When the late Duke of Bedford first began to receive the sacrament at Woburn Church, after his coming to reside here, he found that the inhabitants had (probably time out of mind) been accustomed to refrain from approaching the altar rails till the party in the abbey-pew, only a few feet distant in the chancel, had communicated and returned to their place. In a short letter, his grace wrote the clergyman, saying he felt that at such a time and place there should be no distinction of persons, and he hoped therefore that in future the inhabitants would join his family; which becoming proposition was of course readily assented to. It might appear superfluous and even unbecoming to add, were it not on account of those who, having ever such ample means, give on such occasions a mere nominal "offering" for the poor, that the duke ever remembered the precept, "If thou hast much, give plentifully;"-almost literally a handful of gold"

accruing from his pew to the plate. -Country Paper

"The light of the sun is neither parted nor diminished, by being imparted to many several people and nations that behold at one time; nor is the righteousness of the Sun of Righteousness either lessened to himself or to several believers by many partaking of it at once; it is wholly conferred upon each one of them, and remains whole in himself. Hence it is that not only Christ invites so liberally sinners to come to him, but even justified persons would so gladly draw all others to lay hold on this righteousness of their Redeemer; knowing well, that if all the world were enriched by it, they themselves would be no whit the poorer."Leighton.

PERRANZABULOE; A PARISH CHURCH BURIED IN THE SAND FOR SEVEN HUNDRED YEARSLATELY DISCOVERED.-(To the Editor of the "Conservative Journal.") Sir, Of the many objects to which the attention of your readers is drawn, in the various departments of your paper, there is not one which can exceed in interest the following account of the church of Perranzabuloe, or St. Peran, in the hundred of Pydar, in the county of Cornwall. For more than seven hundred years it had been imbedded in the sand, from which it was rescued, in the year 1835, by the persevering exertions of a private gentleman, William Michell, Esq., of Compregney, near Truro; and there are many considerations which render a description of the church, in the state in which it was found, very opportune and seasonable at this moment; for its present state affords presumptive and external evidence of the fallacy of some of those pretensions in which the members of the Romish communion indulge, as to the antiquity of their church, and the pomp and splendour of their services. It would be no difficult matter to prove, by authentic documents, that the first three centuries furnish not the slightest authority for those pompous ceremonies, and those puerile observances which were introduced, and which still continue

to outrage the simplicity of the primitive worship. With respect to this particular church, the sand has been accumulating for many hundred years, but when completely removed, the church was found in the most perfect state; and it is a very singular circumstance, that the interior contained none of the modern innovations and accompaniments of a Romish place of worship, from which the inference is clear and indisputable, that it must have been built at a period anterior to the introduction of the numerous corruptions, &c. of the Papistical communion, and gives sanction to the well-authenticated fact, that, in the first three or four centuries, none of those puerilities and observances, borrowed either from Pagan idolatries or the Jewish ritual, were known; for the truth is, that what we see in Romish places of worship is nothing but a transfer of what we read from the synagogues of the Jews, or the temples of the Pagans; and which outvie, in particular, in splendour and magnificence, the sacerdotal vestments with which those were apparelled who officiated either in the one or the other. The whole of their services is an appeal more to the external sense, than an address to the understanding and the affections. There was no rood-loft for the hanging of the host, nor the vain display of fabricated relics-no latticed confessional-no sacring bell (a bell rung before and at the elevation of the host)-no daubed and decorated images of the Virgin Mary or of saints--nothing which indicated the unscriptural adoration of the wafer, or the no less unscriptural masses for the dead. The most diligent search was made for beads and rosaries-pyxes and Agni Dei-censers and crucifixes. Strange that this ancient church, in which, it will be borne in mind, everything was found as perfect as at the time in which it was imbedded, should so belie the Papists' constant appeal to antiquity to the faith of their forefathers-to the old religion, as it is falsely termed, as if that were religion which has not a particle of the simplicity and purity of the pri mitive Church, to sanctify and iden

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tify it as a branch from the true Apostolical tree! At the eastern end, in a plain, unornamented chancel, stands a very neat but simple stone altar, and in the nave of the church are stone seats, of the like simple construction, attached to the western, northern, and southern walls. With such humble accommodations were our fathers, who worshipped God in simplicity and truth, content! From the amiable and intelligent historian of the past and present condition of Perranzabuloe - the Rev. C. F. Collins Trelawney descendant, on the maternal side, of the good bisbop Trelawney-a name of which he may well be proudone of the seven of the glorious company who preferred the gloom of a prison before submission to the mandates of an arbitrary papistical tyrant, I have had an interesting letter, in which, in answer to my inquiry as to the present state of the parish church, he informs me that it is not in a condition to admit of its being used for any purpose whatsoever, as it is already again entombed in the sand! It was with extreme regret that I received this communication; for so much had my interest been excited by Mr. Trelawney's narrative, which is beautiful, and will well repay many a perusal, that

I was on the point of fulfilling arrangements which I had made for a summer visit to the venerated spot; but I hope that the same enterprising spirit by which it was five years since resuscitated, as it were, and recalled into being, will be again interposed to rescue it from its present entombment, and be a temple yet appropriated to the service of the living God! I know not the localities; but who in such a wish does not join? and where is the man whose piety would not grow warm as he worshipped within the hallowed pile of Perranzabuloe, as much as it would within the mouldering ruins of Iona? It may not, perhaps, be unimportant and uninteresting to add, that the tutelar saint of Cornwall was Peranus, or, Saint Perran, after whom the imbedded church was named, and that the memory of this saint is still cherished with fond veneration by the people of Cornwall. His annual commemoration is celebrated on the 5th of March. Christianity was first preached in Cornwall by Corantinus, by whom the whole of the population was rescued from Pagan idolatry, and converted to the Christian faith, at the end of the third and at the commencement of the fourth century.

JAMES RUDGE, D.D.

NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS.

"Loving God," by J. B., and three copies of verses, by W. Thomas, have been duly received. Also, a letter by Numerist. We respectfully desire our Correspondents would send us prose instead of verse for the next two or three months, as we are at present in possession of much very excellent poetry, enough for some months to come. The communication of Edward Kirby has been received. All the above came too late for insertion in this month's Magazine. "Peace among Christians and "Butler's Reply to Chalmers," together with a letter from "Farmer Trusty," will be noticed in our next. Books for review, and all communications for the Editors, to be addressed, post paid, "The Editors of the Gospel Magazine; or, Church of England Advocate, at Simpkin, Marshall, and Co.'s, Stationers' Hall Court, London."

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NEWSPAPERS.-Subscribers will confer on us an obligation by sending to us any of their old newspapers, which may contain any facts or information in relation to the church or her enemies, as we desire to be acquainted with what is doing in the country, in order to make a proper use of the

same.

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