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'Raising our voice in your assembly, we complain of all that the lay Government has done, and is still doing, in Spain, unjustly against the Church, against its liberties and rights, against us, and the authority of the Holy See; and especially we deeply deplore our solemn Concordat violated in defiance of international law; the authority of the bishops prevented in the exercise of the sacred ministry; the violence employed against them; and the patrimony of the Church usurped in spite of all divine and human laws. We, therefore, in virtue of our apostolic authority, censure, abrogate, and declare, without value and without force, null and of no effect, for the past and the future, the said laws and decrees. Lastly, we call on the authors of all these audacious acts, and we exhort and supplicate them to consider seriously, that those who do not fear to afflict and torment the Holy Church of God, cannot escape the hand of the Almighty."

But the movement is not confined to Spain and Italy :

"We must also tell you, venerable brethren, that we suffer indescribably at the deplorable state to which our most holy religion is reduced in Switzerland, and especially-oh, sorrow!-in some of the principal Catholic towns of the confederated Cantons. There the power of the Catholic Church, and of its liberty, are oppressed; the authority of the bishops, and of this Apostolic See, are trampled under foot; the sanctity of marriage, and of oaths, is violated and despised; the seminaries of priests, and the monasteries of religious families, are either entirely destroyed, or completely subjected to the arbitrary power of the civil Government; the nomination of benefices, and of ecclesiastical possessions is usurped, and the Catholic clergy are persecuted in the most deplorable manner."

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We do not wonder that his Holiness does not take matters very calmly, for he must sensibly feel the alienation of his very dear daughter," Queen Isabella, in more points than one, if we can trust the semi-official statement that, since her accession to the throne, more than 140,000,000 reals (about £3,700,000) have flowed direct into the Papal exchequer, for indulgences, absolutions, dispensations, et hoc genus omne." The course which the Pope has pursued, however, so far from bringing about a reconciliation, has, in each case, tended to widen the chasm which promises soon to restrict the power, once co-extensive with Christendom, to the immediate precincts of the Vatican.

Rumour says, that Cardinal Wiseman has no very easy throne in England; while the American catholics-priests and people alike—have evinced a desire to take even bolder steps than their European brethren. They propose to organize an "American Catholic Church," utterly repudiating

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the Papal power, permitting priests to marry, using an English instead of a Latin liturgy, and placing the Bible in the hands of the laity. The Pope's American flock has been already considerably thinned, for we find that, in the four States which were first settled by Roman Catholics-which were for many years their chosen seats-which were once noted for bigotry and intolerance, the proportion of Catholics and Protestants, from being as two to one, has fallen, in some cases, to one in thirty, and, as an average, one in twelve.

We need not add to our previous remarks on "the New Reformation in Ireland." God's blessing still rests upon the mighty work which is going on, and whose progress no foe can check until every stray sheep is brought back to Christ's fold.

The fetters of priestcraft are snapped; the spell of Popery is broken: a breach has been made in each of the strongholds of darkness, and, if we resolutely seize the opportunity, we shall not have long to wait before an evangelized continent shows the power of earnest energy and earnest prayer.

SUNDAY SCHOOL MOVEMENT.

A REMARKABLE scheme has been lately carried out with very signal success for the extension of Sunday Schools. One of the principal manufacturing towns was divided into districts, among a company of Sunday School Teachers, who had undertaken to canvass it. Every court and alley was visited, and the inhabitants of each house were asked-" Do your children attend any Sunday School?" if not-“ Can they attend?" if so-"What school would you wish them to attend?" The canvassers were everywhere received very kindly, and seven thousand children were thus brought in. It is worthy of mention, that although the movement was originated and carried out by Dissenters, fully half the children were sent to the Church of England Schools; the expressed wish of the parents being in every instance followed, and no attempt being made to proselytize, even in case of Romanists. We cordially recommend the plan to the notice of our readers; in towns where there is anything like an organized body of teachers, it could not fail, we think, to be eminently successful.

ST. MARK'S COLLEGE CHAPEL.

A CONSIDERABLE commotion has been excited among the members of the National Society, by a recent minute of the

Comel of St. Kris vid mared that the intoning of me primers steni te leesúra iscrticed." The High Che pay, teatri ry Amadear I. Thorp and the Gurtun evender mom to the matter very warmly, mi arauten i femditur seressara the resolution is perascri ** LATE DO TENsora ringing ourselves on the side of the Comell because we think that the saying of Desi mentines Lie abrical and unbeWe now that we be bearing numberless taunts

Som me ipesT MIT, I Do merced hused of meru services

we were actuated by a general, or a fantastic We repudiate such

ums is beng may 122, for none can appreciate more fun turselves the by md power of holy song; none can be more ermet a te frike the Church's service eftena de spital god. But we ecndemn intoning, as being opposed alike to the letter and spirit of the Prayerbeck IS MAZET 2 letter, because the rubrics everywhere feet in the prayers shall be "said," "pronounced," or “read” We for the miserable subterfuge to which know the advocates of inning resert, and which would have us believe the “ my "sequent to “ say, in a monotone, i. e. “SIT Stone;” but we are the there is just as much reason for the assertion that the same word."say." is equivalent to *say to himself Le rig" If the Church had meant the prayers to be intoned, she would not have scrupled to direct accordingly: the absence of such directions is an unanswerable argument against the practice. We object to intoning, secondly, betine it is opposed, not only to the letter, but to the spirit of the Liturgy. We deplore, as much as High Churchmen can do, the fact, that our glorious ritual is so frequently suffered to lapse into a mere dialogue between the parish priest and the parish clerk; we lament the foolish prejudices which are often allowed to exclude from the Church's services the thrilling music which is her heritage; but so far as the minister is concerned, we must maintain the power of simple reading-the awful dignity of the earnest words of a man who is publicly pleading with his God. We are told, indeed, and the words seem to be echoed from every shade of High Churchism, that it is "slovenly," “perplexing,” and “discordant,” for the minister to read, and the choir to sing-that if the people chant their parts, the priest should chant his. This argument is so repeatedly insisted on, as to make us marvel at the strange hallucination which blinds men to the palpable fallacy which underlies it.

FACTS AND PROGRESS.

449

The priest and the people are in entirely different relations; and, besides, the priest is one, the people, led by the choir, are many. It is one thing for a single man to stand up in the midst of the congregation as God's ambassador, to proclaim His message, or to ask His blessing; it is quite another thing for the people to cry out in the strength of earnest supplication, or the fulness of jubilant thanksgiving. The former requires a solemnity of which the monotone is utterly devoid, and which reading alone can give; the latter requires some harmony to blend the voices in unison, and send up to God, not a congeries of discordant utterings, but one strong breath of holy prayer. We are persuaded that solemn reading on the part of the minister, and plain, not scientific, chanting on the part of the people, are each, in their place, most efficacious to ring through the heart's inmost chambers, or bear up the soul in ecstasy to heaven; but to give up one of these in order to gratify a musical dilettantism, is not merely to violate the Church's directions, but to render ineffective one of the best earthly means of grace.

EMIGRANT CHURCHMEN.

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AN association was formed a few months since, "for the Spiritual Aid of Churchmen Emigrating to the United States." It has been entitled, the Anglo-American Church Emigrants' Aid Society," and is under the Presidency of the Bishop of London: the Rev. H. Caswall, of Figheldean, and F. H. Dickinson, Esq., being the Secretaries. The object is decidedly a useful one, and we wish the scheme every success. The spiritual disadvantages with which emigrants have had to contend have been of a most serious character, and we rejoice in this attempt to alleviate them. The means, so far as we have been able to ascertain them, are well calculated to effect the proposed end: they consist of the employment of agents at the principal American seaports; of the maintenance of clergymen especially devoted to the work; and of the advancement of Christian education in emigrant settlements, by the erection of schools, &c. The scheme has been very warmly received by the American Episcopal Church; and a suggestion has originated with one of its bishops, which may be usefully carried out, even without direct connexion with the society :—that clergymen should provide any persons among their flocks, who may be intending to emigrate, with "litteræ commendatitiæ."

VOL. XXXVIII.

G G

the Tux miamiss yhe are Mnie vise if thay md religions 1.TILITIES, Te ng 1 try of the shaffles via a dy mazhet ve neuilly pring den We must repeat Vi har bed in terri is the question is a I may deed, be

kei an artemis igen, bi Tevel simply by itself, I SIT & question vorher soul stupkespers sal be ruered on the dubine mir whin day labor, in bear depinxed if the HTML Where was no attempt made Lt in men the doservance of rigirs fulles, or amandame u prour worsing: there was merely the endea vour to place the made a level with the artinam, as regirls the exponen if fzed hours of relatade. In the prekomu fting the teens for Higher advantages in most respects that the former: the working-man has his WITH FIZE I The end of his en days' work; he can spend Le Sabbath as he pleases, wibor sustaining any pecuniary ZMĚTIZzH; he has fixed boonday alike for his woll and for La recreation; while, on the other hand, the small shopkeeper has to bear the beat of a struggle which knows but Since cessation, mi which waters with every breath of commercial change. Efter succeeds ein in the restless endeavour to maintain a social stars, and the wearisomeness of the config is not alternated with any fixed periods of enjoyment: he has to traverse a thirsty desert, without the certainty, which others have, of spending his Sabbath beneath the pain and beside the well-spring. This large class of the community has been of late years sadly neglected; their wrongs have found but little sympathy; their grievances have been uttered forth with no audible voice; they have felt the weight of their heavy burdens weighing them down at times to the dust; but all has been felt with the silence of heroic patience, with the fortitude of speechless suffering.