inward reality. Thus holiness of life is honoured, hypocrisy discountenanced, noisy forwardness discouraged, and every conscience is referred to God's all-seeing eye. Many other illustrations of the quiet and composed spirit of our Church offer themselves to our attention, but these may suffice. To conclude: shall we rest contented with merely admiring the beautiful features of our Church? Shall we not seek to have her very spirit infused into ourselves? Controversy, contending for the faith once delivered to the saints, seems to have become needful in our days, and attention to it is therefore a Christian duty. Mixed knowledge, the knowledge of good and evil, is increasing on all sides; and a maddening thirst for information, no matter on what subject, no matter at what price, rages throughout society. Infidelity, to gratify its enmity against God, is urging on this thirst even to frenzy, by intoxicating the nation with scepticism and neology—with deism and atheism-with anything, in short, which it can persuade people to receive as education. What watchfulness, then, do we all need, that the weapons of our warfare should not be carnal! What energy, yet what meekness, is required in our present difficulties; what love, yet what indignation; what activity, yet what quietness; what self-possession, yet what ardour; what patient humbleness, yet what lofty steadfastness of principle and purpose! Our Church teaches us how to rise to the emergency, and she presents us with models drawn from the Scripture, and suited to the exigencies of the times. Let us catch her spirit, and learn wherein our true strength consists. Let us place our dependence on our great Head-let us encourage ourselves in our God, and be "valiant for truth" yet, calmly bearing in mind that, sooner or later, error shall certainly be overthrown, and that the Redeemer's kingdom must assuredly overspread the whole earth, let us, as we "hope for that we see not, with patience wait for it." The blessing that is pronounced at the end of the service, by the priest or the bishop, was so highly valued, in the primitive times of our religion, that none durst go out of the church till they had received it. The congregation always received the blessing upon their knees, or with their heads bowing down; and I wish that all who profess any regard for our communion would copy after this devout practice of antiquity; and prevent, if possible, that hurry and disturbance that generally are in our churches after the conclusion of the sermon. The priest has authority from heaven to bless the people-and upon the sons of peace shall his blessing rest; but from such as prevent it by their sins or infidelity, shall his blessing return to him again.-The Scourge No. 3, 1717. A GRACIOUS Providence has spared us to enter upon the last month in the year, in which we take our leave of the Christian. village of Criton. We would therefore review our past proceedings, by asking what profit have we derived from the perusal of our former numbers? We shall meet in the day of judgment, when the instructor and the instructed shall be called to give an account of all their works. Are we prepared for this solemn reckoning? Have we written, and have we read, in the fear of God, with earnest prayer for his blessing? Let those enquiries sink deep into our hearts. There were many other persons in the village who were pious and excellent; but we have not time and space to notice them all. We shall, in conclusion, only mention a few of them. As we enter the village from the market-town of H-, we find on the right hand a good looking house occupied by a farmer, who had filled in succession the various parish offices of constable, churchwarden, overseer of the poor, surveyor of the highways, collector of the taxes, and probably some other posts of responsibility. He was hale and hearty, about fifty years old, much and very deservedly respected by all who knew him. He possessed kindness and firmness in the discharge of his duties. There were other farmers equally respectable in the parish; but as the village farmer is best known, we have selected him as setting an example to young men in his line of life. He never employed his workmen or cattle on the Lord's-day unless in cases of absolute necessity. He was constant at church on the Sabbath, and he laboured to "do all his work" in the other "six days." Nearly opposite to the farm-house stood some very pretty cottages, occupied by sober and industrious labourers, one of whom was an old carpenter, who was also from his youth a ringer of the great bell. He spent his time, as he used to say, in his bed, his shop, the steeple and the church. He had been very sober and industrious. He brought up a large familynevertheless, he had "saved a penny for a rainy day," so that in old age he was able to give up his shop to one of his sons, when he employed his time in reading the Bible to his neighbours. The clergyman called him his reader. You might often see him trudging about the parish with a quarto Bible under his arm, and entering into the cottages of the old and infirm to read to them the sacred Scriptures. He never attempted to explain the chapters he read, leaving that, he said, to the minister. It was his work to read, and that of the clergyman to explain, the Bible to his friends. Of his reading the Bible, and of his ringing the great bell, he was perhaps too proud; yet he was a good man. He was above want, by his own labours; his ringing was quite free, and without charge to the parish. He was kept from church only one week before he died, having spent more than sixty years in the above employments. Many still remember him, and several, we trust, follow his good example. In another part of the village, not far from the church-gate, there was the house of the village blacksmith, who was called by the very appropriate name of Sampson, for his great strength. He could lift up and carry a greater weight than any of the farming men. Early and late you could hear his bellows and his hammer; and it pleased God to endow him with great mental powers. He used to say that he could use his head, his tongue, his heart and his hands, by God's help, as well as any man in Great Britain. Though he always differed in opinion to the clergyman, the esquire, and the schoolmaster, yet those gentlemen acknowledged his capacity for thought as well as for work. One day I observed him on my way, as a lad, to the village school, reading a huge volume; and on asking him what it was, he replied, "It is Jeremy Taylor's 'Ductor Dubitantium.”” When I was several years older, he puzzled me with a work on Logic. He made the farmer's servants wonder, when he talked to them about "Euclid's Elements" and "Chambers's Cyclopedia.' But his chief book was his Bible, which he made his rule of faith and his rule of life. He never drank ale or beer. Water or milk was his only beverage. There was, a little out of the village, a fine looking tall man, whose trade was that of a weaver,* and who was greatly esteemed by all the inhabitants for his kindness and diligence in the Sunday school. His cottage was surrounded with trees, and covered with ivy. In this solitary place, the shuttle was heard at all working hours. He and his family, consisting of his wife * See the "Welsh Weaver," a penny little book, published by the London Religious Tract Society. 66 and eight children, were remarkable as being good singers. In their house and in the church their voices were united in the praises of God: nor could the weaver ever sing any kind of song, excepting God save the King." He considered that as part of his daily devotion. He was loyalty itself personified. He sometimes betrayed angry feelings towards those who differed from him in political sentiments. The "Church and King" he considered as worthy of all his honour and prayers. He was most conscientious in "bringing up his children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." The village shopkeeper and his wife demand our observation. One could hardly tell on entering his shop whether he was a grocer, draper, hatter, hosier, or bookseller: he combined all these employments in one. As the towns were some miles distant, he contrived to keep on hand a little of everything that his neighbours needed for food or clothing. He was always on one side behind the counter, and his wife on the other side, excepting an occasional absence of a few minutes to take their meals. Two sons and two daughters assisted them in housekeeping and in the shop, so that all things were done in order. Family prayers night and morning were kept up, and the Sabbath was always strictly kept holy. We regret to say that there were some exceptions to the general rules of good conduct in this village, for though the minister of the parish, assisted and supported by an excellent magistrate and the parish officers, greatly checked vice and profaneness, yet there were some persons guilty of drunkenness, idleness, lying and dishonesty. We must go out of the world, as St. Paul says, to avoid altogether such characters; but it is certain that if all official persons did their duty aright, we should seldom have much cause to complain of the bad conduct of the inhabitants of any place. It is much easier to prevent vice than to reform it. Where the Church is allowed to maintain its influence in a parish, not too large and populous for the clergyman's pastoral oversight, and where all the people of the parish are accustomed to act up to the spirit of our Constitution in Church and State, much evil of every kind would be prevented, and as much happiness would be enjoyed as man is capable of in his present state of existence. We therefore invite the readers of the Village Churchman to consider what means they possess to promote the welfare of their respective localities, by a good example and by the exercise of their situations. No man, however humble his rank, is without the power to do good. Christians are "the salt of the earth" and "the light of the world," so we say to all, "Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." W. M. November 4, 1843. [From Wheatley's Remarks on the Common Prayer]. THE FORM OF SOLEMNIZATION OF MATRIMONY. Section IV. Of the Solemnization of Marriage. THE two parties having now declared their consent to take each other for husband and wife, they proceed, in the next place, to the immediate celebration of the marriage itself, which is introduced with a very ancient and significant ceremony, viz., the father or friends giving the woman in marriage. The rubric orders that the minister shall receive her at her father's or friends' hands; which signifies, that the father resigns her up to God, and that it is God who, by his priest, now gives her in marriage, and who provides a wife for the man, as he did at first for Adam (Gen. ii. 23). The minister then delivers the woman into the possession of the man, and joins their right hands, which is significant of a contract of friendship, and the making of a covenant (2 Kings x. 15; Prov. xi. 21). The minister having joined their hands, causes them to give their troth, by a mutual stipulation, each one saying I, A. take thee B., &c. But besides the invisible pledge of our fidelity, the man is also obliged to deliver a visible pledge; which the rubric directs shall be a ring. In King Edward's Book of Common Prayer it was to be accompanied with other tokens of spousage, as gold or silver. Before the ring may be given to the woman, the man must lay it upon the book, with the accustomed duty to the priest and clerk. And the priest taking the ring shall deliver it unto the man, intimating, that it is our duty to offer up all we have to God, as the true proprietor, before we use them ourselves; and to receive them as from his hand to be employed towards his glory. The man receiving the ring from the minister, places it upon the fourth finger of the woman's left hand, and speaking to her, says, "With this ring I thee wed," &c. And now the covenant being finished, the minister asks a blessing upon it, after which he joins the hands of the married couple, and declares, Those whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder. And now the holy covenant being firmly made, it ought to be duly published and proclaimed; therefore the minister makes |