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Clerks call for some particular notice, from the fact of there often being a certain emolument attached to the office, in large parishes, which is increased considerably by fees; we are acquainted with some parishes in Lancashire and Yorkshire where the emoluments often amount to £50 or £60 per annum. An act was passed some twenty-five years ago enabling Incumbents to have parish clerks in Holy Orders, and we have often been surprised how seldom this privilege has been exercised. Those only who have served as curates in these places know how routine duties, such as funerals, occupy time and wear out the strength, without apparently being accompanied with any spiritual advantage. What a relief would it not be if there were a Sub-deacon at hand to take off some of the labour. We have been doing our best for many years to get rid of the parish clerk of the last century, at least as far as his voice in public worship is concerned: perhaps we should have done better if we had retained the office, and sometimes the man, only changing his solitary response into the leadership of the choir, and making him really useful by investing him with the office of Sub-deacon. Certainly we have not, as a rule, succeeded in making the congregation respond in the place of the clerk, nor shall we ever do so, till we say our office in monotone, and teach our people to respond in the same, under the leadership of a precentor. Of these two schemes brought before the notice of Convocation, we are not going to pronounce on either one or the other, or say which we think to be the best, for we believe there is much that is good and practicable in both.

There is undoubtedly another and more efficient method, for the realization of which we have long looked,-we mean the institution of Brotherhoods. We must be content, however, we fear, to wait some while longer before any such scheme can be carried into effect. The attempts hitherto made it must be admitted have not been successful. The English mind scarcely knows yet how to tolerate discipline, and the demands made upon the active energies of the male sex, in this busy age, are so great as to be apparently incompatible with the idea of this self-dedication.

We cannot speak, however, of the Church's wants without referring to this as the most effective engine; and in spite of all past failures, we earnestly counsel the clergy of large parishes to prepare the way as much as possible for its introduction, by associating earnest-minded young men with them in their work, and by finding Homes for them where they may live in some degree by rule and acquire habits of devotion.

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MR. CARTER'S SERMONS.

Sermons. By the Rev. T. T. CARTER, Rector of Clewer. London: Masters.

WE have in this volume not only a model of pulpit eloquence, but an epitome also of deep religious truth applied to the practical training of the soul in holiness.

The sermons are eminently devotional, so much so indeed, that a very beautiful and useful series of devotions might be gathered from the frequent invocations of our LORD into which they seem insensibly to flow-and yet each one has a definite purpose in evoking or fostering the various graces of the spiritual life.

The one prevailing idea of the whole work is an intense realisation of the indwelling of CHRIST in the soul, and each different portion of it serves to illustrate some special feature of that life which is hid for us with Him in GOD.

In one of the opening sermons," the New Creation," Mr. Carter brings forward two points of view with regard to the regeneration of man which will be new to many persons: 1. as to the Nature of the Spirit Who thus recreates us-He is not, the author states, simply the Spirit of GoD as He once was no longer only that HOLY GHOST Who moved on the face of the waters in the first creation-He is now the Spirit of CHRIST, of GOD Incarnatethat is, of the combined natures of GOD and man. The Spirit of GOD had already proceeded from the Son as from the FATHER, and therefore of the Godhead He could receive no more, but He was not the Spirit of CHRIST, He was to receive a new, superadded communication from the Son through union with His Sacred Humanity-thus the HOLY GHOST became the Spirit of the Son of Man as He was before the Spirit of the Son of God. He became a Partaker in the experiences of the Humanity of the LORD, and has thus a personal sympathy with our nature, to which He now imparts the perfected life of man renewed and exalted in GOD. Thence the whole organization of the Church is made clearly manifest as the Living Body of CHRIST through the indwelling of the Spirit of His twofold Nature.

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The other striking view in this sermon treats of a mystery scarce less deep the author holds that the threefold nature of man as defined by S. Paul, "body, soul, and spirit," was indeed the con'dition of Adam in the state of innocence before the fall, and is again the condition of all who through the Church are born anew of water and the Spirit but he affirms that in the interval between the fall and the coming of the promised Seed, the higher element, the spirit, was lost, and man lived by soul and body alone.

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When GOD breathed into the nostrils of the man the breath of life, this spirit was conveyed to him, and he became alive in the Image of GOD. But when he fell he became separate from GOD, and the spirit which was only of GOD returned to Him Who gave it-henceforward original righteousness was lost, and the children of Adam were begotten, not in the Image of God, but in his own image after his likeness." Man is therefore described in the Old Testament as unable to understand GoD, or obey the spiritual law, carnal, worldly, a creature whose thoughts perish, who could not see God and live. In the new dispensation in the kingdom of GOD over which CHRIST reigns, the higher element, the spirit, is restored; the threefold nature is recreated in the Image of GOD. The quickening Spirit, the HOLY GHOST, proceeding from the FATHER and from the SON, Who took flesh of the Virgin Mary, unites Himself with the soul, through the soul with the body, and the whole man becomes imbued with spiritual life. Thus he becomes the subject of spiritual discipline and performs spiritual acts-the members of his very flesh become the instruments of righteousness, and his body, the temple of the HOLY GHOST. The germ of eternal glory, is already his-the spring of eternal life already welling up within him. The Spirit of Him Who raised JESUS from the dead dwelleth in him, and shall hereafter quicken his mortal body that it may live for ever.

In a later sermon, entitled "CHRIST the Source of Sanctity," the author thus speaks of the tremendous incentive to personal holiness contained in this truth :—

"Does not S. Paul in his exhortation to bodily purity appeal at once to the amazing awfulness of the bodily indwelling of the HOLY GHOST; 'Know ye not that your body is the temple of the HOLY GHOST Which is in you, which ye have of GOD, and ye are not your own?' He again appeals to the same overwhelming motive in an earlier chapter of the same Epistle, where he speaks against strife and division. He pleads for unity and love on the ground that 'ye are the temple of GOD, and that the SPIRIT of GOD dwelleth in you.' And indeed what principle can tend to cherish tenderness, lowliness, modesty, recollectedness, dignity, quietness in speech and manner, devotion and the winning grace of a pervading charity, so effectually as the abiding consciousness of our LORD dwelling and walking in oneself as a tabernacle of His own gracious election, and in others as in oneself according to the same promise? What can so sustain the soul above natural desires, in a higher sphere of life, in an ever-upward advance towards the glory of the heavenly Court, as the instinctive sense, rooted and grounded in the soul's life, that there is a wedded union between the soul and the LORD Who bought it with His own Blood, and now Himself within it claims it for His own? What gives so keen a remorse at the hatefulness and horror of sin, as a conviction of its desecrating the organs, the limbs, the faculties which GOD inhabits and uses as the chosen vessel of His own sanctity? It is not what he himself is, that forms

the joy of the Saint, nor the failing to be what GOD had willed him to be, that constitutes the remorse of the true penitent; but it is to the one the consciousness that GOD is in him, and he in GOD; and to the other the loss of a Presence in Whom alone is peace, and out of Whom is utter darkness. To realise what we are, or what we fail to be, we must appreciate what His abiding in us causes us to be. We can never look truly at ourselves separate from Him. Our power is His power in us. Our efforts are the putting forth of His strength. Our sin is that after He had come to us, we resisted Him. Our recollection of being in the Divine Presence is but the apprehension of the most amazing reality on which our whole existence hangs.

"When then is the secret of the soul's strength? Must it not be the looking off from all secondary motives, all intervening objects, and looking direct on the Divine will that impels us forward, and by faith in Him Who commands it, going forth to fulfil it? Who can doubt that our weakness lies in some intervening obstacle of the natural self, and that as the soul becomes more simple, the faith more trustful, the aim more direct, the sense of the power of GoD in upholding us, and bearing us onward, and sustaining us through the dark future, more steadfast, just in proportion to these spiritual gains, the life advances towards perfection? And why is this, but because the natural obstacles being removed, the Presence of GOD, like the sun breaking out from the passing clouds, is revealed in the life of His servant.

"O what will be the sensation of the soul, when it awakes in another world to realise fully what the indwelling of GOD has been to us, and we remember how we failed to believe in His power and correspond to His impulses! And what will the soul then think of its past repinings, its desolations and its fears, when the LORD Who hath been abiding with us through our hours of darkness, is seen 'face to face,' and asks the soul, 'What could I have done more? Was I not always with thee, and all that I had was thine? Was it not true that I did not leave thee comfortless, that I came unto thee?" "—P. 234—236.

And elsewhere he shows how entirely it is the want of realization of these most significant mysteries which lead men to dream away the awful gift of life in sloth or idle vanity.

A very striking sermon is given on the "Cross the instrument of Conversion." The author there describes three stages of progression in the spiritual life, by which the death and agony of the Divine LORD becomes the means not only of the conversion, but the perfection of souls.

1st. It works simple repentance for past transgression, by presenting to the mind a view of the wrath poured out as a consequence of human disobedience. The awful spectacle of the dying JESUS, abandoned by GOD, as One accursed, gives us a measure by which we are constrained to test the enormity of sin.

2nd. Passing from the first condemnation and cleansing away of sin, the Cross reveals to the more advanced penitent the wonderful sanctities of the Divine Nature, and becomes the instrument of a higher order of conversion. It inspires a conformity to the mind

of the suffering CHRIST. Here is love, holiness, patience, mercy, perfect obedience, and perfect self-abnegation. We cannot look upon them and not love; we cannot love, and not seek to imitate.

3rd. The Cross can give a yet greater conversion than even the cleansing of sin or the illumination of a restored nature. The perfect repose of the soul is solely in complete union with GOD, and this final transformation of redeemed humanity is only accomplished through the Cross. Our LORD spoke of His death as the condition out of which would spring the oneness of being between Himself and His members. "Except a corn of wheat fall to the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." From His Humanity, bruised in death, would grow the new creation of one nature, one flesh with Him. This He showed in the opening of His sacred Side, whence issued water and blood, in token of the birth of His bride, the Church. This effusion of His Humanity was the commencement of the stream which, ever flowing, forms each one of His members after its own life, converting the regenerate soul into ineffable and mysterious fellowship with GOD.

The sermons on Self-Sacrifice and Self-Discipline are extremely valuable. We regret that we have no room for extracts from them. Lastly, we would specially advise any who are weary of the struggle with sin or the trials of this life, to solace themselves with the touching and eloquent description given of "the end of the redeemed."

REPLIES TO ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.

Replies to Essays and Reviews, with a Preface by the Lord Bishop of OXFORD; and Letters from the Radcliffe Observer and the Reader in Geology in the University of Oxford. London: J. H. and J. Parker. 1861.

Aids to Faith; a Series of Theological Essays. By several writers. Edited by WILLIAM THOMSON, D.D., Lord Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol. London: Murray, 1861.

THESE two volumes are a valuable contribution to the theological literature of the day. The first is a direct, the second an indirect, reply to the notorious Essays and Reviews. The one is mainly destructive; the other chiefly constructive. The one exposes, and on the whole very successfully, the sophistries, the misrepresentations, and the sciolism of the Essayists; the other, without directly noticing the Essays and Reviews, reasserts the doctrines which they impugn, and brushes the cobweb reasoning of the Essayists aside as it proceeds. Comparisons are proverbially" odious," and would, moreover, be in this case ungracious. Both the volumes before us

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