be established in our universities; for they have shewn themselves friendly to wise and temperate alterations, steering a middle course between a spirit of innovation and a blind perseverance in insufficiency and error. But if the church should not obtain this help and strength from the universities, still something may be done for her advancement in character and knowledge. A young man frequently steps at once, altogether inexperienced, from college to a parochial charge; from human science, perhaps from thoughtlessness and gaiety, to the cure of souls. Some intermediate training, however short, would be highly beneficial. He might be encouraged to place himself for two or three months under the superintendence of some judicious and laborious clergyman, who could direct his studies, and occasionally examine him; and likewise accustom him to schools and lectures, and all the routine of ministerial labour. This would also furnish a means of obtaining additional information on the moral and spiritual character of those who seek to enter into the vineyard, and might probably lead to some improvement in this respect both from precept and example. And surely there are no clergymen who would not rejoice in such opportunities of usefulness, who would not be forward to render their gratuitous services in so important a cause; and in truth, a young man so employed would render services in return, by assisting in the management of schools, the visitation of the sick, and other offices: he might be admitted to exercise some portion of the diaconal functions. The choice of a superintending clergyman might be left either to the candidate himself or to the bishop of the diocese; for the bishops, I doubt not, would willingly lend their aid to the establishment and promotion of such a plan, which would be subject in every way to episcopal direction and control. I should truly rejoice, Sir, if any of these hints be found serviceable, either in themselves, or as leading to wiser suggestions, and in this hope I remain Your obliged friend, J. S.

August 10, 1833.

LABOUR RATE.

SIR,-Having seen in your Magazine some discussions respecting the details of this popular resource against the existing difficulties in the administration of the poor laws, I beg leave to offer some considerations in reference to the principle of the measure. My attention was drawn to the subject several years ago, when the practice was first adopted, I believe, at Cropredy, in Northamptonshire; and at that time, looking only to the immediate result, I was a zealous advocate of it. Subsequent experience and reflexion have taught me to think very differently upon it. I would wish to ask all those who think, by this means, to diminish the burden of the poor laws, and all who desire to advance the interest of the poor, whether they are content to recognise the principle that whoever shall have gained a settlement in a parish shall have a right at all times to demand employment at the highest rate of wages. Many, I have no doubt, will be ready to answer this question in the affirmative, and to refer to the statute of Elizabeth

which requires the overseer to "set on to work, &c." But there is this immense difference between the principle of Bacon's law and that which is implied in this measure in question, that the one contemplates only the compulsory employment of the able-bodied pauper on behalf of the parish, the other recognises a principle which pauperizes at once the whole community. I make this assertion without meaning to exaggerate. If every labourer has a right to be employed at all times at full wages, whether he be otherwise chargeable or not, then I myself shall have that right whenever parliament in its wisdom shall have deprived me of my tithes, even though I yet may have my house full of furniture and my books. The fact is, that we seem to be doing in this case what mankind are always prone to, and which is the way in which human affairs deteriorate. We have practically departed from a good principle, and now we are about to recognise a totally new (and, as I think, a ruinous) principle in accommodation to our deteriorated practice. In practice now, I well know, and I equally lament, that this principle is in a great degree recognised, and because the overseer is bound, in the last resort, to set to work the able-bodied pauper, and because there are practical difficulties in doing so, we have thought it convenient that all labourers should be employed by the several occupiers. This, in itself, was an awkward device, and fraught with untold evil. It is thus that the whole labouring population has come to think that they have a right to employment at all times; whence it naturally has resulted that they should be prodigal, and therefore licentious, when they ought to save,-insolent to their employers, whom they care not to please,-and that all that social feeling, all that mutual kindness, which is the dearest bond of human society, should be extinguished, or existing only in a few happy instances which yet remain to shew what an English peasant was. I maintain, Sir, that if we would but even now revert to the real principle of the 43rd of Elizabeth, we might yet stay the torrent which is threatening to overwhelm the country with an agrarian law. The overseer is to make a rate for two purposes-to relieve the impotent, and to set to work the able-bodied: mind, he is to make a rate for these purposes, but hitherto it has been, for the most part, only for the first of these purposes that the rate has been made; and the dread of increasing the number of impotent by withholding employment is held out as a reason why the farmer should of necessity employ just so many as may choose to demand employment. But who, in fact, are these whom the overseer is to make a rate to employ? They are the able-bodied poor. Are they not therefore paupers? And is not something else required to make a pauper than merely to be placed by Providence in the station of a tiller of the ground. Let all be set on to work who need it, but let them first be really paupers, and let them know and experience what it is to be a pauper. Let them surrender their property, furniture, &c., to the parish; let them quit their own residence and come into a parish house, properly so called, not of which the parish pays the rent, but which belongs to and is furnished by the parish, (see the subsequent statutes of Elizabeth on this point,) and being employed on parish work, (it is no answer that VOL. IV.-Oct. 1833. 3 к

this is difficult to find: it must be found, and a "rate must be made” to find it—i.e., it must be found at a loss, for that is the same thing,) let them receive clothes, and even food, if necessary, from the parish, until they are able or willing to support themselves.

I know that such a course may seem harsh and unjust towards the poor, whose only crime, it will be said, is poverty. But the fact is, that in doing otherwise we have departed from the course of nature, that is of Providence, and this is the reason that the result has been, as I believe all experience has proved, fatally injurious to the poor themselves (and I wish to consider it only in reference to their interests) by placing them in an unnatural position, in which the ordinary springs of human conduct, the hope of bettering, and the fear of deteriorating their condition are almost equally extinguished. I believe when any great departure has taken place from right principles, the only way to recover them is by stating these principles themselves, and I think it is from looking only to details that the labour rate has met with so many advocates. It will, however, be allowed that if it be wrong in principle, however specious it may seem in practice, it cannot be eventually beneficial; and if I have rightly assumed the principle of such an enactment, I think it can hardly be defended. Whenever a law is passed which taxes all chargeable towards the employment of all labourers, I cannot see how we can avoid the conclusion that such a law recognises the principle that all labourers, and in fact all who choose to claim it, shall have a right to employment: a law which seems to me to pauperize the whole nation, and to make all the landowners in the country the tenants of this great corporation of paupers. It were an interesting speculation how far this may be a means, under Divine Providence, of gradually bringing about an equalization of property; but I suppose this is a result which the advocates of the labour rate little deem of promoting.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

A CLERICAL MAGISTRATE.

ON THE PULPIT AND READING DESK.

[In the excellent and very learned letter signed W. F. H. in the last number, the word Anti Nicene, for Ante-Nicene, introduced by an error of the press, was allowed to stand uncorrected in several cases. All possible apologies are due, and are hereby made to W. F. H. for this carelessness, which was not his.]

MY DEAR SIR,-In the Saturday Magazine for August 24th, I find quoted the following well known passage from the Life of George Herbert: "The pious George Herbert built a new church at Layton Ecclesia, near Spalding, and by his order the reading pew and pulpit were a little distant from each other, and both of an equal height; for he would often say, that neither should have a precedency or priority of the other; but that prayer and preaching, being equally useful, might agree like brethren, and have equal honour and estimation." Now it is obvious that this quotation is intended in order to reconcile the people to that modern innovation according to which

our new churches are deformed, by two pulpits standing like rivals to each other, and assuming sometimes the appearance of two gigantic pepper boxes. No one can reverence the memory of George Herbert more than I do; but because he was a wise and good man, it does not necessarily follow that his dictum is to be received, as I am afraid has been the case, without examination. And to examine this opinion I trouble you with the present letter.

Let us admit that neither the pulpit nor the reading desk should have the precedency or priority the one of the other, or rather let us assert, as we may with boldness, that the place where the prayers are offered ought to be regarded with more reverence than that from which the sermon is delivered. But what then? Was the pulpit invented to add to the dignity of the office of preaching? is this the reason why the preacher is elevated above the people? If such be the case, there is an end of the question. But it is not the case. For we all know that the pulpit is elevated simply that the preacher may be

able to command a view of the audience he addresses. When we speak to a person we look him in the face, and the countenance discourses as well as the voice. It is but reasonable, therefore, that when we are beseeching men in Christ's behalf, we should look towards them and at them, and that, consequently, the pulpit should be so placed as to enable us most conveniently to do this. But when we offer the prayers, is it then equally necessary that we should face the congregation? Not so thought those primitive Christians from whom we derive our Liturgy, and who ought, therefore, to be our models in our method of performing divine service. With them the officiating minister turned away from the people when he was offering the prayers, in order by that ceremony to shew that he was addressing not them, but their God. An useful ceremony this, since it tacitly reminded the people of what they were about, and led them instead of sitting to listen to the reader, to fall on their knees and join with the minister whom they saw not reading prayers, but actually praying. But if it is not necessary for the minister who offers the prayers to command a view of his congregation, it is not necessary that the reading desk and the pulpit should be of the same form and height. It may be inconvenient for the officiating minister to turn his back upon the congregation, since it is necessary that he should be heard; but it certainly would be wise if the reading desk were so placed as to enable him to look from them when engaged in prayer, and to turn towards them in the exhortation and absolution; and thus to let them perceive the difference between his addressing them and praying to their Saviour. All clergymen are not able to mark this difference by a change of voice, but every one might be able to mark it by a change of attitude, whereas in our present reading desks we can scarcely see when he is kneeling, or when he is standing.

But on this point I will not insist. What I wish to remark is, that when the minister is praying he ought to be as low as possible,-provided that he can be distinctly heard; when he is preaching, as high as convenient, so as to overlook his flock. In the first instance he is to kneel in a posture of supplication before his God; in the latter, to

stand as the commissioned messenger of good tidings from his Saviour. And so it is enforced by authority as high as that of the churchbuilding commissioners, although their authority is great and their opinion of weight. In the royal injunctions still in force (Injunct. 22 Edw. VI. and 18 of Elizabeth, A.D. 1559), it is enjoined "that the Litany shall be sung or said in the middle of the church, before the chancel door, at a low desk," commonly called the falled stool. Surely it would be wiser to act on the principle of our first reformers than to innovate according to the mere dictum of an individual, though that individual be George Herbert.

The use of the reading pew is itself peculiar to the English church, and was introduced not by choice, but necessity. In the churches of the primitive Christians, it is true that the ambon, or ẞnμã yvwoTwv, is described as a reading desk, but it corresponds rather with our pulpit, and is called pulpitum by St. Cyprian. The prayers were offered in the chancel; the ambon was used for the reading of the epistles and gospels, and the presbyters preached from it. The bishop generally preached from the steps of the altar. St. Chrysostom appears to have been the first bishop who mounted the pulpit, perhaps owing to the inconvenient situation of the chancel at Constantinople. The vergers also used to ascend the ambon when they took their part in the service. The origin of our reading pew, or reading desk, is given in Wheatley, and I shall transcribe his account. The first book of Edward VI. ordered " the priest, being in the choir, to begin the Lord's Prayer, called Pater-noster (with which the morning and evening service then began,) with a loud voice. So that then it was the custom for the minister to perform divine service (i. e. the morning and evening prayer, as well as the communion office,) at the upper end of the choir, near the altar; towards which, whether standing or kneeling, he always turned his face in the prayers; though whilst he was reading the lessons he turned to the people. Against this Bucer, by the direction of Calvin, most grievously declaimed, urging that it was a most anti-christian practice for the priest to say prayers only in the choir, as a place peculiar to the clergy, and not in the body of the church among the people, who had as much right to divine worship as the clergy themselves! He, therefore, strenuously insisted that the reading divine service in the chancel was an insufferable abuse, and ought immediately to be amended, if the whole nation would not be guilty of high treason against God!!' This terrible outcry, however senseless and trifling, prevailed so far, that when the Common Prayer book was altered in the 5th year of king Edward, the following rubric was placed in room of the old one: viz. the morning and evening prayers shall be used in such places of the church, chapel, or chancel, and the minister shall so turn him, as the people may best hear. And if there be any controversy therein, the matter shall be referred to the ordinary, and he or his deputy shall appoint the place.' This alteration caused great contentions, some kneeling one way and some another, though still keeping in the chancel; while others left the accustomed place, and performed all the services in the body of the church amongst the people. For the ap