sides, there are in this great city about twenty-five thousand baptized members of our Church, for whose souls no man seems to care. These are all of the poorer class; and, with few exceptions, are sunk in the deepest ignorance and sin-demanding the constant presence of a Bishop to organize and carry on a great work of evangelization, without which, these our poor Brethren must prove a burdensome stone to this Church and nation, and a witness at last against our Holy Mother, unto whom they were born of God, and by him entrusted to her care, for nourishment and training befitting His own children.

Your memorialists trust, that, in giving this expression to their earnest desire for a resident Bishop, they have not exceeded their duty as Lay-Members of the Church. They present their prayer to your Venerable Synod for this gift with all deference and veneration, and in the hope that the choice now to be made will be to God's glory in the increase and establishment among us of His Holy Catholic Church.

Reviews.

Among our advertisements will be found one of an elaborate work, recently published, entitled, Contributions towards an Harmony of the Holy Gospels.' We have neither space nor time, on the present occasion, to do more than recommend to our readers this valuable addition to Theology, from the pen of an acute and learned young presbyter of the Church in Scotland-and an imperfect notice of it would be a great injustice; but we hope, in a future number, to recur at length to this very important subject.

We beg to call particular attention to the prospectus of an intended settlement in New Zealand, prefixed to our present number. It is, indeed, a beginning of colonizing operations in a right direction; and if it be followed out in a manner which, from the names appended to the scheme, we have every reason to anticipate, there can be little question of its success.

Enstitutions, &c.

On the second Sunday after Easter, the Rev. J. F. S. Gordon, M.A., incumbent of S. Andrew's, Glasgow, acting for and by authority of the Right Rev. the Primus, instituted the Rev. Kenneth Mackenzie Pughe, B.A., of S. John's College, Cambridge, to the pastoral charge of Holy Trinity Church, Paisley, diocese of Glasgow. The usual documents having been read by Mr Gordon, he received the presentee within the rails of the altar; after which he ascended the pulpit, and delivered an admirable discourse from Acts i. 24, and part of 25, in which, after stating in a lucid manner the authority of the Christian pastor, he took occasion to impress upon his auditors the obligation under which they were laid of treating with respect and affection, and of gladly obeying him who was thus set over them in the Lord. Mr Pughe afterwards celebrated the holy mysteries, in which he was assisted by Mr Gordon.

In course of the interesting and solemn ceremony of institution, a portion of the beautiful service provided by the United States Church for such occasions, was used by direction of the Primus; but it is much to be regretted that the Scottish Church, unshackled as she is by any State interference, has not ere this prepared and authorised a similar service of her own.

The institution of the Rev. A. J. D. D'Orsey to the charge of Anderston, near Glasgow, took place on the first Sunday after Easter, Mr Almond of St Mary's, Glasgow, officiating for the Primus, assisted by the Rev. Dr Champneys.

The institution of the Rev. R. Aitken, M.A., to the charge of Airdrie, took place on Monday the 8th of May, the Rev. A. Henderson of Hamilton officiating for the Primus.

A Synod was holden at Glasgow on Wednesday the 10th inst. for the election of a Bishop in the room of the lamented Dr Russell, when the Very Rev. E. B. Ramsay, Dean of Edinburgh, had a majority of votes; but as he has declined to accept the appointment, a new election will be necessary.

On the first Sunday after Easter, the Right Rev. the Bishop of Argyle and the Isles held his first confirmation in the Church of the Holy Trinity, Dunoon, when eight adults received the sacred rite.

The Right Rev. the Bishop of Moray and Ross has appointed the Rev. W. C. A. MacLaurin, of Trinity Church, Elgin, to the office of Dean of that Diocese.

Printed by GRANT & TAYLOR, 21 George Street, Edinburgh.

THE

SCOTTISH MAGAZINE,

AND

CHURCHMAN'S REVIEW.

JULY 1848.

JEWISH BILL.

THANK God, we have three estates, King, Lords, and Commons,' was the vehement exclamation of a political Baronet in the House of Commons some five and twenty years ago, when certain measures for emancipating the Roman Catholics had passed through the Commons, and were about to be sent to the Upper House, whereof a majority were then, correctly enough, anticipated to be hostile to them. And, although we hope not to imitate the tergiversations of that worthy member, who, upon the subsequent adoption of emancipatory measures by the Duke of Wellington, became as ardent in favour of them, as he had been previously hostile, and afterwards sunk from high toryism to ultra radicalism, we had no hesitation in echoing the exclamation when we learnt the result of the debate on the Jewish Bill in the House of Lords. And we know nothing more certain to confirm the approbation of all well disposed subjects and Christians towards that august body, that such well-timed instances of their decision in curbing the folly and correcting the errors of their more latitudinarian neighbours of the Lower House. They approach the discussion of measures submitted to them with a freedom from prejudice and party spirit, which is very far from being characteristic of the debates of her Majesty's faithful Commons. The institution, nay the very existence of a body of hereditary legislators, has always, indeed, been a favourite theme of ridicule with demagogues; but all experience proves that to be often most beneficial in practice, which is capable of the least plausible establishment in theory; and shews, on the other hand, that the most carefully devised arrangements, shaped and modelled with all deliberation and ingenuity, become utterly worth

less and unmanageable in operation. During the discussion of the Reform Bill, it was universally admitted, that the debates in the House of Lords were infinitely superior in every point of view to those in the Commons; and the calm temper and dignity which characterized much of the debate in question evince, that their Lordships yet maintain their position. The second reading of the Jewish Bill was moved by the Marquis of Lansdowne, ministerial leader in the House of Lords, in a speech of much profession, but replete with flimsy sophistry. In this he endeavoured to shew, that the Jews had never intentionally, and by name, been excluded from the Houses of Parliament, but were incidentally disqualified by oaths enacted to exclude Roman Catholics. But his Lordship seemed to assume (for we cannot believe that he thought so in earnest), that this absence of all direct disqualification of that people implied the non-existence of any objection to their having such privilege; whereas there was another reason equally cogent on the opposite side, namely, that such a claim on the part of the Jews had never entered into the calculations of any legislator. We do not legislate against impossible contingencies; and assuredly, the notion of a Jew aspiring to a seat in either house of Parliament would, until very lately, have been classed in that category. But the most extraordinary part of his lordship's speech is the exposition of his notions respecting the connection between Judaism and Christianity. Altogether forgetting Catholic doctrines and history, he seems to consider the Jews as having been a great and wise people, who by their own sagacity and intellectual superiority devised and instituted laws which the Christian world afterwards adopted, and laid the foundation of a religion, which was afterwards to develope itself into Christianity. Neither does he seem to recollect, that all their laws were direct revelations from Heaven, and that the people themselves were instruments, chiefly unconscious instruments in the hands of the Almighty for preparing the way for a more perfect revelation. What other conclusion can we draw from the following sentences? Can it be forgotten that theirs is a nation whose religious laws you have adopted,-a nation that for years and centuries has been the means of laying the foundation of your religion? Is it necessary for me to remind your lordships that the commandments of that religion, the laws of that people, are your laws and your commandments, engraved on the stones which are set above your altars, and engraved on the hearts of the congregations that surround those altars?' It is lamentable to think, that such twaddle as the above

was, as the reporters say, greeted by a cheer from any member of the house; but we have more particularly alluded to the sentiments expressed by the mover of the debate (leaving out, however, a long diatribe about christian love, benevolence, and so forth), as exhibiting the species of theology which prevails among her Majesty's advisers. The whole question, in fact, is based upon false grounds, inasmuch as it is declared to be merely a political and not a religious question. But putting aside the fallacy, that politics and religion are separate and unconnected matters which may be discussed without reference to each other, it is plain that the question of Jewish admission is purely a religious one, for it is their religion, and their religion only, which keeps them separate from all other nations, kindreds, and affinities. It is the exclusiveness of the Mosaic law, given for the purpose of keeping the children of Israel separate from all others while the Jewish polity was intended by the Divine will to remain in force, but retained by the faithless race after it had been virtually abrogated by that more perfect dispensation which they rejected, which still keeps them strangers and pilgrims in every land and country. And we hesitate not to declare our conscientious belief, that while the ancient creed is maintained by the modern Jews, a creed which made them, if sincere, not only the direst enemies, but the BLASPHEMERS of Christianity, it were an act of direct impiety to admit them to a participation in the privileges and rights of a legislature, which is based upon CHRISTIANITY. As the Bishop of Oxford observed, the proposition was not whether the members of the legislature should belong to the Church of England or any other christian body, but whether they should be Christians at all,—nay, it was even not whether they should be Christians, but whether haters of Christianity should be admitted into the Parliaments of these realms-men who told the people of this country that the Being whom they worshipped as a God, was a degraded malefactor.' Upon this principle we take our stand, regardless of the scoffing of the free-thinker, and worldly-minded latitudinarian, whether he be layman, or prelate. We regard the Jewish people with reverence, as the chosen instruments of God, chosen to perpetuate the knowledge of Himself, when all the earth besides was dark; and the keepers of His oracles which pointed to our more perfect state of light and knowledge; but we owe nothing to the Jews as a people, in the ordinary sense in which one people may be said to owe its attainments to another.

The Bishop of St David's declared his belief, that there does not