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dangerously sick, and the rubric before the Visitation Service enjoins. that, when any person is sick, "notice thereof shall be given to the minister," the practice is not to defer the visit until notice be given, but to seek out as well the aged, the infirm, and the permanent invalids as the "dangerously sick," and to give them the consolations and exhortations which may appear needful, though no provision is made for such cases in the authorized service-books of the Church. Mr. Blunt does not lay so much stress as some recent writers have done on the use of the office prescribed by the Prayerbook, and appears to recommend its use in one case only, that of well-instructed habitual church-goers who are in mortal sickness; and he adds, that when the Visitation Service has been once completely used, it should not be repeated. We doubt whether, even in this one case, the majority of the clergy are in the habit of using the whole service. By very many it is thought to be inconvenient and insufficient, and somewhat antiquated in its language; and by some the Absolution is felt to be a stumbling-block. They think too, not without reason, that they are released from the use of the office by the terms of the 67th canon, which says,

"When any person is dangerously sick in any parish, the minister or curate, having knowledge thereof, shall resort unto him or her (if the disease be not known, or probably suspected, to be infectious), to instruct and comfort them in their distress, according to the order of the Communion Book, if he be no preacher; or if he be a preacher, then as he shall think most needful and convenient."

In general, we believe the clergy prefer to combine portions of the Visitation Office and other parts of the Prayer-book with prayers of their own, prompted at the moment by their sympathy with the sufferer, by the conversation which they have just had with him, and by their sense of his peculiar spiritual needs and infirmities; or else they use some one of the numerous manuals published for their guidance in this most important and difficult part of their duties. We are very much of Mr. Blunt's opinion, that none of these manuals fulfils all the conditions necessary for the judicious and convenient visitation of the sick; and we think his suggestion a good one, that the clergyman should supply this want for himself, and that, for this purpose, he will do well to purchase a Bible and Prayer-book of small size, but of as large type as possible, in sheets, and to have the Prayer-book bound up together with the books of Job and Isaiah, and fifty or sixty sheets of blank paper, on which may be written down. lists of psalms and Scriptures suitable for various cases, notes for exposition, exhortation, and prayer, and a few prayers taken from our best divines.

Archbishop Whately tells us, in his "Parish Pastor," that he

raised a great outcry against himself by saying that a Romish priest, who believed in confession, absolution, and extreme unction, "will feel himself called on to encounter greater risks from infectious disease than it would be needful, or even allowable, for a Protestant minister to expose himself to." Our author discusses this question, and in his conclusion so far concurs with the Archbishop as to say(1) that the pastor "is not to rush into danger when his services are not sought for, nor likely to be of use;" but (2) that "he is not to shrink from danger when he is summoned to visit a person suffering from an infectious disorder." We cannot but think that, in this one instance, Mr. Blunt's teaching falls below the existing standard of ministerial duty; for although the 67th canon (quoted above), which was framed at a time when there was much apprehension of the plague, might seem to relieve the clergy from the duty of visiting in cases of infection, there are few clergymen at the present day who, in such a case, would consider themselves justified in waiting until they found that their services were sought for, or were likely to be

of use.

With regard to the Communion of the Sick, Mr. Blunt, speaking of the previous arrangements, says,

"The surplice should certainly be used on such occasions. Indeed, the office is framed in so exact an analogy with that for the celebration of the Holy Communion in public, that it is very singular the habit of administering it privately in a common walking dress only should ever have grown up among the clergy. It certainly cannot be accounted an over-strictness, in regard to externals, to reckon the seemly vesture prescribed for the purpose among the 'all things necessary' for reverent celebration, directed by the rubric."-(P. 214.)

And this view is enforced at greater length in the valuable work entitled "Visitatio Infirmorum" (Introduction, p. cxxiv.). It will be allowed by many who cannot be accused of paying undue reverence to externals, that the use of the surplice is unobjectionable in itself, and is likely to add to the solemnity of the ordinance by leading the communicant to disconnect it from the other ministrations of the sickroom, and to associate it in his mind with those of the Church. Yet it seems to us that Mr. Blunt speaks rather too strongly when he says it "should certainly be used." In the absence of an express direction of the Church (and we cannot think the 58th canon, which has been cited in this behalf, is at all conclusive on the point), and without the sanction of general custom, some clergymen may hesitate as to the propriety of wearing the Church's vestments for other purposes than those of public worship. And if in any case it is probable that the surplice will disturb the mind of the sick person, we should say it certainly ought not to be used. From what we have heard, however, our

impression is that on this score there need be no fear. The practice is becoming common, and is not entirely of recent introduction: in the great parish of St. George's, Hanover Square, it has prevailed for very many years, as we are informed, without giving offence.

Mr. Blunt deals in no austere spirit with the questions, not always easy of solution, which arise out of the daily intercourse of the pastor with his flock. He adopts rather the social and genial than the acsetic view of the clerical character. He allows the clergyman to mingle in society and to take part in its lawful festivities and amusements, provided he always bear in mind that the grand object of his conversation must be to gain the confidence and good-will of his parishioners for pastoral, not for secular purposes. Some persons may be shocked, though we are not, to find that attendance, on special occasions, is permitted even at a ball or a cricket-match:—

"It may be expedient to remind society that it is Christian even in the midst of social joys; and in the gayest scene, as elsewhere, the presence of the servant of God, as such, may be a strong rebuke to an excessive spirit of worldliness, as it may be a visible memorial of a Master of all, whose eye is never absent." (P. 82.)

We confess, however, we think the occasions on which the clergyman is seen at a ball should be "few and far between."

It may seem almost an insult to the reader's common sense to submit to him a paragraph on "the importance of towns." But it is by no means unnecessary to remind the young man who is about to choose his sphere of pastoral work, that the town, however inferior to the country in natural charms, is superior to it in one important point, inasmuch as it calls out more completely all the powers of a man, and gives greater scope to his energy and zeal. And we readily forgive Mr. Blunt the title of his paragraph, for the sake of the following observations which form the staple of it, and which seem to us just and true in the main, whether the comparison suggested in them between America and the North of England be admitted or not:—

"There has always been a preference for country parishes among the clergy; and of books that have been written on the subject of pastoral work, I know hardly any which at all deal with it as if England was a land of manufacturing towns as well as agricultural villages. Let English clergymen avoid the seductions of the charming sophism that God made the country, and man made the town.' Under the influence of love for country life, they went a long way, in past generations, towards losing the hold of the Church of which they were ministers over the populations of our large towns. And yet one great city thoroughly gained for the Church would have more influence on the revival of Church of England principles, and of practical religion, than the largest county of mere agricultural parishes. It is in the cities and towns that the intellectual powers are being developed among the classes who do the headwork of the country. It is there that

the great social questions of the day are being tried out; there that the secular part of education is being pushed to its utmost limits. This is especially the case in the North of England, which in many parts is a kind of Anglicized America in its feelings, institutions, and habits; the principal difference, and a most important one, being, that there is still a strong underlying force of national tradition, which gives a stability to the northern counties of England, derived from the consciousness of a past, such as America, in its unmitigated newness, cannot yet possess. If it should be the lot of a clergyman to be cast in any town parish where the characteristics here hinted at are conspicuous, let him look on it as a ministerial privilege-let him consider that he has been placed in a position where all his learning, energy, zeal, piety, and tact will be required. He has been placed in the vanguard of the army which is fighting the Lord's battle against immorality and sin, and has had put into his hands the most hopeful material that can be found for building up a 'Church of the future,' such as will be a true development, for a busy age, of the ever fresh and young Church which has been the guide of so many generations."-(P. 92.)

We must now take leave of Mr. Blunt's book, with the hope that many of our clerical readers may be induced by our commendations, and even by our criticisms, to examine it for themselves.

W. G. HUMPHRY.

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MR.

The Conscience Clause: its History, Terms, Effect, and Principle. A
Reply to Archdeacon Denison. By JOHN OAKLEY, M.A. London:
Ridgway. 1866.

The Conscience Clause of the Education Department, illustrated from the
Evidence taken by the Select Committee of Education, and from the
Correspondence of the Committee of Council on Education. By JOHN
GELLIBRAND HUBBARD, M.P. London: Masters. 1865.

R. OAKLEY has had the courage to come forward as the champion of an unpopular cause against a formidable antagonist. For the last two years the name of Archdeacon Denison has been identified with the question of the Conscience Clause. If it had been invented for his special benefit, it could not more effectually have answered the purpose of giving him a grievance, and within the walls of the Jerusalem Chamber, and without, he has made the most of it. Easy as it is to mistake noise for strength, and the concerted action of a party for the utterance of the mind of the Church, it is probably no exaggeration to say that on this question he has a very large following among his brother clergy, and that many zealous laymen are ready to support him. The causes of this influence are not far to seek. Personal character, manifest earnestness, indomitable courage, oratorical power, these are combined in no ordinary measure in the leader of the movement against the Conscience Clause, and they qualify him for the post he has assumed. Few men living possess the demagogic power in a higher degree of excellence; and where he is en rapport with the demos, where he speaks to men whose convictions, feelings, prejudices he shares, he knows how to wield them at his will. With a skill in avoiding monotony which is either a natural gift or the growth of long practice, he knows how to pass from one rhetorical extreme to the other. Spurgeon is hardly more comic, Dr. Pusey

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