pointed out to them other rubrics and canons which no one, even of the highest Oxford school, so much as dreams of carrying into practice. And he might have pointed out the deception and dishonesty of which their teachers were guilty, in selecting two or three requirements which best answered the purpose of a slight approximation to Romanism, and of intrenching somewhat on the preaching of the gospel; and pressing these, as a matter of conscience, without reference to a variety of other rubrical and canonical provisos, equally binding, but which, for some reason or other, they wholly pass over. Up to this period, however, the damage done to the Church by these follies is but partial. In various parishes, indeed, the incumbents or curates, smitten with the influenza of the day, have gone into divers of these extravagancies, and have, in greater or less degree, driven away their flocks, and filled to overflowing the dissenting chapels. Within the space of four and twenty hours it happened to us recently to hear of two different towns, (in Hertfordshire and in Hampshire respectively,) in which the introduction of these fancies has had the immediate effect, of upraising the previously drooping dissenting "interests," and filling the meeting-houses with new attendants. But these misfortunes are yet only visible here and there. The bulk of the clergy, we trust, and the great body of the laity, are yet untainted. It was a noble stand, which the diocese of London recently made, and by which a serious calamity was promptly averted. We now know, that if the recent "injunctions" had been submitted to, similar attempts would immediately have followed in other dioceses, and a scene of lamentable confusion would have occurred, in various parts of the kingdom. The active interposition of the laity averted this, by eliciting the Bishop's recent Letter, and thus re-establishing the liberty of the clergy. When we speak of any law or rubric as having become obsolete, it should be remembered that these things do not happen accidentally, or without cause. This especially applies to that part of the Church Service which the Tractarians are endeavoring to revive. The reason why it has fallen into disuse is quite obvious. The mode of concluding the Morning Service in our churches has generally been, by a short prayer and blessing after the Sermon, soon after which the organist plays a voluntary, and the people depart. That which the "revivers of rubrical practices would substitute, would be what may properly be called "The Offertory." It consists in the reading certain sentences on almsgiving; during which the alms of the people are collected from pew to pew and then the monies thus collected are brought to the communion-table, and there placed, while the minister reads a prayer for the church militant, in which particular allusion is made to them. Now the cause of the discontinuance of this weekly collection of alms is so evident as scarcely to require to be mentioned. In Scotland and in Ireland it has not been discontinued; in England it has. For this reason: Scotland and Ireland have allowed their poor to remain dependent on these weekly collections; but England has substituted in their room a general rate or levy for the poor. That the poor are thus far better provided for, is evident: the single fact establishes it, that the poor of Scotland and Ireland, driven from those lands by the fear of actual starvation, throng into England to share in the national bounty. In fact, the poor-rate raises five millions a year, and all that the highest expectation of a weekly offertory has ever been stated at, is half a million per annum, or one-tenth of the sum ! We ask, then,—the weekly offertory having thus been rendered unnecessary by the substitution of a better and a larger fund,-why is it to be restored? Archdeacon Hale's answer is, Consider, I beseech you, what vast good might be affected, were half a million of money per year to be thus collected, placed at the disposal of the bishops, and laid out for the welfare of the whole Church!! Some of these rubrical gentlemen are very fond of calling their fancies "restorations." Will they be kind enough to tell us where they find any trace, in the Church of England, of any such thing as this. "Half a million of money, to be placed at the disposal of the bishops!" What is this but an innovation: and one of no slight kind? The laity, however, will submit to nothing of the sort. They already raise the half million per annum, and divide it among the Church Missionary Society, Bible Society, Christian Knowledge Society, Jews' Society, Pastoral-Aid Society, &c. They do not, therefore, quarrel with the pecuniary part of the requirement, but they wholly disapprove of the breaking-up of these establishments, and placing this half million per annum "at the disposal of the bishops." There is, in fact, no synod, or known board of bishops, into whose hands the money could be committed. Nor is there any general consent or agreement among their Lordships, as to the views and objects to be promoted. Are the bishops of Exeter, Chester, and Norwich all of one mind, on all points? In behalf of whom,-of which of the three,-is this implicit confidence claimed? 1 Charge, p. 16. However " we war not with the dead." We have seen enough, in the course of the last six weeks, to convince us that the fancy of a revival of the "weekly offertory" is wholly and utterly impracticable. And we rather rejoice that Archdeacon Hale has so explicitly avowed this distinct object in the recent propositions; since, by the general alarm thereby created, the whole movement of the ultra-rubricians was the more promptly and entirely defeated. London: THE PASTOR CHIEF; or, the Escape of the Vaudois. A WE should not be doing justice to this very interesting book, by any abbreviation of its story. It is enough to state, that it places before our eyes many of the most heart-rending scenes of sorrow and suffering, when in 1686 the thirty-third persecution swept the Protestant valleys of St. Martino and Lucerna in Piedmont, and carried havoc and bloodshed into every, literally into every house and cottage, where the inhabitants refused to apostatize from the faith which their forefathers had avowed from generation to generation, from time immemorial. "Avenge, O Lord! thy slaughtered saints, whose bones So sung Milton in the year 1655, after the appalling massacre of the Vaudois in that year. Again, the same scenes were enacted within thirty years afterwards, but Henri Arnaud, the hero of the tale, did not exchange his pastoral staff for the soldier's sword until the martyred blood and ashes of 14,000 of his countrymen "sowed the Italian fields" once more, and there was no other way of resisting the "triple tyrant," and escaping the "Babylonian woe" but by an appeal to arms. It is not known how, or when, or by what powerful influence, the Vaudois community, an insignificant population of about 25,000, first obtained those charters and immunities by which they claimed the right of worshipping God in their own way, within certain tolerated limits, even in "Italian fields." But it is certain that the faith of princes was repeatedly pledged for the security of their rights, from time to time, long before the Reformation. A document of Charles Emmanuel, Duke of Savoy, dated 24th November, 1582, cites the charters to which his predecessors, Dukes Louis and Amadeus, had put their hands more than a cen tury before; the first of whom was reigning in 1451, and the latter in 1472. We have the very words of the document now before us, running thus. "Insieme con le confirmatione di tutti gl'altri nostri eccellentissime Antecessori," &c. Without the protection of such charters, what short of a miracle could have preserved the Vaudois through ages of Romish hostility? Again and again Rome importuned the Princes of Piedmont to root out the heretics. What came to their succour, even in the midst of impending ruin, what but the production of those charters? "By the sacred word of sovereigns and rulers, we appeal,” said the Vaudois to their princes, "to your own documents." "Is it not so, written in the archives of the house of Savoy, that we, the men of the vallies of Lucerna, Perosa, and San Martino, are free to worship God and to profess the faith of Christ after the manner of our fathers within these valleys!" There was no denial of this alleged fact, and a remnant was always spared after thousands had been sacrificed, and more victims were demanded to appease offended Rome. "Per In 1655, when every Protestant state in Christendom took part by intercession or threat, with the persecuted Vaudois, a patent was issued defining the limits, and the nature of the toleration. agreed upon. "We permit the free exercise of their religion, and liberty of conscience in all the places afore mentioned." mettiamo alli medesimé il libero esercitio della loro religione, e libertà di conscienza in tutti li luoghi nelle precedenti concessioni compresi, i quali non s' intenderanno nè ristretti, nè ampliati." Nine years afterwards this patent was confirmed and formally renewed, in the presence of the Vaudois deputies and Protestant ambassadors; it was sealed and signed by the royal hand; it was attested by the necessary witnesses; and copies of it were printed in the royal printing office of Turin. It went forth to the world that the reigning Duke of Savoy had in 1664, after the example of his ancestors, guaranteed the free exercise of their religion to the Waldensian community within the three valleys before mentioned. Can it be believed that the successor of that sovereign prince yielded to the false reasoning of his Romish counsellors, revoked his own promises, broke the plighted faith of his father, and issued an edict commanding the demolition of the Vaudois churches, and the banishment of Vaudois pastors and schoolmasters, prohibiting the public and private exercise of their religion, and ordering their children to be baptized according to the Romish rites, and the people to go to mass? It can be believed, because history records it, and because at this very time, while we are writing our remarks, the Waldensian church is again in jeopardy. In 1838 the present King of Sardinia was persuaded to sign a clause in the new code of Sardinia,1 which revived some of the intolerant edicts of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and after he had done so, he was alarmed by his own act, and kindly sent a message to the Vaudois assuring them of his protection. But in Piedmont the mitre is stronger than the crown, and in spite of the benevolent intentions of the sovereign, the Popish priesthood are urging on the local authorities to press hard upon the Vaudois. So recently as in the autumn of last year, a mandate issued from Pignerol, the capital of the province in which the Protestant valleys are situated, containing some menacing orders, and the government officer, the petty tyrant who signed it, had the hardihood to state that it was his intention to carry into effect "the edict of the 25th of February, 1602!” What next? What can follow the execution of an edict of 1602, but events which will be forerunners of persecutions similar to those narrated in the book which we are now noticing? The scenes that followed the edict of Victor Amadée in 1686 are dramatically represented in the "Pastor Chief," and we select one or two passages to show the beauty and vigour with which they are depicted, and to exhibit at the same time the tone and style of the author, which, with some few defects and inaccuracies, that admit of correction, are very pleasing! There is neither cant, nor mawkishness, nor affectation to difigure any part of these volumes; but throughout the whole of them there is a management of the subject, and there are proofs of a right appreciation of the power of virtue and religion over the human heart and conduct, and there is a dignity of thought and language, which make us enquire with no small degree of interest and curiosity who is the anonymous writer, and why has it been thought necessary to conceal the authorship of a book, which will take its place with the very best productions of the class to which it belongs? The first extract which we make is from the second chapter of the first volume. Alarming intelligence had reached the valleys that evil days were at hand, that the importunities of the Vatican, and of the court of Versailles, had induced the Duke of Savoy to join Louis the XIVth in a crusade against the Protestants of his dominions, and that soldiers were advancing towards La Torre and Angrogna to force obedience to his intolerant edicts. Prohibited from meeting in their usual places of worship, the Vaudois of Angrogna assembled in an amphitheatre of rocks to implore the succour of heaven, and to hear their pastor's exhortations. The scene is thus described: * 1 See Considerations on the present condition of the Waldenses. Murray. 1812. JUNE, 1843. 30 |