The Monthly Packet of Evening Readings for Younger Members of | the English Church. London: J. & C. Mozley. 1864.-The twenty-sixth volume of this useful series fairly keeps up its previous standard. We cannot say much for the very elaborate fairy tale of "Prince Pertinax;" but Miss Yonge's name is a tower of strength, and the new links of the "Daisy Chain" stretch pleasantly through the volume.

Plain Thoughts on Important Church Subjects. By the Ven. R. C. Coxe, M.A., Archdeacon of Lindisfarne. London and Oxford: Rivingtons. A collection of half-a-dozen short, plain, and practical discourses upon the Administration and Authority of the Church, the Sin and Danger of Schism, the Right and Duty of Private Judgment, and Creeds and Confessions of Faith. The following extract will show the clear, practical tone of the book :

"Avoiding thus all tyrannous control over the conscience, imposing upon her members no coercive restraint, our Church does nevertheless require from them, whilst they abide with her, the recognition of certain rules; and these rules extend beyond mere rites and ceremonies to matters of faith. The Church hath power in the one, and authority-authority of weight and influence-in the other. And nothing short of this can be required. For if any aggregation of men are to form a religious society, they must define what the religion is to be. A total absence of all restraint in this matter no more constitutes religious liberty, than the absence of all law would constitute civil freedom. Such a thing is absurd in theory, and must always prove abortive in practice."

The Schooling of Life. By R. St. John Tyrwhitt, M.A. London: Macmillan and Co. 1864.-A short collection of moral essays, originally preached as sermons. Good as far as they go. To professing Christians we hardly see the object of appealing as Theists. Still, there can be no doubt but that the Anti-Christian speculations referred to in the following passage can ultimately tend to nothing but pure Atheism :

"Most men say they are Theists; at least, they object to the word Atheist. They may allow the word God in their mental dictionary; but as to His personality; as to His care for men, and for them; as to His anger with men's sin, or their sin that is not thought of. A Deity of abstract terms, described by negatives, they do not mind arguing from, or arguing about. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who spoke with Moses and appeared to Elijah, is not an abstract idea at all. If He be anything, He is our Lord and Master, and theirs also who tell us that our records concerning His doings are virtual

forgeries by men who dared falsely to call themselves prophets inspired of Him, or priests ministering by His special appointment, or kings ruling in His name. We are told, in fact, that we have no revelation concerning Him, that He hath not given us His word; and we are left to draw the conclusion that He hath not given us His Son."

Golden Words. The Rich and Precious Jewel of God's Holy Word. Prayer. The Lord's Supper. Christ Mystical. The Sabbath. Public Worship. The Art of Hearing. Walking with God. Faith. Repentance. And Passages on Miscellaneous Subjects. Being selections from the writings of Dean Addison, Bishop Babington, Dr. Barrow, Dr. Bates, Thomas Becon, John Bradford, Bishop Coverdale, Ralph Cudworth, Edward Dering, Dr. Donne, Anthony Farindon, Sir Matthew Hale, Bishop Hall, Richard Hooker, Bishop Hooker, Bishop Hopkins, Roger Hutchinson, Bishop Jewell, Archbishop Leighton, Dr. Lightfoot, Bishop Patrick, Bishop Pearson, Archbishop Sandys, Henry Smith, John Smith, Dr. South, Bishop Jeremy Taylor, William Tyndale, Henry Vaughan, John Wickliff, Bishop Wilkins, and George Wither. Oxford and London: J. H. and J. Parker. The title of this very valuable work speaks for itself. selection such as this cannot fail of being most useful. The volume is tastefully got up in antique style on deeply-toned paper, and contains, besides the extracts, a brief biographical sketch of each of the authors referred to in its pages.

S

CORRESPONDENCE.

Working Men's Franchise.

A

To the Editor of the "Church and State Review." IR,-I trust you will allow me to offer a few remarks upon an article in the last number of the Church and State Review, entitled "Democracy in Great Britain." The subject is one of deep interest at this juncture, and I dread the consequences of a mistake on the part of Churchmen and Conservatives. I go along with the article so far that I am surprised and dismayed to lose sight of the writer as he drops through the ground to his conclusion. I agree with him that Democracy is not the vice of working men; that, as a rule, they are more friendly to the aristocratical element than the lower division of the trading classes. I believe with him that they have no desire to sacrifice the Church to Dissent. It would be distrusting all our work of the last thirty years, not to place a large measure of confidence in those who have been educated in our schools and evangelized by our additional clergy.

So far I am thoroughly at one with the writer of the article. But when from these premisses he would draw the conclusion that an extension of the electoral franchise to the working classes is to be resisted by Churchmen and Conservatives, I am lost in astonishment. He observes, very truly, that the franchise is not valued by many who already possess it. "I cannot say that I always

know what to do with it myself. But it is a great mistake to infer from the apathy of some who are full, that no hunger exists among those who are excluded from the political repast.

We who live in towns know that the working classes do very ardently desire the elective franchise. We have no wish to provoke any more tumultuous manifestation of that desire. At a recent meeting in this city I was much moved by the complaint of a working man, that those who came among them seeking their moral and religious improvement, opening new churches and schools, and entreating their friendship, always turned round upon their political aspirations. Such was not the wisdom of the Church in her best days. It was never her policy to distrust her own children. The representative system Have was devised in her bosom, and copied from her synods. we forgotten that it was the Church who enunciated the famous maxim, Quod omnes tangit ab omnibus tractari debet?

As a Church question, then, I draw exactly the opposite conclusion. Seeing that the electoral franchise is already possessed by the small shopkeepers and others, who form the strength of Dissent, I should deem it a measure of safety to open the door to those who have been more specifically the objects of the Church's labours, and are not so embittered against her claims and property.

Neither can I think it the policy or interest of the Conservative party to keep the door shut. It is singular enough that of the two theories of representation which your article attributes to Lord Palmerston and Mr. Gladstone respectively, that which the writer selects for approval is, historically, the Whig theory. Lord Palmerston stated it almost in the words of Mr. Fox, quoted also by Sir James Graham in defence of Lord John Russell's Reform Bill. The view condemned in Mr. Gladstone was maintained by Pitt, and warmly insisted upon by Sir Robert Peel in the debates of 1831-32.

It was the Reform Bill which first introduced the ten-pound household suffrage, and introduced it for the special purpose of strengthening the Whig party. Lord Grey and the majority of his Cabinet would never hear of any lower standard; but among the arguments of Sir Robert Peel the most telling was the disfranchisement of the working classes by taking away the votes of freemen, scot and lot householders, potwallopers, &c. The ConBill abrogated in order to give a monopoly of the franchise to the servatives then maintained the old constitution, which the Reform

"middle classes."

When a similar "reform" was proposed of the Municipal Corporations in 1835, it was Sir W. Follett who moved an amendment to preserve the rights of freemen; and the Whig Attorney-General, Sir John Campbell, who denounced them "as notoriously worthless and venal." Sir Robert Peel and Lord Stanley urged that poverty did not imply venality, and that the freemen had been recognised from time immemorial as an essential part of the constituencies of the kingdom. All that Lord John Russell would concede, however, was a reservation of the rights of then existing freemen. I need not remind you that the "freemen" were emphatically the working classes in the old constitution. It was the right of industry as distinguished from property, and was deemed for centuries a sound basis for the political franchise.

The Conservative Reform Bill of 1859 opened the franchise so widely, that Mr. Walpole and Mr. Henley declined to agree to it. Yet both those cautious leaders advocated a six-pound franchise, and supported it quite as strongly as Mr. Gladstone does now. In the face of these precedents it cannot be contended that Conservatives are bound to maintain the franchise at the novel standard to which it was raised by Lord Russell.

I do not pretend to be a politician, but no reflecting person at all acquainted with the popular feeling in towns can doubt that some large extension of the franchise will be insisted upon. Parliamentary leaders on both sides are committed to the principle. If Sir Robert Peel could vindicate the working men's claims in all the excitement of the political revolution of 1832, it would be idle to attempt to resist them in a time of profound tranquillity, when thirty years of unexampled progress in industry and knowledge have so largely augmented their numbers and qualifications.

The qualification, indeed, cannot be disputed; it must be a question of numbers only. It was objected to the Reform Bill of 1859, that the new voters would be so numerous as to "swamp" the existing county constituencies. That is a sound and intelligible objection, and one that can be assigned with a certain prospect of success. The existing constituencies hold the decision in their own hands, and the working men are not so unreasonable as to expect a monopoly of the franchise. On the other hand, they will not consent to be put off with nothing for fear of their getting too much.

Surely, then, the wise, and safe, and just course, is to enter honestly and kindly on this question before the working classes are exaspe rated by a longer exclusion. In this city, I understand, a 67. franchise would add 25 per cent. to the constituency. I do not think that too much. Ät Sheffield I have heard it said the addition would exceed 100 per cent. This is a fair subject for investigation. It may probably turn out that Mr. Disraeli was right in objecting to rest the franchise altogether on the novel basis of a uniform rating. The old constitution found expansion in variety. These are proper questions for statesmen. Our business is to prevent the working classes from coming into the franchise with a feeling of irritation against the Church. I can understand the opposition of the Times, which represents the moneyed classes, and, moreover, enjoys the privilege of changing sides at the shortest notice; but I cannot under

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