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CAPE OF GOOD HOPE.-Supply of Clergy.-In reference to the important diocese of Cape Town, the Annual Report of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel contains the following striking state

ment:

"Never, certainly, was the oft-repeated assertion, that the best way to procure a due supply of clergy for any colony is first of all to send a Bishop, more entirely made good than by the Bishop of Cape Town. His lordship was accompanied from England by the Hon. and Rev. H. Douglas, the Rev. H. Badnall, Dr. Orpen, Mr. J. Davidson, Mr. Wilson, Mr. Steabler, and Mr. Wheeler. He has since been followed, at various times, by the Rev. W. A. Newman, the Rev. James Green, Mt. Colin Campbell, and Mr. Bull; while the following important reinforcement to the Mission sailed by the Gwalior on Sunday, August 27th-the Ven. Archdeacon Merriman, the Rev. H. M. White, Fellow of New College; the Rev. George Thompson, W. Andrews, M.D., Mr. Henry T. Waters, Mr. James Baker, and Mr. Thomas Henchman. Last of all, the Rev. M. A. Camilleri sailed by the Zion, on the 16th September, for the Mission to the Mahometans in Cape Town. The Rev. H. Bousfield had been sent before by the Bishop to the island of St. Helena, which is comprised within the diocese of Cape Town."

CHINA. The Church at Hong Kong. The Rev. V. Stanton, British chaplain at Hong Kong, has formally applied, in a letter dated April 24th, 1848, to the Lord Bishop of London for a licence to perform Divine service in the newly-erected church at Hong Kong, until an opportunity may offer for its consecration, stating that the building was expected to be completed about the middle of September. The following extracts from the chaplain's letter will be read with interest:

"There will be accommodation for about 900 persons, which is much beyond our present requirements: supposing a large increase to the population and garrison, and a larger proportion of Protestants, a separate military service would secure the comfort of all.

"The church at Canton may be finished soon after, and the church at Shanghai in a month from the present time.

"I have also the prospect of commencing my Chinese school, with two English assistants, who I hope are now on their way.

"The English school is in a very satisfactory state, under a competent master; but we have no mistress, and Mrs. Stanton's time and strength are much occupied in supplying the deficiency. Her Majesty's Government have as yet given no assistance, notwithstanding repeated appeals; and the ordinary subscriptions falling short, I have suffered considerable loss."

Protestant Missionaries in China.-A printed list of Protestant missionaries, sent to China by different societies, has been forwarded to the Lord Bishop of London by the chaplain at Hong Kong, of which the following is a digest:

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EGYPT.-Letter from the Coptic Patriarch to the Archbishop of Canterbury. The following document possesses great interest, as a symptom of incipient communion between the English and the Eastern Churches. It is an acknowledgment of 500 copies of the four Gospels in Coptic, which had been forwarded last year by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, for the use of the Christians in Egypt :"From Petros, Patriarch of Alexandria, Egypt, and Abyssinia, servant of Jesus Christ, to the Lordship of his beloved brother in the Spirit, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Canterbury. May God the Most High keep and preserve him. Amen.

"After presenting our salutation and hearty affection to your spiritual fraternity, (may God the Most High guard it from all evil and harm!) we state to your sincere and hearty love, that now, in the most pleasant of times and the best of hours, we were informed by our son, Mr. Lieder, of the succession of your Grace to the ministry of the office to which you have been called by the Father of lights. This gave us great joy and delight, and our heart rejoiced thereat. But we felt a great grief for the death of his Grace, who has received mercy, the Archbishop, your predecessor. And yet our grief turns to joy, as he is removed from a world of sorrows and misery to a world of bliss and eternity. May God the Most High, through His favour, extend your days for a long time in that office, and make you a blessed means of promoting true Christian knowledge in perfect peace and tranquillity; as we hear of you good and agreeable reports. We inform your Grace, our brother, that we have received the five hundred copies of the Arabic and Coptic four Gospels. They are properly distributed gratis to every one that desires them. There have also arrived, through our son, Mr. Lieder, six hundred copies of the Homilies of St. Macarius in Arabic, which are also distributed gratis amongst such as wish them. We pray our Lord and God to reward you for this, with such things as, eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man; that is, permanent things for temporary ones, and heavenly things for those that are earthly, in the kingdom of heaven, in accordance with your desire and wish, from the favour of the Most High God, for your labours, which we hope to be one day by His beneficence and goodness rewarded in the world to come. Moreover, you say that if we should wish to have more of the Coptic Gospels, after these are distributed, you would send us as many. We, our brother, pray and beseech Christ our God to pour upon you His spiritual benefits, and to

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keep you and prolong your period and your peace, out of the abundance of His grace and mercy, and that He may shed over you a shower of His heavenly blessings and Divine favours. May you continue to be surrounded with felicity by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternity. And praise be to God for ever and ever. Amen. "The 8th of Bashans, 1565, Coptic era, or

2

15th of May, 1848."

FRANCE.-The Romish Church and the Republic.-The position of the Romish clergy in their relation to the republic, though less precarious than it was three months ago, is yet far from secure, and infinitely less favourable to their Ultramontane aspirations than the clergy themselves anticipated in the early days of the republic. The factitious éclat which followed the death of the Archbishop of Paris, for a moment revived their hopes; but the unceremonious manner in which the Minister of Worship cashiered an ordinance of the Archbishop issued a short time before his death, and another ordinance by the Chapter, intended to carry out the views of the former, for regulating the ecclesiastical rank of the assistant clergy and the distribution of the surplice fees, soon convinced the clergy that the eulogies passed by the republic upon the "martyrdom" of Mgr. Affre were the extent of advantage which the Church would derive from that circumstance. Several of the questions affecting the future position of the Church have, it is true, been decided in a conservative sense; more especially the nomination to vacant bishoprics, and the support of the clergy, as heretofore, by a charge upon the budget. Nevertheless, the influence of the Church is evidently but small, and the Bishops and Priests who have found their way into the National Assembly are disappointed in

2 The following comments on this event in the John Bull present the whole matter in its true aspect:

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"A Christian pastor-going forth with the cross in his hand, as a messenger of peace, to arrest the fury of civil war-is a spectacle which cannot but command the admiration of the beholder, and death, while so engaged, is heroic death, but one step removed from the glory of martyrdom. Such would have been the judgment, such the feeling with which we must have regarded the death of the Archbishop, had we been ignorant of his antecedents. We will not stop now to inquire why he did not volunteer the service of mediator, in which at last he lost his life, at the beginning of the fearful catastrophe, before the blood flowed in rivers, and the streets were strewn with thousands of the slain-why he offered his mediation only when the "insurrection" was practically subdued, when the side with which the victory would remain could no longer be doubtful. The motives, the calculations which caused him to suspend his action till that moment, can be judged of only by Him who searcheth the hearts. But we dare not lose sight of the part which the deceased prelate enacted four months ago-when he, whom the favour of Louis-Philippe and his devout queen had raised from a low and obscure condition, and placed on the see of the capital of France, did not give his royal master and benefactor time to get out of hering of his orisons, before he discarded him from his prayers, and substituted successful rebellion under the name of the Republic, as the object of his intercession, in his time-serving litanies. Far be it from us to presume to scan the mysteries of Divine government; yet is there truth in the question, though it was a Jezebel that asked it, 'Had Zimri peace, who slew his master??"

VOL. X.-NO. XIX.-SEPT. 1848.

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their expectations. A striking proof of their real insignificance was afforded by the spirit in which the Assembly received, or rather scouted, the proposal of M. Sibour to procure for the workmen in factories cessation from labour on Sunday, which received support only from a few members of the extreme right, and from a portion of the Communists. Even in the Committee of Worship the clerical members find it difficult to maintain their ground in defence of ecclesiastical principles; and the freedom with which its deliberations have been commented upon, even by the Ami de la Religion, has provoked, in the first instance, a remonstrance from the Bishop of Langres, who is a member of the Committee, and who deprecated this aggravation of the difficulties experienced by himself and his colleagues, and subsequently a resolution of the Committee not to suffer the result of its deliberations to transpire for the future. Whatever that may be, and whatever decisions the Assembly may come to hereafter on the Report of the Committee, it is evident already that the freedom of action of the Romish Church in France will not be greater under the republic than it was under the rule of Louis-Philippe.

Proposed Restoration of Pantheistic Idolatry.-The frightful extent to which irreligion is concerned in the present social revolution in France, may be collected from the following extracts from some of the leading journals. Any description that we could give would at once exceed the bounds of credibility, and fall short of the reality; we therefore prefer transcribing the original documents. The first extract, taken from the National, proposes to abrogate all religion properly so called, and to substitute in its place a social theory.

"There is no mistaking it, whatever priestly conclaves may say, all moral authority, that which must preside over the eternally upward movement of the human race, is no longer to be found in theological dogmas. Progress is laical, and the march of civilization advances entirely apart from Catholicism; consequently, all moral authority now resides in that heirloom of truth which successive generations bequeath to each other, constantly increasing it by the incessant labour of thought. The theological law is evicted, and civil law has in its place become a dogma. All the progressive developments of mankind towards perfection will henceforth be recorded in the constitutions, and resolve themselves into duties of a higher order and a more holy character. The constitutions are the religious codes of modern times. This is the reason why, through an invariable instinct, the French people have striven to sum up in their different constitutions the substance of universally-recognized moral and political verities."

A step further in advance, in the development of this theory of irreligion, the Démocratie Pacifique propounds the following blasphe

mies:

"The whole sum of the work of the bourgeoisie is contained in the religious question. It has most properly overthrown that avenging and wrathful feudal and monarchical God, who reckoned many reprobates and few elect. But, alas! it has found nothing but dry metaphysics,

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