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This table goes to prove two things. First, that the educational. efforts of the Church are at least eight times as energetic as those of dissenters and secularists (only a third of our Church schools receiving Government aid): and secondly, that Government grants some how or other, come to be made on a much more liberal scale to non-Church than to Church schools.

In illustration of the latter point, take the following.

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It is worth observing also that Churchmen with their vast engagements for Church work are at least as liberal towards their schools as Dissenters are to theirs.

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These figures go far, we consider, to strengthen our remarks on the satisfactory condition of Church schools in an article contained in our January number, and incline us to believe that Mr. Mann's famous Educational Census was as unfair to the Church as his Religious Census.

That gentleman plausibly stated that "For many years past, at least four-fifths of all the children who have passed through public schools must have been instructed in the schools of the Church of England." The above summary would seem to indicate that the rate for the years 1839 to 1855 inclusive must be much higher than four-fifths. And we should not be surprised to find the words of the Government returns in 1833 more than true of 1857. "The Infant and Daily schools established by Dissenters appear by the returns to contain one in twenty-four of the children so educated."

Our object in making these remarks is to warn our readers against being misled by any House of Commons or platform sophistries, and to give additional force to the warning we gave before, that our "strength is to sit still," and use wisely and energetically the enormous power for good which God has placed in our hands.

REVIEWS AND NOTICES.

Life's a Dream: from the Spanish of Calderon, with an Essay on his life and genius. By R. C. TRENCH. London: J. W. Parker and Son.

THIS is a charming volume, were it only for the admirably pure English in which it is written. Certainly Mr. Trench's own style (although the greater part of his volume, he tells us, was written twenty years ago) is the best argument he could produce in favour of the "study of words," and the graceful ease with which he translates from the Spanish is doubtless owing to the same cause.

The work begins with an interesting sketch of the life of Calderon. There has ever been, as Mr. Trench tells us, "great divergence and disagreement in the estimates which have been formed of the ethical worth of this poet," but his own view is strictly in accordance with that of the two Schlegels, who both looked upon him with unbounded admiration. "In this great and divine master the enigma of life is not merely expressed, but solved," were the words of Frederic Schlegel. And again, "In every situation and circumstance, Calderon is, of all dramatic poets, the most Christian;" while Augustus speaks of him as that "blessed man who had escaped from the wild labyrinths of doubt unto the stronghold of belief, from whence with undisturbed tranquillity of soul he beheld and pourtrayed the storms of the world."

These opinions appear to us to be undoubtedly borne out by the specimen translations which Mr. Trench offers to us. Calderon was first a soldier, then a courtier, afterwards a priest, and always a dramatist ; and his numerous dramas and poems partake of the character of these different eras of his life. His historic and other tragedies and comedies, as well as his mythological poems, betoken great genius; but it was, as Mr. Trench tells us, " in the distinctly religious drama that he at last met all the requirements of his soul. His two vocations of dramatist and priest were here at length reconciled in highest and most harmonious atonement; and from the finished excellence of these works in all their details he appears to have dedicated to them his utmost care, to have elaborated them with the diligence of a peculiar love."

Then follows an account of Calderon's autos-(a name taken from the word "act," and originally given to any kind of dramatic composition, but afterwards restricted only to religious compositions.) These are legitimately descended from the mysteries, or miracle plays of mediæval times; and judging from the fragments given by Mr. Trench, they are full of a wonderful depth and sublimity. He gives us copious and very beautiful translations from two of them- "Life's a dream," and "The Great Theatre of the World." Of these the first is perhaps the most elegant as a composition, but the second appears to us much the most striking and original. We must, however, refer our readers

1 We notice with regret in several places an application of Scriptural terms which is scarcely reverent.

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to the work itself, as a brief extract would give no idea of the beauty of the whole. We will, however, gratify them with a few detached lines from one of Calderon's finest plays, entitled "The Devotion of the Cross."

"Tree which Heaven has willed to dower
With that True Fruit whence we live,-
As that other death did give-

Of new Eden loveliest flower;

Bow of Light that, in worst hour
Of the worst flood, signal true
O'er the world of mercy threw,
Fair Plant yielding sweetest wine,
Of our David harp divine,
Of our Moses Tables new.
Sinner am I, therefore I
Claim upon thy mercies make,
Since alone for sinners' sake,
GOD on thee endured to die;
And for me would GOD have died,
Had there been no world beside."

La Liturgie, ou le Formulaire des Prières Publiques et de l'Administration des Sacraments, &c. Londres: Imprimé aux pais de la Société pour la Publication de la Liturgie et des Homélies; et se trouve au dépôt, 18, Salisbury-square.

THIS fourth edition of the Book of Common Prayer is published by the Prayer Book and Homily Society, at the instigation, we believe, of the Bishop of Winchester; and it is quite worthy of the Bishop and of the Society. It might have been supposed that, after his melancholy blundering in the case of one French Prayer Book, the Bishop of Winchester would have ever after refrained from again intermeddling with another; but it seems not. We fear that the work before us is not likely to do much towards helping Dr. Sumner to redeem his lost character in the matter of French Prayer Books. It seems to be an old translation modernised and clumsily patched up here and there, and, with the exception of the Preface and Ordination Services, containing the usual amount of mutilations and suppression, to say nothing of numerous instances of incorrect rendering, and culpable falsification of the plain meaning of the English. Is there, let us ask, no law to prevent the publication of mutilated and falsified Prayer Books, even though when issued by the Prayer Book and Homily Society, under the auspices of the Bishop of Winchester?

:

Magdala and Bethany, a Pilgrimage. By the Rev. S. C. MALAN, Vicar of Broadwindsor, Dorset. London: Masters.

THIS very beautiful little work seems to us to exhibit precisely the temper and feelings with which the holy scenes of our LORD's life on earth ought to be visited. There is hardly one of the numberless books

of Eastern travel which does not grate upon us when it describes the Holy Land; but this little volume on the contrary tends only to elevate the mind, and to shame us out of our earthly thoughts. The deeply devotional spirit of the author breathes in every page, and renders it as instructive as it is interesting. We cannot give it higher praise than by saying that it is well suited to be taken as a companion for meditation in the approaching Passiontide.

Songs of Early Summers. By the Rev. ARCHER GURNEY.

We have no doubt that this striking volume will gain for the author that high reputation as a Christian poet which he so truly deserves. We regret much that our space does not permit us, at least on this occasion, to give extracts from some of the fine poems with which the work abounds; but we do not wish to delay commending it to the attention of our readers. They will find the Ballads and Romances especially attractive while in the graver portion they will experience sensible comfort and refreshment from the hearty earnestness of the author's love and devotion for the Church of England.

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The Colonial Church Chronicle closes its tenth volume with the December number, and the volume is henceforth to commence in January, instead of (as heretofore) in June. With the January number there is given a very carefully-drawn and complete index of the whole of these ten volumes, which is likely to prove very serviceable. We cordially recommend this well-principled and ably-conducted periodical, which, besides being a useful record of missionary intelligence from all parts of the world, and embodying many important documents of permanent value, contains also valuable original papers bearing upon the condition and progress of the Church abroad, in which all Churchmen cannot but feel deeply interested.

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The Rector's Address to the Parishioners of S. Giles'-in-the-Fields, has just been placed in our hands. We may gather from it some information, as to the qualifications for the Episcopate, in the eyes of the Palmerstonian administration. We thus learn that in this immense parish there are only six clergy-two, this rector and one curate, at the parish church; two at Trinity Church (where, by-the-by, the altar is of stone); one at Christ Church; one at West-street Episcopal Chapel. But there are nine Scripture Readers, or City Missionaries, bearing out what we said in our last number, that clergy of a certain school prefer paying others to be Scripture Readers, to being Scripture Readers themselves. We gather further, that the parish church is closed for public worship from Sunday to Sunday, except Friday evenings, when there is " a full service," (what can that mean?) and a sermon; that the Holy Communion is only celebrated on the first Sunday in the month (on which day there is an early as well as late celebration); and that whilst Good Friday has a Communion, Ascension-Day has

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There is the same meagre provision of services and communions at Trinity Church, and West-street Episcopal Chapel; whilst Christchurch, Endell-street, has two daily services and communion twice a month; but we believe that this church is less influenced by the Rector. There are of course a sufficient number of Teachers' meetings, Bible classes, &c., besides a "controversial class for inquiring Romanists;" and at Trinity, where controversial sermons are regularly preached, a Bible class for converts from Romanism. Altogether, we have seldom seen so poor a specimen of Church-of-England work, in a large town parish; and having heard so much of Bishop Bickersteth's parochial zeal, we were not prepared to find the people so systematically stinted of their Church privileges. Of the address itself, its private nature forbids us to say much. It may be sufficient to observe, that it reads like one of the Rector's old sermons, ending, according to rule, with the appeal to the "converted" and "unconverted ;" and that there is not the slightest allusion to Baptism, or Confirmation in it, from beginning to end, and the very faintest notice of Holy Communion. One would have thought, even on the "renewal of baptismal vows" theory, some place might have been found, in a Rector's parting address, for Confirmation. We can only hope that all sound churchmen in Ripon, clergy and laity, will resolutely hold their own, against any attempt on the part of their new Bishop to introduce "the use" of S. Giles' among them. We do not remember a more insulting appointment to have ever been made.

When we first opened Mr. CHAFFER's Sermons on the Ten Commandments (Rivingtons), we were disposed to class the volume among those many books, of which there seems indeed, according to the saying of the Wise Man, to be no end. A few pages, however convinced us that there was an originality about the author's manner of expounding the Decalogue for the use of a middle-class congregation, which made it deserving of more than a passing notice. In the sermons themselves there is a vein of strong common sense, mixed with principles only here and there otherwise than sound; and notes of some extent are inserted in various parts of the volume which are calculated to prove useful to the not very deeply-read persons for whom it is intended. For a second edition we should advise a reconsideration of the commentary and note on the Second Commandment. Mr. Chaffer considers that figures of our Blessed LORD, or the Saints, are allowable in churches, if used in composition, that is as portions of an historical subject; but that if exhibited in any isolated position, whether in stained glass or sculpture, they are extremely liable to be "worshipped." He also thinks the Cross is unobjectionable on the back of a Prayer-Book, on the outside of a Church, or even within the House of GOD, if in the latter case it be not "ostentatiously" displayed. What constitutes "ostentation," in the public display of the Cross by the Church of the Crucified, the author does not say; and perhaps he, and those (not a few) who take up the same ground with him, would find it hard to give a commonsense reason why the sacred symbol of the Faith should be displayed, if at all, in any other than the most public manner in a Christian Church. With respect to the other, we should think Mr. Chaffer had some ground for his remark, if he could point out a single authentic instance

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