speak a word in season to him that is weary. Help us to labour to be accepted of thee, and make us workmen that need not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

"O Lord, do thou make us wise to win souls, accounting this our chief wisdom and our great gain. Thus may we obtain the blessedness and glory of those who turn many to righteousness, and who shall find them to be their joy and crown of rejoicing in the day of Christ.

"We commit, O Lord, our respective parishes and flocks unto thee. We earnestly beseech thee to pour out thy Spirit upon them, and to give an effectual blessing to every effort which we make for the salvation of our fellow-sinners. Bless our schools and teachers, and all who help us in them. Prosper our religious and benevolent societies. Grant that multitudes may, through our ministry, be brought to repentance towards thee, and to faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, and so with us may attain eternal life. Give to us every one the full joy of seeing spiritual children walking in the truth, and adorning the doctrine of God our Saviour. Let them be filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ to thy praise and glory. Oh that at last we may have to give account of those committed to our trust, not with grief, but with joy.

"Prepare each of us, and prepare also thy people committed to our charge, for the coming, the judgment, and the kingdom of our Divine Redeemer. Let none of us be like the wicked and slothful servant, who deceives himself by saying in his heart, my lord delayeth his coming. Let us rather be sober, and watch unto prayer. Grant unto all of us to be faithful and wise servants in the household in which thy Providence has placed us, giving to all their meat in due season, that they may be ready when the Son of Man cometh. Grant that each of us may, in our measure, be the salt of the earth, never losing its savour; and the light of the world, so shining that by our good works, thou, our Father, mayst be glorified.

"Oh that without exception every one of us may now preach the word, be instant in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine, watch in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of evangelists, and make full proof of our ministry. Oh grant that when the Lord Jesus Christ shall judge the quick and dead at his appearing and kingdom, we may hear addressed to each one of us those gracious words, Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee a ruler over many things; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord!'

"Bless the whole Church of Christ in every land, and especially that part of thy Church to which we belong. Bless all that are in authority over us, both in Church and State. Send forth labourers into the harvest. May all who believe in Christ become one in him and in thee. Bring in the fulness of the Gentiles, and let all Israel be saved. Let thy kingdom come, and the whole earth be filled with thy glory. Hear us for his name's sake, to whom with thee, O Father, and thee O Holy Ghost, be all honour and glory, now and for ever. Amen. Our Father, &c."

49

METROPOLITAN ABUSES.-No. IV. FUNERALS.

To the Editor of the Churchman,

SIR, Your readers are perhaps not aware of the distinction existing between duties and half duties, to say nothing of nils. They shall be enlightened. A duty" signifies a funeral performed according to the rites and ceremonies of the English Church. A "half duty" one wherein the corpse is not brought to the Church, and the part of the service therein appointed to be read is omitted. It is an indulgence granted to the officiating minister and his attendants, in return for the remission of a certain part of the fees-the indulgence, of course, extends to sexton and clerk. The remission, I believe, does not lighten the pockets of those useful and ornamental appendages. The "nil" is like the half duty as to work, but not as to pay; the whole of the fees being in these cases remitted.

When a stranger seeks a burial certificate, a dialogue similar to the following takes place frequently between him and Gabriel Grub. "What's that N?" "Oh, sir, that stands for nil-that's a pauper." "What's that HD?" "Oh, that's a half duty-that's a species of pauper!" When a young novice is about to officiate, the same Mentor will explain" you must do the half duty first, sir," or "you must finish the duty first, sir: you know they pay, and so they expect to be attended to first." I need not apply terms of reprobation to such feelings and such practices: they will occur to every Christian Churchman who peruses this communication. It is not enough that the uncatholic and unchristian distinctions of exclusive caste and exclusive wealth haunt the poor man from his cradle to his tomb, maintained even in the area of our very churches-there, where the poor and the rich meet together in the presence of the Lord, the maker of them all, but they are perpetuated even in the last rites which commit his body to the ground-perpetuated when the spirits of the departed are already resting in sure hope of a glorious resurrection, or trembling in the certainty of future retribution.

The origin of the term "half duty" is a corruption of the words "half dues." It would almost seem that the actors on these occasions bore an involuntary testimony to their own defaults; acknowledging by the name thus absurdly used, that their DUTY had but been half done. It is to make up, however, for such defects, a practice, truly Romish in name, has been resorted to a regular work of supererogation, entitled a double duty. This term signifies a funeral of one not belonging to the parish, and who therefore pays double fees. I do not mean to censure this proceeding, but merely to explain the meaning, and remark upon the singularity of the appellation.

It sometimes occurs that a half duty funeral comes from the workhouse a disgusting specimen of human heartlessness and human folly; for what more disgusting can well be imagined than the conduct of those whose indifference would consign their relation to a bastile, yet whose vulgar pride rejoices in "burying him like a gentleman." Truly does this exemplify the epitaph, " He asked for bread, and they gave him a stone."

E

This system of continuing the distinction betwixt rich and poor, even in those rites of the Church which commit the body to the ground, was in one instance to my knowledge wisely done away with, without injuring the incumbent's income. The poor were allowed the whole service for the price they had been accustomed to pay for half of it; and the more affluent parishioners paid a slight additional sum, increasing in proportion to the amount of their rates. I shall, in conclusion, speak of two other customs, the one of which is partial and iniquitous, the other general and legitimate, but certainly much to be deprecated.

The first is that of the existence of certain individuals called bearers, acknowledged by the parochial authorities as such, and possessing a monopoly; so that if their services are not made use of, they must still be paid for. This is the source of great inconve nience; for it detains the clergyman and his attendant during the intervals occurring between the approach of the various corpses, which must, in some cases, he of long duration; else it compels the parties burying the corpses to undergo a useless and groundless charge-a mere parish job.

The second is that of Sunday funerals. Now, besides the inappropriateness of the funeral service to the festival commemorative of our Lord's resurrection, there are many evils attending the practice. The crowding the church just before divine service commences -the injuring the atmosphere at such a time by the introduction of corpses the desecration of the day which too often follows, and the increase of labour thereby given to those who have already a great deal more labour to perform than it is right they should be compelled to perform-I mean the clergyman and his official attendants. All these things are serious objections-objections which, in my opinion, are far more than sufficient to outweigh the untenable arguments pleaded on the other side.

In bringing this short series of papers to a conclusion, I feel it my duty, as well as my delight, to assure both yourself and your contributors, that in drawing your attention to the abuses which I have enumerated, I have done so with the view, not of censuring the offenders, but of correcting the offences-offences they are, you must allow, and those of no small moment; yet they are rendered, perhaps, more apparent by the many excellences of the London clergy.

Had I been seeking for merit instead of faults, for perfections instead of blemishes, I might well have remarked, that, if London be pre-eminent in crime, it is alike pre-eminent in virtue. I might have descanted on reverences devoted to the glory of God-the ministrations of his Church, the instruction of his people, and the relief of his poor-of the warmth of youth, the prudence of manhood, and the caution of age, employed in the same holy work of unwearying energy, unabating zeal, unbounded charity, and unhesitating faith-of learning and eloquence, and far, far more, the bright bounding days of the spring of life-all, all offered up at the shrine of the King of kings. Yes, let the Romanist boast as he rightly

may of Francis Xavier, and such as him, there are parishes in the metropolis that might show zealous priests of the most high God, worthy to be ranked with the apostle of the Indies. I am, Sir, ANGLO-CATHOLICUS.

TRADITION.

To the Editor of the Churchman.

SIR,-Although I have no claim upon your indulgence for any further room in your pages for the discussion of the question of patristical interpretation, yet I have lately found a passage in the writings of Bishop Hurd so remarkably corroborative of the view I have taken of the subject, that, if you will give me leave, I will place. it before your readers. It is extracted from his very valuable "Introduction to the Study of the Prophecies concerning the Christian Church, and in particular concerning the Church of Papal Rome." (Vol. ii. serm. 12, pp. 213-217. Fifth Edition).

"This conclusion, that the Pope is Antichrist, and that other, that the Scripture is the sole rule of Christian faith, were the two great principles on which the Reformation was originally founded. How the first of these principles came to be disgraced among ourselves, I have shown in another discourse (serm. viii). It may now be worth while to observe, in one word, through what fatal mismanagement the latter principle was even generally disavowed and deserted.

"When the Reformers had thrown off all respect for the Papal chair, and were for regulating the faith of Christians by the sacred Scriptures, it still remained a question on what grounds those Scriptures should be interpreted. The voice of the Church, speaking by her schoolmen and modern doctors, was universally, and without much ceremony, rejected. But the fathers of the primitive Church were still in great repute among Protestants themselves, who dreaded nothing so much as the imputation of novelty, which they saw would be fastened on their opinions, and who besides thought it too presuming to trust entirely to the dictates of what was called the private spirit. The Church of Rome availed herself with dexterity of this prejudice, and of the distress to which the Protestant party was reduced by it. The authority of these ancient and venerable interpreters was sounded high by the Roman Catholic writers; and the clamour was so great and so popular, that the Protestants knew not how, consistently with their own principles, or even in mere decency, to decline the appeal which was thus confidently made to that tribunal. The Reformers, too, piqued themselves on their superior skill in ancient literature, and were ashamed to have it thought that their adversaries could have any advantage against them in a dispute which was to be carried on in that quarter. Other considerations had, perhaps, their weight with particular churches: but for these reasons chiefly, all of them forwardly closed in with the proposal of trying their cause at the bar of the ancient Church; and thus, shifting their ground, maintained henceforth, not that the Scriptures

were the sole rule of faith, but the Scriptures as interpreted by the primitive fathers.

"When the state of the question was thus changed, it was easy to see what would be the issue of so much indiscretion. The dispute was not only carried on in a dark and remote scene, into which the people could not follow their learned champions, but was rendered infinitely tedious, and indeed interminable. For those early writers, now to be considered as of the highest authority,* were voluminous in themselves, and what was worse, were composed in so loose, so declamatory, and often in so hyperbolical a strain, that no certain sense could be affixed to their doctrines; and anything or everything might with some plausibility be proved from them.

"The inconvenience was sensibly felt by the Protestant world. And after a prodigious waste of industry and erudition, a learned foreigner, M. Daillé, at length showed the inutility of pursuing the contest any further. In a well considered discourse on the use of the fathers, he clearly evinced that their authority was much less than was generally supposed in all points of religious controversy, and that their judgment was especially incompetent in those points which were agitated by the two parties. He evinced this conclusion by a variety of unanswerable arguments; and chiefly by showing that the matters in debate were, for the most part, such as had never entered into the heads of those old writers, being indeed of much later growth, and having first sprung up in the barbarous ages. They could not, therefore, decide on questions which they had no occasion to consider, and had, in fact, never considered, however, their careless or figurative expressions might be made to look that way by the dexterous management of controversialists.

"This discovery had great effects. It opened the eyes of the more candid and intelligent enquirers. And our incomparable Chillingworth, with some others, took the advantage of it to set the controversy with the Church of Rome once more on its proper foot, and to establish for ever the old principle that the Bible, and that only, interpreted by our best reason, is the religion of Protestants." With regard to the Pope, or rather the Papacy, being Antichrist, Scripture we know says, "there are many Antichrists." And in this lower sense doubtless it is an Antichrist, as being an eminent opposer of the true and pure doctrine of Christ; but I quite agree with Mr. Faber in thinking that it is not THE Antichrist spoken of (1 John ii. 22), although it is beyond all reasonable doubt, as Bishop Van Mildert called it," the great apostasy from the truth, the declared object of divine displeasure;" and typified, as Mr.

* I know that Mr. Faber disclaims their absolute authority in any sense except that of being witnesses to facts; but this amounts in reality to the same thing as a de facto authority. It should likewise be remarked that these facts, of which they are supposed to be witnesses, are not historical facts, but the sense of doctrinal Scripture. In vain shall we search for any absolute judge in religious matters; it is inconsistent with the present condition of human nature, and I wish I could persuade every one who reads this letter to consult on this subject Mr. Holden's excellent " Treatise on Tradition."