exclusively on the spiritual power of the bishop of Rome. This may sound strange to Protestant ears, but such is the fact. If the bishop of Rome had not a divine and canonical right to erect sees, and appoint bishops to them, beyond his own diocese or province, then he had no power to send Augustin to Britain-then the first archbishop of Canterbury was a nullity—then the whole canonical fabric of the English Church falls to the ground. It is known to every one who knows anything of the history of the present Church of England as by law established, that its only claim of a dubious title to a valid ecclesiastical ordination rests on the validity of the consecration of Matthew Parker, the first Protestant archbishop of Canterbury. If Barlow, the only real or supposed bishop who assisted at Parker's consecration, and whose title to a valid consecration is also very dubious-if said Barlow was not a validly consecrated Catholic bishop, then he could not confer valid consecration on Parker; but if Barlow was validly consecrated, that rests on the validity of the orders and consecration introduced into Britain by Augustin, who could claim no other title to his orders, or spiritual powers, except what he received in the first instance from the bishop of Rome. Hence, so far from rising up with an undutiful Protest against the power of the bishop of Rome, Dr. Broughton ought, in self-defence, to be the most strenuous advocate for the proper and canonical extent of that power, for without it he himself is no more that a mere layman, bearing some of the outward insignia of a Christian bishop! See to what awkward straits may a man be driven by a foolish protest! In order to remove two of the grounds which Dr. Broughton urges against the spiritual power of the bishop of Rome, the want, to wit, of the decree of any general council lawfully assembled, or through the mission of Augustin into Britain,' our esteemed correspondent in his first letter, which will be found elsewhere, shows, to the satisfaction of every candid mind, that the orders, and mission, and metropolitan jurisdiction of the first archbishop of the Anglo-Saxon Christian and Catholic Church, were totally and perfectly derived from St. Gregory, the bishop of Rome, and that this spiritual power was fully acknowledged and recognised in the bishop of Rome by the four first general councils, these very councils being admitted by the present Anglican Church to be true and genuine general councils, lawfully assembled. What say you to this, my lord bishop of Australia ?”

The following pastoral by His Grace the Most Rev. Dr. Polding is of a very different character from the circular letter and protest of Dr. Broughton :

"JOHN BEDE, by the grace of GoD and of the Holy Apostolic See, Archbishop of Sydney, Vicar Apostolic of New Holland

"To the clergy and faithful of the city of Sydney, and of the Apostolic Vicariate of New Holland-health and benediction in our Lord.

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Amongst the duties upon which St. Timothy, raised to the episcopal see of Ephesus, is required by St. Paul to insist, as good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour, are supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanks

givings for kings, and for all that are in high stations, that we may lead (observes the apostle) a quiet and peaceable life. Thus admonished by the apostle of the Gentiles, in the person of his disciple, we deem it incumbent on us, at an early period of our administration, to remind our beloved flock of this duty; and, in order to facilitate a faithful compliance with it, to ordain that it form a part of the devotional exercises of the Sunday. For this end, we order that in all our churches, before or after mass, shall be recited or sung the versicles, responses, and prayers usually inserted in our liturgy, under the head Pro Rege. To these shall be added another prayer for his Excellency the Governor, and for all in authority over us-that they may administer justice, and that under their rule we may dwell in unity, peace, and truth.

"And though the sublime principle of Christian allegiance, which teaches us to reverence in our Sovereign the minister of God's authority, ought chiefly to urge us to this duty, yet we cannot forget the many and endearing titles our gracious Queen has to our love and gratitude. The bishops of Rome, of Ephesus, of Smyrna, and of other cities, with the flocks under their care, prayed constantly and fervently for the well-being of the Pagan emperors under whom they lived; even when doomed to death, victims of unjust and barbarous laws, enacted and executed by these very emperors, they ceased not to offer up their supplications for them. How much more cogently are we pressed-not by the impulse of duty alone, but by every motive that can influence the affections-to pray for the eternal and temporal welfare of our gracious Sovereign Queen Victoria, whose delight is to behold happiness commensurate with the extensiveness of her sway, to know that all subject to her sceptre are in the full enjoyment of the means required for a life of quiet and of peace, unalloyed and undisturbed.

"The Grace of our Lord JESUS Christ be with you all. Amen.

"To be published in our metropolitan church of St. Mary, on Sunday, the 26th day of March, 1843."

THE MATIN HYMN.-(R. B.)

MARY, with her chaste kiss,

The feet of GOD caresses,

Waters with tears, anoints with nard

Those feet, dried with her tresses.

To GOD the Father glory be,

And to His only Son,

And to the Spirit Comforter,

Now and while ages run.

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NOTE TO "CHURCH OF ENGLAND AND CRIMES OF ENGLAND."

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THE Portfolio of last month contains an able and important review of Mr. Urquhart's letter to the Protestant bishop of Exeter, on "The Duty of the Church of England in respect to Unlawful Wars." The critique is a very fair one, so far as the letter in question is concerned; and the reviewer completely identifies himself with the views so admirably put forward by Mr. Urquhart. From thence, however, he proceeds to notice at some length the article on the same subject, which appeared in our July number, headed " Church of England and Crimes of England." Our readers will remember the pains we took, to lay before them, in a clear point of view, the sound and noble propositions defended by Mr. Urquhart. We showed that one and all of them belonged to Catholicity. One and all had received their sanction from the pages of our theologians, and the rescripts of our pontiffs. One and all had been illustrated by numerous examples, and of those examples every one was Catholic. There was not one solemn recognition of Mr. Urquhart's principles that did emanate from Protestantism. There was not one of the examples cited by himself that belonged to the Reformation!

What was, what must have been, our conclusion from such premisses? That the degeneracy and the spread of crime, over which we mourned with that illustrious author, demanded other remedies than those of Dr. Philpotts! Nulla salus extra Romam. The Holy See it was which called Christendom and her laws into existence. The Holy See alone could restore them to their ancient sanity and vigour. Unaided by Rome, from the Catholics of these realms little was to be hoped. They were themselves, in a great measure, victims of the contagion. That bold Christian civism, which Mr. Urquhart reproached his fellow Protestants for abandoning, their Catholic countrymen themselves had, we observed, almost utterly forgotten. The Catholic Church of England had, from the Reformation, we went on to say, gradually "subsided into a still and death-like repose." But this was but a local and temporary disorder; it extended not to the head, nor was it without its remedy. Rome was still in these days what she had been in the Middle Age. It was to Rome then, and to ecclesiastics devoted to Rome, that we looked, for the liberation of our country and ourselves from that state of degradation and darkness.

So

But we observed-(and none, we thought, who admitted all that had gone before could gainsay the observation)—that it was not for England to complain of Rome, for declining to interfere between her and her fate, until England herself ceased to forbid the interference. long as the fact, as well as the right, of the ecclesiastical supremacy,— notoriously possessed by the Pope over the Catholics of these realms, and, to that extent, sanctioned by our laws,-is, nevertheless, at the same time, and by compulsion of the same law, solemnly denied on oath by all the Protestants of these realms, it is hard to see how the same Protestants can upbraid us for asserting, that they have not, as yet, "entitled themselves to a renewal of maternal care in their regard, on the part of the Vatican. So long as it remains a crime, punishable by absolute and unconditional forfeiture of estate, and transportation beyond seas for the life of the offender, to belong to any male religious order or community, there is surely some reason for our assertion, that the state, which so persecutes monks and jesuits, has no legal claim upon them for protection. Our remarks were not intended in a wider sense than that which we have here given them.

ment.

Much less were we minded to " triumph" over the "crimes of England, or the "apostacy" of its "Church." We can assure "C." of the Portfolio, that it was impossible for him to have approached that painful and humiliating spectacle, with more of sorrow and less of“ "faction" than we felt, when we undertook the sad delineation. True,-it moved, it excited our feelings, as it has moved and excited his own. But we can assure him that ours was by no means a "frantic" exciteWe did certainly utter strong words, for they were redolent of strong things. Otherwise they were "words of truth and soberness!" There remains one strange mistake to be noticed, into which "C." has fallen. He says that we are inconsistent in holding that England cannot be reclaimed without her reunion with Rome, at the same time that we admit the modern degeneracy of British and Irish Catholics in respect of citizenship! Sensible of the insufficiency of such grounds for the impeachment of our consistency, he then endeavours, but without success, to show that the same degeneracy exists everywhere among the subjects of the Holy See. He points indeed to the celebrated Allocution of last year, upon the wrongs of the Catholic Church in Poland and Russia, but it is only to upbraid the Catholic powers of Europe, for not making it a pretext for marching upon Russia. From their inertness upon that occasion, he concludes,-first, that Catholicity among laymen, in all parts of the world, has lost its vital action upon public

affairs, secondly, that the Church of Rome is as supine and ignorant as the pseudo-Church of England.

And yet, if he had considered for a moment the purport of the second of these two accusations, he would have recognised it at once disproved by the very evidence adduced in its support. Whether the Allocution has succeeded or not in its action on the laity, nevertheless there it is! An Allocution of the "Church of Rome," in the person of the Roman Pontiff! An Allocution which, by the avowal of some of the ablest diplomatists of Europe, and not contested by the writer in question,bespeaks learning, sagacity, enlightenment, and, above all, moral courage, on the part of its venerable author! With what appearance of justice can this reviewer, having such a document before his eyes, pretend to rank Rome and Lambeth upon the same footing of dignity and worth ?

Of the general decline of the old loyalty of the Middle Age, we have too many modern instances, among the laity of even Catholic countries, to make any doubt. It is impossible to study the Mores Catholici with even a minor degree of attention, and not to be struck with this. Nevertheless, that it is universal we deny. "C." indeed offers no evidence as to its being general, or as to its existing at all out of the British isles. It is impossible for us to determine with any precision, what has been the effect upon the minds of foreign Catholics, of so recent a document as the Allocution of last year. Yet we know quite enough to be warranted in saying, that it has done its work. It is the severest blow that Russian diplomacy ever received. It has set in movement a train of important consequences, which, as we understand, are rapidly approaching their yet distant goal.

Let "C." open some of the pages of contemporary history, if he be really desirous of knowing the capacity and zeal of the pontiffs of our own times. Pius VII before Napoleon needed not, it seems to us, have veiled his head in presence of the elder glories of St. Gregory VII. Leo XII, we can assure him, had some political merits. Nor is the reigning Pontiff (whom GOD long preserve!) their inferior in any respect.

Then as to their means of influence, we can tell "C." that the veneration, with which these pontiffs have been and are regarded among the laity, is immense. There is scarcely a Catholic to be found in any part of the globe, who does not attribute the mad enterprise against Moscow, and its terrible consequences, to the direct influence of that anathema which smote the head of Napoleon. Descending from the higher to the more despicable criminal, nearly the same is to be said of Espartero,