In the afternoon Mr. Cribb and Robert went out into the city. I did not accompany them, needing rest and quiet. I knew that to venture out of doors would be to be followed everywhere by a noisy crowd, whose shout in about an hour announced the return of my companions. I was sorry not to do more Missionary work to-day in this large and remote city. The Mission here is of recent origin. The work is one of inquiry, which the Catechist conducts. He and his wife were confirmed by me at Long-Nuong in 1868.

(To be continued.)

A RITUAL IRREGULARITY IN THE MISSION FIELD. SIR,-All the friends of the Central African Mission will, I am sure, sympathize with Bishop Tozer's eagerness to employ his converts, as soon as may be really expedient, about the service of the sanctuary. But I, for one, read with much regret in your last, the following passage in a recent letter from him : "My two native sub-deacons assist at the altar during the celebration of the Holy Communion, and read the Epistle and the Confession." This removes the landmark between laity and clergy, destroys the symbolism and the antitypical nature of the threefold Ministry, introduces a nondescript ministry, supplements Christ's perfect institution, and breaks the order of the Church Catholic. A layman is intelligible, and a cleric is intelligible; but what is this ministering sub-deacon? The office of sub-deacon was instituted to relieve the diaconate of its inferior duties, and the Church enacted canons restricting the sub-deacons to those duties, and from any part in the public ministry. But Bishop Tozer, in allowing them to stand between God and the people in confession, is entrusting them with one of the most solemn duties of the ministry: "Let the priests, the ministers of the Lord... say, Spare Thy people, O Lord. Then will the Lord pity His people."

We know that the Laodicean Council forbid their entrance at all within the altar rail; but even without this prohibition, the very reason of the thing is against their fulfilling such duties as Bishop Tozer names, and it is earnestly to be hoped that he will reconsider the subject, and not lend a hand to the introduction into our Mission-chapels abroad of irregularities with which the Home Church is being constantly irritated and weakened; especially when so important a doctrine as that of the Ministry is at stake. It is surely no sanction that the Church of Rome, which "breaks down every fence," uses sub-deacons as part of the ministry; and I am sure such sanction would not satisfy Bishop Tozer, when both Scripture and the Church Catholic have drawn the lines between the cleric and lay people.

A MEMBER OF THE CENTRAL AFRICAN MISSION COMMITTEE.

THE CHRISTIANS OF ST. THOMAS.

SIR,-It does not, of course, concern me to notice Mr. Baker's letters in detail. But as he has kindly offered to produce the documents connected with the ordination and consecration of Athanasius, I have gladly

accepted his invitation to write for them, and I hope he will be able to let me see them in full in the original Syriac, as well as in their English dress. The Staticon, about which so much has been said, will I hope be included. I am grateful to Mr. Baker for his offer, and you, Sir, for the use of your space.

GEORGE B. HOWARD.

[We have reason to believe that the attention of the Archbishop of Canterbury is now being directed officially to the serious question of our relations with the Christians of St. Thomas.-ED. C.C.C.]

Rebiew.

Sixteenth Year's Report of the "Anglo-Continental Society:" for the year 1870. London: Rivingtons.

We owe an apology to the Anglo-Continental Society for not having noticed their current Report before. Ever most important, the work of this Society has greater claim than ever on the sympathy and substantial support of all educated members of the Anglican Communion, now that the Pan-Romanum has produced a division of the Latins into two opposing camps of "Old Catholics" and "Roman Catholics." Hitherto, we regret to notice, the Society has been lamentably crippled by the slenderness of the resources placed at its disposal. When therefore we reflect on what it has helped to effect-results which private information justifies us in rating more highly than would appear even from these yearly Reports-in Italy, Scandinavia, Germany, and the East, we never cease to be astonished; we can only exclaim with the seer of old, "What hath God wrought!" For His blessing has been most evident.

Under the head of Italy, the Report before us says:—

"The two great ecclesiastical events of the year, which will bear fruit long after the battle-cries of even the mightiest nations have sunk into silence, have taken place in Italy-the fall of the Temporal power of the Pope, and the Declaration of the Infallibility of the Pope in matters of Faith. The importance to the Church Catholic of the loss of the Papal temporal power depends, in our judgment, upon a question which is not yet solved. Is the abolition of the temporal power likely to decentralize the Roman Communion, or to lead to its stricter centralization? We desire to see the Roman Communion decomposed into its several national Churches, in order that they may be combined in a true Catholic unity. Is this movement likely to be helped on by the abolition of the temporal power? In some respects it certainly is. The prestige of sovereign authority will be taken away from the Bishop of Rome, and he will be less incapable of resuming his place as Patriarch, holding ecclesiastical jurisdiction with limited powers over a certain part of the Western Church, than when he felt himself a king and the heir of Hildebrand. Nor does it seem possible that Rome should continue to be, as efficiently as hereto

fore, the centre of political intrigue and ecclesiastical policy, the object of which has uniformly been to subject both the world and the Church to the Pope. On the other hand, it is possible that if the Pope boldly throws himself for his support upon his spiritual position and authority alone, he may be enabled to draw tighter the strings of discipline, and to bind his adherents still more closely to his own person, although that position and authority are in matters spiritual far more than they have ever been in matters temporal, a usurpation and a wrong towards the Church and the Church's Head. We believe, however, that the gain to be certainly derived from the cessation of the royal power as wielded by the Bishop of Rome is far greater than any possible evils which may be connected with it, and we thank God that we have lived to see that royalty and temporal authority swept away.

"With regard to the Infallibility of the Pope, it is true that Italians have taken no prominent part in its discussion, but their votes have been effective though their voices have been dumb. Italy has maintained in the Vatican Council that numerical preponderance which had such fatal effect at the Council of Trent. That the prelates of the late Papal States should be the creatures of the Pope of Rome was to be expected. That the prelates of the Kingdom of Italy are no less Papal vassals and creatures is a thing for which Baron Ricasoli and the Italian Government may thank themselves. They had the opportunity in the year 1867 of insisting on the release of the Italian prelates from their oaths of vassal servitude to the Pope; they did not take advantage of it. On the contrary, adopting a reconciliation policy, they removed the last safeguards which still served as a defence to Bishops against the tyranny of the Pope, and with these perished for the time the hopes of a patriotic and really Catholic Episcopate. They reap as they have sown. The Italian Episcopate has sunk to be the submissive instrument of a hostile power in Italy, in it but not of it, incapable of generous and independent action, and revenging its own degradation by despotical repression and oppression of an unprotected priesthood. And this state of things must, it would appear, continue until the yoke bound by the Pope upon the necks of the Bishops is broken by the prohibition of oaths of vassalage being taken to the national enemy."

The work of this Society in Italy is being noticed, we observe, with a large measure of approval by the Rheinischer Merkur, the leading organ of the Anti-Infallibilist Latins of Germany. Italy has been the ground where the Society has worked most, and where it has had most directly to face the question of what it may not do, as well as what it may, in pursuance of its object as thus defined :-" Not to proselytize individuals, but to help towards the reformation and revivification of Churches and communities." And scrupulously careful has the Society been to confine itself within its prescribed limits. So, too, in Spain, it has dissolved connection with one of its agents, a deacon, Spanish by birth but of Anglican ordination, on account of his having been persuaded to take part there in an aggressive separate-community scheme. Happily, however, there is a likelihood of this otherwise estimable deacon obtaining a suitable sphere of action in British Honduras,

'where the presence of clergymen acquainted with the Spanish language is needed."

Among the varied contents of this Report, it is hard to choose something for quotation, when our scanty space compels us to reject so much. The tidings which have reached us of awful famine, and the connection of the so-called "Nestorian" Church with the country, lead us to select for this purpose Persia :

"A letter has been addressed to the Lord Bishop of Calcutta, complaining of the law of marriage in Persia, as injuriously affecting Armenian Christians. His lordship thinks that our Society and that for the East may do something' towards making the grievance known and getting it remedied. It appears that it has been the custom for British employés in Persia to intermarry with Armenian Christian women. These marriages have been held good until lately, when their nullity in the eye of the law has been made evident by a power having been granted of marrying according to English law, provided and provided, only, that the ceremony takes place in the grounds of the British Mission at Teherân, and is performed by a clergyman or by the Consul. This provision is of course unknown to poor Armenian women, and cases of great hardship arise in respect to past and present marriages. The writer of the letter says:—

"What is most to be desired is that these marriages should be legalized from the date they were performed (for the past), as those who have children, by being remarried now, illegitimatize their children. For the future, if a missionary or chaplain is appointed to this country, he should have a power of marrying according to British law in any part of Persia, and this is what I seek at present. As long as it shall please God to leave me in Persia, I think I can hinder such marriage ceremonies for the future, as I know the Armenian Bishop and priests, and most of them are indignant at the wrong which has been done to their Church, and to the whole Church in them. The British Government spends about 20,000l. per annum on the staff of the Teherân Electric Telegraph in the country, besides the expense of the British Mission. The French and Russian Governments, which have only their Mission staff to provide for, each pay a chaplain, and have a church attached to their mission, but the British have neither, and all applications made to Government have been refused. The duties of a chaplain could best be performed by Missionaries, one stationed at Teherân, the other at Ispahân. The very small number of English residents could not furnish sufficient employment to a chaplain, unless he sought also to extend the blessings of the Gospel to the natives. Finding myself, as I believe, brought by God to this country, I cannot but feel it a sin to leave it, without a clear intimation that it is God's will I should do so, until some one else takes my place.

"The Armenian Christians are in general in a most degraded state, with an utterly uneducated priesthood, and people ignorant of the Gospel, and practising many superstitious rites. They are chiefly known as sellers of wine and snares to English and Moslims. Many of them are now desirous of a better state of things, and have invited me on several occasions to preach in their churches, which I have gladly done. It is my

earnest desire to work with them in endeavouring to bring the truths of the Gospel before the Moslims. I never found so many inquiries among Moslims in any country as here, especially at Ispahân (and Julfa), which I believe is the best place for Mission work. A very large proportion of the Persians are also of the sect of Dâûdy, believing in David as the greatest of prophets, rejecting the Korân, and gladly receiving the Christian Scriptures, as far as the fear of Mohammedans will allow them. There is another large and important sect called Bâtis, who also reject the Korân; and then there is a considerable population of Jews.

"The residence of one or two Missionaries in Persia is most desirable. The translation of the Bible is still most imperfect, and that of our Prayer Book far worse. Dr. Pfander's works are, in my opinion, in the very best Persian style, i.e. the high style, but very clear and easy. The Four Gospels of Henry Martyn are good and clear, in a lower style, i.e. with much less Arabic. The Old Testament, e.g. the Psalms, are far more difficult than Dr. Pfander's works; very few indeed can understand them; and the Acts of the Apostles and Epistles are very obscure. Each sentence must be read over two or three times, and the order of the words often changed, before they can be understood by a Persian.

"The distances are so great in Persia, and the modes of travelling so bad, that it would be impossible for a Missionary or Chaplain resident at Teheran or Ispahân to supply the wants of Christians resident in Baghdâd and Bushire. Another Missionary or Chaplain should be appointed to Baghdâd and the Persian Gulf. The Christian community, both British and Armenian, of Teherân, Ispahân, Hamadân, and Shîrâz and Resht are intimately connected, and might be included in one vast district equal to twice the area of the British Isles." "

From few lands now reaches English Christians a louder cry of "Come over and help us," than from Persia. The temporal famine now raging will, we rejoice to believe, be largely mitigated by Britishand Parsi-benevolence; but what is being done towards alleviating the famine of hearing the Word of God? The C.M.S. says it has no funds to begin work there; nor has the S.P.G. Even the Moslem Mission Society has made no effort to discharge what might seem its specially incumbent duty. Will Mr. Bruce have to retire, and leave the bones of Henry Martyn still to moulder in forgotten loneliness?

Colonial, Foreign, and Home News.

SUMMARY.

ON October 28, the Feast of SS. Simon and Jude, at Lambeth, in the chapel of the Palace, Hugh Willoughby JERMYN, sometime Archdeacon of St. Christopher's, West Indies, was consecrated Bishop of COLOMBO, vice Bishop Piers Claughton, resigned, by the Archbishop of Canterbury, assisted by the Bishops of Bath and Wells, and of Rochester, Bishop Claughton, late of Colombo, and Bishop Ryan, late of Mauritius. The