tice of conducting a system of private confession and absolution among your people, and that the Bishop deemed such practice to be not authorized by the Church of England, and to be calculated to bring scandal on the Church.

66

"I concur with the Bishop in the view which he has taken of your practice in this respect, and, therefore, think it just and proper to confirm the revocation of your licence, and I confirm it accordingly.

66

'I am, Rev. Sir, your faithful servant,

"J. B. CANTuar.

"The Rev. Alfred Poole, St. Barnabas College, Pimlico."

"We, John Bird, by Divine Providence Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of all England and Metropolitan, having carefully read and considered the merits and circumstances of an appeal made to us by the Rev. Alfred Poole, clerk, as the assistant stipendiary curate in the church of St. Barnabas, in the district chapelry of St. Paul, Wilton-place, in the county of Middlesex, and diocese of London, from the order, decree, or judgment of the Right Rev. Father in God Archibald Campbell, Lord Bishop of London, whereby he did revoke the licence which had been granted to the said Alfred Poole to perform the office of assistant stipendiary curate in the said church of St. Barnabas; and being of opinion that the said Lord Bishop of London hath exercised a sound discretion in revoking the licence of the said Alfred Poole, do, by virtue of the powers and authorities vested in us, as Archbishop aforesaid, by a certain Act of Parliament, made and passed in the session of Parliament, held in the first and second years of the reign of Her present Majesty, entitled 'An Act to abridge the holding of benefices in plurality, and to make better provision for the residence of the clergy,' and by virtue of all other powers in us yested as Archbishop aforesaid, hereby, and by these presents pronounce against the aforesaid appeal of the said Alfred Poole, and do ratify and confirm the revocation of the aforesaid licence granted to him to perform the office of assistant stipendiary curate in the church of St. Barnabas aforesaid.

"Given at Lambeth Palace under our hand this 9th day of July, in the year of our Lord, 1858, and of our translation the 11th. "J. B. CANTUAR. "Witness-Felix Knyvett, Secretary to the Archbishop."

EXETER-HALL SERVICES.

THE Exeter-Hall services have been resumed by clergymen of the English Church-all liturgical exercises being omitted, and extemporary prayer adopted instead. This, it is believed, places the services under the sanction of the common law, in the same way as a public meeting held for any other lawful purpose, and bars the jurisdiction of the eccle

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siastical courts altogether. Mr. Edouart has protested, and threatens proceedings. Nous verrons. Here is his formal protest:

"To the Revs. R. Burgess, C. Molyneux, J. W. Reeve, E. Bayley, W. B. Mackenzie, R. Maguire, C. D. Marston, J. C. Ryle, J. N. Griffin, W. Bruce, C. J. Goodhart, and J. Bardsley :—

"Whereas public notice has been given that services with sermons will take place at Exeter Hall, on the evening of various Sundays during this instant month of July, and the months of August and September now next ensuing, and that you, some, or one of you will upon some or one of such occasions preach at Exeter Hall aforesaid, or otherwise take part in the proposed services some or one of them: And whereas the said Exeter Hall is situate within the parish of St. Michael, Burleigh-street:' And whereas I, the undersigned Augustin Gaspard Edouart, clerk, M.A., am the incumbent of the said parish; Now, therefore, I do hereby give you and each and every of you notice, that I, the said Augustin Gaspard Edouart, as such incumbent of the said parish of St. Michael, Burleigh-street, do not consent to your at any time preaching or otherwise officiating at Exeter Hall aforesaid or elsewhere within my said parish; but, on the contrary, I do hereby forbid and protest against and object to your doing so, or taking any part in the proposed services, or in any of them, without my written consent in that behalf previously had and obtained. And I further hereby give you notice that I am advised that any such services would be illegal, and that I have informed the Right Reverend Father in God, the Lord Bishop of London, my Diocesan, that I object to such proposed services. And I hereby expressly warn you each and every of you, that in case you or any of you in any way disregard this notice, I shall deem it my duty to take such proceedings against you in relation to the matters aforesaid as I may be advised.—As witness my hand this 9th day of July, 1859.

"A. G. EDOUART, Incumbent of St. Michael, Burleigh-street."

228

Literature of the Quarter.

:

The Book of the Twelve Minor Prophets, translated from the Original Hebrew with a Commentary, Critical, Philological, and Exegetical. By E. HENDERSON, D. D. Second Edition. London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 33, Paternoster Row. 1858.

DR. HENDERSON's work has been so long before the public, and has been received with such decided approbation, that we can have but little to say on the appearance of a New Edition. In the preface, the venerable author remarks:

"The principles on which the Author has proceeded in preparing the present work are the same by which he was guided in composing his Commentary on the Prophet Isaiah. It has been his great aim to present to the view of his readers the mind of the Spirit as expressed in the written dictates of inspiration. With the view of determining this, he has laid under contribution all the means within his reach, in order to ascertain the original state of the Hebrew text, and the true and unsophisticated meaning of that text. He has constantly had recourse to the collection of various readings made by Kennicott and De Rossi; he has compared the renderings of the LXX., the Targum, the Syriac, the Arabic, the Vulgate, and other ancient versions; he has consulted the best critical commentaries; he has availed himself of the results of modern philological research; and he has conducted the whole under the influence of a disposition to place himself in the times of the sacred writers-surrounded by the scenery which they exhibit, and impressed by the different associations, both of a political and a spiritual character, which they embody. In all his investigations he has endeavoured to cherish a deep conviction of the inspired authority of the books which it has been his object to illustrate, and of the heavy responsibility which attaches to all who undertake the interpretation of the oracles of God.

"In no instance has the theory of a double sense been permitted to exert its influence on his expositions. The Author is firmly convinced, that the more this theory is impartially examined, the more it will be found that it goes to unsettle the foundations of Divine Truth, unhinge the mind of the biblical student, invite the sneer and ridicule of unbelievers, and open the door to the extravagant vagaries of a wild and unbridled imagination. Happily the number of those who adhere to the multiform method of interpretation is rapidly diminishing; and there cannot be a doubt, that, in proportion as the principles of sacred hermeneutics come to be more severely studied, and perversions of the word of God, hereditarily kept up under the specious garb of spirituality and of a more profound understanding of Scripture, are discovered and ex

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posed, the necessity of abandoning such slippery and untenable ground will be recognised, and the plain, simple, grammatical and natural species of interpretation, adopted and followed."

We are not quite prepared to agree with this sweeping clause, save so far as the science of hermeneutics is concerned. The advanced believer in search of spiritual truth, will often find much of it in the interpretations of such men as Origen.

The following note we read with regret.

"A Second Edition of this work being in demand, it has been revised for the purpose, but is otherwise only a reprint. The Author would have been glad to enrich it by adding references to those new discoveries at Nineveh, and still more recently at Memphis, which forcibly serve to illustrate the meaning and evidence the truthfulness of the prophetic writings; but being precluded by the infirmities of advancing years from making such attempt, he must rest content to re-issue the volume in its original form."

Manna in the House; or, Daily Expositions of the Acts of the Apostles. Adapted for the Use of Families. By the Rev. BARTON BOUCHIER, A.M., Rector of Fonthill Bishop, Wilts. London Wertheim, Macintosh, and Hunt. 1858.

Ir appears, from the dedicatory epistle to this excellent volume, that we owe its appearance to the Lord Bishop of Carlisle's approbation of the preceding volumes. It will be fitting praise to say that it well follows up the same plan. We shall select one passage,-the commentary or exposition on that portion of Acts v. which relates the awful death of Ananias and Sapphira :

"I do not know if it has ever crossed any of your minds that this punishment of Ananias and Sapphira was a very severe one, and that, if every lie that is told were to be visited with equal severity, few would escape, and people would be falling down dead in every place of concourse, whether of business or pleasure, nay, even where but two or three were met together. I fear it would be so truthfulness is not the characteristic of mankind, inasmuch as the prince of this world is the father of lies, and his children, 'as soon as they be born, go astray, and speak lies.' But God, having signified by this one most awful act and righteous retribution His abhorrence of a lie, has testified to every succeeding generation that He will eventually punish all liars, and has declared throughout the whole Bible, and most significantly in its last chapter, that whosoever loveth and maketh a lie shall find no admission into the heavenly city. And, having done this, He has in a great measure reserved the punishment of liars till that final day when all liars shall have their portion in the lake which burneth with fire.

"But I would not have you imagine that Ananias and Sapphira were liars of a common grade, or that the falsehood alone drew down the just vengeance of God. Their sin was of a most deep and aggravated character, and combined in it all that would render it odious and offensive in the sight of God, defrauding and dishonest to the community of which they professed to be members, and injurious and derogatory to its character and interests.

"In the close of the last chapter honourable mention was made of one (of whom we often hear afterwards) who, having land, sold it, and brought the money and laid it at the apostles' feet. In this chapter another disciple is recorded as doing the same thing, professing to sell all that he had, and to bring its price into the general treasury. We do not know the respective value of each property— perhaps it is not of much consequence-though I cannot help thinking that it affords some clue to the retribution that befell this guilty man and his wife. It may be that Barnabas was a rich man, and, like his Master, became poor for his brethren's sake: and it may be that Ananias was comparatively a poor man, and thought to become rich at his brethren's cost, and to secure for himself an ampler share in this commonwealth of goods by a supposed surrender of his whole possession. As Jesus had said to the Jews before, 'Ye seek me, not because of the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled.' So Ananias and Sapphira might have professed to become converts, not because there was conviction in their hearts or a work of grace upon their souls, but because they saw money flowing into the treasury, and hoped to secure a share for themselves under the plea that they, too, like Barnabas and others, had surrendered all.

"And even this covetous and sordid expectation was mingled with gross fraud in withholding part of the price, and claiming the credit of giving all-defrauding men and lying unto God, making religion a cloak of covetousness; and, in their hypocrisy, seeking to pass muster with those who had given up all to God, and virtually saying in their hearts, with the wicked of old, Is there knowledge in the Most High? The Lord shall not see, neither shall the God of Jacob regard it.' So that I think we may say, as the Spirit of God said of Eli's sons, that the sin of this guilty pair was very great before the Lord, and, if undetected and unpunished, would have brought much scorn and wrong on the offering of the Lord.

"I imagine that no one for a moment supposes that the Apostle was himself denouncing vengeance on this miserable man. I do not read one word of man's vengeance, or even of man's righteous sentence. The whole of Peter's address to Ananias is indeed that of stern expostulation and remonstrance, laying bare his guilt, stripping it of the flimsy covering of his hypocrisy, with which he had thought to conceal it but there he stops-he does not, like Elisha on the similarly guilty Gehazi, denounce leprosy or death; there is not a word of threatening either of God's or of man's