The Sun.
London, England, 1840-12-31 00:00:00

count of the shade it casts on their general probity,
that they leave the advocacy of perfect freedom in
all branches of trade, including banking in all its
branches, to non•commercial writers.

The British Critic, a work " Conducted by
Churchmen, and contributed to by the most un-

qualified admirers of our Establishment, who scruple
not to maintain that the Anglican Episcopal
Church is the true Apostolical Church of Christ,"
stated in No. 56, p. 346, what follows :

Out of the hundreds and thousands of children in
our large towns that are taught in our National and
Sunday Schools, with some labour and some skill, and
certainly at much expense, there is only here and there
a solitary exception to the following startling and la-
mentable fact : the moment they have outgrown the
school, they cease to attend Church. If they have any
sort of seriousness, they join the Dissenters ; if they
have not, they quietly settle into Heathenism.

This is so alarming a statement, coming from
such a quarter, and so likely to be true, that a gen-

tleman who calls himself CLERICUS, and describes
himself as a friend to the Establishment, has indited

a sensible well-written letter to the Bishop of
LONDON to inquire into its cause and suggest a re-
medy. The writer's observations, which are all tem-
perately and well-expressed, go a long way to con-

finn some of the remarks which we have occasion-

ally made, in a far bitterer spirit than his, we admit,
on the Church E!tablishment. We shall first quote
what he says as to the fact of the so-called poor
man's Church being forsaken by the poor. After
adverting to the education of the poor in Infant
Schools, in the Church Catechism, in the National
and Sunday Schools, and in the indifference which,

according to the Briiish Critic, immediately fol
lows, the author says :

But let us follow this youth a little further: the
period arrives when, from the loss of parents, sickness,
or other affliction, he is brought to serious reflection :

that seriousness to which the writer in the British

critic alludes, takes place. He begins to think on death
and judgment ; a fear comes upon him, and a conviction
of his ungodly edition, of the spiritual destitution of
his immortal soul, Now I believe, and I am inclined
to think your Lordship will not differ from me, that
this is the motion of the Spirit of God striving with the
spirit of man. gal may resist these gracious influences,
—he may quench the incipient spark of that heavenly
fire ; but it the word of God be truth, we are right in
believing that this is the work of God's Holy Spirit.
Now what must be the first reflections of the youth
thus awakened, thus roused from a state of ungodliness,
or at least of indifference to religion ? The prodigal
son, when in this condition, thought directly of his
father's house, of all le had there left, once so dear to
him ; and his fixed determination was to return. If he
could be an hired servant in his father's house, his
utmost wish would be satisfied. And no one can doubt
but the first thought of the youth is towards that
Church with which alone he can have any religious
association : his mind necessarily reverts to those forms
of religion with which alone he is acquainted : his first
impression must be to go to his parish church. But
mark the fact—lie goes to the meeting-house. A de-
sire after spiritual things has been excited in his mind,
but no association draws him to that place where alone
he has been in the habit of religious exercise ; he recall
no scenes in that house, which are now congenial to his
spiritual desires ; lie turns his back upon that which
should be unto hiat as his father's house, and goes to
the dwelling of the stranger.
The reason must be, (adds the writer, a little fur-
ther on)—and it is of no avail to conceal the fact from
ourselves—that the doctrines or forms of our Esta-
blished Church are such, as do not coincide with the re-
ligious notions and feelings of the middle and lower
classes of society,
If your Lordship will take the pains of analysing the
constitution of our town congregations you will find
that they aro composed, with few exceptions, of the
higher class of society, of wealthy tradesmen, and of
their families and dependents. But where arc the
hundreds and thousands of our shop-keepers, artizans,
manufacturers and labourers, who constitute nine-tenths
of our population ? Go from the parish church to
the neighbouring meeting house, and whom do you find
there ? Few, very few, of the higher classes, but many
respectable, well-doing tradesmen, with a considerable
number of the most sober, steady, and industrious of our
artizans and labourers ; and among this latter number
are found those stray sheep whom the writer in the
British Critic defines as those who have any sort of
seriousness."
So the poor man's Church has no spiritual at-
tractions for the poor. They go to the Meeting-
house, and leave the Church, the fabric of which they
are, nevertheless, taxed to build and support, to die
rich, who, in this case, as in many others, make the
poor pay to find them ecclesiastical advantages.
The writer concludes from die similarity of the doc-
trines taught in the Church and in the Dissenting
Chapel, that it is not the doctrines themselves, but
the forms and words in which they are taught,
that disgusts the people, and he gives this very cu-
rious account of the origin of the Liturgy, affording
a striking contrast to the conduct of existing par-
sons, who everlastingly talk about the Fathers of the
Reformation, without having the least comprehen-
sion of their character
When our Reformers undertook their arduous and
important task, they had to deal with an illiterate
priesthoed, and an ignorant, suporstitious people,
blindly attached to the formularies and rites of
Popery ; and they endeavoured to make the transition
from the old to the new religion as easy as possible
In forming a Liturgy they adopted the framework which
they found ready to their hands, removing those parts
which they considered erroneous and superstitious, and
substituting those pure and scriptural truths which had
been lost amid the rubbish of human inventions. They
likewise consulted the manners and habits of those for
whose purpose it was intended. One service was ac-
cordingly drawn up to take the place of the Roman Ca-
tholic mattins ; and this service was appointed to be
read every morning at six o'clock, the usual hour of
breakfast in those days ; so that every individual in the
parish could join in these morning prayers at the time
most convenient. They drew up another form of
prayer, the Litany, to be used on certain days at cloven
o'clock, the usual hour of dinner at that period for all
dames* ; so that those who were thus inclined, before
this meal, could attend a public service of prayer. For
Sundays and festivals a third form was appointed, the
Communion Service, to be used when the sacra-
ment was administered or a sermon preached.
This would take place at any convenient hour,
mostly in the afternoon, when the people were at
liberty and in the habit of collecting for such purposes.
We may picture to ourselves a Sunday in those days.
At a quarter before six the tolling of the parish bell
summoned all the parishioners to their mattins, after
which they breakfasted. At eleven the bell again
warned them that the Litany was about to be read in
the parish church previous to the hour of dinner, when,
in large families, the master and his children dined at
an upper table, and the domestics at a lower one, par-
taking of the same fare. In the course of the afternoon
their rniniater if a licensed preacher, would again sum-
mon them to their parish church, or in summer to the
village cross, where they would hear a sermon ; and
at six o'clock the village bell would call them to the
evening service, from which they would retire to supper
and to their beds at the early hour of eight.
It is needless to say that our habits in the nineteenth
century are totally different from those of our ancestors
of the sixteenth. It suits our habits to have our reli-
gious service between the hours of eleven and one.
And, to meet this altered state of things, what course
have we pursued? We have taken the three liturgies—
which those who composed them intended to be used
separately, and at different times—and have compressed
them into one continuous service : not to mention
that we have increased the length of this one service by
the addition of several state prayers. The consequence
is, that this form of service is not acceptable to the
mass of the people. Excellent as each separate form
may be, scriptural and evangelical as the spirit of each,
it does not follow that the three united should become
that, which their authors never intended, a fit and
convenient form of public worship.
Could any prophetic individual have told our Re-
formers, that, in the nineteenth century, the habits
and customs of Englishmen would be so altered,
that only one service would be used, it could
never have entered into their heads to imagine that the
rulers of the Church would form one service by taking
their three consecutively. They would have said,
" When habits are thus altered, no doubt our succes-
sors in the Church will be able to suit the forms of
prayer to those altered habits, as we are now suiting
them to the habits of the present generation ; and,
moreover, retaining that same spirit which we have en-
deavoured to instil into our liturgy, they will be able to
advance further from Popery than we have ventured to
do, surrounded as we arc by difficulties on every side."
And that our Reformers reasoned in this way we may
fairly conclude from the following passage in the pre-
face to the Book of Common Prayer :—" Particular
forms of divine worship, and the rites and ceremonies
appointed to be used therein, being things in their own
nature indifferent and alterable, and so acknowledged ;
it is but reasonable that, upon weighty and important
considerations, according to various exigency of times
and occasions, such changes and alterations should be
made therein as to those that are in the place of autho.