nel to make hay in the land of the Saxon, but his brief career was cut short by intemperance; no solitary case among Romish Priests in India to our own personal knowledge. We can vouch for his thorough ignorance of the language, history, or religion of the natives, and that he was wholly incapable "of carrying on an argument through knowledge of the subject," even when his faculties were clear.

As Miss Frere (p. 562) manifestly approves of the conduct of the Protestant Bishops and Missionaries in New Zealand, and identifies their course with that of the Popish Missionaries, we think it is but fair to adduce what is the opinion of the venerable Bishop of Waiapu upon this very point:

"A French bishop and two priests landed at Hokianga, giving out that they expected shortly to be strengthened by the addition of nine other priests. The bishop was a man of dignified bearing and engaging manners, literally ready to become all things to all men, and the course he pursued was characterised by an artfulness which was worthy of the cause he supported. He told the natives that he had no wish to interfere with the disciples of the Missionaries: Let them continue quietly to follow the teaching in which they have been instructed; the heathen only are my flock, and they all belong to me.' The progress of Christianity had already begun to make divisions among the tribes and families, and there was often a strong feeling on the part of the heathen against their relatives who had renounced the religion of their forefathers. They were annoyed because they could no longer carry out their heathenish practices with the same zest as formerly. They believed that a change might be to their advantage, and they gladly availed themselves of the more easy discipline of the Papists, which allowed them to retain much that the Missionaries had told them was to be given up. These new teachers gave their sanction to polygamy, and to the practice of tattooing; and they allowed their followers to do various kinds of work on the Sabbath day, and to continue also their old heathenish dances. The consequence was, that numbers rallied to their standard, and their praises were loud in the months of all the more worthless part of the community. Soon after this an account was printed in the Annales de la Foi, which represented that the number of converts they had made in New Zealand was thirty thousand; but this statement, it appears, was without foundation. The Christian natives, with the Scriptures in their hands, boldly confronted the priests, showing that they taught many things for which there is no authority in the Bible. When they replied that our translations were incorrect, their own followers requested to be supplied with a correct version, in order that they might meet the arguments of their countrymen. They were told they should have one, but that Europe was a long way off, and that it would be five years before the books could arrive. The novelty soon wore off, and the majority of those who had taken up with the new superstition, not from any principle, but because they wished for a change, gradually joined the Protestant com

Vol. 69.-No. 385.

G

munity, so that at the present time there is a very small remnant of Papists either at Hokianga or in the Bay of Islands."*

We do not quite understand what Miss Frere means by the Romish Missionaries helping their converts with their clothes; but it was clearly from some notion of that kind that Nuka, the Chief of Maungatapu at Tauranga, sent an invitation to the Romish bishop to establish a Mission at Tauranga. "We have heard," he said, "that the bishop gives blankets to all who receive his doctrine, and we want some of them."+

It is however, in sober earnest, a serious matter of regret that Miss Frere should have marred her pleasant light-hearted book with such unnecessary comments. We sincerely trust that further and more serious consideration will lead her to conclude that there must have been more in the work of Protestant Missions, and in the men engaged in them, than she imagines, when she calls to mind that the chivalry of India, men of the stamp of Havelock, Henry and John Lawrence, Herbert Edwardes, and a long bead-roll of the noblest of England's sons, among whom the honoured name of Frere has been conspicuous, have extended their heartiest sympathy, their most princely offerings, and their most fervent prayers, to measures and men with whom we regret to observe that her sympathy is so scant, and concerning whom her information is so limited. We hardly imagine that this purple patch formed part of her original diary to the two old aunts; and the perusal of it confirms our judgment, expressed at the beginning of this review, how fortunate it has been for her literary reputation, that she has, as a rule, refrained from weighting her volume with such excres

cences.

ARCHIEPISCOPAL CONFIRMATION OF BISHOPS ELECT.

THE day of the opening of the Council at Rome was signalized in our metropolis by an attempt to give reality to an ecclesiastical proceeding which, whatever may have been its original significance and its importance in ancient times, has, notwithstanding one or two spasmodic attempts to restore its efficacy, remained for centuries a lifeless and unmeaning form.

In using these expressions, we must be understood to refer, not to the act of archiepiscopal confirmation which is by law required to follow the election of a new bishop, nor to the whole

Christianity among the New Zealanders, by the Bishop of Waiapu, p. 252. + Ibid., p. 280.

of the ceremony by which the act is attended; but to that part of it which consists of a citation summoning all persons who object to the confirmation of the bishop elect to appear and make their objections in the course of the proceedings, with a promise that they shall be heard. The practice of issuing a summons to this effect appears to be of immemorial antiquity in Western Christendom, and to have been universally observed in the election of bishops of the Church of England, as well subsequently to as before the Reformation. And yet, with two exceptions, there had been, previously to the 8th of December last, no recorded instance in this country of the appearance of opposers in obedience to the invitation.

The first exception was in the year 1628, in the case of Bishop Mountague, at whose confirmation an objector appeared, charging him with unfitness for the episcopal office on the ground of heresy. According to the report of the proceedings which has come down to us, Dr. Rives, who was at the time the Vicar-General of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and by virtue of his office presided at the ceremony, refused to receive the objection, inasmuch as it was not made in writing, and according to certain technical forms. The distinction thus drawn was convenient at the time, as precluding in that instance the further consideration of a very embarrassing question; but its correctness, from a legal point of view, is more than questionable.

The second exception to the almost unbroken series of unopposed archiepiscopal confirmations occurred in the case of Dr. Hampden, the late Bishop of Hereford, at whose confirmation, on the 11th of January, 1848, three opposers appeared by their Proctor, and presented written objections on the ground that the bishop elect had published works repugnant to the doctrine of the Established Church, for which he had been censured by the University of Oxford. The Vicar-General decided that he had no power to hear the objections, and that, notwithstanding their having been tendered, he was bound to confirm the bishop elect under the provisions of an Act passed in 1533, to which we shall refer hereafter; and he accordingly proceeded with the ceremony. Thereupon the opposers applied to the Court of Queen's Bench for a Writ of Mandamus to compel the Archbishop and his Vicar-General to admit the objectors to appear in opposition to the confirmation of Dr. Hampden, and to hear and decide upon the grounds of their opposition. After hearing the arguments for and against this application, two of the Judges of the Queen's Bench, viz., Coleridge and Patteson, JJ., were in favour of granting the Mandamus; while the other two who heard the case, Lord Denman, C. J., and Erle, J., were opposed to it. In the case of an equal division

of opinion on the Bench, it is the ordinary practice of the Common Law Courts that the junior judge should withdraw his judgment, and the decision of the Court be given in accordance with the judgments of the majority of the other judges, leaving it to the party to whom that decision is adverse to carry the case to the Court of Appeal. In this instance, however, Lord Denman, and Sir W. Erle, who was at the time the junior judge, felt so persuaded of the correctness of the view which they had taken, and entertained such a strong sense of the damage which the Church might sustain from a prolonged suspense upon a question which was at the time causing great agitation and excitement, that the latter forbore to withdraw his judgment. Such a measure, unusual under any circumstances, was the stronger in this case, because the issue of the Writ of Mandamus would not have finally settled the question, whether the opposers had or had not a right to be heard. At the confirmation that question would have received further full and deliberate consideration upon a demurrer or a return being made to the writ. But upon an equal division of opinion among the judges, and the non-withdrawal of the judg ment of the junior judge, the whole matter dropped. No Writ of Mandamus was issued; while at the same time no application for it in a higher Court, by way of appeal, was possible. The confirmation of Dr. Hampden was not invalidated; his consecration speedily followed as a matter of course; and the whole question of the amount of discretion possessed by the Archbishop in reference to his confirmation of a bishop elect, and the extent to which he is bound to exercise that discretion in conformity with the old forms and ceremonies used at the confirmation, has slept from that day until the present time.

Within the last few months the subject has again assumed a practical importance from the appointment of Dr. Temple to the see of Exeter. The excitement which that appointment has caused cannot be said to have been equal to that which was occasioned by the elevation of Dr. Hampden to the bishopric of Hereford; but it has not unreasonably awakened a strong opposition in more than one quarter, and endeavours have been made to obstruct first the election, and afterwards the archiepiscopal confirmation, of the nominee of the Crown. We propose, while the facts of that opposition are still matters of recent occurrence, to take a brief survey of the historical aspect of the controversy which has arisen in the course of it upon the question of the import in the Church of England of the confirmation by the Archbishop of bishops elect. Although, even while we write, through the failure of the opposition to his promotion, Dr. Temple's case, like that of Dr. Hampden, has become a thing of the past, the question will not be altogether

devoid of practical interest; for while it is true that, in its bearing on the Bishop of Exeter individually, it has been removed from the region of action into that of history; yet, as it has never received a final decision from the higher courts of ecclesiastical jurisdiction in the country, it may still be considered to a certain extent open and liable to be revived on a future occasion.

In the first ages of the Church a new bishop was elected by the clergy and laity of the vacant diocese, subject to the election being confirmed by the metropolitan of the province in which the diocese was situate. In some places the laity were, after a time, debarred from their share in the election, which then became confined to the clergy of the diocese; and these in their turn were subsequently excluded in favour of the cathedral chapters. In other places, after the civil establishment of Christianity, the tumults and disorder incident to popular elections furnished the Emperors with a ground for assuming to themselves the nomination of new bishops. And since the time of Constantine the consent of the prince seems throughout Christendom, in cases where he did not himself nominate, to have been always considered requisite for the due appointment of a bishop. It appears, however, that the confirmation by the metropolitan, at least in name and in form, remained unaffected by these changes.

From the time when the Saxons in England first embraced Christianity, the Christian Saxon kings possessed the right of appointment to the sees in their kingdom, and that in the most complete and solemn form by investiture with the ring and the crosier.* The same right was exercised by the early Norman kings. Henry I., under pressure from the pope, gave up the right of investiture, but insisted upon retaining the nomination of the bishops, and upon receiving homage from them before they entered into the enjoyment of their temporalities. By a charter of King John, in the year 1214, the right of electing bishops in this country was conceded to the chapters of cathedrals, upon their first requesting from the king a licence to elect. If the licence was refused, the chapter might proceed without it, but the king might in all cases exercise a veto on the election, provided he had good ground for doing so. It is probable that previously to this charter, during the time when the appointment of bishops was vested in the Crown, they received a more or less formal con

The appointment to bishoprics seems to have been in some cases delegated by the Saxon kings to their council or parliament; and in one instance we are told that the clergy and

laity, by permission of the king, elected the archbishop of York. But the king always retained the investiture in his own hands. See Co. Litt. 134, b. n. (1).