are appointed by the Diocesan Synod, and the rest by the vestry of the particular parish interested. The latter are elected annually, and the former at each meeting of the Synod. The number of the diocesan and parochial nominators on each Board, and the manner of their election, is left to be determined by the Diocesan Synod. A private benefactor of the Church in any parish may be allowed by the Diocesan Synod to stand in the place of the Board of Nominators for one presentation, or to have a voice for life in the appointment of the incumbent, either as sole parochial nominator, or as one of the parochial nominators, but in both of these latter cases in conjunction with the diocesan nominators. Upon the occurrence of a vacancy, the Board nominate a clergyman to the bishop for institution, the concurrence in the nomination of not less than two-thirds of their number being requisite. When the bishop rejects a nomination, he must give notice of the fact to the nominators, and communicate in writing his reasons for doing so to the clergyman nominated; and either the latter, or a majority, consisting of at least two-thirds, of the Board of Nominators, may, with the sanction of the Standing Committee of the diocese, appeal to the House of Bishops against the rejection. If upon this appeal the grounds of the rejection appear insufficient to two-thirds of the House of Bishops, the rejection is disallowed, and institution given. If no nomination is certified to the bishop within eighteen months after the notification of the vacancy to the Board of Nominators, the appointment to the cure lapses to the bishop.

In the diocese of COLOMBO Synodal organisation has already existed for nearly five years.

"The Diocesan Synod of Colombo" (we are quoting from the same Report of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel as that to which we have already referred) "declares itself to be in union and full communion with the United Church of England and Ireland, and disclaims the right to alter the standards of faith and doctrine and formularies now in use in the Church. Nothing is decided in the Synod without the concurrent consent of the bishop, clergy, and laity. All duly licensed Presbyters have a vote. Deacons may attend without voting. Lay delegates or synodsmen (one or two for each separate congregation) must be communicants of full age, and willing to declare in writing that they are members of the Church in the diocese of Colombo, in union and full communion with the United Church of England and Ireland. The ordinary meetings of the Synod are held at intervals of not less than two years, and not more than three. The first Synod was held on 20th September, 1865."

We close the present article with a short account of the recently framed Constitution of the Church in SOUTH AFRICA.

In the month of January in this year the first Provincial Synod of that Church was held at Cape Town under the presidency of the Bishop of Cape Town as Metropolitan. The dioceses of Cape Town, Graham's Town, and Maritzburg were represented in the Synod. That of St. Helena, which had been invited to take part in the proceedings, declined to do so. A Constitution and a Code of Canons was drawn up for the government of the Church. Into the detailed provisions of these we cannot now enter; but we may mention that one of the most important points in which they differ from the other forms of ecclesiastical government which we have considered is in the mode of the election of bishops. The following is the text of the Canon of the South African Church upon the subject:

"The bishops of this province, whose election or appointment is not provided for by any existing law, shall be elected by the clergy of each diocese, being in priests' orders, when their number is not less than six, with the assent thereto of the representatives of the laity. When the number of priests in a diocese is less than six, the bishop shall be appointed by a majority of the bishops of the province. The bishop elect may be chosen from any Church in communion with the Church of this province; and the electors may, if they should so desire it, nominate two or more persons, of whom the bishops of the province shall select one; or, with the consent of the majority of the bishops of the province, they may delegate to any person or body the power of choosing a bishop for the vacant See, it being understood that the diocese must accept that choice as final. Confirmation by a majority of the bishops of the province, including the Metropolitan, shall be in all cases necessary."

The mode of electing to the Metropolitan See is to be the same as that of electing to the other Sees, but the election must in that case be confirmed by at least two-thirds of the bishops of the province.

In accordance with a power given to it by the Constitution, the Synod made a considerable number of alterations in, and additions to, the services of the Church. The alterations are all of them upon minor points, and such as are called for by local circumstances. The most important of the additions are Forms for the admission of Catechumens who desire to receive Church instruction previously to Baptism, and for the admission of Catechists and Readers; and Four Occasional Services, authorised by the Convocation of Canterbury to be used respectively on days of General Thanksgiving, at Thanksgivings for Harvest, on days of Humiliation, and on the opening or reopening of a Church.*

* See for these forms the Colonial Church Chronicle, June, 1870, p. 225.

The next ordinary meeting of the Provincial Synod of the South African Church is to be held at Cape Town in January, 1875. But the Metropolitan is empowered, if it seems desirable, to defer its meeting for a year, or to summon a special meeting at an earlier date.

MEMOIR OF THE REV. W. C. BURNS.

Memoir of the Rev. W. C. Burns, M.A., Missionary to China from the English Presbyterian Church. By the Rev. Islay Burns, D.D., Professor of Theology, Free Church College, Glasgow. London: James Nisbet and Co. 1870.

A MEMOIR of an eminent man written by his brother, with the glow of warm affection and with a fervid admiration of his character and sympathy with his views, will be suspected by many readers as conveying a partial estimate of the man. The best safeguard against partiality is evidently, first, to let the man speak for himself as far as possible; and secondly, to accumulate the opinions of others who have no such family ties. This is the course which Dr. Burns has pursued in writing the life of a beloved brother. Some may blame him for swelling out the narrative by diffusive details and frequent quotations from other parties; but if they persevere to the end of the book, they will be abundantly satisfied that they know the man, and that they have been presented with every side of his cha

racter.

William Burns was an unmarried missionary. He was a man of a single object. His whole aim in life was to awaken his fellow men to a sense of the danger of neglecting the "great salvation," and of the infinite advantage of accepting to-day, while it is called to-day, Christ the Saviour. All men were viewed by him under one character, as sinners to be saved only through Christ, whatever country they inhabited or whatever their ethnological distinctions might be, whatever their places in the scale of civilization. This gives a sameness to the narrative which ranges over Great Britain, British America, and China, amidst which varieties of nations a mind of another cast might have given his narrative much adventitious interest. But to managers of missions, and to missionaries themselves, this book will be a most acceptable gift, and full of suggestive

matter.

Those who are acquainted with the autobiography* of Francis The Missionary Life and Labours of Francis Xavier, taken from his own Correspondence. By Henry Venn, B.D. Longmans. 1862.

Xavier as exhibited in his letters, apart from the legendary rubbish by which his character is obscured in his biographies, cannot but be struck with several leading points of resemblance in the two men; and the Protestant need not fear the result of the comparison. We shall therefore freely recur to it in the course of our review; premising here, that in external circumstances there was a striking analogy. Both entered upon missionary labours after thirty years of age, having been previously eminent as preachers for reviving the work of God at home, and having been closely connected with the universities of their land. They were both men of the most rigid self-denial, and of indomitable promptitude, energy, and boldness in the duties of their office. Neither of them remained long at one post of labour, but removed to new fields from time to time. They were both regarded by their missionary brethren as pioneers and chiefs in the missionary enterprise. They both ended their days in obscure settlements upon the sea coast of China. But more important matter of contrast will occur in the narrative.

William Chalmers Burns, born in 1815, was the third son of pious parents. His father was the Rev. William Hamilton Burns, D.D., of the Established Church of Scotland, minister successively of Dun in Angus and of Kilsyth in Stirlingshire. It is interesting to notice the various concurring providences by which eminent servants of God are by His providence trained and qualified for work to which He designs to call them in due time. The first such incident we notice in Burns is his preparation for enduring hardness in physical labours. His biographer writes :-" My brother's bent as a boy was decidedly in the muscular direction. He gave far greater promise of becoming a mighty hunter than a deep student. Strong of limb and of sanguine temperament, his heart was in the open fields and woods, and in all manner of manly and athletic exercises." 'He was a famous rider, and sat his horse like a Knight." His education remarkably suited his future calling. At the age of thirteen he was placed at a school at Aberdeen, under the care of Dr. James Melvin, "famous for most exact scholarship." Here, during four years, he laid the foundation of sound scholarship; which enabled him to master new languages with uncommon facility and success. His religious course began at the age of seventeen, when the conviction flashed upon his mind, while reading Pike's "Early Piety," that he ought to devote himself to the Lord's service, and with that decision of character which marked his whole life, he instantly went to his parents, from Aberdeen to Glasgow, to express his desire that his destination might be changed from the study of the law, on which he had just entered, to the study of divinity. He joined the theological classes in the University of Aberdeen, and

afterwards at Glasgow. At the latter place he was brought into connexion with a Students' Missionary Association, for reading papers, prayer, and conference on missionary subjects, of which he was, throughout, an active and zealous member. "This was a sort of focus and rallying point of everything that was most earnest and Christian in the University, drew good men together, and brought home to the hearts of the students, by essay or discussion, or through the well-worn volumes of the Missionary library, the shining examples of Missionary faith and heroism." At one of the meetings of the Association Burns first formed and announced the purpose of devoting himself to the missionary field.

We pause to refer to the similar associations in both of our English Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and in Dublin, in which Students' Missionary Associations flourish, and are, as formerly in Glasgow, the nurseries of some of the best additions to our Missionary labourers. May the Divine blessing abundantly prosper all such associations.

Mr. Burns requested his father, if he should think good, to communicate with Dr. Gordon, the convener of the Indian Committee of the Church of Scotland, and let him know that, if the Church should deem him qualified, he was ready to go as a missionary to Hindustan. The Committee received the application favourably, though not prepared to send him out immediately. Indeed it was nine years before Mr. Burns entered upon the direct work of missions. But from the time of his first dedication of himself to the office, he steadfastly, without a moment's subsequent hesitation, regarded himself as pledged to go abroad whenever the Church should give him the call. "And," he writes, "I felt from that time forward a greatly enlarged measure of the presence and blessing of God tending to confirm me more deeply in my cherished hope and purpose."

While Mr. Burns awaited his call into the mission-field, he began the exercise of his ministry in Scotland as a licensed preacher, and became at once the leader of a remarkable revival movement. The history of this "revival" occupies a considerable space in the Memoir, and it is told in so admirable a manner that we must make a brief reference to the circumstances.

The town of Kilsyth had been the scene of an early revival in the former century, and the remembrance of it had survived an interval of ninety years. A meeting among a few of the people for mutual edification, which had its origin in that period, still existed. When Mr. Burns' father began his ministry in Kilsyth, he frequently referred to that revival in a way to stir up his people to expect and labour for the renewal of