CAMBRIDGE. At a Congregation holden on Monday, Oct. 10, the following degrees were conferred: : MASTER OF ARTS. Thomas Reynolds, Pembroke college. Jesus College.-The heads have decided that the Fellowship vacant by the death of the Rev. P. Aubin, late rector of St. Clement's, appertains to Guernsey, and not to Jersey. Oct. 22.-At a Congregation on Wednesday last, the following degrees were conferred:: MASTERS OF ARTS. William Atkinson, Magdalene college. Trinity College.-The following gentlemen have been elected Fellows of Trinity college-Hen. A. Marsh, Rich. P. Mate, Charles W. King, Robert Watt, Theodore Preston, Edward Cope, Arthur Cayley. At the same time the Rev. Geo. Adam Brown, was elected Vice-Master, in the place of the Rev. John Brown, resigned. SOCIETIES. SOCIETY FOR THE PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL IN FOREIGN PARTS. THE Report for 1842 has just been published. The following abstract, adopted and circulated by one of the most important district committees, gives an admirable outline of its most important contents: "The expenditure of the society in the foreign colonies and dominions subject to the British crown, during the past year, has amounted to more than 80,0007.; distributed in the following proportions:To the British Provinces of North America The West Indies, and British Guiana.... The East Indies.. Australia... New Zealand £26,980 20,062 21,621 8,017 2,387 Cape of Good Hope, and Mauritius 1,511 1. Among the memorable events of the last year, intimately connected with the designs of this society, the first notice is claimed for the formation of the Colonial Bishoprics' Fund. It is matter of congratulation, that within little more than a year the amount of subscriptions raised for this beneficial and important object has amounted to seventy thousand pounds; and, that, with this testimony of the widely-extended interest taken in the measure, the spiritual heads of the church at home have proceeded to consecrate, first, a bishop for the rising colony of New Zealand; and more recently, for Gibraltar, to preside over the British possessions in the Mediterranean; and for Van Diemen's Land, hitherto a part of the vast Australian diocese. Another colony, viz. British Guiana, mentioned in the Bishops' Declaration,' as requiring a resident bishop, has also been erected into a diocese without any charge upon the fund, by the subdivision of Barbados, into Barbados, Antigua, and Guiana. But this beneficial measure will occasion many fresh demands for the assistance of the Society; it has already led to many requests from different quarters in these colonies, both for grants of money to be employed in the building of churches, and for clergymen by whom the churches may be served. Nor can we expect it to be otherwise. Indeed the instances are many which prove that the colonists, who have gone forth from us, have not forgotten the church-paths of their father-land. They have laboured diligently, and given freely of their little, to secure to themselves that Christian centre of society, the village church, and the services of its appointed minister. "2. This feeling among our colonists is well attested by the reports which the society has received during the past year from the bishops and clergy of those provinces, which were the scene of its earliest missionary labours, the British provinces of North America; provinces, whose religious condition and wants, amidst a rapidly increasing population, still demand our unceasing solicitude. The Bishop of Toronto, to whose zealous care the province of Upper Canada has long been deeply indebted, and who has lived to see the number of mis · sionaries in Canada increased, within forty years, from nine clergymen to one hundred and fifty, under the bishops of the two provinces, yet incloses a list of forty-five stations, for which missionaries are still required, and adds the following words: I shall fill up these stations as quickly as I am able; yet before this can be accomplished, a still greater number, equally destitute, will present themselves in other parts; and thus it will continue for many years to come. Is it inquired what is the disposition of the inhabitants of these settlements in the woods? In twenty-three of the stations churches are already built by them, or are now in progress; in twentyone they have promised aid in money or in land; and in one the parsonage-house is standing erected near the church, waiting for its proper tenant. But the bishop justly admonishes us that we are suffering these good people to begin at the wrong end. "It is found,' he says, that little can be effected in any township or settlement till a missionary arrives. The people dispute about the site of the church, its dimensions, and so forth; and when they set about building, there is a want of system, and, consequently, a want of means. They require some one to take the lead, and devote more time than they can spare.' One may judge also, in some degree, of the increasing need, from what he states of the rapid formation of new villages. Where water privileges, as they are called, exist,and in this country they are very numerous, a village is frequently seen to start up in a few months.' And he adds, "In most districts a travelling missionary, in addition to the resident clergymen, however far his visits may extend, would be of great benefit, to seek out our people in the new settlements and less populous townships, and by occasional visits to encourage them till they become sufficiently numerous to require a resident missionary.' The reasonableness of this suggestion may be understood from a consideration of the extent of area in these Canadian townships, which are, in general, nine miles by twelve, and comprise a circuit of more than one hundred miles square, through a province whose settlements are scattered over a space of more than five hundred miles from north-east to south-west. 6 "The appeal which this long-tried missionary bishop makes to the people of his own province, is equally applicable to us, if we retain any regard for those who have gone out from our shores. Great as was the call on the first converts to Christianity, to do all in their power with their substance and with their talents, both of body and mind, to convert the Gentiles to the faith, the call upon us is, in one respect, greater. For we are not merely called to convert the heathen, but to prevent those who have once seen the light from falling back into darkness.' It is this double office which the society has in our colonies so long laboured to fulfil. "It is most encouraging to read in the reports of the Bishop of Toronto, and of the other prelates of the North American colonies, a few remarkable instances of Christian beneficence displayed by individual members of the Church in those dominions. One, in Upper Canada, has built a church and parsonage-house, and endowed it with six hundred acres of excellent land and he has promised to endow two more in the same munificent manner. Many have given parcels of land, one or two hundred acres, or smaller portions. One young lady, out of a very limited patrimony, has given to the service of God one hundred acres of her best land, and looks for a blessing in heaven.' A merchant in Newfoundland has liberally contributed to the building of five churches in his vicinity: and hearing that the inhabitants of another settlement had subscribed in a most praiseworthy manner, with their pastor, to rebuild their old church, he has promised to complete the work with a tower and steeple, at his own cost, of 7007. An aged planter, who has felt himself indebted to the society for the comforts of religion, in the same colony, for the last fifty years, has lately bequeathed his whole substance, after his death, amounting to 2000/., to aid its missionary labours. Nor is this spirit of devotion and charity confined to the comparatively rich and few. The Bishop of Nova Scotia speaks of a new, spacious, and very handsome church, built, indeed, with the aid of some grants from home, but not without great and unwearied efforts from the inhabitants of a populous and very poor settlement: whilst the anxiety of the poor children of the forest in the same province for the rite of confirmation was shown by the great distance which they were willing to travel for it; in one instance some females having walked thirty-three miles, to be present at the church where it was to be administered. Such instances must give the friends of the society the encouraging assurance, that there are those in our dis tant settlements, of whom it may be said, as of the good centurion, that they are worthy for whom we should do this." "3. In none of our possessions has the influence of the English church been more rapidly extended, and to none have there been more signal proofs of the benefit it has done, in the erection of churches, the founding of schools, and the attachment of the majority of the people, in every district, to the religion of their fathers, than in Australia. This gratifying result has, no doubt, been owing, under the favour of Almighty God, to the untiring labours and devoted zeal of Bishop Broughton, who has truly devoted himself and all that he has to the extension of the reign of Christ in that wide field of labour. He is now able to reckon the number of fifty clergymen, chiefly missionaries of this society, as his fellow-labourers, and a body of more than seventy thousand people, professing themselves members of the Church of England. Yet in many of the districts of this province the want of a clergyman's ministrations is severely felt. "The accounts from the missionary stations in the diocese of Calcutta report a satisfactory increase in the number of catechumens and persons who have been admitted to the holy sacrament of baptism, the baptized in three stations having advanced from 501 to 986, and those under catechetical instruction from 899 to 1232. And this progress has been made in spite of many discouragements and severe privations amongst the Christian populationdiscouragements from the heathen zemindars or native landowners, under whom many of these people are placed as tenants, and privations from the extensive failure of their crops, owing to a season of destructive rains. "The cheerful content of the native Christians, particularly those who have been first to embrace the Christian religion, and their forwardness in every good work, are attested by the society's missionaries. They are reported as strongly attached to their English pastors, coming to meet them on their approach, and walking with them on their way. In cases of distress among themselves, or in a neighbouring village, they cheerfully come forward to subscribe their mite of alms. The foundation of native villages is accordingly one of the measures which the Bishop of Madras, with good reason, recommends as an effectual means of promoting the discipline of a Christian life together with Christian doctrine. I would rather see one village entirely Christian,' he says, than congregations in two villages where Christian and heathen dwell together. The proof that godliness is profitable to all things, having the promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come, was never, I think, more manifest than in the contrast between the heathen and Christian villages of Tinnevelly. In the former, all is slovenliness and disorder, irregularity and confusion in the building of their huts, dirt and discomfort every where; while in the latter you find wellarranged and well-ventilated streets, drawn at right angles to each other, the ground before each hut neatly swept, happy faces, and a village church, which, however humble, is evidently the pride of the vil lage.' It might surely be a question, whether this might not be a legitimate object for a special fund, the building and settling of Christian villages in India. "If any feeling of dismay should arise in our minds at the extent and variety of the demands which are made upon us in these Christian enterprises, demands which have indeed increased with each passing year, yet let it be remembered that it has been by the continued efforts of one year after another, efforts never beyond our strength, that so much good fruit has been reaped, and the ground prepared for a still more extensive harvest. We have still the promise, As thy days, so shall thy strength be,' (Deut. xxxiii. 95.) And for the duty we cannot do better than borrow the admonition given to us in the resolutions of the missionary board of our brethren of the American church. "The missionary field is always to be regarded as one, the world. The terms 'domestic and foreign' are to be understood only as terms of locality, adopted for convenience. The appeal of the church for the support of missions is made to all baptized persons as such, and on the ground of their baptismal vows. Each parish is to be regarded as a missionary association, and every pastor an agent of the missionary board for Jesus' sake. Let every member of this society pray to Almighty God for his blessing upon its designs, and seek for it his guidance and protection, who has promised to be with his own missionary society, the apostolic church, even unto the end of the world."" ECCLESIASTICAL COMMISSION- RESOLUTIONS RESPECTING GRANTS IN AS EXTENDED AUGUST 2, 1842. THE Ecclesiastical Commissioners for England, having further considered how pro vision may best be made for the cure of souls, out of the limited amount of monies at present at their disposal, in conformity with the intent and meaning of the Acts 3 and 4 Vict. c. 113, and 4 and 5 Viet. c. 39, have resolved to recommend to Her Majesty in Council: That grants be made, either in augmentation of the incomes of, or towards providing fit houses of residence for, the in cumbents of certain benefices and churches, with cure of souls; that is to say, being either parish churches, or churches or chapels with districts legally belonging or assigned thereto, in certain classes; subject to such limitations as are hereinafter mentioned, or as may from time to time be determined on; the Commissioners reserving to themselves a right to decline recommending a grant in any case in which from special circumstances they shall be of opinion that it is not expedient: That the First Class consist of grants, made unconditionally, to benefices or churches with cure of souls as aforesaid, being in public patronage, namely, in the patronage of Her Majesty, either in right of the Crown or of the Duchy of Lancaster, of the Duke of Cornwall, of any Archbishop or Bishop, of any dean and chapter, dean, archdeacon, prebendary, or other dignitary or officer in any cathedral or collegiate church, or of any rector, vicar, or petual curate, as such: and that this class of grants be for the present limited to raising the average annual net incomes to the following amounts respectively, according to the scale of population prefixed thereto; viz. Population amounting to 2000, income 1507. population amounting to 1000, income 1207. And as soon as the funds are sufficient, of which due notice will be given,-population amounting to 500, income 1007.; population below 500, income 807. That the Second Class consist of grants made to benefices or churches, with cure of souls as aforesaid, whether in public patronage or in private patronage, namely, any patronage whatsoever other than as aforesaid; upon condition of such grants being met by benefactions* from other sources, either paid to the Commissioners on account of the same benefices or churches, or secured in perpetuity to the incumbents thereof; and that this class of grants be for the present limited to cases within the following scale of population and income; viz. Population amounting to 2000, income below 2007.; population amounting to 1000, That the Third Class consist of grants made to benefices or churches, with cure of souls as aforesaid, in consideration of their being situate within the places in which any tithes vested in the Commissioners, or any tithes in lieu of which lands or other hereditaments vested in them were allotted or assigned, arise, or have heretofore arisen; such grants not, in any case, exceeding the actual value of the tithes, lands, or other hereditaments, in respect of which the same shall be made. * In meeting benefactions the Commis. sioners will, as a general rule, make a grant equal to the benefaction in the case of churches in public patronage, and in the proportion to the benefaction of two to three in the case of churches in private patronage. Neither a grant from Queen Ann's Bounty, nor a benefaction already met by such a grant, can be met by a grant from the Commissioners; but a benefaction from trustees, or from any society or body of contributors, as well as from any individual, may be so met. income below 1507. CHURCH EXTENSION. Bethnal Green Churches. Another of these churches, that of St. James the Less, situated in Bonner's Fields, Bethnal Green, was consecrated by the Lord Bishop of London, in June last. The collection of this fund was commenced in April, 1839, under the sanction of the Bishop of the diocese, with the design of providing the inhabitants of this large and populous parish with the means of spiritual improvement for themselves, and of Christian education for their children, which a very small portion of them previously enjoyed, by building ten additional churches, parsonage-houses, and schools. Four of these churches have already been consecrated, two more are in progress, and will be completed about the end of the present year. Two other sites have been obtained, and a third promised; making nine in all, for which churches have been built or sites secured. The parish also now enjoys the advantage of six additional resident clergymen; and three others, who will shortly come into residence, have been recently nominated to districts where churches will be built. In two of the districts the school-houses have been completed, while in others temporary provision has been made for the education of children, until the intended buildings shall have been erected. The whole sum required for the completion of the design is 75,000l., of which nearly 70,000. has been already obtained, the deficiency being now little more than 5000. Parish of Islington.-In 1828 the population of this parish was 34,000; there were then two churches and chapels, affording accommodation for 2700 persons; four officiating clergymen; one school for boys, and one for girls. In 1842 the population had increased to 55,573; there are twelve churches and chapels, affording accommodation for 13,485; nineteen officiating clergymen; seven schools for boys, seven for girls, besides ten infant schools. Thus in twelve years there has been an increase in the population of 21,573; in church accommodation, of 11,785 sittings; in the number of clergy, of fifteen, and in schools (including infant schools,) of twentytwo. In 1830, three new churches having been built, Islington was divided into four district parishes. These three churches cost 35,000l., of which 12,000. was borne by the parochial rates, and the remainder by the Church Commissioners. The expenses of lighting, &c. of these churches, together with those of St. Mary and the chapel-of-ease, are also provided for out of parochial funds. The four new churches since built cost 17,6141. The total cost of these four new churches, the chapels, and all the new schools, is about 26,820., of which about 7,2001. was borne by public grants and societies, and 19,620. by voluntary subscriptions. The annual sum to be realized by voluntary subscriptions, for current expenses of the churches and maintaining the schools, is upwards of 2,5007. Leeds. A new church is to be built in Leeds, to be called the "Church of the Holy Cross." Metropolitan Episcopal Welsh Church.A meeting of noblemen and gentlemen connected with the Principality, has been held to receive the report of a Committee appointed last year for the purpose of establishing in London a church or chapel, wherein two services should be performed in the Welsh language, according to the doctrines of the Church of England. With the view of affording to the natives of the Principality, resident in London, the benefits of divine worship, it had been originally proposed to erect a church for that desirable object; but the sum realized up to this time being only 22501., it was conceived more expedient to hire a suitable edifice, and a negociation in this view had been entered into with the proprietors of the Episcopal Chapel, Ely-place, Holborn. The Bishop of London had given his sanction to this plan, only suggesting that it would be essential to guarantee to the clergyman who might be selected, an annual income of not less than 2001. for five years certain. To this condition the Committee assented, and an appeal was consequently made to those interested in the Principality, to enable the Committee to carry out these objects. More than a fourth of the sum required was guaranteed in the room, and it was confidently predicted that the residue will be speedily obtained. Chatham.-The Lord Bishop of Rochester has consecrated the new church, called Christ Church, in the parish of Chatham. Worcester. The new church called St. Michael's, erected in Worcester, near the site of the old church, has been consecrated by the Lord Bishop of the diocese. The church of St. Mary, Wareham, Dorsetshire, was on Michaelmas day last restored to the performance of divine vice. The roof of the old church was found, about two years ago, to be in a dangerous state, and the body of the church generally to be most inconvenient and damp, and quite insufficient for the accommodation of the inhabitants. It was therefore determined to pull down the body of the church, and rebuild it, so as to be able to contain 1000 sittings, 600 of which were to be appropriated to the poor. The clergy and churchwardens, seconded by an indefatigable Committee, applied to the Diocesan and Metropolis Societies, who liberally contributed, and ultimately the whole of the sums, collected from these sources, with the subscriptions of individuals, and the collections after the opening, have amounted to within 2007. of the amount required. The old tower and chancel still remain, and form very fine features of the entire fabric. The alterations have had so beneficial an influence upon the neighbourhood, that whereas formerly the 4 or 5 hundred sittings, which were all that the church contained, were rarely occupied, now the 1000 sittings have been eagerly sought for, and there are nearly 100 heads of families besides anxious to be provided with accommodation also. IRELAND. Appointments.--Rev. Anthony Blackburn to the rectory of Clongill, co. Meath. Rev. W. G. Burroughs to the vicarage of Kilboeacon, co. Kilkenny. Rev. Theo. Campbell to Trinity Chapel, Belfast. Rev. Henry Herbert to the prebend of Clon cumery and vicarage of Innistiogue, co. Kilkenny. Rev. J. K. Robinson to the rectory of Whitechurch, co. Wexford. Rev. Alex. Stuart to the archdeaconry of Ross, co. Cork. Rev. H. Newland, D.Ď. to the deanery of Fernes; patron, the Crown. |