"Thus in prayer to God, and in peace with all mankind, I lie down to take my rest; and may I, Almighty Father, through faith in the blood of the Lamb, so lie down in life's last sleep, calm and untroubled, and arise to be with thee for ever. Amen?"

The same spirit pervades the whole of these solemn addresses to the Almighty, bespeaking such a sense and feeling of the blessed hopes and prospects of pure Christianity, as do great credit to the heart and understanding of the noble author.

A Sermon preached at St. Martin's Church, Birmingham, on Sunday, October 9, 1825, in behalf of the General Institution of Deaf and Dumb Children at Edgbaston, near Birmingham, and published at the particular Request of the Committee of that Institution. By the Hon. and Right Rev. HENRY, LORD BISHOP OF LICHFIELD and CoVENTRY. 8vo. Pp. 24. 2s. London. Rivingtons. IN this very interesting appeal in behalf of an excellent Institution, the Bishop, after passing from the consideration of our Lord's miraculous cures of bodily infirmities to that of the remedies which He has provided for our spiritual maladies, proceeds to consider first, The deplorable state of the deaf and dumb while unrelieved; secondly, The change wrought by the relief which the Institution affords; and he concludes with a practical application of the subject to the hearts and consciences of various classes in the congregation. We have only room for the following touching and affecting enumeration of the privations under which the uninstructed person labours, who is deaf and dumb from the birth.

"He seems doomed almost wholly to hopeless ignorance. He can neither make enquiries, nor receive answers. Incapable of hearing, so as to imitate, he can never acquire language. The fetter of the ear chains the tongue. And to all the benefits of social intercourse he is little less a stranger. He sees at times vivacity and every sign of animated enjoyment in the countenance and gestures of those around him-but to him it is all unintelligible and uninteresting.

"Life, with all its chequered varieties, is to him but an uniform, cheerless, dreary blank. He is never more solitary than when in company. The suggestions of friendly counsel, the soothing voice of the comforter, and the no less salutary admonitions of the reprover never reach his soul. He cannot give vent to the effusions of affection, or pour forth the tribute of gratitude.

The proclamation of sin forgiven, of a crucified Saviour, and a reconciled Father, that sound which has gone through all the earth,

starve for want of the necessaries of life, or in danger of perishing everlastingly for want of saving knowledge, and reach not forth a helping hand to rescue him; the widow of Zarephath shall rise up in judgment' against such a one, for she took compassion on the prophet Elijah, and administered to his wants in the hour of distress; the daughter of Pharaoh shall rise up in judgment on such an inhuman Christian, for she had compassion on the child Moses, though a stranger, and of a persecuted race, and behold a greater than Moses is here;' for, according to our Saviour's construction, what is done, or not done, unto the least of these his brethren is either done or not done unto him."" P. 13.

Plain Directions for Reading to the Sick. By the REV. JOSEPH HORDERN, M.A. Vicar of Rortherne, Cheshire. London. Rivingtons. MANY of our clerical readers, particularly of the younger and less experienced class, have no doubt often felt themselves at a loss, when attending their sick parishioners, for arguments and illustrations drawn from the Scriptures precisely applicable to every case in point. To remedy this inconvenience is the object of this little unpretending but very useful tract, which we cordially recommend to those for whose service it is published, convinced that in giving it publicity none will accuse either its author or ourselves of a work of supererogation. It is, in fact, an attempt to provide a manual for parochial use, comprised in the most portable and condensed form, in which the most striking and applicable passages of Scripture are noticed and enforced by appropriate reflections, for the most part drawn from Adams, Barrow, Baxter, Bowdler, Dehon, Jebb, Thomas à Kempis, Scott, Sherlock, Stackhouse, Stillingfleet, Jeremy Taylor, and Tillotson. The work commences with the Office for the Visitation of the Sick in common use, to which is annexed, a few Prayers from Dodwell, and other approved authors. The remaining pages are occupied with the reflections and quotations alluded to, classed under the following heads:

"Of the Acceptation of Prayer.-On Resignation to the Will of God.On Support under Sufferings.-On Repentance. On Forgiveness. For one that has been long Ill.-Christ the Sinner's Refuge.

For one that is in Bodily Pain. For one that is Low Spirited. Christ both able and willing to save Sinners. Christ died to make Atonement for the Sins of the whole WorldOn the Assistance of the Holy Spirit. On Death. Different Conclusions of the Good and Bad.-On the Mercy of God."

We select, as a specimen, that upon the Atonement, as affording at the same time a proof of the author's correct view of this very important article in a Christian's creed.

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"Christ died to make atonement for the sins of the whole world.The Third Collect for Good-Friday. Read Psalms xxii. lxix. lxxxviii. -Genesis xxii. to verse 30.-Isaiah 1. from verse 6.-St. Luke xxiii. to verse 50.-St. Matthew i. from verse 18;-and xvi. from verse 21. -Acts iii. A few insulated texts are then introduced prefatory to the remarks to the sick per son-that Adam, having sinned against God, became liable to punishment, and forfeited the favour and protection of his Maker; God, however, sent his Son Jesus Christ into the world to make atonement for his sin. That all mankind inherit from Adam a depraved nature, which leads them into sin, but that the sacrifice made by Christ cleanseth them from all sin, both original and actual, and that all the CLAIM we have to eternal life, is purchased for us by the death of our Redeemer, who took away the punishment we had deserved, and made a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the WHOLE world. That EVERY man hath an interest in the merits of Christ, and that as EVERY infant that comes into the world brings along with it the guilt of Adam's sin, so it brings along with it likewise the benefits of Christ's meritorious death, which God hath set forth as a standing propitiation for the sins of the WHOLE world, that the covenant of grace commenced immediately after the covenant of works was broken, and has included ALL mankind ever since, that the blood of Christ shields his children from the wrath of God, and that the imputation of Adam's guilt and obnoxiousness to punishment is effectually taken away by the meritorious oblation of that Lamb of God, which was slain from the foundation of the world.'"-Stackhouse.

In a future edition we strongly recommend the addition of the Communion Service, without which, as a Manual for the Visitation of the Sick, the present work is in some degree incomplete.

LAW PROCEEDINGS

RELATIVE TO THE CHURCH.

RENNELL V. BISHOP OF LINCOLN.

Continued from page 226.

Justice Burrough.-It frequently happens that different persons come to different conclusions from the same premises; this is the case with me in drawing a different conclusion from that of my Brother Gaselee. I am of opinion that judgment must be given for the Defendants, Thomas Henry Mirehouse and William Squire Mirehouse.

I ground myself on the allegations in the declaration, that the late prebendary, in his life-time and at his death, was seised of the prebend or canonry founded in the cathedral church of Sarum, with its appurtenances, to which the advowson of the rectory in question is annexed, in his demesne, as of fee and right, in right of the said prebend or canonry. These are the premises on which I ground my opinion.

These allegations stand admitted on the record. This naturally leads to an investigation of the character, in law, of the prebendary or canon; of the nature of his prebend, or in other words, of his right as prebendary or canon; and of what must be taken to be meant by the seisin in his demesne as of fee, in right of his prebend or canonry.

By our known law a prebendary or canon is an ecclesiastical sole corporation as such, he can have no heir, he can have no personal representative: as such his prebendal rights or property cannot go, either to his natural heir or his personal representative. Where must those things go? to his successor. In their corporate capacities, in estimation of law, the predecessor and successor, being one, it is a continuance of the same corporate body. This is more visible in an aggregate corporation when one of the body dies the body corporate remains. A prebendary or canon is a corporator, in two respects: in one respect, as member of the corporation of dean and canons. He is one of the chapter, having idem in ecclesiá et vocem in capitulo: he is a corporator sole, as prebendary. In every relation in which he stands to the church he is a corporator.

That I might thoroughly understand the question we have to de

cide, I have looked into the origin of the rights of this particular prebend or canonry. Before the the removal of the church of Salisbury to the place where it now stands, Osmond, Bishop of Salisbury, nephew of William the Conqueror, by his charter, granted to the church of Salisbury, for ever (amongst other things) the church of Grantham, with the tithes and other things there adjoining.

A

Whilst in this state, the church of Salisbury, and that church only, could have the duties of the church of Grantham under its care. copy of this charter is to be found in the evidence book at the church of Salisbury, in the registry of that church, and in 3 Dugdale Mon. Angl. 371.

It must have been the intention of the founder that this property should be in the disposition of the church only.

In process of time the property so given by Osmond was appropriated in different ways. New prebends were founded in the church,* and this and other property apportioned to them and other members of the church. Whether to the bishop, to the dean, to the dean and chapter, or to the prebendaries or canons, is wholly immaterial; they were all corporations of different descriptions, and could only take and hold in their corporate capacities. These corporate capacities excluded the idea of any of the rights going otherwise than in succession. Therefore I presume it is, that we find no instance of an heir or personal representative of a sole corporation presenting or claiming to present to any church, to which the right of presentation had vested in the corporate character.

If one adverts to a lay advowson in fee, appendant or in gros, a manifest distinction is to be perceived; the party claiming a right to present would allege a seisin in demesne as of fee, or in gross as of fee and right.

What is the legal explanation of the word fee in such cases? It is to him and his heirs. The property is in him in his natural character; the party seised of it may dispose of it as he pleases: if he dies without doing so it goes to his heir. If a vacancy happens in the ancestor's time, and he dies without disposing of it, it is wholly immaterial, in my mode of considering the question, whether it belongs to the heir, or to the executor or administrator to present.

There is no qualification of the seisin in such case.

But the prebendary of the prebend of Grantham (as appears in the declaration) is seised in his demesne as of fee, in right of his prebend or canonry. It is said, "in his demesne as of fee." By this it cannot be intended to mean a seisin to him and his heirs; the heir can in no case have it; it must mean to him and his successors.

There being so plain a distinction between the case of an ordinary lay patron seised of a lay advowson, and a prebendary seised in his corporate capacity in right of his prebend, it appears that no case of a lay patronage applies to the subject in question; such a case can only apply by way of analogy; on examination it is clear the analogy does not hold, and, therefore, it has no application to this subject.