'Tis but as yesterday that spring-flowers bloom'd, And choirs of feather'd songsters pour'd their lay, And scented summer-gales the air perfumed :— All nature beam'd delight the live-long day. But soon-alas, how soon !-those blooms have fled : No more are heard around those tuneful strains: The falling leaf denotes half nature dead ; E'en now stern Winter claims his right, and reigns. Yet what these changes all, but Heaven's decree? What, but divine instruction giv'n to man, His own life's seasons here display'd to see, And learn the ways of Providence to scan ? In smiling infancy, and rosy youth, Bud forth and blossom all the sweets of spring; Life's summer next unfolds maturest growth; Then strength decays, and beauty's on the wing. But, lo in sunken form, advancing Age, With measured step and settled look, appears ; Revisions of the past its hours engage Sweet peace with God and man its bosom cheers. And when o'er all that's earthly, and decays, Like winter, death its sovereign power extends,Like nature too, humanity repays Its loan of life, and to the grave descends. And there for ever must it lie-nor rise To life restor❜d-nor God's works glad survey ? No more with grateful rapture view the skies With light refulgent from the orb of day? Shall genial glowing spring revisit earth, And slumbering nature start to life again;- Such fate forbid, O God of truth, of love! Into the human frame didst breathe, and prove Parent of good! canst thou have doom'd that race,- To their Great Cause thy marvellous acts to trace ; To sink for ever? No: that gracious Lord, To thee, O trembling mortal, in his word The pledge hath seal'd, that thou shalt rise again. The resurrection and the life, He came And pardon for a sinful world procure. Then faint not, Christian! let not death dismay, That safely leads to thy eternal home! K. EXTRACT FROM THE LAST PRAYER, ADDRESS, AND DYING WORDS OF ARCHBISHOP CRANMER, MARCH 21, 1556. "THOU didst not give thy Son, O heavenly Father, unto death for small sins only, but for all the greatest sins of the world, so that the sinner return to thee with his whole heart, as I do here at this present." After this he said, "I beseech God, grant me grace, that I may speak something at my departing, whereby God may be glorified, and you edified." He then repeated the Apostles' Creed, and declared his belief" in every article of the Catholic Faith, every word and sentence taught by our Saviour, his apostles, and prophets, and in the New and Old Testament." "And now," said he, "I come to the great thing, which troubleth my conscience more than any thing that ever I said or did in my whole life-and that is, the setting abroad writings contrary to the truth, which now here I renounce, and refuse, as things written with my hand contrary to the truth I thought in my heart, and written for fear of death, and to save my life, if it might be. . . . and forasmuch as my hand offended, writing contrary to my heart, my hand shall be first punished therefore; for may I come to the fire, it shall be first burnt." -The Papists reproached him for this revocation of what he said, to whom he replied-" Ay, my masters, do not take it so-always hitherto I have been a hater of falsehood, and a lover of simplicity, and never before this time have I dissembled ;" and with that he wept.-They then brought him to the spot where Ridley and Latimer had suffered. As soon as the flame arose, he held his hand out to meet it, and retained it there steadfastly, so that people saw it sensibly burning before the fire reached any other part of his body; and often did he repeat with a loud and firm voice, "This hand hath offended-this unworthy right hand." Never did martyr endure fire with more constancy: no cry was heard, but that of Stephen, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!" How can these extracts be better closed than by these words from the last prayer of Edward the Sixth, "Oh, my Lord God, defend this realm from Papistry, and maintain thy true religion." ON PROPHECY. MR. EDITOR,-In most works on Prophecy which I have read, there is this remarkable desideratum, viz. an application of prophecy to America and Eastern Asia. If the completion of 1290 days be as near as Mr. Irving surmises, nothing but a miracle can convert the American Indians in the north and south, the Chinese, Tartars, and Hindoos. One thousand eight hundred and thirty years have not sufficed to christianize Europe and Africa; though I grant all the increased powers which mechanical improvement can and does administer, nothing, I repeat, short of a miracle can do what he speaks of in so short a time. The question consequently arises, Will the Almighty be pleased to work such a miracle? The fact is, that all improvements in civilization and religion have uniformly flowed westward. The Jewish religion originated in Judea, and was stationary there for 4000 years; whilst arts, sciences, and When false religion, flowed all over Europe, and the north of Africa. our Lord and Saviour came on earth, he came on the same land; but neither did his religion go against the stream, hitherto flowing. It did not spread as from a centre, but it has flowed westward, also, in a slow, but sure course. Reasoning, therefore, à priori, we may suppose that it will next visit America; thence, proceed to China, and the vast heathen population of Asia; when having come to the spot whence it set out, the work will be accomplished, and the kingdoms of the world become the kingdom of God and his Christ. I speak this vaguely; the idea has long dwelt in my mind; and, if it should arouse any of your readers to a more appropriate application of prophecy than appears to me now to exist, when Europe alone is made the theatre of it, X. I shall be amply gratified. OXFORD TRACTS. SIR, The Morning Post of this day has given an abstract of the doctrines held by the Oxford Tract writers; among them I find the following. The honour paid to images is dangerous in the case of the uneducated, that is, of the greater portion of mankind. Now the worship paid to images has generally been acknowledged to be one of the foulest corruptions of Popery; are we then to be told that this is merely dangerous, and that too only in regard to one part of mankind? that the educated class are to bow down to senseless and lifeless images, while the ignorant are to be restrained from doing so, when we see the awful warnings given in the Bible, again and again, against any bowing down whatever to the works of men's hands? In truth, I would advise these writers to read the Homily against Peril of Idolatry, and Archdeacon Daubeny's Protestant's Companion, who, though a high Churchman, and a very clever man, was certainly no papist, nor a semi-papist, and who would have been sorry indeed to have lived to see such mealy-mouthed opposition to Popery made by members of the Church of England. I am, Sir, your obedient servant, ANGLICUS. LAW REPORT. No. LXIII-TITHE COMMUTATION.-BAIL COURT, QUEEN'S BENCH. BEFORE MR. JUSTICE PATTESON. LAST DAY OF TERM, JAN. 31, 1839.-THE QUEEN V. THE TITHE COMMISSIONERS. SIR WILLIAM FOLLETT applied to the Court for a Mandamus, commanding them to cause evidence to be heard, as to the value of the Tithes in a parish called Tarrant Gunville, in the county of Dorset, (which living is in the gift of the Master and Fellows of University College, Oxford.) The application was made on the part of the Rector, the Rev. John Watts, and who stated that he had entered, with the principal Landowner of the Parish, James John Farquharson, Esq., into a composition of a peculiar kind. According to this agreement the Landowner, besides the money to be paid under the composition, was bound to furnish and deliver at the parsonage House four good loads of wheaten straw, and was also bound to bring a certain quantity of coals from the town of Poole, and to do other things which very much increased the value of the composition beyond the mere amount of the rent charge agreed to in exchange for the Tithes. The Act of Parliament had directed that the Commissioners should settle the value of the Tithes at the average of the seven years preceding 1835, and directed that where there existed a composition that should be taken as the average annual value, provided that where notice should be given to the Commissioners of any circumstance which had the effect of preventing the composition from being a correct representation of the average value, it should in that case be in the power of the Commissioners to increase the amount of the compositions, by a sum not exceeding one-fifth the amount. The statute had also provided that a report to be presented to Parliament by the original Tithe Commissioners, should have the same force and validity as if it had been enacted in Parliament, and that Report had recommended that, whenever the Assistant Commissioners were under any difficulty about ascertaining the value in any parish, they should receive evidence of compositions and voluntary commutations in neighbouring parishes similar in quality and position, to assist them in ascertaining the value of the parish in question. All the circumstances which have been mentioned existed in the present case, but the Assistant Commissioner refused to take into consideration any reference to compositions and voluntary commutations in neighbouring parishes. Mr. Justice PATTESON considered that the refusal of the Commissioner to act on the recommendation of the report was in substance a refusal to obey an Act of Parliament. His Lordship therefore granted the rule. PROGRESS AND PROSPECTS OF THE CHURCH. SIR HENRY WHEATLEY has transmitted to the Rev. H. M. Wagner, Vicar of this parish, the sum of 50., being her Majesty's donation to the fund for building the church of St. John the Evangelist, situated on Carlton Hill, Brighton. We observe with much pleasure that a number of gentlemen are actively exerting themselves to procure the building and endowment of a Chapel of Ease in the parish of Holbeach, Lincolnshire, where additional facilities for public worship are very much required by a numerous and increasing population, some of whom reside more than twelve miles from the parish church. The Duke of Somerset has given an acre of land for a site for the proposed Chapel, and the Lord Bishop of the diocese has given the splendid donation of 8007.; in addition to which, W. E. Tomlin, Esq., of Riby, has contributed 300l.; Rev. J. Morton, Vicar of Holbeach, 1007.; Rev. Richard Dods, Rector of Fleet, 2001., &c. &c. A subscription has been set on foot to obtain funds for the erection of an Episcopal Chapel in the hamlet of Burton, in the parish of Winfrith, Dorset. This retired hamlet lies at a distance of more than two miles from the parish church, which is of itself insufficient to accommodate the population living in its immediate neighbourhood. The subscription list already promises well; and we understand that the fact of the hamlet being regularly visited twice a-week, by the popish priest of Lulworth, as a fair field for the propagandism of his church, and in which he has already made some converts, has given a stimulus to the subscriptions, which we hope will be permanent. lady, who had entered her name for 5, on learning this circumstance, at once augmented her subscription to 301. This is an example worthy of extensive imitation. One NEW CHURCH AT PLYMOUTH.-That excellent and zealous clergyman, the Vicar of St. Andrews, Plymouth, has, with the aid of other friends of the Church, taken measures for the erection and endowment of a Chapel of Ease in the populous and important parish over which he presides; and we are happy to say that the subscription for accomplishing this most desirable object already amounts to nearly 2700l., including a grant of 1000l. from the Commissioners for Building Churches, one of 500l. from the Incorporated Society, and one of 500l. from the Diocesan Society. The sum required, including 1000l. for an endownient, is 5000l. A liberal subscription has been commenced for the erection of two new Churches, at Haugh End and Mytholmroyd, in the chapelry of Sowerby, Halifax. A valuable site, estimated at 7007., has been given near Haugh End, for a Church, School, and Parsonage - house, by Robert Stansfield, Esq., of Field House. Towards the fund for the two Churches, 100%. has been given by each of the Misses Hawden; Mrs. H. Priestley, 501.; Miss C. Hawden, 50%.; Miss Greenup, 100%.; Mr. G. Hawden, 50l.; Rev. W. H. Bull, 100%.; and W. L. Rawson, Esq. has presented 50l. to the Diocesan Society. The late Countess Dowager of Rosse has left the sum of 6000l. 3 per cents.; the annual dividends to be applied towards erecting or repairing Episcopal Chapels, and assisting in the education of young men for the Episcopal Church in Scotland. In the application and distribution of this fund, the trustees are instructed, cæteris paribus, to prefer the Highlands and Highlanders, the islands of Orkney and Shetland being included. Lord Dynevor has, with a liberality worthy of his moral worth and high standing in society, expressed his intention of building an additional |