Few people know the history of English tithes. Nothing is more common than to hear intelligent Churchmen talk of the pious enthusiasm with which the early English Church was parochially endowed. The very completeness and universality of the system might make us sceptical concerning the spiritual fervour of the people, whatever the feeling of their rulers. Mr. Miall shows convincingly that the charter of Ethelwolf, which is the title-deed of the English tithe system, was a bribe to Aelstan, Bishop of Sherburn, who, during his absence in Rome, had conspired to depose him, and that it was necessary, in order to secure its provisions, that the charter should be renewed by successive monarchs, sometimes in a minatory and coercive way that is very significant. Thus Edgar, a.d. 967, enacts that if any one shall refuse to pay tithes, the king's sheriff shall seize them by force, causing the tenth part to be paid to the Church, four parts to the lord of the manor, four parts to the bishops, the unfortunate owner being left with but a tithe himself. With great minuteness, Mr. Miall traces the history and operation of the law, and shows that the law knows nothing of the Church as a corporate ecclesiastical body, or of a common ecclesiastical fund. Individual bishops and clergymen may claim personal revenues as assigned to them by Act of Parliament, but that is all. The individual claim that is, is the only claim to be satisfied in the event of disendowment. The Church is no more a corporate body than the army is; in its relations to Church property, the endowments pertain not to Protestant Episcopalianism, as such, but to the State Church for the time being, whether Roman, Episcopalian, or Presbyterian.
Mr. Miall has done good service in publishing his able and valuable little book for eighteen-pence. No Nonconformist or Churchman who wishes to be well informed concerning the questions of Church property that are pending should be ignorant of it.
Letters from Rome on the Council. By Quirinus. Reprinted from the Allgemeine Zeitung. Authorized Translation. Rivingtons.
We have already noticed the first parts of this admirable history and critique on the Council. It is full of learning, wisdom, and wit, and must be read so long as the Council itself engages the attention of either theologians or historians. We do not wonder that a book so able and well-informed should have excited denunciation and protest from those whose trickery it exposes. Written by Liberal Catholics, it is the most damaging exposure of the chicanery of Rome that this century has seen.
Reasons for Returning to the Church of England. Strahan and Co.
This is a kind of book of Ecclesiastes, which no one will read without interest, and which will be even instructive to some of the author's co-churchmen; but it is almost astounding to find him detail as new discoveries, arrived at after years of pondering, reasons for leaving the Church of Rome which have been the principia of Protestantism from the time of the Reformation.
The real interest of the book lies in the contrasts of practical religious life in the two churches which the peculiar experience of the author enables him to give. Thirty-five years ago he took orders in the Church of England. Twenty-five years ago he became a member of the Church of Rome. After remaining in it thirteen years he seceded from it, and has for the last twelve years passed a 'life of isolation,' which he now ends by returning to the bosom of the Anglican Church. Those acquainted with that Church will have no difficulty in identifying the author with Mr. Capes. In much that he says about the common religious life of the two Churches, and of all Churches, we agree, although he goes too far, we think, in his depreciation of the practical religious influence of Divine dogmas. The credulities of intellectual ability and moral conscientiousness chiefly strike us in reading the author's confessions; but he has furnished us with an interesting apologia pro vitâ suâ.
Pioneers and Founders; or, Recent Workers in the Mission Field. By C. M. Yonge. Macmillan and Co.
Miss Yonge has made a selection of biographies of eminent missionaries, with a view of exhibiting the scope and progress of modern English Protestant missions. The names selected are John Eliot; David Brainerd; Christian Frederick Schwartz; Henry Martyn; Carey, Marshman, and Ward; the Judson family; the Bishops of Calcutta—Middleton, Heber, and Wilson; Samuel Marsden; John Williams; Allen Gardiner; and Charles Frederick Mackenzie. Knowing Miss Yonge's strongly marked Anglicanism, we opened her volume with some apprehension, but were gratified to find it not justified, for, with the exception of a certain phraseology when speaking of Nonconformists or Americans—such as 'it is the custom of this sect,' the word being used with a perceptible emphasis, as from a vantage ground of ecclesiastical orthodoxy—the spirit of the book is admirable. We all know how lucidly, beautifully, and sympathetically Miss Yonge can write, and all that is best in her devout feeling flows forth without restraint as she narrates the marvellous stories of Carey, the Judsons, and John Williams. She cannot resist—she has no wish to resist—the power and wisdom with which they spake, or the indubitable signs and wonders of God's Spirit that followed them. We have only words of commendation for her charming little book; never have the achievements of these Christian heroes been told in a more religious or fascinating way.
Baptist History: From the Foundation of the Christian Church to the Present Time. By J. M. Cramp, D.D., with an Introduction by Rev. J. Angus, D.D. Elliot Stock.