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many instances from parochial cares, enabled them very often to rise to such a degree of eminence as few of ours could ever expect to reach. But he, nevertheless, maintained that the course of theological study prescribed for all who were destined for the ministry in our Church, and the opportunities for extending this course in our General Seminary, were calculated to make our clergy, as a body, much better theologians than the great mass of the clergy in England. There, in fact, there was no indispensable standard which all must attain. The divinity lectures in the Universities, which were common to all the students, must of necessity be attended by those who were designed for orders, but there was no other public provision for theological education. Private instruction, personal diligence, and the high rewards which awaited professional distinction, must accomplish the rest. The discussion was free and animated, and the novelty of these pretensions, it appeared to me, did not occasion more surprise, than perplexity in answering them.

When Bishop Hobart also was in Rome, he had a conversation on a subject very nearly allied to this, with a distinguished personage, for whose rank and character, as well as for the kind attentions which he had received from him, he entertained the highest respect. In a very frank and friendly manner it was suggested by Lord Sandon, that probably the state of society in the United States was not so favourable to literary excellence as in England. The Bishop, in reply, did not contend that it was so generally, but he ventured

to express his opinion of our superiority in pulpit eloquence. He did not mean to apply the observation to the solid qualities of that art, but merely to the mode of exhibiting those qualities in the matter, the arrangement, and the general style and delivery of sermons, so as to produce the greatest impression on a mixed auditory.

It is a pleasing circumstance, however, that the defence of Bishop Hobart was not left to his own clergy, but was most triumphantly made by a clergyman of the Church of England. His opinions on this question being entirely uninfluenced by any other consideration than a regard to the interests of justice and truth, were therefore received with no more suspicion on one side of the Atlantic, than with gratitude on the other. In noticing the answer to the review, by Mr. Rose, I am at a loss to know what parts of it to select, where all is so admirable.

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Bishop Hobart," he remarks, "had been compelled by ill health (brought on by over exertion in his arduous duties,) to seek the benefit of an European climate. His return was marked by a greeting so cordial and heartfelt, as to do honour alike to those who gave, and him who received it; and on his first appearance in his church, he addressed his congregation on the comparative merits of the countries he had just been visiting and that which had so affectionately welcomed his

return.

"When it is insinuated that he deceived those who treated him with kindness, with hypocritical pretences of respect-that while he quietly submitted to be loaded with attentions, he was intend

ing to repay them with abuse-when it is said, that he did this to curry favour with a mob; and that to the same paltry motive he sacrificed the honour of a gentleman and the character of a clergyman; I may well ask, what worse could be said or insinuated? If there is one man on earth to whom a charge of insincerity applies less than another-if there is one man who, from his native and honest simplicity, can look down on it with more lofty contempt if there is one man who has more entirely despised popularity, and set himself with honest vigour to stem the current of popular opinion that man is Bishop Hobart. From the very hour in which his career commenced, he has been in principle the open defender of the most extreme high Church principles-principles certainly not likely to be popular with Americans. He has defended them against open foes from without, and against not less dangerous foes in the garb of friends within. He has ever set himself, in a country where all sects are tolerated alike, to oppose that union of sects for the distribution of the Scriptures which has caused so much dissension in this country, and he has in consequence been assailed with abuse and reviling almost unparalleled. Nothing, indeed, but entire ignorance of facts, could have induced the reviewer to charge an American divine, who has opposed the Bible Society and advocated high Church principles, with making sacrifices to popularity. That ignorance of facts shows itself still more clearly when he next speaks of Bishop H. as a chapel preacher to a city audience. Let him take down his map, and when he has

measured the distance from the Falls of Niagara, let him be informed that that place, with others almost equally distant, is in the round of Bishop Hobart's visitations, and then let him blush for having spoken of a man whose unsparing exertions in his profession have rendered a valuable life precarious and painful, as a dispenser of Sunday sermons to a city congregation in a fashionable chapel.' But the most intolerable part of the review is the insinuation, that while Bishop H. was receiving all sorts of civilities, and even took leave with declarations of respect and grateful remembrance,' he was hunting for abuses, and preparing to pour out a flood of vituperation on the Church of England. The charge is most unjust and unfounded.

Bishop Hobart did not come here to hunt for abuses, but to revive wasting spirits and recruit departing strength; so far from coming with a prejudice against us, he came with the strongest admiration of England, and the strongest belief of her superiority on most points; and, whether wrong or right, the conviction of her inferiority on some points was forced on him, against his former belief, during his residence here. He came as a traveller of ample fortune,* and of high station in a Church nearly allied to our own; he received no attention and no mark of respect which were not due to his

In this the writer was mistaken. The unlimited hospitality and charity of the Bishop, even with an ample income, never allowed him to acquire a fortune. The munificence of the wealthy and liberal corporation of which he was the head, furnished him with a carte blanche for the extraordinary expenses of his tour in Europe.

station, his character, and his talents;-he made no declarations of respect and grateful remembrance which he did not feel; and, lastly, he openly and unreservedly expressed, while in England, precisely the same opinions on our policy in Church and State which he has expressed in his sermon.'

In regard to the connexion of the Church of England with the State, he not only entertained, but long before had publicly declared, these sentiments, accompanied, at the same time, with expressions. of profound admiration and respect for that Church in her appropriate and spiritual character. And to show their sincerity, it is only necessary to remark, that these favourable opinions were published at a most delicate and critical juncture, during the late war between England and the United States. In a sermon which he preached in 1814, at the consecration of Bishop Moore, he alluded with complacency and pride to the origin of our Church.

"In boasting of our origin from the Church of England," he observes, that "he does not contemplate her as enriched with secular wealth, adorned with secular honours, or defended by the secular arm. Of the policy of this union of the civil and ecclesiastical authority, so that the latter, in commutation for the wealth and patronage of the former, relinquishes a portion of her legitimate. spiritual powers, and is in danger of being viewed as the mere creature of human institution, and of being made the engine of state policy, there have been sound Churchmen, even of her own communion, who have entertained serious doubts.

"Nor is the Church of England contemplated in connexion with the character or conduct of the government or nation where she is established, concerning which wise and good men, and within the knowledge of him who addresses you, correct and exemplary Churchmen, entertain very different opinions; and your preacher would deprecate, as unsound in principle and most impolitic in its results, any connexion of our Church, as a religious communion, with the principles and views of political parties.

"Nor does he contemplate the Church of England in that particular organization of her government, and those local ecclesiastical appendages which involve no essential principle of Church order, VOL. I.

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