intercourse between priest and people? Is it not necessary alone and expressly to thrust home particular warnings, to reprove particular acts, to encourage signs of improvement, to give private advice on private portions of conduct and religion? And, on reflection, is there any reason why all this is good, nay, is necessary, for the man, and yet useless for the boy? Rely upon it, you would find it of the greatest service to your scholars to regard them and teach them upon this principle. If after every severe punishment you would privately speak to the child punished, and try to make the chastisement reach its heart, then watch the effect, and from time to time afterwards sustain that effect: if you would privately ascertain what prayers each uses, how regularly, in what position, and the like: if you would take the upper classes systematically and speak to them singly for a few minutes, by two or three a day, so as to have such private intercourse with each once in two months, more or less, as you find advisable, you would do more towards sanctifying the character of your scholars than you could believe before trial. It is true you must be on your guard not to draw too much upon a child's conscience. You must not lead your little ones to say much to you; nor make them unreal; nor break down their shame and delicacy. Judgment and feeling are wanted, great judgment and sensitive feeling, but not more of either than a master ought to have.

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Again, it may seem that you would thus trench upon the work of the clergyman. There is not, however, the least difficulty upon this point. If he has time for the task and wishes to take it, your responsibility ends but if he finds that the personal care of the parents of the children is even more than he is sufficient for, then the road is open to you.

"But his advice, and in special cases his interposition and private remonstrance and encouragement will always be at hand to fall back upon; a reserve so much the more influential from its reservedness: and there will often be cases in which you should thankfully surrender this charge to your spiritual superior and head."

This is the sort of intercourse between master and scholar, which it must be our grand endeavour to promote, by seeking for such qualifications in our schoolmasters as cannot be imparted by any mere intellectual training, whether it be secular or theological in its character. In this, as in all other offices connected with Christian education, the first of all requisites is a religious character.

ART. IV.-Essays on subjects connected with the Reformation in England. Reprinted, with additions, from the "British Magazine." By the Rev. S. R. MAITLAND, D.D., F.S.A. Sometime Librarian to the late Archbishop of Canterbury, and Keeper of the MSS. at Lambeth. London: Rivingtons.

THE Contributions of the learned and able author of the volume before us to the literature of the age have been rather numerous, and they are in all cases distinguished by a research, an acuteness, and a boldness also, which place them far above the ordinary level. The natural and acquired powers which they display render their author a very formidable antagonist in literary warfare; and indeed it would seem that Dr. Maitland is conscious of his powers in this field of exertion, for we do not remember one amongst his numerous publications which is not controversial in its origin and its tone. His works on prophetical subjects are all subversive of existing systems of interpretation. He has laboured with great ability to shake the theory on which the chronological views of the majority of English writers on this subject have been founded. He has laboured, at great length, to demonstrate the mistake of those Protestant interpreters who hold up the Albigenses and the Waldenses as the two Witnesses in the Revelation, or who have thought that the succession of Christianity was preserved amongst them only, in the middle ages-nothing can be more able, and in parts more intensely comic, than these productions. And again, the unwearied assiduity which this learned writer has expended in tracking and tracing out the blunders or errors of editors of works bearing on the Reformation; his elaborate arguments to prove that Fox the Martyrologist is altogether untrustworthy; his able work on the "Dark Ages" in which he proves the injustice of those who assert that there was no such thing as Christian knowledge, learning, education, or goodness of any kind from the ninth century to the Reformation; and in which he further shows the great value of monastic institutions in those ages, and meets the vulgar calumnies and prejudices against them;-all this is essentially controversial and critical in its character-it is the produce of a mind which is controversial in its nature, and which has acquired a bent wholly in one direction.

The author of the volume before us has spent his literary life VOL. XII.-NO. XXIII.-SEPT. 1849.

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for a long series of years in exposing the errors, and refuting the assertions, of certain classes of persons who are warmly opposed to Romanism, and who have, without doubt, in some instances, misstated or overstated facts. And, certainly, as far as the mere question of fact is concerned, every one who is competent to do so is quite right in endeavouring to correct mistakes. But we must own our apprehension, that when men like the author of this volume expend their powers in the endeavour to subvert the system in which large classes have been accustomed to repose their religious convictions, without, at the same time, supplying any positive system in its place, the result of such a course of proceeding may, in times of religious excitement, tend to the promotion of opinions which the author himself would most certainly deprecate.

A continued attack upon the foundation of men's opinions is calculated either to irritate their feelings, or else to shake their convictions. We are disposed to agree with Dr. Maitland in many points; but still we are of opinion that, whatever may be the abstract truth of certain positions of his, it does not follow that it is expedient to put forward exclusively that class of facts. When a writer is engaged in producing facts which tend to throw discredit on the Reformation, we think it might not be too much to expect from him something to counterbalance this on the other side. This in fact was what we had very much to complain of in the late Romanizing party. They could never speak except in praise of the Church of Rome; its errors were to be softened down; its merits were to be carefully dwelt on; and, on the other hand, every fault and defect in the English Church was to be studiously pointed out. The result of course was, that not only the individuals, who were thus over-liberal, in time came to be persuaded by their own statements; that they ought to join the Roman Church, but all the world had long before seen that such must be the result.

Dr. Maitland is an earnest admirer of truth, but we think he is rather too ready to impute intentional falsehood to those from whom he differs. The work before us opens with a charge of falsehood against the writers on whom the history of the Reformation, as opposed to the Romish view of that history, very much depends

"For the history of the Reformation in England," he says, "we depend so much on the testimony of writers, who may be considered as belonging, or more or less attached, to the Puritan party,-or who obtained their information from persons of that sect, that it is of the utmost importance to inquire whether there was any thing in their

notions respecting truth, which ought to throw suspicion on any of their statements."

us.

P. 1.

Now this obviously applies to such leading writers as Fox and Strype, the latter of whom is severely criticized in the work before What is the tendency of such statements and inuendos as this? It is plainly to throw discredit on all writers on our side of the question, and thus to prepare the mind for receiving from Dr. Lingard, or Miss Strickland, or some other writer of that class, those prejudices against the Reformation and its chief agents, which is just what Romanism is anxious to establish. We proceed with Dr. Maitland's statements :

"The question is one which does not require much research or argument. There is something very frank (one is almost inclined to say, honest) in the avowals, either direct or indirect, which various puritans have left on record, that it was considered not only allowable, but meritorious to tell lies for the sake of the good cause in which they were engaged, and for the benefit of those who were fellow helpers in it."-Ibid.

Dr. Maitland informs us that his object in bringing forward facts to substantiate this assertion is, "not to criminate any person or class of persons, but to inquire how far we may rely on statements resting on the authority of those who adopted puritan principles." Whatever may be the " object," we cannot doubt that the effect must be what Dr. Maitland describes. The "person" or 66 class of persons" referred to cannot, we think, come out of the matter very much improved, by being convicted of holding the principle that it is "meritorious to tell lies."

But we must consider the grounds on which such a charge was made against men who, whatever may have been their defects in some points, had the courage to oppose prevalent superstitions at a time when death was the frequent consequence of so doing. It should not be too readily assumed that persons who acted thus were systematic liars. We will take the first case mentioned by Dr. Maitland in proof of his position,-the case of George Joye, a fellow of Peter House, Cambridge, a friend of Bilney, and who was connected with the publication of Tyndale's translation of the New Testament. It appears that Joye was charged with heresy in 1527 by John Ashwell, Prior of Newnham Abbey, near Bedford, who secretly applied to the Bishop of Lincoln to punish him. A little work of Joye is still extant in which, as Dr. Maitland informs us, he confutes the charges of the Prior point by point; but this work is quoted with the object of "inquiring how far he was a credible witness as to matters of fact ;" and from the quotation made by Dr. Maitland we learn that there were letters

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sent "as from the cardinal," delivered to the Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge, commanding him to send up Joye to appear before the cardinal legate for certain erroneous opinions. Joye obeyed the citation, and describes very graphically his attendance at the cardinal's palace, and his standing and waiting in the hall where many bishops passed by, whose "solemn and lordly" looks made him think that he saw nothing "but the galouse and the hangman;" but none of whom, as grace was," knew him. Then we have an account of a similar attendance on the Bishop of Lincoln, and his chancellor, and the fears which Joye entertained; and, at the close of the interview between the chancellor and Joye, the secretary inquired where the latter was lodging in London, when Joye, apprehensive of the use they might make of the information, had he told them of his real residence, gave them a wrong address. "Here," he says, I was so bold as to make the scribe a lye for his asking, telling him that I lay at the Green Dragon towards Bishopsgate, when I lay a mile off, even a contrary way; for I never trusted scribes nor pharisees, and I perceived he asked me not for any good."

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On these words, which occur in the midst of an extract four pages long, Dr. Maitland (who marks them with italics which we have preserved) makes the following remarks:

"The reader will bear in mind that we are not discussing the question, whether George Joye had a right to deceive his persecutors; or, indeed, how far what he did was morally right or wrong. That is, no doubt, a very important question; but it is not the one now under consideration. We are at present only inquiring how far he, or any member of the sect of which he was a leader, may be relied on as an authority in matters relating to that sect. He tells us, without any appearance of hesitation or compunction, that he said what was false to others. May he not be doing the same to us? May we, for instance, believe that the prior's letter is genuine?"-p. 11.

Now we must frankly say, that in our opinion this case does not bear out Dr. Maitland's statements and inferences. The false address which Joye gave to his persecutors was with a view to his own personal safety. He was evidently afraid that, if he were to tell his residence, he might be seized and committed to prison, or otherwise injured; and we have no doubt that a misdirection given under such circumstances would at that period have been regarded by all parties alike, whether Romanist or Protestant, as a venial sin-a fault which did not require any great compunction of heart. Without doubt, as Dr. Maitland himself admits, it is a question-an important question-and we may add, a difficult question-how far such conduct as that of