"Whatever may be the legal effect of the words of this proviso, the intention of those who procured its insertion is understood to have been principally this-namely, that it should secure to the tithe-owner the benefit of the decision in the case of Rex v. Joddrell.

"That case, which is by no means satisfactory or intelligible, is believed to establish the doctrine-that as between the farmer and the tithe-owner, the farmer is to be rated, not only in respect of the net annual value of his land, but in respect also of his annual profits.

"If the relative liabilities of the farmer and the tithe-owner are to remain unaltered, the only course which can now be pursued is, not to rate the farmer's profits, but to reduce the assessment on the tithe-owner, so as to place it in the same proportion to the assessment on the farmers as if the farmer's profits were rated. The difficulty of even roughly estimating the farmer's profits; the dissatisfaction which the agitation of such questions has caused; the doubts which are entertained whether the decision in Rex v. Joddrell is sound, and whether it would be confirmed if the question is again agitated before the legal tribunals of the country; all tend to produce inconveniences which cannot be exaggerated. Mr. C. Shaw Lefevre, however, proposes to-morrow to move for leave to bring in a bill declaratory of the law on the subject, and to place the tithes and farms upon the same footing as to rating. The Poor Law Commissioners, although under much embarrassment upon this subject, wish to be entirely passive."

MR. SHAW LEFEVRE'S BILL.

SIR,-It appears to me that the tithe-owners (the clergy, I might say,) are rather hasty and unguarded in complaining of Mr. Shaw Lefevre's Bill for making the tithe commutation rent charge rateable at the net amount. The bill was doubtless introduced to set aside the decision of the King's Bench in the case of Rex v. Joddrell, and it would have been more honest if that purpose had been openly avowed; but of the bill itself, as affecting the rating of tithes, the clergy have no cause to complain. The rent charge will be rateable at its net value-viz., at what it would let for, subject to the payment of rates, &c.; this is according to the principle laid down by Dr. Wollaston, as stated in the British Magazine, vol. xiii. page 246. Your correspondents complain that tithes will be rated much higher than heretofore. This is erroneous upon Dr. Wollaston's principle. I myself have never known tithes rated more favourably than upon the net value as compared with the rack rent of farms. I should be glad to see a case produced of a lower rating, excepting under the Joddrell decision; that decision was entirely a new thing. One of your correspondents (July, page 40,) complains of the unfairness of not allowing a profit to the clergyman as well as to the farmer. He mistakes the matter altogether; it is not the individual but the property that is rated or rateable. Property, whether lands or house, is worth a certain annual return to the proprietor, after payment of the expenses by which such return is procured; upon this sum it is rateable, without any reference whatever to the quality, trade, profession, or person of the proprietor. It is absurd, on the face of it, to say that property in the possession of a layman should be rated at one sum, but at another if in the possession

of a clergyman. A farm is rated on the estimated rental; in a parish where there were no tithes, this would amount to the ordinary rental plus the net value of what the tithes would be-i. e., the tithe would actually be rated at the net value. It is assumed all along by your correspondents that the farmer is not rated on his profits; the fact is, that there are no such profits arising from the land. It was certainly argued, or rather decided, by the judges, that interest of capital and tenant's remuneration were profits; but how can this be made out? A tenant's capital is his stock, implements of husbandry, and manure in the ground,-things required for cultivating the farm; his remuneration is, the wages of a superintendent to the farm, without whom the business could not be carried on at all.

The following statement will, I think, settle the question of profits. I take the particulars of the farm mentioned in the Joddrell cause, British Magazine, March, 1838. p. 251.

Suppose the landlord to take it into his own hands in order to realize these two rents, instead of letting it for one. First of all, he would have to engage a respectable, intelligent person as bailiff, whose wages must be reckoned, I think, at 150l. per annum; for I am quite sure that if an incompetent person were employed, the landlord, instead of two rents would get none. But I will put his wages at 1007. The farm was 350 acres. Seven pounds per acre for the first outlay is a moderate computation; hence 7 × 350 24501., the expense

which the landlord would incur in limine. Let us see what the result would be at the end of ten years.

The returns for one year were-produce, 14591. 18s.; labour and expenses, 8597. 11s.; corn rent, 931. 6s. 6d.

The landlord's profits, or the whole profits derived from the land = 1621. annually. The farm was rated at 2267.!

There would still be the value of the first outlay, 24501., on the premises, but no atom of profit arising from it, neither is it rateable in respect of its being so many waggons and carts, and so many lumps. of manure, &c., which are no more rateable commodities than a clergyman's books and furniture. If it be said that tithe was not subject to these disadvantages when originally assigned, I answer, that neither was it subject to the advantages of an expensive system of cultivation. It will be well to set the advantages against the disadvantages, and to say nothing about the altered condition of the country. Tithes are strictly a property; but that point is given up, if the question of compensation to a clergyman for duty and education be mooted. Perhaps you will decline to print this letter; but I hope not; for I

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think it a very important consideration for the clergy, whether or not
their complaints and demands are just and reasonable. I remain, Sir,
your obedient servant,
JOHN THOMAS AUSTEN,
Vicar of Aldworth, Berks.

GENERAL PRIVATE-PRAYER UNION.

SIR,-Upon a paper, headed as above, which appeared in the August number, I wish to make a few observations.

I cannot but be sincerely glad, in common with every one who values mutual prayer, that steps should be taken by which such practice may become general. But I would respectfully ask, Is it better to organize a new society, than quietly and obediently to follow the directions of the rubric ? Our reformers were fully alive to the advantages of private and social prayer, and have provided for its observance in the following express direction :

"All priests and deacons are to say daily the morning and evening prayer, either privately or openly, not being let by sickness or some other urgent cause."

The next rubric relates entirely to the public service in the church. But, surely, in this, provision is made for all that is aimed at in the proposed "union.' The remarks of the Rev. J. H. Newman, in his Sermon on the "Daily Service," appear to me so good that I request permission to add them.

"Doubtless there are many reasons which may render the strict observance of these rules inexpedient in this or that place or time. The very disuse of them will be a reason for reviving them very cautiously and gradually; the paucity of clergy is another reason for suspending them. Still there they remain in the Prayer Book, obsolete they cannot become; nay, even though torn from the book in some day of rebuke (to suppose what should hardly be dwelt upon), they would still have power, and live unto God. If prayers were right three centuries since, they are right now. If a Christian minister might suitably offer up common prayer by himself then, surely he may do so now. If he then was the spokesman of the saints far and near, gathering together their holy and concordant suffrages, and presenting them by virthe of his priesthood, he is so now. The revival of this usage is merely a matter of place and time, and though neither our Lord nor his church would have us make sudden alterations, even for the better, yet certainly we ought never to forget what is abstractedly our duty, what is in itself best, what it is we have to aim at and labour towards."

I really cannot see what advantages the proposed "union" holds out beyond what may be obtained by a recurrence to the directions of the rubric. If anything, the advantage must be on the side of the latter; for not only will there be unity of time and subject, but actually of the very words. I am, Sir, your obedient servant, W.

QUERY RELATING TO EXTREME UNCTION.

SIR, I am desirous of obtaining, through the medium of your
Magazine, a concise statement of the grounds upon which the Anglican
church disavows the practice of extreme unction. The precept of
St. James (verse 14) is surely very explicit, and the common pro-

testant interpretation of the passage hardly satisfactory. It is usually said, that St. James's precept had exclusive reference to the age of miraculous gifts. Might not the rite of confirmation (as grounded upon apostolic practice) be disparaged by a similar argument? Confirmation was, no doubt, in the first instance, designed for the communication of special gifts. Are we not, again, apt to draw too strong a line of demarcation between the spiritual gifts of the apostolic and of a later time? And may not our want of faith in such gifts be a reason of our not participating in them? We are apt to talk about the "ordinary" gifts of the Holy Spirit, as if all his gifts were not miraculous; as if the distinction between the earlier and the later gifts were one of kind, not of degree merely.

I cannot think that the words of St. James (verse 15) by any means bear out the statement, that the apostolic anointing had reference to bodily healing alone. The expressions, "saving the sick," and "raising up," may well refer to a spiritual, and not merely a temporal, benefit. There would seem to be in these expressions a kind of mysterious ambiguity; and if they do not refer exclusively to bodily healing, then neither does their application cease with the cessation of the gifts of healing. Furthermore, St. James speaks of the forgiveness of sins (which is exclusively a spiritual benefit) as one of the effects of the apostolic anointing.

Again, St. James speaks in the same passage of the efficacy of prayer, and illustrates his doctrine by the case of Elias. It is true, that Elias' prayer had its return in a temporal result; but this does not prove that reference is made to temporal results only in the case which his example is designed to illustrate. St. James is proving the efficacy of prayer in general.

On the other hand, the expression oμolorans, as applied to Elias, seems expressly introduced to shew that results of a (strictly speaking) miraculous kind were not in the apostle's eye. That word ὁμοιοπαθὴς seems to involve an argument which, fully drawn out, would be as follows that what Elias obtained by prayer, we, who differ not essentially from him, may obtain likewise. He prevailed in such and such instances: we shall, in like manner (if we have faith), prevail in the instance before us. St. James's expression is not, "Elias was a man of like inspiration," but of like "passions" with ourselves. The apostle thus specifies a bond of union, which includes those of a later age. He seems to intimate, that not those special gifts which bound prophets with apostles merely, but much rather that common gift of faith which binds prophets and apostles with all Christians, was the instrumental cause of the blessing which attended the prayer of Elias.

Looking therefore to the terms of St. James's injunction, and to the nature of his argument in the passage, I think that the grounds upon which the practice of anointing the sick has been discontinued are not, at first sight, obvious; and I shall feel obliged to you, or your correspondents, for a solution of the question.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
A PRESBYTER.

GENUINENESS OF BISHOP TAYLOR'S "CONTEMPLATIONS ON THE STATE OF MAN."

SIR, The following remarks relate to a communication which appeared in your Magazine a long time ago, but if you should think that they contain anything interesting to your readers, I shall feel obliged by their insertion.

In your number for August, 1837, a correspondent, whose signature is "E. C.," has displayed considerable research and ingenuity in an attempt to prove that the "Contemplations on the State of Man," which have hitherto been ascribed to Bishop Taylor, are a spurious production. Without undertaking in any degree the defence of the treatise in question, I beg to observe an inaccuracy in one of the arguments from internal evidence by which its authenticity is sought to be disproved. "E. C." has stated, that he is "not aware that Jeremy Taylor has any mention of the doctrine of guardian angels, in any of his writings." I do not profess to be deeply versed in the works of this great divine, but I cannot help thinking it remarkable that I have since accidentally met with the following passages in a single treatise, the "Life of Christ," which evidently prove that his sentiments upon this interesting subject were in unison with those of many other "burning and shining lights" in the Christian church:

"It is more considerable, which is generally and piously believed by very many eminent persons in the church, that at our baptism God assigns an angel guardian; for then the catechumen, being made a servant and a brother to the Lord of angels, is sure not to want the aids of them who pitch their tents round about them that fear the Lord; and that this guard and ministery is then appointed, when themselves are admitted into the inheritance of the promises, and their title to salvation, is hugely agreeable to the words of St. Paul, Are they not all ministring spirits, sent forth to minister to them who shall be heirs of salvation ?' where it appears that the title to the inheritance is the title to this ministery, and therefore must begin and end together. But I insist not on this, though it seems to me hugely probable.”—Of Baptism, p. 181. Edit. 1653.

"It were intolerable unkindnesse and injustice to our pretty innocents to let their crying be unpitied, and their natural misery eternally irremediable, and their sorrows without remedy, and their souls no more capable of relief then their bodies of physick, and their death left with the sting in, and their souls without spirits to go to God, and no angel guardian to be assigned them in the assemblies of the faithful, and they not to be reckoned in the accounts of God and God's church.”—Of Baptizing Infants, p. 201.

"They that prevaricate the lawes of God are put out of protection; God withdrawes his special providence, or their tutelar angel."-Of the Easinesse of Christian Religion, p. 410.

"JESUS discourses of the care GOD takes of little children, whether naturally or spiritually such; the danger of doing them scandal and offences, the care and power of their angels guardian.”—History of the Third Year, &c., p. 432.

Your correspondent is with great reason amused at the portentous name of "Vencatapadino Ragium, king of Narsinga," and very naturally asks, "Is this rival to Chrononhotontologos a champion in some old romance?" I should have felt disposed to make a similar inquiry, until I happened a short time ago to meet with a passage in a book, where nobody would have dreamed of looking for such a thing, from which it appears, that even if this hero was an "airy nothing," notwithstanding his imposing and formidable "name," yet his "local habitation" once existed, and no doubt does so still, though I do not