8. "Ask of me,

"And I will give nations for thine inheritance,

"And for thy possession the extremities of the land.* 9. "Thou shalt crush them with a mace of iron,

"Thou shalt break-them-in-pieces as a potter's vessel."†

10. Now therefore, ye Princes, be wise;

Be corrected, ye Rulers of the Land.

11. Become obedient unto Jehovah through reverential awe, And pay ye homage tremblingly.

12. Kiss the son,§ lest Hell be angry, And so ye perish in your attempt, When His anger shall shortly kindle.

Happy all who put-their-trust in HIM!¶

S.

ON PRAYER.

Mr. EDITOR, Every one must agree with your correspondent P. (see Remembrancer for June,) as to the advantages resulting from family worship. It is without doubt, under the divine blessing, an excellent means of putting and keeping a family in the right way; of infusing a spirit of piety into the common affairs of life; and, above all, of strengthening that bond of peace and of all virtues,-love for each

and ye are all the children of the Most Highest." See also Ps. lxxxix. 28. “ will make him (David) my first-born, higher than the kings of the earth.”

I

*The Gentile Borderers. "Solomon reigned over all kingdoms, from the river unto the land of the Philistines," 1 Kings iv. 21. This was an exact fulfilment of the covenant the Lord made with Abraham; " Unto thy seed have I given the land from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates." Gen. xv. 18.

In ancient Jewish history it was peculiarly the office of the king to subdue the neighbouring heathen nations. The people refused to obey the voice of Samuel, and said, (1 Sam. viii. 19.) "Nay, but we will have a king over us; that we also may be like all the nations; and that our king may judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles." And Saul assumed the sovereignty when Nahash the Ammonite came up, and encamped against Jabesh-Gilead. Abner declared, "The Lord hath spoken of David, saying, By the hand of my servant David I will save my people Israel out of the hand of the Philistines, and out of the hand of all their enemies." 2 Sam. iii. 18. See also the promise made to David himself, 2 Sam. v. 19. And the declaration in this Psalm was literally fulfilled in the person of David, "Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, I was with thee whithersoever thou wentest, and have cut off all thine enemies out of thy sight." 2 Sam. viii. 9.

Kissing was one of the ceremonies at the inauguration of a Hebrew king, by which homage was done. "Samuel took a vial of oil, and poured it upon his (Saul's) head and kissed him." 1 Sam. x. 1.

§ i. e. David. See verse 7, and note.

|| Jehovah.

A favourite expression of David. See Ps. lxxxiv. last verse,- "O Lord God of Hosts, blessed is the man who putteth his trust in Thee." See also Ps. xxxiv. 8, 22. and cxviii. 8, 9.

other. How can I treat with unkindness my wife, my child, my friend, or my servant, after supplicating together with them the protection of OUR Father, whose chief commandment is,-love? How can I malicously resent their offences, after praying to OUR Father to forgive us OUR trespasses?

But still, Sir, excellent as this means of grace is, it may be abused. Our children and servants may make use of it as an excuse to neglect their private devotions. It is then the duty of the Father of the Family, the Priest over the Household,' to see that this does not occur. He must imitate the Parson in his house,' as depicted by the pious George Herbert, who "besides the common prayers of the family, strictly requires of all to pray by themselves before they sleep at night and stir out in the morning, and knows what prayers they say, and till they have learned them, makes them kneel by him: esteeming that this private praying is a more voluntary act in them, than when they are called to others' prayers, and that which, when they leave the family, they carry with them."

Most assuredly common and private prayer should both be observed, for no means should be neglected which may help us onwards in our heaven-ward course. While it is remembered that the only prayer our blessed Lord hath left us is applicable when two or three are gathered together, the sincere Christian finds many subjects whereon to commune with his own heart, and to address his private supplications to the throne of grace.

C. R.

HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE STATUTES REGULATING ECCLESIASTICAL AND ELEEMOSYNARY LEASES. (Continued from our last.)

"It is generally supposed," observes Mr. Butler, "that ecclesiastical persons were permitted to acquire real estates as early as the reign of the Emperor Constantine. The tenth century is commonly considered as the period when donations to them were most frequent and considerable. Very soon after they were permitted to acquire, they were restrained from alienating their property. Long leases made by ecclesiastical persons are declared to be null by the Council of Trent."

In this country, however, for a considerable period previous to the early part of the sixteenth century, all corporations without distinction exercised the same power of granting and charging their possessions, as was enjoyed by private individuals in their natural capacity, with the exception only that the grants of certain sole spiritual corporations, in order to be of force against their successors, required the sanction of certain other persons in whom the law reposed the power of confirmation. Thus, though deans and chapters, masters and fellows of colleges, masters and brethren of hospitals, and similar corporations aggregate, might, of their own sole authority, without the consent or confirmation of any, grant their possessions either in fee,

Co. Litt. 325. b. Note 1.

fee tail, or for lives or years at pleasure, yet bishops, deans, &c. seised in right of their bishopricks, deaneries, &c., as well as archdeacons, prebendaries, parsons, and vicars, being sole corporations, were incompetent to make any grant or lease to bind their respective successors without the consent and confirmation of others. With due confirmation, however, their grants were equally efficacious with those of aggregate corporations.

It is commonly stated that the prudence of the common law never thought fit to trust sole spiritual corporations with any alienation or disposition of their possessions to bind their successors, independently of the concurrence of other persons. This however must be understood with some qualification, for it appears that a distinction originally subsisted between such sole corporations as had the fee simple absolutely in them, and such as had only a qualified fee, the inheritance being considered as in perpetual abeyance. Bishops, abbots, and priors, with such deans as are solely seised, fall under the former description; whilst the latter denomination comprises parsons, vicars, prebendaries, provosts in cathedral churches, and others who come in by presentation or collation, and not by election. These indeed, who have only a qualified fee, appear never to have been allowed to charge the inheritance beyond their own particular interests, unless by the consent of those to whom the law intrusted the guardianship of the fee, and who were generally the persons interested in the right of patronage; and, accordingly, parsons and vicars cannot to this day make leases which shall be of force beyond their respective incumbencies without the confirmation of the patron and ordinary. Bishops however, and such other ecclesiastics as, in consequence of their offices being elective, had the whole estate and right in themselves, might formerly by their sole alienation have bound their successors for ever: and it was not till the Third Council of Nice, A. D. 710* (the canons of which restraining grants injurious to the Church have been sanctioned by our law) that leases by bishops were required to have the confirmation of the dean and chapter, and those by abbots, the assent of the convent, in order to bind the successors: confirmation being thus rendered equally necessary to the grants of all sole spiritual corporations. But though the absolute power of alienation originally possessed by certain spiritual personages has been long at an end, the distinction on which that privilege was grounded still remains, and is not without its importance at the present day as a criterion in determining whether leases not within the statutes are absolutely void, or merely voidable.

The check upon improper alienation, which, in the case of spiritual corporations sole, was presented by the necessity of confirmation, and which, in respect to aggregate spiritual corporations, was supposed to be supplied by their very constitution requiring the concurrence of a plurality of individuals to every grant,--proved insufficient to prevent leases being granted of an unreasonable duration, and upon terms in

* See Bac. Ab. Leases, Vol. iv. p. 120. Mosheim, however, in his Ecclesiastical History, (Maclaine's Translation, edited by Coote, Vol. ii. p. 266) speaks of the Second Nicene Council as not taking place before the year 786, but makes no mention of any Third Council.

which the future interests of the benefice or institution to which the property belonged were unduly sacrificed to the immediate emolument of the particular incumbent, or of the individuals for the time being composing the corporation. At the same time, the instability and uncertainty attending the unconfirmed grants of sole spiritual corporations were found to operate injuriously upon the tillage of the land, and ultimately rendered the property less productive to the spiritual lessor himself. The removal of these various evils and abuses was the object of the several legislative regulations which now remain to be succinctly detailed.

The first statute, concerning leases by ecclesiastical persons, (which also authorizes leases by tenants in tail, and husbands seised in right of their wives) is 32 Hen. VIII. c. 28. It was passed only with a view to the latter of the inconveniences above noticed, being intended chiefly for the security of farmers, and the consequent improvement of tillage. This statute enabled all persons, being of age, and seised in fee in right of their churches, except parsons and vicars, to make leases of their own authority, which should bind their successors without any confirmation. But the following particulars were required to be observed: the lease must be by indenture; any subsisting old lease must expire or be surrendered within a year; the new lease must not be of a reversion; nor of lands and tenements not commonly letten within the preceding twenty years; nor without impeachment of waste; nor above the number of twenty-one years or three lives from the day of the making; the rent, accustomably paid during the last twenty years must be reserved yearly; and the same remedies secured to the successor as to the lessor himself. It is to be observed, that this act being merely an enabling statute, none but sole corporations were really affected by it. Corporations aggregate, although within the words of the statute as seised in right of their churches, neither derived nor needed any benefit from its provisions, since they already possessed the fullest right of alienation, which the statute, not having any restrictive operation, left untouched. The only spiritual persons really enabled by the statute of Henry to make leases without confirmation, were the first and second classes in our Analytical Chart, consisting of bishops seised in right of their bishopricks; deans seised of their sole possessions in right of their deaneries, and certain other sole corporations of minor importance, which need not here be enumerated. But though the leases, which might thus, by the aid of the statute, be made without confirmation, were, in their duration and other circumstances, well calculated to secure the interests of the successor; yet the ecclesiastics within its provisions, by procuring confirmation so as to render its aid unnecessary, were at liberty, as before, to make long leases, or absolute alienations of any of their possessions in the same unlimited manner as aggregate corporations. This gave rise to a succession of disabling statutes framed expressly for the protection of the successor; the combined result of which has been to reduce the powers of alienation possessed by all spiritual and eleemosynary corporations, as well aggregate as sole, within very narrow bounds.

Of these restraining statutes, the first in order of time is the 1 Eliz. c. 19, which prohibited archbishops and bishops (who form the first

division on the Chart,) from making grants or conveyances of their episcopal possessions to any persons, except to the queen, her heirs and successors, for any estate other than for the term of twenty-one years, or three lives from the commencement of the grant, with the accustomed yearly rent reserved. The exception in favour of alienations to the crown soon suggested a device to evade the statute, estates being granted to the crown for the purpose of being granted over to others and it is even alleged* that Queen Elizabeth took advantage of the exception, by procuring the prelates to make over considerable possessions to her, either for her own use, or to enable her to grant them out again to her favourites, whom she thus gratified without any expense to herself. To put an end to these subterfuges, an act was passed in the commencement of the succeeding reign, 1 Jac. I. c. 3, which utterly disabled archbishops and bishops from making any grants of their episcopal possessions to the crown.

The statute 1 Eliz. & 1 Jac. only affected archbishops and bishops. To restrain other ecclesiastical persons and bodies, as well as colleges and hospitals, the Act 13 Eliz. c. 10, was passed, which being comprehensive in its operation, and explained as to hospitals by 14 Eliz. c. 14,† placed all ecclesiastical, collegiate, and other eleemosynary corporations on a common footing, and reduced their power of alienation within the same limits, and in nearly the same words, as the statute 1 Eliz. had previously established with respect to bishops.

Notwithstanding the acts of Elizabeth prescribed only two requisites, viz. that the grant should be for twenty-one years or three lives,—and at the accustomed yearly rent; it was nevertheless held by the courts that the preceding statute of Henry was to be considered a pattern for the construction of the subsequent statutes, and that all its conditions, except that respecting concurrent leases, must in every case be followed. -(To be continued.)

THE ARMENIAN CHURCH.

EXTRACT FROM A LETTER FROM A CLERGYMAN IN INDIA.

December 29th.-"I have passed one of the most interesting mornings I can recollect in India: most thankful am I for the intercourse that has taken place between our Bishop and the Armenian

* 2 Bl. Com. 320.

This statute, after noticing in its preamble the foundation of the several hospitals in London, called Christ's, Bridewell, St. Thomas's, and Little St. Bartholomew's, and the possibility of gifts to those and other hospitals failing through misnomer, establishes all such gifts notwithstanding any such misnomer: and then proceeds to enact and declare that the words "master or guardian of any hospital," as used in the 13 Eliz. c. 10, "were intended and meant of all hospitals, maison dieus, bead-houses, and other houses ordained for the sustentation or relief of the poor,-and so shall be expounded, declared, and taken for ever." Until very lately, however, the circumstance of the above-named hospitals being thus expressly within the restraining statute of Elizabeth, appears to have been little, if at all, adverted to in practice: and to remedy the consequences of the oversight, those establishments have, it is understood, recently obtained Acts of Parliament, confirming their existing leases, and extending their power of leasing in future.