A layman profoundly grateful to the Archbishop of Canterbury for
his policy in the matter of the Oxford Declaration, and anxious to support the Committee by promoting a like movement among the laity, has drawn up and circulated the following declaration : —" That we cordially concur in the Declaration lately issued for our guidance and edification by many thousand Presbyters and Deacons of our holy Church ; and that we unfeignedly accept all the consequences which necessarily follow from the sacred truths therein testified to. It would, we firmly believe, be utterly subver- sive of all orthodox notions of Divine goodness, had the Almighty been pleased to make the punishment of the cursed anything short of everlasting. The glory of God would be less bright and the blessedness of the righteous less perfect if the wailing of the cursed in hell should ever cease to reach the ears of the righteous in heaven." The laymen appear to be more elaborate in exposition of their theme than the clergy, whose succinctness of statement is admirable ; but some little development to show the drift of so doubly distilled a doctrinal essence is—for laymen—admissible.
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