. tTo ran EDITOR or ran " Seamaroa."3 Sie,—As a
reader of the Spectator for more than twice the number of years claimed by a correspondent in your last issue, I crave permission for a few words on the subject of the Church franchise. The Spectator seems our chief ally in this altogether serious struggle. Those who would restrict this franchise to the confirmed, dissatisfied with the baptismal qualification, grossed their opinion of the necessity of Confirmation upon what we read in the Acts, where it is said that two of the Apostles laid their hands on those who had been baptieed, and they received the Holy Ghost. This meant that they were thus .empowered to speak with tongues, and exercise other miraculous gifts which were granted to the infant Church. It is a very remote analogy indeed which connects the incident in the Acts with our rite of Confirmation. It seems rather to savour of what the. Article calls "a corrupt following of the Apostles." The assumption ie that Confirmation is the complement of Baptism, that Baptism is in fact incomplete without it. To make Confirmation the test and locus standi of ehurehmanship, instead of simply a baptismal franchise, would reduce the National Church to the position of a sect dominated by an extreme party within it. Are we prepared to risk Dieestablishment for such a fantasy? There is evidently a strong effort now being made to capture the Church of England in the interests of a party. The history of the Nonjurors, both in England and Scotland, seems for some men written in vain.—
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