In many of the countries which our Scottish Church has colonized, there are real and serious difficulties in adhering to her practice in this particular. Among ourselves, however, and on its native soil, at least it might be preserved. In this connection, we cannot but feel surprised at the insensibility and want of taste evinced by many of those who profess to be peculiarly open to æsthetic and poetical considerations. It is an insensibility which evinces, we rather think, a far deeper defect than a want of musical ear or musical faculty would be. Is there nothing tasteless or unfeeling in the cool way in which men propose to root out a national and ecclesiastical feature, in itself, as we have repeatedly said, so defensible and so capable of being improved and developed in its own line. Go into the Protestant Churches of Switzerland and France, and mark some of the old fashions and usages peculiar to those countries, or to certain districts of them, which have descended from the Reformation. So long as those do not conflict with principle or interfere with edification, who but a Goth would change them? But there are those among us--not many, we hope -who, if they had their way, would favour changes as the result of which a feature of our worship dating from the Reformation-one which, on all grounds of Scripture antiquity and suitableness (to say the least of it), is perfectly defensible-would be by and by sought for among us in vain. Is this good taste?

We have only to add that every consideration ought to lead us to do our utmost to improve the mode of worship we defend. The one enemy,

we believe, that can really endanger our ancient mode of worship is a slovenly performance of it. It ought to be, in its own simple character, pleasing, free from anything that jars upon the ear or offends good taste. We rejoice in all wise labours designed to promote improvement in this

line.

FREE CHURCH SYMPATHY WITH THE IRISH ESTABLISHMENT.

WE see that there has been discussion in the newspapers with respect to this subject. We do not wonder at it, and we imagine there will be more. In response to the astonishment which some express, others, we see, defend the sympathizers on two grounds. First, that the question is not what the Irish Church should do, but what the State should do. It may be right for the Irish Church to be different from what it is, but it is not right for the State to disestablish it. Second, the Irish Church may, in point of fact, be reformed; it may become a reformed Church Establishment. On these grounds, Free Churchmen, it appears, may reasonably fall into line with the defenders of things as they are. Those who care to have an opinion on this point, ought, first of all, to keep clearly in view what it is that is proposed. No one attacks the Irish Episcopal Church as a Church. It is notorious that, in any success which as a Protestant Evangelical Church she may achieve, either in reforming her own condition or in gaining ground among the Irish people, she will have the sympathy of vast numbers of those who advocate her disestablishment. But what is proposed is to dissolve her connection with the State, and to discontinue the payment of public money on her behalf, while she is to retain whatever property may be thought to be equitably hers. It is to maintain the existing state of things in opposition to this change that some Free Churchmen are exerting themselves.

Well, then, one thing is clear. The existing Irish Establishment is a purely Erastian one. State connection there means State control in the strictest sense. It means uncontrolled patronage; subserviency of the Church to political interests and influences; government of the Church by mere Act of Parliament and law-courts. It means that the Church is prohibited and hindered from recognizing her responsibilities and exercising her activities as a free institute of Christ, having regard only to his Word, and aiming directly and constantly at the glory of God and the good of the people according to that rule. It means that whatever spiritual life, zeal, wisdom, and aptitude for work exist within that Church, shall continue to be hampered and repressed by the slavery of a system which denies the very right to meet in Synod, and, far more, to do anything effectual even if a meeting took place. It means that whatever of heresy, of unscriptural order, of consuetudinary abuse, of denial of just rights to clergy or to people, may happen to exist or obtain, shall not be remedied except by the interposition of the Christian wisdom and care of the British House of Commons. It means all this, and serves besides as a stepping-stone to the endowment of Popery.

If now the question be put, whether it is better for a Church to retain State connection on these terms, or to be delivered from it, there are some men in this world from whom a clear answer in favour of the latter alter

native might be expected. Free Churchmen are members of a Church which counted it not only clearly right, but also clearly more expedient for the great ends of a Church, to be separate from the State, than to be connected with it under bondage, though the bondage was far less close and pressing than that of the Irish Establishment. Free Churchmen are, moreover, members of a Church which has had cause to learn, in God's providence, that State aid may be dispensed with, with far less of damage and far more of advantage to every interest which a Church should count precious, than she could possibly have believed in the day when she made her election, and moved out, disestablished and disendowed. Free Churchmen might be expected to be the men who should create and sustain in the minds of others situated as Irish Churchmen are, the conviction that the better part, the true good of a Church, lies all on one side-not the side of State pay with State control. They are hardly the men who ought to confirm and strengthen Irish Churchmen in the disposition to cling to such a position, with all its growing elements of confusion-to cling to their dependence, which must become more and more abject, on a State which is ever less and less to be depended on.

What is answered to all this? Why, that we are members of the State. As members of the State we are bound to help to keep up the Irish Church Establishment, although, if we were members of that Church, our duty would be to forsake it, and to implore our fellow-Churchmen to forsake it too. The duty of the Irish Church is to go out; but our duty as members of the State is to afford it the opportunity of staying in. For the sake of this fine distinction, and the duty it imposes, we are to bear the scandal of all the anomalies and absurdities which distinguish that Establishment, in addition to its Erastianism. Meekly but cheerfully we are to bear the cross of this grotesquely absurd position!

We know very well it is said, Keep up the Irish Establishment, but reform it. We ask, in reply, Does any one contemplate the reform of it in the way of conceding the freedom of the Church, and altering her constitution so as to enable her to exercise her freedom? Does any person or party in the country propose that in connection with the continuance of the Irish Establishment? Can two men stand up for that as a practical measure without laughing in each other's faces? It is notorious that, for the Irish Church to cling to the Establishment, is to cling to the spiritual supremacy of the State. It is notorious that the "Record," to which our friends confide their sympathies and condolences, pleads for State supremacy and the Irish Church in one breath, and pleads for the former as the great palladium of the Church and the principal blessing of an Establishment. Let the person or the party be named that has ventured to hint at a reform in the direction of freedom. It is trifling with a great question and a great crisis to talk of it.

Indeed, it is high time for men to consider what they mean by grandiloquent speeches about telling the State to do its whole duty—that it must keep up the Irish Establishment, and, at the same time, reconstitute it on Free Church principles. Suppose it to be certain that the State will not do the latter-as, indeed, ninety per cent. of the community would not thank them for doing it-what then? Is an unscriptural Establishment really desirable for the Church and cause of Christ? Is it better than a disestablished condition? Is the State doing a good thing for the Church in tempting the Church to acquiesce in it? Is a Free Churchman in his proper place in encouraging the State to do that thing?

In looking to the possibility of gaining public attention and respect for their principles, Free Churchmen have had to reckon on great difficulty and opposition. Till very lately, the vast mass of mind, in influential quarters, was ominously tending all in one direction. State supremacy was the principle that ruled the Church of England and pervaded the policy of both the great parties as a fundamental principle. At the same time, the State itself, under the influence of the divided state of religious opinion, was more and more exercising its supremacy on a principle of religious indifference. Hence a disposition to favour either the universal endowment of sects, or a boundless latitudinarianism in the State Church, or both, was growing rapidly, inasmuch as that arrangement seemed to offer the easiest solution of difficulties. Almost suddenly, certainly beyond most men's expectations, a great opportunity has arisen for giving a new turn to the current of public opinion and sentiment. The difficulties of Ireland, and the decision at which Mr. Gladstone arrived, has fairly put before the public the alternative, as the preferable alternative, in certain circumstances, of the State declining to establish at all, and leaving the Churches to work out the problem on their own responsibility. It is, we repeat, a great opportunity for gaining the public ear to the advantages of Church independence, and for impressing men with the duty and expediency of abstaining from the ruinous

policy of indiscriminate endowment. How long this opportunity may last, no one knows. To make use of it while it lasts is all-important. And now, it seems, the course we ought to take is this. We are not merely to maintain the propriety of the State, in suitable circumstances, endowing the Church. We are also to appear in opposition to every proposal for disestablishment. We are to burden ourselves with the odium of buttressing all existing Establishments. We are to exhort the State by all means to keep them up. We may be certain, and all men may see, that they will continue to embody all the evils for which we left the Scotch Establishment, in forms far more intense than the Scotch Establishment ever knew, along with others from which that Establishment is free. Nevertheless we must clap to our shoulders and hold them up— even the Irish one! Truly we shall have a precious prospect of making ourselves or our principles intelligible! The one and only moral which friends and foes of Establishments alike will draw, will be the utter impossibility of knowing what Free Churchism means.

Moreover, to complete the practical blunder, we are to do this at a time when the benefits-the material benefits-of Establishments have been operating most conspicuously as a mere temptation. They have both blinded and gagged men with respect to the danger and disgrace of indiscriminate endowments; they have disposed them to ascribe to mere material advantages an importance as regards the welfare of the Church which is debasing and unscriptural. Protestant and evangelical men, in the Churches of England and Ireland, have been seduced into clinging to State supremacy as if it were an ordinance of God for the Church's salvation. They have been tempted to chain themselves to Erastian positions on this point unworthy of believing men; positions in which they have incurred and deserved-with pain we write it-the contempt of High Churchmen, and have grieved the hearts of those who desire to see evangelical religion true to itself. This is the crisis in which we are placed.

We can understand, though we do not in existing circumstances approve, the position of a Free Churchman who, amid contending forces and conflicting considerations, declines to take any part or any responsibility. But for Free Churchmen, in these circumstances, to commit themselves to the defence of the Irish Establishment, and countenance its advocates in their present position, is in effect to lend the influence of our name to tendencies and to principles which we, of all men, are most concerned to oppose. It is a great evil. It is a still greater scandal.

BEATING THE AIR.

PAUL ascribes great part of his success, or prospect of success, in his warfare against sin, to his avoidance of a prevalent practical delusion. "So fight I," he says, "not as one that beateth the air,"-not as one amusing myself with idle flourishes which are not intended to be earnest fighting. There is a good deal of this among us. We learn the art of war and the use of our weapons as those who intend great things; we can give many rules for subduing our enemies, and we act over great varieties of offensive and defensive actions; we read books which direct us about personal religion, and we delight in those which lay open to us most skilfully the plague of our own hearts, and explain to us most clearly and satisfactorily how we may subdue our sins. But all this is idle flourish; it kills no enemy. It is but a species of accomplishment, like that of those who learn the use of the sword, not because they mean to go into battle, but that they may have a more elegant carriage. A great part of our religious action, of our prayers, of our reading the Word, and so on, we must know to be mere parade. We don't mean it to have any serious effect-it is not directed against anything in particular. We seem to be diligent in religious exercises; we seem to be doing every thing that a good soldier of Christ need do, except the one thing-we are slaying no enemy. No one can deny that we are well trained; we can tell any one who asks what he should do to be rid of sin. No one can deny that we are spending much strength and time directly on religious exercises-on those exercises which are calculated to make an impression on sin; and yet is it not almost wholly a beating the air? Where are our slain foes? This hot zeal, this apparent eagerness to be holy, is mere flourish. We don't want to hit our enemies; we only, or mainly, wish to make ourselves believe we are hitting them, and are very zealous, unimpeachable, godly persons.

And even where there is more reality than this, we may still be beating the air. Our enemy may be before us, recognized as an enemy, and we be on our guard against him, yet no blow that we aim at him seems to strike home; all fall short, and the sin which we thought to destroy remains vigorous and lively. There is something wrong in our calculation of the distance, or of the energy required. We can honestly say that if our sins are not slain, it is neither because we have not recognized them nor because we have aimed no blows at them, and yet here they are with us this day, standing before us, ready as ever to give us a fall, and showing scarce a scar they have received at our hands. Well, it is accounted for by Paul in this way he sees that many persons who level blows at their sins do not, after all, strike them; the blow is forcible, a great deal of spiritual energy is expended-a great deal of that very kind of spiritual energy which goes. to the destruction of sin-but it is not brought fully, fairly, firmly into contact with the sin we wish to destroy. Let us look at our dealings with sin, and we see how true this is. There is a great expenditure of thought about our sins, also of feeling. Our spirit is probably more moved and exercised about them than about anything else; our spirit spends a great deal of life about them, spends it in the various forms of shame, compunction, penitence, resolve, watchfulness, self-restraint; spends as much strength as might be really very effectual for good did it reach and strike fairly some definite object;-but we know it is doing very little good. Why then does all this spiritual force not reach sin and put an end to it? Can we answer the question? A possible answer may be suggested-viz., That we are at heart reluctant quite to kill our sin, to beat all the life out of it; we are willing, nay, intensely anxious, to escape the blows our sins aim at us ; willing to wound, hamper, and limit our sin, anxious to have it under our control, to tame the wild animal and domesticate it, so as to get some pleasure and profit out of it; but the soul and life of every sin, that which gives it existence as our sin, is some lust of ours, and while we are quite anxious to destroy the sins this lust produces, we are not willing to put an end to the lust itself. We pray God, for example, to preserve us from the evils of intemperance, and yet cannot desire that the capacity for sensual pleasure be deadened in us—we won't sacrifice the pleasure for the sake of the safety, and, therefore, our warfare against sin is a failure; our blows are not delivered home, but beat the air. We don't want to kill utterly the very soul of the sin, but almost unconsciously wish to spare the lust, the natural desire in our soul, while we seek to obliterate its heinous and frightful manifestations.

And the result upon ourselves of these blows aimed at, but not reaching, our sins is highly detrimental. Sin is like something floating in the air or in the water-the very effort we make to grasp and crush it displaces it and causes it to elude our grasp, and it floats mockingly before us unhurt; or it is like an agile antagonist, who springs back from our blow, so that the force we have expended merely racks and strains our own sinews, and does him no injury. So, when we spend a great deal of effort about sin, and find it as lively in us as ever, the spirit becomes irritated, and gives up trying to destroy sin; the spirit is strained and hurt because it has put out force upon nothing; it is less able than before to resist sin, less hopeful, less believing; it becomes confused and begins to doubt; it is disheartened, disbelieves in its own repentance, and scoffs at the idea of making fresh resolutions.

ENGLISH VIEWS OF CHURCH QUESTIONS.

We had intended to direct the serious attention of our readers to the confusion of mind on the subject of the Supremacy of the State, exhibited on the other side of the Border. This confusion is by no means confined to one party; but the party in connection with which we are least willing to see it, is that in which it appears to prevail most-we mean the Evangelical section of the Church of England. On many accounts we feel a peculiar interest in them, and sympathize with their difficulties. We will not easily resign the hope that, in the case of many of them at least, the loud Erastianism which they proclaim at present, proceeds merely on misunderstandings, which may be cleared away. In any other view, the prospects for evangelical religion in the Church of England in the times that are coming would be dark indeed. But the discussion of this subject must be postponed, along with articles of importance on several other topics.

Correspondence.

Correspondents will be good enough to send their names and addresses, not necessarily for publication, but for the purpose of guaranteeing the bona fide character of the correspondence. The Editor reserves the right to give the substance of letters briefly.

STEADFASTNESS AND CHANGE.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE PRESBYTERIAN.

SIR,-Solomon says, "To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under the heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up." There is still a considerable section of living men who would be much the better of studying these words in that calm, long-suffering manner in which alone truth can be ascertained when it is repre*sented by the connection of the thoughts, and not of the mere words. Even in our generation, which is the heir of all the wisdom of all preceding ages, there are good men, and wise men whose modesty does not prevent them from ranking themselves among the Abdiels of our times, who yet do not seem to have the least idea of what is meant by these words of Solomon. They are contented with knowing that there is a time when all these things are done in point of fact, which it surely required no Solomon to make known. Contented with the words, they seem never to have concerned themselves about the thought contained in them; which is, that Time is a great teacher, and that his lessons, under the Word, the Spirit, and the providence of God, lead men of their own accord, in consequence of the advance of divine intelligence in their minds, to undo those things which they had formerly done: not because those things which they had formerly done were wrong in their season, and not because those things which undo these former things are wrong in their season; but because time had ripened (if one may use the familiarism) one crop of the divine designs, and ripened one crop of the ideas of mankind, so that their end came in order to make way for something more advanced. Both in the political world and in the ecclesiastical at the present time there are those who maintain that “there is a time to plant;"❘ but they recognize no time to "pluck up that which is planted," that there is a time to break down" into divisions, but they recognize no time to build up" into unity. And all who enter into the mind of Solomon, and recognize Time as a teacher, the events of Providence as lessons, and the human race as destined to progressive advancement, are regarded by such as being something less than good men; because they would in days of increased light "pluck up" what was planted "in the dark," or when they would "build up," in a time of increased love, what was broken down in times of party discord and personal prejudice. There are changes of two kinds. There are changes such as that of a weathercock on the top of a steeple, which varies with every wind. That is one kind of change. And there are changes which belong to every kind of growth, as when the sapling becomes a tree, and the stripling a full-grown man. That is another kind of change. Don't you think these two kinds of change are very different from each other? There are changes which men publicly undergo, not from increased light in their understandings, but as an act of their will, when they have educated their party up to the point of being ready to accept these changes. That is a change of one kind. And there are changes produced upon a man whom God has been educating-such changes as took place upon Moses when from the court of Pharaoh he came forth to be the chastiser of Egypt, and the liberator of Israel-changes such as took place upon Luther and Calvin and Knox, when, from being Papists, they came forth with the sword of God's Word in their mighty hands, and, like Gabriel, with "huge two-handed sway," smote down the faith which they once believed and professed. There are changes such as take place when a man ceases to split hairs on the south side, and begins to split them on the south-west side. And there are changes such as take place upon great minds when they are vanquished by great truths, and under their inspiration go forth" conquering and to conquer." There are changes caused by unbelief, such as took place upon the children of Israel who, after their exodus

from the house of bondage, because of the difficulties they had met with and the difficulties which they supposed to be before them, and because of the savoury recollections which they had of "the leeks and the garlick and the onions" enjoyed during their servitude, turned their backs and their hearts on Canaan, and would have had the infatuation to put their necks again under the yoke, if God had not prevented them. And there are changes arising from faith following wherever God leads the way, such as took place on the outward positions of Joshua and Caleb, who, undismayed by the thoughts of the Anakim before them, or the tumult of a whole nation in the camp around them, "followed the Lord fully," from one station to another, till he landed them in Canaan.

The same remarks which we have made about change apply equally to those accusations which men bring against their opponents for want of steadfastness, and to those boastful claims to steadfastness which they make in behalf of themselves and their party. It has happened a hundred times, both in the history of Philosophy and of Christianity, that the men who boasted of their steadfastness were simply the steady adherents of error, and their very steadfastness was the crown and consummation of their criminality. While with self-complacent minds they were lauding themselves as the foremost men in the front rank of the "Covenanted host of God's elect," they were in reality the enemies of truth, and obstructions to the providential and redemptive designs of God, and to the true and genuine advancement of the human race. Honeyed words about one's own steadfastness, and hard words about the want of steadfastness in others, may prove something and do prove a great deal both in regard to the natural and moral taste of those who use them; but they can prove nothing in regard to the truth of God, and they can settle nothing in regard to the side upon which the truth of God is to be found. Though it often assumes a high Protestant form, yet it is purely, entirely, and intensely Popish, to make the truth of God depend upon the steadfastness of men. To say that a man's opinions have been changed, therefore those he now holds are wrong, is to demand that every man should be as infallible as the Pope of Rome, who never changes. Now God's thoughts, and not man's, are the standard of truth; and if God by his Word and Spirit and providence opens up views of truth which I had not in my youth, who dare say to me that I ought to follow myself instead of God? Or who would dare to say that I am guilty of a grievous sin because I choose to follow God rather than to follow him?

Men who set themselves up as standards of religious thought to others, on the ground that they have always thought as they now do, one would think, can have no great acquaintance with the laws of thought, the history of the Church, the general style of God's designs, the progressive dispensations of religion, and, in short, with God's whole method of educating his Church, or even the human race, In many cases the outcry about want of steadfastness is very much as if a tree should accuse a man for want of steadfastness, because he went out from under its shadow, and went away over the valleys, and over the mountains, and over the seas, while it stood still-not knowing that it stood still simply because it wanted the capacity of walking, while God had given the power of motion to man, as a nobler endowment in which the tree did not partake, the nature of which it could not understand, and in regard to which it only showed a total want of self-knowledge when it solemnly put on its black cap and dared to creak forth its vegetable censure against a man.

is a steadfastness like that of the Jews in the days of the apostles, who, after its veil was rent in twain, clung to the temple because it was the old historical position which had been occupied by all the renowned names of old-a blind and infatuated, though a loud and a boastful steadfastness, which kept them away from the light, and left them to be burned with the temple and buried in its ruins. And there is a steadfastness such as that of the fathers of the Jewish nation in the wilderness, who not only rested when the cloud rested, but moved when the cloud moved, changing even the outward position of the very tabernacle of testimony itself when the pillar of guidance pointed them onward. And no hard words, no bad names, no concern about the past nor fear about the future, should for one moment make us hesitate to change the outward position of the tabernacle of the Church's testimony, when the light of God's Word and the leadings of God's providence indicate that this ought to be done. If men change their opinions from interest, from instability of nature, from scrupulosity of conscience, from a desire to be accounted liberal or fashionable, or upon any other ground than the calm, deliberate, intelligent conviction of the understanding, then there is something morally wrong in the change which they have made. It is not God in that case who changed the man by means of objective truth acting on his understanding. It is the man who has changed himself in opposition to the light of his understanding, and led away by some sinful motive. While I follow the light of Scripture according to the best of my understanding, I am following God in the depths of my nature; and as long as I regard God as God I must follow him, and I will follow him; and from all censures of men as his servant I appeal it to his decision, whether I am not right in following God rather than in following any man, or any party of men, however good they are, or however wise they may be in their own estimation.-I am yours,

A FRIEND TO GROWTH IN KNOWLEDGE,

TO THE EDITOR OF THE PRESBYTERIAN.

SIR,-In common, I am sure, with many other laymen, I have read with much interest Dr. Charles Brown's letter, in the "Presbyterian" of this month, on late attendance at church. As an office-bearer, I have had frequent opportunities of observing the prevalence of the practice, and have often deplored it, or rather the thoughtless state of mind from which, in the majority of instances, it manifestly proceeds.

My purpose in addressing you is to indicate one or two points in our present arrangements for public worship which, as I think, tend to foster this light and thoughtless state of mind, and to suggest what would prove at least a partial remedy for the evil of late attendance itself.

The following arrangements seem to me to derogate from the solemnity that should attach to public praise and prayer:

1. In certain churches to which strangers largely resort, the strangers are kept waiting in the lobbies till the worship begins, and then they are shown in, to the disturbance of those already praying or praising, and, one would think, not very ready themselves to praise or

pray.

2. The elders and deacons who have been collecting walk into their places sometimes during the praise and sometimes during the prayer.

3. When the communicants are about to leave the Lord's Table, they are exhorted to praise Him. A psalm is prescribed, and the precentor begins. But his first note is the signal for them to rise and leave the table, and for others to approach. Surely this is not doing things "decently and in order." Is praise such an easy exercise of soul, body, and spirit, that it is promoted by the congregation being in motion? much better that the communicants should sing one or two verses before leaving the table; that the others who come in should do the same before the minister begins the next; and that the exchanging of seats should take place in decent and solemn silence.

How

the hour, the doors of the church should be at once locked, and no one should be admitted until the first act of worship (praise or prayer) be done. There should then be a short interval of silence, during which the late comers and strangers, and perhaps the collecting elders and deacons, should be admitted to their places. This done, the doors should be again locked till the next act of worship be over, and a similar interval be then allowed for the very late worshippers. There might be a like interval at the close of the next act of worship.

There is nothing new in these suggestions. They are acted on with success in many churches every Sabbath, the result being that the number of late comers is reduced to the minimum, and that one of the chief evils of late attendance-interruption to those actually worshipping-is entirely obviated.

Unless ministers and kirk-sessions exercise a wholesome despotism in some such way as this, I confess that I despair of seeing late attendance remedied. Those who practise it must be treated as boys are when moral suasion fails. External measures must teach. Many-over whose heads you might preach a sermon on the solemnity of public worship-would shrink from walking in late in perfect silence, and under the gaze of an unoccupied congregation. They might thus be taught indirectly that public worship is no light matter. And, at all events, their more punctual brethren would be undistracted.-I am, Sir, your most obedient servant, A DEACON.

UNITED PRESBYTERIAN "LOGIC."

and extension of the Church. Our object was to show wherein our principle on this head differs from yours. Had your principle been, that the Church is to be maintained and extended, according to Christ's ordinance, by the free-will offerings of his people, and by all other aid, we would have said, naturally and logically, that Christ's ordinance excludes all other aid. But your principle being that the Church is to be maintained and extended, according to Christ's ordinance, by the free-will offerings of his people, and by State aid, we said, not less naturally and logically, and quite sufficiently, that Christ's ordinance excludes State aid.

We said this, and the "logic" of our argument has hitherto passed for good logic among very competent judges. It has been current among Protestants. They have said, for example, that Christ has appointed Baptism and the Lord's Supper to be the two sacraments of the New Testament; and they have concluded that, this being the ordinance of Christ, it excludes the other five sacraments of Romanism. It has been current among Presbyterians. They have said, for example, that Christ has appointed the presbyter to be the highest church-officer; and they have concluded that, this being the ordinance of Christ, it excludes Diocesan Episcopacy. It has been current among Free Churchmen. They have said that Christ has appointed a government in his Church, distinct from the civil magistrate, and not subordinate to him; and they have concluded that, this being Christ's ordinance, it excludes the civil magistrate from the government of the Church. This is the "logic" by which they overthrew the Dagon of Erastianism. And it is precisely the same "logic" that we employ when, having laid down as our premises that Christ has enjoined upon his people to provide for maintaining and extending his Church by freewill offerings, we conclude that, this being the ordinance of Christ, it excludes State aid for these purposes.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE PRESBYTERIAN. SIR,-Let me begin with thanking you for the article in your September number on "Union and the Confession." I have read it with much satisfaction. I think you right in your views of "what the Confession actually teaches concerning the relations between the Church and the State;" I concur generally in the conclusions which you have drawn from its teaching; and I deem these vitally important in their bearing on grave questions to which the negotiations for Union have given rise. I hail such an article in the "Presbyterian" as a token of the wonderful harmony which we have already reached, and as promising harmony yet more entire. It does indicate to me progress worth reporting, to read in your pages that "the framers of the Confession never contemplated such a state of things as now exists in our land; nor can their conclusions be applied satisfactorily to the circumstances in which we now find ourselves;"parently" left room for "that form of endowment " and that "the Confession gives no answer to the question, whether it be right that the State should recognize

or endow a sect or denomination."

It is on the paragraph in which you have impugned our United Presbyterian "logic" that I wish to offer a remark or two. It runs thus: "The Distinctive Articles of the United Presbyterian Church not only state the doctrine which they hold, but, as it happens, wisely or unwisely, the reason on which they found it. They say that Jesus Christ, as sole King and Head of his Church, has enjoined upon his people to provide for maintaining and extending it by free-will offerings;' and they add that, this being an (the) ordinance of Christ, it excludes State aid for these purposes.' In our opinion, it is not a logical conclusion from this ordinance of Christ that State aid is excluded; the conclusion ought to have been that all other aid is excluded."

This is your "opinion," but, "wisely or unwisely," you have given no reason for it. The opinion is certainly not self-evident, and to me it seems almost, if not altogether, self-eversive. You admit our premises, that "Christ has an ordinance, in which he has enjoined upon his people to provide for maintaining and extending his Church by free-will offerings." From these premises our "conclusion" is, that, "this being the ordinance of Christ, it excludes State aid for these purposes." Your criticism is, that "this is not a logical conclusion from the ordinance of Christ," and that "the conclusion ought to have been that all other aid is excluded." Well, if this would have been the "logical conclusion," ours, I submit, is logically unchallengeable. "All other aid" includes "State aid ;" and if" all other aid is excluded" by Christ's ordinance, State aid is excluded" by it.

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The reason why we did not put the "conclusion" in your more general form is apparent enough. We were stating our distinctive principle as to the maintenance

After accounting for our "failure in logic," by tracing it to our looking at the present divided state of the Church, you say, " We, on our side, are at perfect liberty to believe, as we do, that in a Church undivided into denominations this question (the endowment of a sect) never would have been raised; and that in such a Church the endowment would, practically, have come under that form for which room is apparently left in the phraseology of the distinctive article, as lawful, notwithstanding the ordinance of Christ. That is to say, the State endowment would have been in effect an endowment by the members of the Church."

I do not see that we have in our Articles even 66

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which you commend "as lawful, notwithstanding the ordinance of Christ." If we had, I should have pleaded guilty to something worse than a "failure in logic" (See "Shorter Catechism,” Q. 50.) Neither can I admit the validity of your plea for the State endowment of an undivided Church. It "would be in effect," you say, an endowment by the members of the Church." Be it so. But would it be lawful for the members of the Church, qua the members of the State, to take Christ's ordinance enjoined on his people, and to turn it into a State ordinance? As Christ's ordinance, it rests solely on his authority, is administered by the officers of his Church, and draws forth the free-will offerings of his people. As a State ordinance, it would rest on the authority of the State, would be administered by State officers, and would exact its imposts from the subjects, qua

the subjects, by the power proper to the State, which is "the power of the sword." And if it would be lawful, in the case you have supposed, to turn Christ's ordinance for maintaining and extending his Church into a State ordinance, would it not be lawful in the same case to turn any of his other ordinances into a State ordinance? Why, for example, not turn the ordinance of Church government into a State ordinance. Ay, and having done so, plead for it, as English Churchmen are at this day doing, as "in effect" the government of the Church by itself, the members of the Church and the members of the State being the same!

Without multiplying such questions, or pressing them further, I conclude with confessing myself jealous of all theories and speculations tending to confound Church and State, and of all "logic" which addresses itself to the task of making out something to be " lawful, notwithstanding the ordinance of Christ."-I am, &c., A UNITED PRESBYTERIAN.

[We have pleasure in publishing the remarks of our

United Presbyterian correspondent. It has all along been notorious that on the question of State endowment the two Churches diverge in point of logic, drawing diverse conclusions from common principles. We have no objection that this fact should be illustrated again and again, and we rejoice with our correspondent that it becomes more and more manifest that our differences concern this point alone, and that each side may continue honestly maintaining its ground, without prejudice to substantial harmony. We may add that the main object of the contributor to our last number, in the remark which is impugned, was not to assail the United Presbyterian position, but to make it evident to Free Churchmen, that even if, in our view, assailable in point of logic, that position involved nothing which need divide us. On this account we think it not necessary to meet our correspondent's exceptions with counter statements and explanations.-ED. PRESB.]

Reviews of Books.

THEOLOGICAL NOVELS.

Ir is, we think, of some consequence to note the rise of a new species of literary production in our days, to which we venture to give the name prefixed to the remarks now to be made about it. The class of publications it includes are very extensively read, and their readers belong to our different evangelical churches. Our young people, more especially, are almost all familiar with them; and it is to be feared that not a few of the precious Sabbath hours, formerly spent in another, and, as we hold, in a better way, are consumed in the perusal of the stories which now form so large a part of our most widely circulated religious magazines.

Of these books" Guild Court," by Mr. George Macdonald, is, on the whole, a favourable specimen. It is written in an interesting style, records incidents which excite the attention of the reader, and gives many good advices to the young. On the whole, too, its course continues to be more equal to the close than is the case with most of the other books which the same author has written. It may be that Mr. Macdonald has too much to do, and that he is required to finish what he has begun without having time thoroughly to mature his plans. At all events, it is certain that there are portions of all his works which are far superior to any one of them as a whole, and that there is especially a marked falling off in almost all of them from the promise of their opening chapters. If we take, for instance, one of the best of them," Alec Forbes of Howglen," every intelligent reader must be struck with the difference between the beginning of the book and the greater part of its conclusion. The one has always seemed to us to afford evidence of the very high powers of its writer, while the other is, for the most part, confused and unsatisfactory in the last degree.

Even in Guild Court" there is considerable inequality of style, and, as it seems to us, very great diversity of success in the delineation of the different characters which the work sets before us. The hero of the novel is Thomas Worboise, a young clerk in London, and son of a solicitor there. His self-complacent, selfish, undecided nature is singularly well drawn, and the vicissitudes through which the young man passes, until his character undergoes the change which oldfashioned people call conversion, but which Mr. Macdonald would rather describe as a waking up to life, or as its coming to conscicusness about itself, are also very graphically narrated. Our author is likewise happy in his sketch of Lucy, who is Thomas' good angel, and whose lineaments are depicted in a way which reflects the greatest credit on the artist. Mr. Macdonald will perhaps think us stupid if we say that he is least successful in drawing the two characters of which he is himself obviously the fondest-those, namely, of tho two children, Mattie and Poppie. That both the one and the other say very startling things now and then, is unquestionable; but they are seldom or never said in a natural way. We are not made to feel that they are real children after all. Let it be granted that their natures are avowedly abnormal; still, even such natures have a law of their own, which underlies all true repre

“Guild Court." By George Macdonald, M. A. In three volumes. Hurst and Blackett. 1868.

sentation of their actings, and, according to our best judgment, the attempt to represent them as illustrations of it is an utter failure. We grow weary of the eccentricity of the one and the brilliancy of the other, and have often had occasion to wish them to be, like some other children whom injudicious mothers have exhibited to us, sent to bed at once, and kept there.

The portrait, however, of which we have most cause to complain, is that of Mrs. Worboise. She is evidently intended to represent the female and maternal character under the influence of evangelical, or, as our author would prefer calling them, Calvinistic views of religion. Of course, she is not only narrow-minded, but stupid beyond all expression. She is constantly in the habit of using certain well-known phrases, devoted to a minister hardly less ignorant than herself, and dead to every natural feeling which seems to her to interfero with orthodox opinions. We had marked various passages as instances of the absurdities which are attributed to this good woman, but, on reflection, deem it better to leave each reader to judge for himself of the accuracy of the account which we have now given of Mr. Macdonald's portrait of her. Now, we are not prepared to deny that there are women and mothers whose religious zeal is of an uneducated and even repellent type; but we call in question the propriety of drawing such a sketch as this of the character of the class to which Mrs. Worboise belongs. There is no necessary, and there is not even a frequent, connection between ardent piety in a woman and defective intelligence. Why should it be insinuated even (and Mr. Macdonald more than insinuates) that anxiety about her son's salvation makes a mother dead to all the charities and affections which are natural to a woman's heart? We cannot but pronounce this portrait to be not a faithful likeness, but a poor caricature. Chiefly in connection with this part of his book, and also with the appearance of Mr. Fuller, his model clergyman, Mr. Macdonald takes occasion to convey no inconsiderable amount of theological instruction. It would be difficult, we admit, to construct any consistent system of religious doctrine out of the statements which our author from time to time utters; but it is very easy indeed to see in what direction they all tend.

Here, for example, is the account of what Mrs. Worboise and her class believe: :-"To escape from the consequences of a condition which you could not help, you must believe certain things after a certain fashion; hold, in fact, certain theories with regard to the most difficult questions on which, too, you were incapable of thinking correctly..... All your strife must be to become something you are not at all now, to feel what you do not feel, to judge against your nature, to regard everything in you as opposed to your salvation, and God, who is far away from you, and whose ear is not always ready to hear, as your only deliverer from the consequences he has decreed, and this in virtue of no immediate relation to you, but from regard to another whose innocent sufferings is to your guilt the only counterpoise weighty enough to satisfy his justice."

Then, in speaking of a Jewess, it is said:-"She never became a Christian; but she loved children whether they were Christians or not, and she loved the poor whether they were Christians or not. And for my part, I know, if I had the choice, whether I would appear before the Master in the train of the unbelieving Mrs. Morgenstern or the believing Mrs. Worboise."

Again, our author says: My reader must not therefore suppose that I consider doubt an unholy thing; on the contrary, I consider spiritual doubt a far more precious thing than intellectual conviction, for it springs from the awaking of a deeper necessity than any that can be satisfied from the region of logic."

In another part of his book Mr. Macdonald is finding fault with the clergy of our day for want of faithfulness in denouncing the sins of the times, and adds: “Oh, for the voice of a St. Paul or a St. John! But it would be of little use; such men would have small chance of being heard. They would find the one half of Christendom so intent upon saving souls instead of doing its duty, that the other half thought it all humbug."

We add but one passage more. It occurs in a conversation between Mr. Fuller the clergyman and Spelt the tailor, in which the latter says, "I confess to you, sir, I've never been much of a church-goer, but I do believe in Christ." "It doesn't much matter whether you go to church or not," is the reply, "if you believe in him."

It is, we confess, with great regret that we give these extracts. In their very structure there is a pert smartness which is quite unworthy of a man of Mr. Macdonald's powers. We do not wish them to be regarded as fair specimens of the teaching of the book. If they were, we should be shut up to the necessity of recording our entire dissatisfaction with it. They are either the distorted misrepresentation of precious truths, or they are the expression of sentiments which we utterly repudiate, and which are fitted to do much harm. We are glad, however, to be able to say that they are so far counteracted by very much of which we thoroughly approve, that there is not a little in the strain of our author's instructions which cannot but be healthful in its influence, and that we should be misunderstood altogether if we were thought to treat Mr. Macdonald as an enemy to the cause we have at heart, and not as an ally. Still, there is enough in these extracts to call for very careful consideration, not only of Mr. Macdonald's merits as a writer, but of the peculiarities and the dangers of those theological novels, as we have called them, under which almost all his publications must be classed. Now, we cannot share, first of all, in the unmeasured denunciations which are uttered in certain quarters against this description of authorship. Neither the sermon nor the doctrinal treatise can be allowed to claim any exclusive right to the discussion of sacred subjects. The day when the clergy alone might propound their views of religion is gone. The more general interest taken in our times, both in literature and in theology, necessarily occasions a much more multiform treatment of religious questions. It is absurd even to try to pass an interdict upon theological novels. The very attempt is certain to give a freer and wider circulation to that which we in vain seek to suppress. On the other hand, it is equally obvious that there is no little danger to be apprehended from this new species of literature. Both the authors and the students of it need to be put upon their guard as to the risk they run.

The kind of book we have in view is not simply the old religious novel of our youth. In it the question of Church and Dissent was generally disposed of in a summary, if not in an equally logical, manner. On the one side so many interesting and agreeable persons of both sexes were arrayed, that we could only wonder how it was possible for any one in his senses to be opposed to them, especially in such repulsive and vulgar company as the other side was sure to present. Now, however, the deepest questions of faith and practice are discussed in our theological novels. The personages who figure in them decide such matters as the inspiration of the Bible, the atonement of the Saviour, and the work of the Holy Ghost, with a readiness and assurance that are perfectly bewildering. Unlettered tradesmen who seldom go to church, and generally speak broad Scotch, dispose at once of those great religious problems by which the wisest philosophers have been perplexed. Their difficulties disappear so soon as they are laid on the shoemaker's bench or the tailor's board; and the only wonder is that any one should be so stupid as to be puzzled by what seems so plain. It may be reasonably doubted, perhaps, if all this is so simple as it at first appears to be. We are not of opinion that these infinitely important subjects are likely either to be permanently transferred to this new field of investigation, or to get much elucidation there. Still, it is well to observe what is going on, and to do what we can to make a wise provision for it. Those who have been accustomed to treat the themes of theological science in another way should be urged by the popularity of the books to which we have referred to do their utmost to invest their own statements with greater interest. We would not have our preachers to turn their sermons into stories; neither do we wish all our treatises on doctrine to be couched in the form of dialogue. Surely, however, there might be more of the attractive in both of these departments of theological instruction than we generally find there. We should mark the tendencies of the age, so as to turn them to account. If there are old truths from which the Christian Church can never go away without loss, there are new ways of representing them which are almost equally essential to her prosperity. If the teachers of the Cross are wise, they will learn lessons even from the "foolishness" of those who cause men to err from the truth. At the same time, we confess a strong aversion to the change which some of our modern writers on theology, and Mr. Macdonald amongst them, wish to make on our religious dialect. It is a very

simple matter to turn phraseology on sacred subjects into ridicule; but it is far from being plain that the proposed substitute for the old language would be an improvement. Can any one believe that the use of words such as our author employs in this passage about the wrong training of her son by Mrs. Worboise would be in any sense a step in advance on the kind of relig ious expressions with which we are more familiar? Ah, if she could have told the boy, every time his soul was lifted up within him by anything beautiful or great or true, that, my boy, is God—God telling you that you must be beautiful and great and true, else you cannot be his child! If, every time he uttered his delight in flower or bird, she had, instead of speaking of sin and shortcoming, spoken of love and aspiration towards the Father of lights, the God of beauty."

The old way of speaking about religion may not have been the best; but, if this be the new way, is it any better?

It only remains to be said that the point chiefly at stake in all this new sort of writing goes far deeper than any mere question of phraseology. The main thing, after all, about which we are concerned is that our young people should in their habitual reading really meet the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ in truth, and not a diluted or corrupt version of it. We are not afraid of any open and direct attack on revealed truth. It is able still, as it has ever been, to defend itself, and to cover its assailants with shame. But what is more to be feared is that representation of its nature which, under much reverence for its divine origin, hides what we hold to be its distinctive characteristics from the student's view. When, further, this false presentation of its leading aspects is made in a spirit of great earnestness, and of evidently deep concern for what is considered to be truth and beauty, the danger to the youthful mind is all the greater. There is a fascination which older people can hardly understand in the more attractive views which are thus given of human nature as well as in the seemingly freer and broader channel which is thrown open for independent thought. Now, we must be careful to maintain that Christianity is doctrine as well as life, and that it can never be the one without being the other. Its peculiar glory consists in its being a revelation of grace and truth. It makes men better; but only by letting them know and feel that there is but the one name given under heaven whereby they can be saved. We do not believe that any real and lasting good can flow from any religious teaching in which the old doctrines as to sin, the righteousness of Christ, and the grace of the Spirit of God are not prominent. Let these doctrines be exhibited in every form of adaptation to the innumerable wants of men. There is nothing in their nature which forbids the most varied representation of their meaning and design. The poet may sing their praises; the orator may be eloquent in their illustration; the novelist may weave their threads into the web of his story. But let all who have to do with them guard against either "adding unto or taking away from the things which are written in this Book."

We would hail every contribution to our literature which is baptized into the name of Christ, and we believe there is much need for new gifts being consecrated to His cause in the strange times in which we are called to its defence. Only, let there be no lowering of the old standard under which alone the battle of Truth can be fought and won. The very inscription of our Leader's titles on it must be so clear and broad that there shall be no mistake either as to the principles we contend for or the victory we wish to gain. Those whose only weapon in Christ's cause is the pen, must remember that His claims on their service are such as to forbid them to glory save in His cross.