REGISTERED FOR]

No. 10.]

CONTENTS.

ARTICLES:

The St. Alban's Judgment

Irish Education (Second Article)....

The Church of England a Bulwark of

tury

10

Protestantism?..

3

The Days of Knox, &c. &c.

Christmas Day..

4

REVIEW OF INTELLIGENCE:

Members and Adherents

5

Presbyterianism

The late Dr. Cooke

5

Church Rates in Shetland.

6

Two Perverts.

Spiritual Independence..

REVIEWS OF BOOKS:

The Church of Christ: A Treatise on the
Nature, Power, Ordinances, Discip
line, and Government of the Chris-
tian Church

Dr. Bonar's Life of the Rev. John Milne 8
Leathes' Boyle Lectures

THE ST. ALBAN'S JUDGMENT.

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13

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THE judgment delivered in this case on 23rd December last has the merit of being very intelligible in its nature and grounds. The points were, whether Mr. Mackonochie was censurable for having lighted candles on the communion table, or altar, during the celebration of the Lord's Supper (these being designed to signify that the Lord is the Light of the world); and also for kneeling after the words of consecration were pronounced, said kneeling being intended to express adoration for the Lord. now present in the elements. Judgment has gone against Mr. Mackonochie on both points; and as the basis of judgment a rather important principle is laid down. The Ritualists have acted on the hypothesis, that all ceremonies of the medieval Church which were not specifically abolished by Reformation legislation might be, or even ought to be, retained in the Church of England. There being no authoritative enumeration of ceremonies abolished, it was possible on this ground to argue for the introduction of almost any ceremony, and to reduce the distinction between the ritual of England and that of Rome to a point indefinitely low. The judgment distinctly rejects this principle. It maintains that all ceremonies not mentioned in the Prayer-Book are prohibited by the Act of Uniformity of 1563; and all "ornaments are unlawful which are not prescribed by the first Prayer-Book of Edward VI. This judgment, therefore, appears to shut the door against that ecclesiastical antiquarianism which was daily making some new discovery and preparing some fresh surprise for Anglican worshippers. The PrayerBook of Edward for "ornaments," and the Prayer-Book, as it now stands, for ceremonies-what is not found within these limits is to be excluded.

Naturally this judgment has made a sensation. It is, in some respects, a great blow for the Ritualists; and it has called forth corresponding gratulation and thanksgiving from the Evangelical ranks. Looking at the judgment in its immediate bearing and effect, we sympathize with this feeling. We rejoice in everything that operates as an obstruction to the progress of a rampant party, which threatens, in the name of what is really Romanism, to take possession of the Church of England. That Church is too great a force to permit any one to be indifferent to the hands into which her influence falls. In so far as the late decision promises to arrest one pet line of action from which the Ritualists promised to themselves great results, we are glad of it.

But, looking to the further bearings of this decision, we must confess that we cannot regard it with much satisfaction. There is much about it which disheartens far more than it encourages. For a generation back every event which might seem in some respects likely to arrest the tendencies Romeward in the English Church has served eventually only as a way-post to mark the rate of progress. There is some fatality about that Church, in this stage of her history, which masters all subordinate agencies which reinforces even the Romanizing attack, and paralyzes and bewilders the defence. Will the instance now before us prove a exception?

We will not dwell on the Erastianism of the tribunal and of the grounds of judgment. It is a very real ground of objection; but of course it was

[TRANSMISSION ABROAD.

[Price 2d. to be counted on, and no one need moralize on it. Only let no one overlook it. We know well enough what is said against this imputation by English Churchmen, High as well as Low. They say the decision proceeds on a constitution to which the Church has consented, interpreted by a tribunal in the competency of which the Church at least acquiesces. As to the Church's consent to the constitution, we should attach more weight to it if we saw any reason to think that the Church would, or could, withhold her consent from anything that happened to be enacted. As to the Church's acquiescence in the tribunal, it is acquiescence in Erastianism, which is just what we complain of. Indeed, there is no need in this matter to split hairs or dispute about words. What does it mean when we say that only by this tribunal could Ritualism be dealt with? It means that the heart and conscience, the faith and zeal which live in the Church, cannot touch Ritualism. They must stand by, and see what help may come to them from a coterie of lawyers interpreting Acts of Parliament three hundred years old. That is the substantial evil, and it very substantial.

is

But we pass from that, to notice that the judgment bears solely on outward actions, and not at all on the Popish heresies which one of those actions was notoriously and professedly designed to express, nor on the anti-Reformation tendencies which they both indicated. This remark applies, not merely to the decision, but to the grounds of the decision. There is not a syllable to indicate that any grounds exist on which judgment could proceed against the doctrine that Christ ought to be adored and worshipped in the bread and wine. The Prayer-Book says that the minister is to go about the work of consecration "standing before the altar." Therefore, say the judges to Mr. Mackonochie, you shall stand till you have done it: you shall not be allowed to kneel until you yourself receive as a communicant. But he may teach what he likes upon the subject; and if he believes his own doctrine, and persuades his people to believe it, he and they will easily infuse an expression of their faith into their manner of celebrating, without using any act that can positively be prohibited. One way of operating on the public mind which the Ritualists judged useful they are now to be restrained from using. But does that not bring out so much the more, with melancholy distinctness, that there is no power to restrain them from holding and teaching that doctrine, on account of which alone it is worth any man's while to dispute about the ceremony? Is there anything in this posture of affairs fitted seriously to damp their confidence, or to check them in the use of all the means still left them for carrying on their propaganda and infusing Romish significance into the Ritual of England? In this respect, indeed, we feel that the judgment rather confirms the impression that substantial Popery has its good right within the English Church.

It is true, no doubt, that the doctrinal question, also, is to be brought under the notice of the Courts. A prosecution has been begun against Mr. Bennett. If the result of this should be a decision forbidding Church of England clergymen to preach the doctrine which Mr. Mackonochie expressed symbolically, then we admit that some of our remarks will no longer apply. But we do not anticipate any such action of the Court. We think it quite possible that a decision adverse to Mr. Bennett may be given. For Mr. Bennett in his zeal has expressed the doctrine of our Lord's corporeal presence in terms that go beyond Rome. He was ridiculous enough to affirm the sensible presence of our Lord in the sacrament. A man like this may be condemned; but, in all probability, room will be carefully left for the whole body of the party. The instinct of the Ecclesiastical Courts has hitherto been to act on the principle, "You may think whatever you like, and you may say almost anything you like, but you shall do as you are bid." We fear that will be the spirit of the doctrinal decision. We are sure it is the spirit of that now before us.

Further, no one can doubt the effect which this judgment is likely to have upon the Evangelical party. It will undoubtedly confirm them in

the opinion that their own safety and the safety of their cause depend upon clinging to the strong arm of the State and to the Courts of Law. The existing system, as the Courts of Law may superintend and direct it, will be regarded by them more than ever as the practical optimism-the best that can be had. The Courts of Law can be made use of in order to prohibit and punish Ritualistic proceedings. How precious, then, the superintendence of these Courts! How undesirable any movement towards a freer action of the Church! Now, we could sympathize with this, or at least we could appreciate the mode of view which leads to this conclusion, if the action of the Courts of Law really tended to abate the scandal and mischief of anti-Protestant teaching and action within a Protestant Church. For reasons already given, we look on the decision as characterized by no such tendency. It puts down one extreme form of Romanizing ceremony, but it does not even suggest the likelihood of the main evil being reached. That promises to be prolonged and perpetuated. The Evangelical party may say, "At least it goes so far; what better can be done? For the rest, we contend against Romanizing teaching by Scriptural doctrine and argument." All very good. But the effect of that doctrine and argument, as a social and public force, is simply neutralized and annihilated by the standing connection of the two parties. They continue within one Church; they are united by all Church ties; they pass from pulpit to pulpit; they mingle in the hierarchy;-and the Evangelical party cleave to the system which perpetuates all this. Who that sees what they do will believe that the Romanizing heresy is so bad or so deadly as they say? The Romanizing party, no doubt, on their side, remain within the same Church as the Evangelicals. But they are no advocates for the system which perpetuates that arrangement. "If," says Dr. Pusey, writing to the "Times,"-"if the union of Church and State involve this alternate laxity and more than rigidness in the construction of our formularies, involving the denial of true doctrine and the prohibition of practice which represents doctrine, it certainly will be the earnest desire and prayer of Churchmen that the precedent now being set as to the Irish Establishment may be speedily followed as to the English." The question has been raised whether the Ritualists will submit to this decision, whether they will not rather leave the Church and set up for themselves. We wish we saw any reason to think that they would. It is quite true that some of them, in their indignation, are ready to rebel at once. It does not follow that this will be the final decision of the Ritualistic party generally; still less of the high Anglicans as a body, for the Ritualists are only a section of the Romanisers. We believe they are far too wise in their generation. Their work lies within the Church of England, not without. It is the credit of the Church of England on which they trade. Nothing has occurred to drive them beyond her pale. As one says, writing to an English Church paper, and explaining that the decision merely affects two ceremonies, neither of which are "primitive," for neither of them originated earlier than the middle age, "I shall unhesitatingly and with a good conscience discontinue this ceremony. However, instead of lowering the tone of teaching, I shall in other ways give it more prominence, and, if possible, more decisive expression than ever. I hope and believe many will do the same." Dr. Pusey says, "The belief [in the 'Real Objective Presence'] showed itself of necessity in our way of celebrating, without our adopting any of the acts which the Judicial Committee has condemned, and it will still. The author of the Christian Year' was no Ritualist, whatever sympathy he had with the piety, devotion, and faith visible in many Ritualists; yet no one who saw him celebrate could doubt as to his belief. The loss of modes of outward expression of belief (if so be) only drives pious souls the more inward, and the inward devotion shines the more through."

We believe that the tendencies of which Ritualism is an outward expression have not received any real check, and we fear they are not likely to receive it. We have a very strong conviction that the nonprelatic churches will find themselves obliged to gird themselves for a resolute conflict with those tendencies, whether in their Anglican or in their Roman guise, and will need to face the work in a much more thorough and deliberate style than hitherto they have thought of.

IRISH EDUCATION.

SECOND ARTICLE.

IN our January number we devoted an article to a consideration of the National System of Education in Ireland, and called the attention of our readers to the attacks that had been made upon it, and to the wish of the Roman Catholic priests, if possible, to destroy it altogether. It is de

sirable to look for a little at what they propose to substitute in its room. In the first place, they wish a training-school of their own, exclusively for Roman Catholic teachers, male and female. Of this they would be the managers and directors; the female teachers they would probably desire to be trained by nuns, and they would like the teachers themselves to be members of some religious house. In the ordinary National schools they would have "all restrictions"-to use the language of their bishops-" upon religious teaching removed," "the fulness of distinctive religious teaching permitted to enter into the course of secular instruction," with "full liberty for the performance of religious exercises and the use of religious emblems." They would wish, in addition, that the inspection of these schools should be entirely denominational, and that the selection of books should be remitted to the clergy. Troublesome minorities would probably find this enough to keep them from these schools; but to make the system complete, the bishops have suggested that it should be made penal to admit them. The schools, thus prepared and fenced about, would be handed over to the institute of Christian Brothers as teachers. The name may probably suggest something like the Plymouth Brethren, but the communities are very different indeed. The Christian Brothers exist as a great society of teachers in France, in America, in our colonies, and in England. In Ireland the institute was first established in 1802, by a merchant of the town of Waterford. This gentleman, a Mr. Rice, having retired from business, determined to devote his time and his wealth to some religious purpose. After deliberation, he resolved on founding the Institute of the Christian Brothers, for the gratuitous education of boys according to the principles of the Roman Catholic religion.

The head-quarters of the society are in Dublin. It has a Normal College, and large and flourishing model schools. The novice who wishes to enter the society has to spend two years in the training school learning his profession; he is afterwards sent to one of the branch establishments in Dublin or the provinces. Here he leads a community life with two or three others, as the case may be. He does not, however, become at once a life-member of the institute, but has to spend a long probation of nine years. During that time he is at liberty to leave the society, or to attach himself to any other towards which he feels himself drawn. At the close of his probation, having now learned and practised all that is required of him, he is finally admitted as a life-member.

Although not an ecclesiastical corporation, the institute is, after the strictest sort, a religious society. Its members live an ascetic life, spending much of the time that is not occupied with teaching, in silence, prayer, and fasting. The brothers wear a particular dress, and are bound by vows of celibacy. Teaching is their profession, and through it they seek to promote the interests of their Church and their own welfare. They entertain exalted and lofty views of the vocation to which they have been called. It is the highest exercise of Christian charity; they who give their lives to it are engaged in an employment of which angels might be emulous; there is nothing so excellent as this function of charity, nothing so meritorious, nothing which can lead to more exalted piety. It is no wonder that, with such ideas as these, they are possessed with a burning zeal in the profession which they have adopted.

At the present moment they have about sixty establishments in Ireland, with an average daily attendance of nearly twenty thousand children, taught by three hundred and thirty-five Brothers, with an innumerable army of monitors chosen from the scholars themselves. From first to last they have spent on these buildings a sum of £150,000; and the personal expenses of the Brothers, including the executive and training departments, are about £13,400 a-year, or at the rate of £40 for each Brother. These expenses are defrayed partly by endowments, but in the main by the voluntary contributions of the people. School fees are expended entirely on the repair of the buildings, and in supplying school furniture and other necessaries. There is a constant demand for new schools connected with the Institute, and at present there are applications from at least twenty places in Ireland, besides others from England, Australia, and the United States of America, for branch establishments. Wherever they are set down, they are filled to overflowing, and, so far as the Roman Catholic children are concerned, the National Schools are extinguished, the whole weight and influence of the priests being used against them, and in favour of the denominational school.

As teachers, the Christian Brothers have deservedly a high reputation. They have made both an art and a science of their profession, and admit no raw or untrained teacher into their employment. But their system breaks down from actual want of teaching power. The ordinary work has to be done by classes of monitors, and the time and skill of the master are

expended mainly in teaching them, while the rest of the scholars get the benefit of his instructions only at second-hand. The schools, therefore, are not to be compared, in point of general excellence, with the best National Schools. There is a want of even and uniform progress. The idler or duller boys learn little more than the beggarly elements of reading, writing, and arithmetic; but those who are clever and diligent are pushed on from class to class, and by a skilful system of selection-in which the Brothers are adepts-it comes to pass that their highest class of boys is quite equal to the best in any school.

The chief aim of the Christian Brothers, however, is to be religious teachers, or rather teachers of the Roman Catholic faith. Their system is pre-eminently ultramontane. All their efforts are directed to making the children good Catholics; that is, dutiful and devout subjects of the Pope, and believers, above all, in his infallibility as universal teacher of the Church. To this end they saturate them with forms and observances. Prayers to Mary every hour as the clock strikes-acts of faith, hope, and charity signing themselves with the sign of the cross-the chanting of prayers-prostrations before the images, with which many of their schools are adorned-these, and we know not what else, are daily, hourly ceremonies. The children are prepared for confession from their seventh year, when it is supposed that they are reasonable beings and capable of sin in all its four forms-thought, word, deed, and omission. At that early age they are prepared also to receive the sacrament, and trained with instructions as to posture, feelings, &c., when they take it, which seem almost blasphemous in their minuteness, if it were not that they are manifestly believed to be essential by the teachers themselves. Here is a sample:Each child must kneel uprightly, hold the communion cloth under the chin in such a way that it shall prevent the sacred species from falling to the ground should it slip from the priest's fingers, the eyes reverently cast down, the head modestly raised, the mouth better than half open, the tongue spread and resting on the under lip, over which it should project a little, that the priest may conveniently place the blessed sacrament upon it, &c. &c. All, the school books they use are full of hymns to Mary, and prayers to her to use her intercession; and their works on history, and their "select reading lessons," have all one tendency-to exalt and glorify the Church of Rome, and to keep alive in the children a fervid, not to say a perverted, patriotism.

Are we, then, prepared to hand over the Roman Catholic children of Ireland to the training they are likely to get under such a system as we have indicated; and are we prepared to pay for it out of the national funds? The Roman Catholic clergy claim to themselves some merit for the declaration they have constantly made, that they neither desire❘ nor would accept the endowment of their Church. They see a much more effectual way of advancing its interests. If they can get the education and the moulding of the young into their hands, they would soon work out their great ideal of a nation from the first, and in all things, subordinate to the Church. They could afford to give up the grant they get for Maynooth; because, in place of one great establishment, they hope, by their share of the funds set at liberty from the disestablished Church, to plant a thousand little Maynooths all over the country. But our limits have been already exceeded. We have done our duty in presenting to our readers what we believe to be the dangers which threaten primary education in Ireland, and we must leave it to them to picture, if they can, the unhappy condition of that country, separated and estranged from us, as it would be, more than it is at present, and its religious animosities intensified a hundredfold.

[ERRATUM.-In article published last month on Irish Education, for 800,000, read 300,000.]

THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND A BULWARK OF

PROTESTANTISM?

THAT the English Church, at different periods of her history, and especially by the writings of her distinguished men, has rendered great and essential service to the cause of Protestantism, is beyond all doubt. It seems to us of the highest moment, however, to note that the service has been rendered, not in virtue of anything distinctively Protestant in the constitution of the Anglican Church, but rather, on the contrary, in spite of many things in her constitution more or less Popish in their character, and strongly Romeward in their tendency. Let us look rapidly, in this view, at the Articles, at the Liturgy, and at the Act of Uniformity, under which the English clergy to this day hold their livings and exercise their functions.

I. The Articles.-No doubt, these are in the main Protestant and Evangelical, and they are the most distinctively Protestant part of the constitu

tion of the English Church. Unhappily, however, the Romish leaven. is even here far from being absent-the "dead fly in the ointment of the apothecary." In the sixth Article, for example, " Of the sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures for salvation," we have first a brief and scriptural deliverance respecting the canonical books. But immediately we have this painful utterance respecting the apocryphal writings:-" And the other books (as Hierome saith) the Church doth read for example of life and instruction of manners"-the more shame, say we, to the Church "what is the chaff to the wheat? saith the Lord"-" but yet doth it not apply them to establish any doctrine; such are these following:" Then come the names of the different apocryphal books, set down precisely as those of the canonical ones had been, including the book of Tobias, the story of Susannah, and of Bel and the Dragon. To say the least, the Article is well fitted to beget very serious confusion respecting the sole authority of Scripture, and to smooth the way for the deadly errors of Rome regarding the Rule of Faith. Then, in the twentieth Article, "Of the authority of the Church," it is declared that "the Church hath power to decree rites or ceremonies." And although it is added, no doubt, that she may not "ordain anything that is contrary to God's Word written," yet, inasmuch as the Article gives her the power of adding to that Word, adding "rites and ceremonies" of her own devising-a power necessarily carrying with it the counterpart duty, on the part of the Church's members, of religiously observing them—we have thus again the leaven of Rome, in the substituting of the authority and will of man, in the matter of divine worship, for the sole authority of Christ speaking in his Word. And, once more, the thirty-seventh Article, "Of the Civil Magistrates," gives to the Sovereign of England "the chief government of all estates of this realm, whether they be ecclesiastical or civil, in all causes," while the declaration of the king, prefixed to the Articles, runs in these words: "That We are Supreme Governor of the Church of England; and that if any difference arise about the external policy, concerning the injunctions, canons, and other constitutions whatsoever thereto belonging, the clergy in their Convocation is to order and settle them, having first obtained leave under Our Broad Seal so to do, and We approving their said ordinances and constitutions." Assuredly, in one important respect this is not Popish, for there really is nothing so palpably indefensible as this Supremacy to be found in the government of the Romish Church. Practically and powerfully, however, it works into the hands of Rome, by its very indefensibleness. Taught, as the English clergy from their youth are, to hold in contempt the "orders" and whole ecclesiastical system of Presbyterians and Nonconformists, and further taught and accustomed to believe in another supreme governor of the Church on earth besides Christ, they become only too ready, on discovering the utter untenableness of the headship of Queen. Victoria, to transfer their ecclesiastical allegiance to Christ's so-called Vicar at Rome.

II. The Liturgy.-That the "order of baptism" for infants, in the plain and natural sense of its terms, affirms the doctrine of baptismal regeneration,-teaches that all baptized infants are in their baptism regenerated, and made heirs of the kingdom of heaven, seems to us beyond all doubt. We have no wish, certainly, to try further to establish that the words cannot possibly admit of any other intelligible sense; and the Evangelical clergy persuade themselves that they can. But thus much is manifest, that this is the sole idea the words are fitted to convey to the tens of thousands of plain people in whose hearing, without comment or alteration, they are uttered in the administering of baptism to their infants. We suppose it is not disputed by the Evangelical section of the Church, that the Romanizing party has at least as good standing-ground in the constitution of the Church respecting this vital matter as they have; and we think it cannot fairly be questioned that, taking the baptismal office by itself, they have much better ground. Is it needful to draw the conclusion here also as to the leaven of Popery remaining in the standards of the English Church? And then, what is to be said of the constant use in the liturgy of "priest" instead of minister, and of the designation "altar" given to the table of the Lord? Whatever explanation these names may possibly admit of, it is surely manifest that, when the English Reformers retained them in the liturgy, yielding to the pressure of circumstances, and acquiescing in the project of a broadly comprehensive Church, with the monarch at the head of it, they left on the face, at least, of their Church's daily worship, the Popish substitution of a priesthood for a ministry, and an altar for a communion table-all ready, when the proper time should arrive, for Rome's complement, of priestly mediation, with an atoning sacrifice offered in the Supper. We only add as to this, that the idea of a priesthood, or sacred caste, having the whole lawful administration of the

Church in its hands, is confirmed and strengthened by the entire separation of the clergy from the laity in Convocation,-the exclusion of the laity from all share in the government of the Church, save in the form of the monstrous anomaly of the Royal Supremacy, which, instead of removing the difficulty, only complicates it by the addition of another no less formidable.

III. The Act of Uniformity.-It is not in our line of thought, neither have we space, to dwell on the fearful character (for it is really nothing less) of this statute as a whole. It is the very embodiment of the worst ecclesiastico-civil tyranny, yea, utter cruelty, of the seventeenth century. Nor can we easily believe it possible that it should much longer be suffered to disgrace the statute book of this country. The only part of it, however, which we wish to glance at is the following: "It is further enacted, that no person shall be capable of any benefice, or presume to consecrate and administer the holy sacrament of the Lord's Supper, before he le ordained a priest by Episcopal ordination, on pain," &c. Thus is the validity of the whole Presbyterian ministry, for example, given to the winds; communion cut off with the Protestant Churches of Europe and America; and the Anglican Church invited and allured to seck her sister Churches, not in those of the Reformation, but in the degraded Eastern, and apostate Western, Churches (so called), because, forsooth, they possess Episcopal ordination-ordination at the hand of an order of ministry which, it were easy to show, can plead for itself no authority in Scripture, but, resting on simple Church tradition, is fundamentally Romish in its character, and ought, perhaps, when fully developed, to culminate in a Popedom.

Now, the bearing of all this as to the elements of Popery in the constitution of the English Church, on the notorious fact of her present mournfully and growingly Romanized condition, is, we think, alike evident and vital. The fact itself it is superfluous to enlarge on. The whole country rings with it. The press, secular and religious, Protestant and Popish, evangelical and anti-evangelical, is full of it. And the Church of Rome. appears to be but quietly waiting her time to claim the Established Church of England for her own. No doubt, as Dr. Begg reasons in his latest plea for the Irish Church Establishment, Churches are not always to be held responsible for their simple failure or success. But what if the case is found to be, that, as regards the hourly increasing Popery within the Church of England, the fault very largely lies in her constitution, and that, as to her Irish branch, probably the real marvel is not so much its having failed to Protestantize the Roman Catholics, as that the Romish elements in its own system have not wrought altogether the same disastrous effects towards perversion to Popery in Ireland, as they have done in England? Certain it is, that the perversion of such appalling numbers of the English clergy has been the proper fruit, the simple development, of those germs of Romanism in the constitution of the Anglican Church which we have rapidly touched on. Whence it comes out, on the whole, that so far is the Church of England from being at this hour the bulwark of Protestantism, it is, on the contrary, and by reason of its constitution, the feeder and ally of Popery.

As for any hope of relief in this most serious matter from the bishops, or from the decisions of the Courts of Law, surely it is a dream; as witness, among other things, the Bishop of Ely's reply to the application made to him on the subject of prayers for the dead :-" You are probably aware that a decision of the Court of Arches has been given, to the effect that prayers for the dead have not been forbidden by the Church of England, and you will therefore see that there may be a legal difficulty in dealing with the question which you have brought to my notice." That the new Parliament will interfere to purge the Articles and the Liturgy of their Papal leaven, were an equally wild expectation. And we suspect that the solemn question must thus soon begin to press itself on the conscience of the nation (quite apart from Voluntary opinions), whether, in continuing to maintain the English Church Establishment, the country is not lending itself and its resources to the Papalizing of Britain. We cannot help believing that if, in the adorable providence of God, the English Establishment should ultimately come down, the simple fact of the evangelical Church-separated, as of course it would be, from the Ritualists and Rationalists alike-being thrown upon the laity for its support, by at once bringing them largely into the administration of its affairs, would speedily expel the whole notion of a priestly caste, throw the Church back on its fundamentally Protestant principles and constitution, and, through the action of its own inherent prerogatives, purge out of it that leaven of Romanism which came of a too imperfect Reformation, controlled and shaped, for their own ends, by the caprice, the selfishness, and the ungodliness, of England's monarchs.

CHRISTMAS DAY.

WE see that there has been a little flirting with this festival on the part of some Presbyterians of late. Their proposals have been grounded, as far as we have observed, on the general idea that people may worship God at any time, and that when our Episcopalian neighbours are observing a day of thanksgiving for Christ's birth, Presbyterians may sympathize with them, and may do it by themselves also assembling for public worship.

Nobody doubts that a spirit of thankfulness for the birth of Christ is a Christian grace which ought to be greatly cherished and exercised. Nobody doubts either that our Episcopalian neighbours, in their Christmas observances, exercise and stir up that Christian feeling. So far it is very suitable to sympathize with them, and to realize thankfully the common Christian feelings which extend across the dividing lines of our several communions. But the question remains, whether it is a proper thing for the Church, of its own authority, to set apart days to which the exercise of certain Christian feelings shall in all ages be attached and fixed, and to call the Christian community together to celebrate these days by public worship. If this is right-if it is consistent with the Master's will and the Church's duty-let it be done; let us all do it. But if it is not right-if it is a step which the Church, duly looking to the principles that should guide her, ought not to have taken, then the observance of the day ought not to be countenanced, ought not to be symbolized with. The feelings of thankfulness for Christ's birth ought to be sympathized with and shared at all times, but that way of expressing them ought to be avoided. It is not a light matter for any to take in hand to countenance a thing that is not right.

If the thing is legitimate and right, let us go in for it, but let us do it. consistently and in a sensible way. Let us take up the whole system of the Christian year-i.e., the system of marking the year by a succession of great festivals commemorative of Scripture events and Scripture persons. And, first of all, let us begin with Easter and Pentecost, which on all accounts have twenty times more claim on our respect as festivals than Christmas has. They have so, first, because a decent certainty about their date is attainable; the full moon of the spring equinox can always be known, and that fixes Easter. They have so, secondly, because a show of Scripture authority could be pleaded for them (though only a show, involving a confusion of the two dispensations). Begin with these, and accept the others, Christmas and all, to complete your scheme. When you have done it you will find some effects arising you did not intend. When you have accustomed your people to a system of festivals embracing the progress of the year on pure Church authority, you will find "Church" beginning to fill a new place in their minds, because it fills a new place in their lives; you will find them beginning to be seasoned with principles about the Church's office, the Church's right to teach, to train, to guide with a kind of independent authority, which will pave the way for further proposals, or for their flying off to Churches that are still more churchy. We don't at all mean that this will be the effect on all your people. It will only have effect on enough of them to unsettle our accepted principles and introduce divisions.

The Church is safe so long as she exerts her authority to regulate the performance of plain duties and acknowledged privileges. When she sets to work to contrive and originate, she is sure to go wrong; and having once begun, where is she to stop? The system of the "Christian year is an instance of the Church assuming a competency and exercising a discretion which a due regard to the Lord's wisdom and her own foolishness would have led her to forego. And the acceptance of that system, where it is accepted, is an instance of deference to human contrivance and appointment in the organisation of worship which is undue and unjustifiable. Of course the appointment of the leading festivals is very far from being among the most important or objectionable instances of a wrong use of Church authority. We cordially wish that nothing worse could be specified in that department. Still less could the appointment of one feast only, if there never had been more, be regarded as in itself a very important matter. To appoint a celebration of Christmas and nothing more, might be looked on as no very great or serious error. But who will certify us of the stability and perpetuity of that "nothing more"? Besides, if a very stanch Presbyterian might overrate the importance of the question, a lax Presbyterian may easily underrate it. Put together only these two things-the Church festivals and a Liturgy-and you have a system in which the relation of the members to the Church will be felt and found to be very different indeed from that which we draw from Scripture. You have then a system which will soon form a large percentage of