is weak in the faith receive ye, but not to doubtful disputations." Rom. xiv. 1. "In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, to deliver such an one to Satan," &c. 1 Cor. v. 4, 5.

Now, where are we to look, in the present day, for the counterpart to this state of things, which existed in the apostolic churches? To national churches, as they are called, or to congregational churches? In national churches, membership is not the result of deliberate and free choice. It is determined by legislative enactment. It depends on the accident of birth, not on individual decision. It is determined by the legislature of the land, not by the charitable judgment of a congregation of "faithful men." "The system of our ecclesiastical judicature is founded on the presumption, not only that every man, woman, and child is a member of the English church; but that not a soul of them is at liberty to consider themselves otherwise. For certain purposes, a man is no more allowed to renounce his churchmanship than he is to abjure his allegiance."* Very true, and therefore, in this essential part of its constitution, the Church of England is the opposite of the apostolic churches of Christ. Membership, in the churches founded by inspired apostles, was perfectly voluntary, but in the English church it is compulsory. And, moreover, in the latter religious corporation, there are temporal pains and penalties to enforce attendance on religious ordinances, and to compel contributions for their support; and the unanswerable arguments of police and spiritual courts to convince the gainsayers; and the terrors of confiscation and imprisonment to reduce the refractory to submission, and compel the reluctant to obey. What would apostles have said to such modes of defending the faith once delivered to the saints-to such weapons of the holy war! And as every Englishman is a member by birth of the national church, so no power but that of the spiritual court, as it is facetiously called, can prevent him from participating in its most solemn and discriminating rites. He can demand admission to those rites, as his birthright, though destitute of scriptural evidence of christian character. It is not for him to give evidence of conversion to God, or of the possession of christian character; all that is assumed of every Briton. * British Critic.

He is brought into the world in a kind of salvable state. His baptism, by duly authorized hands, is his regeneration. The unfathomable mysteries of confirmation complete the change. And then, unless flagrant immorality can be proved against him, he has all the religious qualifications required by the English church for the table of the Lord—he is fitted, in so far as moral and spiritual qualities are concerned, to hold any office in that church—and if he dies, his remains will be committed to the grave, “in sure and certain hope of a joyful resurrection to eternal life."

A contrast more complete cannot well be conceived, than that which such an institution presents, to the churches founded by inspired apostles. But in this essential feature-the perfectly voluntary character of those churches-we believe the closest resemblance will be found in congregational societies.

S.

SCENES FROM SCRIPTURE.

NO. I.-FEAST OF PENTECOST.

"The day of Pentecost was fully come."-Acts of the Apostles.

It is the morning of the sixth day of the month of Sivan, on which the festivities of Pentecost are to be celebrated. Let us imagine ourselves standing on one of the loftiest pinnacles of Olivet, near to the hallowed spot from whence the victorious Saviour ascended to heaven but a few days since, to resume the throne and sceptre of universal empire. It is a commanding position which we occupy. A glorious sweep of diversified scenery is spread like a panorama at our feet, enfolded in the distance by the wide circling horizon, whose verge is serrated by the black and shattered crests of the Arabian hills. But the pall of night is but partially lifted from the holy land, affording here and there illumined glimpses only of the Hebrew's territory. Jerusalem-hakdosheh reposes in gloomy magnificence on the adjacent hills of Zion, Moriah, and Acra, stretching away to the northward and southward, entrenched behind its massive fortifications and gigantic towers, and engirdled in addition by the majestic and imposing mountain-bastions of Nature. Directly opposite, the renowned temple of Jehovah rears, in awful gran

deur, its splendid fanes and heaven-bathed pinnacles, glistering with gold-and spreads its ample courts, soon to be trod once more by the uncovered feet of millions. Interposed between the drear and dark city walls and our elevated position, is the Valley of Jehoshaphat, richly enamelled by aromatic gardens and fruitful groves, and arcades of delicious shelter, where the sportive sons and pleasure-loving daughters of Zion delight to stray, far from the heat, and hum, and dull monotony of city life. The broad, deep, sombre shadows of the mountain still linger at its base, where nothing is distinctly visible but the black mouths of excavated grottos and sepulchres, and the waters of Cedron, which are seen, like a silvery vein, meandering musically onwards through the depths of the vale, till they disappear behind some projecting crag. On the eastern declivity of the Mount lies the small and picturesque town of Bethany, so embosomed in orchards and gardens and olive groves as to be but partially descried a town endeared to the memory and the heart, by the sacred reminiscences which it will long perpetuate concerning the great Friend of humanity, whose blessed foot-prints are scarcely yet obliterated from the sod he so lately traversed. And there, in the north-east, beyond those barren, savage, and blasted rocks, which lift up their frowning peaks as if in proud defiance of the power that scathed and shattered them-is the famous Jericho—the “city of palms"-seated in the midst of a burning plain, watered by innumerable fountains, shadowed by the graceful foliage of waving palms, whilst its celebrated aromatic groves are filling the morning air with odoriferous exhalations. And there again, in the far east, hemmed in by precipitous hills, are just discernible, in the dusky distance, the ghastly waters of of the fable-haunted sea, the sullen murmur of whose waves for ever repeat to posterity the solemn story of the doomed cities of the plain.

But see! the grey mists of twilight are curling heavenwards in their flight before the half-emerged and half-hidden disc of the returning sun, leaving the summits of the Judean hills exposed to his burnishing beams of glory. He comes to the orient hemisphere in a chariot of gorgeous clouds, surrounded by a pageantry of golden, and purple, and azure, and crimson attendants, beyond the limner's art to depict. His advent harbingers a day of joy. His warm rays creep into the habitations

of the land, and everywhere dissolve the bands of slumber; whilst the balmy breath of morning regales the freshened and resuscitated spirits of God's children. And now there is a stir in the city and in the country-on the hills and in the yet dim valleys. Life, on every hand, rises from the impotence and solemn hush of sleep. Sounds come floating to the ear on every sweeping zephyr. The birds of song are filling the air with their earliest, wild, sweet minstrelsy. The music of human speech salutes the ear and excites glad emotions in the heart. There are joyous shoutings, and grateful acclamations, and pious aspirations ascending from every quarter. Yet are there no sounds of labour-no clamour of husbandmen-no clangour of instruments of toil-to be heard. It is the opening of a holy festal occasion, during which all the servilities of life are mercifully interdicted; when the operation of the original curse, which doomed man to exhausting work, is temporarily suspended; and when his oppressed mind, enfranchised from the thraldom of menial duties, is invited to felicitate itself unchecked in the solemn and attractive rites of religion—to bathe its languid affections in the rich fount of reciprocated sympathy and friendship, filled to overflowing at their national convocations— and to yield up its dulled energies to the transporting excitement of social enthusiasm and general joy.

But, hark! the sonorous tones of a trumpet proclaim the commencement of the "feast of weeks." And ere its wild responses, multiplied among the vocal rocks, have died away, the magnificent gate of Nicanor bursts open with a noise resembling the reverberations of distant thunder; its folding leaves of precious metal, from every point of their superfices, flashing gleams of radiance in the eyes of its beholders. This far-famed gate is designated in Scripture "the Beautiful Gate of the temple," from the peerless and dazzling splendour of its appearance, the colossal magnitude of its dimensions, and the costliness of its materials;—it being composed of Corinthian brass-a compound of superlative beauty and worth-embellished and enriched with massive plates of silver and of gold.

Simultaneously with the rolling back of these guardians of the sanctuary, mingled yet distinguishable sounds ascend in the still air of heaven, as though it were the appointed signal for general activity and bustle. A deputation of priests are seen

moving on the city walls, and are heard proclaiming from their towering eminences that the day of festive sanctity has begun. A group of the same sacred order, attired in flowing sacerdotal robes, visit each corner of the temple in succession, and announce the same glad tidings by the hoarse, triumphant clangour of the silver trumpets consecrated to the temple service, whose shivering blasts, repeated and prolonged by ten thousand thrilling echoes in the undulating expanse of hills and vales around, stir up gladsome emotions in the breasts of all who hear the welcome proclamation. Through the vista, opened up by the unfolding of the brazen gates, may be dimly seen the Templar Levites hurrying to and fro in the broad shadows of the spacious porticoes, each moving with a lofty consciousness of the sacredness of his function, and the intimate bearing of his particular errand on the religious entertainments of the day. The morning watch are pacing, with a solemn step, their measured rounds; while the water porters are bearing large vessels of that purifying element to cleanse the altar and its purlieus. Above the gate of Shushan, in the eastern aspect of the temple, the sacred fire of the brazen altar, which has been miraculously maintained unextinguished for ages, begins to flash forth more brightly as its attendants feed its sluggish embers with the stimulus of fresh combustibles.

The rousing strains of the silver trumpets seem to have dispersed the last lingering spell of silence which night had rivetted upon animated nature, and a rich concert of voices are now sending up their cheerful accents to the ear of a benignant Deity. On the roofs of their dwellings, some of the more pious among the people of Jerusalem are bowing in the reverent attitude of prayer, and worshipping the God of their illustrious ancestors with their bright beaming faces turned towards the enshrinements of his holy temple. Others are decking their windows and balconies and door-ways with the green foliage and fair flowers culled from the fields of nature, and saluting their neighbours and passing friends with pleasant words and sweet smiles. The invocations, greetings, and triumphant shoutings of this variously employed host float across the wide gulf that separates us from them, and as they reach us, fall upon our ears like the subdued and lulling murmurs of a peaceful sea. Above these mellowed sounds may be distinctly caught the low