they be not overcome. In a word, she must act, not theorize; she must work, not scheme; she must bestow in things what she exhibits in words.

That was a humbling truth which Hooker told, when he said, Upon the Church there never yet fell a tempestuous storm, the vapours whereof were not first noted to rise from coldness in affection;" and who shall say that the present evils and future trials which perplex the souls of Scottish Churchmen are not the natural result of a feeble and infirm assertion of their own great gifts and privileges. To our minds, the simple adoption of a sectarian denomination, is significantly painful, as indicating a contentedness with a lower position than God has assigned. "Baptists" [as they call themselves], are they, who fancy they have attained the only true notion of baptism; "Unitarians," similarly, of the unity of the Godhead; so also "Presbyterians" of the second; and "Episcopalians" of the first order in the ministry. But these are distinctive titles, of which the Catholic Churchman, who is indeed one and all-Baptist, Unitarian, Presbyterian, and Episcopalian, knows nothing. They cannot be adopted without a loss; whoever, therefore, is a mere Episcopalian or Presbyterian, he is so much less a Churchman, "Uli Episcopus ibi Ecclesia ;" and if THE CHURCH of Scotland calls herself anything but THE CHURCH, she is wilfully descending from her eminence, and bringing judgments upon her own head.

The past has been of God's ordering, and we dare not scrutinize too deeply into its ends and causes; but it is neither irreverent nor unjust to assert as a mere fact, that as, upon practical indecision and apparent indifference in the matter (for instance) of the Eucharistic Office, has followed irregularity in its administration, and the admission to the Church of many Priests, from other quarters, of questionable orthodoxy; so, had the Clergy been resolute either in the maintenance of their own Office, or in the construction of ours according to its standards,—or, again, in the fulfilment of the rubrical orders,-the daily prayer, the public use of baptism, and the disciplinal provision for the season of Lent,-they would have shut the door against many intrusions which now perplex them; they would have earned the attachment if of a less numerous, yet of a more faithful and steady people. Grace breeds grace, and it is impossible but that with the increase of its means, its good results would have been commensurate. Firmness and zeal in the defence of truth is the only antidote to error, and it is impossible but that by the exercise of them, in the maintenance of the Church's teaching, the disturbers of the Church's peace would have been scared away. We say nothing of pleas and extenuations, which may or may not exist; and therefore we say nothing in the spirit of censure, we simply assert the fact; and this, not only, we fear, as respects the past; for while we write we are credibly informed that in the restoration [for the first time since the revolution] of the Church

at Jedburgh, a glorious opportunity, therefore, for taking the highest ground, -the old Scottish Office is to be sacrificed to the present uncatholic outcry! However this may be, we only seek to ground our appeal upon it, in the discharge of our present duty. We are thankful to Mr. Cheyne for his able testimony to the truth of this, our position-a testimony enhanced and consecrated (if we may say it) by the deep thoughtfulness and earnestness of spirit, the reverence, and kindness, and solemn sense of duty which prevades his tract; and we pray, from our inmost soul, that Scottish Churchmen may realize its force, and occupy it in faith and firmness.

"We have been trusting to our own wisdom, and following our own ways too long; let us now try those of the holy Church. Let us give up the miserable system of seeking to increase our numbers rather than our purity; and if we do wish, as it is our duty to endeavour, to bring men over from the ways of error, let their first lesson be that of obedience to the laws of the Church, instead of allowing them, as hitherto, to prescribe their own terms of communion; let them know that there is but one door of entrance for rich and poor-that all must enter the sanctuary as suppliants, by bowing the head under the consecrated hand of the bishop-and that none are fit or worthy to enter there who do not become like little children in docility. He gives but poor promise of fidelity to the Church, who enters by an act of disobedience; and the priest shows himself ill qualified for the conversion of souls, who acts in contempt of the rule and discipline of Christ,' which he pledged himself to follow. If we had paid somewhat stricter and more uniform attention to our own laws of discipline than we have done for a series of years, our churches might perhaps have exhibited diminished numbers, but we should have had fewer of those elements of confusion which now threaten to rend us in pieces. We have neglected to make men feel practically, that admission to the Church is a transcendent privilege, which they cannot claim or take to themselves; and thus, instead of receiving humbly the Catholic faith from its appointed teachers, they have made their own private judgment the test of truth, and now demand that the Church should modify her doctrine to suit their loose or heterodox opinions."-Cheyne, p. 48

The late decisive exercise of authority by the Bishop of Aberdeen, honourable to himself and wholesome to the Church, is an earnest of better things. It is cheering also to witness how silently, yet surely [we would hope], the sense of past deficiencies is growing upon Scottish Priests, and nerving them up for present exertions. Let Mr. Pratt's excellent Pastoral Letter testify that the day is not far distant when the Church of Scotland will act upon this Catholic conviction; that, under God, the full development of ALL her gifts and privileges, is her only source of strength and power. But she must put forth all her elements of vigour; she must, at the very least, use the arm which she possesses. There must be no shrinking from the self-denying duties which the exercise of her gifts imposes. It may be well enough for noble Lords,* who, with all their good intentions, have not yet divested themselves of a certain patronizing air towards the Church of their fathers, as if, in at last condescending to become her "friends," they were doing her

* See the Report of the Church Society Meeting at Edinburgh.

honour, it may be well enough for such Churchmen, who have not yet realized what their real responsibilities are, to throw out sops to the "Establishment," and disclaim, for themselves or their "Communion," a temper of proselytism and aggression. But woe to that branch of Christ's Church which, as a branch, shall forget its position in the world, as the living Representative of Him who came, not to bring peace but a sword, as the very personification, therefore, of the spirit of "aggression" on the one hand, of sin and disobedience, and the spirit of " proselytism," on the other, to the rest and peace of Christ's kingdom. So long as sin remains in Scotland, be its form social or religious, the common vices of our nature, or the crimes of heresy and schism, so long the Church in Scotland must make aggressions, and seek proselytes. To do otherwise, in hope of any bribe the world can give, or for love of any peace the world can take away, would be to sell her birthright for a mess of pottage, or to bury her talent in the earth: in either case, it would be to yield her energy, her vigour, her life. At any personal cost, then, the Scottish Clergy must use all the elements of vitality and health which the Church has committed to their husbandry. And here we must observe, that we are at a great loss to account for Mr. Cheyne's personal practice, contrasting, as it does, with his manly and earnest defence of the Scottish Office. He does not use it. What reasons may exist for this course we know not; but sure are we, that in no church in Scotland could its privileges and high Catholicity be more appreciated than in that, where the benefit of such teaching as Mr. Cheyne's is from day to day enjoyed. Howbeit, these are not times when the Church can afford to lose one practical witness, and we most respectfully submit, that no argument can supersede the all-prevailing force of example. What benefit, e. g. is there in pleading for the daily service, if it is not celebrated; or, if to the Priest's own mind, an insufficient congregation is a warrantable plea for neglecting it? What good can come of commending a frequent Communion, if all the practical result of this teaching is its administration six times a year? What real advance in the principle of obedience is gained by merely stating the law of the Church, if the Priest himself does not make its fulfilment a matter of conscience?

These questions are for Mr. Pratt's consideration. To our own minds the answer is clear, that on such momentous points as the Eucharist and Intercessory Prayer, nothing can satisfy the Church's needs but the unstinted and liberal provision which the Church herself has made.

And if the case be, as we have represented it,-if, (for it comes to this,) all our future hopes and destinies, as members of Christ's family, depend on the security of our visible inheritance at Baptism, and the grace and strength and spiritual energies which it conveys,-what shall be said of our responsibilities,

our awful and tremendous charge to preserve God's truth inviolate! God's truth is to each Church that deposit of faith and practice which it has received from Catholic sources, and handed on from age to age; so that the unity of Christ's Church can only be maintained upon Catholic principles and Catholic practices. To each individual Christian, the Church of his baptism, or [it may be] of his confirmation, or ordination, or adoption, [in any legitimate sense,] is the interpreter of Scripture, and oracle of holy things. We must follow religion, and not make religion to follow us. The Church declares and prescribes her terms of Communion to her members, not the members to her; if, therefore, we will be members, we must come up to her terms, and abide by her decisions. What, then, can be so sacred as the Church's testimony to God's truth? What so dear and precious to our souls? Let Apostles, and Saints, and Martyrs answer, whose confessions of it before men, not threats, nor penalties, nor tortures, nor exile, nor death, could silence. All the pains, and perils, and sufferings, in this world, had no effect on the Catholic confessors of old. The Church's voice was to them the voice of their Lord and Master; and well had they weighed the solemn assurance, "Whosoever will confess me before men, him will I confess before my Father which is in heaven: but whosoever will deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven."

:

To Scottish Churchmen, their Communion Office-thrice solemnly confirmed, as the teaching of the Church, in the deepest and most essential article of faith which a Christian is required to believe is as the voice of their Lord. A spirit of violence is abroad. It has been threatened and attacked; it may be stifled and put to silence. Will they suffer such a result? Will they yield their glorious liberty? Will they deny their Lord, by denying the tradition which they have received from Him? Will they be "as the Children of Ephraim, who, being harnessed and carrying bows, turned themselves back in the day of battle?" God forbid for who shall measure the consequence of such apostasy, both now and in generations to come! Let them "be strong," and "like men." Let them not slumber at their posts, whilst our Nadabs and Abihus load the altar with unhallowed fire. Let not Korah and his company delude the faithful with the pretence of purity and edification, into that rebellion and apostasy which is as the sin of witchcraft and idolatry. "Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams." Let the Church be reminded, in time, of "the invaluable loss that is consequent, and the danger of sin that is appendent, to the destroying such forms of discipline and devotion, in which God was purely worshipped, and the Church was edified, and the people instructed, to greater degrees of piety, knowledge, and devotion," and she is safe.

Long may she enjoy those blessings, which the sainted Taylor

so beautifully enumerates, as "the pleasures of the temple; the order of her services; the beauty of her buildings; the sweetness of her songs; the decency of her ministrations; the assiduity and economy of her Priests and Levites; the daily sacrifice; and that eternal fire of devotion that goeth not out by day nor by night;" the very memory of which were to him " pasts of Heaven, and consignations to an immortality of joys!"

as ante

We have only just time to acknowledge a valuable letter from Mr. Alexander, of Edinburgh, printed elsewhere, with proposals for a new church in that city, which indicate a better spirit; but we are afraid that the Laity are scarcely worthy of their privileges. The scheme is the more valuable; as Mr. Alexander proposes, for the first time in Scotland, to carry out the Prayer-Book.

A Day in the Sanctuary, with an Introductory Treatise on Hymnology. By the Rer. R. W. EVANS, Vicar of Heversham, and late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. London: Riving

tons. 1843.

WE reckon this one of the most important books on ritual matters which we have lately seen. It consists of an experiment in Hymn writing, and is preceded, as its title-page declares, by an introductory treatise on the subject; of which latter, before expressing any opinion ourselves, we must give our readers some account.

Mr. Evans begins by remarking on the popular misconceptions of the essential nature of a Hymn." It is supposed," he says, "to be necessarily a composition in metre; and full nine hundred and ninetynine out of every thousand would be surprised to learn, if indeed all would submit to learn, that, so far from there being any authority for such a composition deducible from Eph. v. 19, and Col. iii. 16, the whole practice of Scripture, both as to Old and New Testament, is against it, without a single exception." In those passages Mr. Evans considers the word Hymn as probably denoting those short snatches of sacred song, or choruses, which occur in Isaiah vi. 3; Luke ii. 14; Rev. iv. 8. Spiritual songs, he thinks, must have been "compositions in the form of Psalms, such as we find in Luke i. 46–56, 68-79; Acts iv. 24-30." No scriptural precedent can be found for a metrical song. Mr. Evans views the attempts to find traces of verse in the lyrical parts of the Old Testament as altogether futile, not merely on the grounds whereon others have done the same, but also because, whilst their metrical character is but a conjecture, their rhythmical character is a fact about which there can be no doubt; and it seems to him in the last degree improbable that the same composition should be metrical and rhythmic.

At the same time, our author sees nothing in the Hebrew language unsuited to metre, and is, therefore, led to conclude, that the absence of it in Psalmody, and the sacred Hymns, (which he thinks may fairly