quainted with the Ecclesiastical history of Scotland, it is proper to apprize him that he will meet with many conflicting statements in the authorities he may consult. In most cases, however, a little patience and research will suffice to lead to the truth. I mention the matter here only to prevent his being led astray by the first authority he may happen to open. Collier, for example, asserts that Fairfoul and Hamilton, as well as Sharp and Leighton, had only Presbyterian orders, and that all the four were ordained Deacons and Priests before they were consecrated Bishops. Every person now knows that this statement is not true. Mr. Stephen, again, affirms that all whom Sharp and his brethren consecrated on their return to Scotland, had Episcopal orders. But his only authority-Keith, whom he commonly follows verbatim, but without acknowledging his obligations--says only that one of them, as we have already stated, had Spotiswoodeian orders; while it is certain that others of them-as for example, Patrick Forbes-had only Presbyterian orders. Your correspondent, therefore, must be slow of belief on the controverted ground of Scottish Ecclesiastical history. H. C. *** We have no satisfaction in exhibiting to our Scottish brethren the scattered links of their broken chain of Episcopal succession; but they force the statement by their invidious comparisons and bigotted proceedings. They call themselves, in solemn official documents, (as in their appeal on behalf of their Theological Seminary), "The Reformed Catholic Church of Scotland;" a new-fangled phrase, which they seem to have learned from some Tractarian tyro; they boast of the Catholic excellence of their formularies, as revised by Archbishop Laud, over those of the Church of England, especially in the Popish inkling of their Communion Service ;-and they have given in their adhesion to the doctrines of the Tractarian school in their full growth. Thus the Bishop of Glasgow said, in his Charge last year, that "The doctrines which have been revived in the South" have always been professed by the Episcopalians of Scotland, who "escaped the malign influence" which has depraved the formularies of the Church of England; and that these doctrines "have not been condemned by any,"--listen, ye Anglican prelates and Oxford rulers -"who by learning and research have qualified themselves to pronounce a judgment." And in like manner his Right Reverend brother of Edinburgh vindicates the "Oxford Tractarians," in his Charge, under that very name; adding that the communion to which he belongs, and which he prefers calling "Catholic" rather than "Protestant," has "during its whole existence been characteristically High-Church;" meaning Laudean, Non-juring, or Tractarian. We wish too well to Episcopacy, and to the Scottish Episcopal Church, not to feel deep regret that it is setting itself forth in this unseemly style; and that some of its rulers are acting in a Popish spirit of intolerance—as for instance, Bishop Skinner, of Aberdeen, in the ecclesiastical excommunication of the Rev. Sir W. Dunbar, for the crime of preferring the Communion Service of the Church of England, in which he was ordained, and which the "deed of union" which placed his chapel under Bishop Skinner's rule allowed him to use, to the Laudean office. The substitution of the designation "Catholic Reformed" for "Protestant Episcopal," is either bigotted exclusiveness, or puerile affectation. Their Church, after being proscribed and barbarously persecuted by the State, obtained legislative recognition and protection (see Stat. Anne x. c. 7.) as à Protestant Episcopal Communion; and the phrase has been in use for three hundred years. Archbishop Cranmer, says Mr. Le-Bas, was the great 66 master-builder of the Protestant Church in England." Bishop Hall collocates "Protestant or Evangelical;" and even Primate Laud speaks of "The true Protestant religion established by law in this kingdom." The Coronation Service embodies the same epithet; our English Bishops and Clergy habitually use it; and our Christian Knowledge Society publishes Tracts entitled "Our Protestant Forefathers." It is not true that the word Protestant means nothing; that it is mere rejection without substitution; for the signification of words is conventional; the Protest of Spires, whence originated the designation, was an appeal to the Bible against Tradition, which alone is a good reason for retaining the word as abundantly significative. We do not include all the bishops, clergy, or laity, of the Episcopal Church in Scotland in these remarks; but, taken as a whole, we must defer to the Episcopal declarations above cited as proofs that it upholds "the doctrines recently revived in the South." The absence of legitimate Episcopal succession, according to those doctrines, strikes at the root of "all the seven Sacraments." How do the Bishops of Aberdeen, Glasgow, and Edinburgh reconcile these anomalies? RUBRICAL DISCREPANCY ON THE FOURTH SUNDAY IN ADVENT. To the Editor of the Christian Observer. SOME days after sending to you my respectful monition to our Reverend pastors to take note of the Ember-week prayers, I communicated with a clerical friend, who remarked, what I conclude is the fact, that the clergy always mean to read those prayers, but that the Ember-days being Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday, the Ember-week commences on the preceding Sunday, when it is overlooked, and next Sunday the recollection is too late. But my Reverend friend, smiling, requested me, as I had grown so learned in Rubrics, to inform him whether the Collect for Advent Sunday is to be repeated this year on the fourth Sunday in Advent, which occurs on the 24th of December, Christmas-day being on the Monday. I answered "Undoubtedly so;" and I pointed very glibly to the Rubric which says, "This Collect shall be repeated every day, with the other Collects in Advent, until Christmas Eve." My friend replied that he intended to use it on the fourth Sunday in Advent, thinking that to be the intention of the Church; but he wished me to reconcile the Rubrics thereunto anent. To save me trouble he referred me to Wheatly's "Rational Illustration of the Book of Common Prayer," doubling down for my consideration a leaf where I read as follows under the head of "Vigils or Eves." "The Festivals that have these Vigils assigned to them by the Church of England are the Nativity of our Lord-(then follow the others as in the Prayer-book). All Sundays in the year being appointed by the Church to be observed as Festivals, no Vigil is to be kept on any of those days, there being a particular Rubric to order that If any of the Feast days that have a Vigil fall upon a Monday [as Christmas Day does this year] then the Vigil or Fast-day shall be kept upon the Saturday, not upon the Sunday next before it.' But from hence a query ariseth, namely, on which evening service the Collect for the Festival is to be used. The Rubric indeed relating to this matter seems to be worded very plain, namely that the Collect appointed for every Sunday, or for any holiday that hath a Vigil or Eve, shall be said at the evening service next before;' but then this Rubric seems to suppose that the day before is the Vigil or Eve; and makes no provision in case the Festival falls upon the Monday, when we are directed by the Rubric above cited to keep the Vigil, or Fast upon the Saturday. Here then we are left at an uncertainty; nor can we get any light by comparing our present Liturgy with any former Common Prayer-book, because both these Rubrics, together with the table of Vigils, or Eves, were first added at the last review." "the Thus we find that the Collect for a Festival which has " a Vigil, Eve, or Fast-day" preceding, (these three going together), is to be used on evening service next before;" clearly on the ground that this is the Eve or Vigil; but the other Rubric says that when the Festival is on Monday, the Eve, Fast, or Vigil is on the preceding Saturday, and not on the Sunday; whereas "the evening service next before" is on the Sunday. I apprehend that the Rubrics were drawn up without adverting to this collision; but as Sunday is not to be "a Fast day"-and it would be out of all rule to separate the Collect from the Vigil or Fast-I suppose that the Fast, Vigil, and Collect are to be referred to the Saturday evening, and that Sunday comes in parenthetically between the Eve and the Festival, and is wholly uninfluenced by them. The clergy, I suppose, so consider; as I do not remember to have heard them read the Collect for a Monday Festival on Sunday evening; though it is chronologically "the evening service next before." Yet they had read that Collect on Saturday afternoon, if they had evening prayers that day. But even this solution does not clear up the point of the Advent Collect; which is directed to be used "until Christmas Eve;" whereas the fourth Sunday in Advent this year is after Christmas Eve, if the Saturday, as I make no doubt, is the Eve. But I apprehend that the Sunday is, as I said, wholly parenthetical. On Saturday afternoon, December 23rd, this year, the reader in a cathedral, or wherever there are evening prayers, will have before him, first the Collect for that week (the third in Advent) with its accompanying Collect of the first Sunday; but the Collect for the week it superseded by the Collect for the fourth Sunday, which would be used in course, the Collect for every Sunday being read the evening before, every Sunday being a Feast day, and Saturday evening its Vigil. But again, the fourth Sunday Collect will be superseded by the Christmas-day Collect, Saturday evening being the Vigil of that day. The Christmas-day Collect being used, the Advent Sunday Collect is of course dropped; for the direction "until Christmas Eve," is exclusive, not inclusive. But then on Sunday we shall have to go back to Advent, of which it is the fourth Sunday, and thus the first Sunday Collect revives. This makes the Sunday parenthetical; and there is some incongruity in going backwards and forwards; but I see no other course. I have, however, learned a very useful lesson from my good-humoured friend's puzzle, not to charge clergymen with irregularity in such points, till I have carefully considered the whole question. RECORDOR. in POPERY AND PAGANISM. To the Editor of the Christian Observer. To the illustrations of the conformity between Popery and Paganism your last Number, I now add a further sample, in relation to the heathen temples and modern churches of Italy and Sicily; and the conformity between Popish and Pagan ceremonies. D. D. W. THE ANCIENT TEMPLES AND MODERN CHURCHES OF ITALY AND SICILY. Through a scheme for extirpating Paganism, which was possibly adopted by Constantine, but which was certainly acted upon to a great extent by Theodosius CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 71. 4 P and subsequent emperors, (Bingham, Vol. iii., p. 145,) a very wide door was opened for the admission of the old superstition into the Christian system: I mean the conversion of heathen temples into churches. The followers of Christ having now no further need to dread the power or malevolence of their enemies, became disposed to relax a little of that jealousy with which they had been accustomed hitherto to watch their approaches. The arm of authority, so long exercised in laying the Christians prostrate, was now as active in confounding their oppressors. Thus circumstanced, they entered the temples of the heathens as conquerors. They were the field of their victories, now resigned by the foe: Panduntur portæ-Juvat ire et Dorica castra And thus, like the Trojans, after having resisted all open violence for so many years, they fell in love with an idol, without knowing how much mischief it contained. In these temples a variety of ceremonies had been practised for ages, in which the ancestors of the Christians had partaken; which many of the converts themselves had not forgotten; and which all had probably experienced frequent opportunities of witnessing. Here was 'the Aquaminarium, or vessel for purifying water, at the doors. Here were paintings and statues of workmanship too exquisite to be destroyed. Here were numerous altars, and censers, and tripods, and votive offerings, and a thousand things beside, which composed the furniture of a heathen temple. The same spirit which would find no scruple in employing the profane building itself for a sacred purpose, would probably feel as little in adapting the interior parts of it to the same object. What wonder then that the present places of worship shouldafford many striking features of resemblance to those of a heathen date ? To proceed with our parallel. The vast number of temples with which Italy was filled, has been succeeded by churches no less abundant. Of the former, in Rome alone, there are said to have been four hundred and twenty sacred to Pagan gods; whilst of the latter, in the modern city and its suburbs, there are upwards of a hundred and fifty sacred to modern saints. And as heretofore many temples were consecrated to the same deity under different titles, so now there are many churches devoted to the same saint, or to the Madonna, distinguished only by a diversity of epithets. Thus in ancient Rome there was a temple of Jupiter Custos, of Jupiter Feretrius, of Jupiter Sponsor, of Jupiter Stator, of Jupiter Tonans, of Jupiter Victor, &c.; of Venus Calva, Venus Verticordia, Venus Victrix, &c. So in modern Rome we find a church of Sa. Maria degli Angeli, Sa. Maria di Araceli, Sa. Maria Liberatrice, Sa. Maria della Consolazione, &c. ; S. Pietro in Vaticano, S. Pietro in Vincolo, S. Pietro in Carcere, &c. Again, the heathen temples were often dedicated to two divinities, as to Castor and Pollux, to Venus and Cupid, to Venus and Rome, to Honour and Virtue, to Isis and Serapis, &c. In like manner there are now churches to S. Marcellinus and Peter, to Jesus and Maria, to Dominicus and Sistus, to Celsus and Julianus, to S. Vicentius and Anastasius, &c. Sometimes even more deities were worshipped by the Gentiles under the same roof, and these had their respective altars.. In the temple of Minerva Medica at Rome, besides the figure of the goddess who has given her name to the building, were discovered those of Esculapius, Pomona, Adonis, Venus, Faunus, Hercules, and Antinous. Accordingly in Italy and Sicily many altars are generally found in the same church to this day. In St. Peter's at Rome, for instance, (and the same is true of most other churches,) is an altar inscribed to S. Leo, another to the Madonna della Colonna, a third to the Madonna del Soccorso, a fourth to St. Gregory, afifth to S. Sebastian, a sixth to S. Vinceslaus, a seventh to S. Erasmus, besides many more. The noblest heathen temple now remaining in the world is the Pantheon, which, as the inscription over the portico informs us, having been "impiously dedicated of old by Agrippa to Jove, and all the gods, was piously consecrated by Pope Boniface the Fourth, to the blessed Virgin and all the Saints." And as in the old temple every one might find the god of his own country, and address himself to that deity to whose worship he was most devoted; so now every one chooses the patron whom he likes best; and one may here see different services going on at the same time at different altars, with distinct congregations around them, just as the inclinations of the people lead them to the worship of this or that particular Saint. . . . At the foot of Mount Palatine, on the way from the Forum to the Circus Maximus, and on the very spot where Romulus was believed to have been suckled by the wolf, stands a little round temple, dedicated to him in the early ages of the Republic. It is mentioned by Dionysius of Halicarnassus, as containing in his time a brazen group of antique workmanship, of the wolf giving suck to the infant brothers. . . . From the tradition of the wonderful escape which Romulus had in this very place, when exposed in his infancy to perish in the Tiber, he was looked upon, as soon as he was deified, as singularly propitious to infants; and from this notion, it became a custom for nurses and mothers to bring their sickly children and present them at the shrine of this little temple, in the confident hope of relief. Hence, when this temple was afterwards converted into a church, care was taken to substitute in the place of the heathen god, a Christian Saint, who, like Romulus, had been exposed in his infancy, and preserved by a lucky chance; and who might, therefore, be presumed to be as fond of children, as their old deity had been. Thus the worship paid to Romulus, being now transferred to Theodorus, the old superstition still subsists, and the custom of presenting children at this shrine continues without intermission to the present day. In consecrating these heathen temples to the Christian worship, that the change might be less offensive, we have seen it was usual to look for some resemblance of quality and character in the saint who was substituted for the old deity. But more frequently regard has been had rather to a similitude of name between the old and new idol. Thus in a place formerly sacred to Apollo, now stands the church of Apollinaris; and where there formerly stood a temple of Mars, they have now erected a church to Martina, with this inscription: Martyrii gestans virgo Martina coronam, On At a short distance from the old Lavinium, or Pratica, as it is now called, is a chapel dedicated to S. Anna Petronilla. Here we have, no doubt, a corruption of Anna Perenna, the sister of Dido, who was cast ashore upon the coast of Italy near the Numicus; a point corresponding with the situation of this little church. that occasion, having accidentally met with Eneas and Achates, and rejected all terms of reconciliation with them, she was warned by the shade of Dido, in a dream, to escape from the treachery of Lavinia. In the sudden consternation excited by this vision, she is said to have precipitated herself into the Numicus, of which she became the protecting nymph,-while games, described at length in Ovid, were instituted in her honour: Placidi sum nympha Numici, Amne perenne latens, Anna Perenna vocor. Thus "Anna, the mother of the Virgin," has inherited the seat and credit of Anna, the sister of the queen of Carthage, on condition of adding to her former name that of Petronilla. . . . Many of the ancient temples were votive. Thus one was erected to Mercury near the Circus; a votive offering to that god, that he might be induced to extinguish the great fire of Nero-(Vide Nardini Storia Antica di Roma, p. 377.) Another to Jupiter Stator, which the Consul Atilius promised on condition that he would check the flight of the Romans, and rally them against the Samnites. (Liv. x. 36.) Another to Jupiter Tonans, raised by Augustus out of gratitude for an escape from a thunderbolt, which had killed one of his attendants whilst he was travelling in Spain. (Suet. Aug. 29.) A votive temple was built by Metellus, or L. Corn. Scipio (for it is a matter of doubt which) after the Roman fleet had weathered a storm off Corsica. (Ov. Fast. 6.) In like manner, the church of St. Andrew, on the road from the Porta del Popolo to the Ponte Molle, was reared to that saint by Julius III., in grateful acknowledgment for having been preserved on the day of his festival from the soldiers of the Duke of Bourbon. At Venice, the church della Salute was erected for the deliverance of the city from the pestilence in the year 1586. That del Redentore, for a similar blessing in 1630. Near Messina, there stands a church on the sea-coast, dedicated to a certain Saint Marianus, by one Francesco di Mello, as a votive offering after a prosperous voyage. Many other instances might be enumerated.-Some again served as monuments of important events. Hence a temple was built at Segesta to Eneas, commemorative of his having touched there, and augmented the city by a colony of Trojans. (Dion. Halicarn. vii. 157.) Another was raised at Rome, on the spot previously occupied by the cottage of Romulus. . . . Another was erected to Hercules, on that part of Mount Aventine where he conquered Cacus. Thus the church of S. Poalo, at Syracuse, is said to record the precise situation of the house in which that apostle lived during his stay there. The Santa Maria, in the Via Lata at Rome, preserves the memory of the place where Peter and Paul lodged. . . . A chapel has been dedicated to S. Romouald, at Camaldoli, to de |