tive, the judicial, and the executive functions, in the same body; so that the General Assembly, for example, is, at the same moment, legislature, jury, judge, executive and execu tioner.

The Confession of Faith declares, that "to the officers of the Church the keys of the kingdom of heaven are committed, by virtue whereof they have power respectively to retain and remit sins, to shut that kingdom against the impenitent sinners, by the ministry of the gospel, and by absolution from censures, as occasion shall require." Rome itself has scarcely a more terrific form of anathema than that which Knox, the reformer, devised, nor a more soothing absolution than the two, which the curious in such matters may see in the Liturgy which he prepared for the adoption of the Presbyterians in Scotland, but which ultimately fell of course, into disuse. But, now, the individual, thus assailed by a church censure, may laugh at the elders for their pains, and "join" some other of the sects which lie so numerously about his door. What is to prevent him? They are all "churches"-standing on the same basis of private judgment-equally pure; equally spiritual; equally free. Every day this evasion is actually practiced. I once knew a man, who, having lost a sum of money, was induced to consult one of those gifted individuals, that, not two centuries ago would have graced the stake or the gallows upon the shores of Massachusetts Bay. The good lady gave him information certainly very remarkable, and ventured some predictions, afterward most singularly verified. With this, however, my story has nothing to do. But out of the occurrence, an offence grew up, which made it necessary for the Presbyterian clergyman to excommunicate some two or three persons. The very day and hour of their excommunication, they were immersed by a Baptist preacher, and received triumphantly to the communion. A few years afterward, the same individuals were excommuni.

cated by their new brethren, and became, and are now, members of the Campbellite sect, "in good and regular standing." Thus are the keys so held among the sects, that as one door of the kingdom is shut, another may be immediately opened.

This result of sectarian discipline is not varied, by enlarging the sphere of its operation. For, within a few years, we have seen whole synods, embracing sixty thousand communicants, "exscinded" from the Presbyterian church, and forthwith investing themselves anew with all the prerogatives of a Church of God. An ejected Presbytery, a Presbytery still; an exscinded Synod, a Synod still; an excommunicated Church, a Church still; standing on the conceded basis of private judgment—tota teres atque rotunda-equally pure; equally scriptural; equally competent to hold the keys; and with plenary right and plenary power, to originate a ministry, and celebrate sacraments, as valid as if the twelve apostles had risen from their graves, and had laid on them their con secrating hands.

CHAPTER VIII.

LITURGIES.

HOWEVER well-proportioned I might have found the Episcopal Church in its structure; however safe-guarded against the outbreaks of fanaticism, and the incursions of heresy; however high her walls, or beautiful her gates, or strong her towers; however studded her whole frame-work with the inscriptions of the earliest ages; although on every portal I should have seen a martyr's name, and on every column the handwriting of an Ignatius or a Polycarp; yet I may confess, that all this symmetry and beauty, if it were possible that they should exist as a body without a spirit, ought to a devout mind, to present no irresistible attraction, if, upon closer inspection, the interior arrangements were found unfriendly to the great end to which every thing else in the temple must be secondary and subservient-the high and pure devotions of the heart. As in human friendships, we value not the lip's cold words without the heart's warm love, so, with an emphasis beyond comparison, as "God is a Spirit," "they that worship Him, must worship Him in spirit and in truth." But I have supposed a thing impossible. It cannot be, that

"On the cold cheek of Death smiles and roses are blending."

Such symmetry and beauty as we have described, are the results of a life within; as the beautiful flower is the sponta

neous evolution of a healthy seed, or as the proportions of a fair edifice are the developments of cultivated thought and feeling, or as the beauty and perfection of the material body are but the natural expression of an instinctive and vigorous life. As Nature, however, ever seeks a clothing verdant, bright, radiant with its Maker's image, so a true Christianity will lay aside the swaddling-clothes for the robe without seam, and in all that is external will exhibit strength, symmetry and beauty. I can, however, recal the time when Episcopacy was, to me, "the sepulchre, beautiful indeed, without, but full within," if not of Death's corruption, at least of Death's cold chill, and stiffened form; when lip-service and Episcopacy were as much convertible terms as Presbyter and Bishop were, in the New Testament. But this was at a time when I set a less relative value upon the worship of the sanctuary, than I have been led by God's blessing, since to do; at a time when I knew less of Episcopalians than I came, by God's Providence, afterward to know; at a time when I had not carefully observed the workings of the human mind with reference to liturgical worship, nor the influences of liturgical worship upon the human mind. If I found myself, or if I found others unprofited, or often pained and injured, by the crudities and defects of extemporaneous worship, to have sought relief in the Episcopal Liturgy, would, to me, have seemed like stepping from the regions of an occasional north. wind, upon a zone of everlasting ice. Let me, then, conduct the reader along the line of reflection which brought me to the conclusion, that, agreeably to the analogies of the faith, as grace comes down to man, robed in the Sacraments and the Word in an external Ministry, and Christianity itself in the written Scriptures, so a permanent devotion will inevitably clothe itself in an abiding Liturgy.

I might here, at the outset, entrench myself behind a host of mighty names, that, having used a Liturgy through all their

lives, had every opportunity to know its value, and have left a testimony which the Rev. Mr. Staunton has thus condensed: "Blame us not, then, if we value our Liturgy; it embodies the anthems of saints; it thrills the heart with the dying songs of the faithful; it is hallowed with the blood of the martyrs; it glows with sacred fire." I prefer to throw into the foreground of my argument the testimony of Presbyterians themselves.

Even Mr. Barnes, in a candid moment, and before his eulogium (of which we quote but a small part) had led any of his flock to seek our green pastures, and our still waters, permitted himself to say, "We have always thought that there are Christian minds and hearts, that would find more edification in the forms of worship in that Church than in any other. We have never doubted that many of the purest flames of devotion that rise from the earth, ascend from the altars of the Episcopal Church, and that many of the purest spirits that the earth contains, minister at those altars, or breathe forth their prayers and praises in language consecrated by the use of piety for centuries."

The New-York Christian Observer, the representative of the Dutch Reformed Church in this country, says of the Episcopal Church," Her spirit-stirring Liturgy, and a scrupulous adherence to it, have, under God, preserved her integrity beyond any denomination of Christians since the Reformation."

Says a Scottish Presbyterian, the Rev. John Cummings, "I shall never forget how thrilling I felt one clause in the English Liturgy, on my first entering an Episcopal Church. It is perhaps the finest sentence and the sweetest prayer in the language:-'In all time of our tribulation; in all time of our prosperity; in the hour of death and in the Day of Judgment, Good Lord, deliver us.""

Dr. Doddridge, an English Presbyterian and Expositor, says, "The language is so plain as to be level to the capacity