There were those also, some of them really conscientious and well-meaning Christians, but too many of them controlled by that pride of the natural heart which unduly loves the pre-eminence of private judgment over authority, and the indulgence, with as little restraint as possible, of fancies of what is most reasonable and suitable,-whose aimwas to adapt religion to circumstances, by allowing to each individual, and each voluntary combination of individuals, to choose, and model, and exercise religion as may be thought best fitted to time and place, and prevalent human judgment, feelings, and preferences: the authority of the past being thought of no obligation-the Bible being considered as meaning that which every man honestly thinks it means-and faith being regarded as consisting in inward persuasion, deeply interested feelings, and strong assurances of right. deliver from purgatory, and replenish its re-ligion. gions by victims of the "papal army,"-even now, it will be unblushingly maintained that rule of state, and command of armies, are essential to enable the Church's head to act efficiently in even his spiritual functions. Functions requiring to be thus sustained and discharged, cannot be of the pure, the holy, the meek and gentle Saviour-Who declared, "My kingdom is not of this world." Such union and fellowship, even though religion be a part of its monstrous compound, must be, not of the Prince of Peace, but of the prince of this world. It is not thus that men are to be kept in the unity of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church of Christ. The system is infinitely the reverse of holy and apostolic, and has arrayed against it the whole weight of pure primitive catholic_authority. It has been condignly punished. Its iniquity has laid it open to the artifices and power of the great enemy of truth and righteousness, This state of things led, to no small extent, until heresy, superstition, and idolatry, have to the substitution, for the wretched superstigained the mastery over it, and its unity is a tion and grinding tyranny which enforced unity not for but against Christ. Men cannot Rome's antichristian corruptions of, and addibe connected with it without separation from tions to, the religion of the Bible as illusthat evangelical system which Christ has in-trated by primitive catholic faith and obsercorporated with, and made essential to, Hisvance, of a licentiousness which either openHoly Catholic Church. ly cast off the gospel, or modeled it to suit But that blessed company of faithful peo-secular and political purposes, or frittered it ple has to contend with opposing influences into the protestantism of multitudinous sects also from an opposite quarter. and schisms. Sore have been the evils brought upon Christendom by protestantism, unqualified and unchecked by sound scriptural catholicism. Two mournful facts disclosed by history, gave omen, in the founding of such probusi-testantism, of developments which have greatly grieved true Christian hearts, and sorely wounded the gospel's cause. Martin Luther, in the stern selfishness and dogmatic ambition with which his zeal was marred, knowing full well that his distortion of the evangelical doctrine of justification by faith only, which he made his great point, would not stand the test of Holy Scripture, hesitated not to treat with profane disrespect, and even betrayed a desire to exscind from the sacred volume, the epistle of St. James; which seems as if indited for the very purpose of bearing the Holy Spirit's testimony against such views as he put forth, as the touchstone of the Church's life and purity; and which are still maintained in the same light, by those who, however unconsciously, would make protestantism, rather than the Bible, the star they steer by. John Calvin, whose mind was more swayed by the love of deep and ingenious metaphysics, than by simple, child-like submission to the truth as it is in Jesus, and whose system, therefore, has The intolerable extent to which the popish system carried its corruptions and abuses, naturally roused against it a great intensity of feeling. Its evils pervaded every department of relationship between man and man, civil, social, domestic, religious. The ness of life, the occupations of mind, the rights of property, the rule of conscience, the training of the intellect, and the affairs of state, from the authority of the highest official to the allegiance of the lowest subject, all presented a loud call on men and Christians to consider their position, to reflect on their duty, and to look around for deliverance from the yoke of the oppressor. Besides, therefore, devout and humble Christians, who loved their Divine Lord, and the truths and duties of His religion, who had long mourned sore for the hindrances thrown in the way of the true service of that Lord, and the full blessings of that religion; there were those -it cannot be gainsaid-who prosecuted the reformation on mere worldly grounds. It is also too true, that, on multitudes of minds, the hypocritical show of religious observances to which they had been compelled by their fears, had the unhappy, though not unnatural, reacting influence, as the grounds of these fears were removed, of bringing in utter irre wrought great injury to the cause of Christ, helped on that injury by usurpation of the pastoral office, without ordination, either in the Romish communion in which he was trained, or by any of the modes whereby protestant sects have sought to remedy their loss of the Apostolic succession. He was neither regularly ordained, nor any otherwise ordained; but entered on the functions of the pastoral office under that unchristian delusion to which the great Hooker referred, when he spoke of "the manifold confusions which they fall into where every man's private spirit and gift (as they term it) is the only Bishop that ordaineth him to this ministry." all the vicissitudes of its outward circumstances and contingent relations, with unchangeableness in its essential features, and adaptation to the various and widely differing conditions in which it is placed in its great branches, the United Church of England and Ireland, the Church in Scotland, and the Church in America; and now encircling the globe, and constantly enlarging its hold upon its surface, with that unity in the faith, ministry, sacraments, and worship of the gospel, in which the ancient British branch of the Catholic Church was planted in apostolic days, and which it freed, at the reformation, from anti-christian additions, corruptions, and heresies. A blessed feature of the late Jubilee Year, was, its bringing to mind this oneness of these three branches of the Catholic Church. This is an idea on which the true Christian loves to dwell. It recalls the time when the great body of believers were of one mind and one heart. It makes him think of his Saviour's earnest prayer for the unity of His followers. What there is of unity in popery, is a unity which sacrifices intelligent piety, and the pure offering of an understanding reasonably convinced, and cheerfully yielded to the teachings of revelation, the expositions of the Church, and the guidance of heavenly grace; to cowed submission to mere authority, cen Let the intelligent and serious-minded Christian, who understands the gospel, and is acquainted with the history of the last three hundred years, mark the developments, on the continent of Europe, in the British Empire, and in the American Republic, of the protestantism which had its origin in Luther and Calvin. Let him trace the course of Calvin's system of doctrine, and of the principle on which he acted, that no particular ordination, that no ordination indeed, is essential to admission into the Christian ministry. Let him look at the dreadful consequences that have resulted from the various phases which have been developed of Luther's bold and profane expedient of treating Holy Scripture as may best subservetering in inordinate self-inflation, pampered the purposes of favorite theological dogmas. Let him mark how, in the retributive providence of God-which so often makes sin its own punishment-these two great branches of protestantism, although not at once abandoning, and portions of them, perhaps, to this day, not abandoning, the use of the ancient catholic creeds, and of a sound scriptural liturgy; yet, as the natural development, and meet punishment, of their primary cardinal errors; have run out into sects and schisms, which have spurned those blessed conservators of the truth as it is in Jesus, and crowd-minion; whether carrying the high hand over ed the ranks of protestant Christianity-nay, as they will have it, increased the branches of the protestant Church—with systems, erroneous, and strange, and contrary to God's word, and in open hostility to it, to an almost inconceivable extent of licentious and sinful fancy. Then let him study, in its character, history, and developments, that protestantism which became incorporated into the system of the Anglican Church. He will find this, while in itself as clearly distinguished from the mass of continental protestantism as from popery, and holding between them the sacred mean of sound primitive and evangelical catholicism; also marked, in its progress through the centuries of its existence, amidst by profane and impious flatteries, and ruling with a tyranny containing within itself scarce any principle of restraint. It is strengthened by the ignorance and debasement which itself produces and encourages. It finds nutriment in slavish fears and superstitions, and enforces its dicta by awful curses, in utter disregard of all that is taught by Holy Scripture, and primitive catholic tradition. It strives for that kind of influence which attends on the pomp and circumstance, the glittering show, and the selfwilled and tyrannic exercise of secular do prostrate monarchs, and their stricken and degraded subjects; or stooping to the low estate of being itself the tool of more successful ambition, or more fortunate diplomacy or intrigue. And what is mere protestant unity? We have only to ask, Who are protestants? It is not many years since a distinguished statesman of this country, a Socinian in religious profession, an advocate for the alliance of all sorts of protestants for religious purposes, and therefore had in honor by divers protestant sects, spoke, on a public occasion, of his communion as the Unitarian branch of the Protestant Church. He was herein an exponent of principles on the subject of the dis'tinctive doctrines of the gospel, and their which makes essential scarcely any one distinctive feature of the gospel, save the single fact that Jesus Christ once lived and taught a pure and holy religion. If these things are so, if popery and uncatholic protestantism have among their lures, principles and specious pretensions of Christian unity, which, instead of strengthening the cause of Christ, tend to its great injury, and the defeat of its blessed purposes; it surely behooves all good Christians to turn with plation and study of that better thing which God hath provided for His people in that reformed communion which exhibits catholicism cleansed from popery, and protestantism, changing not from the evangelical system to principles, opinions, and practices of man's connection with evangelical unity, which may fairly be ranked among the peculiarities of protestantism. When demonstrations are made in favor of "benevolent enterprises," among the leading objects of which is the array of protestant strength by the union of protestant sects, the faith, ministry, and sacraments of the gospel are treated as of little or no account, provided a non-sectarian gospel can be acted out. In disregard of the revealed evangelical system, the binding obligation of the Church, as a visible body, order-gratitude to the serious and devout contemed and administered as Christ and His Apostles provided, and its required connection, in union with it and submission to it, with that communion with Christ, and that operative piety, which Holy Scripture enjoins-are ignored; and an invisible Church substituted for it, membership with which, and a conse-device; but to that system, as Holy Scripture quent sure interest in the divine promises, are sets it forth, and the primitive Catholic made to depend upon mere mental states and Church adopted it. exercises. A mournful illustration of spu- The late jubilee year was well calculated to rious unity has lately appeared in London, lead the disciples of Jesus in the ministry when the Chevalier Bunsen, Prussian minis- and membership of His Church, as thus reter at the Court of St. James, whose publish-formed, in all parts of the world, to think of ed sentiments prove him to be little better their holy privileges, as distinguished from than an infidel, was made a conspicuous par- the other portions of Christendom. A great ticipant in public celebrations of the British blessing will it be, if, in the fear of God, and Foreign Bible Society, and (alas, that it they realize their solemn obligation hence should be so!) of the Church Missionary So- arising-while cherishing none other than ciety and all because he is a protestant, and feelings of Christian charity for those who is the diplomatic representative of a powerful are in error, on either side of the truth-to protestant kingdom. And what sound mem-seek the good-not from sectarian, but enber of the Reformed Catholic Church, and what true professor of evangelical doctrine, on either side of the Atlantic, has not sorrowed over the infatuation which would even rejoice at the elevation to the episcopate of such men as Whately and Hampden, because of their zeal for protestantism? These are illustrations of the kind of Christian unity now considered-a unity larged Christian views of this their household of faith, in all the peculiarities of its evangelical and catholic character; and devote themselves, through its instrumentality, to the cause of the gospel's purity and efficiency, as the only source of right believing, and of genuine practical piety and virtue. Q. S. REST IN HEAVEN, The heart is like that fabled bird Alas! this earth can never grant For disappointment's ruthless hand Where mourner's tears are dried E. H. B. THE QUEEN'S FATE: A Tale of the Days of Herod. CHAPTER XV. Dark Designs-False Rumors, and Meditated Treason. IME went on, and in Jerusalem the fate of Herod was yet in obscurity. During the period of uncertainty, continual brawls were occurring-not unfrequently ending in bloodshed-between the lower class of Jews and the fierce and insolent RoIman soldiery, encamped within the walls as a guard to the city; while the higher orders, freed in a great measure from the strict watch kept over them by Herod, met at each other's houses to talk over events, and devise means to rid themselves of a thraldom become absolutely intolerable through his cruelty and avarice. Never did prayers more fervent ascend to the throne of grace for the restoration of health to a beloved object than those which were universally put up at Jerusalem, for the condemnation and death of its king. It seemed to this oppressed and afflicted people, could they but rid themselves of their tyrant, all other evils in comparison would be light. Alas! they forgot they were no longer free, and that "hydra-headed" evils would continually spring up in the place of those which had disappeared. At length there came a rumor, a dark whispered rumor, that Herod had been tortured by Antony, and put to death. Men, as they walked about the streets of Jerusalem, wore a mysterious aspect, and endeavored to look grave and concerned, but in each countenance there lurked a light-the light of hope -which for years it had not worn. Joseph spoke of this rumor to the queen, but told her it was merely a flying report, impossible to trace, and bade her beware how she testified either belief or pleasure at the intelligence, particularly in the presence of Cypros or Salome; for "I am convinced," added he, " it has not the shadow of a foundation." But Mariamne needed not be thus cautioned; pleasure she could not feel at the violent death of even this her greatest enemy, and when she thought that perchance it might be true, and of his sufferings in a strange land, unfriended, and without the solace of religion, a pang shot through her heart, for was he not the father of her children-of those lovely and beloved ones, for whom she would willingly have laid down her life? Forgetting her own injuries, she pondered these things until large tears gathered in her eyes, and her woman's tender and compassionate heart ached for his imaginary sufferings. To Alexandra, the intelligence gave unalloyed satisfaction. It shone in her eye, spoke in the tones of her voice, and though no word expressed the intenseness of her joy, it could not be mistaken. She wished for Herod's death, therefore she believed it; besides, she had every confidence in Cleopatra's friendship, and she knew her influence with the Roman; her scheming and ambitious brain was again at work-again, notwithstanding her grief for the loss of her son, was she forming plans for the future aggrandizement of herself and Mariamne. If Antony had put Herod to death, as was currently reported, the supposition was, that he was friendly to them, and could he but see Mariamne, with whose picture he had been so deeply enamored, she doubted not the regal authority would be entirely placed in their hands, and nothing which they could reasonably hope for would be denied them. In order to the furtherance of these designs, she resolved to make Julius -who had the command of the Roman legions which lay encamped about the city as a guard to the kingdom-their friend. This, she thought, would be an advantage every way, as in case of any tumult or disturbance, particularly about or within the palace, they would be in greater security. With her usual promptitude, she sought an interview with the regent, and endeavored, by every persuasive argument, to induce him to do her bidding, to the Roman general; but Joseph was firm in his refusal, representing that as they had received no official notice of the king's death, it would be both impolitic and dangerous to proceed to such extremities; for should Herod return, of which he entertained in his own mind no doubt, he would never pardon such an open violation and contempt of his orders, and the least they could expect would be imprisonment-perhaps death. she retreated to the farthest extremity of the apartment. "Heaven preserve my son," responded Cypros, as, sliding from her couch, she sank upon her knees, and buried her face in its pillows. All his arguments, however, proved una- The room was one blaze of livid light, then vailing, with this ambitious and obstinate wo- came a tremendous peal, and the palace shook man, and finding Joseph too honest-though as if the whole of heaven's artillery had been as much opposed to the despotic and oppres-discharged in that one explosion. It was sive government of Herod as herself to aid or abet in her plots, determined to seek elsewhere a less scrupulous emissary. Locked in her chamber, a prey to disquietude, Salome was pondering the present and the future. Equally hated and feared as herit brother, she knew not where to turn, nor whither to fly, her only consolation was in the uncertainty of the report. In the mean time she kept a watchful eye on all that was passing within the palace. She had noted Joseph's frequent and prolonged visits to the queen, and though fully aware they were generally on business connected with his government, she treasured them up as matter of accusation-should Herod return-against both. Affairs were in this unsettled state, when a letter from Herod himself quieted Salome's fears, frustrated all Alexandra's plans, and put an end to the speculations that were agitating every mind in Jerusalem. The letter was to Joseph, giving a full account of his reception by Antony, of his entire disbelief of the charge's made against him; and of the high esteem and favor in which he was held by the triumvir. He, moreover, commanded proclamation to that effect to be made throughout his kingdom, that his loving subjects might entertain no farther apprehensions for his safety, as, by Antony's favor, he was now more firmly established in his government than ever. He farther added, it was his intention to conduct Antony on his way to Parthia, and that his return might be looked for before the commencement of the inclement season. truly a wild and fearful night, a long line of A servant entered the chamber where sat the two women, lighted the golden lamps, drew down and closed the heavy curtains-he paused in his employment, and listened. "Methinks," said he "I hear the tramp of horses, and the voices of men in the outer court; surely it must be my lord the king returned." 66 My brother!" ejaculated Salome, rushing to a window, and throwing it open, forgetting in her joy at the prospect of his arrival, that the storm still raged with unabated violence. Another flash, and then a peal, as if heaven and earth were coming together, and stunned and blinded, she reeled back to the centre of the room. Oaths and imprecations, the pawing and snorting of horses as if in deadly fear, the clanging of armor and ringing of swords upon the stone pavement, as the soldiers dismounted from their frightened and jaded steeds, were now distinctly heard, mixed with the roaring of the tempest. "It is the king!" almost shrieked Salome, as she flew along the passages, and through the cloisters to meet him. "Heaven be Blank disappointment was the almost universal effect produced by this intelligence. Men's countenances again assumed a look of moody care; fear and hatred, a terrible longing for the vengeance denied them by Antony, and a stern determination to effect, if possi-praised, I am once more in safety. And now, ble, the tyrant's overthrow, were the prevail- Joseph and Mariamne, look to yourselves." ing sentiments which occupied men made des- She sped on, until, travel-worn and drenched perate by a cruelty and servitude worse than to the skin, she encountered Herod in one of the Egyptian bondage. the passages; with a cry of delight she threw herself into his extended arms, and for once her joy at seeing him was sincere, for was he not her safeguard against a popular hatred the instrument through whom she was to inflict her premeditated vengeance? The king warmly returned her embrace. CHAP. XVI. The Return. "What a terrific night!" exclaimed Salome, as shrouding her eyes with her hands |