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wholly separate him from Communion with It; and that so effectually, as to sever him from all grace?" To us it seems, that the latter is the true way of stating its effect. For, just as any member of the body-a finger, a hand, or an arm, might be so bound by a ligature, as wholly to stop the circulation, yet all the while be a member of the body-so in like manner, though no grace could flow into an excommunicated person, while he remained in that state; yet it would not follow, that he was cut off like an amputated limb. Indeed, if he were so cut off, then how could he be united again, unless he were baptized again? for Baptism alone grafts us into the Body of Christ : whereas, of course, excommunicated persons may be restored again upon repentance. And this remark may suggest to "Oxoniensis " why his illustration of 66 a fallen angel" is not to the point. It would prove too much; unless it can be shewn, that "the angels which kept not their first estate," are to be restored to that estate again. Hooker says, "As for the act of excommunication, it neither shutteth out from the mystical, nor clean from the visible, but only from fellowship with the visible in holy duties." (Bk. iii. 1, 13.)* Indeed, if excommunication wholly severed the person from union with the Church, what power or authority could her rulers then have over him? No more, surely, than over a heathen man. Is not the idea of excommunication, that of binding

a reason

* And Bingham, speaking of the discipline of the Church upon her members, says, "she never pretended to exercise her discipline, so far as to cancel or disannul their baptism; so as to oblige them to take a second baptism, if their first were good, in order to be admitted into the Church again, when for any crime they were cast out of it." (Bk. xvi. chap. 2, 1.)

and loosing, rather than of plucking out and grafting in? When the absolute separation of a person dying excommunicate takes place whether at the time of death, or at the day of judgment, is wholly another question. Our present subject has regard only to his life-time; and of such an one, our Lord says, 66 let him be unto thee as a heathen man and a publican." (St. Matt. xviii. 17.) and St. Paul" Yet count him not as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother." (2 Thess. iii. 15.) We think, then, that T. L. K. will see that our view quite agrees with the 33rd Article, to which he refers; and we hope these additional remarks will commend themselves to our three correspondents. Such authorities as Hooker and Bingham, we are sure, at all events, will weigh with them; we hardly need to say, that our own view is greatly strengthened by finding, as we now do, that we can quote them in defence of it. We felt it was due to the enquirers, and might be profitable to our readers generally, to answer at some length the questions proposed, treating as they do of very important matters.

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OUR EXHIBITION FOR 1851.

ARCHITECTURAL DEPARTMENT.

Church Architecture.

No. 6. The Early English or First-Pointed Style. The Pointed Arch is said first to have been introduced, towards the beginning of the reign of King Henry II., that is, about the middle of the 12th Century. Several theories have been advanced to account for its origin. It is now generally attributed, to the form into which the ribs of a groined vault, drawing towards a central point, are necessarily cast. Some, however, have thought the idea to have been suggested by the uprisingness of the heaven-aspiring flame some, in the cathedral-like architecture of the vaulted avenue. "Having been accustomed," says Bishop Warburton, "during the gloom of Paganism, to worship the Deity in groves, (a practice common to all nations) when their new religion required covered edifices, they (the Gothic conquerors of Spain) ingeniously projected to make them resemble groves, as nearly as the distance of architecture would permit. Hence, no attentive observer ever viewed a regular avenue of well-grown trees, intermixing their branches overhead, but it presently put him in mind of the long vista through a Gothic cathedral; or ever entered one of the larger and more elegant edifices of this kind, but it represented to his imagination an avenue of trees....... Could the Arches be otherwise than pointed, when the workman was to imitate that curve which branches make, by their intersections with one another? or could the columns be otherwise than split into distinct shafts, when they were to represent the stems of a group of trees? On the same principle, was formed the spreading ramifications of the stone-work in the windows, and the stained glass in the interstices-the one being to represent the branches; the other, the leaves of an opening grove; and both concurring to preserve that dimish light inspiring religious awe," Others have thought, that the pointed form may have been imitative of that sacred and most mystical symbol, called Vesica piscis: others, as suggested in our last number, that it was formed by the intersection of round arches in the

Romanesque arcade. Others, lastly, have supposed the form to have been brought from the East, by the Crusaders.

However, once introduced, the Pointed Style seems to have been universally adopted; whether for its beauty's sake, or its peculiarly religious character-its singular aptitude to express outwardly, the aspiring heaven-ward tendency of the Church's teaching and temper. This character is impressed, not only on the lancet-headed windows of this period, but also on the high-pitched roof, the pinnacles, the spire. It is very remarkable, that the style sprang almost instantaneously to perfection. The mystery is, how any one style, of any kind, should have prevailed so universally over the length and breadth of the land, as we find to have been the case with the Churches built in however distant parishes, at the same period. This is very wonderful, considering the ignorance and unsocial habits of the people generally, and the exceeding difficulty and dilatoriness of local intercourse. It can be accounted for only, by the extensive intercommunion of Religious Houses, (the monks being the principal architects of the age) and of the masonic guilds and confraternities, which then practically, as now in name, united for this object.

Early-English (or First-Pointed) Arches, then, are distinguished by their acute, angular form; the depth and sharpness of their mouldings, enriched with the tooth ornament; and by the deep recess of insular, and often banded shafts, which form the jambs or piers.

The Windows of this style are long, narrow, deeply-splayed, lancet-lights; at an early period, detached; but later in the style, combined in groups of two, three, five, and seven-a triplet, with the middle light higher than the other two, being a very common form. When brought together into close juxtaposition, they were often included under the same arch, or label; that is, the hood-moulding projecting over the head of the arch. The jambs between the lights formed thus a kind of mullion; and the space left between the light-heads and exterior label, was pierced with circles quatrefoils, or other geometrical figures. In this arrangement, then, we find the germ, which gradually developed into the mullions (or monials, as at first called) and multiform tracery of the Middle-Pointed, or Decorated Window. But of these more anon.

THE PAINTERS' GALLERY.

THE BEDESMAN.

"No sound is here of tables spread,
When Joyance lifts her festive head;
But yet of Peace a deeper sense,
Than in their glad magnificence ;-
And if you ask the reason why,
Nature must own it with a sigh,
'Tis suited more for those that die."

THE BAPTISTERY.

We have a very interesting view from the summit of S. Michael's Hill, Bristol. Just beneath us, gleaming out from the thick green trees, is the old Church dedicated to the mighty Archangel. There, engirdled by the blue and purple hills, lies our old city itself, piercing the white smoke with its many spires, that are themselves the expressive records of 600 years of history; from the Temple, or Church of the priest-soldiers, who at that distant period thronged its pillared aisles, in their snow-white mantles embroidered with the cross of ruby red, (in token of their vow to recover from the Turks its holy namesake at Jerusalem), down to that sad year of 1650, when the Rector of Christ Church, buried in haste, and by night, the mangled remains of two who had proved themselves faithful unto death, to their Church and their King, in that season of fierce rebellion against both; and the timid mourners hid their pine-wood torches, and drew in their breath, for fear they should be discovered and taken to prison, because they had dared to read over those murdered corpses, the blessed, the peaceful, the hopeful Service of the Church of England.

But it is a nearer object than these, that fixes my eye whenever I visit that hill; nearer in sight, and much nearer in age, although still very old to me: I mean the

cluster of Almshouses, founded on this spot not quite 200 years ago, by Mr. Edward Colston,

We know that in every instance it must be true, for Holy Scripture has said it, that "the memory of the just is blessed;" but still this is seldom so plainly taught, and made so visibly apparent, as in the yearly commemoration of him we have just named, which is kept on each successive Festival of All Saints, being the day on which he was buried. On that day the 200 children of his charity, dressed in the long, quaint, purple coats, and scarlet and yellow hose of a by-gone age, with his widows, old men, and orphans, headed by the Mayor and Magistrates of the City, the Clergy of the Cathedral Church, and representatives from every class of his citizens,-walk in procession to the several Churches, there to remember him with the rest of the faithful departed, there too, to acknowledge ourselves, in the peculiar Services of the day, "knit together" with him, and with them, "in One Communion and Fellowship." On that day, too, his name is drank to at the festal board, in solemn silence: for it is felt that he belonged to a Body in which quick and dead are united; -to whose members death is no evil, and for whom the grave has no fears. "His body is buried in peace, but his name liveth for evermore.'

But it is with the Almshouses, founded by him on St. Michael's Hill, that we have to do now; these form a small square open to the road-side, having a Chapel in the centre, and an emerald lawn in front. There, if you visit the place

early in spring, you may see the lilac and gold buds of the crocus, or the violet looking out cheerfully upon the snow, from under the scarlet-berried holly, and evergreen cypress trees. Within those low oak doors, you will see, it is true, old age and infirmity, but infirmity without the gloom, and old age removed above the degradation of want; for if you go up to the tablet of white marble, which is built into the wall, just under the belfry clock, you will see that these twelve almshouses were endowed for the maintenance of twelve poor "Brethren," and as many "Sisters ;" and that provision was also made for the spiritual comfort of the inmates, and for the daily Services of the Church, by the appointment of a Clergyman over their little Chapel. So beautifully did they of old time comprehend the double meaning of our Lord's Prayer, "Give us day by day our daily bread:" so well and wisely did they carry it out, by this twofold provision for the soul and for the body! Would that we too could forget the low, heartless, teaching of the world, and no longer regarding each other as isolated, solitary individuals, who must either struggle for an independent existence in the vast mass, or else be smothered in it by the struggles of others, could exchange this cold, selfish system for the teaching of the Church, that this "vast mass' is verily and indeed but the One Body of Him whose Name is One; with not one really isolated, not one really lonely individual within it, but all, the humble and the exalted, "brethren" and "sisters," in Him. Then, indeed, "what God has joined together," the double ministry to the body and to the soul, would not so often be by 66 man put asunder."

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One saying of Edward Colston has, on this point, been handed

down by tradition to posterity when urged by his friends to marry, -to surround himself with all those comforts of a happy earthly home, to which (in the false, though current phraseology of our own day) his large fortune "entitled" him, he replied at once, that "he felt as if every poor widow were his wife, every desolate orphan his child." We record these words, because they not only express his wise desire, in his own experience, to avoid the one, and in the experience of others to soften the other, of those two fearful extremes,-the extreme of want, of misery, and of hopelessness, on the one side,-the extreme of luxury, of ease, and of selfishness, on the opposite side; but, taken in connexion with the twofold provision-the spiritual and the temporal character-of all his charities, they also imply, that he well knew to Whose little ones he was offering "the cup of cold water,"-that he called to mind those most blessed yet most awful words, which we dared never to have uttered, but which, having been uttered by our Redeemer Himself, it is woe to us if we ever dare to forget :-" I was hungry-I was thirsty-I was sick -and ye visited Me;-Forasmuch as ye did it to one of the least of these My brethren, ye did it unto Me."

But it is time we should tell our own chiefest attraction to St. Michael's Almshouses; it was through old brother Edward that we first became acquainted with them, and we met him (where it would be as well if rich and poor did more frequently meet each other) in the week-day Services of the House of God:-not the little Almshouse Chapel, but another old Church, a good way off; for Edward used to say, that "it had pleased God to bless him with very good health in his old age, and what was more,

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