which, more than anything else, tended to produce the troubles of Archbishop Laud's time-that relating to the externals of divine service. We have in these matters a rule of action which nobody is prepared to follow out, and which, nevertheless, the authorities of our Church are contented to leave a source of perpetual discord, and confusion, and ill-will between pastors and people--nay, between the clergy themselves. Till lately, indeed, common consent had established, for the most part, a practical uniformity, though not precisely in accordance with the rule. But, unfortunately, the moral force which custom, grounded upon common consent, had acquired, has been almost wholly annihilated by an authoritative announcement from one of the most influential of our prelates, that we are bound to strict obedience to the whole Rubric. The consequences might easily have been foreseen. A visible change in any part of the external forms of public worship, is more noticed by the people at large, than any innovation in doctrine. The alienation of mind from the Church, thus caused, has extended itself throughout the kingdom. Uniformity of worship has been destroyed, not only in one diocese, but, more or less, in all the dioceses in the country, whatever the opinions of the presiding bishop may be, the authority of the Rubric being above that of the bishop; and never can be restored but by some general enactment binding upon the whole Church, by which some modified rule of action, that can be followed out, shall be made obligatory upon all. But as to any efforts to place the Church in a better position, in such respects, with reference to the feelings of the country at large, or to deal with subjects affecting her in any way but such as shall seem expedient to produce, as far as possible, present external peace and quiet, it seems hopeless to look for them. The Church has been treated, for a long while, as physicians sometimes treat patients dying of a painful and incurable disease. The sole medicines have been opiates. The grand remedy which has been prescribed against Tractarianism by many has been to be quiet and peaceful to let it alone, and allow it to take its course. Whatever drawbacks there may be to a state of healthy activity and vigour, nothing must be said about them. All that seems thought of is to keep things quiet, to administer opiates. In the mean time the Tractarians are spreading their influence in all directions, and preparing the ground for carrying out, at some future period, when they have attained sufficient strength, their views of ecclesiastical government and order. And, whenever that period shall arrive, it will then be clearly seen that the true peacemakers were not the advocates of apathetic indifference to the existence of a body of conspirators in the camp, plotting the best means of delivering over their associates to the tender mercies of the enemy, but-those who took their stand upon the principles of our Church as established by our Reformers, warned the Church of the dangers that threatened it, and, with firmness, united with moderation, calmly but fearlessly, used every effort to counteract the designs of its enemies, open and secret, and preserve it intact in its genuine and unsophisticated faith and worship.

MAN'S GREATEST BLESSING IS A PIOUS HEART.

AMONG the various blessings we enjoy,

O say which is the greatest? which the best?
God! if thou wert the smallest to destroy,
Would not its loss embitter all the rest?

Smell, taste, sight, hearing, the mere power to say
To one whose heart hath a responsive chord,
God smiles on earth! how beautiful the day!
I feel the presence of the mighty Lord!

To let the' excursive vision wander free,
Their wonders marking, over sea and land!
And, oh! a power of thrilling ecstacy,
To clasp in love a white and velvet hand!
To catch affection's, deepest tenderest tone,
Heard by the HEART before the duller ear,
Is still a boon bestowed by God alone,
Who maketh love most lovely even here!

To scent the odours sweetly breathing round,
From fruits and flowers of every hue and shade!
Speaks to the bosom with a truth profound-
For man's enjoyment, fair the earth was made.
What blessings these! how great each one apart!
But greater still-the greatest we possess
Is, oh! to feel within the SOLEMN heart,

We are the creatures whom God loves to bless.

For us alone He scatters mercies round,
And gives us faculties to prize the same.
Lord! in the voice of piety profound,
We praise Thy holy, everlasting name!

E. T.

II. ART AND ANTIQUITY.

SYMBOLISM.

No. I.

AT Paris, in the 27th year of the twelfth century, flourished Hugo de Ste. Victore, an abbot of the Canons Regular of St. Augustin, a native of Saxony, of whom the following singular story is related. In the last extremity of his sickness unto death, so perilous was his case, that the monks brought him an unconsecrated host as the holy

Eucharist; but the dying priest exclaimed, "Wherefore would ye deceive me, brethren? That is not my Lord Jesus Christ." Was this the intelligence of miracle, as it is represented; or was it Truth, struggling from the fearless lips and awakened understanding of a dying scholar, to repudiate a tenet of falsehood which he had long upheld, and probably believed? These monks themselves had, perhaps, more kindness of heart than faith: but, to their share in the transaction, true or feigned-as a counteraction to such words, at such a time, from such a man-the words themselves seem not improbable. And did the dying man follow up his question with an indignant denial of what we hold to be falsehood? It is not given to every man to change death into a martyrdom: yet it is added, that when his frightened brethren brought the "true body of the Lord," because of the violence of the retchings, the sick man dared not communicate, and prayed, "Let the Son ascend unto the Father, and with Him my spirit to God, who made it." The narration of the tale, at any rate, is an awful instance of the superstition which has dared to transform a divinely appointed symbol into what it symbolises. Hugh, of St. Victor, had himself written a book on the Canon of the Mass; three books on Ecclesiastic Ceremonies, Sacraments, Offices, and Observances; and one entitled, "The Mirror of the Mysteries of the Church.” Of this last work, the Prologue and first two chapters have been translated by the Cambridge Camden Society editors of the First Book of Durand's "Rationale," to which they have appended it. It contrasts favourably, in taste and simplicity of style, with the inartificial prolixity of the latter Warrior-Bishop of Mene, Captain of the Papal Forces, about a century and a half after Hugo St. Victor's time. The incompatibility of the secular business of the See with devotional contemplation, is affectingly urged by Guillaume Durand himself, in the Epilogue to his work, in extenuation of faults of such magnitude, that Archbishop Laud is said never to have been able to get beyond the first page of his work. Thanks to Messrs. Webb and Neale, many a reader, less attached to such things than the Archbishop, may now be able to say of the whole first book, Explicit felicitus. But, after all, one must confess the Explicit is more happy than the Incipit. That the study of the symbolism of churches and church ornaments is less imperative on us in these days, is scarcely less a blessing to the world, than the fact, that the Auditor of the Sacred Palace, the Legate to his Holiness, and the Captain of the Pontifical Armies, must have less and less stirring business on their hands than fell to the lot of this

Belligeri comitis, Martini tempore quarti.

For those were the times: and Martin, that head of the Catholic Church, who had to excommunicate the Most Catholic King of Arragon, and preach a crusade against him for imprisoning a rival king of Sicily, which he also claimed. Yet it was not till six years after that the mediation of our English Edward freed the captive. Good old times, which the translators of Durandus would willingly restore; as

appears from some passages in their Introduction! There was, indeed, much of a common spirit between those ages and Mr. Neale's "Songs for the People"-one of those incongruous compounds of genius and folly which one sometimes has to stare at. Let us leave them, with the hope that they will revive only in a few Tottenham processions, which may mark our age just as strongly-possibly just as transiently-as the Eglintoun Tournament. These gentlemen, for their own honour, should have been born in their favourite times. One can scarcely help wishing they had. The "general view" (with which they conclude) "of the symbolism of a Catholic Church" is replete with a chastened elegance and sober magnificence which would have read well in black letter, and, if its fancy were but original, would have rivalled the Romaunt of the Rose, and might have won them a place in Chaucer's Temple of Fame. If one could but remain as young as one is at going to college, there might be no drawback on one's admiration of such a passage. Well, at a later period of life, a man, alas! may relish better the clever picture which precedes it, of the Principle of Symbolism, as exemplified in some Protestant place of worship which they have well travestied. But neither florid fancy, nor smart satire, satisfies the soul of man. Look for the spirit which has dictated a work on Symbolism, and find it in such passages as these:-" Contemporary with the appearance of early English, was the great victory of the Church over Erastianism, by the martyrdom of St. Thomas, of Canterbury, and the abrogation of the Constitutions of Clarendon : but hardly had the early English finished its course of splendour, when, while traces of rare glory were developing daily, the statute of Mortmain began to tell upon the Church; and though the impulse already given yet continued for some time to act, the end was near. No magnificent cathedral was built after the full effects, not so much of that act, as of the Erastianism which contrived and allowed it, were felt." P. cxxiii. "Thenceforward the State interfered more and more with the Church; and, not allowed to carry out their own designs, it is no wonder if the latter quickly began to forget their own symbolical language. After, for the first few years of the fourteenth century, using it with precision and elegance before unattainable, she thenceforward began to disuse it. We need not give examples of Decorated Symbolism," &c. P. cxxiv. "In England, from the time that Edward IV. directed the execution of Archbishop Scrope, when the State interfered, it was with a strong arm, cramping and confining, obliging the Church to confine herself to ritual observances, and forbidding her to expatiate in the grand objects for which she was ordained. Now, could there be a more fitting expression of this than the Perpendicular Style ?" P. cxxiv.

Were, then, the grand objects for which the Church was ordained those for which Scrope was ordered to execution by Henry IV.? The misprint, "Edward," is not noticed in the rather numerous errata of the Introduction. There are others, materially affecting the sense, omitted in the other two lists of "corrections" and "errata:" as, "the sacraments of order and dignity are penance," &c., where,

for "dignity," should be read

context.

necessity," as is plain from the

But how does history represent the death of this Archbishop of York? The indignity of it consisted mainly in this, that he was taken by treachery. He was found by Prince John and the Earl of Westmoreland encamped advantageously on the Forest of Galtres, outside the gates of York; was prevailed on by Westmoreland to meet him between the camps, attended by the Earl Marshal. Their hands were clasped together, and Scrope was persuaded to dismiss his forces. But Westmoreland had not disbanded his. He arrested the Archbishop and Earl Marshal, and carried them to the King, at Pontefract. Injustice also marked his death. But in what did it consist? Not in the fact of it, but in the mode. The Earl of Nottingham and Archbishop of York were not tried by their peers. This was urged at the Archbishop's own palace, Bishopsthorpe, whither the prisoners had followed the court, by the upright Chief-Justice Gascoigne; and he refused to sentence them. He had no jurisdiction over the prelate. Sir William Fulthorpe, however, without a trial, sentenced both and Scrope was the first episcopal criminal beheaded in England. Criminal he would have been in the eyes of posterity if tried and acquitted, unless facts, on the trial, had been proven otherwise than history presents them. He was in arms, at Shipton-on-the-Moor. Fixed on the church-doors in his diocese, and circulated in other counties, were impeachments against Henry for perjury, rebellion, regicide, irreligion, extortion, and illegal execution of clergymen and gentlemen, drawn up in the names of A B and C D, proctors of the commonwealth of England. The Earl of Nottingham was son of Henry's old enemy, Mowbray, of Norfolk; and Scrope, whose family had been befriended by Richard II., had lost a brother at the King's hands. He is thought to have drawn up the mortal defiance of the Percies, sent in before the battle of Shrewsbury, in six several charges of falsehood and perjury, against Henry, Duke of Lancaster, named King of England, without title of right, but only of his guile and perjury, and by force of his fautors. At any rate, there was no denying his sermon, preached to three congregations in the cathedral; his rousing 20,000 men suddenly to arms, under the standard of, what we should now consider, blasphemy-the five wounds of the Saviour. Whether those did right who in those times set up against the power of Henry the claim of his prisoner, the child Mortimer, Earl of March, is a question which may be discussed by the world: but whether their motives were public or private whether their alliances with the Scots and Welsh were justifiable or the reverse-it scarcely remains to be argued that the real Church of Christ had not to take a part in the quarrel. The Archbishop was in this case Scrope, and nothing more: for it remains to be proved that the deposition of usurpers was one of "the grand objects for which the Church was ordained." Certain it is, that when St. Peter wrote to Christians, "Let none of you suffer as an evildoer," he added not, "But there are some among you whom kings and