or wrong according to our pattern. As to bowing, I always do at that particular part of the Creed where our Lord Jesus is named with an express reference to his incarnation; but elsewhere you will not see me giving any countenance to the "bodily exercises" that at best profit nothing, and which in this case are so nearly allied to the idolatry of Rome. I bow my knees to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, as did Paul; I bow my heart in humility, I hope, before its great Searcher; but as to rendering any especial honour to this or that wall of a building, or giving the slightest cause to the simplest child within it to suppose that I do so, sooner than give such cause of offence to the weak, I would forego the privilege so precious to my heart of worshipping in that house of the Lord to which I have ever been attached, and seek Him who is never far from the waiting soul, where no fiat of man should interfere to prevent my following the dictates of my conscience.'

'Well, uncle, it is to be hoped that what is now only recommended will never be enforced: that our compliance with these objectionable customs, so suddenly raked up from the oblivious dust in which they have slumbered time out of mind, will not be made the condition of our worshipping in the churches of the land. There are many among the clergy who would gladly, had they the power, use compulsion in this matter; but happily none of them are yet in the highest places of the church. I confess it has more than once struck me that persecution will commence on the foundation of these seemingly trivial particulars; and non-conformity with that which no church-of-England man has dreamed of

conforming to for generations past, will become penal. If so, we may readily imagine where it will end.'

'There is a great stress laid upon the essentially Popish structure of our olden churches and cathedrals, by those who calculate on speedily recovering them for the re-enactment of all the abomination. formerly practised there. In the last Number of the "Catholic Magazine," I found this precious morsel. It forms part of an article continued from month to month, entitled the "Porch of the Church." The subject is idolatrous processions; such as they formerly made through the streets, and which, it seems, they are now rehearsing in the enclosures of their Colleges, and at the residences of some of the Romish nobility and gentry; it goes on:

"But there are yet other processions which the church sets before us, for our improvement, instruction and edification. Let us turn, then, to a vast dimly lighted abbey,-let us look and listen as the solemn line of holy monks walk processionally round their hallowed aisles; see them, with downcast eyes, following the processional Cross, on which, at the foot of our Lord's Rood, stands Mary and the beloved disciple-those two links that bind us, as it were, in kinship with our God; hear, how with downcast look, and countenance full of recollection and holy joy, they lift up the devout litanee of intercession, as they move round the holy sanctuary, into which, as into a garden enclosed, the pure only are privileged to enter. Hear how their voices rise and fall-how one speaks, and many respond; hear how the sound echoes in the high-pitched roof, and seems to linger in the rafters, among the imagery whose praises have been

sung, whose intercessional prayers have been entreated, whose invocation has been solemnly implored. In our old abbeys and conventual churches such scenes were once common,-in the new abbeys and conventual churches which are Now arising we may shortly see the same. But when shall the glories of those noble piles which in our land now lie desolate, hopelessly and painfully useless to their present possessors, be given again to the worship for which alone they were erected, and for which alone they are suitable?"

6

'Now,' resumed my uncle, you see our ancient churches are considered useless to us, because we utterly reject the profane fooleries originally enacted in them, and this is made a sort of excuse for anticipating their speedy surrender to those who would turn them to such account as that above specified. It was not to be expected that we should pull down solid edifices dedicated to the nominal worship of God, merely because there were in them conveniences for the image-worship so vauntingly specified in this extract, and other superfluous appendages, which we have either converted to some sensible use, or left in harmless inutility but it does appear strange to me that among the multitude of new churches springing up, so great a majority should be modeled after these objectionable patterns; so that, externally or internally, very little addition is required to render them as classically Popish as these our expectant successors can desire.'

'Meanwhile, uncle, it seems we are to study the art of close approximation in our services; and to make the most of what the cautious hands of Elizabeth's Bishops left to indulge the lingering superstition of Mary's half-converted subjects. I do hope,

and trust, that a bold stand will be made by many of our pious clergy against these pernicious innovations.'

'I doubt it not. Most of those whom I have heard speak of this remarkable Charge pass lightly over what appears to us of real importance,—and what I firmly believe will be found so, ere long,―to dwell on the doctrinal intricacies of the higher subjects treated of. Here, there is great difference of opinion among God's people: some of those who know that baptismal regeneration is a doctrine wholly unsupported by scripture, naturally wish to persuade themselves, that what is not in the Bible, is not, because it ought not to be, in the prayer-book: while others, taking the Bishop's view, and supposing that the words therein found are meant to express exactly what they would, in any other place, be understood to imply, heartily desire to see them altered. This is a point so pregnant of debate and misapprehension, and one, moreover, where the world and those whom Christ has chosen out of the world, are so completely at variance, that I hold it a loss of time to write disquisitions upon it. You can never persuade an enlightened student of scripture, that the water of baptism washes away sin: you can never persuade a staunch high-churchman that those whom the prayer-book pronounces to be made in baptism members of Christ, children of God, and inheritors of the kingdom of heaven, are not so. You cannot persuade one who dearly loves his church, but who loves the Bible better, that the former ever meant to contradict the latter: nor can you prevail upon a person, wholly unbiased by partiality, to question the plain grammatical sense of some of the plainest

sentences ever written. Thus perplexed on all sides, who shall approach to unravel the web? Not I.'

I

'There is but one safe method for us to pursue, in reference to this and all other trying matters. We must pray. What, to our poor weak understandings seems impossible, the Lord can do in a moment; and where His own glory is concerned, surely we have every encouragement to ask him to interpose. love the Church of England, as by law established: I prize it as being so established, because it is a token for good to any country when its rulers make provision for the spiritual instruction of their people, according to the word of God. I prize it, because I consider that, with all due allowance for the imperfections and defects that necessarily cleave to man's best performances, there is in it all that the Christian can desire. The abundant provision made for all, in the appointment of so large a portion of scripture to be read in all the services of our church does, in my mind, stamp it the best form of worship extant; and the more numerous and deadly the errors pervading individual ministers, as now this fearful heresy of Tractarianism, the more precious is the Gospel in the desk, which at their peril they must preach there, howsoever they may labour to subvert it in the pulpit. So that, where false doctrine is proclaimed, the conscientious Christian may share all the privileges of social praise and prayer, appropriate his rich portion of the inspired word, and, the worship of God being concluded, may quietly take his departure, before the anti-scriptural finale of a Puseyite sermon, or any other heretical lecture, commences. For all these, and many more causes, I love my church with a very decided preference; and while far from