political events, that many think the season has not arrived in which the interest of the white slaves of England can be attended to; but, nevertheless, let us endeavour to compel attention to them; and let our efforts, in their nature of action, resemble those Alpine plants which do not wait for the stimulus of the sun's heat, but exert such a struggle to blossom, that their flowers are seen among the yet J. DORAN. unmelted snow.

HYMN.

From the German.

FROM the recesses of a lowly spirit

My humble prayer ascends: O Father, hear it !—
Upsoaring on the wings of fear and meekness,
Forgive its weakness.

I know and feel how mean and how unworthy
The trembling sacrifice I pour before thee;
What can I offer in thy presence holy
But sin and folly?

For in thy sight, who every bosom viewest,
Cold as our warmest vows, and vain our truest,
Thoughts of a hurrying hour-our lips repeat them,
Our hearts forget them.

We see thy hand-it leads us, it supports us:
We hear thy voice-it counsels and it courts us,
And then we turn away, and still thy kindness
Pardons our blindness.

And still thy rain descends, thy sun is glowing,
Fruits ripen round, flowers are beneath us blowing,
And, as if man were some deserving creature,

Joys cover nature.

Oh! how long, suffering Lord!-but thou delightest
To win with love the wandering. Thou invitest
By smiles of mercy, not by frowns of terrors,
Man from his errors.

Who can resist thy gentle call, appealing
To every generous thought and grateful feeling;
That voice paternal-whispering-watching ever
My bosom?-Never.

Father and Saviour! plant within that bosom
These seeds of holiness, and bid them blossom,
In fragrance and in beauty bright and vernal,
And spring eternal.

Then place them in those everlasting gardens,
Where angels walk, and seraphs are the wardens,

Where every flower that creeps through death's dark portal,
Becomes immortal.

507

SELF-SUFFICIENCY OF NONCONFORMITY.

DR. WARDLAW's SOPHISTRIES.-CONCLUSION.

In examining the question of establishments, as they have affected and are calculated to affect the purity of the Church, Dr. Wardlaw commences by reiterating one of his most favourite and notable commonplaces. He says that "The Church is a spiritual community." We, upon the other hand, are compelled to adopt one particular tautology; and we say, that the Church is a visible community; a visible community, consisting both of spiritual persons and persons not spiritualof those that are true hearted, and of those that are hypocritical. Though the visible and the spiritual communities have in no age of the world been synonimous, co-extensive, or co-equal, yet the one is to a great extent dependent upon the other; and where the visible community is not, we have no good reason for inferring that the spiritual community is. Thus the article of our religion touching the Church, defines the Church to be "a congregation of faithful men"that is, the visible Church is such a congregation: meaning, by the congregation, not one that has existed aforetime, or that may exist hereafter, but a body possessing the attribute of perpetuity. But in what sense is the expression "faithful" here used? Does it mean that every individual member of the visible community is in reality a faithful person? No; it only alludes to the common profession of all as being members; from which profession we are authorized to argue that some, many, if not the majority of those who are members of the visible community, are in reality what they profess to be; and as we cannot apply the principle of separation, all that we can do is to address and describe the whole community according to the profession of the whole. Dr. Wardlaw asserts, that the Church properly consists of all that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. What Church? not the visible-clse, why introduce the word properly? If the Church consist of certain persons, it properly consists of them; if the Church visible or spiritual consist in any sense, it must consist properly, or not at all. But the visible Church does not consist of those who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity, except in part; for the addition of the phrase, “in sincerity," evinces that the apostle speaks in contrast with others who did not love in sincerity, but who, notwithstanding this, were members of the visible community. The love in sincerity is descriptive of a number within another number-of the spiritual within the visible Church; and unless every person belonging to the one community belong also to the other, it is plain that the visible Church is a mixed community; though, on the ground of the common profession of every person united to the same, it be spoken of and to, and addressed as pure. The lecturer alludes to the inscriptions of the apostolic epistles; but these refer to profession alone, being addressed to visible branches of the Church visible-a mixed community. And this view is borne out by facts; as though the apostle addresses the members of the visible Church in terms applicable only to some of their number, he is careful to distinguish between the "some" and the

"all" in the sequel; and in one place goes so far as to say that" many walk," that is, as members of the visible Church," who are the enemies of the cross of Christ, and whose end is destruction ;" and that others crucify the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame. Would to God it were otherwise, and that the visible Church consisted solely of such as will finally be saved; but scriptural declaration and public example show that this cannot be.

We have had occasion to refer before to the parable of the tares of the field as illustrative of this truth, that the visible Church is a mixed community; and we apprehend that in so doing we were referring to a passage of Scripture, respecting the interpretation of which the wisest and most honest commentators are agreed. However, Dr. Wardlaw attempts to deprive this passage of its force, by sagely acquainting us, that the parable is prohibitory of the spirit of persecution which had begun to discover its symptoms among the disciples of Christ. Supposing this to be the lesson which the parable is calculated to teach, the facts of which it is made up remain the same: that we are forbidden to weed out the tares, shows very clearly that there are tares, or that the Church is a mixed community.

The inference which the lecturer would wish us to draw is, that the establishment of the Church corrupts the Church by introducing unfit members into it; but as it is sufficiently demonstrated that, under any circumstances, this introduction must happen, we need not trouble ourselves about it further.

"To prove (saith he) the tendency of establishments to corrupt the Church, we do not require to prove that there was no corruption in it before." Granted that it does not require to be proved, for it is an undeniable fact, yet surely it requires to be admitted; and it ought to have due weight in the discussion. "It is enough (he continues) that corruption of new kinds, and in a larger amount and variety than ever, then found admission." Granting this too, let us first enquire into the results which the Establishment meditates, before we complain of the accidents that accompany its operation. An establishment of the Church proposes to extend the dominion and influence of the Church over a given tract of country, to carry the Church into every part of that country, to provide a greater number of ministers and temples, and to give greater facilities for the increase of members than could be effected by any other plan. If, then, corruption existed in the Church previously to its establishment, it is not to be wondered at that, in the extension and enlargement of the Church by means of its establishment, the corruption should be proportionately aggravated. Still it is not corruption alone that has received augmentation; the augmentation of purity has gone along with it; and if much hypocrisy has been added, much truth has been added too. If establishments had introduced corruption, the argument would assume a different light; but to say that they have increased them, leaves us where we were. They have increased the power and extent of the Church, and of course the corruption has extended as well, upon the same principle, that if we grow much grain we shall have more tares than if we grew but little.

The next thing which the Doctor objects is, that establishments act

as a premium to conformity. Conformity to what?-to the Establishment? Nay, but to the institution established. In so far, then, as the institution established is the Church, conformity is a duty demonstrable à priori: it is a duty in the absence of the Establishment, and it cannot be less so where and when the institution towards which it is a duty is established. It is no part of a Christian's duty to conform to a religious institution nationally established, simply because it is so established: it is his business to examine into the nature of the institution itself, and if it will not bear his scrutiny, no national establishment thereof ought to oblige him to conform to it. It is customary with Dissenters to cry out against the enforcement by the civil power of any sort of religion which that power pleases; and we, as Churchmen, would readily join the outery, and would most resolutely refuse to submit to a religion because it was established by a government, and for that reason alone. There must be a stronger reason than this to ensure our conformity; the religion must have a claim upon us as a religion, before it can have a claim upon us as an established religion; and if this claim be made out upon the part of the Church, then, as the fact of its establishment is not of itself the reason why we conform to it, the same fact cannot of itself be a proper reason for us to dissent from it. We may conscientiously wish that a separation of the Church from the State might take place; but this wish would but poorly justify our separation from the Church. To separate from the Church on account of its establishment, is an act which no pretence can palliate, yet it is an act which nonconformists universally are guilty of; whereas, if they would but consider the matter, they would see that this separation, while it is a despite to the Church, is no benefit, but a great injury, to them. It would have been a very unjustifiable step, if, upon the establishment of the Church by Constantine, all the Christians had suddenly forsaken the Church on account of that establishment, even upon the supposition that the emperor was the only person in favour of it. How much more unjustifiable must it be to separate from the Church on account of its establishment, in a nation where many thousands of the members of the Church are decidedly persuaded of the propriety, if not of the necessity of its being established. And if we look back upon the history of the first Dissenters, we find that the fact that the Church was a national establishment, was no reason whatever why they dissented; and that in dissenting they still maintained that it ought to be so.

The lecturer is particularly impressive with regard to the corruption which it is alleged flowed into the Church after its establishment by the emperor; but we suspect that this corruption arose not so much from the establishment as from the ease and security that followed upon the cessation of Pagan persecution. In every age there has been a remarkable connection between persecution and purity. For a long period religionists have enjoyed a great calm; and, according to the confession of the few unprejudiced and unpoliticalized persons there are among nonconformists, the amount of formality and worldliness which has entered the congregations of Dissenters in consequence, is truly alarming. If persecution falls anywhere at present, it is upon

the National Church; and Dissenters, and men of no religion, are the persecutors. We do not complain of this, for we believe that the Church has been much advantaged by it, and has gone very far a-head through its impulse.

Dr. Wardlaw is partial to an extreme to the authority and represen tations of Mosheim, and gives us several quotations from him. We know not why, except it be that Mosheim does not give to the Church a sufficient distinctiveness, that his history should be so great a favorite with Dissenters; but so it is, and what knowledge of Church affairs every Dissenting teacher that ever passed through an academy possesses (and those who do not pass through an academy have, for the most part, no knowledge at all), is derived from Mosheim; to him they always refer, as though there had not been any other ecclesiastical historian upon earth. However, Mosheim never was, and never can be, a favorite with Churchmen, who have too many historians to make an idol of one. To be sure there is, or was, one Sabin, who wrote a history of the Church; Dissenters admired it for the time, but it is now nearly out of fashion.

The next point which the Doctor handles, is that of secular patronage; which we must premise, though it exist together with the Church, is not a part of its essence, inasmuch as the sacred institution would remain the same if there were no patronage connected with it. Dr. Wardlaw does not attempt to defend the position, that patronage is an essential part of the Church as a Church, but he maintains that it and its abuses are owing to the Establishment. But in this again he is incorrect, for the Establishment is not the source of the patronage; all that the Establishment did was to secure the patronage which had always been considered as personal property, to its rightful possessors for the support of the Church, in the same way as the laws of the land secure to the poorest in the nation the possession of what belongs to them. Whether it was expedient for the Church to allow of private patronage at first, is a question touching which there may be a diversity of opinion in the minds of those who are the most firmly attached to the Church. One thing, however, is certain, that in days of yore, when the Church spake with authority, the patrons of livings were duly impressed with the awful responsibility and high dignity of their trust; and though in possession of a private right, they were most solemnly instructed, even by the situation in which they were allowed to sit in the sacred edifice, and by the respect to which they were judged to be entitled, to use that right for the public good. And as to the corruption and abuse of patronage, it is a notorious fact, that they arose to their greatest height at a time when the heads of the Church were the most averse from any union of the Church with the State. The Doctor complains, however, that under the present system of patronage, thousands are destined to livings in the Church from their cradle, without the slightest consideration of their future character and qualifications, and are presented with such livings by those who have them in their gift, with infinitely less thought of their fitness than would be given to any secular calling. A lamentable picture this; yet it is one which we believe, in a variety of instances, is as true