from a figure so homely, a manner so undemonstrative as his; but the evening advances, conversation becomes general, and then he quietly puts in his word.

In some such unobtrusive manner we venture to take a place among our contemporaries. Perhaps this quiet way is not altogether a matter of choice with us. Perhaps we should like to attract the notice of the company as well as the best-to have some busy friend herald our way and rouse a general expectation-to overhear the cautious whisper, and see as though we saw not the glances of the curious. Be that as it may, we are glad to take a place at all, with the chance of a civil hearing by and bye.

For we too have something to say to this generation. Nothing, indeed, altogether novel, for then it could not be entirely true; yet neither, as we hope, quite stale, for then it could not fail to be flat and unprofitable. We speak in the hearing, and so under the correction, of wiser heads; but our aim will be to assert admitted principles, to correct acknowledged errors, to reprove abuses, negligences, falsities of every kind; and in matters of highest moment to hold the essentials of faith with the utmost candour and all possible charity. Politics and polemics will sometimes demand an arm of controversy; but far more frequently we shall delight to lift up the veil from Nature, and especially to reveal her features as they come softened and spiritualized through a human

medium, and fall upon the mirror of Fine Art. We cannot hope to please all readers at all times; happy if we gain a general approbation, most happy if we avoid to give particular offence. Of course each disappointed person has his private revenge, and this it would be a foolish thing to grudge him. What smart things What smart things might the critic hear at some half-opened window of his friends ! By all means let him knock very loudly at the outer door, and enter with a smile, and ask no questions about the conversation which his arrival interrupts. We, at least, are resolved to retain our cheerful humour and shake hands all round. The author whose book is snubbed may be allowed to relieve himself by blessing our impertinence. The ingenious person whose pet theory or universal panacea is slighted or ignored-every allowance shall be made for him, and we will pretend not to have heard (from our special friend and correspondent) that he rates us for an idiot. The dear young people, (bless them!) who look for nothing but amusement, may pardonably mistake our gravity for dulness; we will join we will join them in a romp next time we meet. Even the crusty old gentleman, grown difficult to please, may gird at us on the other side-may censure our pure cheerfulness as levity, yet not offend us; we will smile blandly as before, and simply call to mind the old nobleman in Gil Blas, who vows that the peaches now-a-days are poor things compared with those he tasted in his youth.

ÆSTHETICS AND RELIGION.

THE history of every nation contributes something towards the establishment of this general truth,-that whenever the religion of a people has sought aid or illustration from the æsthetic arts, it is the arts themselves, and not the religion, which have benefited by such alliance. The purity and spirituality of a faith is in inverse proportion to its external splendours. The worship of a Divine Spirit must be 'in spirit and in truth;' and though it may avail itself of social means and helps, of set times and simple ordinances, it is certain to be deteriorated by the use of sensuous and artistic imagery. On the other hand, the worship that is of merely human origin is so far earthly in its character and object that it craves material aids, and is susceptible at least of partial embodiment in refined or grosser forms; while the strength of the religious principle adds a surprising stimulus to natural genius, prompts the aspiration towards a more beautiful ideal, and enables an artist to clothe his conceptions with some graces caught from a superior sphere. We have no occasion to wonder at the unrivalled beauty of Attic sculpture, or the perfection of religious art in Italy; and we have no reason to expect that these arts will ever be matched in the civilization of the future. A more spiritual faith would have checked the hand of Phidias, and a purer Christianity controlled the dreamy ardours of Fra Angelico. If the arts are yet to flourish and progress, they must do so in another direction, with humbler yet with truer aims; and if our Protestant faith is to assert its rule, and continue to set forth the scriptural religion of a godly life, it must keep itself aloof from all those accessories, whether of ritual observance or artistic ornament, which tend first to corrupt and finally to supplant the Truth.

In the Church of Rome we have the perfect type of an æsthetical religion. All its manifestations and exhibitions are addressed to the senses-not to the ear only, as the necessary inlet to the understanding and the heart, but to the ear as the medium of intoxicating sounds, to the eye

as susceptible of delight in gorgeous colour, and even to the sense of smell, as open to the soothing influence of flowers and perfume. This is the prime character of Romish worship. We find it in all the services of all its temples— from the tawdry altar-place of the little country chapel, with its mumbling priest and single acolyte, to the imposing pontifical rites of the cathedral church of St. Peter's, where the flaunting procession of bedizened monks and cardinals flouts at the serene beauty of soaring dome and stately column, and reminds the spectator how far human genius has transcended the requirements of a servile and corrupt religion. The same effect is sought and attained by both of these displays. All that is designed is to attract the attention of the worshipper, to satisfy him with a mere show of sacred things, to divert him with a round of religious symbols; and what is beyond this, whether the spirit of true devotion or the presence of really superior art, is quite incidental and superfluous. Indeed, a very low degree only of æsthetic merit is needed to attain the vulgar ends of this ecclesiasticism; and if more has been achieved through this alliance, and triumphs of true art have glorified the shrines of a pseudo-religion, it is because the utmost freedom was permitted to the imagination of the artist, and because deep ascetic piety would sometimes concur with the loftiest inspirations of genius.

This practice of enlisting the arts of decoration and music in the service of religion is characteristic of the Romish Church, but it is not peculiar to it. The Greek communion is perhaps equally involved in this corrupt alliance, and deserves to be put in the same category. Both these Churches are committed to the theory of sacramental efficacy operating through a vicarious priesthood, and to a system of elaborate symbolism; and it is manifest that while these principles remain unrepudiated no great simplification of their public worship is likely to obtain. The style of their ecclesiastical rites and services does not essentially differ from that of pagan ceremonies. Their resemblance to the oriental idolatries of India, China, and Thibet, is very striking; and if compared with the form and order of Mohammedan worship, the comparison would probably show less natural corruption to exist

in the temple of the False Prophet than in the churches of the great Apostasy. At the same time we are far from doubting that the sacred truths of Christianity thus grievously overlaid do penetrate to many a sorrow-laden heart, and heal it with the balm of sincere devotion.

It is evident that little practical result could follow an inquiry like the present, if the evil we deplore were limited to these almost hopeless forms. But the æsthetic tendency is not unknown in the Reformed Churches, both of England and the Continent; as, for example, the Anglican and the Lutheran; and it may not be wholly unprofitable to detect and expose those elements of corruption and strife which threaten the purity and the peace of our Christian faith; and to give some general answer to the question which occasionally rises in every mind, How far may the cultivated tastes and sympathies of religious people be safely indulged in the act of religious worship?

The development and growth of this delusive tendency is quite intelligible. Where there is public worship at all; there must be some degree of form and ceremony. Where ministerial orders are admitted, it is natural that some distinction of dress should be granted or imposed. Where the singing of God's praises enters largely into the service, it seems only decent to promote choral harmony and vocal sweetness. Where the whole building is set apart for adoration of the Triune God, it will be especially desirable, in the estimation of certain minds, that the fear of His holy name should be written on lofty arch and reflected in gloomy aisle. We have here already the elements of three great sources of allurement; and it needs only the occasion of a prescribed ritual, the acknowledgment of some priestly authority, and the concession of holy days and sacred places, to develop the love and sanction the allowance of gorgeous sacerdotal garments, of music breathing a voluptuous religious sentiment, and of architecture raising the dim roof which draws upward the mounting soul. There is a kind of temperament, serious, if not devout, which delights itself in such accessories; and it is by steps like these that reverence deepens into superstition, and formal worship passes into refined materialism.