Israel, did the same thing. But a certain Samaritan, JESU, Mary's Son, as He journeyed, for His goings forth had been from everlasting, came where He was, when He was born at Bethlehem; and when He saw him, perceived what was in man, He had compassion on him, and went to him and bound up his wounds, which the fatal fall had made, pouring in oil and wine, grace and pardon, and set him on his own beast, the Cross, for He bare our sins in His own body on the tree, and brought him to an inn, His One Holy Church, and took care of him, in the surety of that Catholic abode, and on the morrow, when He departed, and went up into heaven, He took out two pence, Baptism and the Festival of his Body and Blood, and gave them to the Host, even the SPIRIT of GOD, and said, Take care of him, be his Comforter, and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee, in the last day I will restore all things. Now this was THE meaning of the Voice, this in the pure and early Church would have been read as the Postil* on Good-Samaritan-day. For by a very beautiful usage of the Fathers, the first day of the week, and the Festivals, were called by the name as it were of the Holy Gospel, or by some familiar Catholic word, which brought before the minds of the people very graphically, that which should be at such a season the matter of their celebration, and the theme of their thought. They had their Good-ShepherdSunday, and Ten-Virgin-day. They reckoned among their household dates the season of the "Gospel of the barley-loaves," and the "time of the Young Man of Nain "; they used their quaint, old, catchwords to denote the period of the Chancel-year, such as " Nicodemus by Night," "Ephphatha," "Blind Bartimæus," &c.; and they looked forward to hear the self-same well-known sermon of the Church delivered as a part of the fixed service, whensoever the Gospel was read. Were they, in sacred knowledge, or in piety of life, inferior to their children, the hearers of these times? Which should a man prefer, the one, calm, placid, changeless, sound of truth, all ancient though it be, or the change, diversity, and doubt, of many a modern mind? Neither was the light of such interpretation limited to parables alone.

sentences and verses of the Word, the themes of many a deep and thoughtful guess, wherein the knowledge of traditionary meaning would have shone upon the literal language like a lamp. Take the answer of our LORD to the rich young man: "It is easier, I say." Now our fathers have told us, that vast hoards of incense were brought to Jerusalem every year for the fires of the golden altar, daily burnt. Merchants, from Idumæa, and other regions of the East, were wont to load their camels with these fragrant gums, and to arrive at the gate of the Hebrew city with their freight. But there the haughty stomach of Israel called on them to halt. They paused, and stood without the southern gate, wherein there was a narrow wicket called the Needle's Eye; there the camels knelt down to be released from their store; and the incense was borne thence and through that strait gate on the shoulders of Levites to the Hebrew Temple. Now a prophet, in pre

The Rubric after the Holy Gospel which directed the reader of the Lexicon, began with Post illa verba, &c. ; hence those short fixed Sermons of the Church were called Postills.

diction of the concourse of converted Gentiles, in the days of the MESSIAH, had employed the imagery of this usage of the eastern caravan. Isaiah (ix. 6) had said, "The multitudes of camels shall cover thee the dromedaries of Midian and Ephah, all they from Sheba shall come, they shall bring gold and incense, and they shall show forth the praises of the LORD." These words the Jews had interpreted to signify the arrival of the nations to embrace their worship and creed. But our LORD Himself, when He perceived the hardness of Jacob's heart, and the contrasted humility of the sons of Esau, He rebuked them thus, "Verily I say unto you, it is easier for a camel (of the Gentiles) to go through the needle's eye (with incense for the altar) than for a rich man (of the Jews) to enter into the Kingdom of God, my holy Church."

What light would have dwelt upon the solemn page, if that truth had never been lost, that in Holy Writ, the whole Hebrew nation stood evermore, to signify a single Christian man! How could aught have been obscure in the sign of the lost sheep, if it had been carefully kept in mind, that the lonely wanderer upon the mountains was the type of man; and the ninety and nine which needed no repentance meant the angels of GOD who never fell!

What volumes of doctrine have faded from the Scriptures of the Apostles, from failure of traditionary oil ! Let us mark one. In the resurrection, said the forefathers of the Faith, there will neither be the defect of childhood nor the infirmity of age: for in our state of separation, by the secret power of GoD, the dust of infancy will expand, while the soul itself shall grow; and the frames of the aged shall, like the eagle, renew their strength, and their spirit shall come back as a strong man; so that in the last day, we shall all be, when we stand side by side, to look upon, as was our LORD when He went up, in the middle of His years, even thirty years old and three; and this, said they, is manifest, because THE Scripture saith, " We shall all come to the perfect stature of the fulness of CHRIST." Yet this, the only ancient meaning of this verse of S. Paul, is not adduced as its modern doctrine now. Again, they held of burial of the dead, that we, the general company of the departed, should rest, eastward and westward, in death, because, with our feet toward the east, we lie down in the posture of those who wait for the approach of our LORD from that region of the sky, and are ready, at the voice of the Archangel, to stand upon our feet, to pour forth the buried music of our voices in psalms of welcome suddenly! Whereas, the Bishop, Martyr, and Saint, are buried, as may be seen from their ancient sepulchres to this day, with their heads towards the east, and their feet westward, to prophesy by that attitude, the faith of the Church in that doctrine of old, that the rulers of the flock of CHRIST will be raised first, and caught to meet the LORD in the air, and so to come from the east, with their Master to sit around Him in His judgment, to accompany the Son of Man! And such, they said, was the only meaning of the sentences which said, "They should sit on thrones to judge the tribes of Israel.-The Saints shall judge the earth.—The LORD shall come with His ancients, gloriously." Now it was the descent of this Catholic and traditionary meaning upon the wings of Holy Writ, which produced the strength of that mighty doctrine, the

Communion of the Saints, That which was originally intended by such an inspiration, was fostered from the beginning by the harmony of this Spirit of the Voice. Let us close these thoughts with a short survey of the actual usage of the whole Church herein. There was the written Word, poured all over the lands in the beautiful embodiment of one language, a single, half-inspired, common, Italian speech. In this code of history, of worship, praise, and prayer, every section and sentence had its allotted purpose and secret theme. Each chapter, prophecy, and psalm, imported some one specific thing. There was the passage of Holy Writ which belonged to the Martyr and to him alone. (Rev. iii. 5,)" He that overcometh ;" "From the choking of fire." (Ecclus. li. 4.) There were the chapters which solely appertained to the Bishops of the Church: (Prov. xx., xxiii., xxvi.; Rev. vii. 13,)" One of the Elders answered." There were the psalms of the Virgin: "I was glad when they said;" (cxxii.) "Except the LORD build the house;" (cxxvii.) " He hath strengthened the bars of thy gates." (cxlvii.) There are the verses of the Evangelist, (Ezek. i. 1-12.) The Psalms used for, by, and with the souls of the Faithful dead, (Ps. cxx., cxxvi., cxvi., &c., &c.) Now when we call to mind that these allotted sentences and Psalms were to be remembered and rehearsed at the same day and hour,-in one ritual of worship,-in the unalterable cadences of a single language, all over the world, and by the souls of the separate also where they dwell, we perceive in them a vast and ineffable bond of embodiment, which pervaded with one unbroken thrill of ethereal sympathy the whole Host of the Redeemed,

"Striking the electric chain wherewith we are darkly bound!"

And this is the Communion of Saints.

I. Whensoever, then, we produce the words of the sacred writers for instruction or for proof, we should seek to be assured, not only of what they say, but what they mean.

II. When the scribe, or the wise man, or the disputer of this world, would overwhelm us with words, we may lawfully demand their old ecclesiastical sense.

III. When men confide in the letter of the written law, which is carnal and Bibliolatrous, we should call on them for that which giveth life, and breath, and meaning, even the Spirit of the Voice, without which they will be to us barbarians, and we a barbarous people to them.

213

THE REVOLUTION AND THE NONJURORS.—
MR. GRESLEY'S CONISTON HALL.

Coniston Hall, or the Jacobites; a Historical Tale, by the Rev. W. GRESLEY, Prebendary of Lichfield, &c. Burns: London, 1846.

Ir is rather curious to observe an embarrassment which crippled the exertions of the actors in a historical crisis at the time, transmitted to one who, at the distance of a century and a half, records their fortunes. The High-Church party in the days of the Revolution, though they fully entered into the injustice of that event, yet were sadly hampered with the ostensible reason for it, viz., King James' most injudicious attempt to restore the Roman Catholic Religion. And so Mr. Gresley, while he puts well the fatal consequences of the change of the Constitution, in his very interesting last chapter, evidently feels a not unnatural sensation of comfort, that the progress of events had been such as to admit of a certain stall in Lichfield being filled by himself, and not by Dr. Rock, or by any other distinguished Tridentine theologian. This affects the whole book. The author does not go heart and soul into the cause as he does in his earlier work, "The Siege of Lichfield," and consequently there is something comparatively wooden and lifeless in the characters-they are mere pegs to hang arguments on. And yet there is no time in English History more calculated to supply materials for graphic fiction, than the last days of the Stuarts: for though the "ages of faith" may afford more scope for pure romance, not only from the greater distance of the times, but also from the gigantic virtues and vices of those days of the youth of the human intellect; still, when we consider that the period with which these are contrasted, is one in which we can evidently trace a line of thought agreeing with our own, and have moreover so much documentary detail regarding them, we cannot help feeling the interest of sympathy in the conduct of persons whose trials, and failings, and successes are like what may be our own. But besides this, the characters and events of those times are themselves admirably suited for the purpose of fiction. There is nothing matter of fact about the Stuarts, nor about the seven Bishops, nor about the Nonjurors, nor about either of the Insurrections in '15 or '45. The first were a right kingly race, with all their errors. They acted as if the sacred oils of Westminster conferred on them a reality. From the days of the Martyr, down to the frail old Cardinal-King, the last of his house, who lies buried in S. Peter's, there was something "sacrosanct" about the whole race, that claimed and obtained reverence and devotion, in spite of every circumstance that should alienate them,-wrong-headedness, personal vice, and infatuated blindness. Again, what is more chivalrous than the position of the primate Sancroft and his colleagues, in one year standing out as the champions of the English Constitution, against the encroachments of the King, and in the next, resigning power and wealth, and all earthly honours, on account of the same man? There is

an unworldly conduct about the whole transaction, worthy of the days of S. Anselm or Langton, and the setting of the Church of England's Constitutional power, (who cannot see that it was so?) was at least a glorious one. Or take the case of the Nonjurors afterwards; what can be better suited for description than the strange scene of the absolution of Sir John Friend, and Sir William Perkins, on the scaffold, by the strong-hearted and earnest Collier,—or the separated Church thirsting for unity, stretching out her arms to the ancient hierarchies of the East,— or the almost Roman fortitude of Bishop Deacon, sorrowfully, yet proudly making his obeisance before the head of his gallant son, who had suffered in what he held to be a holy cause, -or the associations of the saintly Ken and Longleat, where, retired from the turmoil of the world, with his last garment provided, he calmly awaited his summons to his everlasting rest. All these things and many others move the heart with pity, so that while perchance we occasionally censure, we more frequently admire; and as long as earnest self-devotion, high heroism, patient endurance, and firm principle, form the subject of men's praises, so long (however much people may differ from them) shall the fortunes of the adherents of the ill-fated house of Stuart assert their right to the sympathy and respect of posterity.

With the abatement we have alluded to, we find much to praise in Mr. Gresley's little volume. There is an earnest conviction evidenced in all that he says, and so far as he goes, which cannot fail to interest the reader. The good qualities of the author, in spite of themselves, as it were, peep out here and there, and none can read the volume in question without being impressed with the fact, that it comes from a kind-hearted, honest, and good man. There are no morbid feelings in the characters pourtrayed-no fictitious means of creating excitement— no lese-charity from sarcastic remarks. The treatment of the subject of the affections is singularly pure, and the political disquisitions are sensible and high-toned.

Mr. Gresley's summary of the Revolution is very nicely done (p. 294). "The Revolution of 1688, qualify it by what epithet we may,—was essentially the same sort of thing as all other revolutions, a successful rebellion against authority: the same in principle, and connected as a consequence with the Great Rebellion, by which it was preceded. It was solely through God's great and undeserved mercy, that here in England it was accompanied by less havock and bloodshed than such events usually are. Had King James been able to make a stand, and rally adherents round him, as his royal father did in 1643, England might have seen another civil war as disastrous as the former; and perhaps have been guilty a second time of the murder of a sovereign. Even as it was, blood was copiously shed in Ireland and Scotland, between the adherents of James and William: but because England escaped, we are accustomed to think lightly of the contest. Again, had the nobility supported their lawful king, while the passions of the populace were excited on the opposite side, England might have witnessed the same scenes of bloodshed which France experienced a century later. Once let slip the dogs of war or revolution, and it is impossible to foresee the lengths to which their rage may turn. If their course be less furious at one time than