Paganism as apparently to regret that the Emperor Trajan should have given place to S. Peter, or the Cross have been admitted into the Pantheon. Consistent with this spirit, but most inconsistent, we must venture to say, with the high tone of Christian principle which is assumed in the criticism upon the Roman Church, is the frequent quotation from "Childe Harold." The only poets, if we remember right, from whom Mr. Kip quotes throughout, are Byron and Shelley, and Sir E. L. Bulwer! The man who almost in the same page can declaim against the Pagan ritual" of the Sistine chapel, and utter sentimental rhapsodies over the grave of Shelley, and the " Protestant burial-ground" at Rome, has certainly no very high place in our esteem, either in a moral, or in an æsthetical point of view.

We desire to call special attention to two sermons and a lecture (entitled Sins unremitted; Sins remitted; and No Sin in remitting,) by Mr. A. DAYMAN, Curate of Wasperton, in the Diocese of Worcester, (Burns.) In their composition they are favourable specimens of what should be the manner of a Parish Priest in addressing his people; and in the subject of them they are evidence, if we mistake not, of a conviction which has been gradually spreading among the clergy, that some closer and more confidential intercourse with their people than what mere preaching affords, is absolutely indispensable, if they would bring them to any perfection of holiness.

Short Meditations for every Day in the Year, edited by Dr. Hook, (London: Bell,) of which the first part has reached us, promises to be a very valuable devotional work. It is a compilation, and therefore exhibits considerable variety of style; and we question much if the plan will commend itself in that portion of the year (the weeks after Trinity Sunday,) when the subject for meditation must necessarily be an arbitrary selection on the part of the editor. But of the part before us we can speak most favourably.

Mr. IRONS has published a pamphlet, (Should the State oblige us to educate? Masters,) boldly calling on the Government to compel the Church and Dissenters to educate their own respectively. Another letter to the same statesman, (Lord John Russell,) entitled The Developement of Anglicanism, the hope of the Church of England: by a Churchman, (Ridgway,) proposes, 1, the foundation of four new bishoprics; 2, the suspension of the Ecclesiastical Commission; 3, the summoning of Convocation; (we grieve to add for a reformation of the Prayer Book ;) and 4, the endowment of Colleges of Ecclesiastics, in aid of the Parish clergy. We trust that Lord John Russell will learn from these and other symptoms that the Church is really anxious to do her work, if only proper facilities are afforded her.

The Mission of the Church and the Duty of its Members, a Visitation Sermon by the Rev. J. M. HEATH, Vicar of Enfield, (Masters,) is not happily named. It is really an able and closely reasoned vindication against the silly charge of zeal for the Church not being zeal for CHRIST.

Some pamphlets on the extension of University Education, we reserve for special notice.

A useful pamphlet by Mr. FREEMAN, on The Restoration of Churches, pleads earnestly for placing all restorations in the hands of competent architects. It is a fact, which people are slow to learn, that it is often a more difficult thing to restore and enlarge an old and abused Church, than to build a new one.

The English Churchman's Kalendar is this year, we are glad to see, so far improved as to give all the lessons rightly. Another year we hope the editor will omit his very ill-judged and mistaken Preface.

The Christmas season has brought with it more than its usual complement of amusement and instruction. Among the class of writers who cater more particularly for the young, the first place at this time, is undoubtedly due to Mr. ADAMS. His Old Man's Home, (Rivingtons,) we venture to predict will be a greater favourite than any of his former works. The tale appears to occupy a kind of middle ground between truth and allegory; and is eminently calculated to lay hold on the imagination, and to improve the heart.

Very high praise is also due to Mrs. ALFRED MONTGOMERY'S Ashton Hall, proceeding from the same publishers. It is both skilful in composition, and displays an acquaintance with the human heart by no means

common.

Theodore; his Brother and Sister, or a Summer at Seymour Hall, edited by the Rev. W. NEVINS, (London; Sharpe,) is a tale which from its genuine naturalness will not fail to interest juvenile readers. The writer's object, he tells us, is to illustrate the reality of the baptismal gift in the young; and we may surely hope that in not a few instances the loss of a good religious home education may be in a measure compensated by the circulation of tales of this kind.

Mr. HOPWOOD has published an Abridgment of his "Introduction to the Study of Modern Geography," in which the chapter on the "Religions of Mankind" we must say is very little according to our taste.

Poynings, (Masters,) a spirited and stirring Tale of the Revolution, espouses very warmly (as what honest man must not do?) the side of the Stuarts. At the end of the story a few words are very considerately appended to show that the iniquity of the Revolution, putting it at its worst, need be no stumbling-block to a tender conscience at the present day.

Mr. Sharpe has published a very pleasing and elegant little volume, entitled Christmas and Christmas Carols, consisting mainly of pieces extracted from his most commendable magazine. The metre of all is not equally well adapted for singing; but that beginning "As Joseph was a-walking," is marked by a most touching and appropriate simplicity. This is the best specimen of the Carol that we are acquainted with.

THE SYMBOLISM OF ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHITECTURE.

The Symbolism of Churches and Church Ornaments. A Translation of the First Book of the "Rationale Divinorum Officiorum," written by WILLIAM DURANDUS, sometime Bishop of Mende. With an Introductory Essay, Notes and Illustrations. By the REV. JOHN MASON NEALE, B.A.; and REV. BENJAMIN WEBB, B.A., of Trinity College, Cambridge. Leeds: Green. 1843.

Few subjects are now more frequently treated, than Ecclesiastical Architecture; and Ecclesiastical Architecture cannot be treated fairly, without reference to the question of Symbolism, or Sacramentality, as the translators of the First Book of the Rationale of Durandus not very happily, we think, call it, in their introductory essay, the only treatise in which the subject is formally discussed." Even if the whole theory were false, it would be necessary to account for its rise, and very general adoption, (though in different forms and degrees,) by recent ecclesiologists: but it is quite certain that Symbolism has a real and a very important existence in every branch of ecclesiastical art; and that in Church Architecture in particular, it has from the beginning, much modified the general structure and the details of sacred edifices. Those who are least disposed to admit its claim to be classed among the principles of Church-building, must still design their churches with submission to several laws, which have no basis but that of symbolism; and the coldest utilitarian must, in spite of himself, judge the works of an age, least of all disposed to sacrifice to the fancies of former generations, by rules to which symbolism has given existence, and all their force.

Whatever may become of particular applications of the principle, this at least is certain, that there is a symbolical spirit and a system of symbols in the ecclesiastical architecture of the first and middle ages. Those who now interpret the symbolic language into the expression of high doctrines of our most holy faith, are not necessarily working out a fanciful system from forms and combinations in which no meaning was ever before suspected, as Quarles works out his "Emblems," or Fuller his "Thoughts," from all kinds of things and occurrences. On the contrary; the principle of symbolism is clearly asserted in parts, or as a whole, by authors who lived long before the greater part of the churches at present existing were founded, and it was acknowledged and acted upon throughout the middle ages. Of this we have abundant proof in the plain assertions of the primitive Fathers,* and even in the Canons *As for instance in the Pastor of Hermas, Vision III., and in the account which Eusebius gives of the plan of the Church of the Resurrection, built by Constantine. VOL. III.-FEBRUARY, 1847.

K

of the early Church, while in many cases where there is no explicit assertion of the principle of symbolism, there is what is even stronger, an unforced allusion to it, in which its general adoption is implied.†

The application of the principle of symbolism was carried out more largely than it had before been by Durandus, Bishop of Mende, in the thirteenth century, in his book entitled, Rationale Divinorum Officiorum, a work alike remarkable for the direct, and for the indirect testimony, which it affords to the system: for Durandus was a man worthy in all respects of the very high estimation in which he was held in his own day; and if the character of the man gives weight to his writings, so does the value which was set upon this work in particular evince the degree in which he either led or went along with the religious feeling, and the principles of his day the Rationale was the first work from the pen of an uninspired writer ever printed, and the translators enumerate nine editions between 1459 and 1609, which have come under their notice, while Chalmers mentions, besides the first, thirteen editions in the fifteenth, and as many in the sixteenth century.

Indeed the work is every way worthy of the man, and of the high repute in which it was once held, and to which it is now again attaining. But though it is fully sufficient to justify the assertion that symbolism was in his day and had long been a recognized principle in ecclesiastical art, and in the erection of churches especially, it must not be used in this question as determining the recognized or rather intended symbolical meaning of every thing to which he alludes. He himself calls his book, not a treatise on "the Symbolism of Churches and Church Ornaments," but "Rationale Divinorum Officiorum" because the reasons of the variations in Divine offices and their truths are therein set forth and manifested; and he justifies his choice of a title by a very graceful allusion to the Breastplate of Judgment (Rationale judicii in the Vulgate, and in the Septuagint λογεῖον τῆς κρισέως) which Aaron wore, and in which were placed the Urim and Thummim, Manifestation and Truth, (Doctrinam et Veritatem Vulg. Thy dλwo xai Thy aλleav, Sept.). And so in his work, his Rationale, the pious author proposes to set forth the doctrine and the truths expressed in

*The Apostolic Constitutions direct that the church shall be built in the form of a ship:

"When thou callest an assembly of the Church, as one that is the commander of a great ship, appoint the assemblies to be made with all possible skill; charging the deacons, as mariners, to prepare places for the brethren, as for passengers, with all care and decency. And first, let the church be long, like a ship, looking towards the east, with its vestries on either side at the east end. In the centre let the Bishop's throne be placed, and let the presbyters be seated on both sides of him: and let the deacons stand near at hand, in close and small garments, for they are like the mariners and managers of the ship," &c.-Book ii. sec. 28.

For instance, in the panegyrist of Paulinus in Eusebius, referred to at great length in the Essay on Sacramentality, pp. lxx. &c.

the several offices of the Church, which the prelates and priests of churches ought faithfully to preserve in the shrine of their breasts. And as the breastplate was woven of four colours and of gold; so, says he, the principles on which are founded the variations in ecclesiastical offices, take the hues of the four senses, the Historic, the Allegoric, the Tropologic, and the Anagogic, with Faith as the ground. So, for instance, Jerusalem is understood Historically, of that earthly city whither pilgrims journey; Allegorically, of the Church militant; Tropologically, of every faithful soul; Anagogically, of the celestial Jerusalem, which is our country; "but in this work," he adds, "many senses are applied, and speedy changes are made from one to another, as the diligent reader will perceive." The reader should however be discriminating as well as diligent, lest he overlook the different degrees in which those several principles, and the application of them to particular forms or usages, bears upon the question of Symbolism.

In short we must not take Durandus to have accomplished more than he professes to have aimed at, or we shall assuredly either pervert his authority, or set him down as having treated fancifully, at best, a subject which will bear a far more rigid method. For instance, in his chapter on bells, he says, that "the rope by which the tongue is moved against the bell is humility, or the life of the preacher, and that the same rope also showeth the measure of our own life;" and a great deal more of the same kind: now if Durandus is here taken to imply, that the bell-rope is intended to convey such lessons, or that it was so arranged, and left dependent, that it might convey them, we should accuse him of trifling; but if we read his words as those of a very pious man, accustomed to moralize all the offices and instruments of the Church, with which he was daily conversant, we shall find few more interesting and instructive chapters than that on bells. If we learn with him to find "Sermons in stones and good in every thing," we shall not quarrel with him because he does not either prove, or desire to prove, that every thing from which he draws a lesson was really intended to convey that lesson, or was, in the sense in which the term must be used in treating of ecclesiastical art, symbolic, or significant of Christian doctrine.

In a word, we may imagine the different spirit in which Durandus, and some more modern advocate of Ecclesiastical Symbolism, would discourse on the structure and details of a Gothic church. The one would be reading a lesson to his own soul, from every thing around him: from the pavement he would learn humility, because the Psalmist saith, Adhesit pavimento anima mea; from the windows opening wide inward, but with a narrow aperture without, he would teach his senses to present the smallest possible surface to the world, but to diffuse more widely the materials of divine contemplation; from the roof he would preach to himself the