thenticating, and dispatching the documents emanating from it. They were no more the price paid for the bestowments of the court, than the sum paid for recording a title-deed is the price for which an estate is purchased. This is the description given of them by Pope John XXII., by whom they were established. "There are," (says Van Espen, Jus Ecclesiasticum, Cologne, 1748)" many officials attached to the Chancery, whose business it is to transcribe, revise, and register its documents. These have a share in the annates or in the sums paid for the preparation of the letters; and these legal fees (jura) are what are commonly called Taxe Cancellaria Apostolica." This explains that direction for reckoning the taxes, where they are not specifically laid down, at so much per line, and the express provision for a greater charge being made in certain cases where the copying was more difficult, or the amount of writing greater.

Having thus determined the true character of the Chancery taxes, we have in effect determined that of the Penitentiary taxes; for, we repeat, it is clear that they bore the same relation to the procedures of their several courts. The Tax-Book was neither more nor less than a fee-bill. This use of the term has descended to our own law courts, in precisely the same signification. On the supposition that these taxes constituted the price paid for the sins in question, Planck might well say that the amounts were estimated on the most singular principles. Absolution for perjury and for partaking of the sacrament with an excommunicated -person were each to cost 6 grossi. A man was to pay 27 grossi for marrying in the third degree of consanguinity, and only 6 for deflowering a virgin. A clergyman might obtain absolution for concubinage and a dispensation to minister in holy orders for 6 grossi, while if he had accidentally lost an eye he must pay 76 for a dispensation only. A man might kill his father or mother for the same which it would cost to obtain permission to eat butter in Lent. One might amuse himself at Rome in hunting bishops and prelates for a tithe of what it costs in England to obtain a license for shooting hares. It is absurd. Whatever may have been the crimes and abuses of Rome, and all history bears witness to their number and enormity, she has never committed-to use the language of a celebrated politician-" that worse than crime, that blunder," of so grievously underrating the market value of her wares.

The action of the Penitentiary, in respect to sin, grows out of the Catholic theory of justification and pardon. According to this theory, the essential guilt and eternal punishment of sin can only be expiated by the merits of the Redeemer; but when this eternal punishment has been remitted, God reserves a certain temporal punishment for the sinner himself to endure, lest the easiness of his pardon should make him careless of falling back

into sin. Now for the pardon of sin committed after baptism, and for the remission of the essential guilt and the eternal punishment of it, a sacramental confession, where practicable, and the priestly absolution is requisite; and where these cannot be obtained a sincere and hearty desire for them must be felt. In all usual cases the power of receiving this confession, administering the sacrament to the offender, and granting absolution, is confided to the ordinary clergy of the Church. But certain cases are reserved for the sole consideration of the Apostolic see, as head and mother of all the Churches. For these absolution can only be granted by the Pope, or by his special direction; and the Penitentiary is his organ for that purpose. When a person who had been guilty of one of the crimes reserved, made personal application for absolution to the officers of the Penitentiary, who held daily sessions in some of the principal churches in Rome for that purpose, his confession was received, the appropriate penance prescribed, the sacrament administered, and absolution pronounced. In certain cases, as, for instance, the killing of an ecclesiastic, as laid down in the extracts we have furnished from the Tax-Book, the criminal was obliged to appear personally at Rome, in order to receive absolution. But in ordinary cases application might be made by letter.

The method of application to the Penitentiary, the mode of procedure, and the forms to be observed, are laid down with great exactness by the Jesuit Marcus Paulus in his "Praxis."" The penitent was to make confession to the ordinary clergy of his city, who was to forward an accurate statement of the case to the Pænitentiarius Major at Rome, with a request that authority for absolution might be granted by "letters apostolical." These letters were then prepared by the officers of the Penitentiary, containing a brief statement of the case, directed to some neighboring ecclesiastic, who in certain cases was required to be a bishop or other prelate, directing him to hear the confession of the penitent, and, if in his judgment it was proper, to grant absolution from the guilt incurred, having first administered the sacrament and imposed due penance. A special direction was also given that where injury had been inflicted, reparation, as far as possible, should be made.

The sums paid the officials for the preparation, authentication, and dispatch of these "letters apostolical," were the taxes of the Penitentiary, which thus were in no way designed to be the price for which the crimes mentioned in them might be committed; nor the price of pardon for them after commission. This also explains the small and uniform amount of these fees, for the "letters apostolical" were all brief and very similar in tenor.

1 Published at Rome, 1689; from which copious extracts are to be found in the Jesuit Plettenberg's "Notitia Congregationum et Tribunalium Curiæ Romanæ." Hildesheim, 1683.

If such a court was to exist, it must have officials; and these must be paid for their services. That the mode of paying them by fees is liable to great abuses, and so exceedingly objectionable, there can be no doubt. In an age of universal venality and corruption, it was hardly to be expected that a court having so singular a jurisdiction, and where so much was necessarily entrusted to subordinate officials, should remain pure. The experience of all civilized nations has shown that the foulest sinks of corruption in the body politic exist in connexion with courts of justice; not so much, however, through the venality of judges as by the abuses of their obscure officials. The technicalities which gather around a legal system render it in a short time so complicated that its mysteries become inexplicable, except to those whose lives are devoted to their application and practice. Hence many an obscure clerk in our courts derives from his fees an income greater than than that of the most learned judge upon the bench. These sinks of corruption are worse than the Augean stables; they are like a deep and foul cavern with no outlet, into which should Hercules turn the current of a river, it could only cleanse them by rending away, by main pressure, its rocky walls. system to be purified must be destroyed.

The

The spiritual courts at Rome, and the Penitentiary in particular, were liable to these abuses. The likelihood of corruption is always proportioned to the temptation and the prospect of impunity. In the case of the officials of the Penitentiary, both were great. The ability of their clients was the only bound to their exactions. No sum could be too great for the penitent to pay him who held the key to that paradise he had forfeited. The chances of detection were almost nothing. The penitent had his absolution, and why should he complain? Even were he so disposed, he could not expose the judge without publicly proclaiming himself guilty of some shameful crime.

Hence gradually arose that state of things set forth in the Centum Gravamina of the German princes. The statements which they make are undoubtedly true as matters of fact. The error consists in our charging them upon the Roman Church, as though she, by her Tax-Book, and Chancery regulations, and penitential canons, had sanctioned them; whereas, in fact, they were designed to prevent them.

These abuses in the Penitentiary reached their height about 1560, and were remedied in the only possible way. The half century which witnessed that great reformation in doctrine from the Church of Rome, witnessed no less a reformation in manners and morals in that Church. A succession of pontiffs arose who knew not the vices of an Alexander VI., nor the luxuries of a Leo X.; and whose austere sanctity of life, and earnestness of zeal, would have done honor to the Waldenses in their mountain

fastnesses. This reformation breathed into that Church a new life, which enabled her to win from heathendom more ground than she had lost to Protestantism. Stringent bulls were put forth, regulating the procedures of all the spiritual courts. The Penitentiary was remodeled; the greater part of its functions abrogated; its officials transferred to other offices; and all the fees which they had heretofore enjoyed and abused, were utterly and entirely abolished. This was finally accomplished by Pope Pius V., in 1569, by his 83d "Constitution," In omnibus; where he directs that nothing should be received by its officers for writing or dispatching letters apostolical; or even for the materials employed in their preparation, nor for the parchment, wax, or ink used d; so entirely gratis were its functions to be, that its officials were absolutely prohibited from accepting any present, even when voluntarily offered. These taxes were thus abolished almost simultaneously with the first complaints which were made of the abuses growing out of them. Thus, however great those abuses might have been, as it was not the design of the Tax-Book to occasion them, they cannot in common fairness and honesty be charged upon the Church of Rome as its deliberate and authoritive acts.

The conclusions-most unexpected to ourselves when this investigation was commenced-to which we have been brought by a weight of evidence of which this article affords, at best, a bare sketch, are: that the Tax-Book purporting to be a transcript of that put forth at Rome in 1514, by order of Leo X., is altogether genuine and authentic; but that it it in no wise does, nor is intended so to do, grant permission for the commission of the crimes specified; nor establish a price to be paid for their pardon after commission. And that, therefore, as the charge of licensing these crimes rests, either mediately or immediately, upon this book, it is not sustained by any valid evidence; and that whatever corrupt individual officials, or dignitaries may have done, no such license can in fairness and honesty be laid to the charge of the Church of Rome.

Nihil autum pro litterarum confectione, nec etiam pro charta, attramento, cera, capsula, cordulis, aliisque rebus ad expeditionem pertinentibus; neque a sponte dantibus acceptare possunt, sed omnia gratis expedire debent.-Pius V. Const. 83. Magn. Bull. Rom.

ARTICLE X.

CRITICAL NOTICES.

1. Notes Critical, Explanatory, and Practical, in the Book of the Prophet Isaiah. By ALBERT BARNES. Second Edition, revised and corrected. Leavitt, Trow & Co., 2 vols., 12mo., pp. 536, 458.

THE first edition of this work, issued in three large octavo volumes, seemed to destroy its identity with Mr. Barnes' series of expository volumes. It had the appearance, though not the reality, of being a more elaborate and ambitious performance; and taking a place in a higher department of Biblical literature, it gained perhaps, less credit than it would have gained, if like the rest of his works, it occupied the position, and preferred only the claims of Notes. We are among those who are glad of the change in form and aspect which the author has made in the present edition. By judicious abridgements and elisions, by omitting the seperate translation, and by some corrections of style, a condensation has been effected which brings the three octavos into the more convenient and comely shape of two handsome sized duodecimos-a change of which a reduction of price is not the only advantage.

The exposition of Mr. Barnes is mainly designed for popular use and instruction; and with this end in view, though a work of undoubted learning and labor, its characteristic excellence lies not in its critical erudition. With a summary, but often highly felicitous exposition of the text, it devotes itself to that full and luminous illustration of its meaning, which may commend it to the popular apprehension, and best enforce its practical truths. In illustrating the fulfillment of prophecy, we doubt if there is any other work extant which is so copious and so conclusive. All the research of modern travellers and the learning of orientalists are brought to the illustration, and a light is thrown upon the text which often imparts a new meaning to these sublime and lofty prophecies. While, therefore, there may be other works which the critical scholar will consult, the Bible reader whose aim is a clear apprehension of the meaning, and a vivid impression of truth and significancy of the prophecy, may be commended with unqualified approbation to the work before us. The safe exegesis, the copious historical and archælogical illustrations, the familiar lucid style, and above all, the devout and reverent spirit, and the practical religious bearing of the work, will give it, in the estimation of Christians and scholars, a distinguished place in the voluminous literature of Isaiah.

2. Hora Bilicale Quotodianæ. Daily Scripture Readings. By the late THOMAS CHALMERS, D.D., LL.D. In three volumes. Harper & Brothers.

THE death of Dr. Chalmers, and the discovery of his posthumous works, have given so wide a notoriety to this work that its history will need no recital. The Christian world was eager to congratulate itself upon a bequest so extensive and so promising, and expectations were formed which are probably doomed, in many cases, to not a little disappointment. The "readings" are in no sense expository or critical. They do not come within the category of the commentary. They are rather those practical thoughts which are suggested to the author by the first perusal of the passage to which they refer, and constructed more for the reader's spiritual edification than his theological or ethical instruction. The peculiarities of Chalmers' great mind, his logic, his learning, and his fervid capacious imagination, are scarcely visible here; his awkward massiveness of style only remaining to identify the work as his. But if it be Chalmers in a new aspect, it is nevertheless a most lovely and .winning aspect. The warmth and glow of feeling which pervade these "readings," the profound spirituality, and practical sagacity, and kindly tender emotion which they display, more than compensate, in a work like this, for any lack of learning or eloquence. For personal, practical perusal, with special reference to self-examination and to religious feeling, we know nothing in the whole range of religious reading, more fresh, engaging and impressive. They are so entirely unaffected, so