human Art. Not, indeed, in the presence of elaborately or superstitiously observed formalities, any more than amidst fanatical noise and excitement, can we think that the Spirit of God most effectually visits the waiting soul, or lets the 'still, small voice' of His presence be most clearly and touchingly heard within the heart. It is rather in the hour of quiet and lonely meditation that this will come to pass :when we think with penitence about our past sins, when we reflect upon the duties we have to do, and how best we may do them, when we strive and pray to give ourselves up to all God's will concerning us; then will the communion of His Holy Spirit be ours; 'the grace of Jesus Christ' be with us, and the Divine Love be shed upon us. Then, too, shall we know that we are true disciples of His Son, acceptable servants and children of our Father which is in Heaven." LV.-REVERSIONS AND DEGENERATIONS WITH REFERENCE TO CONCEPTIONS OF THE ATONING SACRIFICE. Not less and less, but more and more, the entire public Worship of Roman (and Greek) Catholicism is becoming one unceasing "Mass"; a perpetually reoffered Sacrifice of the body and blood of Christ upon the Altars of Cathedrals and Churches: without participation in which no human soul can be saved. Not less and less, but more and more, the Anglican and Protestant Episcopal Churches are tending to this same reversion and degeneration. Rarely now can be found a Communion Table; all are "Altars." Rarely now do we hear of a preacher, or a prophet, or even of a minister; all are "Priests." All the paraphernalia, and ceremonies, and vestments, and Altar-adornments, and fastings, and genuflections of Romanism are slowly but surely creeping into the Anglican and Episcopal Churches all over Great Britain and America, and their outlying Mission Fields in common. They call it the "enrichment" of their services. Among the "Denominations" or "Sects" there is, happily, an almost universal tendency upward-instead of downward -in this regard. We must except, however, the Revival istic Sects and the Salvation Army, and similar organizations whose singing, preaching, and praying are all about "the atoning blood "—even more than ever. Correcting Quotations. "On the subject of the death of Christ, it may be enough to remind the reader that this is nowhere in the New Testament, or in the Apostolic Church, represented as possessed of a propitiatory or expiatory efficacy, in the old heathen sense of such expressions. It was simply the Providential means by which the admission of the Gentile world was secured to the faith of the Gospel. The phraseology in which it is spoken of is, indeed, at times very largely figurative-arising naturally out of the Levitical ideas and institutions of the Jews. But, while this is true, one literal fact is usually expressed by it. That fact is what has just been stated-not the incredible doctrine that the All-merciful God, in His wrath,' required to be propitiated by the death of an innocent victim; nor the equally incredible doctrine that Christ's death has redeemed men from everlasting sufferings in hell, because he has borne their punishment, and thus given 'satisfaction' to Infinite Justice. No such barbarous ideas as these are anywhere either plainly stated in the New Testament, or veiled and conveyed, as in a parable, under its more figurative expressions. "It follows by necessary consequence, that the Romanist and high Anglican doctrine of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, as also the common doctrine of the 'Atoning Blood,' are perversions of Christianity and reversions to Paganism. All these miserable animosities and controversies to which these doctrines have given origin have been only so much energy misapplied and wasted, or worse. There is no Scriptural evidence whatever, no evidence at all which rises above the character of early Christian superstition, by which the Lord's Supper can be shewn to be of the nature of a sacrifice for sin, requiring to be perpetually renewed by a sacrificing priest.' There is no evidence, in truth, worthy of the name, by which it can be shewn to be anything else, in its institution and nature, but a simple service of devout commemoration. Do this in remembrance of me,' are the words of Christ himself, when he founded the rite. Whatever, in modern doctrines concerning it or concerning the nature of Christ's death, passes beyond this, in form or in spirit, can only be set down as misunderstanding, or as the inherited remains of ancient error." LVI.-REVERSIONS AND DEGENERATIONS WITH REFERENCE TO ARCHITECTURE AND ADORNMENTS AS CON STITUTING A CHURCH. When the Disciples directed their Master's attention to the magnificent Temple in Jerusalem, they doubtless still retained some of the prevalent conception that the value, or truth, of a religion is signified, if not measured, by its external glory and show. The Master quickly rebuked this erroneous conception by his pointed reply: "Not one stone shall be left upon another." Never were the externalities of the Jewish Church-Temple, Synagogues, throngs of devoted worshippers, immense offerings of the rich, zeal for Orthodoxy and for Ritual and for the True Church-so magnificent or flourishing or intense. And yet all was "a whitewashed Sepulchre full of dead men's bones." So may it be in all days, and to-day and here. Certain it is that, everywhere, chief emphasis is now being placed on finely constructed and adorned church edifices; and more and more so. If you have not these you are nobody; having these you have (practically) everything! Grinding demands upon the purses of poor and rich alike are made to secure these; and crushing burdens of debt are imposed, rendering the one unceasing object of the Church seemingly to be-to raise money! And with it all, so often, a decrease of Spiritual Life! As our Prophet-Bishop used so often to exclaim: "All this complicated Machinery and magnificent Equipment of the Christian Church, while the fires beneath are smouldering or gone out!" If this be true, or in proportion as it is true, of any Church it is surely reverting and becoming de generate. And "not one stone shall be left upon another that shall not be thrown down." Said Epictetus: "If you have a mind to adorn your city by consecrated monuments, first consecrate in yourselves that most beautiful of all monuments, a character formed to purity, justice, and benevolence. Not by raising magnificent temples will you confer the greatest benefits upon mankind, but by exalting magnificent souls. Do not variegate the structure of your walls with Eubæan and Spartan stones only, but adorn yourselves with culture and virtue, for God is honored by the characters of those who worship him, not by wood or stone." The original church was the people without reference to the place; they might meet in an upper room, in a private house, beneath a tree, in an open field, in a cave or cavern of the earth, it was all the same a church :—not it but they, the people assembled. To such churches as these Paul wrote all his letters; and through the agency of such churches,not aided by magnificent piles of architecture, nor by architecture of any sort, but aided simply by the enthusiasm of Humanity and of the Divine Spirit which had taken complete possession of them-through the agency of such, houseless, homeless, roofless churches, (assemblies of devout people, organized and co-operating for devout purposes), was brought about that wonderful reformation of the first and second centuries we call the introduction and propagation of Christianity. LVII.-REVERSIONS AND DEGENERATIONS WITH REFER- When the tempter said to Jesus "If thou be the Son of God cast thyself down," he simply proposed to him the adoption of the popular methods of degenerate Religions the world over. By parade, trick, or show, attract the crowd and secure success! Wherever, whenever, or howsoever this is done it is a yielding to the Devil, and is a reversion to Heathenism. Elaborate Ritual is only a more refined form of that many-formed Sensationalism by which the Church. and Religion are made popular so as to catch and please the masses. This is the "wide gate and broad way that leads to" Degeneration; "and many there be that go in thereat." Correcting Quotations. "In the ruder stages of national and individual life, men are educated religiously by and through the aid of sensuous imagery, either in outward embodiment, or in those ceremonial observances which suggest and typify the inward and recondite truths aimed at,-which Paganism everywhere uses, which with a nicer application and a wiser forelook made up the Hebrew polity, and which the Church of Rome now so largely retains in her ritual,-or in those less gross and ideal forms which make the staple of our modern creeds and practices; and it remains yet a profound problem, whether, dispensing with them, society could have attained the spiritual culture and intellectual elevation which now characterize it. Yet, with all the admitted advantages which have flowed from such a machinery, it has been liable to the most serious abuse, when not closely watched and guarded by divine counteractants, in landing the devotee into the depths of a degraded and besotted idolatry. The reason is apparent between the idea or truth aimed at, and the human mind on which it is to be impressed, stands the symbol, the rite, the agency, the instituted means; by ceremony, by picture, by cross, by altar, by temple, by whatever of sensuous appliance designed to aid the imagination and impress the sensibilities, which tradition or custom may have introduced and sanctioned. Here intervening as by authority, they gain for themselves a lodgment, which gradually obscures the truth they were originally designed to symbolize; and so the agency supplants the principle, and what was intended as the scaffolding comes in process of time to be regarded as the building. And, by a degeneracy easily understood, the imagination dominates every other faculty, and leads to the worship of the altar, instead of God; the cross, instead |