measured cadence, the loud response, the solemn stillness, all concur to charm and inthral the senses, to awaken feelings too deep for utterance, and, by contrast with the harsh bustle and strife of the world, to convince the worshipper that now he has reached the climax of devotion, and here he is standing on the precincts of heaven. : On the other hand, the philosophic religionist has little sympathy with the hard, material scepticism of his recent predecessors. We no longer encounter a cold and sneering sophistry, which aims to cast darkness and doubt over all the great questions of human interest. The material has given way to the ideal; the heartless to the earnest. Man now must look within for the substantial and actual, since all without is shadow and symbol. Every impulse and thought of the soul is some emanation from the Living Source of Wisdom and every form in nature, or event in providence, is the expression of some idea of the Eternal Mind. In this way, from the finite, man ascends to the infinite; from the conditional to the absolute; from the human to the divine. The persuasion is moreover frankly avowed that we cannot live on doubts and negations, but that we need a firm and unwavering belief,-that in a living faith all the powers of the soul find unity and repose, that in proportion to the intensity of our convictions is the earnestness of our character; and that he is the real hero whose perception of some universal truth is so bright and vivid that he cannot rest until he has embodied it in the outward and permanent. Thus with the advancement of society, ritualism and rationalism have cast off much that was offensive in their earlier forms, have adopted much that is lofty and generous, and from the air of earnestness and refinement with which they are encircled, captivate the young, the imaginative, and the intellectual. The question therefore presses upon us, can we in any measure accommodate the gospel to the tendencies of our times? Can we render it more attractive by cere monial appendages, or more convincing by reducing it to a philosophical theory? To these inquiries our text furnishes an unambiguous reply. The conduct of the apostle is the best example for our imitation, and we shall act most in accordance with the will of God if we adopt the spirit of his determination; "but we preach Christ crucified; to the Jews a stumbling-block, and unto the Greeks foolishness; but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God." I. First, then, we must not corrupt the gospel by the spirit of ritualism. You will not for a moment suppose that I confound ritualism with taste, or intend that refinement is an enemy to the simplicity of the gospel. On the contrary, I believe that our buildings may be pure and graceful in style, our singing be conducted with strict regard to science and skill, and every part of our worship be agreeable to the most cultivated mind, not only without detriment, but with great advantage to our services. Elegance and propriety are not necessarily connected with formalism. But when the building is invested with a sacred character by consecration, and the priest with spiritual power by ordination,when the sacraments are deemed effectual means of salvation,-and when vestments, looks, posture, movements, are all symbolical, and are thought essential to acceptable worship, then we regard the whole as deeply imbued with the spirit we condemn, and as destructive of the spirituality of the gospel. able under the gospel, but that the simplest worship is really the best. Besides which, it must be remembered that when the Levitical system was established, mankind in general were grossly material. They worshipped stocks and stones, or the elements of nature, and all spiritual conceptions and truths appeared to have died away from their minds. To have instituted a purely spiritual worship then would have been to appoint that which was quite unsuited to the wants of the age, and which, indeed, would not have been understood. There was, therefore, great wisdom in adapting the Mosaic institutions to the existing intelligence of the world, and in seeking by visible rites and forms gradually to accustom the minds of the Jews to the more exalted conceptions of the unity of God, holiness, truth, and so forth, which are essential to a spiritual religion. But surely when the appointed lesson has been learned, and spiritual conceptions and ideas have been formed, it is hardly desirable that mankind should carry about with them the symbols and mementos of their former ignorance, or, having reached maturity, should still cling to the helps of infancy. Much rather would we adopt, as applicable to our times, the conclusion of the apostle: "When I was a child I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man I put away childish things." Moreover, the sacrifices and symbols of the ancient law were intended to foreshadow an event which is at the very basis of human salvation,-an event to which it was of the highest importance that the eyes of all should be turned with reverent faith and hope. As this event had not yet taken place, and the character which it would assume was only vaguely surmised, it could not make that impression on the mind, or find that place in the memory which it does now that all its wonders have been unfolded to our view. It was therefore of great moment that some provision should be found which would make up for this want of impression, would keep the anticipated event vividly before the recollection, and would constantly remind the worshipper, that "without shedding of blood there is no remission." But since the event has actually taken place, the sacrifice been offered, and the atonement completed, such rites and symbols have lost all their significance; they are worthless and obsolete, and "having waxed old" and answered their purpose, have utterly "vanished away." Indeed, it is important to recollect that when they were in force, they were only the means, and not the substance of religion: that even then they were not essential to the loftiest and purest devotion. The most spiritual and heavenly of David's Psalms were composed when he was a wanderer in the desert; and, when utterly deprived of these outward helps, his soul appeared to have the most close and blessed fellowship with God himself. But if they were not essential then, they would be cumbersome now, and therefore by the positive precepts of the gospel are for ever swept away. The Lord Jesus "abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances." "He blotted out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, taking it out of the way, and nailing it to the cross." He has urged us to seek to be "dead to these rudiments of the world, to touch not, taste not, handle not," and has reminded us that God is a spirit, and requires that those who worship him should "worship him in spirit and in truth." "Let us, therefore, brethren, stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage." Further: if the practice of the Jewish church lends no encouragement to a ritual worship, the practice of the early Christian church is certainly not more favourable to it. As we read the histories of the New Testament, we find that our Lord and his disciples preached the gospel and conducted their worship without symbol and without form. The place in which they assembled appeared a matter of indif ference: sometimes it was the temple or synagogue, sometimes the mountain side or the seashore, sometimes the retired oratory by the river's bank, and more frequently the upper-room in some ordinary dwelling. If only they enjoyed the presence of God, they cared not for aught beside. The nature of their services differed no less completely from the ritual services of the Old Dispensation. We hear of their prayers, adapted to the circumstances of the hour,—of their singing psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs, of their preaching, and teaching, sometimes to an advanced hour of the night, of their communion and breaking of bread, and of their baptizing the households of recent converts; but in vain do we search for any traces of form or ceremony alternating with this beautiful simplicity. In the times which immediately followed, the same absence of everything showy and ritual was observable, whilst the brief account which Pliny gives to the Emperor Trajan respecting the practices of the believers whom he was persecuting, coincides with the early Christian records, and proves that in his day they were strangers to that symbolical teaching and worship, which multitudes are now anxious to engraft upon Christianity. senses, and feel that it is in the presence of the Eternal; the less it is distracted by the outwardly fair and beautiful, and the more intensely it gazes on the Divine character, and is entranced with the Divine love, the more thoroughly does it realize the perfection of Christian worship, and the more acceptable is the sacrifice which it presents before God. Ritual worship may please the taste, may excite the imagination, and may awaken sentimental feeling, while the heart is completely worldly and impure; and the deluded worshipper may go away with the impression that he has performed an exceedingly religious act, when his offering has been very vanity;-but sincere worship is the spirit in union with God, awed and delighted by his holiness and truth, his majesty and love, and pouring forth its adorations and confessions, its gratitude and joy, its confidence and hope, into his condescending and loving breast. In a word, the more purely mental the offering is, the less alloyed by sensible and material admixtures,the more fitted it is for the acceptance of Him who is a Spirit, and who regards not the outward form, but the state and feelings of the heart. As to the grosser opinion, that an outward rite performed by a validly ordained minister produces of itself a spiritual effect on the heart, I can only say that it is as contrary to all the laws of the human mind as it is to the whole tenour of Scripture; and that it would be as reasonable to expect to work a chemical change by argument, as a moral and spiritual change by a physical act. Or if it still be said that the result is produced by the Holy Ghost, which invariably attends the due administration of such rites, then, without appealing to experience which flatly contradicts the assertion, I would simply reply, that God always works by the most appropriate means, In truth those who are so eager for the adoption of rites and ceremonies, appear to have mistaken the very nature of real religion and of Christian worship. True piety consists in the enlightenment and renewal of the mind,-in holy principles and holy affections,-in faith, hope, love,-forming an inward spring of purity and life, from which flow forth streams of obedience, benevolence, and zeal. Public worship is the concentration of all these thoughts and feelings and desires of the inner man in one act of devout homage,-the living voice, that link of connection between mind and mind, awakening the chord of sym--that material or bodily performances pathy, and rendering the emotions of a thousand hearts harmonious and one; and hence the more completely the soul can escape from the dominion of the are perfectly unsuited to move the mind, and that, as no really unequivocal tests can be adduced in support of the opinion, whilst the whole spirit of the Bible is against it, we must take leave to regard it as a human invention, equally fraught with folly and with danger. but must still preach Christ crucified in all simplicity, as alone the wisdom and power of God! I can only glance at an argument which is sometimes used, viz., that God has taught us Christianity by means of facts; that all the elements of the gospel were enveloped in the life and death of our Lord; and that since we have a Divine precedent for embodying truth in external forms, it cannot now be wrong to teach religion and awaken devotion through the medium of the visible and ritual. But this is most extraordinarily to confound facts with symbols. Facts are the natural, outward expressions of principles, passions, or ideas; they startle or subdue by their grandeur or their tenderness; they have ever been the incentives to action, the sources of heroic deeds. But symbols and rites are merely artificial representations of acknowledged truths,-need themselves to be explained, Finally: ceremonial worship has a fatal tendency to sink into mere formalism, in which outward acts are thought to atone for the absence of inward purity, and which allows a man to be very worldly and sensual, and yet to be very religious. If we revert to the days of polytheism and idolatry, we find that piety consisted not in the subdual of the passions, or in virtue of life, but in the performance of appointed rites, and in the presentation of numerous sacrifices. The same infatuation appears to have crept into the minds of the Jewish nation, who still persisted in the prescribed ceremonial, when their lives were disgraced by the most scandalous wickedness, and who received, in consequence, the burning rebuke: "Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with: it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting." Nor need I add, that the history of Christian ritualism has been a history of pollution identifies nature with art,-places in and crime; and that, at the time of the the same category events and pictures, Reformation, it had become so intole--and makes no distinction between subrable, as to have prepared the public mind for the great work which was then achieved. Mankind are ever ready to perform sacrifices, if they may retain their sins,—to go through outward ceremonies, if their passions may continue unsubdued; and hence ritualism has always been welcomed as a charming expedient for reconciling conscience and inclination, and for enabling a man to gratify his propensities without abjuring religion. and no more resemble facts than do living scenes the imitation of them in painting and sculpture. So that this argument confounds things which differ, stance and shadow. Equally brief must be my reference to the remark that Christianity ought to subordinate to its purposes, and employ in its service, all that is precious and beautiful in creation,—that workmanship and art, taste and learning, should all concur to do it homage,—and that it is a libel on the gospel to say that it repudiates the æsthetic and ornate. Some of our preceding observations have proved that we are by no means enemies to taste and refinement, that in their proper place we believe that they may be rendered subsidiary to truth. But surely it is no disgrace to Christianity, that in its most hallowed services it lightly values the materially and artistically beautiful, simply because it is fixing the mind on beauties infinitely higher and more sublime. We would not be considered derogatory to the taste of the WE may consider the year before us as a desk containing 365 letters addressed to us; one for every day, announcing its trials and prescribing its employments, with an order to open daily no letter, but the letter for the day. Now we may be strongly tempted to unseal, beforehand, some of the remainder. however, would serve only to embarrass us, while we should violate the rule which our owner and master has laid down for us: Take, therefore, no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought of the things for itself."-Jay. This, THE DANGER OF COLDNESS IN RELIGION. COLDNESS is a far more dangerous extreme than too much heat. The one may consist with real goodness, nay, may be the consequence of real goodness, commixing with a perturbed imagination, or an ill-formed judgment. But coldness can be resolved only into an absolute want of feeling. Enthusiasm is excess, but coldness is want of vitality. The enthusiast, in a moral respect, is insane, which implies a possibility of recovery, and a partial recurrence of reason; but the cold person is like an idiot, in whom reason never shows itself, and in whom convalescence is desperate. Professors of Christianity, members of churches, ponder gravely this solemn thought, are you lukewarm, cold, or hot?-Anon. VOL. XXVII. INTENSE AFFLICTIONS. THERE are sorrows, and there are misfortunes which bow down the spirit beyond the aid of all human comfort. There are afflictions, there are privations, where the hopes are irrecoverably blasted, and leave no prospect of retrieval ;when I would no more say to the mourner, "Man, wherefore weepest thou?" than I would ask the winds why they blow, or the tempest why it raged. Sorrows like these are sacred.-Kirke White. A FINE SENTIMENT. THERE is a system of philosophy, which, for myself, I shall not only preach but practise. We are here for nobler purposes than to waste the fleeting moments of our lives in lamentations and wailings over troubles which, in their widest extent, do but affect the present state, and which, perhaps, only regard our ease and prosperity. Make me an outcast-a beggar; place me a barefooted pilgrim on the top of the Alps or the Pyrenees, and I should have wherewithal to sustain the spirit within me, in the reflection, that all this was but as for a moment, and that a period would come when wrong, and injury, and trouble, should be no more.-Ibid. AN IMPORTANT EXPOSTULATION. ARE we to be so utterly enslaved by habit and association, that we shall spend our lives in anxiety and bitter care, only |