fold; first, in establishing the principle of substituting something else for the Primitive Faith; and then, in the errors themselves, which have been thus imposed on the conscience and belief of Christians. Neither Trent nor Westminster knows any such distinction between Faith and Opinion. Everything with them is de fide, to be believed as necessary to salvation, and to be denied at the peril of anathema. In this way, both these Systems are, constructively, guilty of Heresy And yet, there are Religious Opinions, which the Church may declare, which her faithful children will receive, and which her Ministers and teachers are bound to hold, when admitted to serve at her Altars. In the language of the Twentieth Article,

"The Church hath power to decree Rites or Ceremonies, and authority in Controversies of Faith; and yet it is not lawful for the Church to ordain anything that is contrary to God's Word written, neither may it so expound one place of Scripture, that it be repugnant to another. Wherefore, although the Church be a witness and a keeper of Holy Writ, yet, as it ought not to decree anything against the same, so besides the same ought it not to enforce anything to be believed for necessity of Salvation.".

As matter of Faith, the only things which the American branch of the Catholic Church imposes on the belief of all her members as being the Faith, are comprised in that one question at their Baptism. ***** "Dost thou believe all the Articles of the Christian Faith, as contained in the Apostles' Creed ?" Her members may believe any and every one of the Five Points of John Calvin, or they may reject them with utter abhorrence, and still be loyal Churchmen. Nay, they may hold some at least of what we believe to be the erroneous opinions of the Church of Rome, and still be sincere, truehearted members of her communion. A truly Catholic Church must, of necessity, be thus comprehensive in its spirit, or it cannot meet the wants of the human mind, with its varied tastes and tendencies. Nor, if the Pulpit is faithful to the teachings of the Desk and the Altar, is there the slightest danger in this liberty.

So also is it in respect to Organic, Institutional Christianity. Certain fundamental features are part of the organic law of the

Church, and belong, of necessity, to every integral branch of the Church, always and everywhere. And yet, every such branch of the Church has, within itself, a certain power of adaptation to the necessities of the age and times in which it lives. There can be no true Union or Unity, without the recognition of this principle. It was fully exhibited in the Primitive Church before the days of Roman ambition and usurpation, as the First great Councils clearly show. In essentials, there was Unity; in non-essentials, Liberty; in all things, Charity. So, also, in each individual Church, forming the confederate branch, while certain distinct offices and duties are assigned to certain distinct agencies, and are made binding exclusively upon them, yet the dynamic power, and the very nature of Christianity, acting upon Society in all its existing forms, will, of necessity, set in motion various Christian activities, such as we see springing up at the present day, in the Church all about us. But these are the fruits of Christianity; they are its living power, its vitalizing energy.

Such is a brief statement of the relations of the Inductive Philosophy to Christianity, and of what Development, Progress, and Civilization have to do with the Church and the Faith of Christ.

What all the lessons of the hour are, lessons for our day and time, to be drawn from the theme before us, we must leave our readers to infer for themselves. Surely, one of these lessons is, to hold fast, and to hold forth, the old Faith, as received in, and handed down by, the Church, from the very beginning. It is just what this restless, heaving, tumultuous age needs and craves. On every hand the sigh is heard, for certainty, rest, peace. Rome mocks her children, and for bread, gives them a stone; for fish, a serpent. The Protestant Sects, one and all, are showing, more and more, their utter impotence to answer this heart-cry of the multitudes.

It is the lesson, too, of unwavering confidence and trust. Surely, the ceaseless assaults of the enemy upon the holy citadel, for eighteen centuries, may teach us this. Amidst the changes which await all things else, while philosophies, and opinions, and speculations vanish away, while Science contin16*

VOL. XVIII.

ues to celebrate its triumphs, but is mute to the deeper questionings of the soul, the old Faith remains unshaken as the Everlasting Rock on which it is based. Century after century shall roll by, till time shall be no more, and the Faith shall survive all vicissitudes, still fresh, and blooming with perennial beauty, on and amid the decay of all earthly things. Before the gaze of men it stands forth, like the mountain, grand in its own simple, unadorned majesty, rising above the mists and clouds of earth, far up towards Heaven. Storms and tempests beat and rage against its base; eternal sunshine rests upon its brow. This Faith has passed through the furious conflicts of the past, unharmed. Infidelity, with all the occasional vantage ground which corruption and error and superstition have given it, and notwithstanding its noisy boasts, and though it has used and is still using every possible method of attack, has made not the slightest impression upon the citadel itself. The noblest triumphs of learning and genius, which the brightest intellects of this world can bring, are humbly laid upon its altars. It is still, and ever will be, the sure resting place of weary souls. The old Creeds, and Prayers, and Hymns, will continue to be the offering acceptable to God, until the Church militant is lost in the Church triumphant, and confessions and liturgies give place to perpetual ascriptions of adoration and praise.

ART. II.-SOUTHEY'S THALABA, A SEQUEL TO MILTON'S PARADISE LOST.*

IN an Essay written fifty years ago, by the Poet Wordsworth, we find him grieving over the then degenerate state of his countrymen, in terms which, not unhappily, describe the mind of the present day. He says:

"A multitude of causes, unknown to former times, are now acting, with a combined force, to blunt the discriminating powers of the mind and to reduce it to a state of almost savage torpor. The invaluable works of our elder writers, I had almost said, even the works of Shakespeare and Milton, are driven into neglect by frantic novels, sickly and stupid German Tragedies, and deluges of idle and extravagant stories in verse. When I think upon this degrading thirst after outrageous stimulation, I am almost ashamed to have spoken of the feeble effort with which I have endeavored to counteract it; and, reflecting upon the magnitude of the general evil, I should be oppressed with no dishonorable melancholy, had I not a * belief that the time is approaching, when the evil will be systematically opposed, by men of greater powers, and with far more distinguished success.'

This was written more than fifty years ago ;-but might it not have been written but as yesterday? Has not the evil rather increased than been checked? and, if Wordsworth, the Poet-Philosopher, would have been oppressed with a not dishonorable melancholy, have we not reason for a deeper gloom, now, when the flood-gates have been lifted, and an ocean of trashy literature, surging over the land, has so diluted and enfeebled the popular mind, that the effort to restrain the current, would be about as unavailing as Mrs. Partington's attempt to sweep back the Atlantic with a broom ;—the names, even, of the old master minds, such as Milton and Southey, if more intelligible than a Hebrew inscription or an Egyptian

* The following paper is from the pen of a Southern lady of literary distinction. It was sent to us five years ago, just at the breaking out of the late Civil War. All communication with the South being interrupted, we did not care to publish it then; we do so now with renewed pleasure; yet the reader cannot know nor fully appreciate all the sad associations which cluster around that beautiful home where these pages were indited.-ED.

hieroglyphic, being looked upon as only representatives of a class of cold-blooded, unimpassioned old fogies, utterly intolerable to the spice-craving appetites of the day.

These thoughts, and similar ones, passed through our mind forcibly, as we wrote down the heading to this Article; and we stopped and hesitated, and asked ourselves, perhaps, the very questions which that heading might suggest to other minds.

What, then, do you propose? What are you about to do? To criticise Milton and Southey? at this late period of time, to call attention to writers, upon whose merits the world, years ago, pronounced judgment? or, if they are not appreciated, if the popular mind of the day is so degenerated that it cannot reverence and do homage to the majestic strains of Milton, and admire the exquisite grace and beauty of Southey, can you hope, with your feeble efforts, to accomplish that in which they failed? It is presumption. And so it would be. And if that were our object, we should not dare to make the attempt. But it is not.

One whose own intellectual power enabled him fully to appreciate the great mind he was describing, speaks of the "Paradise Lost," as "the noblest effort of human genius," and calls Milton "the most sublime of men." The work of the panegyrist, then, has been too well done to need any retouching at our hands. Neither do we dream of criticising, nor of instituting anything like a general comparison between, Milton and Southey. They are too unlike, generally, for comparison,too unlike, in the whole structure of their minds, the whole plan of their Poems; the one, grand, stately, majestic; the other, exquisitely graceful, and surpassingly beautiful. Nor is it with the vain-glorious hope of adding to, or extending, a fame as wide-spread as the world, and which should be as everduring. Our object is a much simpler one, our hope much more humble; it is simply this.

In reading, first, the "Paradise Lost," and afterwards, 66 Thalaba," we have been much struck with, what seems to us, a striking analogy between the two; a carrying out, as it were, of one plan, a continuation of one design; and our object is, now, to point this out. It possibly may not have oc