structing them how to flow out. Poetry which is to be sung, of all Poetry, should conceal its art, and seem to have no plan. Too much inter-dependence of parts in a Hymn, makes it look artificial, and kills emotion. The thoughts must flow on in the analogical method, or rather in the method, sui generis, of the objective Poet, when kindled by his theme.

The Collection, compiled, we believe, by the Bishop of Maryland, judging by the specimen put forth, is, in many respects, an improvement upon that in our Prayer Book. But we do not think his principle of selection severe enough. Many of the Hymns are wanting in poetic treatment, and have little rhythmical attractiveness. Too many are subjective; yet there are, in the little volume, we think, many true and beautiful Hymns. We venture to specify some, which we have marked at a first perusal. Numbers 6, 14, 27, 29, 30, 31, 358, 366, 372, 375, 383, 386, 388, 389, 390, 392.

In conclusion, we repeat what we have said above; we do not think any one man capable of making such a Collection as the Church should have. Though convinced that our Canons of Criticism are true and irrefragible, yet when we address ourselves to the application, we feel our incompetency alone, and long for another's presence, to discuss the matter; thinking it possible, that our own judgment might be modified or reversed. And the explanation of this is simple. Judgment, taste, even the rhythmical ear, are not a uniform quantity, but changeable by freshness or fatigue, or pre-occupation, bodily or mental. It is especially difficult to give the relative value of that with which we are very familiar, as contrasted with what is new and strange. It seems to us that three at the least, or six at the most, would be the most competent court to adjudicate upon this question, and correct each other's mistakes, provided that they took time enough for the labor, and especially, that they addressed themselves to it with that earnestness which its importance deserves.

ART. IV.—AUTHORITY AND REASON, AND THE CATHOLIC CREEDS.

'Again let old Nicæa speak,

And for Armenian answer Greek.'

BISHOP ARTHUR CLEVELAND COXE.

ONE of the most pitiable things in the world, is to see the debate in Europe between the Romanist and the anti-Romanist parties. This is especially manifest in France, where it is carried on by means of discussion and argumentation upon their several grounds. It does seem, when we examine the Roman Catholic controversialists, that there is nothing so hateful as Reason, so destructive in every way;-it must be cast overboard, it must be completely despised and rejected as a guide in all matters of Religion. Authority is to be everything, -all in all. And then, their antagonists assail the principle of Authority; show its faults, its unsuitableness to these brilliant times, the blunders it has made in the past, and is now making, and end with glorifications of Reason as a guide, all-sufficient, unerring, infallible,-if their eulogies are to be taken literally. Not quite so infallible, we say, if from our quiet American domestic point of view, we consider the Philosophy of Comte, the Morality of Eugene Sue, Victor Hugo, and Alexander Dumas.

Now, upon these two points of Authority and Reason, and upon two kindred subjects, Tradition and the Scriptures, we certainly do think that in the United States the Church is in a position to admit the weight and power of both, to consider them as parts of the great sphere of the truth that teaches man; hemispheres, it is true, and therefore lying, one to the North, the other to the South, but not therefore antagonistic, not therefore dissevered and conflicting. We do think that our position, as a Church, enables us to take this view, that accepts them both, as we are in the primitive Christian status of absolute Church liberty, a Church, autonomous, gov

erned by the law itself has made, and by the Church authorities itself has established and elected, and yet without giving up our inheritance from the past in Doctrine and Organization, Creeds and Sacraments. Ours is the position of the Primitive and Catholic Church; ours, too, her feeling in regard to Authority and Reason, Scripture and Tradition. We are, at once, the most conservative, and the most progressive of all religious bodies. The authority of the Church, as regards Doctrine, Organization and Discipline, is most fervently esteemed among us. And, side by side with this, goes the most exceeding reverence for Holy Writ. More of the English Bible is heard, is read, is taught, is learned among us, than in any of the Societies that call themselves Churches in this land.

It is so, and it should be so. For, with us, the system of Doctrine that we have in the Book of Common Prayer, is explanatory of the Scriptures, is perfectly in accordance with them, is upheld, illustrated, enforced by them. Take this system of Doctrine, and repeat it every Lord's Day, in its main points, the whole year through,—and then along with it read, as we do, the Scriptures in the vernacular to the public, and no one shall doubt the perfect accordance of the one with the other. The highest and keenest intellect shall feel no jar, no discordance of tone between the Christian Scriptures and the Christian Faith,-the most honest, rough-spun, peasant intellect, shall rest in perfect confidence in them, as both accordant.

Hence, we have the explanation of these two strange facts in two opposite directions; the utter want of Holy Scripture in the Services of Dissenters, compared with the richness and abundance of Holy Writ in our Liturgy; and again the similar deficiency of the Roman Catholic Services,-nay, the bitter antagonism, but poorly concealed, of these last, to the reading of Holy Writ even in their own Versions. Let us imagine, if we can, the Predestination system of Calvin, in all its harshness, wrought out in a Liturgical form for the whole year through, showing itself clearly in all its peculiarities, all its practical conclusions, all the inferences as to God and Nature, as to man and woman, that can be drawn by reasoning

from it. Imagine a Liturgical System, bringing out all this, and then close by it their Clergy reading in the ears of the people the Words of our Blessed Lord, full of mercy, gentleness, and peace, the narratives of His acts of goodness and kindness, the blessed Gospels dropping as virgin honey-combs with sweetness, the Epistles, bedewed with loveliness, the Psalms of David. Who is there that sees and understands the spirit of the one great teacher of the Calvinist Sects, and then thinks upon the Spirit of the Lord, our teacher, and cannot but conclude that a Liturgy for them is impossible?

It was in the Puritanic and Presbyterian Sects of England, in the seventeenth century, a wise instinct of self-preservation that compelled them to abhor, hate, and execrate, all Liturgical Services, and, above them all, the Liturgy of the Church of England.

With regard to the Roman Catholics, the same is the fact. They have, we admit, their doctrinal system, the Medieval Popery of Hildebrand and Aquinas, wrought out into an extensive Liturgical System. The whole body of their Doctrine is in their Service Books, their Breviary, and Missal, and Pontifical, and most assiduously in the Latin Language, it is used by their Clergy and their Monastic Orders. They dare not have it in English before the people. Even the small portion of Scripture that is left in it, would dash the whole thing in pieces in the course of a few years; and the reading in the vernacular, day by day, and year by year, of so great a mass of Scriptures as was in the Services of Leo, Gelasius, and Gregory, their own Popes, from the fourth to the seventh century, would be, in these days, intolerable. It must be given up, or the System. And therefore the portion of Scriptures in the Latin Liturgy has constantly diminished, as their peculiar System of Doctrine advanced in its development. Therefore, their Services are persistently maintained in the Latin, and there is a steady antagonism to the reading and circulation of the Bible among their people in English. Only an Apostolic and Catholic Church can have a Liturgy. Only an uncorrupt Church can have the Liturgy in the language of the people,

and can read to the people such an extent of Holy Writ as the Church of England and our own have in the Services.

The Primitive Church never was afraid of the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament. In the Services of the Church they were most prominent, in the private reading of Christians, lay and clerical, and in the writings and sermons of their Clergy. The amount of Scripture to be found in the Christian authors of the first four centuries, is perfectly amazing. In fact, it is most astonishing to see in the earliest writers of the Church how much they abound with citations from the Scripture. Lord Hailes, (Sir David Dalrymple,) a laborious Scotch lawyer of the last century, distinctly proved, by actual examination, that if there were no copies of the New Testament in existence, the whole of it would be found embedded in the writings of the Christian Fathers of the first four centuries all parts of it existing in their quotations,—from the first verse of St. Matthew to the last verse of Revelations ! In truth, we must honestly say, that if the opinions of the Church Fathers of those centuries on Holy Scripture were cited to our European Romanists, without the names of their authors, they would be put down as wretched heretics, rank Protestants. And so they are, if the present practice and feeling of the Church of Rome concerning the Scriptures, be orthodox and Catholic.

The Primitive Church held, that Scripture and Tradition are perfectly in accordance within the Church. Every man in the Church of those ages, Layman and Clergyman, read the Scriptures as his chartered right, in his native language, taught his children in them, heard them read perpetually in the Church Liturgy, argued upon them, and from them, as the ultimate and final authority. Just equally did each baptized man then believe in the existence for him of the Holy Catholic Church, "the pillar and ground of the truth," whose Creeds, and Doctrines, and teachings, were true and safe, under whose authority he had placed himself, and in whose tradition he found his surest and best guide. The Eastern Church, we may say, holds these opinions to the present day.

But what shall we say about Reason and Authority? Are