Part 11 — CHAPTER XX.

THREE SONGS.

Halcyon was sold, taking Dick Rowan with him. From New York, Dick was to sail immediately, on a three years’ voyage, in the Edith Yorke. The captain did not say definitely what his own plans were, perhaps did not know them himself. “I did think of settling down on shore,” he said to Mrs. Yorke. “But one person doesn’t make a home, and all my people are dead. I’d half a mind to ask Rowan to take me as a passenger. He has a splendid ship.”

They were all in the garden that last evening but one. Edith sat on a bench beside Melicent, and looked intently at Dick Rowan, who was talking with Clara and Mrs. Yorke. She was thinking over all his goodness, all his affection for her, studying his personal beauty, his frank, bright face and athletic form, and trying to excite in herself some enthusiasm regarding him. Carl stood near, listening to, but not joining in, the conversation. She compared the two young men. Their height, their form, were very nearly the same; but Carl had the proud and measured tread of one bred to the parlor and the promenade, Dick the free and springing step of the mountaineer. This was distinctive, yet each had moods like the other. On the deck of his own ship, the sailor trod like a king; and the man of the world could bound as lightly up a steep, or vault as lightly over an obstacle, as though his life had been spent in athletic sports. Dick Rowan’s eyes sparkled like the ripples of at people, not through them; Carl’s careless glance could become piercing and keen as a two-edged blade. It was useless to compare them, the one as direct and transparent as a child, the other noble, indeed, yet subtle, as one aware of the world’s ways, and guarded at every point.

“I must be very hard and cold,” Edith thought, finding herself unmoved, in spite of her efforts. “Or, perhaps, it may be because I have always known and been sure of him.”

Looking her way, Dick met that steady gaze, and flushed with pleasure. If the expression was grave and regretful, what then? Were they not about to part? He led Mrs. Yorke to her, and the others followed, to make arrangements “for a sail they were to have the next day.”

“You had better wear dresses that wetting will not hurt,” Dick said; “for you will be likely to get a little scud-water in your laps.”

“And, pray, what is scud-water?” Mrs. Yorke asked.

Dick explained that it was spray blown off.

“How pretty!” exclaimed Clara. “You may fill my lap with it.”

They separated again, and Dick was left with Edith.

“What shall I bring you from Calcutta?” he asked.

“Bring me Dick Rowan safe back again,” was the answer.

Both were silent a little while, then he spoke in a quiet voice: “Ask God to do that, Edith. He has been so good to us, I think he will refuse nothing.”

She looked at him wistfully. “Are you very happy, Dick?”

“Happy!” he exclaimed. “Dear, my very finger-nails shine! Edith, I am so happy that I should be afraid, if I would allow myself to be. But, no; I will trust God when he gives me joy, as well as when he gives me pain.”

While they talked, Mrs. Yorke was walking aside with Clara, and questioning her. “What is the matter with Captain Cary?” she asked. “He has grown very sober lately.”

Clara laughed, rather consciously. “How should I know, mamma?”

Mrs. Yorke looked displeased. “I wish for a frank answer,” she said. “What is the meaning of this? It isn’t possible that there has been any trifling on your part!”

The girl blushed deeply, but told what little there was to tell, including that unlucky question: “How would you like to be a sailor’s wife?”

“He hadn’t the slightest personal meaning, mamma,” Clara added hastily, seeing her eyes open with something like a flash. “He told Edith afterward that it was a slip of the tongue.”

“Then why should not that have been the end of the matter?” Mrs. Yorke asked, rather peremptorily. “You had but to assume that such a thing was impossible, not to be thought of, and be just as courteous to him as before.”

“But you see, mamma,” Clara replied, looking a little frightened, “it isn’t as impossible as it is unlikely. Stranger things have happened in the world, and will again, and the world is and will be no worse for them. You know I have never been able to acquire the fine art of assuming that ninety-nine facts make a truth.”

“My dear,” said the mother with

Clara’s eyes were suffused with tears. “I think that you misunderstand me, mamma,” she said in a low voice. “I was never in my life so much pleased to have any one like me.”

Mrs. Yorke stopped, and looked at her daughter in astonishment.

“Oh! I know all that you would say, mamma,” the girl went on, half laughing, half weeping. “He is a sailor, which is as if a bird should say, ‘He is a fish.’ He has only a common-school education, as far as books go, and he has none of our ways. But all that doesn’t make his esteem any less worth having. Men of the world often give only a tame, half affection, and are, perhaps, almost sorry when they are accepted. They think of themselves, they think of a thousand other things: he would think of me. When Edith sang, the other evening,

‘Oh! wert thou in the cauld blast,

I saw his eyes fill with tears. He would take all the roughness, and danger, and hardship, I know. But men of the world are as dainty as women. If they give us the inside of the pavement, and let us enter a room first, they have gone the length of their chivalry. Then, there is the effect on myself. In the society of such a man”—glancing to where Captain Cary stood—“I should be gentle and feminine. But with the wilted specimens of humanity I see ordinarily, I am in imminent danger of becoming a strong-minded woman. One must keep up a balance, mamma, and it is weak men make bold women.”

Mrs. Yorke sank on to a bench. “What do you mean to do? What am I to think?” she exclaimed.

Clara laughed. “Don’t be afraid, mamma. If this Neptune should offer himself to me—he will not!—I should refuse him, and then cry my eyes out afterward. But if he should take me by force, pirate-fashion, and run away with me, so that I could not help myself nor be responsible, I should be delighted. Now, don’t say any more about it, please.”

Mrs. Yorke threw off her fears with a shrug of the shoulders. It was a mere theory. It was one of Clara’s enthusiasms. “Well, my dear,” she concluded, rising, “all I have to add is that I hope your admiration of the rough diamond will not lead you to consume it in the blowpipe.”

And so the subject dropped.

“There is a party of Indians camping out on the Point,” Mr. Yorke said to them that evening. “You might find it interesting to visit them to-morrow. I met one in the woodland, this morning, cutting down a tree for basket-wood. I asked him who gave him permission to cut trees on my land. ‘It was all ours once,’ he growled out, and gave me a look that I shouldn’t like to meet, unless I had friends near. I told him to take all he wanted.”

The little sailing-party, only six with a sailor from the Halcyon as assistant, started early in the afternoon. The crew of the Halcyon gave beaded and fringed, that air of superb repose and unconsciousness which civilization only imitates, but does not attain—all were fascinating and unique. He stood one moment as some exquisite bronze, then stepped lightly over the springy moss, lifted the fold of a tent, and disappeared. This was her brother, Philip Nicola, the little girl told the ladies, and her name was Malie. Edith gave the child an Indian prayer-book, prepared by their patlias; then the party embarked again, spread their sail to the breeze, and sped down the bay.

Dick Rowan, standing to unfurl the sail, sang out joyously, in a clear, ringing voice, an old French song:

Edith turned her head aside, and watched their sparkling wake subside to a milky path. If she was pleased, no one could see. But as they approached that low, sandy island that three of them had visited before, she rose, and leaned on Dick’s arm, and gazed on it with him.

“God have mercy on him!” they whispered; and both Dick and the captain removed their hats, and remained uncovered till they had passed by. The others did not know what it meant, but they asked no question, and soon all was gay again.

They landed a few miles down the bay, wandered awhile on the shore, took their luncheon there, and sat to see the sun go down, reddening all the water. Then a bright pallor succeeded, tingling with unseen stars, and the bay became a silver mirror. The breeze went down with the sun, and only a soft breath out of the

As the light increased, they saw a speck on the water, and, leaning low, Captain Cary espied Philip Nicola in a bark canoe, dancing across the bay, skimming the water like a bird. The imp of mischief, or of vanity, seemed to possess the fellow. He shot across their prow, so near as almost to catch the foam it threw up, he zigzagged ahead of them, he slid into their wake on one side, and flew past them on the other. Lastly, he dropped far behind, and they heard him singing over the water. The song was some wild chant in his own language, piercingly sweet, and full of a barbarous pathos and power. As they listened, convention dropped from them like a garment. They were simple children of nature, and creation was full of mysteries for them.

A golden splendor filled the east, a disk of burning gold showed above the woods, and kindled their feathery tops, a crinkling flame ran round every ripple of the bay, and their prow tossed off sparks instead of foam. Then the moon sailed majestically upward, and made an enchanted day about them. As she rose, the blue of the sky drew back, like the fold of a curtain, and left a pathway of mellow light for her feet.

Not a word was said by any one. The scene was too beautiful for praise. Edith and Carl sat opposite each other, and Dick Rowan stood between them, leaning against the mast, and looking down on that fair head with its crown of braids. She leaned over the boat-side, and trailed her hand in the water, nor spoke a word, nor once lifted her eyes. As the water-lily, growing to maturity through unconscious sun and dew, when its appointed sunrise comes, shines through all its snowy petals, and opens to disclose another sun hidden within its folded whiteness, so her soul, now its time was come to know itself and be known, stirred through all its calm reserves and unconsciousness at the sound of that savage chant. She forgot, for the time, all that was cramping in her life, and had a new sense of freedom and joy.

The song ceased. They neared the Point, and a path of crimson trembled out from the camp-fire there and crossed the moonlight. Clara leaned, and whispered to Carl. He hesitated a moment, then, with a gesture that showed a sort of defiant resolution, acquiesced in her demand. Carl seldom sang, and, when he did, it was for the words rather than the music, and his style was that of an improvisator. He sang:

Some sharp sound, like breath drawn through teeth, was heard, and Melicent cried out, “Mr. Rowan!”

They looked just in time to see Dick’s white face as he staggered backward. His eyes closed, and, before they could reach him, he fell over the boat-side, with a heavy splash, and sank.

Captain Cary threw off his coat, and was overboard in a second, and soon they saw him bearing up a pallid face on his arm. “Haul in sail, and row ashore!” he called out, and himself struck out for the Point, which they were close upon.

Philip Nicola met him there, and the other men came down, and, when the party had stepped on shore, Dick was in one of the tents. Captain Cary came out to meet them. “He has come to,” he said, “and will soon be all right. But you had better go home. I will stay and take care of him. He doesn’t wish to go up now.”

“I must see him, I shall certainly see him,” Edith said resolutely, stepping forward.

“I wouldn’t to-night, Miss Edith,” the sailor replied, standing in her way. “He doesn’t feel like talking.”

“I shall go in!” she said, and waved him aside, and went into the tent.

Dick Rowan lay on the low pallet, with his face turned away and hidden in his arms. Edith knelt beside him. “Dick!” she said, in an imploring voice.

He started slightly. “Don’t speak to me! Please go home now,” he said. “I don’t want to talk.”

“I mean to be true to you, Dick,” she sobbed, without rising. “I will never see nor speak to any one you wish me to avoid. I will go away with you this time, if you say so.”

His only reply was to bid her go. “Give me time to think,” he said, “I will tell you afterward.” And there was no way for her but to go.

“I am going to walk home,” Carl said, and started off through the woods.

When, the next morning early, they sent down to the village for news, the Halcyon had sailed, and Dick Rowan had sailed in her.

THE PROTESTANT RULE OF FAITH[108]

Neither our space nor our leisure permits us to review the entire volume, or to discuss the author’s system in its several bearings; a better opportunity to do that will be presented when we have the completed work before us, of which only the first volume has as yet been published. We shall confine ourselves for the present to a single question, namely, the Protestant rule of faith. The author devotes the entire Chapter V. of his Introduction to the statement and refutation, as he understands it, of the

The author is not very clear and definite in his statement of the Protestant rule of faith. He says (p. 150), “All Protestants agree in teaching that ‘the Word of God as contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments is the only infallible rule of faith and practice’;” but from his assertion of the right of private judgment and several of his objections to the Catholic rule, we may, without danger of error, take the Protestant rule of faith to be the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, or the Bible interpreted by private judgment—that is, interpreted without any public or catholic authority—as the Protestant rule or standard of faith. But this is rather the denial than the assertion of a rule, because it presents no rule or standard to which private judgment must conform in order to be anything but naked opinion. The Bible, even conceding its divine inspiration and sufficiency, cannot be the rule or standard for private judgment, if it is to be interpreted by private judgment, for that would require private judgment to judge what the faith is, before it has any rule by which to judge what it is. The Protestant doctrine confounds the rule of faith with the place of faith, and private judgment with individual judgment. In private judgment, the individual judges by no objective rule or standard, and his judgment is purely subjective, and is worth nothing even for himself; but an individual judgment is not necessarily private, for it may be by a rule or standard common to all men, what we call a public or catholic rule. A judgment dictated by reason, or the reason which is common to all men and the same in all, is not a private but a public judgment, and binds all men to whose knowledge it comes as much as it does the individual who renders it. Men may sin against reason as well as against faith. Men are bound to exercise their reason, the reason common to all men, in all questions submitted to reason or within its province, and are bound to do so in interpreting the Bible so far as its interpretation comes within the province of reason, and may abide by its decisions, unless overruled by a higher authority—as the lawyer has the right to abide by his own judgment of the meaning of a statute, or as to what the law is, till the court decides against him; but private judgment is a private opinion, and binds nobody.

Dr. Hodge holds that the Scriptures contain not all the revelation Christ and his apostles made, but all that is now extant. But, even if so, his doctrine only makes them the place of faith; it tells where the faith is, but not what it is. They may be the fountain, but they cannot be the rule or standard, of faith. The rule is precisely that which is necessary to enable us to draw the faith from the

Dr. Hodge makes it a grave objection to the church that she does not allow private judgment as a rule of faith; yet it is only as against the church or Catholics that he himself allows it. When his aim is to destroy Catholic faith or to detach Catholics from their fidelity to the church, he asserts the unrestricted right of private judgment; but, when he wishes to build up faith or to establish Protestantism as a positive doctrine, he restricts it, and confines it to the regenerate. It is not every one who is free to interpret the faith or the Scriptures according to his own private judgment; but only those who have been regenerated, and are enlightened and led by the Holy Ghost. But even this does not help him, for he has no public or catholic rule by which to determine who are or who are not regenerated, and the individual himself has only his own private judgment by which to test the spirits, and to determine whether the spirit by which he is led is the spirit of truth or the spirit of error. The blessed Apostle John tells us not to believe every spirit, but to try the spirits, for there are many false prophets gone out into the world. Now, what is wanted is an objective test or touchstone of truth by which to try the spirits. This cannot be the subjective leadings of the spirit, for they are precisely what is to be tested in order to determine that they are from God, and not from the enemy of souls taking the guise of an angel of light in order to deceive. The learned professor, then, even with the restriction of private judgment to the regenerate, and the assumption of the interior assistance and guidance of the Spirit, though contradicting himself, gets no rule of faith, and has at best only the place of faith.

The learned author is aware that the Bible interpreted by private judgment is no rule, at least no adequate rule, of faith, and so he seeks to supply its deficiency by tradition. He says, “Protestants admit there has been a stream of traditionary teaching flowing through the Christian church from the day of Pentecost to the present time. This tradition is so far a rule of faith that nothing contrary to it can be true. Christians do not stand isolated, holding each his own creed. They constitute one body, having one creed. Protestants admit that there is a common faith of the church, which no man is at liberty to reject, or can reject and be a Christian” (pp. 113, 114). This would seem to make the Protestant rule not the Bible interpreted by private judgment and private illumination, but the Bible interpreted by the traditionary teaching of the church or the common faith of the Christian body. This, if it meant anything, would be fatal to Protestantism. The author says (ubi supra), “Christians constitute one body with a common creed. Rejecting this creed, or any of its parts, is the rejection of the fellowship of Christians, incompatible with the communion of saints or membership in [of] the body of Christ.” It is undeniable that the Catholic Church included at the epoch of the Reformation the whole Christian body, except those cut off from that body as heretics and schismatics; and it is equally undeniable that the Reformers

But the author would avoid this conclusion by making the tradition he concedes mean nothing, or at least nothing tangible. When Protestants speak of the common consent of Christians, he says (p. 115), “they understand by Christians the true people of God,” that is, “the truly regenerate, holy men, the temples of the Holy Ghost.” They understand not a public external organic body, but an invisible and inorganic body of believers, confined to no one external communion, that is, men who belong to what Catholic theologians call “the soul of the church.” Yet even these prior to Protestantism were, if not the whole body of Catholics, in the Catholic Church, and held firmly, and more firmly than others, the very creed, or the very parts of it, which Protestants reject as Roman or Papal corruption. Even conceding this restriction, the author would hardly be able to avoid the conclusion that Protestants do reject the common creed of the true people of God, for these true people of God, whoever they might be, were included in the visible Catholic Church, and held its faith. But let this pass. How is the Protestant to ascertain who these people are? Or how ascertain what is their creed or common faith, if he does not determine it by the creed publicly professed by the external or visible church in which they are concealed?

Here is a grave difficulty, and much graver than our Protestant professor would seem to regard it. The Scriptures interpreted by unregenerate men, he holds, are no rule or criterion of faith; it is only the private judgment of the regenerate, of those who are led by the Spirit, that is to be heeded, and the common faith of all such, the true people of God, is obligatory, and the faith which no one can reject in whole or in part and be a Christian. But we cannot avail ourselves of their traditionary teaching or common consent as a rule of faith, or for the interpretation of Scripture, unless we know who they are. But, as they are not an outward visible public body, but an invisible, inorganic, and, so to speak, a private body, we cannot know who they are without some rule or criterion by which we can distinguish them from the ungodly, or from those who, according to St. Augustine, are in the church, but not of the church. Hence the difficulty. We must have, prior to the application of the Protestant rule, another rule, a catholic rule, by which to determine and apply it. We cannot use the Protestant rule unless we know what it is, and we cannot know what it is without a prior rule for determining who are the true people of God, the elect, and what is their common creed, or traditionary teaching from the day of Pentecost down to our times. But our learned professor has neglected to give us this antecedent rule, without which the one he gives us is no rule at all. He gives no mark or sign by which we can recognize the invisible people of God, and we do not think he can; for we do not believe anybody knows or will know who they are till the last judgment, when the secrets of all hearts will be laid open.

It will not do here to refer us to the Bible for the rule by which to ascertain them; for we must know

The author, as we have seen, says: “When Protestants plead the common consent of Christians—the common faith of the Christian body—they mean by Christians the true people of God. Romanists, on the other hand,” he continues, “mean the company of those who profess the true faith, and who are subject to the Pope of Rome. There is the greatest difference between the authority due to the common faith of truly regenerate, holy men, the temples of the Holy Ghost, and that due to what a society of nominal Christians profess to believe, the great majority of whom may be worldly, immoral, and irreligious.” But where did the professor learn that the authority of the teaching depends on the personal virtue of the teacher? How does he know that they who recognize the authority of the Pope are only nominal Christians? or that the Pope is not led and assisted by the Spirit in his office of teacher of the universal church? Nay, how does he know, or how can he prove to us or anybody else, that there are any of the true people of God among Protestants at all? He must prove his rule of faith before proceeding to apply it.

Dr. Hodge continues, on the same page (115): “The common consent for which Protestants plead concerns only essential doctrines; that is, doctrines which enter into the very nature of Christianity as a religion, and which are necessary to its subjective existence in the heart, or which, if they do not enter essentially into the religious experience of believers, are so connected with vital doctrines and precepts as not to admit a separation from them.”

Here is the same difficulty again. What is the Protestant rule for distinguishing among revealed doctrines those which are essential and those which are not essential? Will the author tell us the essentials are those doctrines which all Protestants agree in teaching, and that those in which they do not agree in teaching are non-essentials? But who are Protestants? All those who agree in teaching the essentials? Where is the hoe? With the harrow. Where is the harrow? With the hoe. This would be only to adopt the principle of poor Jack’s replies to the questions of his master.

But no. The essentials are “those doctrines which enter into the very nature of Christianity as a religion, and which are necessary to its subjective existence in the heart.” But how determine what these are, unless we know the very nature of Christianity? And how can we know or Discourses on Religion, addressed to the Cultivated among its Despisers, maintains that only the sense of dependence is necessary to the subjective existence of religion; Twesten, as cited by the author, maintains the same, and that in a subjective sense all religions are equally true, though not equally pure; some Protestants place the essence of religion in reverence; Dr. Channing seemed to place it in philanthropy, or in a sense of the dignity of man; others in “self-culture,” in “self-worship”; and a distinguished Protestant minister maintained to us, some years ago, that a pantheist, like Spinoza, or an atheist, like Shelley, might not only be truly religious, but a good Christian. There are thousands and thousands in all Protestant denominations who, virtually at least, regard the subjective existence of religion in the heart as nearly, if not totally, independent of all objective doctrines or faith. Such is at least the tendency of modern Evangelicalism, Bushnellism, Beecherism, and from which even our author himself is not always free. He makes, indeed, a brave fight for dogmatic theology or objective faith, but his concessions to Whitfieldian and Wesleyan notions of religious experience place him on the declivity to pure religious subjectivism. All these have the Scriptures, and profess to take them for their rule of faith and practice; but it is evident from what we have said that the Scriptures are not a sufficient rule by which to determine what are essentials and what are not. What rule, then, have Protestants by which to make the distinction?

Dr. Hodge says, in refutation of the Catholic rule, which, by the way, he does not correctly state: “Our Lord, in promising the Spirit to guide his people into the knowledge of truths necessary to their salvation, did not promise to preserve them from error in subordinate matters, or to give them a supernatural knowledge of the organization of the church, the number of the sacraments, or the power of bishops” (pp. 115, 116). Then, on these matters, the organization of the church, the number of the Sacraments, and the power of bishops, Protestants have no promise of exemption from error, and hence it is quite possible that they err in rejecting the Catholic doctrine of the church, of the hierarchy and the sacraments. But the professor’s limitation of the promise of our Lord is not warranted by his own professed rule. The promise, as recorded by the Evangelists is unlimited: “But the Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring all things to your mind whatsoever I shall have said to you” (St. John xiv. 26). This is explicit enough. But, again, “But he, the Spirit of truth, when he shall come, will teach you all truth” (ib. xvi. 13). Therefore, our Lord said to his apostles, “Go ye, and teach all nations ... to observe all things whatsoever I St. Matt, xxviii. 19, 20). This is a promise of guidance of the Spirit into all truth, and of exemption from error, in anything which our Lord has said or commanded.

If we were defending the Catholic rule, we should remind the author that this promise was made to the ecclesia docens, and only through that to the ecclesia credens; but, as we are not defending the Catholic rule, we suffer him to apply it to what he calls the true people of God. Yet, if he accepts the plain declaration of our Lord himself as recorded in the Gospels, he has no authority for distinguishing between essentials and non-essentials in the revelation of God, and none at all for restricting the promise of spiritual guidance and assistance to a promise of preservation from error only in certain fundamental truths of revelation. The author must either give us the rule or authority on which he makes the distinction and limitation, or concede that he makes it by no rule, and, therefore, on no authority.

Dr. Hodge tells us (p. 151) that “all Protestants agree in teaching that the word of God, as contained in the Old and New Testaments, is the infallible rule of faith.” He should have said some Protestants; for many who claim to be Protestants do not agree in teaching that. Will the professor say that those who do not so agree are not Protestants? By what authority? By the authority of the Bible, interpreted by private judgment? But they have the Bible and private judgment as well as he, or those who agree with him. Will he appeal to tradition? But tradition taken as a whole condemns him as well as those who differ from him. Then he must discriminate in tradition between what is to be followed and what is to be rejected. But this discrimination demands a rule of judgment. But what rule can the author allege? Private judgment? But that is no rule, for private judgment is by its very definition a judgment without any rule or standard of judgment, and, besides, those who differ from him have private judgment, and theirs is worth as much as his. Will the author answer again—The tradition or common consent of the true people of God? But who are they? Here, then, we are back in the old difficulty. Protestantism moves always in a vicious circle; proving its rule by its faith, and its faith by its rule. We see no way by which it can get out of this circle. It is not only as a Catholic we have felt this difficulty; we felt it as a Protestant, when we had the misfortune to be a Presbyterian, like our learned friend the Princeton professor.

We are sure the fault is not the professor’s, for he doubtless sees that he moves only in a vicious circle as clearly as we do, and no doubt would come out of it and move forward in a straight line, if he could. The fault is in Protestantism itself, which is essentially illogical, and does not conform to the divine order or the truth of things. The Reformers themselves started without seeing whither they were going, and without seeing that the Catholic system, parts of which they rejected, was a systematic whole, and that, if one part was retained, the whole must be retained, and, if one part was rejected, the whole must be rejected. This is what Moehler has so admirably shown in his Symbolik. But the Reformers did not wish to reject the whole; they wished to reject only a part, and in the beginning only a small part. They wished to remain minus one or two dogmas, and, after the condemnation of Luther by Leo X., minus the Pope and the Roman curia. But they were driven onward farther than they intended, and farther than they foresaw or were prepared for. They constructed no rule of faith beforehand, and adopted one only as the exigencies of the controversy with Catholics made one necessary; still, except on certain points, they continued using the old Catholic rule. Hence their Protestantism was patched up with shreds of the old religion, eked out by such new cloth as they were able to supply to meet the pressure of the occasion. It was formed not all at once, nor all of one piece. It was formed little by little in the struggle to maintain themselves against their Catholic adversaries, and to retain as much of what had always been the faith of Christendom as was possible in the position they assumed. In forming it, they were much more intent on demolishing what our professor calls “Romanism” than on laying a solid foundation for a Protestant superstructure.

The simple fact is, the Protestant movement could find no solid foundation except in pure rationalism, or, rather, in pure individualism, in which every man is his own church, his own rule of faith, his own law, and his own God—a conclusion from which Luther and Calvin would have recoiled with horror, as recoils Dr. Hodge to-day. The Reformers did not see, for they were, as all Protestants are, sad logicians in matters of religion, whither their movement tended, nor dream that one day they would be called on to show that their religion rests on a solid foundation, or a bottom of its own, irrespective of any relation to the Catholic Church, and when they must prove that it is something besides a mere protest against the Church of Rome. They thought they could throw off Rome and a few dogmas, and still remain true Christian believers. In this they were deceived; for they were too little for Christianity and too much for its full denial. They retained certain positive Christian doctrines, but they had no authority for them except the Catholic authority which they madly rejected. Hence, when we press them for the authority on which they assert these doctrines, they fall into the vicious circle in which we find them for ever gyrating, and from which not even Dr. Hodge can relieve them.

The author says (p. 104), “Romanists agree with Protestants in teaching the plenary inspiration and consequent infallible authority of the sacred writings.” But this is a mistake. Catholics do not agree with Protestants, but some Protestants—by no means all Protestants—agree with the church in maintaining the Catholic doctrine of the “plenary inspiration and consequent infallible authority of the sacred writings.” It is simply a Catholic doctrine retained by the Reformers from the church, which taught it nearly fourteen hundred years before Protestantism was born. The able and learned professor, we are sorry to observe, forgets that the church is some centuries older than the oldest Protestant sect, that the founders of Protestantism had all been reared in her communion, and separated from her. Protestants have undeniably no historical connection with our Lord and his apostles, save through the Catholic Church, or the church in communion with the See of Rome. Whatever doctrines Protestants hold that the church always held and taught are hers, not theirs; and it is a grave mistake to pretend that they are Protestant doctrines. Protestantism consists differentia—in what it denies that the church asserts, and it asserts that she denies. If they have stolen some of her doctrines, that does not make them any the less hers by right, nor give them the right to appropriate them as their own. There is not a single doctrine which Protestants profess to hold—which she teaches, and always has taught—to which they, as Protestants, have any title, or which they can prove to be revealed truth independently of her testimony and authority. It is disregarding this truth that gives to Protestantism the appearance of being a religion.

We return to the word of God as contained in the Old and New Testaments. Before the author can assert the Scriptures as the infallible rule of faith, he must settle, first, the canon; second, the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures; third, the completeness or sufficiency of the Scriptures; and, fourth, the true sense of the Scriptures. Now, not one of these points is it possible for a Protestant to settle independently of the witness and authority of the Catholic Church, and Dr. Hodge confirms our assertion by his manifest failure to settle any one of them on Protestant grounds. They are all questions of faith, and not one of them can be settled prior to or without the rule of faith; and yet on Protestant grounds they must all be settled before the rule of faith can be ascertained and applied.

Protestants exclude from the canon of the Old Testament several books called by some the Deutero-canonical books, which are included in it by the Catholic Church, and even the schismatic churches of the East, and they are far from being agreed among themselves as to what books are or are not canonical. Some would exclude the Book of Ruth and the Canticle. As to the New Testament, Luther had doubts, if our reading or memory be not at fault, of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and that of St. Jude, and rejected the Epistle of St. James, which he called an epistle of straw, probably because it flatly contradicts his doctrine of justification by faith alone; others have doubted the canonicity of these, and, in addition, of the Apocalypse, the second Epistle of St. Peter, the second and third of St. John, and that of St. Paul to Philemon; others still reject the Gospel according to St. John, and indeed the whole New Testament, except the Synoptics—and these, while they admit them as authentic, they deny to be inspired. The Princeton professor may deny these to be Protestants, but they have as good a right to exclude from the canon such books as they judge proper as had Luther and Calvin; and there is no rule by which he can make out that he is a Protestant that will not equally serve to prove that they are Protestants. The only rule available is Catholic tradition, and that condemns him as well as them.

The professor does not rely on the authority of the Synagogue, though he adduces it, to settle the canon of the Old Testament, for that would be anti-Protestant; but attempts to settle it by the authority of the New Testament. Such books as he finds a text quoted from by our Lord or his apostles he assumes to be canonical and inspired; but such as he does not find thus quoted from, he rejects from the canon. But this is not conclusive, for the author concedes that our Lord and his apostles said many things that are not recorded in the New Testament, and how does he know that in those many St. Paul, at Athens, cites the Greek poet Arrian, and in his Epistle to the Hebrews he manifestly adopts a phrase and a sentiment from Plato’s Republic: must we therefore conclude that the poems of Arrian and Plato’s Republic are canonical, and Arrian and Plato to be included in the list of divinely inspired writers? Has the professor any assertion of our Lord or of any writer in the New Testament that a Jewish or any other book cited by him or by his apostles is canonical and divinely inspired? Certainly not. St. Paul says in his second Epistle to Timothy, “All Scripture divinely inspired is profitable,” etc., but he does not say what Scriptures are or are not divinely inspired.

Then, again, as to the New Testament, the author concedes that, during the first century and later, the canon of the New Testament was uncertain. It, then, was not settled by our Lord or his apostles themselves. On what authority, then, was it settled? Manifestly only on the authority of the church, that is, of popes and councils. But our Princeton professor denies the authority of popes and councils; denies the infallibility of the church; nay, he denies that the church, Catholic or Protestant, has any teaching authority, fallible or infallible. The canon neither of the New Testament nor of the Old is settled, then, by any infallible rule or authority. How, then, can the professor maintain that Protestants have, in the Scriptures, an infallible rule of faith? No fallible rule suffices for infallible faith.

As Protestants are unable, without the authority of the church or tradition, to settle the canon, so are they unable, without the same authority, to determine what books are or are not divinely inspired. The author contends that it suffices to prove that the writers were messengers from God, and commissioned to speak or write in his name. But that cannot be proved unless they accredited themselves as such by their miracles, and not even then, unless the miracles are attested to us by a competent and credible witness of them. Who or what, for Protestants, is that witness? The Record! But the record may have been forged or interpolated, and must, before it can be adduced as evidence, be authenticated. How can the Protestant authenticate it, except by showing that it has been carefully and vigilantly guarded from the first till now by an official keeper with whom it was deposited? Deny the church as the depositary of the record, as the Protestant does, and there is no certain means of authenticating the record, and then none of authenticating the miracles; then none of establishing the fact of the divine commission of the sacred writers, and consequently none of proving the divine inspiration of the sacred writings, since inspiration is a supernatural fact.

But did it ever occur to our learned professor that he has, in order to prove the inspiration of the Scriptures, not only to take the authority of the church for so much, but to prove, before he can allege the authority of the Scriptures, all the Catholic has to prove, in order to prove the divine authority and infallibility of the church? He must prove that our Lord and his apostles spoke and wrote by divine authority, and that is all the Catholic has to prove. In either case, the authority,

But we are not yet through with the Protestant’s difficulties, if he is to proceed independently of Catholic tradition. Supposing him to have proved all this, he still has to prove the completeness or sufficiency of the Scriptures. Dr. Hodge does not pretend that the Scriptures contain all the revelations made by our Lord to his apostles, but only what is now extant. “It is not denied,” he says (pp. 182, 183), “that there may have been, and probably were, books written by inspired men which are no longer in existence. Much less is it denied that Christ and his apostles delivered many discourses which were not recorded, and which, could they now be known, would be of equal authority with the books now regarded as canonical.” But how does he know that these discourses or the instructions they contained are now lost, or that they are not preserved and as well-known and authenticated in the traditions of the church as the canonical books themselves? Furthermore, how does he know that it is not precisely in these discourses which were not recorded that is to be found the key to the sense of those which were recorded? The church has always so held and taught; indeed, the author himself concedes that, at the first, the whole revealed word, whether written or unwritten, went by the name of the tradition, and the written tradition was not distinguished from the unwritten. He says:

“In the early church, the word [tradition] was used in this wide sense. Appeal was constantly made to the traditions, that is, the instructions the churches had received. It was only certain churches at first that received any of the written instructions of the apostles. And it was not till the end of the first century that the writings of the Evangelists and apostles were collected and formed into a canon or rule of faith. And when the books of the New Testament had been collected, the fathers spoke of them as containing the ‘traditions,’ that is, the instructions derived from Christ and his apostles.... In that age of the church, the distinction between the written and unwritten word had not yet been distinctly made. But as controversies arose and disputants on both sides of all questions appealed to ‘tradition,’ that is, to what they had been taught; and when it was found that these traditions differed, one church saying their teachers always taught them one thing, and another that theirs had taught them its opposite, it was felt that there should be some authoritative standard. Hence the wisest and best of the fathers [who were they?] insisted on abiding by the written word, and receiving nothing as authoritative not contained therein. In this, however, it must be confessed, they [the wisest and the best of the fathers] were not always consistent. Whenever prescription, usage, or conviction founded on unwritten evidence was available against an adversary, they did not hesitate all the early centuries, therefore, the distinction between Scripture and tradition was not so sharply drawn as it has been since the controversies between Romanists and Protestants, and especially since the decisions of the Council of Trent” (pp. 108, 109).

There are several inaccuracies in this passage. In the early ages of the church, when controversies arose and contradictory traditions were alleged, appeal was not made to the written word, but to the churches founded by St. Peter, or by his immediate authority, that is, to Antioch, Alexandria, or Rome, or to a council, provincial, plenary, or œcumenical, as can hardly be unknown to so learned a theological scholar as Dr. Hodge.[109] But two facts are conceded in the passage: first, that the church for a hundred years or more had only unwritten tradition or the oral instructions of its pastors as its rule of faith; and, second, that the written and the unwritten traditions of the word were deemed of equal authority by the wisest and best of the fathers, and were not as to their authority distinguished, at least not sharply distinguished, before the rise of Protestantism. The professor, then, must prove that the whole church was wrong prior to Luther in recognizing the authority of the unwritten traditions before he can assert that the Scriptures contain all of the revealed word extant, or maintain the completeness or sufficiency of the Scriptures as the rule of faith. How will he do it, after conceding that they do not contain the whole revelation that was made, nor even the whole extant in the opinion of the church or the great body of Christians prior to the rise of Protestantism? Does the written word anywhere declare its own completeness or sufficiency, and that the portions not recorded are of no importance?

But the difficulties of Protestantism do not end even here. The Bible is no rule of faith except in its true sense, or as rightly interpreted according to the meaning of the Holy Ghost. The author says (p. 183): “The Bible is a plain book. It is intelligible by the people. And they have the right and are bound to read and interpret it for themselves, so that their faith may rest on the testimony of the Scriptures, and not on that of the church. Such is the doctrine of Protestants on this subject.”

But is it true? If so, how happens it that among Protestants we can hardly find two, when left to themselves, without any parental or pastoral instruction, who agree in their interpretation of the written word, or as to the doctrines to be deduced from it? Yet the author himself can hardly believe what he asserts to be the Protestant doctrine on the subject is true. “It is not denied,” he adds (pp. 183, 184), “that the Scriptures contain many things that are hard to be understood; that they require diligent study; that all men need the guidance of the Holy Spirit to a right knowledge and true faith. But it is maintained that in all things necessary to salvation they are sufficiently plain to be understood even

But all these questions are quite unnecessary, for the author obligingly refutes his own rule of faith, and acknowledges that the Scriptures interpreted by private judgment or by human reason itself are not sufficient to give a “right knowledge of the true faith.” Neither learning nor diligent study, nor the perspicuity of Scripture, suffices; for “all men,” he says, “need the guidance of the Holy Spirit in order to a right knowledge of the true faith.” This is conclusive against the Protestant rule; and confesses that no man can arrive at the knowledge of the true faith without the supernatural assistance of the Holy Spirit. Let us hear no more, then, of the Scriptures interpreted by private judgment, or of the ability or the right of every individual to read and interpret the Scriptures for himself and to form from them his own creed.

It is worthy of remark here that our Protestant professor is obliged throughout to adopt the principle of the Catholic rule of faith, only he applies it differently. The Catholic asserts the infallibility of the Pope in matters of faith and morals by virtue of the assistance or guidance of the Holy Spirit; the Protestant professor claims the same infallibility, by virtue of the same supernatural assistance, for each one of the people of God taken individually. But the Pope is a public personage, all the world knows or may know who he is, and can recur to him, and, supposing him to be assisted as claimed, all the world may know from him the true faith; but in the Protestant sense there is no public means of knowing who the people of God are, and, consequently, no public means of knowing what the Spirit teaches, or whom he guides or assists to a knowledge of the true faith, since he guides or assists only private individuals, not a public personage or a public body. It can be no public rule of faith, and, as we have shown, none for the individual himself, for he has no objective and independent rule for determining whether the spirit that leads him is the spirit of truth or the spirit of error. The professor has refuted his own doctrine in his refutation of the Quaker rule of faith. The interior illumination, he asserts, is private, and can be brought to no public or catholic test. Not the church, both because the church the Protestant recognizes is invisible, and recognizable by no external marks or notes, and because the church, according to him, has no teaching authority or faculty. Not to the Scriptures, because it is the test of the right understanding of them that is required, and to take them as the test of this is to reason in a vicious circle.

aliunde their Protestantism. They are obliged to prove their Protestantism in order to prove their rule, and they must prove their rule in order to prove their Protestantism. This is a grave inconvenience. But, assuming without proof that the Scriptures are the sufficient and only rule of faith, they conclude, against undeniable facts, that the Bible is a plain book, and intelligible to the people, to even the unlearned, as it should be if intended by its divine Author to be the sufficient and only rule of faith. They find their conclusion untenable, and modify their statement, and say that their conclusion is true as to all things necessary to salvation. But, finding no agreement among Protestants themselves who take the Bible as their sufficient and only rule of faith as to what things are necessary to salvation, they divide. One class declares more or less distinctly that no objective faith is necessary to salvation, and another class, in which is included our author, asserts, while maintaining the right of private judgment, the private illumination of the Holy Ghost as the rule for interpreting the Scriptures, apparently not perceiving that they are in flagrant contradiction with themselves.

The professor objects (p. 127) to tradition as the rule of faith that it is not adapted to that purpose: “A rule of faith to the people must be something they can apply; a standard by which they can judge. But the unwritten tradition is not contained in any one volume accessible to the people and intelligible by them.” This were a valid objection, if the people had to seek through all history to find and verify the tradition; but is no objection at all, if we suppose an infallible teacher, always present, who preserves and applies the tradition for the people. But does the Protestant escape his own objection by rejecting all unwritten tradition, and making the Bible alone the rule of faith, which is at least as unintelligible to the people as is unwritten tradition explained and applied by duly authorized preachers of the word?

That the Bible ought, on Protestant principles, to be a plain book, interpreting itself to every person of ordinary sense, or who has enough sense to be a moral agent, we concede, and Protestants should actually derive their doctrines from it. But nobody knows better than our author that neither is a fact. He knows that the Protestant people, however much they may read and praise the Bible, do not form their own opinions from it, but from their pastors or teachers, or the community in which they are brought up. He knows, also, that the people could never of themselves derive even the doctrines which he holds to be essential and necessary to salvation from reading the Bible alone. Unitarians and Universalists deny that the Bible teaches them, and the people, as a matter of fact, take them from the tradition of their sect, and at best only find confirmation of them in the Scriptures; and yet such are the exigencies of Protestantism that the ablest and most learned Protestant professors are obliged, in the face of these facts, to say with Chillingworth, “The Bible, the Bible alone, is the religion of Protestants.”

But Protestants should bear in mind that Catholics have the Bible as well as they—had it ages before Protestantism was ever heard of, stole it. How, then, can it be their religion any more than it is the religion of Catholics? Catholics, if they have not admitted it to contain the whole revealed word, have always held it, before Protestantism and since, to be divinely inspired, and, as far as it goes, the infallible word of God. They have always held that all Christians are bound to believe whatever it teaches, and forbidden to believe anything that contradicts it. This is all that Protestantism can really say. The church contends that in no respect does her doctrine conflict with the written word, and is in most respects, if not in all, positively sustained by it. Suppose her as fallible as Protestants confess themselves to be, what can Protestants have in the Bible that Catholics have not? or what have they from any source that can override the Catholic understanding of the Scriptures, or authorize them to say that it is a misunderstanding? Catholics may have more than Protestants, but in no case have they or can they have less. By what rule or standard, then, do Protestants judge the Catholic understanding of the Scriptures to be false and the Protestant understanding to be true? Private judgment is no rule, and, if it were, Catholics have private judgment as well as Protestants; they have, too, reason, Biblical, historical, and all other sorts of learning, as well as they, and, at least, in as eminent a degree. By what rule or standard of judgment, then, is Protestantism to be pronounced more Biblical than is Catholicity?

The professor says: “The people have the right of private judgment, and are bound to read and interpret the Bible for themselves.” In matters left to private judgment, in regard to which there is no public or catholic rule, be it so. But, when the people have a public or catholic rule, they are bound to judge by it, and the right of private judgment ceases. Protestants either have such a rule or they have not. If they have, they are bound to judge by it, and have no right of private judgment in the case. If they have not these, they have no rule or standard by which to judge, no rule of faith, and that ends the matter. We beg the professor to understand that all this Protestant rationalistic talk about private judgment is mere moonshine. He may allow it against what he calls “Romanism,” but he by no means allows it against what he holds to be the word of God. As for the people being bound to read or interpret the Bible for themselves, it is sufficient to ask what would become of the professor’s own vocation if it were so? Were the people who lived before the New Testament was written, or its several books collected into a volume as the rule of faith, bound to read and understand it for themselves? Are those bound to read or interpret the Bible for themselves who know not even how to read? These are reckoned to be at least nineteen-twentieths of mankind; shall they receive no religious instructions till they have learned to read? What shall we say of those who—and they are the bulk of mankind—obliged to toil incessantly to sustain their bodily existence, have no time to learn to read, much less to study diligently the sacred Scriptures, even if they could read? What are we to say of children who are too young to read and understand the Bible for themselves, and yet are old enough to sin? Can these all be saved without the knowledge of the truth? or are they excluded by an inexorable decree and no fault of their

But we are exceeding our limits. We have said enough, we think, to show that Protestants have no independent rule of faith—independent of the Catholic Church, we mean. In so far as they hold Christian truth or positive faith at all, they hold it on the authority of the Catholic rule, which they reject; and when deprived of what they stole from us, and to which they have no right, they have nothing to prevent them from running into pure rationalism on the one hand, or into mysticism and transcendentalism on the other. The germs of both were in the original Protestant movement, and may be easily detected even in our Princeton professor. Into one or the other he must run, if he ever gets out of the vicious circle in which Protestantism, pretending to be Christian, necessarily gyrates, unless the grace of God relieves him and enables him to return to the bosom of the Catholic Church, where alone he will find true freedom and truth in its unity and integrity.

CANTO SECOND.

This Canto of the Purgatorio is the one which contains that episode of the music-master, Casella, to which Milton alludes in his celebrated Sonnet to Henry Lawes, and perhaps all the more celebrated from this allusion to the passage in Dante.

Casella was a dear friend of Dante’s, and used to set his canzoni to music, and sing them with a voice which it must have been delicious for Dante to have made immortal. Dante supposes in the poem that Casella had gone to Rome in the year of the Jubilee, and, coming thence by sea, had perished near the mouth of the Tiber.

For Canto I. of this translation, see Catholic World for November, 1870.

THE LATE GENERAL CONVENTION OF THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH.

after the model of the American Republic. There is, however, no executive, the presiding bishop being only a chairman of a meeting; and the power of putting into effect the action of the convention lies wholly in the convention itself, which has no existence after it adjourns sine die. We believe, however, that the different dioceses feel bound to a certain kind of obedience, the nature of which will depend upon individual bishops.

In regard to the late convention, we have little to say, and yet some good may result from putting on record what Catholics think of a body of Christians which makes such large pretensions, and at the same time is so utterly helpless, and useless as a teacher of truth. Our purpose in this article will be accomplished by a brief view of the impressions produced by this council upon the Episcopalians and the world; by a consideration of what has been done negatively and positively; and a few remarks upon the position in which the Protestant Episcopal Church stands before mankind.

I. The impression produced upon Episcopalians, as far as we can learn it from themselves, is very singular, and seems to differ with different minds. The only satisfaction expressed in any of their journals is that the convention did not do any more harm. The Church Journal, of November 1, speaks of the “tomb of the Capulets” to which so many important measures were consigned. “That vast mausoleum,” it says, “well stored at the close of the session of 1868, received a large accession in 1871.” It also terms the whole thing a fiasco, and pitifully remarks that “the mind of the church must be well informed in 1874 if we would not pave the way to another fiasco.” “In the matter of tone, temper, and decorum, with slight exceptions, the convention Church Weekly rejoices that no great evils have come from this council of their branch of the one (invisible) church, and attributes this to the good sense of the deputies, who generally were “wise and conservative men.” “It was only by the non-concurrence of orders that action was not had on ritual, and in the form proposed by the House of Bishops.” The same journal says that the bishops are utterly unfitted for action on any of the subjects which came before the convention. “They are chosen,” it remarks, “for any reason rather than knowledge of liturgies, ritual, canon law, or theology.” What these reverend fathers are expected to know we are left to imagine, and it is a great strain upon our powers; for we are somewhat bewildered by the observation “that they are chosen for their practical common sense, which is American English for success in life.”

The Christian Witness feels happy that there is “such elaborate discussion on the smallest points, and that questions of order take much of the time in their disposal.” The result, however, is not so pleasant, because “the most important subjects are left to the end of the session, when the haste of the members to return home cuts short the discussion, and dissatisfaction is the result.”

The Protestant Churchman is the only paper we have seen which seems really gratified. The convention did not do anything, but showed a spirit which, if not quenched, will yet accomplish much:

“No one who was present could fail to be struck with some very remarkable developments, the full significance of which does by no means appear in what the convention actually did or left undone. Although the convention did not pass any of the proposed canons against ritualism, it is yet true that an anti-ritualistic spirit was disclosed, which was entirely unexpected, and in the presence of which scarcely any one, in either house, dared to avow himself a ritualist. Although the convention did not repeal the restrictive and exclusive canons, still the evidence was most marked of the progress of liberal sentiments. If the questions involved in these canons had come fairly before the convention, we believe that the result would have surprised every one, and satisfied those who have been hopeless of favorable action.

“In our view, this convention has marked a transition period in the history of the Protestant Episcopal Church. The old ruts have been obliterated, and new paths of progress have been opened. It is our profound conviction that there has not been a convention for many years which has revealed a prospect so encouraging for truly liberal and evangelical principles.”

The internal spirit of a legislative body is, however, hard to understand except from its public acts, and when there are no such satisfactory acts, honest observers may differ in their judgment. The High Churchmen felicitate themselves that their tenets were not pulled to pieces, while Low Churchmen see a spirit which accords with their sentiments, and so take courage for the future.

In spite of all these causes of happiness, the advanced ritualists find much to complain of, because the bishops, though apostles, did not realize their dignity, and the ministers, though actually Catholic priests, did not seem to know it. Besides their ignorance of “liturgies, ritual, canon law, and theology,” they were not reverent in the house of God, nor did they seem to feel that they were, what the Churchman calls them, “apostles, occupied with the faith and practice of the apostolic age, and framing their conduct and teaching according to a model seventeen Church Weekly:

“Men and women seem too tired and excited for reverent devotion; and not merely was loud talking and laughter going on at one end of the building before the blessed sacrament was consumed, but, within the very sanctuary, even bishops were seen exchanging the courtesies of society with one hand, while with the other they were holding the Lord’s body and blood. The truth is, there cannot be proper reverence when a building which is during one hour the scene of exciting debate and the arena of unrestrained conversation is, during the next, devoted to what ought to be the solemn worship of Almighty God. Nearly all the clergy and laity, ritualists included, seemed at times to forget that Emmanuel Church, though used as a convention hall, was a consecrated house of prayer. Constant introductions, subsequent chattings, mild flirtations with ladies, and the frequent use of opera-glasses, did a great deal towards destroying reverence for God’s sanctuary; and I could not but feel the evil habit engendered there found its way into many of the churches in which divine worship was held on the following Sunday.”

As for the impression produced upon the world, we can take the spirit of the press, which has amused itself much in studying the science of using words, and saying nothing, which the Protestant Episcopal council possesses in the highest degree. Every one of the other Protestant bodies has a distinctive character, and uses words according to the received interpretation of the dictionaries. The Episcopalians, however, sit upon the fence, and turn their faces now to the north, and now to the south, and speak like the Sibyl, so as to be on the safe side with every one. No one would venture to abridge their liberty, or even laugh at their peculiarities, if they did not pretend to be above their brethren, and ape the exterior of the old church. Their phylacteries are many and large, and so not a few of them carry a sign to prove that they are what they profess to be. In spite of what the world thinks, they are priests and bishops, and theirs (O tempora, O mores!) is the only pure branch of the Catholic church. Their coats and cassocks beat us out-and-out, and they are Catholics, the only true Catholics, while we are Romanists.

When we behold such a remarkable body, which claims, through its ardent children, to be the most primitive and only pure church in existence, we naturally are curious to find out what the doctrine of this church is. Then, when it speaks enigmas, and has a language of its own, with no published dictionary, we are somewhat bewildered. Seriously, we think we have not exaggerated the sentiment of the journals of the day. They are amused at the spectacle of three weeks’ work which has accomplished nothing, and at definitions of doctrine which can be construed in two contradictory senses. We do not believe there is a living man who can tell what the doctrine of the Episcopal Church is, nor a single member of that communion who has any clear ideas on the subject. Each one may tell us what he believes for himself, but his private opinion is not necessarily the creed of his church. If the Redeemer of men has left his religion in such hands, we can only say that he has not shown human wisdom, and that his Gospel will be of little use to mankind. Our further remarks will justify these conclusions, and show that never since the creation has there been a body with so

2. With the exception of a few local canons on matters which have no general interest, the convention, as such, has done nothing. We shall try to give a fair synopsis of its doings, and let them speak for themselves. As the Christian Witness tells us, great attention has been paid to points of order, and the rules for the trying of bishops and ministers. This would lead us to conclude that either these canons had been very imperfect, or that there are many and difficult cases of delinquency. We incline to think, however, that there are not many bad ministers, but that the wish to make laws and to speak on them is the parent of all these emendations of their code. Very few of the resolutions referred to the committee on canons have seen the light, but are consigned to that “tomb of the Capulets” of which the Church Journal speaks.

The different dioceses in the State of New York have been desirous of having a “federate council” of their own, and some action was taken on this subject. Not much satisfaction has been derived from this, because the journal most interested is acutely grieved. “It is sad,” it says, “to think that what is called the mind of the church is not yet ready for the Provincial System, or even a court of appeals. The federate council of New York is granted sufficient power to keep it from dying of atrophy or inanition, but we fear it will prove only a sickly sort of existence after all.” The particular benefit of the provincial system in the Episcopalian hierarchy we do not see; but this is none of our business. Our sympathies are with those who want it, and are unable to get it.

A joint committee of bishops and ministers has been appointed or continued on religious reform in Italy.

As far as we can learn, the labor of this committee will be very arduous. They are to watch for Catholics and infidels in Italy who turn Episcopalians. There are not many of these converts, but for this very reason they will be all the more difficult to find and provide for.

We would humbly suggest that a branch of their branch of the one church be established there, with a bishop whose travelling expenses should be prepaid, no matter what the cost may be. A committee in the United States can hardly be adequate to this critical work, for if there is no Episcopalian minister at hand when a man or woman is at the point of converting, he or she may be gathered in by a sect of Protestants who have no bishops. We should also have recommended that this committee have power to act in Bavaria, especially as there is no time to lose. Still, as our advice may not be understood, we do not press the subject. Old Dr. Döllinger has valid orders, and so has poor Father Hyacinthe, and might possibly be saved for the cause of Episcopacy.

Another thing which moves us very much is the magnitude of the work again thrown on the committee who are to seek for union with the Eastern heretical churches. So little has been accomplished beyond an exchange of courtesies that we fear the means are not adequate to the end.

Anglicans have already signified their willingness to throw the “Filioque” out of the creed, and to give up thus the doctrine of the Trinity, St. Petersburg, and ask for the smallest smile of recognition. We do not think the committee have done their duty, and, as the prophet urged the priests of Baal, we beg them to persevere. These venerable patriarchs may possibly be asleep, or absent on a journey. If they would ordain one of the Episcopal ministers, he would certainly be a priest, and perhaps the American Branch might be ordered to adopt the Russian Pontifical. It is very like the Roman, but then it could be translated into English. The same doctrines are more palatable in Russian or in Greek than they are in Latin, and the Eastern is a “Holy Orthodox Church,” while the Roman Catholic Church is schismatical and in great error. The Holy Orthodox Church, having anathematized the Thirty-nine Articles, has touched rather severely the Anglican pretensions, but our good friends here are able to bear more than this without being discouraged. Before these words reach the public, we trust the Episcopal Committee will have had the opportunity to wait upon the Grand Duke Alexis and offer him Trinity Church for his cathedral during his stay in New York. A branch that has been cut off from the parent trunk can be carried even some distance to shade a sprout that comes out of the ground of its own responsibility and from its own little root. “How good and pleasant a thing it is to see brethren dwelling together in unity!”

At the next convention, we hope to hear something of the effect of the regular resolutions which have been passed the last fifty years, and to hear if the old branch will at last recognize the new branch planted by Henry VIII. and his daughter Elizabeth, and watered by Luther and Calvin and their friends. A small casket containing the ashes of Cyril Lucar might be carried in procession on this grand occasion, still in the future, with a tablet bearing in bold relief the canons of the Synod of Bethlehem.

We pass to another of the doings of the convention, which has our unqualified approbation, accompanied only with the fear that the project may not be successful.

We refer to “the revival of the Scriptural diaconate of women,” as the bishops call it in their pastoral.

The Scripture here alluded to is probably the ninth to thirteenth verses of the fifth chapter of the First Epistle of St. Paul to Timothy:

“Let a widow be chosen, not under threescore years of age, who hath been the wife of one husband; having a testimony of her good works, if she have educated children, if she have exercised hospitality, if she have washed the saints’ feet, if she have ministered to them that suffer tribulation, if she have diligently followed every good work. But the younger widows shun, for when they have grown wanton in Christ, they will marry, having damnation because they have made void their first faith. And withal being idle, they learn to go about from house to house, not only idle, but tattlers also, and inquisitive, speaking things which they ought not.”

The bishops do not say whether they propose to carry out these rules of St. Paul literally, but they seem to “feel an earnest desire that prudence and good sense may preside over every effort.” The committee, whose report was substantially accepted, do not fix any rules as to the age of the postulants, nor do they not smell so sweet.) These sisterhoods are to be established everywhere in hospitals and benevolent homes, and a central house or training school is recommended to fit the candidate for the various works of mercy. These sisters are to be without vows, and so free to come and go, leave their various convents, and marry whenever they please.

The rule of obedience depends upon their own consent, and so they are their own masters, even when they live in community. We confess a great anxiety to see this system thoroughly tried, and to know, in the course of a few years, how many will remain and die in their conventual habit. Even if it fail, it is a step in the right direction, and we are glad the committee did not rigidly adopt the rules of St. Paul. For if they were restricted to widows over sixty years of age, they might not find many subjects, and in this climate the deaconesses might be incapable of much work.

The action of the convention in regard to ritualism is so remarkable that we hardly know how to describe it.

The bishops in their pastoral have something to say on it, which we shall notice afterward. They, however, are only one-third of the convention, and cannot of themselves pass any laws which shall have binding force. It seems that, three years ago, when the matter was discussed, a committee was appointed to examine the subject, and report a canon or canons to be enacted which might produce uniformity. This committee reported very plainly, and gave an opinion which can be understood. They recommended a canon which should forbid all the peculiar actions of the ritualists, such as “the use of incense, the placing or retaining a crucifix in any part of the church, the use of lights about the holy table, the elevation of the elements in holy communion for the purpose of adoration, the mixing of water with the wine, the washing of the priest’s hands, the ablution of the vessels, the celebration of holy communion when there is no one to receive, and using any prayers or services not contained in the Book of Common Prayer.” This recommendation was referred to a joint committee, who, not being able to agree perfectly, brought forth as the result of their labors the draft of a law which makes the rule of ritual the Prayer-Book and “the canons of the Church of England in use in the American Provinces before 1789, and not subsequently superseded, altered, or repealed.” Then, as few seemed to know about these canons, it was determined to appoint a new committee to find out about them, and inform the next General Convention. In the meantime, all mixed questions were to be settled by the bishops in their various dioceses, should it please them to interfere, or should any brother be offended by excess or defect of ritual. The evident result of all this legislation was to leave the whole matter just where it was before. This canon did not, however, seem to please. Some of the members wished to know what these “customs before 1789” were, before they could intelligently act, and on a division of the house the project was lost. Substitutes a little more decisive were offered, and they did not meet with favor. The bishops, anxious as it would seem to have

“Resolved (the House of Clerical and Lay Deputies concurring), That the following canon be adopted and enacted, to be entitled Canon ——:

“The elevation of the elements in the holy communion in such manner as to expose them to the view of the people as objects toward which adoration is to be made, in or after the prayer of consecration, or in the act of administering them, or in carrying them to or from the communicants, and any gesture, posture, or act implying such adoration, and any ceremony not prescribed as part of the order of the administration of the Lord’s Supper or holy communion in the Book of Common Prayer, and the celebration or reception of the holy communion by any bishop or priest when no person receives with him; likewise, the use, at any administration of the holy communion, of any hymns, prayers, collects, epistles, or gospels other than those appointed in the authorized formularies of the church or under § 14 of canon 13, title 1, of the Digest, are hereby forbidden.”

This resolution was put to vote, and lost by a small majority on the clerical vote. The following proposition was then offered and adopted unanimously, which, so far as we know, was the end of the matter in the convention:

“Resolved, That this convention hereby expresses its decided condemnation of all ceremonies, observances, and practices which are fitted to express a doctrine foreign to that set forth in the authorized standards of this church.”

A slight review of this remarkable action on the subject of ritual will show that the bishops were anxious to pass a law against the practices peculiar to the few good people who are called ritualists, but that they were outvoted by the clerical deputies, and that nothing has been done which will have any weight. For who knows what the doctrine set forth in the authorized standards of the Episcopal Church is? And who will determine when ceremonies contravene the doctrine about which no one is certain? The Thirty-nine Articles speak plainly enough when they tell us that “the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper was not by Christ’s ordinance reserved, carried about, lifted up, or worshipped,” and that “the sacrifices of Masses were blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits.” Yet we are told that these words do not mean anything which could forbid the elevation and adoration of the Holy Eucharist, or the private celebration of the sacrifice of the Mass.

We are moreover informed that these articles are of no authority, although confessedly they are the only creed which the Protestant Episcopal Church possesses. So, when men can thus seriously argue, and quietly look each other in the face, we despair of finding any words which cannot be misinterpreted. So, as they say, with thanks to God for his great mercy, our ritual friends will go on, Use of Sarum which has been to them a source of so great consolation.

Appropriately of all this, we give an extract from the Church Weekly, regulating the order of service for the third week of November.

A = Day of Month. B = Day of Week. C = Concordance. D = Observance.]

KALENDAR FOR THE WEEK.

AB NOVEMBER.CD Altar Color.

Sarum.Rom.

19S. 24th after Trinity,..Feast.R.G.

20M. [S. Edmund, K. M.,A[113] ..R.R.

22W. [S. Cecilia, V. M.,C[113] ..R.R.

23Th. [S. Clement, Bp. Rome, M.,....R.R.

25S. [S. Katharine, V. M.,C[113] ..R.R.

26S. Sunday next before Advent,[114] ..Feast... G.

It must be observed that “Calendar” is spelt with a K, which is more ancient, and that the “authorized standards” of the Episcopal Rite have nothing about S. Edmund, S. Cecilia, S. Clement, nor S. Catharine (spelt with a K). The “altar color” is also very useful, especially as they give at the last column the Roman Rite. A friend of ours told us of a very solemn marriage which he witnessed in Trinity Church the other day. The Rev. Dr. Dix was the celebrant (as he thought), with a deacon and subdeacon, all beautifully vested, and the candidates were a young priest and a young lady, who in this most impressive manner was to become his wife. Oh! what will the Greeks say to this? We fear they will be scandalized, and that even the giving up of the “Filioque” will not prevent them from staring with eyes wide open. The priest said the nuptial mass, and the other priest and his wife received the holy communion and the sacrament of matrimony. How does this compare with the services before 1789?

We cannot, however, pass over the action and language of the bishops in this matter. We suppose our Anglican friends will admit that neither priests nor laymen are by any rule of ecclesiastical antiquity allowed to judge in council on points of faith. This has generally been left to the episcopate, to which, in union with its head, Christ committed the government of his church. Now, for the advanced High Churchmen it is a sad fact that the bishops of their church have unqualifiedly condemned them. They have done this, first in the canon which they passed and sent down to the House of Deputies, and, secondly, in the language of their pastoral, which is the accurate expression of their doctrine. We know that their words can be explained away, but we respectfully submit that this time the attempt to do so will be dishonesty. If these reverend fathers in God can speak at all, then they have spoken. We give their words, and pray they may fall upon the open ears of their children who bow down before them as “apostles”: “The doctrine which chiefly attempts to express itself by ritual, in questionable and dangerous ways, is connected with the Holy Eucharist. That doctrine is emphatically a novelty in theology. What is known as eucharistical adoration is undoubtedly inculcated and encouraged by that ritual of posture lately introduced among us, which finds no warrant in our ‘Office for the Administration of Holy Communion.’” They then go on to say that whatever presence of Christ there may be is such as does not allow him to be there

“3. There are bishops and—bishops; there are doctors and—doctors. Here is the Bishop of Arizona, for instance, who says that ‘that doctrine (eucharistic adoration) is a novelty in theology.’ But there is St. Ambrose, whilom Bishop of Milan, who says, ‘We adore the flesh of Christ in the mysteries.’ Here is the Bishop of Central New York, who declares that ‘the doctrine and the practice which it implies are most certainly unauthorized by Holy Scripture, and entirely aside from the purposes for which the holy sacrament was instituted.’ But there is St. Gregory of Nazianzum, not recently, indeed, but most truly Bishop of Constantinople, who used this expression, ‘Calling upon him who is worshipped upon the altar.’ Here is the Bishop of Delaware, who unites with the Bishop of Connecticut in saying that ‘the doctrine and the practice which it implies are most dangerous in their tendencies.’ But there is the poor Bishop of Hippo, Augustine by name, who, unfortunately for his reputation, committed himself to the declaration that ‘no one eateth that flesh till he have first adored.’ And how many other bishops, great and small, there are who have acted upon that dictum of the misguided African, God only knows!”