a Saviour, we must endeavor to win it to Christ. How weary I am of a great deal of what is called the 'religious world! High and Low Church Sectarianism seems to be the order of the day; we are much more busy in contending for parties than for principles. These evils are evidences of a lack of genuine Christianity. Oh! when shall that happy day dawn upon us, when real Christians and Christian ministers of all denominations shall come nearer to each other."

The next extracts shall be from the writings of one who was scarcely appreciated by the world in general, but of whose excellencies I was enabled to judge, during my residence at Cambridge-Mr. Simeon.

"Religion appears in its true colors when it regulates our conduct in social life; your religion must be seen, not in the church, or in the closet only, but in the shop, the family, the field: it must mortify pride and every other evil passion, and must bring faith into exercise. Try yourselves by this standard: see what you are as husbands or wives, parents or children, masters or servants."*

"The self-righteous, self-applauding moralist can spy out the failings and infirmities of those who profess a stricter system of religion; but let me ask such an one, Are there not in thee, even in thee, sins against the Lord thy God? Verily if thou wouldst consult thy own conscience, thou wouldst see little reason, and feel little inclination too, to cast stones at others. Professors of religion also are but too guilty of this same fault, being filled with an overweening conceit of their own excellencies, and a contemptuous disregard of their less spiritual neighbors. But I would ask the professed follower of Christ, Are there not sins with thee too as well as with the pharisaic formalist? Are there not great and crying evils in the religious world, which prove a stumblingblock to those around them? Are there not often found among professors of religion the same covetous desires, the same fraudulent practices, the same deviations from truth and honor, as are found in persons who make no

* Simeon's Works, vol. iii., p. 101, &c.

profession? Are there not many whose tempers are so unsubdued, that they make their whole families a scene of contention and misery? Yes! Though the accusations which are brought against the whole body of religious people as 'hypocrites,' are a gross calumny, there is but too much ground for them in the conduct of many." "Nothing is more common, and nothing more delusive than a noisy, talkative religion. True religion is a humble, silent, retired thing; not affecting public notice, but rather wishing to approve itself to God. It is not in saying Lord, Lord!' but in doing the will of our heavenly Father, that we shall find acceptance at the last day. Happy would it be if many who place all their religion in running about and hearing sermons, and talking of the qualifications of ministers, would attend to this hint, and endeavor to acquire more of that wisdom which evinces its Divine origin by the excellence of its fruits.”*

* Simeon's Works, vol. iii., p. 333.

LETTER X.

ON ROMANISM AND CEREMONIAL RELIGION.

I PROMISED that as the completion of my task, I would notice those differences which have occurred in the bosom of the church itself, even though they can scarcely be called sects; I therefore propose to conclude my correspondence with a short survey of the above-named, which I think should rather be viewed as the working out of great principles, than as parties distinguished by particular creeds or opinions on abstract subjects. I may run counter to some prejudices, perhaps, in so doing; but the truth is well worth running a tilt for:-you may sit by as umpire, and decide when I have done, whether I have carried my spear in a knightly fashion.

Though I shall not think it necessary, like Racine's advocate in Les Plaideurs, to go back to the Assyrians and the Babylonians to illustrate my proposition, yet I must begin from a very distant period, in order to make my views thoroughly comprehensible. I must therefore beg you to notice that the tendency of man's mind always is, and always has been, towards the visible and the tangible. The pure abstraction of a Governing Will without any perceptible presence, has in it something too remote from the common habits, powers, and feelings of human nature, ever to be thoroughly embraced by the heart of man; and we find that the Deity has always condescended so far to the weakness of his creatures, as to give the imagination some resting-place. Thus the patriarch had his altar of sacrifice, where the fire from heaven marked the present Deity-and the Israelite had first the pillar of the cloud, and then the tabernacle, where the mysterious Shechinah dwelt over the mercy seat. Yet even this indistinct representation of an embodied Deity, did not satisfy the people: they required a

form, tangible, visible, and Aaron yielded to the wish; because he thought it a prudent and allowable compliance with the weakness of human nature. He was wrong, and was punished for it; and this transaction we shall find the type and foreshadowing of everything that has since happened in the world with regard to religion. The Almighty gives man just enough to rest his thoughts upon it is the fire on the altar, the cloud, the temple, and last of all the man, in whom our devotion may find also an object of affection: but he requires that we shall not go beyond this. We must not return to earth, and make for ourselves a worship less spiritual than he has instituted; on the contrary, he requires us to pierce through the veil as we advance in knowledge, and discern the spiritual through the visible. Hence the perpetual denunciations of the prophets against the Jews for their adherence to forms, which latterly they did adhere to, instead of giving attention to the purification of their hearts.

Among all but the Israelites, the progress of the tangible was much more rapid: idolatry, with all its gross rites, had established itself among the people, at any rate, in Egypt, at a very early period; and spread from that old and luxurious empire, through the more simple states which sprang up around and from it. The Exodus was a warning from on high, that there was a Being, unseen and intangible, whose fiat governed all things: and this lesson was not wholly without fruit: yet still the human race reverted to the objects of the senses, till, in God's good time he sent his Son: presented a tangible form on which the mind could dwell-then removed it from the earth, and said, "You may now think on this, and give your imagination a resting-place: this form you shall see again; but in mean time you must purify your hearts from earthly desires: that form will only greet your eyes when you have cast off the burden of the flesh, and have entered upon a spiritual existence." The first Christians remembered and loved the man; his precepts, his example, his smallest words or actions were recurred to with the fondness of personal friendship; and this carried Christianity through the first two centuries; but then

this remembrance began to have a character of abstraction, and again the human heart called for tangibility. Then came, step by step, gorgeous ceremonies, pictures, representations of the personal presence and sufferings of the Saviour. The very requirements of those who quitted the splendid and sensual rites of heathenism for the faith of Christ, led the Christian doctors to endeavor to replace the festival of the idol by something analogous in the Christian church: and thus without well knowing what they were tending to, the heads of the church yielded one point of spiritualism after another; sought to captivate and awe the people by impressive ceremonies: and finished by the sin of Aaron: they set up the image and said, "These be thy Gods, O Israel! that brought thee out of the land of Egypt."* For be it observed here, that Aaron set up this image merely as a tangible representation of the true Deity; a help to the devotion of the people, who could not worship without seeing something.

This then is Romanism; it is not transubstantiation, nor the mediation of the Virgin and the Saints,† nor the infallibility of popes and councils; these are natural consequences indeed, but the distinctive character of the Romish church is tangibility. "There is the actual flesh," it says; "there is the representation of the actual human presence of saints and martyrs; there is the actual man enthroned, who represents the power of God:" but it might have fifty other ways of satisfying this restless craving of the human mind, and it would be equally pernicious in any of these forms. Man's great struggle has always been between the animal and the spiritual nature, and when religion goes one step farther towards tangibility than the Deity himself has allowed, the animal nature gains strength; and vice and licentiousness follow as naturally, among the mass of the people, as rain follows the cloud.

Observe, I do not here deny that many may profess a religion of sense and remain spiritually-minded them

*Exod. xxxii. 4.

+ Vide Colossians, ii. 18, 19.