ceive, declare that Church to be character- the lowest grade of the Christian ministry. ised by the due preaching of God's word, If the Church conceived of them as having and ministering of His sacraments;* that in previously been ministers of Christ, he can order to the lawful preaching of the word, find no justification for her acting thus toand ministering of the sacraments, one law-wards them, or requiring of them so fearful a fully called must engage in them; that they responsibility. But he cannot reconcile it only are lawfully called who have had epis- with his ideas of the Bible views of the subcopal consecration or ordination, that is con- ject, to admit that every man, or every good secration or ordination by Bishops as the first man, is authorised to discharge the functions of three orders of ministers ; and that Epis- of the Christian ministry; or that a man's copacy, or this ministry in the "divers or- own convictions of duty, or his qualifications ders" of "Bishops, Priests, and Deacons," for usefulness, or his success, is a proof that was "appointed by Almighty God."§ He he is a minister. He believes, rather, and is sees his Church, in conformity with these persuaded, that there must be a something views, requiring what can be reconciled with else, because of which one man, and one Christian propriety, and rescued from the good man, and one talented man, and one charge of extreme and profane bigotry, only successful and useful man, is a minister, and on the supposition that none, otherwise than another not. He fully believes that his episcopally ordained, are ministers of the Church's determination of this question agrees Church of God: she requires all such, no with what Holy Scripture and ancient aumatter how long, how ably, how successfully, thors declare to have been the principle and they may have discharged pastoral functions, rule of duty enjoined upon the Catholic if they would officiate within her pale, to Church as it was declared by Christ and His acknowledge that they are not ministers of Apostles. This settles with him, as a conthe Church of God, by seeking ordination to scientious man, and a Christian desirous of doing the will of God and of Christ, the question of duty, as to the views he should • Article xix. † Article xxiii. † Preface to Ordinal. maintain, and the consistent course which he Collect in Ordering of Priests. should adopt. THE PENITENT SON. EATH brings to those who ing brightly over thy broomy braes; and while the linnet sings on earth, the lark re its approach, by the bed-plies to him from heaven. The lambs are side of one tenderly be- playing in the sunshine over all thy verdant loved, a calm in which knolls, and infant shepherd and shepherdess nature feels most gracious relief from are joining in their glee. Scarcely is there a the load of sorrow. While we yet cloud in the soft terulean sky-save where a hear the faint murmurs of the unex-gentle mist ascends above the dark green sypired breath, and see the dim light of camore, in whose shade the solitary dwelling the unclosed eyes-we watch in ago- sleeps! This little world is filled to the brink ny all the slightest movements of the suffer- with happiness-for grief would be ashamed er, and to save the life of friend or of parent, to sigh within the still enclosures of these we ourselves would most gladly die. All the pastoral hills. love of which our hearts are capable, belongs then but to one dearest object; and things,tage we stood together-son, daughter, grandwhich perhaps a few days before were prized child, pastor, and friend-by the death-bed of as the most delightful of earth's enjoyments, the Elder. In thought are we still standing seem, at that awful crisis, unworthy even of there; and that night of death returns upon the affections of a child. The blow is struck, me, not dark and gloomy, but soft, calm, and and the sick-bed is a bier. But God suffers mournful, like the face of heaven just tinged not the souls of them who believe, to fall into with moonlight, and here and there a solitary an abyss of despair. The being, whom for star. so many long years we have loved and reverenced, "Has past through nature to eternity," and the survivors are left behind in mournful resignation to the mysterious decree. Three little months ago, and in that cot The head of the old man lay on its pillow stiller than in any breathing sleep, and there was a paleness on his face that told the heart would beat no more. We stood motionless, as in the picture, and looked speechlessly on each other's countenance. My grandfather has fallen asleep," said the loving boy, in a low voice, unconsciously using, in his simplicity, that sublime scriptural expression for death. The mother, unable to withhold her 66 Life and death walk through this world hand in hand. Young, old, kind, cruel, wise, foolish, good, and wicked-all at last patiently submit to one inexorable law. At all times, and in all places, there are the watch-sobs, took her child by his little hand, and ings, and weepings, and wailings, of hearts severed, or about to sever. Yet look over landscape or city-and though sorrow, and sickness, and death, be in the groves and woods, and solitary places among the hills-him-once only--before they bury him in among the streets and the squares, and the the cold earth;" and in a moment the golden magnificent dwellings of princes; yet the curls of the child were mixed with the gray great glad spirit of life is triumphant, and hairs of the lifeless shadow. No terror had there seems no abiding place for the dreams the cold lips for him; and closely did he lay of decay. his cheek so smooth to those deep wrinkles, Sweet lonesome cottage of the Hazel Glen! on which yet seemed to dwell a last loving Even now is the merry month of May pass-smile. The father of the boy gazed piteously was leading him away, when at once the dreadful truth fell upon him, and he knew that he was never again to say his prayers by the old man's knees. "Oh! let me kiss own father, for the unkindness sometimes now lying dead before their eyes. "I will walk along with the funeral-and see my grandfather buried, in our own burial-place, near where the Tent stands at the Sacrament. Yes, I will walk, my father, by your side—and hold one of the strings of the coffin-and if you will only promise to love me for ever as you now do, and used always to do long ago, I will strive to think of my grandfather without weeping-aye-without shedding one single tear :"-and here the child, unaware of the full tenderness of his own sinless heart, burst out into an uncon upon him, and said unto himself, "Alas! he hath no love to spare for me, who have so long forgotten him. Jamie-my little Jamie!" cried he, now alone, "thou wouldst not weep so were I to die-thou wouldst not kiss so thyised to love him beyond even him who was own father's lips if they were, as these are, colder and whiter than the clay!" The child heard well, even where he lay on the bosom of that corpse, the tremulous voice of his father; and nature stirring strongly within his heart towards him of whose blood he was ≥ framed, he lifted up his sullied face from the unbeating bosom, and gently stealing himself away from the bed, rushed into his parent's arms, and lay there, delivered up to all the perfect love of childhood's forgiving heart. All his father's frowns were forgotten-his sullen looks-his stern words-his menaces, that had so often struck terror to his wonder-trollable flood of grief. The mother, happy ing soul-his indifference-his scorn-and his cruelty. He remembered only his smiles, and the gentlest sounds of his voice; and happy now, as in heaven, to feel himself no more neglected or spurned, but folded, as in former sweetest days, unto the yearning bosom of his own kind father, the child could bear to turn his eyes from that blessed embrace, towards the dead old man, whom, an hour he had looked on as his only guardian on earth besides God, and whose gray hairs he had, even as an orphan, twined round his very heart. "I do not ask thee, Jamie, to forget thy grandfather-no, we too will often speak of him, sitting together by the ingle, or on the hill-side-but I beseech thee not to let all thy love be buried with him in the grave-and to keep all that thou canst for thy wretched father." Sighs, sobs, tears, kisses, and embraces, were all the loving child's reply. A deep and divine joy had been restored to him, over whose loss often had his pining childhood wept. The beauty of his father's face revived. It smiled graciously upon him, as it did of old, when he was wont to totter after him to the sheepfold, -and to pull primroses beneath his loving eye, from the mossy banks of the little spark-ed, not without a pathetic allusion to him ling burn! Scarcely could the child believe in such blessed change. But the kisses fell fast on his brow,-and when he thought that the accompanying tears were shed by his ago, in her sore affliction, to see her darling boy again taken so lovingly to her husband's heart, looked towards them with a faint smile-and then, with a beaming countenance, towards the expired saint; for she felt that his dying words had restored the sanctities of nature to her earthly dwelling. With gentle hand, she beckoned the Pastor and myself to follow her-and conducted us away from the death-bed, into a little parlour, in which burned a cheerful fire, and a small table was spread with a cloth whiter than the snow-" "You will stay in our cottage all night-and we shall all meet together again before the hour of rest!" and so saying, she calmly withdrew. There was no disorder or disarray in the room in which we now sat. Though sickness had been in the house, no domestic duties had been neglected. In this room, the Patriarch had, every evening for forty years, said family prayers-and the dust had not been allowed to gather there, though sickness had kept him from the quiet nook in which he had so long delighted. The servant, with sorrowful but composed features, brought to us our simple meal, which the Pastor bless who had been removed-and another more touching still, to them who survived him. That simple but most fervent aspiration seemed to breathe an air of comfort through father's forgiveness was perfect?" "Yes, William, it was perfect. Not on his deathbed only, when love relents towards all ob the house that was desolate; but a deep melancholy yet reigned over the hush-and the inside of the cottage, now that its ancient honor was gone, felt forlorn as its outsidejects glimmering away from our mortal eyes, would have done, had the sycamore, that gave it shade and shelter, been felled to the earth. We had sat by ourselves for about two hours, when the matron again appeared; not as when we had first seen her, wearied, worn out, and careless of herself, but calm in her demeanor, and with her raiment changed, serene and beautiful in the composure of her faith. With a soft voice, she asked us to come with her again to the room where her father lay-and thither we followed her in silence. did the old man take thee into his heart; but, William, not a day, no, not an hour, has passed over these his silver hairs, in which thy father did not forgive thee, love thee, pray for thee unto God and thy Saviour. It was but last Sabbath that we stood together by thy mother's grave in the kirk-yard, after divine worship, when all the congregation had dispersed. He held his eyes on that tomb-stone, and said, 'O Heavenly Father, when, through the merits of the Redeemer, we all meet again, a family in heaven, remember thou, O Lord, my poor lost William; let these drops plead for him, wrung out from his old father's broken heart!' The big tears, William, plashed like the drops of a thunder shower on the tomb-stone-and, at the time, thy father's face was whiter than ashes-but a divine assurance came upon his tribulation—and as we walked together from the burial-place, there was a happy smile about his faded eye, and he whispered unto me, My boy has been led astray, but God will not forget that he was once the prop and pillar of his father's house. One hour's sincere repentance will yet wipe away all his transgressions.' When we parted, he was, I know it, perfectly happy-and happy, no doubt, he continued until he died. William! many a pang hast thou sent to thy father's heart; but believe thou this, that thou madest amends for them all at the hour of his dissoLook, the smile of joy, at thy deliverance, is yet upon his face." 、 The body of the old man had been laid out by the same loving hands that so tenderly ministered to all his wants and wishes when alive. The shroud in which he was now wrapped, had been in the cottage for many a long, long year; and white as it was, even as the undriven snow, scarcely was it whiter than the cheeks and the locks now bound in its peaceful folds. To the eyes of my childhood the Elder's face had sometimes seemed, even in its benignity, too austere for my careless thoughts, impressed as it ever was with an habitual holiness. But all such austerity, if indeed it had been ever there, death had now removed from that silent countenance. His last moments had been blessed by his son's contrition-his daughter's love-his grandchild's pity-his pastor's prayers; and the profound peace which his parting spirit had enjoyed, left an expression on his placidlution. features, consolatory and sublime. The Penitent Son was sitting at the bedside. We all took our places near him, and for a while remained silent, with eyes fixed on that countenance from which beamed the best memories of earth, and the loftiest hopes of heaven. "Hear," said the humbled man, "how the thaw is bringing down the loosened torrents from the hills! even so is my soul flowing within me!" "Aye, and it will flow, till its waters are once more pure and bright as a summer stream," said the Pastor with a benign voice. But art thou sure that my 66 The son took his hands from before his eyes-gazed on the celestial expression of his father's countenance-and his soul was satisfied. "Alas! alas!" he said in a humble voice, "what is reason, such poor, imperfect, miserable reason as mine, to deal with the dreadful mysteries of God! Never since I forsook my Bible has the very earth ceased to shake and tremble beneath my feet. Never, since I spurned its aid, have I understood one single thought of my own bewildered heart! Hope, truth, faith, peace, and virtue, all at once deserted me together. I began to think of myself as of the beasts that perish; my better feelings were a reproach or a riddle to me, and I believed, in my perplexity, that my soul was of the dust. Yes! Alice, I believed that thou too wert to perish utterly, thou and all thy sweet babies, like flowers that the cattle-hoofs tread into the mire, and that neither thou nor they were ever, in your beauty and your innocence, to see the face of the Being who created you." by a heavy hand. Alice! the sight of thee and them drove me mad; for what sight so insupportable to one who has no hope in futurity as the smiles and tears of them he loves in his distraction!" He who spake was no common man—no common man had been his father. And he gave vent to his thoughts and feelings in a strain of impassioned eloquence, which, though above the level of ordinary speech, may not unfrequently be heard in the cottage of the Scottish peasant, when the discourse is of death and of judgment. All the while he was speaking, the wife kept her streaming eyes close to his face-the gray-haired Pastor beheld him with solemn looks-the mortal remains of his father lay before himand, as he paused, there rose the sound of the snow-swollen flood. Wild words seemed these to that highsouled woman, who for years had borne with undiminished, nay, augmented affection the heaviest of all afflictions, that of a husband's alienated heart, and had taught her children the precepts and doctrines of that religion which he in his delusion had abandoned. A sense of the fearful danger he had now escaped, and of the fearful wickedness, brought "I call the Almighty to witness," said the up from the bottom of her heart all the unex- agitated man, rising from his seat, and pacing tinguishable love that had lain there through along the floor, "that these hands are yet years of sorrow-and she went up to him unstained by crime. But oh! how much and wept upon his bosom. "Oh! say it longer might they have so continued? Why not, that one so kind as thou, could ever be- need the unbeliever care for human life? lieve that I and my little ones would never What signifies the spilling of a few drops of see their Maker-they who were baptized in worthless blood? Be the grave once thought thine own arms, William, by that pious man, to be the final doom of all-and what then is in the name of the Father, the Son, and the the meaning of the word crime? Desperate Holy Ghost!" "Yes! my Alice! I feared and murderous thoughts assailed me by myso once-but the dismal dream is gone. I self in solitude. I had reasoned myself, as I felt as if the ground on which this our own thought, out of my belief in revelation-and sweet cottage stands, had been undermined all those feelings, by which alone faith is by some fiend of darkness-and as if it were possible, at the same time died away in my to sink down and out of sight with all its heart-leaving it a prey to the wretchedness thatched roof so beautiful-its cooing pigeons and cruelty of infidelity. Shapes came and -its murmuring beehives-and its blooming tempted me in the moors-with eyes and garden. I thought of the generations of my voices like, but unlike the eyes and voices of forefathers that had died in the Hazel Glen men. One had a dagger in its hand-and --and they seemed to me like so many sha-though it said nothing, its dreadful face incited dows, vainly following each other along the me to do some murder. I saw it in the sunhills. My heart was disquieted within me; light-for it was the very middle of the day for the faith of my childhood was intertwined—and I was sitting by myself on the wall of with all my affections-with all my love for the old sheepfold, looking down in an agony the dead and the living-for thee, Alice, and on the Hazel Glen where I was born, and our children, who do all resemble thee both where I had once been so happy. It gave in beauty and in innocence, whether at thy me the dagger-and laughed as it disappearbosom, or tottering along the greensward, and ed. I saw and felt the dagger distinctly for playing with the daisies in the sun. Such some minutes in my hand-but it seemed to thoughts were indeed woven through my fall down among the heather-and large blots heart, and they could not be torn thence but of blood were on my fingers. An icy shiv } |