explain the phenomena of nature, which have dictated the fables of every nation. As every one is perfectly acquainted with the first chapter of Genesis, I shall only cite a few verses, in order to contrast its beautiful simplicity with the laboured fables of the heathen nations : "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. "And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. "And the Spirit of God moved upon the waters. "And God said, Let there be light, and there was light. "And God saw the light that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. "And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night, and the evening and the morning were the first day. "And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. "And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament, from the waters which were above the firmament; and it was so. "And God called the firmament Heaven; and the evening and the morning were the second day. "And God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear; and it was so. "And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas; and God saw that it was good." The very simplicity of this narration proves its truth; for all the other traditions are so embroidered with fables, and disguised by absurdities, that it is impossible, even in the best among them, not to perceive the weakness of human invention. The poetry of every natiou is so indissolubly linked with the religion of that nation, that I resolved to make the charming and delightful art of poetry subservient to a still higher object. We have seen, by the quotations I have brought forward, that in all lands, east, west, north, or south, there is a vague tradition of the grand events which first occurred in the world. The want of written chronicles, the love of the marvellous, and the impossibility of preserving a correct verbal tradition, by degrees altered and obscured them; but we still perceive, amidst all the confusion and improbability which prevail, the shadowy outlines of the first design, and that, too, among nations which were strangers to each other. The inhabitants of Phoenicia had, at that time, nothing to do with the natives of India, and the Chinese and the Scandinavians knew still less of each other; yet they all agree in the main points, though each nation has ornamented and disguised the original truth according to the dictates of their taste and genius. In an age like the present, when scepticism is but too frequent, it must be serviceable to the cause of religion to bring forward evidences of the truth of sacred writ; and what nations so distant agree in recording, must have its foundation in fact. Willingly would we have marked the different effects of Paganism, Deism, and Christianity; but setting aside the vastness and importance of the subject, time will not allow of our entering so fully upon it as we could wish to do; we must, therefore, confine ourselves to the most striking contrasts. We may remark, in all the Pagan systems of worship, that they encourage sensuality, tend to excite the passions rather than to restrain them, and that the principle of revenge is particularly inculcated. "Wo to the aggressor!"-"Never to pardon an injury !”— such are the sentiments of the bravest and the best among the heathen race. To the worshippers of the true God, to the Christian, such sentiments are forbidden: "Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord;" thereby intimating that, sooner or later, he will requite our injuries and repair our misfortunes. Mercy and forbearance are taught us from the earliest days of childhood, and I know not how it is that the phrase," Revenge is sweet," should have passed into a proverb amongst us; but of this I am convinced, that for one who seeks to taste this cruel pleasure, there are thousands who, guided by milder and better principles, know how much sweeter is kindness, and that a generous pardon is the dearest and best revenge; remembering that "to err is human, to forgive divine !"* For the rest, history and observation may enable us to take a clear view of the different effects produced by Deism and Christianity; and whosoever considers the subject with attention and impartiality, cannot fail to adjudge the palm to the religion taught by Jesus Christ. Deism inspires all those qualities which attract and dazzle the multitude; it makes men heroes (in the common acceptation of the term), but it seldom, perhaps never, inspires those virtues which are deemed the brightest ornaments of the Christian. The Deist "sees God in clouds, and hears him in the wind;" that is, he acknowledges a forming hand, a master artificer of what are termed the works of nature. If the Deist enjoys prosperity, he surveys with pleasure this wonderful structure of Divine formation, his mind is filled with delight, his heart dilates with rapture, he admires, he is transported, and he worships. Is his mind endowed with more than ordinary powers, he revels in the delight which they afford him, he triumphs in the ascendancy which they obtain over the minds of his fellow-men; his soul (he feels) is a spark of the Divinity; he is exalted with the idea, and, on the expanded wings of imagination, rises beyond the regions of mortality. But the Deist in prosperity is too apt to forget that the ardent spirit is clogged with dull material; too elated in the hour of happiness, he is too much depressed by the trials of adversity; too lofty to bend, too proud to confess himself wounded, too much elevated with the idea of his affinity to the Deity to bear even those evils which that very Deity inflicts, while his pride seems to sustain Most heartily do we wish that we could coincide with the amiable writer in this flattering picture of human nature.-[Sec. Com.] him the iron of adversity enters his soul, grief corrodes his heart, and where are his hopes? He may desire, he may aspire to immortality, but where is his assurance that he shall enjoy it? He may feel this world insufficient to gratify his desires, but he has no deep and satisfactory assurance that this world is but the passage to another, where satiety and wo can never be known. The Christian, on the contrary, is never so sensible of the beauty and force of our religion, as in the trying hour of adversity and affliction. Even while we weep for those we loved and who loved us, we feel a sweet consolation in the idea that they are removed from the trials and miseries of this world, to live for ever in a happier sphere. Our tears are the tribute of human weakness to human affection, but our consolations are derived from a certain and imperishable source. Christianity has no dazzling attributes; mildness, firmness, gentleness, faith, hope, and charity-these are the distinguishing ornaments of Christianity, these are the stars whose gentle rays adorn her crown. Mildness that inspires religious toleration, firniness that bears without murmuring the assaults of adversity, gentleness that persuades to goodness where harsher methods would fail, faith that implicitly believes the promises of her God, hope that humbly trusts to make these promises her own, and already soars in visions to her eternal rest, with charity that hopeth, believeth, and endureth all thingsthese inspire and sustain the Christian soul, these are the supporters, the virtues, and the graces of the Christian religion. "MY DAYS ARE AS THE SWIFT SHIPS."-JOB. BY THE REV. R. C. CHAPMAN. (Written at Sea). MANY a bark has gone this way, Whose track no more can be espied ; That we did o'er these billows ride So glides the life of man away, Death and the grave his memory hide : We covet not on earth to stay, Nor build where nothing can abide― NOTE. *For in his side is dug a cave, Where all your guilt may find a grave!" John Berridge. Correspondence. EXTRACT FROM THE ADDRESS OF THE COMMITTEE OF MANAGEMENT. "For no opinion expressed in this part of the work will the Committee hold themselves responsible; for while they claim an uncontrolled right of rejection, they offer the pages of their Magazine as a medium of communication to all who call themselves Churchinen; the sole condition which they require is, a Christian, and therefore courteous, style. The nonresponsibility of the Committee for the opinions of their correspondents, will be expressed in every number at the head of the article so denominated, and under these circumstances it is thrown open." To the Secretary of the Committee of Management. SIR, I should feel very greatly obliged, and a very important service would be rendered to many friends of the Church, if some one would forward to you for publication a detailed account of the different periods of the history of this country, in which parishes were divided. This account might commence with the division of the great Saxon parishes. A reference to documents would be of great advantage and value. The subject is becoming one of immense importance and interest, and which will tend more to the effective working of the system of the Church than anything else. In the hope that some one will present your readers with such documentary information, I remain, your constant reader, January 14th, 1841. AN INCUMBENT IN THE DIOCESE OF RIPON. PRAYERS FOR THE DEAD. To the Secretary of the Committee of Management. DEAR SIR,-Disclaiming any intention of advocating the practice of prayers for the dead, permit me to ask a few questions respecting certain statements in Mr. Faber's paper on that subject. First-What proof is there that the early Liturgies were not reduced into writing until after the Council of Nice? Secondly-Was not the first person who denied the necessity of the practice Aerius, and was not he an heretic? Thirdly-Did not the legislature, by the 5th and 6th of Edward VI., cap. 1, sec. 1, recognise the first book of Edward VI. as "a very goodly order for common prayer and administration of the sacraments, agreeable to the word of God and the primitive Church, very comfortable to all good people desiring to live in Christian conversation, and most profitable to the estate of the realm ?" And did it not assign as a reason for setting forth the second book, that "there had arisen, in the use and exercise of the aforesaid common service in the Church heretofore set forth, divers doubts for the manner and ministration, rather by the curiosity of the minister and mistakers, than of any other worthy cause?"-(5th and 6th Edward VI., cap. 1, sec. 5). Fourthly-Do not Collier, Bingham, Short, Milner, and, indeed, every ecclesiastical historian, assert the interference of the foreign reformers of the Genevan school, and their influence over Cranmer? Lastly-Did not Archbishop Usher, in his "Controversy with a Jesuit," prove that the practice was approved by St. Basil, St. Ambrose, St. John Chrysostom, St. Gregory Nazianzen, and St. Cyril; and did not he give his verdict in its favour? Believe me, yours sincerely, Middle Temple Library, Jan. 19, 1841. PROVINCIAL LETTERS. LETTER I.-INTRODUCTION. C. L. B. To the Secretary of the Committee of Management. SIR, The sensation, which the writers of what is commonly called The Oxford Tract School have excited, may perhaps render a few Provincial Letters from the remote Palatinate of Durham, respecting the systematic tendency of the productions of that school and its associates, neither useless nor altogether unacceptable. In following out my discussion of the Tractarians and their allies, I would carefully avoid the ascription of MOTIVES. These are known only to God and their own consciences. But FACTS, I suppose, form a perfectly legitimate subject for statement and examination. Now, if, with a fatal concurrence, these FACTS uniformly tend to the advancement of Popery and to the discouragement of Protestantism; or if, which is still more serious, they generally involve a plain logical necessity of abandoning the common doctrines of the Reformation and adopting the special doctrines of the Church of Rome: then, whatever may be the hidden MOTIVES from which they spring, we have, I think, a perfect right to point out their TENDENCY, even under the aspect of an unmistakeable PURPOSE and SYSTEM. It is said, upon very good evidence, that, with the object of distracting and ruining the Reformed Church of England during the reigns of Elizabeth and James, the Jesuits, those stout rowers of the bark of St. Peter, in various simulated characters, advanced various plausible and captious arguments against both her doctrine and her discipline. Of course, no suspicion of secret Jesuitism ought, for a moment, to attach to persons so morally and socially estimable as the leaders of the Tractarians: but it is their INFELICITY to act the precise part, which I myself, were I a Jesuit in the secret employ of Rome, most assuredly should act. I would occasionally censure the Papal claims and doctrines and practices; particularly, when any case could be decorously made out which would not very materially interfere with my project: for, otherwise, my disguise could not be preserved. But then I would take due care, that, on the whole, my statements should be so constructed, and my insinuations so conveyed, and my arguments so managed, whatever might be the precise subject taken in hand, as to conduct, when the tacit conclusion was readily drawn by the ardent aspirant, |