The whole piece was brought to a conclusion amidst the loud Hallelujahs of the full Chorus.

During the entire performance, the immense audience remained rivetted in mute attention, saving that in the more touching passages, stifled sighs were at intervals heard, while tears were observed to steal down the cheeks of many a hardy mountaineer. Thus without the incongruities of the old moralities, or the formal precision of the Greek drama, the sympathies of the human heart were touched in a degree never surpassed by the Athenian tragedians, or by any who have followed them.

At the conclusion, before which no one had offered to depart, excepting such as were overcome with grief, interesting groups of peasants were seen taking leave of one another, and engaging themselves, by the blessing of God, to meet once more at the next decennial representation. Each set out for his distant home, full of pious gratitude to a suffering Redeemer, and humbly trusting that he had that day advanced, in his own imperfect measure, in learning how to live, and how to die.

ART. III. THE HERESY OF A HUMAN PRIESTHOOD TRACED IN LETTERS ON THE PRESENT STATE OF THE VISIBLE CHURCH OF CHRIST. By R. M. BE

VERLEY.

MR. Beverley will be remembered by many of our readers as the author of several very striking and popular pamphlets on the state of the Church of England and the Universities. He is marked, as we think, by a strong tendency to exaggeration, and by a disposition to take symptoms of a probable, for proofs of an actual state of things; and, again, proofs of an actual, though limited state of things, for symptoms of a general. He possesses an eye keenly alive to the signs of any danger which he suspects, and in reading his publications we must put down a great deal to fear and imagination, which would otherwise appear to be the result of observation and experience. In the Letters before us, with much that is both true and valuable, there are abundant indications of these peculiar qualities. Take for example the following strange confession-we were very near writing, assertion :-"I never yet was fortunate enough to hear a sermon, whether in Church or Chapel, on the important topic of the love of the brethren; nor have I been able, by diligent search, to find a published discourse on the subject; so that, apparently, no doctrine has of late years been so much neglected."-Letter XIX. The process in Mr. Beverley's mind, here, as in many other passages of his Letters, is this: he thinks, and very justly, that brotherly love is one of the first Christian duties; he fears, and probably with some cause, that it is not as much or as frequently insisted upon as it ought to be, and then pens the sentence which we have just quoted, leaving the impression that apparently the subject of Love to the Brethren has slipped out of the memory and the consciousness of the whole Church of Christ. We are thus too frequently obliged to say in reference to Mr. Beverley's statements-"very alarmingif correct." Not that we in the slightest degree impugn his veracity, but that we think his fear is too often father to his thought, and that in unconscious compliance with this fear, he puts up with too limited an induction of facts. Mr. Beverley's province in the religious world is that of an alarmist, and his slashing style would be shorn woefully of its glory and of its effect, if he were to admit into it too freely the spirit of palliation, or a disposition to account, on less melancholy grounds, for the phenomena which he describes. Nevertheless there is truth, very

much truth, scattered up and down these Letters, which Christians of all denominations may read with profit. They are however chiefly directed, as the title shows, against the continued existence in the Christian Church of a Priesthood, whether under the name of Clergy or Ministry. And accordingly the author bears down as hardly upon the Dissenters and their pastors, as upon the Establishment and its Priests. He says,—

"We must show, first, that believers have a close access to God; second, in the Christian body there is no gradation in the privilege of proximity, so that one portion of believers may approach nearer to God than their brethren. If the first point can be proved, then it will be established that the faithful are priests, because a close access to God is the whole object of a priesthood: the sacerdotal office has no other design, than, by an allowed proximity to the Divinity, to exercise functions, and enjoy privileges of communion, in which others may not participate."-Letters, p. 23.

And these points, as may be supposed, at least by Protestants, the author has no difficulty in proving. His objection seems to affect only the doctrine of the Church of Rome, and the Romish part of the Church of England. But he himself thinks that it affects Protestants, and Protestant Dissenters even. He thinks that the system adopted among them countenances the idea that the minister is nearer the mercy-seat than those whose devotions he leads that he is offering prayer for them.

"The truth nevertheless," he says, "must be plainly stated, that the established order of worship in the dissenting churches is not scriptural; a plurality of ministers is not there tolerated; the brethren who may have the gift, are neither desired nor allowed to address the Church; the whole task of instruction is consigned to one individual, regularly educated and salaried for the work, and no attempt is made to encourage the expression of that spiritual condition, which assuredly is possessed by many a pious dissenter, who, through the instructions of divine grace, has hived up a store of profitable doctrine and wholesome experience, but which he carries with him to the grave, locked and sealed up in his own bosom, unknown and unappreciated by his brethren, because it has been the traditional etiquette of the Sect, that the lips of one priest alone should keep knowledge,' and that the people should seek the law at his mouth.' -p. 27.

Again

"Great and numerous are the duties expected of a minister, and large are the ideas entertained of the limits of his office and yet if he does not fill up the complement of all the impossible toil imposed upon him, he too often falls into discredit with his people, for not doing that which cannot be done. The study and preparation expected for the pulpit; the pastoral visits; the attention to the spiritual cases of particular indivi

duals; the schools; the prayer meetings; the Church meetings; the public meetings; and all the rest of the complicated machinery of operative religion, impose a weight and multiplicity of cares on the shoulders of some pastors, which none but Atlantean shoulders could sustain; and yet if the minister neglects any part of these enormous duties, which a mistaken theory has apportioned to him, he is in jeopardy of forfeiting the esteem of some of his flock, as he too often discovers, to his no small discomfort and sorrow. To use a curious expression of a deep thinker, he is a system and not a man;' circumstances have given him a character which rightly belongs to a society and not to an individual; but neither he nor the Church understands the difficulty of the case, the hidden cause of the difficulty, nor its only possible remedy. The theory of the parish-priest perplexes the views, and confuses the judgments both of pastor and people, and as each party argues on an erroneous axiom, it is no wonder that the deduction of each should be faulty. The people too often think their pastor careless and inattentive; the pastor not unfrequently considers his people unjust and unreasonable."-Letters, p. 30.

These two passages contain the gist at once of the doctrine and the argument which Mr. Beverley advances: perhaps there never was a time in the religious history of our country when they were advanced with less chance of producing any effect. All denominations seem to be most resolutely pressing on exactly in the direction which the author deprecates; and they have no doubt their own reasons for it. The Church insists with freshened zeal on the necessity and sanctity of holy orders; and rudely denies all fellowship with those pretenders to clerisy who possess not the true "virus." The old English Presbyterians cling as tenaciously as ever to the necessity of a class of men educated expressly for the purpose of the ministry. The Congregationalists or Independents have more of this distinction now than they ever had. More colleges are established among them, and the so-called laity take less and less part in their public religious services. The Methodists, it is notorious, now that they are being elevated into wealth, and comparative mental culture themselves, are demanding an educated ministry, and founding colleges.

The Friends are perhaps the only considerable body of any long standing, who apparently do not fall into the line of this march; but they are fast breaking up, partly from lack of this very thing, and they, it must be remembered, have virtually a ministry as much as any other sect: for it is a standing custom with them, that any aspirant to the office of "minister," must be approved by a committee or other authorized body, before he can be allowed to be a regular preacher in their meetings; and a society of Friends has its one, two, three, or four recognized VOL. III. No. 12.-New Series.

N

"ministers," as much as any other dissenting society has its one or two.

We feel persuaded, therefore, that Mr. Beverley's book is but a pellet flung against the irresistible progress of the social stream. Nevertheless, as it has had a large secret circulation, has encountered a good deal of dislike among those for whose benefit it was especially designed, as it contains some criticisms that may be useful to all parties, and some information that will be particularly acceptable to our own readers, we have felt anxious to bring it under consideration.

In the principle of the "Letters" we cordially agree. There is no distinction in the Church of Christ, such as is sometimes implied in the expressions, "lay" and "clerical." The distinction is entirely one of expediency and convenience. This is our only ground of difference with the Author. That all "have equal access to God," and that there is no real and necessary religious distinction between " priest" and "people," we maintain as firmly and as eagerly as he does. But he further asserts, that the devotion of a few men more particularly to the office of Religious Instructors, the allotment of a particular kind of education to them, and the securing of them from contact with the common cares of business, by appointing them some other means of support, are moreover inexpedient. We heartily wish that we could think so too. For the assembling of a society together, in which the words of prayer, and the music of praise, the lessons of wisdom and of truth, could be mutually imparted and received with propriety and advantage to all-instead of having one man to talk, and all the rest to listen, would be a sight cheering to all good men. But, unless Churches were under the immediate guidance of the Spirit, that this would be the result, we much question. Let us ask Mr. Beverley, who he thinks (setting aside all those whose profession and duty render it imperative) would be most likely, if all were free to speak in a Church, to address the assembled brethren? Would it be usually the most modest, the best-informed, the most serious, and the most thoughtful? or would it be the most confident and vain, the most self-satisfied and ignorant?

Suppose it should be allowed, as is found to be requisite even among the Quakers, that not everybody that would should be permitted to speak, but only such as were thought competent and qualified by their brethren. Then we have got a virtual ministry, or priesthood. If there be no limitation or selection of the speakers, there is a certainty of a plentiful admixture of ignorance and offensive presumption in the Church-meetings, and a probability of debate, dispute, and recrimination; and, if