ing the more pompous ritual which had preceded it. A simple Presbyterian knowing no Episcopal ordination, and needing none, had prayed and preached in that very pulpit, and lived in the town with a sort of Baxterian influence, having "a mighty reputation as a scholar, a preacher, a casuist, and a Christian." "Before he left the town there was scarce a family in it where there was not praying, reading, and singing of psalms."

The Act of Uniformity perversely preventing what it professed to promote, had thrust out the Presbyterians, and prescribed the existing ritual. The lawn-sleeved bishops, with their surpliced clergy and Book of Common Prayer, visibly memorialized the Episcopalian triumph and its results.

The church was as well filled as it could have been in the best of former days. I thought how century after century many living, active, earnest men, with interests and passions and wants like our own, had met here professedly for worship, many really worshipping; how many had silently poured out their passionate griefs before the Lord, and been comforted in this house of prayer; how many had here been "born of the incorruptible seed" how pious men and women, generation after generation, had here found in the same time-hallowed words a medium for the utterance of their sacred thought and prayer; how devout hearts had swelled with exulting gratitude and adoring love and joy as the roof-tree resounded to the grand ascription "THOU ART THE KING OF GLORY, O CHRIST!-how many bodies of the "saints that slept " were laid beneath and around us; and how many saints once worshipping here had passed into the skies to render pure and perfect worship before the throne of God and the Lamb!

Gathering associations of this kind powerfully influence the imagination and affect the heart. Hence it is not to be denied that the consciousness of a deep sentiment of solemnity and awe arose in the mind; nor need we withhold the acknowledgment that this may go far to account for the strong, perhaps somewhat mystic attachment cherished by imaginative persons for the Church of England; not to say that we may recognise the seductive influence of imagination often leading men into "strong delusions," inducing them "to believe a lie," binding thought in chains, serving to corrupt the minds of many "from the simplicity that is in Christ," and bringing into captivity to the formal, the ceremonial, and the false. "Imagination," says Pascal, "would serve as an infallible rule of truth if it were infallibly false. But being for the most part (although not always) fallacious, it gives no indication of its proper quality, but throws the same colouring over truth and falsehood."

"I am not referring here to the weak and foolish; I speak of

the wisest of men, and it is among them that imagination exercises its most powerful of influences over the mind. Reason may well complain that she knows not how to put a just estimate on the objects presented to her consideration."

And the most perverse thing of all is, that it fills its votaries with a complacency more full and complete even than that which reason can supply. The imaginative have pleasures peculiar to themselves, and into which those of more phlegmatic dispositions cannot enter. They aspire to mastery over the minds of others; they argue with confidence and hardihood, while others are cautious and timid; their self-complacent temperament gives them often an advantage over their hearers, and their imaginary wisdom finds ready favour with judges as visionary as themselves. It is not in their power, indeed, to impart wisdom to fools; but they can make them happy in spite of Reason, who is only able to make her followers dissatisfied with themselves." What enforces reverence for persons, for performances, for the laws, for the great men of the world, but this imaginative faculty?"

But let us turn to the particular services of which you ask my impression. Let me try honestly to record it. I regret that there were several things in the first evening to spoil the sentiment of my reverie. We had the prayer " in the Ember Weeks: "So guide and govern the minds of Thy servants, the bishops and pastors of Thy flock, that they may lay hands suddenly on no man, but faithfully and wisely make choice of fit persons to serve in the sacred ministry of Thy Church." On hearing this, intrusive and busy thoughts would come concerning their power to "make choice," concerning queer advertisements I could not help having sometimes seen, and next presentations, and family benefices, and Government appointments, and preferments, and a few other awkward things.

A sort of jar was felt on the announcement of an Apocryphal lesson for the day (St. Matthias' day), Ecclus. i. Unfortunately, I had been but recently reminded, in a pamphlet by the Rev. Isaac Taylor, that the Apocryphal lessons were deliberately retained for the purpose of annoying the Puritans; and had also lately read from a pamphlet by the Rev. H. Carpenter, a Liverpool clergyman, a stout assertion that "the Apocrypha is never read in our churches on the Lord's day." Hence arose a speculation whether, if the date of St. Matthias' day fell on the Lord's day, which it must sometimes do, this lesson would not have been read of course on that day. This lesson also irresistibly brought up remembrances of the records of fierce contests in 1662, with present results of the victory of that party, who are said to have raised the triumphant cry, "We have carried it for Bel and the Dragon!"

social habits of their members; of the more rigid judging and condemning their fellow-members for laxity and inconsistency, and of these, again, despising their brethren as narrow and unenlightened. We agreed that such a state of things was unworthy of Christian men; that there ought to be no confusion about Christian morals in our churches, because there is no such confusion in the New Testament; we wished to find the decided and clear principles of Christian morality which we were sure were there for us; to apply to our modern life that law of Gospel life and liberty which is a perfect law.

By a common impulse, we turned to Paul's teaching, and our thoughts fixed on the 14th chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, and the 8th and 10th chapters of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, where he is dealing with the question that seems to come nearest to our question-diversity of Christian sentiment, arising from change and diversity of habits. We saw at once that the differences of which we had been speaking were not greater than those described by Paul. But then, the question arose, could we argue from these differences between the early Christians to the special differences about which we had been speaking; from diversities in ceremonial observances to diverse habits that seemed to involve fundamental moral distinctions. Unfortunately, however, we were obliged here to cease our friendly chat. "Time and tide wait for no man," nor would the engine-driver delay his train an hour, and run the risk of collision and a verdict of manslaughter, because I was engaged in the discussion of an important moral problem. I have, however, often since wished that we could resume our chat, and one of those impulses which lead us to dwell on a single topic of conversation, while we let the nine, or the ninety and nine, pass from our thoughts, has urged me to write to you on the subject somewhat at length.

Now it seems to me that this difference between the ceremonial and the moral can scarcely be maintained. For, first of all, the early Christians recognised more than a mere ceremonial distinction in their diversity of sentiment. The brother who had "conscience of an idol" felt that this was for him a vital question, not a mere formal one; it seemed to him that nothing less than unfaithfulness to Christ was involved in a Christian's eating whatever was set before him, asking no question for conscience'sake. To many, Paul's settlement of the difficulty must have been very startling, to be accepted by them, if accepted at all, only on the ground of his apostolic authority. It needed an apostle's words to satisfy such consciences, that where they had thought there was so great a moral infidelity, there really was only a difference concerning ceremonial observance.

And, again, the ceremonial enters at least as much as the moral element into this our modern diversity. The statement we hear so frequently, " this or that may be right for men of the world, but is certainly not right for Christians," points to ceremonialism rather than to morals. Much of the modern objection to dances, to novels, and to plays is based on tradition, rather than on an intelligent appreciation of the habits of to-day. It has come down to us from licentious Stuart and Georgian courts, from the days of Prynne and the Histriomastix, of Etherege, and Farquhar, and Sterne. It surely is the purblindness of traditionalism which keeps men from recognising and rejoicing in the mighty difference between the times when youths and maidens could scarcely mix in so-called polite society without pollution, and the purer tone of our modern literature and social customs. The principle which Paul lays down is far broader than the special cases with which he is dealing. He is affirming the authority of the individual Christian conscience as an interpreter of "the law of life in Christ Jesus," the freedom of every Christian man in his obedience of Christ. And this liberty implies that there may be diversities of Christian sentiment, differences of Christian conduct. The question sometimes so scornfully asked by good but unthinking men," Can that be right in my brother which would be wrong in me?" is answered by the Apostle. "One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind." "He that eateth, eateth to the Lord, for he giveth God thanks; and he that eateth not, to the Lord he eateth not, and giveth God thanks." "I know and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus that there is nothing unclean of itself but to him that esteemeth anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean." He goes even further than this; not only does he affirm a common Christian sincerity in men whose conduct is so different, he declares that we must not, because of such difference, judge one man to be a better Christian than another. "Meat commendeth us not to God; for neither, if we eat, are we the better, neither if we eat not, are we the worse." Christian liberty means the existence of such diversity in the Church, its existence not merely as something tolerated, but as something frankly recognised, If we have confidence in our brother's Christian integrity, we are not to perplex ourselves and to be suspicious of him, because his conscience allows him what our conscience will not allow us. We are called unto liberty: each man in his own way, in confidence of his own loyalty to Christ, and in trust that Christ's spirit is leading him aright, will follow the common Lord. We must not be ready to censure, nor shake our head in gloomy foreboding, nor darkly utter our fear that such a one is going wrong. Where there is a common faith, a common devotedness,

this difference of sentiment is between the Christian and his Lord. Christ gives the law to His servants, not we. Each interprets that law for himself, not one for his brethren. "Whoart thou that judgest another? To his own master he standeth or falleth." Nay, we must not even forebode a brother's fall; "He shall be holden up: for God is able to make him stand."

It is well that Paul has so clearly affirmed that there may be diversities of Christian sentiment and conduct. For, after all, this is the great difficulty. To many men, perhaps to most, it seems that differences of sentiment involve a diversity of law: to say that two men whose doings are opposed may be equally faithful to Christ is like affirming that there is no absolute standard of conduct. They forget what is so ably shown by Dr. Bushnell, in his essay on the "Growth of Law," that, "in what is called virtue, there are two distinct spheres and kinds of obligation, that of fundamental principle, and that of outward executory practice or expression." This is just the distinction laid down by the Apostle; "As concerning the eating of things offered to idols; we know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is no God but one. Howbeit there is not in every man that knowledge; for some with conscience of the idol unto this hour eat it as a thing offered unto an idol; and their conscience, being weak, is defiled." The fundamental principle is one, eternal and unalterable; but consciences are many, various, and changing. The law of life in Christ Jesus is absolute, the same for all, ever the same; but each man is to interpret and apply that law for himself. And this, the right and liberty of the individual conscience, is to be accepted with all its consequences, involving, as it assuredly will, diversity of conduct. Fidelity to the Christian conscience is fidelity to Christ.

Nor is Paul at all afraid of the conclusion which may be drawn from this fundamental principle; he develops this throughout the whole course of his argument. He begins the 14th chapter of the Epistle to the Romans by anticipating an objection which he knew would arise in some minds:-"There is a moral element in all such questions. Ought we not there fore to strive all together to find out what is right, absolutely right, in all matters, and to impress the law of right on everybody, not tolerating differences of conduct in different people?" "Him that is weak in the faith," says he, " receive ye, but not to doubtful disputations," not to the discussion of your differences. Consciences are not to be entirely ruled by argument; every practical question has to be decided by every man on the ground of many considerations, the force of which he alone can fully apprehend. That Paul was clear and