Ecclesia, or Church, can constitute any single man a healthy member of Christ's fold. His health must have been independent of the flock. Christianity is not born of places, of persons, nor of things. Its Temple is all space, and its Deity all-mighty. "Neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, ought men to worship." Were Christianity local and objective, we might reasonably expect that heaven would possess a similar hierarchy, similar rites, and similar temples to those upon earth. And if it did not, how inexpressibly strange would a heavenly worship appear to him, whose Christianity was created, grew to maturity, and dwelt in what he had seen, and heard, and handled upon earth. Still more nobly may it be said of the Christian than of the poet, "Nascitur, non fit."-Yes! the Christian is born ;—he is not an automaton, made up of mechanical agencies, and attired to suit the fancy of the paganized showman. He is a living being, whose life is Eternity.

Christianity, too, has its special penalties. To embrace that honestly makes a man lose caste with Christians, so called, just as inevitably as it does in the case of the Indian Brahmin. Each at once becomes the Pariah of its opponent's caste respectively; the Brahmin of superstition, the Christian of the world. Hence a distinguished writer has well observed: "Boniface founded an hierarchical system, from which more persecution proceeded than from any other; the fact is incontestable. But even Protestant hierarchies have leagued with the power of the state to persecute. Thus the Lutherans persecuted the Calvinists, the Anglicans persecuted the Puritans. Under Cromwell, a Puritan parliament for a few years imitated, but did not equal, the hierarchy. The execution of free Servetus, in free Geneva, under Calvin, is quite a solitary instance. The Church condemns religious persecutions in general; her own is an exception, because she is right, while all these are wrong. She washes her hands of blood. She herself never condemns to death; but the laws in virtue of which the State does it are required, approved, brought to pass by her; only so that her left hand knoweth not what her right hand doeth. The Pope does not desire a Bartholomew night,-probably he never even advised it; but he celebrates its success by feasts and medals, and by adorning the princely antechamber with splendid paintings. Bossuet finds it quite natural that the Albigenses (and the Waldenses with them) should be burnt; and sees simple justice in the system of laws passed against the Huguenots, with its galleys and dragonades. And Bossuet was a pious and highly-cultivated bishop, the elegant defender of the rights of the Church."

1 Chevalier Bünsen's Signs of the Times.

Is religion really, then, persecution? Is persecution really religion? The same feeling of Caste continues to be the bane of Christianity wherever man's religion bears sway; of this the most terrible evidences are constantly occurring in Italy, Austria, Spain, and Ireland. Of the latter country the following is a painful evidence in point :

"I remember the case of one poor girl attending one of the Scripture schools, a school in which she was also taught industrial occupations; and, I believe, through her instrumentality her parents had been also brought to hear the Gospel, although her father still remained a Roman Catholic. The priest one day went to his house, and asked where was his daughter, 'the souper.' She was ordered out; and, in the presence of her father, the priest struck and beat her severely with a large whip. She was so beaten and abused that she was confined to her bed, and unable to work for some time afterwards. The case was brought before the magisThe priest

trates, and the poor girl detailed the circumstances. said that all she had been stating was false.

"The father was in court, and the priest, probably confiding in his power over him as one of his flock, requested that the father might be examined, for the purpose of contradicting and falsifying the evidence of his own child. Every one present was anxious to see the result. The father came forward, in an agitated and trembling way, and took the book; and, to the amazement of all present, confirmed every word his daughter had sworn. The priest was struck with confusion at first; but he then proposed to call a witness to prove that the man, to whom he had himself appealed, was not to be credited on his oath in a court of justice! All this came before me on sworn documents. The magistrate fined the priest thirty shillings. I confess when I read the case my blood boiled; and knowing that the fine would be levied on the flock in the chapel, I directed the informations of the daughter and father to be taken, and that the priest should be brought to trial at the next assizes in public court. I can appeal to some of my friends that I exercised in such cases the greatest forbearance, lest any undue suspicion should be attached to my motives; and if I erred, it was rather on the other side. As I have said, I sent the case for trial. I was not in office at the time of the last assizes ; and somehow the priest was got off, for no trial has taken place; and that priest, who was guilty of cruelly beating a girl in the presence of her father, and attempted the defence I have described, has done so with impunity." 1

! Church of England Quarterly, 1856.

PERSECUTING CASTES.

BRAR

OF THE

45

And so, again, in the history of Protestantism the same tyranny

occurs.

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6

Hardly were Luther and Melancthon dead, when the son-inlaw of the latter, a pious aud peace-loving minister, who preached peace with the Calvinists as brothers, was put into prison; and not long after, another was executed as a malefactor, with a sword inscribed for the purpose with these words, Beware, Calvinist.' And this took place in the very church of the Reformation which had preached the freedom of the Gospel, and sealed the testimony before God and man with the precious blood of martyrs.

Every absolute church necessarily brings with it persecution. It denies the right demanded by the consciences of Christian individuals and the congregation, viz., freedom of thought, and, what is the same thing, freedom of speech and of teaching, on the highest subjects of human research and contemplation. This political church system equally denies the State, for it would make it merely the instrument of defending or avenging the prescriptions of the Church, which devolve on the State the right of punishment. And it demands this on the part of the latter as a divine right, which it were godless to withstand. Lastly, it denies the most divine thing on earth-the conscience of the individual and of humanity.” 1

Of this stigmatizing and persecuting spirit the same author observes, that it designates "the liberty of speech and of the press, under which all the existing sciences have blossomed forth, as an emanation of the spirit of destruction; and the diffusion of the Holy Scripture, from which it professes to derive its own authority, is the greatest crime of all. The printing-presses close, and the prisons open their doors. The atmosphere of our world resounds once more with the sighs and groans of innocent victims of persecution; bayonets surround the altar, and guard the throne of the absolute spiritual lord of Christendom. Meanwhile, reigning thrones regard the hierarchy as their best bulwark; and therefore hand over to its guardianship, to an extent hitherto unknown, the sanctity of the family, marriage, and the most sacred possessions of society-popular education and mental culture."

And again, of the same intolerant state persecution in Russia :— "There too the hierarchy and priesthood raises its voice against all toleration as against all education of the people or clergy which does not proceed from itself. In Russia every movement is dependent on an unlimited sovereign, who is at once Emperor and Pope. The clergy under his sway proceed against priests according to the severest canon

1 Bünsen.

law in the world, and put this law into force in accordance with the most cruel regulations of the ancient Sclavic barbarism. What has saved the wealthy members of the old orthodox church in Moscow this year, but their treasures? Within the bosom of the empire itself, the wild hatred has been exalted almost to fury of the old orthodox against the state church of Peter the Great. The working of the system on the clerical body during the late eventful war, has been the extinction of the more liberal tendency which, under Alexander, had brought the modern Russian church nearer to the older church, and consequently nearer to the Bible and Protestantism. Alexander I. favoured the printing of the Sclavonic Bible, and ordained its introduction into the family aud school; as indeed had been the case with the clergy of the Eastern church in general, who, whenever they have not beeen under the sway of the imperial pope, have always allowed the Scriptures to be in the hands of the people, and with blessed results."

The same jealous exclusiveness of Caste continues to prevail in France. There Romanism has endless resources. It has been upheld by laws in themselves restrictive, imposing fetters on controversy and religious liberty, and making proselytism impossible. "We have the State forming a school in every hamlet, subject to its influence; the Jesuits, its militia, penetrating into prisons and hospitals, and establishing everywhere colonies of brothers and sisters, to whom children are consigned, imparting bread to the poor, and enticing them and compelling them to the church. Romish missionaries, educated in five large establishments, have landed on every shore; and France contributes to the Society De Propaganda Fide £80,000 a year. The places of worship are resplendent with pomp and pageantry. All is outwardly bright and powerful. But what are the fruits? A nation confessedly without religion. Can there be a greater condemnation of a system than this of no results? In Brittany, silver, corn, horses, cattle of all kinds, facilities for manufactures, good harbours, a fine line of coast, a healthy climate, why are all these advantages turned to such small account? Let Spain, Italy, and Naples answer, for the cause is the same with all. It is because of that enthralling, demoralizing, deadening spiritual bondage, under which improvement sickens, and science dies. Is it by accident that Italy, once the centre of the world, and renowned for arts, is now its very cesspool, where stagnation alone reigns, and the very air abounds in unwholesome vapours? Is it by accident that Spain, once the most powerful state in Europe, and owning half of another hemisphere, is now the most abject? Is it by accident that Naples is pointed at with horror by the civilized world at this moment, as a

PENALTIES FOR CHRISTIANITY.

47

very shambles? Is it not a remarkable coincidence that these three countries are precisely those in which the Romish system has been not merely strictly, but fanatically, adopted?" 1

The same hatred that the individual Christian has always experienced at the hand of the formalist, or of the conventional religionist, will equally be the lot of that entire nation that is practically and avowedly Christian. Here it is, that the burning hate, the deadly malice, and the heart-curse of all despotisms possessing a nominal Christianity, but an actual paganism, will burst forth in their malignity. Christianity in the man or in the community, it matters not which, will have to pay this penalty. It needs only that the people of England should be "a people fearing God and working righteousness," to be the mingled scorn and terror of the principalities and powers of false religion.

On the other hand, England need only descend from the awful heights of Calvary, and remember to bring down the "wood of the true cross but to forget Him who died thereon-to remember the Vicar of Christ, but to forget his MASTER-to cultivate the artistic portraiture of saints, but to forget the likeness of the sinner to materialize the spirit, but to spiritualize materialityto throw open theatres, shops, and museums on the Sundays— to get a thorough taste for ecclesiastical pomp, Sunday reviews and the Sunday band, that jubilant purifier of man's corruptions, that spiritual tonic—to give God the half of his day and to filch the remainder to cultivate the religion of the intellect and stifle the religion of the heart to remember the priest and forget the Saviour--such is the certain recipe for conciliating the communities of paganized Christendom.

What is the test of true religion? Is it external, or is it internal ? Is it form, or is it power ?-stillness, or progress ?-death or vitality? In a word, CASTE or CHRISTIANITY?

"But it is the religion of the Church," says one. But is it the religion of God? Was it not the religion of the Church that deposed kings, that burned myriads of Christians, exiled hundreds of thousands of pious and industrious men from their native land and stripped them of their property;-that systematically, annually, and mercilessly plundered the nations of Europe; connived at the doctrine, that the slaughter of wretched Hebrews was a sacrifice acceptable to God; ruthlessly destroyed provinces, cities, and their myriads of pious inhabitants; burned and denounced GOD'S WORD, as she had burned and denounced God's people? Have a care, my friend, you who speak of liberality

'The Bible in Brittany, by F. Hope, Esq.