themselves (ex officio) Priests.-The blasphemous claim on the part of the Clergy, of being more Priests than the godly laity—that is to say, of having a higher Holiness than the Holiness of being one with Christ,-is altogether a Romanist heresy, dragging after it, or having its origin in, the other heresies respecting the sacrificial power of the Church Officer, and his separating the oblation of Christ, and so having power to absolve from sin :-with all the other endless and miserable falsehoods of the Papal hierarchy; falsehoods for which, that there might be no shadow of excuse, it has been ordained by the Holy Spirit that no Christian minister shall once call himself a Priest from one end of the New Testament to the other, except together with his flock; and so far from the idea of any peculiar sanctification belonging to the Clergy ever entering the Apostles' minds, we actually find St. Paul defending himself against the possible imputation of inferiority: If any man trust to himself that he is Christ's, let him of himself think this again, that as he is Christ's, even so are we Christ's' (2 Cor. x. 7).”

The offices of the Clergy, under whatever names, are mainly Teaching and Discipline. We trust that his own Church will hearken to Mr. Ruskin preaching these noble truths, in this noble way.

"Whatever influence they may have over the Church, their authority never supersedes that of either the intellect or the conscience of the simplest of its lay members. They can assist those members in the search for truth, or comfort their over-worn and doubtful minds; they can even assure them that they are in the way of truth, or that pardon is within their reach: but they can neither manifest the truth, nor grant the pardon. Truth is to be discovered, and Pardon to be won for every man by himself. This is evident from innumerable texts of Scripture, but chiefly from those which exhort every man to seek after Truth, and which connect knowing with doing. These, therefore, I hold for two fundamental principles of Religion, that without seeking, Truth cannot be known at all; and that, by seeking, it may be discovered by the simplest. I say, without seeking it cannot be known at all. It can neither be declared from pulpits, nor set down in Articles, nor in any wise prepared and sold' in packages, ready for use. Truth must be ground for every man by himself out of its husk, with such help as he can get, indeed, but not without stern labour of his own. In what science is knowledge to be had cheap? or truth to be told over a velvet cushion, in half an hour's talk every seventh day? Can you learn chemistry so?-zoology?-anatomy? And do you expect to penetrate the secret of all secrets, and to know that whose price

is above rubies; and of which the depth saith,-'It is not in me,'-in so easy fashion? There are doubts in this matter which evil spirits darken with their wings, and that is true of all such doubts which we were told long ago—they can be ended by action alone.'

:

"As surely as we live, this truth of truths can only be so discerned to those who act on what they know, more shall be revealed; and thus, if any man will do His will, he shall know the doctrine whether it be of God. Any man :-not the man who has most means of knowing, who has the subtlest brains, or sits under the most orthodox preacher, or has his library full of the most orthodox books-but the man who strives to know, who takes God at His word, and sets himself to dig up the heavenly mystery, roots and all, before sunset, and the night come, when no man can work. Beside such a man, God stands in more and more visible presence as he toils, and teaches him that which no preacher can teach-no earthly authority gainsay. By such a man the preacher must himself be judged."-P. 30.

In matters of Discipline Mr. Ruskin would confine the Authority of the Church, chiefly to the enforcement of Rules of Righteousness, excommunicating, until penitence was shown, the vicious and immoral, whose practical alienation from Christ was capable of being made visible to all men. In the Church Courts required for such Trials, though the presiding Officer must be professionally educated, he would have the jury to consist exclusively of laymen.

6. In the question of the connection between Church and State, he gets rid of the difficulty in this way. Throughout Christendom the Church is the State, inasmuch as all the people are professed believers. The exceptional element of Jews, &c., he disregards. The question then in his eyes has little more difficulty in regard to ecclesiastical than to civil matters. The State, that is the whole People represented by its Government, does in the matter of Religion what it deems best. For all the Government is Monarchical-that is, whether its Head be an elective Assembly, or an Individual, it must have authority to legislate for the Many, with power to enforce its determinations.

"What is its best form is a totally different question; but unless it act for the people, and not as representative of the people, it is no government at all; and one of the grossest blockheadisms of the

English in the present day, is their idea of sending men to Parliament to represent their opinions. Whereas their only true business is to find out the wisest men among them, and send them to Parliament to represent their own opinions, and act upon them. Of all puppet-shows in the Satanic Carnival of the earth, the most contemptible puppet-show is a Parliament with a mob pulling at the strings."

A Monarchy then, that is a Government, however constituted, that legislates and determines for the People, Mr. Ruskin thinks must have the same authority over ecclesiastical matters, as a father has in the case of his adult children-that is no power to coerce, to enforce any particular Rite or any particular Creed, but authority to provide and tender such instruction as he deems most salutary, and to establish such Religion in his own house "as he deems most convenient for his family." The adult children are at liberty to reject such provision, "but not without solemn conviction and deep sorrow."—In all this Mr. Ruskin tacitly assumes that the Governing Body is exclusively Christian, and that such differences as prevail among them are so immaterial, as to involve in the guilt of schism those who would make them sources of disunion. Accordingly he would exclude from the governing Body all infidels and Papists, as well as gamblers, debtors, &c. The Nation is first to be Christian, and out of the Church which is then the Nation, the governing Body is to be chosen. Mr. Ruskin contemplates no doctrinal differences that could prevent professing believers uniting in the same church, except in the case of the Roman Catholics, and these he would exclude from Church and State, " as idolaters, covetous, and extortioners (selling absolution), heretics and maintainers of falsehoods." This is the weak part of Mr. Ruskin's able Pamphlet: the real difficulties are not even present to his mind; and we presume that he is far from being free from a dogmatic conception of Christianity,—a conception of Religion under which it is impossible that the State and the Church should ever coincide. Yet his protest against the present state of matters in England is of admirable power, and in a Catholic spirit.

This I must emphatically assert in conclusion;-That the Schism between the so-called Evangelical and High parties in Bri

tain, is enough to shake men's faith in the truth or existence of Religion at all. It seems to me one of the most disgraceful scenes in Ecclesiastical history, that Protestantism should be paralyzed at its very heart by jealousies, based on little else than mere difference between high and low breeding. But the real difficulty, nowadays, lies in the sin and folly of both parties; in the superciliousness of the one, and the rudeness of the other. Evidently, however, the sin lies most at the High Church door, for the Evangelicals are much more ready to act with Churchmen than they with Evangelicals; and I believe that this state of things cannot continue much longer; and that if the Church of England does not forthwith unite with herself the entire Evangelical body, both of England and Scotland, and take her stand with them against the Papacy, her hour has struck. She cannot any longer serve two masters; nor make curtsies alternately to Christ and anti-Christ. That she has done this is visible enough by the state of Europe at this instant. Three centuries since Luther-three hundred years of Protestant Knowledge-and the Papacy not yet overthrown! Christ's truth still restrained, in narrow dawn, to the white cliffs of England and white crests of the Alps; the morning star paused in its course in heaven;-the sun and moon stayed, with Satan for their Joshua."

CHRISTIAN TEACHER.-No. 53.

2 B

ART. VII.-REFORMATORY SCHOOLS.

Reformatory Schools for the Children of the Perishing and Dangerous Classes, and for Juvenile Offenders. By Mary Carpenter. London: C. Gilpin, 5, Bishopsgate Street Without. 1851.

Official Catalogue of the Great Exhibition.

SCARCELY any two works could seem to have less immediate relation to each other than the two whose titles we have placed in juxtaposition. One traces on the imagination the magnificent symbol of all the wonders and glories of our modern civilisation-the crystal palace—with its interesting history and its rich contents; the other causes the mind to dwell almost exclusively upon images of rags and squalor, misery and depravity. The one fills the mind not only with large and beautiful conceptions, but with feelings of triumph at the present achievements of our civilisation, and of hope for its future glories; the other gives us awful glimpses of the hollowness of that civilisation, of the depths of vice, and all anti-social forces heaving and working beneath, and fills us with shame and sadness by the revelation of our neglects, and with fear and trembling by the foreboding of their consequences. Yet in truth are not the two in some degree supplementary to each other? Do they not present to our thoughts the two phases of our civilisation-our wonderful progress in attaining command over the world of matter-our terrible failures to control the world of mind? The one gives us a picture of our intelligence and energy, the other of our ignorance and apathy. We behold on this side every one of the tremendous powers of Physical Nature, cunningly subduedobedient as children to our puny strength. We behold on that the picture of the moral elements, the elements of desire, will, conscience, intelligence, still mocking our control, and ever working among us wild confusion and ruin. Here we see every material of outward creation worked into shapes of beauty or utility. The hard lifeless stone takes the rounded form of exquisite loveliness. Mere loose fibres come and arrange themselves into fabrics of