receivers were hereby consecrated with the blood of Christ, and also consummated or made perfect partakers of the sacrament, having now received it in both kinds. St. Hilary assures us, that there could be no consecration of the eucharist without a presbyter. And St. Jerome, speaking of Hilary, a deacon, observes, that he, being a deacon, could not consecrate, and that the eucharist could not be accomplished without bishop and presbyter; and the reason of this was, the high estimation in which the eucharist was held, as the prime Christian sacrifice, and one of the highest offices of the Christian priesthood; and deacons being reckoned, if priests at all, of the lowest degree, were therefore forbidden to offer or consecrate the sacrifice at the altar. A. O. R.

THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY TRULY A PRIESTHOOD AFTER THE ORDER OF MELCHISEDEK.

MY DEAR

-The statement of Waterland, cited by E. B., in the note at page 170 of the February number, only furnishes another instance of the inaccuracies of which the best writers are sometimes guilty. He says, according to E. B.'s quotation, "The fathers of the two first centuries and a half say nothing expressly of his" (Melchisedek's) "offering to God any thing, (whether in a spiritual way or otherwise,) but only of his feasting Abraham and his family." Of the few fathers of that date whose writings have come down to us, there are, I believe, only three who touch upon the point in question. These three are Clement of Alexandria, and Tertullian, who both flourished in the second century, and Cyprian, who was born in the second, and attained the episcopate before the middle of the third. In the January number, (p. 47,) two passages from Cyprian's sixty-third epistle were given, in which the material sacrifice of Melchisedek is distinctly asserted in the same number, (p. 46,) Tertullian was quoted, asking, "Unde Melchisedek, sacerdos Dei summi nuncupatus, si non ante Levitica legis sacerdotium Levitæ fuerunt, qui sacrificia Deo offerebant ?"? (adv. Judæos, §. 2.) There only remains Clement of Alexandria, who speaks thus of Melchisedek, “ ὁ τον οἶνον και τον άρτον την ἡγιασμένην ὃ τους τροφην, εἰς τυπον εὐχαριστιας.”(Strom. IV. §. 25.) Nor is it easy to see the force of Waterland's observation, even if it were correct. For if Melchisedek was really a priest of God, the silence of all the fathers would not avail to shake the fact that he did offer sacrifice to God: this being the very essential and necessary duty of his office as a priest, according to St. Paul's argument on this point as regards our Lord :-" For every high priest is ordained to offer gifts and sacrifices; wherefore it is of necessity that this man have somewhat also to offer." (Heb. viii. 3.)

:

I do not like to close my letter without assuring E. B. that whatever sense of injustice had been conveyed by his first letter, has been totally effaced by his second.

I am, yours very truly, A. P. P.

ONE CATHOLIC AND APOSTOLIC CHURCH.

MY DEAR —,—"A Scottish Catholic Deacon" will, I hope, forgive me if I venture to call in question one of his positions. In the February number, (p. 177,) he asks, "If the Roman church be catholic, why did we, at the Reformation, break off from her communion? To break off from the communion of any branch of the catholic church is to be guilty of schism. If she is catholic now, she was so then; and we, by separating, decatholicized ourselves."

The paragraph, as far as it concerns the church in England, is, I apprehend, founded in mistake. At least, I am not aware that our church ever did break off from the communion of the continental churches which adhere to the Bishop of Rome. The separation was not our act, but theirs. The usurped supremacy of the Bishop of Rome we did indeed reject, just as we should reject the supremacy of the Scottish Primus, if he were to lay claim to it. And if that venerable prelate should, thereupon, forbid the Scottish episcopalians to communicate in our churches in England, and should put forth a new and unwarranted creed, and refuse to admit the members of the English church to communicate in Scotland, unless they subscribed that creed, we should have, I believe, a very exact repetition of what took place, in point of separation, between the church of England and the church of Rome, at the time of the Reformation. For these were precisely the steps which were taken by the Pope, while the English church did nothing of the kind. The Romanists in England communicated in our churches in the reign of Edward the Sixth, and for the first fifteen years of that of Elizabeth; and when they ceased to do so, it was by command of the Pope, and not by prohibition from us. Nor does the church of England forbid her members to communicate in the churches of those countries where the authorized pastors adhere to the Roman communion. And if we do not so, it is because they will not admit us unless we comply with the unwarranted terms of communion which the Pope has put forth. Let those terms of communion be withdrawn, and neither their defective administration of the eucharist, nor the speculative errors which many of them hold in regard to it, will, I conceive, warrant us in refusing to communicate with them when we are in those countries.

The whole burthen of justifying the separation must rest upon the party who caused it; and the church of England, who had no hand in it, ought not to be called upon to defend a course which she never pursued. ALPHA.

1

MISS EDGWORTH'S "HELEN."

MR. EDITOR,-May I be permitted to ask why some of your correspondents, whose opinions in general are sufficiently in accord with your own, have not expressed their grave disapprobation of such books as "Helen," by Miss Edgworth?

The tenor of "Helen" is precisely that of the world; and there is not one warning fact or word to draw the reader's attention to

the fate of those who "forget God." Whatever is justly said of the evils of the world may justly be urged against the class of seductive books which set before us the devil and his works, the pomps and vanity of the age we live in, and all the sinful lusts of the flesh, with a false glory around them and a lying spirit within them. The reader, and especially the warm-hearted unsuspecting reader, is gradually absorbed in such stories, when ably written, and, forgetting what he has undertaken to do, soon forgets what he has undertaken to renounce. The false and feverish excitement of the reader on the one hand, and the enchantment of the writer on the other, complete the mischief; a fatal absence of settled principles in his conduct will soon betray to others, if not to himself, that such a reader has learnt to deny the difference between good and evil, and become godless in a world upon which the Sun of Righteousness can alone throw a trust-worthy light and a wholesome warmth. It has been said, that every father, every husband, and every brother must feel thankful to the author of the Scotch novels, for the great supply of pure and refreshing food wherewith he hath supplied their daughters, and wives, and sisters. There is a page to the same effect in "Helen." I do not share in any such feeling, or admit any such fact. Sir Walter Scott is dead, but the evil of his books lives on; being dead, he yet speaks, and speaks that which will be much abused, and can hardly be used. Without any comparison between him and other writers of the same class, the class itself is to be censured, and the ground of the censure is, that they first turn the reader away from God, and then lead him to the broad way of destruction; and from the superior interest and execution of these books, it becomes more necessary to protest against them, and to protest against them on account of their ill effect on religion. Of course, they are further liable to the general charge of dissipating into sentimentalism and sofa chit-chat feelings which were given us to be expanded when our nature was changed, and to be transformed into principles, and bear us, on many-coloured wings, off the earth to heaven itself. It may be advisable to add, that by religion is meant a strict bond of love, whereby man is held close to his Creator, his Redeemer, and his Sanctifier, and rejoices to obey his Bible, until the will of God becomes his rule of life, and the Spirit of God his only strength. It is often declared from our pulpits, that sins of omission are more fatal and more frequent than sins of commission. Would that this truth, unquestioned in theory, were admitted in practice by every Christian, who is, by profession, bound to make his religion the business of his life and the spring of all his actions.

If any one object to this strong language, as being stronger than men may be warranted in using, it is too true that we none of us live up to our privileges; if it be objected that it is the mere language of enthusiasm, it has been well replied to some such an objection, then were the apostles of the Lord Jesus the greatest enthusiasts the world ever saw.

It is taken for granted, that the readers of the British Magazine will consider that every author who writes a book should make his book

such as to promote Christian knowledge and conduct to the utmost of his power and the capabilities of his subject. Undoubtedly some subjects are less capable of being treated in a religious way than others; arithmetic, for instance, than chemistry, and mechanics than anatomy; and, in consequence, where what is miscalled natural science forms the main study of a given period of life, a closer attention to religion becomes, during that period, absolutely essential. But all subjects are capable of being learnt in a religious way, and all are capable of being taught in a way which becomes, by comparison with other ways, more or less religious; e. g. it is the business of all Christians to try their best that books of arithmetic contain no wrong remarks-a case which has happened-and do contain right remarks in the instances given for the student's application of each rule. The same principle requires a far better selection of passages for illustrating syntax than many-it had almost been anygrammars contain for English boys. As to the common distinction between books which are directly or indirectly religious, it is, when true, a mere abuse of words, and when false, a very mischievous sophism. If any language should ever become perfect, each word would have but one meaning, and the speakers would not be the children of Adam. Many of these remarks are thrown out to shew that the difficulties which embarrass the question may, perhaps, be met on fair ground; at present, it need only be observed, that Miss Edgworth's book might assuredly have been religious, and that the epithet religious might be applicable to books on such a subject, with directly or indirectly before it or not before it. But her book is not either directly or indirectly religious, is irreligious in the sense of being without religion, and is anti-Christian in the sense of recommending, by example, wrong motives, and leaving its readers, most likely, to gather from its story what is called worldly wisdom, meaning thereby principles of conduct which contradict what the Saviour teaches. There might be a volume written now, containing a fictitious history of some imaginary heroine in this our day, which should be directly religious-for its whole purpose might be to bring out, on every page, the glory of God-yet the same might not be directly religious, for it need not be a sermon, and does record the adventures of some Christian "Helen." The same book might also be indirectly religious-for its Christian effect is produced by example rather than precept-and it might not be indirectly religious, for the Spirit of truth might tip the tongue of some speaker in it, so as to light up the whole book, and to give each fact the right construction, and each example its proper persuasiveness to Christianity. This may, and to many must, appear trifling with words, for what is not religious, is not so; and what is religious is so, whether directly or indirectly. But there is an old saying, "what is not, is: because what is not, is not." By an absurdity of this kind, men prefer books "indirectly" religious till they get rid of religion altogether; and, while it is unquestionable that the distinction between directly and indirectly religious may be justly made, it is equally unquestionable that it is not correctly expressed by those words, and is so seldom correctly felt and intended, that it is far better avoided entirely.

Perhaps, in conclusion, you will allow me to add, that your strictures. on this subject are not the less wanted because the book is a novel, -nor the less justifiable because the writer is a lady.

In this our day we have more writers than readers, if by readers be meant students of solid and useful learning, yet we have more readers than writers of novels, and more readers of novels and of books which are of that character than of any other books. Now though the spirit of the age is never to be flattered or indulged merely as such, yet it will mostly be found that it is to be opposed and censured as such, and is generally but another name for the reigning form of selfishness, dressed up in its best colours by the arch enemy of man. And when ladies bring themselves forward before the public, reviewers are not at liberty to consider them in any other character than that of authors. An authoress is a modern noun substantive, which ought not to be found in any grammar or dictionary. Ladies, of course, may write, and publish too, whatever their inclination may command and their sense of modesty permit; but what is so written and published may not be treated with the same courtesy that would have been gladly shewn had it been said at home by a quiet fire side. It has been my misfortune to see something of riots, and where there has been most mischief done, there women have always been in the front ranks, and the requisite measures for restoring peace have been too long delayed out of consideration for them. Had they worn men's clothes, however, this would not have been the case; and so when ladies turn authors-in other words, when they put on men's clothes they must make up their minds to consider the riot act as read, and let the law have its course.

. In "Helen," as in most novels, and particularly in Sir Walter Scott's, much is left undone which ought to have been done; but in " Helen there is also a further evil from the selection of the (subject, it might almost be written) moral, and the mode in which that moral is left to work. The deficiency of sterling principles is such as will most naturally be supplied by counters; and maxims will be gradually and inperceptibly worked into the reader, such as will have a show of reality until the hour of adequate temptation; then the reeds break sharp off and pierce the side they had seemed likely to support. "Helen" desires to inculcate the necessity of a strict adherence to truth; yet is there too much reason to fear "she has turned aside out of the way which God commanded her, to make for herself a molten image." If it were possible that morality, as it is called, could now exist in England apart from and independent of religion, that reason without religion could be sound, and such morality and sound reason could secure good conduct, still each character so admitted to exist for the occasion, (as the centaurs in ancient fable,) so assumed to be moral and well behaved, would probably thereby be led further from the only Lord God that taught him, and learn to "say in his heart, my power, and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth."

Every book should rather turn its readers "to remember the Lord their God: it is He that giveth us power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant." with us and our children. "If we do at all forget the Lord our God, and walk after other gods, and serve