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than the contemplation of real excellence and virtue, when everything arising from the evil of our nature is thrown into the background, and not made the subject of admiration, as it is, and must be to a great extent, in the contemplation of all human superiority. But these men seem to belong, though not to a different race, yet to a different order: an order with which we shall ourselves come into more immediate contact in that glorious existence when we shall be one family with the servants and sons of God. But if there be, so to speak, a race of servants of God, are there not magnates of that race? And who, from among that portion of the race which has passed through the trials and sufferings of this lower world, will stand higher in the ranks of heaven than those men who have been especially honoured of God Himself, taken as it were into His councils, looked upon as intercessors, recognized and spoken to as His friends whilst on earth, and admitted to His presence as redeemed in every sense from the power of the grave? And in respect of other orders of beings, also servants of God, what is it which we have to look for in the world of immortality? "Are there no ancients* in that world-no superiorities? Are we not infallibly told that it contains Thrones, Principalities, Powers? Are there not, probably (nay, can we believe otherwise?)-are there not in that world thousands of servants of the Most High, who have occupied posts of trust and honour at the right hand of Universal Dominion, whilst suns and planets have been running through their destined periods, and have vanished?" On what terms are we to take a place in that lofty society in which we shall find the most eminent of God's servants of the race of man, and the Thrones, Principalities, and Powers of heaven itself? Are we equal to it?

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Thanks be to God, we may remember the words of St. John, Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that when He shall appear we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." But another question arises: Are we now the servants of God? Have we entered upon that course of service through which it is possible that we may be even like God?

Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Samuel by name, Daniel as among those who stopped the mouths of lions, and Elijah as among those who wandered in deserts and in mountains and in dens and caves of the earth, are all referred to in the 11th chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews. The great men of the New Testament, and Job, who was not among the ancestors of Israel, are not there mentioned, though they were governed by the same motives. But if we examine the one principle of faith, which is here set forth as constituting the

* Isaac Taylor's "Saturday Evening."

greatness of these saints, it is indeed singular how it contrasts with the sentimental tendencies of the present day. "Faith, then, is the substance of things hoped for;" but where now is the hope which seeks the ground and comfort of faith for its foundation? And as we proceed in the chapter, it is indeed melancholy how different the faith there spoken of is from the aspirations of our generation. "By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God." It has been well observed, that the encomium on Abel's sacrifice shows that it must have been offered in faith of a revelation already made of the Great Atonement; for that, if it had been independent of a revelation, it could not have been by faith. So when we understand by faith that the worlds were framed by the word of God, it must have been by a revelation; and what revelation was ever open to man but the beginning of Genesis? Is it the understanding of this age that the worlds were thus framed by the word of God? St. Jude tells us that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, "Behold, the Lord cometh, with ten thousand of His saints, to execute judgment!" What is the temper of the present age as to the judgments of God? By faith Noah escaped that overwhelming destruction, which cavillers now tell us never took place. And, in like manner, "Moses passed through the Red Sea as on dry land," which the modern phraseology of unbelief speaks of as not historically true. "By faith Abraham offered up Isaac," though with a certainty that God, according to His promise, would restore him to life; and saw the great doctrine of substitution, when the ram was offered in Isaac's place. He thus saw the day of the Saviour, and was glad. And this is a doctrine most despised by many-a stumbling-block and foolishness as much as at first. But it is still our faith. And though creatures of an hour (we quote the words of Dr. Chalmers) "may behold no one feature of greatness or of beauty to admire in it, yet do angels admire it, and to accomplish it did the Son of God move from the residence. of His glory; and all heaven appears to have laboured with the magnitude and the mystery of the great undertaking; and along the whole tract of revelation, from the first age of the world, do we behold the notices of the coming Atonement; and whilst man sits at his ease, and can see nothing to move him either to gratitude or to wonder, in the evolution of that mighty scheme by which mercy and truth have been made to meet together, and righteousness and peace to kiss each other, it is striking to mark the place and the prominence which are given to it in the counsels of the Eternal."

Are not these things enough to make us ponder deeply the inquiry and prophecy of our Saviour, "When the Son of man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?"

G. S.

POLAND: HER SINS AND SORROWS.*

PUBLIC attention has lately been so much occupied with the affairs of Denmark, that the condition of Poland has almost dropped out of sight. Yet a furious war still rages within her and around her. She contends for her highest rights against Prussia and Austria; one of the smallest states in Europe against two of the largest and most powerful. Our English feelings go entirely with Poland, not merely because she is the weaker party, but because we are convinced she has right upon her side. It is the cause of freedom and self-government against oppression and the iron sceptre of foreign despots. But we find that we are in strange company; the Pope of Rome gives all his sympathies to Poland. In general, he has not shown himself the friend of the oppressed. Downcast nations have seldom made their appeal to him. If the oppressor was some true son of the Church, and the oppressed sat loose to his authority, no such appeal was ever thought of; yet in this instance, Austria, the Pope's right arm, is one of the oppressors, while Poland is scarcely Catholic. It will be an instructive lesson, both in a political and a religious point of view, to consider this strange phenomenon, the reasons of it, and its probable issues should the Pope succeed.

Without recurring to ancient tradition, which affirms that St. Andrew the apostle was the great missionary of Poland, it is enough to state, on surer grounds, that Methodius and Cyrillus preached the Gospel amongst the Poles in the ninth century. These early missionaries came from the Eastern or Greek Church, and they seem to have delivered their message with much simplicity. The public service was conducted in the native tongue. Heathenism still prevailed to a great extent, but they effected the general conversion of the country, and Christianity was by law established. Above all, they completed a translation of the Scriptures into the language generally in use in the Slavonian nations. The missionaries owned subjection to the patriarch of Constantinople, yet for unaccountable reasons, when the great schism occurred, the Poles acknowledged the supremacy of the Pope; a fatal step, and the cause of all the misery that Poland has since endured. Within a few years the Pope became restless; a Bible in the vernacular tongue, worship in a language the people understood, and the communion in two kinds, were abominations not to be endured. At a Synod held in 1060, Methodius was declared to be a heretic, and the Slavonian alphabet, which the early missionaries had formed, an invention of the devil. * Krasinski's History of the Reformation in Poland. Two Volumes.

A struggle at once commenced between a high-minded people and the most imperious of spiritual despots. In spite of all the papal efforts, the Polish churches long resisted her oppression. There is historical evidence to prove that, while the generality of the Slavonian churches conformed to the Romish ritual, the national liturgy continued to maintain itself for centuries; and the Scriptures, or at least a great part of them, continued to be read in many parts of Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, and Poland. The Pope was often obliged to compromise; where the opposition was too powerful to be resisted, he connived at these heretical practices.

The Reformation of the sixteenth century arrived at last. It found Poland in possession of free institutions. The laws of Poland did not allow any inhabitant to suffer persecution on account of his religious opinions. She now refused to accept the arbitrary decrees of the Council of Trent, and was one of the most independent branches of the Romish Church. As the Reformation gained strength, it was natural, therefore, though most unfortunate, that upon her soil the unhappy differences amongst the various sections of the great reformed church should be agitated with more than usual violence. The jealousy of the Lutherans against the united churches of Helvetia and Bohemia divided the Protestants amongst themselves. Above all, the anti-Trinitarian doctrines which first appeared in Poland deeply injured the cause of the Reformation. They not only increased dissent among Protestants, but gave some colouring to the papal dogma which denounced the reading of the Scriptures as dangerous to the common people. Many there were who were terrified by the rashness of the Unitarians. These were seduced the more easily into the belief that the study of the Scriptures ought not to be allowed to all Christians, as being dangerous to the purity of their faith. Some of these remained in the Roman Catholic communion, which they were on the point of abandoning; while others, who had already forsaken its communion, returned to it once more, under the persuasion that, in spite of all its acknowledged errors and abuses, it was still preferable to a philosophical school which reasoned away revelation itself, and reduced the Gospel to a code of ethics. The Unitarians, again, wanting in religious zeal, and having no doctrines for which to contend, priding themselves rather on their freedom from prejudice than upon their possession of any saving truth for which it was worth while to suffer, presented no formidable opposition to the impetuous onset of the Church of Rome, and shrank from the fiery trials through which the reformed churches must now pass. Still Poland had been amongst the first of continental kingdoms to receive the Reformation. The Romish clergy found themselves deserted, and almost the whole nation was

against them. In 1525 five churches in Dantzic were taken from Roman Catholic clergymen, and entrusted to such as were in favour of the reformed doctrines. A riot, fomented by the Romish party, was the consequence. The town council took sides with the Romish clergy; four thousand of the inhabitants, armed, surrounded the town hall with pointed cannons, and compelled the council to dissolve themselves. A new council was elected favourable to the Reformation. The monastic establishments were closed; the Roman Catholic mode of worship was entirely abolished, and the treasures of the church declared public property, but left untouched. The convents, and other edifices devoted to the use of the clergy, were converted into schools and hospitals. The report of this great change, and the fame of the Dantzic clergy, who were placed at the head of it, soon reached other shores; and John Alasco was invited by Cranmer to come over and settle in England, and assist in the reformation amongst ourselves, then scarcely begun. Sigismund, king of Poland, was unwilling to break with the Pope. He seems to have been a weak man, very much at the mercy of those around him; as to religion unconcerned; holding all parties in that philosophical indifference, so much affected in Italy by Leo X. and his corrupt court. He wished to have all his subjects in subjection; he would be king, he said, both of the sheep and goats; and, if possible, he would displease neither. opposition easily inflamed him, and he behaved with severity to the Dantzic reformers. The daily progress of the Reformation induced Sigismund to nominate a commission of bishops, who began their proceedings by imprisoning Klein, a Dominican monk, who had begun to preach in Dantzic, but without openly separating himself from the Romish Church, and was elected city preacher. Public opinion, however, was so strongly in favour of the Reformation, that the bishops were obliged to release Klein, and he continued his ministry unmolested till his death, which happened in 1546.

Yet

The Reformation was gaining ground, and, with it, real freedom. A royal edict in 1539 decrees the freedom of the press, and Poland seemed to be about to set an example to the rest of Europe. The Romish clergy opposed the Reformation with their usual barbarity. They still retained considerable power. For we must remember that the Reformation was not yet complete in any country in Europe, and in England was only struggling into life. The Roman Catholic party would have crushed its opponents by the most violent persecutions; but its bloody intentions were thwarted by the free spirit of the country, and by the universal reluctance of the temporal magistrates to carry into execution barbarous decrees awarded by the ecclesiastical tribunals. A national synod was pro

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