"Sir, it is certain they are under very great difficulties at present on the accounts they mention; I am assured from good hands, that several of them who have had £50 per annum from their flock, do not receive £15. It is but doing them justice, to affirm that they are very well affected to His Majesty and his royal family, and by the best inquiries I could make, do their endeavours to keep their congregations from deserting the country; not more than one or two of the younger ministers having any ways encouraged the humour now prevailing here. And His Majesty's goodness in giving them some extraordinary relief on this occasion of their present great distress, would undoubtedly make them more active to retain their people here.

"I cannot help mentioning on this occasion that what with scarceness of corn in the north, and the loss of all credit there by the numbers that go, or talk of going to America, and with the disturbances in the south, this kingdom is at present in a deplorable condition. But I hope we shall be able to keep every thing pretty quiet, and if it please God to send us a good harvest, things will gradually mend.

"I am, &c.,

"HU. ARMACH."

AN ILLUSTRATION OF DR. STRAUSS'S METHOD OF
CRITICISM.

THE following jeu d'esprit exhibits the mode in which the history of the settlement of New England may be accounted for (without the necessity of supposing it real) according to the method of criticism adopted by Dr. David Frederick Strauss in his Leben Jesu-"The Life of Jesus."

The whole history of the settlement of New England we may call a tissue of mythical stories, borrowed in part from the Old Testament, in part from the apocalypse, and in part from fancy. The British government oppressing the Puritans, is the great red dragon in the Revelations, as is shown by the national arms, and by the British legend of St. George and the dragon. The splendid career of the new people is borrowed from the persecuted woman's poetical history. As to her dress, she is "clothed with the sun," etc. The stars of the national banner are only the crown of twelve stars on the poetic being's head. The perils of the pilgrims in the Mayflower are only the woman's flight on the wings of a great eagle. The war between the two countries is only the " practical application" of the flood which the dragon cast out against the woman, etc. The story of the Declaration of Independence is liable to many objections. The Congress was held at a town whose very name is suspicious, and marks it as mythical; Philadelphia, brotherly love. The date is suspicious; it was the fourth day of the fourth month (reckoning from April, as it is probable that the Heraclidæ, and Scandinavians, possible that the aboriginal Americans, and certain that the Hebrews, did.) Now four

was a sacred number with the Americans; the president was chosen for four years; there were four departments of affairs; four divisions of the political power, namely, the people, the congress, the executive, and the judiciary. Besides, (what is still more remarkable,) three of the presidents, two of whom, it is alleged, signed the declaration, died on the fourth of July, and the two latter exactly fifty years after they had signed it, and about the same hour of the day. The year also is suspicious; 1776 is but an ingenious combination of the sacred American number four, which is repeated three times, and then multiplied by itself to produce the date; thus 444 x 4 1776. Now, dividing 444 by 4, we have unity thrice repeated, 111. This is a manifest symbol of the national oneness, (likewise, be it remembered, represented in the motto e pluribus unum,) and of the national religion, of which the Triniform Monad, or "Trinity in Unity," and "Unity in Trinity," is the well-known sign. Still farther, the declaration is metaphorically expressed, and might easily be shown to presuppose an acquaintance with the transcendental philosophy, on the part of the American people. Now the Kritik of Pure Reason was not published till after the Declaration of Independence. Still farther, the Americans were never, to use the nebulous expressions of the Hegelians, an idealo-transcendental-subjective, but an objectivo-concretivopractical people, to the last degree; therefore, a metaphysical document, and, most of all, a legal-congressional-metaphysical document, is highly suspicious as found among them. Farther, if this declaration had been made and accepted by the whole nation, as is pretended, we cannot account for the fact, that the fundamental maxim of that document, namely, "all men are born free," etc. was perpetually lost sight of, and a large portion of the people kept in slavery. Still later, petitions, supported by this fundamental article, are said to have been rejected by Congress with unexampled contempt; whereas, if the history is not mythical, slavery never had a legal existence after 1766. What, then, becomes of the history of the United States which all Europe believes? J. H.

STANZAS.

MAN looks abroad upon the earth,
And all is beautiful;-nor dearth,
But lovely verdure, greets his sight;
As it was wont, 'neath Eden's light,
That o'er that dreamy landscape threw
Delicious light-a heaven of blue.

REVIEWS.

1. The Antiquities of the Christian Church. Translated and compiled from the Works of Augusti; with numerous additions from Rheinwald, Siegel, and others. By the Rev. Lyman Coleman. London: Ward and Co. Med. 8vo. pp. 224.

2. A Church without a Prelate. The Apostolical and Primitive Church Popular in its Government, and Simple in its Worship. By Lyman Coleman. With an Introductory Essay by Dr. Augustus Neander. London: Ward and Co. Med. 8vo. pp. 120.

3. Church Principles Considered in their Results. By W. E. Gladstone, Esq., late Student of Christchurch, and M.P. for Newark. London: Murray; Hatchard and Son. 8vo. pp. 562.

THE time is come when a larger measure of attention must be given to the subject of church government; when all good men must honestly and fearlessly inquire what is the mind of the Spirit, and fully yield to their convictions. If wrong, they must renounce their errors, and if right, stand to their views, with the firmness of men who have carefully re-surveyed the ground they occupy, and are conscious of their integrity. Although the safety of the church may depend mainly on its theology, its theology is far more intimately connected with the administration of its rites and discipline than is commonly supposed. From not perceiving this, we suppose it is, that evangelical men, in general, while admitting, are comparatively indifferent to, the present perils of the church; that evangelical clergymen, in particular, while repudiating as Romanists, those men who have revived the old doctrines, have lost their recent catholic tendencies, imbibed so much of the spirit of the parties they denounce, and quietly call them brethren; and that so many of the laity, without being shocked or discomposed, can consent to hear Mr. Newman or Mr. F. W. Faber in the morning, and Mr. Bradley or Mr. Dale in the afternoon. But was there, or was there not, a difference between Luther and Leo, between Latimer and Laud, between Knox and Bonner; and though the former were never able to shake off all the errors of the system they renounced, was not that difference vital, irreconcilable? But it is easy to see that the church principles of the latter constituted their theology; and that their doctrines of salvation were bound up with their ritual and govern

ment.

If the minister of Jesus Christ be a priest; if a select number of priests only, called bishops or prelates, can order and appoint other priests; if the government of the church rests in the priesthood alone; if grace inheres in the sacraments; and if such priests only can lawfully administer them, &c.; we think that Popery—not the Popery of the middle ages, it may be, but essential Popery-is the sure result. Rome may be too far to reach in a day; but Puseyism may be the traveller's rest on the road-side, and, refreshed there for a season,

And it would seem that the laity move faster in that direction than their leaders. Whether it be that they have no "aurea membrana” before the eye, and more clearly discern the substantial sameness of the Anglo and Roman Catholic systems; or whether it be that their zeal is more hasty and not so nicely tempered with forethought and prudence, we say not; but certain it is they have shown some impatience to embrace their too long slighted mother,-not a few are muttering,

quid Thesea, magnum

Quid memorem Alciden? et mî genus ab Jove summo;

and many, to the scandal of the reluctant clergy,* have taken the decisive step.

Now the whole matter at issue resolves itself into the simple question, "What is a Christian church?" or into the wider, but equally intelligible inquiry, "What constitutes the church of Christ on earth?" But with the Bible open before us, for eighteen centuries, and with the aid of various other lights falling upon us, men are, apparently, less agreed in the answer to be given to these inquiries than at any former period. How strange, how passing strange! Yet the reader of these pages has the proof of it before him. We have a learned divine, and a most excellent man, writing a book to show that the church of the New Testament-consequently the true visible church of Christ on earthis a church without a prelate ;- we have one of our most distinguished laymen, a learned and excellent man also, writing another book to prove that prelacy-in other words the episcopacy of the Church of Englandenters into the very essence, and constitutes the very fundamental of the church; and that that body that has it not, has no claim to be regarded as belonging to the true visible church of the Redeemer. This difference on this primary point, causes them to differ as widely in their views of the government, the discipline, and the rites proper to a church. So that the church described by one, has scarcely any

* We regard the continuance of Messrs. Ward and Oakley in a Protestant church, as one of the most shocking and audacious instances of moral obliquity we ever knew.