this, by the language which that body of persons called the Religious World has lately assumed; and I do most earnestly desire, on religious grounds, to see a Church within the territory of Great Britain which shall have the courage to avow and maintain, in the midst of this infidel age, 'that it does administer and feed its children with the flesh and blood of 'the Son of God, offered up by His priest upon His altar. I do long to see a Clergy which knows something of that in which the true worship of God ' consists, and which will not degrade His house to be a mere theatre for 'theological mountebanks to deliver their lectures in. The soi-disant Pro'testant religious world has succeeded in presenting, as holding the pre' eminent position in the House called of God, nothing but a box with a man in it turning his back upon the altar, with his flock all round him in 'pens, like the cattle and sheep in Smithfield-market. Apostolical authority 'for the man in the box they laugh at; and a Bishop has publicly preached ' against it. All notion of an altar and a sacrifice they deny: they do not, ' even in their common language, speak of the Church as a place in which 'they worship, but as a place in which they sit under a man. Yet, forsooth, they are not men-worshippers! they are not idolaters! Oh, no, it is 'those who reverence her "whom all generations shall call blessed;" who respect and remember to pray for "all our brethren departed in the faith," by whose labours, and perhaps martyrdom, have been transmitted to us all the religious knowledge we now possess.' P. 34, 35.

6

Mr. Bennett's new series of 'Lectures on the Principles of the Book of Common Prayer' (Cleaver), are both uncompromising in tone, and full of instruction. The character and success of the author prove also that his principles do not evaporate in talk, nor rest in antiquarianism.

'The Dead

From America the arrivals are abundant and satisfactory. in Christ,' by Mr. M'Cullough, of Wilmington, Delaware, (Robinson, Baltimore,) is a very engaging volume: we are glad to find in it a recognition, though, perhaps, creditably cautious, of a practice which has a vast amount of Anglican authority, Prayer for the Dead. 'The Apostles' Doctrine and Fellowship,' Five Sermons, by Bishop Ives, of North Carolina,' (Appleton, New York and Philadelphia.) Essays on the Validity of Anglican Ordinations, by a Layman,' (Robinson, Baltimore;) which is really an addition to our books on the subject. 'Family Prayers, by Dr. Berrian,' (which have been republished by Sharpe, under the editorship of Mr. Wenham, of Ceylon;) and two complete volumes of 'The True Catholic,' a Baltimore periodical, which recalls the best days of the British Magazine.' In all these works we observe one peculiarity, a Claudianism and rhetoric in style, which argues ill for the purity of the English language: even a document so solemn and public as the Encyclical Letter of the Bishops, issued after the late Convention, contains a passage like this, we now speak of its taste, not of graver objections:

The ordinances of God before the coming of His Son, adumbrated, for 'the most part, not Gospel ordinances, but the Saviour Himself upon the 'Cross: and Gospel ordinances commemorate the same Saviour. The for

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mer, in the morning; the latter, in the evening of the day of grace: both being shadows on the dial of time, during the day of probation allotted to the Church of God. Jesus Christ Himself is the true and only Gnomon, 'marking every moment by His ordinances,' &c.

Surely, illustration like this verges upon the sentimental. The principles of these American magazines and newspapers are so high, that they can well afford to pitch a note somewhat more dignified than such a title as 'The True Catholic: Reformed, Protestant and Free,' or 'The Banner of the Cross,' would suggest. It is only this external aspect in which the American Church does not do justice to herself.

The Archdeacon of London, and the Dean of Chichester, have published their Charges.' (Rivingtons and J. W. Parker.)

A Sermon preached at the Consecration of the Church of S. Mary, Dunblane,' by Mr. Alexander of Edinburgh, is remarkable not only for its own merits, but for the fact that the Church is once more lifting up its head in this place, the seat of one of its ancient Bishoprics. The true policy is, to re-appropriate all the Scotch sees. The church, at the dedication of which the sermon was preached, is, we have heard, a worthy successor of S. John's, Jedburgh.

Of other Sermons we have to mention with commendation-VolumesHildyard's Whitehall Sermons,' (J. W. Parker;) Boys' Family Sermons,' (T. B. Sharpe.) And of single Discourses:-two at the opening (it ought to have been consecration) of 'S. John Baptist, Eastover,' by Messrs. Capes and Estcourt; (the last, by the bye, is odd.) One at the Norwich Visitation, by Mr. Potter, (Deck, Ipswich;) one by Mr. F. N. Grey, at Newcastle, (Burns;) -two very noticeable ones, 'Things dispensable and Things indispensable,' by Mr. Oakeley, (Toovey ;)—one at Enmore Green, by Mr. W. Jackson, B.A.;-one for a Friendly Society, by Mr. Hicks of Piddletrenthide, (Dorchester, Clark;)—and, with anything but commendation, as the culminating point in Sermons, 'The Rhyming Sermon, addressed to Young Persons, by David Ives,' (Elt, Islington.) An extract shall conclude our labours, if it were only to make sure of the alternative of 'reason :'

And this was actually delivered to a congregation at the beginning of the present year!'-Preface.

THE

CHRISTIAN REMEMBRANCER.

OCTOBER, 1845.

ART. I.-A History of the Church in Russia. By A. N. MouRAVIEFF, Chamberlain to His Imperial Majesty, and Under Procurator of the Most Holy Governing Synod. Translated by the Rev. R. W. BLACKMORE, B.A., Chaplain to the Russia Company, Constradt. Oxford: J. H. Parker. 1842.

As the eye wanders over the earth's map, and steps over region after region; as chains of mountains, rivers, bays, promontories, succeed each other, and the surface of this globe spreads out before us, we go through, in our minds, far more than a mere mechanical process of surveying space and accumulating mileage. The survey appeals to the fancy as well as the eye. We append vague impressions to each coloured line and broken ridge, each shore and peninsula, each continent and isle. The vast sea comes in with its alternations of expanse, indefinite and void; the distant roar echoes from East and West Pacific, and a white boundary of waters on each edge of the world, only takes us out of solid magnitude and terra firma, into still more immense and uncontrollable regions of vacuity. Science does not interfere with imagination. In one aspect, this earth, as one planet, and a smaller one, in our solar system, out of a hundred millions of other solar systems, rolls round the centre of its orbit, like a globule in the midst of ether; in another, it stretches out a boundless horizontal plain, extends its tracts into eastern, western, northern, southern immensity, and presents simple latitudinal amplitude and vastness to our minds. Astronomy and geography agree to differ. Within the intersecting circles and

NO. L.-N. S.

slides of the orrery, the mind is duly scientific, and the earth most correctly globular and insignificant; but, at a nod, the orrery itself, with all its brazen machinery, vanishes, and we have space and width before us. The earth passes at a stroke from the phase of philosophical rotundity into that of transcendental horizontalism. Matter obeys mind, and puts itself into that shape and position in which the sovereign within arranges it: insignificant and dull in itself, the material earth which we walk upon serves as an object and elicitor of the inherent innate ideas of magnitude and immensity in our minds. Noble and inspiring are the spaces and vastnesses, the lengths and breadths of nature, her moors and wildernesses, her vistas and her long interminable lines, her colours shading into mist, her dim perspective, and empire of multitudinous diminution. What baffles the eye, stimulates the fancy; the veil of distance exaggerates its treasures and its room. The fancy swells and spreads as we look over a large view, and picture it extending beyond our eyes' reach, in the same way that it does within it; as distance leads to distance, and the far-off horizon seems just to veil the world beyond it. From the lofty precipitous mountain top, the eye reaches over tracts beyond tracts, till, after countless lines of distance, it arrives at a misty blue, when all things mix and dissolve-the boundary of the world, and the shore of the unknown. What can lie beyond that furthermost point, that dimmest and most impalpable shade of the wearying lengthening realm of vision? What is there in that unearthly clouded region-that field of mystery, where earth and sky appear to mingle? What forms inhabit the far-off horizon's ethereal blue, too tender and too visionary for this solid world? What is there in that beyond,' that ambiguous border-land of space, which we see and which we do not see; which hints of, and half discloses the undiscovered; which looks unutterable distance, and mutely says 'Beyond, beyond-there is yet more beyond?' Onward, onward, over lines and over levels and ever lengthening sweeps, fly the couriers of space, and are lost in the interminable. All runs up into distance, and is absorbed in the boundless boundary of vacancy, which ends the scene; all tends to a liquefaction of remoteness, to an infinite beyond;' to a point where insatiable distance reproduces itself, and unbosoms its native shorelessness and universality.

Or go from earth to ocean, and take your stand on some high cliff; the eye reaches over watery ridges, and lines after lines of waves, and speeds its journey over the broad sea till it arrives at that ambiguous line of horizon where air and water mingle, and the arch of heaven bends over and descends into the bosom of the deep. What is there, fancy asks, what may there not be beyond

that mighty circle of evaporation, that marvellous boundary of evanescent haze that forms the wide ocean's edge? What lies behind that misty veil, that twilight fusion of the elements? Mystic realms of nature, and worlds of shadow spread; Homeric regions, and cloudy phantom wastes, gigantic solitudes and mountain forms of vapour, huge Arctic and Antarctic landscapes, sonorous expanses, and caverns big as worlds, lie beyond that awful line. In the poetic distance of the ocean scene, the Lópor neρóεvтa, a new world, majestic, pure, primeval, seems to rise and to invite discovery. The ship midway looks as if it were bound for its shores, and sailing on a Columbus voyage to a supernatural unknown land.

In this way, the earth ever puts before us images of greatness and expanse; and as its airy heights, its mountain tops, and rocky pinnacles, point to heaven; as its rivers and oceans represent eternity, and the summer clouds love, and the luxuriant landscape Paradise, so its simple surface represents immensity. And this effect of the earth's map is deepened and enriched by the addition of history. Antiquity adds a new element of awe and wonder, and time and space intertwine their impressions. The archæology of the world springs up and haunts our steps at every turn as we journey over the scene; each chain of mountains has its history, each mighty river and ample territory tells of human events and changes, of races of men, and their splendid or dark achievements, of ages golden, silver, iron, brass, through which this historical world has come down to us; of eras and epochs, and of life savage, patriarchal, heroic, political, classical, mediæval. This orbis terrarum has been in the hands of an appointed race of guardians and occupiers, and from an incomprehensible source within its bosom, the mysterious race of man has issued forth and overrun it. Wanderers here, citizens there; dwellers in tents and builders of towns; tamers of horses and tillers of ground, the human family, in the geographic scene, spread and ramify marvellously from their eastern centre. Upon the earth's wide bosom rolls the march of conquering tribes and hordes, mighty exploring adventurous races, whom a penetrating powerful instinct, breaking through earth mountain and forest barriers, carries like waves, they know not whither, to settle they know not where. They go where their gods and their own magnanimous appetite for movement sends them. A jostling and push of races agitates the earth's surface; all is stir and commotion, invasion and ejection, occupation and force. A gradual change follows; things right themselves; the scene subsides, the earth is disposed of and divided, and ages of disorder issue in the territorial map we have before us. In this way the poetry of geography arises; each portion of the earth has its own asso