subordinated to the supremacy of the Scriptures, and the teaching of the Creeds. The Church of England and the Church of Scotland were by them regarded as twin sisters, differing only in external features, while in all essentials they were one. In a word, in the Church of Scotland we have not merely the Church which enjoys the exclusive recognition of the State, but we have also (what is infinitely better) a Church which fulfils all the requirements of the Church of England herself," a congregation of faithful men, in the which the pure word of God is preached, and the sacraments duly ministered according to Christ's ordinance, in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same." But in the sect of Scottish Episcopalians we have neither the one nor the other. On the one hand we have the strongest and most indisputable claims on our respect and affection; and on the other nothing more than the arrogant pretensions of an illegitimate pretender to an honoured name. There is a pretension to episcopal order and apostolic succession, which, when tried by the principles of the very men who prefer it, turns out to be utterly worthless.* There is a pretension to "catholic doctrine," and those who make it are divided against themselves. They have a "Communion Office," the badge of Popery, and they know not what to do with it. Some of them are doing their best to put it out of sight; while others are determined (in the words of the Tractarian party) "never to part with it but with their lives." They talk of "unity," and all the while they aggravate, in its most offensive form, a flagrant schism. Like Dr. Lee, who promotes the "Unity of Christendom" by supporting the intrusion of the foreign "Bishop Julius" on Iona, they seek from a foreign sanction some countenance for the assertion that they are themselves the Church, from which, in truth, they are merely the schismatics. If "Bishop Julius" is a schismatic because, in the language of the gentleman who calls himself Lord Bishop of Argyle and the Isles, "the see is full," then not all his lordly title will prevent the same character from attaching to that gentleman himself. Will not Dr. Lee tell Dr. Ewing to "mend his own windows"? But these schismatic Episcopalians possess five-sixths of the soil of Scotland;" and yet (let us

*The conditions required by Lord Thurlow as necessary to the securing of episcopal order in Scotland were rejected by Lord Stormont and Bishop Horsley, on the ground that it was impossible they should be observed. No subsequent regularity could avail to alter the consequences of previous irregularity. Johnson himself, Jacobite as he was, and always taking "good

care to give the Whig dogs the worst of it," resolutely refused to the non-juring Prelates the title of Bishop. Besides, on "High Church" principles,-far too high to be acknowledged by the Church of England, -the Bishop of London himself has never been baptized, and consequently even Mr. Maconochie, of St. Alban's, is still a layman.

add) are never tired of complaining that they are very poor. They are "the Church" of the nation, and yet are outnumbered by those who resent their pretensions, in the ratio of sixty to one. True, they have not the Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow, of St. Andrew's and Aberdeen; but then they have Glenalmond, and the "Native supply of candidates for holy orders," which sometimes, from all the "dioceses" put together, amounts to three or four !*

Our task is done. We have avoided all matters collateral, though not immaterial, to the main issue. Of the motives of those who have planned this coalition; of the manœuvres by which it has been brought to its present stage; of the mischief it has already produced in Scotland, and the great expectations indulged by English Romanizers of its fruits at home; of its important bearing on those ritualistic extravagances which are becoming more serious (and, but for that, more ridiculous) every day; of all these things, as well as of the gross injustice, not to say the gratuitous insult, offered to the congregations of the "English Episcopal" chapels in Scotland, we have not said one word. We have simply recited a few of the principal facts which demonstrate the illegality of the pretensions, the schismatical character, and the Popish proclivities, of those "dissenters" who are now boasting that they have, at last, procured for their preposterous claims the sanction of an English Primate!

Σ.

CORRESPONDENCE.

DR. MERLE D'AUBIGNE ON OUR REVIEW OF HIS LAST VOLUME. To the Editor of the Christian Observer.

Eaux Vives, Genève, Nov. 9, 1866. SIR,-For nearly half a century I have known and valued the Christian Observer; and the names of John and Francis Cunningham, which were, I think, connected with that journal, will always be dear to me. I do not feel called upon to take notice of all the mistakes that have been made in some of the periodicals that have done me the honour of mentioning my work; but the circumstance to which I have just alluded, induces me to write to you with reference to the article

"Supposing our disabilities to continue, there is danger that the Episcopal Church of Scotland will gradually die out, by the want of any due supply of candidates for holy orders." (Bishop Terrot, Charge, 1862).- And again: "How many young men, do you suppose, are coming forward to prepare themselves to serve in the Vol. 65.-No. 348.

ministry, not of this diocese only, but of our whole Church? Not more than three or four. And of these, how many, do you suppose, are of the higher or wealthier classes ? Not one." (Bp. Wordsworth: Sermon on "St. Matthew an Example to the [sic] Church of Scotland.")

6 G

that appeared in your last number on the fourth Volume of my History of the Reformation in Europe. I thank you for the kindness with which you have spoken of the work, both now and in former years. But I find in your article, p. 858, an assertion which surprised me. You say:-"He puts imaginary conversations into the mouths of those who become the subjects of his history." Not only have I never done so, but I may also say that I have a horror of such a way of writing history, and I have always made a point of giving the very words-ipsissima verba-of the original documents. I was wondering what could have given rise to such a mistake, when I came upon this passage in your journal, which refers to the removal of Fryth from the Tower to Croydon :-" Our author knows all the conversation on the road. England,' says one of his keepers, ‘has never had such a one of his age, with so much learning. And yet our bishops treat him as if he were a very dolt, or an idiot. They abhor him as the devil himself, and want to get rid of him by any means."

Now, the following is to be found in the original document as given by Foxe, Acts and Monuments, vol. viii. p. 697, last line:-"I take him to be such a one of his age, in all kind of learning and knowledge of tongues, as the realm never yet in mine opinion brought forth; yet those singular gifts in him are no more considered of our bishops, than if he were a very dolt or an idiot; yea they abhor him as a devil therefore, and covet utterly to extinguish him."

You see, Sir, that it was not "a conversation which never took place," as says the Observer; it is found in a document of the 16th century.

Three lines further on in the same page, 860, the Observer, again quoting from my history, adds:-"Fryth had a calm eye and cheerful look; and the rest of the journey was accomplished in pious and agreeable conversation.' Pleasant reading this, but not history."

Now you will find in the document quoted by Foxe, p. 699, lines 11-13:-" And so with a cheerful and merry countenance he went with them, spending the time in pleasant and godly communication." I would not venture to say, Sir, that that is pleasant reading; but I can affirm most positively, that it is history. I have taken great pains to study the original documents of the Reformation; much time is required for that, and it would be unreasonable to expect a reviewer to go through the same labour as the author. I quite understand the need that there is of abridging one's work in such a busy time as that in which we live; but it has its disadvantages. Thus, for instance, the Saturday Review, in an article of the 25th of April on my work, reproaches me with not having given a reference as Galba B. X., and another as Titus B. I., but as having put in both cases b, instead of B. If the reviewer had consulted the original edition in French, for which I am responsible, he would have found it properly given, Galba B. X., Titus B. I. This may appear a trifling error, but I would not be guilty even of such.

A French writer, Daunou, who was made a peer of France under Louis Philippe, for the services which he rendered to history, said :— "History is in itself picturesque and dramatic. In order to make it tame and cold, it required the barbarism of the middle ages." "D'elle

même l'histoire est pittoresque et dramatique, pour qu'elle devient terne et froide, il a fallu la barbarie du moyen âge.' I fully agree with him in that remark. There are, no doubt, histories of the kind that Daunou complains of, in every language; and when people meet in an historical work with living beings, who think, and feel, and talk, and act, they imagine that they are inventions, and seem to consider that the men of by-gone times ought necessarily to be marble statues or mummies. I believe it to be quite the reverse. I have said in the preface of my first volume, and I shall always continue faithful to that principle, that" the work of the historian is neither a work of imagination, like that of the poet, nor a mere conversation about times gone by, as some writers of our day appear to imagine. History is a faithful description of past events; and when the historian can relate them by making use of the language of those who took part in them, he is more certain of describing them just as they were."-I am, Sir, &c., MERLE D'AUBIGNE.

[We are obliged to Dr. Merle d'Aubigné for his corrections. He certainly has much better authority for his story about Fryth, the martyr, than we thought he could have produced; and we are glad to make this acknowledgment to an historian and a Christian minister whom we so highly value. Still we may whisper to him, that the few sheep grazing on the distant hills, are not accounted for; a matter of very little importance, it is true, did they not serve to throw an air of romance over the whole. We must add, that, in the course of 300 years, the same forms of expression change their meaning: what Foxe terms a merry countenance, and pleasant communication, in the case of one who was going to be offered up as a martyr ("a service and sacrifice acceptable to God through Jesus Christ") would now be expressed in totally different language. Mirth, under such circumstances, we should now hold to be at once unnatural and wrong, the mark of a callous mind; and the conversation, under such circumstances, we should now say was not only calm, but cheerful. But Dr. Merle D'Aubigné takes our criticisms in good part; so do we his corrections. He may remember that we offered a similar criticism on his former volume some five years ago, when he brought in our Reformers as meeting at the mansion of one of the leaders of the Reformation arrayed in their best robes, and discoursing with each other about the web of Ariadne, and using similar classic allusions.-EDITOR.]

A CATHOLIC ON ESDRAS I.

To the Editor of the Christian Observer.

SIR,-My attention has been called to an article in your Journal for March, 1864, pp. 221 et seq., in which you censure the "heretical" Council of Trent for placing 1 Esdras among the Canonical Books of the Old Testament, and prove at length that that production is not canonical. It is true that it appears in Catholic Bibles as in Protestant; but the Council of Trent never sanctioned it, and no Catholic accepts it as inspired or canonical. No doubt, on discovering your error, you have, as an honourable Christian gentleman, who would

not deal unfairly with those from whom you differ, acknowledged it; but on a cursory examination of your journal, I cannot find such acknowledgment. May I therefore respectfully ask you to point out the number in which it is made? Or, if by some misadventure you have continued ignorant that the charge you made was not wellgrounded, you will, I am sure, thank me for calling your attention to it; and your apology will, I feel convinced, be as frank and full and public as the accusation was.

London, Nov. 12, 1866.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

A CATHOLIC.

[On receiving this letter, we immediately referred to the Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent,-Buckley's Edition; Routledge and Co. 1861,-where we read as follows :-"Session IV. Decree concerning the Canonical Scriptures.-And it has thought it meet that a catalogue of the sacred books be inserted in this Decree, lest doubt arise in any one's mind as to which are the books that are received by this Synod. They are as set down here below: of the Old Testament-the five books of Moses, to wit, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy; Joshua, Judges, Ruth, four books of Kings, two of Paralipomena, the first book of Esdras, and the second, which is entitled Nehemias; Tobias, &c. &c." In return, we beg to inform "A Catholic," that the 1st of Esdras does not appear in the Protestant Bibles, but in some of them it is printed as one of the books of the Apocrypha, which our Church expressly declares is not canonical.-EDITOR.]

NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS.

"A Critical Exposition of the Third Chapter of Paul's Epistle to the Romans." A Monograph. By James Morison, D.D. London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co. Glasgow: J. D. Morrison. 1866.— This is undoubtedly a work of great merit. The whole volume, of 400 octavo pages, is devoted to one subject, that subject second to none in Holy Scripture in importance; indeed, all that is important in Scripture is comprehended in it, as both Luther and Calvin have remarked. Thus Luther, on the 23rd verse, says: "This is the chief point, and the very central place of the Epistle, and of the whole Bible." And Calvin, on the 24th verse, and referring to the contents at once of that verse, and of the two which follow, says: "There is probably no passage in the whole Bible that more remarkably exhibits the justifying righteousness of God: for it shows its efficient cause, the mercy of God; its material cause, Christ with His blood; its formal or instrumental cause, faith springing from the Word; and its final cause, the glory of the Divine justice and goodness." With these leaders of the Reformation all the Reformers agree. We know not whether most to admire the depth