could impropriety in any shape-be charged? Between the Archbishop and the vilest inhabitant of those receptacles, is the distance in point of worth so great as was that between Jesus-whether God or not God-and the best of his Apostles?-Answer, ye Athanasians! Answer, ye Arians! Cease your groans! Cease your exclamations! Lay your hands upon your hearts, and answer if you can, with simplicity and truth!-By his own confession-his own most public confession, as often as he acts his part in the Liturgy portion of his Bead-roll-the Archbishop, is he not a "miserable sinner ?"-If (what will but too frequently be true) the convict, be he who he may-the man on whom a stone from the tower of Siloam fell-is also a miserable sinner, is it altogether so clear that he is a more efficiently, a more extensively mischievous sinner,-in how much greater degree soever a more miserable one,-than the Archbishop?-Unless it be the quantity of the mammon of unrighteousness-of the matter of the renounced pomps and vanities,-possessed by the Lord of the Palace, not possessed by the inmate of the Hulk,-exists there any scale of sinnership-exists there any scale of miserableness-by which the sinnership and the miserableness of the Archbishop can be measured, and shewn to be less-and by how much less-than that of the convict?

For four years last past and more, by means of the tissue of imposture which has here been brought to view, has not the Archbishop been engaged in the carrying on the scheme of anti-christian exclusion which has here been also brought to view? At any rate, in no such course of cool and persevering wickedness has the convict been engaged. Removed as he has been by his penal situation from so many of the temptations to sin,—perhaps penitent, and pure even in thought,—at any rate, pure in deed,—' perhaps neither in all this time has he been actively en

gaged in any fresh sin. In the Archbishop on the one hand, and in the Convict on the other, who shall say that the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican may not already have found its exemplification?-Who shall say that in the same poor miserable sinner, that other parable, the parable of Dives and Lazarus will not find its exemplification, at another time and in another place? The costume of Dives, is it not the costume of the Archbishop, yea, even of his menial servants?

Let all this be said, let it even be admitted for true;— and let it moreover be admitted, that never in any case— supposing it accompanied with any promise of efficiencya lesson of humility could be more needed,-still recurs the question-whether supposing it administered, to and in the person of any such exalted sinners, and in any such shape, it really would afford any adequate promise of being productive of so desirable an effect. Unhappily to this question no answer presents itself in any other than a negative shape.

In some eyes, the effect would be-not so much humiliation as exaltation. So prodigious the distance between the point of extreme depression occupied for the moment, and the exalted position occupied the whole remainder of the year,―the humiliation of the extraordinary state would but serve as a foil to the splendor of the ordinary state. Condescension-is it not one of the forms, in which pride manifests itself and magnifies itself?

To give to the scene its full stage effect, the principal actor would of course be furnished out with all the several appropriate articles belonging to the property of the theatre to which he belongs:-the lawn-sleeves, the crozier, the mitre, and the throne:-in a word, (with the exception of the palace), the whole apparatus of the renounced 66 pomps and vanities." The other actors-or rather the

patients-on whom the operation would be to be performed -would of course be the most comely individuals that could be selected out of the whole crew: and, for the occasion, that no infringement of the laws of Churchof-England decency might be discernible, would be new clothed; and the feet,-by way of preparation for this sacramental and solemn purification by the holy and most Reverend hands,-made as clean as unhallowed hands could make them.

In other eyes (and not improbably of this number would be the greater multitude)-the ceremony being a novel one, and the imposing gloom of antiquity being wanting to it,-the idea of ridicule would obtrude itself, and shut the door against those moral ideas, for the calling up of which the ceremony was instituted. The representative of Jesus-(and could there be a more dissimilar one?) —this false Christ—would be quizzed, in and by the surrounding and staring multitude: quizzed, and by none more rudely and jovially than by his counterfeit Apostles.

In a word, in an exhibition thus theatrical,-acted the virtue would indeed be-but it would not be practised. What would be exhibited is-not the reality of it, only the appearance.

That the picture here brought to view is far from being altogether the work of imagination, is known to all who are in any way conversant with the ceremonies of the Holy Mother, whose good works in that kind, her revolted, though still on so many points obsequious, and sincerely sympathizing Daughter, has always been so well disposed to imitate. At Rome, on an appointed day, the Holy Father performs, in public view, and with no small solemnity, on the feet of his Cardinals (is it? or upon some less hallowed feet?) this emblematic ceremony. Perhaps, in the account thus given, the quality-either of the passive feet

N

or of the operating hands-is not exactly represented. Settle the point with greater exactness let those eyes, which have more strength and patience than those by which the present account has been guided. What is certain is that, among the ceremonies of the Church of Rome, this proud lesson of humility possesses a not altogether unconspicuous place.

To this scene, which in the original had the purest morality for its undoubted object, how minute, however, is the importance now attached, in comparison of what is attached to that other scene, which even at the first had no moral lesson for its object, and which from first to last has had such and so much mischievous morality for its effect? But of this neglect is there any difficulty in discovering the cause? Oh no, it is visible enough. Of the lesson which in the original scene was intended to be given, suppose but the imitation to have had its proper and full effectits proper and full effect upon every body-upon spectators as well as actors,-equality would long ago have been the result, and hierarchy no where visible but in history.

The real purpose-the purpose which, as thus acted, the scene was really designed to have-was therefore that of increasing, as above, not diminishing, the distance between the hierarchy on the one hand and the profane multitude on the other. As to ridicule, laughter would not there be unpunishable as here.*

Since what is above was written, the following passage has been observed in the Evangelical Magazine for May, 1816, p. 189.

FRENCH FANATICISM.-The ceremonies of the Last Supper being too painful for his Majesty, who would have been obliged to remain long standing, it was Monsieur who filled the place of the King in this act of piety, practised by our Monarchs from time immemorial on Holy Thurs

Let us return to and conclude with the main subjectthe bread-eating and wine-drinking scene.-Bible in hand, thus manifestly has the inapplicability of it to any general purpose-thus manifestly has the groundlessness and mischievousness of the Church of England ceremony deduced from it--as well as, in a greater or less degree, of any other ceremony deduced or deducible from it--been made apparent. Well, then-will condemnation-will so much as disuse of it be the consequence? Yes: if to established Churches-if even to any Churches, to whose tenets practice, howsoever blind and unreflecting, has given a certain degree of fixedness-the Bible were really the standard of opinion and practice. But to what established Church is the Bible the standard of opinion and practice? No: it is the very essential character of an established Church,-in so far as a written declaration of opinions is joined in by its members, and that declaration an unalterable one,there exists in it a standard of opinion and practice, by which, as to every part to which that standard extends, the Bible has been turned into a dead letter, the modern composition in question being thus far established in the character of a substitute to it.

day. Thirteen children of poor, but honest parents, were admitted to the honour of representing the Apostles. They were all in red tunics, and placed on benches sufficiently raised to enable the Princes, without stooping, to wash their feet, wipe them, and kiss them. Every child received from the hands of Monsieur a loaf, a small cruise of wine, thirteen plates, and thirteen five-franc pieces. The Dukes D'Angouleme and Berry performed the functions of waiters, and brought the bread and wine and the meats. All these ceremonies were gone through with a piety and collectedness worthy the descendants of St. Louis.

Times, April 17.