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LIGHT LITERATURE.

WE err grievously if we suppose that the frivolous is necessarily uninfluential, and that when the word passes, its effects also pass with it. The spark struck from the iron heel of the labourer may have disappeared ere the eye could mark its transient lustre, yet ere it expired have fired the train which explodes a magazine, lays a town in ruins, and spreads around a wide circuit alarm and lamentation, bereavement and death. Trifles may have no trivial influence: what is called the lighter lite-lic poisoners."-Dr. W. R. Williams.

rature of the age may be even thus evanescent, yet not inefficacious. By its wide and rapid circulation it may act more powerfully on society than do graver and abler treatises; and its authors, if unprincipled, may thus deserve but too well the title which the indignant Nicole gave to the comparatively decorous dramatists and romance writers of France, in his own time-a title which his pupil Racine at first so warmly resented—that of “ pub

SUNSET.

ENSHROUDING the valley, empurpling the mountain,
The iris-like colours of evening now float,
The last brilliant showers from light's golden fountain
Are laving, in beauty, the verdure remote.

And soft to the ear is the mild zephyr telling,

It whispers of gladness and joy from afar;
The birds' homeward song to their wild forest dwelling,
Illumed by the rays of the bright evening star.

From out their deep prisons, the waves' careless music
In richly-hushed murmurs, lull nature's repose,
And tell in soft breathing, symphonious, cherubic,
What infinite joy in their bright bosom glows.
The stars, one by one, purple night is unveiling;
Creation is joining in vespers of praise;
How soothing this hour-solemn silence prevailing,
And sinking to sleep are the last bedimmed rays.

Thus calm may I be as my earth's day is closing;
Thus smiling with joy may I sink to my rest ;

Fall softly to sleep, on my Jesus reposing,

With Him to awake in the realms of the blest.
'Twas for this my Redeemer to heaven ascended,
For this He now makes intercession on high;
Oh, hope full of bliss!-life's journey being ended—
Thy dawn, Immortality, breaks on the sky.-Leila Ada,

REVIEW S.

The Idol Demolished by its own Priest. An again been resorted to. Assertions Answer to Cardinal Wiseman's Lectures were passed for facts, assumptions on Transubstantiation. By JAMES graced the logic, quotations of scripSHERIDAN KNOWLES. Author of Virginius ture were mutilated, and their point in and other Dramas, &c. London, Long-numerous cases avoided. The controman and Co. 1851.

CARDINAL WISEMAN'S introduction to the notice of our countrymen was one of a highly favourable kind. The learning, the candour, the freedom from bigotry, that were characteristic of his "Lectures on the Connexion between Science and Revealed Religion," inspired many with feelings of respect for a Roman Catholic theologian who for once laid aside the insolent dogmatism of his church, and treated religious questions in a scientific and philosophic manner. His appearance afterwards as a preacher in Moorfields drew crowded audiences, who listened with delight to the dulcet tones, the apparently fair argumentation, the appeal to scripture, and the forcible eloquence which stood forth prominently in his lectures on the "doctrines and practices of the Catholic church." It was a new thing to hear a Roman divine appeal to the holy oracles, boldly take his stand on the divine record, and prove, or at least attempt to prove, from that source the divine origin of "doctrines and practices" that protestants have been wont to regard as springing up in subsequent ages of darkness, or as the fruit of unauthorized tradition.

He

versial character of the lecturer soon
after received an irrecoverable blow
from the vigorous and sturdy arm of
Mr. Palmer, of Oxford. It pleased the
then bishop of Melipotamus to intrude
himself into the controversy, raging
in the University in 1841, on the sub-
ject of Tract 90. He did not quite
approve of the treatment Roman doc-
trine met with from Mr. Newman, far
as that gentleman went in his adhesion
to the "Holy Catholic Church."
sought to supply a corrective to Mr.
Newman's mischievous affirmations,
and to make known the true sentiments
of the Roman Church on Purgatory,
Satisfaction, and Saint Worship, and
thereby defend that church from the
charges of idolatry and superstition
brought by the learned tractarian. In
the course of his remarks, and also
in a subsequent treatise, the cardinal
adduced many testimonies and made
certain representations which turned
out to be quoted from forged, or sup-
posititious documents, and which he
must have known to be so. Since then
no one ventures to quote after Dr.
Wiseman, cardinal though he be, or
to take his representation of catholic
truth, as that truly held by the church
of Rome.

But if the firm utterance and persuasive manner of the lecturer covered The cardinal's recent descent on up at the time the false assumptions English soil has recalled the attention and unfair adductions of facts that of many to his early literary produceverywhere abounded in his oratorical tions, and among others Mr. Sheridan displays, the closer examination of the Knowles has given himself to the printed lectures soon dispersed the examination of the cardinal's views on illusion. The old arts of Rome had transubstantiation. The three lectures

to enter the arena armed with the same weapon as ourselves. He has staked the doctrine on the issue. For once in Romish controversy, Rome's champion has entered the lists clothed with scripture texts, laying aside for awhile the rags and patches of antiquity.

on this subject given in Moorfields were palpable reference to the Eucharist; merely a condensation of a series of that our Lord in the discourse addressed eight lectures, delivered at an earlier to the blinded Jews intended to affirm period in the English College at Rome. the doctrine of transubstantiation, In order to give his argument full scope asserting in unequivocal language the Dr. Wiseman afterwards printed this necessity of an actual eating of his more extended series, promising to sup-body and blood to salvation. Our space plement them with a volume presenting forbids our attempting even an outline the patristic evidence. This promise is of the argument, but it is curious to still unfulfilled: probably because he is note in the first place, the main prinhopeless of convincing English readers ciple of the cardinal's argument, and by the fathers, seeing they are so hard his treatment of the test of interpreto convert by his scriptural arguments. tation contained in the 62nd and 63rd It is the peculiarity of the lectures he verses. The lecturer labours hard to has published that they are (with brief show, and claims credit as a close exceptions) confined to an examination scripturist in so doing, that as the of the scriptural evidence for and against object of all human intercourse is to the doctrine. In this the cardinal has transfuse into other minds the same done homage to the protestant character ideas and feelings that exist in the of the people. He has condescended minds of the respective interlocutors, so we have a criterion and clue to the true interpretation of our Lord's language, respecting his flesh and blood, in the manner in which the Jews understood it. They thought he intended to say that they were literally to eat of such horrible food. "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" said they. Hence, argues the cardinal, as it cannot be supposed that our Saviour intended to deceive the Jews, but on the other hand must, in this instance, have used, and always did use, language so plain that it was impossible to be misunderstood, his hearers truly expressed the views he wished them to entertain-that they must literally and not figuratively eat his flesh, would they have eternal life. Through many pages does the cardinal illustrate this supposed true principle of interpretation. In various forms he asserts and re-asserts the same thing, even to wearisomeness. But he has fatally overlooked one objection to his entire theory; that the evangelic narratives do present numerous examples in which our Lord so spake that he should not be understood, and that for a very solemn reason. And the

To pass by what has been done in reply by Drs. Turton and Wordsworth of the Anglican establishment, we may satisfactorily call attention to the work of Mr. Knowles. With great pains he has tracked the lecturer step by step, at every stage dealing yet more deadly blows on his antagonist. There is no subterfuge left unexplored: no mutilation of scripture unnoted. The cardinal is driven from post to post until the idol is shown to be utterly demolished by the hands of its own priest.

The arguments of Cardinal Wiseman are divisible into two portions, those founded on what he calls the literal interpretation of our Lord's language in the 6th of John, and those on the words of the institution given by the evangelists and by Paul. Theologians of his school have laboured hard to prove that the former has a direct and

church which can resort to the notions of malignant Jews for a justification of the doctrine it holds. "Unto them that are without," said He, "all these things are done in parables, that seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them." Alas! poor cardinal.

admonition is not inappropriate to a ments of your opponents compel its production. But Christ has not done; he adds a declaration which establishes the exclusively spiritual character of his ministry from first to last. The words which I speak to you, are spirit and are life.'-the words, the doctrine, the whole doctrine. From the commencement to the close of his ministry, he preaches spirit, and that spiritual preaching is life. Your dogma, sir, impugns the veracity of Christ. If he enjoin the real eating of his flesh and drinking of his blood, the words that he speaks are not spirit."

It is very characteristic of the Romish doctor that in his continuous exposition of our Lord's words, he passes over the 62nd and 63rd verses, and adduces them subsequently as an objection to the view he endeavours to prove. In a brief space he declares them irrelevant, and that it is the more unnecessary to examine them, since all Protestant commentators agree to set them aside as referring simply to the opposite characters of flesh and spirit, in the same sense as Paul uses these words in the 8th of Romans. Although the cardinal can mention the names of three or four Protestant commentators who adopt this interpretation, he is grossly in error in affirming it to be the opinion of all, or of even a majority among them. But on his treatment of this proof-text we will quote Mr. Knowles :

The whole treatment of this important key-text to our Lord's meaning may fairly be stigmatized as an evasion.

The difficulties of the Romanist view only commence with the assertion of the fact of transubstantiation. If it be granted that this incredible change takes place, that under the form and incidents of bread and wine there is literally and truly existing the body, blood, bones, nerves, and divinity of Christ, numerous circumstances must conspire to render the sacrament a valid one, and the salvation of the participants secure. It must at the same time be remembered that salvation hangs on the act of the officiating priest; that if by any accident he do not make a sacrament of it, he deceives the soul of the receiver; that since the holy wafer is worthy of the adoration which is paid to it, as being literally and truly Christ himself present before the

"Here at last we find the 63rd verse; but in what state do we find it? Mutilated! The first clause lopped off! Why? Because, as it stands in the text, it utterly stops the mouth of ob-eye of the worshipper, should there be jection, with regard to the testimony of by some unforeseen, fortuitous, or intentwo preceding verses, to either of which tional event an imperfect host or mass, you cautiously abstain from making the and the wafer after consecration remain least allusion! Thus you garble the nothing more than bread, the priest and testimony of scripture. I do not at all the communicants are guilty of idolatry. wonder, sir, that you should feel so Few, perhaps, are aware of the perils shy of this verse, though I may be which beset every step of the process of astonished at your want of common transubstantiation. Innumerable decaution, in betraying your jealousy of fects may arise to injure or prevent it, by mutilating it, when the argu- the wondrous transformation.

VOL. XV.-FOURTH SERIES.

These

2 R

defects may relate to the substance, although rightly ordained, may inva that is, to the bread and wine; or lidate the sacrament he professes to to the form, that is, to the process make. Thus he must have rightly been employed to procure the change; or baptized, and with intention on the part to the priest himself, who may be of the administrator. And this docunable to effect or to complete the trine of intention is necessary in every magic work. We will briefly indicate act of the priestly life. The priest some of the difficulties which stand in must intend to transubstantiate. Who the way of making a valid sacrament, is to know or secure his intention, is a as they are stated by writers of the mystery: but it is of solemn importance church of Rome itself. They are no to the validity of his work. In some imaginary difficulties raised by Pro- instances a defect in the tonsure, or testant theologians; but constitute an neglect in cutting the hair off the important part of the instruction ne- crown of his head, may entail on the cessary for a priest in order to observe priest the guilt of mortal sin, and therethe rubric of the mass with due care fore invalidate the sacrament he may and efficiency. attempt to make. It is also regarded as probable that a priest falls into mortal sin who plays at dice, or visits theatres. Hunting is forbidden; but seems to become a mortal sin only when clamorously and often pursued. Fishing and coursing at the worst are but venial sins. But secular business is a graver offence: for a priest to buy and sell in the market or shop and get gain as a trader, is a mortal sin. He deals in holier wares. We shall pass over those violations of decency, or breach of vows of chastity, which by word, or look, or touch, involve the priest in mortal sin; it is enough to have pointed out the dread uncertainty which must fall on the heart of the communicant if he think for a moment of the concurrence of things requisite to give validity to the priestly act. The sacrament may utterly fail if the priest be not all these rubrical directions require. He may give but bread and wine, when he professes to give the body of Christ. He may ruin the soul, while he professes to impart eternal life. The receiver knows it not.

The first class of possible defects, and therefore of an invalid sacrament, imperilling the soul's salvation, relates to the officiating priest. He must be a true priest. Even an angel cannot make a valid sacrament, Consecration of the elements by any other being is wholly inefficacious: so that whatever defects are incident to his introduction to the priesthood tell fatally on his transubstantiating powers and gifts. If for example, at the priest's ordination there should be delivered into his hands the paten without the consecrated bread, or the cup without the consecrated wine, he receives not power himself to consecrate. It is even doubtful whether if they be present the ordination' is complete without a physical touching of the elements. Some think it enough to touch the containing vessel. It suffices not at ordination to receive the host from the hands of any inferior priest, the ordained must take it from episcopal fingers. And the bishop, too, will render his work invalid if he repeat not the words of consecration at the right moment, neither before nor after the presentation. He must also have an intention to ordain, and to impart this mysterious gift to the kneeling presbyter.

But serious defects in the priest

The wafer and cup are still to the touch, the tongue, and the eye but bread and wine. He has no means whatever of discovering the invalidating cause. The priest's mind, intention, character, elude his grasp.

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