ing, and even idolatrous practices, that if the Romanist will make them of the essence of his religion, he must of course be excluded. As to the Quakers, I hardly know what to say. An article on the sacraments would exclude them. My doubt is, whether Baptism and the Eucharist are properly any parts of Christianity, or not rather Christianity itself; the one, the initial conversion or light, -the other, the sustaining and invigorating life; --both together the pas xai Zwn, which are Christianity. A line can only begin once; hence, there can be no repetition of baptism; but a line may be endlessly prolonged by continued production; hence the sacrament of love and life lasts for

ever.

But really there is no knowing what the modern Quakers are, or believe, excepting this

that they are altogether degenerated from their ancestors of the seventeenth century. I should call modern Quakerism, so far as I know it as a scheme of faith, a Socinian Calvinism. Penn himself was a Sabellian,

and seems to have disbelieved even the historical fact of the life and death of Jesus; - most certainly Jesus of Nazareth was not Penn's Christ, if he had any. It is amusing to see the modern Quakers appealing now to history for a confirmation of their tenets and discipline and by so doing, in effect abandoning the strong hold of their founders. As an imperium in imperio, I think the original Quakerism a conception worthy of Lycurgus. Modern Quakerism is like one of those gigantic trees which are seen in the forests of North America, apparently flourishing, and preserving all its greatest stretch and spread of branches; but when you cut through an enormously thick and gnarled bark, you find the whole inside hollow and rotten. Modern Quakerism, like such a tree, stands upright by help of its inveterate bark alone. Bark a Quaker, and he is a poor creature.

How much the devotional spirit of the church has suffered by that necessary evil, the Reformation, and the sects which have

All our

sprung up subsequently to it! modern prayers seem tongue-tied. We appear to be thinking more of avoiding an heretical expression or thought than of opening ourselves to God. We do not pray with that entire, unsuspecting, unfearing, childlike profusion of feeling, which so beautifully shines forth in Jeremy Taylor and Andrewes and the writings of some of the older and better saints of the Romish Church, particularly of that remarkable woman, St. Theresa.* And certainly Protestants, in their anxiety to have the historical argument on their side, have brought down the origin of the Romish errors too late. Many of them began, no doubt, in the Apostolic age itself; I say errors not heresies, as that dullest of the fathers, Epiphanius, calls them. Epiphanius is very long and fierce

* She was a native of Avila in Old Castile, and a Carmelite nun. Theresa established an order which she called the "Reformed," and which became very powerful. Her works are divided into ten books, of which her autobiography forms a remarkable part. She died in 1582, and was canonized by Gregory XV.in 1622.-ED.

upon the Ebionites. There may have been real heretics under that name; but I believe that, in the beginning, the name was, on account of its Hebrew meaning, given to, or adopted by, some poor mistaken men-perhaps of the Nazarene way—who sold all their goods and lands, and were then obliged to beg. I think it not improbable that Barnabas was one of these chief mendicants; and that the collection made by St. Paul was for them. You should read Rhenferd's account of the early heresies. I think he demonstrates about eight of Epiphanius's heretics to be mere nicknames given by the Jews to the Christians. Read "Hermas, or the Shepherd," of the genuineness of which and of the epistle of Barnabas I have no doubt. It is perfectly orthodox, but full of the most ludicrous tricks of gnostic fancy the wish to find the New Testament in the Old. This gnosis is perceptible in the Epistle to the Hebrews, but kept exquisitely within the limit of propriety. In the others it is rampant, and most truly "puffeth up," as St. Paul said of it.

What between the sectarians and the political economists, the English are denationalized. England I see as a country, but the English nation seems obliterated. What could redintegrate us again? Must it be another threat of foreign invasion?

I never can digest the loss of most of Origen's works: he seems to have been almost the only very great scholar and genius combined amongst the early Fathers. Jerome was very inferior to him.

produce their finest tones, you must keep them wet.

Well! that passage is what I call the