the great stand point, and we maintain that no man, either priest or layman, has any authority to question the sincerity of another in that other's mode of worship, so long as the same is decent and orderly.

We have heard laymen-we were going to say ignorant persons-observe He has no right to wear the surplice in the pulpit'! We ask, why not? But our rejoinder at the same time has been Has he any right to wear a black gown'?

Again, we have more than once heard persons almost derided for turning towards the East during the repetition of the Belief.

We have asked by way of retort, why the altar or Communion Table is so invariably placed at the Eastern end of the Church?

Why the chancel is Eastward?

Why the dead in the church yard are buried Eastward, that is to say with their heads placed Westward?

The answer to the one may be as reasonable as the answer to either!

extraordinary

We have read or heard of an argument against this turning to the East during the recital of the Creed. It was that by reason of the revolving action of the earth, what was East at one time of the day became West at another!

As though the chancel, East last night, becoming detached from the rest of the Earth, had turned round and become West this morning!

Our answer to this was that looking Eastward was looking towards the spot where our Saviour ascended, and where it is believed He will when He comes again appear,-namely the Mount of Olives, and that East or West, that spot would with the earth of which it is a part, revolve in like manner in its diurnal motion!

The assumption in the original argument must of course have been that like the sides of a basin full of water both points of the compass (the antipodal sides of the basin)-call them stationary, as being beyond, entirely independent of the represented by the water, which on being stirred round would circulate on its own axis!

East and West-were distinct, and therefore

earth their contents,

There is one more item amongst the practices now in vogue with a certain section of the clergy of the Church of England-one which is SO objectionable and therefore so important as to set all others whether improper or not in the shade. We allude to the Roman Catholic rite of confession, by which a clergyman-a young clergyman for instance who we say must be assumed to be highly moral and above all suspicion until he is found to be otherwise and recollect defects have before now been discovered-may enter a house in his pastoral capacity, and submit your household, your wife, your daughters, in private, to a series of personal questions affecting their mode of life, bearing upon some of the most delicate or indelicate matters it is possible to conceive-and conceive-and use his assumed

position in wringing answers from them under a species of religious duress!

We unhesitatingly say that there is nothing in the whole book of Common Prayer as authorized to be used by the established Church of England, which gives the semblance of authority for the obtrusion of such a proceeding on the part of the clergy. On the contrary, such a practice is a relic of that Papistical espionage which prevailed anterior to the Reformation, and which like the then order for the administration of the Sacramental wine that was and still is amongst the Roman Catholics confined to the priests themselves, cut out of the Rubric!

Well indeed, may we ask in regard to this great subject of national religion, as we have over and over again done with respect to the secular arts and sciences and the minor matters we have touched upon, whether we truly are progressing!

CHAPTER XXIV.

"All heart they live, all head, all eye, all ear, all intellect, all sense." MILTON.

"All those arts, rarities and inventions which vulgar minds gaze at, and the ingenious pursue are but the reliques of an intellect defaced with sin and time."

SOUTH.

Let us now attempt the commencement of a final view of the situation-a survey in fact of the subject we have had in hand and so lightly and so imperfectly dealt with, and with which we have not yet finished.

It fills, we need scarcely say a broad, voluminous, illimitable expanse, too extensive for any, however versatile, to traverse as a whole, save in a very cursory manner, when indeed its treatment cannot be otherwise than of the most partial and superficial

nature.

Were such an individual to be found and were he to travel beyond generalities and devote even a lifetime to a consideration of details, we fear in the end he would find the result of his labours far, very far from perfection!

At the outset we said it was necessary to contemplate the original of the past, and watch the times in order to get at the extent of the advancement and improvement disclosed by the development of that originality in the future.

The rough encrusted gem, whose procurement in distant lands has been and still is the source of

strife and violence, succumbs at last to the manipulation of the diamond cutter, and though in its crudity its value was larger, yet in its after brilliance has become of enormous worth!

The block of marble which contained the statue of the Venus de Medicis, was but an agglomeration of solid matter, until under the chisel of the now unknown sculptor, the elegant and unequalled figure of the goddess appeared.

So the inert bodies of the creation remain

quiescent until the delegated ingenuity of man operates upon them and discovers for them wide fields of usefulness.

The dead legs of a frog are unmoved until the experimental chemist by means of his galvanic battery gives them life!

So then is it we think with most things that have already come under the eye of inventive genius, and so with those that have yet to come.

Whether we direct our thoughts to the knowledge of medicine,-revolutionizing as it appears to be, or to the new modes of surgical operation, delicate, particular and difficult as they are or to the rapidity with which with chloroform administered those painful processes, once so agonizing as frequently to be the immediate cause of syncope and dissolution are now performed without even the perception of the patient, we cannot fail to see that what we are apt to call the rudeness of the past is giving way to the enlightened science of the present and the future.