fire"; and in the next we read, " At thy rebuke they flee; at the voice of thy thunder they are afraid." This seems strange to be said of angels, but the next verse and the following do not clear up the difficulty. "They go up as high as the hills, and down to the valleys beneath. Thou hast set them their bounds that they shall not pass, neither turn again to cover the earth." All which the Psalmist applied to the waters, not to the angels. But Mr. Sears has left out the verses which show the change of subject.

The 50th Psalm is ascribed to Asaph. "It is enough," says Dr. Noyes, "to place him in the number of poets of the very first order." "The author was," says Eichhorn, "one of those ancient wise men who felt the insufficiency of external religious usages, and urged the necessity of cultivating virtue and purity of mind." It commences with a "sublime theophany," in which Jehovah is announced as speaking from Zion, his chosen seat, while heaven and earth are called to witness, and the host of worshippers is addressed :—

"The Lord, even the most mighty God, hath spoken, and called the world, from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof.

"Gather my servants together unto me, those who have made a covenant with me with sacrifice.'

"And the heavens shall declare his righteousness, for God is judge himself."

66

The worthlessness of mere sacrifices is then declared:

"I will take no bullock out of thine house, nor he-goat out of thy fold; for all the beasts of the forest are mine, and so are the cattle upon a thousand hills."

Reproof is then dealt out to the moral offender, who hopes to hide his guilt under a parade of religious obser

vances:

"Unto the ungodly saith God, 'Why dost thou preach my laws, and take my covenant in thy mouth, whereas thou hatest instruction, and hast cast my words behind thee?'”

Then follows the conclusion:

"Whoso offereth me thanks and praise, he honoreth me; and to him who ordereth his conversation right will I show the salvation of God."

This psalm, so grand in its conception, so poetic in its composition, so elevated in its philosophy, not only in advance of the Jewish mind of old time, but adequate to the Christian mind of our day, is cut down one half by Mr. Clarke, left out altogether by Mr. Waterston, and reduced to three verses by Mr. Sears, which are used as an introduction to the next psalm, a penitential one of David, supposed to refer to the matter of Uriah.

One more specimen, and we have done. From the 19th Psalm, "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork," Mr. Sears omits all the portion relating to the wonders of the heavens, and begins his extract with the seventh verse, "The law of the Lord is an undefiled law," &c. He omits the verse which contains the petition," O, cleanse thou me from my secret faults," but gives the next, "Keep thy servant also from presumptuous sins," &c. Surely no sin can be more "presumptuous" than thus to play strip and waste with compositions, which for thirty centuries have been held divine by all believing minds, and whose inspiration even infidels admit.

These instances are, perhaps, enough to show how perilous it is to meddle with other men's compositions, in hopes of mending them, when it is altogether uncertain whether we have entered into the design of the author, or partake of his spirit. It strikes us as strange, that men of piety, taste, and intelligence should have allowed themselves to recompose, as it were, these sacred poems. To expunge is, perhaps, allowable, yet manifestly even this process requires care and caution; but to wed together, in the same "Selection," the accents of grief and joy, triumph and despair, youth and age, epochs separated by centuries, without any sign or intimation of change of subject, is a course of proceeding which, if applied to modern poetry, would excite only ridicule and disgust.

In most departments of their service-books, all these gentlemen have freely used the materials, and followed the model, of the Book of Common Prayer; but in one, they have all, excepting Mr. Sears, stopped short. We refer to the "Christian Year," the arrangement by which each season, as it returns, is made to remind us of the event in the history of our faith which took place at

that season. It is evidently not of great importance that strict accuracy should be attained in fixing these dates. So long as Christians agree in regarding the close of the year as the season of our Saviour's birth, the recurrence of that season is as fitly adapted to revive the memory of that event, as if the date were historically certain. The Christian year begins with Advent, a season of four Sundays, which precede the great festival of Christ's nativity, or Christmas. The next occasion which comes round is the commencement of his ministry, as marked by the manifestation at his baptism and at the marriage feast. His crucifixion is fitly preceded by a season of meditation and retirement, which, in analogy with his fasting and temptation in the wilderness, extends to forty days, and is called Lent. The resurrection is celebrated under the name of Easter, and the giving of the Holy Spirit under that of Whitsunday.

The method of observance indicated by the Prayerbook is by regular portions of Scripture, called Lessons, assigned to each occasion. That portion of the Gospels which records the event forms one of these Lessons, and some passage from the Old Testament, either prophetic of or in some way analogous to the event, forms the other. Anthems and psalms also, of an appropriate character, are set apart to be read or sung on those days; and very naturally the sermon will take its coloring from the associations of the day.

This arrangement infuses method and order into our religious services, whether conducted with the aids of public worship, or by ourselves at home. Without some such system, the reading of the Bible is in danger of becoming unconnected and fortuitous, and comparatively unprofitable. Where good judgment is used in the selec tion, it will be so to some extent, and where good judg ment is wanting, how much worse!

Our readers are now pretty well aware what the King's Chapel Prayer-book is. It is the "Book of Common Prayer" of the Church of England and of the American Episcopal Church, modified and adapted to Congregational Unitarian worship. Its identity is not lost, we contend, by these modifications, nor the association weakened which connects our book with the forms used by the ancient Church, and by generations of wise

and good men in the Roman Catholic and English Churches ever since. We cannot expect that persons attached to those doctrines which are here omitted will approve of this book, but to those whose sentiments on those subjects agree with ours, we cordially recommend it.

A large number of the Unitarian societies of England use the reformed Liturgy. We have no expectation, nor scarcely a wish, that any of our existing churches should adopt it. The same causes that have hitherto prevented its adoption by any other society in this city will probably still prevent it. The people of New Eng land are unused to that mode of public worship, and its unaccustomedness would create a distaste, which would probably prevent the experiment from being successful, if it did not prevent its being made. But in our sister cities, New York, for instance, the case is different. There the people are accustomed to the use of the prayer-book in public worship, and habit would be on the side of a Liturgy, instead of against it. In that city, we think, a church which should use this amended prayerbook would find a large number of ready hearers and friends. We know of several individuals, and we doubt not there are many, who, while they cling to the prayerbook of their early associations with a fondness that for bids their exchanging it for the totally different method of extemporaneous service, would gladly be relieved of many objectionable matters connected with the Church Prayer-book as it is. To such, we are sure, the adoption of this "Book of Common Prayer, according to the Use of King's Chapel, Boston," would seem, as it did to our fathers, "an auspicious turning from the dominion of creeds and phrases of man's device, to the easy yoke and authority of simple Scripture."

* Greenwood's History.

T. B.

24*

ART. VIII-ARCHITECTS AND ARCHITECTURE.*

To erect a structure that shall combine "commodity, firmness, and delight," as Vitruvius hath it, to make it serviceable, and at the same time expressive of its purpose, is no easy task. Not impossible, we know, from the proofs that it has been done; not easy, we judge, from their rarity.

This scarcity of fine buildings among us has been attributed to various causes. The public say it is owing to the want of architects who are capable of producing them; the architects say that it is owing to the want of a cultivated public taste to appreciate a good building when it is built. Who shall decide? To our minds the answer is this. The public, it is true, are not capable of appreciating a fine building. But how should they be, when they have never seen any, or at least so few as not to give them an opportunity of forming their taste. Therefore it is plain that the initiative lies with the members of the architectural profession. Let them render themselves able to produce fine buildings, and a public taste will soon grow up to appreciate them.

The next inquiry which presents itself is, Are the architects now thus competent? And the answer, we ear, must too generally be in the negative. Our architects, with a few honorable exceptions, may be divided into two classes. The one class consists of men, originally carpenters or masons, who have risen above their fellows, and who, sharing in the love of distinction common to humanity, prefer the name of architect to that of builder, which properly belongs to them. Should they confine themselves to executing the designs of others, they would succeed very well; for the practical part of construction they generally understand. But of that which distinguishes architecture from building, and gives it a claim to rank as one of the fine arts, they have but a dim and uncertain idea.

The second class of architects consists of those enter

1. Hints on Public Architecture. By ROBERT DALE OWEN. Published by order of the Smithsonian Institute.

2. The Seven Lamps of Architecture. By JOHN RUSKIN. New York: G. P. Putnam.