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given from the preface, and the "Principles" intended to be set forth in the book entire.

"In this sacrament alone is the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ to be found upon this earth. It is because this is to be offered to God in the eucharistic rite that the place on which it is consecrated is called the altar: it is because of this offering that the building which incloses and protects the altar is to be reverenced, and that the altar is more holy than anything in the building: it is for this reason that the universal custom of Christendom is to bow towards the altar, to face the altar, to uncover the head on entering the building which covers and surrounds the altar. Hence the attacks of the modern schismatics on the real presence of the flesh and blood of Christ in the sacrament, on bowing toward the altar, on uncovering the head in the house of God, are attacks on the very heart of Christian worship; for where these things are not reverenced, above all where they are repudiated, there is no Christian worship: there may be lectures on Christian ethics; there may be pious ejaculations, prayers, singing, and well-constructed phrases, interlarded with shreds, and words, and verses of Scripture; there may be many good and right things; but of Christian worship, as it was ordained, and as it is required by God, there is none.”—(p. 66.)

If we had opened the volume with less interest on the author's account, we should sooner have put it aside, as of very little moment to the public. Mr. Drummond has forfeited by his versatility, the influence his talents could not otherwise have failed to give him. The capricious workings of his erratic mind, watched with interest still by those who admire his talents, and love his worth-as all who know him do-are without power or influence on public opinion. It is not for us to say whether the divine Disposer of all things, may by possibility bestow extraordinary talents together with some more extraordinary incapability of doing with them-we will not say any good-but anything at all: we leave a fearful responsibility behind, when we admit that we do not think Mr. Drummond's "Principles" will mislead the public, or require a serious refutation.

Since writing the above the second publication came to hand. It lacks not discernment, but sorely lacks consistency. One quotation from it may satisfy the reader that the social and political condition of the time runs very nearly parallel with the religious.

"There must be no longer exclusiveness; no one State-church; no universities from which all but members of one Church shall be excluded; no bishops of one sect better off than the bishops of another sect. A few zealous Protestants may roar against Papists, and be joined by those who hate all religion, whenever a question of paying money is mooted; some persons of noble blood and of great possessions may endeavour to prolong the existence of a condemned aristocracy; but the doom of all privileged classes is sealed. The hereditary possessions of the sovereign are gone, and he is only the most burthensome state-pensioner, shortly to be despised and voted too expensive, as all paid servants of the mob ever are. The owners of the lands of England are no longer the exclusive legislators for the English; manufacturers, merchants, and Jews, who have no exclusive connexion with British interest, outvote in Parliament the ancient legislators. The Lords have been deprived

412

HENRY DRUMMOND'S " ABSTRACT PRINCIPLES."

by the present ministers of the crown of the right to be hereditary judges, as their right to be hereditary legislators has ever afforded subject for a sneer to Benthamites, and other concoctors of ephemeral constitutions. The bishops no longer rule the churches under them even in things not essential; and in essentials they publish their disagreements one with another in the face of the whole Church. One minister of the crown who has kindly relieved the House of Lords of the burden of judgment, has, with equal kindness, endeavoured to relieve the clergy from the burden of teaching, and has announced himself as the minister of public instruction; whilst another has had the effrontery to threaten the bishops with expulsion from the House of Lords." -(p. 7.)

This is a dark picture: but not so terrible to the author's mind as it may seem to our's: since it is only in the destruction of all existing institutions, he sees the rising shade of the long-buried apostolic church and respecting the last named enormity, has appended to his first work the following note: we leave it for the consideration of Sir Robert Peel.

"If the crown chose to require the services of any bishops in its councils, they might have been permitted to attend. Such, however, would not have been right on the part of the civil power: but into the duties of the state it is not intended now to enter. [Before the time came for doing so, the author seems to have changed his mind, though both works are dated 1845.] It may not be amiss to remark, en passant, that as matters stand, either Roman Catholic bishops must be admitted into the House of Lords, or those of the Church of England must be removed out of it; for the state has recognized the former as Christian bishops entitled to perfect toleration, and they therefore cannot submit to any preference being shown their rivals."--(Note to p. 113.)

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THE ROSARY AND OTHER POEMS. By the Rev. FREDERICK WILLIAM FABER, Rector of Elton, Huntingdonshire. Published in aid of the Restoration of an Ancient Parish Church. London: Toovey.

1845.

AND what have we here, all fresh from the pen of our quondam friend, Elton's rector and Cherwell's bard? A rosary, good reader, a rosary and other poems from the press of Mr. Toovey, decked with the "missal's mystic blue and gold," all

"richly dight,

Casting a dim religious light."

And the offering, as is meet, Mr. Faber publishes "in aid of the Restoration of an Ancient Parish Church," and dedicates to his "Friend, Alexander James Beresford Hope, M.P., who, out of a humble mind and with cheerful augury has redeemed from sacrilege the Abbey of St. Augustine at Canterbury: and holds it but in trust for the Church of Better Times.”

Pass we on then to "the Rosary of our Lord Jesus Christ," paraphrased from the "Paradisus Ánimae Christianae."

But what, our readers will ask, (at least some of them, we presume)-what is a Rosary? And in the due performance of our office as instructors of the public, if not as annotators or critics of Mr. Frederick Faber and his school, we shall furnish them with the following answer :

"ROSARY. An office in the church of Rome, made up of five or fifteen tens of beads (each of the tens beginning with a pater noster) to direct them to say so many Ave Marias in honour of the Virgin Mary. This number of Ave Marias is said by them in commemoration of the five joyful, five afflicting, and five glorious mysteries, said to be communicated to the blessed Virgin. The five joyful mysteries are made to be the annunciation, her visitation of Elizabeth, the birth of our SAVIOUR, the purification, and our SAVIOUR disputing with the doctors in the temple. The five afflicting ones are our SAVIOUR's agony in the garden, His Scourging, His being crowned with thorns, His being oppressed with the weight of the cross, and His crucifixion. The five glorious mysteries are, the resurrection of our SAVIOUR, HIS ascension, the descent of the HOLY GHOST, HIS glorification in heaven, and her own assumption. St. Dominic, (as they style him) was the author of this devotion, being (as they would make us believe) encouraged to it by the apparition of the blessed Virgin."

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Dr. Hook is our authority. We copy, verbatim et literatim, from his "Church Dictionary," in which he has told us many such things and now, in his "Ecclesiastical Biography, . . . containing the Lives of Ancient Fathers and Modern Divines, interspersed with brief notices of Heretics and Schismatics," he is telling us many more. But this by the way.

Mr. F. Faber's Rosary is a paraphrase, and, as we have not the original, we cannot speak to its fidelity, or say how far it is a mere adaptation to Protestant use of a more grossly Roman model. In our author's version it is not connected with the Ave Marias, nor does it in other respects exactly correspond to the description of the office of the Rosary as given by Dr. Hook. It is presented to us as the "Rosary of our Lord Jesus Christ." But this is enough, and it may be well at once to furnish our readers with a few extracts from "the Rosary and other Poems;" premising that they are given simply as specimens of theology and sentiment, not of poetry-with which, in our present notice, we shall have little or nothing to do. Mr. Faber has already received his due meed, to say the least, in our humble pages, and these are not times which will admit of our extolling such a poet, or busying ourselves with that lighter sort of criticism, which, under other circumstances, might possibly be allowable.

Let us turn to the Rosary, introduced with an illuminated frontispiece illustrative of five of the mysteries, and dated "ROME, The Eve of St. Barnabas, 1843, Villa Strozzi." It is the fruit, we presume, of Mr. Faber's "Sights and Thoughts in Foreign Churches, and among Foreign Peoples." We heartily wish he had stayed at home; and that from all this coquetting with "the Mother of Harlots" (though, in design, Mr. F. be guiltless of such an issue), we may not too soon realize the indignant apostrophe of our Christian poet, in his vivid sketch, "The Progress of Error."

"Oh Italy!-Thy sabbaths will be soon

Our sabbaths, clos'd with mumm'ry and buffoon.
Preaching and pranks will share the motley scene,
Ours parcell'd out, as thine have ever been,
God's worship and the mountebank between."

Maugre our friend's reformed Rosary, and other such emendations, we are persuaded, that, from such a soil, such ultimately will be the fruit."Their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and of the fields of Gomorrah; their grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter; their wine is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps."

But we are breaking loose, and must endeavour to restrain our

selves. To speak truth, however, we set no high value upon Mr. Faber's own importations. Take the following as specimens.

"Jesu! whom Thy sweet mother bore
To St. Elizabeth of yore,

On Jewry's mountain lea,

O! mayst Thou oft, in ways concealed,
To heart but not to eye revealed,
Vouchsafe to visit me.

Hail, Jesus! pray for us!

"Jesu! kind visitant of earth,
Of sinless and of painless birth,
Thy mother's only-born,
May love with undivested flame
Ascend, and for Thy glorious name
All other nuptials scorn.

Hail, Jesus! pray for us!

"Jesu! before Thy manger, kings
Lay prostrate with their offerings,
A most unworldly throne:
Thou to my cradle camest, Lord,
With gifts invisibly outpoured
From waters of Thine own.

Hail, Jesus! pray for us!"

(Decad First. II. III. VII.)

"Jesu! who in the strength of fast
Through Adam's three temptations passed,
On Adam's trial-ground.

In me let hallowed abstinence
The issues seal of carnal sense,
And Satan's wiles confound.

Hail, Jesus! pray for us!

"Jesu! in all the zeal of love
How amiably didst Thou reprove
Poor wretches lost in sin!
Ah! may I first in penance live,
Rebuking self, then humbly strive
My brother's soul to win.

Hail, Jesus! pray for us!

"Jesu! who didst the multitude

Twice nourish with miraculous food
Of soul and body both.

Give me thy daily bread, O Lord,
Thy Flesh, Thyself, Incarnate Word,
Which feeds our heavenly growth.
Hail, Jesus! pray for us!

"Jesu! who wept o'er Salem's towers,
Wept for her long and baleful hours
Of misery and sin!

O Lord Divine, could I but borrow

From Thy sweet strength such strength of sorrow

As might her pardon win!

Hail, Jesus! pray for us!”

(Decad Second. I. V. VI. IX.)

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