into sin. Now for the pardon of sin committed after baptism, and for the remission of the essential guilt and the eternal punishment of it, a sacramental confession, where practicable, and the priestly absolution is requisite ; and where these cannot be obtained a sincere and hearty desire for them must be felt. In all usual cases the power of receiving this confession, administering the sacrament to the offender, and granting absolution, is confided to the ordinary clergy of the Church. But certain cases are reserved for the sole consideration of the Apostolic see, as head and mother of all the Churches. For these absolution can only be granted by the Pope, or by his special direction; and the Penitentiary is his organ for that purpose. When a person who had been guilty of one of the crimes reserved, made personal application for absolution to the officers of the Penitentiary, who held daily sessions in some of the principal churches in Rome for that purpose, his co his confession was received, the appropriate penance prescribed, the sacrament administered, and absolution pronounced. In certain cases, as, for instance, the killing of an ecclesiastic, as laid down in the extracts we have furnished from the Tax-Book, the criminal was obliged to appear personally at Rome, in order to receive absolution. But in ordinary cases application might be made by letter.

The method of application to the Penitentiary, the mode of procedure, and the forms to be observed, are laid down with great exactness by the Jesuit Marcus Paulus in his "Praxis." The penitent was to make confession to the ordinary clergy of his city, who was to forward an accurate statement of the case to the Pænitentiarius Major at Rome, with a request that authority for absolution might be granted by "letters apostolical." These letters were then prepared by the officers of the Penitentiary, containing a brief statement of the case, directed to some neighboring ecclesiastic, who in certain cases was required to be a bishop or other prelate, directing him to hear the confession of the penitent, and, if in his judgment it was proper, to grant absolution from the guilt incurred, having first administered the sacrament and imposed due penance. A special direction was also given that where injury had been inflicted, reparation, as far as possible, should be made.

The sums paid the officials for the preparation, authentication, and dispatch of these "letters apostolical," were the taxes of the Penitentiary, which thus were in no way designed to be the price for which the crimes mentioned in them might be committed; nor the price of pardon for them after commission. This also explains the small and uniform amount of these fees, for the "letters apostolical" were all brief and very similar in tenor.

1

Published at Rome, 1689; from which copious extracts are to be found in the Jesuit Plettenberg's "Notitia Congregationum et Tribunalium Curiæ Romanæ." Hildesheim, 1683.

If such a court was to exist, it must have officials; and these must be paid for their services. That the mode of paying them by fees is liable to great abuses, and so exceedingly objectionable, there can be no doubt. In an age of universal venality and corruption, it was hardly to be expected that a court having so singular a jurisdiction, and where so much was necessarily entrusted to subordinate officials, should remain pure. The experience of all civilized nations has shown that the foulest sinks of corruption in the body politic exist in connexion with courts of justice; not so much, however, through the venality of judges as by the abuses of their obscure officials. The technicalities which gather around a legal system render it in a short time so complicated that its mysteries become inexplicable, except to those whose lives are devoted to their application and practice. Hence many an obscure clerk in our courts derives from his fees an income greater than than that of the most learned judge upon the bench. These sinks of corruption are worse than the Augean stables; they are like a deep and foul cavern with no outlet, into which should Hercules turn the current of a river, it could only cleanse them by rending away, by main pressure, its rocky walls. The system to be purified must be destroyed.

The spiritual courts at Rome, and the Penitentiary in particular, were liable to these abuses. The likelihood of corruption is always proportioned to the temptation and the prospect of impunity. In the case of the officials of the Penitentiary, both were great. The ability of their clients was the only bound to their exactions. No sum could be too great for the penitent to pay him who held the key to that paradise he had forfeited. The chances of detection were almost nothing. The penitent had his absolution, and why should he complain? Even were he so disposed, he could not expose the judge without publicly proclaiming himself guilty of some shameful crime.

Hence gradually arose that state of things set forth in the Centum Gravamina of the German princes. The statements which they make are undoubtedly true as matters of fact. The error consists

in our charging them upon the Roman Church, as though she, by her Tax-Book, and Chancery regulations, and penitential canons, had sanctioned them; whereas, in fact, they were designed to prevent them.

These abuses in the Penitentiary reached their height about 1560, and were remedied in the only possible way. The half century which witnessed that great reformation in doctrine from the Church of Rome, witnessed no less a reformation in manners and morals in that Church. A succession of pontiffs arose who knew not the vices of an Alexander VI., nor the luxuries of a Leo X.; and whose austere sanctity of life, and earnestness of zeal, would have done honor to the Waldenses in their mountain

fastnesses. This reformation breathed into that Church a new life, which enabled her to win from heathendom more ground than she had lost to Protestantism. Stringent bulls were put forth, regulating the procedures of all the spiritual courts. The Penitentiary was remodeled; the greater part of its functions abrogated; its officials transferred to other offices; and all the fees which they had heretofore enjoyed and abused, were utterly and entirely abolished. This was finally accomplished by Pope Pius V., in 1569, by his 83d Constitution," In omnibus; where he directs that nothing should be received by its officers for writing or dispatching letters apostolical; or even for the materials. employed in their preparation, nor for the parchment, wax, or ink used; so entirely gratis were its functions to be, that its officials were absolutely prohibited from accepting any present, even when voluntarily offered. These taxes were thus abolished almost simultaneously with the first complaints which were made of the abuses growing out of them. Thus, however great those abuses might have been, as it was not the design of the Tax-Book to occasion them, they cannot in common fairness and honesty be charged upon the Church of Rome as its deliberate and authoritive acts.

The conclusions-most unexpected to ourselves when this investigation was commenced-to which we have been brought by a weight of evidence of which this article affords, at best, a bare sketch, are: that the Tax-Book purporting to be a transcript of that put forth at Rome in 1514, by order of Leo X., is altogether genuine and authentic; but that it it in no wise does, nor is intended so to do, grant permission for the commission of the crimes specified; nor establish a price to be paid for their pardon after commission. And that, therefore, as the charge of licensing these crimes rests, either mediately or immediately, upon this book, it is not sustained by any valid evidence; and that whatever corrupt individual officials, or dignitaries may have done, no such license can in fairness and honesty be laid to the charge of the Church of Rome.

Nihil autum pro litterarum confectione, nec etiam pro charta, attramento, cera, capsula, cordulis, aliisque rebus ad expeditionem pertinentibus; neque a sponte dantibus acceptare possunt, sed omnia gratis expedire debent.-Pius V. Const. 83. Magn. Bull. Rom.

ARTICLE X.

CRITICAL NOTICES.

1. Notes Critical, Explanatory, and Practical, in the Book of the Prophet Isaiah. By ALBERT Barnes. Second Edition, revised and corrected. Leavitt, Trow & Co., 2 vols., 12mo., pp. 536, 458.

THE first edition of this work, issued in three large octavo volumes, seemed to destroy its identity with Mr. Barnes' series of expository volumes. It had the appearance, though not the reality, of being a more elaborate and ambitious performance; and taking a place in a higher department of Biblical literature, it gained perhaps, less credit than it would have gained, if like the rest of his works, it occupied the position, and preferred only the claims of Notes. We are among those who are glad of the change in form and aspect which the author has made in the present edition. By judicious abridgements and elisions, by omitting the seperate translation, and by some corrections of style, a condensation has been effected which brings the three octavos into the more convenient and comely shape of two handsome sized duodecimos-a change of which a reduction of price is not the only advantage.

The exposition of Mr. Barnes is mainly designed for popular use and instruction; and with this end in view, though a work of undoubted learning and labor, its characteristic excellence lies not in its critical erudition. With a summary, but often highly felicitous exposition of the text, it devotes itself to that full and luminous illustration of its meaning, which may commend it to the popular apprehension, and best enforce its practical truths. In illustrating the fulfillment of prophecy, we doubt if there is any other work extant which is so copious and so conclusive. All the research of modern travellers and the learning of orientalists are brought to the illustration, and a light is thrown upon the text which often imparts a new meaning to these sublime and lofty prophecies. While, therefore, there may be other works which the critical scholar will consult, the Bible reader whose aim is a clear apprehension of the meaning, and a vivid impression of truth and significancy of the prophecy, may be commended with unqualified approbation to the work before us. The safe exegesis, the copious historical and archælogical illustrations, the familiar lucid style, and above all, the devout and reverent spirit, and the practical religious bearing of the work, will give it, in the estimation of Christians and scholars, a distinguished place in the voluminous literature of Isaiah.

2. Hora Bilicala Quotodiana. Daily Scripture Readings. By the late THOMAS CHALMERS, D.D., LL.D. In three volumes. Harper & Brothers.

THE death of Dr. Chalmers, and the discovery of his posthumous works, have given so wide a notoriety to this work that its history will need no recital. The Christian world was eager to congratulate itself upon a bequest so extensive and so promising, and expectations were formed which are probably doomed, in many cases, to not a little disappointment. The "readings" are in no sense expository or critical. They do not come within the category of the commentary. They are rather those practical thoughts which are suggested to the author by the first perusal of the passage to which they refer, and constructed more for the reader's spiritual edification than his theological or ethical instruction. The peculiarities of Chalmers' great mind, his logic, his learning, and his fervid capacious imagination, are scarcely visible here; his awkward massiveness of style only remaining to identify the work as his. But if it be Chalmers in a new aspect, it is nevertheless a most lovely and winning aspect. The warmth and glow of feeling which pervade these "readings," the profound spirituality, and practical sagacity, and kindly tender emotion which they display, more than compensate, in a work like this, for any lack of learning or eloquence. For personal, practical perusal, with special reference to self-examination and to religious feeling, we know nothing in the whole range of religious reading, more fresh, engaging and impressive. They are so entirely unaffected, so

free from common place and cant, and so overflowing with genuine feeling, that they catch hold of the reader's warmest sympathies at once, and suggest the most precious trains of thought. The style in which the volumes are issued is very beautiful, and worthy of the work. Two of thre. have been issued, and this series is to be followed by a second, entitled, Hora Biblica Sabbatice.

3. Greek Reading-Book, for the use of Schools. By Rev. J. A SPENCER, A.M. D. Appleton & Co.

THIS work, designed to be the first reading manual for the Greek student, begins by early and ingenious lessons in construction, illustrating successively the various principles of grammar and particularly the particles. If not a substitute for the grammar, it is at least such a repetition of grammatical rules and principles as to serve as an admirable drill. The second part is composed of Frederick Jacob's wellknown Greek Reader, to which are added some of the best passages of the Cyropædia and Anabasis. The Notes follow these, and then a convenient and copious lexicon--the whole making a portable volume, which we must say, is beautifully and accurately printed. Mr. Spencer's Notes are excellent-a little too profuse perhaps, and offering too much assistance to the pupil, to meet the rigid notions of some teachers but they are concisely stated, and replete with learning and good sense. The work will be found a very convenient text-book.

4. The Germania and Agricola of Caius Cornelius Tacitus, with Notes for Colleges. By W. S. TYLER, Professor of the Greek and Latin Languages in Amherst College. Wiley and Putman.

WE wish that Prof. Tyler had given an edition of the History, and other works of Tacitus, in the same scholarly and tasteful style, with which he has edited these two gems. The spirit and genius of the author have been nicely appreciated; and besides presenting an accurate text, emandated by the results of German criticism, the illustrative notes bring the student into that close sympathy with the beauties of the author, which give a zest and a meaning to the work of translation. Considered as helps, these Notes are certainly admirable-they touch rapidly and precisely upon the point of difficulty, and convey to the pupil the information he needs, and no more. It is a finely executed work in all respects, and can be commended to teachers with a degree of confidence that all classical text-books do not deserve.

5. Pictorial History of England. Harper & Brothers.

We have briefly indicated, several times, the high estimate which we had formed of this work. We should be glad to notice its completion more at length, if there were space. In the higher sense of the word, the work can scarcely be called a history. It is rather an industrious collection of elements, much of which has been hitherto suffered to lie in comparative obscurity, and from which a history might be constructed, which should better picture forth the life and genius of the British people than any yet written. The peculiarity of the work, aside from its pictorial illustrations, consists in its copious and careful details of the condition of the people. While other histories engross themselves with the wars, the vices and successions of kings, the movements of cabinets and the intrigues of politicians, this opens the unknown but highly interesting page of popular life.-We think it a candid, well written and very accurate portraiture of the most interesting features of British history; and though it will not supersede Hume, nor forstall Mr. Macaulay's anticipated labors, it may be commended as on the whole, for popular use, the best work of the kind extant.

6. A Greek Grammar, fort he use of Schools and Colleges. By E. A. SOPHOCLES,* A.M. A New Edition. Hartford: Huntington.

WE may characterise this Grammar as eminently thorough and practical. Its prime attention is directed to those principles of grammar, and features of the language, which the pupil needs first and most familiarly to know; and in some of these, it far exceeds, in extent of illustration, any school grammar of the Greek that we know of. The thorough drill in which it exercises the learner at the outset, in the peculiarities of accent, literal and syllabic changes, and contractions, &c., is to be