THERE are abundant indications that the great controversy of the age, perhaps the final controversy before the conversion of the world, is to be that between a formal and a spiritual religion; between the elements of Popery and the elements of Protestantism. These two systems have been brought of late into frequent and vigorous collision. Truths long since thought to be settled are again called in question; principles on which the faith of successive generations has reposed, are by turns assailed and undermined. We are beginning to discover that the Reformation was not so thorough, nor so generally successful as we have hitherto supposed; and that instead of resting among the spoils of victory, we must gird ourselves for battle.

The sturdy strokes of Luther, indeed, broke the right arm of the papacy in Europe, and drove Leo the Magnificent, humbled and vanquished from the field. But the papacy though wounded did not die. Blows and wounds seemed only to arouse it from the indolence consequent upon a long and quiet supremacy, and to stimulate it to the defense of its prescriptive rights; or if these should be no longer tenable, to inflame it with a zeal for new acquisitions. The "mother of harlots," driven from sanctuaries which she had defiled through ages of darkness, went forth to cover the earth with her Cerberean offspring. The Roman pontiffs finding that their dominion in Europe was wan ing before the rising sun of liberty and truth, turned to other quarters of the globe, and endeavored by the propagation of the "Catholic faith" among the heathen, to compensate for its declension throughout Christendom. Nor was the craft

of satan at all inadequate to the emergency. Embroiling the Reformers in disputes concerning minute points of faith, diverting their minds from the spread of the truth to the formation of creeds and sectarian systems of theology, he at the same time infused into the Romish church the spirit of propagandism, and in the person of a Spanish knight, raised up a new order of zealots to revive the dying hierarchy, and make its name and power co-extensive with the world. The "Society of Jesus" were the first missionaries of modern times; and while the Reformers were exhausting their resources upon Germany, France, and Britain, the Jesuits were employing their casuistry, their cunning, their wealth and their power, in persuading or coercing the "infidels" of Africa, America, and India, into submission to the papal see. Xavier, the "apostle and saint," penetrated to the farthest Indies, planted "the church" in the empire of Japan, and died whilst on his way to mark the "celestials" themselves with the sign of the cross. Thus it was that the great battle of the Reformation ended.

Popery, driven in part from the field which she had held for centu ries, sought to retrieve her honor and fortune in distant climes; while Protestantism busied herself in se curing her conquests or in prepar ing for future wars. The two systems indeed were still antagonistic; they often came into fierce and bloody conflict; but as the temporal power of the Pope declined, their collisions became less frequent, till each occupied its own field with little molestation from the other. Protestantism, however, has continued to increase in resources and strength, and to become more and

seems to have been seriously apprehended, that the offense which they had already committed against the church, in allowing the Presbyterians to hold an ordination in one of their consecrated places, would be sufficient to consign the entire people to "uncovenanted mercy."* While formalism is thus coming into collision with an evangelical faith upon missionary ground, it is entrenching itself more strongly in Christendom. Popery, deeming centuries of exile from her ancient seats at Canterbury, Oxford, and Westminster, a sufficient penance for her past indiscretions, is attempting to regain possession of the soil of England. She looks upon the abbeys, the minsters, the cathedrals, which, notwithstanding the shocks of successive revolutions, remain as monuments of her former magnificence, and longs to restore to them her monks and priors, her priests and altars, her incense, her music, and her ritual. She feels that she has a lien upon these venerable piles; that the ground on which they stand belongs to her by right of preoccupancy; and she appeals to all that is superstitious or romantic in the present possessors, to their love of pomp and ceremony, to their admiration of the picturesque and beautiful, to their veneration for antiquity, and their filial affection toward their mother church, to restore her to her former privileges and possessions. Nor does she make the appeal in vain. It is responded to from the halls of Oxford, by those who would keep that ancient university "moored in the stream of time." It is responded to by all who covet spiritual domination and temporal ease. It is echoed through many a "long drawn aisle and fretted vault," from many a lonely ruin and deserted tower.

The effect of the magnificent ar

chitecture and pompous ritual of a Roman Catholic cathedral even upon the imagination of a Protestant and an American, may be illustrated by the following extract taken at random from the correspondence of a "traveling New Yorker," (ev. idently a man of intelligence and education,) with one of the leading journals of his native city. Speaking of the various objects of attrac tion to a stranger in Belgium, he says: "The cathedrals are among the most interesting objects in all Catholic countries, but in Belgium they are remarkably attractive. In Bruges the cathedral of St. Sauveur has little external beauty, though highly ornamented within. We entered during the celebration of high mass, as the notes of the organ were echoing through the longdrawn aisles,' and the incense was making the air heavy with perfume. An old woman brought us chairs from a huge pile of them in a cor ner, (the pavements of these churches being undefaced by pews or benches,) and we seated ourselves till the conclusion of the services. How bare and naked seem our churches in comparison with these! All around hang old paintings of scriptural and legendary events, oftentimes masterpieces of art. The painted windows give the interior adim religious light,' and repeat their rich colored figures upon tessellated pavement. Porphyry, agate, and other precious materials adorn the walls, and the columns and pilasters are of variously colored marbles; smaller chapels occupy recesses branching off from the main building, and each has a glittering shrine dedicated to a different saint. The votaries of each lavish decora tions upon their favorite; a lamp burns before each shrine night and day, and there is always some one kneeling there absorbed in devotion. Statues, busts, and effigies surmount the tombs of the great men who are buried there, and on the very slab

the

over which you walk is often seen a famous historical name, familiar as household words.' The pomp of the ritual, with its accessories of music and incense and the kneeling of the multitude, can not fail to impress even the most rigid Protestant, and force him to admit that we may have gone too far in our sweeping ecclesiastical reforms."

Now the mere existence of so many monuments of the palmy days of Popery in England, invested as they are with the romantic associations of feudal times, appeals strongly to the organs of "veneration" and "ideality" in the admirers of a religion of taste and sentiment, or rather to the deeper seated superstition and vanity of the human heart, and awakens a desire for the restoration of a system which developed itself under such forms of beauty and grandeur as to be more splendid even in its ruins than others in

their prime.

The truth is, Romanism never was uprooted in England. Its branches

were

lopped off, but the trunk remains, and the sap is in it. Occasionally it sends forth fresh and vigorous shoots, and it will again spread its arms over the land, unless the axe is laid at the root, and the ploughshare driven deep into the soil. The English church reformation

a movement not like the Reformation on the continent, which had its origin in an honest inquiry after truth, incited and directed by the Spirit of God-a movement begun in the caprice of a licentious king, and terminated by the statutes of an imperious queen; this partial, temporizing reformation must be invigorated, spiritualized, and made triumphant by the faith and zeal of the nineteenth century.

The struggle between the evangelical and Romish elements in the established church of England, (the evangelical spirit of her articlesthe Romish spirit of her liturgy,) is looked upon with intense anxiety

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29

by every intelligent observer of the signs of the times. What the issue will be is doubtful. Whether we shall witness the overthrow of a corrupt and oppressive establishment, or the ejection of the friends of evangelical religion from the bosom of a dominant and tyrannical hierarchy, no human sagacity can predict. We hope for the former, we fear the latter. The endeavor to infuse the spirit of humble and energetic piety into the whole body of the Anglican church, in spite of its Prayer-book, its rubrics, its petrified forms and frigid constitution, is almost as futile as the early dreams of Luther about the reformation of the church of Rome. The only reformation to be hoped for is, such a reformation of individual souls as will lead them to throw off the huge mass of formalism under which they are buried, and come out into the life and light and freedom of the gospel of Christ. But we doubt whether even such a reformation is practicable to any extent within the bosom of the English church. We fear that Puseyism, with the standards, the liturgy, and above all the very nature of man, so much in its favor, will eventually triumph over all the efforts of the evangelical party, zealous and praiseworthy as they may be. That our fears are not altogether groundless, may be seen from the rapid spread of the Oxford divinity, the general revival of Popish ceremonies in the established church, and the exultation of the Romanists over the new allies whom they have found in England, and whom they hope ere long to welcome in all respects as brethren. The Jesuits have not been indifferent to the approximations toward the superstition and idolatry of their own church, which have been made in the worship of the church of Eng

*See Dr. Pusey's letter to the Bishop of Oxford on the tendency to Romanism

imputed to doctrines held of old, as now, in the English church.

land. The following extract from a late number of the Dublin Magazine will show us how narrowly they are watching every retrograde movement of Protestants.

"It is to us a matter of considerable gratification, that we have it in our power to communicate to our readers the result of inquiries instituted in order to ascertain the progress made towards Catholic unity in England.

"The parties employed in the London district report as follows: Out of two hundred and fifteen churches and chapels of the establishment visited, there are one hundred and fifty three in which the congregation bow reverently to the altar at the naming of our Savior, evidently acknowledging his presence in the holy elements; in the remaining sixty two churches there appeared some confusion of ideas upon the point, both with clergy and flocks; in some few instances, the altar and holy eucharist appeared to be altogether despised; in thirteen churches the clergy bow lowly on passing and repassing the altar; in twenty seven the sacred elements are placed on the altar before the worshipers at each service, the reverence tendered being therefore to them rather than to the altar itself; in all these last mentioned churches the clergy and the whole congregation turn to the altar; in seventeen of these the altar is decorated with tapers; in nine churches the blessed crucifix is placed near the altar; in forty seven the holy emblem of the Pas sion is placed before the congregation either on or above the altar. It is most gratifying to observe, that the blessed Virgin is represented (mostly in the windows over the altar) in twenty five instances, besides many other apostles and canonized saints; in twelve instances these representations of the Virgin have remained from Catholic times unmolested; in all the churches recently constructed a space for pro

cessions has been left in front of the altar, and in some few instances shifting benches have been substi tuted for pews. In forty seven

churches the hours of service have been assimilated to those of matins and high mass of our holy church. The unhallowed service formerly read on the fifth of November, charging the Catholic church with the crime of the gunpowder plot, is almost entirely discontinued; it is only observed in twelve churches out of two hundred and fifteen visited. Surely every member of our holy church should redouble his prayers, seeing how they have availed to bring about this blessed approximation to Catholic unity. We may anticipate shortly, should liberal councils prevail in the nation, that at least one Catholic service may be performed each Sabbath in the churches of the establishment, without at all interfering with those who may continue to differ from us, and without any material alteration in the arrangements of the national churches. This, surely, is the least concession which we can require from those who monopolize at least nine tenths of all the buildings erected by the Catholics."

Such are the confident expectations of Papists respecting the recovery of the ground which they have lost in England. The evangelical party in the established church feel that there is just occa sion for alarm at such tendencies to Romanism in their worship as have been mentioned. And yet how feeble often are their remonstrances against these growing corruptions. A very popular female writer, who manifests much of an evangelical spirit, suggests as an all-important reformation, that hereafter worshipers should not "face the table" when they bow at the name of Christ! She can not release herself from the bondage of form sufficiently to

Charlotte Elizabeth.