time, the fatal flaw is at once evident,-unreality. Dr. Arnold maintains that the present order of things in England was settled on this assumption, (namely, that the State and Church are identical.) Whatever the assumption was, clearly the fact was not so. When the present constitution of Church and State was framed, under Henry VIII., Edward VI., and Elizabeth, a large portion of the nation, including most of the heads of the Church of England, were strongly opposed to the new order of things, and continued in heart and conscience attached to the Church of Rome. Those on the other hand who considered the Reformation incomplete, and the remodelled Church of England but half Protestant, were driven off in the contrary direction."

After describing the growth of the Presbyterian party, and the persecution of that party under the Act of Uniformity, he proceeds:—

"During the two following centuries, through the successive phases of persecution, toleration, emancipation, and growing claims to equality,-patiently fighting their way up to the level standingground, out of those valleys of humiliation and of the shadow of death which the dominant church deemed their proper abodes, never losing a foot of ground so gained, several distinct powerful Protestant communities have grown up outside the Church of England. The Roman Church has risen from the very dust of oppression to a position in which, in open contempt of law, its prelates assume territorial titles; and it now numbers among its hundreds of recent converts some of the ablest of the clergy and wealthiest of the nobility. Even if we could stretch our liberality so as broadly to include all these churches and sects under the one name of Christian, and could say, 'These altogether compose the Church of the nation,' alas! how large a portion of the nation would still refuse to be included: worshipping in none of our sanctuaries, holding none of our creeds, feeling neither love nor reverence for the Christian name!"

Dr. Reynolds prepares the way for his discussion of "The Forgiveness and Absolution of Sins," by elaborately shewing that "the ambiguity of language is a fruitful source of theological controversy," and that "a second cause of perplexity in dealing with theological problems, or interpreting the dogmas of theclogical controversy, is the correlation of the spiritual forces, and the identity in time of the spiritual conditions resulting from their activity," which last, we can answer for it, is a cause of very great perplexity indeed. The essay which follows will almost certainly be found, by those who have time and patience to read often and think much, to be perfectly evangelical and very suggestive of pious reflections. Dr. Reynolds's position as President of Cheshunt College, warrants us in say

FF

ing so much. But even if patient research should prove our confidence to be misplaced, still, it is a comfort to think that the Essay will do no harın.

Mr. Dale discusses "The Doctrine of the Real Presence and the Lord's Supper" in a most able manner. The destructive portions of his Essay-those directed against the Romish doctrine of Transubstantiation and the Ritualist doctrine of the Real Presence-are especially effective. The way in which he deals with the sophisms by which the doctrines are defended may be sufficiently illustrated by one example.

"The foundations of proof on which this stupendous structure (the doctrine of the Real Presence) is built, ought to be sure and strong. The miracle is without a parallel. It is alleged, indeed, that Christ by a simple act of volition converted water into wine,' and that 'the same power can now turn wine into His own blood, to fulfil the purposes of His love in the blessed Sacrament.' But the miracle at Cana has no analogy to that of the Altar. The water when changed into wine ceased to be water; if we had been told that it remained water still, and that though it had really become wine, all its original properties and effects remained, there would have been some remote similiarity between that miracle and this. To make the analogy somewhat closer it would be necessary to add, that the water, still remaining water, did not merely become wine, but became the very wine which had been provided at the beginning of the feast, and which had been already drunk by the guests; for the bread becomes the body of Christ, which has already been 'received' by millions of communicants for more than eighteen hundred years. The resemblance between the two miracles would still be most distant; to lessen the remaining differences between them, we should require to be assured that the water, still remaining water, was changed not only into wine which the guests had just drank, but into wine which was lying at that moment in the cellars of the Roman Emperor, in the imperial city, and that yet it was in the waterpots at Cana, ready to be consumed by the Galilean peasants assembled to celebrate the marriage of their friends; for the body of our Lord is in heaven, and yet it is into that body that the consecrated bread is said to be changed. Even if this astonishing addition were made to the story much would remain to be added before the analogy could be of any real service in assisting us to accept the mystery;' for the great wonder of all is that the bread, remaining bread, is made one with a living Person; if the miracle at Cana is to present any resemblance to the miracle of the Real Presence, we must further imagine that the water-remaining water-became the body and blood of Christ-that He Himself was not only sitting with the guests but was contained in the water-pots and was drank by the master of the feast."

Mr. Dale is not so successful in the constructive part of his essay, where it is difficult to ascertain precisely what is the positive doctrine of the Lord's Supper which he would establish. He does, however, utter a very timely and healthy protest against the notion-too common among Nonconformists-that the Supper is merely a Church observance for the purposes of commemoration and communion. He does also, with tolerable clearness, set forth so much of his positive doctrine as this, that the service is an expression of Christ's "intense love for His disciples, which made Him thirst to be remembered by them after His death. Not their love for Him, but His love for them, lies at the root of the Sacrament."

In the Essay on "The Worship of the Church," Mr. Allon writes in a most interesting fashion concerning public praise and prayer. On the subject of the service of song his remarks have especial value.

"That the Congregationalism of the future will, in many important respects, differ from that of the past, is a prediction which may be very safely ventured." Such is the safe opening of Mr. J. G. Rogers's essay. The essay itself is better than so 'tame a beginning would lead one to expect. Mr. Rogers writes with greater freedom of style, and greater liberality of sentiment, than even his admirers could have anticipated. But he is too anxious by far about such small matters as the criticisms of Mr. Matthew Arnold, "Salem Chapel," and the Pall Mall Gazette.

Dr. Mullens is an enthusiast in the missionary cause. He writes with all the advantages and disadvantages which enthusiasm gives to a writer. His narrative of missionary labours and successes is one of the most interesting, and even exciting, we have read for many a day; and as an exhibition of what wonders religious voluntaryism can accomplish it is perfect. But his enthusiasm carries him too far when he writes as follows concerning the home-effects of missionary enterprise; it would be more correct to set down the missions themselves among these various effects of some other cause. He says

"A most powerful stimulus has been given by the enterprise to every form of home mission work; and the same ingenuity has been exercised to invent new plans for new emergencies, and to adapt forms of agency to the various spheres of usefulness which had been chosen. The charitable spirit of society at large has been enormously developed, until in London alone five hundred definite charities expend, wisely or unwisely, a million sterling every year. The missionary spirit has greatly stimulated general education. It has

been manifested in the great temperance movement. It has remodelled our popular literature. It has given a scientific form to a wise but humane prison discipline. It has called forth many aggressive schemes for the instruction of country towns. It has given birth to such marvellous efforts for the evangelizing of London that if to the direct instructions of the thirteen hundred and fifty ministers and clergymen of all denominations be added the special labours of four hundred city missionaries, of a hundred and twenty missionary clergy, of twenty thousand Sunday school teachers, of three thousand ragged school teachers, and of two hundred and thirty Bible-women, we are compelled to conclude that there is now exerted upon the unconverted population of London alone as large an amount of spiritual force as is exercised by foreign missions upon all the countries of the heathen world."

We have now noticed, more or less at length, all these Essays. We close Ecclesia with a feeling that dissenters need not be ashamed of it.

w. c.

ART. V.-THE LIFE OF THE REV. W. C. BURNS.

Memoir of the Rev. W. C. Burns, M.A., Missionary to China. By the Rev. ISLAY BURNS, D.D., Professor of Divinity, Free Church College, Glasgow. Fifth edition. London: J. Nisbet and Co. 1870.

W. C. BURNS belonged to the class of men of which John the Baptist is the prominent type. He was stern, rugged, and uncompromising in the grain of his character, but the flame of holy and tender love often glowed in his life; he was severely devoted to his great work, and it was fitting that a memorial of him should be prepared for the benefit of the churches. Dr. Burns has most gracefully and ably embalmed his brother's memory; the book before us is not only an interesting one, but it is unusually quickening. It is the record of a man who had a fiery, quenchless zeal consuming him, and who gladly counted all things loss for the joy of proclaiming the Gospel of Christ to perishing sinners. He was born at Dun in Angus, April 1st, 1815. His father was the minister of that parish, a fine type of a pastor that is now past away in Scotland, but who was essentially opposed in the seriousness of his piety and the usefulness of his ministry to that careless, spirit

drinking, semi-sceptical pastor who is so wonderfully photographed in the autobiography of Dr. James Carlyle, of Inveresk. At the age of sixteen Mr. Burns decided on following the profession of the law, and was settled with his uncle, a writer to the signet, in Edinburgh, preparatory to being duly bound. But a joint letter written him by his brother and sister aroused religious concern in his breast; the perusal of Boston's "Fourfold State" decided him. He walked home, a distance of thirty-six miles, and unexpectedly announced himself one evening to his brother, declaring that he was resolved to become a minister. This was a sudden resolve, but it was one in which he never wavered; and he was soon found at Aberdeen University, diligently pursuing his studies for this high calling.

His course at college was a very honourable one; he took high places in his classes; distinctions crowded upon him, and he gained in his third year the highest attainable distinction in the University. His religious life during this time was characterised by unusual firmness. It was almost tinged, his biographer tells us, with the legal and artificial, but he set before the students around a noble example of devotion to Christian principle. His friends and class-mates at this time were peculiarly congenial and helpful, which is not difficult to believe when such names as James Hadley, James Hamilton, William Arnot, Norman M'Leod, and Charles Birrell are recorded in connection with his own. He was licensed to preach on March 27th, 1839. He offered himself first to go to the mission field of Hindostan, but, while he was waiting for definite instructions, he was made so mightily useful that he wrote to the committee that he must for some time to come remain where he was, and the appointment must be deferred. The fact was that the Rev. R. M. M'Cheyne having set out for Palestine, had asked him to take charge of his church at Dundee during his absence. This was no light or easy work. Mr. M'Cheyne had already become known throughout Scotland as one of the most gifted and holy ministers in the Church; but Mr. Burns, entering on his work in a lowly spirit of self-denial, soon experienced the divine power attending his word. The following description of his ministry at this time is very interesting:

"Young, inexperienced, measured and slow of speech, gifted with no peculiar charm of poetry or sentiment, or natural eloquence, or winning sweetness, he bore so manifestly the visible seals of a divine commission, and carried about him withal such an awe of the divine presence and majesty, as to disarm criticism, and constrain even