you will have too," was his consolatory remark, as he gazed at the dark sky above him.

I believe I agreed with him unconditionally, and then he added these words, words that I have so often thought over since:

"Well, mon, tak care of the honour of the regiment."

I asked him with astonishment what he meant, and Macpherson, drawing the strap of the collar of my fur coat tighter round my neck, answered:

"It's a suspeccion nearly amounting to a sairtainty that yonder chiel's heart is not where yours is ;" and his bony hand held out a long finger extended in the direction of Morton, whose receding figure was hardly discernible in the waning light.

STRAY THOUGHTS AND SHORT ESSAYS.

XXII.

SACERDOTALISM.

THE mistaken principle of sacerdotalism is the source or support of many of the errors with which the Christian Church has been afflicted. To this may in part be ascribed the notion that infants can be regenerated by the application of water, and the pronunciation over them of certain sacred words-that men can be pardoned by words from the mouths of the clergy-that by their hands the Holy Spirit can be imparted, and that by their agency bread and wine can be turned into the natural body and blood of Jesus Christ. The principle of sacerdotalism appears early in the history of the Christian Church.

It is idle and unjust to charge the invention of this principle of sacerdotalism upon the mere desire of self-importance on the part of the clergy. No doubt this desire has helped to the perpetuation of the principle in question; but thousands of the clergy have held it in the most perfect sincerity, and from no wish to increase their own importance. The principle has its roots in the natural instincts-perverted in this case-which prompt men to seek mediation between themselves and their

Maker. A true Mediator has already been provided; but, unhappily, men have sought other mediators to themselves in the persons of their ministers.

An abatement of the error of human sacerdotalism may hopefully be looked for from the improved theological instruction of the clergy and higher classes of the laity, especially in ecclesiastical history. In this history the beginning of doctrines may be traced out. Any doctrine that began to be taught at a period subsequent to the time of the Apostles must, from its very date, be false.

DEMOCRATISM AND COMMUNISM.

Envy is the parent-passion of Democratism. A discontented man in a lower rank of life sees above him persons whom he thinks no more deserving than himself. He cannot hope to rise to their level, and therefore, in order that he may be on an equality with them, he desires to bring them down to his own level. This is the whole philosophy of Democratism. But our democrat finds plenty of "philosophers" who will decorate his base envy with fine phrases, and tell him that it is only a yearning after the "natural equality of mankind," and "the rights of man." He is a willing convert to such philosophy; and, perhaps, having begun with being simply an envious person, he becomes a fanatical dupe. Nor will he find any lack of ambitious politicians who will make to themselves capital of his levelling sentiments, and gladly conciliate his support towards raising themselves to power.

Communism, again, is simply a product of the old passion of coveting the goods of our neighbour. A man devoid of visible means of subsistence, probably through his own improvidence and self-indulgence, sees numbers in the enjoyment of wealth and of the pleasures which wealth commands. He would like very much to have some of this wealth; and he learns with pleasure that there are "philosophers" who hold that every man ought to be as well off as other men, and who perhaps argue that the first Christians had all things in common. Of course he becomes a ready convert to the doctrine of equalisation of possessions, by the application of which doctrine (if it were possible) he would lose nothing himself, and might gain something for nothing. Perhaps he persuades himself of the soundness of these views and becomes even an enthusiastic preacher of Communism.

An honest and hard-working man travelling in a railway carriage fell in with a preacher of communistic doctrine, who Aug.-VOL. II. NO. VIII.

L

seriously argued that all men ought to be equally well off in regard to pecuniary possessions. Our friend, a man of untaught but excellent sense, maintained the impracticability of such a doctrine, employing probably the common and manifest argument. against it, as that some men are more industrious, or more prudent, or more able, or more lucky than others, and would therefore necessarily be richer than others. All this common sense was of course thrown away upon the communistic "philosopher;" and at last our friend bethought himself of a practical refutation of the philosopher's theory by proposing that each on the spot should throw all his pocket-money into one fund, and then divide it equally between them. The Communist, being probably the better off, as he was the better dressed of the two, instantly declined this very reasonable application of his own doctrine. When he was likely to suffer by it, the "case was altered.” The respective tendencies of Democratism and Communism are antagonistic. Democracy, by destroying other distinctions, brings into a sharper and more marked contrast the distinction between rich and poor. In Democracy, money, or, as the Americans call it, the "almighty dollar," becomes the grand object of pursuit and worship, and the rich man takes the place of the noble. Goldsmith, in his survey of the states of Europe, after his pedestrian travels over a great part of it, observed that "commonwealths were the best governments for the rich." Communism, on the other hand, would destroy all wealth; for, though it would make all poor, it could not make all rich. Thus these two different kinds of folly, as is so often the case, counteract one another. Yet this antagonism is not at first sight apparent-hence we see Democratists and Communists fighting together zealously in the same ranks against the established order of things and all existing institutions.

BETROTHED.

TELL me, my love, my darling one, my own,
How can I consecrate a rhyme to thee?
When in my soul's diviner book, alone,
Thou art the elixir of all poesy.

For all that gives to poetry its truth,

Or dowers it with sweetness or with might,
I read in the dear beauty of thy youth,
And feel when I am near its hallowed light.
The idle visions of my dreamy brain,

I scattered in pale verse through many a day,
But like the gushing of the summer rain,

They only spent their force to pass away.

But all the sweetness they could e'er possess,

And all the music that each thought might show, Die in the light of thy pure loveliness,

Fade in the joy thy love and trust bestow.

I open the dim corridors of the past,

And mark its phantom hopes and weary joys,
The broken ties that once seemed staunch and fast,
The toils that deaden and the dream that cloys.

I see the desolate wastes in time's domain,
Where all my paths were thorny, cold, and bare;
I clutch life's gladness till I find it vain,

Poor as dead leaves, impalpable as air.
And in the dimmer void of wasted years,
Made terrible with my own loneliness,
I mark the rising clouds of cares and fears
Amid the shadows of my own distress.
But as these visions noiselessly depart,

Like summer mists at dawn that fleetly roll,
Instead of mine, they seem as if some art
Had traced them on another mortal's soul.
For in the radiance of thy first fond smile,
Whose light can never set, or pass away,
My life is sunned, like a lone ocean isle

At once with human throngs made bright and gay.

Dearer than all that makes the world so dear,
Life, hope, ambition, friendship, proud success,
Or all we dream of heaven, or yearn for here,
Was thy first smile of love and tenderness!
There is no sweetness on this earth like thine,
There is no light like thy soul's purity,
There is no love, except the love divine,
Which I had sought so long to find in thee.
Oh, darling, even thou canst never tell,
Although thy mind can reach my deeper thought,
The exaltation, and the mighty spell

Which thy dear presence on my nature wrought.
When first I saw thee flitting like a beam,
A dancing beam of joy, I felt the ray
Steal o'er my vision, like a spiritual gleam
Of some diviner image o'er my way.

I could not grasp the joy that vanished then,
For I could only wonder and be still:
An idle dreamer in the ranks of men,

Touched with love's rapture, maddened with its thrill.
For like a tremulous star in lucid skies,
Where love eternal seems to reign alone,
Thy beauty seemed beyond my earthly eyes,
I hardly dreamed to call its light my own.

And when the ray came near me, and I stood
Upon the threshold of its sanctity,

I almost feared to break the quietude,

Dreading to speak the love I felt for thee.

In the wild tremor of my heart and brain,

Where hope and fear were battling in their strife, My pleading words were like a burdened strain Wrung from the anguish of my lonely life.

But thou, my darling one, didst hear my cry

My throbbing heart said more than words could prove – To give me solace which can never die,

A little word-the echo to my love.

A flash of joy-the sweet responsive bliss-
The sacred rapture of thy lips to mine-
The deep content of my proud consciousness
That all my love had found repose in thine.