Still, it is not religion to speak bitterly of those who differ from us; it is not religion to minister at the altar with "strange fire; it is not religion to serve the cause of a loving God with unlovely passions; it is not religion to defend Christ's crown with other weapons than his own sword; it is not religion to be serious on light, and great on little things; it is not religion to exalt points to the place of principles; it is not religion to contend as earnestly for forms of worship as for the faith of the gospel; it is anything but religion to dip our pens in gall, to give the tongue unbridled license, and so to speak of others as to recall these words of Scripture-Their teeth are spears and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword. There is no religion in the narrow, sectarian, exclusive prejudices which say, Can any good thing come out of Nazareth? In this imperfect state, it is perhaps as impossible for two parties, as it is for flint and steel, to come into collision without eliciting some sparks of fire. It were foolish to expect that there should be nothing said or done in a time of religious controversy, which good men will see no reason afterwards to regret and to recall; for that were to expect lesser men to be greater than apostles-holier than Paul and Barnabas, between whom, as we are told, there rose a "sharp contention." Nor even after the controversies have ceased, need we wonder that their unhappy influences do not always, and all at once, | cease with them. That were such a miracle as was only seen in Galilee, when at Christ's voice the winds and waves went down at once, and together. It is with human passion as with the sea, when violently agitated, stirred by some storm to its briny depths; it continues, hours after the wind has ceased, to swell, and heave, and roll its foaming breakers on the beach. We are not to wonder that wounds received in controversy, like those received in battle, take some time to heal. It is reasonable to expect that; though, as it were a bad sign of a man's constitution if his wounds, however deep, turned into running sores, there is something | wrong, unhallowed, and unchristian in our spirit, if grace does not soften the asperities, and time close the wounds of controversy. There is a time of peace, says Solomon, as well as a time of war; and when fields, white for the harvest, call Christians to sheath their swords and put in their sickles, he must be a stranger to the spirit of the Gospel whose cry is, My voice is still for war. War? "They are for war, I am for peace,' said David. And they who have imbibed most of the spirit of their Master, even when contending for the faith, will engage in quarrels with reluctance, and end them with pleasure. The Christian graces, like spice-bearing trees, grow best under serene and sunny skies Nor should Chris tian men ever enter keenly into any controversy that is not vital, unless it involve matters of paramount importance. The theology of our life should be the theology of the death-bed, amid whose solemn, deepening shadows small points and matters of form dwindle out of sight; or rather are lost in the blaze of coming glory. The loftiest piety ever attaches the lowest importance to party badges, and ecclesiastical distinctions; and the holier the Christian grows, he will more and more resemble the holly tree, which as it rises, and gets away from the ground, and shoots its top up to heaven, loses the thorny prickles from its leaves. Be assured that tenderness of heart, and gentleness of spirit, mark the highest form of Christianity; and that the true fire of the Spirit, the celestial flame-like that which fell at Pentecost, blazes, but never burns. Let the same mind be in you, therefore, that was in Jesus Christ; otherwise, whatever be our creed, we are none of His. Religion does not lie in knowledge, or the observance of religious forms. A man who rose on the wings of genius from obscurity to the highest fame, was, on an occasion of a visit to Edinburgh, walking with one who plumed himself on his wealth, and rank, and ancient family. As they strolled along the street, Burns-for of him I speak-encountered a country acquaintance, attired in rustic dress; he seized him by the hand; and leaving his companion offended and astonished, he linked his arm in the rustic's. With a manner that bespoke esteem and admiration of his humble friend, the poet made his way through the brilliant crowd that worshipped his genius, and ruined his morals. On returning, he was met with expressions of surprise that he could so demean himself, and stoop to walk the streets among his fashionable admirers with one in such a vulgar garb. "Fool," said Burns, his dark eye flashing, and his soul rising above the base pleasures and pursuits he had sunk to in high society, and returning to its own native region of noble sentiments; "Fool," he said, “it was not the dress, the peasant's bonnet and the hodden grey, I spoke to, but to the man within; the man who beneath that bonnet has a head, and under that hodden grey a heart better than yours, or a thousand such as yours." Nobly said! A true distinction-too often forgotten, between the man and his externals! Nor is this distinction anywhere more true, important, vital, than in the church of God. Be it gorgeous like that of Rome in her stately temples, or simple like that of our fathers, with the blue heavens for a canopy, a lone glen for their church, the grey stones of the moor for communion tables, and, for music to the wild strain of their psalms, the dash of a waterfall or the roar of breakersthe ritual of a church is but her dress. And what more than his dress is a man's profession of piety, descends-God loveth the gates of Sion more than his religious forms and observances-those peculiar to the Sabbath, or common to every day? They may be worn by the dead as well as the living. While Paul exhorts us to "hold fast the form of sound words," he speaks of some as "lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God;" as "having the form of godliness, but denying the power there of;" and there may be much of that in these days when, in contrast to the profane swearing, and deep drinking, and loose morals, and open neglect of worship both in the family and in the church, of the last century, religion is rather fashionable than otherwise. She now walks, to use John Bunyan's figure, in golden slippers on the sunny side of the street. Let us beware! Form, dress, and paint are not life. In the studio of the artist, and, in the shape of man or woman, there stands a figure, the first sudden sight of which strikes most with surprise, and makes some start with fear. Is it dead or alive? Supplied with joints that admit of motion, attired in the common garb of men or women, seated in a chair, or standing in easy attitude on the floor, it might pass for life, but for that still and changeless posture, those speechless lips, and fixed staring eyes. It is a man of wood. Cold paint, not warm blood, gives the colour to its cheek; no busy brain thinks within that skull; no kind heart loves, or fervid passions burn within that breast. The lay gure that the artist dresses up to help him to represent the folds, the lights and shadows of the drapery, it is but death attired in the clothes of Life; and, like a hypocrite or formalist in the sight of God, is offensive rather than otherwise. as the dress there, however rich and costly, true and skilfully arranged, does not make a living man, no more do the observance of religion, attendance at church, going to the communion, closet prayer, family worship, the daily reading of God's word, make a religious man-a living Christian. And Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves, says James; and, to take that example, though some may think they are religious because they read the Scriptures daily, i religion does not consist in reading God's word, nor in going to church to hear it preached, Sabbath by Sabbath. I say nothing against hearing; God forbid. We are not to neglect the assembling of Gurselves together. It is well to hear; to pitch our tent where manna falls; to sit by the pool where an angel stirs the waters, and descends to heal; to go up to the mountain of the Lord, that, surmounted by the cross, and trodden by the feet of saints, has conducted many to the skies; and on which, like mountain ranges that attract the clouds, and are watered by many showers that never fall in the valleys, the blessing most frequently and fully all the tabernacles of Jacob. But will hearing a Otherwise, hearing, according to James, is like To know the way to heaven, sometimes to cast a longing eye in that direction, and by fit and start to make a feeble effort heavenwards, can end in nothing. Man must get the Spirit of God. Thus only can we be freed of the shackles that bind the soul to earth, the flesh, and sin. I have seen a captive eagle, caged far from its distant home, as he sat mournful-like on his perch, turn his eye sometimes heavenwards; there he would sit in silence, like one rapt in thought, gazing through the bars of his cage up into the blue sky; and, after a while, as if noble but sleeping instincts had suddenly awoke, he would start and spread out his broad sails, and leap upward, revealing an iron chain that, usually covered by his plumage, drew him back again to his place. Belonging to a church, or sect, said Baron Bunsen on his deathbed, is nothing. The direction which the mind of that great and good man took on some theological subjects is much to be regretted-very much to be deplored. We have no sympathy with it. Yet, in those solemn hours when the shadow of death falls on the bed, and the depths of the soul rise to the surface, few have borne themselves more Christianly than Bunsen, or in their dying utterances, with failing, faltering breath, brought out more clearly, more beautifully, more attractively, the spirit of pure, undefiled, living, loving, true religion. I have spoken of it; he speaks it. Let us, for an example of the religion that lies not dead in forms, but lives in faith and love, turn our steps to the chamber where Bunsen is dying, amid the glories of a brilliant sunset,-emblem of his own,-the tears of his family, and the regrets of the world: "My best experience," he said, "is that of having known Jesus Christ. I leave this world without hating any one. No, no hatred: hatred is an accursed thing. Oh! how good it is to look upon life from this elevation. One then perceives what an obscure existence we have led upon earth. Upward! upward! It becomes not darker; but always brighter, brighter. I am now in the kingdom. O my God, how beautiful are thy tabernacles! Let us part in Jesus Christ. God is life, love,-love that wills: will that loves. I see Christ, and I see God through Christ. I am dying, and I wish to die; I offer my blessing, the blessing of an old man, to all who desire it; I die in peace with all the world. Those who live in Christ, in loving Him, those are his. Those who do not live by His life do not belong to Him, by whatever name they may call themselves, and whatever confession of faith they may sign. Belonging to a church or sect is nothing. I see clearly that we are all sinners; we have only Christ in God; all else is nothing. Christ is the Son of God, and we are his children only when the spirit of love which was in Christ, is in us." This is a voice from the grave; or rather from those heavens to which, notwithstanding their mistakes and errors, true believers in Christ go to join their Lord. How grand these last utterances of a long, honoured, brilliant, and useful life! One among the greatest of his age in learning, and science, and humanity, and statesmanship, Bunsen left the world with this sentence ringing in its ears,—To love God in Christ is all: to belong to a church or sect is nothing—all else is nothing. SUPPOSED HARMLESS ERRORS. BY ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. a gainer, even if he advance no farther. And in such a case the result is not unlikely to be what was described above. He probably embraced the error for the sake of the truth mixed with it, and does not know how to separate them. And if the good portion be that which is congenial to his mind, and the bad not, the poison may remain dormant and innocuous. He may resemble those whose constitution is not susceptible of some infectious diseases, such as small-pox or scarlatina. And his embracing (suppose) the Roman Catholic system, or one that naturally would seem to lead, and often does lead, to Antinomianism, may produce little or no ill effects upon him. It is maintained by some sensible persons, that | tianity, he has made an advance, and is somewhat those of a naturally good disposition, who may have embraced some religious system of a mixed character, containing, along with much valuable truth, a good deal of superstitious error, such as might be in itself noxious,--will adhere to and profit by the good, and the bad will be inoperative and harmless to them. They will be, it is thought, like Mithridates, who had so fortified his constitution by antidotes, that he could swallow poisons with impunity. But to trust to this universally would be unsafe. For the most expert poisoners usually mix a few grains of strychnine or arsenic with several ounces of wholesome food. Falsehood, and all evil, are received chiefly through a mixture with truth and goodness. But there are some cases in which the process described does, and some in which it does not, take place. (1.) When any one is converted from Paganism to some (more or less) corrupted form of Chris (2.) The same may be the case (in a minor degree) with one who has been brought up in some such mixed system of truth and error. All his earliest associations have combined in his thoughts and feelings, the one with the other; and yet, though unable or unwilling to undertake the task of winnowing the chaff from the wheat, he may practically embrace the one, and let the other lie dormant. Both of these persons may shrink from the work which Martin (in the "Tale of a Tub") found so difficult, of picking out, thread by thread, the embroidery with which the coat had been deformed, in fear and trembling lest he should damage the coat itself. And so they leave the coat in the condition in which they had received it. (3.) But far different is the case of one who had once had the coat clear, and then consented to have it overlaid with this embroidery; viz., the man who, having been brought up in a purer faith, afterwards adopts one corrupted with an admixture of human devices. He, unlike the others, has evidently not adopted the errors for the sake of the truths mixed with them,-truths which had been already laid before him unadulterated,—but for the sake of the very errors themselves. And one may accordingly expect to find him much more zealous for them, and more practically under their influence, than those who had been brought up in the system. In such a one you may expect to find the evils of the system in their most exaggerated and most active form. The inquiry which a clown is apt to make, when you ask your way—“where did you come from, Sir?"-is not an impertinent one in this case. Those who have just embraced, or have always held, some truth that is mixed with falsehood, are in a far different case from those who have just rejected a part of the truth they had before held, or have just introduced into it some error. With a view to the future, those are in the least hopeless !condition who have never fully heard both sides, and have been brought up in some erroneous notions; the next, are those who have heard both sides, and have embraced the wrong; the most hopeless are those who have heard both sides, and embraced the right, and then deserted it for the wrong (ἅπαξ φωτισθέντες). It is worth observing, also, that the children of those who have embraced some dangerous system, without any detriment to their own character, will often make a most hurtful application of the principles they have learned. Hence (as is observed in one of Mr. Woodward's Essays) people are amazed to see how ill some turn out, whose parents were excellent. There is a half-way house in the passage over the Andes, where two sets of travellers, in opposite directions, often meet. Those who have just descended from the regions of perpetual snow, find themselves oppressed with heat, in the same spot where the others, just ascended from the scorching plains below, are complaining of cold. And the like takes place with those who are converted-this way or that-from their former religion. "Where did you come from?" is an inquiry which has much to do with the question whether they have, thus far, been ascending or descending, and whether they are likely to go on to something better, or to something worse. Sometimes a recent convert to the Romish Church, or to some other Party, causes surprise and even alarm, in those who have always belonged to it, by the excess of his zeal for some things they had thought but little of, and the boldness with which he follows up their principles to their consequences. But they would find it difficult to undo what they have done : "She opened; but to shut Surpass'd her power." Suppose, e.g., the case of one who has been brought up in some Party, and has been always taught that it is right and necessary to belong to a Party, but who is superior in intelligence to most of the members of it, and very superior in knowledge, and in liberality and freedom from bigotry, and has less of real party-spirit than some who disavow being partisans at all; he (or she) will probably regard some of the dogmas of the party as of no great practical importance, but will have received them as part of the lot; some he may perhaps not admit at all; some, which are capable of a very pernicious application, he will perceive no danger in, having never made such an application, and being, like a skilful artisan, trained from childhood in the dexterous use of various edge-tools, which, in unskilful hands, may do dreadful mischief. He induces, perhaps, another person to join this party; and then is astonished and grieved to see his convert adopt all the doctrines of the party, and in the most exaggerated form, and condemn or despise all who do not; and follow up the principles to dangerous conclusions, and manifest a most thoroughgoing party-spirit. And while the original partisan is perhaps softening down, the convert will be proceeding like those English settlers in Ireland, of whom we are told that they became "more Irish than the Irish themselves." In short, the plants taken from their original soil, and transplanted into new and rich ground, astonish him by the fearful luxuriance of their growth. A person who independently adopts a certain doctrine which is held by certain others, or joins them in some definite measure, is responsible only so far for what he does or induces others to do. He is like a partner with limited liability, who stakes only the fixed sum he contributes. But one who joins, or induces others to join, a party, is a partner who has made himself responsible for all the acts and all the debts of the firm, and has staked his whole property. * See Cautions for the Times, No. 26, p. 465. THE OLD LIEUTENANT AND HIS SON. CHAPTER I. ABOUT OLD NED AND HIS HOUSEHOLD. promoted; full of rousing memories of marches, bivouacs, skirmishes, and "hard pounding" in Spain and Portugal, culminating in the memorable Waterloo. Alas! "the old guard" by sea and land are passing away; but sure am I that the nation will never forget what they owe to them, and to their comrades who have been long asleep on many a lonely battle-field, or lie buried "full many a fathom deep" in the hidden caves of the old ocean. I HAVE an instinctive admiration for old officers of both services. They are, generally speaking, gentlemen, and that expresses a sum-total of many items in their manners and general bearing, which, to say the least, is most pleasing. There are, no doubt, old salts" and "old roughs" among them, as there are in all professions individuals who, by their lives, contradict the spirit of their professions. But the old officer is generally a considerate While thus expressing my feelings of admiration man, courteous, and thoughtful about the feelings for old officers, I am reminded of the fact, not a of others, with a quiet, dignified self-respect. He little remarkable, that every officer of the Roman looks as if he was consciously a representative of a army alluded to in the New Testament, is spoken of great body which had done noble deeds, and with respect. There was the centurion, “the dehad gained renown by sacrifices for the good of vout man," whose servant was sick, and who had his country and of the world. He combines the "a devout soldier" who waited on him continually; bearing of a man long trained to obey as well as to the centurion who stood by the cross, and who command. I have observed, too, that old officers made the noble confession of Christ's Divinity ; have a great sense of justice, not in its broad and "Cornelius the centurion, a just man, who feared palpable applications only, but when these require God," and who was the first-fruits of the Genthe nice discernment of cultivated minds. There is tiles; the two centurions who conducted Paul to also something more or less attractive to the fancy in Cæsarea; and Julius the centurion, who "courte those who have survived the "great wars." Dreams ously entreated Paul." of the past hover around them. Is he "a Navy man who has seen service?" How much he has seen from the time he joined his ship at Plymouth or Portsmouth, long before the parents of most of us were married, until he left on half-pay! what seas he has sailed over-what days and nights of heat and cold, of gale and hurricane, he has experienced-what watchings, anxieties, expeditions, and adventures he has shared inwhat strange characters he has met with-what odd, out-of-the-way scenes and places he has visited;—and what a halo of romance invests his engagements, affairs," chases, cuttings-out, and great sea-fights, along with men and ships that have been like the watchful genii of our grand old nation, and whose names are historical! Who can look at his weather-beaten face, large hands, steady eye, and strong, active build, so hale and hearty, with blue coat and brass buttons, and his face shining with good nature, without feeling irresistibly drawn towards him? Brave old fellow with thy few shillings a day, how I honour thee above a score of mere money-makers with a thousand pounds for every button in thy blue dresscoat, now getting tight for thee! 66 Equally so do I respect though my likings, from association, lean rather to him of the "salt sea faeme"-the old soldier; clean, erect, tidy; a delightful Captain Shandy, or Corporal Trim And surely there are few finer specimens of manly, devoted Christians to be found than among those officers who have become "good soldiers of Jesus Christ." The discipline which, as men, they have been subjected to; the temptations which they are compelled to resist and to overcome ; the confession which they must bear in trying circumstances, all combine to make them strong in faith, and able to "quit themselves like men." We know few pictures more beautiful and simply heroic than that of Parry instructing his men in the love of Christ, amidst the constant dangers and utter desolation of the "howling North ;" or of Franklin in his last letter ever received commending Parry to the love of his God and Saviour: or Havelock at his peaceful devotions, never once omitted during that terrible march to Cawnpore, when every morning which heard his voice of prayer heard also the roar of battle. I do not associate the old Lieutenant with such men, either as regards his fame or his piety. The former did not exist. I question if it survives in any page on earth, except in the one contained in the volume of my own memory. What was the kind and degree of his piety must be determined by every reader for himself from such evidence as my reminiscences of him afford. But may my pen fail to write at all about him or his, if aught which it in truth records of |