this beautiful allusion, human beings resemble a flock, and a real Bishop is compared to a Shepherd who keeps them under his own eye, and ministers to them with his own hand. LEANDER. True, Eudosia; I really admire the allusion; and I cannot help loving you, if possible, more and more for having a mind capable of being touched with this interesting representation of truth. EUDOSIA. Excuse me, Leander, if I ask whether I ought not to take "the interesting representation," as you justly call it, to be an image or model to which the form of a true Bishop should exactly correspond? Your consenting look tells me that I may. Let me then apply it to the good curates who reside among the people, and to all other ministers of religion who preach to the poor and instruct them from house to house, and are found at the bed-side of the afflicted and the dying. But Leander! what is the matter? What am I to infer from that more than half disdainful look? Has any remark of mine offended you? LEANDER. Offended! No such thing, my dear, I was only just fancying myself among my college companions, and there calling curates, methodist preachers, and dissenting ministers, by the name of Bishops. Why, the company would laugh in a chorus at me. Bishops indeed! EUDOSIA. Did you not, Leander, in a tone of gentleness only a few moments ago oblige me with the definition of the title which you admired. You gave me the die, and now you seem not at all attracted by its image and superscription, although it LEANDER. Excuse me, Eudosia, neither the image nor the superscription displeases me but I do not admire the metal on which you seem willing to fix the legible impression of them. EUDOSIA. If I have erred Leander, you have led me astray by your own definition of the word. A moment's reflection will be sufficient to convince you that you yourself have assigned to all diligent ministers of the gospel the disputed title. Will you not allow me to call them Bishops; but not Lord Bishops? And now let us proceed to apply the model you have given me to the dignitaries of our church. You know that a true Bishop is required to superintend his flock, for he is, you say, an overseeer or inspector. But our Bishops never saw one in fifty of their flocks, and never spoke to one in a thousand of them. In the days of the apostles there were several Bishops to one congregation; in our church we have but twenty-six Bishops to ten thousand parishes. In primitive times Bishops and presbyters or ministers were the same in our Church they differ as much as master and servant. Our Saviour, as I took the liberty of saying before, does not allow his ministers to assume worldly titles; but our Bishops have many. They are Church Lords, and State Lords, Lord Bishops, and Lords of Parliament. If my information is not incorrect, I am urged to this conclusion, that a Bishop of the Church of England is one sort of office, and a Bishop of the Church of Christ is quite another. CONVERSATION II. EUDOSIA. I have been musing on the subject of our last discussion. A mystery hangs around it still. I refer particularly to the origin of this ecclesiastical dignity. The services of baptism and confirmation, and even of matrimony I have seen, but that of consecrating a Bishop does not appear in the Prayer Book; nor do I ever recollect meeting with it either in the Old Testament or the New. You have witnessed a consecration, and I am sure that your kindness will induce you to describe it to me. LEANDER. It is, you know, difficult for me to refuse any request of yours: and although I have no strong inclination to continue this discussion, yet I will meet your wish as accurately as my recollection will enable me to do so. Well then, a person, already in holy orders who is fortunate enough to have high connections, or who has what we call "interest in the church," obtains a nomination, from the Queen, to the diocess that may happen to be vacant. This nomination is presented to the Dean and Chapter, who are bound under a heavy penalty to choose whom the Queen appoints. After this the Bishop elect, together with other Bishops, and an Archbishop, meet at the cathedral of the vacant see. There the Queen's mandate is taken to the Archbishop, sitting near the altar. After this the elected Bishop is presented by the reverend prelate to his Grace the Archbishop, as a learned and godly man. Then all the Bishops present lay their hands upon the head of the elected Bishop kneeling before them, and the Archbishop pronounces these awful words: "Receive the Holy Ghost for the office and work of a Bishop in the Church of God now committed unto thee by the imposition of our hands: and remember that thou stir up the grace of God which is given unto thee by the imposition of our hands." It is an affecting solemnity I do assure you, Eudosia. EUDOSIA. No doubt: but is it affecting to one's reason think you, Leander, in any other sense than that of humbling it? Give me leave to exhibit my thoughts just as they occurred while you were speaking. First of all, it is shocking to think that any person should profess to receive what he knows he does not receive, and what neither Bishop nor Archbishop, nor any other creature has power to give. Allow me to ask whence the feigned endowment comes to our Bishops? They must refer it to one of two sources. It must be acknowledged to descend from the Pope—a fountain which, you will allow, can impart no holy gift; or else this blessed person of the Trinity is subjected to the will of the earthly sovereign. How can a merely human being, called king or queen, be able to select the proper person for the gift of the Holy Ghost? Thus to treat the third person of the Trinity, offers him a greater insult than the Socinians do, who deny his personality; and assuredly affords cause for infidelity to scoff. The Bishops profess to impart this gift at different times, to create a deacon, a priest, a bishop. Of these there are about eighteen thousand, and with the exception of not more than three thousand, they are thought to be unconverted men. Such is the fearful view I take of the religious part of this office: nor can I perceive any utility that has ever risen out of it in relation to state affairs. Who opposed the Reformation till their resistance was useless, and then, with few exceptions, went over in a body to the protestant cause? Who abandoned King James because he seemed to encroach on their power? Who advocated Lord Sidmouth's Bill? Who showed themselves enemies to the rights of Englishmen by rejecting the Reform Bill? To all these questions honesty and truth raise their voice and reply the Bishops. LEANDER. You seem to have sad ideas relating to our dignitaries. Are you become a dissenter, Eudosia, and so discard the name of Bishop from your religious creed? Is not the term Bishop a scriptural term? EUDOSIA. I have before allowed that the word Bishop does occur in the New Testament, and you have very kindly taught me that there it means an overlooker, and is applied to a shepherd taking care of his flock. What would you think of a shepherd's taking care of a flock beyond the sea, while he himself lives in England? and yet the colonies all belonged, till lately, to the bishoprick of London, Leander. Alas, he never sees the stray sheep there, nor regards the lambs of the flock; he is far otherwise engaged, in granting marriage-licences, issuing probates of wills, and debating in parliament. If either scripture, or reason, or utility be the rule of judging, the office of Lord Bishop is unlawful. LEANDER. My dear sister will pardon my saying that she expresses herself with too great warmth on this subject, and betrays a severity of spirit which is not quite worthy of her. I myself am aware of faults in our Church, which I hope to see removed. Many actions, destressing to virtue, I have discovered in the history of Bishops; but then I am anxious to make every possible allowance for their elevated rank and great wealth, which are both temptations that our frail nature cannot always resist. EUDOSIA. Would it not, then, be a work of charity, Leander, to deprive them of those pernicious treasures and unscriptural titles, which may ruin their reputation in this world, and destroy their souls in the next? And is it not your duty to labour with all good men to bring about so great a change? OXFORD VERSUS REASON. One signal characteristic of this school is its disposition to vilify and traduce reason. They do well to hate it; for as Hobbes well said, 'when reason is against a man, a man will be against reason.' Reason they feel is their implacable foe, and blinded indeed it must be before it will admit their pretensions. 'My Lord Understanding's house,' says John Bunyan, 'was too light for the Prince of Darkness, and he therefore built a high wall to darken all the windows.' In inviting us to lay down our reason, they remind us of the wolf who counselled the sheep to get rid of their watch-dogs. Their constant plan is to inveigh against the sin of 'rationalism' as they call it, in relation to their 'mysteries' of religion-by which they mean any tendency to question their dogmas. They thus avail themselves of the prejudice against the first term and of the awe inspired by the second. That there are 'mysteries' both in philosophy and religion, about which it is irrational to speculate, is true; but we receive them, though not on intrinsic, yet on sufficient evidence; and reason is still the judge as to whether that evidence be sufficient to justify their reception, though it be not able to speculate on the mysteries themselves. The existence of God is a great mystery; but if we do not admit it we must admit manifold contradictions and absurdities :-the permission of evil is a great mystery; but it would do us no good to deny its existence as a matter of fact:-christianity is in itself full of mystery; but we receive it on proofs so manifold and various, that we feel it impossible to resist them. Give us similar reasons for believing 'apostolic succession,' and we faithfully promise that it is not its being a mystery that shall startle us. But to hoodwink our reason and receive any absurdity without examination, because some piece of inanity shakes his head, and assures us it is too awful to reason about, is not to be tolerated. Yet this is the continual artifice employed to protect 'church principles,' and imposes, we have no doubt, upon thousands. 'Beware how you rationalize on these great truths' is the constant cry-'how much better it is to obey than to speculate -to believe than to reason! A plain understanding would |