The Lord looks to men's hearts.' Yet surely God's house ought to be 'magnifical,' and we ought to give ungrudgingly; else why does the Bible record with approbation the fact, that for the most glorious temple the world has yet seen, the people with perfect heart offered willingly unto the Lord?' So again, if I inculcate the value of obedience to the Church's ordinances, I am not unfrequently told, that by doing so, I am lowering religion, for that the inner life of piety is only encumbered by outward supports. Now, if we spoke of these things as valuable in themselves, or as ends rather than means, our opponents would do right in condemning us. But this we never dream of doing. All we protest against is the supposition, that while human nature is constituted as it is, the mass of mankind will ever be brought, I will not say to spiritual-mindedness, but even to the appearance of religion, without some landmarks, as it were, to direct them."

"No doubt," observed Mr. Lee, "if it were possible to maintain the fervour of devotion without any external aids, external aids would be unnecessary and objectionable. But experience has again and again shewn that this is impossible; and that to attempt to make it otherwise, is to run counter to the whole current of Scripture and scriptural antiquity."

"I see, sir," said I, "that you are as eager as I am myself to bring Churchmen back to a sense of the value of privileges to which, for the last two generations, they have been indifferent."

"But do you not, Mr. Warlingham, find yourself continually met with a total denial of the fact that we have wandered far from Church-principles ?"

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Assuredly I do," was my reply; "and this is

1 1 Chron. xxix. 9.

the very circumstance which makes Walton's Lives so valuable a book. I can there point to a system the very reverse of the popular one, but which has produced results such as the popular one neither has nor can produce. Perhaps such an instance of devotion as that of Nicholas Ferrar and his family, which is recorded in the life of Herbert, was rare even in those days: that was going far beyond all that the Church had enjoined. But to follow exactly what she had enjoined seemed to be so entirely a matter of course with those holy men of whom Walton wrote, that they never thought, as so many now seem to do, that a dispensing power existed in themselves of doing as much or as little as they liked of what she prescribed. We have arrogated this authority to ourselves, and what has been the consequence? Alas! who can doubt? for the contest has been between self-indulgence and self-denial.”

Yes, Mr. Warlingham; so low is our standard in these matters, that to many persons, no doubt, it would appear the height of fanaticism, were a clergyman even to attempt to live by the Church-calendar, and observe the stated intervals of fast and festival."

"I believe," said I, "I can mention an incident which happened to me this very morning, that will both illustrate your position, and tend to shew how prejudice will blind even well-meaning persons."

I then related what had passed between Mrs. Hopkins and myself in the way to church.

"Yes," said Mr. Lee, as I ceased speaking, "you have given me a melancholy sample of the readiness with which many, in their bold assertion of their rights of private judgment, despise the Church's injunctions under the Church's wing, and contemn her authority, even while professing to be her children. Let us hope, however, that good will eventually result from your conversation with Mrs. Hopkins. Her

self-conceit might be wounded at the moment; but if she reflects calmly, she will find that you told her nothing but the truth. She will probably think more seriously about the observance of the ember-days than she has hitherto done, and that will be a point gained."

"Believe me, sir, it is no small satisfaction to me to receive the sanction of a person of your years and experience for the course I adopted. I have often been deeply pained at finding Churchmen who had neither a notion of the existence of these sacred seasons, nor of the reason of their appointment: for what, after all, can be more sad than to think of a Christian people acting as though the character of their spiritual teachers was so far a matter of indifference to them, as not to be worth a prayer to God on the subject? Surely, surely, if the Church at Antioch would not, without a previous season of fasting and prayer, lay their hands upon such men as Barnabas and Paul, we at the present day shall stand condemned for our deeming it a light matter, what manner of men are admitted to the ministry of the Church."

"These things, Mr. Warlingham, are certainly a shame and a reproach to us. The only excuse for us is, that in many cases, probably in most, the error has been involuntary. We have taken our religious observances as we found them, and have troubled ourselves no further. Even they who follow a stricter course most likely owe much to the force of habit and early association. I have no doubt it is so in my own case. I am the son of a clergyman, and was brought up with an early reverence for the Church's ordinances. My father, who lived to be a very aged man, was one of a generation who observed her fasts and festivals with the dutiful obedience of a Nelson or a Ken. He taught me the lesson he had received himself; and I in my old age would transmit it to

another generation, with the assurance that I have found in it both advantage and comfort."

"To what, sir," I inquired, do you attribute the laxity, both of opinion and practice, which prevails on these subjects?"

"Many circumstances, I think, have tended to the same result. The decay of spiritual religion in the last century is rather, perhaps, to be considered as the effect of what had already passed, than the cause of that state of things which we now deplore. The origin of this must be sought still earlier in our history. Mark, for instance, what has occurred with respect to the Christian duty of fasting. That it is a duty enjoined on us in the Bible, there can be no doubt. Indeed I never found the man yet, who was bold enough to deny that it stood on precisely the same ground as prayer. That it is inculcated on her children by the Church, any one who turns to "The Table of the Vigils, Fasts, and Days of Abstinence," at the beginning of the Prayer-book, or has read the "Homilies," will not question. Yet, excepting on two or three days in the year, such as Good-Friday and Ash-Wednesday, the practice seems generally discontinued. Now, why is this? The presumption is, that since any act of self-denial is repugnant to our selfish nature, we shall be glad of an excuse to escape it. The Romanists unhappily gave to fasting an inherent merit of its own; the natural result of this was, that that party among us who were disposed to consider that whatever was furthest from popery was nearest to the truth, saw the error and guilt of the Romish doctrine; and forgetting that the abuse of a thing does not take away the use, gradually laid aside much, as tending to papal superstition, which had nevertheless the sanction of catholic antiquity. Yet the Puritans fasted too, after their own fashion, when they had acquired the upper hand. By

and by, however, came another reaction of popular feeling; and the profligate age which succeeded, in its abhorrence of puritanism, set down all who practised mortification of the flesh as hypocrites, of a sad countenance, who disfigured their faces, that they might appear unto men to fast.' Thus, from two opposite causes, a positive duty has come to be utterly neglected. I cannot help trusting, however, that we see the dawn of a better day; and that avoiding both extremes of popery and puritanism, the members of the Church of England will gradually return to the practice of the ancient Church of Christ. I do not, of course, anticipate that those whose religion consists in profession only, will act differently from what they do at present-the careless and the worldly will be what they ever are. But I am sanguine in the hope that the spirit of inquiry which is abroad will lead those, who are in earnest among us, to cease from acting as inconsistently as they do at present. The Church of which they profess themselves members either does hold the truth, or it does not. If it does not, why do they continue in communion with it? If it does, why do they, through their private judgment, wilfully and purposely break its ordinances, which are not repugnant to the word of God?"

This is indeed," I replied, a very obvious dilemma, and one from which there is no escape, when men are satisfied of the nature and measure of the obedience which they owe to the Church. But this is one of the points which, by a grievous error in judgment, we have shrunk from enforcing from the pulpit, and wherein, be the obloquy what it may, we must now retrace our steps, and speak boldly."

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"No doubt," observed Mr. Lee, an outcry will be made. It will be said that we are putting the Church in the place of the Saviour; and that we are encouraging formalism and the like. But we shall soon