ON A MINIATURE. Thy lips are trembling with a song of France, The summer wind read with thee, and the bees And now thy foot descends the terrace stair- I breathe the musky odors of thy hair Idly thou pausest in the shady walk, Thine ear attentive to the fountain's fall; Thou mark'st the flower-de-luce sway on her stalk, The speckled vergalieus ripening on the wall. Thou hast the feature of my mother's race, The gilded comb she wore, her smile, her eye; The blood that flushes softly in thy face Crawls through my veins beneath this northern sky. As one disherited, though next of kin, Who lingers at the barred ancestral gate, And sadly sees the happy heir within Stroll careless through his forfeited estate; Even so I watch thy southern eyes, Lisette, Pearl-drops are glistening on the forest trees, Flowers toss their dewy petals in the breeze, And corn-fields in the valley laugh and sing, For joy that life should be so glad a thing. Thou, who dost bid the morning light to shine, Sunday Magazine. PHILOCTETES' FAREWELL TO LEMNOS. [“ Χαίρ' ὦ μέλαθρον κ.τ.λ.”] HOME that hast watched with me, farewell! O sea-encircled Lemnian land! ALFRED CHURCH. DAWN. SEE! on the mountain-tops the morn is spread, Fades in the splendor of the rising sun, As conscious that their nightly work is done; While at his kiss, sweet Nature lifts her eyes And smiles into his face. The blushing skies Scatter their roses on the clouds, until The sunny garland wreathes from hill to hill, And Morning sits enthroned amid her flowers, Fresh with the rainbow-tints of angel-bowers. And down below, the earth reflects Heaven's grace: Bright diamonds sparkle on the lake's calm face, SONG. STAY, Sweet day, for thou art fair, Stay, what chance and change may wait, Now is all so glad and bright, Stay with us, sweet day. Ah! she cannot, may not stop; All things must decay; So with head, and heart, and will, All The Year Round. From Macmillan's Magazine. THE HISTORICAL ASPECT OF THE AMERICAN CHURCHES.* BY DEAN STANLEY. 66 gave to the Revolution every opposition which their vast abilities and influence could suggest." During the great Civil War the Churches in the North and South As elsewhere I have spoken of the hiswere completely torn asunder by the distorical aspect of the United States, so here tinction of political principle, and since the I propose, in the same manner and with war it is with difficulty that any of them the same reservations, to speak of the his- have been again re-united. The Southern torical aspect of the American Churches; bishops asked for re-admission to the Episand as then I ventured at times to point copal Convention, but on the express conthe moral to the peculiar audience of Bir-dition that no censure was to be passed on mingham, so here I may be allowed to their departed colleague, Bishop Polk. make analogous applications to my clerical The Northern bishops consented to re-adaudience in Sion College. mit them, but after much hesitation. The Methodists and Presbyterians of the North and South have not yet entirely coalesced. The pope, in the plenitude of his infallibility, shrank from pronouncing a judgment on the question of slavery such as might alienate from his Church either the North or the South. I. Before I enter on any details let me offer some general remarks. (1.) It will be observed that I speak, not of "the American Church," but of "the American Churches." It is the custom with many English Churchmen to speak of "the American Church" as if there were but one, and that a branch of our own form, established in America. A moment's reflection will show the erroneousness of this nomenclature. It is not only that other Churches in America are of far larger dimensions, but that from the nature of the case it would be as absurd to speak of the "Church of America" as it would be to speak of the "Church of Europe." Each separate state is as it were a separate kingdom, and although the religious communities are not precisely conterminous with the different states, yet one or other predominates in these different commonwealths, and although a like complexion runs through almost all of them, the distinctions between what may be called the national Churches of the several states will perhaps never be altogether effaced. During the War of Independence the Churches were set in hostile array by their politics. The Congregationalists were all Whigs; the Episcopalians, most of them, * An address delivered in Sion College, March 17, 1879. The authorities on which this sketch is founded are the usual works connected with American history. Perhaps I should specify more particularly Palfrey's "History of New England," Beardsley's "History of the Church in Connecticut," Bishop White's "Memoirs of the Protestant Church," Anderson's "History of the Colonial Church," Stevens's "History of Methodism." The rest speak for themselves; and I have derived much from the kindness of American friends in oral communication. It is this variation of ecclesiastical organization in the different states which explains the principle that has often misled European bystanders, namely, that which excludes from the consideration of Conwhatever other influence it may have been gress all concerns of religion. This, by accomplished, is the natural result of the almost necessary exclusion of the central government from the domestic arrangements of the particular states. Long before and long after the Congress had been established, the governments of individual states still exercised an undoubted control over the ecclesiastical affairs of their par ticular communities. The whole system is or was till recently more or less what we should call concurrent establishment or concurrent endowment. The principle of establishment in America existed till our own time in a gall. ing and odious form, such as never existed in England, that of a direct taxation in each State for whatever was the predominant form of religion. This has now disappeared,† but the principle of endowment still continues; and if the endowments of Harvard college in Massachusetts, or Trinity Church in New York, were at * Sargent's André, 122. ↑ See an excellent article on the Anglo-American Churches, in the London Quarterly, vol. xlvii., p. 414. tacked, the programme of the Liberation | was warned in significant terms that she Society would in this respect meet with a had better conceal them if she wished to resistance in the United States as sturdy find social reception.* The passion for as it awakens in England. pilgrimages, relics, and anniversaries is, with some obvious modifications, as ardent as in the European Churches of the Middle Ages, and the preternatural multiplication of the wood of the Mayflower is said to be almost as extraordinary as the preternatural multiplication of the wood of the true cross.t (2.) Again, as with the United States at large, so also in regard to their religious development, the truth holds that they exhibit the marks of a young, unformed, and, so to speak, raw society. The American Churches from the first retained and still retain traces of a state of feeling which from the Churches of the older continent (3.) Again, the social estimation of the have almost passed away. The intoler- different Churches bears a striking resemance which is the mark of the crudity of blance to those distinctions which in other newly-formed communities was found in forms might have been found in the the United States long after it had ceased Churches of Europe centuries ago. These in the mother country. Baptists and Qua- relations are in detail often the reverse of kers, for their religious opinions, were cru- what we find in Europe, but this does not elly scourged in the state of Massachusetts make less significant the general fact of after any such barbarous punishment, on the combination of certain religious conany purely theological grounds, had van-victions with certain strata of society. ished from England. A venerable Baptist Let me briefly give a sketch of these sohas recorded his sufferings whilst exposed to the lash of his persecutors, in language worthy of an early Christian martyr, and the sufferings of the Quakers have been made the subject of a tragedy by Longfellow. Even as late as 1750 an old man is said to have been publicly scourged in Boston for non-attendance at the Congregationalist worship.t cial conditions as they now appear, inherited no doubt in large proportion from the historical origin of the different creeds. At the top of the scale must be placed, varying according to the different states in which they are found, the Unitarian Church, chiefly in Massachusetts; the Episcopal Church chiefly in Connecticut and the Southern States. Next, the On the question of slavery, which in the Quakers, or Friends, in Philadelphia, limAmerican Churches reached, both in North|ited in numbers, but powerful in influence and South, the dignity of a religious dog- and respectability, who constituted the ma, there were instances, even within our own time, of the missionaries of abolition being burnt alive at the stake long after any such punishment was inflicted even in Scotland even on witches. The exclusiveness of public opinion against some of the prevailing forms of religious belief in America till within twenty or thirty years ago, was at least equal to anything found amongst ourselves. A well-known English traveller passing through the states where Unitarian opinions were not in vogue, tells us that she Grant's History of the Baptists, p. 447. mainstay of Pennsylvanian loyalty during the War of Independence. Next, the Presbyterian Church, and close upon its borders, and often on a level with it, the Congregationalists. Then, after a long interval, the Methodists; and following upon them, also after an interval, the Baptists; and again, with perhaps a short interval, the Universalists, springing from the lower ranks of Congregationalists. Then, after a deep gulf, the Roman Catholic Church, which, except in Maryland and the French population of Canada and of old Louisiana, is confined almost en ↑ Wilberforce, History of the American Church, tirely to the Irish. Their political influ 116. Miss Martineau's "Western Travel," iii. 81, 174; ii. 208. "Society in America," i. 148, 150. Garrison at Boston narrowly escaped death, "Western Travel," iii. 76; "Society in America," i. 176. • Miss Martineau's W. T. 180, 211; S. A. ii. 15, 29, 227. † Lyell, Second Visit, i. 120. ence is no doubt powerful; but this arises | unimportant, as bringing before our minds from the homogeneousness of their vote. the true historical position of the Puritans There are also a few distinguished exam- in the mother country. The pathetic exples of Roman Catholics in the highest pressions of affection for the Church of ranks of the legal profession. England-"England," as they said, “and not Babylon the passionate desire not to leave it, but to reform it — this was the wellspring of the religious life of America as it was the wellspring of the relig ious life of those distinguished English pastors whom the Act of Uniformity compelled reluctantly to abandon their posts in the National Church at home. Below and besides all these are the various unions of eccentric characters, Shakers and the like, who occupy in the retired fastnesses of North America something of the same position which was occupied by the like eccentric monastic orders of mediæval Europe. In what respects these various religious communities have contributed to American society results superior or inferior to those of the National Churches of Europe is well discussed by Mr. Thomas Hughes in his chapter on this subject, in "The Old Church and what to do with it," which (with two trifling exceptions) I adopt as so completely coinciding with my own impressions, as to render any further discussion of the matter useless in this place. II. We will now leave these general remarks, and take the different Churches in the order of their chronological formation, dwelling chiefly on those which have the largest significance. (1.) Passing over for the moment the two great outlying Roman Catholic settlements in the Southern States and Canada, which, as not being of British origin, cannot be fairly brought within the scope of these remarks, the first solid foundation of any religious community in the United States was that of the New England Churches. These, being derived from the Puritans who escaped from the detested yoke of the legislation of the Stuart kings, gave a color to the whole religion of the first civilization of North America. Another variation amongst the Puritan settlers was that which divided the Presbyterians from the Congregationalists. The Congregationalists, as they have insisted upon terming themselves, * instead of taking the name of "Independents," which their co-religionists have adopted in England, carried on the line of ecclesiastical policy which would probably have prevailed in England had Richard Cromwell remained seated on his father's throne, and transmitted his sceptre to another and yet another Oliver, with whatever modifications the national circumstances might have produced. The names of the streets of Boston still bear witness, or did till within a few years ago, of the force with which the recollection of those days clung to the New England colonists. Newbury Street, from the battle of Newbury; Commonwealth Street, from the English Commonwealth; Cromwell Street, from the great protector; and amongst the Christian names, which are remarkable indications in every country of the prevailing affections of the period, are a host of Biblical appellations which in the mother country, even amongst Nonconformists, have almost become extinct: Kind, Light, Lively, Vigilance, Free There are considerable varieties in detail. The Puritans of Salem, who regarded themselves as non-conforming grace, Search-the-Scriptures, Accepted, members of the Church of England, looked with aversion on the separatist principles of the Pilgrim Fathers who landed in the Mayflower at Plymouth. It was long before this breach was healed, and the distinction, jealously guarded in the retrospect even at the present day, is not See the oration of the Hon. W. C. Endicott, p. 170, on the "Commemoration of the Landing of John Endicott at Salem." Elected, Hate-evil, Faint-not, Rest-come, Pardon, Above-hope, Free-gift, Reformation, Oceanus (born on the Mayflower), Peregrine (first child born after the landing of the Pilgrims), Return, Freeborn, Freedom, Pilgrim, Donation, Ransom, Mercy, Dependence, Hardy, Reliance, Deliverance, Experience, Consider, Pru The name was given by Conant. |