so we are to take pleasure and find beauty in the magnificent binding together of the jaws of the Ichthyosaurus for catching and holding, and in the adaptation of the Lion for springing, and of the Locust for destroying, and of the Lark for singing, and in every creature for the doing of that which God has made it to do. Which faithful pleasure in the perception of the perfect operation of lower creatures I have placed last among the perfections of the theoretic faculty concerning them, because it is commonly last acquired, both owing to the humbleness and trustfulness of heart which it demands, and because it implies a knowledge of the habits and structure of every creature such as we can but imperfectly possess.'

'Having thus passed gradually through all the orders and fields of creation, and traversed that goodly line of God's happy creatures, who "leap not, but express a feast, where all the guests sit close and nothing wants," without finding any deficiency which human invention might supply, nor any harm which human interference might mend, we come at last to set ourselves face to face with ourselves, expecting that in creatures made after the image of God, we are to find comeliness and completion more exquisite than in the fowls of the air, and in the things that pass through the paths of the sea.'

'But behold now a sudden change from all former experience. No longer among the individuals of the race is there equality or likeness, a distributed fairness and fixed type visible in each, but evil diversity and terrible stamp of various degradation; features seamed with sickness, dimmed by sensuality, convulsed by passion, pinched by poverty, shadowed by sorrow, branded with remorse; bodies consumed with sloth, broken

down by labour, tortured by disease, dishonoured in foul uses; intellects without power, hearts without hope, minds earthly and devilish; our bones full of the sin of our youth, the heaven revealing our iniquity, the earth rising up against us, the roots dried up beneath, and the branch cut off above; well for us only, if, after beholding this our natural face in a glass, we desire not straightway to forget what manner of men we be.'

After this striking description of the consequences of the fall, our Author proceeds to inquire how the painter is to recover the ideal form of beauty thus marred and defaced. He cannot coin it out of his own fancy, but must collect such uninjured and bright vestiges of the old seal as he can set together. Considering each human countenance as a wondrous record of past struggles and emotions, which no human imagination could combine, he says:

'Because it is not in the power of any human imagination to reason out or conceive the countless modifications of experience, suffering, and separated feelings, which have modelled and written their indelible images in various order upon every human countenance, so no right ideal can be reached by any combination of feature, nor by any moulding and melting of individual beauties together, and still less without model or example conceived; but there is a perfect ideal to be wrought out of every face around us that has on its forehead the writing and seal of the angel ascending from the East (Rev. vii. 2), by the earnest study and penetration of the written history thereupon, and the banishing of the blots and stains, wherein we still see in all that is human, the visible and instant operation of unconquered sin.'

Here again we are referred to the moral character of

the theoretic faculty, by which alone the base sinstained expression can be distinguished from the pure and heavenly one.

"The perception (says our Author) is altogether a moral one, an instinctive love, and clinging to the lines of light. Nothing but love can read the letters, nothing but sympathy catch the sound: there is no pure passion that can be understood or painted except by pureness of heart: the foul or blunt feeling will see itself in everything and set down blasphemies; it will see Beelzebub in the casting out of devils, it will find its God of flies in every alabaster box of precious ointment.'

How far the hints given in this chapter would seem to the historical painter capable of being in any way reduced to practice, or whether he would accuse our Author of having, while dwelling on the vital beauty of expression, too much forgotten the typical beauty of form, we will not presume to judge. It would have been easy to select many choice extracts from it, but we must close for the present, and defer till next month one further extract, in which the Author answers the objections which may be raised against his theory, and some general remarks on the proper position of accomplishments in Christian education, suggested by the work now under our notice.

(To be continued.)

ESSAYS ON IDOLATRY.

THE decking and adorning of Churches, together with the introduction of stories and symbols in paintings, needle work, and even wooden crosses, are subjects which have lately so much occupied the attention of professing Christians, that we have thought it good and useful to bring together the doctrines of the Church of England respecting them; and to this end have had recourse to the Homilies on the Decking of Churches and the Peril of Idolatry, laying such parts of them together as may give our readers a clear idea of the spirit in which they were written, without obliging them to study the quaint and obscure expressions which too frequently conceal, instead of making manifest, the very valuable opinions of the writers of these Homilies.

If the manner in which this attempt has been made, does not meet the approbation of any reader; or if it is thought that we have made too free with discourses "appointed to be read in our Churches; " we can only entreat that a careful examination of the originals may be gone into; for we feel the strongest assurance, that whoever has candour and patience sufficient to enable him to compare these essays with the writings from which they are chiefly drawn, will be constrained to acknowledge, that whatever abbreviations have been made, or whatever change of expression has been adopted the leading object of these homilies has not been lost sight of, and that a faithful representation of

the spirit in which they were written has been maintained all through; so that the readers of the Essays are in no danger of being deceived into opinions opposed to those the Church of England would inculcate by the reading and circulation of these Essays.

ESSAY I.

Although the eternal and incomprehensible Majesty of God, the Lord of Heaven and Earth, whose seat is Heaven and the earth His footstool, cannot be enclosed in dwelling places able to receive or to contain His Majesty; yet-the material Church or Temple is a place appointed for the people of God to resort together unto, there to hear God's word, to call upon His holy name, to give Him thanks for His innumerable and unspeakable benefits bestowed upon us, and duly and truly to celebrate His holy sacraments.

And the same Church or Temple is by the Holy Scriptures, both of the Old Testament and of the New, called the house and temple of the Lord, for the peculiar service there done to His Majesty by His people, and for the effectuous presence of His heavenly grace, wherewith He, by His said holy word, endueth His people there assembled. And to the said house or temple of God, by common order appointed, are all godly people bound to resort, unless hindered by sickness or other urgent causes. And all men so resorting thither, ought with all quietness and reverence there to behave themselves, in doing their bounden duty and service to Almighty God in the congregation of the saints. All which things are evident to be proved by God's holy word.

And as in all convenient places prayer may be used by the godly privately, so it is most certain, that the