Dissenter, and yet be saved, there are few, very few, would dare to deny. God, when he has announced certain modes in which he will work, has certainly not tied himself to act by no other; and if any man chooses to build on the true foundation, wood, hay, stubble—that is, if any man, on the doctrine of Christ's atonement, chooses to build up an erroneous system of discipline and secondary doctrines, though his work be destroyed, he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire. The Church is in no respect more necessary than as the authoritative interpreter of Scripture. There was a time when the Puritans refused to do anything, or to believe anything, for which they could not find a direct scriptural warrant. Sanderson thus exposes their folly :

"Fourthly, let that doctrine be once admitted, and all human authority will soon be despised. The command of parents, masters, and princes, which many times require both secrecy and expedition, shall be taken into slow deliberation, and the equity of them sifted by those that are bound to obey, though they know no cause why, so long as they know no cause to the contrary. Delicata est obedientia, quæ transit in causæ genus deliberativum.' It is a nice obedience in St. Bernard's judgment, yea, rather troublesome and odious, that it is over curious in discussing the commands of superiors, boggling at everything that is enjoined, requiring a why for every wherefore, and unwilling to stir until the lawfulness and expediency of the thing commanded shall be demonstrated by some manifest reason, or undoubted authority from the Scriptures.

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Lastly, the admitting of this doctrine would cast such a snare upon men of weak judgments, but tender consciences, as they should never be able to unwind themselves thereout again. Men's daily occasions for themselves or friends, and the necessities of common life, require the doing of a thousand things within the compass of a few days, for which it would puzzle the best textman that liveth readily to bethink himself of a sentence in the Bible, clear enough to satisfy a scrupulous conscience of the lawfulness and expediency of what he is about to do, for which, by hearkening to the rules of reason and discretion, he might receive easy and speedy resolution."

This folly is by no means extinct in the present day, though it now exhibits itself under a phrase more adapted to the times: it is now called the right of private judgment, and means, in fact, that every man's fancy is to be his creed. Nay, like the miser's multiplication table, "his creed, his paternoster, and his decalogue." It has been said that in joining or rejoining himself to the Church, a man is exercising his private judgment; true, and he is exercising his reason when he is examining the evidences of Scripture inspiration: but when his reason has convinced him that the Scriptures are really inspired,

then, in consequence of that very conviction, his reason dares not reject anything which is in those oracles directly asserted. Just in the same manner does the man use his private judgment, to decide whether he ought to submit to the authority of the Church, or not; but when he has decided that he ought to do so, his private judgment has then done its office, and merges henceforward in the voice and judgment of the Catholic and Apostolic Church. If, on the contrary, he decides that he ought not to submit, it is at his own risk. The practical infidelity, the materialism of our age, may develop itself in many ways! it may make one man a Chartist and another a Socialist, and another a Socinian, and another only a political philosopher; but the spirit is alike in all; and our author, in the preface to the fifth edition of "Satan," has admirably exemplified its action:

"As the tendency of our age is to materialize every subject with which its sleepless energies come in contact, so every production, whether of art, science, or literature, which is calculated to etherealize the mind, by withdrawing its regards from what is gross, earthly, and sensual, and centring them on what is spiritual, eternal, and unseen, may contribute, however faintly or remotely, to purify the heart of the nation from its intense and growing sensuality. Supremely ours may be called the age of facts. Expediency is our authenticated Moloch; and every effort of the mind must pass through his idolatrous fire, before it can venture to be recommended for public service. All this while the foundation truth,-that utility itself is a relative thing, and therefore a pregnant term capable of almost boundless application,-is practically forgotten. In pronouncing our verdict on what is useful or useless to man, how much would it tend to lift us out of the blinding materialism in which we are so content to grovel, if we dilated the finite into the infinite, and so allowed our judgments to run parallel with the eternity to come, during which the moral elements of character, now forming, will be expanding themselves in everlasting illustration! It is this mortal which is to put on immortality: the now and the hereafter of the conscious spirit are destined to act and re-act on each other with never-ending recoil.

"Meanwhile, the humble Christian, taught of God' to submit, though not to sacrifice his reason; and convinced, moreover, that all the marchings of physical science can never of themselves conduct the mind into an acquaintance with those moral purposes of the Almighty which pertain to him as the offended legislator of a fallen and guilty creation, clings to his Bible with as much holy confidence as ever. With him simplicity is strength; and in all the acquiescing docility of childhood he receives every announcement of truth that comes to him from a religion round the throne, where, assuredly clouds and darkness dwell, but where also righteousness and judgment have their seat, His texts are his philosophy; and, throned on the secure

eminence of scriptural light, he can look down with the undisturbed eye of faith, and behold the storms of infidelity contending harmlessly at his feet."

"His hand the good man fastens on the skies,

And bids earth roll, nor feels her idle whirl."-Young.

Mr. Montgomery must not stop here he must go on, and give us the remaining works of Sanderson; he will be thereby doing good to the Church at large, reflecting especial honour on the Episcopal Church in Scotland, and adding another leaf to his own laurel.

ART. VI-The Palace of Architecture: A Romance of Art and History. By GEORGE WIGHTWICK, Architect. London: Fraser. 1841.

THE object of this very beautifully illustrated volume is to promote the cultivation of architectural knowledge, among well-educated persons-to give it a place with poetry and painting in every scheme of polite instruction. Its importance, with relation to monumental remains; its impressiveness, as the leading agent in pictorial romance; the charm of its associations; and the poetic richness of its decorations-these form some of the features of architecture upon which Mr. Wightwick dwells with particular enthusiasm. Architecture, he says, affords information when history is silent, or confirms the facts which history relates. "It promotes speculation, and facilitates belief. It teems with the oracular inscriptions of entombed empires. Within its mighty temples yet live the echoes awakened in ages long past." The Edom of Idumea is a commentary upon Isaiah. The intellect of a nation has four aspects under which it commonly presents itself to posterity-literature, painting, sculpture, and architecture. Perhaps the last exercises the quickest influence on the many. The "Parthenon" can be read by those who will never understand a line of Sophocles. There is, moreover, something in a magnificent building which endears it to the hearts of all who live under its shadow. "The obstinate valour of the Jews (is the remark of Sir Christopher Wren), awakened by the love of their temple, was a cement that held together that people through the changes of a long succession of years." Whether, as Mr. Wightwick supposes, the supreme splendour of St. Peter's has aided in perpetuating the Romish

Church, we shall not venture to say; but we certainly entertain no doubt, that the holier cathedrals of our own happy land are frequently made the instruments of good to the feelings of men, and that they contribute to raise the mind above the clouds of sense, by embellishing and refining the imagination. Persons who visit cathedral cities often have occasion to remark the feeling of honourable pride, with which the inhabitants allude to their gorgeous churches.

We agree with Mr. Wightwick in thinking that much might be said, and profitably said, on the charm of architecture as a study, and on its value as an accomplishment. The characteristics of the various styles, the laws of their composition, the beauty of their arrangements, may engage the hours of relaxation from severer pursuits. "The mere act of acquiring a knowledge of the elementary principles, would involve at least a beneficial exercise of the youthful memory and observation. In riper years the philosophy and poetry of the art, would become the subjects of willing attention. If the plays of Sophocles and Euripides are standard subjects in college education, why not the works of Ictinus and Phidias, which are equally exponents of the Greek mind? If the mathematics are imperative at Cambridge, why not combine with them the geometrical principles of design? If the reasoning faculties are exercised by the one, are not those of the imagination chastened by the other?" In such a study the fancy would be awakened, and poetry herself might hold the lamp. Without a knowledge of art, travelling frequently degenerates into a mere corporeal excitement. Every reader may say, in the lines of Addison, in Italy :

"Fain would I Raphael's godlike art rehearse,
And show th' immortal labours in my verse,

Where from the mingled strength of shade and light
A new creation rises to my sight;

Such heavenly figures from his pencil flow,

So warm with life his blended colours glow.
From theme to theme with secret pleasure tost,
Amidst the soft variety I'm lost:

Here pleasing airs my ravish'd soul confound,
With circling notes and labyrinths of sound:
Here domes and temples rise in distant views,
And opening palaces invite my muse."

The first illustration in "The Palace of Architecture" is an exquisite specimen of an Indian gate, charmingly engraved by Brooke; it is followed by an Indian garden. The architecture of India might furnish a very pleasing subject of meditation. How graceful, for example, is the Portico at Canjeveram. One

circumstance connected with the Hindu pillar deserves noticeits diminishing in diameter, as it rises in height. This is a mark of great architectural refinement. The Cavern Temples are very happily illustrated by the pencil. "It must not be supposed (says Wightwick) that there existed any fixed or conventional form of cavern front; for it can scarcely be said that any two are similar, even in outline. The same feeling, nevertheless, pervades all, and the character of the decorations is coincident, however varied their form. The Rock Temple, first isolated and afterwards excavated, is comparatively rare; the temples having been generally formed by cutting away the declivity of a hill, until a sufficient surface was obtained for the height and width of the front. The interior was then excavated, and the whole sculptured according to the fancy of the architect. The caves of Ellora exhibit considerable external display; but that of Elephanta is only remarkable for its internal beauty and extent."

Through the Indian, the architect conducts us to the Chinese gate. The only work that we remember-upon the architecture of this wonderful people is by Sir William Chambers, a writer often remembered only for the writhing lashes which Mason inflicted upon him. The design of a Chinese garden is engraved by Cates with great delicacy and taste, and will recall to the recollection of the reader the hall of Yuen-min-yuen, in which the Earl of Macartney was received by the emperor. Architecture, in the nobler sense of the word, is unknown to the scientific scholars of Pekin. Theirs is the architecture of childhood.

"It will be noted (writes Mr. Wightwick), that in the Chinese, as in the Hindu, there is a frequent recurrence of the bracket capital. You will further remark, that the same feeling for the pyramidal, which we have already seen exemplified in the Hindu temples, declares itself in the pagodas of China; and that in the buildings of both countries is displayed a marked favour for the projecting cornice or canopy. In both instances, also, we observe the same habit of piling, one above another, a series of compartments similar in form, and of course contracting as they successively rise, so as to bring the whole within that pyramidal outline of which we have just spoken." This is ingenious. The difference between Chinese and Indian buildings, Mr. Wightwick defines to reside principally in their canopies the Indian hang ponderously towards the earth, and are chiefly convex in their profile; the Chinese, on the contrary, spring lightly upward, and are, with very few exceptions, concave in their profile. The temples of China are illustrations of the inhabitants; intricate, ingenious, and fragile-sophisms