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legitimately and officially-the organs and representatives of interests not in like degree or manner conferred upon all men. not this mediation and intervention in its very essence?

But how is the matter changed the moment Christianity proposes to the faith and obedience of men the same reasonable order, founded on all precedents of organized society, and having its basis as a necessity in the very constitution of the order of the world! Then straightway is reiterated the rebel cry of Korah and his company, which has passed from one stubborn and disobedient mouth to another through all ages: "Ye take too much upon you, seeing all the congregation is holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them: wherefore then lift ye yourselves above the congregation of the Lord." Surely the same fate awaits such! The Lord will judge, and "show who are his, and who are holy." If not the earth, the devouring fire of history, will swallow them up in due time. Nor will man prevail against the holy order of the Lord!

Need we describe the popular temper and spirit of the age in regard to this point. Do all Christians, to say nothing of the outside world, reverence the prophetic voice in the Church? Are not the most ignorant often boldest in subverting faith by individual opinion? How many are there who will hear nothing believingly except the echoes of their own views and notions. Instead of disciples they sit as jurors. They make their own minds or prejudices the measure and touchstone of truth. The truth of God as mediated by the wisdom of ages of the Church's History, when announced, is heard as the mere opinion of the teacher, and tried before what is regarded as a higher tribunal in the judgment of him who hears. The man who has never heard of councils, knows not even the length of ecclesiastical History, has never read, much less understood, the symbols of the Church, has no knowledge whatever of the history and laws of Scripture interpretation, and whose mind has not even cursorily travelled down the long and difficult highway of the wisdom and study of the Church-such an one, goes boldly and straight from his own brain to the translation of the word of God, interprets its profound mysteries, puts his own sense into it and then takes it out again; and this sense, in the face of councils, fathers, universities, and symbols, and all the wisdom that has been before him, he announces as the glorious gospel of the blessed God; and this he does without even a sense of the fact that he is justly chargable with an impudence in view which the holy angels blush! What name would be applied to one, who should, in the same spirit, present himself in the office of a physi cian, or lawyer-yea, before a shoemaker or potter, and in the same style present his own knowledge and skill as the ultimate wisdom of the business!

In regard to the priestly office, a like temper prevails. If we acknowlege the principle, that God approaches man through man; and then admit also that religion comprehends not only what man does, or can do toward God, but also what God does to man and

for man, we must confess the necessity of a priestly mediation between Christ and men, as one element of the Holy ministry. But must we not admit, that the entire one side of religion-and that the one first in order, the most important, the divine side-is made up of what God does to us? To go no farther, the sacraments are plainly God's acts manward. The very idea of a sacrament implies this. Sacramentum means an oath. For a man to take an oath is a religious act; but for him to administer an oath to himself is profanity. The one who administers the oath to him acts for God; and the oath is a mediation between God and him who takes it.

The sacraments are mediations between God and men. For the grace they bear, God can only be approached through them. But no one can administer these priestly acts for himself. This God does through an order of men. These then, in the nature of the case, must have functions to perform from God to men, which men themselves cannot perform. Here then lies mediation in the very central service of Christianity. Man then, by virtue of his office, administers myteries of grace which God does not Himself administer direct to men, and which men cannot administer to themselves. Here is a priestly function, acting in a true service of mediation.

But how intolerable, and utterly distasteful to the temper of the age is all idea of such priestly, or sacramental mediation! The least claim to it is treated as the most arrogant and dangerous conspiracy against the word of God. It is only on the ground of deference to this distaste, that the fact can be explained, that the very idea of it is almost entirely discarded in the Protestant mind; for it is no exaggeration to say, that earnest and honest faith in the virtue of official ministerial acts scarcely exists.

True, men are not yet so profance as to propose, in these respects, to act for themselves as their own priests; but they are bold enough to set aside as useless, or at least as non-essential, all those divine institutions which presuppose ministerial mediation. Some less bold, though alike devoid of this faith, retain their hold on these ordinances which involve such mediation, but demand ministerial services only as a decent ratification of what they have already themselves done. The minister is regarded only as presiding, as a kind of reverend presence, whilst they themselves transact their sacred business with God before him! What he does for them is in itself nothing; it only becomes something real by what they do for themselves. Instead of acting for God, he is regarded as acting only for the worshippers-their organ instead of God's. Instead of being steward of the mysteries of God, he is steward only over their acts; their servant, instead of Christ's servant. If in any sense he should claim to be standing and acting, by virtue of his office, between God and them, he would be abhorred as anti-Christ and blasphemous !

ance.

In regard to the kingly office there is, if possible, still less tolerWho feels any terror, before the censure and discipline of the Church? Who submits to it penitently and humbly, and without rebellion? Where are the ideas, once so familiar in the Pro

testant Church, of the keys of the kingdom-the binding and loosing, the opening and shutting, the excommunication and absolution? Who fears the first, or takes comfort from the last? Yea, who tolerates the last! To ridicule it is popular.

In the popular mind ecclesiastical authority means assumption; ecclesiastical law means arrogance; ecclesiastical penalties mean tyranny. The keys are only a figure of speech; and absolution, such as in the Reformation churches was included in every service, is mummery!

The spirit and temper which underlies these errors, are not innocent caprices. They are directly and positively a stab at the heart of Christianity, a subversion of its fundamental conception. Mediation is the want toward which the whole heathen world has in all ages struggled. It is the basis and central substance of the Jewish foreshadowing dispensation. It underlies the Incarnation, the Church, the office of the Christian ministry, and is the basis of all true worship. It is, in one word, the centre and substance, the beginning, middle, and end, of the Christian System. It constitutes the hope of the world, as it does the life and meaning of the everlasting songs of heaven.

In a want of faith in this fact of mediation in the Church, is to be found the true and ultimate reason why so many persons care not whether they are in or out of the Church. If there is no virtue in the divine ministrations of the Church, why need men be in it? When faith in such mediation is gone, every solid reason for invoking its aid has gone with it. The Church is an empty showa vain pretense!

This same want of faith in the divine virtue of the Church also accounts for the want of reverence which in Christians so greatly and sadly prevails. No real divine presence is recognized in its ordinances. Worship is only something which they do, and hence they claim to do it as they please. They see not in the solemn transactions of the sanctuary, the gracious operations, the divine acts of a condescending God, who, not in figure, but in very deed, dwells with men, and really meets them in his ordinances. They see not "the power behind the throne"-the awful and glorious presence, which is both concealed and revealed in the offices and services of the Lord's house.

Herein also we find the reason why many churches, especially city churches-are places for the exhibition of sensation scenes. "The preacher! the preacher!" this is the news in Athens! Men crowd in to be talked to, to be entertained-not to worship. Originality and variety are their spice of life. The sacraments and services of the Church are stale and stolid. A sensation Church, with its "sermons for the times," is the true Sunday Theatre. It is the preacher's power which is the true Hamlet in the play. Behind him they see nothing-feel no presence-believe really in none. The preacher is their church-his opinions eloquently expressed, or rather their own opinions echoed by him, are their sacraments, and the pleasurable sensations which they feel in their own itching ears, is their devotion, sacrifice and reasonable service.

ST. NICHOLAS.

FROM THE GERMAN OF DR. KRUMMACHER BY THE EDITOR.

Who does not know St. Nicholas, the saint of the children, and of childhood? And yet we may ask again-who does know him? He has had the fortune, in the process of time, to be transformed into a mythological personage. Through all the wide range of Christendom, in the Protestant as well as the Catholic Church, he makes his appearance every year on his birth day, November 10th, which is at the same time the birth day of Luther. He makes his rounds as a rider, with a long grey beard, upon a snow-white but mild and pious pony. Whenever the evening shadows fall, he halts, now here and now there, before the houses, and asks the parents whether their children have been pious and well-behaved.

Then, how the little folks listen with large eyes, when the mother comes in and tells them that St. Nicholas had just been at the door with a monstrous switch in his hand, but also with a very large bag filled with cakes and all kind of toys at his side, and had made very particular inquiries in regard to the behavior of the little boys and girls. If they have been good, and can be praised, he will come again, he says, on the sixth of December, and bring them many pretty presents; but that he would pass by the bad children, or if they did not faithfully promise to do better, he would even punish them severely!

How the children then endeavor, from that time forth, reverently to watch the eyes of their parents, and to please them by their gentleness and obedience; and with what longing and hope they count the days till the important time shall come, around which all their thoughts and wishes now cluster. The fifth of December comes! This is a solemn day to them. Their expectation rises as this day advances; and not without some shuddering, now with secret dread, now with a prevailing expectation of joy, and after, in the evening, perhaps many a premonitory sign of the wonderful man has frightened them, they lie down to their nightly rest. But scarcely has the first light of the new day streamed through the window of their chamber, when they are awake again, and venture with timid hands to feel about on the chair or table before their beds, to see whether they have received gifts, or been left empty. And now they really find that St. Nicholas has been there, and brought them presents. They also fancy what it is they have received; and how they now long for the full light of day, that it may discover to them the full riches of their gifts!*

*With us these benevolent visits of St. Nicholas have been transferred to Christmas Eve. ED. GUARDIAN.

This is the St. Nicholas of the Legend, and of childhood's fancies; yet not altogether the one of history, the facts of whose life are ornamented with many legendary features.

The true St. Nicholas of history, a co-temporary of the Emperor Constantine, was an only son of wealthy Christian parents, born in Patara, a seaport town in the province of Lycia, in Asia Minor. His father's name was Epiphanes, and that of his mother Johanna. By the Christian care of both brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, the boy at an early period of his life gave himself up unreservedly to the Saviour, and vowed himself, with all that he was and possessed, to Christ and His service for life.

In order to escape the temptations which are in the world, he went, according to the then prevailing ideas of perfect holiness, in the bloom of his youth, to enter upon a solitary life in a convent, and from the beginning distinguished himself above many others by his strict ascetic mode of life. After the death of his parents, he resolved to use his entire inheritance wholly in the service of Christian brotherly love and to the honor of God; and who has ever more conscientiously and faithfully fulfilled a vow than he? Wherever any want or need came to his knowledge, there, at least as far as gold and silver could do it, he was first found ready to assist. But the assistance he rendered in this way seemed ever to come direct from heaven; for he exercised every care that no one should know from whom the help afforded had come. His joy was fulfilled if only GOD was praised for the charity.

Moreover he was not satisfied to show his assisting love only in such cases where the misfortune was already upon the needy; but he was ever anxious to anticipate wants, and thus prevent misfortune. As a general thing, therefore, no actual evil needed to exist to incite him to charity. Any family anxiety, or any secret family perplexity, he was quick to discover, and his heart and hand were as quickly open to afford relief. Thus, for instance, on one occasion he sent a rich outfit for the three betrothed daughters of a poor soldier, in order to save him from embarrassing shame ; and all this he did in such a delicate way, that nothing was left for those so richly presented but to lay the offering of their thanks at the foot of God's throne. According to the story, he, in the evening, caused the shoes of the perpelxed father to be filled with gold, in order thus to prepare for him an agreeable surprise in the morning as soon as he should rise. From the incident, whether correctly or not, we will not say, some derive the custom prevalent in many places, according to which the children, on St. Nicholas Eve, place their table, shoes or slippers made of sugar-dough, in order thus to give St. Nicholas to understand that they also ex-" pect to be remembered in his liberality.

This pious man also served his brethren in like measure with his spiritual gifts. He was a wise counsellor to the distressed, a sympathizing comforter to the sorrowful, a faithful and enlightened guide and pastor to such as were not yet well confirmed in the life of faith. But he was at the same time also an earnest exhorter,