confidence of the entire body, or that in either case none of the Old Catholic bishops (Dutch or German) would consent to consecrate him. The second course is still more alarming to the Conservatives, and is hinted at in Switzerland by some who do not hesitate to say that there is no need of a bishop at all.

The fact is there are in these two sections of the modern reform the two tendencies always observable when a new force is breaking loose from old restraints. We find it at the commencement of Christianity itself. Amongst the Christians who had been Jews, the Hellenists, such as Stephen, Philip, and those at Antioch (Acts xi. 19, etc.) were far more ready to admit converted Samaritans and heathens into the Christian Church, without expecting them to conform to the law of Moses. At the time of the Reformation the same tendencies were visible. Most German and English reformers wished to differ from Rome only where this was absolutely necessary, while the Swiss and Scotch and the English Puritans adopted the bolder course of giving up all that was not Scriptural. Another illustration is found in the early history of Methodism. Charles Wesley would have made cleaving to "the Church" a fundamental principle, while most of the preachers wished to study only the interests of the great work they had commenced, and viewed its bearing on the Church of England as quite a secondary question. A phenomenon which is an almost necessary accompaniment of all great movements ought not to be wondered at. Was it to be expected that freedomloving, republican Switzerland, and authority - respecting monarchical Germany, would long pull together, without one complaining that the other was going too fast.

But what will the Swiss do should Archbishop Hey camp and Bishops Reinkens and Rinkel refuse to consecrate their man? Will they try to find some Greek bishop who will perform the consecration? Or will they do what Wesley did, when he with other presbyters ordained Coke to the Episcopate, and told his brother Charles nothing about the arrangements for the ordination till the act was completed? In this case their church-government would be Episcopal more in name than in reality, and would perhaps resemble to some extent that of the Methodist Church of America, which is to a large degree essentially Presbyterian. Ör will they, as a matter not of choice but necessity, be satisfied with Presbyterianism pure and simple? The question is one of great interest, and perhaps before these lines are printed the answer will have been given. One other course remains open, that of considering the decisions already arrived at as null until they have been approved by a Synod in which a bishop presided. In such a case there would be no difficulty in getting ordination from Bishop Reinkens. As stated above, all were not in favour of the late decisions. Professor Hirschwälder of Bern, Abbé Deramey (in whose church the sittings took place) and eleven more were at any rate opposed to the anti-celibacy decision.

Now the Abbé Deramey is even more conservative than the German Old Catholics. He says that he has very little hope of them. The law, the abrogation of which by the Bonn Synod of 1874 shocked the Swiss priest, is the decree of the Lateran Council of 1215; according to which all Catholics, on penalty of excommunication, are required to go at least once a year to confession, and at Easter to attend communion. The Synod of 1874 says, in the fifth

of thirteen decisions touching auricular confession : "The so-called command of the Church to confess at least once a year is not binding on those who are not oppressed with any inward necessity to receive this sacrament." The recording of the annual confessions and participations in the communion, as well as the infliction of ecclesiastical censures on account of the neglect of them are prohibited. Yet the Synod at the same time states emphatically that it should be looked upon as a sacred duty to come very frequently to the Lord's table, and that especially at the time of Easter; in agreement with ancient custom. The Abbé maintains that these changes were concessions to the spirit of innovation. But this was not the case. Confession was looked upon in much the same sense as that expressed in the exhortation which the minister, as the Prayer-Book designates a clergyman of the Church of England, must read on the Sunday before administering the Lord's Supper, in which the following passage occurs: "And because it is requisite, that no man should come to the Holy Communion, but with a full trust in God's mercy, and with a quiet conscience; therefore if there be any of you, who by this means cannot quiet his own conscience herein, but requireth further comfort or counsel, let him come to me, or to some other discreet and learned minister of God's Word, and open his grief; that by the ministry of God's holy Word he

may receive the benefit of absolution." And one of the rubrics in the Order for the Visitation of the Sick directs thus: "Here shall the sick person be moved to make a special confession of his sins, if he feel his conscience troubled with any weighty matter. After which confession, the priest shall absolve him (if he humbly and heartily desire it), etc."

The Catechism of the Old Catholics, just issued from the press, is the best guide to their doctrines, inasmuch as it is published with the authority of the Synod. It contains about sixty-eight pages. The book to be used in higher classes for religious instruction will appear in a few days. These two works will show what the exact doctrines of the German Old Catholics are. As yet there is no authoritative history of the movement. The book of close upon three hundred pages, with historical introduction by Theodorus, called "The New Reformation," contains a great many inaccuracies. The writer of it appears to have bestowed much labour upon the work and to take much interest in the movement, but he does not seem sufficiently acquainted with the literature of the question. The most correct parts are those in which he has had at command reports, such as those of the Congresses and that of the first Bonn Conference. While therefore the work contains much matter, it does not meet the existing want of information on the Old Catholic movement.

endeared and time-hallowed "Collection of Hymns for the use of the People called Methodists." A slight re-arrangement and a considerable enlargement and enrichment would not dissipate the tender and sacred associations of a sanctuary which had served for two or three generations of worshippers. So long as the frontage was untouched, the elevation not lowered, the mural monuments undefaced and undisturbed, it would still remain "the holy and beautiful house where our fathers praised " God, notwithstanding an extension of area, whether in the form of wings or transepts or roomy and wellproportioned recess, a widening of the pulpit and an expansion of the orchestra, with improved provision for School, Class, Prayer-meeting, sacramental services and anniversary solemnities. When old St. Paul's was burnt to the ground, and the stately modern structure of Sir Christopher Wren hid the site of its venerable predecessor, the later erection was rightly called New St. Paul's, until it in turn had received the consecration of a century of worship. When the sumptuous Grecianized erection of Herod swallowed up and superseded the humble edifice of Zerubbabel and Joshua, the son of Josedech, the Jews might well speak of the huge and glistening mass of masonry as less than half a century old "Forty and six years was this temple in building." But though successive kings and priests extended the courts and multiplied the chambers of Solomon's temple, to match the enlarged dimensions of the city of God; so long as the original shrine of which God took possession was substantially the same, the temple in which Hezekiah praised and Josiah wept was the self-same temple wherein Solomon had prayed. Even so, the HymnBook of 1876 is not another Hymn

:

Book or a new one, but simply the old one enlarged and enriched, with slight modifications, enforced by the good providence, and we trust, superintended by the good Spirit of God; and more important additions, called for by the growing intelligence and the broadening catholicity of the Church.

Or, to pass from Scripture analogy to Scripture precedent. The Book of Psalms itself was not, like the golden calf, cast all at once, in a fixed and final form. It is in five distinct sections, probably marking as many eras, or stages of development, in the hymnology of the Old Testament Church. There is strong internal evidence that the Psalter of David's own time consisted only of the first forty-one psalms, closing with a doxology and a double Amen; every one of which was David's own composition, so that the primitive psalter was called, with literal exactness, the Psalms of David. Then came, probably on the opening of the temple, the collection which would have been the Second Book of Psalms, had not the unity been preserved by the judicious continuation of the numbering. This section, too, Psalms xlii-lxxii., consists wholly of David's inspirations. It appropriately begins with a passionate aspiration after the services of the sanctuary-Psalm xlii.; as the earliest addition to the Methodist Hymn-Book begins with, "Before Jehovah's awful throne ". and as appropriately ends with "A Psalm for Solomon," an expanded doxology, a double Amen, and the statement that the collection of exclusively Davidic Psalms here close. Then follows the Third Section Psalms lxxiii-lxxxix. ; of various authorship, led off by Asaph, next to David the most richlyanointed of the psalmists the Isaac Watts of the old dispensation,

relations of the soul to God. The very first psalm is a didactic and descriptive lyric, on the blessedness of the godly" man," which is just as suitable to private or domestic religion as to the services of the temple.

"If any man is merry," says St. James," let him sing psalms." It is no valid objection then, but, on the contrary an irrelevant one, based on a misconception of the purpose of a Hymn-Book, to complain that it contains compositions more suited for the closet of secret devotion than for the worship of "the great congregation." A hymn-book would be gravely defective which did not include a fair proportion of spiritual songs, such as may at once express, excite and sanctify a healthy exuberance of animal spirits; "brighten up the believer's evidence," and sing down unbelief, as Leigh Hunt used "to walk down distress of mind; hymns such as the village Methodist is described as singing as he strode across the lonely Derbyshire moors on a bright Sunday morning :

"O disclose Thy lovely face!

Quicken all my drooping powers, etc;" hymns with which the godly artisan, housemaid, sailor, traveller, might glorify the lowliest work or beguile the longest, roughest way.

In such songs the Hymn-Book was already rich. What for example, can surpass "My God, I am Thine,'

or "My God, the spring of all my joys"? Yet this class of hymns is largely increased, not only by popular strains suited to self-edification, but also by those adapted to self-excitation and enlivenment, such as "Lord, I hear of showers of blessing," and "Sometimes a light surprises." We may safely say that no hymn-book, except the Hebrew Psalter, can compare with the present "Collection of Hymns for the use of the people called Methodists," as a help to

the realisation of that immediate individual relation to God, that "my" and "now" which in Cornish Betty's view, contained the secret of the superior effectiveness of the presentation of Christian verities by the Methodists to that of the formu

laries of the English Church, where they are embodied in more general terms. We also learn from the Book of Psalms that pictorially didactic. odes are quite admissible in psalmody; unless indeed the first psalm be a blot upon the Psalter; for it is a perfect lyrical gem of the most regular structure, with Strophe (v. 1-3) Antistrophe (v. 4, 5) and Epode (v. 6). Samuel Wesley's classical ode "The morning flowers display their sweets," which no one, surely, would like to miss from the Hymn-Book, is made on exactly the same model: Strophe, v. 1, Antistrophe, v. 3, 4; Epode, v. 5, 6.

2;

But of course a Church HymnBook should be to a very great extent adapted to distinctively Church purposes, especially to the two leading departments of Church hymnody: united worship and mutual edification. Both these are clearly indicated in the New Testament. The associated adoration of the people of God was not to pass away in the smoke of the burning temple at Jerusalem. St. Paul states it as one chief reason of the existence of the celestio-terrestrial society, the Church "that ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus

Christ." (Romans xv. 6.) And again "Unto Him (the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ) be glory in the Church, throughout all ages." (Ephesians iii. 21.) Unanimous and univocal adoration, "with one mind and one mouth," is an essential part of Christian worship, and for this psalms and hymns are indispensable. For this purpose we want spiritual