the thoroughness of His performance of them, is the great topic of the Epistle to the Hebrews; and the great practical lesson of the whole is contained in these remarkable and heart-thrilling words,— "Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross. despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of God' (Heb. xii. 1, 2). In this we are told to disencumber ourselves: Ritualism, on the other hand, recommends us to increase our burthens, and multiply the things whereby we may forget God; in short, to disobey Christ that we may be the better Christians.

The only ritualism sanctioned by the Saviour is sublime in its simplicity. Baptism initiates the believer into the number of the members of the visible Church, and is no more than the washing with water" as a symbol of Christ's cleansing influence upon the soul." It has neither show, pomp, nor circumstance. It is, in fact, a rite, as far as possible divested of ritualism. It is the same with the sacrament of the holy Supper-the eucharistic feast. That was instituted in a God-like simplicity, whose chief charm was the immediacy of the closeness with which it brings the simple soul to Christ. No splendid temple opened its portals to the celebration, but in an upper room, in a poor house, with no gorgeousness of silver chalice and gaudy robes, with no waving of censers or marching of ministering servants, only the dear love of the Master and the loving feelings of disciples made that humble roof and that frugal meal full of riches fineless" to the members of Christ's Church in all ages. Love is the transfiguring power of the gospel; and we have the command of the Master to "take no thought, saying, What shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or wherewithal shall we be clothed?" (Matt. iv. 31); for through His righteousness it is that we are to be clothed in "the fine linen, which is the righteousness of the saints."

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Ritualism raises up a partition between the soul and the Saviour, and destroys the simplicity and godly fear which ought to regulate all our approaches to the Most High. It is not pleasing to God that we should array ourselves in worldly braveries and showy garments before we present ourselves to Him as worshippers-least of all is it according to the gospel that we should seek to commend ourselves and our worship to Him by our divers apparels and devices in dress. It is not profitable to ourselves that we should trust in the cleansing of the outside of the cup and platter, or the whitening of the sepulchres of our sinful hearts. We are unwise to think that in this way we can move the heart of God to love us more than He does, or move our hearts to repentance by sacerdotal millinery and ecclesiastical court guide etiquette. "Lines" (p. 15) defines Ritualism in such a way as does not include that which the word usually signifies, and defends Ritualism as scriptural because the sacraments

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are holy ordinances instituted by Christ. This is not the Ritualism against which the people of England are up in arms; this is not the Ritualism against which our Puritan forefathers zealously contended, and hence is not the Ritualism against which we contend. The Ritualism which consists in incense, prostrations, processions, lighting candles on the altars, change of vestments, the assumption of priestly functions, and the general introduction of ecclesiastical aesthetics and clerical millinery is something very different. Lines" has argued illogically, for he has set himself to prove that the ritualism instituted by Christ is consistent with, and necessary to, the advancement of Christianity—a proposition that few will deny; but he immediately transforms it into the very different proposition, that the ritualism determined on by the incumbents of individual churches is consistent with and necessary to the advancement of true Christianity, and so evades the incidence of argument. The importance of ritualism in worship, so long as it is revealed ritualism, and having Scripture sanction, or even if it were proved to be requisite to the fulfilment of the apostolic injunction, "Let everything be done decently and in order," is not disputed. Is the Ritualism which agitates the country, which turns Christian assemblies into bear-baiting pits and unruly crowds, essential to the progress of the faith once deliverd to the saints ? "Lines has sophisticated in his argument, and has endeavoured to mislead the unwary; but he has not yet proved that clerical Ritualism is Christian Ritualism, which, in order to get a proper middle term, he must do.

The praise of etiquette, architecture, &c., used by "Lines," is quite beside the question; the Ritualism which forms the topic of interest in our day is that which has been plainly defined by S. S. (p. 17); and his historic argument is quite conclusive of the question. Our own conviction is, that Ritualism is unscriptural and unchristian, leads men into temptation to forget God and our own sinfulness, perverts the spirit from worship, and converts the church into a sort of hybrid of a concert-room and a theatre.

W. C. C.

PERSONAL APPEARANCE OF MAHOMET.-Mahomet was a little above the middle height, strongly but sparely made, with broad shoulders and a slight stoop; his hair was black, and, in the prime of life, clustered over his ears; his moustache and beard were also black, the latter abundant and reaching some way down his chest; his forehead was large, with a vein on it, which swelled when he was angry; his complexion was fair for an Arab; his eyes were large, black and piercing, bloodshot and restless; his teeth were white and well-formed, but stood apart; his walk was so rapid that people had to run to keep up with him, and his gait is described as being like that of a man striding down hill. He was simple in his apparel. He was not addicted to any of the games or sports of which the Arabs are so passionately fond, and was in all things most unlike the heroic ideal of Arabic character.-Historical Facts.

Politics.

IS A CONSERVATIVE SUPERIOR TO A WHIG

MINISTRY?

NEGATIVE ARTICLE.-III.

GOVERNMENT by property. The right divine of aristocracy. Keep things as they have been, and let the titled and landed gentry rule. These are the practical precepts of the Conservatives. Restore cash payment, and double the weight of taxation upon the labouring classes, at the same time that ample room and verge enough is allowed for panics, profitable to the propertied bankruptcies, inimical to traders, and irregularity of labour, irritating to workpeople, but useful as tending to keep down their numbers by starvation, and keep their hearts humble by their being steeped in poverty to the very lips. Retain the Corn Laws with the most tenacious grasp till the last moment at which resistance is possible. Keep the slaves bound to their chains in the West Indies, and do not mind the cry of the oppressed, though it should rise to heaven, if the ear of the rich can be closed against compassion here on earth, and the sugared sweets of the slave's labour may be had by the wealthy according to the requirements of their style of luxurious living.

Such is the style of managing things under a Conservative Government; and if a Whig Government could do anything and did do anything to lessen the grievous selfishness of such a method of government, it must be superior to a Conservative Government. In all ages a Conservative Government moves by compulsion from without. It cannot initiate reforms. So soon as it does so it ceases to be a Conservative Government, and becomes Whiggish in reality. It has sometimes happened that a Conservative Government has passed a beneficent measure, and it is now the way of the Conservative party to quote these instances as evidences of the advantages of Conservative rule. But these are not instances in point; for they were forced on their acceptance by the Whigs, and so were essentially Whig measures, though passed under a Conservative ministry. And even when a Conservative Government grants any reform they generally contrive so to clog its working as to reduce the advantage to be gained by the concessions made to a minimum, and make it necessary for the Whigs to disencumber it of the brakes put on by the Conservatives.

Look at the Reform Bill just passed as a Conservative triumph. Listen to the cackling jubilations of the third-rate Conservative members about it. Hear the claims advanced by such men for

their party as conquerors of the difficulties of the reform question. The difficulties of the reform question were the Conservative party. They had resolved to oppose to the utmost the imparting of power to the people, and the extension of the elective franchise. They constituted the obstruction; they would not clear themselves out of the way for the Whigs; but they agreed to take themselves out of the way, and the thing became possible. They wished to gain the glory of passing the measure which had become inevitable. They saw that resistance, if persisted in, would lead to a speedy sweeping away of the obstructions from the paths of progress, and that not only would the Whigs triumph, but they themselves would be swept out of being by the hate and amid the hissings of the enraged people. They wished to save themselves, and hence they dished the Whigs by recanting all their principles and swallowing all the objections they had made to reform.

But with that singular obtuseness and want of perspicacity which marks every Conservative measure, they took away all look of grace in their giving, and gave what they did in the only way which leads an Englishman to despise a gift and contemn its giver -they showed that they gave it with a grudge-they resolved to inflict a pecuniary fine upon the enjoyment of the privilege they asserted they were conferring. This is the secret of the rating clause. The Conservative party could not think of doing what the public opinion of the time had made irresistible in a straightforward English manner. They required to introduce foreign chicane into the laws of England, and to withhold by the one hand what they appeared to bestow by the other. They abrogated privileges conferred by many Acts of Parliament regarding rates, that they might perplex, embarrass, and humbug the plain Englishman who wished to exercise the franchise; and they surrounded the placing of one's name on the electoral roll with the possibility of an Englishman's bête noir-a lawsuit.

To all this there was added the landlordly element, that a vote could be had only through the acquiescence of the proprietor of the tenement in which one lived-that, of course, was quashed by the vigorous opposition made to it mainly by Whigs; but a great part of the evil of the intent remains uneliminated from actual experience, though not observable in the wording of the bill. Well, then, though our friends may argue that the Conservative government under which we now live is superior to that under which we did live-that the Derby-Disraeli government is superior to the Russell-Gladstone one, because the one has given us the Reform Bill, which the other could not manage to pass,-we have only to say, "Thank you for nothing;" for the bill, we well know, was granted because it could not any longer be withheld, and was granted, too, with so bad a grace as to restrain and hinder as much as possible the free exercise of the freedom which it appeared to confer, and which we should have had but for the Conservative opposition from the Whigs, without the spider-web ingenuity of

the rating clauses, and from whom we would have got whatever we did get freely and unrestrainedly. Wherefore we think the Whig Government, which would have given us a moderate but plain, straightforward, honest bill, is superior to such a peddling, cheeseparing sort of franchise-fine as encumbers the enjoyment of the franchise under the Conservative Reform Bill.;

But even this same Reform Bill gives conclusive evidence of the superiority of a Whig to a Conservative Government, for the Whigs brought in a bill; but the Conservatives would not come honestly out with their intentions-indeed, showed that they had no intention whatever higher than the retention of office, the dishing of the Whigs, and the deceiving of the people. There was something English in the straightforward proposals of the Whigs; but the Conservative Reform Bill was a series of cat-like tentatives; it was ungenial, it was unwillingly granted, and it was carried by trickery.

The financial state of the nation under a Conservative Government is always worse than under a Whig one. The Conservatives always contrive to leave the finances in a state of hyper-exhaustion, with however large a balance they may begin their régime. They seem as if they liked to manage a parliamentary coup d'état when the Whigs have got the public purse well filled, to exercise the thoughtless spendthriftness of heirs-at-law; and having exhausted the whole available pickings the Treasury affords, having scattered pensions, titles, and places like halfpence, and seen no means of replenishing the Exchequer, to plan a defeat which will give the odium of increasing the taxation to the Whigs, while the Conservative favourites enjoy the national plums got out of the Conservative budget at first, but requiring to be paid thereafter by the Whigs. No Conservative ministry within our memory has ever been able to accumulate a balance; they have always to lead a hand-to-mouth existence; and they never leave the Treasury with any reserve for their successors.

An impartial survey of our history from the commencement of the present century will most assuredly show that a Conservative ministry is inferior to a Whig one. It is not only so in actual administration, it is the same in individual talent. With the whcle aristocracy to choose their select ones from, the Conservatives cannot match the national names which the Whigs can quote. With blood, birth, culture, prestige, heritage, descent, and name on their side, the rolls of the great Whig ministers are wealthier far in great thinkers, orators, administrators, financiers, officials, &c. The deathless names of the patriots and statesmen of the past, the most brilliant and solid of those who fulfil the duties of the present, are mostly all to be found on the Whig side of the Legislature. We think, therefore, that in all points it has been pretty well shown that the Whigs are as governors, and even in opposition, superior to those sticklers for stationariness, the Conservatives.

A. T. H.