and overlaid with gold. Upon the surface of it, in panels, are represented various scenes, handsomely painted. This font is used for baptism of various kinds, viz., baptism for admission into the Church--baptism for the healing of the sick-baptism for the remission of sins-and lastly, which is the most singular of all, baptism for the dead. By this latter rite, living persons, selected as the representatives of persons deceased, are baptized for them, and thus the dead are released from the penalty of their sins! This baptism has been performed, it is said, for General Washington, among many others.

It has often been asserted, in the Eastern States, that the Mormon settlement in Illinois had a community of goods; but this is not the case. Individual property is held, and society organized, as in other American cities Not far from the city, however, is a community farm, which is cultivated in common by the poorer classes; but in the city itself each family has an acre allotted to it.

The neighbourhood of Nauvoo is pretty thickly populated, and chiefly, though not exclusively, by Mormons.

The population of the "Holy City " itself is rather of a motley kind. The general gathering of the "Saints" has, of course, brought together men of all classes and characters. The great majority of them are uneducated and unpolished persons, who are undoubtedly sincere believers in the Prophet and his doctrines. A great proportion of them consist of emigrants from the English manufacturing districts, who were easily persuaded by Smith's missionaries to exchange their wretchedness at home for ease and plenty in the Promised Land. These men are devotedly attached to the Prophet's will, and obey his dictates as they would those of a messenger of God himself

NOTE.-The Mormons, after persecution from mobs, have removed to Utah (West). Nauvoo is now held by Cabet and his followers (Socialists).

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CHAPTER XV.

ARMENIANS NESTORIANS PELAGIANS-PAULIANS-ORIGEN

-QUIETISTS-MANICHEISTS-MOLINISTS-GNOSTICS.

ARMENIANS.

THE Armenians are a division of eastern Christians, so called from Armenia, a country which they anciently inhabited. The chief point of separation between them on the one side, and the Greeks and the Papists on the other, is, that while the latter believe in two natures and one person of Christ, the former believe that the humanity. and divinity of Christ were so united as to form but one nature; and hence they are called Monophysites, signifying single nature.

Another point on which they are charged with heresy by the Papists is, that they adhere to the notion that the spirit proceeds from the father only; and in this the Greeks join them, though the Papists say that he proceeds from the father and the son. In other respects, the Greeks and Armenians have nearly the same religious opinions, though they differ somewhat in their forms and modes of worship. For instance, the Greeks make the sign of the cross with three fingers, in token of their belief in the doctrine of the Trinity, while the Armenians use two fingers.

The Armenians hold to seven sacraments, like the Latins, although baptism, confirmation, and extreme unction are all performed at the same time; and the forms of prayer for confirmation and extreme unction are perfectly intermingled, which leads one to suppose that, in fact, the latter sacrament does not exist among them, except in name, and that this they have borrowed from the Papists. Infants are baptized both by triple immersion and pouring water three times upon the head; the former being

done, as their books assert, in reference to Christ's having been three days in the grave, and probably suggested by the phrase, buried with him in baptism.

The latter ceremony they derive from the tradition, that when Christ was baptized he stood in the midst of Jordan, and John poured water from his hand three times upon his head. In all their pictures of this scene, such is the representation of the mode of our Saviour's baptism. Converted Jews, or Mahometans, though adults, are baptised in the same manner.

The Armenians acknowledge sprinkling as a lawful mode of baptism, for they receive from other churches those that have merely been sprinkled, without baptising them. They believe firmly in transubstantiation, and worship the consecrated elements as God. Unleavened bread is used in the sacrament, and the broken pieces of bread are dipped in undiluted wine, and thus given to the people. The latter, however, do not handle it, but receive it into their mouths from the hands of the priest. They suppose it has in itself a sanctifying and saving power. The Greeks, in this sacrament, use leavened bread, and wine mixed with water.

The Armenians discard the Popish doctrine of purgatory, but yet, most inconsistently, they pray for the dead. They hold to confession of sins to the priests, who impose penances and grant absolution, though without money, and they give no indulgences. They pray through the mediation of the virgin Mary, and other saints. The belief that Mary was always a virgin is a point of very high importance with them; and they consider the thought of her having given birth to children after the birth of Christ, as in the highest degree derogatory to her character, and impious.

They regard baptism and regeneration as the same thing, and have no conception of any spiritual change; and they know little of any other terms of salvation than penance, the Lord's supper, fasting, and good works in general. Their priests are permitted to marry once only; but their patriarchs and bishops must remain in a state of strict celibacy.

The Armenians are strict Trinitarians in their views, holding firmly to the supreme divinity of Christ, and the doctrine of atonement for sin; though their views on the latter subject, as well as in regard to faith and repentance, are somewhat obscure. They say that Christ died to atone for original sin, and that actual sin is to be washed away by penances, which, in their view, is repentance. Penances are prescribed by the priests, and sometimes consist in an offering of money to the church, a pilgrimage, or more commonly in repeating certain prayers, or reading the whole book of Psalms a specified number of times. Faith in Christ seems to mean but little more than believing in the mystery of transubstantiation.

NESTORIANS.

This denomination, which arose in the fifth century, is so called from Nestorius, a patriarch of Constantinople, who was born in Germanica, a city of Syria, in the latter part of the fourth century. He was educated and baptised at Antioch, and, soon after his baptism, withdrew to a monastery in the vicinity of that city. His great reputation for eloquence, and the regularity of his life, induced the emperor Theodosius to select him for the see of Constantinople; and he was consecrated bishop of that church A. D. 429. He became a violent persecutor of heretics; but, because he favoured the doctrine of his friend Anastasius, that "the virgin Mary cannot with propriety be called the mother of God," he was anathematized by Cyril, bishop of Alexandria, who, in his turn, was anathematized by Nestorius. In the council of Ephesus, A. D. 431, (the third General Council of the church,) at which Cyril presided, and at which Nestorius was not present, he was judged and condemned without being heard, and deprived of his see. He then retired to his monastery in Antioch, and was afterwards banished to Petra, in Arabia, and thence to Oasis, in Egypt, where he died, about A. D. 435 or 439.

The decision of the council of Ephesus caused many

difficulties in the church; and the friends of Nestorius carried his doctrines through all the Oriental provinces, and established numerous congregations, professing an invincible opposition to the decrees of the Ephesian council. Nestorianism spread rapidly over the East, and was embraced by a large number of the oriental bishops. Barsumus, bishop of Nisibis, laboured with great zeal and activity to procure for the Nestorians a solid and permanent footing in Persia; and his success was so remarkable that his fame extended throughout the East. He established a school at Nisibis, which became very famous, and from which issued those Nestorian doctors who, in that and the following centuries, spread abroad their tenets through Egypt, Syria, Arabia, India, Tartary, and China.

The Nestorian church is Episcopal in its government, like all the Oriental churches. Its doctrines, also, are, in general, the same with those of those churches, and they receive and repeat, in their public worship, the Nicene creed. Their distinguishing doctrines appear to be, their believing that Mary was not the mother of Jesus Christ, as God, but only as man, and that there are, consequently, two persons, as well as two natures, in the Son of God This notion was looked upon in the earlier ages of the church as a most momentous error; but it has in latter times been considered more as an error of words than of doctrine; and that the error of Nestorius was in the words he employed to express his meaning, rather than in the doctrine itself. While the Nestorians believe that Christ had two natures and two persons, they say "that these natures and persons are so closely united that they have but one aspect." Now, the word barsopa, by which they express this aspect, is precisely of the same signification with the Greek word gooлоv which signifies a person; and hence it is evident that they attached to the word aspect the same idea that we attach to the word verson, and that they understood by the word person precisely what we understand by the term nature.

προσωπον

The Nestorians, of all the Christian churches of the East, have been the most careful and successful in avoid