many worshippers, one of whom reverently kissed the stone offered to him in a wooden case." *

Of a church in Cyprus, Mr Young writes:

"In front of the pictures on the lower screen are smaller figures of the same saints, which the poor devotees, and among them two of our priestly acquaintances, reverently kissed. I was told that the bones of Lazarus had been lately found here, and many were pressing down some steps in the church to kiss them also."†

This is just Popery in Greece. It is superstition, the same whether in the East or the West.

Again, Does Popery use crossings and genuflexions at every stage of its worship? These, with incense, candles, and similar accompaniments, are no less rife in the East. Pinkerton

says:

"There is scarcely any rite or ordinance performed in the Greek Church, whether by day or by night, without lighted candles or lamps. Almost every worshipper on holidays devoutly approaches and places his wax candle, or taper, before the holy Ikons, or pictures of the saints. In many of the churches, lamps and candles are kept continually burning, particularly before the pictures of the Saviour, the Virgin, and the saint to whom the church is dedicated."

Or has Popery seven sacraments, while the Word of God knows only of two? The Greek Church has the same number. It may signalise baptism and the Lord's Supper, but they are only two of seven-not the two which alone the Lord appointed. "Our church, in the New Testament," Platon says, "holdeth seven mysteries,-baptism, the chrism, the eucharist, repentance, ordination, marriage, and the sanctified oil," and besides the unscriptural number, a congeries of superstitions is heaped upon certain of the sacraments. The prayers, exercises, and ceremonies attending baptism, for example, are complicated and prolix. The Græco-Russian Church always uses the trine immersion-the first in the name of the Father, the second in the name of the Son, and the third of the Holy Ghost. When a priest cannot be obtained in cases of necessity, lay-baptism is deemed valid, and re-baptism is not allowed, except in Greece, where converts from Popery are re-baptised. "The chrism," the "Orthodox Doctrine" describes as "a mystery, in which, by the anointing of the different parts of the body with ointment, there is communicated to the baptised person spiritual ointment,—that is, the gift of the Holy Ghost." The ointment is composed of twenty different ingredients, and is prepared and consecrated from time to time with great ceremony at Moscow by its bishop. When the chrism is administered, the priest anoints the baptised person, by making the sign of the cross with the oil on

the forehead, the eyes, the nostrils, the mouth, the ears, the breast, the hands and feet, repeating these words at each sign, "The seal of the gift of the Holy Ghost." *-As if to consummate the superstition of such scenes, the Synod of Bethlehem declared that baptism is absolutely necessary to salvation, even in the case of infants; that it destroys original sin, and is infallibly accompanied by regeneration, and even ultimate salvation." But we need not examine all the mass of superstition which is contained in the account of the seven sacraments in a book on the whole so moderate as the "Orthodox Doctrine." We submit only the following extract :

"In communicating, every true Christian ought to be firmly assured that in this most exalted mystery he does not partake of simple bread and common wine; but that under the sign of that holy bread he partakes of the real blood of Christ himself, who offered up himself a sacrifice upon the cross for our salvation, and by various sufferings was broken like bread. Under the sign, also, of that holy wine, he communicates of the real blood of Christ, which flowed from his holy side, and was shed for the remission of our sins. For our Lord, in giving the bread to his disciples, said, 'This is my body;' and in giving the wine, said, This is my blood.' Consequently, through this communion a man becomes one in spirit with the Lord."

Though "sacramental efficacy" is not in terms asserted by the Greeks, it is implied again and again. Without baptism there is no salvation. The Lord's Supper is regarded as "the safeguard, the medicine, the salvation of our souls, bodies, and spirits." We get "a complete pardon through the bread and wine."

But we cannot more briefly illustrate the wretched superstitions connected with the eucharist, as celebrated by the Orientals, than by referring to the wafer which is used. It is round, and bears a square projection in the centre, divided into four compartments. One of these is stamped with the letters I.H.C. ('Indous), and when separated by "the spear," which the priest uses for the purpose, it is placed in the chalice. The second compartment of the projection, contains the letters X.C. (Xgioros), and that is the priest's portion in communion. The other two compartments contain the letters N.I. and K.A.— the Greek for "he conquers"-and these are given to the people. The priest, according to the Rubric, should pray "with tears" at a certain stage of the service, but it has been observed that he is then discreetly screened off from the communicants. The mode of communicating is scarcely less grotesque. For the most part, the recipients stand, having their hands crossed on their breast, while the priest approaches, and

with a spoon places some of the bread dipped in the wine in the mouth. A deacon follows, to wipe the mouth with one of the sacred cloths.*

We have seen, in former extracts, that in the Greek Church room is left for tradition to work its usual havoc upon revealed truth; and here again the arguments of some doctors, and the practice of the church at large, are in perfect opposition. On the one hand, it is said, "Scriptura ita est perfecta, ut omnia dogmata sine quibus salvari non possumus, continet;" but, on the other, Calvinists and Lutherans are blamed for having discarded the holy "apostolical traditions," of which five of the seven sacraments of the Græco-Russian Church are obvious examples.

This, however, is too favourable a statement of the views of the Greek Church regarding the Scriptures. The Council or Synod of Bethlehem, which met in 1672, declared that the Scriptures are not to be indiscriminately read by all; their perspicuity is disparaged; and the whole apocryphal books of Judith, Tobit, the History of the Dragon, of Susanna, and the Maccabees, with the Wisdom of Solomon, and Sirach, are added to the canon. The confession of Mogilas, a high authority among the Orientals, confirms or expands all these corruptions, and indeed rivets on the minds of men the great apostasy which so speedily began, and has so long continued, to mutilate and crush the truth of God. Where alms-giving is formally set forth as an expiation for sin, can the light be shining? Yet such ignorance and such perversions have received the sanction of councils, of patriarchs, of archimandrites, and finally of "the most holy governing Synod of Russia."

Or farther still, Is auricular confession in the Church of Rome one of its most offensive and revolting practices, perhaps the keystone of that system which has so long pressed with deadening power upon the souls and minds of men? The Greeks, also, have their confessional. Confessors are appointed by the bishop, and though they are said to be men advanced in years, and otherwise unlikely to abuse their office, they exist. They exist, according to the " Orthodox Doctrine" of Platon, for two reasons, namely, to direct the confessed in regard to their future conduct; and secondly, that the confessor may, in the name of Christ, announce to the penitent the forgiveness of sin. Nay, it is in the power, and it is the practice, of priests to prescribe duties to be done by the confessed in the way of penance.‡

* A Greek eucharist is not valid unless the napkin on the altar has “in its web some particles of a martyr's remains."

+ Dr Wilson's Lands of the Bible, ii. 455.

It was once the practice for the confessor strictly to examine the confessed, but now he only repeats the ten commandments, and asks which of them has been broken. After confession, the priest prays that "Jesus Christ our Lord and God" may “for

Or does the Church of Rome claim the power of working miracles, and even rank that gift among the proofs of her claim to be held the only true church? The Greeks are quite abreast with her here. We have already seen examples of the wonders wrought by their relics, and we have now to add, that it is a special recommendation even to the holy Synod, the highest of all her courts, to examine the legends of the saints, to purify them from their absurdities, to distinguish pretended miracles from true ones, to reject all superstitious ceremonies, to make strict inquiry concerning the relics of saints, and to prevent every kind of superstition.* Indeed, in the language of Russia, a word is employed to designate the uncorrupted body of a favourite of God. The Mosches "do not see corruption;" and after a series of years, the body, as a mark of being canonised in heaven, is raised by degrees from the grave by a supernatural power, till it appears above the ground undecayed and entire! Miracles immediately begin to be wrought by it; and even in such centres of Greek light as Kieff and Moscow, these uncorrupted bodies are preserved in monasteries and cathedral churches, for their wonder-working power. On certain holidays they are paraded before the people to receive their obeisance. Peter the Great is said to have diminished the number of these impostures; but even in our own day we have seen that they are still practised by priests, and believed by the people.t

"Every year," Pinkerton says, "great numbers of people from every part of the Russian empire go in pilgrimage to Kieff or to Troitza, and there perform their devotions before the pictures and relics of the wonder-workers and saints. . . . . . Many of them, I fear, both there and elsewhere, through ignorance and superstition, render that homage to the Mosches, or withered remains of their saints, which is due to the immortal God alone."‡

Now, with this before us, we need not wonder though Platon strove in vain to vindicate or explain away such corruptions. He saw and deplored the degrading practices more clearly than some of the modern apologists and admirers of the Greek Church; and though he wanted the resolute power of a reformer to sweep such abominations away, Platon had light enough to add, as an antidote to the revolting superstitions which link his church so closely to that of Rome, "We must hold to the divine Word alone, and rest assured that it alone contains the give the person all his sins," from which he then absolves the confessed in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. The common people generally confess in church, one by one, as in the Latin churches; but people of distinction confess in their own houses to priests called for the purpose. A ridiculous story is told of a princess who asked her confessor what good thing she must do to inherit eternal life, and received for answer, that if she lived upon mushroom skins she would be perfect! Any thing but Him in whom we are "complete."

* Dr King on the Rites and Ceremonies of the Greek Church in Russia, p. 297. + Pinkerton, pp. 261, 262.

+ P. 227.

true rules by which we ought to please God." In spite of this, however, the religion of man in the East supersedes that of God. The only Mediator and Saviour is concealed by crowds of his creatures. The priest usurps the prerogatives of the Redeemer.

Though we fear that these specimens of Greek religion may appear prolix, we must submit a few additional extracts. We have seen the unscriptural nature of its baptismal formula. It practises both sprinkling and immersion, and with that we do not quarrel; but why those unscriptural additions which foster superstition and prove an inlet to many abuses? The chrism, for example, to which we have already referred, is a rite of a purely gratuitous and unscriptural nature.

"Through this holy ordinance," Platon says, "the Holy Ghost descendeth upon the baptised, and confirmeth him in the grace which he received in his baptism, according to the example of his descending upon the disciples of Jesus Christ, and in imitation of the disciples themselves, who after baptism laid their hands upon the believers, by which laying on of the hands of the apostles the Holy Ghost was visibly conferred."

-Thus one opus operatum is not sufficient for the Greeks. Another and another is added till it must be more than a common miracle of grace if the truth find its way through them all to the consciences and hearts of men.

.....

"The laity," Pinkerton says, "seldom partake of the communion more than once a-year, but there are many of the more serious who partake oftener. The eucharist is also administered to infants; for as soon as any one is baptised, of whatever age, he is admitted to this ordinance. The bread which is used is leavened, and it is broken or divided into small portions with great ceremony."*

"The mystery of the sanctified oil" of the Greeks is simply the extreme unction of the Papists, with the exception that it is not necessarily applied to persons who are deemed past all hope of recovery from sickness. It may be used in any illness as a pious and charitable work, but the superstitions connected with it surpass even those of the Romanists. It requires seven priests to perform the rite, "each of whom, in the course of the prayers, with a twig, upon the end of which there is a little cotton, anoints the sick person with oil on the chief parts of the body." The preparation of the oil for the chrism and other superstitions of the Greeks is thus described by Dr Hendersont:

"We went to the Patriarchal Hall to see the ceremony of the preparation of the holy oil. Here, over a stove constructed on purpose, we found two large kettles, in which the different ingredients were mixed, and kept in constant motion by six deacons, who stirred them with long rods of cypress, the handles of which were covered with red + Pp. 57, 59.

* P. 183.