..Two considerations lend a peculiar interest to this testimony. During twelve centuries she has been travelling down the ages apart from" and in a great degree, unknown to Western Christendom. In whatever respects, therefore, her cere-monies are found to coincide with ours, we have the most certain assurance that we mutually - meet on the stream of the very earliest ages of Christianity. Then, too, her home has ever been on the soporific soil, and amidst the unchangeable customs of Asia. Her work has been to mould, and her fortune has of necessity been to be herself in some degree and externally moulded by the unchangeable Asiatic character. So that she has been likely, not to say certain, to transmit many thoughts and methods, with less addition of substance or change of form, than other branches of the church, whose lot has been to come down to us through the greater varieties and the multiplied revolutions of the western nations. Her formula of Marriage is given in Appendix C. The Jewish Ceremony, which has certainly been unchanged for 2000 years" (since it is recog "A. D. 692. The Council " in Trullo" (in the vaulted chamber at Constantinople) established the present regulations for the marriage of the Eastern clergy; i. e., no marriage after ordination, no Bishop to be married. This is the first Eastern Council ⚫ repudiated by the West. Stanley, p. 536, etc. "It should seem to be sufficient proof of this (were there no nized as old by the Mishna, which was closed in the second century of our era), and probably much longer," is, of course, more remote from our own, or from any forms now used by any portion of the Christian Church. Yet, it is by. no means wholly foreign to us, as will be shown. in the following chapters. The essentials of the Religious Rite are there—the recognition, not merely of the civil and earthly contract, but alsơof the Divine union; the solemn appeal to the Beneficent Creator's blessing; and not a few of the significant symbols and ceremonies which are retained by the whole Christian Church to this day." It explains, also, several beautiful allu sions" in the Old Testament Scriptures, which must otherwise fail of being fully interpreted. This Ceremony is given in Appendix D. The Ceremony according to the American usage, therefore, as we are about more fully to. other), that, with very slight variations, their Ceremony is the same wherever they are found-after a dispersion, without the means, in many cases, of comparing their forms with others, much less of introducing a uniformity in any new Ritual, since the Roman destruction of the Holy City, A. D. 70. "The same ceremony, essentially, has been found among the discovered tribes in Mesopotamia, and even of the most distant East, who seem never to have returned from the Assyrian disper sion, B. C. 724. Compare Buchanan, Christian Researches in Asia. "See chap. vi. of Symbols. 1 Compare Hooker, 5, 73, 6, n. 10. show, is fragrant of antiquity in every part. It retains, purged by a double reformation into greater simplicity (itself a badge of antiquity), the most ancient forms and symbolic usages of all the pure and devout ages. So compendiously does it gather up the thoughts which, as all right-minded persons feel, come the most appropriately into view at this delicate, yet solemn moment, and ought always to be comprehended in this holy contract, that among all the substitutes, of various merit, which in our day are extemporized in many quarters, one never meets with a decent form of this Rite, which is not, in all essential features, a mere variation of words from this normal form; albeit a careless meagreness, or a coarse indelicacy, may have detracted almost everything from its felicitous beauty, or a labored rhetoric overlaid, with glittering but ephemeral tinsel, its venerable grandeur. This happy form, therefore, we here assume as the model, about the more obscure, or curious, or interesting features of which (referring, as we proceed, to the illustrative differences of other forms), to gather our explanatory, practical, or desultory observations, with the design that the perusal may pleasantly refresh the knowledge of the ecclesiastic, rekindle connubial loves, and entertain every mind which is able to find satisfaction in a surer grasp of shy and lurking facts. III. THE FORM OF SOLEMNIZATION OF MATRIMONY. (ACCORDING TO THE AMERICAN RITUAL.) The laws respecting Matrimony, whether by publishing the Bans in churches, or by License, being different in the several States, every Minister is left to the direction of those laws, in every thing that regards the civil contract between the parties. And when the Bans are published, it shall be in the following form: I publish the Bans of Marriage between M. of, and N. of If any of you know cause, or just impediment, why these two persons should not be joined together in holy Matrimony, ye are to declare it. This is the first [second or third] time of asking. At the day and time appointed for Solemnization of Matrimony, the Persons to be married shall come into the Body of the Church, or shall be ready in some proper house, with their friends and neighbours, and there standing together, the Man on the right hand, and the Woman on the left, the Minister shall say, Dearly beloved, we this Woman in holy are gathered together Matrimony; which is here in the sight of commended of St. Paul God, and in the face of to be honourable among this company, to join all men: and therefore together this Man and is not by any to be en tered into unadvisedly | assured, that if any peror lightly; but rever- sons are joined together ently, discreetly, advisedly, soberly, and in the fear of God. Into this holy estate these two . persons present come now to be joined. If any man can show just cause, why they may not lawfully be joined - together, let him now speak, or else hereafter for ever hold his peace. shall say, otherwise than as God's Word doth allow, their marriage is not lawful. The Minister, if he shall have reason to doubt of the lawful ness of the proposed Marriage, may demand sufficient surety for his indemnification : but if no impediment shall be al leged or suspected the Minister shall say to the Man, M. Wilt thou have this Woman to thy wed And also speaking unto the Perded wife, to live togethsons who are to be married, he er after God's ordinance in the holy estate of Matrimony? Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honour, and keep her in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, keep thee only unto her, I require and charge you both, as ye will answer at the dreadful day of judgment, when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed, that if either of you know any so long as ye both shall impediment, why ye live? may not be lawfully joined together in Mat The man shall answer, I will. rimony, ye do now con- Then shall the Minister say unto fess it. For be ye well the Woman, |