maintain a divine right for either system of church organization. A multitude agree that Episcopal government, however ancient and however beneficial, is not essential to the existence of an authorized ministry. Few, without concealing their fear that externalism may become a duty or settle into hypocrisy, would now assert the unlawfulness of written forms; and the time is past for any to speak contemptuously of spontaneous prayer. Protestants everywhere are coming to perceive that there may be a legitimate development in doctrine, in ethics, in ceremonial, in polity.

In England, the State Church, rich and powerful, finds favor with the majority. But her separating walls are crumbling, while her shield has broadened till it spreads over three distinct parties, the High, which is the more aristocratic, leaning more upon authority, fonder of ritual; the Low, more popular, more ardent, more eager to renovate the heart; the Liberal, or Rationalistic, which includes a large number of the most cultivated minds, eminently qualified for reconciling science and faith. The political influence of the clergy has steadily declined. Once the chief directors of the policy of Europe, they now form a baffled, if not desponding, minority, whose ideal is not so much in the future as in the past.

In America, all parties unite in the conviction that the civil authority should be neutral as regards the different denominations, and, that these should severally govern themselves. We have over twenty-two million worshippers, and above seventytwo thousand congregations,—more than twice as many as in England. State support, supplemented by private bounty, has done less for the one than voluntary offerings have done for the other. Religion here, so far as its vital power is concerned, is individual. Its allies are culture and reform, but its foundations shift perpetually. It is less a habit,-more a thought, feeling, sentiment and purpose, impulsive and growing.

In both countries, dogma is fast yielding to reason and persuasion; in both, a diminished importance is ascribed to the outward parts of Christianity. Its inward evidences, the marks of divinity which it wears on its own brow, are becoming of greater

In the reign of Henry III, the spiritual peers formed one half of the Upper House; in the middle of this century, only one fourteenth.

moment. Not a name or a creed, but purity of desire and deed, Christly love of God and man,—this is the essential thing:

'Let us think

Of forms less, and the external. Trust the spirit,

As sovran nature does, to make the form;

For otherwise we only imprison spirit,

And not embody. Inward evermore

To outward,- so in life, and so in art,
Which still is life.'

So the modern typical preacher exposes and reproves public sins, applies and urges the motives to sobriety, honesty, charity; and without being entirely released from the old narrowness, broadens into a critic and cultivator of character. His grand endeavor is not so much to save men as to make them worthy.

The more closely we approach the centre of our faith, the more closely we draw together. The followers of Calvin no longer burn, torture, imprison, or traduce the descendants of Servetus. When they have ceased to be good sectarians, they are merely 'suspended.' They may still be-as all believe them to be— good Christians, and may find themselves, in their non-sectarian sphere, more attractive, more influential, more useful.

But human affairs admit no unmixed good. That the tendencies are achieving a higher condition for the race there can be no doubt; but the simplicity and fervor of the elder time seem to have passed away before the self-assertion of liberty, the levelling of democracy, the distrust of cupidity, the spirit of criticism, the decline of imagination, the discovery of unchanging law. There is much preaching for lucre or display; much attendance from usage, for propriety's sake, or from a vague notion of salvation. There is a disposition to look at religion, instead of living in it; to own it as a noble fact, as if it were a fair creation of the soul, instead of a divine reality; to discuss with the lips each other's doctrines, instead of going into silence with their own God. In particular, we mourn the decay of reverence, that most beautiful of all forms of moral goodness; that character of humility and of awe, so dependent, so earnest, so devout, which, Ixion-like, bestowed its affections upon a cloud, and made its illusions the source of purest virtues. Why is it,' said Luther's wife, looking sadly back upon the sensuous creed which she had left, 'that in our old faith we prayed so often and so warmly, and that our

prayers are now so few and so cold?' The child, as it develops into youth, exchanges its repose for conflict fraught with danger; but would we forever keep it a child?

But if there is a loss of enthusiasm, there is a gain of temper. Unbelief has grown gentle and respectful. Benevolence, uprightness, enterprise, and freedom are multiplying. The religious element, the sighing for the perfect, the longing for the infinite, the thirst for beauty, the hunger for righteousness, can never die. The central, saving truths of the faith will flower and fruit as long as there are days of toil and sorrow, or nights of weariness and pain.

Meanwhile the effective strength of the ministry is in earnestness,—in a solemn conviction that religion is a great concern; in a solemn purpose that its claims shall be felt; in acquaintance with contemporary secular thought; in ability to discern and explain the consistency of Christianity with the new lights which are breaking in from the outer world; in courage to renounce ideas that are outlived, or habits that are outlawed; in culture that is instinct with life and feeling.

Poetry. The potent tidal wave which threw on shore so many treasures of the deep, has long since ebbed, and no second has arisen which approaches the level of the former. The genius of the present is less creative than elective and refining, exquisite rather than imaginative, diffusive rather than powerful.

Two kinds of verse are discernible,- one which continues the impulse received from Keats and Shelley, the other from Wordsworth. The dominant tone is composite, uniting the classicism and romanticism of the first to the reflection and naturalism of the second. Richly melodied and highly colored, embracing every variety of rhythm and technical effect, it finds its chief voice in Tennyson.

The conditions affecting the social order have affected the conditions bearing upon art. The most notable of these are the iconoclastic tendencies of science and the passion for material progress. Both indicate a subsidence of the forces which heaved up the mountain ranges of the Byronic age. Never, perhaps, was the poetical talent so largely diffused. Never was so much good poetry written-never so much performance above mediocrity; but poets have been supplanted in general regard, and

very few are able to command the attention of the English nations. New theories are far more exciting than new poems.

It is hardly necessary to add, that the refinements of life are transferred to literature and its works; that our poets, therefore, carry to further perfection reverence for human character, regard to human duty, tenderness for Nature, and love for the Divine. Their specific excellence is elaborateness of finish-perfection of form and structure- richness of diction and variety of metre.

Without much originality, the verses of Hunt (1784-1859) are sweet, fluent, and feeling,-successful imitations of the lighter and more picturesque parts of Chaucer. The following, on the grasshopper and the cricket, are characteristic:

'Green little vaulter in the sunny grass,

Catching your heart up at the feel of June,
Sole voice that's heard amidst the lazy noon,
When even the bees lag at the summoning brass;
And you, warm little housekeeper, who class
With those who think the candles come too soon,
Loving the fire, and with your tricksome tune
Nick the glad silent moments as they pass;

O sweet and tiny cousins, that belong,

One to the fields, the other to the hearth,

Both have your sunshine; both, though small, are strong

At your clear hearts; and both seem given to earth

To ring in thoughtful ears this natural song

Indoors and out, summer and winter, Mirth.'

We recognize at once the simple delight of his master in the concrete forms and objects of the outer world.

Then the calm gravity of heart which makes the pulse of the two-fold inspiration:

Blest is the turf, serenely blest,
Where throbbing hearts may sink to rest,
Where life's long journey turns to sleep,
Nor ever pilgrim wakes to weep.

A little sod, a few sad flowers,

A tear for long-departed hours,
Is all that feeling hearts request

To hush their weary thoughts to rest.

There shall no vain ambition come
To lure them from their quiet home.
Nor sorrow lift, with heart-strings riven,
The meek imploring eye to heaven;
Nor sad remembrance stoop to shed
His wrinkles on the slumberer's head;
And never, never love repair
To breathe his idle whispers there.'

Another who warbled cheerful and trustful music, even through privation, sorrow, and anguish, was Hood (1799-1845), a nightingale in the stormy dark. There is something Shakespearean in his analysis of a spectral conscience:

But Guilt was my grim Chamberlain

That lighted me to bed

And drew my midnight curtains round,
With fingers bloody red,'

His noble efforts in behalf of the poor and unfortunate, his sympathy with suffering and woe, are felicitously wrought in The Song of the Shirt, and The Bridge of Sighs, all pathetic and tragical. But he could seldom express himself except through witty and humorous forms. One of his most popular effusions in the style peculiarly his own, is the ode to his infant son:

'Thou happy, happy elf!

(But stop-first let me kiss away that tear)

Thou tiny image of myself;

(My love, he's poking peas into his ear!)

Thou merry, laughing sprite!

With spirits feather light,

Untouched by sorrow, and unsoiled by sin,

(Good heavens! the child is swallowing a pin!)

Thou little tricksy Puck!

With antic joys so funnily bestuck,

Light as the singing bird that wings the air,

(The door! the door! he'll tumble down the stair!)

(He'll climb upon the table, that's his plan!).

Thou pretty opening rose!

(Go to your mother, child, and wipe your nose!)
Balmy, and breathing music like the south,
(He really brings my heart into my mouth!)
Fresh as the morn, and brilliant as its star,
(I wish that window had an iron bar!)
Bold as the hawk, yet gentle as the dove,
(I'll tell you what, my love,

I cannot write, unless he's sent above!)'

A contemporary of Cowper, who bandied epithets with Byron, who lived to see Tennyson pass for the greatest poet of his country and his time, was the wayward and impetuous Landor (1775-1864); a pioneer of the school gone by, a reverend landmark of the one under review; a scholar of opulent range; a delightful essayist; a lover of beauty pure and simple; among recent singers, one of the most versatile, most independent, though far from being the greatest in achievement. His taste for classical themes, his facility in classical verse, his power of