his mouth; shows a boil on his thighSebastian, pierced with arrows, and his arms tied; two archers standing by his side; he thus suffered under Dioclesian-Stephen, a book, and a stone in his hand Theodora, the devil taking her hand and tempting her-Theodore, armed, a halberd in his hand, and a large sabre by his side-Thomas of Canterbury (Becket), kneeling, and a man behind striking at his head with a sword-Ursula, a book and arrow, because shot through by the Prince of the Huns. For other symbolical representations, connected with scriptural subjects, see Apostles and Patriarchs.”

Referring, as directed, to the words "Patriarchs" and "Apostles," we find :

"On the paintings, carvings, stained glass, and sculpture of the Middle age, the Patriarchs are generally represented by some particular circumstance allusive to sacred history. Noah is looking out of the window of the ark, at the dove with the olive branch. Abraham grasps a huge sabre ready to strike his son Isaac, who is kneeling on an altar; an angel taking hold of the sword; beneath is a ram. Esau is coming to Isaac seated, with bow and arrows. Joseph is conversing with his brethren, among whom is Benjamin, a boy. Moses, with cow's horns, is kneeling before an altar, God speaking to him out of a cloud. Saul is in a rich tunic, with crowned hat, and harp behind him. David is kneeling; an angel above with a sword. Solomon in a rich tunic stands under an arch. Job sits naked on the ground, his three friends talking to him. Judith-a man carrying a head upon the point of a sword, females meeting him with harps

and musical instruments."

"The Apostles are generally represented, on ancient paintings, sculpture, &c., with the following symbols or attributes: St. Peter, with the keys; St. Paul, with a sword; St. Andrew, with a cross or saltier; St. James minor, with a fuller's pole; St. John, with a cup and winged serpent flying from it; St. Bartholomew, with a knife; St. Philip, with a long staff, whose upper end is formed into a cross; St. Thomas, with a lance; St. Matthew, with a hatchet; St. Matthias, with a battle-axe; and St. James major, with a pilgrim's staff. In the Middle age, Apostle-spoons were presents of sponsors, a custom borrowed from the Greeks.'

CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 26.

The following is a mediæval article, which shows what Popery was in its recreations in ages which some refuse to call "dark."

"FOOLS, FEAST of; in the Middle age, a kind of festival somewhat similar to the Saturnalia of the Romans, observed in the month of December. It is said that this feast, as well as the Feast of Asses, and other religious mummeries, were first instituted by Theophylact, patriarch of Constantinople in the tenth century, and exhibited in the Greek church; and subsequently adopted by the Romish church. In this feast they put on danced and sang in the choir, ate fat masks, took the dress, &c. of women, cakes upon the horn of the altar, where the celebrating priest played at dice, and jumped about the church. Another part of this indecorous buffoonery was shaving the precentor of fools upon a stage, erected before the church, in the presence of the people; and during the operation he amused them with lewd and vulgar discourses and gestures. They sometimes sang, as part of the Mass, a burlesque composition, called the Prose of the Ass, or the Fool's Prose, by a double choir; and at intervals, they imitated the braying of an ass."

The following is an alphabetical list of some of the terms used in church architecture and decoration.

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Apsis, the circular part at the east end of ancient churches:-Bays, or Days, the name for separate lights in a window:-Boss, or Orb, an ornament introduced at the intersection of the

ribs in groined ceilings :-Campanile, a bell-tower: Clerestory, a range of windows placed above those constructed in the main walls of the building:-Cloister, a covered walk, or ambulatory, for the exercise and contemplative recreation of the religious within the boundary of their own walls; supposed to be in imitation of the peristyle of the Greeks, and the piazza of the Italians:-Corbel, a support projecting from the face of the wall, and usually covered in a grotesque head, or a mass of foliage; from these also issue ribs of vaulting, columns, &c. :-Creepers, leaves carved on the outward angles of pinnacles, canopies, spines, &c. :-Crypt, a vaulted subterraneous apartment, constructed beneath many ancient churches, usually built in

R

the circular (Saxon or Norman) style of architecture: Fan-works, ornaments of a fretted roof upon a diminutive scale:-Lanthorn, that part of the tower of a church which is perforated, and left open, so as to produce the effect of the Louvre on the interior :- Nodi, ornaments covering the intersections of the ribs of the vaulting :-Piscina, or Lavacrum, a hollow and perforated basin of stone, placed in a small niche, or fenestella, cut in the substance of the south wall:-Ribs, masses of moulding, spread over the surface of the vaulted roof: Roodlofts, galleries across the nave, at the entrance of the choir, or chancel :-Sacristy, a place where was kept the plate, &c. belonging to the church :-Screen, a division composed of wood, or stone, separating the chapels from the principal building, the choir from the aisles, &c. :-Sedilia, stone seats, found on the south side of churches; often much ornamented, and varying in number from one to five :Shrines, the repositories of the bones, and other reliques, of canonized persons:-Spandril, the space between a horizontal line drawn from the top of the arch, and the line forming the arch-Subsillia, stalls of wood, situated in the choir of ancient churches, usually surmounted by canopies, and often elaborately carved and enriched :Tracery, a general term used for the ornamental parts of screens, vaultings, heads of windows, &c., being that part of the composition where the mouldings divide the space into quatrefoils, cinquefoils, trefoils, &c. : Triforia, galleries, or upper ways round the fabric, frequently seen in cathedrals and other churches, and often added to buildings of considerable antiquity, for the purpose of rendering them more lofty or commodious."

of literature.

Ecclesiastical antiquities have of late been much inquired into; and we can testify, from the numerous inquiries which we constantly receive, how difficult students often find it to procure information respecting them. The venerable Bingham's " Origines" is the most elaborate and extensive work of the kind in the English language; but it is not a facile book for reference; and, like the Oxford Tracts, it does not always duly distinguish between what is good and what is old, but sometimes makes antiquity pass for argument; though it exposes, excellently well, many of the innovations of that innovating sect-the popish. Mr. Riddle has been unjustly treated, because, as a scriptural divine and a sound Protestant, he has not made fathers or councils his Bible; but has used discrimination, neither coveting vain novelties, nor adhering to superstitious antiquities. But the sobriety of his estimates is a prominent merit of his work; for it is highly desirable that ecclesiastical antiquities should be duly studied; but it is fatal to Christian doctrine and practical piety to substitute usage for argument, and human authority for the word of God.

Mr. Riddle's volume comprises much valuable matter which we could largely quote from if we had room; but we the less regret the omission, as we hope to have frequent opportunities in our liturgical and ecclesiastical discussions of referring to the work and of thus keeping it in the recollection of our readers. We have turned to numerous articles and found much condensed information.

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THE House of Commons has been occupied chiefly with the perplexing questions arising out of the proceedings in the affair of Stockdale against Hansard, for publishing a libel upon him in one of the papers printed by order of the House. Ample scope ought to be allowed to parliament in publishing evidence; but individuals should be protected from unjust usage; and here lies the difficulty; for though such a man as Stockdale ought not to be screened, yet it may happen that statements made in ex-parte evidence injure innocent persons. It seems to us to be the simplest and fairest course to allow witnesses who give evidence injurious to individuals to be prosecuted, if their statements can be proved to be untrue, but to protect them if they are true. Under such a regulation Stockdale must have shewn that he was guiltless of what was laid to his charge; and thus the question would be determined upon its merits. But by the course which the House of Commons has pursued, the publication of evidence is converted into a question of privilege that is, of irresponsible power -without regard to the morality of what is published; so that if Richard chooses to affirm that James is a swindler, the libel goes forth, and the aggrieved party has no redress. We think that the House has been wrong throughout the whole affair; wrong in asserting a right to protect by its imprimatur what may be wilfully false and libellous; wrong in opposing the law of the land; wrong in imprisoning Stockdale, who only appealed to the laws; and wrong in imprisoning the sheriffs for executing them. Why did not the movers in this affair propose to arrest the judges? Was it that they did not dare? Yet why not dare, if they were acting legally or constitutionally? We grieve to see Sir R. Peel dividing from Sir R. Inglis and Sir E. Sugden upon such a question. The majority thus unhappily swelled, will be obliged in the end to succumb to the justice of the case and to public opinion, which goes with it.

The chief topic of Her Majesty's speech was her own marriage. Her ministers might have spared her age and sex, by not advising her to make this public announcement in person. The studied omission of the word "Protestant was strongly animadverted upon by the Duke of Wellington, who procured its insertion in the ad.

dress; but Sir R. Inglis was unable to do so in the Commons. The marked countenance given to Popery by those who call themselves the "liberal party, is one of the most strange features of these eventful times. Formerly Popery and arbitrary power were consi dered coincident; and what has occurred to separate them? We know of nothing.

as

Lord Winchelsea has undertaken to call Lord Melbourne to account for presenting Mr. Owen, the Socialist, to the Queen; and Sir J. Buller to move a resolution declaring that the House of Commons has no confidence in her majesty's advisers. Every friend of morality, piety, and of the institutions of the land in Church and State, must desire the success of both these motions. [Since this paragraph was written, a a most important discussion has occurred in the House of Lords upon Mr. Owen's blasphemous, demoralizing, and anti-social system. The Bishop of Exeter exposed its enormities forcibly as was possible, without too much outraging every feeling of religion and moral decency by a distinct recital; and the Bishop of London concurred with him that it was the duty of government to endeavour to repress such abominations. Lord Brougham, Lord Normanby, and Lord Melbourne, admitted that nothing could be more injurious than such opinions; but they considered them too absurd to spread; and they deprecated "persecution" as defeating its own object. We deny that opposing wickedness is persecution; but one powerful means of repression they have at command, which they cannot call persecution; let them propose adequate means for the building and endowment of churches; and of schools for religious education; and thus endeavour to prevent what is evil by supplying the void with what is good.]

The state of the late Slave colonies deserves serious attention, as much misrepresentation is being put forth respecting the conduct of the emancipated population. We never expected that freemen would toil as the slaves under the lash were coerced to do with a severity the average of which would unpeople the whole world in a few years; no inducement of hope or reward could make men "slave" to this extent; but the freed labourers have shewn great

willingness to work regularly, diligently, and cheerfully for just wages and with good treatment. The bishop of Barbadoes lately published a very interesting and important statement to this effect; and we have just received from Antigua a document, a portion of which we will extract as corroborating the fact. Antigua, it will be remembered, had been long blessed with the labours of pious and devoted missionaries; and it was the first of the colonies which abolished the apprenticeship, which it did instantly, without waiting for recommendation or example. If then either Christian instruction or prompt emancipation was dangerous, as was often assumed and declared, Antigua would now be the most idle, discontented, and disturbed of all the colonies. But so far from this being the case, we find a respectable and Christian gentleman who had considered it "a religious duty, a duty to God, to remain in the situation which it had seemed good to his providence to place them," as master and slave, giving the following public testimony, at the twenty-fourth anniversary of the Antigua Bible Society, to the results of emancipation, accompanied, under the Divine blessing, by religious instruction.

"And what, sir, is now the state of the Island at large? If due allowance be made for the unexampled drought of 1837, I have little doubt but the crops of the first five years of freedom will equal, or nearly so, those of the last five years of slavery. In the towns, we see new and even handsome buildings springing up in every quarter. In the country, churches, chapels, and schools are rapidly multiplying: estates that had not been cultivated in the memory of man, are once more covered with fields of Cane; and I have myself re-established a set of works which had' been in a state of dilapidation for more than twenty years? And what is it that has enabled us to do this? I can have no hesitation, sir, in affirming that it is the Bible, and the Bible alone. Even in those colonies where the direct influence of Christianity has been less sensibly felt, its indirect influences have done much to mitigate the violence of the shock; but in this Island, where Bibles have been freely circulated, and missionaries not merely tolerated but encou raged for a long series of years-although we passed in one single hour, without the intervention of the apprenticeship, and almost without warning, into a state of uncontrolled freedom-so easy and natural was the transition that it was scarcely perceptible to many; and so gentle was the vibration of this moral earthquake, that not a single estate has

been overwhelmed by it, not a single property destroyed. What then remains, but to continue to enforce the same

principles, and to circulate the same book-to persevere in the career that has been so successfully begun, and to lay the foundation of future prosperity, by doing all that in us lies to train up the rising and succeeding generations in the nurture and admonition of the Lord? We can therefore safely say that we adhere with unabated, and we might add, with increased attachment to this noble institution. To theory we can now add experience, and beholding as we do the peaceful and beneficial influence of the Gospel on the social and civil institutions of our country, we can join our testimony to that of the Apostle, and declare that godliness is profitable unto all things,' having the promise of the life that now is, as well as of that which is to come."

Frost, Williams, and Jones, the leaders of the three divisions in the attack upon Newport, have been most justly found guilty of high treason; but the execution of their sentence, or its commutation, subject to Her Majesty's exercise of her prerogative, is deferred for the determination by the judges, upon a point of law arising out of a technical mistake the indictment, and the lists of jurors and witnesses not having been delivered simultaneously, but on different days. Several prisoners have been tried and convicted on minor charges; others have pleaded guilty, and have been leniently dealt with. But in the mean time the Chartists have been continuing their seditious and revolutionary practices in various parts of the kingdom; and the alarming occurrences at Sheffield, and the seizure of armed Chartists at Bethnal Green, shew that we are standing upon a volcano which is ready to burst out simultaneously wherever there is vent for the explosive materials. These things have been tampered with too long. The country needs, said the Duke of Wellington some time since, an efficient government. We re-echo the dictum, the country needs an efficient government. The aspect of society in modern times may be aptly compared to the face of the physical world. Look, says the geologist, at those mountains and valleys, those hills and dales; processes are going on by which they are tending to one dead level, which they must reach, unless a volcano, an earthquake, or some other extraordinary phenomenon, create new varieties of surface. Every stream and river carries with it depositions from the higher level to the lower. Air, and dew, and rain, and heat, and

frost, are incessantly disintegrating the most solid and lofty gigantic rocks, and carrying them down, particle by particle, to the plain; so that unless some counteracting agency should take place, the whole world will become a bed of mud, levelled to uniformity of surface by the waters which invest it. And thus is modern society tending to democracy. In the United States of America the process is nearly complete; in Europe and elsewhere it is in progress. Social and political habits are verging towards this object. Rank, birth, station, princes, nobles, priests, honorary distinctions, and established institutions, are all under the disintegrating process; and not one movement, upon a large scale and permanent, has occurred for many years, to raise privilege and restrain popular power. But as in the physical world, God has appointed counter processes, and earthquakes and volcanoes have prevented the world lapsing to the uninhabitable condition of one level stagnant marsh; so in society, whether by his ordinance or his permission, whether in judgment or in mercy, democracy in the end rights itself through the medium of usurpation and tyranny; and the nation which could not appreciate true liberty, passes on to despotism by its abuse. Mob oppression, whether under the name of Chartism, Socialism, Theophilanthropism, or any other well-sounding word, is more harsh even than absolutism; to which through a barbarous process, it eventually leads.

Do Christians never consider that warning passage, "Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it?" Amos iii. 6. Amongst the diversified opinions of modern politicians concerning the present state of our national affairs, how seldom do we hear of a moral and religious reformation being the only sure ground-work of national prosperity? Our ears are assailed with complaints of the depression of trade and the poverty of the people, and our minds are puzzled with the numerous plans of reform which are proposed by different political partisans; but how few comparatively lift up their voices to complain of the wickedness of the nation, or declare national crime to be the real cause of national adversity! Men are going about, like evil spirits, exciting continual agitation by exposing every flaw that can be found in the system of government, and attributing to such trivial circumstances all the miseries which befal our country; and even ministers of religion are to be found engaging as heartily in politics as if the salvation of a nation depended upon some parliamentary candidate, or the

carrying out of a favourite measure: whilst the Great First Cause is passed unheeded by, and the King of kings is virtually deposed from his sovereignty by never being mentioned as the great Interposer in a nation's government.

The lower classes are informed of their rights, true or imaginary, but why are they not informed of their duties? They are told of the prevailing distresses, but why are they not as honestly told of the prevailing sins? They hear of the expenditure of public money in supporting a legitimate monarchy; but do they hear of the millions of pounds that are squandered by themselves in drunkenness and folly? They are urged to pursue a radical reformation, which is really of a very superficial complexion; for true reform would begin with their own hearts and morals. They are hunting after an imaginary good which they cannot overtake, whilst the real good that lies within their own controul, is wholly neglected. In short, most of our politicians are building upon a sandy foundation: for the Divine government is not taken into consideration, and heavenly wisdom is laid aside: whilst frail man and his uncertain opinions are substituted in their stead.

If the eternal truths of Scripture are still to be regarded as the Word of God; and if the examples of Divine judication therein displayed are to be looked upon as specimens of the manner in which the heavens do rule" throughout all ages; then we must fall back upon "first principles," and try a method of reform quite different from that which is in present repute. Let the reflecting Christian read the following passages of Holy Writ, which describe God's interposition in the internal state of a nation. For the sake of perspicuity, we shall classify them under three heads; and,

1. We may see the direct interference of God in bringing distress upon a country as a punishment for its wicked

ness.

"If I shut up heaven that there be no rain, or if I command the locusts to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among my people; if my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land." 2 Chron. vii. 13, 14.

"And the people shall be oppressed every one by another, and every one by his neighbour; the child shall hehave himself proudly against the ancient, and the base against the honourable." Isa. iii. 5.