occasion for farther light upon the subject-matter of the decrees, all men might repair to his Holiness, who alone had authority to expound them.

Thus, instead of reconciling the differences between Catholics and Protestants, the separation was perpetuated; for the first and leading object in all the decrees that related to faith was, to condemn as heresy the opinions of the Protestants and to anathematize those that entertained them. So far as reformation was concerned, all writers, the Catholic included, admit that the Council was a failure. Some small matters of abuse, some irregularities of discipline, were corrected; but the gross and acknowledged immoralities of the clergy were not reformed; simony was not abated, nor pluralities suppressed, except in words; no effective provisions were made for the better instruction of the people in Christian truth; the Scriptures were withheld from the laity; the mass continued to be read in Latin; and communion in one kind only was allowed.

The decrees concerning Christian faith were mostly drawn from those of preceding Councils. They are summed up in the so called Creed of Pius IV. published the year after the close of the Council. The principal points are, the Nicene Creed; faith in ecclesiastical traditions as of equal authority with the Scriptures; that the Church is the only interpreter of the Bible; that baptism is necessary, and adequate to the cancelling of original sins; that by baptism the soul is restored to purity and innocence; that through the merits of Christ justifying grace is imparted to those who are regenerated by baptism; that the justified by faith are justified still more by works; that justification does not insure perseverance in righteousness, and that those who fall from grace may be restored; that in the mass there is a true and propitiatory sacrifice for the living and the dead; that the bread and the wine are absolutely changed by consecration of the priest into the body and blood, the soul and divinity of Christ; that Christ is received whole and entire under either kind alone, and that therefore no hardship is done to the laity in refusing to them the cup; that Purgatory is a place of real suffering, from which souls may be released by the aid of the faithful; that the saints are to be invocated; that their

images and that of the Virgin Mother are to be honored and venerated; that the Church has the power to grant indulgences; and that true obedience is due to the Pope of Rome, vicar of Jesus Christ.

A word in conclusion as to the authority of the Council. During its progress all called it universal and holy. Yet the Pope regarded it as authoritative only so far as it did not interfere with his privileges. This was shown by his oft-repeated injunctions to the presiding officers to admit no propositions that would in the least diminish the Papal power or interfere with the prerogatives of the Roman Court. The Bishops admitted it to be authoritative only so far as it allowed or enlarged their jurisdiction and restrained that of the Pope. With the clergy, both secular and regular, the authority of the Council was admitted, when it forbore to treat of reformation. Italy, Portugal, and Poland executed the decrees of the Council. In France, Spain, and Catholic Germany they are received in matters of faith; but not in regard to ecclesiastical discipline, inasmuch as they are considered to be hostile to the liberties of the Church and the rights of the Sovereigns.*

The Council of Trent has often been regarded as an illustration of the fable of the mountain and the mouse. Great expectations were formed of its results, which by no means corresponded to the importance of the subjects discussed, or to the earnest hopes generally entertained of a reconciliation between the contending parties. Perhaps the parties erred in supposing, that peace could be found in the action of such a Council. Time has taught us, that the Council only presented the conflicting opinions in stronger contrast, while a real and thorough union of the divided branches of the Church seems to be as distant as before.

J. M. M.

In the seventh session the Bishop of St. Mark, being appointed to preach, absented himself under the plea of indisposition, though that was not the real cause of his absence. It was printed in the Acts of the Council, that there was no sermon, because the Bishop of St Mark was hoarse. Sarpi adds,-" As this is to be attributed only to the pleasant vein of the Secretary, so it is a sure argument, that they did not then think the time would come, when all the actions of that Assembly should be esteemed equal to those of the Apostles when they met together expecting the com. ing of the Holy Ghost."

A RECOLLECTION OF THE ILLINOIS PRAIRIES.

Ye boundless Prairies of the West!

When late my wandering footsteps pressed,
For the first time, your fresh, green sod,
How rose my swelling heart to God;
Whose blue, illimitable sky-
Great Nature's mild, maternal eye-
So pure, benignant and serene,
Looked down upon the silent scene,
And seemed with tranquil joy to brood
O'er all the lovely solitude!

Ye boundless Prairies of the West!

Where earth upheaves her teeming breast;
Where few, as yet, and far between

Her children in repose are seen,
But where prophetic fancy's glance
Sees myriads crowd the fair expanse ;—
When first my eye, enraptured, fell
On each far upland slope and swell,
When, spread on every side, I saw,
With mingled thrill of love and awe,
The green earth rolling like a sea,
Words cannot speak the ecstasy
With which my spirit rose to Thee,
My Father! whose Almighty hand
In billows rolled the unbroken land.
Thy step below-thy smile above-
Did I not feel thy name is Love?
My Father? Mine? And may I be
Permitted thus to think of Thee?
O yes; the same impartial Love,
That bends, in boundless blue, above
Yon vast expanse of hill and plain,
Where solitude and silence reign,
And which with food and gladness fills
"The cattle on a thousand hills,"

The God, whose power and goodness feed
The lark and lambkin on the mead,

He, in his goodness and his power,

WHAT is it to see God? To fix a firm eye upon the Absolute Good; to look with steady faith upon Truth and Love, knowing that they shall never change; to repose in the Eternal Father, as children on a mother's bosom, nay, with somewhat more than the confidingness of inexperience, with the clear-sighted trust of him

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who has " proven that thing whereof he affirms." Many an unspeakable gift is in His hand, many a good thing lightens the heaviness of our care, and helps us, not so much through the world, as over it." I have seen some stand in the exercise of intellectual faculties; others, in the value of their own labor; others again, in the abundance of worldly gifts, yearly pulling down their barns, to build greater; and some beside, in the sanctity of a home, in the deep sympathy of one, or the blessed, uplifting communion of young hearts. But mind will stagger, like a strong animal, when pressed too far; the hand will tremble with years, or the steamengine outstrip its skill; the harvest may be blighted, and they that go up and down upon the sea in ships lie calmly with their treasure beneath the moving waters; nay, in the highest earthly communion there is somewhat that disappoints. As in mechanics the smoothest surfaces of glass cohere but do not wholly meet, so in life those hearts that lie most at peace with God find yet projections in themselves, which keep them ever a little apart. There is air between man and his brother, and amidst so much which passeth or satisfieth not, what shall abide, what give content? This vision of God.

It is not that one jot or

If in any wise our Father in heaven disappoint us, if at any moment we have looked on him and seen no loveliness, leaned on him and found no strength, trusted in him and been deceived, then in our own hearts is the root of this evil. It is not that God can change, but that we are never the same. tittle of his law shall pass away, but that we have erected to ourselves a lower law, which cannot remain. If you would see God, if you would know what it is to withstand in graceful repose the heaviest shock of fate, purify your own heart. This was the word of Jesus, and from his time to the present every prophet has echoed it. Our conception of God will depend upon our faithfulness to the image of himself which he has set within us, an image never veiled save by our wilful sin. In this body, whose requisitions are often hard to meet, he has framed a temple for himself. We are ready enough to build him sanctuaries; he asks us, first to preserve unsullied the holy of holies which is the work of his own hand. We are ready to send forth preachers; he demands of us, that we silence not the still, small voice. We are ready to bow