gious opinions. From some prevailing tenets of his fathers, he was inclined to dissent; on others his belief was suspended; but he never settled, so far as I know, in any belief which President Dwight would have considered essentially erroneous. In many instances he admit ted the truth of a doctrine, but rejected some of the arguments by which it was usually defended. He was a firm believer in divine revelation; and I cannot help thinking, that the graces of religion had taken deep root in the heart of one so constant in the performance of its outward and sacred duties, and so exemplary in the practice of its pure virtues. I have heard him mention the recurrence to his mind of those subjects on which he had been in tensely engaged during the week, as severe temptations which he experienced on the Sabbath; but I have been acquainted with few scholars who devoted themselves so exclusively on that day to its sacred employments. For his daily reading in the Scriptures, his common rule was two chapters. In perusing the evangelists, it was his favorite method to carry on together the different accounts of the same transaction by

the aid of Newcomb's Harmony. I have heard him more than once express the great pleasure and satisfaction which he derived from that work.

We read of poets who had reach. ed their full maturity at the age to which our friend had attained, and were never able to surpass the productions of their youthful muse. But the intellectual powers of Professor Fisher were not of this class. Brilliancy is an attribute which may speedily acquire its utmost limits; but capacity and strength admit of indefinite enlargement. Mr. Fisher possessed, in an unusual degree, the power and the habit of application, which were necessary to augment that capacity and strength beyond any limits which we can assign. I looked with the most sanguine expectations to a period when they would reach a consummation equaled by few of his contemporaries. What peculiar reason, therefore, have we to deplore his untimely fate!

Quis desiderio sit pudor aut modus
Tam cari capitis?

Ergo Quintilium perpetuus sopor
Urget? cui Pudor et Justitiæ soror
Incorrupta Fides, nudaque Veritas,
Quando ullum invenient parem?

WE are aware that in attempting to review the liturgy of the Protestant Episcopal church, we shall awaken some jealousies, and perhaps bring upon ourselves many denunciations. Inquiry concerning this work seems to have been long since laid asleep; and it has been permitted to occupy its place undisturbed as the ritual of a respectable denomination which uncharitableness alone can call in question. It has so long been held forth as "our excellent liturgy" with no one to dispute the

appellation, that mar who are unacquainted with it are beginning to suppose that it is a summary of evangelical doctrine to which no reasonable objection can be made, except the use of a perpetual form. When therefore this objection is by any means surmounted, nothing remains to prevent their adopting the liturgy as a convenient vehicle of their public devotions. It is supposed by some that if they get under the shadow of this liturgy they can escape from all the agita

tions of the religious community, and enjoy the calm of repose. They can be intrenched, as they think, in this" form of sound words," falsely so called, as we shall show by and by, where no heresies and no angry discussions can reach them. The fact is, however, that no creeds or liturgies can hold men in the truth if they only have the disposition to depart from it, or prevent agitation if life enough remains to be conscious of error. There are among those who use this litur gy as a formula of devotion, men of all theological parties, from the strict and pious Calvinist and the pious Arminian down to the Socinian and the Universalist. And whatever the words of this formulary may be, each class find some method of interpretation, or some compromise with conscience, so as to use them without hesitation.

Those whose early associations have been formed in veneration of this liturgy may be wounded in their feelings by seeing its merits disputed. But much as we should regret such a result of our labors, and far as we desire to be from speaking evil of any man, our regard for truth compels us to speak out the real convictions of our minds. In this age of liberty and of free discussion, we hope that no instrument of man's device is too sacred to admit of examination. We feel called upon to speak freely, though we trust kindly, not so much for the benefit of our Episcopal brethren, for we are not such novices in human nature as to expect to convince men who are already committed, as for the benefit of some in our own communion. We have observed with pain a disposition in some to leave the beautiful, simple, and apostolical churches of our ancestors, to which all our free institutions owe their existence, for the more pompous forms of the British hierarchy, not knowing, as we think, whither they go. There is a cer

tain imposing effect which is mistaken for devotional feeling; and the interest they may be induced to take in the ceremonial appears to them an interest in religion itself. Hence instead of worshiping the invisible God, they have been unconsciously attracted by the parade and show with which that service is surrounded. Many there doubtless are who, through the medium of these forms, worship the Lord God of our fathers in sincerity and truth, in consequence of early associations and long continued habit. But when they who have been accustomed to a simple mode of worship -a mode in which nothing but God is brought to the mind-become enamored of these forms, it should be a matter of serious examination whether they are not losing that love of God which is satisfied with approaching his gracious throne directly, without the assistance or intervention of an imposing ritual. We are persuaded that the imposing effect of the Episcopal liturgy upon some minds, results not so much from the liturgy itself, as from the circumstances by which it is usually surrounded. Let the robes of the clergy be dropped; let the various ceremonies of pomp and show be dispensed with; let the splendid church and the splendid congregation be absent; and let the simple cave or upper chamber of the primitive Christian, or the barn of the western missionary be the place of worship; and how naked would the liturgy appear! How inappropriate and how absurd! We have seen this exemplified in a country church hardly capacious enough to hold two hundred persons, and that not well filled, the clergyman not deigning to change his dress, and the people not instructed in the mechanical part of the services. The entire absence of all the pomp and circumstance of a large congrega. tion, the surplice, the organ, the multitudinous uproar of many voi

ces, and all the other regular wheels of the machine, struck the mind with a sense of vacuity altogether beyond description. We thought of the superiority of our own simple worship, whose essential requisites are present whether it is performed in a splendid church or in a log hut, whether it has a crowded assembly of fashionable people, or a small collection of plain men dressed in the garb of the western wilds. And this is precisely the effect of the primitive, apostolical worship. These are precisely the circumstances in which it was frequently performed.

We have many objections to a stereotyped form of prayer as clogging the free aspirations of the soul, and as ill suited to the varying exigencies of human life which constantly arise. In prosperity or adversity; amid the ravages of desolating sickness; after fire or sword may have laid waste the land, or an earthquake have swallowed up multitudes of the people; or a tornado swept over their habitations; or some great and signal deliverance from such evils may have been had; in the excitement of fear, or sorrow, or joy ;-it is the same dead form. The great subject of absorbing interest which fills the public mind must have no place in the devotions of the sanctuary, unless the bishop vouchsafe to send a prayer, as Bishop Onderdonk of New York did during the prevalence of the cholera in 1832. This may come too late. And when it comes it is laid up in one corner of the service as a mere appendix to the usual forms. The chilling circumstance of its origin not in the heart of the supplicant, but in foreign prescription, gives an air of formality to it which well accords with the place to which it is assigned, but destroys the whole spirit with which a prayer should be offered. There is indeed a prayer in the book for "a time of great sickness and mortality," but it oc

cupies a small space; and is so little in accordance with the overwhelming impressions of such a season, that it falls far short of the subject. It is manifest that the author drew it up in other circumstances than those to which he would apply it, and had no deep sense of the sympathies which would then be excited and the bleeding hearts which would appear before God. And this is the character, mutatis mutandis, of nearly all the short prayers-concluded too in such a uniform manner that no wave of feeling is suffered to break the even surface of the waters. It would seem as though the mere repetition of words, like the prescription in the Romish manuals for so many paternosters and so many ave marias, were the intention; for there is no time for the heart to kindle before a stop is made, and a new prayer begun. The total blank which this liturgy presents, and which every liturgy must needs present in regard to every great and absorbing interest occasionally arising, which ought to be made a subject of prayer in the Christian assembly, creates a corresponding blank in the heart. It prevents the full flow of feeling which the devout worshiper would otherwise possess. While he muses on the subject which occupies his thoughts and those of the community, the fire burns; but when he goes into the house of God he finds nothing to meet the peculiar state of things. It is all the same as if nothing had happened.

We might object further, and say that a stereotyped form of prayer is contrary to inspired example; all the prayers recorded in the Scriptures being such as arose out of the occasion, and the Lord's prayer, the only form given, being a mere model in opposition to the vain repetitions of the heathen, and not a form which there is any evidence the Apostles ever used. A liturgy is

contrary also to the usage of Christians in the earliest and purest ages of the church. And moreover, this liturgy is a form established in an age of comparative darkness, when the church had hardly begun to put on her beautiful garments. But none of these points do we intend to enlarge upon. Great as these objections are, other and weightier objections press upon our minds. Having been long familiar with the liturgy of the Episcopal church, we deem it our duty and our privilege to give our opinion.

Before we proceed, however, we beg leave to state a few facts in regard to the origin of this liturgy. All the reformers came to the knowledge of the truth as might have been expected by degrees. During the reign of Henry VIII, when the Papal authority was first cast off in England, the Romish liturgy continued in use. In the reign of his successor, Edward VI, Cranmer and others made several important changes by which they intended to reject the idolatry of Rome. At this time the church was confessedly not fully reformed, but only in the progress of reformation. The clergy were extremely ignorant, very few of them being able to preach, and some of them hardly able to read. On this account, homilies were composed which they were commanded by the king's authority to read in the churches, instead of bringing forth their own crude notions in the way of preaching. As they could not preach, they could not pray to the edification of the people; and therefore a form of prayer was as necessary as a form of preaching. The sources from which Cranmer and his associates derived the liturgy, were certain Romish missals, such as Sarum, York, Hereford, Bangor, and Lincoln. The liturgy thus composed, was sanctioned by act of Parliament Jan. 15, 1548, no less than eight bishops protesting, but no convocation of

*

the clergy being had. The reign of Edward was short, being only about six years. The five years following were occupied by the reign of Mary, who restored the Popish forms, and repudiated the liturgy of Cranmer. When Elizabeth came to the throne, though from policy or education favorable to the reformed religion, she was very desirous of conciliating her Popish subjects. Cranmer and Ridley, and the other devout men who had begun to reform the liturgy in the days of King Edward, had been offered up a sacrifice to the Moloch of Popery in the reign of Mary. The same zeal for perfecting the liturgy, therefore, no longer pervaded the councils of the church of England. Elizabeth ordered the liturgy of Edward to be used in the churches, carefully expunging some of the passages which she apprehended would be particularly offensive to the Papists. The reformation was now to be stopped just where it was; and the liturgy which was composed in the incipient stages of the Reformation, was now stereotyped for all future time. Fixed in the reign of Queen Elizabeth,

*We constantly see in the writings of Episcopal divines the sayings of the Prayer-book quoted as the sayings of the she declares-she ordains-she requires— church. The church says so and soshe expects-she approves, &c. &c. We learn here who this lady is. She is no other than the British parliament. The truly as the law of the Protestant succesPrayer-book is one of her acts just as sion to the crown. This is "the church” who speaks so authoritatively.

The following passage in the litany of King Edward was stricken out by order of Queen Elizabeth: "From the tyranny of the Bishop of Rome and all his detestable enormities, good Lord deliver us." The rubric declaring that by kneelintended to the corporeal presence of ing at the sacrament no adoration was Christ, was also stricken out. This however was restored in the reign of Charles II, but it is not in the American Prayerbook. (See Neal's History of the Puritans, Vol. I, pp. 177 and 376, edition 1816, Newburyport.)

when every thing was unsettled, this is the work which in England has continued with no material alteration unchanged to the present day, and in this country has had few alterations, except in accommodation to the change of political institutions. In the time of Cranmer, the public mind was unprepared to dispense with a liturgy, as such a mode of worship had been long in use. It was the progress of religious know. ledge and of freedom which induced the Puritans to pray themselves, instead of using other men's prayers. Whether Cranmer and his associates, had they lived, would have proceeded to a farther reformation of the liturgy, or whether they would have dispensed with a liturgy entirely, is a subject on which there will be different opinions. One thing is certain, that the liturgy as it now is, was established under the supreme influence of a sovereign who was a jealous guardian of the royal prerogative, and quite willing to retain every relic of Popery which could be reconciled with her own supremacy. That a work which had its origin in such circumstances should serve as a directory of worship in this enlightened age, in the progress of missionary enterprise, in the multiplication of revivals of religion, and in the dawn of the millennium; and especially that it should satisfy those who have known how to worship God in a manner which admits a free expression of feeling in accordance with the change of times, the spirit of the age, and the maturity of the church, is to us a matter both of regret and surprise.

As the book was compiled in the infancy of Protestantism, when Popery was for the most part the religion of the people, there is a great accommodation to the latter religion in its general arrangement. Hence we find not only Christmas provided for without any scriptural authority, but Advent, Epiphany, Ash Vol. I.

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Wednesday, Lent, Good Friday, Easter, &c. &c. We find also St. Andrew's day, St. Thomas's day, St. Stephen's, St. John's, St. Mark's, St. Matthew's, St. Bartholomew's, &c. &c. And though some of the saints' days of the Romish ritual are omitted, abundant compensation is made for the omission by the appointment of All Saints' day. So if they should fail of paying due honor to any one saint, this comprehensive day may atone for it. To say nothing of the Popish system of canonizing particular persons, as though John, or Matthew, or Stephen, were any more a saint than other Christians, this part of the Prayer-book is plainly contrary to Protestantism, and contrary to scripture. What authority can be produced for setting apart particular days with special services, in reference to men of like passions with ourselves? And if the birth of Christ was intended to be celebrated rather than his whole work of redemption, why is there no hint in the Bible whereby we can determine the day? And why is it a matter of perfect uncertainty, with all the lights of history, upon what day that event fell? So also we may inquire for the significancy of Advent? If it celebrates the coming of Christ, as the word would seem to imply, what advance does it make upon the views which we receive from the Bible concerning the coming of the long promised Messiah? Why should "Epiphany, or the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles," be made a particular feast, when that idea is fundamental to the very existence of the gospel, and is held forth in every exhibition of Christ which is made to the people? What is accomplished in the work of man's salvation by Ash Wednesday, Lent, Good Friday? Is any impression created by this long fast more lasting or practical than by the ordinary preaching of the gospel? What