the Lord, it laid unhallowed hands on the sacred feast, turned the cup of blessing into a curse, and planted a symbol of strife in the very place of the cross. Clothed in the garb of a pretended zeal for the truth, and filling its hands with manacles and chains, it entered the thrice-holy place where God and conscience alone should meet, dared to ascend the throne where God alone should sit, and summoning into its presence all who denied or even doubted its authority, loaded them with fetters in the name of the God of liberty and love. In vain did its victims protest and plead, and appeal in bitterness of soul from earth to Heaven-the Demon heard not their cries, saw not their tears; and if it had, what were weak consciences to it? wounded consciences, or even ruined souls, to it?a thousand fold more terrible than Moloch or the fabled Minotaur, it found music in groans, and, feasting on blood, ravenously devoured "him with its meat for whom Christ died."

Disdaining the ruin of only a single Christian, or a particular church, its aim is to embroil and destroy the whole Christian community. Times have been when all the armed powers of the earth were fighting in its pay, and all the engines of torture active in its service. Not satisfied with such limited and ordinary aids, it has devised improved methods of inflicting suffering, and furnished the world with hints of cruelty. While its desolating march through Christendom might be easily traced, by the light of the martyr-fires which

its own hands have kindled; by the cries of the sufferers left prostrate in its rear; by the ruins of Christian temples which it rased to the ground, and by the prisons and inquisitions which those ruins enabled it to erect in their stead.

If, in the present day, the spirit of schism is less conversant than formerly with the grosser forms of persecution, it is not owing to any change in its nature; its operations are as active, extensive, and fearful in their

effects as ever. Though perpetually convicted of error, it cannot think of speaking in less than a tone of infallibility, or of requiring less than implicit deference to its oracular strains. As if penal measures had invariably succeeded instead of invariably failed, it is as sanguine as ever that they would secure submission to its will. In its service slander prepares the subtlest poison; breathes a suspicion on acts over which all heaven is rejoicing; makes it a virtue to hate men whom it should be a happiness to love; and, by perverse misapplications of Scripture, converts even the sword of the Spirit into an assassin's dagger. if it were a sworn agent of the powers of darkness, and were actually experimenting on the infinite divisibility of the Church, it continues absorbed in punctilios, and insisting on comparative trifles; heedless, meantime, of the cries of the souls it is ruining, of the laugh of the world it is amusing, of the remonstrances of the Heaven it is offending; regardless, that among the most obvious consequen

As

ces of its conduct are, the grieved Spirit of God retiring from it to the greatest possible distance compatible with the continued existence of the Church-the infliction of fresh wounds on the body of Christ-the prolongation of the reign of Antichrist—and the postponement of millennial triumphs.

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CHAPTER VIII.

THE PLEAS AND DISGUISES OF SCHISM.

THE evils of schism are so obvious and fearful, that we might well believe it impossible for a word to be uttered in palliation, did not facts affirm the contrary; and did we not know that no single evil has ever been obliterated from the long catalogue which sin has produced, through the want of a defence. An evil, indeed, is generally defended, not in its own naked and proper character, but by assuming the mask and name of a virtue; but the pleas and disguises of schism are so transparent and obvious, that we might well wonder how any one could ever be beguiled by them, and still more that he should expect others to allow them to pass for valid reasons.

I. If, for instance, in order to expose the evils of schism, we place them in contrast with the unity of the primitive Church-when church-communion was catholic-communion— it is sometimes objected, that "circumstances, since then, have materially altered; that many things which were easy at first, are impracticable now; and that, although prior to the

existence of divisions, it might have been the duty of Christians to avoid them, yet to return from them now is impossible." Such are the pleas and excuses of an ignorant and inconsiderate sloth.

According to this representation, the waters of the sanctuary, like another Euphrates, have only to separate, to wear for themselves new channels, or to stagnate into pools, reducing the Church to the desolation of another Babylon, and, from that moment, it ceases to be the duty of Christians to attempt to unite them again—to restore the Church to its primitive prosperity. Sin has only to wait till it can plead antiquity, in order to establish its title to undisturbed dominion. The task of reformation has only to become difficult in order to cease to be obligatory. It is true, there existed in the primitive Church causes of separation much more weighty than many of those which have since led to division, and yet no separation took place; and that example was no doubt meant to be binding on the Church in all subsequent times; but, it was only necessary to depart from it, in order to annul its authority. It is true, also, that the command of Christ requires union; but only as long as such union is perfectly convenient; as soon as ever it becomes difficult to continue, or to restore it, he permits us to be as divided as we please.

The startling inconsistency of this language, and the profanity of the sentiments which it implies, are evident. And yet, unless the objector is prepared to avow them at the tribunal of God, we would adjure him to examine wheth