but though weak and ill, and as it afterwards proved, near his departure from this world, he was sitting by the fireside in the lower room of his house, and his friend, another elderly man, was sitting with him. They were in earnest conversation when I entered, and, taking a vacant chair, I made one of the fireside party, and desired that I might not interrupt them, but that they would go on conversing with the same freedom as before I came.

"We were agreeing," said the old man whom I had come to visit, "that it is a bad thing to ramble from one place of worship to another; and I have done so too often." Something was said about the Bible as the only standard of what is right, and sound, and true. The old man spoke of the use the Bible had been to him in preserving him from error when he had wandered from one preacher to another.

Among other instances he mentioned the following fact, "I remember," said he, "on one occasion going to the Roman Catholic Chapel. The Priest preached, as he told us, from a passage of Scripture, And I John saw these things, and heard them, and when I had heard and seen, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel which had showed me these thingsand then he went on to teach us that we ought to worship angels, for the Bible told us to do so. I was staggered," said the old man, 66 as I listened to his sermon, and I said to myself, well, if this is the case, the Papists must be right, and we are wrong. The Bible is the only true book, and if that tells us to worship angels, I have nothing to say against it. "However," he added, "when I got home, I went straight to my Bible, and with searching I found the place from which the priest had preached, and I found also that there was another verse, the very next verse, about which he had said nothing." "Then saith he unto me, see thou do it not: for I am thy fellow servant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book: worship God." Thus, the old man found all the difficulties of the question cleared up by the word of God. I mentioned this circumstance at a meeting of the Bible Society, in Chester, as having been related to me about two years ago, and I repeat it now on my word as a clergyman, and a gentleman. A letter, and certainly not an uncourteous one, was soon after addressed to me in one of the Chester newspapers, by the Roman Catholic priest, and I am glad to take this opportunity of saying that nothing was further from my intention than any wish to hurt his feelings, or to reflect upon the character and conduct of his late amiable predecessor. Other observations have also appeared, but I never think it worth while to notice anony

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mous or insulting attacks. I can only say to the writer, that I wish him well with all my heart, and I hope that he may find a more manly employment than that of writing anonymous and abusive letters, particularly to clergymen.

With regard to the above account, I think that most persons will agree with me that it is a great deal more improbable that such a story should have been invented by a person in the rank of life to which that old man belonged-than for the circumstances to have occurred just as he told them. The statement bears the stamp of truth upon it.

If the priest spoke of that worship which the Romanists call Dulia-the worship which they allow to be paid to angels and saints, which they distinguish from what they call the Latria, or adoration due to God alone-the effect of such doctrines (for which we have no scriptural authority,) on common hearers, is proved to be decidedly pernicious, for the old man never dreamed of any such distinction, and whatever other views the priest may have taken of the subject; at any rate it is plain that the conclusion of the passage in which the apostle is forbidden to worship the angel, was not brought forward, the old man was in doubt and ignorance till he opened his Bible and found it there. With regard to the passage before us, even if the apostle intended to pay merely an act of homage to the angel, it is remarkable, that the angel positively forbad even that, and forbad it twice. The word which is translated worship, is the same in both places, first where it is written, "I fell down to worship (proskunesai) before the feet of the angel"-and then the command of the angel, "See thou do it not-worship (proskuneson) God.

To use the words of a celebrated commentator on this subject, "Prostration or falling at the feet of superiors to pay them an homage in consideration of their superiority, was ordinary used in those eastern countries. To worship the angel therefore, must be here understood of prayer and praise, which are pieces of Divine adoration which it is not probable this great Apostle would have offered, had he not mistaken him, and thought him an uncreated angel. But the angel doth not only refuse it, but with some indignation. We have the same (in two places,) Revelation 19, chap. and 22, to let us know that even good men may twice run into the same error, and to let us know this by the mouth of two witnesses, that this truth ought to have been established, so that Papists should not, after this, have paid any Divine adoration to angels, much less to saints; and if invocation be no Divine adoration, nothing is. This deserveth the consideration of

them who think it is easy to excuse the Popish religion from Idolatry."

The error and sin of worshipping angels was early guarded against, and forbidden in the Primitive Church, at the council of Laodicea, in the fourth century, so that there is nothing new in the idea that the doctrine is a most dangerous one, most dangerous, in every way, whether it be the Latria, or the Dulia. The fact proves that such distinctions are neither understood, nor attended to by the poor and the ignorant, and however Dr. Wiseman, or Dr. Doyle may reason, and refine away on the subject, with an ingenuity which is really marvellous-the plain word of God neither reveals nor allows any such distinctions.

And here as a clergymen of the Church of England, I cannot do better than say in the fine old language of our Homilies, on the subject of the Dulia and the Latria:

"Angels flee to take unto them by sacrilege the honour due to God: and herewithal is confuted the distinction of Latria and Dulia; where it is evident, that the saints of God cannot abide, that as much as any outward worshipping be done or exhibited to them. But Satan, God's enemy, desiring to rob God of his honour, desireth exceedingly that such honour might be given to him. Wherefore those which give the honour due to the Creator to any creature, do service acceptable to no saints-who be the friends of God-but unto Satan, God's and man's mortal and sworn enemy."

I can say with all my heart, that I bear no ill will to any Romanist; that I believe many of them are true children of God, and members of Christ, and as such I love them with all my heart; but Popery I do hate and abhor, and I agree with Cecil, that it is perhaps, impossible, in the very nature of things, that such another scheme as Popery could be invented. It is in truth the mystery of iniquity that it should be able to work itself into the simple, grand, sublime, holy constitution of Christianity, and so to interweave its abominations with the truth, as to occupy the strongest passions of the soul, and to controul the strongest understandings.

"It is an evil and bitter thing," says the Rev. Henry Blunt, "for the present generation, that errors such as these are so lightly thought of; and that a religion which has done more to blind men's eyes and to harden men's hearts to the peculiar doctrines of grace, than any other which holds the great and vital truths of Christianity, should now be looked at if not with complacency, still with indifference, and be spoken of as distinguished from our

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own, merely by some minute shades of doctrine, of far too little import, to trouble the minds of men of enlarged views and philanthropic principles. How differently did the holy army of martyrs think and act, during the Marian persecutions in our own country; they cheerfully went to the stake, rather than submit for a moment, to errors which they knew had been the ruin of many an immortal soul."

I know that it is the fashion of modern liberalism is say that it is bigotry to object to Popery, for that it approaches so nearly to Protestantism that "a little mutual accommodation might remove every difference." "Yes," it has been said by the eloquent Henry Melville, Popery may approach to Protestantism, but only to Prostestantism as it exists in days of indifference and heartlessness, and for which the far truer name were infidelity, not the Protestantism of Luther, and Cranmer, and Ridley, and Hooper, and all the noble army martyrs. Not the Protestantism of the worthies of purest days of Christianity!! All that is true in Popery, has been transmitted from the earliest days of Christianity; but all that is true in Popery makes up Protestantism. Popery is Protestantism mutilated, disguised, deformed, and overlaided with corrupt additions; Protestantism is Popery restored to its first purity, cleansed from false glosses, and free from the rubbish accumulated upon it by ages of superstition" Oh, how we grieve over anything like the spirit of Popery springing up in our own beloved Church. Whether in the writings of the amiable and excellent men who are the authors of the Oxford tracts, or wherever else this spirit of Popery shows itself, we would oppose and denounce it in the strength of the truth itself, knowing, that no power, however gigantic, no skill in arms, however extraordinary, can finally prevail against the sling and the stone of simple truth, even in a stripling's hand. And thus we rejoice and will rejoice at finding the Holy Bible freely circulating through the cottages of our native land. We rejoice to find her poor wayfaring men with the true nobility of spirit which distinguished the Bereans of old, willing and able, and determined to search the Scriptures daily. We rejoice to find them taking forth from that armoury of life and truth the armour of defence, and the weapon of power, and with regard to angel worship we say to all such poor but Bible searching Christians, in the words of the great Apostle at the second chapter of his Epistle to the Colossians, at the 18th verse, Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels."

CHARLES B. TAYLER.

DIALOGUE BETWEEN EUSEBIUS AND ALCIPHRON.

DIALOGUE II.

Alciphron. Since we parted last, the other way. The instances of

I have thought about the Bible with more seriousness than I should have supposed myself capable of summoning upon a subject which I have never been used to consider worthy a sensible man's attention. But after all my pondering, I cannot find any reason why you should give it so much authority, except because your father and grandfather, and their ancestors further back than you can trace them, were called Christians. And I verily believe that nine-tenths of our countrymen profess Christianity on no better grounds.

Eusebius. Such grounds are not so bad as you seem to imagine. For those who are young, or, from any circumstances, want ability or leisure to inquire, may naturally suppose, that what their parents believe, and what is generally believed in their country, and what those who are older and wiser than them selves are anxious to instruct them in, has something in it which deserves to be believed both by them and all mankind.

Alc.—I see it is as I always thought, possession, or prescription, are the main support of the Gospel. Thus errors once received are handed down; and because our ancestors were deceived, we are to live under a system of delusion. So the Turks have their Mahomet, the Hindoos their Brahma, and the ancients religiously believed in a thousand deities, all bequeathed them by their forefathers.

Euseb.-You talk as if Christianity must necessarily be erroneous, because it is generally believed. The circumstance of its being the established faith of the country, and therefore maintained by our forefathers, taught by our mothers, and imbibed in our infancy,-in other words, its existence as a national religion, gives it a prejudice in your eyes, and you regard it with jealousy. But the argument lies all

false religions only prove, that the idea of a Revelation is natural to mankind. If I had been born in Arabia or Hindostan, and my understanding were awakened to the subject as it is now, I should equally think that the existence of a religion in my country was prima facie evidence of its truth, and bound me to inquire before I rejected it.

Alc.-You will assert, that if the Hindoo or Mahometan does inquire, examination will lead him to reject the national religion. Why may he not reject it at once, and spare his pains, if he is to come to the same result at last.

Euseb. The result might have proved otherwise. Inquiry confirms truth, while it detects falsehood. Bring the Christian Religion to that touchstone, and I should not fear the consequence.

Alc.-Inquiry only leads one up to distant times and obscure and imperfect annals, in which it is impossible to distinguish falsehood from truth. It is like tracing a river towards its source, when, after all your labour, you find yourself bewildered, and plunged into marshes and morasses. Had God intended us to receive a Revelation, he would have given us some better proofs of its divinity than the traditions of a remote and barbarous age.

Euseb.-Your ideas concerning history seem to require correction, when you stigmatize the Augustan age with the title of barbarous. Or, if it does bear such an appearance, compared with that in which our lot has happily fallen, to what can we ascribe the difference except the prevalence of Christianity? But with regard to your argument, you object to our Religion, that its evidence depends upon historical testimony. Now ask yourself, which seems most consistent with the wisdom of God, to make constant interpositions of his power, or so to arrange his counsels, that his fre