own country it blesses the banner of free trade, or consecrates monopoly, according to the social and secular elements which prevail in connexion with it.

It would be interesting and instructive to ascertain how far this has been the case in the different nations of Christendom, and to what extent it has inflicted injury on the Christian system, and retarded the progress of truth. What avail the most accurate definitions of doctrine, even though it went forth to the human mind pure as a sunbeam, when it has to pass through a dense atmosphere of ignorance, selfishness, and national prejudice, by which it is discoloured and refracted in a thousand different directions? It lights, for example, on the bleeding negro in America, and instead of dissolving his chains, it sanctifies them in the eye of his master; for that master's pastor has taught him that slavery-which defaces in man the image of God, and reduces him to the condition of a brute-is a Scriptural and patriarchal institution. The immortal being found guilty of a dark skin is consistently denied instruction. He will not be suffered to read the word of God-to drink of the water of life which flows freely for all, provided by him who is no respecter of persons, and who has expressly taught us not to call "common or unclean" what he has cleansed. The pious minister of Christ who will not lift up his voice against this iniquity-this detestable antichristianism-lest he should meddle with politics, will agitate the Union from north to south to get political laws passed against the Church of Rome, chiefly because of her spiritual tyranny in refusing the Bible, without note or comment, to the laity. In all this, these truly good and able ministers see no inconsistency whatever! What is the secret of this obliquity of mental vision?

Look again at another phase of modern civilization and national temperament in America: It has resulted from the intensely commercial spirit which pervades the people of the United States-from the passion for barter which animates them,--that youths enter very early into business, get hardened in the ways of money-making ere they leave their teens,-escape prematurely from parental control, and set up for themselves. This state of things is lamented by an enlightened American as one cause of the inefficiency of the ministry in that country. This precocious manhood-restless, excitable, ardent, self-willedpays, and votes, and speaks in the Church; and in its reckless go-ahead enthusiasm, must have talent, smartness, magnetizing energy, forced "revivals,”—in a word, it would convert the pulpit into a galvanic battery. If the minister does not come up to their mark, the young men combine and agitate against him. If he would keep his ground, he must strain after originality and

effect. He must strive to startle; and while thus torturing his own mind, he distorts the features and dislocates the members of evangelical truth. There is no fixedness-no sense of permanency about his office. In the pulpit, he is a mere tenant at will. His right to speak there, hangs on the feverish caprices of a boyish despotism. Hence, we are told, that pastors are obliged to remove, on an average, once in every five years, or oftener; and some of them are actually hired, like household servants, from year to year! It would be folly to expect such a preacher to speak as one having authority; or that his office should be respected by the young dictators whom he is obliged to humour. It would be equal folly to believe that Christianity is fairly represented to the congregations who place their ministers in such a degrading position.

Another sort of despotism reigns over the pulpits of the Continent; and it is hard to say which is more detrimental to the Christian commonwealth. We have taken these examples from a distance to illustrate our remarks on the tendency of social institutions to assimilate Christianity to themselves. We could have selected cases in point nearer home, of anomalies quite as glaring and not less mischievous---in regard to which custom and familiarity have blunted the moral perceptions of the public. We are far from thinking that Britain is in a condition to cast the first stone at America. We, too, have our enormities and follies, over which the Churches cast their mantles of indulgence.

It is natural to ask-What is the main ligature by which the world thus draws the Church in its wake? Why was religion the bright reflection of patriotism with the Anglo-Saxons? Why was it also the blighting shadow of Norman ascendancy? What made Laud and Baxter, Owen and South, so different in their spirit as expounders of the one Gospel? Why is the ministry more or less democratic in all Voluntary Churches, and more or less Conservative in all Establishments? Why do we sometimes find the pulpit teaching a one-sided theology, and sometimes even a one-sided morality? Why do some Churches go on with the movement, and others cling desperately to the past, -the former breaking those idols of antiquity which the latter most devoutly worship?

Perhaps the best answer to these last questions, and the best solution of the difficulty, will be found in the sources from which the clergy derive their support. If this be so, then the vexed. question of Ecclesiastical Finances will be seen to have a more important bearing than is generally imagined on the purity and preservation of truth in the world. Free Churches of all denominations must beware lest their Voluntaryism should lead to

mammon-worshipping, as enslaving and corrupting as is to be met in any Establishment. No man who is at all acquainted with the British Churches can say that matters are as they ought to be in this respect. The commercial spirit tends to make the minister of religion a commodity. The feudal spirit which endows him with land tends equally to make him feel that he has rights without duties, and accustoms him to think more of his property than his preaching. He does "duty" when he must, merely as a formal service rendered for his freehold. Possibly the facts connected with Church property among the AngloSaxons may throw some light on existing controversies.

It is natural to presume that the Saxons in England, in founding parish churches, followed the example of the converted Franks in other countries. Their custom was, to assign a competent provision in land for the support of the Church and the clerks who were to serve in it. Their canons ordained that a manse should be connected with each, and that the incumbent should not be obliged to render any secular service. The revolutions of three centuries, the devastations of the sea kings, the successive conquest of the kingdom by two foreign nations, with almost incessant domestic turbulence, must, as Dr. Lingard remarks, have seriously affected the property of parochial churches as well as that of the monasteries and larger establishments.

"Yet we find in the authentic document of Domesday a considerable number of them still in possession of land, though in very different proportions, some holding to the amount of several hides, many a single hide, and others not more than a few acres. Of two or three only is it entered that they were churches without land."

But besides the produce of their lands, there were other sources of income enjoyed by the parish priests. Of these the most ancient were the voluntary offerings made by the people at the communion service. These were not given up after the clergy had received landed endowments.

"Those who could afford it," says our author, "continued to offer the bread and wine for the sacrifice at the chancel, and money, provisions, and any article that might be of service at the treasury of the church. This was a practice which harmonized with the previous notions of the Anglo-Saxons. They never presented a petition to a superior without its accompanying present. How, then, could they presume to pray to God for mercy without making to him an offering." -(Pp. 179, 180.)

It was not till the eighth century that tithes were established by civil and ecclesiastical authority in Gaul and the neighbouring provinces. In 730, Bede seems to allude to them when he says, "that there was not a village in the remotest parts of Northumbria which could escape the payment of tribute to the

bishop." In 745, Archbishop Boniface couples the tithes with the oblations, and calls them "the milk and wool which the flocks yield to the shepherd;" and about forty years later, the papal legates inform Pope Adrian, that they had laboured to promote their payment in the Council of Calcuith. Dr. Lingard adds—

"It would, perhaps, be rash to infer from such data that this imposition was already enforced throughout the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms; and it most vexatiously happens, that after the Council of Calcuith, every vestige of its existence disappears. Not a single notice of tithe is to be found in the history of the next hundred and twenty years, till after the death of Alfred, when it presents itself to us as a national institution long since recognised, sanctioned with pains and penalties, and evaded or resisted by many, when evasion or resistance could be attempted with the prospect of impunity."—i. 185.

What were the purposes for which this impost was originally designed? The doctrine of the Anglo-Saxon Church was substantially the same as that of the Churches on the Continent; and not a single national document relative to the subject has come down to us, in which the right of the poor to a considerable portion of the tithe is not distinctly recognised. In the compilation which goes under the name of Archbishop Egbert, we meet with the following canon: "Let the mass-priests themselves receive the tithe from the people, and keep a written list of the names of all who have given, and divide, in presence of men fearing God, the tithe according to the authority of the canons, and choose the first portion for the adornment of the Church; and let them distribute humbly and mercifully with their own hands the second portion for the benefit of poor and wayfaring men, and then may they retain the third portion for themselves." A canon passed in the reign of Edgar, says: "And right it is that one portion be set apart for the clergy, the second for the need of the Church, and the third for the need of the poor." In 1013, this distribution was confirmed by the legislature :

"And respecting tithe, the king and his Witan have chosen and decreed, as is right, that one-third part of the tithe go to the reparation of the Church, and a second part to the servants of God, (the ministers,) and the third to God's poor, and to needy ones in thraldom.”Thorpe, i. 342; ii. 98, 256, apud Lingard, i. 188, 189.

Tithes, then, are trust property, subject to the control of Parliament, and they should be taken with the conditions and incumbrances which attached to them from the beginning. They were evidently designed not only to aid in supporting the ministry of the whole people, but to keep all the parish churches in repair, and to maintain the poor of the nation. No ancient or divine right can be pleaded in favour of this property, which does not draw after it these unwelcome consequences.

In addition to ample endowments in land, altar-offerings, (which chimed in fortunately with national customs,) and tithes, the Anglo-Saxon clergy claimed the first fruits of the harvest, originally, like tithes, a voluntary offering, but, at length, commuted into a compulsory payment. This was called kirk-shot, and was the first of the church dues which obtained the sanction of the legislature. The clergy also got a legal claim to other "dues,” such as 66 plough-alms," to obtain a blessing on the labours of spring; "leot-shot," a certain quantity of wax given thrice a year to supply the altar with candles; and "soul-shot," a mortuary fee ordered to be paid for the dead while the grave was yet open.

Patronage was always rife in the Anglo-Saxon Church. The consecration of a church and all its resources to religion, did not sever its ownership from the founder. "It was still according to the national jurisprudence, his church." He disposed of it and its profit to the incumbent as a loan or benefice for life. He appointed to it whenever it became vacant, and negotiated for its sale as he would for that of any secular property. "The incumbent thus became the vassal of his lord; and the clerical establishment of which he was the head, was reduced to poverty, and the property itself became subject to litigation in the courts of law." Moreover, the ownership, according to the laws regulating the transfer of landed property, passed from him to other parties by sale, or gift, or bequest, or inheritance.

"Hence we find churches in the possession of individuals of every rank and profession; of clergymen who, though they sometimes are, frequently are not the incumbents; of lay-proprietors, both men and women; of associated bodies, as guilds, burghers, and religious communities. Frequently several churches belong to a single individual, fréquently a single church belongs to several. Copartners, who divide the profits among them, according to the number of shares held separately by each. On all occasions these churches are considered private property, in the same manner as the mills, and mines, and fisheries of their owners."-i. 194.

In vain did the bishops complain of this system in the assemblies of the Witan-in vain did they publish canons, threatening with Divine judgments "the enslavers of churches," and those who "made merchandize of God's houses," complaining bitterly, that "the churches far and wide were weakly protected, evilly enslaved, and cleanly bereft of their ancient rights, and stripped of in-door decencies." In every nation of northern origin, laylordship intruded itself into the sanctuary, and ruled there, in return for the privileges granted to the spiritual lords as peers of the realm.

These privileges were certainly very great. The bishop was,