love of independence and devotion to Christian literature, and the Baptists only a recognition of the Old Testament in relation to the New-they could all enjoy these tendencies to their hearts' content without breaking the Unity of the Church. But Professor Allen is so extremely good-natured that he seems to think Dissent a Christian Institution—a position which we can by no means assign to it.

We must unwillingly pass over the sections on the Creed to come to those upon the Sacraments in the last book. Professor Allen has laid down his sense of the meaning of a Christian institution in the second sentence of his book. 'By the word institution is to be understood the outward form or embodiment which the spirit of Christianity assumes, corresponding to some inward mode of apprehending the Christian faith.' We cannot profess to understand how this definition can be brought under the conception of a revealed religion, in which surely the inward apprehension must attend upon a divinely given embodiment. Holding this notion, however, Professor Allen naturally shrinks, as we noticed at the beginning, from recognizing any revealed form of Church government. But when he came to treat of the Sacraments, which occupy his third book, we are really surprised that he did not discover the impossibility of applying the definition to them. For the catechism of the American Church, like our own, lays down that a sacrament is an outward visible sign of an inward spiritual grace, ordained by Christ Himself.' We shall not waste the reader's time by drawing out the contrast between this definition and Professor Allen's.

The duty of the scholar in this question exactly corresponds with that of the believer. In neither character should the theological scholar or the believer in the Sacraments as Christian institutions neglect a careful examination of the commands from which the observances issued; they are ever authoritative. In the forefront of his sacramental treatise, if it is to be satisfactory, he must place the question of the meaning and intention of the words and acts by which the Lord originated them. It is His Institution that gives them a title to be called Christian Institutions, and has secured for them that high place which the Professor concedes to them of being 'features or institutions of Christianity which more than any others reveal its meaning and purpose (p. 399). But we know not that we ever came across a treatise upon these Christian institutions which so completely as the present ignored the commands of the Lord Himself in which they are supposed by ordinary Christians of every

sort to have found their origin. Apparently Professor Allen cannot think so. 'Curious minds,' he thinks, 'may seek to antedate the origin of these venerable rites, carrying it back into pre-Christian ages.' 'But we must learn to outgrow the fallacy that the origin of an institution neutralizes its validity.' The principle of Evolution has taught us better. And if Jews or heathens can be shown to have anticipated such rites as these it only confirms their significance' (p. 400). Quite true, and a valuable argument against the impossible notion that the Sacraments grew by evolution out of pre-Christian times. But surely the institution of the Lord makes these observations wholly irrelevant. We should, indeed, be sorry to misrepresent Professor Allen, but it seems to us that he passes in the case of each sacrament into the Church use of it without even a mention of the Lord's command. 'The doctrine of baptism in the early Church is exalted and positive in its tone' (p. 401). 'In order to measure the extent and the depth of the transformation of the Eucharist it is necessary to dwell for a moment on the worship of the early Church in the first three centuries. The Lord's Supper was at first organically related to an institution known as the Agape or Love Feast' (p. 517). Strange that we Catholic Churchmen should have to call the attention of Protestants to what Chillingworth supposed to be their religion; and strange that we should have to remind a writer who is nothing if not scientific of his omission of so important a portion of his induction of facts as the Scripture record of the institution of the Sacraments.

But there is still another point in which Professor Allen's method of treatment turns from the distinctly Protestant method and adopts that which it has most vehemently opposed. His disregard of the Scripture record upon the Sacraments draws with it the consequence of regarding them in an entirely ontological light instead of as gifts personally delivered to individuals and making an appeal to them. We know indeed to what excesses the latter view has been carried by Protestantism; such excesses as condemn attendance at the Blessed Sacrament on the part of those who do not at the time communicate, and deny the Real Presence or any sacramental gift except what makes itself plain in actual results. Far be such thoughts from us. But still we must remember that Take, eat ' and 'Drink ye all of this' are parts of the sentences of Institution. It is, as Archbishop Whately might have said, a printer's fallacy to place, as the Roman Missal does, the This is My Body' in capitals and the 'Take,

eat' in common type. Whatever we do about worship we must recognize communion as the crown and end of the institution of Christ. Even the Council of Trent seems to do so (sess. xiii. caps. 2 and 5); but for many a century of the best times of Christian worship this was far better felt. For that reason the manner of the Presence never then presented itself as a difficult physical inquiry, like the inquiries into the composition of bodies which philosophers pursue. It was answered for the soul by the Lord Himself, and the words in which the primitive divines ventured to express it were ever of the most moderate and most spiritual kind.

All this period in the history Professor Allen omits. The doctrine of the Eucharist of which he first takes note, after the brief retrospect which we have quoted, is merely the first physical speculations on the physical nature of the elements that he can find-which, indeed, in the meaning of its first propounders, were not intended to be physical speculations at all. Tertullian may have shown a disposition to identify the symbol with the thing symbolized. St. Cyril of Jerusalem calls upon his hearers to regard the elements of bread and wine as the Body and Blood of Christ. St. Gregory of Nyssa speaks of the mysteries which cleanse both body and soul (pp. 481-2). But it is really impossible to determine satisfactorily what such expressions meant or to trace any progress of doctrine through them, if you determine to consider them without reference to the commands and revelations of the Lord, of which, as none can doubt, their authors were constantly thinking. Professor Allen is able to comprehend matter as having a natural physical effect or as being the symbol or illustration of a spiritual change. But he seems absolutely not to be able to understand the phraseology of the Catechism, by which the material thing is made the sign of the presence of the inward thing, and received as the token and pledge of that inward thing's reception. We suppose that the language of the Catechism seems to the Professor 'sacramental phraseology where it is impossible to say whether the writer means to be understood literally— whether there is an objective reality and efficacy in the sacred symbols, or whether they represent some process in the regenerated mind' (p. 483). And again, 'While the symbolism of material things might be suggestive and impressive yet it seems like a long step to reach the conclusion that the external application of water or oil could have any part in the inward purification of the spirit. But for this step the

Catholic Church was making preparation from an early moment in its history.' We do not believe that the Catholic Church ever prepared for or ever made any such step. Even Transubstantiation cannot be fairly described as teaching that there is an objective reality and efficacy in the sacred symbols, though it comes dangerously near to that assertion. But St. Gregory of Nyssa laid down the true Catholic doctrine when, in words which Professor Allen quotes without apparently taking in their meaning, he declares that it is not the outward element, but the command of God and visitation of the Spirit connected with it which gives the inward light (p. 481).

But we must proceed to the summary with which this interesting if not scientific work concludes (p. 564). 'It has been said that worship is one of the lost arts; but if so it is not to be found by compressing the spiritual wealth secured by the Protestant Reformation in the providence of God into the moulds of ages inferior to our own.' Undoubtedly. But ages which possessed the secret of worship cannot have been in that respect inferior to our own, if it be true that we have lost it. Bishop Jackson of London, however, said that the Church movement had restored the secret of worship. Many a congregation among us witnesses to the fact. And we cannot see that the Protestant world could do better than come in and join us while it is 'waiting for the manifestation of its full content in a consummate act of worship.' We hope we are engaged about something more serious and permanent than 'spasmodic attempts to escape the uncertainties of the hour by restoring ancient forms not without their charm for the passing moods of the soul.' Yet even this would be better than the condition of Protestantism waiting for

'a future yet to be revealed, as it has also resources of whose significance it is hardly yet aware. What remains to be done is to gather up in one inclusive act of sacrifice all that these modern ages have contributed to the knowledge of God, to consecrate and transfigure in His sight all that the heart and the reason hold as inestimably dear and precious. From this sacrifice cannot be withheld any contribution made by the human mind toward the solution of the mystery of existence. The sacrifice will include every department of human interest and inquiry-music, art, and poetry, as well as science, philosophy, and theology. It will include the life of the whole Church in every age. It will be a Christian sacrifice, for Christ Himself will be the supreme offering of humanity to GodHe in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, in whom dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily' (p. 564).

This is indeed a glorious ideal, and we hail the man who conceived it as a brother in the Church of Christ. Only we wish that instead of finding excuse for everything that has ever happened in the Protestant world, he had proclaimed to all that everything he dreams of could be accomplished in the Christian Institution of the Eucharist if only all would come in to that great Christian Institution, the Church of God, and celebrate one grand Communion, offering self, soul and body, with all the best that each has done, or can do, in Christ the Supreme Sacrifice, to God.

ART. VII.-THE LETTERS OF ELIZABETH
BARRETT BROWNING.

The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Edited with Biographical Additions by FREDERIC G. KENYON. With Portraits. In Two Volumes. (London, 1897.)

SINCE the death of Mrs. Barrett Browning in July 1861, considerably more than a generation has passed away. It is well, therefore, that the picture of what she was in her lifetime should be drawn for the benefit of those who neither knew her personally nor can remember the first publication of her works. This want has been satisfactorily supplied by Mr. F. G. Kenyon in the present issue of two volumes of her Letters, to which he has added all that was needed in connecting links of narrative, together with dates and editorial foot-notes, short and to the point. This series, on the whole, surpasses in interest any similar collection of late years. The Letters of James Russell Lowell gave a good insight into the mind of that lively and clear-headed writer; while more recently we have had set before us, in the Correspondence of Lord Blachford, edited by his nephew Mr. George Marindin, a very powerful and keen-sighted intellect, but its range was somewhat limited by official restrictions, and the interest of the volume was mainly political. Matthew Arnold's Letters again were a little disappointing. They threw less light than might have been expected on the workings of his genius, though they gave a charming revelation of his home life, and of serenity and kindliness unbroken by incessant and irksome calls of daily routine.

In the Letters of Mrs. Barrett Browning there is still less