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so justly and so strongly condemns. "Next morning, the 27th, we started again at an early hour, as soon as the reisses had got through their prayers. With one of them this was a very long and a very serious concern. He generally spent an hour in this exercise every morning, and as much in the evening, besides being very punctual in the performance of this duty at the intervening periods of stated prayer. Certainly he did not pray in secret, communing with his heart, but called aloud, with all his might, and repeated the words as fast as his tongue could give them utterance. The form and words of his prayer were the same with those of the others; but this good man had made a vow to repeat certain words of the prayer a given number of times, both night and morning. The word Rabboni, for example, answering to our word Lord, he would bind himself to repeat a hundred or two hundred times, twice a day; and accordingly went on, in the hear ing of all the party, and on his knees, sometimes with his face directed steadily to heaven, at other times bowing down to the ground, and calling out Rabboni, Rabboni, Rabboni, Rabboni, &c. as fast as he could articulate the words after each other, like a school-boy going through his task; not like a man who, praying with the heart and the understanding also, continues longer on his knees, in the rapture of devotion; whose soul is a flame of fire, enkindled by his Maker, and elevated towards his God; andwho,like Jacob, will not let him go until he bless him. Having settled his account with the word Rabboni, which the telling of his beads enabled him to know when he had done, he proceeded to dispose of his other vows in a similar manner. Allah houakbar, “God most Great," perhaps came next; and he would go on as with the other, Allah houakbar, Allah houakbar, Allah houakbar, &c. repeating the words as fast as he could frame his

organs to pronounce them. When he bad done with this, he took up the chorus of another word, Allah careem, "God assisting;" Allah hedaim, "Eternal God;" Al ham de lelai, "Glory to God;" or some other word or phrase, or attribute of Jehovah, and repeated it over as many times as he had vowed to do. The usual number for repeating certain words is thirty-three times each: and the Mussulman's beads are strung accordingly three times thirty-three, with a large dividing bead between each division. The usual phrases so repeated, are those just mentioned. To hear this man repeat his prayers, his variety of unconnected tones running through all the notes of the gamut, produced quite a ludicrous effect; you would say this man was caricaturing, or making a farce of devotion; but to look at him, while engaged in the performance, nothing could be more serious or devout, or more abstracted from the world, than his appearance. All his countrymen thought well of his devotions, and never manifested the slightest disposition to smile at, or to twit him for, his oddities: on the contrary, they said, that he was a rich man, and would be a great sheikb. So great is their respect for prayer, that raillery on that topic would not be tolerated among Mussulmans. While on the subject of prayer, it may be worth while to add the following particulars. In their addresses to the Almighty, they are not permitted to use any terms expressive of any part of the human body, or even of external objects, considering it offensive to God, and a species of idolatry to do so. They have five stated periods of prayer daily; souba, or morning dawn, when they say two prayers; dochr, or noon, when they say four prayers; el assr, or about three o'clock, when they also say four prayers; magreep, or at twilight, when they say three prayers; el ushe, or about half past eight o'clock, when they say four

prayers. In performing their ablutions before prayer, they begin with the hands, which they wash three times; then the mouth three times, throwing out the water: having cleansed the nose, they wash it three times; the face and eyes three times; then they draw a line from the eyebrows to the ears, which they cleanse and wash; then pass their wet hands behind their neck, and over the head; then they wash their arms three times; last of all, their feet, and various other parts of the body. They are then purified as their religion enjoins, to address their Maker." Richardson's Travels, vol. I. p. 463,

To the Editor of the Christian Observer. I CANNOT forbear calling your attention to what appears to me an extraordinary passage in the British Critic for last October. It occurs in the review of Professor Le Bas's Sermons. But I must first place before your readers the paragraph of the sermons-a very just and beautiful one, in myopinion-which forms the subject of the critic's remarks.

"It is a further source of unspeakable joy," says Mr. Le Bas, that our Lord's assumption of humanity was not temporary and transient; that he still retains his union with that very nature which suffered so much for his (our) redemption, and with it a personal and experimental knowledge of all the perils and conflicts which beset the path of our pilgrimage. Our souls may now be fixed on the truth, that we are not only at the disposal of an omnipotent Creator, but under the protection of one who calls himself our Brother, with a combination of all the feelings and sympathies which belong to that relation. Had the union of the two natures in our great High Priest been limited to the duration of his appearance here; had he, on his ascension to heaven, laid aside his earthly tabernacle, and

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left it to moulder in the dust; the scheme of redemption, however abounding in mercy, would scarcely have addressed itself so forcibly as it now does, to our affections and our hopes. For we should then have wanted that confidence which we now possess, springing from the blessed assurance that he who was a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief,' hath entered within the veil,' bearing with him a tender sense of our wretchedness and infirmity. Had the termination of Christ's ministry on earth been instantly followed by his disunion from humanity, we might have been cast back into a state resembling that condition of fear, that spirit of bondage' and distrust, which is the reproach and the curse of what, by some, is called the religion of nature. The satisfaction for sin would still indeed have been offered; but then we should have been without a mediator to plead it. Our afflictions must still have been made immediately to God, in all the unmitigated blaze of his perfection and power."

"In this passage," says the reviewer, << a position is advanced, which, we confess, startled us a little, and for which we are not aware of any sufficient authority.... The hypostatic union, during our Saviour's abode upon earth, though perhaps indispensable for the purposes of his mission, is a subject which it almost oppresses our faculties to contemplate. But to suppose its continuance in any degree, in the celestial mansions, seems an immeasurable increase of difficulty, and wholly uncalled for by any necessity. The Son may surely be conceived to sympathize with us, though he should no longer retain any portion of our infirmities: since the Scriptures uniformly ascribe, even to the Father, feelings of kindness and commiseration for us, who has never experienced our sufferings and sorrows."

If I speak of this critique with

some degree of displeasure, my animosity is certainly not directed against an individual writer who is wholly unknown to me, but is excited by such a display of incompetence, and that within their own especial department, made by persons assuming to guide not only the public taste, but the public judgment upon the gravest and most important questions; and by seeing some of the most blessed and essential truths of our religion thus lightly impugned by those who profess to be their defenders.

I might in the first place ask, Does not every pious and well-instructed Christian feel himself, in the passage quoted from the sermons, not "startled" by some empirical novelty, but addressed in language to which his heart responds, and which is in unison with all the sound instruction he has ever received in the church of Christ? I may in the next place inquire, with reference to "authority" for the sentiment, of which the reviewer avows himself "not aware" that any of sufficient weight exists, was the notion ever heard of within the universal church, at least within the orthodox part of it, that "the hypostatic union" of the divine and human nature in the person of Christ continued only "during his abode upon earth?" It would seem to be superfluous to ask, whether the writer of this critique ever read the learned disquisition of Hooker upon the incarnation of the Son of God, in the fifty-first and following section of his Fifth Book; where that incomparable divine repeatedly delivers

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the catholic doctrine, that "these natures from the moment of their first combination have been and are for ever inseparable;" or whether he had studied what Bishop Pearson (on the Creed) has written upon the subject. But it might have been expected that a critic, zealous for orthodoxy and for the Church of England, should not have ost sight of the sentences of the

Athanasian Creed, that " as the reasonable soul and flesh is one mau, so God and man is (not was) one Christ;" that "the right faith is, that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and Man...... Who although he be God and Man, yet he is not two, but one Christ;" or at least, that such a writer would not have utterly forgotten our Second Article-"That twowhole and perfect natures, that is to say, the Godhead and Manhood, were joined together in one person, NEVER TO BE DIVIDED; whereof is one Christ, very God and very Man."

With regard to the "necessity" for this union, when the critic speaks doubtfully of it even for the period of our Lord's abode upon earth, ("perhaps," he says, "indispensable for the purposes of his mission ;") we need the less wonder to find him regard the supposition "of its continuance in any degree in the heavenly mansions," as "an immeasurable increase of difficulty, wholly uncalled for by any neces sity." But if the union of the divine and human natures in the person of Christ was long since dissolved, what shall we say of our prayers now offered to Christ? what of the mediatorial kingdom now administered by Christ, in which he is "Head over all things to his church?" what of the commission of "all judgment to the Son,” “because he is the Son of Man?" But these questions are superseded by the broad and sweeping consequence, that, upon the supposition which has been so rashly hazarded, and against which I contend, CHRIST (the Anointed, the Messiah) has in fact ceased to exist from the period when he quitted this lower world! For what does that sacred name designate? Not the divine nature only of the Son of God, nor only that human nature which he assumed, but those two natures united in the one person of our ever-adorable Redeemer.

As to his "no longer retaining any portion of our infirmities," not

a word needs be said about it. The saints in heaven, neither now, nor when their " spirits," already "made perfect," shall have received the accession of their "glorified bodies," shall retain any portion of their infirmities; but they may very possibly retain such a remembrance of them, as shall for ever add tenderness and fervency to all those sentiments and feelings which constitute their blessedness and perfection. And in somewhat of the same manner may our blessed Saviour's sympathies with us, and our delightful and blessed confidence in him, be heightened by his participation with us of one common nature. Scriptural represen tations lead to such a conclusion ; and we may rely on them as the most useful and most just. No doubt "the Father himself hath loved us," and has "feelings of kindness and commiseration for us;" but never was it, never can it be, said of Him, as of our glorified Saviour, "We have not a High Priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin;" and again, “In that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted *.

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J. S-, HI.

We have received various other complaints from time to time of heterodox statements, and rash, incorrect, or uncharitable assertions in the British Critic; some of which we might possibly have noticed had we had any good reason to hope the exposure would have produced amendment. But what can the public expect from professed Christian critics, and vehement champions for orthodoxy and morality, who can deliberately write and print as follows.

"We have often fell during the heyday of electioneering licentiousness, the sentiment of an old gentleman whom Lady Hervey mentions; but we have never yet been able to express it so forcibly. He was passing through the streets of Westminster during the contest between Lord Trentham aud Sir George Vandeput; and when his coach was beset on both sides by the opposite mobs, bawlCHRIST. OBSERV. No. 252.

To the Editor of the Christian Observer. THE inconveniences of repeating the appointed form of words in the administration of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper separately to each individual of those crowded assemblies which now happily in many churches present themselves dwelt upon; and in consequence, at the altar, have been frequently· in many instances, the practice of the clergy in such cases is to administer to two or three persons in conjunction, the minister continually repeating the address during the whole time. If, however, from the necessity of the case, any innovation be allowable, is it not for is done in a few churches, to repeat many reasons the best method, as the words once only for a whole row of communicants, and then to administer silently and deliberately to each individual, who may consider them as addressed personally to himself. The abridged method of administering the rite of Confirmation has been often, and I think justly, appealed to as a warrant and an example in the case in question. Persons are not perhaps generally

aware that the one innovation is quite as modern as the other; both having been introduced in conse

ing out for the opposite candidates, he put his head out of the window and shouted, G―d d―n them both! One other bon mot must suffice to this department." (British Critic, 1822, p. 49.)

The bad taste of this "bon met," which the reviewer seems jealous that he "bas never been able to equal," or "to express so forcibly," is, in our view, scarcely less clear thau the flippant impiety of the exclamation. And, by the way, might it not be worth the while of another cotemporary work, the "Christian Remembrancer," whose delinquencies several correspondents have called upon us more frequently to notice, to animadvert occasionally upon the censurable points of such works as the " British Critic," instead of wasting all its superfluous ammunition on the Christian Ob. server? Are the times so destitute of occasions for justly merited censure, 5 G

quence of those changes of circumstances in society, which have rendered the practice of our forefathers-much as it is to be preferred in all practicable cases for its solemnity and its regularity-in some instances extremely inconvenient. The following passage on this subject from the auto-biographical memoir of Dr. Thomas Newton, Bishop of Bristol, who was certainly no friend to " innovations," is interesting not only as conveying an historical fact, but for his reflections upon it, which are quite as applicable to the administration of the Lord's Supper in crowded churches as to the rite of Confirmation.

"There is a method of Confirmatiou," remarks the bishop," which was first introduced by Archbishop Gilbert. He first proposed it to the clergy of Nottingham, at his primary visitation; and upon their unanimous approbation, he put it in practice. This was, instead of

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that the Christian Remembrancer is obliged, in default of convincing arguments and urbane and scholarlike wea. pons, to descend to range the Christian Observer side by side with "Sherwin" and" Cobbett ;" and "the invectives of the Times and Chronicle," with three notes of admiration ("!!!") to make the resemblance more striking and all this merely, because in our notice of the debate in the honse of lords on the Peterborough Questions last June, which fell in the regular course of our View of Public Affairs, we stated, without aggravation, the simple facts of the case-namely, that several members of the house had expressed a strong opinion against his lordship's proceeding; that his lordship was constrained to become his own advocate; that not one of the bishops saw fit to support him, &c. Would the Christian Remembrancer have wished us to have reported, in spite of the facts of the case, the opposite of all this as the truth; that no disapprobation was ex

going round the rail of the communion table, and laying his hands upon the heads of two or four persons held close together, and in a low tone of voice repeating the form of prayer over them, he went round the whole rail at once, laid his hand upon the head of every person severally, and when he had gone through the whole, then he drew back to the communion table, and in as audible and solemn manner as he could, pronounced the prayer over them all. This had a wonderful effect. The clergy and the people were struck with the decency as well as the novelty of the ceremony. The Confirmations were performed in less time, and with less trouble, with more silence and solemnity, and with more regularity and order. It commanded attention, it raised devotion, insomuch that several bishops since have a dopted the same method."

A FRIEND TO CONFORMITY.

pressed; that his lordship was not his own sole defender; that several bishops spoke warmly in his favour, &c. And if not, what become of Sherwin and Cobbett, and the "invectives of the Times and Chronicle?" If any "invec tives" were uttered, it was in the house of lords, and not in our report of the proceedings, in which we wholly passed over many passages in the debate which might justly have given some uneasiness to the supporters of his lordship's mea

sures.

We did not intend to notice this offence of the Christian Remembrancer, had not the point incidentally obtruded itself; and our chief reason for doing it now, is as an apology to our readers and correspondents, who, we think, will not consider it binding on us very frequently to notice writers who, in default of argument, can thus descend to comparisons which we thought were wholly banished even from the "invectives" of polemics among gentlemen and Christians.

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