De la tere, et de quel nature Il est, et de la paine dure Que chil ont qui laiens sunt mis.' "The writer then proceeds to describe its position. He says that it is a great gulf, filled with sulphurous fire, in comparison with which our earthly fire is but a mere shadow of the devouring element; there also are perillous rivers, hideous with fire and with ice, full of devils and filthy beasts, which molest greatly the souls that are thrown into them." "Là sunt li fleve perilleus, De fu et de glace hideus, Plain d'anemi et d'ordes bestes, Qui od ames font grans molestes.'" Among the different entrances to Fairy-land," one of the most remarkable was the Peak Cavern in Derbyshire. In the Christian legends of the middle ages the volcanoes of the old world-Etna, Vesuvius, Hecla, &c.-were considered either as entrances to hell and purgatory, or as separate places of punishment. But there were other, less conspicuous, ways, several of which were in Italy, and their fame had probably been handed down from the days of the Romans and Greeks. The old traveller, Sir John Maundevile, found an entrance to the infernal regions in the vale perilous,' in the kingdom of Prester John. Sum men clepen it the vale enchanted, some clepen it the vale of develes, and some clepen it the vale perilous. In that vale heren men often tyme grete tempestes and thonders, and grete murmures and noyses, alle dayes and nygthes, and gret noyse, as it were soun of taboures and of nakeres and trompes, as though it were of a gret feste. This vale is alle fulle of develes, and hathe ben alleweys; and men seyn there that it is on of the entrees of helle.' A similar object of popular superstition was, in Ireland, the cave in the island of Lough Derg, which has obtained so much celebrity as St. Patrick's Purgatory. "These visions of the other world having once become popular, they were soon turned to different purposes. They had been originally invented by the Popish clergy to strike in terror to the laity, and impress upon them certain doctrines which required something more than the mere force of preaching, such as the advantage of spending money on prayers and masses of the dead, the danger of robbing churches and monasteries, the necessity for paying tithes regularly, and the like, which were often neglected or despised in turbulent times. They were sometimes contrived to answer particular cases, of which we shall have instances in the course of our extracts: a new vision was published to put down some popular vice, or decry some extravagant fashion. Among the late Mr. Douce's manuscripts, now in the Bodleian Library, there is a 'relation of a countess, who, for her love of superfluous finery, was carried away to purgatory.' Mr. Wright then proceeds to treat of those more modern writers who founded allegories upon the older visions. But here we must quit him, recommending his book as both amusing and instructive. He has, however, neglected to show how far their moral fables had their origin in truth, and how far they were derived from fiction. Herein lay the religious interest, and this he has unfortunately missed. IV. MEDICINE. The Cyclopædia of Popular Medicine, intended for Domestic Use: with numerous Illustrations. This work comprises an account of the Causes, Symptoms, and Methods of curing Diseases, together with the Diseases of Women and Children, and those incident to warm climates; with a Plain Description of the Medicines in common use to which is added, A Complete Treatise on Diet, and Directions for the Treatment of Fractures of the Limbs. Illustrated by several Plates. By KEITH IMRAY, M.D., Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, and Licentiate of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. London: Simpkin. A book with a title like this almost precludes review-it bears its name and its quality inscribed on its front. A goodly tome it is, indeed, of nearly nine hundred pages, full of useful matter. At a certain age we are all qualified, if qualified for anything, to be our own doctors, in ordinary cases. To suit such qualification, the present work is admirably adapted. Regular medical advice, moreover, is not always at hand: such a book is then invaluable. The time, too, is past for doing important business by proxy. That sacred right of private judgement, which entitles every Christian to be his own divine and theologian, calls upon him to be his own physician. Nay, no man in these days can safely put arbitrary limits to his knowledge. He should take advantage of as much science as his leisure will permit him to study. He should arm himself at every possible point. To the clergy "The Cyclopædia of Popular Medicine" may be safely recommended. As we remarked in our last Number, the village parson is frequently called to perform the duties of physician. Here, then, is an entire library in one book for him. In cases where limbs are fractured, Dr. Imray has been careful to give specific instructions, illustrating the article with numerous drawings from the pencil of Mr. Maclise. The alphabetic arrangement obviously facilitates reference. Further, it is to be hoped, that, by means of books like this, knowledge may be so extended in all sciences, that quackery may be banished from each. Indeed, the existence of empiricism is only consistent with ignorance. The simple style in which the diseases are here described, and the directions given, fits the work for general use. No man should be without this Manual of Medicine. Want of space compels us to defer reviews, already in type, of-Rolfe's Church of England, Apostolical, not Patristical-Overton's Rome's True Character-Meller's Comparison of the Doctrines of Dr. Pusey and the Fathers-Smith's Village Discourses-Preston's Salvation by Christ-Chanting Simplified-Kelly's Sabbath Evenings-Barham's Hephestion, &c. IV. CORRESPONDENCE. [The Editor begs it to be understood that he does not hold himself responsible for the opinions stated in this part of the Magazine.] "THE ENGLISH CHURCHMAN." To the Editor of the Christian's Monthly Magazine and Universal Review. It will be matter of rejoicing to the true churchman, if your ably conducted journal, though late in the field, should counteract the poisonous error disseminated by "The British Critic." In your article on the spirit and tactics of the Tractarian periodicals, your animadversions on "The British Critic" are severe: but nothing can be too severe in condemnation of a reverend editor who has privately declared that he will abide by Tract 90, with its Jesuitical sophistry and Romish bias, till it has been authoritatively condemned by our Church. Permit me to call your attention to an absurd and offensive announcement recently made in a newspaper, that deserves to fall under your lash, and is the organ of the Tractarian party. The paper I allude to is "The English Churchman." The announcement respects an individual whose secession from our Church occasioned pain and surprise to every devout Anglican, and whose speedy return to our Protestant Communion should be hailed with joy and thankfulness. The individual is none other than the pious yet unstable Sibthorpe, of whom we read as follows in "The English Churchman:" 46 Although we must apologise to our readers for occupying so much of their time with what concerns so very eccentric and insignificant an individual, yet we cannot refrain from informing them, as a fact, that the Rev. Mr. Sibthorpe has never abandoned the Roman Communion, that he is still within its pale, and that he is now undergoing a course of penitential discipline under the superintendence of Dr. Wiseman, preparatory to readmission to its full privileges. True, he has several times received the Eucharist at the hands of priests of the Anglican Church; but it seems it was because he was temporarily, and by way of punishment for certain irregularities, shut out from the Sacraments in his own, not because he ever intended to profess obedience to his former spiritual mother." This paper professes to advocate sound High Church principles, and yet in this splenetic effusion lowers the dignity of our Church, and tarnishes the holiness of her Sacraments. The first impression on reading such an announcement, would be, that the writer was either an avowed or a disguised Papist, chagrined at Sibthorpe's distaste for the idolatrous services of his Church. The contemptuous sneer about the insignificance of a man whose praise was once in all the churches, and whose silvery eloquence has elicited the applause of the polite and learned, seems to rise not from the circumstance that he has renounced a sound Protestant Creed, but from the fact that he is on his road back to our Anglican Communion. The Church of England, too, is represented as lax, and the Church of Rome as strict in discipline. A person, according to this statement, unworthy to communicate at the Romish altars, is worthy to approach the Lord's Table in our Church. A person under the penitential discipline of Rome, debarred the full privileges of that Church, is readily admitted to a participation of the comparatively smaller privileges of the Church of England. A person, too, may be avowedly and really in communion with Rome, and yet outwardly and sacramentally in communion with us. Surely, the statement respecting Mr. Sibthorpe, couched in such un-Protestant language, carries on the very face of it a contradiction of its truth, and proclaims its origin in a breast hankering after the full privileges of corrupt and idolatrous Rome. Disclaiming all sympathy with the sentiments of "The English Churchman," and rejoicing in the recovery of a fallen brother, I remain, Sir, yours faithfully, A CLERICAL SUBSCRIBER. REFERENCES TO THE THEATRE. To the Editor of the Christian's Monthly Magazine and Universal Review. Having now completed the perusal of your first Number, I propose to myself the pleasure of sending you a few lines, by way of cheering you on in your important undertaking. I am truly happy to find that you will not deal in that French polish with which a sickly charity would often varnish over the ill-concealed rottenness of Popery. You stand on the firm ground of honesty, laying hold on truth for your sure support. The maintenance of affirmative Protestantism is a pleasing feature, among others, in your Magazine; and I trust that no angry contentions or low personalities, from which your present number is entirely clear, will ever defile your pages; but that "peace on earth, good will towards men," will be a joint motto of your practice with the suitable and significant text upon your title-page. A benevolent exposure of facts for the warning of others, is frequently taken for uncharitableness towards the persons who are necessarily involved in such exposure; but surely this is a mistake, if, indeed, it be not something worse. There is a wide interval, as it seems to me, between the two positions of holding on the one hand, that an intermixture of seeming good in a system radically and destructively bad, instead of qualifying, rather aggravates the evil, and, on the other hand, of attributing base motives to the agents of such system. The above remark applies to every modification of genuine popish error. The doctrine of pious frauds, as it is rife with every possible evil, so is it an inseparable characteristic of Rome even in all her provinces. Hence, we are fully justified in suspecting everywhere, under the influence of her principles, an under-current of purpose contrary to that which appears upon the surface; while yet we can often allow her agents credit for a mistaken and pernicious idea of right in what they do. Will you, in conclusion, permit me to venture a modest hope, that when you may at any time see it advisable to criticise the drama, as you have so ably done in regard to the very powerful poetry of Mr. Powell, you will take especial care not even to seem to connect it with the play! The former, abstractedly considered, may be kept quite distinct from the latter, and thus may be made to convey many useful impressions: but the Theatre should not receive even the remotest sanction from a Christian. It is a very Pandora's box. The word itself seems to open to the mind suggestions of all the moral plagues of society. Prostitution, debauchery, and dissipation of every kind revel there as in their proper home; not to speak of the bad passions which are fostered, and the maxims, anti-religious and anti-social, which are imbibed under the extraordinarily depraved state of the drama itself at the present day. I feel the more confidence in alluding to this subject here, from the excellent principles on which your periodical has commenced its career, and on which I see no reason to doubt it will proceed. You have to do with "those high motives which are the springs of a religious life;" and the "literature" of your pages is to be "carefully guarded from a profane, secular, and unworthy direction;" and is to "appeal to the spiritual rather than to the natural man-if to the latter, only for his redemption." You have started high game; let the following of this be at once your toil and your sport, and you can hardly fail of insuring the approbation, if not the active co-operation, of most good men. I would not, however, be understood to desire the absence from your pages of all that is pleasing to the taste: by no means. I would have you "please," but only "to instruct;" and the occasional light gleam of a poem or an essay upon some subject of a sanctified imagination will be a pleasant relief to the sombreness of the necessary articles on Tractarianism. I must not, however, burden you with more; but, with a sincere hope that the character of your Magazine, as a treasury of spiritual weapons, will be always upheld, and its sphere of holy influences enlarged considerably, I beg to subscribe myself, F. W., Jan. 10, 1844. Sir, yours, &c. F. O. S. REUNION WITH ROME. To the Editor of the Christian's Monthly Magazine and Universal Review. In proceeding with the subject of these letters, the plan I have drawn out is, first to show the positive contrariety beween the Doctrines of our Church, and those of Rome; and then to expose the sophistry and corrupt principles on which many Schismatics would introduce disunion, under the semblance of promoting Unity. It is not, however, the first time that Satan has appeared in the form of an Angel of Light. It is true that their principles would tend to promote unity, but it would be an Antichristian Unity, and not "the Unity of the Spirit." There are two all-controlling centres of unity, as well as two distinct families on earth, two ways that men tread, and two places of reception in the future state. These two all-controlling centres of unity are Christ and Antichrist. There is the Spirit of the Living GOD, who dwells in believers; and the spirit of the evil one, "which now worketh in the children of disobedience," or of unbelief. In the present letter, however, I must confine myself to showing the direct and positive opposition which exists between the creed of Rome, (determined by the Romanists themselves,) and the doctrines of our Church as set forth in her articles. In doing this, I would place the various points of Doctrine in juxtaposition, that the Antithesis may be so apparent as to need no comment. The Creed of Rome, in the words recognised by that Apostate Church; yet abridged and condensed, to suit the present subject. 1. The apostolical and ecclesiastical traditions and other usages of the Church of Rome, to be firmly received and embraced as of equal authority with the canonical books of the Old and New Testaments. 2. The Holy Scriptures are to be received according to that sense only, which the Church of Rome (to whom it belongs to judge of the true sense,) has held, and still holds. Nor is Scripture ever to be received and interpreted otherwise than according to the unanimous consent of the Fathers. 3. There are truly and properly seven Sacraments instituted by Jesus Christ, and necessary for the salvation of mankind, though not all for every one; that is, Baptism, Confirmation, the Eucharist, Penance, Extreme Unction, Orders, and Matrimony. All these Sacraments invariably confer grace. 4. It is necessary to receive and embrace "all and every the things" which have been defined and declared in the Council of Trent, concerning original sin and justification. 5. It must be confessed that in the Mass is offered to GoD a true, proper, and propitiatory sacrifice for the living and the dead; and that in the Sacrament of the Eucharist is truly, really, and substantially the Body and Blood, together with the Soul and Divinity, of Christ; and that a change is made of the whole substance of the Bread into the Body, and The Doctrines of the United Church of England and Ireland, as set forth in her Thirty-nine Articles. 1. Articles vi. and xxxiv. On “the Sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures;" and on "the traditions of the Church." 2. Articles xx. and xxi. On "the Authority of the Church;" and on the Authority of General Councils." Compared with Articles vi. and xxxiv. 3. Article xxv. On "the Sacraments." 4. Article ix. On "Original sin." Article xxi. On "the Authority of 5. Article xxviii. On "the Lord's Supper." Article xxxi. "Of the one oblation of Christ finished on the Cross." |