be wished that some pious and zealous senator would propose the repeal of this obnoxious enactment; and, if necessary, the clergy and the friends of religious institutions ought to petition against it. There is nothing to prevent an information being laid against the much respected prelate who so ably presides over our metropolitan see, or any of his Right Reverend brethren, for holding a prayer-meeting, or in the language of the law, an unlawful conventicle every month, at the Board in Lincoln's-Inn Fields. Surely a law like this needs only to be known to shew the necessity of repealing it. We censure the persecutions, in Switzerland, for praying or singing psalms, where any persons besides the inmates of the family are present; but as regards the principle, in what respects is this worse than our own law?

I HAVE perused with much care, and with increasing interest, the valuable papers of your able correspondent on Superstition; and even had I before doubted the powerful influence of the material part of our mixed nature in modifying the manifestations, as your correspondent justly phrases it, of the higher and more exalted part, the mind, I could not have studied his arguments without feeling that great weight attaches to them. Still I am apprehensive that he carries his system too far and I would in all candour submit to him that he has not clearly drawn the line between reality and illusion; between what is supernatural or spiritual, and what is only ordinary or physical; between a true and a false miracle, between the revelation of God and the reveries of man. I should trust that he will see the necessity of doing this, in order to prevent the recoil of his argument, or at least the abuse of it in the hands of an infidel or sceptic, who may allege, as Hume and others have done, that the supernatural voices and appearances mentioned in holy writ, if not the "cunningly devised fables" of designing men, were at least the illusions of weak men; for that, Hume contends, "human testimony" (on which your correspondent also seems to set light in such matters) cannot prove a miracle.

as

I trust that the excellent writer, whose object is to vindicate, not to

disparage, our holy faith, will not construe the above inquiry into a reflection; but it appears due to the cause which he advocates, that he should state more explicitly his view on this particular subject; and he must allow me to add, that his arguments in proof of the reality of the supernatural phenomena of revelation will come with the more weight from a writer who has shewn himself so well able to detect the pretensions of delusive imagination. In the controversy on physiology occasioned by Mr. Rennell's pamphlet in reply to Mr. Lawrence, the oppugners of revelation dwelt much upon the effect of material organization, while its defenders seemed inclined to deny or extenuate it. There was no ground common to the litigants, on which to argue the question. Your able correspondent furnishes such ground; he is a zealous physiologist, and admits the powerful effects of organization; he is also a sincere and well informed Christian, and humbly bows before the claims of Divine revelation. I could wish that the links between the scientific world and the religious world were more multiplied; that the unnatural hostility in which they are too often placed were terminated; that our men of science might every where learn to acknowledge the truth and infinite importance of religion; and religious men hold out their arms to true science, assured that the word and the works of God cannot contradict each other, but, when rightly studied, will cast new radiance on their mutual disclosures.

E. B.

ON A PASSAGE IN HOOKER'S PÓLITY.

Tothe Editorofthe Christian Observer.

A QUESTION is proposed, in your last Number, concerning the meaning of a passage in Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity. If nothing better should

offer itself, perhaps your correspondent will accept of a conjecture.

In the Appendix to Walton's Life of Hooker, we are told, that although he lived to finish the last three books of the Ecclesiastical Polity, only an imperfect copy of them could be found after his death; which imperfect copy or "first rough draught was delivered by Archbishop Whitgift to Dr. Spencer, the friend and fellow-student of Hooker, to be by him "made as perfect as might be ;" and that the three books in question thus "made up or finished," were given by Dr. Spencer to his wife in his last sickness, with an injunction to deliver them either to the Archbishop of Canterbury or the Bishop of London; an injunction which she faithfully performed. Hence it would appear that these books, as they stand at present, consist of Hooker's first rough draught, modified by the corrections and additions of Dr. Spencer.

Now, supposing this to be the case, I conjecture, that in the rough draught, Hooker's answer to St. Jerome was briefly and summarily stated in the passage immediately preceding that quoted by Y. M., a fuller explication of the argument having been reserved for that perfect copy of the work of which posterity has been deprived. I conjecture further, that the passage commencing with Y. M.'s quotation, and comprising the rest of the dissertation on the testimony of Jerome, belongs to Dr. Spencer, and was intended by him for a note or comment upon Hooker's argument, with which he was not satisfied, and in the room of which he proposes one of his own; and that this note or comment, for want of being distinguished by brackets or some other typographical mark, has become incorporated with the text, and rendered the passage not only incoherent but almost unintelligible.

In order to discover the meaning of the words themselves, it will be necessary to consider Hooker's argument. He is endeavouring to

explain away a saying of Jerome's, from which it might be inferred that Jerome "judged episcopal regiment to have been the church's invention long after, and not the Apostles' own institution." Jerome's words are here quoted. "To clear the sense of these words therefore, as we have done already the former; laws which the church from the beginning universally hath observed, were some delivered by Christ himself, with a charge to keep them to the world's end, as the law of baptizing and of administering the holy eucharist, some brought in afterwards by the Apostles, YET NOT WITHOUT THE

SPECIAL DIRECTION OF THE HOLY GHOST, as occasions did arise. Of this sort are those Apostolical orders and laws, whereby deacons, widows, virgins were first appointed in the church." Then follows the passage cited by Y. M., which I consider as a comment by Dr. Spencer: "This answer to St. Jerome seemeth dangerous: I have qualified it as I may by addition of some words of restraint yet I satisfy not myself; in my judgment it would be altered." Then comes a fresh statement of the objection, and an answer to it, different from the one just given. .

Hooker's answer to St. Jerome does seem dangerous: for it seems to make an unwarranted distinction between the authority of our Saviour's institutions and those of the inspired Apostles. But, unless I am mistaken, it was still more dangerous as it stood originally in the "first rough draught." "I have qualified it as I may, by the addition of some words of restraint: yet I satisfy not myself." Now, the only "words of restraint." which occur are those above printed in capitals, and which form so awkward a parenthesis as, in my opinion, to bear the strongest appearance of an interpolation. But if this qualifying clause were absent, Hooker's distinction between the laws of Christ and those of his Apostles would almost, if not quite, imply a denial of the inspiration of the latter, as

far as concerned their directions for the government of the church; a perilous mode of arguing certainly, and one which, even guarded as we now find it, is by no means unobjectionable. H. W.

ON A PASSAGE IN HOOKER's

POLITY.

Tothe Editorofthe Christian Observer.

THE inquiry of Y. M. in your September Number, page 557, on a passage in the seventh book of Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, is one of considerable interest. The only solution of it, which has met my attention, is to be found in a note in the first vol. of M'Crie's Life of Andrew Melville, page 461. Feeling sincere respect for the author of that work, and indebted as the Christian world is to him for his successful labours in redeeming the memory of many of the most excellent of the earth from scorn or oblivion, I cannot but lament that the note to which I allude is written in a spirit unworthy of his pen. I shall therefore confine myself simply to the suggestion which he gives, as to the manner in which this passage of Hooker found its way into the place where it now stands. His opinion is as follows:

"It is known that the three last books (including the seventh) of the Polity were not published during the life-time of the author. In looking over his manuscript, what he had written on this part of the subject appeared to Hooker dangerous: he retouched it, and qualified his expressions, but still his answer satisfied not himself; it required yet to be altered: and to keep this in mind, he made a jotting of it in the margin. The manuscript coming into the hands of Dr. Gauden, bishop of Exeter, he introduced the marginal note into the text, and published both together."

I will only add, that, supposing

the conjecture of Dr. M'Crie to be just, it is hardly possible that any higher tribute can be paid to Hooker's judgment and honesty than that which is here implied. With how great confidence may we rely on the statements of one who so anxiously and conscientiously pondered every expression and argument of his elaborate work? Whatever blame, therefore, may attach to Gauden for his negligent editorship, the admirers of Hooker will not only pardon, but thank him for his carelessness in this instance, as affording a powerful, because undesigned, testimony to the great caution with which the Ecclesiastical Polity is executed.

J. H. R.

RELINQUISHED MISSIONS: THE GAURES IN PERSIA.

(Continued from p. 610.) For the Christian Observer.

THE good missionary Hokker cantinues his narrative as follows. A very interesting feature in it is the exemplary patience and endurance with which the missionaries supported their privations, ever finding matter for rejoicing in the slightest alleviation; and often expressing gratitude where most travellers would have given vent only to a very natural irritation, which the meek spirit of these Christian sufferers had learned, by Divine grace, to overcome.

"August 24th 1747, our caravan, which consisted of about 1500 camels, having already proceeded a day's journey from Aleppo into the desert, and there encamped by a well; no one being left behind but our sheik, or camel-driver; we this morning mounted our camels, having commended ourselves in prayer to God our Saviour, and came up with the caravan about sun-set. I had recommendations from some English gentlemen to the English consul, Mr. Grindon, at Bassora; for, since we heard so many frightful accounts from Persia, how Schach Nadir had

plundered Ispahan and Kerman, and behaved so inhumanly in the latter place, that he erected threepyramids of men's heads, and that all the country was in a state of rebellion, I for my part was rather inclined to go to Bassora, and there to wait and see what turn affairs would take in Persia. But brother Rueffer was more courageous, and proposed to go to Bagdad, to which I consented; yet with the proviso, that if we found no safe opportunity to go from Bagdad to Persia, we should go along the Tigris to Bassora, and stay there for some time.— August 25th, all the chief people in the caravan were assembled by the Mirza, to consult about our future journey; and our Jew, who had made the bargain for us, as related in my former letter, returned to Aleppo, having recommended us to his servant Abraham Conu, an Asiatic Jew, who went to Bagdad. -August 26th, very early, we proceeded. We found travelling on camels very commodious, and journeyed till noon, over a country full of salt springs, when we baited for one hour and made some coffee, which was our common dinner all through the desert. We then pursued our journey till sun-set, and rested till a little after midnight, or before sun-rise, when we were called up to proceed. Thus we travelled from day to day. Our supper was hard-boiled rice with melted butter, an unsavoury dish; but hunger being the best cook, we thought it delicious. It is the common food of the gentle folks in Persia. Our drink was muddy and putrid water, which we were obliged to strain through a cloth, before we could use it.

"September 6th, we reached Cowis,' a place inhabited by Arabs, and the residence of a Turkish officer. Palmtrees grow here in abundance. Here the caravans going to Bassora and Bagdad generally separate: but we were disappointed in our scheme, for the whole caravan proceeded from hence to Bassora; and we had no other means left of getting to'

Bagdad, but by joining four Jews who were going along the Euphrates to a place within a day's journey of Bagdad, and mean while lodging with them at Cowis. The Arabs, though in general a thievish, loose sort of people, are here much more humane and affable than the Turks, and behave with faithfulness and honesty to all who trust themselves to them. They live very hard, and are thankful for any fragments of food you give them. They are all Mohammedans, and are very punctual in repeating their prayers three times a day. The dialect here varies so much from that spoken at Aleppo, that the Bassora people can hardly understand the Arabic of Aleppo. The Arabs here hate the Turks most cordially, on account of their impositions and oppressive conduct; the latter are also aware, that if the Arab chiefs were harmonious, they might easily shake off their yoke, and therefore strive by all means to foment discord amongst them. We would gladly have rested some time at Cowis, for we were greatly fatigued on our arrival there, but found it impossible; for at that time the Ramaden, or Lent, of the Mohammedans had begun, when they neither eat, drink, nor smoke tobacco in the day-time, but after sun-set they revel so much the more, and we were consequently prevented from getting much sleep.

"September 9th, we set out early in the morning, mounted upon asses, to find a place upon the Euphrates, three hours' journey from Cowis, where one may embark either for Bassora or Bagdad. We took a convoy, on account of a set of robbers in the wilderness, called Ofgoons (Afghans), who rove about this place, and arrived safe in the forenoon. It is a poor place on a hill, inhabited by Arabs and Jews, but the remains of two stately bridges over the Euphrates shew that, in former times, it must have been of great importance. Travellers are here greatly imposed upon by the Turkish officers; for they

farm the place from the bashaw of Bagdad, who of course winks at their irregularities. Having hired a boat, we set out with the above-mentioned four Jews. -- September 10th, we were exceedingly oppressed by the heat, and saw men and beasts standing up to the neck in the water to cool themselves. The shores of this river, as far as we have seen them, are very high, overgrown with bushes, and the land fruitful.--September 11th, we arrived at noon at Maktab, where there is a bridge of boats for the use of the caravan, and from whence we had a day's or night's journey by land to Bagdad. We met here a caravan going to Damascus, and a Portuguese gentleman, who shewed us much civility.

Not being able to procure either horses or asses, we rode upon cows, which brought us safe to our station near Bagdad in the evening. "September 12th, we arrived early in a suburb of Bagdad, which lies on this side of the Tigris, and is joined to the town by a bridge of boats. The Jews went into the city, promising soon to return and conduct us to a lodging; but as they staid a great while out, we were under no small concern whither to go, having no letters of recommendation to Bagdad. But God so ordered it, that an English merchant, lately arrived, perceived our situation, and sent a servant who spoke English and French, to conduct us into the house of the Carmelites, which is the common inn of all Franks. They have a pretty house and chapel, in the possession of a bishop and three fathers, who received us very civilly. We also soon made other friends, and thanked the Lord for all his mercy and goodness, which we have thus far experienced. Having heard here that Schach Nadir's throne was again filled, and that a caravan of upwards of 2000 Persians was going to Shermanchan, we resolved to go with them; and the fathers procured the necessary articles for our journey, and an Armenian ser