the great masters of the Muse's teaching, and the pleasant fingerer of his pastoral flute among the reeds of Rydal.

Wordsworth is simply a Westmoreland peasant, with considerably less shrewdness than most border Englishmen or Scotsmen inherit; and no sense of humour: but gifted (in this singularly) with vivid sense of natural beauty, and a pretty turn for reflections, not always acute, but, as far as they reach, medicinal to the fever of the restless and corrupted life around him. Water to parched lips may be better than Samian wine, but do not let us therefore confuse the qualities of wine and water. I much doubt there being many inglorious Miltons in our country churchyards; but I am very sure there are many Wordsworths resting there, who were inferior to the renowned one only in caring less to hear themselves talk.

With an honest and kindly heart, a stimulating egoism, a wholesome contentment in modest circumstances, and such sufficient ease, in that accepted state, as permitted the passing of a good deal of time in wishing that daisies could see the beauty of their own shadows, and other such profitable mental exercises, Wordsworth has left us a series of studies of the graceful and happy shepherd life of our lake country, which to me personally, for one, are entirely sweet and precious; but they are only so as the mirror of an existent reality in many ways more beautiful than its picture.

But the other day I went for an afternoon's rest into the cottage of one of our country people of old statesman class; cottage lying nearly midway between two village churches, but more conveniently for downhill walk towards one than the other. I found, as the good housewife made tea for me, that nevertheless she went up the hill to church. Why do not you go to the nearer church?' I asked. Don't you like the clergyman?' 'Oh no, sir,' she answered, 'it isn't that; but you know I couldn't leave my mother.' 'Your mother! she is buried at H- then?' 'Yes, sir; and you know I couldn't go to

church anywhere else.'

That feelings such as these existed among the peasants, not of Cumberland only, but of all the tender earth that gives forth her fruit for the living, and receives her dead to peace, might perhaps have been, to our great and endless comfort, discovered before now, if Wordsworth had been content to tell us what he knew of his own villages and people, not as the leader of a new and only correct school of poetry, but simply as a country gentleman of sense and feeling, fond of primroses, kind to the parish children, and reverent of the spade with which Wilkinson had tilled his lands: and I am by no means sure that his influence on the stronger minds of his time was anywise hastened or extended by the spirit of tunefulness under whose guidance he discovered that heaven rhymed to seven, and Foy to boy.

Tuneful nevertheless at heart, and of the heavenly choir, I gladly

and frankly acknowledge him; and our English literature enriched with a new and a singular virtue in the aerial purity and healthful rightness of his quiet song;-but aerial only,-not ethereal; and lowly in its privacy of light.

A measured mind, and calm; innocent, unrepentant; helpful to sinless creatures and scatheless, such of the flock as do not stray. Hopeful at least, if not faithful; content with intimations of immortality such as may be in skipping of lambs, and laughter of children, -incurious to see in the hands the print of the Nails.

A gracious and constant mind; as the herbage of its native hills, fragrant and pure;-yet, to the sweep and the shadow, the stress and distress, of the greater souls of men, as the tufted thyme to the laurel wilderness of Tempe,-as the gleaming euphrasy to the dark branches of Dodona.

[I am obliged to defer the main body of this paper to next month,—revises penetrating all too late into my lacustrine seclusion; as chanced also unluckily with the preceding paper, in which the reader will perhaps kindly correct the consequent misprints, p. 960, 1. 10, of 'scarcely' to 'securely,' and p. 962,full,' with comma, to 'fall,' without one; noticing besides that 'Redgauntlet' has been omitted in the italicised list, p. 957, 1. 15; and that the reference to note 16 should not be at the word 'imagination,' p. 956, but at the word 'trade,' p. 957, 1. 7. My dear old friend, Dr. John Brown, sends me, from Jamieson's Dictionary, the following satisfactory end to one of my difficulties :-' Coup the crans.' The language is borrowed from the 'cran,' or trivet on which small pots are placed in cookery, which is sometimes turned with its feet uppermost by an awkward assistant. Thus it signifies to be completely upset.]

JOHN RUSKIN.

THE CREED OF THE EARLY

CHRISTIANS.

THE early Christian belief was expressed in the formula which has since grown up into the various creeds which have been adopted by the Christian Church. The two most widely known are that of Chalcedon, commonly called the Nicene Creed, and that of the Roman Church, commonly called the Apostles'. The Nicene Creed is that which pervaded the Eastern Church. Its original form was that drawn up at Nicæa on the basis of the creed of Cæsarea produced by Eusebius. Large additions were made to it to introduce those parts which affirmed the dogmatical elements discussed in the Nicene Council. No addition was made at the Constantinopolitan Council, but at the Council of Chalcedon there were the clauses added which followed the mention of the Holy Ghost. It then assumed its present form, though it underwent a yet further change in the West from the adoption of the clause respecting the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son. The creed of the Roman Church came to be called the Apostles' Creed,' from the legend that the Apostles had each of them contributed a clause. It was successively enlarged by the Remission of Sins,' 'the Life eternal,' then by the Resurrection of the Flesh,' then by the 'Descent into Hell,' and the • Communion of the Saints.' It is observable, before proceeding further, that the Creed, whether in its Eastern or its Western form, leaves out of view altogether such questions as the necessity of Episcopal succession, the origin and use of the Sacraments, the honour due to the Virgin Mary, the doctrine of Substitution, the doctrine of Predestination, the doctrine of Justification, the doctrine of the Pope's authority. These may be important and valuable, but they are not in any sense part of the belief of the early Christians. The Eastern and Western Creed alike represented the simple baptismal formula, as expressed in St. Matthew's Gospel, which, of whatever date, is certainly anterior to the Creeds. The additions were undoubtedly made, as in the greater part of them is demonstrable, for the purpose of explaining more fully the articles of belief in

the Father, the Son,' and the Holy Spirit. It is in pursuance of this same principle that we here propose to examine into the meaning of those sacred names.

I. It is proposed to ask, in the first instance, the Biblical meaning of the words. In the hymn Quicunque vult, as in Dean Swift's celebrated Sermons on the Trinity,' there is no light whatever thrown on their signification. They are used like algebraic symbols, which would be equally appropriate if they were inverted, or if other words were substituted for them. They give no answer to the question what in the minds of the early Christians they represented.

1. What, then, is meant in the Bible-what in the experience of thoughtful men-by the name of The Father? In one word it expresses to us the whole faith of what we call Natural Religion. We look round the physical world; we see indications of order, design, and good-will towards the living creatures which animate it. Often, it is true, we cannot trace any such design; but whenever we can, the impression left upon us is the sense of a Single, Wise, Beneficent Mind, the same now that it was ages before the appearance of man-the same in other parts of the Universe as it is in our own. And in our own hearts and consciences we feel an instinct corresponding to this-a voice, a faculty, that seems to refer us to a Higher Power than ourselves, and to point to some Invisible Sovereign Will, like to that which we see impressed on the natural world. And, further, the more we think of the Supreme, the more we try to imagine what His feelings are towards us—the more our idea of Him becomes fixed as in the one simple, all-embracing word that He is Our Father. The word itself has been given to us by Christ. It is the peculiar revelation of the Divine nature made by Christ Himself. But it was the confirmation of what was called by one of old time the testimony of the naturally Christian soul-testimonium animæ naturaliter Christiana. There may be much in the dealings of the Supreme and Eternal that we do not understand; as there is much in the dealings of an earthly father that his earthly children cannot understand. Yet still to be assured that there is One above us whose praise is above any human praise-who sees us as we really arewho has our welfare at heart in all the various dispensations which befall us-whose wide-embracing justice and long-suffering and endurance we all may strive to obtain-this is the foundation with which everything in all subsequent religion must be made to agree. 'One thing alone is certain: the Fatherly smile which every now and then gleams through Nature, bearing witness that an Eye looks down

It is not certain that in early times this formula was in use. The first profession of belief was only in the name of the Lord Jesus (Acts ii. 38, viii. 12, 16, x. 48, xix. 5). In later times, Cyprian (Ep. lxiii.), the Council of Frejus, and Pope Nicholas the First acknowledge the validity of this form. Still it soon superseded the profession of belief in Jesus Christ, and in the second century had become universal. (See Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, i. 162.)

upon us, that a Heart follows us.'2 To strive to be perfect as our Father is perfect is the greatest effort which the human soul can place before itself. To repose upon His perfection in sorrow and weakness is the greatest support which it can have in making those efforts. This is the expression of Natural Religion. This is the revelation of God the Father.

2. What is meant by the name of the Son?

It has often happened that the conception of Natural Religion becomes faint and dim. The being of a God is as certain to me as the certainty of my own existence. Yet when I look out of myself into the world of men, I see a sight which fills me with unspeakable distress. The world of men seems simply to give the lie to that great truth of which my whole being is so full. If I looked into a mirror and did not see my face, I should experience the same sort of difficulty that actually comes upon me when I look into this living busy world and see no reflection of its Creator.'3 How is this difficulty to be met? How shall we regain in the world of men the idea which the world of Nature has suggested to us? How shall the dim remembrance of our Universal Father be so brought home to us as that we shall not forget it or lose it? This is the object of the Second Sacred Name by which God is revealed to us. As in the name of the Father we have Natural Religion-the Faith of the Natural Conscience-so in the name of the Son we have Historical Religion, or the Faith of the Christian Church. As the Father' represents to us God in Nature, God in the heavenly, the ideal world —so the name of the Son' represents to us God in History, God in the character of man, God, above all, in the Person of Jesus Christ. We know how even in earthly relationships, an absent father, a departed father, is brought before our recollections in the appearance of a living, present son, especially in a son who by the distinguishing features of his mind or of his person is a real likeness of his father. We know also how in the case of those whom we have never seen at all there is still a means of communication with them through reading their letters, their works, their words. So it is in this second great disclosure of the Being of God. If sometimes we find that Nature gives us an uncertain sound of the dealings of God with his creatures, if we find a difficulty in imagining what is the exact character that God most approves, we may be reassured, strengthened, fixed, by hearing or reading of Jesus Christ. The Mahometan rightly objects to the introduction of the paternal and filial relations into the idea of God, when they are interpreted in the gross and literal sense. But in the moral spiritual sense it is true that the kindness, tenderness, and wisdom we find in Jesus Christ is the reflection of the same kindness, tenderness, and wisdom that we recognise in the gover2 Renan's Hibbert Lectures for 1880, p. 202. Dr. Newman, Apologia, p. 241. Р

VOL. VIII.-No. 42.