both in the direct interests of religion and also in the interests of morality—which is, after all, only religion under another name in the direct interests of religion, because it is important that the greatest religious institution of the country should not suffer in the estimation of the young or the uneducated – in the estimation, I will add, of the hostile, or the indifferent-by being associated merely with enforced gloom or listless idleness. The observance of Sunday, more than any other single religious question, touches the heart and conscience of the whole community; and our object should be, on the one hand, to maintain the value and importance of the English Sunday, and, on the other hand, to do the best we can to improve it."

A few words upon cremation and funerals. The advocates of cremation have persuaded but few in England to give their bodies to be burned, and none of these, so far as my information goes, however estimable for other attainments, were conspicuous as champions of the Christian Faith. All rational men, whether they be Christians or no, must agree that cremation would be expedient in exceptional cases of positive necessity, in the visitation of a plague, for example, or in the time of a sudden and wide-spread annihilation of human life; but we, who still believe in the Holy Scriptures as written for our instruction and guidance, must surely prefer in all other instances the burial of the body in the earth. We find not one single example in the Old Testament of any other process, but of interment only. To be deprived of this burial was regarded as a most terrible punish

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ment and disgrace, and the burning of a body is mentioned by the prophet (Amos ii. 1) as a transgression, provoking the Divine wrath. We cannot forget the anxiety of one, who was called "the Friend of God," to secure a place in which to bury his dead, of Jacob and of Joseph, that their bodies should be laid by those of their forefathers in their graves in the Promised Land. Thus, in obedience to the commandment, they "returned unto the ground."

The civilized nations, the Greeks and the Romans, believed in the immortality of the soul, but not in the sacredness or resurrection of the body, and one chief cause of the origin of cremation was to keep the bodies of those slain in battle from mutilation by the enemy, and in times of foreign warfare to bring home the ashes of their heroes. But when Rome was converted to Christianity and learned to reverence the sanctity of the body, which had been washed and made clean by the Sacraments, the funereal piles were gradually extinguished, until in the earlier part of the fifth century they disappeared altogether; and now the catacombs of Rome with their Christian emblems are, as many of us know, among the most interesting sights of the Eternal City.

The rapid increase of population and the crowded state of our churchyards has no doubt created in certain districts a wise anxiety, but it may be allayed. by the provision of more spacious cemeteries, and, yet more extensively and economically, by the disuse of those brick graves and leaden cases, which prevent the natural and rapid reduction of earth to earth.

For the embalming of the body there is the highest authority and precedent, it was a token of tender reverence and affection, and it had a marvellous power of preservation, which we witness after the lapse of thousands of years even in this our day; but otherwise to oppose the process, which follows inhumation, and is divinely suggested to us, is a deplorable mistake, a fond thing vainly invented by the undertaker, the plumber, and the mason, and accepted by many simply because it was the fashion at the time to give orders that no expense should be spared. Better, ten thousand times better, the wicker-basket and the fresh fragrant herbs, as soon as may be after death.

Is there not a natural instinct as well as a religious argument against this modern innovation, which would substitute the oven and the urn for the reverent committal of the body to the consecrated ground of God's acre? Are there to be no more graves in the quiet green churchyard, and shall it be no more said, as of the sister of Lazarus, she goeth to his grave to weep?

Everywhere, as at Athens where Paul preached, there is a yearning for novelties and a few enthusiastic, unstable advocates may be always found for plausible schemes and speculations, but there is an overwhelming antipathy, as deep as it is still, against this fiery furnace. "Because half a dozen grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importunate chink, while thousands of great cattle repose beneath the shadow of the oaks and chew the cud and are silent, pray do not imagine that they

who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field, that of course they are many in number, or that after all they are other than the little, though loud and troublesome, insects of the hour."1 The earth to earth system, as it is called, commends itself more and more to our Christianity and common sense. At the same time, and from the same religious and rational considerations, a great improvement has been happily made in our funereal arrangements. The days are departed, never to return, in which the mourners drowned their sorrows in the bowl, when the tankard of mulled ale was passed round with a piece of crape tied on the handle, and cakes made in the form of a coffin were offered to the company. The huge and terrible hearse with its black forest of plumes, which looked as though a flight of carnivorous birds had swooped down and were fighting for their prey, has been discarded for a brighter conveyance, and the horses are no longer disfigured by the hideous headgear and dismal draperies of yore. The lychgate, the bier, and seemly pall have been restored; the white-robed choir sing hymns of love and hope to Him Who is the Resurrection and the Life; and the mourner takes this solace home, as though an angel spoke it, "Not lost, but gone before."

1 Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France, vol. iii. p. 344.

VII.

CHURCH PROGRESS.

Imperishable Faith - The Sword of the Oppressor is the Pruningknife of the Vine Sacrilege - The Higher Criticism - The Old Paths Church and State-Zeal and Humility - Tolera

tion and Unity.

HEAR the conclusion of the whole matter, so far as my observation and experience teach. Despite the agnostic, the rationalist, and the critic, the young gentleman who informs us that "Christianity is played out," and the young lady who is "awfully gone on Robert Elsmere," - despite the sneer of the cynic, and that which is yet more hard to bear, the patronizing smile of His Serene Highness the Infidel, who is "charmed with the sweet Galilean story,". the faith once delivered to the saints still lives in the hearts and exalts the lives of those who are our truest patriots, our most generous benefactors, our best and bravest, whom we honour most. They have put their trust in Him Who will not suffer His truth to fail, and they do not fear what man can do to them. They are not afraid of the fury of the oppressor, because they know that the sword of the tyrant has been always the pruning-knife of the Vine. It is written, "No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper, and every tongue that is raised up in judgment against thee thou shalt con