minister, altogether irrespectively of the and made useful in the great cause of truth. higher claims of the community to which Protestantism has not fair play in Germany. both he and they profess to belong. And Even in Protestant countries and under the if a liturgy be to be adopted, we cannot sway of pious kings, the ministry of an doubt that it ought to be one derived, if pos- idolatrous system, the popish bishops, take sible, from some external source, not arbi- precedence of the highest functionary of the trarily and suddenly devised for the occa- Protestant Church. What is this but to put sion. The commonest and most obvious a premium upon error, and to disparage principles of policy will suggest the advan- and discountenance truth? The complitage of enlisting all possible force of autho- ment is received and regarded by Romanrity on the side of a movement presenting ists as an involuntary acknowledgment of at first sight, and so certain to be portrayed the invalidity of Protestant orders, and the by its enemies as presenting in the highest inferiority of the Protestant religion. Pubdegree, the marks of novelty and haste. Let lic homage is rendered to the sacredness Ronge then enable himself to say "I speak not my own thoughts alone; I give you the long settled and matured wisdom of another great and conspicuous Church; yea, I give you what is more authoritative still, the very thoughts and words of an antiquity that stretches far in the distance beyond the boasted antiquity of corrupt and arrogant Rome." and dignity of the episcopal office, and thus In connection with this point of view, there is another most important element to desiderate in the constitution of the new church, which will already have occurred to all our readers; its organization under Episcopal government. How much the Protestantism of North Germany has lost by the want of this feature, it is scarcely possible to express. Setting apart altogether the deeper considerations on which many would argue the question, we might The new church has not been without look at it upon the merest ordinary grounds manifesting some sense of the importance of human policy, and contrast the dignity of this point. Application, for example, and fixity which this constitution gives to was made to the Jansenist prelates of German Romanism, with the paltry aspect Utrecht, Haarlem, and Deventer, to ordain by which every traveller is struck as mark- their clergy. In Offenbach, the separatists ing the position of her rival, even with addressed Dr. Kaiser, the Bishop of Mayall the encouragements of state favor. ence, imploring him to place himself at "There can be no doubt," observes an able their head. And we would earnestly hope writer of some years since, "about the fact, that, as soon as the position of the dissidents that the want of episcopacy is the weak becomes more settled, the subject may enpoint of German Protestantism. It indu- gage their attention. In a reform such as some Protestants to go over to the this, where the movement originates with Church of Rome; it deters many Roman- the inferior laity, and the second order of ists from embracing Protestantism; and it the clergy, it is scarcely possible, indeed, prevents the pastors of the reformed faith that this question, however important, should from rising to that station which the minis- come into view at an early stage of their try of Christ ought ever to hold in a Chris-proceedings. But we trust that, when once tian nation. It is true that the apostles, the congregations are duly organized, and with one exception, were unlearned men, their instructors fairly located among them, and occupied but a low rank in the world's estimation of dignity; but German Protestants do not contend for an unlearned ministry; they acknowledge the power of learning; they must also appreciate the influence of station. All things can be sanctified ces the leaders will take counsel of the universal voice of church history, and understand that no society but an episcopal ever yet contended against episcopal Romanism with thorough and enduring success. Some persons, indeed, may argue the im tionality" were to be had. But there is much reason to question whether any such nationality is now, in Germany, any thing more than a name. A late clever observer, * "This nationality has no existence, and from natural circumstances, can have none in Ger *The discussion which this gentleman's little book ("Notes on the Rise, &c. of the German Catholic Church ") contains on the subject of endowing the Irish Roman clergy, we beg leave to recommend to our liberalist readers. Mr. Laing's own views upon the Irish Church and Irish landlords (which are evidently of the least friendly description) give additional force to the decisive arguments by which he refutes the advocates of that short-sighted project. He urges, in the clearest manner, that the very nature of the Romish tenets on the subject of clergy-donations, &e, will for ever render it impossible that any state contribution can really lighten the burden on the people; and that consequently the parliamentary vote will merely be a subscription from the British government for the further encouragement "All that is now paid (by of Irish Romanism propriety, on ecclesiastical grounds, of thus constituting, in any circumstances, a rival prelacy in any country. This appears to us ineffably-were it not for the solemnity of the subject, almost ludicrously-futile. Mr. Laing, observes, with much shrewdExplain it how we may, it is a fact that ness, thatChristian communities differ, and differ most momentously; and in such a state of things, to argue that the great advantage of episcopal government must be restricted to whichever happens first to occupy a district, involves consequences so monstrous, as to be utterly untenable. It is, no doubt, wrong that there should be two bishops in the same diocese; but the guilt really and exclusively belongs to whichever of the two religions is the corrupt one. What can be more grossly unreasonable than to assert that a corrupt episcopal church, by commissioning a bishop to reside in a certain region, shall, from the mere accident of being first in the field, for ever preclude all who in that region will not enter into its corrupt terms of communion, from possessing the blessings of the primitive church polity? Accordingly, when the divines of the Irish Church charge wilful schism upon the prelates sent hither by the Bishop of Rome, they do so, not merely upon the ground that the Protestant bishops are the lineal inheritors of the sees, (which is, indeed, an unquestion-man) Catholic clergy would not relieve the peoable and an important fact,) but also upon ple, but only furnish the Church of Rome with the further ground that these Roman super- funds for supporting another body of 2,200 priests in the country. Their bishops could not renounce intendents of clergy are the teachers of a these payments, because they are held essential spurious modern doctrine, overlaid upon by the giver to his own religious welfare, in whatthe apostolic teaching. For, after all, if ever way they are applied. The people must our Irish Church were itself the inculcator first be relieved from the superstition which of false doctrine, it would be utter folly makes them believe that such payments are salutary to their own souls in a future state." How to argue that a purer church, Roman or instructive to observe this man coming by this otherwise, would not be perfectly justified road to the same conclusion the true friends of in organizing its Irish branch under its own Ireland have so long vainly preached, that the bishops. To deny this principle, would only permanent salvation of the country is the really be to assert that, by the essential na- purification of its religious belief! "It is, besides, a gross exaggeration that six millions and a-half ture of church polity, the devil-the author of people are impoverished by the sustentation of of all religious corruptions is invested two and twenty hundred single men. with a perpetual and unalterable power to While, in the naturally much poorer country of paralyze, to a certain extent, the work of Scotland, one million of their fellow-subjects are God, by depriving his churches of one of voluntarily raising £300,000 a year for the support of their church; and the whole body of their most valuable elements. In any times English Dissenters, of all denominations, are supbut the present, when on this class of subjects porting their ministers at a vastly greater sacrifice such imbecile sciolism is accepted as orac- than ELEVENPENCE HALFPENNY a head, which is about the amount of this impoverishing drain on ular, it would indeed be superfluous to octhe Irish Roman Catholic population." cupy time in exposing such folly. The German Catholics have endeavored, as far as possible, to awake the spirit of a common German nationality, as forming one of the chief supports of their enterprise. This would, no doubt, be a very important consideration, if the "naVOL. VII.-No. I. 3 the people) must be paid, and for the sake of the All this is perfectly unanswerable. We now beg to quote the following sentence from the same writer, as an instance of the monstrous falsehoods that are-perhaps believed, certainly circulated— by shrewd, intelligent, respectable men, who really have a character to lose, on the subject of the Established Church of Ireland. Mr Laing, known as a traveller, a scholar, and a gentleman, in a many. It is but a thing talked of and wished | functionary class. The German Catholics for among literary and manufacturing men; are almost wholly of the middle class of the but it is not in the mind and life of the mass of the people. They are eminently susceptible town population; and of loyalty, of personal attachment to their kings or leaders, but not of the spirit of nationality. "In the eyes of this influential functionary From the days of Tacitus, Germany has been class, the German Catholic Church has the what it now is a land divided among differ- unpardonable stain of having originated with ent tribes, bound together by no common tie, the people, or middle class, without leave, sancalthough of one race, and speaking one lantion, approval, or recommendation from them, guage. For this there are natural reasons, the functionary class, representing the soveviz.: the identity of products over all the land, reign. The rising wealth and display of it in and consequently the want of dependence or the middle, mercantile, and manufacturing intercourse between the parts for the supply of class, and the spirit of independence growing each other's wants. In countries like France with their capital, are looked upon with great or England, the natural products are so dis-jealousy by the functionary class, of which the tributed, that one part lives by the other, and nobility is now but a branch. could not live without it. The coals, wine, cattle, grain, fish, of one part supply the wants of another, and bind all together by common interests into one whole, one nation with a common national spirit. But in Germany each little group of people, province, or state. is provided by the bounty of nature with all it requires within itself. Hence, the Germans have no word for country in its national sense, no expression equivalent to mother-country. They have only a fatherland. . It is not unlikely that the jealousy of some of this their order of such a movement as this, of conclass may oppose the kind of treason against gregations formed, marriages and baptisms solemnized, declarations and pamphlets circulated, and all by the class of independent traders, dealers, and others, in the Catholic population of the towns, without leave or sanction of the functionaries." The German commercial league We are, however, inclined to think that begins already to fall asunder from this want no movement having real life in it, no of common interests to bind together its parts movement intrinsically worthy to succeed, into one national body. The southern states, is ever likely to be quenched by the operaBavaria, Wurtemberg, Baden, Saxony, begin tion of jealousies of this kind; while it to discover that they are naturally and essen- must be likewise considered that, if the tially agricultural countries, and never can be new Catholics have to meet the hostility of any thing else. . The union they consider as a mere deception to enrich a few these personages, it is because their views manufacturing districts on the Rhine, with of religious reformation have taken root in which they have no common interest, and for the breasts of a class infinitely more valuathe benefit of which they must pay high prices ble, enduring, and progressive-the sturdy for inferior goods, while none of their products and energetic middle class of German socican be taken in return. The na-ety. We cannot but think that, in such a tionality is a thing only talked of and sung of distribution of influences, they have much by a few literary and speculative people, an the best of the bargain. imitation, not a reality, even with them." Hence, he concludes that "the German Catholic Church is of premature birth, if, as Rongè proposes in his addresss, the German nationality is to be its mother, for it has come into the world before its parent!" Another difficulty stated by this observer is, the power and universal influence of the We must close. And we close in the hope that our sentiments are not liable to any misconception. With this German movement it is quite impossible to sympathize unreservedly, because its principles are as yet obviously unfixed, and (we must confess it) by no means satisfactory, so far as they can be discerned or conjectured. dissertation pre-supposing peculiar accuracy in On the other hand-this very indistinctness financial matters, deliberately writes as follows:and unsettlement gives ground for charita"The Protestant population in Ireland belong-ble hopes of a clearer and better future. ing to the Established Church, is reckoned to be, And as an effort to get rid of the great bond only between eight and nine hundred thousand and ligament of European superstition-the souls, and BETW EN TWO AND THREE MILLIONS Roman supremacy-as a struggle to cast STERLING YEARLY, are said to be enjoyed by the body of the clergy of this church establishment;" vigorously from the wearied shoulders of on which he builds a recommendation that it religion this papal Old Man of the Sea, and should be plundered without delay. indispensable preliminary of all ecclesiastito recover (what, we repeat, must be the It would be an insult to even the most ignorant and bigoted of readers to waste one syllable in exposing a misstatement so unspeakably disgrace-cal improvement) the primitive independence of Christian Catholic Churches,-it ful to its author. [Since writing the preceding article, we have received the Report of the Committee of the Chambers in SAXONY, on the subject of the religious movement. The recommendations of the Committee are, it will be seen, of a conciliatory character; and have been since partly followed. "The movement which has lately taken place in spiritual things, and more especially in those which relate to religion, in the whole of Germany, has been followed by a series of events which could not but interest every thinking mind, as well as the governments of the various countries in which they occurred. One of the most prominent and also almost important of those occurrences, is, however, the separation of a considerable number of Catholics from the Roman Catholic Church, and the formation of a German Catholic Church, the communities of which are continually increasing in various parts of the country. This new Church is not only different with regard to its dogmas and church organization from that from which it has separated itself, but also from all the other Churches and communities of Germany, professing at the same time to be a Christian Church. Our government had therefore to keep in view, with regard to the new church and its members, which are now become very numer 2. 3. 4. From the North British Review. MARY STUART AND HER TIMES. Letters of Mary Queen of Scots, and Documents connected with her personal History, now first published. With an Introduction. By Agnes Strickland, author of the Lives of the Queens of England. 3 vols. 1842-3. London. Memoirs of Mary Stuart Queen of Scotland. By L. Stanhope F. Buckingham. 2 vols. London, 1844. Letters of Mary Stuart Queen of Scotland, selected from the "Recueil des Lettres de Marie Stuart," together with the Chronological Summary of events during the reign of the Queen of Scotland. By Prince Alexander Labanoff. Translated, with Notes and an Introduction, by William Turnbull, Esq., Advocate, F S. A., Scot. London, 1845. History of Scotland. By Patrick Fraser Tytler, Esq. 9 vols. Edinburgh, 1839-1843. THE numerous volumes that are almost daily spawned, relative to the days of Mary Stuart, proclaim the undying interest of the world, in one of the most extraordinary portions of its history. Old and young, male and female, foreigner and native, the didactic historian, the writer of memoirs, the collector of letters, and the general ous in our country, first, the principles of religious liberty, as adopted by the constitution of our state; and, secondly, the rights and privileges granted to the other Christian congregations; and according to these considerations, the ministers have thought it advisable to decree the following temporary regulations with regard to the German Catholic Church and its communities, and which are-1. That in all such places where, in conse- gatherer of other men's stuff," have poured quence of the German Catholics, or other local forth their sense or nonsense upon the procircumstances, the allocation of a particular place lific theme. Each too has some peculiar of worship should become necessary, the use of an evangelical church should be permitted to the merit; each professes to give the correct new community, with the exception, however, of story; each has made some grand discovery the permission of ringing the bells of that church, hitherto overlooked, or struck out some phi&c. 2. The doctrines preached by the ministers of the new church must not militate against theosophical views, around which the sluggish constitution of the state. 3. The ministers of the imaginations of his predecessors had toiled new church are permitted to perform in their com- in vain. Mr. L. Stanhope F. Buckingham munities the ceremonies of baptism, marriage, and gives "a personal memoir of the Scottish burial, on the condition, however, that a Protest- Queen, embracing, what none had done ant clergyman be always present on the occasion, but that the latter shall not be obliged to afford before, the essence of that long and vehehis attendance. The committee is of opinion ment controversy;" and he "combines tothat, considering all the circumstances, and in or-gether, for the first time, the personal incider that these temporary regulations should be the more effectual, the ministers of the German Catholic Church ought to be allowed to perform in their communities the ceremonies of baptism, marriage, and burial, having only to indicate the same to the resident Protestant divines; and that with respect to marriages, the foriner should only perform the religious ceremony. The committee points out further the following two objects for the future consideration of the Chamber and the ministers-viz, first, whether the members of the new church will have to continue to pay, in the meantime, church-rate to the Roman Catholic Church; secondly, whether they will continue to enjoy the same rights and privileges as before the separation."] dents of Mary's remarkable and romantic career." To set opposite to such high recommendations, Miss Strickland appears laden with " correspondence new to the public; and that which is not absolutely so, is now for the first time presented in a collective form, and in language comprehensible by the general reader." Her volumes contain too," other letters and contemporary records of equal interest, many of them hitherto inedited, and for the most part translated for the first time." Mr. Turo bull partly admits, and partly denies this; Miss Strickland's book contains, according to him, many omissions, and is wretchedly translated; his own being the genuine article. Mr. Tytler again, has traced the history "with greater detail than former writers," seeing that "he had access to a large mass of manuscript materials, of which the greater part has been hitherto unprinted and unexamined;" and he has thus been enabled to throw more light upon this division of the work, and to recover from the waste of conjecture and obscurity, some portions of Scottish history which were lost." "The work," says Dr. Johnson, "is performed, first by railing at the stupidity, negligence, ignorance, and asinine tastelessness of the former editors, showing from all that goes before, and all that follows, the inelegance and absurdity of the former reading; then by proposing something, which to superficial readers would seem specious, but which the editor rejects with indignation; then by producing the true reading, with along paraphrase, and concluding with loud acclamations on the discovery, and a sober wish for the advancement and prosperity of genuine criticism." Amid this eternal war, we have had dissertations recommended neither by their interest nor their moral utility, though truth has sometimes been struck out from the collision of discordant opinion. It is difficult indeed to write the history, or to read it, without sliding into the spirit of partisanship. When one seeks to preserve the cool impartiality of literary judges, and to treat the story with the indifference of stoical impartiality, an under-current of feeling rises to the surface of our thoughts, on which all our philosophy floats away. It is in vain that we recall the great interests that were involved, or the mighty convulsions of those old days, which centuries only laid at rest. Other influences put to flight sobriety of thought; imagination renders the past contest of party, a struggle of the present; and the reason is checked in its duty of censure or of praise. The forty-five years from the Reformation in 1560, to the union of the crowns in 1605, is crowded with incidents for the politician, who wishes facts for any theory, or for the moral philosopher who wants examples to illustrate his general speculations on the virtues and infirmities of humanity. For men of softer natures, there will not be found a page of history, so calculated to rouse the contending emotions of admiration and astonishment, or to wound sensibility by horror and indignation. They have a subject inexhaustible in extraordinary revolutions in opinion, and terrible reverses in fortune, when the worn-out prejudices of the middle age slipped from life to history, and families which had flourished through ages of prosperity, were pushed aside, and were heard of no more. It is a noble theme for a historian who can estimate its spirit. It affords him scope for his highest powers of graphic narrative, or his profoundest reach of philosophical reflection. All the wonders are here that imagination would have created, had it left itself untrammelled to create a story in the precincts of times, of the events of which there is no record. Every thing to excite attention by pleasing variety, to instruct the mind not by speculation but by example, and to meliorate the heart by a story which will never fail to find sympathies there. Unhappy Mary! over whose sad story of unequalled misery no philosophy can prevent the tears of sensibility to flow, and no difference of creed can stifle the compassion of humanity at fallen greatness. What a long Iliad of woes was that life, chequered with self-implanted miseries-a life which blazed with so much lustre at its opening, and went down amid such clouds of sorrow. The scene of rapid change passes before us with a speed that hides the connexion between each Act of a drama, where princes were the players, and the spectators the world. The proclaimed queen of three great nations was, in a few little years, driven from her home in the noon-day of her youth and beauty, with cries of vengeance echoing in her ears, and a long captivity and ignominious death awaiting her at last. The coldest nature, and the most cynic philosophy, will admit that there is something touching in the story of a girl who had the warm affections of a kind heart, and all that we ever associate with human loveliness; whose errors were the result of no native depravity, but which met with so speedy and dreadful a reckoning. History and tradition, and impressions. which are transmitted from age to age by a medium imperceptible to analysis, have, in one mode or another, done their best to satiate human curiosity. We can follow Mary step by step, from the first outburst of admiration of the cavaliers of France, "In life's morning march when her spirit was young. |