refined, but sufficient, in their minds, to clear them from the charge of idolatry. Not as gods but as intercessors, they apply to these "spirits of the just made perfect;" asking their aid as powerful friends, rather than imploring their protection as almighty rulers. It is in this view that they invoke the virgin, the apostles, and other hallowed names which enrich the Greek calendar; offering up prayers and incense to them, in the like manner as men seek to propitiate the great of the earth by petitions and tributes of respect.

Pictures and images are used in the Greek church on a similar principle. No more than the last mentioned custom of paying homage to saints, infringes the first commandment, will it be allowed that these depictings of the divine persons break the second? They do not place the image or picture before the eyes of the congregation to be worshipped as the visible presence; but merely as a remembrancer, an awakener of the affections towards the heavenly beings of which they are similitudes. So far the explanation is good. There is nothing to be found fault with in the aim of the fathers who constituted these usages, but the means are dangerous. The enlightened mind understands the simplicity of christianity, and takes the rites of the church as they were intended. Not so the ignorant boor: accustomed to examine things more by impressions on his senses, than with the touchstone of reason, he cannot long think that" power belongeth to God alone," when he is hourly on his knees to invoke the meditation of a saint. And how can his soul continue to seek the invisible Father, when he finds his image in the temple, surrounded by prostrate devo. tees, and adorned with all the golden decorations of the most costly dedications? Removed from the presence of this graven deity, where does he think are the "eyes which are too pure to behold iniquity?" He has seen them closed up within the walls of some consecrated building; and fearless of observation, is ready to embrace the first temptation that crosses his path. The religion which is in spirit can alone happily affect the conduct of man. It strikes at the root of all evil, for it not only commands you to "cleanse the heart and not the garments," but assures you that God is neither confined to

temple, earth, nor heaven, but pervades the whole universe; and with his allseeing eye searcheth the depths of man. Viewing things in this light, is it requisite to have images of wood and of gold to remind us of the omnipresent and allgracious providence!

There are seven mysteries, or sacraments, in the Greek church, viz. baptism, the chrism (a rite peculiar to this church), the eucharist, confession, ordination, marriage, and the holy oil.

There are no peculiarities in the doctrine attached to the baptism, though there are some particularities in its ceremonies, which I shall describe.

On the very day on which a woman becomes a mother, the priest goes to her chamber and offers up a holy thanksgiving for her and the child. On the eighth day the infant is carried. to the church and receives its name; that of the saint to which the day is dedicated, is given to the child, in addition to any other which the parents may have chosen. Two and thirty days after this, the purification of the mother is performed; a ceremony instituted in imitation of that of the virgin Mary. Then follows a service not limited to any particular time, since it must depend on the progress which the young christian has made in religious knowledge. It consists in renouncing the evil spirit; or, as we term it, the "devil and all his works."

Then succeeds the baptism itself, in which the professor practises the trine immersion. One immersion is of more modern date, and was first introduced in Spain; whence, on the authority of Pope Gregory the Great, it was spread throughout the Latin church. Aspersion is an antecedent usage; having been always adopted in cases of sickness, or danger of immediate dissolution; and being the easiest ceremony, generally practised in all protestant countries.

The chrism or sacred unction is the next rite. It is considered as the sealing of the Holy Ghost; and answers to confirmation in the church of Rome. It immediately follows the immersion at baptism, when the priest anoints the child or proselyte on the principal parts of the body, with the sign of the cross. Seven days after the application of this consecrated unction, the votary goes through the ceremony of ablu

tion; and is now prepared for the concluding rite, called that of the tonsure. Simeon of Thessalonica gives us this explanation of the institution.

"After the chrism, that is the holy unction, the hair of the person's head is shorn in the form of the cross; because he then has Christ for his head: and because it is proper to pray uncovered, as Paul teaches. The tonsure is also a sign or mark, being cut crossways, that all vain and superfluous thoughts are from that time to be cut off. For this reason monks are entirely shorn; and it becometh a faithful christian to divorce himself from every thing superfluous and not absolutely necessary. Besides which, the hair is offered by the baptized person to Christ, as a sort of first-fruits, or the sacrifice of his body; the hair being as it were the exhalation of the whole body: the chief priest therefore does not carelessly throw it away, but lays it apart in a sacred place."

At the end of the baptism the priest usually ties a little cross of gold, or some other precious material, round the infant's neck. But this is not an ordinance of the church, though generally practised. It is a voluntary act of the parents or minister; and meant to be a memorial only to the child, of the spiritual cross he has now assumed.

It hath been well said that they who adopt opinions without reason, and against reason, cannot be cured by argument; and besides, as I am not a divine, I shall make no remark on faith in transubstantiation. It is the declared belief of the present Greek church; having been insinuated into its originally comparative simplicity, by the subtlety of Peter Mogilas, metropolitan of the Ukraine. He drew his notions from the schools established by Gregory the Fifteenth at Rome; whence he returned, to propagate the new doctrine throughout the Russian empire. In the preparation of the eucharist, warm water is mixed with the wine. Laymen receive the bread sopped in the cup. Rather a strange usage! as it seems to class them with the deceiver Judas, who was the only one of the Apostles to whom Jesus gave the sop.

-and when he had dipped the sop, he gave it to Judas

Iscariot; and after the sop, Satan entered into him." St. John, chap. xiii. verses 26, 27.

The clergy take the elements separate.

Predestination is an article of the Greek church: and its writers defend the principle on the prescience of the Divine Nature.

Prayers for the dead are admitted; but not from any idea of purgatory, or dogmatical notions of the state of their souls. Hence it may be considered more as a tribute of tenderness towards the departed friend, and an awful reminder of our own mortality, than any established rite. On similar grounds regard is paid to the relics of holy persons: but, as in the case of images, the original sentiment is too frequently lost in blind superstition. Supererogation, indulgences and dispensations, are utterly disallowed in this church. And as it does not, like the Romish, assume infallibility, we cannot be surprised at the religious toleration dispensed by a sovereign professing its doc

trines.

A work, written by Peter Mogilas, will give you a tolerably just idea of the Russian creed on religious and moral practice. You may find it in Greek or Latin: it is entitled “ a confession of the catholic and apostolic faith of the Greeks and Russians;" and divided into parts. It mentions that the commands of the church are nine. Attendance on public worship; observance of the four great fasts; venerating consecrated persons; auricular confessions; not to read heretical books; to pray for the supreme powers spiritual and temporal, and for the conversion of unbelievers; to observe the fasts appointed by the fathers; not to embezzle the property of the church, and not to marry during a fast. It inculcates that the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost are wisdom, understanding, counsel, power, knowledge, piety, and awe of God. The three sins against the Holy Ghost are presumption, despair, and heresy. And the seven deadly sins are thus numbered; pride, covetousness, fornication, envy, gluttony, revenge, and sloth. The four sins against which vengeance even on earth is denounced, are murder, sodomy, oppressing the widow and orphan, and depriving the labourer of his hire. The seven charities to the bodies of men, are, feeding

the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, relieving prisoners, visiting the sick, receiving strangers, and burying the dead. To these are to be added seven charities to their souls; converting the sinner, teaching the ignorant, giving counsel to those who require it, praying for our neighbours, being patient under injuries, and forgiving our enemies.

Confession is one of the seven sacraments of the Greek church. But so different is its principle from what is understood to be that of the Latin, that I cannot deny myself the pleasure of repeating an observation of Dr. Covel's, and copying a sketch of the spiritual regulations which are delivered to the priests on this head.

The ancient Greek church (remarks the good doctor) commanded her penitents to confess their sins in secret to God alone; and bade them consult their priest, only in what was needful to restore in them the spirit of meekness. The church of Rome commands confession to be particularly made to a priest, merely to erect a tribunal for him; and to assert by him the mighty power of the church to pardon sins. The end of the Greek is purely the amendment of the penitent; that of the Latin, to magnify the glory of the priest. In the one church the confessors pretend no further than to abate or remit the penance, declaring the pardon comes from God alone. In the other, the priesthood assumes the full power to remit or pardon at pleasure. Thus far Covel. And now judge how just i his encomium on this part of the Greek opinions.

The spiritual regulation declares that "it is the duty of priests at the confession of penitents to deter and subdue the pride of such as they observe to be stubborn and unrelenting, with the threats of the judgments of God; and to comfort and support with the hope of his grace and mercy, the dejected and penitent. They should therefore understand how to instruct a sinner to break off his evil habits; how to visit and solace the sick; how, with the word of exhortation, to animate and convoy a dying person in his passage out of this world; how espe cially to confirm sinners condemned here, in the hopes of divine mercy hereafter. The priest must not treat with insolence those who come to him for ghostly advice; he is not to show

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