his country and knew its people. I cannot do better than extract some of his stanzas: The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face, The big ha'-Bible, ance his father's pride: His lyart haffets wearing thin an' bare; And 'Let us worship God!' he says, with solemn air. 6 They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim; The tickled ears no heartfelt raptures raise; With Amalek's ungracious progeny; Or how the royal bard did groaning lie Beneath the stroke of Heaven's avenging ire; How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed; How he, who lone in Patmos banished, Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand: And heard great Babylon's doom pronounced by Heaven's command. Then kneeling down, to Heaven's Eternal King That thus they all shall meet in future days: No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear, Together hymning their Creator's praise, In such society, yet still more dear; While circling time moves round in an eternal sphere. Compared with this, how poor Religion's pride, In all the pomp of method, and of art, When men display to congregations wide, Devotion's every grace, except the heart! The power, incensed, the pageant will desert, The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole ; But, haply, in some cottage far apart, May hear, well-pleased, the language of the soul: And in His Book of Life the inmates poor enrol.1 1 Burns' Cottar's Saturday Night. 287 ESSAY XVII. GENERAL RESULT OF THE REFORMATION. HAVING given a sketch of the sayings and acts of Luther, Zuinglius, and Calvin, we are enabled to take a view of the tendency and general result of the Reformation in the principal countries of Europe. Luther seems to have considered it as the great object of his mission on earth to open the Bible to all nations, and at the same time to declare the principal doctrines which the German Reformers deduced from the Holy Scriptures. This object was accomplished by the Confession of Augsburg. But there was a further object which was not attained by the Reformers in Germany, in France, in Sweden, in England, or in Scotland: this was the abstinence on the part of the clergy and the teachers of religion from any attempts to propagate their doctrines by violence or to imitate in any way the persecutions of the Roman Church. In the early ages of the propagation of the Christian religion, it was easy for the bishops to separate those whose faith was erroneous or whose conduct was immoral from the mass of the Christian community. Those who failed in their adherence to Christian doctrine or who disgraced themselves by their bad lives, fell into the general ranks of the Pagan community, and enjoyed the privileges of the other subjects of a pagan emperor. But when the emperor was himself a Christian, the spirit of persecution unfortunately arose, and the majority endeavoured, by fire and sword, to make the minority embrace what was considered the orthodox creed. Then arose the dogma, 'There is no salvation beyond the pale of the Church'-a maxim which was equally acceptable to popes desirous to propagate their faith, and to emperors and kings who wished to comprehend all their subjects under one uniform and despotic rule. Hence the bloody wars between the Athanasians and the Arians, which did not cease till the Arians were utterly subdued in the field of battle. Hence the persecutions of the Albigenses, and the cruel watch-word when a town was taken by assault by an orthodox army, 'Slay all-God will know his own.' Hence the massacres and executions which marked with blood various countries of Europe and led to the establishment of the Spanish Inquisition. It was to be hoped that Protestants would, in conformity with their early declarations at Augsburg, endeavour to convert the followers of the Church of Rome by persuasion only. Above all, it was hoped by moderate men, that, resting their own right of protest on the privilege which every man inherits of guiding his conduct in matters of religion by the dictates of his own conscience, a Protestant ruler or Protestant assembly would grant the same liberty to those whose minds led them to differ upon articles of doctrine or upon ecclesiastical discipline and Church ceremonies. Unhappily this has not been the case; the Refor mation violated for centuries the sacred right of religious liberty. The reformers of England, under the guidance of Cranmer, persecuted those who would not submit to their tests of religion. A Protestant bishop commanded to be burnt, in his presence, a friar who refused to the king the title of Head of the Church.' In vain the poor friar protested that he could not understand how a temporal sovereign, himself a layman, could be the head of a spiritual community. Disdaining any answer to this reasonable doubt, the reforming bishop authorised the burning till the friar was consumed to ashes. In Scotland, the spirit of the Calvinistic Church was not milder or more tolerant. Mr. Buckle has exposed, with a severity beyond measure, the narrow and intolerant spirit of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. It is to be said, however, that in England and in Scotland the principles of the Reformation, in the course of time, overcame the passion of religious persecution. In England Elizabeth, being herself latitudinarian, refused to punish by death Roman Catholics who had not conspired to deprive her, by arms or by assassination, of her royal sceptre. Oliver Cromwell, renouncing the lessons of the Presbyterians, and embracing the toleration taught by the Independents, refused to persecute, except on the ground of political hostility. When William III. ascended the throne, his own favourite maxim that Conscience is God's province' induced him to favour religious liberty, both in England and Scotland. A bill introduced by Lord Nottingham, U |