Covenant Head: "Grant, Almighty God, that, like as we do believe thy only begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, to have ascended into the heavens, so we may also in heart and mind thither ascend, and with him continually dwell;" "exalt us unto the same place whither our Saviour Christ is gone before;" "that we may come to those unspeakable joys, which thou hast prepared for them that unfeignedly love thee;" "that, through the grave and gate of death, we may pass to our joyful resurrection, for his merits, who died, and was buried, and rose again, for us, thy Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord;" "that we, which know thee now by faith, may after this life have the fruition of thy glorious Godhead."

In these extracts from the Collects of the Church, we cannot but at once perceive how holy and how spiritual it is assumed that, at least, the desire of the heart must be in the case of all those who use prayers thus purposely significant of the pure and vital doctrines of the Cross. If that be so, how inconsistent with this assumption must the painful fact prove, when in this, as in other external joining in outward worship, there are many who call Christ, Lord, Lord, yet do not the things which he saith, nor have right views, nor any serious thought about the infinitely momentous point of their redemption in his blood!

We all enter, indeed, the temple of God professedly for the same purpose: to join in the devout and fervent prayers of our church, collectively; and collectively, too, to hear, mark, learn, and inwardly digest the words of eternal life. But look to those portions of our church prayers which I have this day put before you, and which are in exact unison with the spirit of all our public prayers; see how they put human nature in its true character a wreck of what once it was; how they sink down human pride, and exalt the Saviour; how they necessarily infer a new heart, and

a new spirit, in those who use them; how they are worded in earnest aspiration and solemn devotedness of heart and soul, for worshippers to seek after that "holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord;" how they mark the character of every one of us as confessing ourselves "strangers and pilgrims" upon earth, confessing that we are not in our proper home; that we "seek a country, that is, a heavenly;" how they give the outward stamp of those who, like the first Christians, should be taken knowledge of as having "been with Jesus:" see this undoubted exhibition of what our church intended, and what her public service in itself really is, and then ask whether the Lord's complaint of other outward worshippers must be confined to them: "This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me."

The application of all this needs not be difficult. There are, in our congregations true worshippers of the Father, because they are true believers in the Son, and truly renewed in the spirit of their minds by the power of the Holy Ghost. There are also only pretended worshippers of the Father, inasmuch as they are not true believers in the Gospel of the Son of God, nor renewed unto holiness through the converting influence of his Spirit. And thus far the ministers of God must go in proclaiming the matter of their solemn charge. But into the heart, where alone, to each of us, this truth in its proper application can be developed to the inward conscience, no eye penetrates but the eye of God. Whether veiled in hypocrisy; or open, in determined choice of this world's pursuits and pleasures, to the eye of man; or manifest in outward life through sanctification of the inner man, Christ our all in all, the heart of each here present is fully seen by the eye of Him, that great and infinite Being, "with whom we have

to do." He sees at one glance under what impressions we each enter his holy temple; under what hopes, desires, and poor endeavours, we are influenced; or, on the other hand, how in unchecked wandering, in purposed neglect, in unholy profanation of his house of prayer, through worldly minds and unsanctified hearts, we pervert its sacred purpose, and make it spiritually "a den of thieves." To that Eye which "seeth not as man seeth," the great Searcher of hearts, must be left such adjudication herein of our respective cases as, through his Holy Spirit, may be made spiritually profitable; to those who have received

grace, that they may obtain more grace, and to those who have despised it, that they may at length be brought to ask it of Him who invites them to do so. The believer in Christ is already in the way of experiencing, if he do not already experience, the blessedness of the Saviour's gracious encouragement: "Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son;" and the unbeliever is invited to the same mercy of knowing in himself the truth of the Redeemer's promise: "Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you. Ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full."

ON VARIORUM EDITIONS OF HYMNS AND PRAYERS.

Tothe Editorofthe Christian Observer.

AT an ancient grammar-school in the northern division of these realms was I carefully educated, under the tuition of the late Rev. Dr. Dactylle. He was a gentleman of foreign extraction; being, as he alleged, the lineal descendant and representative of Sir Bevys de Dactylle, a Norman knight, who came in with William the Conqueror, and was settled by him on certain lands in Sussex, not far from Battle Abbey. I have, however, examined in vain all the seven rolls of Battell in the Church History of Fuller; and am dragged to the painful conclusion, that the non est inventus on this occasion is one proof among thousands, of the falsifications of history by the perfidy of rivals. But my old master less exulted in the antiquity of his descent, than in the obvious connexion of his name with his profession, or rather with his wonderful attain ments in prosody; and of these, I am sorry to add, he was inordinately

vain. To do him justice, he was in fact, an animated Gradus, and no doubt ad Parnassum; for, when he once had the honour of shewing an original ode of his own to the late Professor Porson, that oracular person said, "Sir, your verses will be read, when the odes of Horace are forgotten:" which I have no doubt will be the case, although the time must be very distant. Such a compliment from such a man increased, if possible, the usual complacency of Dr. Dactylle's temper. His serenity, indeed, was seldom ruffled, except when we boys made false quantities-the only thing, in his view, really criminal; and I have known him declaim on the evident superiority of Lord North over Burke, because when the latter once quoted, in the House of Commons, Magnum vectigal est parsimonia, he had the folly to make the second syllable in vectigal short; and was instantly exposed by the minister in a way which, in the doctor's phraseology,-I think I hear him saying it,-forced the upstart to writhe, as Catiline before Cicero. I mention the anecdote also, as an

example of the felicitous and original manner in which he brought his vast resources of classical learning to bear upon the political emergencies of the times. I have ever since looked upon Mr. Burke as quite a second-rate authority.-I take this opportunity, sir, of declaring my entire disbelief of a story once circulated with malignant activity in Dr. Dactylle's neighbourhood, that he too was once guilty of a false quantity; by making the first foot in novi long. Even if the report be true, I can only say that Cowper has done exactly the same in his "Votum ;" and it is a good thing to have friends in adversity. But waving this point, I wish to direct your attention to another characteristic of my excellent tutor's mind-his intolerance of modern speculation and guess-work in editions of the classics. He had collected with unknown toil and expense, many editiones principes of Greek and Roman writers; and if he had a second source of irritation it was certainly to be found in the wanton criticisms of such desperadoes as Bentley and Wakefield, whom he called by all the abusive names which the heroes and gods in Homer so liberally employ-such as "thou dog in forehead," and sundry others, possibly known to the English reader, through the mischievous industry of translators. Now here I cannot and will not defend my late instructor. My opinion is, that a modern variorum Virgil is a great improvement upon the first impression of the Æneid; when an abraided and half legible MS. was transferred to a printing press, and with all its imperfections; and that the laborious sagacity of subsequent commentators has materially elucidated, not merely by notes but by conjectural emendations, a text almost necessarily obscured by the neglect, ignorance, or weariness of copyists. How different if the Roman master of song could have carried his poem at once to the Bulmers or Ballantynes,-or, allow

me to add, to the Ellertons and Hendersons of Mantua !

This allusion to your worthy typographers, reminds me, Mr. Editor, that it is time I should turn to your readers and yourself; who may well be asking, What has all this to do with the objects of a religious magazine? It has, then, this-to build upon Dr. Dactylle's quaint attachment to antique errors, and upon my own willingness to correct them by modern skill, a remonstrance against what I am almost disposed to call the reckless mutilations of hymns and prayers, but especially of the former, by recent collectors. Having already referred to Fuller the Worthy about the seven rolls of Battle Abbey, I shall quote him again on the same subject, whereof he writeth as doth here follow:— "One asked, Which was the best St. Augustine. To whom this answer was given (generally true of all ancient authors), Even that Augustine which is least corrected. For corrections commonly are corruptive, as following the fancy and humour of the corrector. Battell-Abbey Roll hath been somewhat practised upon with all the figures of diction, Prothesis, Apheresis, &c., some names therein being augmented, subtracted, extended, contracted, lengthened, curtailed. The same scruple therefore which troubleth sophisters, Whether Jason's weather-beaten ship, so often clouted and patched with new boards, were the same numerically with the first, may be propounded of Battell. Abbey Roll, whether that extant with us, after so many alterations, be individually the same with the original." (Church History, book ii. p. 153.) To this case of casuistry may be appended the notable question touching the old knife wherewith I try to mend my bad pens, whether it be truly the same instrument given to my father some sixty years since, seeing that the blade has been thrice, and the haft once, renewed since the donation thereof by the then vicar of the parish. However, though I agree with Dr.

Dactylle and Dr. Fuller in the general spirit of their sentiments, and disagree from both as far as their doctrine tends to perpetuate human mistakes, I do think that the ship of Jason, and the pen-knife of our reverend and worshipful family, are as ill examples of identity as are certain hymns of a former age; which when I read them in my editio princeps of Watts, do undeniably discover, that the hook of Bentley and the axe of Gilbert Wakefield have been severally bor rowed, in later days, by men who have used them without mercy; and it is another casuistical query, whether sundry hymn-collectors are not bound to apprize their readers and singers, that Watts, Doddridge, the two Wesleys, Newton, and Cowper, are not to be held responsible for what is yet shewn up under their names.

sources

Mark, sir, I pray you, the course of a hymn-collector, as it is usually discernible in this realm. He has occasion to prepare a set for his church or chapel; and, being not altogether satisfied with previous accumulations, begins to select for himself. But how is this done? Not by looking over the original works of Watts and his compeers; but by collating some ten or twelve ready-made collections, and from these drawing his reforgetting that all of them are variorum editions; that A, who was the first copyist of the properly original hymn, made his own alterations; that B, who never saw the originals, took his text from A, but altered his alterations; that C came, in the third place, and improved the altered alterations; that D arrived next, received the incongruous mass thus mixed up, and increased the confusion by still further emendations; and, then, that the succeeding letters of the alphabet, up to K or L, committed felony, each in the same class of spoliations; and the result is, that there is no textus receptus in the whole circle of hymnological literature!..

In reading, lately, the Last Days of Bishop Heber, and observing that he mentioned a certain hymn"Head of the church triumphant" --as one of the very finest in our language, I turned to it in a modern collection; and found the second line which used to be, "We joy. fully adore thee," changed into Thy love's amazing stay:" and this is, what it is surely no temerity to call, wanton alteration. I may also mention, that when, some time since, I was a visitor in a religious family, where the evening was closed by prayer and singing, and the ladies of the house mustered their hymn books for our party, it is a fact, that no two of the collections agreed together, either in the number or phraseology of the verses. Here, then, was a Christian assembly, reminding one of what St. Paul said to the disorganized church of Corinth, "When ye come together, every one of you hath a psalm, hath a doctrine, hath a tongue, hath a revelation, hath an interpretation." I am not, sir, a Dactylle in these matters, as you may already have noticed; but I am very ready to murmur when alterations of a standard hymn are made, where none are wanted, either in doctrine or taste. But if heresy be insidiously sweetened by genius, a sound instruction vulgarized by illiterate or coarse diction, by all means bring out the hook and the axe, and cut away either offence against the truth and simplicity of the Gospel. And yet you may perhaps bear with me if I plead, that there are certain favourite and established examples of devotional poetry, which are, as it were, consecrated by their long usage, and by their having been interwoven with religious biography and other writings, such as I would trust with a kind feeling approaching to filial veneration; and with an awe, lest they should so be spoiled in the spirit of sacrilege. There are many hymns which have instructed and consoled numbers of those who have died in the full

hopes of immortality; and we read these in obituaries and lives. Now what a chilling sensation is it to find-and the discovery is very far from being rare narrations of death-bed scenes, whose writers record what are now obsolete versions of some of the most unctional compositions ever written by uninspired men! Under such circumstances I have occasionally felt, as I might feel if some fastidious editor were to publish an altered copy of Leighton's Commentary on St. Peter. Who would endure this?-We have had sufficient examples of the influence of the evil genius of mutilation in certain adventurers, who have given the world what they have chosen to consider as the essence of the Homilies, of good Mr. Burkitt, and of the seraphic Bishop Hall. The proper name of their abridgments would have been the dilution of their injured originals. We have, indeed, the Beauties of Shakespeare; and the designation is very just, as this dramatist's deformities are quite as easily marked as their opposites.

I can, however, adduce, with much pleasure, one example, at least, where an excellent prose writer has been exhibited, to much advantage, in a modern dress; I mean Mr. Simeon's edition of Jenks. This is truly emendatior; and for a good reason, it proceeds from a corrector, who could really sympathize with his original, and who entered upon his task, not like a schoolmaster looking over a boy's hexameters, but as a pupil viewing his author as his superior, and only daring to alter when the shell, and not the substance, required a little repair. I was accustomed, indeed, to use Jenks long before Mr. Simeon applied his trowel, and so far somewhat misliked a few of its operations; but I have since yielded, upon the principle that private predilections must give way to general edification; and I am persuaded that this modern manual of devotion is better understood than in its former vesture. The case is

very different with respect to hymns; as the language of poetry is, generally speaking, more elaborated than that of prose, and more difficult to amend.

But, on the points under discussion, as every where else, we naturally run into extremes. Gens humani ruit-for I am fond of recalling one of Dr. Dactylle's frequent citations--in vetitum nefas; and one of the forbidden wickednesses of human kind is, to cure one disease by another. In the present case, as I have endeavoured to shew, bad versification has been remedied by the substitution of worse; and, where no change was wanted, a passion for variety has taken the guise of improvement. I aspire, then, to the chair of a moderator; and only wish that there may be henceforth exhibited something like unity of design in our hymnology; that collectors may draw at the fountain head, and not mistake a remote and dirty channel for the spring; that young men, on this side thirty, may give the mighty dead some credit for their powers of song and knowledge of divinity; while, on the other hand, I would suggest, that not even Milton's name is any shelter for doggrel and falsehood; and that, if we cannot alter Watts, Wesley, and Cowper, so as to symmetrize our corrections, it might be well to incur the guilt of omission, rather than expose the cause of religion itself to such derision as is properly merited by an officious and hasty hymnologist.

EXPLORATOR.

THE CHRISTIAN REMEMBRANCER ON THE CHRISTIAN OBSERVER.

For the Christian Observer.

THE Christian Remembrancer has admitted into its last Number a strange tirade of accusations against the Christian Observer; the identical "spattering," we might presume, which a rejected correspondent of