and stamping with her feet, as hard as she was able. It was impossible to stop her, she danced through almost every room in the house, and finally into the vestibule, where she threw open a window, and discharged the whole contents of her apron into the court below, with a loud shout! followed her in no small consternation, and on asking what she meant, she replied, O dear young lady, don't you know that one ought to make as much noise as possible this day, to show our joy, because at this hour our Saviour is arisen?' Strangers generally go on one of the three last evenings of holy week to the Trinità dei pellerini, in order to see the washing of the pilgrims' feet. The establishment is very extensive, and all pilgrims who come to Rome are received there, lodged and fed gratis for three days. Of course, the number is greater in holy week than during any other part of the year, and numbers of the first nobles, ecclesiastics, and others of Rome, attend to wash their feet. male and female pilgrims are in different parts of the establishment, and the laity and nobility of both sexes are equally zealous in discharging this work of humility. The washing-room for the men has a bench round it, on which the pilgrims sit, and before each is a small tub with a pipe of hot, and a pipe of cold water. The As soon as they were seated, the washers began, and it was certainly no easy task, for most of the feet did not appear to have been washed for many a day, if ever they had come in contact with soap and water. However, they scrubbed hard, and at last brought them to be tolerably clean, they then dried them, and kissed them. remain in the hospital, Joseph, Mary, Mary Magdalene, James, and Philip.' What indulgences are bestowed upon the washers, I have not been able to ascertain. I have seen about a hundred pilgrims washed in one evening. As soon as the feet are cleaned; they proceed to the supper room, each washer conducting the man he washed, and then waiting on him at supper. Only the newly arrived are washed each evening, but on enter ing the supper room, a very long hall, they are joined by the other male pilgrims in the hospital, so that I have seen about three hundred sit down together, all of them of the very lowest, and most of them, unless their looks belied them, of the most depraved classes of mankind; and yet I could not look upon their pilgrim cloaks, and scallop shells, and their Palmer's staves, without remembering the days of crusade and chivalry, from which this ceremony is in part derived. While they are eating, an ecclesiastic reads aloud a portion of the vulgate for their instruction, and after supper the pilgrims are put to bed by their noble attendants; but I cannot enter into the particulars of this part of the business, for the odour was always so insufferable, that I have never yet been able to stay to see it. In former times, many of the pilgrims were noble and wealthy, and were wont to leave large contributions for the hospital. Now it is no longer so, and I have been told that the expense incurred by some of the confraternity in the support of pilgrims in the Jubilee year 1775, is not yet paid off. I have so fully described mass performed by the Pope in a former letter, that I shall not detail the ceremonies of Easter Sunday at length. The Pope comes in great state to St. Peter's, borne on his portable throne, having the canopy over him, and the state fans car ried by his side. These fans are used on all great occasions, although I have hitherto neglected to mention them; they are very large, and formed of the long tail feathers of the white peacock. Like all the other accompaniments of Papal exhibitions, they are principally intended for effect, but they have a meaning too. The feathers with eyes which compose the fans,' says Magri, signify that the Pope ought to walk very circumspectly in his actions, being surrounded by the very numerous eyes of his people who observe him,' and also how many and what sort of eyes are necessary to him in order that he may never lose sight of the affairs of the whole church.' The original use of the fans was to prevent flies from falling into the chalice at mass. A double file of troops is drawn up in the centre nave of St. Peter's, from the door to near the high altar where the Pope officiates. When he elevates the host, the troops ground their arms. The clash of so many muskets upon the marble pavement appears a singular accompaniment to a solemn religious service, and yet there is something grand in the effect, especially to those who only witness it once or twice. In the evening we have the illumination of the exterior of St. Peter's, and until lately, the Girandola, or great exhibition of fireworks from St. Angelo, also took place on the Sunday. Now, however, the latter show is deferred till the Monday evening. Unquestionably the illumination and the fire-works considered as spectacles, are among the finest I have ever seen, but how they come to be exhibited as part of a solemn religious service, I am wholly at a loss to explain. With these shows, however, such as they are, the ceremonies of holy week in Rome are concluded, and none of them are attended by greater multitudes. I do not describe them, because they are noticed in many books of travels, and it is time that I should bring this long letter to a close. ORIGINAL LETTER FROM THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. ner cause strifes and divisions wherever he goes. Such men the Scriptures command me to avoid, Rom. xvi. 17, 18. Our Lord directs us to judge of the tree by its fruits; the fruits of the Spirit are love, peace, gentleness, humility, and therefore pride, censoriousness, strife, dissension, and division, must be the fruit of another Spirit. The tendency of the Gospel is to promote union and concord; it must surely be quite another Gospel that produces bitterness, ill-will, and vain jangling. I am sorry these noisy folks interrupt and annoy you, but it is no new thing; when the Lord enables His faithful ministers to sow good seed, the enemy as far as he is permitted, will be diligent 6 in sowing tares. You will have need of patience and wisdom. I trust you will ask the Lord for both. I am told they break in upon your time, and will dispute, and cavil with you; depend upon it, that they who presume to teach you how to preach, are destitute of that humility, without which all their boasted attainments are nothing worth. I would advise you not to gratify them; their religion and their pleasure lie much in disputation, but remember that it was said long ago, Prurilus disputandi scabies ecclesia, the love of disputation is a disease of the church.' The religion of the gospel is not a string of dry notions-it is a new life, a new nature, a broken and a contrite heart, and teaches us in lowliness of spirit to esteem others better than ourselves; the humble Christian is disposed to think of others better than of himself; the talking professor magnifies himself, and despises others; he cries out against self-righteousness founded upon prayers and alms, but he makes a self-righteousness of his own notions. I have had something to do in times past with persons of this cast; if they come in my way now, I pity them, and pray for them, but I will not dispute with them. I have been, and still am, by some charged with preaching legally. I know that better men than myself have been affrighted by this bugbear, but through mercy I am not. I take my Lord and his Apostles for my pattern-if they were legal, I will glory in being so too, for I have no desire to be wiser than the Scriptures. God has joined faith and holiness together. I wish not to separate them if I acted like a man who should cultivate and manure bramble in hopes of its yielding grapes, I should be legal ; but supposing the Lord is pleased to change the bramble into a vine, I am not legal for expecting that it a will now produce grapes, and no longer bramble berries. Beware, my friend, of those who, under the semblance of exalting free grace, depreciate that holiness of heart and life, without which we are assured no man shall see the Lord. Again, they say I am legal, because I expostulate with uncon- Y verted sinners, and warn them of their danger; did not our Saviour the same, Luke xiii. 3–5. and in.. many other passages. Have I rea- tson to think worse of any one in my congregation than Peter did of Simon Magus? Yet he ex- 1 horted him to repent and to pray, en if peradventure he might be forgiven. In my sermons on the J Messiah, vol. 1. there is one upon 180 1 John ii. 9. which I wish you to read; my sentiments upon this subject are also stated more largely than I can insert them here, in the I same volume on Isaiah xxxv. 5, 6. (10 I know no persons more deplor-..! ably blind than some who not only profess to see, but arrogantly. I think all are blind but themselves. I love you, and therefore I c have felt for what I have heard.. of your situation, and I write, partly to encourage, and partly to caution you; the whole Scripture is of divine inspiration; beware of those who insist upon part of it to the neglect of the rest; the doctrines, precepts, examples, exhortations, and warnings, are all in their proper places the subject of our ministry, and the warnings must not be neglected, if we regard what the Lord says, Ezekiel xxxiii. 7-9. I trust you will accept what I have written in good part. Dear Miss Catlett joins me in love to you and Mrs. H, for though we never saw you, we consider you both, as one. May the Lordont bless and guide you in all things. I shall be glad to hear from you.!urdw Is am, your affectionate friend; and brother, A GENERAL VIEW OF THE GEOLOGY OF SCRIPTURE, in which the Unerring Truth of the Inspired Narrative of the Early Events in the world is exhibited, and distinctly proved by the corroborative testimony of Physical Facts, on every part of the Earth's Surface. By GEORGE FAIRHOLME, Esq. Pp. xvi. and 494. Ridgway, 1833. were philosophical inquiry. The result of his investigations is announced in the title of the work before us; and though there are some points in which we hesitate entirely to adopt Mr. F's views, we yet conceive his conclusions are substantially correct, and as such deserving of attentive perusal, and careful investigation. The following extracts from Mr. Fairholme's preface, will evince the object which he has in view in this investigation. In presenting the following pages to the judgment of the world, I have reason to fear, that the very title of the work will excite, in the minds of some, feelings by no means favourable to an unprejudiced perusal of it. TRUTH is great and shall prevail. The correctness of this position has been strikingly evinced by every successive inquiry into the circumstances recorded in the Holy Scriptures. Many of our readers are aware that some eminent Philosophers and Geologists of our own, as well as of foreign countries, have hazarded assertions relative to the original constitution of the earth, and its subsequent changes, which require considerable ingenuity to reconcile with the unvarnished narrative of the Mosaic Record. The insufficient grounds on which these assertions hazarded, and the appalling results to which they led, were ably demonstrated by Mr. Bugg in his Scriptural Geology,* a work at which it has been very much the fashion to sneer, and which, on mere literary grounds, is not very inviting; but which contains a series of facts and reasonings which may more easily be contemned than refuted; and which has accordingly, as far as we are aware, been left without any attempt at reply progressive; beginning in faint attempts to the present moment. Mr. Fairholme's work will, however, we doubt not, command more serious attention: he is not, as Mr. Bugg, a divine, but like Mr. Bugg, he is zealous for the word of God; and possesses the additional advantage, of being well acquainted with the science of Geology, which Mr. Bugg had not very closely studied, and an attentive observer of each successive discovery which has recently been made in that interesting department of * See Christian Guardian 1828, p. 431. NOVEMBER 18334 II I am fully aware of the objections which have frequently been raised to the endeavours to connect physical facts, with the details of Scripture; and I am, also, aware of the mischief that has sometimes ensued to the cause of Religion, from the imprudent, or unskilful defence, made by those whose wishes and intentions were the most friendly to it. The course of every science must be to dissipate the obscurity of ignorance, and gradually advancing towards the full light of truth. To this usual course, the science of Geology cannot be considered as an exception, having already passed through some of its early stages, which were avowedly marked with obscurity and error. During these stages of geological ignorance, I am free to admit, that the attempt to connect the supposed discoveries in the physical phenomena of the earth with the truths announced to us in the Sacred Record, could not but tend to 3 I In the assertions of Philosophy were uttered with such boldness, and so supported by the deceptious evidence of physical facts, seen under a false light, that it was difficult for the supporters of Revelation, ignorant, as they generally were, of the nature of these facts, to hold their ground with success, or not to weaken their own cause by an apparent failure in its support. The necessity which has, however, been acknowledged, of rejecting the geological theories of those days, opposed, as they were, to the Mosaical History, was, therefore, a fair source of hope and encouragement to such as advocated the unerring character of Inspired Scripture. It, at least, left that Mosaic Narrative uninjured by the assault; and encouraged a hope, that, as in all other cases, the truth would finally appear, and prevail. Of late years, accordingly, fact after fact has been gradually accumulating; each tending to temper the wild character of an hypothetical philosophy; and every day produces some new evidence of the hasty and erroneous conclusions from physical facts, to which the friends of Revelation had found it too often neces sary to succumb. Each of these errors in philosophy has been a source of triumph to the cause of truth; and the time is gradually approach. ing, if it be not yet fully come, when the trial must be brought to a positive issue, and when those undeniable physical facts, seen in a new and more correct light, will lend their aid to the support, instead of to the destruction of our confidence in Scripture; and when the simplicity and consistency of the Geology of Scripture, will make us regard with astonishment and contempt, schemes that could so long have "exerted so powerful an influence over our reason and understanding.-Pp. ix.-xi. f and then, consulting such history as may be within our reach, to retrace our steps downwards, from the beginning of all things, to the present time. We may thus entertain a confident, hope, that all the appearances on the surface of the earth, upon which the theories of philosophy have been founded, may be accounted for by an attentive, an unprejudiced, and, above all, a docile consideration of the three great events recorded in history, viz. the creation of the earth; the formation of a bed for the primitive sea, with the natural causes acting within that sea for upwards of sixteen centuries; and, lastly, the Deluge, with its crowd of corroborative witnesses, together with the subsequent action of natural causes from that time to the present day, or for upwards of 4000 years.-Pp. 22, 23, D Those who are conversant with geological pursuits, are aware that it is very common for philosophers to speak of the earth as a kind of outer shell, covering a hollow interior; thus, at the last meeting of the British Association for the advancement of Science, held at Cambridge, a learned Professor intimated, that the crust of the earth was probably not more than sixty miles thick; that the interior was probably filled with volcanic fire; that the irruption of a horsepond might at any moment pro-. duce a terrific explosion, &c. now we are free to confess, that all this appears to us little better than sheer nonsense; and the more so as another philosopher on the very same day intimated that the utmost depth yet penetrated below the earth's surface, and that merely in one place, was only about a mile, and we know therefore just as much of the interior of our globe, as the insect which eats through the paper covering of the terrestrial globe on our study table, can be supposed to know of the material of which that instrument is made; on this subject Mr. F. justly remarks, Some philosophers, undeterred by the apparent impossibility of any satisfactory result, have attempted to ascertain the mean density of the earth. This problem 1 |