level, young women at the earliest age were snatched from their homes-the only places then where modesty still took refuge; they were congregated in dim seclusions, where they received visits from unmarried men, to whom, moreover, and in hours of tremulous excitement, they were to expose the inmost secrets of their hearts! This is that scheme which we are to admire, and to emulate, and to set agoing afresh among ourselves!

THE DIRECT INFLUENCE OF THE CELIBATE
UPON THE CLERGY.

We have only to follow the inevitable course of things, a very little way, and it will become evident that what has actually happened could not but have happened, and must always, unless under the most extraordinary circumstances, happen, wherever the principle of the ascetic life is embraced.-The doctrine that celibacy is a higher and a holier state than matrimony,* and that it is a more excellent way,' and that virginity, as the fathers constantly express it, places a man near to God, is, let us suppose, broached in a christian community, and is put forward, whether modestly or fanatically, so as to enchain ardent minds. Such instantly profess this angelic excellence :-the people, not taught better, admire and applaud the specious instance of fervour and self-devotion; they gaze with awe and affection upon the 'holy' youth, or virgin; and this awe is just so much respect withdrawn from those, however excellent they may be, who fall short of so high a standard. But can there be any element of sanctity which is not eminently to be desired in those who administer holy things? The people will feel this congruity, and the ardent and ambitious among the clergy will keenly feel it too; and although other means of popularity should be wanting, this at least is at

hand-the weak and enthusiastic, as well as the haughty and aspiring, will snatch at the distinction, and there will soon be a band of 'holy' priests and deacons, who, by the aid of the very qualities which have impelled them to walk on so arduous a path, will draw towards themselves the warmest feelings of the devout portion of the community. When things have proceeded thus far, many, who had been insensible to primary motives, will yield to such as are secondary; and they also will 'profess.'

Thus the band of the 'chaste' will gradually have swollen to such a magnitude as to disturb the equilibrium of feeling throughout the Church: a new mode of speaking will have come in, adapted to this altered state of things;-' marriage is lawful, no doubt; to say otherwise were heretical; but yet how angelic is chastity and how fit is it, that those who wear spotless white at the altar, should also be inwardly and personally white! Whenever it is possible, let us receive the holy sacrament, from holy hands.' When once this comes to be said or felt, by the devout, the fate of the Church is sealed. Married priests rest thenceforward under an obloquy ;-they are not indeed driven from the altar; but they gladly give place there to those who can lift an unblushing front to heaven. More and more go over to the privileged company, and, while indemnifying themselves as they may, and all but a few will indemnify themselves, will yet claim, in public, the honours of continence, and join in decrying, as sensual, the married priest. When it comes to be understood that it is marriage and not profligacy that is condemned, none but the few who retain some sense of virtue and piety will subject themselves to contempt for the mere sake of being able to call the woman they live with-wife. At length it is felt to be a measure, at once of discretion and of mercy, not to say necessity, to forbid universally, what has become the occasion of scandal and of invidious distinction: the last step therefore is taken, and holy celibacy, joining hands with detestable vices, celebrates its triumph. Fanaticism proclaims a high day, and blows her seven trumpets of lust, hypocrisy, cruelty, blasphemy, infidelity, madness, and misery; and the Church thenceforward sits enthroned upon the overthrown decencies of domestic life, and is encircled by an unmarried priesthood, the ministers and patterns of all evil.

D D

The social system then putrefies to the core, and the poison of its corruption sheds death on every side. In various degrees of aggravation, such have always, and in all countries, been the consequences of clerical celibacy; and clerical celibacy is the inevitable consequence of the doctrine that the virgin state is more holy than the married.

Whether we speak of these things problematically, as what must happen, or historically, as what has always happened, is indifferent to our argument: the connexion of the effect with its cause is of the most intimate kind; nor can any exceptions be produced that should affect our conclusion. So long as religious celibacy rests upon the plain ground of utility, it will keep within very narrow bounds, and the practice may be exempt from peril; but the moment it is propounded as an object of spiritual ambition, or as a lofty distinction, many motives, and some of them of a very impure kind, will come into play, impelling multitudes to snatch this glory, who have sadly mistaken their personal call. Only one course of events can then follow-namely—the prevalence of frightful abuses. If religious celibacy be a glory and a beauty, in itself, the clergy must not leave this advantage to the laity. This were as if the brightest military courage the freshest laurels of war, neglected by the officers in an army, were left to be the distinction of the privates. Then, if some of the clergy arrogate this professional virtue, all must at length pretend to it. The doctrine of Tertullian and of Cyprian is the alpha in a series, to which Hildebrand subjoined the omega; and the modern favourers of antiquity are setting agoing again, that, which, should it proceed, can have no other end.

A small portion of men only (moments of excitement excepted) will adhere virtuously to a vow of continence: to expect any thing else is ridiculously absurd. But even if the proportion were large, as it possibly might become, for a time, and under unusual circumstances of religious animation, or of proselyting zeal, it remains to inquire what the effects of celibacy are upon the dispositions of the clergy-even supposing the best that can be imagined. This is a trite subject. The ministers of religion are, unavoidably, so far set off from the influence of ordinary motives, as to involve some peril to their humility, their candour,

and their good sense; but to sever them from the social mass violently, by celibacy, is to aggravate tenfold all the ill tendencies of their position, and to render them morose, selfish, arrogant, prurient, trivial, fanatical, and perversely ambitious; in a word-to induce habits and dispositions the most pernicious in their bearing upon private life, and dangerous in the highest degree to the state. The history of Europe has abundantly established these general principles, which few now dispute.

The Lord knows what human nature is; and he has otherwise determined for his ministers, than that they should want the salutary and softening influences of domestic life; and here we come to a decisive instance in which the explicit law of God, being violently and without shame contradicted, and set aside, by the decisions of the Church, a choice must be made between the two authorities. On this particular ground, as I humbly venture to predict, the Oxford Tract church principles will either win a signal triumph-a triumph fatal to christianity, and to England; or-they will meet their merited fate, and be remembered only with pity. Feeling, as they must, how critical this question is, the promoters of nicene christianity will hardly do otherwise than evade a premature trial of their strength in respect to it. At the present moment, for them to say all they mean, and clearly to propound all they wish to see effected, would instantly bring hundreds of their disciples to their senses. Not indeed that these divines intend the remoter consequences of the course they are pursuing; but they intend that which must infallibly induce those consequences.

It is peculiarly desirable that this momentous dissonance between church principles, and New Testament authority, should be calmly regarded.-Virginity is, says the Church, a holy condition, and a link of connexion between the human and the divine nature. Our Lord has consecrated it; and its high patroness is the Ever-Virgin-Mother, the Blessed Mary. Catholic antiquity gives its suffrage in favour of this doctrine, with uncommon animation and unanimity; and how pleasing, nay glorious, is the notion, and how enviable the privilege and the honour of those who walk on earth as angels, and who, although in the body, have renounced its humiliations ! But then, if things be

so, it would be cruel to exclude the clergy-the very ministers of heaven, from this arena of celestial merit. No canons could effect any such exclusion. All the most lofty-minded of the clergy must seize this distinction, and the very persons whom the Church would wish to see in the seat of authority, will, as a matter of course, be-unmarried men. If sacerdotal dignity were always conferred by the rule of professional merit, bishops (under such a state of things as we are now supposing) would be chosen almost always from the band of virgin presbyters.

Here then we directly confront a clear, positive, and reiterated divine enactment. This should be looked to. The present advocates of church principles assume it as one of their principles that things which are only once, or incidentally and very slightly alluded to by the inspired writers, may nevertheless be absolutely binding upon the Church. Let us then take this ground, and we must admit that, notwithstanding any general inference to the contrary, if nothing more had been said in all the New Testament concerning the marriage of sacerdotal persons, than what is dropped (and 'near not to have been dropped') by Paul, when he asks, 'what, may we not lead about a sister, a wife?' &c. that even in that case, the liberty of clerical matrimony would have been secured. This cannot be denied by those who profess the principle above mentioned.

But now so it is, that no circumstance or condition of the ecclesiastical constitution established by the Apostles has been more explicitly or more formally specified than this, of the domestic qualifications of church officers, supreme and subordinate. The apostolic rule would nearly justify the maxim-No husband, no bishop. If episcopacy itself had been as clearly enjoined as is the marriage of bishops and deacons, there would probably never have been a question on the subject. Timothy and Titus are authoritatively addressed on subjects specially clerical, and they are formally instructed how they are to behave themselves in 'the house of God;' and, particularly, they are told what sort of men they ought to elevate to the most responsible stations. No doubt then we shall hear the Apostle say that Apostle whom we have heard recommending celibacy- although bishops and deacons are not to be prohibited from marrying, yet, whenever it can be