ceeding ages places all such Confessions of Faith everywhere on their right footing.* It is to be welcomed for the sake of the Roman Catholics, and for the sake of the Scottish Presbyterians, as much as for ourselves. If the definition of Original Sin by Dr. Newman seems to our ears almost impossible to reconcile with the letter of the Decrees of Trent; if the noble protest which Dr. Macleod has made against the extreme Sabbatarianism of Scotland, or the equally determined protest which the Free Church has made against the ecclesiastical authority of the civil magistrate, seems, in either case, difficult to reconcile with the letter of the Westminster Confession-these are but instances of the inevitable collision which must take place between the letter and the spirit of each succeeding age; between the form of words which was drawn up with one purpose, and the growth of sentiments and opinions which have sprung up with a totally different purpose. Such formularies cannot be the true safeguards of faith and devotion. Whatever else may be their uses, they have manifestly failed in this, whilst, on the other hand, they have been employed for those baser ends of recrimination and attack for which they were never intended. But no Church will gain more by this acknowledgment of the secondary position of dogmatic Confessions than our own, because it is thereby enabled to return to its true position, which it enjoyed before the Articles were imposed on its members, as the Church of the whole nation. By such disentanglements the Church of England will become free in a far deeper, more spiritual sense, than that in which we have lately heard that "the Church of South Africa is free,”-free, not (as in that case, if so be) from the restraints and protection of English law, but free from the embarrassments in which the factions of former times involved it; free to occupy that great position which De Maistre assigned to it, touching with one hand the Churches and thoughts of the older world, touching with the other the Churches and thoughts of the newer world. These two mighty It is of course not intended that the general acceptance of the "Eirenicon" has equally the same effect on all Confessions. The more simple and ancient Creeds are more universal in character than the modern Confessions; and the great theological words which have moulded the thoughts of men are more powerful and pregnant, in proportion to the length and depth of the associations which they carry with them, and the precision with which they were framed. Yet even here it is sufficient to point to the fact―(1) that the phrase homoöusion was first used by heretics, and condemned by one council as heretical before it was adopted by another council as orthodox; and that Athanasius himself, after its adoption, rarely, if ever, used it again in his own polemical writings; (2) that the word hypostasis, which in the Athanasian Creed is translated person, was in the original Nicene Creed used as synonymous with substance; and (3) that the filioque in the Athanasian and the present Nicene Creed is certainly not invested with the same importance by those who are now anxious to effect a union with the Eastern Churches, as it was by those who introduced the phrase with the express object of condemning those Churches. tendencies can grow up in a healthy Christian growth nowhere so securely and safely as within such a National Church as ours, which, with the author of the "Eirenicon," we humbly trust "has not without some great purpose of God been so marvellously preserved until now."* For the three reasons, then, which I have adduced, the "Eirenicon" seems to me to call for the thankfulness of those who care for the peace of Christendom. It is not my intention, on the one hand, to have merely pressed an argumentum ad hominem. I wish to merge the individual in the body, and to make it, if I may so turn the phrase, an argumentum ad clerum. On the other hand, whilst speaking of this learned work as a step, I shall not be understood to describe it as the chief, or the most necessary step in "the more excellent way" towards the true unity of Christendom. Even confining ourselves. to the peacemaking effects of books, there are many which ought to be ranked amongst the "Eirenica," of a yet higher and more persuasive order. Such is the "Imitation of Christ." Such are the "Christian Year" and the "Pilgrim's Progress,"-each proving by its general acceptance the strength and the number of the religious ideas common to the whole of English Christendom. Such, again, are the Sermons of the lamented Robertson, also accepted as the chief of English preachers by almost every phase of English religious thought. Such, to take a higher flight, are the masterpieces of the theology of great men-Bacon, Butler, Pascal, Shakspere. Such, to descend a step lower again, are such homely practical works as that, the removal of which from its former place in the recommendation of Bishops, I often hear mentioned with deep regret-Hey's "Lectures on the Articles." Such-to take an instance from words pacific in intention, and which would, if they were known as they deserve to be, commend themselves as an Eirenicon of the highest rank, to all who read them-are those admirable pages in Professor Jowett's "Essay on the Interpretation of Scripture," + on the effects of a deeper study of the Bible. Such is the effect of that remarkable book, of mysterious origin, the Ecce Homo, awakening a thrill of emotion and sympathy in so many diverse minds by the force with which it presses, in all its power and simplicity, the mind and work of Him who needs only to be thus understood "to draw all men to Himself." These works aim at that true unity of doctrine-or dogma, if you choose to call it so-which throws the outward form of dogma or doctrine into the shade. They aim, not merely at the means, but at the very end itself, and the all but universal approval of them shows that, apart from personal and party feeling, the end is such as is by the highest religious and theological tendencies of the time fully recognised. † Pp. 360-6, 410-21. VOL. I. • P. 268. 20 The "Eirenicon" has another object, within a more limited, because external and ecclesiastical sphere. But within that sphere it still contributes something, through the three aspects which I have noticed, and yet more through their general acceptance, towards the same end. Though we may reject, as impracticable or undesirable, the particular remedy which it offers, yet like the researches of alchemy after the philosopher's stone (to use the illustration of Leibnitz), it may bring to light elements of which the Divine Chemistry will avail itself in ways that we know not of. Morally, we may be allowed, I trust, to consider it as leading, not directly, perhaps, but indirectly, towards that true spiritual unity longed for by the eminent Nonconformist whom I have already cited, in which, "notwithstanding the sad divisions in the Church, all the saints, so far as they are sanctified, are one; are one in their aims, one in their askings, one in amity and friendship, one in interest, one in their inheritance. . . . The things in which they are agreed are many more, and more considerable than the things wherein they differ. They are all of a mind concerning sin, that it is the worst thing in the world; concerning Christ, that He is all in all; concerning the favour of God, that it is better than life; concerning the world, that it is vanity; concerning the word of God, that it is very precious."* Intellectually, we may be allowed to regard it, in the three points which I have mentioned, as not alien to that unity or Truce of God, advocated by the eminent Roman Catholic divine whom I have also quoted more than once, as the result of the Thelogy of the nineteenth century, when he points to "the sphere where those elsewhere religiously divided may come together and carry on their work and their inquiries in harmony; where all, impelled by the same thirst of knowledge, and drinking out of the same sacred fountains of truth, grow together in one common fellowship; and from this fellowship and brotherhood of knowledge there will one day proceed a higher unity and conciliation, embracing the whole domain, first of historical, and then of religious truth; when, under the influence of a milder atmosphere, the crust of polemical and sectarian ice will thaw and melt away as the patriot and Christian hopes and prays."+ A. P. STANLEY. • Philip Henry. See his Life in Wordsworth's "Eccl. Biog.," vi. 344. THERE Travels and Researches in Crete. By Captain T. A. B. SPRATT, R.N., Travels in Crete. By ROBERT PASHLEY, Esq. Two Volumes. London. HERE are probably few countries in Europe that are less known to the bulk of our readers than the large and important island of Crete. It is, we believe, one of the idées fixes of many continental politicians that its possession is eagerly coveted by English statesmen, and is one of those objects of which la perfide Albion never loses sight. And it was in accordance with this view that its acquisition was the bait held out to our Government by the Emperor Nicholas, in his memorable conversation with Sir Hamilton Seymour, concerning the division of the spoils of "the sick man." But no hand was held out to grasp at the tempting offer; and since that period our cession of the Ionian Islands has probably done something to convince even foreign statesmen that England seeks no aggrandizement in the Mediterranean at least. So little do English politicians in reality trouble themselves about this supposed object of their ambition, that we suspect very few of them know much more about the island than its geographical situation, and the old legends of Minos and Dædalus, that rendered it famous in antiquity. The fortune of the island has indeed been singular. It may safely be asserted that among the many fair and fertile lands that girdle the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, there are few more fertile or more beautiful than Crete. In the enthusiastic words of one who saw this "superb island," as he justly terms it, before it had been desolated by recent civil wars, "Crete is indeed the garden of Greece, and were it thoroughly civilized and cultivated, would produce in vast abundance corn, wine, oil, silk, wool, honey, and wax. The land is stocked with game, the sea with fine fish; fruit is plentiful, and of a delicious flavour: its valleys are adorned with a variety of flowers and aromatic shrubs, and with groves of myrtle, orange, lemon, pomegranate, and almond trees, as well as with interminable forests of olives. The southern coast is destitute of ports, and has scarcely any safe roadsteads; but on the northern side are several excellent and capacious harbours." Great part of the island, it is true, is occupied by lofty ranges and masses of mountains, that rise to a height exceeding the most elevated of those of continental Greece, and are, even under the thirty-fifth parallel of latitude, covered with snow for at least twothirds of the year. But bordering on, and alternating with, these rugged mountain tracts, which abound in scenery of the most picturesque and varied character, are valleys and plains of surpassing richness and beauty. An old English traveller who visited the island in the beginning of the seventeenth century, while it was still under the Venetian rule, breaks out into raptures concerning the plain that surrounds Canea, of which he says, in his quaint style, that "it may easily be surnamed the garden of the whole universe, being the goodliest plot, the diamond spark, and the honey spot of all Candy." An island possessing such great natural advantages, and situated at the very entrance of the Archipelago, as it were a stepping-stone from Europe both to Asia and Africa, would seem to be marked out by nature to exercise a commanding influence over the whole eastern Mediterranean. Yet it is certain that Crete has never played a part in history comparable to that of the neighbouring island of Rhodes, so far inferior to it both in extent and population. Even in ancient times we hear singularly little about it; its traditions of mythical times were indeed numerous; and the legends of Minos, his naval power and his wise legislation, would seem to point to a bygone period, when Crete held a position far more important in relation to the Hellenic world than at any subsequent time. But all such visions of departed splendour are peculiarly untrustworthy, and the mythical glories of Crete must, we fear, be consigned to the same limbo of historic doubt with those of Troy or the "seven-gated" Thebes. A more substantial source of pride was derived from the fact that the Cretans possessed, even in historical times, laws and institutions that were ranked amongst the wisest in Greece, and which are compared both by Plato and Aristotle with those of Sparta. According to one tradition, indeed, the latter had been in great part borrowed by Lycurgus from the legislation already existing in Crete. But however much these institutions may have contributed to the |