government of a diocese is moreover almost secular, so much so as to go very far towards justifying the English practice, which almost drops the character of the minister in the bishop. To the usefulness of the priest the system is no more propitious. He is under the same disadvantage with every other man who has a superior responsible for his conduct. If he is blamed, or blames himself for his remissness, he does not forget that the bishop as well as himself must answer for it, and by the division of the responsibleness, the power of conscience is weakened. The officiating clergy are partially at least relieved of dependence on those to whom their mal-administration is a wrong. If ac cused they must answer to one, whom, faithful as he may be to his trust, they may, if they have sufficient resources and address, find some other means to satisfy of their innocence, besides proving it, or whom at least they may influence in their favour by repelling specific accusations, when he has not the opportunity of frequent intercourse to learn how they fulfil those less determinate duties, by which the faithful or negligent discharge of an office is best made known. A bishopric in prospect is no aid to the usefulness of a priest. The acknowledged and official head of such a body as the clergy is necessarily a man of great consequence and power. The influence of one among the American bishops, we suppose, is not inferior to that of more than one other man in the United States. Such a situation cannot but be an object of desire to those who are in a condition to be raised to it; and to say nothing of the advantage both to shepherd and flock of the connexion, between them being understood to be permanent, nor of the danger of sinking the clerical character in canvassing for preferment, in soliciting the powerful, making partisans of the low, and plotting against rivals, we are not satisfied that any ambition, except that to discharge regularly laborious and responsible duties, can well have place in the mind of one engaged in the christian ministry. Once more; the same man will not make the best bishop aud

the best priest; and we should think this must be au injury to all in the subordinate rank, hoping, as it is at least possible all may, to be raised to the higher. We should fear, that in qualifying themselves for the office to which they are aspiring, they might regard less the qualifications for the place they fill; that present usefulness might suffer by the chance of promotion.

But we need not enlarge on this subject, for if the system of episcopacy continues to subsist at all, it will be only by the credit which it may gain to its pretensions to a divine right. Good as it might be reckoned, it would soon be obsolete, if it attempted to exercise authority where it was considered as only a prudential institution. The first man who thought himself wronged by those in place under it, would secede. The first imagined abridgment of the christian liberty of an individual would create a schism, for no man would submit to what he thought an unjust exercise of an usurped authority. Those who maintain the `expediency of this form of government, must, whatever they may think,-if they mean it shall continue,must, if their consciences will suffer them, maintain its jure divino claim. It will stand on no narrower base; and when Locke and Paley sought to remove it to another, we are almost tempted to believe, that, friends to religious liberty as they were, they meant to take a step to demolish it, and chose the way which was at once the surest, and the least obnoxious, to accomplish their purpose.

Mr. Sparks's second letter is on the ritual of the episcopal church. He speaks of the use of forms of prayer in the following judicious and candid terms.

"Your remarks on the utility and expediency of forms of prayer are not without weight. If we ever give utterance to our feelings in chaste, appropriate, and solemn language, it should be in our addresses to the Deity. If we ever suppress the vain ambition of using lofty phrases, high sounding epithets, and an unnecessary abundance of words, it should be then.

We cannot study too much to make our language simple, plain, forcible and direct. In those religious exercises in which large numbers unite, and where the prayers are intended to express the wants and petitions of the whole, there can certainly be no impropriety in using a preconceived form, composed in such general terms as to be adapted to a promiscuous assembly."

It is not pretended that the use of set forms of prayer is required in scripture, as essential to the fit performance of that duty; nor can those who approve forms, take in defence of them that favourite ground of antiquity, where ignorant and worldly ecclesiastics of the fourth and fifth centuries may be called in for allies. "Men had prayed to God," as Palmer remarks, "two thousand years before any books were written;" and extemporaneous prayer was habitually offered in the assemblies of the primitive christians. "They prayed," says Tertullian, "without any prompter except their own hearts." "The president," says Justin Martyr, "prayed according to his ability." Nor until the council of Milan, in the year 416, were forms authoritatively appointed by the church.

On the other haud, the lawfulness of the use of set forms is not denied, for those, who find them to conduce to the purposes of social worship. We need not therefore stop to consider what Dr. Wyatt could have meant by the words "the lawfulness of forms being then established by a divine appointment," any more than to ask how his remark, that "the book of Psalms was inspired by the Holy Ghost for the use of the congregation," is to be reconciled with the fact, (undisputed, as we have supposed, till now, that many of the Psalms were composed on subjects of a personal nature; and suited as they are to excite devout sentiments, are, from their structure, as entirely unsuitable as one of the discourses of our Lord, or one of the epistles would be, to make a part in the devotions of an assembly of worshippers.

We are not aware of any prejudice on this subject, nor do we even regard it as of the first importance. We wish, as all christians must, that prayer should be offered in that manner, in which the purposes of devotion will be best accomplished. It is a thing of minor concern whether our petitious be offered in the words of others or our own; the object is that they be offered in the most solemn, reverend, and edifying manner. We are not blind to the advantages or defects of either of the different methods adopted in christian congregations; but after as fair an estimate as we are able to make of them, we cannot but regard prayers in a certain sense extemporaneous, as best fitted to accomplish the ends of public worship. They require in the clergy a useful discipline of heart and mind, a familiarity with scripture and with devotional thoughts. They require a peculiar culture of the affections, and at the time of offering them give an animation to the devout feelings, which tends much to the improvement, alike of the intellectual and religious character of the clergy, and by direct consequence of their power of usefulness. No doubt, that, except under circumstances of peculiar embarrassment, or except prevented by a constitutional diffidence, or want of fluency seldom found, the same person, after a proper course of preparation, may utter a more appropriate and fervent prayer in the church, than he can compose in the closet; because in retirement he is only preparing it to be offered, and it will almost unavoidably be marked by a rhetorical coldness; in the church he is really offering it, and under circumstances which can hardly fail, except under disadvantages such as have been named, to work up a mind of sensibility to a high pitch of devotional feeling. He is operated on by the associations of place, and by a sense of the solemnity and interest of the occasion. His mind is awed by the unbroken silence, and at the same time led into the proper train and forced into strong action, by the presence of a multitude, whose devotions he is to present. He is at liberty to adapt

his thanksgiving and petitions to the circumstances of those whose devotions he leads, and we suppose no one doubts, that our devotional feelings are most engaged by those prayers, which have the closest reference to our own condition. And to these reasons for preference of the congregational form of conducting public worship, which we conceive give the promise, that the prayers offered in christian assemblies will be in this way the best constructed for their purpose, we add, that the degree of variety of expression and of topics, which this method admits, is of use to excite and keep alive the devout feelings of the worshippers.

We are not insensible, however, to an inconvenience attending this method. It requires in the person who officiates, abilities and cultivation which may be dispensed with in him, who is only needed, to use the phrase of Dr. Mayhew, "to read prayers to God." And even the best qualified for the sacred office, are, at times, from languor of spirits and temporary decay of their powers, or from accidental embarrassment, from which a public assembly is no place to recover, in danger of paining their fellow-worshippers by a want of fluency or propriety in their addresses. We have no hesitation in admitting this difficulty to be real. But we have never seen or heard it stated except in what seem to us exaggerated terms. We have not found it to exist to any very serious extent. A man learns to pray as he learns to preach; and if he have considerable acquaintance with scripture, and right views of the nature of the service, we think he will be more likely, with the same talents and discipline, to offer the prayers of a christian assembly in a suitable manner, than to interest and profit them by his preaching. And if by chance, a moment's hesitation should occur, or an expression not the aptest possible escape him, it is not an occasion to call forth a captious criticism; or the taste, if offended, may look for its compensation to a moment of greater collectedness, and more raised devotional feeling. The inconvenience, we are satisfied, has been not so much ex