idea, to exaggerate a limited and unimportant experience, and to minister exclusively to the sense of amusement, have become the primal objects of popular writers. They have, in numerous instances, ignored the relation of thought to action, of integrity to expression, and of truth to eloquence. They have dreamed, dallied, coquetted on paper exactly as the butterflies of life do in society, giving no impression of individuality or earnestness. To divert a vacant hour, to beguile, flatter, puzzle, and relieve the ennui of thoughtless minds, appears the height of their ambition. The conventional, the lighter graces, the egotistic inanities of self-love, so predominate, that we gain no fresh impulse, receive no mental stimuli, behold no veil of error rent, and no vista of truth opened as we read. The man of letters is often, to our consciousness, not a prophet, an oracle, a hero, but a juggler, a pet, or, at best, a graceful toy. We realize the old prejudice, that to write for the public amusement is a vocation based on unmanly pliancy, a mercenary pursuit which inevitably conflicts with self-respect, deals in gossip, and trenches on the dignity of social refinement. Personal contact not seldom destroys whatever illusion taste may have created. We find an evasive habit of mind, an effeminate care of reputation, a fear of selfcompromise, a dearth of original, frank, genial utterance. Our ideal author proves a mere dilettante, says pretty things as if committed to memory for the occasion, picks ingenious flaws to indicate superior discernment, interlards his talk with quotations, is all things to all men, and especially to all women, makes himself generally agreeable by a system of artificial conformity, and leaves us unrefreshed by a single glimpse of character or one heart-felt utterance. We strive to recognize the thinker and the poet, but discover only the man of taste, the man of the world, the fop, or the epicure; and we gladly turn from him to a fact of nature, to a noble tree or a sunset cloud, to the genuine in humanity, -a fair child, an honest mechanic, true-hearted woman, or old soldier,- because in such there is not promise without performance, the sign without the thing, the name without the soul. It is from the salient contrast with these familiar phases of authorship that the very idea of such a man as Sydney Smith redeems NO. 170.

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the calling. In him, first of all and beyond all, is manhood, which no skill in pencraft, no blandishment of fame or love of pleasure, was suffered to overlay for a moment. To be a man in courage, generosity, stern faith to every domestic and professional claim, in the fear of God and the love of his kind, in loyalty to personal conviction, bold speech, candid life, and good fellowship, - this was the vital necessity, the normal condition, of his nature. Thus consecrated, he found life a noble task and a happy experience, and would have found it so without any Edinburgh Review, Cathedral of St. Paul's, or dinners at Holland House; although, when the scope and felicities they brought to him came, — legitimate results of his endowments and needs, they were, in his faithful hands and wise appreciation, the authentic means of increased usefulness, honor, and delight; and chiefly so, because he was so disciplined and enriched by circumstances and by natural gifts, as to be virtually independent, self-sustained, and сараble of deriving mental luxury, philosophic content, and religious sanction from whatever lot and duty had fallen to his share. Herein lie the significance of his example and the value of his principles. Like pious and brave old Herbert, he found a kingdom in his mind which he knew how to rule and to enjoy; and this priceless boon was his triumph and comfort in the lowliest struggles and in the highest prosperity. It irradiated the damp walls of his first parsonage with the glow of wit, nerved his heart, as a poor vicar, to plead the cause of reform against the banded conservatives of a realm, hinted a thousand expedients to beguile isolation and indigence of their gloom, invested his presence and speech with self-possession and authority in the peasant's hut and at the bishop's table, made him an architect, a physician, a judge, a schoolmaster, a critic, a reformer, the choicest man of society, the most efficient of domestic economists, the best of correspondents, the most practical of political writers, the most impressive of preachers, the most genial of companions, a good farmer, a patient nurse, and an admirable husband, father, and friend. The integrity, good sense, and moral energy which gave birth to this versatile exercise of his faculties, constitute the broad and solid foundation of Sydney Smith's character; they were

the essential traits of the man, the base to that noble column of which wit formed the capital and wisdom the shaft. In the temple of humanity what support it yielded during his life, and how well-proportioned and complete it now stands to the eye of memory, an unbroken and sky-pointing cenotaph on his honored grave!

ART. V.-1. The Papal Conspiracy exposed, and Protestantism defended, in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture. By EDWARD BEECHER, D. D. Boston: Stearns & Co. 12mo. pp. 432. 2. Ecclesiastical Tenures. Speech of JAMES O. PUTNAM, of Buffalo, on the Bill providing for the Vesting of the Title to Church Property in Lay Trustees, delivered in the Senate of New York, January 30, 1855. Albany: Benthuysen. 8vo. pp. 40.

NEARLY twelve centuries have passed since the Papal hierarchy assumed a rank among the nations of the world. In the beginning it exhibited the weakness of infancy. As it advanced in years it grew in strength, until, at the midnight of the Dark Ages, it overshadowed and controlled all Europe. Those who still submit to its power assign to it an earlier origin. They place the name of the Apostle Peter at the head of their list of Popes, deducing his authority from Jesus Christ; and from Peter they pretend to trace an unbroken succession of Bishops of Rome, in process of time called Popes, to the two hundred and sixty-third Pope, now on the pontifical throne. That Peter was the first Bishop of Rome, or ever resided there, receives, however, no support from authentic history.

In primitive times every Christian church elected its bishop, or overseer, that being the meaning of the Greek word translated bishop. These bishops, as well as the churches they were chosen to oversee, were unconnected with one another were all equal in power, and so continued through the first three centuries of the Christian era. It is true that younger

paid deference to older churches; and more especially, that village churches paid deference to the church of the metropolis of the province. In process of time, to the metropolitan bishop was conceded a general superintendence over the ecclesiastical affairs of the province, the right to convoke assemblies of the provincial bishops, and to preside over their deliberations; but care was taken so to limit the concessions made as to prevent any extension of his power, and to establish, on a secure basis, the independence of all the other bishops.

History speaks in favorable terms of the virtues and simplicity of the early bishops. They lived too near the Founder of Christianity to have forgotten his precepts, or to have become insensible of the spirit in which they were promulgated. Each lived, too, in the midst of his peculiar flock. He shared their joys and griefs. He knew no higher station than that to which his brethren had raised him, only a little above themselves; he sought no greater happiness than to live and die among them, and when called to meet his and their Master, to leave them improved in all things by the performance of all his duties.

But it could not be so always. Rome-the empire and the city, rulers and people had already become corrupt, and was verging to its fall. The Christians, pure as they were, and striving to live separate from the world, could not entirely escape contamination. Hypocrites mingled with the flock, and, perceiving that the office of bishop was honorable from the affection with which the incumbent was regarded, and profitable from the munificent rewards bestowed by gratitude for his fidelity, sought and sometimes obtained it; and the Pagans, regarding with jealousy these apostates from their old religion, slandered them, and brought on them the persecutions of the Roman emperors. Yet the number professing the new religion increased rapidly. Gibbon says that in A. D. 300, the Roman empire contained eighteen hundred bishops, and of course as many, perhaps more, churches or congregations; of which number one thousand were in the Greek or Eastern provinces, and eight hundred in the Latin or Western provinces, Constantinople being the centre of the former, and Rome of the latter.

About this time the government of the Church began to indicate a decidedly monarchical tendency. The metropolitan bishops assumed, and were indulged in assuming, more and more authority; and an order of clerks, or priests, was instituted, who were ordained by the bishops, were entirely subject to their control, and of course raised them a step higher above the people or laity. Subsequently four of the metropolitan bishops- those of Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, and Constantinople-acquired in some way a pre-eminence over the others near and around them, and received the appellation of Patriarchs; and the portions of territory over which they enjoyed this pre-eminence were called Patriarchates. The relative rank of these patriarchates seems to have been a subject of dispute. In the records of a council held at Constantinople in 381, is a decree that the bishop of that city, who was then the last who had received that distinction, should take rank next after the Bishop of Rome, since Constantinople was New Rome; and the Council of Chalcedon, held in 451, confirmed this decision, with the remark, "that the Fathers rightly conceded that rank to the episcopate of ancient Rome, because Rome was the mistress city"; from which it is apparent that, if there was at this time a tradition that St. Peter ever resided at Rome and was buried there, the Fathers did not believe it, or did not think it a fact of importance. The period of greatest credulity and superstition had not yet come.

To the few bishops at this time called Patriarchs was given or conceded the sole power to ordain the metropolitans, and to each a general superintendence over his own patriarchate. The institution of this new and higher order of ecclesiastical officers was followed by mischievous consequences. "The history of these centuries," says Neander, "shows how much of impure, worldly interest became diffused in the Church through the eager thirst and strife of the bishops for precedence of rank." Very justly could Gregory of Nazianzum say, as he did in 380, "Would to Heaven there were no primacy, no eminence of place, and no tyrannical precedence of ranks, that we might be known by eminence of virtue alone! But as the case now stands, the distinction of a seat at the right