wholly failed, is marked by a beautiful simplicity of treatment, and some fine and tender touches of feeling. The conception of the vision at Horeb is striking and well wrought out, and, so far as we remember, original. When wind, and earthquake, and fire have passed, and the prophet sees from their effects that God is not in them, then there rises before him a vision of the Crucified, and from his pale lips goes forth "a still small voice," that, ever sounding on through all the ages, at length wins the world to righteousness and love. The following passage is from this part of the prophet's description of the vision, and affords a fair specimen of the poetry of the drama as a whole :

"He bowed his head,

And hung, a lifeless form, upon the tree.
And round that form, methought that I beheld,
In adamantine pride and scornful hate,
The principalities and powers of earth,
The mighty idols that have blinded men!
Tier above tier, in rangèd hierarchies,
Nations, majestic in their sceptred pride,
Armies, whose trumpets spoke the law o' th' world:
All scowled defiance on that pallid form.
It seemed the frailest thing as there it hung,
Between the stars of God and graves of men,
The frailest thing in all this universe.
Then in the vision many, many years,
By centuries, by thousands, rolled away.
And toning, toning on, in spheric chime,
That still small voice made melody Divine.
And one by one those idols from their thrones
Fell, crumbling into dust. And one by one
Those nations failed, like sere leaves of the wood;
Those armies slumbered in a stony sleep;
The cycles of the world were long, the ear
Of man was heavy; but that still small voice
Went sounding, sounding on immortally.
A thousand years were short for men to catch
One of its tones; they learned the simplest last.
And often, they that loudliest named the name
Of Him that hung upon the tree, did most

To drown that voice; and many woe-worn men,
And tender tremulous women, died in fire-
Half-conscious that a smile fell through the smoke
Upon them from the Cross; and that the words
Which the priests gnashed at, howling 'blasphemy'
And 'infidelity,' were truer, far,

To the deep melody of that small voice,

Than chants that rolled and rang in choral peal
Through proud cathedrals."

It may be justly questioned whether the author has not gone beyond the bounds of dramatic propriety, as he has certainly transcended those of Scriptural warrant, in giving this turn to the vision, and making it the vehicle to the stern Hebrew prophet of a significance the full import of which seems to require advanced Christian culture to perceive and appreciate. And if this be an error, we have another

of the same sort in Elijah's farewell words to Jezebel, from which the reader will be surprised to learn that a Hebrew of the time of Ahab had strong objections to absolute monarchy, and could put them in a way not unbecoming an opponent of the late French Empire. This deficiency of the instinctive insight and tact so necessary in dramatic composition shows itself glaringly in one or two other instances. If Jezebel was an adulteress, of which, by the way, there is no evidence, surely it was not necessary to make that fact appear in the offensively bald way in which act iii. scene v. sets it forth. Still less was there any dramatic necessity for exaggerating the prophet's fine mockery of the priests of Baal into something approaching to ludicrous maniacal raving. The end, too, is somewhat disappointing. Instead of accelerated movement, and interest culminating, as it might justly have done, in a tragic close, we have a tolerably quiet argument between Elijah and Jezebel, finished by an unsuccessful dagger-stroke. Another defect of the poem is its want of that clear delicate modelling-that roundness, detail and finish-of character, which is essential to true drama, and for the absence of which no amount of fine description or sonorous declamation can compensate.

But notwithstanding its defects, the Days of Jezebel is a drama of considerable power. It is the work of one who is both a poet and a scholar. It cannot fail to interest the student of Old Testament times by its faithful and graphic representation of the state of things prevailing at a critical period of Jewish history; while the lover of poetry will find much to gratify him in its sounding lengths of blank verse, and in its two beautiful lyrics-one in praise of Sidon, and the other a really fine Hymn to Baal.

We lay down Mr. Bayne's book with the conviction that, with such real poetic ability as he undeniably possesses, this is not the best that he can do that if only he would study how to lay on more of those subtle strokes of character which at once finish and reveal, and develope more of that tact, without which the best materials are ineffective, he might produce a drama worthy of a high and enduring

success.

THE BENNETT Judgment.

Sheppard v. Bennett: the Argument of Archibald John Stephens, Q.C., and the Judgment of the Judicial Committee, in Sheppard v. Bennett (Clerk). Rivingtons, London, Oxford, Cambridge. 1872.

On the 8th of June last a judgment was delivered by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, on the Appeal of Sheppard v. Bennett, that had been anxiously expected by each of the great parties in the Church of England. The majority of High Churchmen on the one hand, and of Low Churchmen on the other, hoped for legal victory,

on a great and disputed question of Church doctrine, while Broad Churchmen, and those generally who regard the preservation of the Establishment as of the first importance, deprecated any decision that should be a real triumph or a real defeat to either. In the recent "Purchas Case" the issues raised were on matters of ritual, and the judgment was, so far as it went, adverse to the Ritualist party. In the case of Sheppard v. Bennett the controversy had advanced to the stage whither many on both sides wished it to be carried; for since the whole significance of the ritual question is to be found in its relation to doctrine, it is surely better that the doctrinal issue itself should be fairly raised, and not dealt with by inference and implication alone. Judgment was, accordingly, sought upon the doctrinal teaching of Mr. Bennett as to "the real and actual Presence of our Lord under the form of Bread and Wine, upon the Altars of our Churches." Many people, perhaps most, ventured to believe that the decision in the great ritual case would be followed by another in the same direction, but as much more emphatic as the issue was plainer and more direct. This expectation has not been realised, and the equilibrium of parties is, curiously enough, restored. The Purchas judgment placed some restraints upon a clergyman's procedure in the administration of the Lord's Supper, and consequently upon the indirect modes of teaching certain doctrine; but the Bennett judgment grants a freedom of direct teaching in the pulpit, which may well be accepted as an equivalent, and something more. As the matter now stands, the highest sacramental teaching heard in the English Church since the Reformation is declared not illegal, but the rites and ceremonies, which are the natural accompaniment and expression of that teaching, are prohibited. Their Lordships' account of the seeming inconsistency is that, "In the public or common prayers and devotional offices of the Church, all her members are expected and entitled to join; it is necessary, therefore, that such forms of worship as are prescribed by authority for general use should embody those beliefs only which are assumed to be generally held by members of the Church. In the case of Westerton v. Liddell (and again in Martin v. Mackonochie), their Lordships say, 'In the performance of the services, rites, and ceremonies ordered by the Prayer Book, the directions contained in it must be strictly observed, no omission and no addition can be allowed.' If the minister be allowed to introduce, at his own will, variations in the rites and ceremonies that seem to him to interpret the doctrine of the service in a particular direction, the service ceases to be what it was meant to be, common ground on which all Church people may meet, though they differ about some doctrines. But the Church of England has wisely left a certain latitude of opinion in matters of belief, and has not insisted on a rigorous uniformity of thought, which might reduce her communion to a narrow compass."

With the general principle here stated most people will agree: the difficulty lies in applying it to particulars. What, for instance, are the boundaries of that "latitude of opinion in matters of belief which

the Church of England so wisely leaves?" The Judicial Committee leaves those boundaries as it found them, undefined, but contents itself with declaring that Mr. Bennett has not transgressed them; after which, we imagine, it will not be very easy for any one else to do so, travelling, that is to say, in the same direction. In concluding his very learned argument, Dr. Stephens combats beforehand the application to Mr. Bennett's teaching of the elastic principle of tolerance and comprehension. He refers to the two distinct schools of thought which have existed within the Church of England, "widely divergent the one from the other, but both fairly comprised within her defined limits. These schools of thought have, at different periods in our history, been represented by Jewell and Overall; Andrewes and Tillotson; Robert Nelson and William Wilberforce; Dean Hook and the late Dean Goode. And these divergences of opinion will probably continue as long as the Church of England continues to exist. It should be distinctly understood, that with neither of these schools of religious thought does this argument in any degree interfere. The doctrine maintained by Mr. Bennett is as contrariant to the doctrine of these two schools of thought, as it is contrariant to the Formularies of the Church of England. If your Lordships affirm the doctrine of Mr. Bennett, viz.—

(1) That the true Body of Christ is present in the elements upon the altar;

(2) That the Priest makes a real offering of Christ to God in the Eucharist; and

(3) That adoration is due to Christ present in the consecrated bread and wine;

Then, there is no substantial distinction between the doctrine of the Church of England and the Decrees of the Council of Trent, in reference to

(1) The Real Presence;

(2) The sacrifice of Christ by the Priest; and

(3) The adoration of Christ in the elements;

Then Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer can no longer be regarded as martyrs who suffered for the truth; and the Reformation itself becomes neither more nor less than an unjustifiable, and therefore sinful, act of schism." Each of these inferences appears to be perfectly logical, and we imagine that Mr. Bennett and his friends think so too. Much labour and learning have been spent in showing that the Articles of the English Church and the Decrees of the Council of Trent are not irreconcilable, and Dr. Stephens's way of putting this, so far from alarming the advocates of that view, would be readily accepted by them.

The judgment of the Privy Council gives Mr. Bennett at least the victory of an acquittal, tempered, however, with severe censure for "rash and ill-judged words, which are perilously near a violation of the law." It should be distinctly borne in mind, more particularly perhaps by those who are not members of the Church of England,

that in this case, as in those of Mackonochie and Purchas, the issue was not, what is erroneous, but, what is unlawful. To quote from the judgment in the Gorham case, "The question which we have to decide is, not whether the opinions are theologically sound or unsound, .. but whether those opinions are contrary and repugnant to the doctrines which the Church of England, by its articles, formularies, and rubrics, requires to be held by its ministers." It has been repeatedly laid down that Church Courts know nothing of theological truth and falsehood as such, and are only competent to determine whether the language used by the members of the Church is or is not contradictory of the language used in the dogmatic bases of the Church. The Court is asked to decide what is or is not compatible with certain doctrinal standards; those standards are assumed to be final authorities; but what doctrines are true or untrue in themselves is quite another question, into the discussion of which no Ecclesiastical Court will allow itself to be drawn. Even in religious communities possessing compact organisation and sharply-defined theological bases, the task of determining what may or may not be fairly taught is not so easy as might be supposed; but in an ancient and historical Church, whose formularies date from different periods, and have been gradually shaped by influences of many kinds, the difficulties of such a task can hardly be overrated. We are not at all disposed to doubt either the fairness or the learning of the judges, though their decision is a great disappointment to all who care for the Protestant character of the Church of England. We have no doubt that their interpretation of the Church's formularies is correct, and that, consequently, they are right in deciding that "the language of the respondent was not so plainly repugnant to the articles and formularios as to call for judicial condemnation." But we shall watch with interest the result within the Church of England of decisions like this. Suppose it made manifest that the people are, upon the whole, Protestant, and the Church to which they belong, and which they thought was Protestant too, is, in its doctrinal standards interpreted by the highest Court, nothing of the kind,-what then? How long will it meet the difficulty to say that "such and such doctrine is not incompatible with the standards of the Church?" So soon as any very great or widespread conviction is at work, the standards themselves will inevitably be challenged. Alike in Church and State, there are times when an appeal to the law is not, and cannot be, the end of strife. The controversies of quiet times may be carried on by suits at law, and settled by legal verdicts; but when the stirring of men's minds passes certain limits, on finding the law against them, they say, "So much the worse for the law," and aim at its amendment or overthrow. It is true that willingness to accept the decisions of law is a condition ordinarily essential to the very existence of society, but an unwillingness, nay, a moral inability, to accept those decisions is now and again even more to be desired than obedience. From the comparative equanimity with which the Bennett Judgment