as my own experience goes, the Armenians seem equally orthodox as to His two Natures. This is a very singular and providential witness to episcopacy; indeed the whole case of the Greek Church, whose chief characteristic has been, in her clergy, a jealous adherence to the ancient ecclesiastical forms, and in her laity, a profound submission to spiritual authority, appears to teach us that there is nothing in the Gospel of a merely outward nature, that grace is everywhere and in everything, with an exuberance and transcending quickness peculiar to the Christian covenant. Thus by holding fast to what we have received, even where our single generation is unable to discern a meaning, or read a promise, or divine a blessing, we receive more than we wot of, and retain a power and life of which we are unconscious. is impossible to meditate on the history of the Greek Church without being more and more astonished at its purity and completeness, its unblameable polity, its venerable ritual, its orthodox Creeds, its lawful Sacraments. The preservation of these things is owing to God's blessing upon a modest and devout temper, which clung always to forms, whether obviously divine, or so ancient as to be probably divine, or so catholic as that it was unsafe to stir them. The episcopate has been the bundle of myrrh at its bosom, repelling corruption from the heart.

It

In the second place, the Greek Church has been kept together and in health by the pious observation of her fasts and feasts. This was observed by an

English writer in the seventeenth century, and must be obvious to those who have travelled there. Indeed there is in our nature so great a tendency to debase and corrupt every thing, that religion, when sundered from external observances, rapidly evaporates into systems of feelings and words, and the concentrated power of faith is dispersed into a mere feeble literary opinion. Where sound words are not laid up within the consecrated precincts of a creed or symbolical hymn, right belief quickly disappears in the dissonance of conflicting sects. Where devout cravings are not gathered up and collected into liturgies, zeal rapidly becomes profaneness, fear degenerates into gloom, and love is lost in sinful familiarity. There is no true liberty of prayer except in this sweet imprisonment. This is one consideration; and another is, that in the very ancient liturgies, the receding waters of antiquity have deposited many a scrap and spar of apostolical usage and tradition, which, embedded in the soil, diffuse fertility around them, and give to the liturgy a power over the soul beyond its own power, and a sacred character which makes it venturesome to shift a single attitude or gesture of worship exhibited therein. And further, to a people like the Greeks, under the Mahometan yoke, without books, or, in most cases, the ability to read, such liturgies, with their significant rites and annual commemorations, represented year by year monumentally, as it were, the great facts and truths of the faith. The symbols of church-worship

were the books of the people, and constituted their instruction while young, and their edification when come to mature years. This should be borne in mind whenever we speak of the somewhat dangerous extent to which the use of pictures is allowed in the Greek worship, and with which the porch and partition of the soleas are usually covered.

Two observable characteristics of the Greek ritual are its very dramatic nature and its humility. Its dramatic, one might almost say over-dramatic, disposition may be seen particularly in the ceremonies of the Holy Week, compared with those at Rome. Its humility in the forms of Baptism, receiving confessions, and absolving penitents. Of course, in all these cases the power of the keys and the dignity of the priesthood are as strongly asserted as they are by us of the Latin Church. Yet inasmuch as the Church of Christ uses not liturgies composed at hazard or carelessly, but with an earnest searching after deep meanings every where, and a wise desire to fill out every little form with spirit and spiritual significance, we may discern a characteristic temper in these little things. These slight differences of attitude assumed by catholic devotion in divers countries, like the usages of particular Churches, though not to be over-stretched or magnified to the obscuring of things catholic, are yet full of rich sweetness to those who meditate upon them, as the various setting of the same heavenly jewels in the pontifical garments of the Church.

Without presuming to criticise the Liturgies of the two Churches, it may be allowable to note, that while the Greek ritual of the Eucharist is more dramatic, so to speak, than the Roman, it is scarcely so magnificent in its tone, or so rich in mystical expositions, neither does it exhibit that quickness at catching expressions of Scripture, and representing them in devotional gestures, which is so marvellous in the rubrics of the Roman Missal.

It is difficult to say any thing of Greek scenery. Some persons, with quite equal means of judging, have pronounced it full of the most delightful landscapes an opposite opinion, which I formed, should therefore be put forward very diffidently. Of course Greece is a most interesting country to travel in. Every name sounds like a trumpet in one's ears; and even though a man may not have any very great classical enthusiasm, still from his very education he must feel himself pursued all through Greece by an indefinite feeling that "this is Greece," which smooths every disappointment, slightly increases every pleasure, and throws a general enchantment over the whole journey. Then again to a student of history it is an interesting country. Every where he finds vestiges of three great changes, pieces of wreck left high and dry by three memorable tides in time. A ruined Ionic pillar in the plain, an old Latin tower by a brook or fortalice on a hill, and a broken mosque in many a poor town throughout the land. These are the features of Greek landscape, its histo

rical features. The traveller sees with his eyes continually a type of the incongruous history of Greece; and this gives an interesting character to almost every prospect. In point of geography Greece struck me very much indeed. Every body knows beforehand from maps how small it is; but I do not think any one, when he really came into the country, could help being astonished at its actual littleness. All the objects seem brought close together in a most extraordinary way, and one is almost vexed at seeing so much from so small an eminence, for example, as the Acro-Corinth. Even without being a naturalist, a traveller's pleasure may be likewise increased by the number of beautiful butterflies, and birds with superb plumage. And as to flowers, in spring the whole land is carpeted with them in fragrant plenty. I never saw such a sight, either for variety, delicacy, color, or smell. Earlier on in the year, probably, they would not have looked so well, as the deciduous trees would not have been in leaf, and their light cheerful green is much wanted in a land oppressed with evergreen foliage. Had we been later than May, the heats would have been intolerable, the flowers faded, and the brightness of the deciduous trees tarnished by the sun.

One great defect of Greek scenery is the absence of valleys. We have but seen one in Greece, the valley of the Marathona, and it was very pleasing. What would have been valleys in any other country, are in Greece either mere defiles, occa