The Protestant translators of Du Pin observe, that St. Chrysostom, in his thirty-eighth homily on the Philippians, says, that to pray for the faithful departed in the tremendous mysteries, was decreed by the Apostles. The learned Protestant divine, Dr. Jeremy Taylor, writes thus: "We find by the history of the Machabees, that the Jews did pray and make offerings for the dead, which appears by other testimonies, and by their form of prayer still extant, which they used in the captivity. Now, it is very considerable, that since our Blessed Saviour did reprove all the evil doctrines and traditions of the Scribes and Pharisees, and did argue concerning the dead and the resurrection, yet He spake no word against this public practice, but left it as He found it; which He who came to declare to us all the will of His Father would not have done, if it had not been innocent, pious, and full of charity. The practice of it was at first, and was universal: it being plain both in Tertullian and St. Cyprian, and others." "Clement," says Bishop Kaye, "distinguishes between sins committed before and after baptism: the former are remitted at baptism, the latter are purged by discipline.... The necessity of this purifying discipline is such, that if it does not take place in this life, it must after death, and is then to be effected by fire, not by a destructive, but a discriminating fire, pervading the soul which passes through it."--_Clem_., ch. xii. SOME THOUGHTS FOR NOVEMBER. I stood upon an unknown shore, A deep, dark ocean, rolled beside; Dear, loving ones were wafted o'er That silent and mysterious tide.