a dead letter, in the absence of the truth it should shadow forth, the candle at the altar, be meaningless from the dimness of the light of the spirit, that it should represent as ever living and present in the church; the eagle of the reading-desk be a graven image, without place in God’s temple, when the soaring voice of prophecy, rising above earth, and fed from the living fire burning on heaven’s altar, that it should symbolize, has ceased to be heard. Incense may be a mystic mockery, when the prayers of the children of God have ceased to ascend in unison as a sweet smelling savour to the throne of their Father; the swelling chant be monotonous jargon, when the beauty and harmony of _one common voice_ of praise, thanksgiving, and prayer, is not felt; the vestment be a mere display of weak and empty vanity, when purity, activity, authority and love, have ceased to be the realities expressed in the alb, the stole, the crimson and purple, the gold and silver; the screen, a senseless mass of carving, the long unbenched and empty nave, so much waste stone and mortar, to those who see not in it the vast Gentile court, where the voice of preaching and invitation was sent forth to sinners to enter the temple and join in the _worship_ of _praise_ and _prayer_ of the _church within_. Why are all these too often as cold and empty outlines of a nothing to our senses? is it not that their life is gone? But should we therefore cast away the fragments that remain? should we not rather desire that the spirit may breathe upon the dry bones, that they may live again, and form a new and living temple for the most High to dwell in; the outer edifice of wood and stone, being the _model_ or _statue_ of that spiritual church, of which every pillar, every window, every beam, and curtain, should be formed of living members, with Christ for the foundation and chief corner stone, to be built up and fashioned by the hand of God; every sand or ash of truth that lies scattered over the surface of the earthy being cemented together by bonds of love and charity, to form the masonry of the one great Catholic Church. Such thoughts may be misunderstood, and bring down upon us, in these days of Papal Aggression, anathemas from many a zealous reformationist, or member of the heterogeneous Protestant Alliance, nay, perhaps every shade of Protestant dissenter, evangelical churchman, and Puseyite, may shake his head at us in pity, and wonder what we mean; we would say to the last, beware of the _shadow_ without the _substance_, the _symbol_ without the _truth_, the _emblem_ without the _reality_; and of the others we would ask forbearance. Popery does not necessarily lurk beneath the advocacy of _forms_.