Character the Test of Creed.

Auckland Star, Volume XX, Issue 147, 22 June 1889, Page 3 (Supplement)

Character the Test of Creed.

Archdeacon Farrar, . who is said to be a possible successor to Bishon Barry in the See ot Sydney, contributes to the • Christian World' lasb monbh an article on ' Character the Test of Creed,' the closing passages of which are as follows :—' Men say thab they multiply ritual observances in order to glorify a sacrament. Were it not far bebter to glorify ib in ways which Christ, ordained and which the apostles practised ? Is the sacrament glorified by postures and vestments or by meek and pure and humble hearts? Over"half Europe men nob only glorify but worship the sacramental elements—genuflect to them, gloat on them, pageant them aboub like a dreadful idol. Are those countries the better—in any single respecb the better—for this coarse materialism, for this blank idolatry? Do wo really understand Christ better by supposing that He is at certain times localised in bread and wine in the hands of the priest, or rather when we feel His living spiritual presence in the heart of the worshipper ? One of the vilest and wretchedesb of kings—Louis XV. of France—gob oub of his carriage and wenb on his knees in the mud before the Host, and the mob cheered him as a religious king for performing this act; and yet he did it coming from the Capre„ of his loathly palace, and reburning to the sty of his habitual vice. Had the worship of the Sacrament done much for the kingdom in which such lives were unreproved ? Will England be saved by becoming Popish in all but name, when France, which is Popish in name also, has sunk into her presenb depths, with her shiftlessness, her incessanb revolutions, her flagrant infidelity, her diminishing population, her permeating immorality, and her leprous literature ? No 1 Nations are saved by righteousness, and by. manliness, and by selfdenial.and by the preaching of simple Christ to simple men ; not by mitres and candles and chasubles, and such gewgaws fetched from Aaron's wardrobe or the Flamens' vestry.'