cester,) "that the Church is for the living, not for the dead." They were mindful of the health of those who survived them, and perhaps they indulged the Poet's wish, that many an "evening sun" should III. Church-yard Crosses. THE erection, or even the restoration of a Churchyard Cross is not recommended amongst other substitutes for monuments; as the symbol of our faith should never be exposed to dishonour, and experience has shewn that to this it is liable at the present day. "When will men discriminate between Popery-an invention of modern times, which shrinks from the test of real antiquity-and the primitive Church, which was indeed full of the visible signs of invisible things, in order the better to appeal to thoughtless men; and delighted to present the cross on all occasions to their eyes, that their hearts might be turned to Him who died on it a ?" The late Dr. Adam Clarke, (who will not be suspected of any great leaning towards Popery,) when he was passing through the Church-yard of Swords, near Dublin, tells us that he was struck with the appearance of graves ornamented with crosses and Quarterly Review, vol. Ixiv. p. 333. garlands as tokens of affectionate regard. "A frozen-hearted formalist may condemn this, and call it superstition: true religion and pure affection would give it a far different name—I felt, and could have wept with the disconsolate parents and survivors, and kissed the crosses by which the meritorious death of our most blessed Saviour was thus held out to public view as the only foundation of the survivors' hope that death, the last enemy, should be finally destroyed; and that those hearts, knit together here in pure and honest love, should be reunited in eternity, where bonds can no more be broken, and death can never enter b." 66 When men, in these days, declaim against, not the erection of a crucifix, but even the ornament of a cross, as proofs of a spirit hostile to that of our Reformers, and of an inclination to Popery, they speak in utter ignorance of history. All these things may be wrong, and let them so be proved, but against them the authority of our Reformers cannot be quoted-no-nor even that of the Lutheran Reformers "." Crosses were erected in market-places, not only to pay homage there, as elsewhere, to the Redeemer, but to inspire men with a sense of morality and piety amidst the ordinary transactions of life a. Why then b Life, second edition, 1841. p. 283. are they not permitted in consecrated ground, where the passer by, as he approaches the Church, might have holy thoughts awakened in his mind, of the solemn service on which he is about to enter ? Yet will we not conceal the precious Cross, The poet observes that "the Lutherans have retained the cross within their Churches: it is to be regretted that we have not done the same." • Wordsworth, Eccles. Sonnets, pt. iii. 30. I MANY of our Churches have not to this hour recovered the devastation, which took place in the Great Rebellion. In Dowsing's Journal, we find orders given for "levelling the chancel," and "levelling the steps;" and considering the spirit in which those orders would be executed, we can well imagine in what manner, if at all, these acts of sacrilegious violence would be "amended," as was sometimes enjoined. The soldiery, employed on these occasions, seem to have taken Nebuzar-Adan as their example (2 Kings xxv. 9,) who, after burning and destroying the House of the Lord, took away the vessels of gold and silver, and all the other treasures it contained. "What pity it was to see the Holy of Holies now thronged with Pagans, the vails rent, the tables overturned, the altars broken down, the pillars demolished, and the pavements digged up." Thus writes Bishop Hall, who had witnessed similar enormities, and might well break forth, in his comments on holy writ, with this pathetic exclamation. |