chalice and said, "Take and divide it among you ;" and, afterwards, the same with the bread; and then added certain words to the effect that what He broke was His body, and the chalice a New Testament, according to the narrative in the Gospels, which is as short as this, what could he possibly understand by such language? would he not give it up as not belonging to him? would he (can we suppose it likely), on reading such words, consider himself bound to prepare bread and wine, to bless and use after the same Eucharistic manner? Would he see in these few short passages an account more suggestive of personal obligation to him than in the account of any other supper, or eating, or drinking? Would he say, Here is an evident authority for the use of a Sacrament for all generations; and, since there is no word in the Gospels explaining or commenting upon this fact, he would of course dismiss it from his memory as not more significant than any other historical fact? The same may be observed with regard to baptism, on which there is still less in the history of its institution, if indeed those in the Gospel be the history of the institution of it, (which, for anything we should know from the Gospels themselves, might have been instituted and taught to the Apostles themselves during the forty days, or even during the first part of our Lord's ministry, when He was baptized Himself.) In them there is, as everybody knows, nothing except an instruction of the most general character. Would he see in it, so obscure and short a hint, any reason for him to take to himself a duty of baptizing, or of being baptized, much less to have infants baptized, of whom it says nothing, and would at first seem, from the requirement of belief, to exclude from it? But if he had been bred up in a reverence for the holy Sacraments of Baptism and of the Eucharist as a Christian, and had been taught by the Church, as the keeper and dispenser of these ordinances, the good of them in order to salvation, he would not be long in discerning that these little facts, brief and reservedly mentioned as they are, are not insignificant, but contain testimonies to Christ's institution, descriptive of these Sacraments, which he might use as a warrant for believing more and more his Church. Thus short narratives, else to him sealed parables, become bright with the light which the traditional law of the Church throws upon them, as well as they upon the usage of the Church.

These few instances, which might indeed be multiplied, will serve to show how necessary it is that there should be a depositary and a declarer of Gospel truths and ordinances, to make the four Gospels testimonies of any utility, and indeed at all comprehensible.

But when they are both had, they reflect and receive light one from another, and we see that while these Gospels would be dark and sealed books without the Church to use them, that the Church also would lack a most inestimable treasure as a text from which to preach Christ crucified. We may see that, since the Evangelists nowhere tell their readers how they are to apply to their salvation, or to their duty as Christians, or to their faith, the historical facts which are there arranged in order, since they do not tell us even that they are testimonies, still less explain to us what truths they testify, (presupposing a knowledge of all these things,) we are driven upon the conclusion that there must be somewhere or other another source to show that they are testimonies, and also what they point at and attest. It is needful that there should be some minister and propounder of the truths thus warranted by them; that if the mediation of Christ be necessary for our union with God, there must be some person to lead us to Him and tell us of our wants. Since, indeed, these Gospels nowhere tell us anything about ourselves, but only about Jesus of Nazareth and of His life, where are we bound to look but either in some other books or in some living witness?

And if books do not tell us, except those written or authorized by the Church itself, what ordinances are necessary to our spiritual health, what can we use as a means to convince others of their necessity, or to assure ourselves? This office the living witness of the Church ever has and has had, whose power and commission, first delivered on the day of Pentecost, suffers even until the world's end no alteration in its carriage, any more than does a fire while it lasts, whose essence is as pure when centuries have elapsed as when it was first kindled. How then can any doctrine of the Church corrupt or change, that is itself freighted with a fire; (which is much the truer emblem than what, from the seeming possibility, however unlikely, of its being tainted, many have chosen for their similitude,-a stream of water.)

For in what form did the Holy Spirit, both the Church's

conductor and burden too, descend, when he visited as an abiding guest the assembly prepared for its elements, but in that of fire, never changing, never tiring fire? By which he teaches us that he will not allow ever to fail, ever to betray its commission, or to give a dubious light the Apostolic Church, His chosen living temple. It is there He waits to be gracious to men, that we may obtain the gifts of assurance and wisdom. And as at the first it was she, (not printed books,) who being gifted with this unfaltering light, was by her ministers and officers, to go into all lands preaching the gospel to every creature, and teaching men to observe whatever the Lord had taught her; so now it is she, ruled by Him who engraves upon the heart what is written upon paper, whose law and custom alone renders intelligible, a document at any time written by those officers in a human language, whether it be gospel, epistle, or revelation; for without her, there could be no meaning for them, because there would then be no garden sacred to Christ's death and resurrection, where the divine interpreter might perpetually dwell.

And when He shall have ascended from the earth, where He now deigns to abide until His triumph-time on earth with His Church, her guide and comforter, then it will most certainly be seen that prophecies, and knowledge, as well as scriptures also, have availed as little for man's hope, as that darkness in which all earthly substances will then be left, unless they have been used gratefully as subordinate means of grace, to second and strengthen the work of that one Church whose property they are, by whose spirit they were dictated, and by whose ministers composed.

ART. X.-1. Sketches of the History of Christian Art.
LINDSAY. 3. vols. Murray, 1847.

By LORD

2.-The Exhibition of the Royal Academy, 1847. (Catalogue.)

THE pages of our Review have been more than once

devoted to the subject of Christian art. Both directly and indirectly, we have sought to excite an interest in it, and to inculcate its principles. And we have many reasons for believing that we have not laboured in vain. We do

not pretend to have produced a painting by anything that we may have written, nor even perhaps to have laid down a single new principle. But debarred as Englishmen have been from acquaintance with an art essentially religious, and from the power of contemplating its results-unconscious as English Catholics necessarily were of the artistic power of principles and doctrines, rites and practices of their Church, from not having witnessed their fruits, the first step towards creating a school of English religious art, naturally was to bring before the mind such general information on the subject as would excite curiosity, and such more definite views as would give rise to hopes at least and to endeavours.

Besides, therefore, articles devoted expressly to this matter, we have never failed to embrace any opportunity that presented itself, of pointing out the beauties and artistic elements of the Catholic ceremonial, as well as the poetry of our ritual and forms of prayer, all eminently conducive to the creation of religious art. Many considerations have now brought us to the conclusion that the time. is at length come, for practice rather than theory, and that we must earnestly think of embodying in actual representation those forms of beauty, which we have till now contemplated as either reflections of past realities, or as shadows of possible futurities. If it has been given to this Review to lead forward the Catholic mind to higher and better views, upon the more aesthetic parts of ecclesiastical and religious institutions; if its mission has been in the past to open brighter prospects which have not been disappointed; if it has successfully seconded and promoted the ecclesiological movement, such as it has been amongst us, and the theological movement which has been without, we feel that it is only fulfilling a portion of its duty as an exponent of Catholic feeling and Catholic truth, by turning the minds of our fellow-catholics to a more practical realization of what till now have been but hopes, of the foundation of a religious school of design and art in England.

We have uniformly observed, that in our age as in every other, indefinite instincts precede clear indications of great beneficial changes; there is a silent yearning, a consciousness of want, before active measures are even thought of, a discontent of the past and actual state of things before plans are gone into for the future. We could illustrate this course of things in various ways, having reference to

But in

the religious occurrences of the last few years. regard to religious art, we think the manifestations of desire for better things are very clear, and sufficiently strong to make us think of how they may be attained.

First, there has been more knowledge obtained and diffused among the people in general, and among Catholics in particular, on the existence, and perhaps the characteristics, of Christian art. Many have become acquainted with them by travelling, and more works have been lately written on the subject. The one before us is a remarkable one, not as a popular, but as a very learned and diligent, and often even eloquent book, though far from Catholic. But we will reserve our remarks on it to a later portion of our article. At present we will content ourselves with remarking, that the names of Christian artists dead and living, have become much more familiar to us than they used to be. Catholics, even the less learned in such things, would know, if they were told of a painting of the Blessed Angelico or Overbeck, that there would be necessarily a religious tone and character in it, such as they would never expect to find in one of West or Sir Joshua Reynolds.

But secondly, our taste has as much to do in the matter as our knowledge. We have learnt what is a religious tone and character. A few years ago, specimens of art worthy of the name, were not within our reach. A few costly engravings of older masters might indeed be found in the portfolios of rich connoisseurs, from which the character of Christian artists might be studied, but nothing could be more paltry, more degrading to their subjects, than the majority of prints furnished by France, or by our own country, to the bulk of our people. Wretched in design as in execution, devoid of all feeling, of all expression, of all mere beauty even, they were calculated only to give the idea that religious representations stood below, rather than above, every other department of art. Tawdrily coloured prints, ill-defined mezzotintos, or rude etchings of meanly imagined figures, formed the staple of decorations for the room, or of illustrations for the prayer-book. Neither devotion nor even a pious thought could be inspired by such abortions of art. By degrees, however, engravings of a superior style have found their way from France and Germany. The Academy of Düsseldorf has become the regenerator of religious taste all over Europe. The beautiful designs of Overbeck, Deger, the two Müllers, and