"You are a very bad man to talk so: you know very well that she cares as much for you as for me: and it is the height of ingratitude in you to think this plan is for my advantage, when I intend to be miserable all the while I am away from you." 66 One may believe as much of that as one likes, I suppose," he answered, as he gently stroked down the rippled bands. "I don't think you could be thoroughly unhappy under any circumstances." But you know all this, my dear reader. It is just what fell within your own experience some years ago: or what you are expecting to be within your experience, gentle reader, some years-no, some months—hence. Well, then, we will pass on to another subject, and leave our Isaac and Rebecca to disport themselves in the sunshine while they may, for clouds come all soon enough even in the brightest wedded life, do they not? But the fact was, that Isaac and Rebecca had not long time to sport with each other, for the handmaiden of the house had hardly closed the door (which she did with much trepidation and reverence) on the Dean's wife, when she opened it again to admit an acquaintance of the Huntleys who was on her way to the Highlands, and had stopped at Borderchester, for the double purpose of seeing them, and of lionizing the famous old city. [TO BE CONTINUED.] THE PRINCIPLES OF CONFIRMATION. At this season of the year there are so many families in which one or more of the younger members are looking forward to Confirmation, that we feel sure of meeting with many readers to whom a few words on the subject will be of present and perhaps personal interest. In more The name of this rite is simply an English form of a Latin word, like a great many other familiar words in the Bible and elsewhere,* connected with religion. "Confirmatio" means a securing or establishing, a strengthening or making firm: and the plain meaning of the word gives us at once some insight into the nature of the Ordinance which is so called. ancient times, and among the nations which used the Greek language, Confirmation went by the several names of " sphragis," the seal, that is, the seal of the LORD: " chrisma," the anointing: and "cheirothesia," the imposition of hands; names which are taken from the ceremonies used— the sign of the cross, anointing with oil, and laying on of hands. From the true and plain meaning of the word it will be seen that Confirmation is rather something to be done to the persons confirmed than something which they are to do. So in the "Order of Confirmation" in the Prayer Book we read, "Upon the day appointed, all that are to be then confirmed," in the rubric: and in the address to be made by the Bishop or *Sacrament, Repentance, Religion, Ordination, Justification, Sanctification, Regeneration, for instance. his deputy, none hereafter shall be confirmed but such as can say " &c.; and this is a form of expression which can only be applied in the sense we have given, of something being done to the persons confirmed. In the subsequent portions of the service we do indeed find the word "confirm" used in connection with "ratify," according to the usage of the day, which often 66 coupled two words together, as vow and promise,' ""declare and pro nounce," "absolution and remission of sins," "pardoneth and absolveth," &c.; but this re-introduction of the word in another sense seems to be a mere accident, and its introduction is not to set aside the literal meaning. And, in fact, the remaining portion of the title of the service illustrates this, for the full title is "The order of Confirmation, or laying on of hands upon those that are baptized, and come to years of discretion;" and if we were to call the Ordinance of Confirmation by the less convenient title— "the laying on of hands "—all ambiguity would be avoided. Moreover, no one would pretend for a moment that they had been confirmed because they had made the responses which they are directed to make when they ratify and confirm" in their own persons the solemn vow and promise that was made in their name by their Godparents, unless they had also had the hands of the Bishop laid upon their heads. They might "ratify and confirm" their Baptismal vow "openly before the Church" twenty times, and yet not "be confirmed" at all. 66 When persons go to Church to be confirmed, then, the essential point and object of their going is to have something done to them, not to do something themselves. And that which they go to have done to them is to have the hands of the Bishop laid upon their heads while he says over them those words of prayer which are set down in the service: "Defend, O LORD, this Thy child, with Thy heavenly grace, that he may continue Thine for ever, and daily increase in Thy Holy Spirit more and more, until he come unto Thy everlasting kingdom.” These words of prayer which accompany the act of the Bishop are, we believe, peculiar to the Church of England; but the act of laying on the hands in Confirmation has been used ever since the days of the Apostles. In Acts viii. 16, the Apostles Peter and John are sent down to Samaria to confirm those who had been baptized by the deacon Philip, and “Then laid they their hands on them, and they received the Holy Ghost." When, too, the Ephesian disciples of St. John the Baptist were baptized in the name of the LORD Jesus to make them Christians, St. Paul immediately confirmed them by laying his hands upon them, (Acts xix. 6) and they too received the Holy Ghost. This ancient ceremony-used so long ago as the time of the patriarch Jacob, who laid his hands on the sons of Joseph*was adopted, therefore, by the Apostles for the outward sign of the rite which they administered to the Baptized, and which has been handed down to us under the name of Confirmation. Very soon after their time, Bishops used also to "seal" those whom they confirmed with the "sign of the Son of Man," by making a cross upon their foreheads with oil which had been set apart for the purpose (like the oil used at the Queen's It is singular that Jacob laid his hands on the two boys in the form of a cross. This typical feature would hardly be worth noticing, but for the very exact description given of it. See the repetition of "right hand" and "left hand" in the description Genesis xlviii. 13, 14. coronation) by some words of prayer. But it is uncertain whether the Apostles ever used any other ceremony than the imposition of hands, and none other is required to be used by the Church of England. Now when persons come to the Bishop to be confirmed, and are confirmed by this ceremony, the laying of his hands on their heads with words of prayer, Why do they come? And what happens to them in consequence? Is there any good in it? Might they just as well have stopped away ? Most persons will find, when they come to think a little, that they have too much respect for the ceremonies of our dear and venerable Prayer-Book to consider any of them which really profess to produce any result as mere pretenders, not doing what they profess: and especially when those ceremonies are so distinctly Scriptural as the laying on of hands in Confirmation. When, therefore, they observe the plain meaning of the word by which this ceremony is designated, they will accept it as an interpretation of the whole ordinance, and believe that by Confirmation persons are established or set more firmly in the position which they occupy by their Baptism as Christians. Thus all theological writers call Confirmation the complement of (or that which completes) Holy Baptism: and in the first years of Christianity infants used to be confirmed immediately after they had been baptized, as well as grown persons: there being generally a Bishop present at the ordinary times of Baptism, which were the principal seasons of the ecclesiastical year. And although Christians are not now confirmed until several years at least after their Baptism, it is evidently to be considered in the same light still, from the fact that it is a rite chiefly intended still for children, though by no means to be denied to grown persons who have neglected it in their early days. The period at which it should take place is distinctly pointed out in the Prayer-Book in two places. At the end of the Service for Public Baptism of Infants, the Clergyman is directed to say to the Godparents, "Ye are to take care that this child be brought to the Bishop to be confirmed by him, so soon as he can say the Creed, the LORD's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments in the vulgar tongue, and be further instructed in the Church Catechism set forth for that purpose: and accordingly, in the first Prayer-Books, the Catechism was printed as part of the Confirmation Service, to be recited before the Bishop, as the test of the candidates' Christian knowledge. Again, in the title of that service, it is called the "laying on of hands upon those that are baptized, and come to years of discretion," the last word being used, not in the sense of mature prudence, but of that discernment of good and evil which constitutes moral responsibility. This period must be considered to range between seven and twelve years of age, the latter being, in these days at least, the extreme point of the limit indicated by the words " so soon as he can say" the Creed and the rest of the Catechism in his native tongue. The intention of the Church of England, therefore, is to establish Christian children in their Christian strength at that time when they are just beginning to pass from the age of innocence to the age when they become more likely to meet with temptation, and when they are acquiring greater power to sin. As that is a critical period of life with their physical constitution, in which the healthiness of their future lives is settled, or the seeds sown of disease which will develope at a distant day; so it is with the spiritual part of our nature, also, a critical period, when the care of man and the grace of GoD are both especially needed to guard, strengthen, and develope the Christian faculties. If Confirmation has not the power to meet the requirements of this period, it is not what it professes to be. If it has, it is the greatest blessing Christian children can receive.* And such we believe it to be. It would be turning this comment on Confirmation too much into a Sermon or an Exhortation if we were to say all that ought to be said about its connection with the Sacrament of the LORD's Supper: but it must be understood, of course, that in what we have said about the value of Confirmation as an outward ceremony, by means of which GOD is pleased to give an inward grace, we do not wish to imply that it is so far efficacious in itself to the establishment of Christian strength and character, that the Sacrament for which it is a preparation may be set aside for an indefinite season. Probably, the real case is, that a person is never so well prepared to come to the higher ordinance as when they have come well prepared to the lower but we cannot enter upon the question at length now, or here. Without extending our hints further, we add a few Suggestive Questions for Serious Persons who wish to be Confirmed. 1. Why do you wish to be confirmed? 2. Who will confirm you ? 3. How will he do it? 4. What benefit do you expect to get from Confirmation ? 5. Between what two holy ordinances is Confirmation a link? 6. In what "state" does the Catechism say you were placed by the Sacrament of Baptism? 7. What is to make you more firm in that state ? 8. What other holy ordinance is required to give full effect to the benefits of Confirmation ? 9. What persons are fit to be confirmed? 10. What confirmed persons are unfit to receive the LORD's Supper. 11. Do intend to receive it at once, or no? you 12. Why? And we should recommend such persons, whether old or young, to write down the answers at length, as a means of drawing out their thoughts upon a subject of so much importance. * We have said nothing about confirmed children receiving the Lord's Supper at the early age we have referred to as that appointed by the Church for Confirmation. Such cases have come within our knowledge, and have been attended with the very happiest results we could conceive. God's grace thus given was their best weapon and their surest shield in the trying temptations of boyhood and girlhood. How could it be otherwise ? Best from Toil. "Twas there, far off beneath the burning sky, No breath of wind; not e'en a light leaf stirr'd, (As shows a landscape when the dew-mist clears,) So full of heart-felt trials, hopes, and fears. The days when first we reached the stranger's soil, By strongest Power the strong man's hold to spoil, The days of trouble, when our hopes were weak, We left him there beneath a leafy nave, A. |