: and sensuality. Of conviviality in the sense understood by higher classes of society there is nothing. The temptations of the taproom in a village public-house at feast time as at any other season may be resolved into one, that of mere beer-drinking for its own sake, or for the sake of doing something. There is an occasional song, almost invariably of a brutal and indecent character, but seldom sung through to the end, or with any spirit and there is also plenty of boisterous clamour in which nobody cares what anybody else is saying, or knows what he is saying himself, and in which there is not the slightest attempt at that relation between one person's words and the words of another which is necessary to constitute even agricultural conversation. After many hours of such purposeless drinking and clamour, the whole assembly is probably turned out of doors by the keeper of the public-house, and all wend their way as they can homewards, some wholly, all in a great degree intoxicated. Such is the village feast, wake, or fair as it is at present known in every English county, a time of almost unredeemed profligacy and drunkenness. And such being the case, it is no wonder that the clergy should be endeavouring to provide some substitute for it, which by superior attractions shall wean away the labouring population, old and young, from scenes productive of so much moral damage, and of so little reasonable recreation. In addition to these motives, another is to be found in the desire to revive the religious purpose to which we may with tolerable certainty trace the institution of these festivals. They are probably secular perversions of the joyous days on which the Church was accustomed to celebrate in every parish the dedication of the House of GOD in that particular parish: or perhaps, more strictly speaking, on which she was accustomed to celebrate the festival of the Saint whose name was connected with it in its consecration. At the Reformation all such festivals were ordered to be transferred to one day-the first Sunday in October; and though the Act of Parliament which ordered this arrangement has not been by any means generally observed, it may be noticed that many Parish Feasts do actually occur about that time, or soon after the end of the harvest. In these days when we have learned the value of so many usages of ancient days which were thus recklessly cast aside by our 'Protestant forefathers' it is not unnatural that there should be a wish to revive the religious observance of such a day; and especially if it can be in any way connected, as attempts have been made in many places, with a thanksgiving for the harvest. We sympathize strongly with this, as with other motives for the introduction of a general system of Parish Festivals; and all we doubt is whether the advantages to be secured are in proportion to the evils and dangers which may arise, some of which we shall in a few words suggest. It is worthy of notice, for instance, that such festivals are con ducted almost entirely under clerical supervision. The Clergy of the parish, in every case with which we are acquainted, have taken the initiative; and it is chiefly to their energy and exertion that any success which may have attended them is owing. We have strong doubts indeed, whether, in any case, the farmers or landowners have taken sufficient interest in the matter to warrant any reasonable hope that they would eventually organize and superintend these festivals without the personal assistance, and pecuniary assistance too, which their clergy have so largely afforded. Now we conceive it to be out of the question to expect that the clergyman of any parish will be able, year after year, to organize and control such gatherings as these. Many things will stand in the way, and not the least of such hindrances will be the changes of clergy arising from death and removal, and the increasing claims of far more important duties on their time. The question then arises, whether those clergy who originate such attractive gatherings of their people, but will not be able to insure their own personal superintendence for any long succession of years, are not raising up an institution on a basis which will prove insufficient for the support of all the good which they intend to be built up thereon, but at the same time amply enough to support those accidental evils which can never be wholly excluded from festive gatherings, and which would increase manifold when their own personal control was by the force of circumstances removed. When any number of people are gathered together for the purpose of amusement, there is always danger that lack of interest in what is going on, or the presence of a few evil disposed persons, or the insufficiency of the proposed means of legitimate entertainment, may lead to the substitution for the latter of those very selfindulgences and sensual pleasures which we so strongly deprecate in village-feasts as they exist at present. Recreation of a better kind will answer for a time, but animal nature is always strong in the agricultural labourer; and it is much to be feared that the habit of meeting together in numbers may be continued, but that the interest at first awakened towards recreations that can be approved of will soon die away, to be replaced by interest (far more easily excited) in the sinprovoking pleasures which have hitherto formed the chief feature of the feast week. We throw out these suggestions rather for the consideration of our readers, than with any confident conviction that our anticipations of failure are well founded. At the same time, there can be no doubt in the minds of any who will consider the question from the various points of view we have indicated, (and only just indicated,) that there is so much possibility of danger in connection with the institution of large Parish Festivals on anything like a permanent footing, as is quite sufficient to warn us that we should not help forward their establishment unless we are quite certain on good grounds that the benefits arising from them will overbalance the evil. No doubt the labouring classes require amusement and recreation of some kind; and no doubt either, that it is well for the Clergy to lead in a right direction any movement which may be made towards providing this for them. But we are disposed to think that they should be extremely cautious in originating anything of the kind themselves, and that they should in general limit their work to that of influencing any movement which has been originated by the working-classes themselves, or by other persons of classes above them. The general improvement of our parishes by means which come more clearly within the province of the Clergy will naturally raise the tone of every parochial institution, and even the beer-shop has been known to yield to such influence. It will also, in time, arouse a desire among the labouring classes for recreations of a more elevated character: and when that desire is manifested, then will be the time for the Clergy to point out a way by which it may be gratified, and to aid in a greater or less degree, in carrying out the plans which seem best fitted to the object in view. : Meanwhile it seems to us that the wisest course for the Clergy to pursue is, 1. Not to introduce any new system of general Parish Festivals where nothing of the kind has hitherto been practised: 2. To discourage, in general, any habitual large gatherings of their parishioners for purposes of mere recreation and 3. Where any rare and happy combination of circumstances does place the oldestablished Village Feast in their power, to use that power for its regeneration, in the conviction that their labour is, in such a case, confined within its legitimate sphere of action, and will not be thrown away. THE MIRACLES OF ANTICHRIST. (Concluded from page 385.) We concluded our last article upon this subject by dividing the consideration into two branches. 1. Negatively; or what kind of miracles Antichrist, as we believe, will not be suffered to perform. 2. Positively; or what miracles he will perform. First then, negatively. There seems to be not a little ground for supposing that whatever miracles Satanic power may be suffered to exhibit in the end of time, however dazzlingly and overwhelmingly Antichrist may display the whole organized craft and might of hellish wisdom, he will never be allowed to perform miracles, involving strictly creative energy. Creation is a prerogative, which the Divine TRINITY appear to have jealously and exclusively reserved to Themselves, and that not only in its more strict and primary signification of the creation of something out of nothing, but also in its more usual and general acceptation of the forming of organic out of inorganic substances; in other words, the production of any creatures which have life in themselves. Satan has frequently had committed to him licence to destroy, never we think to create anew. In whatever instances he may have seemed to have done so, we are bound to seek some explanation which shall not involve even permitted creative energy. S. Paul (2 Thess. ii. 8) says, " And then shall that Wicked (o avoμos, Antichrist, the pre-eminently lawless One, as being the embodied expression of the μυστήριον τῆς ἀνομίας, which was beginning to work secretly like leaven in the Church even in the Apostolic age) be revealed-even he whose coming (πaрovola, the very word used of our LORD's Coming the line above,) is after the working of Satan, with all power and signs, and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish, because they received not the love of the Truth that they might be saved; and for this cause GOD shall send them an energizing of deceit, that they should believe the lie." It is the lie (T peúde) the grand, final, crowning lie, with which the great Liar, the father and maker of lies, shall in setting up the reign of Antichrist, deceive all nations, the lie which shall be the complement to the first lie which deceived Eve, the lie of lies in which all the deceits, and falsehoods of the devil, and false prophets and teachers, and wicked men shall be finally merged and summed up. Of this great lie, the miracles of Antichrist will form no small or insignificant part. They are the "signs and wonders of the lie," of which S. Paul speaks (σήμεια καὶ τέρατα ψεύδους.) S. Augustine after quoting at length the passage in the 2nd Epistle to the Thessalonians (De Civ. Dei, xx. 19,)1 proceeds to speak thus upon these lying wonders. "At that time Satan shall be loosed, and through Antichrist shall work wonderfully indeed, with all his might, but with falsehood (mendaciter.) About these words of S. Paul, there is usually understood to be an ambiguity— whether they are called lying signs and wonders (signa et prodigia mendacii) because Antichrist will deceive the senses of men by means of phantasms, that he may seem to do what he does not do; or because the wonders, though they be real, will lead to a lie, that men who are ignorant of the devil's strength, especially at a time when he shall receive greater power than he ever had before, will believe that they would not be possible unless they were done by Divine Agency." How terrible this power will be in the hands of Antichrist is well shown by S. Gregory in many passages, besides those we have already quoted. "His fierceness makes him break forth into cruelty, yet the Divine pity confines him with fewness of days. Hence the Truth says by Itself-Then shall be great tribulation, such as was not from the beginning of the world to this time, nor shall be. Again it says-Except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved. But it must be greatly considered, in what way that Behemoth, when he raises his tail as a cedar, (Job xl. 17) arises with greater fierceness than he now exerts himself. For what kind of punishment do we know, at which we rejoice not, as having already exercised the strength of the martyrs? When, therefore, this Behemoth expands his tail more fatally in the end of the world, what greater cruelty can spring up in these torments, except that which the Truth says Itself in the Gospel-There shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders, so that if possible, even the elect may be led into error. For now our faithful ones do wonders when they suffer wrongs, but at that time the ministers of this Behemoth are about to do wonders even when they inflict wrongs. Let us consider therefore, what will be that temptation of the mind of man, when both the pious martyr submits his body to tortures, and yet the torturer works miracles before his eyes! Whose resolution would not then be shaken from the very bottom of his thoughts, when he who tortures with the scourges, glitters also with miracles. Let it be rightly said then-He setteth up his tail like a cedar, because he will doubtless be exalted from reverence for the prodigy, and harsh with the cruelty of his torture." And again-" He is then exalted, not only in power, but is supported also by the display of miracles. Whence it is also said by David-He lieth in wait in secret as a lion in his den (Ps. x. 9.) Because this enemy is unchecked in all his strength-he is let loose in contest against the Elect, both by 1 Ed. Tauch. |