But behold, Mgr. Michael, informed of what had taken place, removed the archimandrite and struck him with ecclesiastical censures. The joy that had prevailed in Mr. Denton's camp was changed to mourning. On the other hand, the Anglicans who form no part of the coterie, enjoy exceedingly the reverend gentleman's discomfiture.
As for us, we are well pleased to see that Mgr. Michael does not seem disposed to follow the footsteps of Cyril Lucar.
But another check was reserved for the famous project. The archpriest Joseph Wassilief, chaplain to the Russian embassy in Paris, after having shown himself rather favorable to the contemplated union, has just laid down, with as much wisdom as firmness, the conditions of the proposed treaty. "However much explanations may be avoided, they will forcibly recur, sooner or later," he justly observes in the Christian Union, 24th September, 1865. And, resting on this principle, he passes in review the three questions of the procession of the Holy Ghost, the invocation of saints, and prayer for the dead; he then shows that it is not possible to establish intercommunion between the two Churches until they have come to an agreement on all these points; Among other things, he shows that the Church has always, been careful [{430}] to preserve the entire deposit of doctrine, and that she has not permitted herself to establish a difference between what is fundamental and what is secondary. He concludes with these wise words: "Charitable in our explanations, we are bound to be very candid one with the other. If rigorous discussions on all points of divergence appear to retard the final agreement, they secure its solidity and duration; whilst reservations, though accelerating the agreement, would leave therein a germ of weakness and instability."
We attach the more importance to this declaration because the authority of the archpriest Joseph Wassilief is enhanced by the consideration shown him by the synod. Latterly there was a vacancy in the ranks of that assembly, which forms the supreme council of the Russian Church. There was question of replacing the chaplain-general of the armies by land and sea. Three names were proposed to the sovereign's choice: that of M. Wassilief was one of the three. He has not been appointed; but, in proposing him, the synod sufficiently testified that it would have wished to see him seated in its midst, raised to the highest dignity to which, in Russia, a member of the secular clergy can pretend.
After the energetic act of the metropolitan of Belgrade and the words of the archpriest Wassilief, it remains for us to quote the Levant Herald an English and Protestant journal published at Constantinople. In its number of the 20th September, 1865, that paper endeavors to make the Anglican clergy understand that they flatter themselves with a delusive hope if they believe in the possibility of a union, or even of an alliance, between the two communions.
It results from all we have just said that if the Anglo-Americans have entertained the project of Protestantizing the Greek Church, they must perceive that the enterprise is more arduous than they had supposed. The Russians, on their side, must see that it is not so easy to make the Anglican Church enter into the bosom of theirs. As to establishing the intercommunion between the two churches without having come to an agreement on questions of faith, it is a dream which the archpriest Wassilief must have dispelled once and for ever.
NEW PUBLICATIONS.
REASON IN RELIGION.
By Frederic Henry Hedge. Boston: Walker, Fuller & Company, 245 Washington St. 1863. pp. 458.
The author of this work, who is a professor in Harvard University, enjoys a deservedly high reputation as an accomplished scholar and writer, and is looked upon by numbers of intelligent and thoughtful persons, especially in Massachusetts, as their most revered and trusted guide in religious matters. On that account whatever he writes is worthy of consideration. In the work before us he has not attempted a systematic treatise on the topic indicated in his title, but has thrown together a series of essays touching on it and its kindred topics, indicating difficulties more than aiming at solving them, and suggesting a method by which anxious minds may separate a certain modicum of belief which is practically certain and safe from that which is doubtful, and wait patiently until they can get more truth by the slow progress of science.