in its voice to that of the minister.

In every part of her system the same policy may be traced. Utterly
rejecting the doctrine of transubstantiation, and condemning as
idolatrous all adoration paid to the sacramental bread and wine, she
yet, to the disgust of the Puritan, required her children to receive the
memorials of divine love, meekly kneeling upon their knees. Discarding
many rich vestments which surrounded the altars of the ancient faith,
she yet retained, to the horror of weak minds, a robe of white linen,
typical of the purity which belonged to her as the mystical spouse of
Christ. Discarding a crowd of pantomimic gestures which, in the Roman
Catholic worship, are substituted for intelligible words, she yet
shocked many rigid Protestants by marking the infant just sprinkled from
the font with the sign of the cross. The Roman Catholic addressed his
prayers to a multitude of Saints, among whom were numbered many men
of doubtful, and some of hateful, character. The Puritan refused the
addition of Saint even to the apostle of the Gentiles, and to the
disciple whom Jesus loved. The Church of England, though she asked
for the intercession of no created being, still set apart days for the
commemoration of some who had done and suffered great things for the
faith. She retained confirmation and ordination as edifying rites; but
she degraded them from the rank of sacraments. Shrift was no part of her
system. Yet she gently invited the dying penitent to confess his sins to
a divine, and empowered her ministers to soothe the departing soul by
an absolution which breathes the very spirit of the old religion. In
general it may be said that she appeals more to the understanding, and
less to the senses and the imagination, than the Church of Rome, and
that she appeals less to the understanding, and more to the senses
and imagination, than the Protestant Churches of Scotland, France, and
Switzerland.

Nothing, however, so strongly distinguished the Church of England from
other Churches as the relation in which she stood to the monarchy. The
King was her head. The limits of the authority which he possessed,
as such, were not traced, and indeed have never yet been traced with
precision. The laws which declared him supreme in ecclesiastical
matters were drawn rudely and in general terms. If, for the purpose of
ascertaining the sense of those laws, we examine the books and lives of
those who founded the English Church, our perp