PAROCHIAL PAPERS, No. I.

INNOCENCE.

AN ACCOUNT OF MAN'S FIRST STATE OF INNOCENCE, AND OF HIS FALL THEREFROM.

IN THE beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth.

And God said, Let us make Man in our image and in our likeness. So God created Man IN HIS OWN IMAGE; in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them. And God blessed them,....and God saw every thing that He had made, and behold it was very good:

And the Lord God took the Man and put him in the Garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded the Man, saying, Of every Tree of the Garden thou mayest freely eat; but of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, thou shalt not eat of it, for in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely DIE.

Now the Serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the Woman, Yea, hath God said, ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? .And the Serpent said unto the Woman, Ye shall not surely die.

And when the Woman saw that the Tree was good for Food, and that it was pleasant to the Eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one Wise, she took of the Fruit thereof and did Eat, and gave also unto her Husband with her; and he did eat.

And the Lord God said unto Adam, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy Wife and hast eaten of the Tree of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it; Cursed is the Ground for thy sake: in Sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; Thorns also and Thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the Herb of the field; in the Sweat of thy Face shalt thou eat Bread, till thou return unto the Ground; for out of it wast thou taken, for Dust thou art, and unto Dust shalt thou return.

Thus "Sin entered into the world, and Death by Sin; and so Death passed upon all Men, for all have sinned."-Romans v. 12. The wages of Sin is Death.-Romans vi. 23.

"Dead in trespasses and sins." Fulfilling the desires of the flesh, and of the mind." "By nature the children of wrath." -Ephesians ii.

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Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them."-Ephe

sians iv. 18.

"In Adam all die."-1 Corinthians xv. 22

SIN AND DEATH.

THE ORIGIN OF THE PRINCE OF WALES's PLUME.

A LEGEND OF CRESSY.

ON CRESSY's heighte, at fall of nighte, see bolde KING EDWARD stande,

No dynte is on his armour brighte, no blode is on his brande,
Yet all excited is his mein, all restless gleames his eye,

And "Haste, O haste, my valliante sonne," is his impatient crie.
With arrowe speede a panting steede breasted the rising mound,
A youthful knight doth swift alight, and kneel upon the grounde.
Thankes, royal Father, thankes," he saide, "my grateful thankes
I yield,

"That thou didst give me leave for thee to fight my maiden field.” The armes he bore were black with gore, his jupon hacked and torne, His basinet was of its crest-the ENGLISH LEOPARD-shorne ; Yet all unwounded was the knight, scatheless in every part; The joyful father blest his boy, and prest him to his harte. "Now for swift honor to the brave," doth royal EDWARD crie, "Receive the helm BOHEMIA wore, be that thy guerdon high." "To don that crest," the knight replies, "would tarnish my renowne, "Bohemia's king was old and blind, some craven struck him down." From the tall crest-a vulture's wing-the king plucked fetheres three,

And twysting them into a wreath he formed a FLEUR DE LYS; Then placed it on the basinet of EDWARD PRINCE OF WALES, And proudly, "Conqueror of FRANCE," his gallante sonne he hailes. "HOUMOUT," he said, "thy motto be, for SPIRIT HIGH is thine, "Who thus doth ever modestie with bravery combine."

The Prince low bends-a boon he begs-" ICH DIEN let me bear, "For I SERVE my Father, King, and Gcd, in honour, love and feare.”

AND thus it was in days of yore, the badge of ENGLAND's heir
Was circled round with attributes, surpassing jewels rare;
May heaven grant that coronet one other gem assume,

And ever bear the pearl of PEACE while ALBERT wears the plume.
GILBERT J, FRENCH.

BOLTON, 26th August, 1846-being the five hundredth

anniversary of the Battle of Cressy.

NOTE-The triple plume singularly corresponds in outline with the conven. tional form of the heraldic fleur-de-lys, so that almost every variety of the latter ornament may be altered, by the addition of a few lines, into the badge of which the legend supposes it the origin.

The feathers usually represented are those of the ostrich; yet in all the early seals, and particularly in the earliest known example, they are stiff and narrow, with a slight curve at the ends similar to the pinion feathers of an eagle or vulture.

The words "Houmout," and "Ich Dien," which occur above the shields on the tomb of the Black Prince, are supposed by Mr. Planché to form a continuous motto, signifiying, when freely translated, "I obey the dictates of magnanimity."

IN OUR LAST We showed the divine origin of the order of bishops: and that the Chief Shepherd and Bishop of Souls, did, as His last act on earth, convey that power which He himself possessed to the eleven apostles; and He sent them to execute the same apostolical, episcopal, and pastoral office for the ordering and governing of His Church until the end of the world, which He himself had exercised whilst on earth. We proceed now to show that they not only exercised the episcopal office themselves, but that they empowered others to do the same, with whom He is ever present by His Holy Spirit to comfort and support in their high office. "And, therefore, that the apostolate might be successive and perpetual, Christ gave them a power of ordination, that by imposing hands on others, they might impart that power which they received from Christ."

THE MOUNT OF OLIVET, where they had received their commission, was a Sabbath day's journey from Jerusalem, or about seven furlongs; whence the apostles immediately returned to Jerusalem and took up their abode in an upper room, along with the pious women who had witnessed our Lord's resurrection, "and Mary, the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren." It is a curious and somewhat significant fact that this is the only time that blessed Mary is ever named in the Acts or in the epistles. Christ's brethren are now numbered among the believers; although formerly they did not believe even the miracles which they saw Him perform.

ONE OF OUR LORD's instructions to His apostles was to tarry in Jerusalem until they had been endued with the power of the Holy Ghost, when they should not only themselves be No. 4.

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baptized by the Holy Spirit and with fire, but Christ would thenceforward pour out His Spirit upon all flesh; upon our sons and daughters, upon old men and children, young men and maidens, and upon men-servants and upon maid-servants. The whole company of believers now amounted to six score. persons, that continued to meet for devotional purposes in this upper room. These St. Peter addressed and explained, that as the bishoprick to which Judas had been appointed, had become void by his suicide, it was necessary to fill it up by one of those seventy disciples who had been a witness of all Christ's miracles and teaching. Barsabas and Matthias were accordingly selected; and because the apostles were not yet under the special inspiration of the Holy Ghost, they referred the choice to God. Their prayer was addressed to the Lord Jesus, to whom they ascribed the knowledge of all hearts, which is the property of God alone. They gave forth lots, and He directing, the lot fell upon Matthias, and he was numbered with the eleven apostles. No act of ordination, no prayer nor laying on of hands upon the new apostle, are recorded; and, therefore, it is probable that there was some visible token of Christ's approbation given after He had guided the lot, and that Matthias's ordination was neither of man, nor by man, but immediately from the Lord Jesus.

THE APOSTLES, with the whole company of the believers, continued to meet daily in the upper room, until the day of Pentecost, when suddenly they heard an unusual sound from above, like that of a rushing mighty wind, which, in a most wonderful and unaccountable manner, filled and shook the room in which they were assembled. Then there "appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues" than their native language. The shape of a tongue signified the gift of many languages, which was now to be made the means of collecting and uniting men into one Catholic religion, as the miraculous confusion of tongues had been a curse on mankind and had caused their dispersion and idolatry. Their brightness, and the appearance of fire, signified the enlightenment of the eyes of the understanding of mankind by the clear knowledge of the will of God which was now about to be revealed and preached, and the

energy of the Spirit of Grace which would enable them to spread and communicate it to all the world.

IT SEEMS PROBABLE that our Lord's choosing the number of twelve apostles was out of respect to the number of the tribes of Israel; and whilst their labours were confined to the Jewish nation. But when the Jews had rejected the gospel, and it was o be preached to every creature, other men were advanced to the apostolic office, without any farther respect to numbers. In consequence of the persecution which succeeded the death of the first martyr, the disciples were dispersed in all directions, and in every place they made many converts to Christianity. Philip, one of the deacons, was thus occupied in Samaria, when the Spirit of God directed him to proceed to the desert that lies betwixt Jerusalem and Gaza, and there to disciple and baptize an Ethiopian eunuch of high rank, who, having been a proselyte to the Jewish religion, and therefore a believer in the true God, had been to Jerusalem to worship God at the feast, and was now on his way home. Philip obeyed; and when they were come to a convenient place they went down both. into the water, and Philip baptized the Eunuch. "And when they were come up out of the water, the Holy Spirit fell upon the Eunuch, and the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip that the Eunuch saw him no more; and he went on his way rejoicing." Those words in italics are not in our version, but they are in the Alexandrian and several other ancient MSS. The words would appear to have been omitted through the carelessness of a scribe, which he might be less apt to observe, because the verse reads naturally without them'. The apostolic grace was thus given to this noble proselyte by the Spirit of the Lord falling upon him immediately after he was baptized. So that he received it immediately from heaven, and without the intervention of men. He was the apostle of the Ethiopian or Abys sinian Church, where he preached the gospel and constituted that Church, which remains to this day.

THE NEXT instance is that of the illustrious Apostle of the Gentiles, whom Jesus Christ, the God of our fathers, chose that he should know His will and see that Just One whom he had formerly persecuted, and hear the voice of His mouth. There

1 Bishop Rattray's Tract on Confirmation previous to receiving the Eucharist. Also Pyle's Paraphrase.