SHORT STUDIES. 
peculiar privileges; that they have special means 
of communicating with God and of knowing his 
will; that they can work miracles, visible or invisible; 
that they, in fact, are God’s representatives directly 
appointed by himself, The two swords of St, Peter 
are the two authorities, secular and spiritual; but 
to Peter they were both committed, and the civil 
power in Christian countries exists only as the 
delegate of Peter’s successors. 
If it be true that the clergy are possessed of super- 
natural powers; if ‘the keys, as they are called, 
have in any such sense been committed to them; 
if through them, actually and palpably, the will 
of God is made known to men, and in no other way, 
the assumption, bold though it be, is fairly justified, 
and kings and cabinets ought to be superseded by 
commissions of bishops. If, on the other hand, the 
clergy are but like other orders of priesthoods in 
other ages and countries—mere human beings set 
apart for peculiar functions, and tempted by the 
nature of those functions into fantastic notions of 
their own consequence — the recurring conflicts 
between Church and State resolve themselves into 
phenomena of social evolution, the common sense 
of mankind exerting itself to control a groundless 
assumption. To :lw sludent of human nature the