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rt'j»->!*»«raW«' .*.' ' '1^ ■}*i%i- - ',<^ 
 
 ii 
 
 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS" 
 
 CONSIDERED, 
 
 BY 
 
 A CANADIAN LAYMAN. 
 
 TORONTO: 
 PRINTED BY W. C. CIIEWETT & CO., 
 
 17 k 19 KINO STREET EAST. 
 
 1862. 
 
-anmuamximmmmmmmmtmai 
 
 ^ 
 
 W. C. CIIEWETT it CO., PUINTERS, 17 A 10 KIN'G STREET EAST, TOKONTO. 
 
 I 
 
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*-! 
 
 "ESSAYS AND KEVIEWS" CONSIDERED, 
 
 BY A CANADIAN LAYMAN. 
 
 ONTO. 
 
 The consternation caused by the fulling of a shell in a populoiis city 
 could not possibly exceed that arising from the first appearance of "Essays 
 and Reviews" in the civilized world. Not only among the religious of man- 
 kind did the tempest rage, but society itself seemed about to be riven asun- 
 dcr by the violence of this moral hurricane. Bishops and Deacons alike 
 looked aghast in thunder-stricken silence at the monster which had sud- 
 denly revealed itself in their very midst ; venerable Presbyters shook their 
 hoary lieads and carefully perused the pages of the Apocalyps, if perchance 
 they might find this new terror foreshadowed or explained in its mysterious 
 pages ; local preachers smiled complacently, and honestly thanked their 
 God for the fliith which screened them from its scorching influence; the 
 lowest class of unthinking Atheists threw up their caps in exuberant de- 
 light at what they considered the triumph of their cause, and even intelli- 
 gent and dignified men of all classes and creeds, forgetting for the moment 
 their composure and self-respect, added their voices to the Babel confusion 
 of censure, praise and terror, already deafening the ear and confounding 
 the understanding. 
 
 The excitement was contagious :— as well expect any cur to maintain its 
 equanimity in the presence of an exciting hunt as ask any mortal, subject 
 to the infirmities of lunuan nature, to look on this universal commotion 
 unmoved. Neither was it possible for any man to take a clear, calm view 
 of the matter while the fever still raged in his own blood ; several indeed 
 were rash enough to attempt it, but on either side, as miglit naturally have 
 been expected, each appeal shewed far too much of the blind and cruel 
 furor yet undiminished within the Hearts of the respective writers. For- 
 tunately, however, derangements in the moral atmosphere, like those of tho 
 outer world, cannot last for ever. Even now the storm has expended its 
 giant strength, the waves are subsiding, and but for a low grumbling and 
 occasional splash here and there we might actually begin to look upon the 
 past as a dream of the night, and smile upon the shadows which had stricken 
 such terror to our souls. 
 
 
 ^o'lC 
 
4 
 
 I 
 
 A celebrated historian has stated that "the best time to write the history 
 of an event is when the actors in it are about to quit the scene ;" and, in a 
 moral sense, it appears that the attitude of the actors in the scene before 
 us is such, according to the above conclusion, as to justify one in the at- 
 tempt at taking an unprejudiced review of the path of that comet whose 
 unexpected appearance has so deranged the equilibrium of the religious 
 world. Not that we should have tho arrogance to attempt, for one moment, 
 to cope with the varied learning and undeniable depth of intellect displayed, 
 not only by the authors of this celebrated work, but also by many of those 
 who, since its appearance, have endeavoured, by the weighty influence of their 
 learned dissertations, to uphold or trample down the jjcculiar views which 
 it has been the object of the book to convey. Neither should we have 
 been tempted by any means to raise our feeble voice among the intellectual 
 giants who occupy the arena, but for a very trifling circumstance which 
 caught our attention no later than yesterday. 
 
 We were quietly enjoying the fresh air among the primeval trees in the 
 rear of our forest home when we observed a small pen rudely constructed 
 of heavy logs, in all about three feet in height ; there was no roof or cover- 
 ing of any kind, and a small opening cut in one side, the bottom level with 
 the ground and not more than a foot high, answered all the purposes of a 
 door to the roofles.s tenement. Misery could not ask a more wretched 
 dwelling or crime a less secure prison. Some half-threshed oats had been 
 thrown in, apparently intended as bedding for some of those wandering 
 animals which another wandering tribe so reli'2,iously abhor ; and in carry- 
 ing this straw to its destination, much of the grain, so carelessly neglected 
 in the threshing, lay scattered upon the ground up to the very door of this 
 humble but tenantless abode. As wc stood gazing thereon and rvuninating 
 over the various styles of dwellings in which humanity finds a quantum of 
 happiness on earth, from the royal palace to the lonely squatter's hut, wc 
 noticed two noble, fullfledged geese, whom a rare good fortune had directed 
 to this lucky path, following, with curved and snowy necks and red bills 
 close upon the ground, the track so richly strewn with the delicious grain. 
 Lost to the world around them, and totally wrapt in the enjoyment of their 
 luxurious repast, they followed on, leaving little for the gleaners, until un- 
 wittingly they passed in at the small door of the pen, and then for the first 
 time the thougnt appeared to strike them that they had wandered far from 
 home, and that it was high time to return to their feathered brotherhood — 
 alas for goosely ingenuity ! — in a fit of aljsence they had entered, but how 
 to get out seemed strangely to puzzle their reawakened faculties. In vain 
 they raised their lordly licads above the level of the lowly walls and cackled 
 forth their wonder and despair ; tho clipped wings refused to carry them 
 over, and as for stooping to go out as they came in — in fact the thought 
 
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 let whose 
 
 rehgious 
 
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 iisplaycd, 
 
 7 of those 
 
 ce of their 
 
 tvs which 
 
 we have 
 
 itellcctual 
 
 ice which 
 
 ees in the 
 nstructed 
 or cover- 
 level with 
 )oscs of a 
 wretched 
 had been 
 i^andering 
 in carry- 
 neglected 
 or of this 
 iminating 
 lantum of 
 I hut, we 
 i directed 
 red bills 
 5US grain, 
 it of their 
 vmtil un- 
 r the f>rst 
 1 far from 
 lerhood — 
 but how 
 In vain 
 id cackled 
 u'ry them 
 e thought 
 
 never struck thorn ! They saw the clear blue sky above their heads, which 
 were full of thoughts of liberty and lofty aspirations after freedom, but as 
 for extricating themselves they seemed to have relinquished the idea in 
 silent sorrow. 
 
 At this juncture we observed a little wretched gleaner in the shape of a 
 half-fledged, miserable-locking chicken, of unhealthy .-rppearance, following 
 on the kte coiu'se of the noble prisoners, picking up a grain here and a 
 grain there, until it found itself at their very feet within the little enclosure. 
 There, among the rich straw, the little bird was amply repaid for its pains, 
 and giving a little chirp of hearty contentment— which might, indeed, have 
 been its mode of thanking God for its plentiful repast— it turned quietly 
 out and pursued its homeward course unobserved ! And is it possible, we 
 thought, that this little bird can, without apparent reflection of any kind, 
 naturally hit upon a way which these superior birds have vainly been cud- 
 gelling their brains to discover. Truly, then, the veriest child may make 
 itself useful, and to the humblest among us is there a duty assigned; and 
 totally unequal as we arc in education and other respects to those who have 
 all their lives revelled in advantages denied to us, may we not, like this little 
 bird, happen perchance to see, what those, to whose infinite superiority wo 
 most devoutly and willingly bow, have failed to recognize ! 
 
 It has been remarked by Zimmerman that " humility is the first lesson 
 we learn from reflection, and self-distrust the first proof we give of having 
 obtained a knowledge of ourselves." ^Yc earnestly trust and partly believe 
 that oiu- reflective faculties, such as they are, have been sufficiently exer- 
 cised towards the attainment of the first lesson that they teach ; and we 
 certainly feel that want of confidence which would lead us to believe that 
 we are not altogetht deficient in self-knowledge ; so that we can fully ap- 
 preciate the extent to which we render ourselves liable to bo classed with 
 that numerous crowd who gain a most unenviable notoriety by their teme- 
 rity in " rushing in where angels fear to tread," when we presume to take 
 any position, beyond that of silent listener, in the present momentous discus- 
 sions. There are two ad^^antages, however, which our isolated position may 
 possibly command. In the first place, being removed far from the throng 
 of theological debaters, wheio the ideas of each are so apt to take more or 
 less the pervading hue of the whole, the probable abseni c of this tinge 
 may, haply, lend an apparent freshness to our views ; and in the second 
 place, our total ignorance of the main characters on the stage, while it de- 
 tracts from the thoroughness of our remarks, may enable us to bring to 
 bear upon the subject a more unprejudiced mind than those, whom an inti- 
 mate personal acquaintance with the principals liuist have placed, to a cer- 
 tain degree, in the position of party men. And after all, it is not the 
 gigantic forest trees alone, with their branching grecnheads and luxuriant 
 
s 
 
 fbliage, that lend cnchantmDnt to the beauty of the scene ; do not the meek- 
 eyed violets beneath our feet fill up, in their own place, the exquisite har- 
 mony of nature, and add a note, the want of which, however feeble, would 
 be both felt and rc<rretted. 
 
 The effect of "Essays and Reviews" upon the great world without wo 
 can only judge from second-hand knowledge, derived from newspaper 
 articles and fragmentary scraps of various kinds; that produced within the 
 limited sphere of our own observation wc have carefully and, we trust, not 
 unprofitably studied. 
 
 Among the supporters and admirers of the work, comprising the vast 
 range from simple acquiescence to enthusiastic worship, wc have met with 
 two distinct classes, and we believe in the existence of a thiixi. The first 
 comprises a small number of intelligent men, generally well to do in the 
 world, men who read much and think a little too, deficient in the poetic 
 vitality of Religion, too intellectual to be sensual, yet too worldly to be 
 holy, possessing the penetration to detect an error somewhere, yet lacking 
 both the courage and ability to track the error home, a selfish class after 
 all, who, mostly ignorant of any broad principles of philarithroi)y, live for 
 themselves alone, mendicants for public admiration or even wonder, per- 
 fectly satisfied with the verdict of their little world that they are ''■different 
 from the connnon herd." 
 
 In the scTond class, unforcnnatclj^ a large one in the present day, we 
 include the lowest type of humanity ; to call them infidels would be to 
 honour them, for that word seems to imply that they have, at least, wished 
 or endeavoured to believe something. These men never have. Scoffer ir, 
 the true designation of tlie class, composed principally of men of dissolute 
 habits, full of bodily health and animal spirits, void of hear:, though some- 
 times among their friends styled "good-hearted fellows" — earthly, sensual 
 — men who have perhaps heard of Voltaire, and read Jack Sheppard as the 
 noblest production of literary genius— men of no intellect, who talce the 
 same frantic pleasure in destroying or caricaturing the noblest aspirations 
 of humanit}^, that chattering monkeys would experience in tearing a flower 
 or defacing a piece of exquisite workmanship, arising, in either case, from a 
 total inability to comprehend or appreciate the object of their senseless 
 rage. 
 
 In the existence of the third class, a specimen of which, as we said 
 before, we have never met, and therefrom infer its scarcity — wo are led to 
 believe, from the general idea presented to our own mind of the authors of 
 the book in question ; an idea derived and moulded altogether from the 
 character of their writings now before us. To include them in either of 
 the classes above specified would be to exhibit an obtuseness of mind, an 
 obliquity of vision melancholy to contemplate, if not quite unusual to meet. 
 
 I 
 
RMMi 
 
 ...S^i^,,..,^., 
 
 the meek- 
 lisitc har- 
 •Ic, would 
 
 thout wc 
 ewspapcr 
 I'ithin the 
 trust, not 
 
 the vast 
 met with 
 The first 
 lo in the 
 ;he poetic 
 lly to be 
 ?t lacking 
 lass after 
 ', live for 
 ider, per- 
 different 
 
 t day, Ave 
 lid be to 
 t, wished 
 scoffer is 
 dissolute 
 gh somc- 
 , sensual 
 rd as the 
 take the 
 pirations 
 a (lower 
 e, from a 
 senseless 
 
 we said 
 xe led to 
 ithors of 
 from the 
 cither of 
 mind, an 
 to meet. 
 
 But Eair play is a jewel so firmly enshrined in the Briton's heart that we 
 would warn those who recklessly vilify the names of these men, that they 
 are fighting against themselves ; for so sure as, in this great nation, any 
 individual is unjustly debased, so sure will the reaction sooner or later set 
 in when he shall be, to a precisely similar degree, unduly exalted. That 
 they are men, we speak of them as a whole, of great intellectual power 
 and superior attainments no one can doubt ; and while we consider our- 
 selves fully entitled to give an opinion or venture a suggestion as to the 
 moral points at issue ; yet to t?^c task of criticising their various renderings 
 or new translations proposed, we are free to confess ourselves thoroughly 
 unequal. But the unprejudico<i reader will find, in some of these men at 
 least, something vastly superior to either intellectual power or literary 
 attainment of any kind whatever. There is something very wonderful in 
 the manner in which the temper of a writer will appear to breathe, as it 
 were, from his pages ; it is the spirit which appears thoroughly distinct 
 from, and independent of the letter. Let a man, under irritating circum- 
 stances, write a letter to his friend, couched in the calmest terms and most 
 carefully balanced words, and the chances are ten to one that his friend, if 
 an acute observer, will detect therein his state of mind, notwithstanding his 
 endeavours to conceal it : it is the impress of its individuality which mind 
 must invariably leave on every material medium of expression, and which 
 Clan neither be hidden nor repressed. There are, it may be, so manv mil- 
 lions of voices in the worid, yet the voice of an intimate fii ' le 
 recognised ifter many years of absence ; and your daily cod • ' 
 detect your anonymous production almost as readily as ho w: 
 photograph from a frame containing a thousand. You may c 
 body, but a low mind cannot conceal its vulgarity, neither a noble 
 inherent beauty ; and where christian charity, that highest excellence c. 
 human nature, exists, it can not be concealed, but will bloom in every word, 
 adorning the aifectionate lines of the simple domestic letter— while soften- 
 ing the harshness and rounding the asperities of the coldest philosophical 
 enquiry. It is this spirit breathing from these pages, more than all other 
 natural and acquired superiority, v/hich draws the unequivocal line of dis- 
 tinction between this and the two other classes. It must, however, be 
 carefully borne in mind that to acknowledge the presence of this spirit 
 among them, even in its fullest development, is by no means to commit 
 ourselves to the support of their opinions. A right noble soul will not 
 necessarily save its possessor from the committal of the gravest errors in 
 judgment, and a good intention can never justify, though ic must materially 
 palliate, a fault. 
 
 Such, then, in a few words, are the distinctive characteristics of the three 
 classes by whom the sentiments of this book are more or less thoroughly 
 
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 applauded, aflTording a peculiar cxompHfication of iho discordant elements 
 that will unexpectedly mingle in every question of universal interest, where 
 th } ideal predominates over the material ; for beyond all doubt the bitterest 
 enemies of the book are incalculably nearer akin in spirit, if they only knew 
 it, to the authors, than the staunchest friends they can point out m the first 
 or second class enumerated : in fact, the questionable support of the second 
 class must hr 3 been as little anticipated before, as it was thoroughly 
 despised after it was accorded ; a support clearly negative o" worse than 
 negative in all its practical results, arising from no community of feeling or 
 principles between the authors and themselves, but sim^^ly from a natural 
 antipathy to the class who, in all sincerity found it their duty, not only to 
 anathematize the work, but even in some cases, exceptional we hope, to 
 traduce and vilify the character of the writers. 
 
 The opponents, as implied above, are embraced in one class, or appa- 
 rently so; for in reality a careful analysis would here detect elements united, 
 naturally even more antagonistic than those c ^iposing the whole three 
 classes just described. This class, which far o'ltnuinbers all the others put 
 together, consists of what will be understood by the church-going of all 
 sects, a class comprising every degree of moral status imaginable, ranging 
 from the very best and holiest of orthodox christians, in the highest accepta- 
 tion of the terms, to those whom early educational habit, the force of cus- 
 tom or interested, and even base motives, have induced to adopt the same 
 uniform and march under the same binner, 
 
 Thus, so far as our observation has gone, stand the Essayists, in the 
 anomalous position of men enthusiastically cheered by their natural ene- 
 mies, and as heartily anathematized by those who should at least have been 
 their apologists if not their friends; either side exliibiting the not altogether 
 unusual phenomenon of men fighting in the dark, for the interesting feature 
 o*" the most violent on both sides is the fact, that very few of them have 
 seen either the book itself or even the smallest extracts from it ; but having 
 heard of a doctrine, a doubt or a theory as emanating therefrom, have filled 
 up the great blank with the suggestions of their own over-lively imagina- 
 tions, and thus, having found an enemy in a windmill, attack it with genu- 
 ine Quixotic valour. 
 
 Having now endeavoured to delineate the position and analyse the com- 
 ponent elements of the combatants, we trust we may be permitted, before 
 touching upon the essays, to make a few obserrations to christian men, 
 upon the attitude of the christian church in the p sent day— what it is 
 and what it should bf. By christian churcli we intend to denote the party 
 classed above as the avowed opponents of the Essayists ; but the words 
 christian men, designating thereby those to whom we would now address 
 ourselves, we use in a far more comprehensive sense ; embracing all those 
 
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 j%i«*f»<K(? 
 
 it elements 
 !rest, where 
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 ■ only knew 
 in the first 
 the second 
 thoroughly 
 worse than 
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 not only to 
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 if?, or appa- 
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 altogether 
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 them have 
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 imagina- 
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 3 the cnm- 
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 stian men 
 ivhat it is 
 the party 
 ;he words 
 w address 
 all those 
 
 9 
 
 who love the Lord Jesus Christ, as the Son of God and the ex'^ross image 
 of His person, in sincerity and truth : all those who, unable, from any 
 reason, to accept the mii'aoulous identity of Father and Son, nevertheless 
 love and honour the character of Christ as portrayed in the holy Scriptures : 
 all those who, whether they have accepted Christ or not, whether they have 
 heard of Christ or not, yet love the human family, and liiereby, knowingly 
 or unknowingly, honour Chiist by exacting that which was the chief orna- 
 ment of His nature : all those who feel within their hearts, however dim 
 the ray, however obscured by lengthened years of ignorance, sin or crime, 
 the feeblest yearning alter good, thereby honouring Him who came upon 
 earth to call not the Righteous, but Sinners to repentance : all, in fact, upon 
 the face of the whole earth, except, if ^uch there be, theJiaters of mankind, 
 the hopelessly abandoned, the irretrievably depraved. 
 
 "VYe are fallen upon wondrous days ! The human intellect, flushed with 
 the triumphs of the last half century, is running riot in the earth. Ex- 
 pectation mul». fills every countenance, and " what wonder next?" hangs 
 upon the threshold of every lip. While the christian church alone, like a 
 woman benightei in the wilderness, starts at the sound of her own voice, 
 trembling at tho harmless winds as they whistle through the branches 
 above her head, fearing to advance lest she may stumble into the pit, and 
 dreading to retreat lest some greater evil may befall her, she draws her 
 torn garments more closel}'' around her and, shivering through the long 
 hours of the night, seems, denuded of her Faith and shorn 'if her strength, 
 to have lost • 11 likeuess to her former self, but her indefinite longing after 
 morning light. Alas for her dignity, it is gone ! alas for her honour, it is 
 levelled in the dust ! Where is the spirit which animated her youth ? the 
 Faith which cried of old, " Thy word is a lantern unto my feet and a light 
 unto my path." " Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow 
 of Death I Avill fear no evil for thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff they 
 comfort me." 
 
 Is it not high time to shake off this lethargy ? " Awake, awake, put on 
 thy strength, shake thyself from the dust, arise and sit down ;" " Loose 
 thyself from the bands of thy neck, oh raptive daughter of Zion — put on 
 thy beautiful garments," and shew thyself once more the light and the 
 glory of the earth and not its Tyrant or its slave ! 
 
 It would appear that the causes of disunion among men, whom a simi- 
 larity, if not identity, of principles should have drawn together, are two- 
 fold : first, the utter impossibility of expressing ideas, so exquisitely fine 
 as all spiritual Truths must necessarily be, in words which shall present 
 them with precisely the same s.ense to every ear ; second, the universal 
 clearness with which words oan be applied to all material forms or tangible 
 ceremonies ; from which it happens that it is a similarity of outward form. 
 
10 
 
 altogether unaffected by the possible total dissimilarity of inward spirit, 
 that draws men into brotherhoods as friends and unites the most discord- 
 ant spirits in bands of apparent harmony and love. 
 
 Take party spirit, for ins* ncc, especially such as builds itself upon the 
 foundation of religious belief, and compare the coarse violence of its prac- 
 tical development with the meekness of the faith, and the loving nature of 
 the spirit, by which it believes itself to be inspired, and there you ^ill 
 have one of the most common and clearly evident examples of this pheno- 
 menon of invisible antagonistic spirits, unnaturally, and to all appearance 
 inseparably, bound together by the iron bands of outward form, the worth- 
 less shibboleth of a party creed. They repeat together, in all sincerity, the 
 articles of the same Faith, but alas day and night are not more dissimilar 
 than the ideas conveyed to the mind of each by these useless vehicles. 
 The horrible amazement of Zelica, as the prophet unveiled to her his 
 hideous lineaments, was not mora real or sincere than would be that of 
 these friends so fondly linked together, could they, but for one moment, 
 look into the hearts of one another, and, unveiling ttic idol enshrined within 
 the inner temple of each, sec clearly the moral features of that Deity they 
 have so long considered the counterpart of their own. AVhut unheard of 
 wonders would such a revelation occasion ! Iron bands would snap asun- 
 der and creeds lose their significance; sworn friends would find tliemselves 
 unable longer to walk in the same path together ; deadly enemies would 
 discover in each other the dearest friends, and what an accession of strength 
 would accrue to the worshippers of (Jod when, the Ijonds of outwju'd form 
 cast to the four winds, they could stand together a phalanx indivisible — 
 indissoluble — united by the same inner Faith, the sane living hope, the 
 universal spirit of Charity ind Love. And is it altogether vain to antici- 
 pate a consummation so desirable? What other words than these- Charity 
 and Love — so clearly, so unmistakably indicate the spirit which, in time, 
 can draw all men in one ? The dying criminal still believes in them. The 
 multitude of the heathen dimly behold and obscurely M'orship tliem. The 
 infidel host, despising the outward form, unwittingly adore them. And 
 who of the christian church, who has sincerely studied the life, the words, 
 and above all, the spirit of liis Divine Master, will dare to deny that Hia 
 mission upon earth was to declare these words, to expound this doctrine, 
 to man. Hell is shadowed forth, the atonement hinted at, the Sacraments 
 spoken of, by the great Example, but His whole life, from Jlis first appear- 
 ance to His final ascension, was a ceaseless, unremitting exposition, by word 
 and deed, of tlic Heaven-born, Eternal doctrine of Charity and Love. 
 
 "Thou shalt not avenge nor bear any grudge, but thou shalt love thy 
 neighl)our as thyself," were the first da-, ning words of li^'at which, in the 
 world's infancy, boro witness to the promised day. " Peace on earth, good 
 
 i 
 
 •mmmm 
 
 MN 
 
'■'4':m^^s^^m 
 
 I 
 
 will to man," was the angelic song which heralded in the rising of the Sun 
 of Ilighteousnesg, " Love your enemies," and again, " Thou shalt lovo 
 the Lord thy God with .all thy heart and with all thy strength and with 
 all thy soul and with all thy mind, and thy neighbour as thyself; on these 
 liM comrmmhnent9 hang all the law mid the proj)Tiet^r Such were the 
 astounding announcements that, in the noontide splendour of that glorious 
 day, dazzled the eyes of the astonished ejirth. And when that beautiful 
 and ncvcr-to-be-forgottc-i Sun had set at last, what were the voices of the 
 night, speaking from the multitudinous host of stars that defied the threat- 
 ening darkness ! " Continue ye in my love," " Let Love be without dissimu- 
 lation," " By Love servo one another," " The fruit of the spirit is Love,'' 
 "Let Brotherly love continue," " Love is of God," "God is love," "We 
 ought to love one another," " He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and 
 God in him," " There is no fear in love, perfect love casteth out fear," " Who 
 loveth God lovcth his brother," "Love the brotherhood," "Love is the ful- 
 Pilment of the law." And do not these words strike a respondent chord in 
 every heart? do they not recommend themselves to the conscience of every 
 man ? Does not the inmost heart of the great Earth rejoice at the sound 
 acknowledging them as the Truth, and that great Truth which yet shall 
 make her free ? 
 
 We arc not of those who expect or wish for immediate changes in this 
 respect. Changes, the result of long reflection and cool conviction, are 
 more steady and permanent than such as arise from a sudden impulse, 
 however generous. Years must necessarily elapse before men begin in 
 earnest to disregard the outer, in favour of the inner similarity; but we 
 believe that a tendency in this dii-ection is becoming apparent, and more- 
 over, that such a change must not only commence, but materially advance 
 before the christian church can recover her strength and take that position 
 in the worid which is not only her privilege, but her right. Let the pre 
 eminence of the inner lifc over the outward form be once generally com- 
 prehended and universally admitted, and soon old things shall pass' away, 
 all things shall become new— for it is the inability of the church to reco.-- 
 nlze this truth that has cost her the loss of many of her noblest sons and 
 rnost generous supporters. Take, for instance, the poet Shelley, whom the 
 christian church has stigmatized as an infidel and an Atheist. Had he 
 looked to the inner life of the church and the church to the inner life of 
 the poet, each would have seen his own likeness refU«cted in the features of 
 the other. It is reported of him that he hated tlirist, whereas in truth he 
 hated only the ridiculous caricature, the grinning mockery of the reality, 
 which, cither from his own obtuseness or from a flaw existing somewherei 
 the ^yord Christ presented to his mental vision. But is it either the Intters 
 forming that word wc worshii>, or even the sound pertaining to tfiose let- 
 
12 
 
 ters ? Or is it not rather the incarnation of Truth and Holiness anr* Love 
 which that group of letters is intended to represent ? That Holiness, Truth 
 and Love Shelley worshipped more sincerely than the generality of profess- 
 ing christians. The Falsehood and the Vengeance and the Hate which, 
 from perhaps mental obliquity of vision, the same group presented to his 
 mind, the church, with him, deprecates and abhors. They love the same, 
 they hate the same, the conditions required for eternal friendship; and 
 yet they y..rt as enemies the most irreconcilable, simply because they 
 speak in different tongues and do not comprehend one another ! 
 
 llow quickly would all men be drawn together in one were all controver- 
 sial doctrines dispensed with and the main truth and living Arc of Scripture 
 alone referred to. And why should doctrinal points, which Christ himself 
 invariably kept in the background, if He did not ignore them altogether, 
 be insisted upon and pressed into the service of a church they tend to shat- 
 ter and destroy '? The very fact itself of two sincere and good men finding 
 it necessary to dispute concerning a given doctrine, is, to our mind, the 
 most incontestible evidence that the doctrine is of httle or no consequence • 
 otherwise we directly accuse our God of laying a trap for our souls by giv- 
 ing us the 'Word of Life in riddles, an alternative too dreadful to think of 
 for a moment. 
 
 Let men write or talk for ever about the nature or definition of Inspira- 
 tion, it is but spilt ink and wasted time — far better give it up for ever. Xo 
 two -sv" anglers have the same idea presented to their minds by the word, 
 and the controversy is doomed invariably to end in nothing but mutual dis- 
 trust and jealousy between the combatants. We all know that Inspiration 
 exists. There is a stream of communication between us and the Eternal 
 carried on, probably, by what is called the conscience. And there are liv- 
 ing ideas of universal application, though wo cannot embody them in words 
 of a meaning as universal. The words, " Love is the fulfilment of the law," 
 arc to us words of living fire, because our conscience, which, within us as 
 within every man, if not the very spirit of (iod, is at least the medi\un of 
 communion with Him, m.-knowledges them as genuine ; and if any man tell 
 us he cannot receive them as such, wo believe that it is not because his 
 conscience, which is identical with our own, docs not recognize the truth 
 which ours discerned embodied therein, 1)ut becaiise the words have failed 
 to con\ey the same idea to his mind. (Mu- duty, then, remains, to discover 
 what other words may become the vehicles of our ideas to him ; and then, 
 though literally wc subscribe flissimilar creeds, wc spiritually adore the 
 same God. 
 
 Under this view of conscivnco every man is, to a certain extent, inspired. 
 Wo can receive a spiritual Truth by Inspiration alone— llesh and lilood can 
 not reveal it to us. IJy our consciences we are internally connected with 
 
yglWW^Miff' -»WWWW»«»»teyi 
 
 13 
 
 the Eternal, and these, if fairly treated, are the supreme arbitrators which 
 shall stand beforo us in the end, and under whose accusings or excusings 
 we shall Justify the Great Judge in our final acquittal or condemnation, 
 
 A universal appreciation of the preeminence of spiritual similarity above 
 the formal once established, what, then, would be the attitude of the chris- 
 tian church which we left trembling in the desert at the sound of the 
 rustling leaves ? Quickly she would arise and put on her beautiful gar- 
 ments, and shake herself from the dust, and loose the bands of her neck, 
 and, straining through the Egyptian darkness for a ray of light, once 
 more we should hear her gentle voice of Faith— "Yea though I walk 
 through the valley of the shadow of Death I will fear no evil for thou 
 art with me thy rod and thy staff they comfort me." The discoveries 
 of astronomy or the revelations of geology would then no longer terrify 
 her ; nay she would not only willingly endure, but heartily invite inquiry. 
 "Search me and try me," she would cry, "our God is Love and Truth, 
 and all your revelations will redound to His honour and His praise. 
 Search, search out the Scripture, explode its chronology and condemn its 
 history if you may. Upon no such sandy foundation have I planted my feet. 
 Behold I am rooted m Love and Charity, and all your delving will but 
 fructify the soil. You could not, if you would, destroy me, for I know 
 in whom I have trusted. Look on my bridal robe and know the Bride- 
 groom is at hand. Henceforth I am beyond all mortal power, and for 
 the powers of darkness, resting in the Love of Christ, in His name I pity 
 and defy them ! " 
 
 In Dr. Temple's essay, entitled " The Education of the Worid," there 
 appears to be but little to excite the fears of the most strictly orthodox, 
 except it be the companionship in which it appenrs. Undoubtedly as it at 
 j)resent stands it seems to occupy the position of a prefatory chapter to the 
 succeeding essays, and, by this introductory character alone, to implicate 
 its author in those views and theories afterwards propounded, but which 
 nothing in his own essay c-v,ld lead us to believe he wished to favour 
 or advocate in any way. 
 
 Taken alone, it is an ingenious and successful attem])t to save the Holy 
 Scriptures from the alarming charge, so often preferred against them by 
 inlidol writers, of revealing, in its two great divisions of the old and lew 
 Testament, the Eternal God, who is the same yesterday, to-day anvi for 
 ever, in a twofold and even contradictory character. Orthodox chrifi- 
 tianity owes a debt of gratitude to the man who could effectively ward 
 oil' so serious a homethrust, and the learned doctor, in his admirable 
 
 J 
 
^■•^•ti'r.i^iUMnir ■ 
 
 m 
 
 essay, has liandled the subject ably and well. He has j^hown that a 
 wise and earnest earthly parent, having, during a range of many years 
 the same unchangeable purposes in view, regarding his duty in. the edu- 
 cation of his child, Mill, nevertheless, in carrying these purposes into prac- 
 tice, change his order or method of procedure so as to adapt them, as his 
 wisdom may dictate, to the capacity and mental condition of the child as 
 he passes through the various stages of infancy, youth and manhood. This 
 training as it is maintained in a paragraph which contains the pith of the 
 whole argument, "has three stages. In childhood we are subject to posi- 
 tive rules which we cannot understand but are bound implicitly to obey 
 In youth we are subject to the influence of example, and soon break loose 
 from all rules, unless illustrated and enforced by the higher teaching which 
 example imparts. In manhood we are comparatively free from external 
 restraints, and, if we are to learn, must be our own instructors. Fir.st 
 come rules, then example, then principles. First comes the Law, then the 
 Son of Man, then the gift of the Spirit. The World was once a child under 
 tutors and governors until the Time appointed by the Father. Thon when 
 the fit season had arrived, the Example to which all ages should turn 
 was sent to teach men what they ought to be. Then the human race 
 was left to itself to be guided by the teachings of the spirit within " 
 This idea throws a clearer light upon the narratives contained in the 
 earlier part of the old Testament history ; and accounts, in no inconsi- 
 derable degree, for the impression often left upon the mind when studying 
 the characters portrayed in them, that we have been reading of the acts and 
 sayings of full-grown children rather than those of actual men. Anions 
 the many narratives which partake of this childish character we might 
 especially note the temptation of Eve and her subsequent concealment and 
 cxcuses-the building of Babel to tscrpe from God-the conduct of Jacob 
 and Esau-the trickery of Laban-Joseph's many-coloured coat and the 
 jealousy it excited among his brethren-their manner of revenge-the cup 
 m the .sack's mouth, and numerous others of the same kind ; not to detract 
 by any means, from the beauty and simplicity of the narratives, but merely 
 to draw the attention to the growth of the human mind since that time and 
 to point out the fact that similar accounts given, respecting our i.resent'race 
 of men, would appear both preposterous and absurd. It is hard if not 
 impossible, to divest our minds of the effect of their earliest impressions • 
 and these narratives which have been placed before us from our infancy' 
 and whuh, by their innate beauty, delighted and charmed our childhood' 
 even to our mature judgment appear natural, because wo connect then 
 with a generation and time long gone by. Jhit t.) picture the idea of the 
 1 rime Minister of England hitting upon the notion of putting a silver spoon 
 into the pocket of a foreign ambassador, in order to frame an excuse for 
 
 
t:^?^;ifji*s»*-'fc^^j:gai^ir^-;fin,f'i»)«l5HT?^^i*ii5i«' 
 
 15 
 
 illegally detaining him at his house, is quite impossible to the understand- 
 ing of the present day, in civilized countries at least. Nevertheless, many 
 of these stories, literally so irroconcilable with the present state of society, 
 seem to have a shadowy and spiritual application throughout all ages ; for 
 although no set of grown men, outside the walls of a lunatic asylum, will 
 now attempt to bring together bricks and mortar to build a tower whose 
 top shall reach into the Heavens, yet in every generation there arc spiritual 
 Babels, commenced by men who, as prodigal sons, would live independent 
 of their Father ; and the unfinished condition of these towers is often owin"- 
 to a spiritual confusion of ideas not unlike the material confounding of 
 tongues which scattered the builders on the plains of Shinar. And this 
 will be the system of interprctatiou left to those who reject the theory of 
 Dr. Temple ; for if the notion of the world's growth is discarded the early 
 Scriptures become unmeaning, unless they be supposed to carry a deep and 
 hidden spiritual truth beyond all that is obvious upon the surface, or all 
 that the words, in a literal sense, are able to convey. But it is evident that 
 by those, to whom they were oi-iginally addressed, the earliest of the old 
 Testament writings were taken in their literal sense alone ; and it is the 
 existence of this double life, above all else, that indehbly stamps their 
 moral teachings with the evidence of their divine origin, written not for 
 time but for eternity, not for an age but for a succession of ages, addressed 
 to the infant world as the clearest rule of its guidance yet carrying within 
 a power of development capable of adapting itself to that of the growing 
 man ; so that in every stage of existence the same words revealed a new 
 meaning precisely adapted to, and essentially required by the wants of the 
 time. There is scarcely a narrative or conmiand in the old Testament to 
 which this spiritual application to the present age cannot be clearly traced, 
 though thoroughly unsuspected at the time of their first delivery to the 
 world. 
 
 AVhilo Dr. Temple hokli the revelations of God for the education of the 
 World to have been given directly through the medium of the Jewish 
 people, he still professes to believe that " other nations, meanwhile, had a 
 training parallel to and coteniporaneous with theirs. The natural Keligions 
 —shadows [)rojected by the spiritual light within shining on the dark prob- 
 lems without— were all, in reality, systems of law given also Ijy Ciod, 
 though not given by revelation but by the working of nature, and, conse- 
 quently, so distorted and adulterated that, in lapse of time, the divine 
 element in them had almost perished.'' 
 
 It is the appearance of passages of this kind, wherein a steady faith in 
 the peculiar inspiration of the oracles of the Jewish literature, -in contra- 
 distinction to the simple sug;.>:estions of nature, emanating from the same 
 etvrnal si)irit, which threw a feeble ligl^^ into the darkness of the gentile 
 
world -IS directly implied ; it is the appearance of such passages and the 
 portraiture they afford of the mental condition and spiritual faith of the 
 author, that renders the position which he holds with regard to his brother 
 essayists particularly unaccountable indeed. He, as the others individually 
 claims to be judged on the merits of his own work alone and disavows all 
 ' concert or comparison with" the rest ; but to believe that he entered the 
 same vessel with them and took the prominent place at the figure-head in 
 which we find him, without knowing or caring for the aims or objects of his 
 associates would imply an imputation of bad taste and want of judgment 
 that the perusal of his writings would never warrant; whereas to suppose 
 that this place was allotted to him as forming the connecting link between 
 the old orthodoxy and the new interpretations about to be ushered in 
 would be either to imply that, while he admitted the necessity of change 
 in the fo.mer his conscience refused to go the whole lengths demanded by 
 the latter, and therefore he had no business there at all, or worse still, that 
 adopting, in their fullest sense, the extreme views of his associates, he wil- 
 lully refrained from giving utterance to opinions of a startling nature so as 
 gradually to initiate the incautious reader by slow gradations into the inner 
 mysteries of this new development of the christian faith-a reading of the 
 riddle which would certainly throw a severer accusation upon his sincerity 
 and truth than the spirit displayed in his excellent essay would appear at 
 all to justify. In fact, holding the belief that he confessedly does with 
 regard to inspiration and revelation, the question, what induced him to 
 take the position in which he stands, is one that can be answered only 
 by himself, and one that lies altogether between his conscience and his 
 God. 
 
 In attempting to illustrate the light "given by God but not by inspira- 
 
 tion, and especially where, in the following words, he endeavours to point 
 
 out a truth revealed by that light which the rays of the christian sun have 
 
 ailed to Illuminate, he is signally led astray by that inability, before alluded 
 
 to, of such words as " courage" and " patriotism" to designate a universal 
 
 Idea. But except through such general appeals to natural feeling it would 
 
 be difficult to prove from the new Testament that cowardice was not only 
 
 disgraceful but sinful and that love of our country was an exalted duty of 
 
 humanity. Thac lesson our consciences have learnt from the teachings of 
 
 ancient Rome." *= 
 
 AVc question very much if ancient Rome had any notion at all of either 
 the nature or beauty of true courage or of the extreme foulness of its op- 
 posite, cowardice-the wonls then, as now, meant all things and every- 
 thing. AU. maintain that the only quality deserving the name of courage 
 must be derived from a lifelong application of and subjection to, the Scrip- 
 tural laws of universal Love, which implios self-renunciation-which s 
 
 alike to 
 
■.■^■.■-Tj»."'-r iT'^^ff^^?.,;*^? .jf ^- -- ■.~f<^-V-^:',^ff/_- 
 
 17 
 
 I 
 
 courage and the only true courage in existence. As for the every day hero 
 courage that is lauded to the skies, though most useful, it is nothing but an 
 arrant imposter, a contemptible counterfeit of the truth, no more to be com- 
 pared to the great reality than a rushlight to the sun of heaven. Look on 
 the hero of a thousand battles, him, who has sought the " bubble reputa- 
 tion in the cannon's mouth" and never knew what the sensation of fear 
 was, when the balls were whistling by his ears and his comrades falling in 
 hundreds on his right hand and on his left. See how boldly he rides" on 
 defying Death to his very face or trampling him beneath his charger's feet. 
 Here is courage to satisfy the most sceptical, here is undoubtedly the ring 
 of the true metal. Let him come down from his snorting steed— he who 
 has resolutely faced o thousand deaths will not surely shrink from facing one ! 
 See yonder single ray proceeding from the window of that solitary'' hut j 
 within, upon a couch of straw, in the delirium of agonising fever, that 
 wretched, attenuated figure throws his restless arms aloft and asks for 
 *' Death as for a boon." Will not the warrior sympathise with this brother- 
 scorner of the dreaded one ? Over his couch hangs the palefaced Minister 
 whose eyes have not known sleep nor his body rest for two long days and 
 weary nights, how lovingly he soothes the sufferer and holds, with trembling 
 hands, the cup of cold water to the poor, parched lips. Go, mighty con- 
 queror, change places for one hour. His quiet duties vill nerve and rest 
 your weary arm for further triumph ; and your exhilirating charge in the fresh 
 field will renovate his jaded faculties. Both are afraid ! His is the God of the 
 battlefield and there sustains him, and his the God of the sick chamber with- 
 out its walls forsaking him ! ! Unrobe, then, this miserable phantom of true 
 courage and what do we find ? if not an actual Vice arrayed in Virtue's 
 garments, at best an ignorant callousness, a stupid inability to recognise or 
 appreciate danger, counterfeiting the righteous man's true estimate of it. 
 Self-renunciation— the lesson inculcated by the spirit of the whole Scripture 
 writings, the lesson that Christ was sent into the earth to exemplify, the 
 lesson that every man is born into the world to learn, is courage, true 
 courage and the only courage, nu.stom will reconcile a man to the appear- 
 ance of any particular danger. Few men on earth have shewn a high 
 degree of courage, none has displayed it in perfection save onc-~thc great 
 Example— Christ, the Son of God ! 
 
 And what is patriotism,' this other great lesson that we are sent to ancient 
 Rome to learn ? In its very best and purest sense it is but the third or 
 fourth step in that great ladder whose summit, like that in Jacob's dream, 
 rest^ in the Heavens, on the one great Scriptural truth of universal Love.' 
 And in its conmionplace sense, like courage, a mockery, a delusion and a 
 snare— a phantom conjured up at the beck of politicians and statesmen, fit 
 alike to be used to the establishment of a nation, or abused to its destruc 
 
IS 
 
 tion ; a creature of the imagination produced alilvc by the noblest and by 
 the lowest instincts of our nature. 
 
 Nevertheless, as the Hebrew lamb, without spot and blemish, prefigured 
 the Holiness to be revealed ; so may the " courage" of Rome, the "beauty 
 worship " of Greece and the " poetic aspirations " of Asia have prefigured 
 alike the self-denial, the intense spiritual loveliness and the essential poetry 
 belonging to that Holiness, and of which they were the material symbols 
 shadowing forth the spiritual realities about to be revealed in Christ. Be- 
 fore Christ appeared no man knew what Clod is ; and from Him alone have 
 we received the spirit, by the teachings of which the human creature is 
 transformed into the noblest work of God, not only an honest man, for the 
 word honest has become earth-tainted in its meaning, but a christian gen- 
 tleman, in whom we find true holiness, true courage, true meekness, true 
 gentleness, and often true poetry combined— in one word, perfect self- 
 renunciation or Love. 
 
 Throughout the essay the resemblance between the successive ages of 
 the world and those of the individual man, is carefully and accurately 
 traced ; and the difficulty of reconciling the tone of the early, with that of 
 the later Scriptural writings thereby obviated. No man will rise from the 
 perusal of this essay without an inward feeling of pleasurable satisfaction, 
 the intellectual as well as the spiritual life has received fresh impetus ; in 
 every line the devotion of the christian spirit is apparent. Such passages 
 as this are well worthy the attention of all : "Among all the vices which it 
 is necessary to subdue in order to build up the human character, there is 
 none to be compared, in strength or in virulence, with that cf Impurity. 
 It can outlive and kill a thousand virtues ; it can corrupt the most generous 
 heart; it can madden the soberest intellect; it can debase the loftiest ima- 
 gination. But besides being so poisonous in character, it is, above all 
 others, most difficult to conquer; and the people whose extraordinary 
 • toughness of nature has enabled it to outlive Egyptian Pharaohs, and As- 
 syrian Kings, and Roman Csesars, and Mussulman Caliphs, was well 
 matched against a power of evil, which has battled with the human spirit 
 ever since the creation and has inflicted, and may yet inflict, more deadly 
 blows than any other power we know of" 
 
 The following is another of the passages which leads us to believe that 
 the author must surely have regretted the accident which threw him into 
 connection with some of his fellow-essayists; "But He (Christ) came in 
 the fulness of time for which all history had been preparing, and to which 
 all history since has been looking back. Hence the first and the largest 
 place in the new Testament is assigned to His life four times told. This 
 life we emphatically call the Gospel. Tf there is little herein to be tech- 
 nically called doctrine, yet here is the fountain of all inspiration. There is 
 
 
l'lti2I-'''^3H^S5^i_ 
 
 ■'*-!''^^^:-"''mmmmmimmwmm»j.i 
 
 it and by 
 
 irofigurcd 
 " beauty 
 )refignred 
 ial poetry 
 [ symbols 
 rist. Be- 
 lone have 
 'cature is 
 n, for the 
 5tian gen- 
 less, true 
 •feet self- 
 
 'e ages of 
 ccuratelj* 
 h that of 
 from tlic 
 isfaction, 
 letus ; in 
 passages 
 which it 
 there is 
 mpurity. 
 generous 
 iest ima- 
 ibove all 
 ordinary 
 and As- 
 ras well 
 an spirit 
 i deadly 
 
 eve that 
 liini into 
 came in 
 which 
 ! largest 
 1. This 
 l)c tech- 
 rherc is 
 
 19 
 
 no christian who would not rather part with all the rest of the Bible than 
 with these four books. There is no part of God's Word which the relidous 
 man more instinctively remembers. The Sermon on the Mount, the Pa- 
 rables, the Miracles, the Last Supper, the Mount of Olives, the Garden of 
 Gethsemane the Cross of Calvary-these are the companions alike of in- 
 fancy and old age ; simple enough to be read with awe and wonder by the 
 one; profound enough to open new depths of wisdom to the fullest exne 
 nonce of the other." And again, when he says that "we read the new 
 lestament, not to find there forms of devotion for there are few to be found 
 nor laws of church government for there are hardly any, nor creeds for 
 there are none, nor doctrines logically stated," &c., &c., he seems to recog- 
 nise fully the preeminence and grandeur of the spiritual principle of Cha- 
 nty, before whose majestic presence forms, creeds and doctrines sink into 
 comparative insignificance or contempt. Would that the-multitude of the 
 sects could be brought to look upon their contentions in the light of these 
 Ideas ; not to attempt uniformity of creed or church government which 
 would be useless, even if attainable, but to assign to them their legitimate 
 positions, as the outward trappings and ornamental decorations of the inner 
 spuit of Charity. It is the formal christian, ignorant of the true essence of 
 his nxith, and not the outspoken enemy, who has exhibited to the world 
 that material caricature of Christianity, which popular novelists justly ridi- 
 cule and infidel writers sarcastically deride. 
 
 There are but two passages in this essay which could have been seized 
 upon, with any shew of justice, by those whose object it has been to dis- 
 cover an infidel tendency concealed within it; and these, taken in the 
 author's sense, simply propose theories, the truth of which has Ion- been 
 acknowledged by the vanguard of the christian church. In the first of 
 these it is stated that "we can acknowledge the great value of the forms 
 in which the first ages of the church defined the truth and yet refuse to be 
 bound by them ; we can use them and yet endeavour to go beyond them 
 just as they also went beyond the legacy which was left them by the 
 Apostles." '' 
 
 Truth, indeed, is one indivisible and unchangeable for ever; but the form 
 by which that truth is to be carried into the system of the church must 
 depend upon the assimilating powers of the patient at the time; even so 
 the elementary nutritious atoms of food are one and the same, yet they are 
 .administered to the babe in the form of milk and to the grown man as meat, 
 custom, too, and habit making a certain form of diet most suitable; pnd of 
 such importance is this form that food may become even poisonous if ad- 
 ministered in any but that adapted to the age and habits of the individual: 
 yet the form can never rank with the essential truth in importance. There 
 are certain nrticles of diet peculiarly suited to the means of various classes 
 
I 
 
 ■ 
 
 20 
 
 of men, and these, at length, custom renders necessary, so that each class 
 has its arbitrary rules which may not be infringed upon with innnmity. 
 The same rules obtain respecting spiritual food — there are certain forms 
 adapted to certain classes, and while it is ))arely possible for a highly culti- 
 vated intellect to present truth in a garb acceptable to the vulgar mind, it 
 is utterly impossible for a downright vulgar mind to present even the 
 noblest truths in a form suited to the tastes of the refined. The learned 
 man, the publican and the fisherman, were chosen by our Lord as His 
 Apostles, that Ilis truth might be properly presented to every class of 
 mind ; and the church which ignores this principle is shorn of half its 
 strength. "What the power of our national church might be with such a 
 system as the Wesleyan acting as an auxiliary, as it should have been, no 
 man can calculate. Custom, too, is as stern and unrelenting here as in the 
 case of bodily nourishment. Men die in the church in which they are born. 
 A catholic begets a catholic, an episcopalian an episcopalian, a presbyterian 
 a presbyterian, as naturally as a Negro begets a black child ; and he who 
 would convert a man to his own sect from another acts about as rashly as 
 would a hardy Highlander who would insist upon oatmeal porridge as the 
 only wholesome ( '"-^t for the Lord Mayor of London. 
 
 How many there are who recognise the majestic beauty of the Scriptures! 
 How few, alas, who duly apppreciate their exquisite simplicity ! When will 
 men be brought to see that there is one great, simple and sublime truth 
 revealed in the whole Bible. Like the pillar of cloud and fire it stands 
 above the hill of Calvary casting its shadows backward and its intense light 
 forward, by light and shadow challenging the attention of the earlier, and 
 the worship of the latter ages. The Law foreshadowed it ; the prophets, 
 themselves stumbling in the dark, pointed to it, the Son of God revealed it ; 
 the one, tho everlasting truth permeating every page of Holy Writ with its 
 life-dispensing power, the simple Law of Love, eternal, universal, infinite! 
 Love, ill its highest sense, is the state of the soul in perfect moral and spi- 
 ritual health, in which alone it is fiiUy reconciled to its Father ; and this 
 is the great leading and essential truth which the Bible reveals in its thou- 
 sand pages. And does the Bible contain no more than this ? Certainly, 
 much every way. A book which defined the conditions of bodily health 
 and revelled in descriptions of its happy state, but went no further, would 
 furnish but poor consolation to the sick and sullering. But this in a cer- 
 tain sense stands preeminent as the essential truth revealed, all the rest is 
 but a system of medical forms adapted to man's various constitutions, 
 divinely given, to bring every soul into this state of bliss. Now mark the 
 difference. Tho first truth is essential as it is universal; the second, that 
 is the system of forms and minor truth., though we have the fullest faiih 
 in, and it is ahvaays our duty to offer, we ha <-■ no right to insist upon, 
 
 mmmumm^mmmmm 
 
 m m 
 
21 
 
 ; each class 
 . innninity. 
 "tain forms 
 ighly culti- 
 ar mind, it 
 ; even the 
 he learned 
 )rd as His 
 y class of 
 of half its 
 ith such a 
 e been, no 
 c as in the 
 ' are born, 
 esbyterian 
 [id he who 
 I rashly as 
 dge as the 
 
 Icripturcs ! 
 When will 
 lime truth 
 I it stands 
 ;ense light 
 irlier, and 
 prophets, 
 svealed it ; 
 it with its 
 !, infinite ! 
 ' and S2)i- 
 • and this 
 its thou- 
 [^crtainly, 
 ly health 
 er, would 
 s in a cer- 
 he rest is 
 ititutions, 
 mark the 
 ond, that 
 'lest faiih 
 ist upon, 
 
 neither is truth in them indispensable, they are but means to an end, and 
 a baseless parable may lead to the greatest truth. The soul once seeing 
 the true natare of health may, in some cases, be the best judge of its 
 own cure. The wise physician in appointing the diet of his patient will, 
 though an exceptional case, alter the regimen if any particular article 
 named seem nauseous to the irritated stomach. There are instincts in 
 every man's soul which must be respected. Among the wandering Indian 
 tribes we find mighty cures thnt the legal physician knows nothing of. 
 " Lord, we saw one casting out devils in thy name and we forbade him 
 Iccnuse he folloiced not with vs.'- "Forbid him not." Can anything be 
 more plain ? " He casts out Sin, that is my work and the work of my 
 servants ; I have given you a way, but and if he chooses another way and 
 yet he casts it out, forbid him not : The health is all the means of ob- 
 taining it comparatively nothing." 
 
 Let us take care then lest we take the cause .for the effect. Spiritual 
 like physical health, is a state of being, and the system of formula so 
 often confounded with it is but a way to obtain it ; aud while we have the 
 fullest fiiith in those legal means devised, nevertheless we ackxiowledge the 
 existence of morbid and abnormal conditions ; and if our individual expe- 
 rience should declare to us that we could arrive at that state by casting 
 pebbles into the sea rather than by prayer and fasting, then would such 
 pebble-casting become our creed and duty as well as our privilege and 
 delight. . 
 
 The true office, then, of a minister of God is, firstly, to declare to a blind 
 world the nature and bca,uty of health ; secondly, to insist upon its abso- 
 lute necessity as the only alternative to spiritual death ; and, thirdly, to 
 point out and approve, but never to insist upon, the orthodox means of 
 cure. One man's medicine is another man's poison, and those who insist 
 upon certain Scriptural means as a specific for the cure of every form of 
 disease, are but ignorant impostors who often turn the ridicule of the world 
 upon the genuine practitioner as well as upon themselves. 
 
 Tn the second passage before referred to, it is stated that "the prin- 
 ciple of private judgment puts conscience between us and the Bible, making 
 conscience the supreme interpreter, whom it may be a duty to enlighten 
 but never can be a duty to disobey." 
 
 This theory, which has caused some wonder as proceeding from the 
 mouth of a Church-of-FJngland clergyman, is as old as the Reformation at 
 least ; it is nothing but the old bone of contention between the Catholic 
 and Protestant sections of the christian church ; the former of whom, hold- 
 ing the same clear views of the great first Truth as the latter, nevertheless 
 not only maintains the forms prescribed in Scripture as the absolute and 
 only available means of cure, but, further, insists upon the necessity of 
 
 
1 
 
 22 
 
 their being wrapped in the same tinsel and tinged with the same colouring 
 which recommended them to the admiring gaze of the infant world The 
 latter section ignore the tinsel and colouring as only fit for children and 
 pretend, moreover, as the words quoted imply, to have discovered, by an 
 mner light, a higher application of the forms themselves more suited to the 
 advancing years of the world. Both Physicians of excellent reputation, 
 though personally, we regret to say it, not the best of friends. 
 
 Let us conclude our remarks upon this essay by endorsing this noble 
 sentiment which it contains: "lie is guilty of high treason against the 
 taith who fears the result of any investigation, whether philosophical or 
 scientific or historical." Prove the world's years to be counted by millions 
 and man to have existed from everlasting, uproot old theories and establish 
 new— all Truth, clearly demonstrated, we are ready to accept. But it can 
 not alter our position ; we need no Revclatiui. from above to tell us these 
 things; in a spiritual sense they are of no importance. Let science settle 
 then, as she will, her decision cannot affect the one gi-and Truth revealed 
 m Holy Writ, that it is the duty of our lives and the highest aim of our 
 existence such as God is so to be, and t'.iat God is Love. 
 
 If we have found n difficulty in accounting for Dr. Temple's place amon- 
 the Essayists, a similar difficulty meets us again in accounting for the po° 
 sition which some of the others occupy, not only within the pale of the 
 Church of England, but amongst the foremost ranks of her doctors and 
 teachers. 
 
 A national christian church, as we understand the institution, implies a 
 certain and fixed interpretation of christian truths, embodied in a g.ven 
 code of forms which those, to whom the task has been assigned by the 
 btate, consider to be the best adapted to convey to the congregation the 
 doctrmes they are intended to declare. It is very possible to conceive a 
 national church established upon a broader basis in which the one essential 
 truth of Revelation alone being named, the ministers might have full liberty 
 leftthem to expound and interpret the doctrinal matter of Scripture as 
 their inclination or learni.ng mi^^bt dictate, although such a church would 
 be altogether impracticable ii>. th- present 'hy because men are not pre- 
 pared for It. But the naliunai church of England is no such church as 
 this.. She has not separated the fundamental Truth of Christianity from 
 the doctrines which direct the soul to its attainment ; but, on the ^trary 
 has carefully embodied these doctrines in precise and unmistakable forms' 
 and thus embodied has exalted them to the first rank among revelations' 
 demanding from her priests, before admitting them into her sanctuarv, a 
 hearty and solemn subscription to each and all of them. In sincerity the 
 church could not have act. 1 otherwise. Having the fulle.. fnith in the 
 divine inspirations of her own doctrines and an inborn horror of everytliing 
 

 ^'mm 
 
 titm' 
 
 e colouring 
 orld. T!ie 
 ildren, and 
 red, by an 
 litcd to the 
 reputation, 
 
 this noble 
 igainst the 
 iophical or 
 jy millions 
 d establish 
 
 But it can 
 >11 us these 
 encc settle 
 h revealed 
 tim of our 
 
 ace among 
 "or the po- 
 •alc of the 
 Jctors and 
 
 , implies a 
 n a given 
 ed by the 
 gation the 
 conceive a 
 e essential 
 iiU liberty 
 ripture as 
 'ch would 
 e not pre- 
 church as 
 nity from 
 t'ontrary, 
 blc forms, 
 svelations, 
 ictuary, a 
 cerity the 
 th in the 
 verything 
 
 2» 
 
 in the shape of heresy and innovation, these means alone were left her to 
 fortify her position and dufend herself alike against unwarrantable intr; sion 
 or inimical attack. Thus secure from her enemies without, and most jealous 
 in the admission of her priesthood, she never dreamt of the possi^iility of 
 any hostile demonstration from within ; and considering her checks and 
 guards, such an occurrence should have been, indeed, impossible. 
 
 Beyond all contradiction the doctrinal views of the majority of the essay- 
 ists are not those of the church of England. To what degree they have 
 rendered themselves amenable to the laws of that church is beside the 
 question. In the eyes of the world they stand inexcusable, morally con- 
 victed of fraudulently rctauiing a position in that church to whu tl they 
 have forfeited the right. The alleged advance in the spiritualify and ration- 
 ality of their ideas has nothing to do with the matter. They may be here- 
 tically false or they may be supernaturally true, but they distinctly arc 
 not those of the church of England. We charitably trust that, at the time 
 of their ordination, they fliithfuUy held the doctrines of th.f church. Let 
 us concede that since that time their views have materially changed, as by 
 their own shewing they must, that their souls grasped what they considered 
 broader truths than were dreamt of in the philosophy of the mother church, 
 and full of their spirit they burned to disclose them to the Mwld. In such 
 a case one course, and only one, remained open to honest men, that adopted 
 by Luther when labouring under somewhat similar impressions. He boldly 
 renounced the church he could no longer faithfully serve, and then delivered 
 his fiimous theses to the world, that it might be the judge between them. It 
 is vain to assert that their theories are but the more mature development 
 of the formularies of their church, for there is no dissenting church in the 
 land whose doctrines do not agree more closely with the faith of the Eng- 
 lish church than do those of the Essayists given to the M'orld in these 
 remarkable pages. Leaving these gentlemen to settle this matter, each 
 with his own conscience, we will glance at the essay of Dr. \\ illiams pur- 
 porting to be a review of the Biblical researches of Baron Bunsen. 
 
 That this essay is intended as a defence of Christianity, in its widest 
 sense, none but the most prejudiced can doubt. Unfortunately, however, 
 the prejudiced form a very large portion of the community ; and it is al- 
 most impossible for one whose mind " the cold shades of unbelief have 
 never for an instant darkened," to understand the spirit which animates 
 those who have carried on a spiritual warfare w ith Doubt and Despair from 
 the earliest dawn of their intellects. To him they appear, indeed, to be 
 fighting in earnest and striking their deathblows most vigorously, but the 
 enemy is invisible. To him they appear as madmen beating the air ; yet 
 charity demands that the possible existence of the invisible enemies be' con- 
 ceded ; to those who behold them they possess a fearful reality, and if in 
 
»»»»«-»«a.af«lia».'»Mtiai»»a««il«ajJ,»..»»«.„....— ^ . ... „.,_, ., 
 
 » im Miniimi^ifiiHBMIi 
 
 24 
 
 th( 
 
 (loai 
 
 to 
 
 ihilato thorn they recklessly wound some of the most 
 cherished arlides of our Faith, ]et us at least remen.])cr that this struggle 
 is one of Life or Death, and fought with the instinctive consciousness that 
 one of the combatants must flill, and fall for ever. 
 
 Wo can fully sympathise with the writer of the second essay when he 
 states that "if we had dreamed of our nearest kindred in irreconcilable 
 combat, and felt anguish at the thought of opposing either, it could be no 
 greater relief to awake, and find them at concord, than it would be to some 
 minds to find the antagonism between Nature and Revelation vanishing in a 
 wider grasp anc^ deeper perception of the one or in a better-balanced state- 
 ment of the other." To save Christianity by the destruction of this anta- 
 gonism, real or apparent, is his object, and the means to that end adopted 
 by mm is the eradication of the prophefic and miraculous clement, as gene- 
 rally understood, from the body of the Scriptures. 
 
 Innumerable scientific minds of the first class" have found it impossible 
 to reconcile a belief in miraculous intervention of any kind with their i.icas 
 of the Eternal God ; and it has been, sometimes attempted to establish a« a 
 corollary the position, that a belief in miracle is the especial indication 
 01 a weak or at least an unscientific mind. Whether this be so or not we 
 have no hesitation in stating that, while we heartily sympathise with those 
 to whom this difficulty has appeared insurmountable, we have never mot 
 with that difficulty ourselves ; doubts we have ha<l, and many too, but this 
 has never been among thorn. This particular diHioultv would often appear 
 to arise ..-om a secret tendency within the soul to Pantheism; a tendency 
 to invest the created with the dignity and glory of the CVoaK.r, cnnsidorino. 
 the laws of nature as coexistent with the Eternal spirit of the universe To 
 a mmd thus ordered an infringement, or alteration, or su..^pens=on of .uoh 
 laws woul.I j.resent an object insurmountable, would, in (■.,■(, appear a pal- 
 pable absurdity ; and therefore to such a mind a beli.f in min-clo or the 
 popular notion of proplavy, might be inadniis.sibk' 
 
 To our mind the Eternal has always appoar.d as the gr.ut first cause vet 
 as much an individual spirit as that which we .vognise within us as sdf 
 >Vith Inn nothing is coexistent except His own attiibufes which f..rm His 
 .mhv.duality-Love, holiness, truth, justiro, wisdn,,.,, ...oivv, power, .U- 
 Aic. In il.s wis.I<Mn and j.owor Ho civated the mnivvuA world and gave to 
 created matter such a compli,.,,t,.d, y,t oxquisitolv-balapcod, co<le of laws 
 that the wonderful and beautiful workings of ,...,turo. s.vniing as it wa^ a 
 true reflection of the divine spirit and being a s(,.p nearer to our hu.nanit'v 
 were by It mistaken for the great original of wIh,^. person they were the 
 express material, as Christ was the express <imitual inago. 
 
 The laws of nature, then, are not nooossary to. nor inherent in matter 
 We can fancy matter first created in thoui,!. undod void, d. ad to all animat- 
 
of the most 
 lis struggle 
 asncss that 
 
 f when he 
 econcilable 
 )ul(l be no 
 ho to some 
 ishing in a 
 need state- 
 ' this anta- 
 (I adopted 
 t, as gene- 
 impossible 
 their i'lcas 
 iblish as a 
 indication 
 )r not we 
 ivith those 
 lever met 
 >, but this 
 en ajtpcar 
 tendency 
 )nsidering 
 ■oi'se. To 
 1 if such 
 'car a pal- 
 le, or the 
 
 •ause, 3'ct 
 IS as self, 
 fonn His 
 wtr, ih'., 
 I gave to 
 I' of laws 
 it was, a 
 uniauity, 
 uore the 
 
 I matter. 
 I aniiiiat- 
 
 i 
 
 ing law. For this the eternal prepared a system of laws intimately depend- 
 ing the one upon the other, in such exquisite harmony that the study of 
 them has delighted the intellect of the world for thousands of years, and 
 may, probably, furnish fresh materials of delight and adoration to millions 
 more, if not to all eternity. But a solitary law, the attraction of atoms for 
 instance, is no more necessary to matter than the cog cut in the wheel of a 
 watch is necessary to brass ; neither is there any more wisdom displayed, 
 but power only, in the selection of this law in an isolated sense, than there 
 is in the cutting of the cog alluded to, taken apart from the place assigned 
 to it in the mechanism of the watch. Repulsion, or some law we are 
 ignorant of, might have taken the place of attraction, to accommodate 
 themselves to which all other laws must have been so altered as it is im- 
 possible for the human understanding to conceive. Each isolated law then 
 displays the power of God ; the perfection and beauty of their adaptation 
 to one another and to the whole universe, Ilis wisdom, and His mercy, and 
 His love. So that in the finished and perfect piece of mechanism called 
 nature we have the handiwork of the Eternal, conceived, created, and con- 
 tinually animated by Him. And considering that it is by the perpetual 
 present will of the Creator, actLig through these laws, that the balance of 
 nature is maintained, a miracle becomes not so much an active interference 
 with, as a passive and momentary relaxation of an existent law. Rest and 
 not action is convoyed in the idea ; and the greatest proof of the presence 
 of Him who animates the law is, to the majority of men, the suspension at 
 will of tlio power of that law, or in other words, a so-called miracle. 
 
 Let us take the son of any carpenter of our aociuaintanco, or in our 
 neighbourhood, and ask our own minds what amount of evidence they would 
 require to satisfy thorn that he Avas correct in stating himself to be the 
 incarnation of the Deity. "We shouhi demand in that man the recognition 
 and display, in their fullest perfection, of all the attributes of God— Love, 
 Holiness, Truth, Justice, Wisdom, Mercy, and also Power. 
 
 Convict him of one envious act, one impure thought, one solitary false- 
 hood, however justified, one unjust demand, one foolish expectation, ono 
 unmerciful judgment, or the least inability to perform anything not contrary 
 to the essential attributes of his nature ; any one of these, independent of 
 the rest, would stamp him as an impostor for ever. All but the last of 
 these must be discovered in the daily life, and must there appear before 
 faith ill him can be demanded as a riglit; the last can be displayed by mir- 
 acle alone, by his suspending at will the laws which he professes hini?olf to 
 have conceived and still to continue in active operation ; for, althoi. i his 
 power is more fully shewn in the springing up of the grass beneath our 
 feet than in the raising of the dead, yet it is recognized rather in the sus- 
 pension than iji the continuance, just as, to use an Hiberniunism, ono living 
 
 ■^"J* 
 
besides the Falls of Niagara for years will never hear them till thoy cease. 
 The eye and the ear are so satiated with the wonderful in nature that it is 
 the suspension of the wondrous that is most wonderful. 
 
 Seeing then all the first in their perfection, many intellectual men, per- 
 haps, would bo satisfied to concede the possession of the last without 
 requiring its display, but the majority would not be satisfied. To the 
 ignorant mind the evidence of the last, as material, would supercede that of 
 all the rest put together which are spiritual, and therefore to such minds 
 less tangible. And for this reason a display of miracles appears to us as 
 necessary to God's justice before he could call upon the multitude to believe 
 in Christ as himself In fact, every attribute must bo made evident before 
 every class of mind can be convinced. 
 
 In the miracles then of Christ we hold the fullest faith, which no argu- 
 ments as to their improbability can ever shako, because they appear to us an 
 actual necessity to the majority; and in the reality of those contained in 
 the Old Testament we tacitly acquiesce, seeing no reason for taking them in 
 other than their plainest sense. But to insist upon the reception of either 
 in their material sense, by minds which candidly confess their utter inabil- 
 ity to bear them, would stamp us as infidels to the animating spirit of our 
 whole religion — Charity. 
 
 For such minds is the work of Dr. Williams intended, and for such it 
 may yield a healing balm and fill an aching void, that imiltitudcs of the most 
 sincere men have not the remotest conception of They have never 
 experienced the one and therefore never thirsted for the other. 
 
 To men of tliat class for Vv'hom it is intended, the perusal of these pages 
 could result in nothing but good ; and to men grounded in the faith of the 
 doctrines of the church as popularly received, it can do no harm, for they 
 will turn from its statements in sorrow, contempt, or actual abhorrence, as 
 the temi)orament and education of the individual may suggest. Ikit there 
 is still remaining a very large class whose minds, we fear, this work will 
 tend to strengthen in evil. Tliere are, unfortunately, many nien who would 
 truly rejoice in the removnl of all moral restraint ; and their minds, con- 
 taminated by this desire of false freedom, naturally absorb the sentiments 
 which seem to advance the consvunmalion of their wishes and reject all else. 
 These men wilfully blinding then;selves to the fact, that tht' utmost purity 
 of life and morals is insisted upon in those writings, the absence of which 
 should condeum any work at once, satiate themselves with such words as 
 seem to strike at the ordinary forms of (ku^trine ; for unfit to appreciate the 
 spirit of religion, they look upon the nuttilation of matured forms as the 
 annliiilatioa of moral constraint, and hope therefrom to reap the long 
 desired freedem from exterior law. 
 
 i 
 
 / 
 
27 
 
 ^H 
 
 The si)irit of prophecy Dr. "WilUams has attempt- ■". to treat iu the same 
 manner as the miracles ; but though his mind altogether rejects the idea of 
 the prophetic eye looking forward into the unborn future and there behold- 
 ing in shadowy array the things which must yet come to pass in the world, 
 he is able to see, " pervading the prophets, those deep truths which lie at 
 the heart of Christianity, and to trace the growth of such ideas — the belief 
 in a righteous God and the nearness of man to God ; The j^ower of ijrayer^ 
 and the victory of self-sacrificing patience, ever expanding in men's hearts — 
 until the fulness of time came and the ideal of the Divine thought was ful- 
 filled in the Son of Man." He is unable to shut his eyes to the undeniable 
 ihadowing forth of the coming Mesisah which pervades the pages of the 
 Jewish history in symbol, psalm and vision for thousands of years before its 
 full development in the person of Christ ; and it is amusing to observe the 
 ingenuity with which he attempts to eS'ect a reconciliation between his 
 rational belief and his moral convictions, thus, "If any sincere Christian 
 now asks, 'is not then our Saviour spoken of in Isaiah,' let him open his 
 New Testament and ask therewith John the Baptist, whether he was Elias. 
 If he finds the Baptist answering ' I am not,' yet our Lord testifies that in 
 spirit and power this was Elias, a little reflection will show how the histor- 
 ical representation in Isaiah liii,, is of some suffering prophet or remnant ; 
 yet the truth and patience, the grief and triumph, have their liiglieM fulfil- 
 ment in him who said, ' Father, not my will but thine.' " That is to say, 
 Isaiah knew nothing of the future, but stated simply historical facts as any 
 other sincere and holy man would have stated them ; nevertheless, it pleased 
 the Almighty in a future age, to bring to pass such things as Isaiah would 
 have foretold in the same words if he had foreknown them. AVe cannot 
 think that this view, though it may lower the individual position of the 
 prophet, can in any way affect the popular notion of Scripture inspiration 
 in its results, and if by such an immaterial concession Scripture truth can 
 be made paluUible to the scientific temperament, let us by all means rejoice 
 in the fact, and let not the recollection, that men hostile to the faith have 
 advanced similar interpretations, jaundice our eyes in considering then\, for 
 in his own words, " the accident of such having been alleged by men more 
 critical than devout, should not make Christians shrink from them." 
 
 In many passages we are forcibly struck with the faith in the miraculous 
 incarnation of the Deity still existing, notwithstanding the sweeping attemjjts 
 to destroy the miraculous element altogether. Truly wo ha\e fallen upon 
 matter-of-fact days ; yet not so much to this as to the undue prominence 
 given to miracles by a certain class of theologians must the odium, which 
 they have latterly excited, be attributed. To make them the foundation of 
 our faith is to insult it l»y placing it upon a level with systems of idolatory 
 which abound iu more wondoil'ul miracles than are dreamt of in the Chris- 
 
 rf 
 
28 
 
 tian's rhilosophy, and to the fall as well attested perhaps ; for after all, 
 reported miracles are no miracles. They are principally intended for the 
 generation that behold them, and can, in the same manner, serve no other. 
 We believe in the Scripture miracles on account of our faith in the spirit of 
 the Bible, and not in the spirit of the Bible on account of the miracles ; for 
 there is no evidence, excei)t actual sight, that can even pretend of itself to 
 substantiate the performance of a miracle. Let any of those who will be 
 most opposed to such views fancy the effect which would be produced upon 
 his own mind, by his most intelligent friend informing him that he had just 
 been witnessing the phenomenon of a pine log constructing a watch ; he 
 may believe his friend deranged, that much learning has made him mad ; 
 but not even the most credulous will so far believe him as to follow him 
 with the hope of seeing a repetition of the miracle. 
 
 It is the spirit of Christianity and not the miracles that must evangelize 
 the world ; to rest this spirit only on the miracles is to rest a man's moral 
 principles upon the texture of his coat. We have been, in our lifetime, 
 requested by a Christian missionary to wound, by shooting, a few Indians, 
 who had, in a drunken frolic, disturbed his rest on the previous nioht, on 
 the ground that he, as a Christian minister, 'would not like to do It him- 
 self,' though he would have ' no olyection to provide the necessary ammu- 
 nition.' We have heard the same man before a thronged assembly expatiate 
 upon the wonders of the Christian faith, and wc thought at the time that 
 the I cconciliation of this man's words with his deeds would be a greater 
 miracle than any he had described, and we left his church fully coininced 
 that one man living among these Indians a sincere christian life, though he 
 were dumb, would do more, tenfold, to convert them to his faith than the 
 preaching of this man all his lifetime could effect. 
 
 The learned doctor having thus remodeled or reinterpreted the prophetic 
 nnd miraculous element in Holy writ, so as to render them palatable to 
 himself and the class he typifies, cannot feci at ease without detormining 
 pome surer method by means of which truth may be distinguished from 
 error, nnd for this purpose discovers within the intelligent mind an ever 
 present power of discriminating between good and evil. This 'verifying 
 fandty,' which has been the fruitf.d source of so much vain dispiite/and 
 which, perhaps, is the only valuable portion of our inheritan.-e fi-om Adam. 
 is merely the interpreting right of conscience, alluded io hv Dr. Tonplei 
 under another name, and, deny it who will, its acknowledgment is the 
 only main .iillercnco between the Catholic and Protestant sections of the 
 church. 
 
 Every mnn instinctively feels that Hod hnsnot revealed the truth without 
 also imp.Mrting to man son.o means of recognizing it ; these TJienns (he Pro- 
 testant finds in his own conscience, the Catholic in the infalible woid of his 
 
 I 
 
I 
 
 fm:i iw^'^T'^'i?^^^'^/-' 
 
 29 
 
 Church. Deny the rijilit to conscience and you must cither restore it to 
 the churcli, or, by repudiating it altogether, leave us benighted, without a 
 solitary ray toh illumine the darkness of our path ; with an ignorant people 
 and an enlightened priesthood it is evidently only safe in the sanctuary of 
 the church ; with the reverse condition it is better in the individual con- 
 science. But among enlightened minds the question reduces itself to this : 
 Is a man hound to believe the Bible true Iccuxise he is so informed ? If so, a 
 man otherwise informed is equally bound to believe it false. But this is 
 not so, the verifying faculty, or the gift of the spirit, whether it finds its 
 sanctioning in the heart of an honest and enlightened church or in that of 
 the individual conscience, is the rightful interpreter, and will, to those well 
 instructed in the simple moral law, prove a wonderful discerner of spiritual 
 truth and error. The Conscience within us reveals the truth of Revelation, 
 and the idea of a Revelation finished renders it practically null and void 
 without a continual revelation of its truth by accredited church or private 
 Conscience to the mind of every individual. To this it has been objected, 
 that " by such reasoning, instead of subjecting man, as to his faith and 
 duty, to an external revelation, the revelation itself is subiected to man's 
 internal consciousness." And so it ever must ue when the conscience is so 
 far awakened as to demand it, otherwise man becomes the crouching slave 
 and not the willing subject of a revelation on which he has failed to recog- 
 nise the signature and seal of the Eternal. Jfan is obliged to accept God's 
 Vv'ord as he is also obliged to accept the coin of the realm in liquidation of a 
 debt, l)ut ill either case Conscience reserves the right of satisfying herself 
 with the ring of the metid. 
 
 It is a hard thing to believe that the culture of the intellect should make 
 the attainment of the spirits health more difficult, as though the pride 
 thereby engendered must necessarily crush out the spirit of Christian 
 humility from the heart ; yet the assertion that "not many wise after this 
 world arc called," seems frequently rudely thrust before us when we see 
 the evident ditliculty with which the most gifted men arrive at holiness of 
 life, for this, after all, is the only true criterion. Certainly the ignorant of this 
 world would ajjpear to have a shorter road to this blessedness we all desire. 
 "Nv'e have known men altogether innocent of science brought up in the moral 
 teachings of the Bil)le, believing it, as Mr. Burgon exinvsscs it, "the very 
 utterance of (he Eternal, as much (Jod's word as if high heaven were opened 
 and we heard (iod speaking to us with a human voice," that "from the 
 alpha to the omega of it it is full to overflowing with the Holy Spirit of God. 
 The books of it, and the sentences of it, and the syllables of it, aye, and the 
 very letters of it." Men who would tlismiss the first shadow of a doubt of 
 the above from their minds as readily as they would the visit of Satan him- 
 self in person ; looking upon the idea of barely questioning the truth of the 
 
 if 
 
80 
 
 received revelations as a sm of the very blackest dye, as a temptation too 
 evidently satanic to be listened to for one moment. We have intimately 
 knmyn such men filled with the spirit of truth and love, filled also with 
 .spiritual happiness and content, growing each day in holiness, and sheddin-^ 
 peace and light around them. One such living man, and not a generation 
 but produces hur.dreds of them, is a standing monument of the true life to 
 
 ^ntnTl^: ^^""''' '"t^^P^^t'^t''^^- «f the Scriptures. What then is 
 to be the fate of those men who long for the Faith but cannot receive it un- 
 
 rbZeth: b^^'-,T'^' rnust they with the evidence of that spirl: 1 
 life before them by will power, crush out the reason from their souls and 
 extingn..sh its light for ever, because spiritual peace is better than intellec- 
 tual grandeur darkened by the hopeless gloom of doubt Alas ' such an 
 outrage committed upon the soul could bring no peace with it. The lamp 
 of reason once ht they must be satisfied to abide by its decisions • anS 
 safely they may do so can they but preserve the confiding trust that th 
 san^ God, from whom is derived that light by which they now beho d 
 ob«acles and terrors that others have passed unseen, wHl, with it rev 
 ^U.em another way by which they may escape them,' or else en^lXm 
 ^ th hat spiritual power which may enable them to surmount them or 
 trample them beneath their feet. They may in justice also, be allowed to 
 hope, that as the difficulty in reaching heaven is to the learned greater so 
 when once attained its peace and glory will be greater also ; otherwise 
 
 w;im";::;iy ' '"'' ^ '''"^^''^' ^^^-^^ '^^"«^''^"- ^^ ^'- --^ 
 
 The third c^say by Mr. Baden Powel, since deceased, is avowedly a pro- 
 test against the position given to the Scripture miracles .. evidences of 
 tb.r r?^' ^on^'^eHng them entitled to a much lower place in the s.^le 
 than that usually assigned to them by orthodox theologians when ofi^eredto 
 the intellectual cultivation of the present day 
 
 He .Iraws a very distinct line between what he calls the "essential doc- 
 trines of Christianity," which, however, he fails to define, or has to to 
 "verifying acul^v" of each individual to determine, and the "exern 
 accessories," .-hi.h, ho believes, "constitute a subject which of nee ssUv i 
 pcrpetualy taking somewhat, at least, of a new Ln with tie ^^^i 
 phases (if opinion an.l knonlwljro." smciibn o 
 
 It appears to „, (hat the position ,i„e to „,i,-a,.Ios in tl,e scale or Christian 
 
 X ;r 7'" '? ""r '""" "' ""'■"-■"«-■". """ ™n.">t therefore " 
 ally defined exeept within a given range ; a faet ,vhieh Mr. Powel appear, 
 
 r mnphs n the ael<no,vle,l,.,„e„(. that the strength of Christianity lies in 
 .v,„,,,„f ,s evidenees, snited to all varieties of apprehensi , ; „ ^ 
 that, a„„d „„ „.e ,,(,,,,1,1,, „f „_^_^^ I^P 
 
 i 
 
 
31 
 
 cmptation too 
 ive intimately 
 lied also with 
 and sheddins: 
 t a generation 
 lie true life to 
 What then is 
 receive it un- 
 that spiritual 
 leir souls and 
 than intellcc- 
 las ! such an 
 t. The lamp 
 icisions ; and 
 rust that the 
 V behold the 
 ith it, reveal 
 
 endue thorn 
 unt them or 
 e allowed to 
 i greater, so 
 
 ; otherwise 
 is bliss and 
 
 W'cdly a pro- 
 evidences of 
 in the scale 
 en oflered to 
 
 -sential doc- 
 s left to the 
 3 "external 
 necessity is 
 ! successive 
 
 r)f Christian 
 are be actu- 
 vel appears 
 an evidence 
 nily lies in 
 nsioii ; nn(l 
 appreciate 
 
 f 
 
 some one class of proofs will always find some other satisfoctorj', is itself 
 the crowning evidence." So that while to one miracles may be the founda- 
 tion upon which his faith in Christianity rests, to another they are not only 
 without evidential power but without actual existence of any kind what- 
 ever. To the latter class it is very evident the writer of this essay belongs, 
 who looks iy)on the miracles as the " main difficulties and hindrances to the 
 acceptance of Christianity." Unaccountably he endows the exquisite 
 mechanism of nature with the majesty and immutability belonging only to 
 the attributes of God. The idea of the immutability of these attributes is 
 quite intelligible ; and were nature, as the Pantheists assume, a Pervading 
 Omnipotence instead of the Creator's handiwork, in which, no doubt, we see 
 a material reflection of his spiritual essence, then this mechanism elevated 
 from the position of arbitrary laws to that of inherent attributes, would 
 naturally become immutable also ; but creation acknowledged, to deny the 
 attributes which devised the laws of nature the power of altering or sus- 
 pending them, on any terms, appears illogical and unnecessary. 
 
 That the miracles were net intended in all cases as the foundation of faith, 
 is evident from the words of Christ himself, when he attributes the faith of 
 Peter not to "flesh and blood," that is exterior evidence, but to the " Father 
 in Heaven," that is interior revelation. And again, upbraiding the nobleman 
 and the listening multitude at Capernaum, "Except ye see signs and won- 
 ders ye will not believe," evidently pointing to a higher and purer source of 
 faith; and indeed in all the healing miracles a pre-existcnt faith was 
 necessary to the working of the miracle, thereby for ever denying to them 
 any claim to be considered a ground of faith except to the most obdurate 
 and ignorant. 
 
 But there are a few who deny sotne of the miracles only, not from any 
 preconceived immutability of the laws of nature, but from the absence of 
 collateral historical evidence in cases where the result of the miracle must, 
 as they suppose, have been universally felt, as, for instance, in the standing 
 still of the sun, which they rightly contend must mean, in the astronomical 
 light of the present age, a cessation of the rotary motion of the earth upon 
 Its own axis, which, to say nothing of other natural consecjuenccs, would, 
 even in its addition to the length of the day or night, as the case might be, 
 have made itse' ^ felt over the length and breadth of the globe, and surely 
 would have been chronicled in profane as well as in sacred records. But it 
 must be borne in mind that in every case of miracle there are two olyects to 
 work upon, the spiritual and the material; the material subject of the 
 mn-ade and the spiritual essence of those for whose benefit the miracle is 
 wrought ; upon one of which alone it is necessary to bear. That is in the 
 present instance, either the motion of the earth may have been actually 
 stopped or the minds alone of the Jews may have been so affected that to 
 
m 
 
 their eyes the sun appeared to stand still and the length of the day to be 
 increased. In the former case it certainly would have been a miracle patent 
 to the whole earth, unless additional miraculous power was exerted to coun- 
 teract its annihilating effect ; in the latter only real to those actually 
 concerned. 
 
 Mr. Wilson commences his essay by sounding the warning note that we 
 are upon the eve of mighty changes, that the development of Truth handed 
 down to us from past ages has not kept pace with the march of intellect, 
 that it is now high time that " old things should pass away" and " all 
 things become new ;" and to justify his opinions, by the occurrences of past 
 history, he refers to the reformation effected by Christ in the Jewish ideas 
 of Truth, and that effected by Wycliffe and his associates in the ideas of 
 their own times ; although the latter appears to us to have been less of an 
 advance movement than a general retrogression towards the lost simplicity 
 of the Catholic church. If these expected changes are to consist in the 
 adaptation of old forms to the advance of knowledge, when they are required 
 by all means let us welcome them ; but is there nothing but worn out forms 
 condemned when he affirms that " many evils are seen in various ages, if 
 not to have issued directly, to have been intimately linked with the Christ- 
 ian profession ; such as religious wars, persecutions, delusions, imporitions, 
 spiritual tyrannies. May good of civilization in our own day, when men 
 have run to and fro, and knowledge has })een increased, have apparently not 
 the remotest connection with the gospel." Christianity, or the earnest 
 endeavour to walk in the spiritual footprints of the Redeemer has never 
 produced evil or crime of any kind whatsoever, though it may possibly have 
 made the existence of such apparent. Crimes or actual evils are not sin 
 but the visible indices of it, by which its inner strength may be detected. 
 
 Sin is a disease of the soul, which may rage within a man so fettered 
 physically or otherwise that ho cannot commit crime. So that the thorough 
 suppression of all evil, even by inner moral restraints, may be coexistent 
 with the most hopeless virulence of the disease. Total fettering by law to 
 the suppression of crime is the highest end of political state-craft; it 
 attemj ts no more, and we can con.^eive, in a well governed and secularly 
 well educated community, a complete ab.-^once of crime, empty prisons, 
 tenantlcss penitentiaries, while at the heart of every individual rankled 
 envy, hatred, malice, and all ui, charitableness; this is precisely the end to 
 which all simple political government tends, it has to do with the requlr - 
 ments of time ; Christian government with the requirements of eternity ; by 
 the eradication of sin which is the root not the suppression of crime which 
 is the exterior result. In effecting this i/iany crin.es may be brouglit to the 
 surface, as a good medicine will dislodge a deadly disease in the system by 
 first bringing it to the skin before disposizig of it If with this life our 
 
 J 
 
Mlej^ 
 
 mmmm^imtt^ 
 
 33 
 
 existence terminated then Christianity might, perhaps, be considered by 
 some as a bad policy, as filling our whole span of life with confusion in pre- 
 paring for a future we could not live to see. But as the avowed work of 
 Christianity is to prepare men for eternity, it cannot be justly charged with 
 confusions wrought in time ; if these are necessarily attached to its mission 
 t IS the duty of pohtiQal government to repress them. Let these two walk 
 hand in hand, as the temporal and spiritual guides of the human family 
 should walk and we shall have all that the soul could demand both for the 
 present and for the future. We are body as well as spirit, and the require! 
 ments of each must be discovered and supplied. But most worldly dis- 
 urbances have resulted not from the spirit of Christianity but from ^he 
 human misapprehension of it. * 
 
 In the same spirit must we regard these " goods of civilization " so hi-hlv 
 extolled It IS most probable that such " goods of civilization " as the steam 
 engme, the printing press, th^ telegraphic cable, and numerous others, might 
 have been brought to their present perfection even though the voice of the 
 Gospel had remained silent for ever. The Gospel has another and a totally 
 di.tmct mission. Had it been otherwise Christ's work would have consisted 
 ui an anticipation of the discoveries of Gallileo, Newton, Watt and others- 
 and the Bible would truly be what some foolish men have, in all ages' 
 averred it to be, a revelation of undiscovered scientific aLd historical ffcts 
 eitaining to the physical universe. The loss of these "goods of civiliza- 
 tion, having ei.oyed them once, we should feel very much no doubt; but 
 IS the human race now happier than when it was ignorant of them ? Study 
 honestly the care-worn features of the multitudes who throng our railway 
 carnages, and say have they ^he appearance of men exulting in the triumph 
 
 is e I rV : '^^ ^'^'^- ^'' '^''' '^' "S««d^" th« heart of man 
 is ever thirsting after, or are they but the playthings with which it would 
 
 beguile the time and fain forget its thirst completely ? Oh the mockery of 
 
 eading man to the springs of science to quench his thirst with the intoxi- 
 
 "rZ? ;^"Sht which lulls but for a moment to increase tenfold the raging 
 
 them betTer 1 T-'"'' '' ^ ^'''''' '' '^ "'^^« ^^^ ^^PP- ^^V mating 
 F t^e nd\/ T^'l^^r'"'''' ''"'' ^^^^ the long-distorted image of thei? 
 K^hcr, and the 'goods of civilization," when made subservient to the Gos- 
 
 ZVJ ^'^T"i '""'^""^ ' '^ *h«^^««l^^« they arc but butterflies which 
 
 whTcaught ' ^^''" ^'°"'' '" ^''''"^"^' ^"' ^^^ ^" P^^^^"^« 
 
 Fron^ this subject the essayist turns to deplore the fact th.t "the ordi- 
 nances of public worship and religious instruction provided for the people 
 Lngland are not used by them to the extent we should expect," ItLg 
 that according to the statistical returns of 1851 nearly one half of those 
 
•^la-.- «>;'-■*«, ■!^*-Jim 
 
 34 
 
 able, and with opportunities of attending divine service that year had al)' 
 sentod themselves, and attributing this spiritual coldness to "a distrust of 
 the arguments for, or proof of miraculous revelation." We certainly can- 
 not believe that the "arguments" or "proofs" will acquire any new 
 strength from a perusal of "Essays and Reviews;" but far more ignorant 
 men than Mr. Wilson might have arrived at a shorter and truer solution of 
 the difficulty. We admit that many beneficial changes might be made in 
 the wording of the "book of common prayer," but cannot think that by 
 any enlargement of the limits of the ecclesiastical law the .national church 
 would gain increased vitality of action ; it would no doubt derive incalcu- 
 lable advantage from the destruction of "the strong tendency in England 
 to turn every interest into a right of so-called private property " by which 
 *• the nomination to the benefices of the national church have come, by an 
 abuse, to be regarded as part of the estates of patrons, instead of trusts, as 
 they really are." But none of these, alone, appears sufficient to account 
 for the almost universal coldness, so much complained of, which seems to 
 have paralyzed the whole action, lay and clerical, of the established church. 
 It is a long-acknowledged fact that a dearth of spiritual Kfe among the 
 priesthood will inevitably cast its shadow in double darkness upon the con- 
 gregation. By the students of the Roman Catholic church there is a train- 
 ing to be endured, and to its priests there are privileges denied, sufficient, 
 in a great measure, to deter men, altogether woHdly-minded, from volun- 
 teering into its service ; and although no peculiar privations are necessarily 
 attached to the office of the ministry among dissenting sects, neither, on 
 the other hand, does the occupation of the office confer much woridly 
 honour upon the ministry. In the national church alone do the strongest 
 motives exist for inducing men into its ranks altogether independent of, and 
 opposed to the only motive which should lead honourable and conscien- 
 tious men to enter the priesthood of any church. To the influential, within 
 its pale, many roads are open to preferment, and even the position held by 
 the lowest in rank is still honourable in the eyes of the world ; so that, in 
 a purely secular sense, it is a good profession. That these truths are prac- 
 tically acted upon is well known to all those who have mixed much with the 
 divinity students of our British colleges. As a class they are not the most 
 sincere or religious cf the national youth ; as far as outward signs can tes- 
 tify there is not one in five who appears to have any proper conception at 
 all of the momentous responsibility of the position he is preparing himself 
 t*^ occupy. No man acquainted with college life will deny these facts ; and 
 the wonder remains not that vcq have so many cold and worldly-minded 
 ministers, but that we still have so many spiritual and sincere men adorn- 
 ing the church, a fact truly inexplicable if we consider the materials wc 
 have had to work upon. Oui- national army would run to hopeless ruin if 
 
m^d^^^^^^^f^ 
 
 car had ai)- 
 (listrust of 
 rtainly can- 
 •e any new 
 »re i{i;norant 
 solution of 
 be made in 
 nk that by 
 )nal church 
 ivc incalcu- 
 in England 
 * by which 
 ime, by an 
 f trust?, as 
 to account 
 h seems to 
 led church, 
 among the 
 on the con- 
 ? is a train- 
 , sufficient, 
 om vol un- 
 necessarily 
 neither, on 
 ;h worldly 
 3 strongest 
 ent of, and 
 [ conscien- 
 tial, within 
 3n held by 
 so that, in 
 s are prac- 
 h with the 
 t the most 
 IS can tes- 
 iception at 
 ng himself 
 racts ; and 
 ly-mindcd 
 len adorn- 
 terials wc 
 ess ruin if 
 
 35 
 
 subjected to the control of foreic^ or ho«f Mp nfR. 
 
 reason for expecting a better ;: e f our naU^^^^^^^^^^^ 7 7 "^^'"^* 
 
 of sinu'lar conditions. '""-"^ ""*^"* t^^« Po^ver 
 
 The first problem to be solved for the restoration nf fi u u. 
 health and vigour consists in discovering iTm^^^^^^ 
 sha.x be induced to send forth ^ hn.^ 5 ^ ^^'^^ ^^*^ "^^ion 
 
 the Sanctuary. T.^lntt ; ^ rnerT^r"' '" fV'" """"^ °' 
 There are young men in everv .renerVtl ' '"' °™™te<l- 
 
 her unalienable right should no» ™ 'tH m T'"""' *""'> ^'^ 
 
 mains, hy what n.elhod the l,fehes „ffll ' • Z u '"''"''• "" "^'^ «" 
 the holiest an., „,ost diseree n nisTers a ::L*V'':"'' T '" """' ">- 
 tively easy hy the solution of the St WhaTt '":"'""•''<' "■"P"''''- 
 who, having solved these problem, could hn! k"" P"'*' """U he be 
 operation. Then, indeed, we sho"w behold "hf natlo^rb^' '? ""■""''»' 
 her limits and surely fuim,i„. her dest nybv Ih *"* ""'"B'^S 
 
 her wings as a hen ga.hereth her eh kens Tf?*' I", '""'°" ""^'^ 
 from inherent weakness, for the errors ^f the ' , T "■""''' ""' *° P'^"^ 
 seets, and the ehurch w uld ! dcklv beeom! r.*;T "" "'""S* "f""^ 
 glory and the beauty of the\™rid "' " """"^ "'"y^ ""=. "«■ 
 
 ^ no™k:'r:;:;:;r:rt;:r:tS^.?;^"?rr"^ "- 
 
 add an inch to his stature and ifTe t , "«"''™ "*'"' <"■ •"»*■ ■>°■• 
 
 tempt that which is greates The Hid , ^ "■'"'"='' ''^ '"■■"=' ^"j- "'■ 
 indulge in /,„„«, the realign owtlTf "'""' """ ""■'' '■"^''"P^' 
 should never be permitted to grow so substan, , T ?"''™'°''' ''"'"'«^« 
 rules and teaehinVs With thIT,. '*/*?"''"' "^ '» '"torfere with plain 
 towards the OentH wo I Ift churchr, ^^ '"""'' "' """'^ "ealiigs " 
 its reach ; that they have ^^^Z TCT' """"" '^ '"^™^ 
 own, by which they shall be flnaUv i 1 , *° 'Counterpart of our 
 
 where Cluist is designated as the ^^5 "' ° V ? "^ "*'''""'=">' '»W. ""d 
 that beheve,.. sure,y^h™ ^^ et ughlinTedt u"™; ^ff" "' "'^^ 
 the equitable dealings of the AhniMUv Tt, , 'Tr' "■" '""""' '™s' i" 
 est possible instruc ions espe f! t ° 'T' ^'^ "™'"='' '"'» P'™- 
 
 worry itself with vain and futlessenn, ™"":''f °,<""'«^ i " '^ "ot told to 
 i..gs with the flentilcs to " Go ve ,b^ ' ' ." "'° °1"'*>' "^ ««"•" ''eal- 
 «>om in the name o ' e Fattefand o "m"^ '"* "" ""°"^ ''"P'-"8 
 teaching then, to observe ,a^ tlLs that rT "' "'" "°'^ «'>°>"^ 
 
 "oJ, lo, I am with -ou .,!„. ° whatsoever I have commands you • 
 
 cau'rec'oncile o ex t ^e^V?™ ""'».">'' -'' °f «>o »orId." When we 
 
 animal with abstraerWe "o irg:Ss7 7' '" *"" ■^™"'^* ^^'^ 
 let us expect a solution of tie diS,?, ""'"'Po'^ee of God, then 
 
 the dilhcultios connected with the doctrines of 
 
36 
 
 eternal punishment. These are questions beyond our reach to be met only 
 by an abiding Faith in God wtiich need not shut out the humble hope, 
 though it were against hope, that universal good shall yet prevail when sin 
 shall cease, and perhaps Hell itself repentant, loving the most because the 
 most forgiven, shall worship with humanity, and that in the great end, 
 whether sin bo thoroughly eradicated from Cod's universe or not, each indi- 
 vidual attribute of the Almighty shall stand clear and justified even before 
 so weak a worm as man ! 
 
 In the relative values assigned to "christian moral life" and "christian 
 doctrine " we fully concur ; the former from its nature unchangeable, the 
 latter fitting and adapting itself to every human soul ; and it is this very 
 adapting power itself that renders such sudden reformations, as the cfi«ay- 
 ists dream of, alw.ays unnecessary unless they arc produced, like political 
 revolutions, by reactionary pressure from without, caused by a too stringent 
 enforcing of the authority of the form above the spirit from within. It is 
 the glory of the British Constitution that by the free development of this 
 adapting power it has accommodated itself to the growth of the nation as 
 the shell of a nut to that of the kernel contained, and so has escaped the 
 rude revolutions which the absence of this regulating faculty had engen- 
 dered in other less favoured nations. Let us hope that our ecclesiastical 
 rulers are not less wise than our great statesmen, that they will calndy and 
 gladly behold the gradual and natural changes taking place which alone can 
 obviate the necessity of these sudden and radical reformations which are 
 always dangerous because, from their reactionary violence, they are carried 
 too flir. It is by ^lo moans likely, that any two men on earth think pre- 
 cisely alike on the doctrine of the Trinity ; each has his own idea according 
 to the spiritual and intellectual development within him . and to the more 
 advanced idea the other will gradually and naturally tend : we can well 
 fancy, too, when in the vaulted cathedral we hear in loud-swelling tones 
 those beautiful words of the Te Deum, " The noble arixiy of martyrs praise 
 thee," the very different ideas presented to the worshippers by the one 
 simp'? word martyr ; to the more simple mind is immediately pictured the 
 burning agony of the stake, to another an innumerable host, discovered, it 
 may be, among the lanes and byways of life, of whom the world was not 
 worthy and perhaps has never heard. But it cannot be expected that any 
 ai'bitrary code of laws could reduce these various minds to unanimity in 
 the interpretation of the word. 
 
 The most melancholy portion of this essay is that in which we behold 
 the author descending froii his fearless rt>'Sonings and lofty independence 
 of spirit, to a petty and contemptible quibbling unworthy of him. Disagree- 
 ment in sentiment, more or less, can not blind us to real merit, and we think 
 that the stamp of honesty of purpose is clearly evident upon the general 
 
 yr 
 
j^Uk 
 
 ■"■-i^^W^- '''^^^''*^ '■ ^''''■^r^:v''f'W9i^is^T^i'^^'WFT " ^' ^r^^^-miPiF^w^- 
 
 37 
 
 be met only 
 umble hope, 
 ail when sin 
 because the 
 ) great end, 
 it, each indi- 
 even before 
 
 I "christian 
 ngeablc, the 
 
 is this very 
 ls the es say- 
 like political 
 ;oo stringent 
 ithin. It is 
 iient of this 
 lie nation as 
 escaped the 
 ' had engcn- 
 ;cclcsiastical 
 
 calndy and 
 jh alone can 
 ; which are 
 '■ arc carried 
 h think pre- 
 ja according 
 to the more 
 we can well 
 'elling tones 
 rtyrs praise 
 
 by the one 
 pictured the 
 iscovered, it 
 'Id was not 
 ed that any 
 nanimity in 
 
 1 we behold 
 
 idcpcndcnce 
 
 Disagree- 
 
 nd we think 
 
 the general 
 
 face of the writings before us. It is, tlicrcforc, with heartfelt regret we find 
 a man like Mr. Wilson stating first that the "strictly legal obligation'' im- 
 posed by the subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles is "the measure of 
 the moral one," and then exercising his ingenuity in pointing out how the 
 words of these, or any other laws or rcj^ulations, may be tortured out of 
 their original sense to mean anything or nothing, thereby exonerating the 
 subscriber from the bonds of his obligation. With all honourable men the 
 moral obligation is higher than the legal, and to measure the higher by the 
 standard of the lower is to cut of!" all hope or probability of progress ; for 
 it is only by keeping a perfection altogether superhuman in view that hu- 
 manity can make any worthy advance towards perfection at all. There is 
 something very inconsistent, too, in discovering in the articles " restraints 
 which require to be removed," and immediately pointing out that these 
 restraints are only moral and therefore nugatory ; and again, the definition 
 of the moral position of the essayist is, in the following words, given in a 
 supposed parallel so utterly unjust that its fallacies must be patent to the 
 most unsoi)histi''ated : " And to lay down as an alternative to striving for 
 more liberty of thought and expression within the church of the nation, 
 that those who are dissatisfied may sever themselves and join a sect, would 
 be paralleled by declaring to political reformers that they are welcome to 
 expatriate themselves if they desire any change in the existing forms of the 
 constitution." They would not be the first reformers, though the name is 
 scarcely sufficiently strong, whose expatriation had been not only " wel- 
 comed," but materially assisted by the constitutional government of the 
 country. 
 
 The object of the fifth essay, by llr. Goodwin, is to prove untenable the 
 position assumed by many theologians that " the Mosaic narrative, however 
 apparently at varience with our knowledge, is essentially and in fact true ;" 
 and to demonstrate on the other hand, " that the Mosaic narrative docs not 
 represent correctly the history of the universe up to th • aie of man." 
 Respecting the first he remarks, with some truth, that " the spectacle of 
 able and, we doubt not, conscientious writers engaged in attempting the 
 impossible, is painful and humiliating." But to many the contemplation of 
 his own task may be equally painful, considering, as they will, how much 
 more profitably time may be employed in eradicating moral evil from the 
 universe than in criticising the astronomical acquirements of Moses. A\'ith 
 such conceits we neglect the grand lesson of our great school-room, the 
 world, and waste our time in play. Rather concentrate our whole energies 
 upon the main task now, and perhaps in a perfect world hereafter such 
 questions may present an agreeable pastime. Little indeed is to be gained 
 by such discussions now. The learned have their own refiectlve faculties 
 
 4 
 
ami will use them ; but prove to the ignorant, and renicni])or they form the 
 vast majority, that the Mosaic account of the creation is false, and with it 
 the whole moral law will loose its power over them. 
 
 By the most ignorant the power, not the beauty, of the moral law is 
 discerned, and it is only after long and careful biu'lding that the acquisition 
 of the key-stone of perfect love estabhshes the self supporting strength of 
 the arch and the centering may be removed without danger to the structure ; 
 and what consolation would it he after the sudden destruction of millions 
 of such structures by the too hasty removal of this centering, to find that 
 the few which had received the keystone were altogether self-sustaining and 
 towered proud and strong amidst the universal desolation and ruin ! The 
 exterior support, altliough to them useless, was at least harmless, whereas 
 to the many it was the sole source of their very existence. 
 
 The history of the Jewish nation is the history of the Church, and its 
 morals are invariably drawn from and pointed by its historical incidents, so 
 that even were the whole history shewn to consist of anecdote, parable, or 
 poetic imagery, nevertheless its stories are so inwoven with the moral teach- 
 ing of the whole Bible ';hat it would be impossible to separate them without 
 the most fatal results to children in knowledge as well as children in years. 
 Rather let them remain fettering some with wholesome restraints even from 
 the cradle to the grave ; to others gradually loosening and finally falling 
 away, when the more spiritual life and essence of the book has rendered 
 the material fettci s unnecessary ; when perfect love has completely cast out 
 all fear. But let us shrink in horror from the thought of ruining a world 
 that the spiritual grani'. >ur of a few individuals may be disi»layed. 
 
 The essay of Mr. Pattison, from the nature of the subject considered, 
 cannot appear in that attitude of hostility to the orthodox creed supi)oscd 
 to be assumed by some of the others. It is not unlikely that the author's 
 ideas are to a certain degree similar to those of his fellow essayists, but if 
 so the fact is not apparent on the face of the composition Vieforc us, which 
 is a well considered history of the development of religion, or as the work is 
 entitled, "The tendencies of religious thought in Kngland, 1(18^-1750." 
 
 Endorsing J)r. Teniple's parallel, he considers thought in every nge to bo 
 the natur.d result and development of itself in the preceding age ; that 
 "l)oth the (Muirch and the world of to-duy are what they are as the result 
 of the whole of their antecedents." The three great agencies, themselves 
 the result of their own antecedents, which weie developed in the beginning 
 of the eighteenth century, and are tlu' preceding cause oi the present 
 development of religious thought in our day. aiv. the Spirit of Toleration, 
 the Kvangelical Spirit, and the Spirit of Rationalism. The IKth century 
 was especially an age of Rationalism, that is, an age in wliich the reason 
 ableness of Christianity was continually n>rer;\>d to a< its ] ri icipal claim to 
 
39 
 
 ' form tlie 
 id with it 
 
 ral law is 
 cquisition 
 trcngth of 
 ;tracture ; 
 f millions 
 find that 
 .ining and 
 in ! The 
 , whereas 
 
 1, and its 
 idents, so 
 arable, or 
 ral teach- 
 n without 
 in years. 
 ;ven from 
 lly falling 
 rendered 
 y cast out 
 2: a world 
 
 nsidcred, 
 supposed 
 I author's 
 5ts, but if 
 IS, which 
 e work is 
 750." 
 ngo to bo 
 igc ; that 
 ho result 
 em selves 
 )eginiiing 
 ! [iresent 
 >k'r;ition, 
 
 • •(■titury 
 e reason 
 
 claim to 
 
 ?'^ 
 
 acceptance. *' Christianity appeared made for nothing else but to be 
 proved: what use to make of it when it was proved was not much thought 
 about. Reason was at first offered as the basis of Faith, but gradually 
 became its substitute. The mind never advanced as far as the stage of 
 belief; for it was unceasingly engaged in reasoning upon it. Tlie only 
 quality in Scripture which was dwelt upon was its credibility." In the first-^ 
 part of the century the reasonableness of the doctrines of revelation as an 
 internal testimony was insisted upon, in the latter part the question was 
 narrowed to the proof of the external or historical evidences of Christianity ; 
 and so Christianity became crystalized, as it were, into a cold and lifeless 
 moral law, which our self-interest induced us to honour and obey. On this 
 state of religion Mr. Pattison, with a true appreciation of the value of the 
 spiritual life above all systems of forms or moral laws, however excellent, 
 remarks, " Yet the experience of the last age nas shewn us unmistakably 
 that where this is our best ideal of life, whether with the Deists, we estab- 
 lish tliL' obligation of morality on independent grounds ; or with the Ortho- 
 dox add the religious sanction, it argues a sleek and sordid epicurism, in 
 which religion and a good conscience have their place among the means ly 
 irhirh life is to he made eomfortahle.'' By such a phase of religion the 
 order of things was completely reversed, the conduct was regulated by 
 intellectual perception and calculation, instead of being excellent as the 
 " spontaneous efflux of our character." Like a dead tree liung with arti- 
 ficial instead of natural fruit, good conduct was ;)?/« <*«, because the intellect 
 pronoimced it good and beautiful, it was no longer the luxuriant evidence 
 and result of the spirits vitality. Faith, no longer "the devout condition of 
 the entire inner man," resolved itself into the " intellectual perception of 
 regulative Truth." 
 
 But fortunately, as before stated. Rationalism was not the only force in 
 action ; the spirit of Toleration was also playing its part, and thirdly that 
 "great rekindling of the religious consciousness of the people, which, 
 without the established churcli, became Methodism, and within its pale has 
 obtained the name of the evangelical movejiient." The resultant of these 
 three forces is our present conception of tlieology, which, in its twofold 
 character, is beautifully defined in this essay as " first and primarily, the 
 contemplative speculative habit, by mean.s of which the mind i)laces itself 
 already in another world than this, a habit begun hero to be raised to per- 
 fvct vision hereafter. Secondly, and in an inferior degree, it is ethical and 
 regulative of our conduct as men in those relations which are temporal and 
 transitory "' 
 
 Notwithstanding the neutral position of this essay and its purely histor- 
 ical chanirter, it has come in for a share of the general condemnation 
 accorded to the whole book by those who arc always ready to take a party 
 
 
 J 
 
>~s4iuiaB 
 
 view of such matters, and generally, either totally ignorant of the question 
 or possessing a knowledge derived from a few maimed quotations, rashly 
 judge and condem;. what they have never fairly or calmly considered. 
 
 The last of these famous essays, by Mr. Benjamin Jowett, has taken for 
 Its subject a topic which should be approached with fear and trembling and 
 m such a spirit it is evidently considered by its devout and learned aut'hor • 
 not that he owns the least distrust in the strength of his own arguments' 
 but that his soul is full to overflowing of the good man's dread of dispens- 
 ing that which, though most necessary to some, he knows to be highly 
 dangerous to the many. Plain discussions on the beauty of holiness and 
 truth are universally good a- id can do harm to none ; but questions of this 
 kmd, called into existence rather by the morbid than the healthy develop- 
 ment of the age, are only not fatally dangerous because incomprehensible 
 to that particular class they would otherNnse tend to ruin. To the intelli 
 gent and healthy Christian such matters arc a pleasant and profitable 
 exercise ; to certain, and but too numerous morbid natures, a necessary 
 aliment ; to the crowd hom God, by a self-preserving instinct, has rendered 
 deaf to their appeals, a most deadly poison ; and this owing to the several 
 mental conditions of the three. We have noticed young birds, but lately 
 hatched, run for some time with the shells which had formed the walls of 
 their embryo state still hanging; on their backs, and we could fancy the 
 self-complacent pleasure with which the older birds would discuss amonj, 
 themselves, the absurdity of carrying about incumbrances now become 
 useless, and the joy of the first freedom and activity gained by these youn-^ 
 isteners when, obedient to the voice of their superiors, thev had shaken off 
 the broken and low worthless fragments. But what if tiie word spoken 
 couM strike upon the c.r of the embryo yet containe.1 within tiie perfect 
 shell and ,t had strength and will to cast it off also! The parallel may 
 seem ludicrous but is not the less illustrative of the three mental conditions 
 just referred to. 
 
 It is trul3- refreshing to see the fear lest the tender plants should sufler 
 with which he great an<l good man approaches his difT^ult task, candidly 
 discussing the qn stion of the interpretation of the .Scriptures, which he 
 considers mvo been in many cases misinterpreted; owing, firstly, to the 
 poetical spirit in man tending to allegorical interpretations; secondly to the 
 rigMl «ppli,.ation of logic " to the principles of interpretation ; thirdly 
 to the too "minute examination of words, often withdrawing the mind from 
 morennportant matters;" and, fourthly, to the " tendency to exagerate or 
 amplify the meaning of S.-vipturc words for the sake of edification " until 
 one is apt to become persuaded of the "divine truth of his own reprtitions " 
 For these causes he considers that, in the i»resent day, Christian scholars 
 
 
iiiUKiiWIiiaiiS 
 
 )f the question 
 itations, rashly 
 nsidered. 
 
 has taken for 
 trembling, and 
 earned author ; 
 vn arguments, 
 :ad of dispens- 
 3 to be highly 
 f holiness and 
 estions of this 
 althy develop- 
 3mprehensiblo 
 To the intelli- 
 md profitable 
 ^, a necessary 
 , has rendered 
 to the several 
 ds, but lately 
 J the walls of 
 'uld fancy the 
 liscuss among 
 
 now become 
 r' these young 
 ad shaken off 
 word spoken 
 n the perfect 
 
 parallel may 
 tal conditions 
 
 should suffer 
 !isk, candidly 
 cs, which ho 
 irstly, to the 
 ondly, to (he 
 on ; thirdly, 
 ic mind from 
 exageratc or 
 ation,"' until 
 ropcdtions." 
 tian scholars 
 
 find themselves unknowingly pledged to the support of many opinions ready 
 formed to their hands which, nevertheless, learned and unprejudiced men 
 have long since found to be fallacious or absurd; that "the use made of 
 Scripture by Fathers of the Church, as well as by Luther and Calvin, 
 affects our idea of its moaning at the prt,-ient hour," and that thereby the 
 powers of intelligent men are diverted into a comparatively useless channel, 
 for the resources of knowledge arc turned into a means, " not of discovering 
 the true rendering of Scripture but of upholding a received one ;" but for- 
 tunately the "book itself remains as at the first, unchanged amidst the 
 changing interpretations of it." 
 
 But while it is highly desirable that we should be furnished with the most 
 correct translation of every passage of the Bible, yet controversies respect- 
 ing the spiritual interpretation of these passages are generally profitless, 
 and are often due to no higher principle than party spirit, however unaware 
 of this fact the controversialists may be. In the first place the well-known, 
 though too often forgotten fact that they lead to nothing, but the confirma- 
 tion of each party in his own views, should put an end to them in future. 
 When Casaubon was being shown over the Sorbonnc in Paris his guide 
 said, "in this hall have the doctors disputed for three hundred years," 
 " Aye ; and what have they settled ?" was his shrewd remark ; but the 
 lesson has hardly been received by the a orld yet. 
 
 In considering the " prior questions which lie in the way of a reasonable 
 criticism" of the Scriptures, Mr, Jowett turns his attention first to the 
 much-vexed question of inspiration, a word, than which, there is none in 
 the language more capable of a variety of interpretations; but these infinite 
 renderings are but the adaptation of the one original idea to the infinite 
 varieties of the human mind. The unsophisticated man, wh 5 has never 
 exercised his thinking faculties, considers the Eternal as the actual dictator, 
 word for word, of the whole Bible, as it now stands, from the first chapter 
 of (Genesis to the last of Revelations ; that God commenced each chapter 
 saying " write," and then one l)y one gave utterance to the words which 
 form the Holy Scriptures ; and this belief is to him the very })ond of life, 
 the shell which is necessary to the preservation of his embryo faith, the 
 destruction of which, before that faith is quickened into n'gber life, must 
 result in the inevitable death of the germ ; and from this simple faith to 
 that received by the highest intelligence there are innumerable gradations, 
 each adapted, by a )»enilicont Creator, to the condition of life it is intended 
 to preserve, yet performing the same functions in every degree of develop- 
 ment; in every case still conveying in some form the reverence which all 
 beings feel for the word and will of fiod. 
 
 But the truly spiritual man, let his intellectual status bo what it will, 
 cannot suffer his faith to bo shaken or disturbed l)y questions or considcra- 
 
 r~ 
 
 .0 
 
mtuaHam 
 
 42 
 
 lis existence and its strenetli "Ttj ,•<■ +^ i ,,„ -- 't uni.^ 
 
 essayist "tl,,f .l,.r ^. ■ " '"""S'". ™'»As this able 
 
 nine I'f «„ f '"'^"•""y 8»in>^ ■•■nything from the deciphering of the 
 
 rearaneeof acontradetTan-a^We f tr;,:at'-'\°" ^"; "-'^ "P" 
 Egy|.tia„ temple of the year B C 1500 Tl!^ '" *'""''" "^ " 
 
 w ve,, „„haM,hut ft is ^^'ZJ!: j^-:^t: z:^ 
 
 of «,?aI'',?° T" ''.''° "'" ''"'«'"S™"y --ead together the two volume, 
 "heBiM f V '""■""" ''■°"'""" «'« """=™' creHUon-„„t,"r Tn d 
 
 event, a ti, "'^'""""f"" "•'"' "'" »">-• «>^ '» »»ke their contents 
 Ta I h n t''''™""^' •■■■■econcilahle. Thus read and carefullv com- 
 
 pac,! they wdl become to hin, the source of his most intense delist tie 
 
 In't.^ nZr"' "'°' '"' '"^ ''"'"' «'->■ °f "- -"'-^ »Ses befo^'h- : 
 
 worM ftrn'of Z" H '°'T ■'" '^ "" "•'"'" '"•'»''=■' S-iP"- - that of a 
 Ta In o '.""""'.''"'' ^'S"'"-. keenly alive to all sensations, whether of 
 da.ure„rpa,„,rejo,cn,gi„ its life and independence, wrapt up in itTelf 
 nth ,ts back dean turne.I upon holiness, in f„Il pursuit of the evanescenl 
 
 tliey be to he feeble ray of spiritual life expiring day by day within it 
 n^w Shan , be delivered ? Proclain, tl.o beau.y'of lIolinLrB s is 
 
 spn.tnally discerned and the world cannot receive it. Advance the ce 
 
 ich lead. It still further and further from all hope of health. There i^ 
 
 there are three d.stmct steps, namely. Terror, the Moral Law, the Inner 
 F.uth. Arnved upon the last the other two, like those in 11,; f„i,-v t.Ie 
 
 mt.nor, of h,s own e.xper,en,.e, ought well and fully to sv,npan,is ■ with 
 every want and feeling of the lowei-. mpaihisc « ,tl. 
 
m 
 
 Jilt upon a 
 world, and 
 vision but 
 
 independ" 
 )Iogy may 
 it is born 
 ne it owes 
 
 this able 
 iig of the 
 !S, chiefly, 
 n the ap- 
 iber of an 
 
 may not 
 question, 
 ch can be 
 
 ' volumes 
 xture and 
 never so 
 contents 
 illy corn- 
 light, the 
 .'fore him 
 
 that of a 
 K'ther of 
 in itself, 
 anescent 
 3 though 
 ithin it. 
 it this is 
 e noces- 
 known, 
 rhcre is 
 int road 
 ic Inner 
 iry tale, 
 all thr 
 elow to 
 '1', from 
 so with 
 
 Take an individual example ; our friend is no criminal, but a man of the 
 world, wrapt up in its business and its pleasures ; he has injured no man 
 and has done his neighbour no harm, and perfectly satisfied with this nega- 
 tive pole of religion, he follows the bent of his own inclinations on the 
 great road of the world where he is undistinguisbable from the positive 
 christian. For the first time in his life he is ill ; he is brought to the very 
 gates of Death, and a fearful, indefinite dread arising, whence he cannot 
 tell, covers his soul as with a pall, and fills his spirit with an agony of awe 
 unknown before. Life is flickering, and the jaws of Death and Hell are 
 open wide before him. Never before had he suspected the existence of an 
 evil thought within him, but the vail is, by an invisible hand, removed from 
 his heart, and his soul shrinks shuddering back from the contemplation of 
 the foul corruption there. God's first agent. Terror, has done its work ; he 
 has seen the vanity of life and felt the shadow of th j judgment to come 
 darken the threshold of his heart : he stands upon the first step, a trem- 
 bling slave crouching beneath the cruel lash of his own awakening con- 
 science, the contempt of the world below the object of compassion to those 
 above, as fiir from God as ever, but with his face turned fearfully towards 
 Him. He recovers fully ; and feels with his returning strength the force of 
 old habits also growing strong within him ; he would laugh away these 
 phantoms of Dread, and return whence he came, but the awful agony of 
 that hour is vividly before him still ; absolute Terror holds him as a power 
 of hell pressed into the service of God. Then comes the necessity of outer 
 law, and with much difficulty, yet constrained by this Terror, he puts 071 
 temperance, truth, purity, and all the christian virtues, like fruit artificially 
 fixed upon the dry branches of an unhealthy tree. These are of full value 
 by themselves as what they are, but are no index of life within ; the small- 
 est incipient bud derived from an inner vitality would be worth ten thousand 
 times the whole to this suffering man ; he is indeed upon the second step, 
 but this is not life. But his eyes are constantly fixed upon the beautiful, 
 though borrowed fiuit ho wears; he feels more and more the real excel- 
 lence of \'irlue, and almost unknown to himself an instinctive effort after 
 life is awakened within his soul, and lo ! a bud appears, another and another, 
 and the leaves thicken and the fruit forms, fruit, it may be remarked, no 
 better, perhaps not so good indeed as the former, but of infinitely greater 
 value as the sure sign of the great desideratum— Life. He stands upon the 
 tlurd step, with much to learn, much to suffer perhaps, on the long road 
 before him, yet now, in the fullest sense of the words, actually born again, 
 a new creature, who may smile at that phantom Terror which nevertheless 
 has performed the important office of leading liim to the station ho now 
 occupies. 
 
 Some passages in the essay would seem to imply that the christian dis- 
 
 |;«^^!*f 
 
MiMiaaH 
 
 Ml!<;:: 
 
 44 
 
 pensation had lived out its time ; in such case we should faithfully expect 
 a new and higher Revelation adapted to the development of the age. But 
 such, in our opinion, is not the aspect of the times. Christian truth has 
 indeed been clogged with many earthy doctrines, frozen, as it were, into a 
 cold and lifeless statue, but the truth as it is ui Christ still remains ; and 
 neither has the present, nor any other age, attained so near to that perfec- 
 tion as to render a higher revelation of the will of God requisite. Imme- 
 diately upon the ascension of Christ the Apostles began to mould the 
 truth tf .1 nir own conceptions, and handing it thus moulded down to 
 posterity ■ » after age has so impressed it with the changing character of 
 its own likeness, that at times the gold has been almost hidden by the con- 
 fusion of images and superscriptions, and the beauty of divine truth con- 
 cealed by the deformity of human error. It is truly by Scripture light 
 alone that we can discover the bright original ; but universal similarity of 
 interpretation, far from being necessary to the successful search, would 
 present an insurmountable barrier to it unless, indeed, all minds were cast 
 in the same mould. To those who cannot find fasting and confession in 
 the Roman Catholic sense commanded in the Bible, their appearance might 
 constitute a rock upon which their souls might suffer shipwreck; yet 
 Roman Catholics of the most undeniable Holiness and Faith have solemnly 
 declared that the practice of both has been, through Christ, the source of 
 their highest spiritual blessings. Who shall dare to snatch the staff from 
 the hand of one brother and cast it as a stumbling block before the feet of 
 another, thereby causing the fall of both ? If our blessing be your curse 
 why wish to rob us of that which is worse than unprofitable to you and 
 more than very life to ourselves ? 
 
 The most objectionable part of Mr. Jowctt's philosophy is his treatment 
 of miracle and prophecy. With his associates he seems afraid to face Science 
 before he has propitiated her by this sacrifice. The notion is becoming very 
 prevalent among a certain class of men that to acknowledge miracle is to 
 ignore science, and is guarded by the assertion that " all scientific men 
 agree upon this point," a notion which is based upon a falsehood and there- 
 fore cannot be too strongly condemned. The popular acceptation of miracle 
 thus he scientifically rejects and fills up the void with something, which 
 something is too undefined and too intangible for the most delicate sensi- 
 bility to grasp. To most men the reconciliation of the acknowledged looking 
 fonvard of the Jewish nation to Christ, and of the incarnation of the divine 
 Essence, with the ignoring of prophecy and miracle, is incomprelicnsihle ; 
 but between their definition of the miraculous and the author's there may 
 be, and probably there is, a world of difference. 
 
 No one who studies the pages of this essay, liowevcr repugnant to his 
 preconception some of the ideas may appear, can fail to be struck with the 
 
 
 J 
 
45 
 
 ■ullj expect 
 3 age. But 
 . truth has 
 vere, into a 
 nains ; and 
 that perfec- 
 te. Imino- 
 mould the 
 d down to 
 :haracter of 
 by the con- 
 truth con- 
 pture light 
 imilarity of 
 rch, would 
 J were cast 
 nfession in 
 ance might 
 reck ; yet 
 e solemnly 
 e source of 
 staff from 
 the feet of 
 your curse 
 you and 
 
 treatment 
 ice Science 
 )mingvery 
 iracle is to 
 ntilic men 
 and there- 
 of miracle 
 ng, which 
 cate scnsi- 
 0(1 looking 
 the divine 
 ilicnsihle ; 
 there may 
 
 mt to his 
 L with the 
 
 spirit of true love and hopefulness which leavens the whole work ; the 
 broad Christian charity which sufFereth all things, endureth all things, 
 hopeth all things ; the immoveable firmness of the faith in the goodness of 
 Cod, and the intensity of the hope which illumines with confiding trust the 
 gloomiest recesses of the future. It is such sentiments which draw us in 
 heart insensibly towards the writer, and force us to recognize in his charac- 
 ter the love of a father as well as the wisdo'm of a teacher. 
 
 Whether Form-worship was the besetting sin of past ages or is only 
 peculiar to the present it might be difiicult to determine. There has cer- 
 tainly been a tendency at all times, more or less, to degrade spiritual truths 
 into material forms ; but it is questionable whether this tendency was ever 
 before universal as now ^it is in the Christian world. Truth has indeed 
 come into the world, but men have first materialized it, and then from the 
 mass images have been carved to suit the tastes of every church and sect, 
 each one glorying in the image itself has made, and calling to all the world 
 to ftill down and worship it. So that it has become at last a matter of doubt 
 to some whether they should look for the worshippers of the real Christ 
 within or without the pale of the visible church ; for if this image worship 
 be Christianity then to be false to it may be to be true to Christ. The Son of 
 God came into the world full of grace and truth to shew light to them that 
 sate in darkness, and to be an example to all future time. Are his graces 
 the graces that adorn the whole Christian Church at the present day ? Tho 
 two great branches of that church — the Catholic and the Protestant, — pro- 
 fessing to worship the same God, to follow the same Master, and seek the 
 same Heaven, do they not eye one another with mistrust and jealousy, with 
 envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness ? Is not the prayer of tho 
 one when in the presence of the other, " Lord I thank thee that thou hast 
 not made me as other m«n, or even as that sinner ?" How readily do they 
 both forget that the words of their common Lord were spirit and truth not 
 form and doctrine Look at yon Protestant humbly praying to God through 
 Christ, and thdt Catholic as humbly approaching Christ his Saviour through 
 the Virgin. Whother is knowledge or Faith the main condition of efioctual 
 prayer ? Tell me which of the two possesses the most contrite spirit and 
 the most loving heart towards his Father, and I will tell you which of the 
 oflerings he will most willingly receive. 
 
 It is high til J for idolatry, whether it consist in worshipping blocks of 
 wood and stone or modern forms and doctrines, to cease altogether. Thei'o 
 
 
 J 
 
amr 
 
 '■i 
 
 46 
 
 are political societies organized in the present day styling the .nselves relig- 
 ious brotherhoods, and laying claim to Christ's word as their foundation, 
 whose practical life, however useful in a political sense, would disgrace 
 the ignorance of the darkest heathenism, invoking the God of love," and 
 living a life of hate, worshiping their creed and not their Christ; and' even 
 their very best men seem carrying the truth as it were, in r seive through 
 . which the essential spirit passes, leaving nothing but the dregs and refuse 
 behind. 
 
 The effect of essays and reviews at such a time, clearing away the 
 accumulated rubbish of ages, and bringing man as it were face to face with 
 his God, ought to have been good, and would have been had it not gone 
 too far. It is very true that miracle and prophecy form the main feature 
 ofmany heathenish religions, audit is equally true that in the christian 
 faith they hold a more subordinate position ; but if the first are false it is 
 no argument that these are false also, in fact their existence only shews 
 more plainly the universal tendency of the human mind to look for a 
 revelation from on high. 
 
 Thp^ ^moring of miracle and prophecy is the great blemish of the book, 
 but iutant science, the capricious babe, its tender eyes even get imfit to 
 bear the blazing light of the advancing day, had demanded the sacrifice, 
 and sober men have not hesitateu to yield it rather than hear their darling 
 cry. 
 
 What is the visible universe but, in all nrobabilit}^, a spec in the crea- 
 tions of the Eternal ; and what the solar-system, but an insignificant part 
 of this same visible universe ; and what the earth, but a small star in the 
 solar system ; and man, but a poor worm, crawling upon the surface of 
 that little star, more feeble, more wretched, more debased in his own mind 
 than the verriest worm, yet with inner yearnings and aspirations that can 
 trample the universe beneath its feet, and soar to a communion with the 
 eternal spirit of God. Is it credible that such a being should be left for 
 ages with no other revelation, no other source of comfort than that con- 
 tained within the book of nature ? True he has seen God there most 
 visibly portrayed, and read his grandeur, and his wisdom, and his power, 
 in the still starry heavens and the magnificent beauty of the blushing earth - 
 but the knowledge made him miserable ; "the tree of knowledge was not 
 that of life." He knew within his inmost soul longings which the book of 
 nature could never satiate, and bleeding wounds which no balm on earth 
 could heal. What folly to believe the Father should implant such yearn- 
 ings in the hearts of his children, and yet supply no spring to quench the 
 thirst ! His first witness was his Work, the material world from whose 
 prolific bosom springs every variety of good to satisfy the wants of every 
 appetite. Shall God pamper the body and neglect the soul V His next 
 
'..'i!'-' :'l'^-i?^|>*^r'^' ,; ll^^^^ST?:*;"^ ■i^^ifig^'f^/j^i^^ 
 
 nselves roli'ff- 
 ' foundation, 
 aild disgrace 
 of love, and 
 ^t; and even 
 eive through 
 5 and refuse 
 
 ig away the 
 to face with 
 
 it not gone 
 nain feature 
 he cliristian 
 ™e false it is 
 
 only shews 
 • look for a 
 
 of the book, 
 get unfit to 
 he sacrifice, 
 ;heir darling 
 
 in the crea- 
 lifican* part 
 star in the 
 ! surface of 
 5 own mind 
 IS that can 
 n with the 
 be left for 
 1 that con- 
 there most 
 his power, 
 ihing earth - 
 ge was not 
 he book of 
 n on earth 
 uch yearn- 
 :]uench the 
 from whose 
 ;s of every 
 His next 
 
 
 47 
 
 witness was his "Word, the spiritual life which like its shadow, the material 
 world, supplied from its own living fountain the spiritual wants of every 
 soul At this clear fountain are all tiic longings of the heart explained 
 and satisfied ; there man beholds the revelation of the two great truths, 
 that the God whom he has already adored in nature is his own Father, and 
 that from that Father's love he has been alienated by sin. So self-witness- 
 ing are these truths to the conscience, that if only the soul is once brought 
 from ^-'le earth to listen to them, they are no sooner uttered than believed. 
 By tii..se a world of mystery is cleared away; the lifelong contention 
 between the "low wants and lofty will" is now made plain. To sin he 
 owes these hated grovelling desires, while his highest aspirations are but 
 his natural birth-right, the proper heritage of the son of God. But this 'S 
 sad intelligence indeed— better— for better to have concealed from him for 
 ever his glorious lineage, when with it comes the chilling truth that his 
 inheritance is lost and he an exile from his Father's house. 
 
 Turning then to the volume of nature he beholds his Father's hand 
 stretched out to him for good ; the wild flowers carpeting the earth beneath 
 his feet, rejoice his eyes with their frail delicate beauty; the purple 
 mountains mingle their summits in the azure heavens and fill his soul with 
 exultant gladness ; he sees the bright canopy above enfolding the green 
 earth in its loving arms, and turn where he will he finds convincing 
 evidence that exiled though he be, he is not wholly lost. Where love is 
 there hope. He turns more confidently to the other book, and what a 
 glorious revelation meets his eye. His Elder Brother is with his Father 
 still, and loves him with an everlasting love ! He has been to visit him, He 
 has suffered for him. He has not only brought down terms of reconcilia'tion 
 with his Father, but He has also shewn how these terms mr be accepted, 
 and the alienating power of sin eradicated from the soul for ever. He looks 
 upon the life his Brother lead and thinks what his own should have been. 
 His heart is penetrated with his Father's love ; renouncing self, and fixing 
 his gaze above, he steadily proceeds to imitate the great Example, his 
 attention becoming gradually so absorbed in heavenly things that he is 
 borne day by day further from the earth, and the likeness of Christ 
 formnig gradually within him reveals itself in every act and word and 
 thought. 
 
 These are the all-important revelations of scripture, and to neglect those 
 for the sake of controversies on creed and doctrine, is as though two men 
 should stand disputing in a cave as to the manner in which their lamps 
 should be held to afford the greatest light ; the danger being, that in the 
 excitement of discussion, time may be forgotten, the lamps extinguished, 
 and the men lost. And to these great revelations man should come with 
 an unprejudiced mind, prepared to accept the truth in whatever form 
 
-ffllt'"- --'-l-— " 
 
 iffiir 
 
 48 
 
 it may present itself; for there is nothing toe absurd to believe if we first 
 ransack our brains for speculations, and then bring them to the light of 
 revelation avowedly to enquire whether they bo true, but in reality to 
 hunt out the passages that may in any way bo wrested to their support, as 
 though we should carry vessels of muddy water to the spring, not to draw 
 from that spring and quench our thirst, but to see whether'^we could not 
 discover within it. floating impurities, sufficient to justify us in drinking 
 the foul water we had brought with us in our vessels. Without this 
 revelation man's highest religion would have been a cold and lifeless 
 pantheism. He would have walked from his cradle to his grave a sorrowing 
 orphan, feeling himself infinitely below the visible creation as to his inner 
 consciousnQss of sin ; infinitely above it as to his indefinite longings after 
 good. The unutterable blessings of prayer would for ever have been 
 denied him, until overcome with the infirmities of age he would sink at last 
 into the earth, a riddle to himself, and a slur upon the character of the God 
 that 'brmed him. 
 
 Nothing is more true than that God is a real, present, individual God ; 
 that the whole object of our life here is to prepare ourselves to glorify him 
 and enjoy his presence ; that this preparation is not the work of a day nor a 
 month, nor a year, but of the life, and is accomplished graduall}^, bringing 
 every thought into subjection to Christ, by inducing a childlike confiding 
 faith in God as our Father, and a charitable, hearty and unfeigned love to 
 all the world as a brotherhood, which are inevitable and unerring signs of 
 the birth of that new life which can be reached only by earnest, never- 
 ceasing, watchful prayer. Charity and love may indeed be put on as 
 ornaments at first, but ere long the spirit will do its work; the quickening 
 power will increase within, and what were put on with difficulty will now 
 appear naturally as the rightful efflux of the new-born character. Then is 
 the great work finished, and the soul, of every creed, may look cahnly into 
 the future, awaiting in hopeful joy the call of its Father and its God. 
 
 The essayists bring us fece to face with ' ^ruths stripped of all outer 
 
 trappings, and if we are shocked at the ma.. . a which the popular belief 
 in miracles is treated, we must bear in mind that there are some who have 
 thrown aside the bible on account of their repugnance to those miracles, 
 just as a hungry child will hastily reject a piece of bread in the crumb of 
 which he sees, or fancies he sees, imbedded some small unsightly object ; 
 it is wiser to pick it out and return the bread than that the child should 
 perish of hunger. The miracles may be laid aside by some without fatal 
 consequences, but the great truth- referred to cannot ; in fact, the solo 
 object of the miracles was to make the others acceptable, as we offer a child 
 sugar to sweeten his medicine ; but if older children do not require the 
 sugar, must wo then refuse them the medicine also ? 
 
 ^PWHUttHitfti 
 
r we first 
 e light of 
 reality to 
 upport, as 
 t to draw 
 could not 
 drinking 
 hout this 
 id lifeless 
 sorrowing 
 his inner 
 ings after 
 lave been 
 nk at last 
 f the God 
 
 ual God ; 
 orify him 
 day nor a 
 
 bringing 
 confiding 
 1 love to 
 
 signs of 
 ;t, never- 
 lit on as 
 aickening 
 will now 
 
 Then is 
 hnly into 
 d. 
 
 all outer 
 ur belief 
 ?ho have 
 miracles, 
 rumb of 
 object; 
 I should 
 )ut fatal 
 the solo 
 r a child 
 uire the 
 
 ■f* 
 
 49 
 
 « 
 
 iJut aUhough those arc the gi-eat truths of our religion, vet a national 
 church cannot be sufficiently safe from the fact of her being foiuulod upon 
 this substantial basis ; the natural rock no doubt is strong,' Ijut she must 
 also have her artificial bulwarks. The imagigatlon of man is an habitual 
 wanderer and will find, as it were, the full length of its tether, fix the 
 centre whore you will. This centre-post mus^ be fixed in the very heart of 
 Truth, and even riveted there by the strongest artificial means, else it will 
 be torn up by the struggles of the Imagination, which, once free, wUi inevit- 
 ably lose itself in the intricate labyrinths of Error. If within the Holy of 
 Holies of the national church these Essayists have tried the elasticity of 
 their tether until it is now even ready to snap, where would they have wan- 
 dered had the centripetal force of its laws been loss powerful than they are ' 
 and wbile we are partly persuaded that they, as men, arc acting conscien- 
 tiously in holding their present positions as pastors and teachers to the 
 church of England, we cannot conceive in what manner some of them have 
 succeeded in reconciling their teachings with their vows. Vftor studying 
 these pages carefully and calmly, casting away prejudice and puttino- the 
 question of abstract truth and error aside, the verdict appears plain and 
 me>;itable : " The teaching of these men is not the teaching of the church 
 of England, and the very fact of their being able satisfoctorily to them- 
 selves to reconcile their teachings with the ecclesiastical laws is the strong- 
 est possil)le evidence those laws cannot be too rigid. " 
 Upon some of those doctrines of the church which have split her into 
 many sects these writers have been wisely silent, for the Bible does not 
 prcten<l to be a revelation of all the mysteries of God, but simply such as 
 are absolutely necessary to individual salvation, and even these are so dimly 
 revealed as .. -^nder them acceptable less to intellect than Faith : were all 
 things clearly evident to Reason Faith would be swallowed up in sight, and 
 the truest teacher of our pilgrimage would be lost to us for ever for Faith 
 above all is eftective in transforming the soul ; it is this necessary confidence 
 .n God, when our vis.on fails us, that, bec^oming a habit, radically changes 
 the whole mncr-man, making God the father of his spirit and the great 
 centre of all his hopes. 
 
 Of the eternal punishment of the lost little should be said-to call It 
 iri-econcilable wit), tl.e attributes of God is simply to confess that man's 
 l.tte knowledge cannot measure it. Rut we know that Pain does exist, 
 and there is no argument against the eternal punishment of man that does 
 'lot equally hold against the sufferings of a sparrow robbed of its little one< 
 i Hat God lias permitted sin and pain to desolate and blight this world is a 
 ^act as incomprehensible as it is undeniable, the wherefore, it is equally 
 van. and wrong to ask because it has not been revealed. Enough that to 
 each individual son the Eternal Father calls and waits with open arm. to 
 
50 
 
 fold him in His embrace if he will only come ; the longing of God for man's 
 restoration- and -^et the absolute incflBcac)^ of that God-like longing without 
 the willing cooperation of man is touchingly revealed in the words of our 
 Saviour : " How often would I have gathered you, but 3'ou wovdd not," 
 which puts Hell in the light of a hated but inevitable necessity in the face 
 of God; and in the great End wc doubt not, thf- j^h pain exist, the wisdom 
 and goodness of God will yet stand justified Ijefore His children. 
 
 " Essays and Reviews" is in fact a reaction against the extreme Tractarian 
 movement, and therefore in itself extreme ; it is the legitimate fruit of the 
 Reformation and the natural result of the transfer of the power of interpre- 
 tation from the church to the individual. Let not those who have planted 
 the tree be the first to refuse the fruit. Wc have no fear of its whole etfect 
 upon tin world ; many good men, who have or have not read it, will con- 
 demn it from thf^ pulpit and the chair ; wliile many, who have approached 
 more boldly to its words, will hear the spirit that terrified them nnswer, 
 " It is T, be not afraid," and will find themselves with a counsellor and a 
 friend. But never were men more blindly or fanati<'ally mistaken than 
 those Atheists and Scoffers who deem they recognise the voice of an ally 
 in its sentiments. Light and Darkness, Truth and Error, Heaven and Hell, 
 arc not more diametrically opposed than the mind of this book and the 
 spirit of a godless world ! 
 
 Let the church not fear; confiding in her i^'ather as a God not far from 
 any one of us, by v,-hom literally and truly her every motion is watched and 
 her every want supplied, she may rest sccuro. 
 
 Let infant Science, like a truant child, perform its gambols, tearing ami 
 scattering to the winds what it shall yet more sedulously gather ; the great 
 invisible church may rest assured ; she is in the presence of her God, who 
 grasps her Truths in Ilis everlasting hands, and nothing shall be lost. Yet 
 a little while and Science, her childhood past, shall become her dearest com- 
 panion, her most inseparable friend. They shall hold sweet council together 
 and kneel tc t'lier, in solemn adoration, before the throne of their common 
 Father. And if, at such a time, it shall appear that the creeds and doc- 
 trines of the numerous sects have been the scaffoldings wherewith the 
 spiritual teu'.ple of the inner man has been erected ; then, their v;ork fin- 
 ished, let the scaffoldings perish. The Building remaineth for ever ! 
 
 W. «". rUKWETi' A CO., I'HINTKUrt, KIN(i STUKKT I^A.SI', TOKONTO.