blish them for the future, on the basis of enlightened conviction. It will not do to tell such a mind that doubt is sinful, and more perilous is it to check or punish the desire for procuring the solution of difficulties: if this be done, the result is certain; mild scepticism will be changed into confirmed hostility to the doctrines. The system if true-and if its truth be not concealed and corrupted by antiquated forms, which have been perverted in the course of centuries, by the ambition of some, or the ignorance of others—will afford the honest inquirers what they seek, and they will thus attain a more settled conviction and firm faith than if they had never doubted. But if it be false, or if its truth be so corrupted by the abuses of centuries as to become a virtual falsehood, scepticism soon becomes confirmed, and the ancient system is rejected, at once and for ever.

"The sceptics proclaim their discoveries, and are, at first, derided by the whole world. But doubt once proclaimed, rapidly insinuates itself into the public mind, and ere long, those who govern in the name of the ancient faith discover that the foundation of their power is shaken. The formularies which in the age of quiet submission passed without challenge, now prove faithless to their masters; they contain no elements of selfdefence, for the truth by which they first won supremacy has been long since forgotten; the possessors of power, therefore, have recourse to physical force, and this appears to the reflective part of mankind a tacit acknowledgment that their cause can no longer be maintained by reason or argument. But, in the struggle, a time comes when the innovators are perplexed by their very success; they are all-powerful to destroy, but they are unable to supply the void which they create; they find that scepticism cannot long survive its victim; man in the long run requires some positive belief, because he knows that truth has existence somewhere. The innovators hasten to supply the deficiency; but they are no longer unanimous, each has a system of his own, and they soon begin to hate each other more than the common enemy. This is the crisis of the revolution."-(vol. ii. pp. 144—147.)

Professor Sewell, we remember, in his Christian Morals,' lays down broadly the opposite maxim, that in all cases belief is a virtue, and doubt is a sin.' The remarks of our author are far more scriptural, and shew a juster and sounder view of the laws of human thought. Every attempt, indeed, to stifle inquiry, will fail, and ought to fail. God demands of us a readiness and openness to believe, on sufficient evidence; but a faith without evidence He never requires; nay, His word condemns it in the strongest terms. Maxims like that of the professor, are a short and easy method for turning all men into blind bigots or presumptuous unbelievers. Amidst the manifold defects of the work now before us, this advocacy of a voracious credulity, as the only antidote for scepticism, is one from which it is entirely free.

The following paragraph, again, is very instructive to liberals of the modern school:

"Irreligion acquired supremacy at Rome when liberty was lost. After all that has been said of the coalition between hierarchies and arbitrary power, it is undeniable that the coalition between despotism and infidelity is a thousand times more perilous. A religious people may be enslaved, but an irreligious people never can be free. The very first element of rational liberty, a deep sense of responsibility, is wanting: there are no checks to selfishness, no incentives to disinterested conduct. This also was the era of astrologers, sorcerers, and magicians. Nero invited sorcerers to Rome, that he might be

initiated in their secrets. Adrian was a professed student of witchcraft. Alexander Severus, Dioclesian, and Constantine before his conversion, endeavoured by magical practices to dive into the secrets of futurity. Spells and incantations were employed by all classes to obtain the aid of the mysterious powers of darkness; and it seemed as if men had abandoned the worship of the gods to follow that of devils.”—(vol. ii. pp. 154—156.)

We fear that our own times are not unlikely, before long, to confirm the lesson taught in this mournful picture. Unbelief and credulity are very nearly allied. Should some grand convulsion wrap Europe once more in the flames of war, an infidel populace, maddened by passion, and thirsting for blood, would be found a ready prey to the most wretched delusions of hell. Nothing but the fear of God can preserve the soul, in times of passionate excitement, from a credulous worship of the powers of darkness.

The following chapters contain many useful observations, with some incidental errors, and not a little false philosophy and spurious candour. The worst specimen of latitudinarian speculation occurs in the tenth chapter, on the features of society in the Middle Ages. The reader will be startled with the following broad assertion:

"There is probably no part of the Romish creed, and not one of the Romish institutions, that was not of vast importance in the great struggle which the church had to maintain; and of the doctrines and practices on which the nineteenth century passes just sentence of condemnation, there is scarcely one which could have been spared, seven hundred years ago, without imminent peril to the great cause of human civilization and social happiness. In the great majority of instances, the errors were forced upon the ecclesiastical body; and in all the rest, the error arose from attempting to render universal some formulary that had been devised for a special purpose."—(vol. ii. pp. 214, 215.)

The dangerous character of such statements is almost neutralized, we should hope, by their monstrous and palpable absurdity. Doctrines, it seems, which are now justly condemned for their falsehood, could not have been spared without peril seven hundred years ago; and the deadly error of to-day becomes the golden truth of to-morrow! The bare statement of such absurdities is their best refutation. We are astonished how a writer in many respects so sensible could bring himself to utter such contemptible trash, much more that he should pass it off upon himself and his readers as deep philosophy.

Another passage stamped with the same character follows in the next page:-

"The power of the papacy, as an institution, was directly proportioned to the strength of the opinion on which it was founded, and the strength of that opinion must be measured by the circumstances by which it was engendered. It is necessary to keep this philosophic truth steadily in view, because one of the most common arguments urged against the civilizing influences of Christianity, is the alleged delinquencies of the church in the Middle Ages. But if we take into consideration the nature of the times in which these delinquencies are said to have occurred, we may perhaps discover that what we

have censured merits our eulogy, and what we have scorned deserves our gratitude. It is not enough to shew that Christianity as first taught, was a blessing: we must further shew that through the whole course of its history, it has been a benefactor to humanity."-(vol. ii. pp. 216, 217.)

We cannot protest too strongly, in the name of truth and righteousness, against this impure candour, this empty show of philosophical thought, and real surrender of Divine truth. No falsehood can be more baneful and ruinous than to make Christianity responsible for all the crimes and follies which have been committed in its name. This is to betray Christ afresh into the hands of sinners. The effects of his heavenly doctrine must be traced in the lives of those who receive it with the heart, and not in the history of those who first corrupt it into pernicious heresies, and then disgrace it by their profligacy and crimes. To confound Christianity with the visible church, and the visible church with the papacy, is a twofold error of the grossest kind, and wherever received, must lead to a thousand ruinous delusions.

The whole of the remarks on the Reformation partake of the same lax and superficial tone. We are told, for instance, that Hildebrand was not less a reformer than Luther-that the Reformation would equally have taken place if Luther, Calvin, or Zuinglius had never been born-and that Luther, did not always comprehend the nature and purpose of his mission, for he more than once stood aghast at the necessary consequences of his own actions;' with much besides in a still more supercilious tone, about the 'impudence' of that coarse, vulgar-minded man.' Now all this is to our taste, equally sickening and ridiculous. It seems like scraps gathered from some dreaming sceptic of the French school, rather than the grave sentiments of a Christian writer. Stripped of all disguise, what lessons do these sentences convey? That the man who brought the predicted apostasy almost to its height, by "forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats," is no less a reformer of Christ's church, than the boldest champion of the doctrine of faith since the time of the apostles; that the Reformation was not a mighty work of Divine grace, acting through fit instruments chosen of God himself, but the mere result of a blind and fatal necessity; and that a writer who thinks that seven hundred years can change truth into falsehood, with equal reason thinks himself fit to sit in judgment on the greatest of the reformers.

But we turn from a subject, which our respect for the writer, in spite of his occasional follies and frequent errors, renders painful and repulsive, and pass to a redeeming extract from his closing chapter :-"Having shewn the truth of the celebrated aphorism-that society existed before the individual,' we proceeded to establish the improbability, or rather the utter impossibility, of society having been constituted or

framed by an individual or individuals. Such a theory involved the obvious contradiction, that man had a knowledge of the benefits of society antecedent to all experience, because antecedent to the very existence of society. Since, then, a certain stock of knowledge, a certain amount of civilization, was as necessary to be provided for man in the outset, as food is for the insect when it breaks the egg in its proper nidus, and as man could not have derived this stock from his internal resources, we proceeded to search for that external cause which enabled humanity to employ its own treasures, use its own talents, and complete the development of its own faculties. We had not far to seek: we found that in the intellectual and moral, not less than in the physical and material world, “the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth;" and that civilization, like every other " good and perfect gift," originally came down from "the Father of Lights," in whom there is no variableness nor shadow of turning.'

"Then-but not till then-we examined how far the conclusions to which we had been led, by reasoning and analysis, were in accordance with the narrative of the early history of our race contained in the Holy Scriptures. We found reason and revelation in complete accordance; they perfectly harmonized together, and thus enforced conviction that both were derived from the same God. This was a matter too interesting to ourselves individuallytoo important to the world generally-to be lightly dismissed. We therefore scrutinized the sacred records, taking care that the spirit of reverence should control, but not check. the spirit of criticism: and we proved, by experience, that the spirit of criticism thus directed gave new life and strength to the spirit of reverence.

"We saw everywhere that with nations, as with individuals, every deviation from the path of rectitude was a step on the road to ruin; every element of civilization perverted and misapplied, was changed into a potent means of destruction; and when once the process of corruption was begun, it proceeded, if unchecked, with an accelerated velocity, until iniquity consummated its work, and wrote its irrevocable Ichabod on mouldering fanes and ruined palaces."-(vol. ii. pp. 341-343.)

These are paragraphs worthy of a Christian writer, and the truths which they contain, however simple in themselves, are of deep and everlasting moment. May their lessons sink deep into the heart of our own favoured country, and of all who guide our national counsels.

In closing these remarks, we must again express our deep regret at the absence of large and comprehensive views of providence, and the lax and unsound statements by which this work is disfigured. The subject is one of growing interest in these times of changes, when all the world is combining into one vast family, though at present, far, alas, from a family of love. Our readers will find in its pages many instructive and entertaining materials of thought, collected with a benevolent purpose; but they will do well not to rely too much on the author's judgment; and to test all his theories, throughout the work, in the light of Divine truth, and by the unerring oracles of God. If the largeness and grandeur of its views, the soundness of its doctrine, and the vigour of its style, had been equal to the beauty of the design, the writer would have laid the church under a deep and lasting obligation.

THE CHERWELL WATER-LILY, and other Poems. By the Rev. FREDERICK WILLIAM FABER, M.A., Fellow of University College, Oxford. London: Rivingtons. 1840.

THIS volume is the production of one who is a poet of nature's own composition-one who is a poet by instinct and by impulse, not by academical exercises and Walker's rhyming lexicon-one whom "the gods have made poetical." We have wished, however, again and again that we could apply to it the significant and sensible comment of Touchstone, that 'the truest poetry is the most feigning; that lovers are given to poetry, and that what they swear in poetry, may be said, as lovers, they do feign.'* Whether Mr. Faber is a lover, we do not pretend to have discovered from the ambiguous initials which are prefixed to several of the minor poems; from the beginning, however, it is quite clear that he suspects himself—and before we are midway through the volume there seems no little. ground to hope that his own suspicion is now more than half confirmed:

among stout-hearted men

Some truant monks there be;
And, if you could their names collect,
I rather more than half suspect
That I should not be free.

Erewhile I dreamed of cloistered cells,
Of gloomy courts and matin bells,
And painted windows rare;

But common life's less real gleams
Shone warm on my monastic dreams,

And melted them to air."-(p. 144.)

We will therefore gladly give the author the benefit of our doubt; and as, while he has said many beautiful things, he has "sworn" some strange things, in poetry, we will indulge him in the lover's privilege, and believe that he does feign.'

Seriously speaking, this volume must be judged not only by its execution, but also by its object and design. Viewed as a collection of poems, into which any measure or degree of fiction is admissible, nay, of which fiction is the essence; imagination the only rule, and fancy the only guide-wherein the author throws the rein carelessly over the neck of his Pegasus, and vaults he cares not whither and heeds not wherefore-viewed and regarded in this light, it is, to say the least, one of the most graceful and delicate poetical bouquets which for a long time have been presented to the public-dropping "As you like it."

F