"Both were wrong that June day, both as wrong
As an East wind hath been; I, who talked of art,
And you, who grieved for all men's griefs.. what then,
We merely made too small a part for GOD

In these things.

Though we fail indeed,
You-I-a score of such weak workers: He

Fails never. If He cannot work by us,
He will work over us. Does He want a man,
Much less a woman, think you? Any time
The star winks there so many souls are born
Who all shall work too. Let our own be calm.
We should be ashamed to sit beneath those stars,
Impatient that we're nothing."

Marian Erle next appears upon the scene and Romney makes his offer, but she declines it according to the magnanimous course she has pursued throughout, and which, noble as it is, we believe could never have arisen out of her evil nurturing-she recommends Romney to choose a more suitable wife, and disappears, pointing to Aurora. The two left together return to the point from whence they started at the beginning of the book, admit that they have loved each other all along like ordinary men and women, and wind up with a marriage on the usual terms, in which Aurora promises doubtless to love, honour, and obey her husband as a dutiful wife.

We have freely criticised this work in order to show the absurdity of the principles it upholds; at the same time we desire to do justice to Mrs. Browning as a true poetess, and as one capable both of feeling and well expressing the most noble sentiments; many parts of this work are really beautiful, though none please us so much as some of her smaller poems. We trust a lady so gifted will not long waste her powers on so absurd and profitless a system as that which she now advocates. We will take leave of the book with the pleasant impression left us in the following beautiful lines:

"Alas, long-suffering and most patient GOD,

Thou need'st be surelier GOD to bear with us
Than even to have made us! Thou, aspire, aspire
From henceforth for me! Thou who hast, Thyself,
Endured this fleshhood, knowing how, as a soaked
And sucking vesture, it would drag us down
And choke us in the melancholy deep,

Sustain me, that, with Thee, I walk these waves,
Resisting!-breathe me upward, Thou for me
Aspiring, who art the way, the truth, the life,-
That no truth henceforth seem indifferent,

No

way to truth laborious, and no life,
Not even this life I live, intolerable!"-P. 311.

CRUICE ON THE PHILOSOPHUMENA.

Etudes sur de nouveaux documents historiques empruntés à l'ouvrage récemment découvert des Philosophumena, et relatifs aux commencements du Christianisme, et en particulier de l'Eglise de Rome. Par M. L'ABBE CRUICE, Chanoine honoraire de Paris, Supérieur de l'Ecole des hautes études ecclésiastiques des Carmes, Docteur ès Lettres. Paris et Lyon: Librairie Catholique de Périsse Frères. Pp. 308.

THIS work forms part of the valuable series entitled, Collection des thèses de l'école des hautes études ecclésiastiques, published under the direction of the learned Abbé Cruice, and chiefly made up of dissertations bearing upon and elucidating various subjects connected with Christian antiquity. Among the works which have already appeared are an Essai historique sur l'école Chrétienne d'Edesse, and an Essai sur Hégésippe, by the Abbé Lavigerie; Etudes sur les Sermons de Bossuet, and Des historiens Juifs qui ont précédé Josèphe, by the lamented Abbé Vaillant; De l'usage des auteurs profanes dans l'enseignement Chrétien, durant les six premiers siècles de l'Eglise, by the Abbé Leblanc; and-not to speak of other works -an Essai Critique sur l'Hexaémeron de S. Basile, and De la Critique et de l'autorité de Josèphe dans son ouvrage contre Apion, by our author himself. The publication at the head of this notice is neither the least valuable nor the least interesting of the series. It is divided into two parts, prefaced by a short introduction, explanatory of the origin of the work and its object and contents. After briefly alluding to the discovery of the Philosophumena and its publication by the Oxford University press, under the direction of M. Miller, the Abbé proceeds to give an account of the controversy to which the discovery of the work has given rise, and of the conflicting opinions put forth by different writers on the subject of its authorship. Endorsing the opinion of Gronovius who had seen on a manuscript at Florence, containing the first book of the Philosophumena, the name of Origen, M. Miller attributed the work to that Father. Under the patronage of that great name, it was natural that it should excite the deep curiosity of the whole Christian and learned world. But we will let the Abbé speak for

himself:

Quel fut l'étonnement et l'admiration des esprits cultivés, en apprenant la découverte d'un ouvrage d'Origène! On apprécia d'autant plus ce trésor littéraire, qu'il en portait d'autres renfermés en lui-même; il contenait des fragments encore inconnus de Pindare, d'Empedocle,

d'Héraclite. Mais la curiosité des savants, qui est si pleine de charmes et si pacifique dans ses recherches, fit bientôt place à une critique passionnée et à des controverses religieuses. On avait remarqué dans cet ouvrage des invectives violentes contre un des successeurs de Saint Pierre. Le Pape Saint Calliste était accusé d'escroquerie, d'immoralité et d'hérésie. Un pontife dont l'Eğlise vénère la mémoire et qu'elle invoque dans ses prières, avait corrompu, disait-on, la foi et les mœurs des âmes confiées à sa vigilance, et altéré, dès sa source même, la tradition des vérités chrétiennes Il est vrai que l'imagination ardente d'Origène avait pu l'entraîner dans de graves erreurs. Son orthodoxie n'était-elle par douteuse? ses écrits n'avaient-ils été censurés au Concile de Constantinople?

pas

"Mais à peine ces objections furent-elles soulevées, que déjà on découvrait avec surprise combien étaient faibles les arguments qui attribuaient à cet éloquent génie le livre des Philosophumena. Ce n'était ni son langage, ni sa manière d'écrire, ni ses opinions philosophiques, ni ses doctrines théologiques. M. Jacobi, le premier de tous, déclara que cet ouvrage appartenait à un écrivain de Rome; de nombreux idiotismes latins, revêtus d'expressions grecques, trahissaient son origine. L'auteur était un des Evêques suburbicaires de la province Romaine; il y jouissait d'un haute autorité sous le Pontificat de Saint Calliste; tout désignait Saint Hippolyte, évêque de Porto, un martyr et un docteur de l'Eglise, celui-là même dont le Vatican conservait la statue et vénérait la mémoire.

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"Cette opinion fut soutenue en Angleterre par le Chevalier Bunzen (sic), ambassadeur de Prusse, et peu après par le Docteur Wordsworth, chanoine de l'Eglise de Westminster. Elle fut accueillie avec enthousiasme par leurs coreligionnaires Le Chevalier Bunzen s'était posé de tracer, à l'aide du livre des Philosophumena, un tableau de la primitive Eglise et d'y faire paraître, comme dans un miroir, l'image fidèle de l'Eglise protestante. Cependant, ce n'était pas aux Catholiques Romains qu'il destinait ses enseignements et ceux qu'il prêtait à Saint Hippolyte, mais c'était plutôt à ses frères d'Angleterre, auxquels il désirait inspirer des sentiments plus libres dans la foi et dans l'observance de la discipline. Aussi une certaine défaveur accueillit son ouvrage. Plusieurs ministres Anglicans crurent y remarquer une nouvelle et téméraire tentative d'un parti Allemand, qui, sous le patronage du prince Albert, s'efforce depuis plusieurs années de dominer l'Eglise d'Angleterre et de l'unir plus étroitement à sa sœur d'outre-Rhin, par la participation à un même rationalisme religieux qui est voisin du déisme et du scepticisme. Dans son ouvrage sur Saint Hippolyte et l'Eglise de Rome, le docteur Wordsworth, usant de tous les ménagements d'une exquise politesse, rejeta comme légère la critique de l'honorable ambassadeur de Prusse, il s'indigna noblement contre certaines propositions impies, et après de longues dissertations sur l'authenticité des Philosophumena et sur Saint Hippolyte, il s'adressa à nous avec une indulgente compassion et s'efforça de nous faire voir, dans ce livre nouveau, une lumière venue de l'Orient, qui avait brillé pour la première fois, en Angleterre, et qui devait nous tirer de la voie de perdition où nous étions égarés, pour nous conduire dans le chemin du salut et de la vie.

"Les revues Anglaises ne prirent qu'une faible part à la controverse.

Le Quarterly Review publia un essai littéraire, dont l'intérêt était propre à reposer les esprits fatigués de discussions. Dans l'Ecclesiastic and Theologian parurent deux savantes dissertations, où l'auteur (un disciple peut-être du Dr. Pusey), refutant les opinions de M. Miller, attribuait l'ouvrage qu'il avait publié à Caïus, prêtre Romain que Photius appelle évêque des nations, et détournait les coups portés contre Saint Calliste pour les faire retomber sur un hérétique du même nom.

"Les Catholiques demeurèrent longtemps témoins de ses débats sans y participer. Ils entrèrent enfin dans la discussion et soutinrent que Saint Hippolyte, s'il était l'auteur de ce livre, l'avait composé dans des jours malheureux, où, révolté contre l'autorité du pontife romain, il avait adopté les funestes erreurs qui furent propagées dans la suite par la secte des Novatiens. Cette opinion fut défendue dans la Revue de Dublin, et peu après exposée de nouveau dans le Correspondant, mais combattue et rejetée par le savant et honorable M. Lenormant."Introduction, Pp. ix.-xiii.

Whilst these controversies were going on in regard to the authorship of the Philosophumena, the Abbé himself, as he tells us, was intently looking on, and examining carefully the work which had produced them, as well as various records of the second and third centuries, which he thought likely to throw light on the matter. The more he proceeded in this investigation, the more the claims of Hippolytus to the authorship of the work appeared debateable. The opinion which attributed the work to him seemed to derive all its strength from religious prejudice. In the mean while, the Abbé became gradually drawn into the controversy by his relations with some clergymen and a Bishop of our Church. On certain doubtful points he consulted Cardinal Mai, and the answer he received tended to confirm his own conjectures.

Under these circumstances, with the view of removing prejudice, he was induced to take up his pen and to give the public the result of his researches on the subject. As, however, his numerous and important avocations as superior of the Ecole des Carmes left him but little leisure for the composition of such a work, he obtained the co-operation of one of his pupils, the Abbé Jallabert, to whom he allotted the special duty of investigating the respective claims of Origen and Hippolytus to the disputed authorship of the Philosophumena, the Abbé reserving for himself the task of elucidating various controverted points bearing upon the origin of Christianity, and particularly of the Church of Rome.

After a long and patient investigation, M. Jallabert imagined that Tertullian might be the author of the work. At first our author was inclined to regard that opinion as unmaintainable; subsequently, however, after a deeper examination, in the course of which he noticed the many points of resemblance, both as regards sentiments, style, and language, existing between the writings of Tertullian and the Philosophumena, he partly came round to his friend's way of thinking.

In July 1853, the Philosophumena were made by M. Jallabert the subject of a thesis which he presented to the faculty of Paris, when a candidate for the degree of Docteur ès lettres. The discussion came on before MM. Leclerc, Patin, Saint-Marc Girardin, Guignaut, Damiron, Garnier, Egger, Kastus, Arnoult, and Gérusez, members of that faculty. The claims of Origen and of Hippolytus were acknowledged to rest on no certain foundation, whilst the opinion which attributed the Philosophumena to Tertullian was rejected as improbable.

The various questions raised in England and Germany, in reference to S. Callistus and the authority of the Roman pontiffs during the first ages, had not been referred to in M. Jallabert's thesis, or in the discussions before the Faculté des Lettres. The Abbé Cruice tells us he himself had gone deeply into the matter, and in the mean time had discovered in the Philosophumena important facts and statements calculated to throw light on the first ages of Christianity, and to refute certain errors which modern philosophers have disseminated. This is the work now offered to the public.

So much for the Abbé's own account of the book before us. We are not, of course, going to reopen the question in regard to the authorship of the Philosophumena, or even to follow the Abbé in the discussion of other important points now mooted for the first time. It will be sufficient to state briefly what are the contents of the work. As we have said, it is divided into two parts. In the first, its laborious author passes in review the respective claims of each of the several parties to whom the Philosophumena have been attributed by different writers, and examines with a good deal of minuteness and detail the various arguments urged in support of those claims. The conclusions to which he himself comes, and the points which he thinks he has proved, are the following::

"1°. Le livre intitulé Philosophumena, ou Réfutation de toutes les hérésies, n'appartient ni à Origène ni à Saint Hippolyte.

"2°. Cet ouvrage a été connu par Théodoret, qui en a extrait plusieurs passages, et qui probablement ignorait le nom de l'auteur.

"3°. On pourrait attribuer ce livre à Tertullien ou à Caïus. S'il n'appartient ni à l'un ni à l'autre, il est probablement d'un écrivain, qui avait adopté les opinions religieuses, la méthode philosophique et les haines particulières de Tertullien."-P. 146.

In the second part of the work the Abbé brings to bear the important facts which he thinks he has discovered in the Philosophumena upon the elucidation of various questions connected with the origin of Christianity in general and the Church of Rome in particular. He discusses the relation existing between the Greek philosophy and the Christian religion during the Primitive ages, as well as between Judaism and Christianity-the method of teaching of the Apostles, the Creeds, the development of Christian doctrine, the state of the Church of Rome at the end of the second century