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The Reformers knew well that no doctrine of Christianity stands alone, or can be understood fully, save as it is seen in connection with all other doctrines; and that they all rest on a knowledge of the mystery of the Trinity. Baptism, which is the door of entrance into the Church, and regeneration, which is the special grace of that sacrament, above all other doctrines, require to be based on a knowledge of the Trinity; because we are baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, and the presence of the Three Persons of the adorable Godhead is thus invoked. To be baptized in the name of the Trinity implies a recognition on our part of the attributes of each name; that we acknowledge the will of the Father as the source of all grace, and the merits and acts of the Son apprehended by faith, and inwrought by the Holy Ghost, who worketh in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure, as all implied in our baptism.

Regeneration, or the new creation, is, like the old creation, to be referred to the Father as its origin, though Christ is the agent in both, and the Holy Spirit is the power or energy by whose operation it is brought to pass: for the Father giveth to the Son, and regeneration is a paternal act; and we are thereby made, not sons of Christ, but brethren of Christsons of God-joint heirs with Christ. Christ is the vine-we are the branches: the Father is the husbandman who grafts in the branches and purges them and cuts them out if they bear no fruit; and the husbandman does not graft dead branches into a living tree: the branches must have life in them to unite with the tree and receive its better life. God who is rich in mercy, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, by whose grace ye are saved (Eph. ii. 5).

We think that if men calmly considered wherefore Christian baptism is administered in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, and not in the name of Christ alone, they would find themselves brought to the very doctrine of the English Reformers, which we believe to be the doctrine that Mr. Gorham desires to hold and is content to be tried by. We chuse to put it in this way, because we are not sure that we have Mr. Gorham's doctrine fairly before us in his examination by the bishop; and we have certainly no intention to identify ourselves with any other doctrines whatsoever, save the doctrines of the Reformers.

And we cannot, in conclusion, find it in our hearts to be very angry either with the Bishop of Exeter or with Dr. Wiseman: for we think they have both, unwittingly, done

excellent service to the good cause the former by exposing, the weakness and insufficiency of the grounds on which he and his party resist the final judgment of the Judicial Com-, mittee: the latter by showing that the question was brought, before the right tribunal and had been brought before it in a right and orderly manner, and that the judgment pronounced by that tribunal is final.

ART. II-Essays. By R. W. EMERSON. London: Smith.

VIOLENT peculiarities of style are a questionable means of attracting readers; nor do we now recollect the name of any great writer of antiquity who is indebted to this kind of artifice for the hold he has retained on the world's mind. Nothing, as it appears to us, can be more elaborate and ornate than the style of Cicero; yet it exhibits (we are strictly speaking of our own observation only)—none of those irregular constructions which divert the mind too much from the solid thoughts of the writer to speculations upon the accidents of their dress. We have made the same remarks upon the very different styles of Demosthenes and Xenophon. The striking points in the style of Thucydides are not the trickery of composition, but a careless disregard of common and necessary rules. Tacitus is more open to remark, though the felt faults of the manner must be ascribed to the mind's cast, and the too closely compressed form of the matter. Amongst the modern offenders against these safe standards of an universal machinery, which, like architecture, is reducible to a few principles originally lying in the human mind and belonging to our race, and which, therefore, cannot be essentially changed, we especially rank Mr. Carlyle. We have ourselves often undertaken to read his "French Revolution," and have never failed of being mastered by its style. Anxious to do justice to a popular work, we hoped that, just as a taste for eating olives or smoking tobacco, and such like abominations, may be sometimes acquired by perseverance, so we might grow into a liking of Mr. Carlyle's mode of telling his grand and thrilling story. Yet page after page did but deepen our dislike and weariness, and confirm our secret conviction that the mind which could deliberately choose such a strange, ill-made, jolting, uneasy, vehicle, must be defective somewhere in the

elements of strength and greatness. We are most reluctantly reminded of the charlatan's secret of success-the queer hat or wig, or the lank hair; and subsequent examination has led us to conclude that Mr. Carlyle's popularity is more due to such evanescent power than the real philosopher would care to acknowledge. For nothing endures but that which is founded on nature and truth; whilst that is almost sure to gain the day's or a life's applause which is founded upon neither. It is certain that there is a truth of style as well as a truth of things; and the truth of style we believe to be this-that, when polished to the most perfect form that art can bestow upon it, it shall become a powerful and beautiful instrument for enabling the profoundest thinker to introduce casily and pleasingly into the mind of his inferior reader thoughts which shall be the fair and faithful images of his own. One proof of this is, that a style not founded upon natural and truthful principles shall make unintelligible the plainest things. This alone would prove that style has its philosophy; but the Frenchman tells us that "le style est l'homme," and we have never forgotten the only portrait of Mr. Carlyle that we recollect to have seen, in which he is depicted in the attitude of profound thought stopping before a mile-stone which tells of the number of miles to London. We must attribute this characteristic and curious stroke of genius to the subject of the picture, and not to the artist.

And we think that no small share of the popularity of the writer whose work lies before us is due to the fashionable dress of his thoughts. Indeed, this is a true estimate, if we may judge by our own experience, of the zest which his "Essays" occasionally gave to some afternoon hours, before we found it necessary to criticise their claims to reform the opinions of the age. We own that we had willingly succumbed to the striking arrangement of his words, and gave our understanding less credit than it deserved for not promptly apprehending many of the mysteries which they concealed and not revealed. We have been often reminded, upon a more recent and careful examination, of one of the many compliments paid him by an open-mouthed laudator of his own country-that, amongst other intellectual feats in which Mr. Emerson loves to indulge, he "inverts the rainbow, and turns it into a swing." Grotesque as this image is, yet is it really not an unhappy illustration of his powers of gaining an audience with the multitude-just as thousands, who have scarcely an eye for nature's rainbow, would stop and gaze with delight upon Mr. Emerson's rainbow. But that taste is

not to be commended and fostered which loves better to see nature in her occasional distortions than when, majestically fulfilling the purpose of her Maker, she exhibits the perfection of beauty and usefulness.

We have no intention of denying to Mr. Emerson the claims of genius sui generis: indeed, the great influence which we understand his writings and lectures have earned for him in his own country, and in a less degree amongst ourselves, sets him far above a pettish or indiscriminating condemnation. Our wish is to do him justice, whilst we examine the grounds of his claims to be one of the leaders of the age in the crusade against the old faiths. We have examined, carefully and at different periods, that series of his essays, consisting of twelve, which begins with the essay on "History," and ending with that on "Art." Out of these we shall select one for a rather copious analysis. We have no means at hand for ascertaining the chronological order of these publications; but we imagine that the volume in question is an earlier one as it is certainly one of the most elaborate; and exhibits, we believe, most of his peculiarities, though, perhaps, not all his opinions.

There is other praise to be assigned to genius besides the power of what is called creation :· :

"In philosophy (says Coleridge in his Aids to Reflection'), equally as in poetry, it is the highest and most useful prerogative of genius to produce the strongest impressions of novelty, while it rescues admitted truths from the neglect caused by the very circumstance of their universal admission. Truths of all other the most awful and interesting are too often considered as so true that they lose all the power of truths, and lie bed-ridden in the dormitory of the soul, side by side with the most despised and exploded errors."

According to his degree and claims, we are willing to apply this sentiment to Mr. Emerson: he brings before the reader what at first sight seems to be new truths, arresting the attention by their striking form, pleasing the mind, and gratifying the taste; but, when he is about to strip off the ornament preparatory to stowing them away in the compartments of memory with their class, he discovers that he knew them all before, and that they have long lain there as so many buried treasures. Still this does not detract from the proper claims of such a writer to come under Coleridge's classification of genius; but when suspicions of erroneous opinions in such a writer have been awakened, his gifts should put us all the more upon our guard, recollecting how much it is in his

power to insinuate poison under the appearance of luxurious food. The spectator's eyes are attracted and dazzled by a reál object of nature-it is the rainbow; but Mr. Emerson has turned it into a dizzy swing.

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Now, in a writer who has chosen to discuss the gravest topics of human thought, this mode of handling them cannot be commended, unless it be accompanied by some redeeming qualities to which, in the writer's own way, his luxuriant imagination shall become subservient. When we look at the titles of some of these essays-" Self-Reliance," "Spiritual Laws," "The Over-Soul," " Intellect," &c.-we feel that the reader should be able to trust himself with the writer as in earnest and free from all bye-ends. We should, however, feel more sure that Mr. Emerson was simply in earnest in dealing with his solemn themes, if our attention was less disturbed by the palpable trick of ornament; and we cannot acquit him of bye-ends, inasmuch as insinuations are introduced whose tendency is to disturb the popular faith where the reader is quite unprepared to meet them. Mr. Emerson is to be judged, then, by his pretensions to become a teacher to the multitude of the highest religious, moral, and political truths; and if either the paradoxical mode he has chosen for conveying his thoughts has betrayed him into misstatements or exaggerations, or if he has put forth erroneous opinions which are found to derive their influence chiefly from his method of producing them, then shall we reject his claims to be the prophet of the age whose mission is to unsettle the faith and disturb the peace of thousands.

The opening paragraph in the " Essay on History" will introduce the student of our best English writers into a new atmosphere of style and thought :—

"There is one mind common to every individual mind. Every man is an inlet to the same, and to all of the same. He that is once admitted to the right of reason is made a freeman of the whole estate. What Plato has thought, he may think: what a saint has felt, he may feel what at any time has befallen any man, he can understand. Who hath access to this universal mind is a party to all that is or can be done, for this is the only and sovereign agent."

Now, if there is any genius in this strained manner, it must be determined upon Coleridge's principle, that a commonplace thought has been dressed up in an out-of-the-way manner. For, translated into common parlance, it amounts simply to this that as every individual mind consists of the same fundamental powers of thinking and feeling, therefore no man can have thoughts and feelings different in kind from

YOL. XXVIII.-D

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