1842.]

Turnbull's Claims of Jesus.

231

merely of want of guidance into its paths. It is the blind search, "if haply they might feel after and find it," of the laboring reason of man" seeking rest and finding none" in the externals of Christianity and human teaching. It must therefore be met, not by denying the want, but by supplying it, and leading it, by the instrumentality of that very faith which reason awakens, to an external and authoritative teacher of Christ, as a necessary element of the truth, on the altar of which, transcendentalism may offer up its reasonable sacrifice. Without this polar point to rule its gyrations, mere reason in spiritual things hath ever run mad, but never hath it desolated fairer minds, we think, than some of those which are now flashing forth in wild and meteor light among the transcendental teachers of Boston. As over the ruins of finely tuned and deeply spiritual natures, is the Christian, of whatever name, there called on to mourn; but it is the Christian, we deem, of one only name, that can hold out to them the remedy the Churchman-he, we mean, who by the power of reason can encircle them within their own self-woven net, and give to their laboring reason a safe and sure landing-place, even within the ocean-bounds of what they term a transcendental philosophy.

Of this truth, too, our author seems to have some glimpses, though as a Congregationalist necessarily withheld from making it the basis. of his argument. "Now what is all this," are his words after giving this picture of high-wrought Christianity, "but the effect without the cause, the end without the beginning, the result without the means? What is it but the flower without the bud, the autumn without the spring, the melody of heaven without the harps of the redeemed?" And again, more plainly: "This is the word which by the Gospel is preached unto you; that is to say, the faith of the primitive saints, the doctrines, the precepts and ordinances of the virgin Church. These, we say, are perfect and unchangeable like Jesus himself — the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever." pp. 89-91. The italics in this extract are our own, and intended to emphasize our argument, that the doctrine of a church visible and apostolic is the only bulwark against this flood, since we find its authority thus brought in by one even who professedly rejects all its authoritative teaching. Dissent, therefore, we maintain, has no foothold in its argument against transcendentalism, even where that becomes infidel. Whatever its errors, they are but the rightful fruits of the same rationalistic scheme on which itself stands- the unlimited right of private judgment— and no antagonist, we assert, can ever rise up against it out of that motley army without self-condemnation. His first blow is suicidal, it undermines his own footing, "the self-choosing mind." He alone who stands on the teaching of the Christian Church can with reason proceed to call in question any, even the wildest vagaries of human reason, in its interpretation of scripture truth.

8. My Progress in Error and Recovery to Truth; or, a Tour through Universalism, Unitarianism, and Scepticism. Boston: 1842. Gould and Co. 12mo. pp. 240.

To whom the personal pronoun in this title belongs we have no light given in the work to guide us in conjecturing, save that he acknowledges himself a layman and a lecturer, nor in truth is much curiosity about it awakened. The author is but one of a large class who are daily in our country reaping the fruits of ill seed sown, tares instead of wheat. Such grain as they find cannot be "gathered into the garner" when age or sickness, sorrow or remorse, comes upon them, and who therefore run to shelter, as the spiritual storm approaches, wheresoever they may chance to find themselves, or hear a true word spoken that comes home with comfort to their hearts. Of this class, we say, is the unknown author of these confessions, a work which may afford to the thoughtful reader a deeper lesson than even its author seems to contemplate; and that is, to see the fault of character, or of early education, that led him into error, and moreover, that still withholds him (according to his own confession) from its thorough cure.

That the work may do some good we doubt not, for many a freethinker will find his own picture in it, and be startled into reflection; but we cannot exalt the volume into being the safe guide of such out of it; it is no "ductor dubitantium;" our author tells them, indeed, that they are among rocks and quicksands, but then he places at the helm no competent pilot to steer them into port; it is, at best, like St. Paul's reaching "Melita" - life saved, but in shipwrecked plight, wet, cold, and hungry, and comfortless-a true pilot, with a true chart would, we must think, have brought such wanderer more safely into port than the author of these confessions seems to have reached it. But to break from metaphor. This work is rather a well-meaning than a competent guide to those who from its title may seek it as such. The downward path of error is indeed fairly marked out in it, and its results occasionally depicted with a good deal of truth and power, but how“ revocare gradum" - how to withdraw the forward foot, still more how superasque evadere ad auras" — to breathe the upper air of a true catholic Christianity - this to teach, we say, is a strain above our author's powers. The conclusion of his "Tour" demonstrates this, for it consists in the vague adoption of what he terms evangelical " sentiments"— in joining a, not the Church and lastly, in admitting himself to be a sectarian with this saving clause to his faith, with which he closes the volume, and which may appear, to some of our readers, to savor of the results of his recorded travels.

66

"Nor do I admit. . . that the views I now entertain I mean, of evangelical people—are in all respects so far

1842.]

Progress in Error and Recovery to Truth.

233

to be susceptible of no alteration or improvement. I believe great discoveries (!!) remain to be made of Bible truth, and I trust in God I shall ever hold myself open to conviction of the truth, from whatever quarter it may come, and whether or not it may accord with my former or present sentiments.”

After reading this avowal, well may we be inclined to doubt how far it is safe to consider our author even yet as upon "terra firma" in his faith, such confession sounding, to our ears, much more like the restlessness of one who has no foothold. But to the root of the error. This is soon told- THE SELF-EDUCATED RELIGIONIST. Faith to be worked out and moulded by the individual mind, instead of being nurtured and catechised into it by a church teaching it authoritatively; behold, we say, the sum and substance of the error, its fountain-head; and that not only of the "Universalism," "Unitarianism," and Scepticism," through whose cheerless regions our author's "Tour" was taken, but also of that vague, uncertain, "improvable" Christianity in which he for the present finds a resting place. All comes from this root. Now from this many-headed monster, there is no cure by decapitation of its mortal heads; as, with its prototype the Lernæan hydra, new ones spring out to replace the lost, two in the place of one. It is the Church's grasp that alone can extinguish its life, and that is, neglecting its mortal by strangling its one immortal headgance of the self-teacher and chooser." How strongly this error stands developed in our author, whether by temperament or false education, we will take but a single example as a specimen of this spiritual arrogance. "Accordingly, one morning," says he, "I shut myself up in my room, DETERMINED not to go out of it again till the great point was settled, and I had declared either for God or against him."-p. 197. The specific result of the sinner thus cornering God's grace is not given, and what we more regret, no recognition of its impious folly. But we trust humbler thoughts are now at least no strangers to his bosom, for his personal course has surely been one to teach them, and among the practical lessons he in conclusion most earnestly enforces are the correlative duties of parental rule and filial obedience.

"the arro

Of literary merit the work has not much to boast; easy, but gossiping, (for it is evidently a true narrative,) it is the language of one more accustomed to talk than think. As a sound philosophical, or safe theological exposition, therefore, of the problem taken up, the workings of spiritual error, we esteem it but lightly, and shall be glad hereafter to welcome a deeper and truer solution of it, from some one of that numerous class of religionists in our country who, having gone the rounds of infidelity and sounded out its shallows, have at length, under God's grace, worked out an humble-minded faith from out of the bitter fruits which the arrogant self-teaching process had poured into their bosoms. We would, therefore, that some safe, though shipwrecked master mariner on this infidel coast, would thus, with ancient piety, consecrate in the temple, in memory

of his deliverance, such" votive tablet." It were a boon not only to the many thousands among us thus actually perilled amid rocks and quicksands, but in truth to the whole of a democratic people, who are too apt to transfer to God and his teaching the little regard they pay to man and human institutions, and above all were such a most needful gift to the parents and children of our land, as demonstrating wherein lies the root of the error, and showing how, from contemptuous disregard of parental instruction, proceeds forth that toward all other teaching, whether the school, the college, the minister, the Church, or the word and sacraments of God.

9. Lectures on Modern History, from the Irruption of the Northern Nations to the Close of the American Revolution. By WILLIAM SMYTH. With a Preface, etc., by JARED SPARKS, LL.D. First American, from the second London edition. Cambridge: 1841. J. Owen. 2 vols. 8vo.

THIS is a valuable work, and one which has long been needed to guide the student of modern history in his researches, and to smooth those difficulties in the pursuit of that branch of human knowledge which have arisen out of the multiplicity of historical books. Professor Smyth has done much to lessen the labor of all who feel an interest in past events, and who seek to discover the origin, and trace the gradual development and improvement of those forms of social polity which now exist in the civilized world. He has, in the syllabus he offers, pointed out those works, and portions of works, the study of which is best adapted to furnish a general knowledge of modern history; and (what is quite as necessary) by a correct and methodical arrangement of the works selected, he has shown how this knowledge may be obtained at the least possible expense of time.

"Art is long, and life short," and it was doubtless a regard to this principle that led Professor Smyth to bring the number of works recommended to the general reader within its narrowest limits, confining the list to those which are absolutely necessary to give a correct idea of the progress of human society from the fall of the Roman empire to the revolution which separated England from her western colonies. For the benefit, however, of individuals who, having greater curiosity, or more time to gratify it than others less favored, wish to obtain a minuter acquaintance with past events, and their consequences, he has in his notes shown in what manner the historical bill of fare may be so enlarged as to suit the craving of any appetite.

The limits to which we are restricted prevent us from examining

1842.]

Wilde's Tasso.

235

as minutely as they deserve, either the plan adopted by Mr. Smyth in his lectures, or the manner in which he has executed it. Were it in our power we would gladly make, from that part of his work which relates to American history, such extracts as could not fail to impress the reader with the highest respect for the freedom from prejudice, power of analysis, and philosophic spirit which Mr. Smyth has brought to the investigation of the causes and effects of the war of the revolution.

At the beginning of the present edition will be found a well written preface by Mr. Sparks, in which, however, we find an error that we cannot pass unnoticed. "The soldiers," [of the revolution,] says Mr. Sparks, "who had fought the battles, and secured the freedom of the country, were dismissed and sent home without even a promise that they should be paid." Not so; when the soldiers had arms in their hands the promise of payment was made; when the army, as a body, had ceased to exist, that promise was violated without shame or compunction.

The manner in which this work has been got up is highly creditable to the publisher, Mr. Owen. It has all the requisites for a valuable book which it is his part to give; good paper, neat and distinct type, and correct printing, needing no list of errata.

10. Conjectures and Researches concerning the Love, Madness and Imprisonment of Torquato Tasso. By RICHARD HENRY WILDE. New York: 1842. A. V. Blake. 2 vols. 12mo.

HAD we not in our last number in some manner anticipated the discussion which the appearance of Mr. Wilde's long and anxiouslyexpected work on the "Love, Madness and Imprisonment of Tasso," would naturally call forth, we should have made it the subject of an elaborate article in the present, but having done so, it cannot now receive from us that attention to which it is so justly entitled, as we must restrict our remarks upon it to the narrow limits of a critical notice.

To have expended so much time and labor upon a matter apparently so unimportant as the caprices and extravagances of a lovesick poet, may seem to some, perhaps, a misuse of talents which might delight the listening multitude; but for our part we rejoice to know that we have one man among our great men who can prefer the quiet studies of the library even to the plaudits of the senatehouse, and that the charms of elegant literature do now and then allure a solitary devotee from the political shrine at which alone American ambition is wont to worship. Nor do we acknowledge that the questions which Mr. Wilde has so ably and so faithfully investigated,