Зображення сторінки
PDF
ePub
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

temperature. A strong feeling of uneasiness at the sight or thought of 'privation and bodily misery shall be always ridding the world of these ever-recurrent evils. I look for a time, not fabulous and impossible-not rosy and celestial, but earthlike and sunny, when every man-absolutely secure from violence, and moderately at ease, shall sit in home style under, or near to, as he likes best, his vine and fig-tree, none daring, or even wishing, to make him afraid. I do not look for a time on this earth ' when there shall be no surgeons' work-no hospitals, no infirmaries, no 'police; but I do believe in an age of individual and domestic bliss, such 'as is pictured in some sweet odes and stirring paragraphs of my Bible. 'I believe in a time yet to come, when HE who-eternal shame upon 'Manichees, upon Ascetics, upon Fanatics of all sorts-" manifested His 'glory" first, by being a willing guest at a wedding, and then and there 'showing that Creation is His own-when He shall bless the world by 'bringing at once His iron sceptre of righteousness and His law of love 'to bear upon the temporal good of all men. I look for a time when He 'who is "King of Peace" and "King of Righteousness," shall rule the 'nations under both titles; and when, as a consequence of the establish'ment of uncontradicted Truth and of Reason, safe from sophistry, and of Right, bowed to and enforced, there shall be abundance of earthly felicity, to last until this planet has wound up its destined story.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

In the course of those events that have marked the years of this current century-that is to say, those ostensible matters which history takes ' account of-I scarcely discern any indications of the coming on of such 'an era of mundane welfare. One may imagine, to-day, that things are taking a turn in this better direction; but to-morrow (as so many past to-morrows have done) will perhaps scatter every supposition of the sort, ' and break it up as a dream. But though the evolving fortunes of 'nations do not clearly, if at all, foreshow the golden age at hand, yet it is 'true that those who have been watching the unrecorded movements of 'the human mind-in Europe, throughout these fifty years, and who have 'been used to let down a line into the under-current, and have noted its 'shiftings, have come to think that those preparations-intellectual, moral, ' and political-which would be the proper precursors of a new and better era, have not only had a commencement, but have been making progress ' at a rapid rate.'-Pp. 208-311.

Here, too, is a fine passage on the belief in the Resurrection from the dead::

In the first place then, an unhesitating belief of the resurrection of 'Christ-if I allow the meditative faculty to dwell upon it-leads me forth 'from a region of interminable surmises that are comfortless, appalling, or 'worse; and it brings me upon a ground that is firm to the foot, and where those objects that are already familiar to me, stand out distinctly, ' and are sharply defined; and they show themselves, not in the glimmer 'or in the blaze of a vague phosphorescence, but in the every-day sober sunlight of this present world. If I carry myself back, as I may easily do, to that Garden under the walls of Jerusalem wherein was a sepulchre, or ' enter an upper chamber, within the city, or go on to a house a Sabbath

[ocr errors]

'day's journey, south of it; or travel so far as to the shore of the lake of Galilee; if I go thither taking with me no haze of exaggeration, I there 'find HIM who is at once the Representative of the human family, and its Sponsor; and I find Him such after the suffering of death, as He was before it-save his recent scars. The immortality, therefore, which is held before me in the Christian scheme, is no such a thing as a nucleus of 'conscious mist, floating about in a golden fog, amid millions of the same 'purposeless, limbless sparks. It is an immortality of organized material 'energies;-it is the same welded mind-and-matter human nature-fitted 'for service-apt to labour, and capable of all those experiences, and furnished for all those enterprises, and armed for those endurances, which, 'seeing that they are thus provided for, and are, as one may say, thus 'foreshown in the Christian resurrection, put before me a rational solution '-hypothetic indeed, and yet not illusory-of those now immanent trials, ' of those hard experiences, of those frustrated labours, and of those fiery 'sufferings, the passing through which so much perplexes and disheartens 'me now; but which at once find their reason when I see them in their 'intention, as the needed schooling for an immortality in the endless fortunes of which this mind-and-matter structure shall have room to show 'what things it can do and bear, and what enterprises of love it shall 'devise, and shall bring to a happy consummation, it may be, cycles of 'centuries hence.

[ocr errors]

"The Lord is risen indeed!" said those simple souls, one to another, in that dim morning hour-which was the morning of a Day Eternal to human nature; and He so rises as to throw forward upon the path of this human nature, to the remotest range of an endless existence, a steady ' light of reality.

Over against this reasonable and conceivable CHRISTIAN IDEA of the future life, as it is set before me in the instance of the Resurrection ' of Christ, I will put the dreamy Elysium of classical antiquity—I will put 'the sensualisms of the oriental beliefs-I will put the wearisome and vapid inanities of modern poetical or philosophical surmises :—yes, and over against this genuine belief I must put those more consistent sup'positions which, at this present time, are presenting themselves, in a whisper, as probable, if we are to follow the guidance of psychological 'speculation, and if we are looking to such a future existence as the analogy of things around us might suggest. As compared with all such 'anticipations-more or less consonant as they may severally be with 'facts known to us-I find that my Christian Belief is more consistent 'than any one of them, is more realizable-is more cheering, is more animating, and that it is of a tendency (when rightly considered) the most ' healthful, as to the moral and the intellectual faculties.'-Pp. 341–344.

In some respects on the same subject, but with less of a philosophic spirit, and yet with considerable practical shrewdness and plainness of speech and language, Mr. R. W. Morgan publishes his Christianity and Modern Infidelity compared.' (Rivingtons.) Mr. Morgan, we think, had better have avoided the dialogue form, which Mr. Rogers, in his celebrated 'Eclipse of Faith,' has treated with such skill. In Mr Morgan's hands,

the dialogue is not conducted with that deep Socratic irony which refutes an opponent by his own admissions, and which compels his reluctant witness to the truth. 'The Infidel' in Mr. Morgan's book only stands up to put his worst and most assailable arguments. However, Mr. Morgan writes in a clear and popular way; and his arguments are always intelligibly and intelligently put. His own principles are sound; and for general purposes he has furnished a useful manual, which is highly creditable to his argumentative powers. - From the same writer we have received two other publications-we decline to specify them-one relating to his own grievances and alleged wrongs; the other consisting of a very stirring appeal against the sins and errors of the administration of the Church in Wales. Whether the latter protest is not the result of Mr. Morgan's own position we shall not here say; and with respect to his case we must decline to give an opinion on an ex parte statement. This much, however, we can afford to say,-that the state of things which permits either the charge made by Mr. Morgan, or the charge made against Mr. Morgan, to stand as it appears to stand, merely as a charge uninvestigated, and therefore of course unrefuted, is the heaviest possible censure of that system of clerical discipline which Dr. Maitland is so surprised that we are Quixotic enough to think that even a body so ineffective as Convocation might mend; or at least try to mend.

It is not often that we see the sermons of English Churchmen in French. We have, however, had forwarded to us a very good French Sermon on the Conversion of Zacchæus, by the Rev. F. Godfray. It was first printed in 'L'Ami de la Religion, ou, Messager Evangélique des Iles de la Manche,' (Jersey: Gosset; London: Masters,) which we have already taken occasion to commend.

Mr. Claude Magnay has published a volume of Sermons, (Masters,) which he designates as Practical and Suggestive.' All that they suggest to us is the question, why they were printed. As we looked through the volume we had hopes of the writer: the Sermons are certainly not so bad as the Preface.

Mr. Harvey Goodwin's' Four University Sermons,' delivered during the present spring, (Deighton,) make us thankful that such really sound and impressive cautions should be addressed to undergraduates from a Cambridge pulpit. This is the valuable part of the sermons: in their doctrinal aspect we see, or fancy that we see, the amiable object of conciliation somewhat overruling the sterner and more rigid duties of the preacher. It is with something like naïveté that on one occasion Mr. Goodwin expresses great surprise that, with reference to some of his speculations on the Temptation, no trace of it is to be found in such of the Fathers as I have been able to consult.'-P. 146. Mr. Goodwin, however, falls back on the countenance which his views receive from Mr. Farmer, a dissenting minister, and a pupil of Dr. Doddridge. We are surprised, in the fourth Sermon, to find the preacher arguing that the petition in the Litany, 'In all time of our wealth,' referred to temptations from being rich in silver and gold.'

[ocr errors]
[blocks in formation]

A single sermon, of considerable power,

The Year that King Ahaz died,' (Rivingtons,) is by Professor Claughton, and puts very nicely, the social and political, and therefore the religious, lesson to be drawn from the death of the Emperor Nicholas.

A set of 'Practical Sermons,' published by Masters, on the Old Testament Saints, we can speak of with entire approval. The sermons on Scripture characters have, and very undeservedly, been too much lost sight of.

A series of Papers and Sermons on the War,' (Rivingtons,) is in course of publication. A Manual of Prayers for the Wounded'—' Sermon to the Wounded''Sermon to the Dying ''Sermon to those at Home,' are before us, and we can speak highly of them. With all the complaints which are urged, and too often, we believe, for selfish and party purposes, our conviction is that no British, or any other Christian, army ever went upon active service so amply provided with temporal and spiritual appliances as that now serving in the Crimea; and therefore no war has been conducted under auspices so hopeful.

[blocks in formation]

Cathedral Reform [Commissioners' Report, &c.],
332-368. Exclusive interest attached to
parochial Clergy, 332. Estimate of capitular
The Ecclesiastical Commis-
property, 333.
sion, 1835, 334. History of the Cathedrals,
338. Chapters, 339 At the Reformation,
343. Reform, so called, of 1835, 344.
sent needs and prospects, 344-368.
Clergy, Education of the [Report of Cathedral
Commissioners, &c.], 192-214. Diocesan Col-
leges, 192. Work expected of the Univer-
sities, 193. Dr. Heurtley, 193. Dr. Ogilvie,

Pre-

194. University lectures, 196. Parties in
the Church, 198. Separate Classes, 202.
Wells College, 205. Education wanted for
Students in Theology apart from the Univer-
sity, 207-214.

D.

De Quincey [Selections, &c.], 155-191. Auto-
biography, 155. Of infancy, 156. The Au-
thor's style, 157. De Quincey's childhood,
158. His sister, 160. His brother, 163-168.
Boyhood, 169. At school, 171. The world,

172.

London, 174, 175. The author at
fifteen, 177. Lady Carbery, 178. The writer's
character, 180-183. Wordsworth, Southey,
and Coleridge, 174–191.

Dury, Calixtus, and the Pencemakers [Calix-
tus und seine Zeit, &c.], 1-49. Syncretism,
2. State of Germany, 3. Of the Lutherans,
4-6. Calixtus, 7. External aspect of
Lutherans, S; in Sweden, 9; and else-
where, 10, 11. The Feast of the Reformation,
12. The Lutheran fast days, 13. The Re-
formed, 14. Dury, 15-29. Calixtus, 29-45.
Other attempts at pacification, 46-49.

NO. LXXXVIII.-N.S.

F.

[blocks in formation]
« НазадПродовжити »