"That France should have undertaken the task of subduing a republican movement just when she had come out of a similar revolution, or rather many such, and of reseating the Pope on his throne, when she had been more impatient of the restraints of all religion than any other nation in Europe,-is perfectly incredible! Not less improbable is it that, supposing (as may perhaps be true) that there was a basis of fact in the asserted rebellion of the Romans, and Pio Nono's restoration to his dominions, (though not by Francethat the intelligent reader will on politico-logical grounds pronounce impossible,-but more probably by the Spaniards,) yet can we suppose that a power which was always celebrated for its astuteness and subtlety would choose that very moment of humiliation and ignominy to rush into an act so audacious as that of reestablishing the Romish hierarchy in England,―a nation by far the most powerful in the world at that time,-a nation which, if it had pleased, could have blown Rome into the air in three months ?" "

Some of the well-known particulars of the event under consideration are disposed of in the same summary manner, and the critic's objections are quite as strong as the majority of those urged against the credibility of the Bible:

"How ridiculous is the story of Cardinal Wiseman's pretending that the oath in receiving the pallium had been modified for his convenience; little less so, indeed, than his challenge to his Presbyterian antagonist to examine it, and that, too, in the very book in which the contested clause was not cancelled! All this is such a maze of absurdity that it is impossible to believe it. In the first place, do we not know that, throughout the whole history of the Papal power, the inflexible character, not only of its doctrines, but of its official forms and solemnities, was always maintained, and that this pertinacity was continually placing it at a disadvantage in the contest with the more flexible spirit of Protestantism? It would not renounce, in terms or words, the very things which it did renounce in deeds, and never could prevail upon itself to get over this unaccommodating spirit! Yet here we are to believe. that, at the Cardinal's request, a certain part of a most solemn ceremonial—that of receiving the pallium-was remitted by the Pope! If it were so, the Cardinal would certainly have desired to conceal it. If he could not have done that, he would, at least, never have given so easy a triumph to his adversary as to challenge him to inspect the very copy of the pontifical, in which, after all, the oath was not cancelled, in order that he might be satisfied that it was! Who can believe that a cardinal of the Romish Church, Wiseman or Fool, would have been simple enough for such a step as this? It is plain that the historian himself was not unaware that such an objection would immediately suggest itself, and endeavours to guard against it,—a suspicious circumstance in itself,-which may serve to warn us how little we can depend on the historic character of the document.

"Again; what can be more improbable than that, when a great nation was convulsed from one end to the other, as the English are said to have been, there should have been no violence, not even accidentally, attending those huge and excited assemblages; a thing so natural, nay, so certain! Who can believe that only one man was sacrificed, and he on the predominant side? I have discovered, in my laborious researches on this important subject, that only seventy years before, when a cry of the same nature, but much less potent, was raised, London was filled with conflagration and bloodshed. Whoever heard, indeed, of commotion such as this is pretended to have been, and its ending in vox et præterea nihil?

"It is superfluous to point out the absurdity of supposing a cardinal of the Romish Church lecturing the people of England on the claims of religious

liberty;" or so great a nation, in such a paroxysm, spending many months in the concoction of a measure confessed to be a feeble one, and suffered to be broken with impunity!

"But, lastly, my laborious researches have led to the important discovery, that in this very year of pretended hot commotion, England-in peace with all the world, profound peace within, and profound peace without celebrated a sort of jubilee of the nations, in a vast building of glass, (wonderful for those times,) called the Great Exhibition, to which every country had contributed specimens of the comparatively rude manufactures of that rude age! London was filled with foreigners from all parts of the earth; the whole kingdom was in a commotion, indeed, but a commotion of hospitable festivity, in which it shook hands with all the world! This is a piece of positive evidence which ought to settle the whole matter. In short, the external and internal evidence alike warrants us in rejecting this absurd story as utterly incredible.””— Pp. 355, 357.

Thus, with great plausibility, the case is made out; and on the assumption that probabilities will justify conclusions, like those to which Strauss conducts his readers in his Leben Jesu, it is shown that any fact of history may be enveloped in fog-questioned, doubted, disproved; nay, by an ingenious sophist, every event of past ages, and not of the distant past only, may be plausibly argued into myth, or allegory, or sheer fiction. Dr. Whately, in his "Historic Doubts," has done this with reference to the wonderful career of Napoleon Bonaparte; by his countryman, Wolfgang Menzel, Strauss himself has been demonstrated to be an imaginary being; and, still more recently, an ingenious,Englishman has disproved the historical character of Sir Robert Peel, and shown, by "a commanding probability," that the story of the agitation and repeal of the corn-laws can be nothing more than a cunningly-devised fable.

But it is time to take our leave of this instructive and entertaining volume. From our copious extracts, the reader will be enabled to form a tolerably correct estimate of "the Eclipse of Faith,"-of its design and scope, and of the author's skill and critical acumen. We have necessarily omitted even an allusion to many of the minor topics which are touched upon in the course of the volume, including several ingenious digressions, thrown in as episodes, which, while they tend to the furtherance of the author's main design, break the monotony of continuous argumentation, and give increased vivacity to his pages without impairing their strength. We close this article with a brief account of one of the most amusing of these sallies. It is entitled "The Blank Bible," being the relation of a dream, suggested evidently by a remark of Foster, in his Introduction to Doddridge's "Rise and Progress." Our author is indebted, however, only for the hint. The subject-matter of the dream-that in one night, by some miraculous agency, every page of every Bible in the world was obliterated; the consequences thence resulting.

and the effects thereby produced, are entirely his own, and are related with a simplicity and beauty that remind us of the best papers in the Essays of Addison. When, according to the vision, the terrible truth became public, that every syllable of Sacred Writ had been taken away, every copy of the Bible reduced to blank paper, and every quotation from it in every other volume sponged out, a wide field is opened for imagining the effects of this calamity upon the varieties of human character. One stout sceptic (we cannot help admiring his consistency) denied that any miracle had been wrought; and although piles of blank Bibles were brought for his inspection, he would sooner believe that the whole world was leagued against him than "credit any such nonsense." Nay, he insisted that they should show him, not one of these blank books, "which could not impose upon an owl," but one of the very blank Bibles themselves; that is, a Bible containing every syllable of the Old and New Testament, (for how else could he be satisfied that it was a Bible?) and at the same time perfectly blank; else, says he, "I will not believe." The founders of "the absolute religion," with their disciples, were at first disposed to felicitate themselves and the world upon the event. It was a mercy, rather than a judgment; and now, at length, their ardent hopes were to be realized, and mankind delivered from that Bibliolatry which had been for so many ages a yoke of bondage. But, alas! on looking into their own "book-revelations," the pages of Messrs. Newman and Parker, they were found to be shockingly mutilated. Those ingenious gentlemen themselves were not aware for how many of their sentiments, and how much of their very phraseology, they had been indebted to the Sacred Scriptures; and now that everything they had borrowed was reclaimed, their books presented nothing but unintelligible jargon, and were rather more worthless than so much blank

paper.

The Papists rejoiced at the event. They regarded it as an interposition of Heaven in favour of "the true Church," and invited the entire Protestant world to bow to the sovereign Pontiff, who, says the dreamer, "they truly alleged could decide all knotty points quite as well without the word of God as with it." It was urged that the writings of "the Fathers," upon which so much dependence is placed for the maintenance of tradition, were sadly mutilated by the expurgation of all their Scriptural quotations. This, however, was decided by the Jesuits to be of little consequence. It was thought, indeed, that many of the Fathers were rather improved by these omissions; and those who delighted in their perusal found them "quite as intelligible, and not less edifying than they did before."

The attempt, on the part of learned divines of all religious denominations, to reconstruct the Bible from memory, is admirably depicted. There was, on the part of all, an earnest and honest desire to make the Scriptures just what they were before this terrible visitation. But their memories differed, and led them into the strangest wranglings and disputations :—

"A certain Quaker had an impression that the words instituting the Eucharist were preceded by a qualifying expression: And Jesus said to the twelve, Do this in remembrance of me; while he could not exactly recollect whether or not the formula of Baptism' was expressed in the general terms some maintained it was. Several Unitarians had a clear recollection that in several places the authority of MSS, as estimated in Griesbach's Recension, was decidedly against the common reading; while the Trinitarians maintained that Griesbach's Recension in those instances had left that reading undisturbed. An Episcopalian began to have his doubts whether the usage in favour of the interchange of the words 'Bishop' and 'Presbyter' was so uniform as the Presbyterian and Independent maintained, and whether there was not a passage in which Timothy and Titus were expressly called 'Bishops.' The Presbyterian and Independent had similar biases; and one gentleman, who was a strenuous advocate of the system of the latter, enforced one equivocal remembrance, by saying he could, as it were, distinctly see the very spot on the page before his mind's eye. Such tricks will imagination play with the memory, where preconception plays tricks with the imagination! In like manner it was seen that, while the Calvinist was very distinct in his recollection of the ninth chapter of Romans, his memory was very faint as respects the exact wording of some of the verses in the Epistle of James; and though the Arminian had a most vivacious impression of all those passages which spake of the claims of the law, he was in some doubt whether the Apostle Paul's sentiments respecting human depravity, and justification by faith alone, had not been a little exaggerated. In short, it very clearly appeared that tradition was no safe guide; that if, even when she was hardly a month old, she could play such freaks with the memories of honest people, there was but a sorry prospect of the secure transmission of truth for eighteen hundred years. From each man's memory seemed to glide something or other which he was not inclined to retain there, and each seemed to substitute in its stead something that he liked better."-Pp. 241, 242.

It would not be difficult to point out defects and blemishes in this instructive volume. There is, occasionally, a slovenly and ungrammatical sentence. Not unfrequently we meet with an uncouth expression and phraseology unpleasant to the fastidious ear. Were the work constructed on any other plan, we should incline to dissent from some of the positions taken; and more stress than it is fairly entitled to, is now and then laid upon an argument. There is, moreover, a lack of courtesy toward his opponents, of which we think the writer would not have been guilty had he been preparing an argumentative treatise upon the subjects discussed. That he was not doing this, and by no means intended to refute logically all the objections brought against divine revelation, is a sufficient answer to the critical cavils to which we have adverted. To have made his

interlocutors always speak with rhetorical propriety and strict logical accuracy, to have cramped them with the conventional usages of courteous theological disputants,-would have marred the life-like lineaments with which they are drawn. The work, as it is, successfully carries out the design of the author. It is a piquant, witty, and, in our judgment, triumphant exposure of many infidel sophistries, and a common-sense refutation of the more popular, and therefore the more mischievous.

For ourselves, (but this is a mere matter of taste,) we could have spared the occasional and rather occult allusions to Harrington's heart-lacerations in his early adventures with the other sex. Our author might have thrown a little more light upon the death-bed of his hero.

ART. II.-PORT ROYAL.

Select Memoirs of Port Royal; to which are appended, Tour to Alet, Visit to Port Royal, Gift of an Abbess, Biographical Notes, &c. By M. A. SCHIMMELPENNINCK. Hamilton: Adams & Co. London. 1835.

"I DO feel that strength of affection that makes me wish the whole world to know what those persons really were," writes Nicolas Fontaine, of the worthies of Port Royal. A similar feeling now leads us to speak of a book which has become so rare as to be almost unattainable at the present time. It is, moreover, a work well calculated to widen our charity, and extend the boundaries of our Christian sympathy; for it furnishes another proof that true religion may "glimmer through many superstitions," and that the deepest piety is everywhere essentially the same.

The monastery of Port Royal was the nursery of spiritual devotion, as well as of profound and elegant scholarship. In the great cloud of witnesses for the truth in that seat of hallowed learning, we recognise a genuine piety that is identical, whether it be found in the cloister, the chapel, or the cathedral. In all essential points the Port Royalists were really Protestants in the Papal communion. They obeyed the dictates of the Bible when they were at variance with the voice of their priests, and became victims for their faith rather than swerve an iota from what they believed gospel truth to require. The Scriptures were unceasingly studied by them, their reliance for salvation was upon Christ alone, and the ritual of their Church was esteemed of less account than the testimony of a good conscience before God. Their inward devotion, unlike that of other orders in