on account of any arrangement he has made, not on account of any expedient he has set up, not on account of any settlement or plan that he has fixed, but on account of what he is, he looks upon a sinful man and says: 'I so love you that I accept you just as if you were not sinful.'"

The Independent confesses to be "somewhat surprised" at these sentiments of Mr. B.; admits that he "caricatures" the common theory of a plan of salvation, and "hardly mentions that which the Scriptures make the very essence of the atoning sacrifice the death of Christ upon the Cross as a propitiation."

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And it admits, too, that it is led to make this rebuke only after "the views of Mr. Beecher in the sermon here cited are condemned by several religious journals as a dangerous heresy, and the Independent is censured for giving them publicity." It excuses it all, however, as a rhetorical excursus" against strait theologians of the Princeton Repertory and Boston Review stamp. For ourselves we confess frankly to believing that God has a plan of salvation, and that we are, therefore, justly exposed to such a "rhetorical excursus," as "hardly mentions the very essence of the atoning sacrifice," when unfolding the doctrine of Justification by Faith. As yet we are so far Protestants evangelical as to hold with Luther to this "articulum stantis vel cadentis ecclesiæ."

The Chicago Herald is "alternately filled with admiration and consternation," as it confesses. It " grieves to see such loose theology circulated in the columns of the Independent." And then to show how the friends of the Independent in the West feel about the publication of such teachings, it quotes from a private letter to the editors of the Herald. The writer, it says, is a "progressive minister," and has been a stanch friend of the Independent. The letter says: "Is H. W. Beecher as much of a Unitarian as his last published sermon would indicate? What are we to do? Are the editors of the Independent themselves on the high road to Unitarianism? . . . Beecher may ridicule orthodoxy once a month the year round, and pitch into the doctrines we preach, and on which we rest our salvation, and not an editorial pen has one word of reply or rebuke. I am exceedingly distressed in view of that man's sermons. taken the Independent a long time, have recommended it, and aided to some extent its circulation. May God forgive me! All the religion that it now brings to its readers is in the sermon, and that is such a religion as our denomination did not formerly relish."

I have

The Congregationalist echoes by quotation the gentle and apologetic caveats of the Independent, but has no original warning, or protest, or surprise.

Nor must we omit the manly declaration of the Congregational Journal, so like itself. "If we rightly understand him, the doctrine of Justification by Faith, as revealed in the Scriptures, and received by the Protestant world, as embodying all the cardinal doctrines of Christianity, he totally subverts, and treats with most offensive levity."

The conviction grows with us that our contributor did not speak too early or too plainly of "The Theology of Plymouth Pulpit."

MRS. ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING has gone from earth to join the immortals. Her frail body failed longer to imprison that soaring, mighty soul, and she died in Florence June 29th. In common with the religious literary world we lift up our wail of sorrow at her early departure. Yet our sorrow is tempered by the reflection that she is henceforth to be associated for higher and, it may be, more important and useful employment of her poetic genius, with the band of the world's greatest poets, at the head of whom are Isaiah and David, as they sing before the throne the growing praises and triumph of the "Lamb that was slain."

But though she has gone, her bold and great creations remain; and we cling to them and wander over the new-found worlds of original beauty and literary and religious fruits with only increased interest. In "Aurora Leigh" we read perhaps the strangest and sublimest poetic prose novel that was ever written. In "The Seraphim" we shall never weary of trying to catch an awe-stricken angel's view of the crucifixion scene. In "The Drama of Exile" we tread the path of Milton's "Paradise Lost" as it were a new and better road under the guidance of the truest womanly grace and tenderness as well as the loftiest and most courageous genius.

In both the poems and letters of this gifted Christian woman we find the greatest strength, the highest imagination, and the most versatile knowledge that are ever given to mortals.

We trust she now realizes the anticipation which she addressed to the angels at the close of "The Seraphim."

"I, too, may haply smile another day

At the far recollection of this lay,

When God may call me in your midst to dwell,
To hear your most sweet music's miracle
And see your wondrous faces. May it be!
For His remembered sake, the Slain on rood,
Who rolled his earthly garment red in blood
(Treading the wine-press) that the weak, like me,
Before his heavenly throne should walk in white."

BOSTON REVIEW.

VOL. I.-NOVEMBER, 1861.-No. 6.

ARTICLE I.

DISTINCTIONS WITH A DIFFERENCE.

We have a new Gospel. Its title is the Tares and the Wheat. Its burden of glad tidings "let both grow together until the time of harvest." That is; it is no use to try to separate the precious from the vile in this mixed state of things. This must be adjourned to the end of the dispensation. Christ will attend to that matter in due time. Does not the wise man say "that which is crooked cannot be made straight?"

We e accept the parable, but deny its interpretation. Christ did not intend thus to contradict the after inspiration of the one and self-same Spirit that his word is a sword which is sharp to divide between the joints and marrow, and so to be a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Our discoverers of this new Gospel in an old one must be cautious how they preach a kind of husbandry which will be sure to leave in the Lord's garden not a mixture of tares and wheat, but only a rank crop of thorns and thistles. Your field which is never weeded will soon produce nothing but weeds.

We are noting a tendency of not a few of our own pulpits and churches, with respect both to doctrine and discipline. Those of the Liberal types have long ago avowedly adopted the let-alone policy. They think it work enough to drag the net, without troubling themselves to sort over the fishes. They

rather think no one will ever set about that unpleasant task, notwithstanding certain quite unequivocal intimations to this effect in a book which has a Bible somewhere inside of it, if one could ever decide precisely where. We wish that these amiable gentlemen might retain a monopoly of this soft religionism. But it is progressive, if not aggressive. Our reference to the "tares and wheat" looks to a real case, not a hypothetical one; in an evangelical, not a latitudinarian pulpit; not thirty years ago, but in this present year of grace. Here is another as authentic an illustration.

The co-pastor of a venerable, Puritan church, is invited to a country-town to deliver a sermon, as part of a series of orthodox discourses in progress there, for the especial benefit of a large irreligious and prevailingly sceptical community. The preacher for the evening is a young man of popular abilities, and enjoys a strong professorial patronage where influence is a heavy weight in the scale. His audience is made up of almost every class of hearers, from the staid old deacons and one or two evangelical pastors, to the rankest infidels of the bar-room school. The occasion is responsible, and admirable for a defender of the faith to show that he is a workman who needeth not to be ashamed. The preacher will discourse of the natural character of man a grave and vital theme. He does it; and in such a manner that seriously minded Christians are puzzled and pained beyond measure at the doctrine set forth; while the Universalist minister of the place is so thoroughly pleased with the views of human nature exhibited, that he forthwith indites a report of the sermon for the local paper, and prints it with a hearty God-speed to the author of so bland a theological disclaimer, and a general congratulation of himself, and the world at large, that Calvinism is exchanging its sharp-pointed horns for the unarmed front of such a lowing heifer as this. Of course, a man is not to be blamed if, for some misapprehended sentiment, a heretic shall thrust out upon him an obtrusive and uncalled-for "right hand of fellowship." Many a sound divine has been subjected to this annoying impertinence. But when, as in this instance, the drift of a whole discourse disaffects intelligent Christians, while it carries aid and comfort to the enemy, and even becomes a topic of surprised comment in adjoining

parishes among those who have no ends to gain but the purity of Christian teaching and living, one cannot help feeling that it is about time to commence pulling up the tares even at the risk of loosening a little of the wheat.

Cases must

As this communication

We dislike personal references, and have used but a small part of the facts at our command in this direction. be decided on their individual merits. has had an unchallenged, nine-months' newspaper circulation, perhaps it will be best to answer at once all questions by giving it at length as it stands in the columns of the Milford Journal of February 9th:

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“MR. EDITOR. Rev. Mr. Manning, of Boston, in his discourse at the Orthodox Church last Wednesday evening, chose for his subject, Total Depravity.' His definition of that phrase was so liberal, scriptural, and philosophical, that I cannot help expressing my very agreeable surprise at his position. Certainly the world moves in its opinions; and theology, like everything else, is progressive. The reverend gentleman, whether conscious of it or not, gave just such a definition of the depravity of man as you find in 'Burnap's Rectitude of Human Nature,' and every work of liberal theology with which I am acquainted, taking precisely the same view as liberal Christians have from the beginning of their existence.

He commenced by saying that the Scriptures define the wickedness of man in sufficiently strong terms, without resorting to the definitions of creed-makers. They assert that the heart of man is desperately wicked;' that in time of the flood 'all the imaginations of his heart were sinful;' that at the time of David, and as quoted by St. Paul and applied to the Pagan Rome, 'all had gone out of the way, and that there were none good.' No advocate for the dignity and native goodness of man disputes these passages, or attempts to prove that man is not a depraved being; that he has not gone out of the way, and presents innumerable examples of desperate wickedness. We agree with the preacher, that the term 'total depravity' is 'unfortunate' and untruthful, an overstraining of the meaning of the Scriptures, and had better have been left out of the creeds of Christians.

Mr. Manning defined total depravity to be "a misuse of man's faculties." Man was created good and upright; all the endowments which God gave him were good and upright. In his native capacity he was God's noblest work no depravity attached to his original nature. But character, which is the work of the individual, is where