"The bird let loose in Eastern skies, When hastening fondly home, But high she shoots through air and light Where nothing earthly bounds her flight, "So grant me, God, from every care Aloft through Virtue's purer air To hold my course to thee! My soul, as home she springs, - The allusion is delicate; the prayer is inimitable; if the artist hand be more visible than the burning heart.* Even more winning upon our sensibilities is the "Come, ye disconsolate," though we must doubt if the poet's disconsolateness had anything to do with that "sorrow which needeth no repentance." But the melodies which genius inspires, graceless though it be, will linger around the heart, and in nights of loneliness and sorrow, and in mornings of returning joy, will help the confidence and the thanksgiving of the faint yet pursuing follower of the Lamb. Natural taste and sensibility the most exquisite we readily concede them. In a Christian soul they become the censer of a holy offering. What we deny is, that they are this in their originating source; that they express any piety which is genuine, or can be the vehicle of any true devotion. when associated with impure desires, vicious sympathies, an irreligious life. A chord is struck which gives forth, with surpassing pathos, a subdued, a melting harmony. An indescribable charm breathes through the deep, impassioned music. We turn to its creator and the illusion vanishes. No worship "in spirit and in truth" can ascend from the altars of unregenerate No priesthood of Mammon or Belial or any of the nature. Calvin's seal had engraven on it a hand holding a burning heart, with the motto, "I give thee all! I keep back nothing for myself." gods of flesh and sense can consecrate an offering at the shrine of Him whose name is the Holy One of Israel. It is a question of more than a mere curiosity, it is one of most searching vitality, what relation these views and speculations bear to the person and work of Jesus Christ? The general drift of our paper may have indicated what the answer to this inquiry must be. But it should have a more explicit response. And this shall be given by one of the high priestesses of this Delphic oracle, Margaret Fuller Ossoli. In the second volume of her Life, between the pages 88-92, we have these confessions: "Few believe more in Christ's history than myself; and it is very dear to me. I believe in the prophets, that they foreknew not only what their nation longed for, but what the developments of universal man requires — a Redeemer, an Atoner, a Lamb of God, taking away the sins of the world. I have no objection to the miracles, except where they do not happen to please one's feelings. Why should not a spirit so consecrate and intent develop new laws, and make matter plastic? I can imagine him walking the waves. He could not remain in the tomb, they say: certainly not; death is impossible to such a being. He ascended to heaven; surely, how could it be otherwise? I am grateful, here as everywhere, when spirit bears fruit in fulness; it attests the justice of aspiration, it kindles faith, it rebukes sloth, it enlightens resolve. But so does a beautiful infant. Christ's life is only one modification of the universal harmony. Ages may not produce one worthy to loose the shoes of the Prophet of Nazareth; yet there will surely be another manifestation of that Word who was in the beginning. Its very greatness demands a greater. As an Abraham called for a Moses, and a Moses for a David, so does Christ for another Ideal. We want a life more complete and various than that of Christ. We have had a Messiah to teach and reconcile; let us now have a Man to live out all the symbolical forms of human life, with the calm beauty of a Greek god, with the deep consciousness of a Moses, with the holy love and purity of Jesus. As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive,' if understood in the larger sense of every man his own Saviour, and Jesus only representative of the way we must walk to accomplish our destiny, is indeed a worthy gospel." This hardly needs a comment. Yet if a reader of the page should be strongly arrested by its poetic fervors, should be inclined to think that there must be some pearl imbedded in these transcendental depths, a closing paragraph from the elaborate and suggestive volume on "Nature and the Supernatural," by Dr. Horace Bushnell, shall stand as the antidote to this subtle poison." There is no vestige of Christian life in the working plan of Nature: that is development. Christianity exists only to have a remedial action upon the contents and conditions of nature: this is regeneration. No one fatally departs from Christianity who rests the struggles of holy character on help supernatural from God. No one really is in it, however plausible the semblance of his approach to it, who rests in the terms of morality, or self-culture, or self-magnetizing practice." "For (as this writer has just before laid down the undeniable proposition) if there be any sufficient, infallible, and always applicable distinction that separates a Christian from one who is not, it is the faith practically held of a supernatural grace or religion." ARTICLE VIII. LITERARY NOTICES. The Life of Trust: being a Narrative of the Lord's dealings with George Muller. Written by himself. Edited and condensed by Rev. H. LINCOLN WAYLAND, with an Introduction by FRANCIS WAYLAND. Boston: Gould & Lincoln. THIS book is an autobiography, written in the first person singular, and is of precisely such a character as to secure for itself popularity in the religious world of the present day. It claims to present to mankind a remarkable example of the efficacy of prayer as applied to a benevolent enterprise. While it claims to be a full biography, its main object is to show how Mr. Muller has succeeded in obtaining the means for establishing and maintaining in Bristol, England, an extensive Orphan House, solely by prayer and faith, without asking a single individual for the contribution of a penny to the enterprise. The benefit of dependent orphans was, however, as the author declares, only a secondary object of this undertaking. Its primary object was to set up something before the world and the Church, which should serve as an ocular demonstration that God hears prayer. Mr. Muller says "it needed something which could be seen by the natural eye, to strengthen the faith of God's children and to convince the unconverted of the reality of religion." And he believed that if he, a poor man, were to erect and carry on a very large asylum for orphans, simply by prayer and faith, without asking a single individual for money, this would accomplish the desired object. No man was to be asked. This was the hinge on which the faithproducing virtue of the whole thing, under God, was to depend. And hence this point was strictly adhered to from first to last. True, he proceeded, in all other respects, in the usual way. It was indeed publicly known that his plan was to ask no one for a penny. But this did not matter. Mr. Muller succeeded, through many trials; and the faith-giving element was preserved. And now how important it is that the whole believing and unbelieving world should look upon this latter-day monument of God's fidelity, and have their faith strengthened and their unbelief removed. Or if that cannot be, how important that, in the place thereof, this book should be circulated throughout the Christian world, and stand side by side with the Bible as a text-book of religious appeal. This seems presumptuous indeed, and yet it is the conclusion which the positions of the book have forced upon us. We do not doubt that Mr. Muller is right in thinking that the people of the present day desire something remarkable in religion that can be seen by the natural eye, but whether he is right in conceiving that they need it, and that it is God's purpose to give it, is not quite so clear. He says that he himself desired to see as clearly as daylight that God was leading him onward; and we do not doubt this, for the feeling is a very natural one. But we had supposed that the desire to see had long since been indulged to the appointed limit, and that it is incumbent upon Christians now to walk by faith and not by sight. We could wish that Mr. Muller had informed us more distinctly in regard to one or two points. He is anxious that we should not regard him as having the gift of faith, mentioned in 1 Cor. 12: 9, in connection with the "gift of healing," and the "working of miracles,” but only the grace of faith, such as every Christian may have; and yet he has put his case forth as a special one, expressly for its effect upon the world and the Church, standing parallel with the gifts of healing and of miracles. He thinks it is proved that his faith is an ordinary grace, by the fact that it extends also to other things as well as the matter of the Orphan House. As, for instance, he declares that the Lord has not suffered him, for the last twenty-five years, to doubt that he is a Christian; also, when he loses anything, as a key, for example, he asks the Lord to direct him to it, and expects an answer. These proofs may be conclusive to his mind, but they are not quite so to ours. If his is an ordinary exercise of faith, we are to regard it of course as an example for us; and the inference would be, that Mr. Muller would have all solicitations of money for missionary and benevolent purposes henceforth suspended, and money raised solely by prayer and faith. Besides, if this is an ordinary kind of faith, we would like to be informed how Mr. Muller knew that God would sanction his building an Orphan Asylum to stand, in distinction from everything else, as a monument to the truth that he hears prayer. And how did he know that God would have him refrain from asking any one for money. He does not tell us that he consulted the Lord in regard to either of these points. Indeed, he says "it seemed to him that the object would be best gained by establishing an Orphan House." He declares, as a matter of his own judgment exclusively, that it needed to be something which could be seen by the natural eye, and that in establishing and carrying on an Orphan House the end would be best secured. But he asserts that this was not the gift of faith, and we do not suppose it was. Yet, if it was not, what was it? It will be asked, How can it be accounted for that he received such an immense amount of funds without asking for a penny? We answer that we are not obliged, if we had space, to show by what natural principles a remarkable phenomenon can be solved in order to prove that it is not of God. If it is unsupported by the Word of God, that is enough. We frankly confess ourselves unable to reduce Mr. Muller's enterprise to Bible principles. We think it is easy to see also many natural principles which might combine to produce the result. The undertaking was a novel one. It claimed to be an instance of remarkable reliance on God, and to have momentous interests at stake. The fact being known that Mr. Muller would not, in any case, ask for a penny for the accomplishment of his object, and yet that he had perfect confidence in its fulfilment, was just calculated to attract the offerings of the pious and benevolent. There are many remarkable characters in the world whose action is not reducible to common laws, who have also no particular connection with supernatural or spiritual influences. We believe God answers prayer by giving success to the natural means to secure the object prayed |