lieved by the fact that the prolongation of these debates takes away the bitterness and narrowness which they have frequently at the outset, and that man nowhere shows himself to be more faithful to the noblest tendencies of his being, than when he devotes heart and life to the disinterested pursuit of the invisible. In so living, he gives evidence of his immortal destiny. He is made for quite another end than to creep in the soil of vulgar interests. When we study man in his history, instead of studying him in the abstractions of the old psychology, we bring back from his agitations on the earth's surface something quite different from discouragement. The so frequent failure of reason's efforts to reach the truth, frightening the common mind, only reassures the thinker, since this very failure makes the constant and obstinate repetition of the efforts more instructive and more amazing. For ourselves, having faith in the human mind, we have very decided preference for many of the doctrines, at once old and new, which we have set forth in this essay, and we think that every step taken by man in the search after God brings him nearer to the goal, even when the course must be straight on to that. But granting to scepticism all that it would have, one thing they cannot deny, the natural and unwearied tendency of man toward an ideal which he has never seen, yet which exists, because it always draws him on. We would not speak slightingly of the progress and discoveries in the immediate practical sciences. Man is transforming the earth, is subduing more and more the nature around him, is making this his humble servant, is bending it to the pleasure of his needs and desires in a manner truly marvellous. Certainly this is all very fine; but all this revolves with the planet, and never leaves the orbit which it has always from the beginning of its being described. Far finer, far richer in prophecy of the future, is the tangential movement by which the human soul at each instant would fly off to plunge into the Infinite.

In this conflict of religious ideas, moreover, we especially delight in the confidence with which science is appealed to, whether to defend or to purge religion, in any case to strengthen it. That is also a tradition in this land of freemen. Theology here is not the spiteful old woman who can only rail

against youth and against the sciences, her sisters, whom she once assisted to nurture after the fall of the ancient world had left them orphan and very poor in condition. When the illustrious Taciturnus requited the city of Leyden for the heroism which it had displayed against the Spaniards, by founding the famous and still flourishing University, Theology, under the guise of a beautiful maiden, with the four Evangelists beside her, led the symbolic band where all the sciences of the age were represented with their respective attributes. Since then they have never ceased to live harmoniously, lending each other mutual aid. Dutch theology has found in free inquiry its perpetual rejuvenescence, and Holland to-day goes hand in hand with Germany in the renovation of religious science, this great work to which our age is called.

ART. VII.- REVIEW OF CURRENT LITERATURE.

6.76. All

THEOLOGY.

IF any substantial proof were asked of the freedom of thought and opinion which French Protestant theology now encourages, it would be found in the remarkable volume of Essays which M. Réville has recently collected and published. Most of them have before appeared, either in the Strasburg Review, in the Lien of Paris, or in the Revue des Deux Mondes. But the Preface, of more than seventy pages, is new, and it contains substantially Réville's confession of faith, both in dogma and in criticism. This strong and learned writer, who speaks the sentiments of a numerous party, and continues to hold as a preacher a very influential position, does not hesitate to express his want of sympathy with the whole system of the ancient creeds. He says boldly, that, while religious science is becoming less orthodox, it is becoming more religious; that modern discoveries are utterly hostile to the ideas of Trinity, Original Sin, and Verbal Inspiration; that Reason has in theology, as in all other science, a supreme claim; and that Protestantism cannot consistently fasten itself to any scheme of faith. He sums up his argument in this fine and significant paragraph: "The substance of all this is, that the man of to-day, who unites religious wants with scientific progress, must love, in Humanity, Religion, which

Essais de Critique Religieuse. Par ALBERT Réville, Docteur en Théologie, Pasteur de l'Eglise Wallonne de Rotterdam. Paris Joël Cherbuliez. 1860. 8vo. pp. 491.

is its highest life; in Religion, Christianity, which is its highest revelation; in Christianity, the Christian Church, which is its historical development; in the Christian Church, Protestantism, which represents at once its old and new elements; and finally, in Protestantism, the ultra Protestant tendency, which carries on the Reformation, and goes in the advance-guard of religious thought." This Preface is, in its way, quite as remarkable as any of the Essays in the recent famous English collection.

In addition to this Preface, the volume contains eight elaborate essays. The first of these is on the "Christian Church in the First Two Centuries." It shows most strikingly the long and doubtful strife between the Jewish and the Pauline tendencies in the Church. It proves that there was no unity of doctrine in the earliest Apostolic Church, and that this unity came in at last only through the influence of the Episcopate and the demand for a solid order. Long before the period when the creed was condensed and established, Christian faith had become corrupted by the intrusion of Pagan and Gnostic ideas. Though the composition of the fourth Gospel is carried back to a period previous to the beginning of the second century, it is maintained that it was scarcely known and very little used in the first half of this century. The whole essay abounds in valuable suggestions.

The second essay is a critical study of the Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, which is carefully analyzed. Its genuineness is allowed, and its importance, as illustrating the state of opinion in the early Church, pointed out. What Réville thinks of the Pentecostal miracle may be inferred from his remark about "speaking with tongues that ecstatic language, the true nature of which tradition has so strangely misunderstood, in transforming it into foreign tongues miraculously spoken." Clement, according to Réville, knows nothing whatever of such a dogma as the Trinity, and treats Jesus as sent by God as an Evangelist, exactly as the Apostles were sent by him. While this Epistle lays the first stone of Roman Catholicism, in maintaining that the elders have a divine right in the Church to which they minister, it wholly neglects to give any dogmatic rules, and leaves the creed to individual preference.

The third essay in the volume is a most full and ingenious interpretation of the Apocalypse, showing that Nero is the Antichrist described therein, and utterly demolishing the foolish extravagances of such hierophants as Cumming. This essay, more than any, illustrates the learning of its author. The fourth essay, on "The History of Dogma," demonstrates the absurdity of the ecclesiastical claim that its creed, even if a growth, has been always consistent. Réville shows that the Church has repeatedly given itself the lie, has contradicted its own words, and has pronounced that to be heresy in one age which in the previous age it had accepted as orthodoxy. Prior to Athanasius the Church had denied the equality of the Father and the Son, - denied it by their doctors and denied it in Councils. Afterwards, they asserted it. He insists that the theory of Anselm about Redemption distinctly contradicts the theory of Irenæus and Origen. The fifth essay, on the Canticles,

though a great improvement upon the common allegorical renderings of that poem, seems to us less exact and just than the rendering of M. Renan, of which we propose hereafter to speak more fully. The sixth essay, on the "Rhine Legends," traces these stories to their religious origin, and finds them in some idea of the Biblical history or the Church theology. The Cologne virgins, the Dragon Rock, the "Three Kings," the "Mouse Tower," and many other stories, Catholic and Protestant, are all the popular expression and embodiment of traditional religious superstitions. This essay sparkles with quaint critical sallies, which attest the author's humor not less than his correct taste in art. Of the seventh essay, on "Theological Curiosities," which shows up the absurd observations of popular orthodox commentators, we have only to complain that it is too short. The final essay, on Religious Studies in France," reviewing the works of Renan, finds in them a noble augury for the future of French theology. The whole volume is vigorous and refreshing, in style as in thought.

66

THE rationalism of M. Scherer is much more "pronounced” than that of M. Réville, but in its general tendency and spirit his volume of Miscellanies is like that of his friend and co-laborer. His style is somewhat less elegant and finished; yet it does not lack the qualities of clearness, vigor, and precision. M. Scherer is a trained and close reasoner, and has a taste for logical contests. He follows up his adversaries with unflinching sturdiness, and drives them into and out of their last resort. No critic of opinions or men can be more keen in his analysis, or more severe in his exposure of inconsistencies, whether of statement or conduct. This persistent spirit of logical analysis gives to M. Scherer's volume a tone of hard-heartedness, which does not really represent the temper of the man, more than the critical writings of Theodore Parker represented his kind and genial temper. M. Scherer, indeed, is the Theodore Parker of France, and in many respects strikingly resembles the American heresiarch. He is, however, much more sparing of abusive epithets, and much less rhetorical in his style. There is nothing in this volume which would be technically termed "fine writing," yet it is able throughout, and never dull. Every topic is philosophically treated, with the insight of a thinker and the ease of

a master.

The volume contains sixteen essays. The first essay, on the "Crisis of Faith," exposes the unsettled condition of thoughtful minds in all churches, Jewish and Christian, Catholic and Protestant, and the demand for a more intelligent and consistent theological system. The second essay, on the "Inspiration of Scripture," utterly demolishes the theory, not only of verbal, but of special inspiration, and holds that the record of revelation is to be interpreted and studied like any other book. This argument is continued in the third essay, "What the Bible is," and the relative value of its various parts, of its history, poetry,

Mélanges de Critique Religieuse. Par EDMOND SCHERER. Paris: Joël Cherbuliez. 1860. 8vo. pp. 588.

prophecy, and practical wisdom, is discriminated. While maintaining most strongly the worth of the Bible as a whole, M. Scherer is bold to say that some parts of the canon have not now, and never have had, much use except as literary fragments, and that many who have understood John or Paul have not understood Jesus. The fourth essay, on "Sin," exhibits most strikingly the dialectic skill of the author. He brings the doctrine of the "Fall" and of inherited depravity into antagonism with human liberty, and shows that the idea of free will is an absurdity, where the idea of native depravity is maintained. This essay, at the time of its first publication, in 1853, made a great stir in the religious world of Geneva, and brought upon its author the savage denunciations both of Catholic and Calvinistic writers. Its learning and its logic were alike formidable.

The fifth essay is a series of three "Theological Conversations," in which the author first shows that "Catholicism is only a branch of Protestantism," then that "Protestantism is only a branch of Catholicism," and then that the whole theory of Supernaturalism, whether it be affirmed of the Church or of the Scriptures, is open to very serious, if not fatal, objections. M. Scherer does not, indeed, decide against Christianity as a special gift of God to men, but he leaves, and evidently intends to leave, the impression, that its miraculous side is of no assistance in sustaining its authority. The essay is at once the most entertaining and the most radical in the volume. The sixth essay, on the Apocalypse, learnedly discusses the theory of Commodian about the two Antichrists. The seventh essay describes the three phases of English doubt and lapse from the Church, as they are represented by John Sterling, J. A. Froude, and F. W. Newman. After this follow a series of articles on eminent French representative men, - De Maistre, Lamennais, Gratry, Veuillot, Taine, Proudhon, Renan, and Ary Scheffer. None of these men altogether please M. Scherer; and even Renan, whose advanced theological position might win for him the sympathy of a rationalist, receives but moderate praise. The critic means to be impartial, and is so impartial as often to seem unjust, and even malevolent. This is most apparent in the essays on De Maistre and Proudhon. The views of M. Scherer are, nevertheless, sound in the main, and the impression at the end is, that the strong and weak points of all the characters have been distinctly brought out.

Miss Bremer, in her recent curious book of self-revelations and gossip about all manner of religious topics, takes occasion to lament the wayward and mistaken blindness of Scherer and his friends, in cutting themselves off from the sympathy of the Geneva Evangelicals, the Vinets and the Merles. The patronizing tone in which she speaks of the error of such free and brave spirits as the reforming party in French Protestantism, is hardly less ludicrous than her account of her interviews with the Pope and his Catholic aids, and her experience of Roman convent-life. However far we may be from agreeing with the peculiar opinions of the French radical party in theology, we welcome their protests against the sickly pietism which would hinder the progress of a scientific theology, and so prepare the way for a catholic