Moollahs were seated, with the Koran open before them, and said, "You cannot dare to put me to death. You will be murdering a guest." They replied, "The Koran decides it so." Wolff said, "It is a lie. The Koran says a guest should be respected, even if he is an infidel; and here see the great firman which I have from the Schalif of the whole Mohammedan religion. You have no power to put me to death. You must send me to Mohammed Moorad Beyh, at Kondoy." When they heard that name, they actually began to tremble, and asked Wolff, "Do you know him?" Wolff replied, "That you will have to find out." They said, "Then you must purchase your blood with all you have." Wolff answered, "This will I do, for I am a dervish, and do not mind money, clothing, or anything." And thus he had to surrender everything. O if his friends in England could have seen him then! Naked like Adam and Eve, and without even an apron of leaves, he continued his journey; and as soon as he was out of sight of the Hazara, he witnessed a sight which he never thought to have seen among Mohammedans. All his Affghan companions knelt down, and one of them, holding the palm of his hand upwards to him, offered up the following extempore prayer: "O God! O God! Thanks be to thy name That thou hast saved this stranger Unto his family. Amen." WE have waited for some months for the appearance of an American edition of Stanley's remarkable volume of Lectures upon the Eastern Church.* No such edition having appeared, and no advertisement of any to appear, we are compelled to advise all who can get the English edition, either through love or money, to do so forthwith. The price is large, but the pleasure is larger. A more completely fascinating book has never been issued from the press of John Murray. We are afraid to use the epithets which would fitly describe it, lest we should be accused of exaggeration. We can only state, in very moderate terms, as compared with our real feeling, the principal impressions which its perusal has left upon us. And first, there is the impression of mastery in picturesque description. From beginning to end, the volume is a series of magnificent pictures, perfectly drawn, perfectly colored, with the most artistic arrangement of light and shade, with the most finished grouping of figures, with background and foreground proportioned, and over all an atmosphere as rich and warm as the atmosphere of the lands which the volume describes. In this picturesque splendor, Mr. Stanley's book is to other ecclesiastical histories what the great pictures of Church are to other pictures of scenery, incomparably alone. The only fault that we have to find with these pictures is, that there are so many of them. They weary by excess of splendor, and we long, after a while, for an interval of tameness, and for a few pages of Neander's obscurity, or of Mosheim's dulness. Next, there is an impression of vitality in the book. It is all alive. The subjects are men, rather than ideas or dogmas or forms, and men who are not dead, but as living as the men whom we see and know. The book brings us into personal acquaintance with characters, of whom we knew before only the names, and in many cases not even the names, — makes us know their habits, their dress, their carriage, their features, all their peculiarities of manner, not less than their opinions, their prejudices, and their history. Its portraits are those of Holbein and Vandyk, and give life to the faces and forms which they present. Then, again, there is the impression of breadth to this historical survey, of a large and comprehensive conception of what Church history. involves, and what it ought to be. The Introduction, which gives in three Lectures a statement of the Province, the Study, and the Advantages of Ecclesiastical History, gives to the science a range quite other than the narrow limits usually set by writers in this kind. Dr. Stanley * Lectures on the History of the Eastern Church. With an Introduction on the Study of Ecclesiastical History. By ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY, D. D., Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History in the University of Oxford and Canon of Christ Church. London: John Murray. 1861. 8vo. pp. 604. VOL. LXXI. — 5TH S. VOL..IX. NO. III. - 37 is not afraid to bring the Church and the world together, and to maintain that the history of the Church is the history of civilization, and not merely of priests, or creeds, or sects, or technical religious affairs. His theory is a Broad-Church theory, and he finds a providential religious progress in what kings and nations have done, as well as in the quarrels and intrigues and disputes of mitred rulers and learned doctors. As we might expect from this broad theory, Dr. Stanley's volume is refreshingly free from all religious cant, and from all dogmatism. Its rhetoric is of the most approved secular kind, dignified, pure, and glowing, proper for the theme, but never sanctimonious. It is impossible to tell from the volume what are the exact religious opinions of the author; we can only see that he is a Christian believer, and that he is not an Arian. That he is orthodox, in the narrow sense of that term, there is not the least sign; yet there is no hint that he has any sympathy with rationalism, in its form of denial. It is only evident that the sympathies of the author are with liberalism against bigotry, and with comprehensive rather than exclusive formulas. Apart from the Introduction, which we have already mentioned, and which is one of the finest pieces of writing in the English language, the volume contains twelve Lectures. The first of these is a general survey of the Eastern Church, its divisions, its historical epochs, its characteristics, and its relations to the Western Church. This survey is at once full, exact, impartial, and eloquent. Then follow four Lectures upon the Nicene Council, in which the origin, personages, events, and results of that synod are presented in a style which dwarfs all previous descriptions. The sixth Lecture, upon Constantine, and the seventh, upon Athanasius, are the proper supplement to the story of the great strife at Nicæa. Then we have a lecture on Mahometanism and its connection with the Eastern Church, and four Lectures upon the Russian Church, its early history, its medieval monasticism, its Reformation under Nicon, and its changes since the time of Peter the Great. The field of these four Lectures is new, and most of the details will have to English readers the surprise of freshness. We may expect, after this, that Moscow and its shrines will become hardly less attractive to tourists of religious tastes than Rome and Jerusalem. The whole account of the Russian Church is intensely interesting, and we are inclined to hope that an American publisher may be induced to give us at least this part of the volume, if we cannot have it in its completeness. Unlike Mr. Buckle, Dr. Stanley makes no parade of immense learning or reading. He gives us, nevertheless, authorities enough, and references enough, to inspire confidence in his statements, and to offset the fear which his rhetoric might awaken, that a vivid imagination had adorned, if not constructed, the history. His book is the first fruit of his labors as Professor in Oxford, and fully justifies his appointment. A second volume, on the history of the Jewish Church, is announced as soon to appear; and the history of the English Church is promised. When that is given to the world by Dr. Stanley, we shall know some things of the English Church which have not yet been told. WE have read with pleasure the able, fair, and interesting volume of Mr. Orr * on the argument for the Divine existence, an argument which must perforce take new shapes, and involve new ranges of thought, along with every step of advance made by human knowledge and dialectic skill. There is something fascinating in the effort to grasp the great problem of the universe, to match our powers of comprehension and analysis against the vast wilderness of facts without and facts within that challenge us. The scholar recalls with more pleasure none of his classical memories than the sagacious gropings of Socrates amidst the dim jungle of sophistries round him, or the eloquent expositions that Cicero gives of what he takes to be his own enlightened faith. Surely, when the problem is beset, as it is now, by the more daring heresies of "Secularist" and "Positivist," and by the bewildering metaphysics that invaded our strong intrenchment of. “Final Causes," it needs no argument, and no excuse, to justify any honest attempt to post up the great argument, with all resources of modern knowledge and logical skill, to the intellectual demands of our own day. This large view, this broad handling of the topic, is what Mr. Orr has attempted in his volume. The effort deserves praise, even if it ended in failure; as absolute success in it demands something, perhaps, beyond the range of human faculties. We do not profess to be in all points satisfied with this book. The writer has neither the speculative genius nor the intellectual resources to make of his argument as much as might be made of it. We think he has erred in projecting his work on the dimensions of a treatise. A volume of essays and hints, half the size of this, would well contain all it gives of original interest and value; and, to our thinking, would be better adapted, perhaps to the unfathomable nature of the subject itself,- at any rate, to the conditions of the question as they now lie before the minds of thinking perA certain value the work will have to those who desire information, or instruction as from a teacher, on the points treated; but as a work addressed to the educated intellect, its real service is impaired by its very system and completeness. These beget a certain amount of scholasticism and metaphysics, which, unless first-rate in their kind, always daunt the reader, while they debar the author from the choice advantage of putting his strong points in a brief, pregnant, and suggestive way, and leaving his weak ones out. And so it places him in unfair comparison with a class of reasoners - such as Herbert Spencer, for example with whom he cannot stand an instant in the lists, in point of speculative ability. sons. Mr. Orr commits the very common misrepresentation, of calling Comte's a 66 dogmatic atheism," in distinction from the "sceptical or negative atheism" of Holyoake and the Secularists. So far is this statement from being true, that Comte expressly says, that if an answer must be had to the question as to the origin of things, the best answer will undoubtedly be, an Intelligent Will. Regarding the problem as * Theism: a Treatise on God, Providence, and Immortality. By John Orr. London: Simpkin, Marshall, & Co. 8vo. pp. 406. - still less beyond the reach of human faculties, he yet repudiates the name Atheist, and all that it suggests, with extreme disdain. And we take pains to say this, not from any special regard for his system, from any sympathy on the negative side of it, - but because it seems to us in the interest of both science and theology, that this particular style of misrepresentation should be met as often as possible, and refuted everywhere. We have intimated something of the style and proportions of Mr. Orr's argument. The immense ground it covers forbids our reviewing it in detail. It begins with a statement of the right relations of science and religion; of the subject to be discussed; and of its position in the light of existing knowledge and culture. This portion is marked by moderation and fairness, - qualities of the volume throughout, — and is liable.only to the sort of criticism which we hinted at starting. Two topics follow, the successful treatment of which requires a somewhat higher range of ability than we recognize in our author; namely, the conception mankind have of the Infinite, including the heresies, right and left, of Pantheism and Anthropomorphism; and the classification of theistic arguments, which, instead of a priori and a posteriori, Mr. Orr prefers to call "deductive or uni-postulative," and "inductive or pluri-postulative." We would imply no disparagement, in saying that this discussion is not altogether satisfactory. Parts of it show an ability of analysis and facility of illustration a good deal more than respectable. We have marked, as quite felicitous, the illustration (p. 65) of the "constitutional limitation to our knowledge of God," from the range of colors in the solar spectrum; namely, that we might have had a faculty of vision able to receive other and fresh varieties of color, from vibrations too fine or too coarse to convey any such impression to the actual retina of the human eye. The chapters we have noted include a defence of the validity of the inductive argument, - which rests, in the main, on the evidence of Design, -a defence that we consider well worth reading, now that that argument has got wrapped in so much sophistry. The development of the argument itself, in Chapter VI., is temperate, able, and judicious, on the whole, we judge, the most valuable, and certainly the most interesting, portion of the book. Mr. Orr wisely regards the argument, not as demonstration, but as establishing an "infinite probabil- . ity." It will certainly remain of the highest value, as illustration, to the religious mind, which believes already, whatever its validity judged by the severe logic of metaphysicians. The distinction is well and clearly made, of evidence Cosmological - from the order of the universe and its general laws, and Teleological-from special adaptations and adjustments. The facts that lie at the base of the reasoning are well selected, and set forth with skill, felicity, and force; while the nonsense of affecting to forestall them by the phrase "conditions of existence," is very fairly met. "The thickening of furs at the approach of winter is a condition of existence; but is it, on that account, not a beneficent provision for promoting the comfort, for perpetuating the existence, of certain species? Atheism must be in sad difficulties |