in time of controversy; and to press such considerations, and use such language, as produce, for the time being, a very strong resemblance to the revival-meetings of evangelical Christians. These are most suggestive facts, and deserve the profoundest consideration. What ought we to think of a system of religious belief, which, in the solemn season of reviving spirituality and religious life, must forget, as far as possible, its own distinctive features; and copy the measures, and borrow the phraseology, of the system to which it is diametrically opposed? MACAULAY'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND.- Of the first and second volumes of this work, which are all that is yet given to the public, four or five rival editions have appeared on this side of the Atlantic. Surely no living writer in the English language enjoys so wide a popularity as the Great Essayist. This History will form his most enduring monument. It has many marks of hasty and heedless composition, and numerous repetitions and recapitulations; and it does not very much abound in those splendid rhetorical passages, and in that sarcastic and epigrammatic style, which chiefly make up his minor historical essays. Still it is rich in instruction, and alive with interest. In particular, it is remarkable for sketching the history and condition of the people, quite as much as the acts of their rulers. It affords striking proofs of wonderful improvement in the state of the mass of the English nation, whatever our grumbling radicals are pleased to say to the contrary. The horrors of civil war are powerfully set forth. The foolishness of the custom of hereditary magistrates is made more apparent than the author himself is aware of. His work will belp on the recent change in the popular estimate of the great men of the seventeenth century, by which the memory of Cromwell and his compatriots is rescued from long-abiding historical injustice. As respects the Puritans generally, Macaulay bears high testimony to their pious patriotism, and zeal for liberty. In an occasional sarcasm at their rigor of morals, he betrays a want of sympathy with them, just sufficient to shew that his more favorable testimonies are disinterested and sincere. We cannot let him alone, however, without a comment on the absurdity of his keenest jest at their expense. "Bear-baiting," he says, "then a favorite diversion of high and low, was the abomination which most strongly stirred the wrath of the austere sectaries." "The Puritan hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators!" The pleasure taken by a brutal mob of spectators, in making themselves still more brutish by looking on with ecstacy to see their mastiffs tearing poor bruin to pieces, is a pleasure sufficiently odious to excite strong aversion in any good man. His humanity might weep for the degradation of his fellow-bipeds, even if it had no tear to spare for their shaggy victim. "Bear-garden manners," is a proverbial phrase for coarse and rude ferocity. But how does Mr. Macaulay discover that the Puritans felt no pity for the tortured animals? Why, forsooth, he informs us, in a long note, that Colonel Pride, and other parliamentary officers, used to shoot the poor bears whenever they found them so abused. Shoot them! Did they? And pray tell us, O most ingenious historian, when you have done chuckling over this bare-faced joke, what ought they to have done with those useless and dangerous "vermin?" Should they, in tender mercy, have been kept in iron cages for the term of their natural lives? Or would it have been better to turn them loose on the world, as our modern self-styled "prisoner's friends," wish us to do with all the murderers, burglars, and robbers in the penitentiary? We would not have complained of Mr. Macaulay for palming off this witticism, if he had not thus attempted to give it a serious historical basis. DEATH OF DR. WEGSCHeider. The following we find in the Deutsche Kirchenfreund for April: "On the 27th of January, at the age of seventy-eight, died Professor Wegscheider, the noted author of a system of dogmatics, written in Latin, which, some twenty years ago, was in great repute. It is remarkable that the learned heads of the elder, or more vulgar Rationalism, Röhr, Bretschneider, and Wegscheider, have been summoned into eternity in such rapid succession. Wegscheider was a cold man, of spotless character; but without spirit or vivacity. He has, for a long time, lost all influence as a teacher and author; and was, like Paulus at Heidelberg, but a breathing dead man. When we were studying at Halle, he had scarce half a dozen hearers; though twenty years before, hundreds sat at his feet." The leaders of the old Rationalism in Germany have a dreadful account to render, for overthrowing the faith of the great body of their countrymen in all that is supernatural about Christianity. Scarcely had they begun to exult in their success, when they saw their converts rush by them and tread them down, in their impetuosity to leap into the gulf of Pantheism. Most of the German names are significant; and that of Wegscheider, "one who departs," seems ominous of those of whom, "the Spirit speaketh expressly, that, in the latter times, some shall depart from the faith." Some of the better sort of Germans used, by a slight change, to call him Wegschneider, "one who cuts away," because, as they said, he cut away so much of the gospel. Indeed, he cut away all but the handle he held it by; and his disciples, seeing no use in clinging to a bare handle, cast aside the poor relic with contempt. "Rise up, Lord, and let thine enemies be scattered!" PAMPHLETS. Rev. Dr. Worcester's Plymouth Discourse; 1848. — It is rare that we fall in with a sermon so replete with information of such importance, and at the same time so counter to the stream of popular prejudice and error. After shewing that the settlement of New England was a missionary enterprise, it gives more of our ecclesiastical history than can be found any where else in the same space. A Correction of Erroneous Statements Concerning the Embarkation of Messrs. Judson and Newell, A. D., 1812. — This is a republication, in pamphlet-form, of the article furnished by Dr. Worcester for the Christian Review, in which be so vigorously disposes of the false charges uttered under the alleged sanction of Dr. Judson, against the early friends of American Missions. Sermon, Charge, and Right-Hand of Fellowship, at the Ordination of Rev. Josiah Tyler. These are the words uttered by a brotherin-law, a father, and an own brother, in setting apart a young candidate for "the baptism of sufferings" in behalf of the Zulus of Southern Africa. Though this ordination was very much in the family, it was an eminently Christian spectacle, uniting deep feeling with true dignity, such as must command the sympathy of the whole household of faith. Sabbath Desecration. We have here a brief report recently adopted by the Franklin County Conference of Churches. It is drawn up with care, presenting valuable statistics, and a brief, forcible, and eloquent plea for the sanctification of the feast-day of the resurrection of the Lord. We may as well remark in passing, that the late anti-Sabbath Convention in this city died as soon as born, and was flung aside, unburied and unwept. After loud proclamations of a mass-meeting to last two or three days, a small knot of come-outers came together; and being soon weary of listening to one another's nonsense, which no one else came to hear, dispersed on the second day, and were heard of no more. ORDINATIONS. Feb. 8. Mr. Morgan L. Eastman, Lisbon, St. Lawrence Co., N. Y. 21. Mr. Christopher Cushing, Edwards Church, Boston. 66 46 28. Mr. Josiah Tyler, East Windsor, Con.; as a Missionary to 66 66 the Zulus, in South Africa. Mr. Hyman A. Wilder, South Adams, Mass., also a Missionary to the Zulus. Mr. M. C. Bronson, Jay, N. Y. Mr. N. W. Williams, Shrewsbury, Mass. Mar. 13. Mr. Henry E. Parker, Eastport, Me.; Evangelist. 66 Mr. George J. Harrison, Collegiate Pastor, Franklin, Con. 21. Mr. David A. Strong, South Deerfield, Mass. 28. Mr. Horace Pratt, Phipsburg, Me. INSTALLATIONS. Feb. 13. Rev. T. S. Hubbard, Chelsea, Vt. 21. Rev. William Miller, Collegiate Pastor, Gill, Mass. "6 28. Rev. Cyrus W. Allen, Coleraine. Mar. 1. Rev. R. H. Seeley, North Church, Springfield. 7. Rev. James L. Wright, Burlington, Con. 66 21. Rev. Eli Thurston, Central Church, Fall River, Mass. DEATHS OF MINISTERS. Jan. 27. Rev. Diodate Brockway, Ellington, Con., æ. 73. Mar. 2. Rev. Pomeroy Belden, East Parish, Amherst, æ. 38. GOD IN CHRIST. Three Discourses delivered at New Haven, Cambridge, and Andover, with a Preliminary Dissertation on Language: by Horace Bushnell. Hartford: Brown and Parsons. 1849. 12mo. Pp. 356. IT is seldom that a book comes forth with so much of expectation, and of interest in advance, as this. Had it approached us from any source beyond the pale of New England theology, it would have excited little attention. When orthodoxy is assailed from without, however furiously, its friends sit calmly in their impregnable defences, without anxiety as to the result. But when we see one of the garrison, with a lighted torch in his hand, arranging the magazine, it naturally excites some commotion till the danger is removed. Our personal relations and feelings to Dr. Bushnell are such, that we would gladly pass over his trespasses with fraternal indulgence; and we could take pleasure in giving prominence to every brilliant sentiment and pious aspiration his pages may contain. Nay, if we were only anxious to court popularity as liberal and amiable reviewers, we must resort to the obvious expedient of glossing our unqualified condemnation of the book, with professions of admiration at the writer's talents, and at the occasional passages of truth and eloquence which intervene among his abounding errors and mysticism. But, for the business in hand, neither we nor this author, personally considered, are any thing. The only question relates to the character of the volume itself. It is somewhat vauntingly put forth, as a grand contribution to theological science, which it proposes to revolutionize and reform. It now belongs to the public, or to any one who chooses to read. And all that the public in general, or any particular reader, may have to do with it, is to know whether its teachings are true. While it was in its author's hands, it was part of himself. Now that he has parted with it, the book has become an impersonal thing. We shall examine it merely as a contribution to science, which the sea might have thrown upon the shore. We shall discuss it as a chemist might analyze a meteoric stone, which has fallen from the upper air. In matters of this kind, we can only ask for fact and verity, following the apostolic rule of "knowing no man after the flesh." The oddest feature of the book is the "Preliminary Dissertation on Language." We have waited long for those "Three Discourses." But before reaching them, we must travel through an Introduction occupying one-third of the volume. We are put back even beyond our familiar alphabet; and then are brought through a long and winding passage, before we are allowed to unroll and decypher the mystic scrolls. Why is this preliminary Dissertation here? Is it necessary to enable the reader of the discourses to understand them? Then why was it not at least as necessary for the hearers, for whom those discourses were primarily prepared? How could the orator venture to address those multitudes, until they had been initiated into his peculiar views of language? A large part of this Dissertation relates to matters merely literary, and having but a remote bearing upon the points treated in the Discourses. Our author looks upon the writers on the original unity of human languages with a supercilious air, and flippantly condemns their conclusions. He then constructs a theory of his own, to account for the origin of language, containing so many suppositions that can never be verified, as to remind us of the following sentence in Sir Walter Scott: "Here stands Theory, a scroll in her hand, full of deep and mysterious combinations of figures, the least failure in any one of which may alter the result entirely; and which you must take on trust, for who is capable to go through and check them?" Dr. Bushnell, after briefly noticing the theories of others, and finding in them, as he thinks, too many contradictions even for him, proceeds to |
