under the full blaze of Christian evidence, but rank and pestilent infidelity?

We next, with this heathenish creed, and after many vicissitudes, some of them very affecting, find young Sterling sitting as a disciple at the feet of Coleridge, the worst trainer of such a mind that could be found;-for we do agree verily with Mr. Carlyle in his estimate of this remarkable person. Having once in our lives spent a week with him, at a friend's house, with John Foster and others, we can verify the truthfulness and vividness of many of Mr. Carlyle's sketches. The following account of his conversations, or rather, everlasting disquisitions, is unmistakeably just:

Now, in all good humour, but still as "brave men," we ask Mr. Carlyle what he means by the " new Faith beyond?" Is it the gospel-the Bible? If it is, how can it be new? No, Mr. Carlyle, it is not the Faith accredited by prophets, apostles, and Christ himself;-but" the new Faith" of Germanythe logomachies of Strauss, and others of his class. If we do you wrong, in this assertion, pray set us right, and fill our hearts to overflowing with gladness; but, leave us not in this dense mist, or renounce your professions

as an earnest man.

From all the narrative before us contains, we are left to conclude that Coleridge made a convert of Sterling to his church theories; by which, to some extent, his Rationalism had given way;-and the fact is that, after many changes of opinion and of destiny, Mr. Ster

"To sit as a passive bucket, and to be pumped into, whether you consent or not, can in the long-run be exhilarating to no creature, how eloquent soever the flood of utterance that is descending. But if it be withal a confused, unintelligible flood of utterance, threatening to submerge all known land-marks of thought, and drown the world and you!-I have heard Coleridge talk, with eager musical energy, two stricken hours, his face radiant and moist, and communicate no meaning whatever to any individual of his hearers, certain of whom, I for one, still kept eagerly listening in hope; the most had long before given up, and formed (if the room were large enough) secondary humming groups of their own." This is dramatically true; you have the man and his audience before you; and you cannot but feel the justice of the moral portraiture supplied. But, even in describing Coleridge to the life, Mr. Carlyle cannot shake himself rid of the vice, for such it is, of dealing in innuendo.

"The truth is," he observes, "I now see, Coleridge's talk and speculation was the emblem of himself: in it as in him, a ray of heavenly inspiration struggled, in a tragically ineffectual degree, with the weakness of flesh and blood. He says once, he had skirted the howling deserts of Infidelity; this was evident enough: but he had not had the courage, in defiance of pain and terror, (what pain and terror?) to press resolutely across the said deserts to the new firm lands of Faith beyond; he preferred to create logical fatamorganas for himself on this hither side, and laboriously solace himself with these." The italics are ours.

Speaking of the event, which Mr. Carlyle reasonably enough laments, he thus expresses himself: "To such length can transcendental moonshine, cast by some morbidly radiating Coleridge into the chaos of a fermenting life, act magically there, and produce divulsions and convulsions and diseased developments. So dark and abstruse, without lamp or authentic finger-post, is the course of pious genius towards the eternal kingdoms grown. No fixed highway more; the old spiritual highways and recognized paths to the Eternal now are torn up and flung in heaps, submerged in unutterable boiling mud-oceans of hypocrisy, and unbelievability of brutal living Atheism and of damnable dead putrescent Cant; surely a tragic pilgrimage for all mortals; darkness, and the mere shadow of death, enveloping all things from pole to pole; and in the raging gulph-currents, offering us will-o'-wisps for load-stars,-intimating that there are no stars, nor ever were, except certain Old Jew ones, which have now gone out."*

Why all this vehement rage, because Sterling is beginning to turn his back on the Rationalistic world? No such vituperation awaited his course, when his religion was "Greekish," and had on it the "Heathen form." Why is he so much at fault now? He may have drunk too deeply, as no doubt he did, into Coleridge's mysticism or Puseyism;-but is there not some rising hope for him, that he may yet find firm footing on the rock of eternal truth? Ah, Mr. Carlyle, it is not Coleridge nor Puseyism that makes thee fierce, at this passage of Sterling's history; or we should have heard nothing of "Old Jew Stars gone out;"-and, unless you deny it, which would give us unbounded satisfaction, we must think of you as having *The italics are ours.

aimed in this phraseology, with other objects | combined, a secret thrust, by innuendo, your great figure of speech, at the Jewish Scriptures, penned by inspired prophets, pronounced by heaven-commissioned apostles to be the "oracles of God," and appealed to by the great Teacher as of Divine authority.

We must suppose, from the facts recorded, that Mr. Carlyle now soon became poor Sterling's oracle. He relinquished his curacy, which he ought never to have entered upon, after a few months' occupancy; and, we fear, fell back again into his old doubts and perplexities. It was his misfortune to be always in bad hands;-and with all Mr. Carlyle's love to him, and all his kind and generous treatment of him, we must be permitted to doubt the salutary effect of his counsels upon the mind of this most interesting and amiable young man. If he did him good, the fruits are not manifest. The fate of all men must be that of John Sterling, who can receive, without sifting, and without discrimination, the doctrine of Mr. Carlyle here propounded: viz. "What the light of your mind, which is the direct inspiration of the Almighty, pronounces incredible,-that, in God's name, leave uncredited; at your peril don't try believing that."

No doubt there is a thrust here at one of Coleridge's fond German theories, that of "attending to the reason and chaining up the understanding;”—but does it not go deeper than this, and counsel men to believe only that which their own corrupt reason admits to be worthy of belief? No matter how far erratic mental courses may have warped the judgment and vitiated the heart, the light of man's mind is still "the direct inspiration of the Almighty." We would remind Mr. Carlyle of the words of one greater than he: "If the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!" We believe that there is a state of mind in which men "love darkness rather than light;"--and that in this state the grandest and holiest truths that ever fell on the ear of man will be rejected, in homage to proud and unsanctified reason, if it should be at the dreadful peril of the loss of the soul. Men sometimes trifle with religious convictions, till the moral power to discern heavenly truth is impaired, if not finally lost. The sceptical line of things superinduces a paralysis of the reasoning faculty, until every oracle is credited but the true one that speaks from "the excellent glory."

We conclude our notice as we began, by affirming that "The Life of John Sterling," with all the power and genius it displays, is a truly melancholy volume to a man of settled Christian beliefs. We have verily loved and admired the man, and literally wept over his manifold bewilderments. Much may be traced to a rash, sanguine, restless spirit;

but still more to the wrong bias received from false oracles. In all the relations of life, we trace in John Sterling rich and beautiful qualities of mind and heart, which Mr. Carlyle has exquisitely depicted. But, alas, neither his living mental career nor his expiring hour is such, in their great and settled principles, as to constitute him a fitting example for the ingenuous and educated youth of our native land.

We do rejoice, beyond expression, to find, from Mr. Carlyle's account, that in the last lingering hours of his earthly existence, "He read a good deal-earnest books; the Bible, most earnest of books, his chief favourite." This refreshing sentence is to us as streams in the desert; and we allow ourselves to hope that Sterling found rest to his weary soul in the God of love whom the Bible reveals.

PHILip Doddridge. A Centenary Memorial. By JOHN STOUGHTON, Author of "Spiritual Heroes," &c.

Jackson and Walford.

THE name of Philip Doddridge is "familiar as a household word." The pious among all parties venerate and love his memory. His dissent is forgotten amid the brightness of his reputation; and the validity of his ministerial orders is attested by the long chain of his triumphs, which extends onwards from his own times to the present day. He is invested with an element of holy catholicity, and is looked upon by all Christians as a brother beloved. In no circle where religion is honoured, and piety diffuses its heavenly influences, is the name of the great Nonconformist unknown, or his merits unacknowledged. Whatever, therefore, connects itself with him and his labours cannot be hid. It must be welcomed and read by all sects and denominations. It must find its way into the palace of the prelate, and the home of the nonconforming pastor; into the mansion of the peer, the dwelling of the citizen, and the cottage of the peasant. We cannot, therefore, but congratulate Mr. Stoughton on the felicitous nature of the subject on which he has been called to exercise his graphic and eloquent pen. He is already well known to the world through his "Spiritual Heroes," which forms a very important chapter in the ecclesiastical history of England; but we are greatly mistaken, if he do not become still more widely known through his exquisitely beautiful and comprehensive memorial of Philip Doddridge.

The memorial is not, what such books oftentimes are, a dry detail of facts, and circumstances, and dates, or a patchwork of everything that can be found, good, bad and indifferent, in any way related to the subject. It is a rapid, comprehensive and elo

quent sketch of Doddridge in his early days, in his preparatory studies, in his public career, in his social retirement, in his spiritual life, and in his last days. And this beautiful and living portrait is set in a frame of Nonconformist history, which imparts additional interest and value to the picture.

The volume opens with a rapid view of lissent in the reign of William III., which is presented in that graphic, life-like form for which Mr. Stoughton is so remarkable. In perusing this chapter, the reader will not find himself, as is often the case when reading history, in a kind of sepulchral vault, surrounded by a heavy atmosphere, and the memorials of the dead, but among living men, and throbbing with the sympathies excited by present events. From the commencement, when the beach of Torbay echoes with the booming of cannon, that announces the arrival of William, onward to the close, when Matthew Henry, "with portly form, full face, and dignified mien, set off a little by Genevan cloak and well-curled wig, and his congregation assembled in their large deep oaken pews, as early as nine o'clock on a Sunday morning," are set before us, we feel all the interest of spectators or actors in the scene. Nor can the reader of this chapter, whether Nonconformist or Churchman, fail to derive wholesome lessons as to the impolicy and wickedness of persecution for conscience' sake, and the wisdom of avowing and defending religious principles with blended patience and firmness. Good Churchmen will feel sadness and regret, as they read, that among Nonconformists "goods were rifled, estates seized, property embezzled, houses broken open, and families disturbed often at midnight, in the absence of every cause or shadow of cause, if only a malicious villain happened to suspect a meeting there;" and eager and impatient Dissenters will perhaps be astonished to find, that the high-minded and intellectual Howe, before consenting to take part in the ordination of Calamy, deemed it expedient to "wait upon my Lord Sommers, and enquire of his lordship, whether such a proceeding would not be ill taken, and might not draw ill consequences after it," and that, after all, he declined to have anything to do with the matter.

from the Dutch tile, which are now everywhere associated with his name; he is seen in youth, eager to devote himself to the work of the ministry among Nonconformists, smitten by the cold repulse of Calamy, but lifted up and directed by Clark;-he is seen in riper manhood, devoted to study, engaged in pastoral and academic labours, and mingling with divines and scholars of all ranks and denominations;-and, at last, he is seen amid the sighs and tears and impassioned correspondence of friends on his way to Falmouth, to embark for Lisbon.

But in these beautiful pages it is not merely the objective man that is presented to us. The inner man the intellectual and spiritual life of Doddridge, is portrayed with great felicity and skill. A just and impartial estimate is formed of his endowments, his mental powers, and the fruits of his mind. His mind is shown to have been distinguished by the harmony and beautiful combination of its powers, rather than by the surpassing brilliancy of any one capacity; and his writings are pronounced models of calmness and simple beauty, rather than samples of impassioned oratory, or burning eloquence. And his spiritual life-his communion with God, his breathings and pantings after heaven, are set forth by Mr. Stoughton in a tone so beautiful, and in a strain of such gentle and subduing eloquence, that Doddridge must be looked upon by the Christian reader as a bright example of holiness, whilst his heart sighs after the attainment of the blessedness he enjoyed. The sketch of Doddridge, indeed, as a whole, which is presented to us in this volume, we consider one of the most beautiful, instructive, and impressive pieces of biography we remember ever to have read. Already, we doubt not, it has been perused by thousands; and we must assure our readers who have not yet seen it, that they will find it to be a book fraught with the deepest interest, and eminently fitted to convey many of the highest and most beautiful lessons of Christianity to the mind. If they admired and loved Doddridge before, and looked upon him as one of the ascended fathers, in whose footprints they have been striving to tread, their love and admiration will be deepened, and their desire to follow in his steps will be augmented, by a perusal of Mr. Stoughton's just, discriminating, and beautiful memorial.

devoted to academic labours, in connexion with his pastoral duties. Doddridge shone as a tutor not less than as a pastor.

OF THE HEBREW TEXT OF THE BOOK OF GENESIS, preceded by a Hebrew Grammar, and Dissertations on the Genuineness of the Pentateuch, and on the Structure of the Hebrew Language. By the Rev. WILLIAM PAUL, A.M., Minister of Banchory Devenick, N. B. 8vo., pp. 506.

William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh and
London.

WE hail with pleasure the appearance of this admirable work. It is a satisfactory proof that Hebrew literature is successfully studied in the far north. The author, who is a parish minister in Aberdeenshire, has here wiped off the reproach which has long attached to the Scottish clergy for their neglect of the study of the sacred language in which the scriptures of the Old Testament were originally written. The volume furnishes abundant evidence that they are no longer satisfied with a mere smattering of Hebrew without the vowel points, but that, on the contrary, a spirit of profound, thorough-going study has been excited, which promises important results in this departinent of sacred literature. No work of the kind has appeared since Robertson's "Clavis," which, in the analytical part, appears to have been taken as a model, but which, with all Kinghorn's improvements, it greatly surpasses both in clearness and fulness.

The Analysis, which embraces the Book of Genesis, is preceded by a Hebrew Grammar, and by an introduction containing important Dissertations on the Mosaic account of the Creation, the genuineness of the Pentateuch in general, and the Book of Genesis in particular; the difference between the style of the Pentateuch and that of the later books of the Old Testament, and the structure of the Hebrew language.

We thank the author for the masterly manner in which he has taken up the defence of the earliest portion of the Divine record against the innovating daring of modern scepticism, and on the truly scientific spirit which pervades the entire book. With admirable coolness he pursues his subjects through their various bearings. He shows that the Mosaic account of the creation is in no respect invalidated by modern geological discoveries. He proves, by an extensive induction of facts, that the books of Moses could not have been written at any period later than that usually assigned to them. He also enters very minutely into the discussion of several important questions connected with Hebrew Grammar, of which he proves himself to be no mean judge. If on any point we should take leave to differ from him, it is in regard to his adoption of Dr. Lee's theory of treating as a present what has generally been considered to be the future tense of the verb;

taste and habit than the result of purely grammatical demonstration.

In point of paper and type, and, what is of vastly greater moment, the correctness of the Hebrew typography, both as to consonants and vowel points, the work is deserving of the highest praise, and we feel assured it will be read with delight by every Hebrew scholar. We beg most cordially to recommend it to the attention of our readers.

THE RELIGION FOR MANKIND: Christianity adapted to Man in all the Aspects of his Being. By JAMES SPENCE, M.A., Author of" The Tractarian Heresy," &c. Snow, London.

THIS volume is the production of a clear, vigorous, and well-furnished mind. Its comprehensiveness, its lucid arrangement, its argumentative power, and its high philosophical tone, invest it with great value, and render it just such a book as thinking and intelligent men would appreciate for themselves and recommend to others. The topics embraced are of the most important kind, and are discussed in a manner worthy of their importance. A glance at the topics will at once convince our readers that we do not over-estimate them, when we pronounce them as comprehensive of the "pillar and ground" of evangelical truths; and a perusal of the book will, we are assured, satisfy every reader, that they are handled by one who is fully competent for the task he has undertaken. The following are the titles of Mr. Spence's chapters:What is Christianity ?-Christianity adapted to Man as an Intellectual Being-Christianity adapted to Man as a Moral Being-Christianity adapted to Man as an Emotional Being

Christianity adapted to Man as a Social Being Christianity adapted to Man as a Suffering Being-Christianity adapted to Man as an Immortal Being-Christianity the Religion of a Sound Mind-Christianity the reign of God in the Human Soul. These are the great topics which Mr. Spence discusses in this volume; and we can assure our readers that the discussion is conducted with such ability as cannot fail to render the book an eminent boon, especially to the young, amid the general scepticism and irreligion of the day.

person who was once a member of Mr. Noel's Bible class, has challenged him to discuss with him the merits of the Church of Rome, and has expressed his wish that it may be in writing." Mr. Noel manfully says to this Roman Doctor, "I accept your challenge; and as you intend to print your replies in the 'Catholic Standard,' I shall send you my views in print. In several successive letters, I propose to tell you what the Word of God declares respecting the claims of your church, its hierarchy, its worship, its doctrine, its sacraments, and its discipline."

This is Mr. Noel's course, which he has marked out for himself, in dealing with his Popish antagonist; and if we may judge of the series of Letters from the first-on "The Claims of the Church of Rome""-we may hope for great things. It is an admirable and telling document. In the Essay department, we have given a specimen, of which we are sure, among enlightened Protestants, there can be but one opinion.

We are strongly impressed with the idea, that discussion with Romish Priests, through the medium of the public press, is the most probable method of coming in contact with the mind of the Roman Catholic Laity. We hail with pleasure this controversy, and pray that our beloved brother may be strengthened from above to bear a noble testimony against "the Mother of Abominations."

ON comparing these beautiful and touching

Discourses, translated from the French of Mr. Monod, of Paris, by Mr. Barrett, we have been struck to astonishment on finding that they have been so freely used by the Rev. John Jessop, M.A., whose work entitled, "Woman," was reviewed in our January number. Certainly the resemblance is so close as to prove that it could not be accidental. This is great hardihood in an author, in these enlightened times. If the thing were right in itself, he should not calculate on being undetected. We know nothing of Mr. Jessop; but a respectable friend sent us an article, assuring us of his great respectability, and we were happy to insert the critique. Had we known what we do now, we should certainly have deemed it unfair to Mr. Monod to review a work as Mr. Jessop's, which is strictly speaking the product of our friend.

suggestive of holy and useful thoughts to sanctified womanhood. The two subjects treated by Mr. Monod are, "The Mission of Woman; and the Life of Woman;"--and never was the theme handled before with greater delicacy, or with a more thorough practical result. We should like to see this cheap-telling volume in the hands of every woman throughout the land. It is calculated to do immense good, and especially to awaken and strengthen in every woman's breast the feeling of responsibility.

BIBLE FRUIT FOR LITTLE CHILDRen.
Gathered by the Rev. E. MANNERING.
18mo. pp. 176.
John Snow.

A CHRISTIAN book, really adapted to the very young in our families and schools, is a gift as valuable as it is rare. Tales we have in abundance for children, many of them rather tending to weaken than elevate and improve the mind; but books strictly illustrative of biblical doctrine and narrative, in a phrase and with a use of imagery adapted to the tender conceptions of very young people, are yet but very scarce. One is now added to their number; and we can trust intelligent mothers and competent instructors of children generally, for a verdict in our favour, when

we say that this is one of the most effective little works ever addressed to little people, from five to ten years of age.

sample of his mind, a great gift for interesting Mr. Mannering has evidently, from this the little ones, of whom Christ said, "Suffer them to come unto me, and forbid them not;" and we do hope that he will cultivate the The subjects here treated are thirteen. I. gift, and make it available for extensive good. The Bible. II. The Holy Bible. III. Little Creatures with Wings. IV. The Nest-Home. V. The Steps that take a Little Child to Jesus. VI. Little Children encouraged to come to Jesus. VII. The Golden City. VIII. The Inhabitants of Heaven. IX. A Word on the Wheels. X. Apples of Gold in Better Country. XII. Directions for Safe Pictures of Silver. XI. A Voyage to the Sailing. XIII. The History and Lessons of a Letter.

DARK DEEDS OF THE PAPACY CONTRASTED WITH THE BRIGHT LIGHTS OF THE GosPEL: Also, THE JESUIT UNMASKED, AND POPERY UNCHANGEABLE. By the Rev. DAWSON MASSY, M.A., Vicar of Killashin Small 8vo. pp. 218.

Seeleys.

This book is written by one who knows

places, where it works out the ruin of millions, body and soul. It is the antagonist of