I speak of the general state-the progression, or retrogression, of the Church. They arise out of the immensely increased activity shown on all sides.

First, among the High Churchmen. I remember an English county member saying to me, twenty years ago, when Tractarianism was in full leaf and flower,- "If you see a clergyman bestirring himself, improving his church, improving the seats, improving the music, improving the schools, don't oppose him because he is called a Tractarian. Anything is better than the dead-alive' state of three-fourths of our parishes.'

The change in these respects is marvellous. Lord Eldon was a High Churchman; Lord Sidmouth was another; Lord Liverpool was a third. Who ever heard of any of them, or of their followers, offering £5000 or £10,000 at a time, to rebuild their parish church? But now, among men of the same class, money is poured out like water, for church-building or church-restoring. Stand on Vauxhall Bridge; you may see around you four splendid new churches, all recently built, each by a single person, and at an aggregate cost of £60,000 or £70,000. I know of two little country villages at this moment, one in Warwickshire and the other on the Southern coast, in which two ladies are rebuilding small parish churches, for a few hundreds of cottagers, at a cost of £15,000 for each. Now, much of this zeal may be pharisaical, or even Popish; but surely it is better than that cold indifference which, in George the Third's days, left hundreds of country churches in England in damp and discomfort and dilapidation.

So, also, of the church music in our own day. Thirty or forty years ago, Sternhold and Hopkins, and Tate and Brady, held quiet possession of ten thousand of our parishes; and the singing was left, in the country parts, to a village choir of bumpkins, in the towns, to the parish clerk and the charity schools. All this is changed, or is rapidly changing. Two or three good collections of hymns have been issued from High Church presses, one of which is said to have circulated 500,000 copies, and another 750,000; and now, go where you will, you find some modern collection in use, and Tate and Brady banished from the churches. A friend of mine went to an evening service lately, in a splendid new church, in which I believe no evangelical sermon has ever yet been preached. He there found a full choir of good singers, leading a large congregation into a general, hearty participation in this part of the worship. The first hymn they sang was Cowper's"O for a closer walk with God!"

The second was Lyte's

"Abide with me: Fast falls the eventide."

Now, I know that all this may be, for the most part, sensuous or formal. But still I cannot forget the saying of a wise man,"Let me make the songs of a people, and I care not who makes their laws." A sound Gospel sermon, if drowsily delivered, might have sent three-fourths of the congregation to sleep; and at night, on their beds, scarcely one in a hundred would have remembered a sentence. But hymns such as these, heartily sung to good music, will haunt men for many days after; and the glowing language of the poet may fasten an arrow in the soul, which it would not be easy to shake off.

Let me not be supposed to over-estimate these things, as if souls could be "called out of darkness into marvellous light" by any less mighty power than the breath of Him who first moved upon the face of the abyss, and brought a beautiful world out of a shapeless and dismal chaos. Still, bearing this constantly in mind, I would yet give their proper value to zeal in beautifying the house of God, and in changing the deadness and coldness of former days, into the external life and earnestness of a crowded, responding, singing congregation.

The second kind of Revival is that which is commonly known by that name, and which aims at no external splendour, no grand ritual, no refined music; but simply and solely desires the conversion of the soul to God.

And here, too, the change which is perceptible is something prodigious. Thirty years ago, such a thing as a lay agent or Scripture reader was rarely seen. Now, under the guidance of two or three societies, the Church alone has from three to five hundred of these useful and efficient labourers. More recently, "Bible women" have been brought into play, and a considerable number of earnest and judicious females have begun to penetrate into recesses into which men could hardly have found their way. Then, special services have been commenced and carried on, in halls, cathedrals, and latterly even in theatres. Besides these, private rooms, capable of containing two or three hundreds of persons, have been opened in a great number of city and suburban districts, and in these the Gospel is preached to multitudes who are seldom found within the walls of a church or chapel.

Failures and mistakes are often perceptible in these "revivals." The hymns used are often vulgar and irreverent: the music resembles that of the public-house. Efforts are made, sometimes, by men of more zeal than judgment, to produce a sort of galvanized or hysterical faith in Christ; and, very naturally, such attempts lead to failure and disappointment. But still, amidst all this, there is no reason to doubt, that the leading men in this revival-movement are sincere and earnest Christians, and that their efforts are made in faith and prayer,

and have been honoured of God in the calling of many souls into His kingdom. No estimate of the real amount of good done by these new evangelists can be made, for a large portion of their work is beneath the surface; but we cannot doubt that the aggregate is very large, and, as compared with the earlier years of this century, it is wholly new and additional.

But I am in danger of exceeding the bounds of a mere letter, and must pause and sum up what I have attempted to say. The two views, the darker and the brighter, may be thus described.

1. The Church of England, and the Church of Christ generally in England, is passing through a period of temptation of the most insidious and perilous kind. Satan may be most accurately described as showing himself in the garb of an angel of light. The old infidelity of former days is refined and changed into what is called "spiritualism." It can talk of the Bible as the first and best of books; as doubtless "inspired;" as truly and verily "the word of God." It only reserves one point: the Bible is "not infallible." It "was not designed to teach science." It speaks of scientific matters mistakenly and erroneously. Hence, when Science speaks, the Bible must be silent; when Science contradicts Moses, you must believe Science and disbelieve Genesis. This may appear a small matter at first; but you will soon find that it utterly annihilates Christianity. "Science" asserts, in the Essays and Reviews, by the mouth of two or three clergymen of the Church of England, that a miracle is an impossibility, and as such must be discredited. Hence, such stories as those contained in Genesis i., or Genesis xix., or Joshua x., are to be dismissed at once, as incredible and untrue. The serpent's speech to Eve is to be deemed a fiction; so is the Deluge; so is the Exodus from Egypt. For the same reason, the miraculous birth of Christ, His transfiguration, His resurrection, and His ascension, may all be dismissed; and, in short, the whole creed or belief of the Church is "toned down" to a faith little differing from that of Socrates or Plato. Such is the new style of infidelity which is now current among us; and which probably is heard, at this moment, from one or two hundred of the pulpits of the establishment, and from the lips of not a few dissenting ministers.

2. But if the enemy is thus "coming in like a flood," it is certain that "the Spirit of the Lord is lifting up a standard against him." A new life has shown itself in the Church; and that, not in one point, or among one section only; but simultaneously, among High-churchmen and Evangelicals-among the clergy, the laity, the rich and the poor. "Many are running to and fro, and knowledge is increased." There is much of human error mingled with this; there is much of pharisaism on one side, and some tincture of en

thusiasm on the other. But amidst all these drawbacks, there is much life, much earnest effort, mingled with faith and prayer. And certainly we cannot err, if, in recognizing this, we ascribe all that is good in it to that Divine, Almighty Power, from Whom alone "all holy desires, all good counsels, and all just works do proceed." And hence, while we recognise in the present assault what is probably the last and most refined form of temptation, we may hope, and confidently believe, that He who is working powerfully in the storm, will make it, finally, a means of strengthening, rather than of destroying, the faith of His own Church and people.

Yours, very sincerely,

S.

AMERICAN LIFE: DR. NICHOLS AND C. J. RIETHMÜLLER.

Forty Years of American Life. By Dr. Thomas L. Nichols. Two vols. London: John Maxwell & Co. 1864.

Alexander Hamilton and his Contemporaries. By Christopher James Riethmüller. London: Bell & Daldy. 1864.

THE first work which we here notice is that of an American -marked, indeed, by fewer Americanisms than usual; the style flowing and forcible, without much bombast; the pictures lively, the remarks telling. We should hardly have said that it was the production of a Yankee. But the author leaves us in no doubt on his origin. He was born in New Hampshire, one of the five New England States acknowledged free and sovereign by George III.-a little State, full of natural beauty, lakes and mountains, styled the Switzerland of the Union, with the river Connecticut separating it from Vermont, bordering on Maine and Massachusetts, with one sharp point running into Canada. The author's grandfather was engaged in the War of Independence; and from his father, a native of Massachusetts, and his mother, a native of Boston, he inherited the vigorous principles of Whig liberty. The proprietors of this little State were yeomen who farmed their own land; but each had a farm so small, that it could not divide; so the younger sons went forth to push their fortunes as doctors, lawyers, editors, or merchants. Daniel Webster was the son of a New Hampshire farmer; so were General Cass and Horace Greley. The lads are trained in youth to labour, and the severe climate inures them to hardships. They are sent to learn at a school, which is never above two miles from their home;

then at an academy, for such is found in every considerable village; thence to a college, where they are qualified for the learned professions. If they remain in their State, they enter the militia, and drill and march, and rise to be captains, majors, and colonels; and hold forth to their soldiers, on the anniversary of the day of Independence, in bombastic language, on the greatness and glory of the Union.

But to those who are ambitious the world lies open; all its prizes are within the reach of adventurous aspirants. They remember that Franklin, ambassador of the States to the Court of the Tuilleries, was a printer's boy; that Sherman was a shoemaker; and Patrick Henry, famed for his eloquence, the keeper of a country tavern; and Andrew Jackson, afterwards President, a ragged boy; Banks, the notorious governor of New Orleans, a Massachusetts shoemaker.

Thus

It is this adventurous spirit, pushing the youth of both sexes into life, that presents such various fortunes in the history of individuals, and now mixes in strange disorder the passions and interests of families in the present American war. a family from the manufacturing village of Lowell sends out two lads and two daughters to make their fortunes. One of the sons went to Washington, had a mechanical turn, became an engineer, and now contracts to supply the Northern army with rifles and guns. The other and elder son is drifted by the study of law to practise at New Orleans, marries a lady who has large slave plantations, and is now a leading statesman in the Confederate States; while the daughters, visiting their elder brother, marry planters in Louisiana, and now breathe the fervour of indignant patriotism against the North, where they were born. Butler, a lawyer from Lowell, comes to lord it with savage despotism over ladies born in the same town; and to find that the energy and purpose matured in a youth spent in Massachusetts, can now be directed into stubborn resistance to Northern dominion.

The changes of fortune which occur in such a country are startling to the very borders of romance. A boy follows his father, a farmer, to the market at Boston; sees an advertisement for a lad; enters and is engaged; cleans knives, brushes shoes, runs errands; is taken into the warehouse, marries his employer's daughter, and is now a leading merchant of Boston. Another (this is Dr. Nichols's history) goes a stranger from Boston to New York-sees in one of its newspapers a notice that an assistant editor is wanted-offers his services, is tried and accepted becomes a clever writer, and the field of fortune lies open before him. For newspapers are, in a country so sensitive to public opinion, a real power. There are in America 5000 papers of every sort. The largest in circulation is the New York