the success of their preaching depended, not upon the gifts and endowments of the preacher, but upon the life-giving power from on high which accompanied his message, that we find them most anxious to proclaim that message in its simplest form, in those very places and under those very circumstances in which we should have been tempted to attach the greatest importance to the attractiveness of the garb in which it was presented. The history of St. Paul's preaching at Corinth is, on this point, absolutely conclusive ; and the lesson which it teaches cannot be too deeply or too earnestly enforced. In a city like Corinth, the meeting-point of Eastern and Western civilization and commerce, amongst a people peculiarly prone to criticise, as the Epistles directed to that Church show, the personal claims of the preacher, and to enrol themselves as the followers of those who could advance the highest claims to their allegiance, we should naturally have expected that one whose maxim it was to become all things to all men would have adapted his message, in a more than ordinary measure, to the intellectual tastes and culture of his fickle and fastidious hearers. A reference, however, to the opening chapters of the first Epistle addressed to the Church of Corinth reveals to us, in a very remarkable manner, not only the one absorbing theme of the Apostle's ministry, but also the studied plainness of speech with which he enforced his message upon the reception of his hearers. “And I, brethren,” he writes 1 Cor. ï. 1, 2, “when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech, or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” And again, in the 4th verse of the same chapter, we find him disclaiming, in the most pointed manner, the adoption of any attractive forms of speech with a view to disarm the prejudices, or to enlist the sympathies, of his audience. “And,” he writes, “my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power; that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of man, but in the power of God.” And the same preaching has been in all ages attended by the same results, and has reached the heart and transformed the life alike of the Jew and of the Gentile, of the wise and of the unwise. The outward manifestations of the effectual working of the Spirit have differed at different times and under different circumstances. Some, like the multitudes on the day of Pentecost, have been so powerfully and so suddenly wrought upon that they have been unable to repress their strong emotions, and have been constrained to cry out, as those who listened to the Pentecostal sermon of St. Peter, “What shall we do ?” And it is well worthy of observation, that these outward mani. festations of the Spirit's inward working have by no means invariably attended that mode of preaching which we should have deemed most calculated to produce them. On the contrary, very many of those sermons which have been productive of the most striking visible results, in connection with the awakening and conversion of souls, both in our own and in other lands, have been altogether free not only from every form of fanaticism, but even from the ordinary elements of emotion, and might even be regarded by some as lacking in that amount of zeal and fervour which should ever accompany the proclamation of Christ's gospel.* The great lesson which the Pentecostal sermon of St. Peter, and its results, seem designed to teach, is, that the awakening and conversion of sinners is, from first to last, the result of the influences of the Holy Spirit of God, who is pleased to work through the medium of human agency, but in such a manner that the excellency of the power shall be seen and be confessed to be of God and not of men. The great need of the Church, then, is the larger outpouring of that Spirit, and, with a view to this end, more earnest and diligent study and preaching of God's Word, accompanied by more fervent and unceasing prayer for the effectual teaching of His Spirit. And in order that those times of refreshing from the presence of the risen Saviour may be bestowed upon the Church which were the first-fruits of His ascension, and which shall be the pledge and earnest of His return, there must be a more faithful recurrence to the model of the early Church as represented in the Acts of the Apostles, a more steadfast adherence to "the Apostles' doctrine and fellowship,” and a more faithful observance of the Apostles' teaching and practice as regards “the breaking of the bread, and the prayers.” We need to have raised up amongst us more of those men who, like Stephen, shall be “full of faith and of the Holy Ghost,”—more of those who, like Apollos, shall be "mighty in the Scriptures” and “fervent in the spirit,"—more of those who, like Aquila and Priscilla, being themselves fully instructed in the way of the Lord, shall be ready to expound the same more perfectly to the brethren,-more of those who, like Barnabas, being themselves the sons of consolation, shall be ready to minister unto others of that gift which God has entrusted unto them, not accounting any of the talents entrusted to their stewardship as their own, but imparting freely, alike as regards things temporal and things spiritual, to those that lack. Thus only can preparation be made, by the turning of “the hearts of * E. 9., the sermons of President Edwards, of John Wesley, and of George Whitefield. And in ceasing praye God's Wor the disobedient to the wisdom of the just,” for those promised “times of restitution of all things which God hath spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began.” Thus only may the day of the second advent of the Lord Jesus be anticipated by His Church at large, and by each individual member of the same, as that of the completion of the blessing which He left unfinished at His ascension, and not apprehended as that great and dreadful day in which He shall “come and smite the earth with a curse." BARING GOULD'S “ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS · BELIEF.” The Origin and Development of Religious Belief. By S. Baring Gould. London: Rivingtons. 1870. This is, in some respects, a very vexatious work to read, owing to the numerous and serious blemishes-in several cases worse than blemishes—with which it is defaced. It is specially ill-advised in an author who has chosen such a subject as that before us, not to have exercised the utmost judgment and delicacy in his task. In a subject which has for ages excited the strongest passions and the bitterest party feelings, the reader needs a firm confidence in the judgment, fairness, accuracy, and sobriety of the guiile who undertakes to lead him. But what are we to think of a writer who gravely informs us that we have to face the alternative of scepticism or cannibalism?“ Two courses are open to me, I must choose one or the other, at peril of being untrue to myself. I must become an anthropophagist or a sceptic.” (ii. p. 49.) It would be unfair to assume that Mr. Gould is ignorant of Greek, or that he really means anything but what the context rather implies, namely, anthropomorphist; but it is certainly suggestive of inexcusable carelessness in composition and correction. As illustrative of this, another fact may be noticed :-there are, in the first volume, six lines of German quoted, if we have observed correctly; and in these six lines there are some six obvious blunders, mostly of a kind which no one who knew anything of the language, and had looked over his proof sheets, could possibly have failed to notice. It may be that some excuse is to be found in a remark, casually made elsewhere, that weak sight had interfered with his study of ornithology ; but an author owes it to his readers to find some one else to correct his proofs, if he cannot manage to do so himself. However, this will not account for such a blunder as the description of Vol. 70.–No. 403. 3 R the way bs which tte dea:h of Pcteriene was ecorered to Marie Antoinette. ADF Le cost be in a strarge state of confusion as to tte order of succession of tbe can events of the French Pergiation, who oca.d suster such a statement as this to escape him. What we have just noticed, Łowever, are on's matters of detail, and are of importance rater krsta: ttes suggest than ty v Lat they actuaus prore. We w come now to our first sericts charge against Hr. Gecd's occupetency for the task he Las uldertaken. We consider that, tłusg! Le tas read largely, he has failed to attain to asstbirg more than a very hazy apprebebsico indeed of the principles of sereral of the sciences to which be freely rakes appeal. Let us esamice, for instance, Lis Lattelatics and phrsical science. In two astonishing chapters, Leaded respectiveis the l'pirersal Anticomy, and the Conciation of Antiuc Lies, we fud ite foowicg statements, (ii. p. 31; that the rotaticn of the earth on its own axis, and its movement about the sun, are “opposed movements," and that by the astronomer they are “identified in a sole force wbich produces both.” They are not opposed in any conceivable sense of the term; and as to their identification, what the astronomer maintains is, that the rotation about the axis is the result of some original force (no one can, as yet, say wbat), and the movement about the sun, the combined result of some similar original force, and the continuous attraction of the son. Mr. Gould's statement is sheer nonsense. Here again is some more astronomy: “In nature the law of gravitation governing bodies is the opposition of two contrary forces, the centripetal and the centrifugal.” (ü. p. 43.) The centripetal force, as we need not remark, is gravitation; of a centrifugal force, the astronomer never hears anything, except when he has to reject it as a popular misapprehension of some of the consequences of the first law of motion. We could fill pages with such specimens as these, drawn from Mr. Gould's volumes; but let us look at his mathematics. “At the point of departure of mathematics is found, not, as is vulgarly explained, number, but that which is at every point inverse, unity, which lies at the root of all numbers, but which none of them can arrive at and equal. The unit is not engendered, it does not multiply itself, it is always itself its own sum and product." (ü. 31.) It would be waste of time to try to extract any sense out of this passage, especially out of the remark that unity "is at every point inverse,” though the last line is worth looking at, “unity is itself its own sum,” namely, one added to one makes one. We will quote, without comment, two more passages in which mathe. matical verbiage is employed; they will serve to convince those who have any knowledge whatever of the science, that Mr Gould has none at all. “ If we look about for a simple and indecomposable idea which may harmonize these complex terms (reason and faith), and serve as the proportional mean between them, we shall find it in the idea of the indefinite, or that which is incessantly defining itself, without being ever completely successful, and which has, therefore, two faces, one intelligible to reason, the other accessible to the sentiment by faith.” (ii. p. 24.) " The idea of God, in the inductive process, is not more solid than the last term « in an indefinite progression of known terms. Does this last term exist, or is it only an ideal which we seek to approach, but which always escapes us ?” (ii. p. 15.) The references to mathematics, of which we have given specimens above, are mostly wanton, since scientific allusions were not needed for Mr. Gould's purposes; but similar mistakes in philosophy are more serious, since philosophy necessarily lies at the basis of his subject. He tells us that “the reality of our own existence, and of the material universe and the world of ideas, are demonstrated syllogistically .... from the existence of God.” (ii. p. 14.) Considering the number of philosophers, and the views which some of them have entertained, it might be bold to say that the author is speaking without precedent, but his doctrine has a certain freshness and novelty about it. In the following passages there is the grossest misapprehension of the questions at issue. (i. p. 58.) In reply to the question, Is the belief in causation a trustworthy belief, or is it an illusion ? he attributes to Mr. J. S. Mill the latter view, giving as a summary of his doctrine—"The idea of causality he derives from experience of a regular succession of phenomena which we suppose will continue permanently successive. The idea involves that of necessity, and the idea of necessity he contends to be pure illusion.” He then adds the remark, “ If causation be an illusive belief, it is singular that it should not have broken down under the experience of millions, and that it should have led man out of barbarism into civilization.” All this criticism is utterly beside the mark. The experience of the millions is just what Mr. Mill appeals to, and what he founds his system upon; what he denies (and here he may be justly open to cri. ticism) is that there is anything more in causation than what experience testifies to and demands. Again the insertion of the sentence, “the idea involves that of necessity,” is sophistical; it implies that Mr. Mill admits that the idea of ne. cessity is involved, and yet at the same time maintains that it is illusory. Mr. Mill has no intention of making any such admission; he has nothing to do with necessity, but, in fact, objects always to the phrase. It is a term used by his opponents. Another serious philosophic defect which runs through the book is the state of screaming passion-we can really give it |