sion be absurd in the highest degree? Then, if so, there must b some liberty of inquiry in Christianity. A Christian must b able to examine the foundations of his faith, and to perceive tha there is a rational evidence for it. We do not mean a demon strative or a physical evidence, but such an evidence as is suffi cient fairly to convince the judgment of a reasonable inquirer It is the peculiar characteristic of Christianity that it does possess distinct, tangible, rational, historical evidences. This is an essential difference between it and all false religions. They are wholly without proof. Christianity is a real and actual revelation. They are only imaginary ones.

We would gladly follow Dr. Wordsworth further through his interesting and important labours; but we have said enough, we trust, to show their value; and we feel indebted to him for the careful research into matters of fact which marks every part of his volume. Every day proves to us the importance of carefully sifting and examining propositions which are advanced with some show of learning by the opponents of the truth. The labour in following out all their details is doubtless very wearisome, but it is of the highest value. Facts are very stubborn things; and if they be allowed to go uncontradicted, they may sow the seed of doubt in many a mind. On the other hand, the detection of unfair dealing in such matters leaves a very strong impression on the mind. It guards against further statements from the same quarter. And at the present day so enormous a mass of falsehood and misstatement in matters of fact is in continual circulation, that it becomes more than ever necessary to undertake such researches as those which Dr. Wordsworth has carried to so satisfactory a conclusion. We almost seem to have fallen on days in which it may be said again that men love darkness rather than light," and will greedily hear the words of darkness, while they close their ears to the words of truth. Yet perseverance will in the end prevail, we are assured; and the cause of truth will not, we trust, be permitted to be defended with less zeal and energy than the cause of error.

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NOTICES OF RECENT PUBLICATIONS,

ETC.

1. Maurice's Boyle Lectures-Trench's Hulsean Lectures. 2. Sermons by Melvill, Wheeler, D'Oyley, Woodhouse, Goodwin, Blencowe. 3. Protestant Principles, by Phileleutherus Anglicanus-Gregg's Free Thoughts on Protestant Matters. 4. Bailey's Rituale Anglo-Catholicum. 5. Barrett's Synopsis of Criticisms. 6. The Ministry of the Body, by Evans. 7. Liber Pontificalis, by Barnes. 8. Adams' Holy Week. 9. Letters on Confirmation. 10. Chollerton-Trevor-Steepleton. 11. Adams' Old Man's Home-Ashton Hall. 12. Village Tales from the Black Forest. 13. Kip's Holidays at Home. 14. Lepsius's Tour. 15. Mills on Colonization, 16. Russell's Life of Johnson-Jeremy Taylor's Life. 17. Memoir of Cary. 18. Sunday School Magazine. 19. Haworth's St. Sylvester's Day. 20. Harington's Apostolical Succession. 21. Rimbault's Cathedral Service-Daily Service. 22. Don Quixote. 23. Stories from English History-History of Germany-History of Rome. 24. Progressive Geography-Elements of Geography -Principles of Algebra. 25. African Wanderers. 26. Beaven's Visit to Indian Missions. 27. Nicholls on Agricultural Labourers. 28. The Mendicity Society. 29. Jesse's Favorite Haunts. 30. Writings of Chambers. 31. Bohn's Library. 32, Miscellaneous.

1.-1. The Religions of the World, and their Relations to Christianity, considered in Eight Lectures, founded by the Right Hon. Robert Boyle. By FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE, M.A., Chaplain of Lincoln's Inn, and Professor of Divinity in King's College, London. London: J. W. Parker, 1847.

2. Christ the Desire of all Nations, or the Unconscious Prophecies of Heathendom: being the Hulsean Lectures for the year MDCCCXLVI. By RICHARD CHENEVIX TRENCH, M.A., Vicar of Itchen Stoke, Professor of Divinity, King's College, London, and Examining Chaplain to the Lord Bishop of Oxford. Cambridge: Macmillan and Co. 1846.

ONE of the common places given vent to by a certain party in the Church, which arose out of the great movement of 1833, and which the popular phraseology has identified with that movement,—one of the common places (we say) given vent to of late by this party, was to the effect, that the study of Evidences argued a want of faith, an unsound state of mind, theologically speaking; that it was unworthy of a churchman, and therefore to be discouraged. And we well remember how scandalized some of our acquaintance affected to be at the publication of "Christian Evidences," the author being supposed by them to be "one

of them." Now, within certain limits, this common-place may perhaps be right; prima facie, you would say, that that must be a doubting faith, the faith of a Thomas, which demanded the exposition of Evidences for its satisfaction. But we apprehend that this is not altogether a fair way of viewing the matter. The study of Evidences may demonstrate, not a doubting, but an ill-informed faith; and a desire, on the part of the student, to strengthen his faith. At all events, it is evidently quite in accordance with the Divine injunction to "try the spirits, whether they be of God:" it is quite in obedience with that other Apostolic command, to be "ready always to give a reason for the faith that is in you :" it is, lastly, quite agreeable to the spirit of that "reasonable service" which the reformed branch of Christ's Catholic Church here in England demands of her children, and by which she stands so nobly distinguished from the unreformed portions of the Church abroad. And we confess that since the party, to whom we have alluded, began to show itself in its true colours, we have been led to look upon this depreciation of the study of Evidences as an insidious and preparatory move, to prepare the minds of the young and enthusiastic for that state of passive recipiency which would more readily imbibe the antiCatholic developments which were afterwards to be so industriously distilled into them.

It was a truer wisdom which determined Robert Boyle, the Rev. J. Hulse, Mr. Canon Bampton, and some others, to make provision for the perpetual publication of the various lines and phases of evidence, whereby God's ways are vindicated, and the religion of our Redeemer is defended on all sides. He knew that the human heart is the same in all ages; and, therefore, that the necessities of one generation are an index to those of the next. Satan is ever on the watch; and we have often thought that heresies seem to come round in a kind of cycle, just as it is said that certain changes of climate and temperature do. If we mistake not, the soundness of these views will, ere long, receive a signal confirmation. We believe that controversies with Popery, or with any other forms of error among Christians, sharp as they may be at the time, are but ephemeral. The last age witnessed a controversy, deep and deadly, not between Christians of different denominations, but between Christians and infidels: Deists and Freethinkers, of all sorts, combined to assault the bulwarks of the very faith: sore was the onslaught; but there were giants in those days, men well armed at all points, and the banner of Christianity waved triumphant. We are on the eve of another and a similar struggle. The low murmurings of infidelity have already been heard within our camp; and we, the leaders in

Israel, must prepare to gird ourselves to the battle once again. The secessions from our ranks to those of Rome have been grievous enough; but better, far better, these should be multiplied tenfold than that one soul, baptized into the faith of the adorable Trinity, should sink beneath the withering touch of a cold and cheerless infidelity! They were unstable, but earnest minds, which went out from us to Rome: alas! how many of those which went not out with them, possess all their instability and none of their earnestness; only kept from error by want of love for truth! What shall we augur of these men? will they be proof against the subtleties of infidelity? We shall have need, ere long, to fall back upon the Lelands and the Lockes, the Sherlocks and the Van Milderts; the host of mighty minds, whom the scepticism of former days called forth, and who have bequeathed to us an armoury which their skill and patience forged.

But there is another, and a truly important point of view from which we must look at the study of evidences. We have hitherto spoken of them as grounds of satisfaction and confirmation to professing Christians, when the darts fly thick and fast about us, hurled by "false brethren," who "have denied the Lord that bought them." We desire now to consider them as necessary instruments in the hands of our missionary priests, when we send them forth in the name of the Lord of hosts; and endeavour to fulfil those heavy responsibilities which undoubtedly attach to every victory that blesses our arms, by trying to rescue from his grasp those realms which Satan still holds in the dark thraldom of Paganism. Now, many of the nations of heathendom are by no means to be despised; they are acute reasoners, and they are deeply attached to their own religion. How are we to make an impression upon them? Fire and sword may do for Mohammedanism, but they are clearly contrary to the spirit of Christianity. To dream of pooh-poohing their superstitions (so to speak), is as clearly absurd. Argument must be met by argument; they must be dealt with in a spirit of candour. There is something of good and of truth in Islamism; what is it? There was something of good and of truth in some, even, of the old polytheistic faiths; what was it? They were not any of them wholly false; the offspring of nothing save the dreams of poets, or the designing craftiness of the ambitious. They had their origin in certain wants and cravings of our common nature. These things must be candidly investigated: we must be able to point out what the good in each of them is, clearing away the mass of rubbish with which it has been overlaid; and we must be ready to prove, by arguments of the truest

philosophy, adapted to the genius and mode of thought of each particular people, that the religion of Jesus can and does alone make full provision for all the deep cravings of humanity.

Nor, we may remark, will the investigations which these requirements demand, prove to be useful only as furnishing us with the means of working the conversion of others; we may be benefiting ourselves when we least think so. For if all error be but a distortion of truth; and if it be the tendency of error to reproduce itself under a thousand various forms, meeting us where we least looked to find it; it may so happen that under the guise of Christianity, our self-deceiving hearts have been nurturing some pernicious subtlety, such as in another shape we had combated in heathenism.

"The ultimate tendencies of Buddhism (says Mr. Maurice) to entire evaporation, to mere negation, are manifest enough. The like tendencies assuredly exist, perhaps are becoming stronger every day, in Christendom. But to take the result of a certain doctrine or habit of mind, without considering its stages, varieties, counteractions; its lights as well as its shadows; how it weaves for itself at one time a dogmatic or sacerdotal vesture; how it sinks at another into a mere speculation; above all, what an Eternal Verity keeps it alive in all its forms; is not using it for the warning and instruction of men, but turning it into a mask for frightening children. If it is well for us to know what possibilities lurk in Buddhism, because they lurk in us, still more ought we to consider its actual history, because it is the history of a process which may be passing in the minds of persons whom we are most ready to think of as having reached the last development of unbelief; because it may be going on in us when we are giving ourselves credit for the greatest amount of faith."-p. xvii.

We think there is much truth involved in the last few lines of this quotation; and Mr. Maurice appears to us to have investigated his subject in a careful and enlightened manner. His work (which is transformed from a set of sermons into a series of essays) is divided into two parts: in the first, he "examines the great religious systems which present themselves to us in the history of the world;"-first of all Mahometanism, Hindooism, Buddhism; and then more succinctly the more conspicuous of the defunct religions of the ancient Persians, the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, and the Goths; he examines these systems, "not going into their details, far less searching for their absurdities; but inquiring what was their main characteristical prineiple." In the second part, our author investigates the relation in which Christianity stands to these different faiths.

We scarcely know how to select, when all seems good, and the various parts so closely to cohere; but perhaps the following