and wonder what evil there is under the sun for which she might not plead a similar justification. Christianity has suffered many wrongs at the hands of its disciples, but never was it so maligned as when its authority is pleaded on behalf of slavery. Who could have imagined, apart from experience, that the religion of love would be adduced in support of cruelty, -the pure, benignant, self-sacrificing temper of the Gospel be perverted to the sanction of a system under which licentiousness, robbery, lawless despotism, and concentrated selfishness, are openly cherished? We confess that we sicken and turn away disgusted when such enormities are glossed over by the commonplaces of religion. Our feeling is similar in some respects to that of Tom Loker, who nauseated the cant of Haley, telling him: I can stand most any talk o' yourn, but your pious talk,—that kills me right up.'

The tone of Mrs. Eastman's volume may be judged of by the following delectable specimen. Susan, a negro servant, had been brought by her mistress from Georgia to Boston, where she was found by some abolitionists, who persuaded her to escape from bondage. She determined to do so, and was lodged for the night, so says our author, 'under the charge of some people who made their living by receiving the newly ransomed. In justice to Mrs. Eastman, we will give what follows in her own words. Were we to abridge her narrative, we should be suspected of misrepresentation.

'The next morning she was to go off, but she found she had reckoned without her host, for when she thanked the good people for her night's lodging and the hashed cod-fish on which she tried to breakfast, she had a bill to pay, and where was the money? Poor Susan! she had only a quarter of a dollar, and that she had asked her mistress for a week before, to buy a pair of side-combs.

'Why, what a fool you be,' said one of the men; 'didn't I tell you to bring your mistress' purse along?'

'And did you think I was going to steal besides running off from her and the poor baby?' answered Susan.

'It's not stealing,' said the Abolitionist. Haven't you been a slaving of yourself all your life for her, and I guess you've a right to be paid for it. I guess you think the rags on your back good wages enough?'

'Susan looked at her neat dress, and thought they were very nice rags, compared to the clothes her landlady had on; but the Abolitionist was in a hurry.

'Come,' said he, 'I'm not going to spend all my time on you; if you want to be free, come along; pay what you owe, and start.' But I have only this quarter,' said Susan, despairingly.

'I don't calculate to give runaway niggers their supper, and night's lodging and breakfast for twenty-five cents,' said the woman. 'I aint

so green as that, I can tell you. If you've got no money, open your bundle, and we can make a trade, like as not.'—p. 58.

What will our readers think after this, when they find Mrs. Eastman gravely stating, I am determined to be charitable.' We confess that we wondered greatly at the impudence of the assertion, or, rather, we ceased to wonder at the palpable falsehoods, the gross misdescriptions, with which the volume abounds. We might multiply instances in proof, but our space is too valuable to be filled with such trash. We dismiss 'Aunt Phillis's Cabin' to the neglect which awaits it. It establishes beyond doubt the weakness of slavery, and will greatly aid the impression of Mrs. Stowe's volume.

The White Slave,' is a work of considerable merit, taking the same general view of slavery as Mrs. Stowe's. It has not the dramatic power of Uncle Tom's Cabin,' and is wholly destitute of that vital heat which penetrates and melts the hardest heart. It can never vie with it, therefore, in popularity; and wears, moreover, in some parts of its narrative, an air of romance which greatly detracts from its moral force. It is, however, a fearful exposure of the horrid system of the south, and deepens our sympathy with its degraded and miserable victims. It is issued as an original work, and we have no reason to suppose that it was not so regarded by its English publishers. From the Westminster Review,' however, of last July (page 315) we learn that it was published at Boston, U.S., in 1836, under a different title, and was reprinted in a London periodical, entitled, Truth Seeker' in 1846 or 1847. It was forwarded to this country a few months since, we are informed, by Messrs. Tappan and Whittemore, highly respectable booksellers of Boston, as a 'new work,' and their agent was instructed to sell the copyright to a London publisher. If this statement is correct and so far as we are aware it has not been contradicted-there is much blame somewhere, and the American publishers owe it to their own reputation to search out the matter thoroughly. Either they have been imposed on by some literary pirate, or—which we do not credit-they have lent themselves to a most disreputable fraud.

745

By

ART. VII.-Pastoral Theology: the Theory of a Gospel Ministry. A. Vinet, Professor of Theology at Lausanne. Translated from the French. Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark. London: Hamilton and Co.; Simpkin and Co. 1852.

We learn from the editor that this volume was not prepared for the press by M. Vinet, but is taken from the note-books of students, who heard them delivered. Notwithstanding the unavoidable imperfections of a volume so produced, the name of one so much honoured by evangelical Christians in England, especially by non-conformists, will draw to it the attention of pastors, of candidates for the pastoral office, and of many others to whom every elucidation of so important a calling, and every help towards its increased efficiency, must ever prove acceptable. In many respects, such readers will be benefited by these lectures. The theory of the Christian ministry is ably exhibited, though to our practical English understandings, it seems to be wanting in distinctness. The interior life; the ' relative or social life;' the 'pastoral life;' the 'administrative or official life' of the pastor, are delineated with much fulness, minutely, wisely, and with a comprehensive survey of the varied work and manifold requirements of the localized minister of the gospel. The suggestions, whether didactic or practical, bear the impress of much thought, the traces of extensive reading, the sagacity acquired by experience, and the refined earnestness of a highly cultivated and thoroughly spiritual mind. Had the lamented author lived among the free churches of this land, and the spirit-stirring activity which, to so large an extent, supersedes the labour devolving on pastors in other countries, there would, probably, have been less scholastic formality in his instructions to theological students, and more breadth and energy in the inculcation of the piety which, as he shows, is not to be peculiar to the minister but common in the church. We observe, that in his remarks on the titles applied to the ministers in the New Testament, he omits evangelist. We consider it as a defect, that he has not discriminated the temporary from the permanent, the local from the general, the extraordinary from the ordinary. His enumeration is too large, in one view of it; and in another, it is not large enough. He has stated, very clearly, that the Christian ministry is not a priesthood, not a caste, not a transmitted order, a separated set of functionaries; and the statement of this truth is an indication

of the advance made by the professor on the notion that pervades. all national churches, and not a few others. It is refreshing to meet in such a book with passages like the following:—

'It may perhaps be convenient for a society, as such, to make use of particular men or orders of men; but apart from this, the functions of the ministry may be performed by any of the faithful. An ecclesiastical ministry is formed by the consecration, under certain conditions, of certain members of the Christian society to occupy themselves specially, but not to the exclusion of all others, in the administration of religious worship, and the guidance of human souls. A religious society can, moreover, decide that the solemn observances which are performed at its meeting, shall be exclusively presided over by those particular persons who are denominated ministers or pastors. It seems easy to keep within the two prescribed limits; if we are absorbed in either, to the exclusion of the other, it will be at the loss of some evangelical truth. But it is certain that we cannot lose one of these without losing the other also; a choice between the two will never have to be made; we shall preserve, or we shall lose, both at once. This discussion is not an easy one. The attack and defence pass from one side to another without meeting one another-each party advancing that which the other does not reject, and repudiating that which the other does not care to defend. But this discussion, which could not have arisen at any other period, marks a kind of mental action, which it is incumbent upon us to observe, and may help us to determine with more accuracy our position in the church and in society. This mental action is of a very singular character; it indicates the co-existence of two contradictory elements. Everything that can be done to make us a caste is done, and yet incessant fears are expressed lest we should become one. It is not remembered that it is in the very nature of a body in exile to form itself into an empire, and that it will shortly not. be able to see even its equals, where it is not allowed to see those who are similar in position and action to itself. We create, or at least we strengthen, the esprit de corps by this constant fear of it. The clergy itself is undecided between the recollection of its ancient authority and the feeling of its actual position. That interest in religious questions, which is revived no longer among the masses, but among a certain number of individuals, tends to confer importance upon the clergy; that same interest also invests the laity with some of the functions of the clergy, and more or less effaces the limits which divide them. This position of things ought certainly to teach us one thing to remain or to enter only on those terms which are required by the Gospel, and which we have already described. In every church, therefore, which is organized according to the word and according to the spirit of Jesus Christ, there will be ministers; whether or not they form a distinct body, they will never,-let me urge this upon you,-they will never form a caste. They will belong, in everything, that does not exclusively affect their distinctive official duties, to the general company of other Christians and other citizens, and their only inalienable attri

butes will be such as are defined and limited by the interests of the order.'

These observations may seem to have no place in congregational churches, and they are to be received, of course, in connexion with the presbyterian constitution of the church' of which M. Vinet was a member. But where churches, such as the Independents and Baptists, are associated for purposes beyond the range of their separate self-government, it will be seen that, in the proceedings of such 'unions,' the principles which regulate the relation of ministers to aggregate bodies denominated' churches,' do come, of necessity, into operation, and in proportion to the activity and spiritual harmony with which independent churches' carry out their evangelical designs, will be their approach to the solution of the problem which requires the largest amount of unity that does not involve the sacrifice of freedom.

The section on 'Difficulties and Advantages of an Evangelical Ministry' is one of which we think it would be difficult to speak too highly. The IDEA OF THE MINISTRY has seldom been expressed so truly, so grandly, so impressively. On one side, there is a stern looking at possible as well as familiar and probable difficulties, which reminds us of the struggles which are still required, and with which experience had made the writer well acquainted, to maintain a true evangelical standing in this world, and from which we are far from being sure that our own evangelical ministers in any church will always be exempt. We wish we had room for large extracts. The following, which are mere specimens, will commend themselves to the hearts of those more immediately concerned:

'Ordinary or extraordinary times are not so because of that which meets the eye; in reality, all times are what we ourselves make them. All may be sublime; and the most extraordinary we may make prosaic. The ministry is extraordinary at all times. There is a heroic way of conceiving of it, and that is the only true way. The ministry is an office of devotedness; and, in order that we may not take one thing for another, we must elevate the ministry to the full height of its grandeur, and see it in the most arduous periods of its existence. For ourselves, we are perpetually descending below our truest height; what, then, can be more fatal than to seek an ideal of the ministry in some middle point, instead of ascending to the summit of its activity and danger. In order, therefore, that we may not remain content with too low an estimate, we ought to seek our ideal in the most exceptional cases, and ask ourselves whether we should be ready to accept such a ministry as missionaries undertake among barbarian peoples such as the martyrs passed through. We ought at the outset to place before us that which is only not impossible, or we do not attain to an adequate idea of the