pel root, is every day clearing away the obscurities and doubts and fears that long enveloped it. Above all, it is slowly obtaining a Christology of its own, and a systematic theology, which will furnish lucid, definite, and tenable opinions to those who know that religious sentiment cannot for more than one generation live divorced from religious opinion, and that the momentary, fashionable cry against dogma and creed, is certain to discover its own weakness the moment satisfactory dogmas and creeds come to invite the human mind and heart to their coveted embrace and repose.

It may even be said that although the free religious movement, which since Mr. Parker's day has been always ultimating itself, is now more distinctly and separately organized, and in hands more vigorous and gifted than it is ever likely to find itself again, yet its own candid leaders are not over-much encouraged with their prospects. Its earnest and gifted leader, judging from his writings, does not himself seem to believe in the possibility of organizing for any work, or building up any institutional body upon the simple foundation of the love and pursuit of moral and spiritual truth. Without a dogmatic foundation, either implied or professed, institutions of any kind are impossible. Accordingly and wisely, the honest men who have gone back to natural religion or further still, but yet have this vocation of public teachers, are rapidly discovering that, while eloquent individuals here and there may hold personal followers about them during their own lives, churches and congregations wither and die, when denied a Christian foundation and creed, implied in symbols, if not written in words; understood, if not expressed. I may be sanguine in my hopes, or purblind in my perceptions, but I believe that Rationalism openly divorced from Christianity can no more thrive in America than pure Deism or open Atheism; that whatever seeming success, and it has been alarmingly great, has hitherto attended the theistic party in the Liberal body, has been due to the Christian education and flavor of those who have led it, or to their identification with certain other noble reforms, popular and captivating in their spirit and direction. A theism denying Christianity and abandoning its traditions and usages, no abilities and no personal worth and purity among its representatives and advocates have yet shown themselves able to root in the American mind. And I believe that the tendency has reached its climax, and is already on the decline. With the whole force of the Unitarian body thrown into the Christian branch, I am confident that in five years it will throw off all that

cannot be absorbed, and without violating its own free principles. There seems to be a glorious future before the American Unitarian Church. I might tell you how large the percentage of growth has been within five years; how great the promise in the North-west; how rapid the increase in our sales of denominational books; how insatiable the demand for able and earnest ministers; how active our laity and our women; how successful our local conferences; and how promising our national conference. But all this you will learn better from the "Monthly Journal," which I rejoice to learn you receive regularly. I have already abused your patience with this long letter. Nothing but the desire to put you in complete sympathy with American Unitarianism could excuse it. Rejoicing in all you say of our prospects in Europe, I offer you the expression of my fraternal love, and am, in the bonds of the gospel,

Your obliged friend and brother,

HENRY W. BELLOWS.

To Prof. BRUCH, Strasburg, Germany.

ART. VII. — REVIEW OF CURRENT LITERATURE.

THEOLOGY.

"PREPARATIONS" and "abridgments" of foreign works by American editors and translators are always to be distrusted, even when the principles on which the omissions and changes are made are frankly stated in the preface. When a narrow sectarian translates the work of a broader thinker, the chances are that he "improves ” the original work to suit his own dogmatic prejudices, and that he leaves out the most liberal parts. We do not know that Mr. Lacroix has done this in the case of the work of Pressensé on the Church in France during the Revolution.* If we may trust his word, he has faithfully given "the spirit, the doctrines, and the judgments" of Pressensé's book, condensing only the portions "not so interesting to the non-French reader," and slightly enlarging other portions by the addition of historical and explanatory matter. An American Meth

* Religion and the Reign of Terror, or the Church during the French Revolution. Prepared from the French of M. EDMOND DE PRESSENSE. By Rev. JOHN P. LACROIX, A.M. New York: Carlton & Lanahan, 1869. 12mo, pp. 416.

odist, perhaps, is not the best judge of what "non-French" readers of works of this kind prefer; and it would seem that the "elucidating" matter might have been more conveniently given in the form of notes, than by insertion in the text, spoiling the smoothness and clearness of the narrative. Possibly, these insertions have caused some violations of a good idiomatic style in the English work, which otherwise might be attributed to the diffuseness of the French author. Even with this allowance, there are several passages in which the exact sense of the original has not been given by the translation. In the very first sentence of the introduction, we read of France and Europe, "inspired with an inexperienced ardor for universal reform.” A too literal rendering frequently betrays the translator into ungrammatical English. Occasionally, we find blunders which can hardly have been in the original, as on page 371, where the husband of Miss Patterson," the youngest of the Emperor's brothers," is called Joseph Bonaparte; and on page 386, where we read "that the dictator of Brumaire was logically bound to impose on religion the same claims which he was forging for the whole body of the nation." We have not seen the original, but should judge from the context that it said, "fasten upon religion the same chains." The translator, too, invariably calls the French Abbé, “Abbot," bringing in so, not the original idea of a priest, but the idea of superior in a monastery, which Sieyes and Grégoire certainly were not. It is fair to say, however, that in this false rendering Mr. Lacroix may have been misled by the French dictionaries in common use.

The book itself is very interesting. After a rapid survey of the relation between church and state in the centuries preceding the Revolution, of the influence of the tradition of Gallican liberties, and of the writings of the philosophers of the eighteenth century, it shows us the gradual and steady progress of the idea of true religious liberty, until it was crushed by the Cæsarism of the great Napoleon, and the Church, both Catholic and Protestant, was made only the vassal of the state. The sympathies of the author are, as we might expect, with the Abbé Grégoire, and the party, who, while defending the right of private judgment, and of free prophesying, make no concessions to the irreverent and infidel spirit of the age. He sees in this party the saviours of religion in all that stormy time of the Girondists, the Terrorists, and the Directory. They maintain the rights of faith against the excesses of atheists, and the follies of the philanthropists, and enable the Church, when the storm has passed, to recover

its lost ground, and to come back to its former possession. That Rome is in religious possession of France to-day, is due, not so much to the resistance and the martyrdom of recusant priests, who would not subscribe to the constitution of the nation, as to the more patriotic wisdom of those priests and scholars who consented to the will of the people, yet held firmly to their hereditary faith in the truths of the creed and the Bible.

If the closing chapter of the book has not been improved by the American translator, it is certainly very bold writing for a subject of the third Napoleon, and shows that the strict censorship of the press cannot shut the mouths of all critics of the imperial rule. What Pressensé says of the acts and spirit of the uncle is equally exact in showing the acts and spirit of the nephew. The attitude of the despot who could respect all religions as a matter of state-craft, with an equal contempt for their spiritual claim, is precisely the attitude of the present sovereign of France. The position of the churches in France is certainly a great deal better than it was two centuries ago, even with the protection of Protestants by the Edict of Nantes. Catholic, Protestant, and Jew can live side by side, and have their rights guaranteed by the civil code, and their hands held back from fratricidal warfare. Yet the servitude of the Church to the Empire is as galling to Catholic as it is to Protestant. It is humiliating to be confined to metes and bounds, and to take a charitable stipend from the hand of the master. The spirit of propagandism has no chance where religion is under the supervision and control of the state. In France, as in England, the only class that are content with the present religious position, are the Liberals, who are able, under the protection of the secular power, to have free utterance of their heresies and their speculations.

A thorough and impartial work on the actual condition of religious faith in France, and the relations of religious parties, is greatly to be desired.

"SACRED Archæology," in the language of Mr. Walcott means all the appendages of the priesthood and the rituals, knobs and bosses, choral pauses in the psalms; pocularies, or "consecrated

* Sacred Archæology: a popular Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Art and Institutions, from Primitive to Modern Times. By MACKENZIE E. C. WALCOTT, B.D. London: L. Reeve & Co., 1868. 8vo, pp. xvi., 640.

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drinking-cups;" pargettings," "the ornamental plastering on walls;" grave-diggers in the catacombs; torch-bearers ; — every thing, and every man, in fact, that has had any thing to do with matters ecclesiastical. Paradise is sacred; "Hawpulling Towels " are sacred; "Pultog Holes," apertures for scaffolding left in church-walls, are sacred: we have the holy sponge, the holy brush, the holy spoon, the holy voice-tube, and the holy pouch. This archæological dictionary is one of the first literary fruits of ritualism, and is a sign of the time. It shows us to what this reaction is tending, and what kind of puerility and folly it would fasten upon the churches. A great deal of singular and quaint learning is compressed in this goodly octavo; but the strangest thing is, that a sensible Englishman should find pleasure in bringing such stuff together. We have more than two pages about the cope; three pages about the mitre; more than two pages about the pall; and the account of the Rood Loft, concisely written, fills three full pages. None of the articles in the volume are tedious, and there is no sentiment to dress out the facts. There are nearly two thousand titles of separate articles and notices; and the information is drawn from a great variety of sources, English and foreign. The spirit of the work is good, not harsh or controversial. Mr. Walcott deprecates the "desecration of sacred and solemn subjects by the unchastened language of human passion." He therefore has no severe rebuke for the iconoclasts, when he mentions the broken images, and no sad lament over the good time gone, when he tells how pious customs have died out, such as head and feet washing, before the "Competentes " received baptismal unction. The only practice which stirs his mild wrath, is the practice of restoring ancient churches, which in his view is more dangerous than the ravages of armies, mobs, or fanatics. He invites the suggestions of critics, whether hostile or friendly, and is prepared to welcome their word. The verdict of the critics will be, that the book is very good of its kind, but that the kind seems to have lost its value in an age of reason and light.

C. H. B.

"THE Tripartite Nature of Man"* is a fascinating book. Its style is clear and flowing, its arrangement scientific, the learning is

*The Tripartite Nature of Man, -Spirit, Soul, and Body; applied to illustrate and explain the doctrines of Original Sin, the New Birth, the Disembodied State, and the Spiritual Body. By Rev. G. B. HEARD, M.A. Edinburgh: J. & T. Clark, 1868. 12mo, pp. xxiv., 363.