warning which Bacon, the great author of the modern philosophical method, gives against philosophy invading the peculiar province of religion. Truly Paul's text has not spent its force, in which he puts his converts on their guard, lest any man should “spoil them through philosophy." Philosophy, when modest, is a good helpmate of religion; but when she would conquer the world of truth, and by grace allow such province as she will to religion, she seems smitten with penal blindness, and inarticulate speech. One reason why her highvaulting ambition has overleaped itself is, that, by the entirely disproportionate speculative action of the intellect, she has broken the healthy balance of the mind. Truth has been defined the harmony of the divine attributes. The greatest truth we can reach, then, lies in the largest proportion of our powers. What, like the doctrine and sanction of Christianity, has moved the springs of spiritual integrity?

We here touch on the second error of rationalism in its extreme, — that it cultivates one or more faculties at the expense of others. The mind is a unity with various powers, as the life is a unity with many organs. To think one or two powers will help our progress better than all, is like thinking we could best walk or work with part only of the muscular system. The intuition of first principles lays a sure foundation of knowledge. But we have also observation, understanding, memory, reflection, generalization; and the defects of our own experience we supply from others' testimony. Much of the evidence for Christianity is in the nature of testimony; it is not strange one who thinks lightly of testimony, should think lightly of Christianity. Now all these powers bear their warrant with them; so God has made us. It is impiety to despise our own frame, — high treason to break the commission of any faculty; the unfolding of all is the idea of the perfect man. But some have mutilated the mind, and made intuition itself false, because overstrained,-while in this monstrous development they glory, and accuse dissenters from them as intellectually depraved. Alas, the insane know not their insanity, but think the sober insane, so is it with the unbalanced mind. Hence many have mournfully launched, -we speak with unfeigned sorrow, - into abysses of vanity, arrogance, contempt, folly; into a furious intolerance, while complaining of others' intolerence; into unworthy inuendoes, while enjoying the magnanimity of truth; into bitter sneers, while extolling the supremacy

of love. At such times words must be plain. Liberality must not be basely transmuted into courtly dealing, into a softlipped, assenting, acquiescing politeness, into a cowardly dread lest disapproval of sin should be called persecution for opinion's sake, into a craven shunning of explicitness in the expression of conviction, into any mode of preferring a compliment to the truth. We are not ashamed to say we withhold not a warm esteem from some who might smile at all our views; but we must strive to make our picture true. We are prepared to believe what so many have said of our living in an extraordinary age. Never was the consideration of moral law so paramount, in "open vision," as now. But our conscience seems slightly crazed. Some, instead of acting rigorously out the monitions of conscience, turn ever round to a sickly toying with the sense of duty. And how many prefer to use the outer rather than the inner side of that two-edged sword, God has put in every spirit,-in blows of vengeance, instead of smitings of self-reproach. It is indeed to the partial culture, on which we have remarked, that we seem to owe the vigor and brilliance, we readily admit in much of the religious literature of the day. It derives strength from narrowness, and a certain life from disease. It shows splendid prismatic hues, but not the white beam of the sun; or, to vary the figure, the sharp blaze of the morning, without the comprehensive light of day. It is highly poetic, much of its prose being poetry, to which intuition so much contributes. Much of it in the theological strain has indeed no want of a kind of method in its madness; and while in style, mystical, vague, transient, glancing from topic to topic, it draws in objectionable matter and unproved conclusions in a clause, a parenthesis, or a hint ; thus rendering them irrefutable, because unassailable in their giddy and misty position. It often shows not the respect to established opinion of stating why it differs, or of clearly laying open its own grounds. A distinguished foreigner once predicted, that youthful irreverence would be one danger in the career of our new country. The prophecy is fulfilled. We are devoured with conceit; in some of its specimens incredible. We know there are obstinate and prejudiced persons, who can give no reason for the faith that is in them, in the conservative part of society, but must think the most glaring faults are among the extreme innovators, and that there is no fear of any established institution or professional class being spoiled by flattery.

We are, however, in no alarm as to the issue. Better storm than stagnancy. Those waters heal which are stirred. Moreover we dread practical heresy far more than theoretical, — and are more concerned about the fate of men than Christianity.

Withal the prevailing Transcendentalism is not without a good influence. It breaks up spiritual slumber and dead formalism, while its own vices are of a spiritual cast. When its crude exaggeration is spent, it may leaven the whole lump. It possesses two distinct classes of minds, — the ideal and the superficial. The first live in it as in their native element; and they need to cultivate the practical traits of observation, clear reasoning, and real sympathy with their fellow-men. The second conscientiously conceive of it as a needful supplement to their merely practical thoughts and affections; the subsiding turbulence will give them fertility. Let us not leave our criticism of the faults of individuals narrow and unjust, by not confessing the purity and piety of other individuals, or of the same. Though we blame their excesses, and oppose their principles as they state them, we like no more than they, arbitrary or conventional views in religion, and trust whatever evil may be laid at their door, their mission will be to spiritualize the too hard and literal Christianity that is common, and make the religion of Jesus a truer and more sanctifying principle to many souls.

The last error we shall mention of an extreme rationalism is its total unfitness to the mass of mankind; which alone must forever prevent its taking the place of the New Testament. A few, by the force of spiritual genius and refined culture, may reach the rapt and blissful state, where they breathe an ever lucid atmosphere in their own thought. And many more, always as now, will weakly pretend to have reached it. Numbers will lose health of mind and moral soundness by this affectation. Some will delight to find in startling doctrines a vent for their native pride and daring, and love of notoriety. Still others, by mere preponderance of speculation, will leave their affections untrained, and their passions a howling waste. Have we not seen, that a man may understand and describe the whole nature of religion in history and the human mind, yet be "to every good work reprobate?" But mankind in their instability, pine for an authority they can respect, to lean upon. In daily thanks from countless altars, the great heart of hu

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manity confesses, that in the Gospel its wants are met. principle of loyalty too, stirs, never extinct, in the human breast, and God through Christ, gives men a glorious law for their allegiance, blending with the command within, and leading to true freedom; gives them in their doubt, toil, pain, grief, a resource. Well for those whose mountain stands strongest, if they never need this resource, - if in the power of human wisdom alone, they can breast the waves of trouble, and stand with untrembling heart by the side of their friends' graves, and on the brink of their own! If they can, mankind cannot. They need, more than the abstract systems that have often so little ruled their framers, even the living truth, as it is in Jesus. The concrete engages their attention, the formal takes hold of their affection, the symbolic interests their imagination, the authoritative moves their will. So the Creator has made them. Let but the doctrine, form, symbol, authority, be true, expressive, beautiful, just, such as we have under the seal of God. It is sometimes said to be harder to decide on the claims of a revelation than to learn the whole will of God from within. This is a question of fact and of numbers, which need not be argued. And when we consider, that the Bible was not written for ingenious minds, but for all God's children, We respect what may be called the plain, obvious sense of Scripture, as containing every important element of truth.

In fine, true rationalism and spirituralism, with a true supernaturalism, agree. Rationalism welcomes the supernatural, for one element of the human mind is a love of the superhuman and expectation of the miraculous, which therefore amazes it not when amazing it the most, especially when it finds the teachings of miracle cordially harmonizing with its best thoughts, anticipations, and desires. So a true supernaturalism affirms, the divine miracles were not designed for overwhelming portents, but for the soul's edification in all faith, virtue, and joy. Thus both these great influences, free from the hostility in which some have narrowly placed them, conspire to help on the soul to that world, where it will no more need the remedial dispensations here so mercifully vouchsafed; but where, in the presence of its God, it shall see as it is seen, and know as it is known.

C. A. B.

ART. V. - Monaldi : A Tale. By W. ALLSTON. Boston: Little & Brown. 1841. 12mo. pp. 253.

How many, unacquainted with the minor graceful effusions from the same mind, will take up this volume from an unmingled feeling of curiosity to see how the first painter of the age will write! How many, to whom the author's name speaks only of his favorite art, and who know nothing of him beyond what they have learned from his pencil, will here seek to read something of the man! And who can write, without pouring something of his own true nature even through the very pages, where he delineates characters most unlike his own, and describes scenes, in which he could never have been an actor? We believe that they who lay down Monaldi, thrilling with its intense interest, will feel that its spirit is in harmony with that which breathes from the other productions of the same right hand, as they glow and speak to us from the canvass. 'The same order of intellect and taste is revealed in all. It is high, it is imaginative. The genius of Allston deals both with the strong and the beautiful qualities of our nature. It gives us vice in all its repulsiveness, without soiling our imaginations with its grossness; and it gives us beauty and virtue in all their quiet natural loveliness, as if the atmosphere in which they abide were its true home.

We have been particularly struck with finding on Allston's page, as usually on his canvass, so few characters. We like this trait of family resemblance between his various works, as such; and as indicating a peculiarity and consistency. This paucity of characters in the tale before us does not suggest any thought of meagre invention, or want of power to deal with a more numerous "dramatis persona." It gives a simplicity to the production, which is in itself a grace; and the manner in which the characters and fates of these few individuals are sketched and wrought up into a tale that rivets the reader, and, - which is the glory of the whole, leaves him with its solemn moral vibrating through his soul, is worthy of the master's hand. We know that the great and long anticipated picture now stealing slowly forth from the recesses of his soul in sacred solitude, its birth unmarked by profane eyes, is of a totally dif ferent character; but who that looks on his smaller paintings can wish another face, or form, or object introduced? Who