was the decay of loyalty to the Church theology. He tells his admiring and rejoicing audience that the polite silence of a 'Hallam and Macaulay, the attitude (neither silent nor polite) ' of a Carlyle or Emerson, the vigorous contempt of a Mill and 'Buckle, the satire of a Thackeray, the humanism of a Dickens, 'the mystic tenderness of a Tennyson, freely forming itself into a 'type of its own-all in different ways attest the utter estrange'ment of the inner life of our thought from the outward language ' of traditionary belief.' If this misrepresentation of some of these writers had been the celebration of all crime annihilated and sorrow ended, it could not have been uttered in a spirit of more glowing triumph. The thing which good men deplore gives to Mr. Martineau unmingled joy. To him it seems nothing but a subject of delight that men should pour 'vigorous contempt upon that Christianity which alone has been the true friend of mankind, breaking their chains, assuaging their griefs, and ministering to them the consolation of an assured hope when entering the Valley of the Shadow of Death. But does he rejoice in this because it leads men to embrace Unitarianism? We should be much mistaken if we fancied so. Concerning this, he tells us, what we believed before, but on which we are glad to have his corroborative testimony. With regard to the dis'tinctive Unitarian doctrines, as commonly understood, I do not 'hesitate to say-and the sentiment is not new to you here-that ' in my judgment, not the whole of Scripture is upon our side. So 'long as we conduct the controversy entirely upon Biblical grounds, 'we shall never be able to settle it; for, although we may be able to convince certain predisposed minds, we shall always be 'met with an array of texts which cannot be made to speak 'naturally and simply in our sense.' What, then, is Mr. Martineau to do? Of course, if the Bible does not correspond with his conceptions, so much the worse for the Bible. It exhibits diversities of thought and doctrine.' 'Even within the limits of the New Testament itself we find the different types already 'foreshadowed which afterwards shaped themselves into diverging 'creeds and churches.' John differs from Matthew, and Paul from both-there are marked differences between these three, 'differences in the substance of their doctrine itself, and not 'merely in their mode of expressing and applying it.' Is not this sufficient? Who would think of taking the inconsistent and contradictory utterances of these differing theologians for the inspiration of God? What can we think of gentlemen who speak thus as teachers of the sacred writings, or in what conceivable form can we fancy them Christians? We frankly confess that to us all other supernaturalism seems dull in comparison with the miracle of Scepticism to be Expected but not Feared. 507 their faith in Jesus. They profess to admire Him, they speak of the wisdom of his teaching; but if we ask them whence they derive their knowledge of his character and instructions, they are obliged to point us to those very Gospels whose authority they have so vigorously denied. The Christ they admire is seen by them only through the unequally-refracted medium of the thoughts of widely differing men, coloured, too, by the prismatic hues of the personal prejudices, the limited knowledge, and the characteristic individuality of his several biographers and expositors. Great is thy faith, O Sceptic, as far surpassing the ordinary belief of Christendom as the blazing noon outshines the light of stars, as strong in its wilfulness of tenacity as of rejection, truly the greatest miracle of mind! Whatever may be the future course of all these gentlemen, whether they shall penitently and sincerely return to the acknowledgment of the truth, or, as one of their ritics suggests, go over to the Darwinian monad,' our duty is done. We have tried to look at them as they represent themselves. We have examined their own words and acts, and have found their liberality to be only a myth, and their liberalism an immorality. That they have reached the last stage in their downward journey we cannot suppose without excluding from our thought all true principles of judgment and lessons of religious history. We have no fear that the great mass of our countrymen will follow their example. The unparalleled sight of a number of infidel clergymen will be a nine days' wonder no doubt; but a dishonesty so manifest will disgust more than it will allure. We have no objection to the thorough sifting of religious questions; it has always issued in good. Let truth and error grapple who ever knew truth put to the worse in a fair and open encounter?' For a time there may be a shaking; some feeble minds may lose their balance, and topple over into the gulf of scepticism; some who have held truth as men hold heresy, more by the childish tenacity of prejudice than the manly force of conviction, may lose their grasp of a substance they have never really possessed, in favour of a tempting shadow; but truth will triumph, the more vigorous minds will be confirmed, and the forces of Christianity, like Gideon's army, relieved from the incumbrance of the fainthearted, will gain by the process, and not lose. As certain diseases belong to the period of youth, so certain doubts attend upon a period of opening mind; and just as some have found those diseases to act as safety-valves to the constitution, while in others they have left behind them a life-long legacy of feebleness, so is it here. Some minds are thus made to succumb to the slightest breath of sceptical contagion, while others pass through their malady with a purified and reinvigorated constitution. We cannot help this. It occurs with the regularity of law, and we may always expect to have a few young gentlemen in society who are overwhelmed with the 'burthen of the mystery of all this unintelligible world. Nay, even stronger minds than those of sentimentalists may be for a time staggered with difficulties, and led into darkness; only emerging after long and sorrowing toil through the gloomy cave of doubt into the serene brightness of an assured faith. But they come forth to be sympathizing guides to the erring footsteps of others, to stretch out to them a brother's hand when they stumble on the dark mountains, and to lead them fully into the way of peace. But the worst aspect of this condition of things is when the doubters count it their duty to expose their doubts to the world. If they would but do as men are accustomed to do when struggling with physical affliction-shut themselves up till convalescence comes, there might be some hope of their recovery; but when, instead of this, they come forth into public view exhibiting their disease, as needy beggars do their sores, whether for sordid pennies, or for sympathy or fame, they destroy their one last hope of recovery, and only procure for themselves a momentary sympathy, joined with a long remembrance of shuddering disgust. Let any reader go through the Essays and Reviews, and then ask-Are these the records of bold, strong, unfaltering conviction ?—and we shall hold his judgment cheap if he can reply in the affirmative. There is an audible undertone of doubt, sometimes almost drowning the utterance of their sentiments, and rendering it indistinct. Is it right for men professing to be public teachers to come forth thus exposing their sores to infect the health of the community, while they affect to persuade us that the foulness exuded from them breathes balm and purity? Let us not be mistaken. We are not counselling reserve. If a man has got a truth, let him speak it; but let him keep his latent doubts and half-formed convictions to himself, until they have orbed into developed and settled verity. And even if we did counsel a little more reserve, we should only follow the example of our Poet-laureate, whose name has been already used not fairly in a quotation we have given: 'O thou that, after toil and storm, Mayst seem to have reach'd a purer air, Nor cares to fix itself to form, 'Leave thou thy sister when she prays, If these wise and thoughtful words were more pondered, and their advice more adopted, we should be saved from much crude thinking, and should realize a more matured wisdom. In conclusion, we hope that we shall not be understood to mean other than we have said—that we shall not be supposed to direct our remarks obliquely at others whom we have not named. We have no sympathy with the policy which hints suspicion, and loosens the bonds of confidence. Such a course is always unmanly, and productive of the most injurious consequences. We have used our liberty in canvassing published opinions and current pretensions, and shall continue to use it, whatever the subject may be which invites our criticism. If there be any in our own ranks who sympathize in any degree with the sentiments we have criticised, we entreat them to ponder their position with its responsibilities, and act as honest men should. We do not. participate in the alarms by which some good men are disturbed, and which heresy loves so much to publish abroad, as an evidence of its own growing strength. Our watchword still shall be 'liberty,' not that which the despot uses in crushing every rising aspiration, not that which accepts the aid of poisoned personalities, but that which is won in honourable struggle on the open field of fair and manly encounter. Much has yet to be sifted and settled; but our confidence is strong that the truth we hold will come forth triumphant. The instrument of our warfare, and the prize of our great contention is 'the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.' ART. X.-(1.) Correspondence respecting the Affairs of Italy, Presented to the House of Commons by Command of Her Majesty, February 7, 1861. (2.) Les Turcs et la Civilization. Par A. BONNEAU. E. Dentu. 1861. (3.) Constantinople, Ville libre. Par DIONYSE RATTOS. E. Dentu. 1861. (4.) Les Turcs et les Nationalités. Par A. Bonneau. E. Dentu. 1861. Paris: Paris: Paris : (5.) La Syrie et l'Alliance Russe. Paris: E. Dentu. 1861. (6.) La Nouvelle Attitude de la France. Paris: E. Dentu. 1861. (7.) La Nouvelle Question d'Orient. Par M. DE LESAGE. E. Dentu. 1861. Paris: LORD JOHN RUSSELL may console himself for the loss of the Premiership with the thought that he holds the most important post in the Cabinet. His judgments, during the present critical state of foreign affairs, must not only act upon Europe, but must be attended with results fraught with blessings or disasters to this country. As Foreign Minister, the functions of his colleagues are quite subordinate to his own. As long as Europe is in its present disturbed state, the Chancellor of the Exchequer must keep up war taxes; and as long as that functionary levies war taxes, the Home Secretary, with his colleagues at the Board of Trade, at the Admiralty, and the War Office, must find their duties immeasurably increased. Even the head of the new PoorLaw Board must feel, in the augmentation or contraction of his duties, the effects of every sentence which proceeds from the noble lord's pen. In fact, while Europe continues what it is, the whole Cabinet must gyrate round the Foreign Secretary as the power which prescribes the law of their motion. The nation looks for the diminution of its fiscal burdens, and for the acceleration of the steady law of progress, not to the operations of the Treasury, but to the affairs of foreign countries; and reads in the noble lord's judgment upon them their present glory or disgrace, their future weal or misery. We are in the condition of a householder who is obliged to barricade his house and spend all his fortune upon casemates, because the streets are in possession of armed marauders whose hearts the voice of reason can but imperfectly reach, and who are constantly fomenting quarrels with a view to accelerate a general raid, in which they may aggrandize themselves at the expense of their neighbours. With the Foreign Secretary's general bias and leaning, as regards European interests, we in the main agree. If we are disposed to be captious, it is not with reference to his ends, but to the means he has adopted for their attainment. Our simple objection to those means is that they are frequently not only in direct contradiction to the objects at which they are aimed, but that they are sometimes in direct antagonism to each other. The noble lord's sympathies have been, time out of mind, strongly committed to a united Italy, yet only seven months ago he would have upheld the Bourbon on the throne of Naples, as he would now glue Sardinia's sword to the scabbard rather than permit her to expel the stranger from Venetia. The means by which his lordship would have realized his conception of a united Italy would have directly led to that confederation by which the French Emperor madly thought to perpetuate his influence over the peninsula. At one time the Foreign Secretary threatened Sardinia with the full weight of England's indignation, if she went to Naples. When she had actually taken the step, he spends all his energies in her justification, and directs his blows upon her |