We

for not only the evidence of careful reading wins a certain respect from scholars towards the most heterodox opinions, but even the most uncultivated reader likes the visible tokens of learning in the writer. imagine that the remarkable body of notes appended as ballast to the "Discourse" of Theodore Parker, had a good deal to do with its prosperous voyage among the deeps and shallows of the popular mind. And we are a little tried that a writer so much in earnest, and with so much that is excellent and fresh in matter, gives us so little opportunity to cross-question him.

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The book before us consists, first, of a few chapters, which contain a succinct statement of a few preliminary points of erudition, and of the author's own critical theory; then, of select portions of Genesis and Exodus, translated in a literal and careful way, so as to serve as a running commentary, followed by brief but very interesting expositions, in which his views of these passages are given in detail. He accepts them frankly as allegorical, arguing strongly and keenly against a literal exposition, and, in several instances, making a more unqualified use of allegory than we should have thought necessary. Allegory is at best the ultima ratio of a healthy criticism, and should not be cheapened by excessive use. But, we are glad to say, Mr. Sawyer has nothing of the milk-and-water allegorizing which sublimates the grand old Hebrew narrative into a spiritual" sense, that is, into a series of moral platitudes and transcendental small-talk. His interpretation is clear, masculine, objective, as well as ingenious, and is conscientiously vouched, phrase by phrase, by actual exhibition of the text. Sometimes startling by its boldness, sometimes queer in its expression, it is always sincere, instructive, and full of excellent suggestion for the intelligent reading of the Scripture. The earlier legends in Genesis are the story of the beginnings of human society. Adam is the "stock-man"; Eden, his primeval forest-life; the creation of Eve (after many generations of rude life), the institution of marriage and the family; the forbidden fruit, "probably the cereal grains," discovered by woman as the domestic provider, not at all as the seducer into evil. The Deluge is a migration into colder latitudes; and the Ark, or chest," a symbol of the wealth in cattle and goods borne along in that nomadic condition of patriarchal life. It is speaking quite within bounds to say that these interpretations, as expounded and vindicated here, compare advantageously with any similar attempt. that has yet been popularized. Even veteran readers of standard commentaries may gather some instructive hints.

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The volume contains many indications of vigor in thought and felicity of style, which augur well for the difficult task which the writer has undertaken. With great freedom both of criticism and interpretation, he never once loses his reverence both for the truth he finds "within the veil" of the letter, or for the venerable compositions themselves with which he deals. We have had occasion heretofore to find fault with some points of taste and expression, as well as specialties of interpretation, in his version of the Gospels. And many a reverent association with the elder Scripture will doubtless be rudely jarred by

what will seem needless novelties in the specimens he has given here. It is a little odd to read how "Jeva of gods planted a park [forest] in Eden of the east"; and it is a blunt rendering that turns the "ark of gopher-wood" into a "chest of pine-trees.” Of the Mosaic laws we

are frankly told that "many of them are excellent, some are frivolous, and several of them are monstrous"; and, in allusion to the striking of the rock at Massah, we are reminded that "God still gives us water from the rock at the touch of chisel and rods." Mr. Sawyer is thoroughly in earnest in the work he has proposed to himself. He has won the ear of a public that already counts its ten thousands. And, in a field so large and difficult as that of popularizing a view of Scripture somewhat more in accordance with scholarship and sound sense than the dogmatism so long prevalent, he has shown some of the best qualities of a pioneer.

THE famous Discourse of M. Renan,* which was hailed with so much enthusiasm by a crowd of students, is rescued from the censure of the police and the priesthood by the numerous editions which have scattered it widely among the people. It is in every respect a noble utterance of a true philosopher. It has no lack of the spirit of reverence, though it has all the freedom of impartial science. Of course, it is not Christian according to the Catholic standard. Its theology is what we should call Unitarian, and its portrait of Jesus might have been taken from the works familiar in the reading of our body. But the tone of the Dis

course is in no sense sectarian. It is just what it professes to be, an appropriate "Introduction to a Course of Lectures on the Semitic Dialects," and the speculations are such as would naturally occur. We are by no means ready to allow that all the opinions expressed as to the relative gifts of the Aryan and the Semitic races to the world are tenable. There is an element of theorizing and fancy in what is said about the idolatrous natures of the Aryans and the monotheism of the Semitic peoples. If the Scriptures, not to say the profane histories, are to be trusted, there was idolatry of the worst kind among the Phonicians and the Egyptians; and even the Hebrews were with difficulty restrained from this tendency to adopt and worship foreign gods. The argument of M. Renan is what the late Mr. Buckle would call "deductive." It reasons from a previously formed theory, and is not quite justified by a view of all the facts. The theory may be true, but the pleading of M. Renan has not yet proved it.

M. Renan is fast becoming a power in the intellectual world of France. Even those who denounce his "infidelity"— his "atheism," as some of them call it - are compelled to admire his calm confidence in the truth which he holds, and his bold persistence amid the threats and against the insinuations of his enemies. The Catholic Church has no foe so dangerous as this man of science, whose learning and whose courage are lifted above it with such constant menace.

* De la Part des Peuples Sémitiques dans l'Histoire de la Civilization. Discours d'Ouverture du Cours de Langues Hébraïque, Chaldaïque, et Syriaque, au Collège de France. Par M. ERNEST RENAN, Membre de L'Institut. Paris: M. Levy Frères. 1862. 8vo. pp. 30.

FROM no one could a tribute to the great Dominican more worthily come than from his early friend, his companion in studies, his associate in dangers and privations, his defender against persecutors, and the champion with him at once of liberty and the Catholic Church. Montalembert is the fit eulogist of Lacordaire, knowing him thoroughly, loving him ardently, sympathizing with his ideas, and admiring with enthusiasm his extraordinary gifts. The eloquent volume* in which the Academician celebrates the glory of the monk and the orator is evidently an outpouring which could not be repressed. It is a spontaneous and unforced offering of a sorrowing heart to the memory of one precious beyond all estimate. It is a narrative, a vindication, and a panegyric. The few faults which the writer allows to his hero are only the shade to bring out more strongly the shining virtues. If we may believe Montalembert, in the death of this fiery preacher the Church and the age have lost one of the few great men whom God has sent in these degenerate days, one who was equally a saint and a prophet, wonderful in sagacity, inspired in utterance, beautiful in temper, holy in life, and a model, on every side, of amazing virtue. Not chiefly the genius of this master of speech, but the manliness and faith of this humble-minded Christian, are the burden of the book which his friend has written.

Of course, there must be exaggeration in this; and it is quite improbable that men not in sympathy with Lacordaire's opinions will consent that one who could denounce so vehemently, and could use in his discourse such specious arts, is a saint according to the highest type. Yet it must be confessed that the extracts from speeches and letters, which are very skilfully woven into Montalembert's plea for his friend, seem to prove that the zealot was neither a bigot nor a fanatic. Lacordaire writes like a generous, fair-minded, and conscientious man, who loves rather than hates his enemies. If what Montalembert gives us in this volume fairly represents the general tone of Lacordaire's correspondence, he certainly deserves the admiration of all Christian souls. The volume, in any event, will set aside many prejudices which those who have only known Lacordaire through his orations in defence of the Church will naturally have formed. It is to be regretted that Montalembert could not have put in the frontispiece of his book an engraving of that remarkable face which no one who has seen it will ever forget, and which a writer in the Baptist Christian Review for July has described with such exuberance of epithet. And if any find this notice of Montalembert's eulogy too tame, we commend them to the article in that Review, which almost exhausts the dictionary in its array of dazzling metaphors.

STRANGE revelations we have, in the series of tracts entitled "Facts for Churchmen," † concerning the abuses which are tolerated, upheld,

* Le Père Lacordaire. Par LE COMTE DE MONTALEMBERT, l'Un des Qua

rante de l'Académie Française. Paris: Douniol. 1862. 12mo. pp. 285.

† Facts for Churchmen. First Series. Nos. 1-12. London: H. J. Tresidder. 8vo. pp. 44.

and promoted in that great Establishment which is styled the "bulwark" of the English realm. Of course the first grievance is in the wide interval between the pay of a bishop and a curate. Twenty-eight bishops receive in the aggregate £155,000, or £5,535 a year on the average, while not less than ten thousand of the working clergy have an income which does not reach £100. The annual income of the Bishop of London is $50,000, and the smallest annual reveune of any English bishop is $10,000. In Ireland, there are twelve bishops of the Established Church, the average income of whom is upwards of $27,000 annually. Yet these men have very little to do, most of the Irish people being Roman Catholic. Next to this immense iniquity in the matter of salaries is the outrageous expenditure on the palaces of the bishops. The Ecclesiastical Commission provided for " spiritual destitution in populous places" by building a magnificent house for the Bishop of Ripon to live in, at an expense of $70,000, by purchasing an estate for the Bishop of Lincoln, at a cost of $ 250,000, and by the acquisition of Danbury Park for the Bishop of Rochester, for $140,000, not to add half a dozen cases of less extravagance. Now, of the places above mentioned, Rochester is well known from the description in the Pickwick Club, a town dirty, decayed, and dull; Lincoln is simply a group of houses around an old Cathedral; and nobody would ever go to Ripon except to see the ruins of Fountains Abbey.

After bishops and their palaces, archdeacons are exhibited as the great scandal of the Church, doing their work mostly by deputy, holding the most profitable livings, and often two or more livings at once. Then there is the great absurdity of the cathedral staff, the deans and canons, leading a life of utter laziness, yet living upon the fat of the land, keeping up a farcical mummery of worship for which no one cares, and wasting their enormous revenues in discreditable self-indulgence and luxury. The tract entitled "A Scene at Garraway's" very graphically exhibits an auction sale of a benefice, the incumbent of which is still living, though quite old. The right of presentation to this living is disposed of to the highest bidder, who of course will make such terms with the incumbent as to secure for himself half or three quarters of the revenue. Other abuses, such as the advowson market, nepotism, the slavery which the "Canons compel, are shown up with unsparing plainness, yet without vituperation. Such tracts as these, circulated at a half-penny apiece, among the lower classes, must have the effect to alienate them from a church which makes no effort to remove such inconsistencies, if not to exasperate them against such an outrage on their rights. The only remedy which the tracts propose is the adoption of the "voluntary" principle.

JOH. JOSEPH IGNAZ DÖLLINGER is reported to be one of the most learned of living Catholic theologians. Appropriately born in Bamberg, in 1799, he was made Professor of Ecclesiastical History in Munich in 1826. That professorship he now holds. He has had some political experience as representative of the University in the Bavarian Parliament, and in 1848 was sent, by a small electoral dis

trict, to the National Assembly at Frankfort. In 1851, he gave up his place in the Bavarian Assembly, to which he had been a second time elected, and has since, we believe, confined himself to his professional duties. He is known to the world of art by his publication, with explanations, of Cornelius's Compositions from the Paradiso of Dante, in 1830, and to the narrower world of theology by his very elaborate Handbook of Ecclesiastical History, and other publications. In the Parliament at Frankfort, as elsewhere, he has strenuously maintained the principle that the Church should be independent of the State.

During the last April he had occasion to give certain prelections in Munich,* in which he set forth again this somewhat unpalatable doctrine. He was heard with the warmest interest, warmer than we, who dwell in a colder land of established and disintegrating Protestantism, can readily conceive. And not in Munich only, or in Germany, but in France also, and in England, his words have found an echo. So emphatic declarations touching the temporal power of the Pope on the part of a Catholic theologian, we do not remember ever before to have met. As illustrative of the historical tendency of the time, Döllinger's argument is not without value. And he is not the wise man who, wrapping himself in his own conceits, refuses his human sympathy for honest, human struggling among any people.

The Catholic Church is not a creation, it is a growth, and the truth which underlies it no Protestantism will ever shake. That truth keeps it up, and will keep it up till Protestants and Catholics, recognizing each other's aims and each other's truth, shall draw together into one primal Christian church, as of old, of Protestant purity and Catholic faith.

After some preliminary observations, Döllinger addresses himself to the absorbing question of the hour touching the States of the Church, - whether the papal chair shall stand somewhere upon the ground, or be left hanging anywhere in the air. First, then, are territorial possessions indispensably necessary to the Church? The intelligible answer of history is, that for seven hundred years the Church existed without possessing a single village. Afterwards, when whole provinces had been bestowed upon the Pope, from the ninth to the fifteenth century, with the exception of short intervals, the Popes were never in quiet possession of their lands; the most powerful of them, Gregory VII. and Urban II., died on foreign soil. In 1260, when the papacy had reached the height of its ecclesiastical and political power, there were but two places in which, according to the declaration of the Pope himself, the papal chair could exist in safety, Viterbo and Avignon. For centuries Rome was too unquiet for the residence of the Popes. It is only about three hundred and fifty years ago since the Popes first acquired firm possession of their territory; but what are three centuries out of eighteen?

Again, the Pope is an elective prince; and the principle of election

*Lectures on the Temporal Power of the Pope. By JOH. JOSEPH IGNAZ DÖLLINGER. Munich. 1862.