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senior Secretary of the Board to send one of their ministers. to Honolulu; and it was done. When the nucleus for the Episcopal Church existed, the same broad and Catholic ground was taken alike by the Board and by the missionaries at the Islands. In one word, it has been the aim of the Board, kept in view from the first, and conscientiously observed to the end, to carry to those islands our American Christianity, as interpreted by all the great confessions of the Reformation, and not less by the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England, than by those of the Continent. And at the moment when this new and hostile mission landed, steps had already been inaugurated to effect the independence of the Hawaiian churches, organize them under native pastors, and establish healthily the transition processes by which the missionary era should lapse into self-government and self-support. Surely this was most inauspicious juncture for a Christian Church, the State-Church of a power professedly Protestant, and the bulwark of the Protestant Faith, to come in, ignoring all her sisters of the Reformation, and at the same time casting contempt upon the mightiest and most manifest work of God's grace, in our age-perhaps, in any age of the Christian era! We call upon the true and faithful children of the Church of England, who love her standards, and honor the memory of her martyrs for the cause of Protestantism, to join us in protesting against this new Popery, as insolent as the old, but destitute alike of its consistency and venerableness. As to the Reformed Catholics, if they have any lingering regard for Protestantism, or indeed to their own future, we would simply ask them to consider, before making war upon the system of modern missions, and trampling under foot the great principle of courtesy and mutual respect which has grown up as a common law between Protestant Missions, whether they are able to meet the exigencies of such a warfare, alike ignoring and ignored by the whole church of God, whether bearing the Protestant or the Catholic name; are they sufficiently assured of their own footing in the Articles of their Church, or in the sympathies of English Christians, to venture upon a policy, not less insulting than mis

chievous; have they fulcrum enough upon which to rest this destructive leverage; and is there no danger that themselves will be ground to powder beneath the upper and lower millstones? As for ourselves, we are not conscious of being actuated by any selfish fears; we are less and less fearful even as regards our newly converted protegés of the Pacific, and more hopeful that in God's good providence the trials "which have happened unto them will fall out rather for the furtherance of, the Gospel." Yet we solemnly protest against this interference, whether in the Sandwich Islands, in Madagascar, or in Western Asia, as unjust and impolitic, as unreasonable and un-christian. The world is wide enough, especially the great ocean-world of the Pacific; there are lands enough needing missionaries, and unvisited by them, to furnish ample field for the men and money, all the zeal and self-sacrifice which all Reformed Catholics possess, without interfering with either Protestants or Romanists; nay, there is room enough for them within the dominions of their own Queen; and we will bid them God-speed in preaching the Gospel" where Christ is not named," we will acknowledge theirs to be "the better way," and theirs preeminently the Christian and Apostolic Church, when pioneering their way among heathens, they can show fruit larger and fairer, in souls redeemed, education popularized, churches built by native contributions, and government moulded by Christian ideas.

ARTICLE IX.-NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS.

THEOLOGICAL.

HAGENBACH'S GERMAN RATIONALISM.*-The lectures of Professor Hagenbach of Basle, upon the History of German Rationalism, are greatly esteemed in Germany as presenting at once a comprehensive and interesting portraiture of the men and the influences which have been concerned in the development and progress of Rationalism, both as causes and effects. How comprehensive the work is, may be gathered from its title, which promises to treat of "Theologians, Scholars, Philosophers, and the People." The performance does not belie the promise, for all these topics are treated as fully and as profoundly as the limits of the work will allow. Not a single great thinker or writer of Germany, who deserves to be noticed, is left unconsidered, while the peculiarities of each are justly appreciated and skillfully portrayed. The life of the people, also, in courts and in cottages, in public and in private, is well conceived and faithfully painted by this always interesting and often most felicitous writer. The work is anything but a simple ecclesiastical history, and yet it gives the reader no little insight into the proper history of the Church in Germany during the period which it covers. It does not profess to be a history of German literature, and yet it might serve very well as a substitute for a critical history of many of the leading modern writers. It does not profess to be a series of biographies, and yet its portraitures of the leading men of modern Germany are strikingly life-like, and in some cases leave little more that might be added. The sketches of Frederick William the First, and of Frederick the Great, are each admirable in their kind So are those of Lessing and of Herder.

It may seem to be extravagant praise, but we believe it just to say that no such volume has been translated from the German into

* German Rationalism, in its rise, progress, and decline, in relation to Theologians, Scholars, Poets, Philosophers, and the People. A contribution to the Church History of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. By Dr. K. R. HAGENBACH, Professor of Theology in the University of Basle. Edited and translated by Rev. WM. LEONHARD GAGE, and Rev. J. H. W. STUCKENBERG, New York: Charles Scribner. 1865. 8vo. pp. 405.

English which is more valuable as enabling the reader to understand German thought, German literature, and the German people, than this volume of Hagenbach upon German Rationalism. It adds not a little to its value that its point of view is thoroughly Christian, while yet it is eminently genial and kind, as well as thoroughly appreciative of all that is noble and good in the most anti-christian writers. The author's own style is easy and pleasant and we are happy to say that the book is translated into readable and idiomatic English. We have not compared the translation with the original to test its accuracy, but we have the testimony of good judges who declare that it reads like an English book, and scarcely betrays, by its stiffness or construction, the fact that it is a translation. We congratulate the editors and translators upon the success with which they have achieved the task of translating, and in some cases slightly abridging the original.

GUIZOT'S MEDITATIONS ON CHRISTIANITY.*-These meditations by the veteran French statesman and man of letters will attract general attention from their intrinsic merit and interest, as well as from the commanding position of the author. Hitherto M. Guizot has been somewhat reserved in the expression of his religious opinions, partly perhaps from the peculiar place which he has occupied in the politics of a Roman Catholic kingdom and empire, and partly from a high sense of decorum which seemed to require that a man of letters should not mix himself with theological controversies. To whatever cause this reserve should be assigned, it has been at last overcome by a sense of the danger to which the fundamental truths of Christianity have been exposed by the bold attacks of such writers as Scherer and Renan. To meet these onsets, the veteran historian and critic is thoroughly aroused to the defense of those truths which are usually called evangelical, by means of that free discussion in which as a Protestant he believes they have everything to hope for and nothing to fear. He says in his preface, "I have passed thirty-five years of my life in struggling, on a bustling arena, for the establishment of political liberty and the maintenance of order as established by law. I have learned in the labors and trials of this struggle, the real worth of

* Meditations on the Essence of Christianity, and on the Religious Questions of the Day. By M. Guizor. Translated from the French; under the superintendence of the author. New York: Charles Scribner & Co. 1865. 12mo. pp. 356.

Christian faith and of Christian liberty. God permits me, in the repose of my retreat, to consecrate to their cause what remains to me of life and of strength. It is the most salutary favor and the greatest honor that I can receive from his goodness." The present volume consists of the first of four series of Meditations that the author proposes to publish in the furtherance of his design. It concerns the essence of the Christian religion. The next series will treat of its history; the third will treat of its actual condition; and the fourth and last of its future prospects.

The topics treated in this volume are: I. Natural problems or the actual condition and relations of man which furnish the occasion for the divine interposition in the Christian system. II. Christian Dogmas, viz: Creation, Providence, Original Sin, The Incarnation, The Redemption. III. The Supernatural. IV. The limits of SciV. Revelation. VI. The Inspiration of the Scriptures. VII. God according to the Bible. VIII. Jesus Christ according to the Gospel.

These topics are treated by the author not in the rigid manner of the theologian, but according to the freeer handling which we should expect from the layman and man of letters. He lays hold of the salient points under each head which are now most exposed to doubt and objection, and presents in opposition those considerations which in his view are decisive of the truth. We miss the ampler information and the sharper discrimination which we should expect from the trained theologian, but we are abundantly compensated for these deficiencies in the absence of all superfluous matter, and the more forcible and convincing treatment of the principal points of the argument. It is often very instructive to the theologian himself to see his own lines of argument when presented by the layman, and divested of the traditionary language and the traditionary associations of the schools-to observe how little importance he attaches to considerations which theology invests with transcendent worth, and how high the value with which he regards arguments and principles usually passed over as of little weight.

The "Thoughts on Religion," by the immortal Pascal, seem to have served as the model for these Meditations. We miss the fire and fervor and perhaps the genius which distinguish these extraordinary productions; but in place of these we find prevailing good sense, sobriety of judgment, and a thoroughly criti

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