Roman Church an everlasting Arctic peace. Unfortunately, discussions confined within narrow spaces often rise to greater heights and occasion greater violences of language and action, than those which agitate larger surfaces. And hence we fear that the Protestant Consistory at Paris has been the scene, for some months past, of far more acrimonious disputes, and a far more intensely bitter party-strife, than anything we have witnessed on the broader area of the English Church. Political feelings, moreover, long pent up would not fail, half unconsciously, to mingle themselves among more sacred interests; and we have no doubt that every shaft let fly on either side was sharpened with an ingenuity unknown to our more ponderous disputations, and made to sting with a wit of which our own Convocation will not be accused.

But who, it will be asked, was the object of attack? For men, rather than measures, have been the objects of kindly solicitude to consistories and convocations ever since the world began. The culprit in the present case was the assistantpastor of the principal congregation in Paris, M. Athanase Coquerel, jun.,-a clergyman of unimpeachable character and a preacher of first-rate ability. His crime was a personal friendship for, and strong indications of sympathy with, M. Ernest Renan. For some time, M. Guizot, as a leading member of the Consistory, refused, we believe, to concur in the withdrawal of his license from a bold and able preacher, whose departure from the recognised standards of faith had not as yet been clearly proved. But at length-M. Coquerel's frankness disdaining all disguises-it appeared too clearly that his theological views had diverged beyond hope of reconciliation from the traditional orthodoxy of French Calvinism; and M. Guizot, in February 1864, finally acquiesced in his dismissal. It is only fair to add, on the one hand, that, with every temptation and facility for so doing, M. Coquerel has hitherto abstained from setting up any rival pulpit in Paris; and, on the other hand, that the decision come to by the Paris Consistory must be taken as the voice of the majority of the Protestant body in that city, since every member of every congregation has a voice in its election, and it is composed of lay as well as clerical representatives. We say the majority; but the ascendancy of the orthodox party in the Consistory has in truth been established by very few votes, and their opponents constitute a body of almost equal power. To the surprise of every one, M. Guizot himself, certainly the most eminent member of the French Protestant body, was not at first re-elected to +

he had so long filled with great zeal

and dignity in the conduct of its affairs. A subsequent election has repaired this injustice, but by a majority of only ten votes over a candidate of very inferior pretensions. We must, therefore, conclude from these facts that opinion is very nearly equally divided in the principal Protestant Churches of Paris on the questions in dispute, and we believe that similar differences exist in other parts of France.

Meanwhile, amidst the din and heat of these painful disputes, it seems to have occurred to M. Guizot, as it must occur to every impartial bystander, that the real merits of the question were in imminent danger of being forgotten; and that, however important may be the problems under discussion, and however vital to the Church the crisis through which she is passing, no advantage to truth can possibly accrue from mere personal recriminations or vindictive litigation, except the doubtful advantage of spreading far and wide (among classes who are little capable of profiting by it) a knowledge of the scandals and difficulties of the case. The truth must be maintained, if it is to be maintained at all, not by expulsions but by arguments. Deeply impressed with these maxims of sense and experience, M. Guizot has, in the work of which the volume under review is the first instalment, endeavoured to recall attention to the ideas as distinguished from the persons which are in conflict amid the present controversies.

'In the work whose first part is here given to the public, I leave entirely on one side these personal and local questions. It is with the Christian religion, its essential characteristics, its fundamental beliefs, and the just claims of those beliefs upon mankind, that I wish to occupy myself. It is the truth of Christianity that I would bring out into clear relief, by contrasting it with the systems and the doubts that are set up against it. I shall, therefore, decline all handto-hand and personal encounters. Personalities only embarrass and embitter controversies. For either ruse or insult is sure to be resorted to; and for both of these false methods I feel an equal antipathy. Ideas only shall be my enemies: and let the ideas be what they may, I am quite ready to admit the sincerity of those who hold them. Apart from these conditions, all serious discussion becomes impossible; and sincerity is compatible with intellectual error of the grossest kind and of the saddest practical issue.' (P. xxii.)

The book consists of a preface and eight chapters, or Meditations,' on the following subjects:-I. The Problems of Natural Religion. II. The Five Fundamental Dogmas of Christianity. III. The Supernatural. IV. The Limits of Human Knowledge. V. Revelation. VI. The Inspiration of the Scriptures. VII. God as represented in the Bible. VIII. Jesus Christ as represented in the Gospels. Of these by far the most important

and interesting portions appear to us to be the Preface and the chapter on Inspiration. Of course we judge from an English point of view. For it is abundantly clear, from the acclamations which have greeted M. Renan's Vie de Jésus,' and from many other symptoms, that the début of theology upon the popular stage has been a far more startling phenomenon in France than in England, and far more hazardously unprepared for,-owing, no doubt, to the Roman Catholic system of withholding the Scriptures from the people. Addressing, therefore, not merely the Protestants, but the French public, M. Guizot perhaps felt bound to give quotations at length, where in England an allusion would have sufficed; and to argue out in full detail points which with us may be considered settled by general consent. For example, we think that the attention given to a religion ' of mere sentiment,' in his first chapter, would be hardly needed in a treatise written for Englishmen. Our temperament is little adapted to a religion of beautiful and vague aspirations, 'which are styled the poesy of the soul, beyond and above the 'realities of life' (p. 6). We are most of us too grimly in earnest-too triste, as old Froissart would say - -for that; and those who think seriously about religion at all are seldom content, unless they can think it out into some definite and concrete shape, analogous to the other realities of our busy life.

With regard to the chapter on the Supernatural,' we think that a more calm and dispassionate treatment of the subject would have been more successful. It is of no use to be angry with scientific men: they are a stiff-necked and impassive generation. It is of no use to cry Nous voicì en plein Panthéisme, c'est à dire en plein Athéisme!' (p. 105); for the reply is ready, 'You theologians must see to that.' It is of still less use to appeal to what Tertullian calls the testimonia animæ naturalitèr Christianæ,' and to say that the instinct of the masses has ever sought and found some'thing beyond nature' (p. 93): for the appeal would most certainly be refused. And least of all is it of use to set up, with Mr. Disraeli, a scarecrow minatory of what is to happen if belief in the supernatural should be given up,-a terrible layfigure of superstition elevated on the ruins of religion' (p. 96), or, in the eloquent words of our newly-discovered churchleader, of opinions the most absurd, and ceremonies the most revolting-qualia demens Ægyptus portenta colat-perhaps to be followed by the incantations of Canidia and the Corybantian howl.' No: these things are worse than useless,

Speech at Oxford, Nov. 25, 1864. It cannot of course be supposed that Mr. Disraeli would take up any rhetorical ornament at

for they make a good cause ridiculous. But what would be of use, we venture to think, is this: to point out to scientific men that this question is, in great measure, a question of words; and that what they mean by Nature and what theologians mean by Nature are not the same thing. In scientific language the word means the whole vast scheme of things, never broken through by the unnatural, whatever unexpected phenomena may appear; so that even miracles, if historically true, are within and not without the realm of God's reason, order, and law. But among theologians the word Nature' means something less extensive than this, viz. the merely dead and unreasoning mechanism of the universe, viewed apart from that Divine and personal will which has set it and keeps it in motion. Hence Science cannot use the word supernatural;' while Theology can. If by the supernatural' is meant the merely arbitrary, the result (so to say) of a mere fit of volition, an abrupt move, unprepared for, extraneous to God's great realm of order, not amenable to that universal reason which permeates and gives harmonious unity to all things, we do not believe that any thoughtful divine would maintain such a thing for a moment. But if by the supernatural' be meant merely some action of the Supreme Reason transcending the experience of man's ordinary reason, and causing a certain long foreseen event to occur at a given moment, by the interweaving (so to say) of secondary causes in the web of time,-then we do not believe that any thoughtful man of science would object to the word. The miracle becomes nothing more than the meeting place of certain converging lines of causation, at a certain moment of time eternally foreseen; and the whole problem becomes a mere question of history,- Did the event really ' happen?'

And now, leaving these few points in which we have felt compelled in some degree to dissent from M. Guizot, we turn

second-hand; but by a curious accident, his scarecrow is dressed up in a cast-off illustration belonging to an ancient member of his own party. For Philo-a distinguished Jewish upholder of the fashionable Oxford opinions-thus throws light upon certain theories of Inspiration, from his own experience: 'It has happened to myself 'that, coming empty to a place, I became suddenly full,-thoughts thick as snow pouring down invisibly on me from above; so that, carried away by enthusiasm, I felt a Corybantian frenzy (KopvBarriav), and knew neither where I was, nor who were present,'forgot myself, what I had said, and what I had written.' (De Migratione Abrahami, i. § 7.).

with pleasure to the two important passages where we in the main heartily agree with him. The first of these is the Preface to his book, where he takes a general survey of the true policy of the Church amid its present controversies. His own position amid those controversies is, first of all, thus clearly described::

'With regard both to Christianity as a system, and to each one of its essential doctrines, I have felt the weight of objections, I have known the anxieties of doubt. I will now say why my doubts have passed away, and on what my convictions are founded.' (P. xviii.) Thirty-four years of my life were passed in struggling, upon a noisy arena, for the establishment of political liberty and the maintenance of a legal order. I have learnt amid the labours and trials of that conflict, what is the value of Christian faith and Christian liberty. May God permit me, in the repose of my present retreat, to consecrate to their defence whatever time and strength He may yet grant me!' (P. xxviii.)

And the question with which he begins is this :

I issue forth from the midst of a civil society, where different religious beliefs are, at the present day, bound over to keep the peace towards each other; and I enter into another, itself a religious society, the Christian Church of our day. How is it conducting itself, in the great controversies that it has to sustain against the freedom and hardihood of human reason? Is the nature of the conflict well understood? Is the conflict itself well conducted? Is any advance being made towards the re-establishment of a true peace, and of harmonious action between the Church and general society in the midst of which it lives?' (P. viii.)

Questions like these are being asked at the present moment in other countries besides France; and with an interest corresponding to the untold issues that wait upon the answer. In Italy the answer may be considered as definitely given by the Pope's recent Encyclical Letter, a proclamation of internecine war, which can only pave the way for a true peace,' by bringing many stages nearer the downfall of one of the two combatants. In Germany, perhaps, the present attitude is one of armed truce. In Roman Catholic France the conflict is suspended for the moment, by the absence of M. Renan in the East, and by the late tremendous explosion of a religious novel within one of the combatants' entrenchments. In England, and characteristically enough on the arena of her law courts, the conflict is actively going on; and it is well, therefore, that we should hear from a calm and statesmanlike mind, what are the principles upon which alone it can be brought to an end and peace permanently re-established.