and to feel her inner spirit," will hardly commend itself to those who have made trial of this to any extent. But enough. These are but illustrations of the many singular utterances of Mr. Mallock, in regard to Romanism. There is, in fact, little which he says in defence of that peculiar system called Catholicism, that is not open to objection, though, as already intimated, he is in it blindly feeling for something higher and better. It cannot be conceded that he has really advanced anything new in support of that system. Minds at all familiar with Catholic apologetics will recognize the old arguments of church infallibility, the dangers of individualism, the inadequacy of the Bible, merely somewhat decked out to suit modern taste. All that is advanced has been elsewhere more elaborately and ably presented, notably in S. Baring-Gould's Origin and Development of Religious Belief, Part II. of which, entitled Christianity, bears a strong resemblance to Mr. Mallock's book, in its advocacy of Catholicism. In this connection, a brief extract from a letter of Charles Kingsley's, written in 1849, to a young man about going over to the Church of Rome, may not be inappropriate, as concluding the consideration of this subject: * * * * “God made man in His image, not in an imaginary Virgin Mary's image. And do not fancy that you will really get any spiritual gain by going over. The very devotional system which will educe and develope the souls of people born and bred up under it, and cast constitutionally and by hereditary association, into its mould, will only prove a dead, leaden, crushing weight on an Englishman, who has, as you have, tasted from his boyhood the liberty of the Spirit of God. You will wake, my dear brother, you will wake, not altogether, but just enough to find yourself not believing in Romish doctrines about saints and virgins, absolution, and indulgencies, but only believing in believing them-an awful, an infinite difference, on which I beseech you earnestly to meditate. You will find yourself crushing the voice of conscience, common-sense, and humanity-I mean the voice of God within you, in order to swallow down things at which your gorge rises in disgust. You will find the Romish practice as different from the Romish ideal as the English is from the English ideal, and you will find amid all your discontents and doubts,

that the habits of religious excitement, and of leaning on priests whom you will neither revere or trust for themselves, will have enchained you like the habits of a drunkard or an opium-eater, so that you must go back again and again for selfforgetfulness to the spiritual laudanum-bottle, which gives now no more pleasant dreams, but only painful heartache, and miserable depression afterwards. I know what I have seen and heard from eye-witnesses.”—(Letters and Memories of his Life, 116).

It was suggested at the outset, that these books are especially interesting as illustrating certain facts incident to the age. One of these is the recoil from dogmatic atheism. The author of the "Reply" occupies this position, and the best scientific thought of the day is more and more retracting its hasty denials of God and immortality. The truth is, neither science or speculation can ever disprove God or a future life, and the wisest sceptical thinkers acknowledge this. Another is, the recoil from scientific negation by one who evidently appreciates the force of much of its reasoning, and feels something of its despair. This is what gives Mr. Mallock's book, in all its inconsistencies, a kind of pathetic interest. He does not, like many, stand without and hurl anathemas at a doubt and wretchedness but really little understood. He has been himself well nigh drawn within the fatal maelstrom. His recantation, therefore, may be regarded as substantially a defection from the very ranks of scientific scepticism.

In conclusion, interesting and suggestive as are these works, are they satisfactory discussions of the questions which they profess to consider? Is life worth living, wherein consists the value of life, are themes profoundly deep and broad. To be sure, an author has a right to give his book the title and to treat a subject in the way which best pleases him, and in these days, when the mystery of life is pressing upon thoughtful minds in all directions, he is a benefactor who can give even hints toward a solution. But the great disappointment, we imagine, which both books will occasion to the majority of readers, is that they are not natural and satisfactory treatments of the subjects proposed. Both of these might be considered from a new, and it is believed, broader standpoint. Positiv

ism is a good, Protestantism is a good, so is Catholicism; but we need more than either, to reveal the depth, richness, and variety of life-to make it in the highest sense remunerative. The controversial character of both works, forms their vigor and piquancy, but it is also their limitation. I would deny myself nothing that is really true and good in Protestantism, Buddhism, Catholicism, nature, art, positivism, letters, science, sentiment, life. It is a misfortune of the age, that these are so often arrayed in antagonism to each other, and one is compelled to take the good in one, at the expense of rejecting the good in another. Theories mutually destructive to be sure, as atheism, theism, optimism, pessimism, etc., cannot be at once accepted. But fortunate is he who can go through life assimilating beauty, truth, inspiration from all sources, and avoiding the evil. No one system of truth is a complete explanation of life, or how it should be lived. All systems and all truths, unitedly, reveal to us something of its divine depth and beauty. The true eclectic is not one whose attainments make him intellectually bewildered, and morally indifferent. True eclecticism, enriches the severest spirituality, the firmest purposes, with flowers and fruitage found in every land, in every clime. "For all things are yours." "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good."

ARTICLE II.-NEW ENGLAND POETRY OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

It is an old and common saying, that the earliest literature of a people appears in the form of poetry. The bards and minstrels begin to sing, long before the historians and philosophers enter upon their sober and stately work. Homer was the bright morning star, heralding the long and splendid day of Grecian literature and art. Centuries before the great scholars of Germany started upon their learned activities, the Nibelungenlied, with its wild tales of love and war, had been sounding out from the cold forests of the north.

But while this may stand, as a kind of fixed law, with races, passing on from a semi-barbarous state, toward a high civilization; the case is quite otherwise with nations, which grow up from colonies, transplanted from civilized lands, to rude and inhospitable shores. Here the earliest movements, so far as the finer forms of literature are concerned, will, almost inevitably, be retrograde. The early life of such colonies is so intensely practical, the struggle with wild nature is so rough and longcontinued, that poetry, a tender plant, withers under the harsh experiences. It is reserved for the men of a later age, dwelling in quiet ease and security, to catch the romantic aspects of this hard life and sing the deeds of the fathers in fitting and lofty strains.

In the year 1629, when those first ship-loads of Puritans. were landing in the Massachusetts Bay and organizing their church at Salem, John Milton was a student in Cambridge University. In that very year, about Christmas time, being then at the age of twenty-one, he wrote his "Ode on the Nativity," which stands, to-day, as one of the choicest gems of English poetry. During the next thirty-five years, while the New England fathers were struggling with the complicated problems of Church and State, subduing an untamed wilderness, and playing a game of diplomacy with the mother country, Milton was writing "L'Allegro" and "Il Penseroso," till

at length, out of blindness and darkness, came forth the immortal epic, Paradise Lost. Many of the great master pieces of English literature were already old in the infancy of New England. The early books of Spenser's Fairie Queen had been public in the English world for nearly forty years when John Winthrop landed at Charlestown. The early plays of Shakespeare had been upon the stage nearly the same length of time. The Puritans did not probably feed much upon Shakespeare, but the Fairie Queen had nothing in it to demoralize the minds of their children.

The early settlers of New England came therefore from a country already rich in the treasures of literature, and they themselves were not illiterate. Many of them left high and responsible positions in their native land, and not a few of the leading men had enjoyed the thorough culture of the English universities.

Passing by for the present all occasional attempts at poetical production in the early days, we will confine ourselves, at first, only to such efforts in this line as resulted in published volumes.

The first systematic attempt at something like poetry on these New England shores, was when, in 1639, the Puritan fathers of the Massachusetts Bay thought they must have a Psalm Book, native and original. We say something like poetry, for the very conditions of the enterprise forbade all spontaneity and poetical freedom. The good people of that sober age used no hymns in their Sabbath worship, and, if it had been convenient, would much have preferred to sing the Psalms of David precisely as they found them in their Bible. But some rhythmical arrangement was necessary to prevent utter confusion and chaos in their congregational singing. There was a public demand, having all the force of a law, requiring of those who undertook such a task that they should indulge in no flights of fancy, but keep themselves, as near as possible, to the exact words of the original. When the Puritans left England, whatever else might be overlooked, their Bibles were not forgotten. In those Bibles, bound in at the end, were the Psalms, in the version of Sternhold and Hopkins, then in use in the parish churches of England. This metrical version was in a much