decrees and creeds of councils, such a claim must seem prepos terous; but not to those who hold with John Robinson that "God hath more truth yet to break forth out of His holy word," beyond what Luther and Calvin taught; or with that other puritan, John Milton, that inspiration is a gift still to be sought and obtained "by devout prayer to that Eternal Spirit who can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and sends out his seraphim, with the hallowed fire of his altar, to touch and purify the lips of whom he pleases." That this prophetic gift, the illumination of the Spirit to discern, and the power of utterance to declare divine truth, was vouchsafed to Horace Bushnell, if to any in modern times, no thoughtful and unprejudiced reader of this memoir will be disposed to question. He will here see by what divine methods of inward leading and outward discipline this great and good man was led to be what he was, and to hold and teach just those views of truth and Christian doctrine which he did. He will see the close and vital connection between his religious experience, the inward spiritual knowledge of God attained by prayer and devout meditation and a close and holy walk with God, and those doctrines which have given so much offence to the mere theologian; a connection as close and legitimate, we venture to affirm, as the theology of Paul held to the revelation of the Son of God within him, or as the profound and mystical utterances of John held to his more intimate and spiritual knowledge of Jesus on whose bosom he leaned. Here, too, he will see the reason of that profound admiration and love which his friends felt and still feel towards him; which is not wholly accounted for by the subtle magnetism with which every man of true genius attracts and holds other minds; which can only be explained by the presence of that quality which held the disciples of Socrates to their teacher, and was seen in its supreme measure in the reverent affection with which the eleven disciples clung to their great Master. For it is not necessary to suppose that any dogmatic belief in his divinity held them to his person, at least in their earlier intercourse-this might rather have repelled them in awe;-but superior wisdom and spiritual force mingled with pure goodness and greatness of soul, is of

itself a divine quality which inevitably either attracts and holds men, if they believe in it and have intellectual and moral sympathy with it, or repels them if they have not; makes the most devoted of friends or the bitterest of enemies.

The revelation here made of Dr. Bushnell's inward life and character, unlike many so-called great men of the literary sort, so far from discounting our impression of his greatness or his genius, adds immeasurably to its depth and power, by disclosing the genuineness of its quality. We see that there was nothing artificial or strained or hollow within, below the surface of the man or behind his outward life, but that he was through and through the same original, unique, outgoing power; a genius absolutely without an equal in its combined intellectual, spiritual and practical energy; an earnest, sincere, and great soul, simple and tender as a child in his feelings, open and fearless as the daylight in the expression of his real thought, and withal as playful in the delicacy of its artistic touch and coloring; as much a hero to his domestics and children as to his outmost admirers, and even more great and admirable because they saw and felt more of the real man.

Of the execution of this memoir we wish to speak a word before coming to its contents. It is the work chiefly of a daughter of Dr. Bushnell, Mrs. Mary Bushnell Cheney, aided by a few others most competent to assist in so important and sacred a task. Besides the able contribution of Dr. Leonard Bacon reviewing the Bushnell controversy, originally prepared for this memoir and afterward published in the New Englander for September, 1879, interesting reminiscences are furnished by the Rev. Dr. Bartol, his intimate and life-long friend, and by Bishop Clark, formerly rector of Christ Church, Hartford, also by others who knew him in his earlier days. The Rev. Dr. E. P. Parker of Hartford contributes a chapter of great interest and value covering the period of his "ministry at large," from 1861 to 1870. And the story of the closing years of his life is graphically and beautifully told by his eldest daughter, Miss Frances Louisa Bushnell. Rich materials are also furnished by the many letters, journals, and published writings of Dr. Bushnell, extracts from which are given so far as they help to unfold or illustrate the character and genius of this won55

VOL. III.

derful man. A "Fragment of Autobiography, found dimly penciled on a stray sheet of paper," entitled "God's Way with a Soul," and evidently written in the later period of his life, fitly introduces the daughter's biography. Written in the author's peculiarly fresh and racy style, with the added spiritual flavor and holy tenderness of a soul nearing its heavenly port and looking back over the way in which God has led him, it is a rare and precious document, and awakens an infinite regret that he did not live to complete it, as well as that other late begun and unfinished treatise on Inspiration.

This beautiful "Fragment" is so characteristic, and strikes so truly and strongly the tone of the author's mind and character, and so the key-note of his biography, that we cannot forbear quoting it:

"I have been told that my arrival or advent in this earthly sphere was on the 14th of April, 1802. I have no recollection of any other state from which I came, and have no reason to judge that I came from any other state at all. I suppose that I was not made, but generated, being the son of one soul which was the son of another, which was the son of God. But these parent souls out of which I came I do not remember as having been conversant with their substance. I have only heard of some of them by report. Indeed, I came, as I suppose, scarcely knowing myself, and having it for a great part of my errand here to find, get a knowledge of, and so get full possession of, myself. For I was only a tender rubicund mollusk of a creature at the time when I came out in this rough battle with winds, winters, and wickedness; and so far from being able to take care of myself, I was only a little and confusedly conscious of myself, or that I was anybody; and when I broke into this little, confused consciousness, it was with a cry-such a dismal figure did I make to myself; or perchance it was something prophetic, without inspiration, a foreshadow dim and terrible, of the great battle of woe and sin I was sent hither to fight. But my God and my good mother both heard the cry and went to the task of strengthening and comforting me together, and were able ere long to get a smile upon my face. My mother's loving instinct was from God, and God was in love to me first therefore; which love was deeper than hers, and more protracted. Long years ago she vanished, but God stays by me still, embracing me in my gray hairs as tenderly and carefully as she did in my infancy, and giving to me as my joy and the principal glory of my life that he lets me know him, and helps me with real confidence to call him my Father. Would that I could simply tell his method with me and show its significance.

"My figure in this world has not been great, but I have had a great experience. I have never been a great agitator, never pulled a wire to get the will of men, never did a politic thing. It was not for this reason, but because I was looked upon as a singularity-not exactly sane, perhaps, in many things-that I was almost never a president or vice-president of any society, and almost never on a

committee. Take the report of my doings on the platform of the world's business, and it is naught. I have filled no place at all. But still it has been a great thing even for me to live. In my separate and merely personal kind of life. I have had a greater epic transacted than was ever written, or could be. The little turns of my way have turned great changes,-what I am now as distinguished from the merely mollusk and pulpy state of infancy; the drawing out of my powers, the correcting of my errors, the winnowing of my faults, the washing of my sins; that which has given me principles, opinions, and, more than all, a faith, and, as the fruit of this, an abiding in the sense and free partaking of the life of God. Oh that I could trace the subtle art of my Teacher, and show the shifting scenes of the drama which he has kept me acting! What a history--of redemption and more! I will try, as I best can, to show it. Help me, O my God! Refresh my memory. Quicken my insight. Exalt my conceptions of thy meanings, and give me to see just how thou hast led me, that I may quicken others to look for thy mercy, and see that thou hast also as great, and greater things to do for them."

The volume, though modestly called a "composite" work, is really a model of biographical composition. The impress of one mind, and that a mind of rare taste and judgment, is visible throughout-selecting, arranging and combining into unity the multiform materials, gracefully linking the sundered parts, and carrying on the narrative not as a bare recital but as an organic and progressive whole, and in reverent and loving sympathy with the great subject, as if endowed with a portion of the same genius. The style is admirable, combining simplicity, terseness, force, and beauty in a degree seldom seen in such productions. One fault, too common with biographies, that of diffuseness, or of too much matter, is here avoided. Indeed, the regret is more likely to be felt that much which might well have been included is left out; that a man who never repeated himself, and who never said or wrote anything but what was characteristic and worth preserving, should not have had all of his journals and letters published except what sacred privacy forbids. But notwithstanding the loss, we are persuaded that the course pursued is wiser. It is not quantity but quality that tells. A few characteristic traits and touches that reveal the inmost of a character, go farther in the way of impression than whole chapters of detail. We are not sure that the world would have had a better knowledge of Jesus if it had contained and preserved the many books of his sayings and doings which might have been written, instead of the brief and simple narratives which John and the other evangelists have left us.

The book is enriched with two very fine steel portraits; one representing the Doctor as he appeared in his early manhood, —a smooth, thoughtful, and truly prophetic face, with eyes bent downward, and his whole soul absorbed in the book he is perusing. Such a countenance, so pure, and spiritual, and meditative, might have stood for the Apostle John studying the Holy Scriptures. The other, prefixed as a frontispiece to the volume, represents him as he appeared in his later years, and as most of his friends remember him-his broad, high forehead scarred with the thought-conflicts and battles he has fought for the truth,-his loose gray hair and full white beard, forming a grand and venerable setting for the finely cut intellectual features, while from under his shaggy eyebrows glow those clear gray eyes, which whoso has seen can never forget -not dark and thunderous, like those of Webster, nor open and inquisitive with child-like wonder, like those of Channing, nor yet keen and fierce with the eagle ken of Park, but with a penetrating force and lustre that looks through all shams and disguises to the very core of things-and yet with a softness and playfulness in their clear depths, gleaming from the soul behind the intellect, that reveals the inner gentleness and loving sensibility of his nature. If other marks of this were wanting, the delicate contour of his mouth-that unfailing sign of true sensibility-would reveal it. This is the best portrait of Horace Bushnell we have ever seen; and we are truly thankful to the artist and engraver that such a true and admirable likeness is made to accompany the intellectual and moral portrait given in this biography.

In coming to the subject matter of the book before us, we confess to an embarrassment amounting to fear; embarrassment at the difficulty of selecting from such a rich and many-sided subject, those aspects of his life and character which will most truly represent him; a fear also lest the ideal conception formed from a perusal of the volume, aided and exalted by personal recollections, may fail in the transmission, or fall below the reality, while it may seem to some to transcend it. We know not how the reading of such a biography, especially its deeper spiritual disclosures, may impress others, but to us this self-revelation of so grand and pure a soul, so wondrously