At the same time we are bound to observe, that the various parts of the Church Service are sometimes too much broken, and that here and there, from want of caution, unsoundness of doctrine is the result. Thus, for regenerate persons to pray, Grant that we may have power and strength to have victory, &c., approximates (to say the least) to a heresy, which the compiler of these Prayers would be the first to denounce.

We have now only to speak of Mr. Plumer's collection, and we must do it very briefly. It somewhat resembles the last mentioned work in plan, but has the novel feature of selected lessons. These are made up of various parts of Holy Scripture, and are each intended to illustrate some one particular truth. Thus, a doctrinal precept from the Old Testament will be followed by one from the Epistles, and that again by a parable, all bearing on the same subject. This system of dovetailing the infallible Word of God may be well in the hands of an infallible teacher like the Church ;-in those of a private individual it is, to say the least, highly dangerous. We have not, it is fair to say, any complaint to make against the manner in which the task has been executed in the present instance. But we have tried the work, and it seemed not to answer; partly from the difficult language in which the prayers are couched, partly perhaps (which is a fault on the right side) from the over-shortness of the lessons.

In concluding these remarks, we hope that we have said nothing which may look like a slight on an earnest, though imperfect system of devotion. We shall not discover anything better by relinquishing what we already have: we are rather, by working out that which we possess, to press on to something more perfect.

Priests, Women, and Families. By J. MICHELET. Translated from the French, (third Edition) by C. Cocks. London, 1845.

WE do not contemplate any systematic account of this mischievous volume. We have no wish to defend the Romish system of confession, nor would we deny that in the book before us, are passages of interest and facts of importance. But our object is in legal phrase "to challenge the array." We refuse to admit a witness against a specific part of the Christian system, who, if he spoke his mind, would be opposed to it altogether. We remember the dictum of our old teacher, the Stagirite, that what our enemies dislike, is commonly our best security. So that the publication of an infidel professor against one limited portion of the teaching of Rome, is a presumption in favour of that which otherwise we might have expected to disapprove.

For the popularity of the volume there are causes enough. Not to mention that such is the excited state of the popular mind, that anything against Rome is sure to tell, we are compelled to declare that the work has the less creditable recommendation of a thinly disguised indecency. It addresses itself not only to the Ovuos of the public mind, but to its émiova. We fear that the pruriency of the circulating-library reader will aid it more than even the passionateness of the Protestant

Association. It is certainly a most unseemly book for drawing-room tables and boudoir-window seats; and we think that any spinster who should cite it, would expose herself most justly to Johnson's answer to the young lady who quoted Tom Jones,-that if she had been so indiscreet as to read, she ought not to have been so immodest as to refer to it. If it be asked of what the volume consists, we think that it has been so happily summed up by anticipation in Canning's New Morality, that we cannot do better than give our readers his lines-especially as his inimitable work, like so many standard productions of a former age, is less familiar with the rising than with the past generation.

"That speech, on which the melting Commons hung,
While truths divine came mended from his tongue,

How loving husband clings to duteous wife,

How true religion soothes the ills of life;
How Popish ladies trust their pious fears,

And naughty actions in their chaplain's ears:
Half novel and half sermon, on it flowed,
With pious zeal the opposition glowed:
E'en Curwen dropped a sentimental tear,

And stout S. Andrew yelped a softer 'hear.""

We need look no further for the popularity of a volume, which can claim the united support of Clapham Common and May Fair, of Exeter Hall and the Circulating Library. Half novel and half sermon," it recommends itself on the former ground to the patronage of our agreeable literary friend the Spectator, in the latter character to the sterner partizanship of the sagacious but malignant Record. The former knows well enough what the latter, in its narrow view of things, has never surmounted, that Michelet looks at the whole theory of Christianity from a distinct and hostile position, and that his attack upon this portion of the Church's system, is not because it is an incongruous excrescence, but because it appears to him but the pathway for storming the citadel. We must adduce a few facts in proof of our position; and first, since so little is known in this country of the literary men of continental Europe, we will give a few lines to our Author's own history.

Julius Michelet (his title page does not even tell his name) was born in Paris about the year 1802. He looks somewhat forward therefore, when speaking of himself as " advancing towards old age." (Preface to 3rd Ed. p. xxxix.) Brought up in the extreme of poverty, we gather that his boyish years must have been destitute of those ordinary associations which attend on a religious education; since, though he tells us that his mother, of whom he speaks with much affection, did not die till 1815, (when he was thirteen years old,) he says, that to this day he is ignorant where she is buried. (id.) This is a singular instance of the lack of family training, which, however, in ignorance of the circumstances, we would by no means impute to our author as more than a misfortune. Indeed, it redounds to the credit of intellect, to have triumphed over such difficulties.

"Slow rises worth, by poverty oppressed."

The education of Michelet, however, was not entirely French. Cir

cumstances led him into Germany, after he had passed through his earlier studies; and his thoughts have been greatly influenced by its profounder literature. In his "Origines du Droit Français," &c., published in 1837, he is said to have borrowed largely from Grimm's Deutschen Rechtsalterthümern. Nor was it only in such special subjects that he reproduced the German element on the stage of Paris. His philosophical and religious system is essentially the publication of that scheme of Pantheism, which from Wolff to Strauss has been predominant in Germany. On this principle it is that he now proceeds to attack the Christian faith; but so judiciously has he directed his blow, that he can count on the aid of English "Littérateurs" and Protestant Champions.

The system then of Michelet is, that such a thing as religion certainly exists, but that it is in truth nothing more than the intellectual expression of the common mind of man, as it ferments and germinates in the intercourse of society. According to this view of things all religions indeed are true, and Christianity especially is invested with some peculiar claims to the attention of mankind. But its claim does not rest on miracle or prophecy, on the Incarnation of the Son of God in the womb of a virgin, on the discovery of a moral Ruler through the divine facts of the Gospel history, on prayers and sacraments, on revelation and mystery,--to all these, small respect is paid by the modern philosophy. It is because Christianity is the religion of the civilized world, because the Church of France has found lodgment in what Michelet calls the central nation, because it is the religion which he himself favours, and to which he gives his patronage; that the teaching of CHRIST our LORD can be accepted by the Neologist. We are at a loss to express our horror at the monstrous impiety of this rationalistic system. To see the insignificant inhabitants of this remote planet, who occupy one corner of its diminutive extent, whose space is but an atom of time, and their consciousness limited to a portion of their being,-to see this quintessence of dust" thus step forth and give its challenge, because allowed to have a part in the crowning solemnities of the SON of MAN all this surely is an impertinence, which it is impossible to

over-rate.

:

Yet this is the very principle of the Neological system. It has long been avowed by Michelet, who, as early as in 1827, translated a work of Vico's, (Scienza Nuova,) in which many of its principles are embodied. A lengthened sketch of Vico's life (an Italian Jurist, who died, a.d. 1744,) was inserted by him in the Biographie Universelle, in the same year. The theory of the work is, that "human wisdom" (meaning by wisdom much the same as truth,) "is the general agreement of the sense of mankind." (Biographie Universelle, vol. xlviii. p. 365.)

But Michelet proceeded to explain his views for himself, when, having been raised by the last French Revolution from the situation of Professor of History in the College of S. Barbe, to be Guizot's successor, he was afterwards appointed "Chef de la Section Historique aux Archives du Royaume." He now published an Introduction to Universal History, (Paris, 1831,) to which he refers in the present volume. This treatise is a full declaration of his principles. He traces the growth of the inde

pendent principle in man, in the "progressive triumph of self,* the ancient work of the liberation of man, which was commenced by the profanation of the tree of knowledge," (p. 26.) Thence he explains how the idol was set up, which, as truly as Nebuchadnezzar's image, he would have worshipped. It is still the reason of man, displaying itseif in different shapes, and at different times, like the ocean,

-Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime,

Dark Leaving-boundless-endless, and sublime,

to which, in its several manifestations we owe submission. Any notion, greater and purer than humanity,-anything external, objective, transcendental, seems altogether excluded from his system. GOD becomes only a name for the collective intensity of man's thoughts.

And this circumstance accounts for what might otherwise seem a paradox that Michelet respects the mediaval, while he hates the existing Church. In the present work he takes credit for his recognition of the nature of Christian art. We have reinstated,-rebuilt, as one may say, those very churches they had disregarded." (p. 161.) The unhappy man does not perceive that art, like society, is an idle display of useless ingenuity, unless it is consecrated by the invisible principle of spiritual life. He is like the anatomist, who can gloat in rapture over the subtlety of nerves and the adaptation of limbs, forgetting that GoD must "breathe into them the breath of life," before man can become "a living soul."

On this principle he can do justice to the Medieval Church, as being the form of that earthly system which developed the faculties of mankind. He has a sympathy for all that can advance society, and a charity for every manifestation of collective power. In early times he can allow it to exhibit itself in superstition or simplicity-in mysticism or mumery; in begging Friars or fasting Bishops; in S. Antony or S. Arnoulin Peter the Hermit, or Bernard the Recluse. In looking back, that is, upon the past, power and force are his GoDs. And now that religion, as he fancies, has become unpopular with the national mind, that thinking men want something further, he is for worshipping the new order of society, and his piety moves onward with change of times. The collective sense of Europe is still his oracle. France is now the cathedral which enshrines his deity, Napoleon his great high priest, and his scriptures the school of Voltaire. This, which is slightly touched upon in the present work, (p. 266,) is more fully expressed in his Introduction to Universal History; where he has the profaneness to parallel the worldly wisdom of his age and country, with that Divine Being "Who was from the beginning or ever the world was."

"If the social sense is to be our guide to religion,-the organ of this new revelation, the interpreter between GoD and man, ought to be the people, among whom the social principle is pre-eminently developed. The moral world had its WORD in Christianity, the offspring of Judea and Greece, it is for France to manifest that WORD of the social world,

* We cannot deny the truth of his derivation. "Self-love," says S. Augustine, has despoiled Heaven and enriched hell and that place of darkness and of flames would not now be, if there were no self-will."

the sudden collision of intelligence and liberty, that there springs from humanity that celestial brightness, which is called revelation or the WORD.'

"It is to France then, that it belongs to manifest and explain this new revelation. No social or intellectual revelation can be fruitful for Europe, till France has interpreted, translated, rendered it popular." The sensualism of Locke did not become European, except in passing through Voltaire." "Thus is every solitary thought of the nations revealed by France. She proclaims the WORD of Europe, as the WORD of Asia was proclaimed by Greece." (p. 72.)

Thus, in the intoxication of what is called on the Continent the JulyRevolution, (Shakespeare would have called it Midsummer-madness,) did the new Professor of History utter his productions. He forgot, apparently, that his office was not to prophesy but to relate. And no sooner did he proceed to carry his system into effect, than he encountered such opposition as a vessel which is beached from the sand-banks which line the shore. The Church of France, though poor, ill-educated, and unpopular, though labouring, as we believe, under radical faults, and certainly suffering under the discredit of long-permitted vices, yet opposed a solid body of resistance, which he could neither over-leap nor remove. His office connected him with the education of the higher classes, but the body of the people are still sufficiently attached to the Church to prefer a Christian education to the revelation of that new WORD which is proclaimed by the intelligence of the nineteenth century. All who would profit by College life are compelled to come under his system; but there remain the female children and the poor. He is unable to initiate them in his new mysteries. Hinc illæ lacrymæ. His attack upon the

system of confession is only a warfare against that priestly power which has defeated his expectations, withstands his attempts. He complains, indeed, that the Priests are vulgar and illiterate. This is not unnatural now that it is necessary to seek them in the lower ranks, and that poverty curtails their education. Yet such works as the Cursus Theologicus of the Abbé Migne, show that there are not wanting among them men of learning and diligence. In truth, it is not their inactivity but their zeal to which Michelet objects. Had they not made head against the principles of atheism, he would have contented himself with ridiculing their ignorance and despising their poverty.

And can we doubt with which of these parties it befits Christians to sympathize? Have men ever compared Borromeo's Catechismus ad Parochos, with the Candide of Voltaire? Is not the most defective form of Christianity to be preferred to atheism? Well said Paley, that the most absurd superstition by which votary ever sought to propitiate a false GOD was more rational than indifference.

To take part with the assailer of the French Clergy, because their system deserves in some points to be censured, would be the very unfairness complained of in certain rubrical disputes in which professed dissenters were allowed a voice in the arrangement of a ritual which they themselves rejected altogether. We have heard of memorials against Tractarianism addressed to some of our Bishops by Wesleyans, who deny