tragedy-the Constitutional Monarchy, and the Reign of Terror; or, as the compiler entitles them, Louis the King, and Robespierre the Dictator. One great value of this part of the book is, that it embodies so much of the Marchioness de Larochejaqueline's appalling narrative of he war in La Vendeé-almost the only struggle made in France for the cause of religion and loyalty. The heroic courage and simple piety which animated noble and peasant alike of this obscure district, to make their gallant stand for GoD and the King, come in the history as a most refreshing contrast with the gigantic wickedness and feebleminded virtue which divided the rest of France. We could wish that the memoirs of the Marchioness were republished entire, that her most truthful picture might be seen as a whole; for we have reason to believe that her book had a most important effect in ruling some minds aright at the last period of great political agitation in this country.

The second part of the history is taken up with the fortunes of the Directory, and the rise and fall of Napoleon. How concise the narrative is, may be judged of by the fact, that though it embraces so much longer a period, it fills only the same space with the history of the first six years. It is almost too concise. Many well-known traits of individual character, which one looks for, are necessarily omitted; and one is grieved to find such momentous events, and so many gallant achievements despatched so briefly. Still these battles, and sieges, and negociations, are after all not so important, nor so pregnant with practical lessons, as the frightful history of that one guilty city of Paris during the actual progress of the Revolution; and therefore we think the compiler has acted wisely in making this the leading subject of his work. We may remark that he has made good use of Alison's valuable history, which we are glad to observe is in progress of republication.

The Witness of the Spirit with our Spirit, &c., and the heresies of Montanus, Pelagius, &c. &c., in Eight Sermons, preached as the Bampton Lecture, 1846, by the Rev. AUG. SHORT, Vicar of Ravensthorpe, &c. Oxford: Parker. London: Rivingtons. 1846.

THESE lectures are both sound and able as far as they go. We think the fault of them is an over caution in recommending, almost we might say, apologizing for those doctrines of the Church which happen to be distasteful to the mass at the present time. The efficacy of the Sacraments, of fasting, &c., are all so stated as to remind one painfully that they are virtually set at nought by a great number of nominal churchmen. We are indeed surprised to find the author giving way to the loose unphilosophical religionism of the day, so far as to talk of "Christianity" being "a religion of motives rather than of rules," and advocating fasting (lecture v.) on the ground of its being a means and help towards the attainment of the requisite spirituality, rather than on the ground of the command of CHRIST and His Church. Still there may be some to whom such condescension may be useful, and we are not prepared to condemn it altogether. The ablest part of the volume is the seventh lecture, in which the writer traces the connexion between Pelagianism, and the heresy now so prevalent of denying the efficacy

of the means of grace; it is a theme of vital importance, and is well handled here. The eighth lecture is an interesting account of Montanism, and other parallel forms of fanaticism of the same, and of later and modern times. On the whole, Mr. Short's Bampton Lectures will repay an attentive perusal, and there is a useful practical tone about them, which commends them to the practical parish Clergy. We owe an apology to the author for not having noticed them before.

We are happy to see a new edition of Mr. W. H. RIDLEY'S excellent tract upon Confirmation. (Edwards and Hughes.) It is one of the very best that we have seen, and its cheapness makes it possible for every Clergyman to place it in the hands of his young people. It is the practical work of one who well understands the peasantry of England, and whose heart is in his work. It has the merit of great simplicity and considerable force, and is calculated to prove a useful companion to "The Manual for Confirmation." If we might venture to criticise, we might be inclined to ask, why the dogmatic truth, that Confirmation, like Holy Orders, confers what the Church terms character, should have been missed out. It seems to bear a very practical aspect, calculated to awaken a deeper value and respect for this sacred ordinance. The thought that one who is confirmed cannot become as he was before -cannot lose the responsibilities therein contracted, and that the solemn dedication and consecration of the soul, by the Holy Ghost, is ineffaceable, even though by sin that soul may forfeit the graces therein accorded,—that a well preserved confirmation grace shall brighten our crown, and a forfeited one increase our fall-is likely to impress, not only those who at the time undergo the rite, but all those who in former years have done so : thus converting the ordinance and the preparation for it into a practical lesson for all. With this single deduction, we beg earnestly to recommend Mr. Ridley's excellent little work to incumbents of agricultural parishes especially.

It is singular that after writing as above we should have met with another Tract, Questions and Answers on Confirmation, (Masters,) the fault of which is the stating (in reply to the question why Confirmation is not to be repeated,) that it "impresses character," without any explanation of the meaning of the phrase. We would suggest also that it should be given in another edition as an additional reason why Confirmation may not be repeated, that we are henceforward to be partakers of the Holy Sacrament of the altar, where grace is given for the same purpose. At present there is no mention of the Holy Communion.

Mr. Dodsworth also has published some brief Instructions about Confirmation, (Burns,) which, together with those last named, we strongly recommend.

We rejoice to perceive that Ælfric's Homily on the Sacrifice of Easter Day, has been published in the form of a tract (Masters). Anything which tends to strengthen men's sympathies with the Church of past. ages, is deserving of encouragement; and this tract derives a special

interest from the circumstance that it was set forth by Archbishop Parker and others in 1566, with a view of showing that the Church of the sixteenth century was one in doctrine on this most important subject with that of the tenth.

Bishop Mant has published two little volumes, entitled Feriæ Anniversariæ, (London: J. W. Parker,) to prove that "the observance of Holy Days is no symptom of Popery." If such a work is still necessary, we are glad that it has fallen into the hands of one so well acquainted with the history of the English Church and the lives of her divines, as is the Bishop of Down and Connor.

DR. WORDSWORTH'S Letters to M. Gondon on the destructive character of the Church of Rome both in religion and policy, (Rivingtons) are marked by all the well-known characteristics of that writer, great variety of learning, considerable vigour of composition, and utter unmitigated antipathy to the whole Roman system. M. Gondon was the first to provoke this correspondence. Perhaps he may now regret that he has

done so.

MR. ADAM'S Warnings of the Holy Week, (Rivingtons) will, we presume, be in the hands of most of our readers, before our recommendation can reach them. However, we give it very heartily.

The Fast Day has been the occasion of giving to the public three able and instructive Sermons, by Dr. Pusey, Mr. Dodsworth, and Mr. Bennett; of which the last has opened an interesting discussion on the question, whether or no it was expedient to celebrate the Holy Eucharist on that occasion. Mr. Bennett advocates the celebration warmly, as being impetratory of forgiveness of sins, and propitiatory. In this view we quite agree, and should rejoice to find that the Eucharistic Sacrifice were offered daily in S. Paul's. Then certainly our advice would have been, By no means intermit your practice. But, inasmuch as we believe that this is not the case; and that Mr. Bennett's custom is only to celebrate on Sundays and Holidays, it appears to us more in harmony with the Catholic rule not to single out a day devoted to humiliation and penitence for the celebration of this Great Feast.

A second edition of Mr. ABRAHAM's Lectures on Ancient and Modern History, (Eton: Williams,) we are glad to find, has been called for; and we recommend it as by far the most valuable Manual for Schools that has yet been published. Scarcely any alteration we observe has been made in the new edition beyond an improvement of the typography. The point on which we are least disposed to agree with the author, is, as regards his estimate of the Feudal institutions; in the depreciation of which, he seems to us to have yielded rather too much to M. Guizot and Dr. Arnold. It should be stated that there is a curtailed edition of the Book which leaves out some of the best parts.

Our readers will thank us for calling their attention to an Essay on the "Connerion between Revealed Religion and Medical Science," that gained a prize at St. Bartholomew's Hospital in last year. It bears marks of thought much beyond the years of an ordinary Medical Student, and is imbued with a pious and thoroughly Catholic spirit. There is no publisher's name on the title page, but it may be procured from the printers, Messrs. Bentley, Wilson, and Fley.

THE PROGRESS OF THE PEOPLE.

AT every point in his history man has hugged himself. At all times with a pretty fair opinion of the future, he has fully felt his immeasurable distance from the past. Except as a habit, antiquity has no charms for the general world, and sentimentalism about it has generally been thought a fair subject for ridicule. Few persons, and these with feeble and drowned voices, dare to say that once mankind was better off, except in ingenious poetical fictions. And so it is hard to write history; for while ninety men in a hundred clothe the farthest past in the garb of the present, nine hundred and ninety-nine in a thousand make the present appear the dream it seems to them. Men believe in themselves: what part of themselves they believe in, is according to the measure of knowledge each attains.

And truly we may do well to boast now. The greatness of our times is something marvellous to the discoverers. Reflections on our own thoughts declare them something awful. It was not enough that human inventions had been proved by present experience, and that what was found out in past times was either despised as stale, or contemned as a dream according as it squared with now-a-days knowledge. The past is but a scene of infant and barbarous experience, struggling with grave lies. What our fathers thought is a mighty bubble, a tremendous hoax, curious, and highly entertaining, but either in our present condition to be left to coldeyed dilettanti, or to be tricked out in novels, clothed in a deceitful garb, made like the miserable Helot drunken, and besotted, in order to feed the pride, and form the morals, of us true Spartans, by its contrast with our dignity. The past is the ever retreating night, the future is a perpetual dawn of promise.

This has been no doubt partly the result of a reaction till very lately we were taught to live only for the present, and the respectable indolence of the eighteenth, was the grave of the enthusiastic and all daring agony of the seventeenth century. That time is to us pure history. An age of a wholly different kind has passed between it and us, and his is a thoughtful mind, as well as an earnest one, who can bridge over the interval. If we recover it, it will not be by mounting up step by step, or retracing the lost ground, but by a new start, a veritable reproduction. And it is worth one's while to notice what people felt then, when life was devoted to the deep and deathless wisdom of belief; and belief and knowledge were not made the mere pretext for this world's lucre. Love then was the strong bond of a common faith, and earnest devotion to its VOL. III.-JUNE, 1847.

SS

teachers in the world, and not the mere milk-and-water twaddle of a sentimental journal, the spur to a jaded taste, and the most heartless fiction which Mammon ever devised. Religion too was an enthusiasm whose very life was its majesty and mystery, not the mere scheme of a judicious politician, or the sharp clear picture of a calculating Rationalist, or the voluptuous idolatry of a sensual Methodist, or the accommodating Pantheon of a "progressive" Socialist. But then they had a different plan. The doctrines of Religion in bygone times were clear enough, still clearer to study and patient faith, ending in mystery indeed; but with the line of truth as broad and manifest as continual teaching could make it. Now, however, the tables are changed. What lies within the circle is definite, no mystery, plain calculation, criticism, philology, understandable by the meanest comprehension; but the difficulty is to say where truth ends and untruth begins. The circle widens its boundaries as we proceed. Every Every one makes his own pomarium.

We all of us feel this sad necessity of doubt. To some it is painful, because they have been taught to look on truth as one, and immutable. Some on the other hand, welcome it as a change, an amusement, a thing to be taken up after the ledger is done with. Some earnest men think we are to "progress" by it, and that it is very commendable. The house is to be divided against itself as long as possible, and when it is become dismantled the part which stands the longest is the true faith. Others examine all the scheme in detail, and so pass judgment on it, marvellously as the silly man in Hierocles, who wants to sell his home and takes about a stone for a specimen of its style; of this kind are Rational Philologers, fifth-Monarchy-men and Millenarians, all the same kind, only some are better behaved, others more enthusiastic and more weakly informed. Every one, however, is to have a fling at it, and carry about with him his church; the church of his understanding, not the church of his reason and faith, the idol of his pride, and the feeble exponent of his narrow and single mind, not the guide of his heart, and the centre of his firm and carnest love. And this is what we now have. Can we wonder then, that the living martyrdom of departed Saints, the long testimony of pious and faithful men, is jeered at, and disbelieved? Can we wonder that the labours of living men to recover what has been lost, have been made the object of avowed hostility, and attacked with some show of zeal by those who never showed energy before; and that every resource that malignity could devise has been tried against men whose life and doctrine are gradually winning their way. And when one of those who has thus attacked them has been preposterous enough to urge that the recovery of a primitive faith demanded going back over the whole ground that the Church of Rome at any time ruled over, and that we must return the way that we came to this point by; and when he says that it was to be foreseen in con