people of the Canton rushed into Zurich, and overthrew the government. It could not be otherwise than that a work which raised such a storm should attract general attention, whatever the merits or demerits, the abilities or weakness of the author.

In Prussia, the minister of public instruction consulted Neander with regard to suppressing the book in question. He very suitably dissuaded from such an unwise interference of secular power, and addressed himself, in common with many others, to the task of bringing the book to the only bar at which it is properly answerable. The result we have before us in the "Life of Jesus Christ." To say that, in the main, this work answers the end contemplated by the author, that it augments his previous reputation for comprehensiveness of views, and depth of investigation, is only saying that which must impress every reader. Neander, in all his writings is earnest, and often discovers unction. He always aims to edify the church. In this last production of his, there is very little of the polemic. Indeed the reader who is unacquainted with the circumstances of its origin, would not mistrust that it was occasioned by the celebrated work of Strauss. In point of style he is inferior to the quondam pantheist of Tübingen. Strauss, for a German, is unusually clear. You know, generally what he means, as well as he does himself; which can be said of very few of our Teutonic cousins, particularly in the departments of metaphysics and theology. Neander, in all his works inclines to diffuseness. Perspicuity does not characterize any of them. One prominent defect of his, is an aversion to positive dogmatic statements. Creeds he looks upon as shackles, and eschews them more than heresy itself. He has cultivated, to an unusual degree, a benevolent kind of eclecticism, which does far greater credit to his heart than his head. He is too anxious to find something good in every system and every work of man's, and hence often goes much farther than Paul would venture, in apologizing for heresiarchs. Martin Luther would lay aside his gloves altogether in dealing with him. That stalworth impersonation of old Saxon roughness and straightforward good sense, would have very little patience with Neander in his tender and patronizing treatment of the "haters of God."

The translation of his Life of Christ, which we have referred to, is published by the Harpers of New York. As is true of nearly every book issued by that firm, this will have a wide circu

lation. A popular work, in the common acceptation of that phrase, it will not be. The polemical and local circumstances, which, to say the least, have contributed to its reputation in Germany, do not exist here. Many perhaps, allured by its title and the author's reputation, and seeking edification, will purchase the work, read a few sentences, glance at a few more, and then lay it aside. All who have read the Life of Christ as written by Jeremy Taylor, by Fleetwood, and by other English authors, and who expect to find mere biography with homiletical paragraphs interspersed, will be disappointed. They will find a thorough, scholar-like, as well as religious, survey of the leading acts and instructions of our Lord. All who can appreciate such a performance, and have time carefully to peruse the work, will find it a valuable aid to the study of the evangelical history.

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But the sounder part of our community will read this "Life of Jesus Christ," with full as much grief as satisfaction. Neander had his forebodings that such would be the case. "I am, notwithstanding, still afraid that some readers, unacquainted with the progress of the German mind, which has developed new intellectual necessities even for those who seek the truth believingly, may take offence at some of the sentiments of this book. Especially will this be likely to happen with those who have not been accustomed to distinguish what is divine from what is human in the gospel record." This anxiety of his, which is quite apparent in the Author's "Address to my Christian Brethren in America," is the most reasonable disquiet that can be imagined. Unintentionally, it is a far higher compliment than any of those which he designs to pay. Not only will the anticipated offence be taken by "some minds unacquainted with the progress of the German mind," but also by some minds" not thus unacquainted. We profess to be among the number who are so far in the rear of German advance, as not to be "accustomed," or at any time able, "to distinguish what is divine from what is human in the gospel record." We have never met with a pair of transcendental wings which could bear us to the standpunkt where one may distinguish the component elements of the atmosphere of the solar rays. In spite of all modern developments, we confess that to this present hour we have experienced no "intellectual necessities" which compel us to take up any theory safer or better than this, that "all Scripture is given by inspiration of

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God." We must admit a somewhat stubborn determination to regard, not only the gospel record, but the whole Bible, as a "sure word of prophecy," whereunto we suppose that we do well to take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place." In our way of looking at things, we take it, that "holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost."

Neander, however, by his "free development," has come to a different position. "But of this I am certain, that the fall of the old form of the doctrine of inspiration, and indeed, of many other doctrinal prejudices, will not only not involve the fall of the essence of the Gospel, but will cause it no detriment whatever. Nay, I believe that it will be more clearly and accurately understood; that men will be better prepared to fight with and to conquer that inrushing infidelity against which the weapons of the old dogmatism must be powerless in any land." Now this is the queerest system of tactics we have ever heard propounded, surrender the citidel to save the town. What would the good people of the Netherlands say to Hoch-Deutch counsellors who should recommend them to give up their "prejudices" in favor of their embankments; and very confidently affirm that the fall of the "old form" of their dykes would enable them all the better to resist the "inrushing" of the North Sea?

We have yet to learn that the most satisfactory way of obtaining from a witness the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, is to waive the obligations of an oath or solemn affirmation, bid him say what he pleases, and then set the jury to distinguish what is true from what is false in the testimony. But the Germans cannot away with anything infallible and fixed, anything which may not be subjected to the crucible of their "higher criticisms," and which will not part with some portion of its bulk in the process. Accordingly Neander will have it that "whatever in this book [the New Testament] rests upon that one foundation than which none other can be laid, will bear all the fires of time; but the wood, hay and stubble which find place in all works of men, will be burned up." It is with no small interest that we watch the ordeal to which our German friends subject the lively oracles. The fire being kindled, by a pretty general consent, Moses and the prophets are cast into the flames. As for Matthew, only a few hesitate about the same destination for him. Mark and Luke certainly were not among the twelve; let

Nebuchadnezzar's servants take them! Luther himself pronounced the epistle of James "an epistle of straw;" and ere this holocaust to infidelity ceases, not a witness for Jehovah or for Jesus remains.

Some of the more compassionate of these ober-consistorial-rathe are content with the martyrdom of one or two merely. We may any day see a learned Doctor of Theology, taking the sacred volume in hand, proceed, in the utmost sang-froid, to burn out with his rush-light, a certain number of leaves; or to apply the flame vertically, or perhaps char the beginning or ending of a book or two; or, it may be, only smoke and deface a single page. "Let the wood, hay and stubble which find place in all works of men, be burned up," is the common maxim.

The Word of the Lord has been tried. Centuries of searching process has it passed through. Yet in view of all the scrutiny of avowed enemies, and the concessions of timorous friends, we regard it with more and more of confidence, from beginning to end, as gold, pure gold, which no fire can tarnish or destroy.

OBSERVATIONS ON MEN, BOOKS, AND THINGS.

THE MOBS OF PARIS.- The present half-formed government of France has barely survived another of those tempests, which burst forth with such startling violence in that political climate. The tale of carnage and ferocity, in which even boys and men appear like fiends of darkness, recalls the horrors of 1793. By those horrors, such ardent lovers of liberty as Burke and Coleridge, were made to detest the very name of France. Coleridge's antipathy went to the most absurd extremes. He once said: "Your Frenchmen are like grains of gunpowder; take them singly, and they are smutty and contemptible; but mass them together, and they are terrible indeed!” Protesting against this wholesale condemnation of the Gallic race, it is impossible for us not to feel the truth of the remark, so far as it applies to the excited masses whose "barricades" have become such slaughter-pens. But let not the Christian look too despondingly on the outrages which have taken place, and may be again repeated. "The Lord reigns, and the devil is trying to!" And Satan's failures help on the right and the good. Many remarkable effects followed the old French revolution; such as the abatement of the undue influence of rank and title, the removal of a vast amount of religious bigotry, and a wide diffusion of healthful sentiment in regard to popular rights. And these present convulsions will be overruled to the greater eventual improvement and happiness of

human society. They who dread the violence of the revolutionary spirit, usually dwell intently upon the tragical incidents which have marked its course; forgetting that the incidental injuries are for the most part transient, while the beneficial consequences are perpetual. Says Macaulay, speaking of the revolution which brought Charles I. to the scaffold: "Many evils, no doubt, were produced by the civil war. They were the price of our liberty. Has the acquisition been worth the sacrifice? It is the nature of the devil of tyranny to tear and rend the body which he leaves. Are the miseries of continued possession less horrible than the struggles of the tremendous exorcism?-We deplore the outrages which accompany revolutions. But the more violent the outrages, the more assured we feel that a revolution was necessary. The violence of these outrages will always be proportioned to the oppression and degradation under which they have been accustomed to live." Macaulay illustrates this point by a fabling tale from Ariosto, of a fairy condemned to assume periodically the loathsome form of a serpent; and who avenged herself of such as then sought to injure her, while she rewarded, in her state of beauty and power, all such as afforded her pity and protection. "Such a spirit is Liberty. At times she takes the form of a hateful reptile. She grovels, she hisses, she stings. But wo to those who in disgust shall venture to crush her! And happy are those who, having dared to receive her in her degraded and frightful shape, shall at length be rewarded by her in the time of her beauty and her glory."- In the present dark and disastrous hour, we have need of all the encouragement we can obtain to keep up our hopes for France, and to enable us to pray in faith for the social and religious regeneration of Europe and the world. Perhaps we cannot better comfort ourselves, aside from the precious and assuring promises of the Word of God, than with the following sage and inspiriting reflections of the great modern essayist we have been quoting. Let us trust that his words may prove as true of this present agitation, as they are of the preceding strifes and conflicts of freedom. "There is only one cure for the evils which newly acquired freedom produces - and that cure is freedom! When a prisoner leaves his cell, he cannot bear the light of day :- - he is unable to discriminate colors, or recognize faces. But the remedy is not to remand him into his dungeon, but to accustom him to the rays of the sun. The blaze of truth and liberty may at first dazzle and bewilder nations which have become half blind in the house of bondage. But let them gaze on, and they will soon be able to bear it. In a few years men learn to reason. The extreme violence of opinions subsides. Hostile theories correct each other. The scattered elements of truth cease to conflict, and begin to coalesce. And at length a system of justice and order is educed out of the chaos. Many politicians of our time are in the habit of laying it down as a self-evident proposition, that no people ought to be free till they are fit to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story, who resolved not to go into the water till he had learnt to swim! If men are to wait for liberty till they become wise and good in slavery, they may indeed wait forever."

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