The Press.
London, England, 1853-12-31 00:00:00

TIIF. SfiTITAIIT FIAIWER.

It siontetiones hamlet's that seed of flowers fulls where
11)1111' would look fur it, and that flowers grow where no eye
ever sees them ; but on the sky these words an•e written :
" No) flower blooming in vain.- Su it hapls•ued that
flower opened its blue e.ve, close to the rolulside, at 11111 l g
smith and stones, and thorny shrubs, just when the bun
was rising. . .

" 4:ofelmoniing, Flownd," the Sun said, " what are you
doing then. ?"
" 1 only am hhe )))) hog and spreading my (atom•."
" Not wort► the trouble ; nobody can see you here, and
nohody smells your perfume : nay, nobody gathers you
even. Now, you should see the flowers yonder, in the gun-
dens of the Sultan. I jest see them awake from their
sleep: they are leading a nuamiticent life, quite dith.rent
to what you will do. The gardener's hand nurses them
can fully; they are reflecting their laughing beauty in the
water of clear fountains,—the brightest eyes look down
upon them,—tire mofest hands gather then► at last,—and
after a beautiful life they die a beauttful death in yeses of
gold or reel s stones, or, whet is nsint beautiful still,
in the girdle of rune young sultana."
" It must be very fine indeed," said the Flower by the
roadside. "I am glad they me so happy ; amid how Ofilid
it be, otherwise ...--.-11111 the sky there is written : ' No flower
is blooming in vain.' "
The Sall ifillgiled at this simple sagacity, and passed
on.

A horseman voile past, the first to-418y, and the Flower
welcomed him with its perfume. His face brightened, lie
waved him lanisd. and said:

" Illue eye of her I love, T greet you,"—spurred his
horse, pu5!,..4, and gather...l it nut ; and the rutezzin called
the hour front the minaret of the twighbotning town.

A foot•passenger 1111 l And s►►w the Flower.-
" How sweetly you Killen; how delicate is the colunr of
your eholice!" he said, bending over it. " Von tremble at
my much. Oh, do not fear me; I shall not cruelly injure
you. What should beeonte of you on my solita►y dusty
pleb, in my burning and weary hand ? 1114/0111 on, sweet
Flower by the roadside, you dill not open for me.••
And On he Went, ►md broke it nut ; and
.the muezzin
ca!led the I • from the mina►et. _ _

Two wanderers came. One of them carried a tin box,
filled with dead dowers—a whole cemetery, indeed, he was
running about with; the second, however, carried only his
Mein young heart through the world.
The blue Flower saw the cemetery from afar, shud-
dered, and turned away.
" Oh, such a grave I should not like to have," the
Flower whispered.
The: gravedigger now called the Flower by a barbarous
name, that sounded like dry leaves with which the wind
is playing—the Flower had never heard it.
"Olt, that is not my name : go on, I am not called so,"
it said, trembling.
" What a dear, blue eyed thing! how did it come here,
at the roadside ?" said the second wanderer, who only now
remarked it.

" I will pit it into my botanieal collection ; go out of my
way, friend."
Beware rll knit the other. " Have you not robbed
Asia of all itr tlowen4 already, and yet you cannot spare
this pair solitary dower! Have you not whole pyramids
of tlower•umn►tnies itt Lome, awl yet von cannot let this
dear little thing enjoy its short life 7 tiet you gone, I
say; this eastern beauty I take miller my protection ; this
lady is too fair for your tin Hower-elan.-
Then tooth went away laughing, but gathe►ed it not, and
the muezzin called the hour (tom the minaret.

Ah, a blue stone, bine like a sapphire, upon my ho-
nour," said a short-sighted collector of stones, who was
fetching atones finm all parts of the world ; and he rushed
upon it so hastily that he had nearly des•royed it, tin• his
!canted spectacles fell front his nose in his hurry, and he
only now saw this lonely child of nature.
'• Pooh ! nothing but a wretelosl Hower," he said, and
felt too eli contempt to look at it any more. lie put on
his spectacles again, continut d his way, lint gathered it
not, and the tnnezzin called the hour from the minaret.

Iligher and higher nee the Sum, prouder and prouder it
laughed at the tusir solitary l'hiwerat the roadside.
11 any busy merchants enwe this way (bey wen• talking
Imully and Ichemently, Lot 11144 011 e Of IL, ui teak any
notice of the Setlitary Flower, or remarki.il its perfume.
The camel, the horse. the mule passed the spot, lent not
one of them did so mach as bend down the head tie it.

" Ws, if it had been a thistle I should have cairn said
the Camel ; " but so, it is not worth the trouble of stoop-
ing tiown to it "
"'Thanks to !leaven that Tam a flower." said the,motlest
perrinneviver: " often already the nitivzsin has bleu call-
ing the hour from the pihrtret, lint on the sky there is
written : ' No flower is bitsatting ill vain;

Shady the Evening rose from the valleys. saw the hum
ing eyes of Afternmat scorching the gr.niud, and drove it
away from the land, chasing it lieond the sunintits of the
mountains, and beyond the blue sea, then shook its own
locks till the bright ilewdnila fell from them. And now,
placing itsilf before its own f 'us easel. Eve •q, the
great painter, began to paint the sky a ith rosy red and
wild. with light green, violet. and purple. To the Flower
it said, looking down front its work :

SATURDAY:

"Well, Blue•eye, are you awake still? Now I paint the
sky much more beautiful still for your sake. Look
here.'
Hut because he did it so surpassingly lovely, the Snu
grew red witu inner, and went down. Evening laughed at
it, till, dying of the excitement, it sank into the arms of
Night. The Flower beheld it all, continued blooming
and spreading its pert e, smiling into the face of
Night. The mild lip of the Night kissed the flower grate•
fully, and said:
" What have you been doing here at the roadside the
whole of the day, my solitary Flower ?"
Itha. ' g and spreading any perfume."
" And what are you waiting for here in the hour of
night ?"
" For the end of my bloom and my perfume."
Night now opened its wide mantle, and pressed the
Flower to the heart. Under this wide mantle the Flower•
now saw sparkling star by star.
who are those?" it asked the Night; it had lived but
a single day, and (lid not know the sues.
Those a•e the dowers of the sky, that open when the
flowers of eartl► close." _ _ _

thightly shone the flowers of heaven, silvery blue, like
the te*r of night in the eye of the solitary Flower.
And the Stars above said,—

" There is a Star fallen upon the earth; see how it
sparkles far below on the yellow road."
" Come," said the Night to the Flower ; " the end of your
bloom and your perfume is come. Here below your eye
closes—there, above, it opens again. The hour of mornr
ing will find you faded here below, but every night wakes
your eye with a kiss there above. of solitary, forloin
Hewers heaven makes its stars ; of their lost bloom and
perfume heaven weaves their rays."
The Flower smiled once more, and said,— . _

" 1 knew it. On the sky there is written—' No flower is
blooming in vain.' "
'Then it bent its little head, and died; but in the same
moment a new star flashed from the dark•blue sky. Night
has said it— _ _

"As often as a flower of earth closes, a flower of heaven
opens."

History of the Christian Church. By James
Craigic Robertson, M.A. I,ondon Murray.
No work is so much required by the reading
and thinking British public as a good history
of the Church. In our English literature we
cannot point to any classical performance
worthy of that sacred theme. Translations
from the German satisfied our fathers; and
the children of those who referred to Mosheim
arc only too contented in relying upon Neale.
der. Neither Milner nor ?Ullman are writers
whose performances could supply the want of
a great work, broad in its philosophy, and
solid in its learning ; reviewing the progress
of Christianity, and written with that close
reference to fact and absence of rhetorical
colour demanded in any contribution of ge-
nuine English literature. We do not require
a merely scholastic dissertation, with exegeti-
cal merits, but without any literary execution ;
nor a brilliant discourse in three volumes, full
of testhetical thinking and poetical descrip-
tions; nor a dry essay, with annotations brist-
ling with orthodox learning and heterodox
inductions ; nor a coldly-metaphysic analysis
of the pseudo-philosophic style in which the
formulae of a barren logic are enunciated with
the pedantry of a pragmatical " professor.'i
What we would wish to see is such a history
of the Church as might at once be recom-
mended to inquiring minds for the depth of
its information, and be cited as a performance
worthy of English literature.
Various circumstances combine to make the
want of a good English history of the Church
deeply felt at present. First of all, the
Christianity of England is in this age of more
momentous importance than heretofore. The
colonisation and Christianising civilisation of
mankind are now the magnificent patrimony
of the British power. As silent Englishmen
think of Shakspeare and Milton, of Bacon and
Burke, influences literature through every
corner of the world, so how they read the
Bible, and in what sense they accept the
events of history, connected with the ditl'usion
of revelation, have become of prodigious and
unspeakable importance. The advance of
Romanism on one side ; the stealthy progress
of Neology upon the other; last, not least, the
presence amongst us of an ambiguous thco
logy, with more talent than truth, more literary
eloquence than moral earnestness, blowing
hot and cold on every disputed question, un-
settling much and fixing nothing, at once
strongly combining in itself the opposite evils
of the tardy rcactionist and the headstrong
innovator—these causes, with others too nu-
merous to mention, make us really most
anxious that some Protestant scholar of Eng-

DECEMBER 31, 1853.

land should grapple with this want, and give
his countrymen the invaluable present of a
work which, written with the nervous idiom of
their mother tongue, might record. in gnively-
eloquent style. the history of Christ's Church
during the last eighteen hundred years.
In expecting that a man might be found
competent to such a task, we look for no won-
derful literary marvel. We know ourselves
who might if they had leisure) execute such
at performance. But the pressure of episcopal
and parochial duties in some, the responsibi-
lity of collegiate functions and want of health
in others, would prevent them from the sacri-
fice of some years of sustained labour re-
quired by such a work. To produce a history
of this kind its composer should have a
philanthropiesl synthesis of his own ; and his
mind should be rich in results of thought in
ethics and metaphysics This intellect should
be habitually prone to reflection ou Provi-
dence in history. Sound in his scholarship,
he should be fluniliar with patristic divinity,
and be able to realise with something of pie-
tonal power the conditions of those nations
and social elements through which the Chris-
tian stream wound its course in the " dark
ages." He should be a thinker, master of a
flexible style. adjusting itself to the wants of
disquisition or description. (liven a divine or
nylons layman, with the learning and manly
vigour of Hallam and the popular Ivey style
of Paley, and with more moral ardour than
either, such a work, then, might be produced.
In suggesting such a combination we suppose
tut phenomenon. Such a man would still be far
below the level of Bishop Warburton or Bishop
Berkeley ; and we do not think (whatever
Lord .Tetfrey may have affirmed to the con-
trary) that the race of •' giant divines" has died
out in England. .
The remarks which we have made indicate
the defects in the work now before us. Of its
author personally we know nothing; but we
respect his manly unaffected style, and honest
learning. Ilis preface is possibly intended to
disarm criticism. He probably seeks to gain
no higher laurels than those which may be
assigned to sound scholarship, sensible style,
• and tact in compilation. The \Amite, as far
as it goes, is highly incritorious ; and students
in theology will find it very useful on account of
its copious and
,judicious annotations. BM
" the general readers " to wheat it is addressed
Will turn from it as not being sufficiently
readable, and, like ourselves, they will pro-
1101111Ce it fitter for reference than perusal.
Mr. Robertson does not excel in that logical
generalisation requisite for depicting and cha-
racterising great cycles of history : his diction
wants subtlety, and his narrative has not
fluent animation. The general causes acting
on the world, and the various phases of social
life at each era, should have occupied more of
his attention. Yet there is a columess and
judicial equity in his remarks that give
weight to many of his opinions, even where
they want profundity or originality ; if he he
without brilliancy as a writer, lee is also with-
out foppery or trickery ; and, although his
matter is well selected, his manner, especially
at the commencement of the work. which
should indeed have been recomposed, is fre-
quently crude ; for example, the very first
passage reads very weakly
St. Peter is said to have founded the Church of Antioch,
and, after lauvilet presided over it fnr seven years, to have
left Eluding as his successor, while he himself penetrated
into Parthia and other countries of the East, It seems

inure reasonable to understand the date of Ital yhon in his
East epistle (v. 13) as meaning the eastern rite of that
name than as a mystical designati 4/tt of Pagan Lome. St.
ltartholemew is said to have preached in Arabia ; St. An.
drew in Scythia ; St. Matthew in Ethiopia. St. Thomas is
reported to have preached in Pat-thin and in India. The Per•
slim Church claimed him for its founder, and the native
Church of Malabar advanees a similar

The author shoul►l have prefixed some
general considerations on the mode of ascer-
taining historical facts in the ages immediately
consequent on the apostolieal era. His esti.
mate of Origen is extremely able, though open
to some critical strictures, as is the case with
nearly everything written on that extraordi-
nary thinker. We wish that our space enabled
us to extract the whole passage. Its con-
eluding remarks are a fair specimen of the
author's style :

Origen's views of the atonement are difficult to iimb.r.
stand, and no less so to reconcile with orthodox belief. Ho