The Press.
London, England, 1855-05-26 00:00:00

MAY 26, 1855.

fire, phosphorus, and brimstone. Only disturb this artic
of the people's faith, and behold the result!—the whole of
the rural districts in rebellion; ploughmen ravishing,
plundering, and burning ; weavers striking for wages,
servants robbing their masters ; and ruffianism in general
the order of the day. And all this is now happily prevented
by a strict belief in hellfire, much to the satisfaction of
every respectable father of a family in the kingdom. By
no means disturb this present state of things ; nay, rather
maintain the devil's authority, and live in peace.

Here we have a most graphic portrait of a
popular partisan historian :

" I admit all this," said he ; " but if all men were of
your opinion where should we find those pleasant fables so
delightful to peruse ? He is the clever man who, from
facts whether doubtful or accredited, can manufacture an
agreeable and readable book. Write for a popular party,
and construct. a web of apparent argument, which shall
suit the taste of the day, for which reason history, as is
mostly the case, should be written from political motives,
or simple desire of gain and patronage, rather than from
any desire of seeking after truth. And 1 should recommend
to you to join one side or the other boldly and gallantly at
once, and support it through thick and thin ; otherwise
you will be a gobetween, to receive blows from both parties.
If you have a desire to be intensely hated by all factions,
you have only to take your seat between these two stools--
state facts carefully and impartially, wipe out all prejudice
and party spirit, and you will infallibly come to the ground,
having had the honour of compiling a work which shall be
truthful, unsaleable, unreadable, with every point of into.
rest or excitement wrung out."
" But pray who has written history upon your principle ?"
said I.

He instanced a great name. I was silent. I could not
but mark the immense distance between this wealthy,
popular, and tiptop historian and myself, the poor back
author, who bud been so impudent as to question motives
which he, who had compiled such a history and gained
such everlasting fame, had not cared to question. Into
what mean insignificance did these moral considerations
fall before the face of this great man, who, totally indiffe-
rent to truth or untruth, to right or wrong, had written so
fascinating a history !

We now come to a capital bit of wholesome
writing :
As I walked on, I fell sprawling over some knotted
roots, partially concealed by the long grass, and sprained
my wrist very badly ; however, I had the Christian fortitude
to be thankful for it, and was filled with great delight, to
think that I had not broken my arm. 1 began to feel
hungry, and here were none of those hospitable houses to
which I was ever welcomed ; but, of course, I endured the
pangs of hunger with pious philosophy and resignation,
and regaled myself with the reflection that, although I was
hungry. I was not blind ; besides, I recollected Wordsworth,
and hie leech gatherer " upon the lonely moor." There
is an immense fund of consolation to be derived by a pious
mind, out of the calamities of our fellow creatures. . . .

It is indeed a summary method of dispelling your affliction
by comparing it with that of some one else more afflicted.
If you have the measles, you are told that you should be
truly thankful that you have not been visited with the
smallpox. If you are in distress of mind, you are gravely
brought into a beggar's hovel, and bid exult and be joyful,
since, after all, you are better off than he. Moral doctrine
goes to prove that great self satisfaction may be procured
by witnessing some fellow creature suffering more than your-
self. . . . In what gospel or epistle do we find such a
sentiment? The pain you suffer, the annoyance you en-
dure, is to be relieved by the abatement of that pain, or by
self-victory, not by comparing it with the pain of others :
this is the meanest gratification of the most cowardly soul.
There is consummate wit and no little
wisdom in the rebuke here administered to
those selfish and small-minded philosophers
who think they are evincing exemplary piety
in consoling themselves under misfortune by
recollecting that their fellow-creatures are
suffering torments to which their own griefs
are but flea-bites. Never did any false system
of ethics better deserve castigation than this,
which has been expounded in tracts and
enforced in tabernacles, and which is so
fondly clung to by the weak-minded and cold-
hearted of all sexes, countries, and conditions.

It is with regret that we close the pages of
this clever book. We recommend our readers
strongly to peruse it for themselves. They
will find brave thoughts and noble words in
it. There is no mawkish sweetness in its
leaves, but there is plenty of what Long-
fellow's old woman in Kavanagh ca►ls " plea-
sant sour." There is no book-making about
it, no " hits," no straining after effect. A truth-
ful man tells tit his thoughts of life, and man,
and destiny. And a man who talks to us of
such things honestly and without conven-
tionalism deserves to be listened to, even if
his hearers are obliged to dissent from many
of his dicta.

503

the face of this mild verdict, Luther, if we take the two
masses of his writings, those in Latin, and those in his
own tongue—which display different characters of style,
according to the persons and objects they are designed for
—in the highest qualities of eloquence, in the faculty of
presenting grand truths, moral and spiritual ideas, clearly,
vividly, in words which elevate and enlighten men's minds,
and stir their hearts, and control their wills, seems incom-
parably superior to llossuet, almost as superior as
Shakspeare to Racine, or as Ulswater to the Serpentine. In
fact, when turning from one to the other, 1 have felt at
times as if I were passing out of a gorgeous, crowded
drawing-room, with its artificial lights and dizzying sounds,
to run up a hill at sunrise. The wide and lasting effect
which Luther's writings produced on his own nation, and
on the world, is the hest witness of their power.
As to the Antinomianisin of Luther, there is
nothing more easy than to mistake the fer-
vency with which he attempted to arouse the
mind of those he addressed to the primary
doctrine of justification by faith, for the heresy
which rejected the fruits of believing. That
Luther was not Antinomian has luund a proof
in this work, at once overpowering by its
logical accuracy, and convincing by its elo-
quence. Archdeacon Hare has rendered in
his volume, not only a great service to the
memory of a great man, but a greater servic e
to that Christian truth which has been so often
assailed through Luther, when assaults could
get the colour of support from the thousand
falsehoods of his enemies, and the marked,
peculiar, and utterly fearless conduct of the
man.

We confess that the attacks upon Luther by
certain recent seceders to Rome seem scarcely
to merit serious answer, except in so far as
they form a ground to reply to those from
whom they have taken them at second-hand.
As these attacks, however, afford Archdeacon
Hare the opportunity of going through the
general slanders of the Jesuits, they have
been productive so far of benefit to the cause
of general truth and to the better understand-
ing of the character of Luther. In the article
on Mr. Newman's strictures in his lectures
on justification, for instance, there is this pas-
sage on Rome's want of faith, which has all the
fire of the Reformers and no little poetical
expression :

In fact this is the pervading Idistinction--so far as
there is auy manifesting itself iu the various dractical
functions of the Church—which characterises that of
Lome. Inheriting the ambition of the Republic and the
Empire to rule over the bodies and outward actions of all
mankind, she has ever directed her attention mainly to
that which is outward, to forms, shadows, rites, ceremo•
nies, observances; while everywhere she betrays a want
of that Faith, which gives substance to the unseen, and
pierces through the veil to the invisible glory behind.
Hence, through the want of Faith in divine realities, has
she set up her monstrous fiction of a visible Vicar in the
place of the invisible Lord. Hence what she has chiefly
cared and shed blood for, has been to enforce outward
submission, outward conformity, outward acts of devo-
tion, the repeating of certain prayers, no matter whether
in a known or unknown tongue. Hence her missionaries
have generally been contcnt to make converts by
wholesale, as though Truth could be spread like a disease
epidemically. Hence, again, from the seine inability to
substantiate the realities of Faith, has she enshrined
her images, and interposed the Virgin and the Saints be•
tween man and the only Mediator and Saviour. Hence,
too, the whole system of pious frauds, of innocent decep-
tams, of holy impostures and impostors. Hence that
huge and flagrant imposture of compulsory celibacy. On
the other hand, Luther's intense love of truth, which
could not be lulled by any make•believe, his yearning after
realities, which no phantom or shadow could still, are the
legacy which he bequeathed to the Protestant Churches:
and so far us they have retained any portion of his spirit,
these have been the marks of it, though often exhibiting
themselves in uncouth and uncongenial forms.

Altogether we have not for some tim e
met with a work at once more needed, aNd
more suitable to meet the necessity. It is a
sound, careful, and conclusive book, on a sub-
ject of the greatest importance to the history
of the real Catholic and Apostolic Church.

The Roman Empire of the West. Four Lectures
Delivered at the Philosophical Institution,
Edinburgh, February, 185. By Richard
Congreve, MA. London : J. W. Parker
and Son.
WE wish we could say that there is much
either novel in view or correct in deduction
in these four lectures. The subject was one
capable of useful illustration at infinitely
greater length than any lectures could afford ;
but we fear the lecturer has nut escaped the
too frequent fate of those who wish to apply
to the present time and to passing events
lessons which they suppose themselves to