The Press.
London, England, 1854-01-28 00:00:00

SATURDAY,

in nods and becks, and wreathed smiles, some Da,
adorned with flowers se for a high festival, and others with
earnest mien, as full of great and good purpose. The
shadows have passed by, but the mirrorremains, and never
did it reflect a more graceful form than when leletesee
stood before it.
Each apartment at Chenonceaux possesses an interest
so great that the most careless observer might pass home
ignorant of the lapse of time. Enter the cabinet of
Henry IL Here hangs the portrait of the Queen Regent,
Marie de Medici', that sad violet velvet, such u phimei;
wear in sorrow, embroidered with deep rich flounces et
lace, and the high ruff, in which costume she picturesque
mourned the glory and the greatness of France; eat ~e 1
fur distant stands her rival, the beautiful Mademoiselle lie
Montmorenci, sketched lightly as was betittiug ow, lit
she played in the masque, when she won the heart et penal
as one of the nymphs of Diana.
There is Madame de Longueville, of whom De la
Rochefoncald remarked, she possessed such &drainages of
person and mind, that it seemed eaters had is her
resolved to show the perfection of which it was capable,
and the graceful Charlotte de la Tremouille, formed w win
the admiration of that age, even as the name is bouotwee
and esteemed in our day. Long is the gallery, and many
would be the pages to record the charms of that melees
age—the age of La Duchesse de Chevreuse, of lisYsis
Montbazon, of Madame de liantefort, most united tapillet
in life, and iu the history of the past.
Beyond this room is that of Catherine de Medici'; flute
is the oratory she used to kneel in, the cross before whisk
she bowed, the table on which the edict of persecution was
peened ; and on the table by the bed is a box with the
picture of that son united to her not less by worldly ties
than by ties of blood. The darkness and gloom et It
Bartholomew seem to pervade the apartment, the fmg
but still exquisite tapestry of the bed is fast falling Salo
decay, the star-spangled roof, once so brilliant in bile ea
gold, is now dimmed by the damp of many centuries; hat
even the leather stamped with the fleurselele" slay kap
on the wall, while its sombre hue caste a darker Am&
over the room.

Those who like ourselves have loitered in
early life along the banks of the Loire will
read " Florence the Beautiful " with all the
teelinge that result from " The Pleasures of
Memory ; " and those who have not yet saun-
tered through Touraine will, upon the perusal
of Mr. Cochrane's new fiction, be sure to
enjoy the sensations of " The Pleasures of
Hope."

Man's Conception of Eternity. An Examination
of Mr. Maurice's Theory of a Fixed State
out of Time. By the Rev. H. L. Manse!,
B.D. London : J. H. Parker.
Tim essay, the work of a very clear and
gorous thinker, upon one of the most abstruse
question 3 of philosophy, is perhaps a little
beyond our range. But we cannot bring our-
selves to throw aside anything from Mr. Man-
sel's able hand without a few words.
As all our consciousness is linked insepara
bly with the notions of time and of succession,
we cannot, in the author's opinion, form any
positive notion of a state of consciousness
which is exempt from these conditions, i.e., of
an eternal state. A negative notion is all that
lies in our power. If the subject were philo-
sophical only, we might suspend our judgment
and refuse to go further in a region unpro-
ductive of positive results :
But in theology this suspension of judgment is oft*
inadmissible. We are required to believe and to act ayes
much that we cannot comprehend; and our belief nit
practice must take such a form as is aaapted tothe mow
tution of our own minds, even though it may also be relate&
to a possible ultimate truth which our present famines nes
unable to seize. Hence it is that ideas and images which
do not represent Clod as He is may nevertheless leper/eta
Him as it is oar duty to regard him. They are not in Mss'
selves true ; but we must, nevertheless, believe told aot $e
if they were true. A finite mind can form no conception
of an infinite Being which shall be speculatively true;
conception
it must represent the infinite under finite forms : neva,
timeless, a eonception which is speculatively untrue may be
regulalively true. • •
• • • •
The existence of ideas which are speculatively negatve.,
and furnish no basis of dogmatic truth, is implied In
the veryconception of Revelation as a communication**
an infinite to a finite intelligence. A false religion !AI
contain nothing but positive dogmas ; for its author, boil
a mere man, addressing himself to minds similarly c"!it.
tuted to his own, need have nothing to communicate nines
din
transcends the limits of human consciousness. Nay,
confines himself to a system fully communicable, he imoat
needs contain himself within ordinary limits ; for minas°
and all abnormal states are essentially incomm
They must be either blindly accepted on the ipse Ole"
the mystic ; or the disciple must, by a distinct prose!,
raise himself to the ecstatic condition of his master, al
thus receive the same doctrines independently for hiTg7.,
But a true religion, while accommodated to the fatieleles,°'
the receiver, is still an accommodation only, and
to
the existence of a higher form of truth in relation •
ver
higher intelligence. Many of our religious controsies
are at once a proof of the truth of the Christian revelation,
and of the negative character of some of its pnncipal nit*.