The contents of the two next Sections, are, VI. " Length of Human Life. Pre-existence. The Flood. Renovation of Mankind, with Life shortened." VII. "Laws of God for renovated Mankind. Extensive Wickedness. A Family, to produce a Nation, selected. Severe Probation of the Selected."

It appears to the author beyond reason to imagine any other origin for the rite of sacrifice than the Divine command, as already explained by him, or any other cause for its extension over the globe than the derivation of all mankind from one family holding it sacred, as reported not by Moses only, but also by heathen tradition." (P 70.)

He thinks that the Old Testament, whilst it remarkably avoids giving direct assurance of a future life, nevertheless abounds with intimations of it; amongst which he reckons the severe punishment of the whole Egyptian people on account of the fault of their king. (P. 74.) Admitting the Divine justice, an argument may be founded upon this case for a life to come; but where is the "intimation"?

Section VIII. is of "Laws for the selected Nation." Here Mr. Mitford declares his faith in the divine origin of letters, which cannot, any more than that of the invaluable grain, wheat, be traced up to a human source:

"The delivery of the Decalogue being the first occasion on which writing is found mentioned by any author, it has been supposed by some that letters then had their origin, graciously communicated by God himself. But it is observable that writing is not mentioned by the inspired historian as a novelty; on the contrary, mention of it, several times repeated in his following narrative, rather marks it as already well known and in practice among the Jews, and, almost consequently, also among the Egyptians. Its real origin thus remains equally unknown with the origin of that invaluable grain, wheat, which, though, under cultivation, flourishing in widely-varying climates, has never yet been found indigenous in any part of the earth. I will venture to own that no supposed origin of alphabetical writing appears to me so probable, so little loaded with difficulty, or even impossibility, as that it was, equally with language, the gift of the Creator to the antediluvian world, and thence, together with wheat, transmitted to following mankind.”—Pp. 76, 77.

He speaks in terms of high, but in our judgment not extravagant, admiration of the character and authority of the Decalogue:

"The character of this compendious digest, the Decalogue, assorts with the account of its origin. Like the Lord's Prayer, it may be most advantageously compared with all that has reached us, concerning the duties of man, from Greek and Roman philosophers; and, if any may think the addition respectable, Indian and Chinese. It is not likely to have been unknown to the great heathen critic, nor out of his view, when, as formerly noticed, he declared his opinion of the lawgiver of the Jews, that he was no ordinary

man.*

"The accordance then, such as it is, of heathen memorials with the Penta teuch, concerning the origin of the world, the early state of mankind, the deluge, and what followed the deluge, together with the doctrine of some of the earliest Grecian poets concerning the Godhead and the duty of man, both to his God and his neighbour, strongly marks, to my mind, tradition from antediluvian times, and is altogether to me highly gratifying. That letters, defective as were the ancient materials for using them, should have been lost in migration and ensuing contests for settlements, while the traditions were preserved in memory, is nothing wonderful. The early poets, the philosophers of their day, were, both for notions of the Deity and for moral precept, no unworthy predecessors of the best following, in the best times of Grecian science. Poetical measure was their resource for supplying, by its assistance to memory, the want or the failure of convenient materials for any extensive

"Longin, de sublim."

use of letters. Their age, little ascertained, is reckoned within that called the fabulous, because the earliest heathen political history, possibly cotemporary, abounds in fable. Their doctrine, however, carrying evidence of its origin, in what age they severally lived is comparatively unimportant.

"But, among evidences of its origin, some deserve more particular observation. In consonance with the first commandment, those philosopher-poets asserted the unity of God. No such commination as that of the second against the worship of either a pluraliiy, or of images, appears to have reached them. A plurality had already, in their time, obtained vulgar credit; but of image-worship in their country, in their age, no indication is found. An opinion of the duty of respect for the sanctity of oaths inforced by the third commandment, has obtained, in all ages, the world over."-Pp. 77-79.

For the alteration of the Sabbath, he allows that there is no specific command. It rests on unvaried custom, derived from the earliest times of Christianity, yet with some appearance of authority from the apostles themselves. P. 83.

We pass over Section IX., on the "Continued Severity of Trial for the selected Nation," and come to Section X., entitled "The Historical Books of the Old Testament unsuited to general Edification," where we find the following free remarks, which are, we think, upon the whole, judicious.

"To persons at this day, educated and habituated to thought and reflection, it cannot be necessary to remark that the indiscriminate slaughter of nations, the particular severity of the prophet Samuel to one of their princes, with other matters related in the Old Testament as warranted by that Almightiness which can largely reward, in another life, suffering in such or in any other way, in this, have clearly not been proposed as examples for man, of his own judgment, to follow. Far from wanting Christianity to ascertain so much, those examples were not even for the Jews to follow, but only to tremble at, as admonitions of what, under divine authority, might come upon themselves. Through these, however, and other matters recorded in the Old Testament, that book is surely hazardous in the hands of the uneducated; and liable to be perverted, as, in modern instances, it has been, to ill purpose by the designing, whose views to their interest might lead them to impose on the simple. But among the Jews, their sacred book could not come readily and extensively into such hands. The art of printing did not then afford means to distribute numerous copies among those who would presently dispose of them to any for wanted food or pernicious drink. Every synagogue probably would have a copy, more or less complete. But it was only for persons appointed, under strict rule, to read and to expound to the congregation parts duly selected. Christ himself undertook this office; thus apparently affording intimation sufficiently authoritative, that, for the bulk of mankind, selection and exposition are needful. The founders of the Church of England accordingly, not inattentive probably to this admonition, with which their own judgment on the subject would correspond, have not proposed the whole, nor nearly the whole, of the Old Testament for public instruction, but have appointed only what they have properly denominated lessons, selected from it, to be read to the people."-Pp. 95-97.

We believe we speak the sense of educated pious churchmen when we say that the founders of the Church of England have left much more of the Old Testament in the daily Lessons than agrees with the modern sense of decency. But one of the evils of a National Church is, that no reform in the least important customs can take place without as great an alarm as if the foundations of the Church were about to be torn up. This is seen at the present moment in Prussia, where there is a great outcry on the revision, by royal authority, of the Liturgy. In England we are so deeply entrenched in prescription, that whatever has been must continue to be, and though the

* "Aristot, de mundo.'

1

members of the Establishment have been for ages calling out for some changes, "since the fathers fell asleep all things continue as they were from the beginning."

The last Section of this Part is "Sequel of Jewish History." To account for Solomon's becoming an idolater in his latter years, Mr. Mitford ventures to suggest that he had become deranged! Various remarks are made in this chapter upon the ritual and civil law of the Hebrews, which will interest the thinking reader. The author's political bias appears in what he says on slavery, though he envelopes his meaning in the thickest cloud of his peculiar phraseology. He concludes this division of his book with a declaration which he deems venturous: we leave his style as we find it:

"At Rome, under the first emperors, Jews were numerous, probably some wealthy, but all, for those called their superstitions, despised. Had I been then educated a heathen there, having before me the Jewish history as delivered in the Septuagint, and therewith all the heathen traditions concerning preceding times of which I have any knowledge, I think I should have accepted the account, in the Old Testament, of the Almighty's dealings with man as a very valuable addition to all that had been received among other nations; explaining much, correcting much. Nevertheless I should be doubtful of much, as unable to see its consistency with the best human notions of an almighty, all-wise, and all-good Creator: especially the selection of one small nation, from among the unnumbered of mankind, for extraordinary faFour, and for promises of peculiar protection on condition of constant obedience; that nation being acknowledged by its own historians to have been, through a course of centuries, continually refractory, often grossly rebellious, consequently suffering almost all that a nation could suffer short of extinction, yet remaining a separate nation, but in subjection to others, whose religion they were bound by their own to abhor, would be what I might least be able to bring my mind to conceive; solution, as far as Almighty Wisdom appears to have thought fit for our state of trial, remaining for the next period in the history of the world."-Pp. 115, 116.

The conclusion of this passage is agreeable to Mr. Mitford's favourite theory of explaining all difficulties by man's probationary state, and of referring them to the solution of a future world. Piety in the closet frequently requires the submission of the soul to the hidden decrees of Infinite Wisdom, which eternity only can reveal; but we more than doubt the propriety of raising objections in order to lay them by this charm. In fact, they who can admit the answer have never felt the difficulty. The author has evidently undergone the process of doubt and inquiry, but he has never allowed himself to mingle with doubters and inquirers, or to read their works; and whilst he belongs to this class, he writes for another, for thorough church-goers and believers, who never stumbled at an article of faith or sighed for more evidence. Had he trusted to his own powers of mind, he might have found reasons for the peculiar calling of the Jewish people, and moral uses in their separation from the nations, which would have satisfied him even in this world; though undoubtedly in every case of perplexity, and all moral cases are as yet more or less perplexed, it is not unreasonable to believe that there will be a more ample development of the Divine wisdom, and a more complete explanation, for the satisfaction of the human mind, in the state in which "that which is perfect will be come, and that which is in part will have been done away." To this extent, we agree with the author in the sentiment which he has quoted from Erasmus, (in the Second Part of his Observations, the notice of which we must leave to the next Number,) "We may talk of referring difficulties to the next general council: in my opinion it were better to refer them to that blessed time when we shall see God face to face."

CRITICAL NOTICES.

THIS is a sensible volume; the work of a soldier, though no man of blood; but of liberal and Christian tastes and feelings. From such an observer we are glad to quote the following commentary on Mr. Rose's observations on the State of Religious Opinion in Germany:

"The German youth have a solidity of thought and sincerity of heart which colours all their conversation on subjects of a deep moral interest. They are largely tolerant on religious matters; not, as some have unfairly forced the inference, from indifference to religion, but from a holding fast of what is essential in it, and declining all controversy, all bitterness and quarrelling about the

rest.

"The Roman Catholic of Germany is unlike any of that great family elsewhere. The Calvinist and the Lutheran love each other as Christians; all are inclined to mysticism in some slight degree, save the Rationalists, who are as inconsiderable in numbers as they are uninfluential on the mind of the public at large. The school of the Rationalists has not been without its use; for man never appears so weak, so helpless, so ridiculous, as when he lights the feeble taper of his reason to examine and pronounce upon the credibility of the facts related, and the mysteries revealed to us in the Bible. To live and move and have our being,' a miracle to ourselves, and among created miracles of every possible variety; to find our reason baffled by the first pebble we pick up beneath our feet, all the properties of which we can most scientifically describe, but of the essence of which we know nothing; and then to explain away the less wonderful miracles of Scripture, because our reason refuses to give credit to them, is a something so palpably ab surd, that even the patient, inquiring German could not listen to such lectures long, if they did not sooner drive him forth by inflicting a severe wound in his

heart.

"I was present in the great church of Leipsic at the administration of the

Sacrament. The communicants stood in long files and advanced reverentially towards the altar; they received the holy elements standing, and passing round the altar, again rejoined the congregation. The congregation, whether composed of those who were about to communicate, or had done so, or of those who merely assisted at the ceremony, sung a hymn or hymns throughout the whole service. After deducting largely for the effect produced on me by the sweet and solemn singing of this assembled multitude, and by the black skull cap, the ancient ruffs, (like those of the Elizabethian æra,) and the reverend aspect of the officiating ministers, I certainly was impressed, and that strongly, with the feeling and sincere devotion of the communicants. We kneel at the altar; another church sits at the communion table; these stand and sing a hymn. We all do it in remembrance that Christ died for us, and he knows in all those congregatious those who are his, those who feed on him in their hearts with thanksgiving."

"The Roman Catholic of Germany in his church seems quite another being from that [the Catholic] of Italy; and the character which Goldsmith has so beautifully and faithfully given of the latter applies in nothing to the German. He is seldom careless or irreverent at the mass; seldom timid, or formal, or slavish, in his acts of devotion. There is a something staid in his outward performance; but the soul's sincere desire' is perceptible, and plainly so, in the expression of his countenance when engaged in prayer."

Of the statue of the Emperor Joseph II. he says,

"Considering the shortness of his reign, I think it doubtful whether his condemned precipitancy and enthusiasm are to be regretted. Whatever he had attempted against the civil power of the Church of Rome, the priest would have worked step by step in counteraction of his measure: whereas he stripped her of immense and irrecoverable influence, when he opened the treasures of his convents, dispersed their wealth, drove forth the corrupt and idle members, and alienated their wide possessions. The half of what he suppressed never have been

"Saluti publicæ vixit non diu sed totus." darkness, and will not unveil their pro