their prayers were prayers of faith, relying only on the promises. of the Written Word as they read it?

Now, we are not saying that they were free from blame. We are strongly of opinion, as a matter of theory, that they ought at all risks to have remained within the Church, and so have allowed opportunity for the little leaven to leaven the whole lump. But, in practice, those were hard times; and it is more truly the Christian part now to do all we can to heal these unhappy divisions, than to magnify them by re-asserting in an undue proportion the ecclesiastical technicalities which form the point of divergence.

At all events, whatever the fault of their first founders, whatever the distortion of particular truths still involved in their teaching, we cannot for a moment feel it right, or just, or true, to deny to the great mass of Dissenting bodies in this country the name of Christian, or to insinuate that salvation may not be found within their pale. No man is saved by the doctrines of the sect to which he belongs, but thousands, we hope and believe, may be saved in them.

We, therefore, heartily concur in those passages of the work issued last year by Earl Russell, in which he lays stress on the fact, that the Unity of the Church is a "Unity of the Spirit," to be maintained in the bond of peace. There is in that book a characteristic depreciation of dogmatic truth (especially as connected with the Divinity of Our Lord), with which we have no sympathy whatever. But in all that is there urged, as to the essential simplicity of the Christian religion, viewed from the practical side, as it affects the lives of men, we heartily concur. The great defect of the book is, that it makes no allowance for the tremendous mysteries underlying these simple practical truths; and that, in regard to these mysteries, it makes light of distinctions which appear to arise naturally from the language of Revelation.

There is no question but that the spirit of schism is wholly contrary to the first principles of Christianity. There is no question but that schism has had its origin in the corruption of human nature-in pride, self-will, and self-confidence. But whether these moral defects have always been on the side of the minority, who have been branded with the name of "schismatics," is a very different thing. Perhaps, in nine cases out of ten, the guilt of schism must be shared between the two parties. Unity is a thing to be most strenuously aimed at and contended for, but there are times in which our Lord's words are verified, when He said that He came "not to send peace but a sword." Truth first, peace and unity afterwards. Faithfulness to Christ is the only safe and true foundation for the love of the brethren.

But it was a While He so

Our Lord Himself prayed for unity, in that mediatorial prayer which He offered up before He suffered. unity based upon truth and upon holiness. prayed, He must have foreseen how greatly, objectively, His desire would be disappointed. And yet, was it disappointed? We humbly think not. Subjectively, it has never been disappointed. His own people, in all places, at all times, have been one in Him-one in penitence, one in faith, one in prayer, one in holiness (each after his degree), one in love.

"There shall be One Fold and One Shepherd." And so there is. Amidst whatever outward varieties of ecclesiastical arrangement, amidst whatever outward contrasts in the degree of prominence given to this or that Christian truth, amidst whatever lights and shades of differing tone and temperament, there is a wonderful unity of purpose, a marvellous freemasonry of sentiment, amongst all those who have any reasonable claim to the name of Christians. On sudden or great occasions, such as call forth into conscious expression the lower depths of men's souls, the walls of partition are suddenly broken down, the barriers disappear, and a common brotherhood, overleaping territorial or sectarian distinctions, stands at once revealed.

But reverse the process, and start with the dictum that a possession of certain outward and technical marks, differentiates a true Church, and you find yourself continually under the necessity of assenting formally to propositions absurd and unnatural in the highest degree. Let any one recall the substance of Dr. Pusey's Eirenicon," and the extraordinary attempt made throughout that book to find ambiguous middle terms in which both Protestants and Romanists might be able to express dif ferent (not to say opposite) truths with equal dishonesty in the same language; and he will have an absurdly exact specimen of the straits into which even good and learned men are driven, by the supposed exigencies of a technical theory. Or again, if we consider the fretful anxiety manifested in many quarters to explain, to the satisfaction of the Greek Church, the metaphysical subtleties of the double Procession, or to harmonize our common-sense ritual with their elaborate and artificial ceremonial, we are struck by the same inveterate tendency to strain at the gnat and swallow the camel. It may be true that, in technical respects, the Greek Church is a stereotyped representation of the Church of the sixth century, (some would persuade us of the fourth,) but all we need care to reply is, "Then, so much the worse for those centuries." To compare, even for one moment, the Church of England and the Greek Church, and to pre tend to say that the Greek Church is more like the Church of the Apostles, is really solemn trifling of too egregious a character.

There is, in truth, something very appalling to the moral sense in the principles on which the modern school are seeking the reunion of Christendom. Throughout, it is assumed that those in possession of technical authority must be in possession of truth. Throughout what they say must be received as truth, and all convictions, somehow or other, twisted into harmony with their utterances. The Apostles themselves were content to base their claims on the truth of their teaching. Now, truth for its own sake, truth as supreme, truth as binding upon the conscience, is to be wholly disregarded. The obedience is due to certain privileged persons: what they choose to say, that is truth. Nor do the most startling difficulties make any real difference to those who have once embarked on this unreasoning course. It matters not that the utterances have been discordant with themselves or defiant of Holy Scripture; some ingenious middle term must be discovered, and the technical system preserved entire. And for what? For what indeed, but the decent veiling and covering up of respectable and conventional errors in doctrine and falsehood in practice.

We trust that the heart of England is yet sound, and that the Church of England, in its corporate capacity, will give no countenance to this suppression of truth in order to the restoration of a hollow and external unity. Truth and principle first, peace afterwards.

But we hope, on the other hand, that technical defects will not be magnified into hopeless barriers, separating those who are substantially agreed on all fundamental doctrines of the faith. We hope that some distinct efforts will be made, in a corporate way, for the reconciliation of orthodox Dissenters to us, and of ourselves to them, on such a broad basis of fundamental truth of a moral and spiritual kind, that technical questions about orders and true succession may be put wholly on one side. There can be no necessity for destroying the organization or denouncing the special teaching of each particular body. It is immensely probable that each has its message, especially suited to particular classes of hearers. If there are diversities of gifts, it is the self-same Spirit who divides to every man severally as He will.

This step honestly taken, a closer outward union would naturally and spontaneously follow.

MOTLEY'S LIFE AND DEATH OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD.

Life and Death of John of Barneveld. By John Lothrop Motley, D.C.L., &c. London: Murray. 1874.

It is with sincere pleasure that we welcome this fresh contribution by Mr. Motley to our knowledge of a historical period which he has well-nigh made his own. The volumes before us do not possess all the charm which distinguished his former works, but still they are full of profound interest to all capable of relishing important historical studies, and here and there passages are interspersed which relieve the gravity of diplomatic negotiations, and afford seasonable relaxation and variety. If, however, the story is not so fascinating as that recounted in Mr. Motley's previous histories, it has the advantage of furnishing information on a period with which persons in general are singularly ill acquainted. Some imperfect ideas are entertained concerning it, gathered, without much discrimination, from general histories; but many will be glad to have the confused intrigues of the time presented to them with intelligible distinctness, and grouped around a form so commanding as that of John of Barneveld.

Much surprise and astonishment has often been felt at the check which Protestantism received after its first successes, and various explanations, more or less plausible, have been resorted to, to account for it. By some it has been held that the system of Romanism is more congenial to the feelings and temper of the Latin races; by others it has been urged that there is not enough vitality in the negation of error to counteract the claims and assumptions of priestly dominion. The mass of mankind are held to be born slaves, and ready to succumb to any one audacious enough to urge reckless pretensions upon them; it is therefore only by an effort, which few care to prolong, that spiritual despotism can be shaken off. In all these, and in other similar explanations, there may be, and probably is, a certain amount of truth; but a far more sufficient and satisfactory solution may be, in our judgment, found in the imperfect extent to which, after all, genuine as distinguished from nominal Christianity, has pervaded even the nations which profess to have received the revelation made by our Lord as the basis of their belief. The doctrine of Christ has been the leaven, but it has been been hidden in a vast lump. Its effects have been astonishing, and its transforming qualities have been without a parallel; the external reformation wrought has been most extensive, and the ameliorating influences most surprising; but the hearts of multitudes have remained unaffected, whose

understandings have been convinced, and who have so far yielded to the sway of the Gospel as to adopt many of its precepts, and to cast off much of their original barbarism. Much Paganism was, and has been, retained even to the present day, in professing Christian countries; it still survives as the expression of the natural religion of the unregenerated human heart, thinly veiled under superstitious observances, which the system of the Romish Church has silently adopted without curious inquiry as to the original from which they have proceeded. It might be a moot question whether, in Italy and similar countries, Paganism is not still the real religion of the masses. There has been a species of accommodation between the two systems, by which the one is ostensibly, and the other is in reality, the creed of the populace. Still, even under such conditions, the leaven has been working, and has exercised some salutary influence; in the midst of the worst phases of Romanism there has been some propagation of the truth as it is in Jesus, although most feeble and imperfect in the judgment of any enlightened Christian.

What is true of the effects of medieval or Romish Christianity upon the masses of Paganism, upon which-a sorely adulterated leaven-it sought to work, may also with safety be asserted of Protestantism upon the corrupt and dead Romanism into which, like leaven, it was introduced. It did communicate to some life, to many more the semblance of life; there was stir and activity; there was a purging out of much evil even from the cloaca of Rome itself; vices which had been indulged in freely, almost without causing offence or scandal, became obnoxious to a more exalted morality; monstrous falsehoods and delusions, which had been palmed off on the unreflecting, were discarded or speciously veiled; the chambers in which foul spirits had revelled were swept and garnished, and the dwellings of popes. and cardinals and bishops and abbots were gradually transformed from sties of Epicurus. But while such was the influence of the new leaven upon the professed adherents of the Church of Rome, it is much to be questioned what were its substantial effects upon those who seemed more immediately to have yielded to its power. The freedom of thought in which men exulted was not always emancipation from spiritual thraldom; it was, in some instances, unhallowed licence. Hatred of the acknowledged abominations of the Church of Rome was not always identical with zeal for purity of belief and practice; there were political as well as religious Protestants, and it is easy to imagine that, when God's spiritual Israel went forth from the bosom of the Church of Rome, a mixed multitude went up with them, only too ready to hunger after the fleshpots of Egypt. The early successes of Protestantism were, therefore, to a certain