its old European homes. On the monument to Pope Sextus IV., erected in 1493, in the Chapel of the Holy Sacrament in St. Peter's Church, Antonio Pollajuolo represented theology by a Diana, as a woman with bow and quiver, and with nude legs. In the twelfth century Alanus ab Insulis, in his poem Anticlaudianus, terms God the "Thunderer" and "Jupiter," besides calling heaven "Olympus." Petrarch invokes God as "vivo and eterno Giove ;" and Dante, the greatest poet of Catholicism, prays: "O Most High Zeus, who wast crucified on earth for us." In another place he invokes "Apollo" as the propitious one, and the Muses as the "nourishers of the poets;" and while he prays to the Holy Spirit, he lifts his voice to "Apollo" and the "choir of Muses." The subject of Christian art has engaged more attention in Germany than elsewhere. There it is made of especial use to the Church historian; and most assuredly it is at once suggestive and reliable. The geologist reads on the rocks the traces of long-past ages; and the student of ecclesiastical history can, with equal pleasure and propriety, find in the works of the artist true indices of the times and safe data from which to draw his conclusions. Sometimes a few little legacies of art are more truth-telling and decisive than scores of volumes. The concluding paper is a portraiture of Schleiermacher. There is a touching incident concerning the death of his only son, a child of four years old. His father said to him just before his death, "Nathaniel, do you love me?" "Yes, father, but my Saviour more," replied the boy. Schleiermacher was one of the most remarkable men whom Germany has produced, though we Americans are as yet but little acquainted with him. On some points he was defective, according to the evangelical standpoint; but considering the state of German theology at the time, we wonder at his soundness. Now that he has gone we can see that he did much good. His Festpredigten are among the most earnest and purost fruits of the German pulpit. It was well for Schleiermacher that he never forgot his Moravian training at the Padagogium of Niesky.

ART. XII.-QUARTERLY BOOK-TABLE.

It is of greatest concernment in the Church and Commonwealth to have a vigilant eye how books demean themselves as well as men, and thereafter to confine, imprison, and do sharpest justice on them as malefactors; for books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are.-MILTON.

L.-Religion, Theology, and Biblical Literature.

(1.) "A Treatise on Theism, and on the Modern Skeptical Theories. By FRANCIS WHARTON, Author of A Treatise on American Criminal Law,' etc., etc., and Professor in Kenyon College, Ohio. 12mo., pp. 395. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. London: Trübner & Co. 1859. Mr. Wharton is author of some works in Jurisprudence, which are esteemed authority, we believe, in the profession, and of various able articles in the North American and other Reviews; but this is the first volume of his that we have

encountered in Theology. It is a welcome incident. He brings to his work something of a judicial mind. Manly thought, clothed in a clear, grave, solid style, pervades its pages. Many of his illustrations are taken from fresh sources, or are new and apposite conceptions of his own mind. As a whole it is a lucid, concise, systematic presentation of a great subject. He is neither at heart, nor by argumentative position, a cold rationalist. The deep truths of the Gospel he not only recognizes, but professedly realizes and feels. As a text-book the work would, but for an objectionable trait or two, exert a favorable intellectual, moral, and religious influence.

The work is divided into two general parts. The first part presents the positive evidences for a Deity, the second discusses the skceptical theories opposed to theism. The positive theistic arguments are derived from Conscience, from Mind, from Law, from Matter, from Design in Nature, from Social Progress, and from Geology. The second part refutes the theories of an Imperfect Creator, Positivism, Fatalism, Pantheism, and Development.

The first chapter, founding the argument for theism upon conscience, is elaborated with unusual clearness and force. Some of the points adduced by Professor Wharton are, we believe, new, not only to this argument, but originally suggested as illustrations of the faculty itself. Conscience, as truly "incessant," even when latently acting, and as "unconditioned" by time or matter, is presented in a striking light by analyses and facts. Of the incessant action of conscience, he remarks:

"We may be only conscious of that action at particular moments; but whenever the curtain which covers it is lifted we see its machinery, as we see that of a steamer when the engine door is unclosed, moving with an activity none the less incessant from the fact that it had been unobserved. The agencies by which this spectacle is uncovered, and proof thus given of the incessant activity of conscience, will be examined under a subsequent head. It is sufficient here to advert to the effect of the discovery of guilt by others as recalling the consciousness of remorse in its pristine vigor in the criminal himself, as well as to the similar effect produced by coming suddenly upon the spot where a crime was committed, or by having any of the implements or incidents of that crime recalled. Conscience, observed or unobserved, proceeds unceasingly in its task of pronouncing and registering a decree of approval or condemnation on each particular act. This process of registry is in nowise affected by its escaping our notice."

This fact of the latent continuity of action is susceptible of a variety of impressive applications. It shows how deep, how impregnating every particle and interstice of our system, is our moral nature; and how every sin, unspecified by the conscious action of conscience, makes that indelible mark upon our moral system which the moment of awakened consciousness may disclose, as the action of heat brings out the lines of an invisible ink. The misdoing, even, which does not attract the conscious moral notice, still infringes against the moral being. And, we may add, when that moral nature so suffusing us becomes at last awakened into the agency of conscious remorse, that is the lake of fire which envelops and burns without consuming us-that is hell. And so how deep is sin! How necessary to keep our moral nature awake and alert! How important the purifying power of a redemption!

The argument from law the author adduces not from astronomy, nor from organic nature; but from the great unity of plan in the system of life through the successive periods of geology. This argument is remarkably reinforced

by some valuable quotations from Professor Agassiz. It bears much the same relation to time that the argument from astronomy does to space.

In the chapter upon an Imperfect Creator Professor Wharton introduces the discussion of freedom and necessity, in the mazes of which he seems fairly bewildered. He is indirectly himself a necessitarian without the power of reconciling his theory with responsibility. He states the issue between freedom and necessity with little precision; his arguments against free-will are unrealities; he anticipates an approaching compromise between the two theories which can never exist, and finally takes refuge in the imagination of two contradictories equally true, whose reconciliation is in the clouds-a virtual confession of self-contradiction and self-cancellation. The chapter on fatalism, by a continuance of the thread of error, mistakes the nature of fatalism, in order to conceal from the Professor the fact that he is himself a fatalist. He defines fatalism as "excluding the agency of individual will," whereas it may be abundantly shown that fatalism implies a causality including within its fixation the agency of all individual wills. And this error results in still sadder catastrophe in his chapter on pantheism. After having shown how the necessary cosmical evolutions imagined by pantheism obliterates the real distinctions of right and wrong, and of good or evil deserts, he states an objection: "But,' it may be said, 'is not this very much the same view as that which results from necessitarianism, a system considered an open one by the great body of Christian orthodox theologians?' The reply to this is decisive. The necessitarian, whenever, at least, he accepts the Christian orthodox formulas, recognizes the individuality and responsibility of the human will." Now, of what is this answer "decisive ?" The author has demonstrated that pantheistic necessity excludes responsibility; and when it is replied, "So does theistic necessity," the Professor's "decisive" rejoinder, forsooth, is, Yes; but the theistic necessitarian actually holds to responsibility. That may be a very commendable trait in the theistic necessitarian-to hold to responsibility in contradiction to his system; but it neither exculpates his system nor answers the retort of the pantheist. To both necessities belong the same nullification of responsibility, and either is equally capable of maintaining responsibility by a contradiction. But in either case the union of endless penalty with necessity forms one of the most malignant dogmas that a diabolic nature could imagine. And from the "sublime" picture which the Professor draws on the next page of a being shaped by theistic necessity to be at eternal war with God, with eternal woe in its destiny, we shrink as from a blasphemous libel on the Divine Being. Could no better view be given of Divine justice than this, a belief in pantheism or atheism would be obligatory upon every sound mind.

The chapter on positivism, requiring no metaphysical disquisition, is one of the best in the book, and one of the best refutations extant of that system. We must, however, conclude this too extended notice by extracting the following valuble disproof of the eternity of matter:

"The rudimental atoms are impressed to an eminent degree with the marks of a Creator. We have fifty-four or fifty-five substances which are indivisible and final, and which form the individual syllables of which the great book of nature is made up. But each one of these syllables shows a contrivance whose exquisiteness appears the more vividly as we contemplate the vast number of com

binations to which they are adapted. First we have, as the marshaling agents of these atoms, three primary physical forces-polarization, chemical affinity, and cohesion. Then we find, as the manual by which these marshaling agents are to act, laws prescribing certain proportions, definite as to number and weight, in which alone these atoms unite. In the august economy and simplicity by which these elements, in the various combinations of which they are capable, are made to serve the almost infinite purposes of cosmical creation, we may find additional reason for concurring in the remarks of Sir John Herschel: These discoveries effectually destroy the idea of an external self-existent matter, by giving to each of its atoms at once the essential characteristics of a manufactured article and a subordinate agent.'

(2.) "Theodore Parker and his Theology; a Discourse delivered in the Music Hall, Boston, Sunday, September 25, 1859. By JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE." 8vo., pp. 23. Boston: Walker, Wise, & Co. 1859.

Mr. Clarke is a leading minister among our Unitarian friends. His pamphlet is a graceful and often eloquent composition, abounding in those qualities of refined taste and clear thought for which American Unitarianism is so celebrated. It delineates the character of Theodore Parker and of his theology with a masterly hand, with a friendly, yet fearless spirit, and with a fine skill at drawing delicate psychological distinctions. He pays to Mr. Parker a noble tribute for his boldness as a reformer. He accepts, as we do, the three great intuitions upon which the absolute religion is based, and thanks Mr. Parker for the power with which he has authenticated them. But he takes issue with Mr. Parker's rejection of Christianity, tracing it to his want of realization of the depth of sin. He then states the reasons for his own acceptance of Christ's divine and miraculous mission, which are those of a refined and subtle moral thinker. Mr. Clarke differs with Mr. Parker not only without the least hostility to the man-which is right; but without any more carnest reprobation of his doctrines than if the subject of difference were a point in æsthetics -which is not so clearly right. How deep may be-should be-our disapproval, reprobation, abhorrence of erroneous doctrines in religion? Proportioned, doubtless, to the moral enormity or injury of the doctrines. And how truly should we hold the false doctrinary himself responsible or guilty? Liberalism says, and we fear Mr. Clarke says, Not at all. But is this said truly? This is a delicate, but if firmly approached, perhaps not so difficult a question. With a frankness which we honor, Mr. Clarke says: "If Christ be God the Son, second Person in the Trinity, I had rather stand before his bar with Theodore Parker, who denies him, but follows in his steps, serving humanity, than with any orthodox doctor who writes Southside books to turn our sympathy for the oppressed into approbation for the oppressor." Yet how so? May not Dr. Southside just as clearly see and just as honestly affirm the proposition, the continuance of American slavery is necessary to the attainment of a higher civilization, as Theodore Parker affirms Jesus Christ was a mistaken man? May not the latter proposition be attained at a greater individual moral sacrifice, and be more truly adverse to the well-being of society and the best interests of the race? May not the advance of a true and pure Christianity be more important to the moral well-being of the world, its moral claims upon adherence immensely more imperative, than the immediate emancipation of the Southern slave? To us Mr. Clarke's moral graduation seems a

little aristocratic. He abhors, doubtless, physical crime, as committed by the single low ruffian, but is merciful to the high doctrinary who cuts the moral cord by which myriads of ruffians are let loose from sense of obligation. The single Thug who garrotes his victim is an assassin; but the founder of Thugism, who caused a million of murders without perhaps committing one, is a pardonable errorist. The men who crucified Jesus were plainly criminals; but not quite so the scribes and Pharisees who rejected him on the doctrinal theory that his miracles were diabolical, and under whose teachings the crucifiers acted. These scribes were mistaken men, who were led by inquiry and evidence to the conviction that Jesus was in covenant with the prince of the anti-theistic powers; just as Mr. Parker is led to the earnest conviction that he was a Jewish sage. Nevertheless, neither Jesus nor the apostles seem to have taken that view of it. The sentences, if quoted, would fill pages, in which Jesus holds them responsible for their doctrinal rejection of his Messiahship; and the Jewish nation is held by the New Testament writers as being cast off for refusing faith in him. Is not false opinion the spring of all vice and of every individual crime? Did not the crucifiers of Jesus believe they were doing the right thing? The murderer in his wrath momentarily sees his murder delightfully just. The thief, with his present views of property, believes the exposed article ought to be appropriated. The rumseller scorns the mean philanthropy that sacrifices solid profit for cant. All villains commit their crime for the element of excellence they detect in its perpetration.

But Mr. Parker, (whom let us take exempli gratia,) while "he 'denies Jesus, follows in his steps." Mr. Parker is a reformer, which he should be; possessed of all the faults of a fierce reformer, which he should not be. Reformers are noble men; they are a valuable class of men; but it is wonderful how often they are, in other points, almost as wicked as the culprits they would improve. We seldom see one who is not, in some sense, a specimen of " diamond cut diamond," which is nevertheless no disproof of their necessity. The arraigner of sin is himself a sinner; and how if his Redeemer reject him because rejected by him?

The Westminster Review, not long ago, affirmed that no one could be responsibly guilty for rejecting a historical fact, such as Jesus and his divinity can only claim to be. Then Dr. Southside cannot be responsible for disbelieving the enormity of American slavery, for that is a historic fact. Then the murderers of Jesus, or of Socrates, or of John Huss cannot be to blame for not recognizing the fact that their victims were excellent men. Most principles which men reject or accept, can be viewed as historic facts, past, present, or future, or one, or all. Most principles which men accept or reject are, however apparently abstract, probably found only in some historic concrete. The wickedness of an assassination, a treason, a robbery, is a historical fact, and yet the perpetrators are bound to recognize and accept the truth, and obey the obligation that truth imposes. God is a historical fact through eternal ages. His existence, his administration, his incarnation are all historical facts, which only need in like manner to be properly authenticated to impose a corresponding obligation. The truth of Christ's divine mission may just as clearly authenticate itself as the guilt of American slavery; it may impose