And first, it is objected to his prose writings, that the style is difficult and obscure, abounding in involutions, transpositions, and latinisms; that his protracted sentences exhaust and weary the mind, and too often yield it no better recompense, than confused and indistinct perceptions. We mean not to deny that these charges have some grounds; but they seem to us much exaggerated; and when we consider that the difficulties of Milton's style have almost sealed up his prose writings, we cannot but lament the fastidiousness and effeminacy of modern readers. We know that simplicity and perspicuity are important qualities of style; but there are vastly nobler and more important ones; such as energy and richness, and in these Milton is not surpassed. The best style is not that which puts the reader most easily and in the shortest time in possession of a writer's naked thoughts; but that which is the truest image of a great intellect, which conveys fully and carries farthest into other souls the conceptions and feelings of a profound and lofty spirit. To be universally intelligible is not the highest merit. A great mind cannot, without injurious constraint, shrink itself to the grasp of common passive readers. Its natural movement is free, bold, and majestic, and it ought not to be required to part with these attributes, that the multitude may keep pace with it. A full mind will naturally overflow in long sentences, and in the moment of inspiration, when thick-coming thoughts and images crowd upon it, will often pour them forth in a splendid confusion, dazzling to common readers, but kindling to congenial spirits. There are writings which are clear through their shallowness. We must not expect in the ocean, the transparency of the calm inland stream. For ourselves, we love what is called easy reading perhaps too well, especially in our hours of relaxation; but we love too to have our faculties tasked by master spirits. We delight in long sentences, in which a great truth, instead of being broken up into numerous periods, is spread out in its full proportions, is irradiated with variety of illustration and imagery, is set forth in a splendid affluence of language, and flows, like a full stream, with a majestic harmony which fills at once the ear and the soul. Such sentences are worthy and noble manifestations of a great and far-looking mind, which grasps at once vast fields of thought, just as the natural eye takes in at a moment wide prospects of grandeur and beauty.

We would not indeed have all compositions of this character. Let abundant provision be made for the common intellect. Let such writers as Addison (an honoured name) "bring down philosophy from heaven to earth." But let inspired genius fulfil its higher function of lifting the prepared mind from earth to heaven. Impose upon it no strict laws, for it is its own best law. Let it speak in its own language, in tones which suit its own ear. Let it not lay aside its natural port, or dwarf itself that it may be comprehended by the surrounding multitude. If not understood and relished now, let it place a generous confidence in other ages, and utter oracles, which futurity will expound. We are led to these remarks not merely for Milton's justification, but because our times seem to demand them. Literature, we fear is becoming too popular. The whole community is now turned into readers, and in this we heartily rejoice; and we rejoice too that so much talent is employed in making knowledge accessible to all. We hail the general diffusion of intelligence as the brightest feature of the present age. But good and evil are never disjoined; and one bad consequence of the multitude of readers is, that men of genius are too anxious to please the multitude, and prefer a present shout of popularity to that less tumultuous, but deeper, more thrilling note of the trump of fame, which resounds and grows clearer and louder through all future ages.

We now come to a much more serious objection to Milton's prose writings, and that is, that they are disfigured by party spirit, coarse invective, and controversial asperity; and here we are prepared to say, that there are passages in these works which every admirer of his character must earnestly desire to expunge. Milton's alleged virulence was manifested towards private and public foes. The first, such as Salmasius and Morus, deserved no mercy. They poured out on his spotless character torrents of the blackest calumny, charging him with the blackest vices of the heart, and the foulest enormities of the life. It ought to be added, that the manner and spirit of Milton's age justified a retaliation on such offenders, which the more courteous, and, we will hope, more Christian spirit of the present times will not tolerate. Still we mean not to be his apologists. Milton, raised as he was above his age, and fortified with the consciousness of high virtue, ought to have been, both to his own and

future times, an example of Christian equanimity. In regard to the public enemies whom he assailed, we mean the despots in church and state, and the corrupt institutions which had stirred up a civil war, the general strain of his writings, though strong and stern, must exalt him, notwithstanding his occasional violence, among the friends of civil and religious liberty. That liberty was in peril. Great evils were struggling for perpetuity, and could only be broken down by great power. Milton felt, that interests of infinite moment were at stake; and who will blame him for binding himself to them with the whole energy of his great mind, and for defending them with fervour and vehemence? We must not mistake Christian benevolence, as if it had but one voice, that of soft entreaty. It can speak in piercing and awful tones. There is constantly going on in our world a conflict between good and evil. The cause of human nature has always to wrestle with foes. All improvement is a victory won by struggles. It is especially true of those great periods, which have been distinguished by revolutions in government and religion, and from which we date the most rapid movements of the human mind, that they have been signalized by conflict. Thus Christianity convulsed the world and grew up amidst storms; and the Reformation of Luther was a signal to universal war; and Liberty in both worlds has encountered opposition, over which she has triumphed only through her own immortal energies. At such periods, men gifted with great power of thought and loftiness of sentiment, are especially summoned to the conflict with evil. They hear, as it were, in their own magnanimity and generous aspirations, the voice of a divinity; and thus commissioned, and burning with a passionate devotion to truth and freedom, they must and will speak with an indignant energy; and they ought not to be measured by the standard of ordinary men in ordinary times. Men of natural softness and timidity, of a sincere but effeminate virtue, will be apt to look on these bolder, hardier spirits, as violent, perturbed, and uncharitable; and the charge will not be wholly groundless. But that deep feeling of evils, which is necessary to effectual conflict with them, and which marks God's most powerful messengers to mankind, cannot breathe itself in soft and tender accents. The deeply moved soul will speak strongly, and ought to speak so as to move and shake nations.

We have offered these remarks, as strongly applicable to Milton. He reverenced and loved human nature, and attached himself to its great interests with a fervour of which only such a mind was capable. He lived in one of those solemn periods which determine the character of ages to come. His spirit was stirred to its very centre by the presence of danger. He lived in the midst of the battle. That the ardour of his spirit sometimes passed the bounds of wisdom and charity, and poured forth unwarrantable invective, we see and lament. But the purity and loftiness of his mind break forth amidst his bitterest invectives. We see a noble nature still. We see that no feigned love of truth and freedom was a covering for selfishness and malignity. He did indeed love and adore uncorrupted religion, and intellectual liberty, and let his name be enrolled among their truest champions.

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(To be Continued.)

The Doctrines of the Reformation.
(Continued from page 5.)

We have shown, we trust, that the doctrines of the Reformation are such, and such alone, as all Protestants of every denomination agree in, and agree in, too, as Protestants, as opposers of the Roman Catholic faith. "Had you, in those times which tried men's souls, and not their metaphysical capabilities, sought a place for the Trinity, or for Election, among the doctrines in question, you would have been told they had nothing to do with the Reformation. Subjects of greater and more pressing importance were agitated during that stormy period. The right of Free Inquiry itself was not yet established. Men had first to clear away absurdities that appealed to their senses, before they entered upon the thorough consideration of opinions, that required the utmost stretch of intellectual abstraction."

We are far from denying that the doctrines of Original Sin, of the Trinity, of Election and Reprobation, were held by several of the Reformers. But we ask, from whence were they derived? and we answer, Not from the Reformation. Many centuries previously, the toy-work phraseology of the Athanasian creed had proclaimed the Trinity, and the metaphysics of Augustine had broached another of these doctrines. They were not attacked first,

because they did not directly bear upon men's liberty, property, consciences, and domestic happiness. "And, because they escaped, forsooth, they must be called the doctrines of the Reformation! They existed in spite of it. They were not fostered in its bosom; but were accidentally entangled, and preserved in the skirts of its garments. Whether they were true or false, scriptural or unscriptural, they were exactly those things which never were reformed. And, seriously, their true title would be, doctrines of Non-Reformation. Call them, if you please, the sediments of the Reformation, or refuse of the Reformation, or wrecks of the Reformation; but, if there be any truth in history, or reality in fact, or use in language, call them not doctrines of the Reformation."

The doctrine of transubstantiation needs no exposure, it bears its own condemnation along with it; 'tis the most monstrous and barefaced attempt to impose on the credulity of the human understanding, that was ever undertaken. Our surprise is, not that it was exploded at the Reformation, but that it ever got a footing in the world. What, however, have not tyranny and priestcraft attempted; what, alas! in the ages that are gone, have they not effected.

The sale of indulgences was scarcely less monstrous in its nature and tendency, than the doctrine of transubstantiation. An individual might purchase from his priest, for a definite period, an indulgence, under whose authority he might revel in wickedness, and, at the conclusion of the time, his heart would still be right with God, absolution for past offences being administered. It was against this assumption of the prerogative of God to forgive sin, that the Reformers protested; it was the crying evils which this system produced in the world, that roused against it the indignant feelings of the friends of virtue and humanity.

The Scriptures had, in fact, for centuries, been a sealed book to the great mass of the people. They knew no more of their contents, than they did of religious liberty; they were slaves, and ignorant and brutal slaves. When, therefore, the Reformers began to multiply copies of the prohibited book, the popes issued their bulls, and kings published their edicts. Here is one by Henry V. of England,-"That whosoever they were, that should read the Scriptures in the mother tongue [which was then called

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