We have yet a practical counsel or two to give. The first is, that those who intend to adopt this or any other well-constituted manual of family devotions, must take some little trouble about it. We English, with our staid ways, are a little shy, even among our own people, of bestirring ourselves to carry out, and see that others carry out, anything unwonted of this sort. But the household must really be put through their parts, so to speak, in the first instance, at the risk of occasional awkwardnesses, or nothing will be accomplished. We offer no opinion one way or the other as to the desirableness of something of the nature of an oratory, or call it a room set apart for this purpose. Only we will observe, that their view is defensible enough, who think it possible to withdraw the household prayer too much aloof from household associations; and that it may, after all, be the truest and most natural mode of sanctifying the hearth and the table, and with them life's common occupations, to perform household devotions in the midst of them, only with such seemliness and order as the matter admits of. Again, there is an old established fallacy, which really must be exploded :—it is to the effect, that a single book is enough for the services of a household. This notion, only that it is obviously a mere laissez-faire one, runs curiously counter to the zeal which rightly exists for every man, woman, and child having their Prayer Book. There is, in reality, exactly the same kind of need in one case as in the other. Let no man dream, therefore, of setting himself up with a single copy of any manual worth using: the number of his household should be the only measure of his investment this way. Compilers are bound, however, to bear this in mind, and we believe it will be generally found that every endeavour has been made to reduce, as much as possible, the cost of manuals of this kind. On the other hand, let those who crave greater fulness in some department or other of such books, reflect that the compiler is limited by the consideration of bulk and expensiveness from putting in all that he might desire. On this ground, we have forborne to urge, inter alia, the addition of a mid-day service to Lord Nelson's book, though we conceive that such a thing will be desired in many quarters; it will be seen at once, that unless it were unvaried, (which is objectionable,) it must swell the work greatly.

One word on behalf of the peculiar case--for it is peculiar-of those who should never be forgotten, the households and householders of the poor. It is evident that what we have been sketching is above them: that brevity and simplicity must be studied tenfold in their case: which, indeed, deserves, every way, a separate consideration. We have thought it well, however, to advert to the forthcoming Broad Sheet of Family Prayers for

the Labouring Classes,' as a step in the right direction towards supplying their needs. Noon-day and evening would appear to be their best opportunities of snatching a few minutes from labour or rest for this purpose. And one thing seems indispensable, in order to procure the actual adoption by them of any form, however simple, viz.-that the clergy should superintend once and again the performance of the little service. We invite the especial attention of the clergy to the best methods of bringing in the reality of so wholesome a practice.

95

ART. III.-Reminiscences of Thought and Feeling. By the Author of Visiting my Relations.' London: Pickering. 1852.

THERE is something attractive in all autobiography. To be admitted to a man's intimacy, even in a book, and along with the rest of the world, is a favour; and some share of that politeness and deference of demeanour attends upon our reading his statements, if he can prove any claim upon our interest, that would characterise our reception of them by word of mouth: so natural is it to seek to restore the self-accuser, who makes us his confidant, to his own good opinion. But a different frame of mind is needed for deriving the full benefit from this branch of literature. There is no reading which calls more for a judgment always on the alert we might say, always suspicious; there is none where, with professions of candour meeting us at every turn, we are left more to our own sense to discriminate where truth really lies. A man with the purest aim at sincerity, cannot paint of his inner self a likeness to be recognised by all the world at a glance. Keen and practised habits of observation are needed to distinguish between faults known to the writer alone, and faults conspicuous to the world,-to enable us to give him his true place in the scenes he describes, and to discover what are the disturbing forces at work to hinder a full expression of truth; vanity, temper, wilfulness, self-consciousness, impatience, all of them likely elements in the character of those who throw off natural reserve, to talk about themselves.

With all these drawbacks, to any but the judicious reader, autobiography is of great value, and not the less so, perhaps, for thus exercising our judgment, and not permitting it sleepily to receive impressions. Especially is it valuable where it sheds light on the history and character of those who have had influence, or taken part in great religious movements, who have been forward in the battle-field of opinion, or who, less conspicuous, have yet thrown all the weight they possess into the cause of reformation, or change, or progress, the advocacy of new doctrine, or the reassertion of forgotten and neglected truth. Biography may mislead; a man's friends may err through affection or partiality. Prejudice, or dull perception, may lead to a permanent misrepresentation, apart from intention to deceive; but truth is to be found in all that a man tells about himself-not, as we have already asserted, on the surface, but it does not fail to show itself. A man cannot talk for an hour, or write a chapter,

on what most intimately concerns himself, and the clearsighted listener, or reader, remain in ignorance of his leading characteristics. Something will transpire to show the congeniality of the temper and character with the views. How a man has arrived at his opinions, is often no bad guide to the value of the opinions themselves, especially to persons less versed in the abstract investigation and study of truth, than in the practical knowledge of what should be its results on the character, and what class of thinkers and actors are most likely to arrive at it. Those views at least deserve consideration and respect which are held and asserted by a calm, reasonable, constant mind, which does not pass from one conviction to another, but holds fast what it has once acquired as a part of its very being; not changing, but adding to, as thought matures; combining, harmonising, completing. It must be confessed that minds like this seldom write their own histories. They are more possessed by their subject than by their own part in it. It is the struggle, the turmoil of conflicting opinions, the sudden transitions of thought, the convulsions of feeling, which are the staple of such treatises; and the reader is justified in questioning with redoubled doubt and suspicion the conclusions of a mind which has held and rejected so many previous theories, which has so often been convinced before and forsaken its convictions. Error may often be put in so plausible a form as to look like truth, and assert itself with some weight, if supposed to be the result of a long and deliberate train of reasoning; but when we find the doctrine is taught by one who has taught its opposite before, and whose whole career shows changeableness and selfwill, it stands at once upon its own merits; nay more, it loses from such an advocacy; for either it may, in its turn, be discarded like other past notions, or if held on, may only prove its congeniality with those evil dispositions.

Except that self is so ensnaring a theme, we cannot but wonder that this consideration has not checked the flow of some public confessions; but with many, truth is not truth apart from their own particular mode of holding it and arriving at it; so that the two, as it were, hang together; and however terrible the struggles may have been, there is some pleasure in talking of them. The higher the scene in which self performs its part, the keener often the interest in this self-portraiture. Nor does excess of candour in the confession of past error apparently much abate the pleasure. The past, to many minds, is so really past-they say good-bye' to the different phases of themselves with so hearty a good-will, and with such entire leave-taking-they feel so little responsibility for whatever happened in their former states of being, that it costs them very little to reveal scenes of

folly or vanity, or grosser error. They are all but so many disguises setting off the present; faults rather of the previous systems by which they have been enthralled, than coming very directly home to their own personal identity. Nay, where there is a sense of humour and some natural gift at expression, there is even amusement in the very act of putting a former self out of countenance by telling some good story against it.

These remarks, suggested by the volume before us, in one respect do not fully apply; for while in most cases the antidote, as we would venture to call many a personal history, comes long after the bane has been diffused, here the bane and antidote come together; so that whatever harm might be got by false and dangerous opinion expressed in a dispassionate tone, more frequently by omission than by any bold assertion, and with the accompaniment of some plain practical good sense, and the profession of a deeper than ordinary spirituality, ought to be at once negatived to every reader by the picture of a life which the autobiography presents.

The work may be characterised as a clever one, not thoughtful in any true sense, and with hardly the profession of deep reasoning: the writer boasting of a sort of womanly intuition which serves her instead of that more laborious process; but furnishing a practically sufficient view of her own nature, and of the nature, too, of her present belief-as far as she holds anything that can be called such: and as this style of belief is growing into fashion with some minds, of which modern literature supplies us with too many semi-German learned instances, it is well to see its history apart, as we may say, from theology, on a mind of some power, but both from sex and circumstances removed from the training of a theological education. The fear that its more popular form, and (we may add) its more readable qualities, may place this volume in some hands where it may do mischief, has led to the present notice.

The book is divided into two equal parts, and it matters little whether we begin, like our authoress, with the thoughts and the religious theory, or, reversing this order, first dwell on the course of life out of which the present system has developed itself.

The case stands thus: here is a person believing herself to be in a deeply religious state of mind, having attained to a spiritual knowledge, indeed, from which she can look down upon the faults and mistakes of all other religious professors,-writing a book for the avowed purpose of explaining her views, and of showing how she was brought out of a course of error and unhappiness into the knowledge and possession of divine truth and peace; who yet, in this professed exposition of her creed,