Glances at some of the Great Preachers. AUGUSTIN. (Continued from p. 285.) He now resigned EARLY in 387, Augustin was, with his son, Adeodatus and his friend Alypius, baptized by Ambrose. all worldly ambition. He set off for Tagasta with his mother, who had followed him to Milan. On their way they stopped at Ostia. Here, while they were waiting to embark, Monica and her son were one day earnestly talking of things high and eternal. She said, "My son, for myself, I have nothing more to desire in this life. I know neither what I am doing here, nor why I am here, earthly hope being dead in my breast. The only thing that made me desire to remain was the wish to see you a Catholic Christian before my death. God has given me more; I see you consecrated to His service and despising earthly happiness."* She died a few days after, and Augustin "offered for" the departed "the sacrifice of our redemption." This was about the beginning of November, 387. Augustin was then in the thirty-third year of his age. Instead of embarking, Augustin now went back to Rome, where he remained nearly a year, writing various works. He then visited Carthage, and afterwards returned to Tagasta. Here he sold his patrimony, and gave the proceeds to the poor. In 391, Augustin was ordained priest by Valerius, bishop of Hippo. His preaching was powerful and successful; and his diligence in study was not only uninterrupted but newly stimulated. One of his most important acts was a public disputation with Fortunatus, a Manichean presbyter. In 395, the bishop Valerius, laden with the infirmities of age, desired Augustin as his colleague in the bishopric. He was * Confess. IX. x, tib. xii. accordingly ordained bishop by Aurelius of Carthage and others, and was soon afterwards left alone in the office. Augustin rendered, during his episcopate, great service to the Catholic party by acting as their champion, both in person and by writing, against the Donatist schismatics. It is impossible to enter here into the details of this subject. Suffice it to say, that the Donatists, whose schism arose from a dispute touching the election of Caecilianus to the see of Carthage, in 311, regarded themselves as alone constituting the true church, and salvation as restricted to their communion. They were defeated by Augustin in a conference at Carthage, in 411. The reader who may wish further information is referred to Neander's General Church History, in Clark's Foreign Theological Library, vol. III. p. 204-291. It was during Augustin's episcopate that the heretic Pelagius also began to promulgate his doctrines. His radical principle he thus expresses:-"We owe it to God that we are men, but to ourselves that we are righteous." He denied original sin, predestination and grace, and held on the atonement and on justification notions inadequate to Scripture and human experience. These doctrines Augustin roused himself to resist, which he did both orally and by writing. He had previously written "On Free Will," and he now wrote "On the Grace of Christ," and "On Original Sin." Such questions as these succeeded those on the Trinity as the occupation of the more subtile intellects of the Church, and amongst them Augustin was a great chief. The orthodox doctrines on grace, election and predestination are called by his name, Augustinian. The life of Augustin, distracted hitherto by mental conflict and theological polemics, was to end in view of carnal weapons and perturbed by material warfare. The Vandals were overrunning and devastating the Province of Africa. They laid siege to Hippo about the beginning of June, 430. The bishop would not save himself by flight, but chose to remain faithfully with his flock. He prayed that God would deliver Hippo from the besiegers, or enable His servants to bear the threatened calamities, and that he himself, if the city must be taken, might previously be called from the world. He fell ill of a fever in the third month of the siege, spent his last days in reading the penitential Psalms and in prayer, and slept in peace on the 28th of August, 430, in the seventy-sixth year of his age, after having served the church, as priest or bishop, for nearly forty years. Augustin possessed distinguished powers of subtile speculation and argument. One of his maxims was, that what we hold with a firm faith we should aim also at viewing in the light of reason. He was also endued with warm and tender feeling and a vigorous imagination. But he failed in solidity of judgment, and was not remarkable for what is termed common sense. We cannot avoid feeling as we read his intensely "subjective" writing, that, with much that is healthy and admirable, there is a mixture of the sickly and the weak. In his religious history he affords, notwithstanding, a splendid example of the power of Christian truth and of God's grace.* As to scholarship, he was well read in Latin literature,— not so well in Greek; for with the Greek tongue he was not over familiar. Of Hebrew he knew nothing. This last circumstance occasioned him disadvantage as an interpreter. He suffered himself to be seduced by the temptation to allegorize. As a theologian he prepared the way for Anselm, Thomas Aquinas, &c. It may be questioned whether as a Christian, priest, or bishop, Augustin ever paid much attention to preaching as an art. His eloquence seems not so much formed on the classical models-though there is an evident classical substratum-as peculiar to himself, and spontaneously bursting forth in obedience to powerful Christian conception and emotion. His style and manner would probably at first appear strange to a cultivated heathen, but the attentive listener would soon be profoundly interested. Nor was the best kind of effect wanting, for his preaching was greatly successful in reaching the understanding, the heart, the conscience, in changing the character and in furthering the growth of good. In our next number we may give some further account of Augustin's theology and works, paying especial attention to his "City of God," his "Confessions," and his Sermons. * See Dr. Owen on the Holy Spirit, III. vi., especially pp. 357 and 8, of Vol. III of Goold's edition of his works. W. C. LITERARY NOTICES. [WE hold it to be the duty of an Editor either to give an early notice of the books sent to him for remark, or to return them at once to the Publisher. unjust to praise worthless books; it is robbery to retain unnoticed ones.] It is BY REV. GEORGE GILFILLAN. A THIRD GALLERY OF PORTRAITS. THE GALLERY OF PORTRAITS starts two questions; one to be determined by the philosophical ethologist, and the other by the literary artist. The first is, Is it morally proper to draw portraits of living men without their consent, and oftentimes to their disadvantage? It is certainly brave, but is it right? The picture may please our gossiping instincts and impart to us no little information, and that in a very interesting way; but does the drawing square with those principles of rectitude which should sway us in our relations to each other? Without entering on any casuistic line of argument, we may state that several considerations incline us to the belief that there is nothing wrong in the work itself;-that is, wrong, supposing the motive of the artist to be pure. For example, each man's character concerns his contemporaries. "No man liveth unto himself." If a man were disrelated from all others,-if all his movements terminated on himself, and had no bearing on any one else, it would seem improper that he should, contrary to his wish, be brought forth from the solitude of his isolation and held up to the public eye. Were his character of no consequence to any one, it would be little less than an unjustifiable curiosity, and a wicked impertinence, for others, in any way, to concern themselves about it. But the history of every man, necessarily, concerns others; each is a link in the great chain of society, and cannot move without propagating an influence, from link to link, no one knows how far. This is, of course, more strikingly the case with public men. Again, the study of character is the most important study of man. It could, we think, be shown that he who analyzes and honestly describes the character of a man, does a far greater service to his race than the botanist who describes plants, the anatomist who expounds the animal organization, or the astronomer who discourses on the stars. And then, moreover, we think that if it be right to portray the character of the dead, which right seems universally conceded, it certainly cannot be wrong to sketch the characters of the living. The latter is certainly a far more courageous work, and likely to be far more faithfully performed. The subject too, in the one case, has an opportunity of benefiting by the strictures, and defending himself from any supposed injustice ;-in the other case he has not. On the whole, then, we have but little doubt of the rectitude of portraying living men. The other question which this volume starts is, Are the portraits faithful? Are they fair likenesses? This, of course, can only be determined by those who are well acquainted with the original. Our own impression is, that whilst some are a little too much flattered, and others, in beauty, are scarcely up to the original, on the whole, there is a remarkable likeness;—and some are photographically true. that our painter is fond of colors, and that his genius is marvellously inventive; so that the canvass of each portrait has striking strokes and shades, and strange and luxuriant scenery;-but all this adds wondrously to the interest and fascination of the picture. We recommend this work as one of those expressions of superior genius which always, at once, interest, stimulate, and inform, the reader. It is true, "THE CHRISTIAN LIFE, Social and Individual." This is a work intended to remove a confessedly general impression, that evangelical religion is scarcely compatible with strength and grasp of intellect. The author exposes the falseness of this idea, by a philosophic and forceful exposition of the principles of the Christian character, and a biographic sketch of certain men who, in our age, practically embodied the Christian religion, and who are universally recognized as the highest types of intellectual and moral greatness. In working out his theme, the author has occasion to deal with some of the profoundest and most vital questions in the science of mind, social statics, theology, and ecclesiastical polities; and it is but just to say, that he moves in those abstruse departments of thought, not with the mincing of a sciolist, but with the mien of a sage. We are not able to endorse all the book contains. We cannot, for example, see that Foster indicated a want of "clear conception " in his denunciations of war. We think, that the more deeply and bravely philosophical a man is in ethical enquiries, the more terrible will be his fulminations against war. The "whining sentimentalists" we have generally found amongst the advocates of a popular war. It requires the bravery of individual thinking and conviction to stand against the tide of popular sentiment. Nor can we see much of the true hero in |