in 1842, we first learn from our author. An important section of the Appendix relates to the principles of the Roman Church contained in the Creeds of the Popes and the decisions of the Councils, as compared with the New Testament. We believe that more attention to this subject will be ere long demanded of the ministers of our denomination.

There is subjoined a Table of St. Paul's Journeys, from the Acts and Epistles, the Epistles being inserted in the history at the times when they were written. We think we perceive in the later Church writers a disposition to do without the use of those Dissenting divines, Benson and Lardner. Their elder brethren were wiser than they.

The writer of this article ventures to suggest to the Editor of the C. R. and his correspondents, that some notice of the late Mr. Prebendary Tate's work on Paley's Horæ Pauline would be an acceptable contribution.

B. M.

Five Short Services for the Use of Sunday-Schools: to which are prefixed some Remarks on the Use of Forms, and also a Table of Scripture Lessons. Manchester-printed for the Cheshire Presbyterian Book and Tract Society.

1846.

To these Services is prefixed a very judicious Address to the Conductors of Sunday-schools, in which the arguments for their adoption of set forms of prayer are thus lucidly stated:

"I. They furnish a ready manual to TEACHERS, or others, who may be called upon to conduct a religious service in the School, but may not have sufficient confidence in themselves for conducting it in an orderly and proper manner.— II. The interest and attention of the CHILDREN will be more likely to be kept alive during a service, in which they are called upon to follow the reader, and occasionally take a part themselves.-III. The regular and frequent use of the same Forms will gradually and insensibly impress upon their minds some important passages of Scripture which it is desirable they should commit to memory, and several simple and beautiful prayers which, independently of their value at the time in assisting to form a religious and devotional spirit, may be recalled to their recollection with great comfort and advantage in many of the circumstances of more advanced life. -IV. They furnish the means of putting into the hands of the children, young persons, and teachers, attending the school, a little Manual of Devotion, which may not only be of use to themselves at home, but not improbably, in some instances, produce strong and beneficial impressions on the mind of a Parent, or diffuse a purer and more Christian feeling through a Cottage Household. To these apparently decided advantages of printed Forms of Service may be added the following-secondary, indeed, and of far inferior importance to those mentioned above-but which ought not to be entirely overlooked :-The practice of following the individual who conducts the service, with a book in its hand, will accustom the child, who is learning to read, to a just pronunciation of the words; enable it to overcome, almost insensibly to itself, many of the mechanical difficulties of reading; and so allow it, much sooner than it would otherwise do, to avail itself of the other advantages of instruction offered in the school."

We are disposed to agree with this statement, although we are not insensible to inconveniences that may arise in the use of printed forms, unless the teachers are present with their several classes, and by precept and example induce the scholars to join in the service.

The anonymous author (or, as he modestly styles himself, "the compiler") of these Services has executed his task-not the easiest (as every one who has attempted the composition of prayers and addresses for children well knows) -with judgment and skill. The sentiments are applicable to the condition of Sunday-school children; the language, while it is never mean and trivial, is plain; and the Five Services offer considerable variety, and are, we think, calculated to engage the interest and attention of young persons. The Table of Scripture Lessons is a good addition to this juvenile Prayer-book. The free

and judicious use made of the rich stores of history, poetry and devotion, preserved in the Jewish Scriptures, claims our grateful notice. It is a good practical answer to those who denounce the Old Scriptures as unfit for the perusal of the young. The New-Testament Lessons, too, are evidently drawn up by one by no means disposed to slight the miraculous evidences of the gospel, and who has no sympathy with the deistical notion that inspiration and genius are the same thing that the Saviour of the world is only entitled to higher reverence than Shakspeare or Pope, because he directed his genius exclusively to the moral improvement of his race.

"We persuade Men." A Sermon, preached in Belfast, on Sunday, the 30th of November, 1845, by Rev. H. Montgomery, LL.D., at the Annual Meeting of "The Belfast Unitarian Society for the Diffusion of Christian Knowledge." Published by request of the Society. 8vo. Pp. 51. Belfast.

THIS is one of Dr. Montgomery's most spirited and successful sermons, and will be read with great interest by his friends, from the numerous illustrations it incidentally affords of the long series of brilliant services rendered to the cause of religious liberty in Ireland by this its bravest champion. Preached by any other man but Dr. Montgomery, we should perhaps say the sermon was too combative, and too often sounded the trumpet-note of challenge and defiance, or the exulting note of victory; but this comes not ill from the hero of a hundred fights, who has for nearly thirty years led the Irish liberal theologians and successively defeated the Cookes, the Edgars, and the other able but unscrupulous champions whom Intolerance has placed in the van of its ranks. There is not a true man amongst us who does not honour Dr. Montgomery for "his years, his labours and his character." In this sermon he states that it is his desire that his friends may see "his entire heart and soul and mind in all plainness and without reserve." We thank the Belfast Unitarian Society for publishing this spirited and eloquent sermon, and wish for it a wide circulation on both sides of the Irish Channel.

Misconceptions and Erroneous Statements concerning Unitarians corrected; a Letter addressed to the Rev. R. S. Bunbury, M. A., Vicar of St. Mary, Swansea. By G. B. Brock, Minister of the Unitarian Church, High Street, Swansea. Pp. 34. Swansea.

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THE Vicar of Swansea appears to be one of those coarse revilers of his religious neighbours, whose bigotry is sustained by their ignorance. In the pulpit of St. Mary's, Unitarians are held up to hatred as dangerous unbelievers," and as an illiterate denomination, countenanced by no persons of learning and ability. With singular infelicity, Mr. Bunbury names Sir Isaac Newton as an instance of a mighty mind bowing in reverence before the doctrine of the Trinity! How will his accomplished Diocesan blush at the pitiable ignorance of the Vicar of St. Mary's! Mr. Brock has in this little pamphlet properly rebuked his assailant. He mingles happily argument and scripture exposition with his rebukes, and increases his great advantages over the Vicar by keeping his temper, and writing nothing unbecoming the gentleman and the Christian minister.

PERIODICALS.

The Eclectic Review, February.-The present No. well sustains the reputation of this periodical, in variety of topic, liberality of spirit, and soundness of information. The article which we least admire is the first, on "the Life and Times of Bunyan." The writer is certainly not equal to his topic. We turned with interest to the article on "Stuart on the Apocalypse," curious to learn the judgment of English Congregationalists on this bold and liberal exposition of the book of Revelation. The main feature of Dr. Stuart's exposition is, that he understands Babylon to refer to Pagan, not to Christian Rome.

What the spirit of the Eclectic reviewer is, our readers may judge from the following passage in reference to the exclusion by Dr. Stuart of Rome Papal from the Apocalypse:

"It will not be readily forgiven. The weapons drawn from the Revelation against Romanism have been wondrously serviceable to theological disputants on the Protestant side, and it will be a hard struggle to give up these tried weapons for the sake of others strictly legitimate. But let not the right-minded inquirer fear to follow out truth in all its bearings-wherever he discovers it. It demands and deserves every sacrifice for its own sake. Let him not be ashamed to adopt whatever commends itself to his best judgment, whether he find it in Protestant or Papal writers."

The reviewer rather overstates Dr. Stuart's claims to originality; for, as the current British Quarterly Review observes, Grotius, Hammond, Le Clerc and others, have preceded the American divine in this mode of interpretation, and Dr. Davidson recently developed it in an article in Kitto's Cyclopædia of the Bible. The article on Blanco White comes late, and we differ from some of the reviewer's general views and particular statements respecting Mr. White. It would have been well had he given something more than a simple contradiction of Channing's argument, that the supposition of an infallible church involves the supposition of infallible men in order to discover it. The reviewer appears to us to underrate the sacrifices which Mr. White made to his sense of truth. But the article is, as a whole, both able and interesting. The longest article in the No. is, we presume, from the pen of the Editor, and consists of a calm, yet outspeaking, defence of the British Anti-State-Church Association. We cannot assent to the propriety of all the encomiums paid to the conductors of this Association, in respect to exemption from infirmities of temper and from violence of expression, although we are far from denying the good temper and moderation of phrase of this its able advocate. The reviewer's attempt to defend the Association from the charge of ultraism would be more satisfactory to our minds, if we could forget its recent opposition to Sir William Molesworth's election. At the door of the Association, and it alone, must be laid that "splendid abortion," Mr. Miall's candidateship. Dr. Price and his colleagues may be assured that ultraism has been the repulsion which has prevented the co-operation of many Dissenters fully alive to the great evils of the Established Church. The reviewer candidly enough states the progress hitherto made by his Association, and bewails the opposition, either covert or open, of "very many of the leading members of the Dissenting body in England." He admits this in respect to town and country, laymen and ministers.

"The leading ministers and private members of the Dissenting body have kept aloof. No matter how respectable the deputation might be, or how eminent its members in their respective denominations, the audiences addressed-and for the most part they have been numerous and enthusiastic-have not included those who in former days were the reputed leaders of Dissent in their several localities. It is by no means an uncommon thing to forbid any announcement of the Society's lectures. We have known instances in which a minister, seeing a notice-bill of this kind in the hand of one of his deacons, has declared that, if given out with the other notices, he should be compelled to speak against it from the pulpit."

Now we cannot think the reviewer has assigned any adequate causes for the effects thus stated by himself. It is not unreasonable to conclude that if all the proceedings of the Association had been of the mild and reasonable kind alleged by its advocate, most of the doubters and opponents amongst Dissenters would have been by this time gained over to its ranks. Our own objection to the Association, as we have more than once stated, is that so ably explained by Mr. J. J. Tayler in his Retrospect of the Religious Life. The country is not yet prepared for the abolition of the existing Establishment; there are every where elements of intolerance in the public mind, which might, and probably would, collect together and form an oppressive

and intolerant public opinion that would endanger the religious liberty of the most disliked sects. The reviewer, in an eloquent passage, extols the expansive views and liberal spirit of his Association, and says, amongst other things, "It assails no man's church, it condemns no man's theology." This is true as respects the Association; but we Unitarians have experienced the assaults and condemnations, fierce and bitter, of some of the individuals who belong to the Association; and until we have satisfactory proofs that these men understand their principles better, and can withstand the temptations of the odium theologicum, we think it neither dignified to join their ranks, nor safe for ourselves and others to arm them with a power over the public mind which they may abuse. We stand aloof, therefore, from the Anti-State-Church Association, on the ground, not of abstract principle, but of urgent expediency. We can in the mean time look without dissatisfaction on the conduct of those who are uninfluenced by our fears, and see their way clear to co-operation with the opponents of every State-church. They may be the instruments of upholding important principles, and of advancing that state of public opinion which will render it safe and expedient for us, and those who think with us, to descend from our present position of neutrality, and to join the ranks of the practical asserters of perfect religious equality.-Before parting with our reviewer, however, let us shake hands with him, and thank him for his brief but significant criticism on Mr. Shaw's Exposition of the Westminster Confession. We of course sympathize with his dissent from that good man's dictum, that "every truth set down in the Confession is most agreeable to the word of God;" and to his declaration, "We are not warm friends to Confessions at all, and should not be sorry if they were entirely abolished," we give a hearty Amen!

British Quarterly Review, No. V.-This No. opens, inauspiciously, with a terribly long article on what the reviewer is pleased to call "Man in his Moral Relations." It is, in fact, a rambling justification of the doctrine of hereditary depravity, and an attempt to shew the consistency of that strange dogma with sound philosophy. Dr. Payne's Congregational Lecture is the occasion of this Quixotic adventure. We cannot congratulate the reviewer on his success, although we are happy to acknowledge his entire freedom from asperity. He admits that human nature, in its defectiveness, is a contrast to all the other works of God. He treats it, however, as an unquestionable article of revelation, and asserts that those who receive Christianity and modify this doctrine by their reason, render revelation "comparatively useless." Throughout the whole argument, the thing to be proved is taken for granted; and at the close of his medley of metaphysics and theology, the writer, with more courage than skill, announces those truths which stand in direct antagonism to the dogma of St. Augustine (such as, that God cannot be said to be the author of sin, that every man is answerable for his own sins and no others, &c. &c.), to be "principles involved in the entire doctrine of original sin." There are many articles in the No. of a far higher order and more general interest. We would particularly direct attention to that on the genius of Carlyle, which contains much sound criticism, chiefly directed to the extravagances and faults of the author. The great obstacles to Mr. Carlyle's universal fame as a man of genius and a powerful writer, are his own dogmatism and one-sidedness, and the undiscriminating encomiums of his panegyrists, who sometimes lavish most of their fondness on his worst faults. Dr. Vaughan (for we attribute this article to the Editor) had local and personal reasons for pointing attention chiefly to Mr. Carlyle's errors and literary sins. The local motive was to furnish to the young men of Manchester, who have recently listened to a course of lectures, more eloquent than true, on Carlyle's writings, a counterpoise to the extravagant and absurd commendations that had been heaped upon them. The personal motive was somewhat of the nature of the spretæ injuria formæ. Like Juno, historians are very sensitive to any slight on their charms; and Mr. Carlyle, the British reviewer thinks, might have

spoken more civilly of his historical predecessors, and, moreover, might have learnt a great deal which he did not know when he wrote his book on Heroworship, had he consulted a certain “ History of England under the House of Stuart." In an article on Neological Criticism, we have admirably well told Dr. Meinhold's "ingenious device" for exposing Strauss's critical blindness, by palming the fiction of the Amber Witch on this Argus-eyed detector of myths as a veritable history. In this pointed language does Meinhold rebuke the whole school of mythical sceptics:

"From the history of my work, the following conclusions, which I would fain circulate far and wide, may I think be drawn. 1. The critics who assert that they can develop, from the letters and style of the sacred writings, the author and the exact time of composition, ought to blush at the present failure of their skill. 2. Those of them who declare that history of Jesus Christ, whose historic truth has a far better foundation than any other historic fact whatever, to be a romance, ought to be ashamed of themselves for taking my romance for real history. 3. If they persist, as they probably will, in declaring my fable to be a fact, in spite of my assertion to the contrary, and of the affidavit of a synod of divines, and yet declare the history of the Gospel to be false or fabulous, though its authors have sealed their testimony to its truth with their own blood, all reasonable men will judge that they have pronounced their own condemnation. If the device by which I have proved this is wicked, it is the wickedness of one who by an artifice would detect a thief that had broken into the sanctuary. To me, and thousands of others, the GOSPEL is such a SANCTUARY."

The writer of Art. VII., on the German Catholic Church, is somewhat perplexed by the conflicting accounts of Ronge's doctrinal deficiencies, yet writes fairly, and sums up with this hopeful conclusion: "On the whole, we hail this great movement as of auspicious omen to the cause of truth, liberty and godliness, and commend its interests to the attention, the liberal judgment and the fervent prayers of the Christian public of Great Britain." The luckless writer of Art. X., on "Corn and Bullion," ventured on a prophecy respecting the intended Government measure-"A policy of half-measures is to prevail; the interests of the empire, the safety and welfare of the community, are to be sacrificed for the sake of a compromise with a powerful class.” The sort of "compromise" which this sagacious prophet anticipated, was a fixed duty of ten or twelve shillings, charging the whole of the poor-rates on the Consolidated Fund, and a permanent income-tax of seven-and-a-half per cent. When next this far-seeing economist ventures on a prophecy, we would advise him to let it relate to matters which cannot be settled until his own prophecies are decently buried in oblivion. In the present instance, the sheet which contained these lugubrious forebodings was not dry when all England began to rejoice at the bold and liberal measure proposed to Parliament by Sir Robert Peel.

The Irish Unitarian Magazine and Bible Christian, No. II., February.-We give a hearty welcome to our Irish contemporary" Unitarian Magazine" in its enlarged form and new and greatly improved Series. In the Bible Christian, we sometimes regretted not to see proofs that the pens of our best Irish Unitarian writers were at work. If the New Series continues as it has begun, there will be no longer occasion for this regret. Dr. Montgomery is contributing a series of papers, which promise well, on Irish Presbyterianism. The article on "the New Irish Colleges" appears to be written with every desire to give praise where it is deserved. It characterizes the Colleges Act as "a glorious measure--an omen of coming good, fraught with blessings to generations yet unborn." The details which follow of the series of blunders and discreditable jobbings on the part of the Irish executive, by which this measure has for the present been stripped of its glory and rendered comparatively useless, are most discreditable to the Lord-Lieutenant and his advisers. After giving credit to the English Government for "motives most laudable" in reference to the Colleges Act, the writer proceeds to remark, "But truth