of a very picturesque occasion of Mr. Harris's preaching. The passage is interesting, and may be taken as a specimen of the pamphlet.

"It is true that in 1827 I preached on Davies Dikes Moor; but it is not true that the orthodox faith was made the subject of' my scorn.' Requested by a respected friend to hold an open-air meeting on his farm, I gladly complied. On the property stood the old meeting-house, the first, it is believed, erected by the Erskines south of the river Forth, after they seceded from the Church of Scotland, but which had long since been unoccupied for public worship. It was in a secluded spot, answering exactly to the description given in Graham's 'Sabbath' of the gathering-places of the Covenanters, that the Christian Unitarian congregation of the neighbourhood assembled, with many friends from distant towns and villages, to offer up a Summer Sabbath's devotions to the One true God, the Father, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. The locality, and its long-cherished religious association, naturally led me to the choice of subject and of Scripture passage on which to preach-The Progress of Reformation: Isaiah xxxv., The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them,' &c. I sketched in that discourse the beauty, and power, and moral truthfulness of the prophets and prophecies of God; the perfect fulfilment of their most hallowed inspirations in the mission, character, teachings, and spirit of Christ; the purity, and holiness, and benevolence of Christianity; the fearful corruptions which had roused to Scotland's noblest struggles; the history and deeds of her leaders in Reformation; justifying the principles on which they had acted, and shewing that those principles were equally obligatory now as then, and if faithfully and consistently carried out, would lead their descendants to perfect the Reformation which their ancestors so magnanimously began." -Pp. 32, 33.

The Midnight Cry. A Sermon preached before the Somerset and Dorset Association at their Annual Meeting held at Dorchester, June 1845. By Henry Solly, Minister of Cowl-Street Chapel, Shepton Mallet. Pp. 28. London-Chapman.

THIS Sermon is, in accordance with its title, somewhat startling. Its author appears to have been very deeply impressed with the unsatisfactory character and humble aim of many of the established periodical meetings of the Unitarian body, and to have felt himself compelled on an occasion of the kind in the South-west of England to speak out to his brethren his thoughts, and to advise them to give up some of their existing plans, and to undertake others of a far wider scope, more commensurate with their position as the professors of the unadulterated Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of all men. Of the purity of Mr. Solly's zeal, no candid reader of this discourse can entertain a moment's doubt. It is so seldom that we see in our Unitarian brethren a full measure of Christian zeal, (indeed, the want of it is the just reproach of the Unitarians as a body,) that we will not be forward to find fault with an excess of the quality. Admiring as we do, then, Mr. Solly's zeal and the honest outpouring of his soul, we will not dwell on any of the faults of this Sermon. We do not allude to them in the spirit of unkindness, but we would suggest to our author the necessity of guarding in his writings and speeches against a spirit of exaggeration. Exaggeration may momentarily gratify those who unreservedly sympathize with his thoughts and feelings; but it will, on the other hand, disincline others of a calmer temperament, habituated to other views, from adopting his opinions. In some men it will arouse a combative spirit, which will blind the eyes of their understanding and excite unreasoning passion. Mr. Solly's aim, we are sure, is, not to startle and surprise, but to do good. While, therefore, we desire not in the least to chill the fervour of his benevolence, or to diminish the unction of his address, we would ask him on future occasions somewhat to abate the force of his censures, and to make larger allowances for the deficiencies of our churches and the brethren. We are confessedly placed as a Christian denomination in trying and difficult circumstances. We have not merely to uphold certain unspeakably important

religious truths, which the bulk of the Christian world either wholly denies or receives with mischievous qualifications, but we have also to discharge the duties imperative on all the disciples of the Saviour, and to diffuse the principles and comforts of the Gospel wherever we can. If disposed to encounter the evils of society with the remedies of Christianity, we must often enter into the combat single-handed, others standing aloof from us on account of our supposed errors of creed. But if this circumstance often limits our public usefulness, and prevents our doing all that we could wish, we entirely agree with Mr. Solly, it is no apology whatever for our doing nothing.

We must refer our readers to the Sermon itself, which is published at a very low price, for full information respecting Mr. Solly's views of what our Unitarian gatherings should be and should do. He wishes to see them made the centres of Christian effort and philanthropic exertions, to have missions planned and executed on an extensive scale-settled ministers occasionally set at liberty to go forth and preach the gospel, their places being supplied by wellinstructed laymen; he thinks our Domestic Missions ought to be increased twenty or thirty fold; and that our Tract Societies should be more catholic and comprehensive, distributing something else besides the dry husks of controversy, which can never make the wholesome bread of life. Above all, he is desirous that our societies should collectively, and our ministers individually, combat by precept and example against the terrible evils of Intemperance. Mr. Solly will be thought by some to allow his benevolent horror of intemperance to carry him unnecessarily into opposition to "cheerful and pleasant conviviality" (p. 8). He would have us, if we cannot abound in good fruits, convert our gatherings into days of humiliation and sorrow and mourning. Unitarian ministers, especially those situated in the less flourishing portions of Christ's vineyard, have, alas! days of humiliation and sorrow in abundance; and if, when they meet together once in the year, they can make the gathering a means of innocent festivity, oh let not an over-anxious zeal deprive them of the unwonted relaxation! We honour Mr. Solly for his exertions and sacrifices to put down intemperance, but we honour still more the man who, influenced by the same zeal and practising the same self-denial, can on proper occasions both himself exhibit, and can encourage in others, that cheerful gaiety which is sometimes the index and generally the companion of innocence and purity.

The Sick Chamber. Pp. 60. Chapman, Brothers.

THIS "short Sick Chamber Manual" contains very minute judicious directions to Nurses: much of their value depends on their minuteness; for no one who has not been seriously ill, or attended on a greatly suffering patient, can imagine the amount of annoyances and of alleviations arising from what are considered mere trifles.

The "Concluding Remarks," calculated to prepare the reader for encountering illness with patience and fortitude, evince as much wisdom and humanity as the rest of the book. Without the attention of the sufferer to the advice that is offered, the best efforts of the attendants may be in a great measure frustrated.

Plain Christianity, or a Short Statement of some leading Views held by many Christians, generally known as Unitarians. By George Heap. Pp. 8. THIS is a brief but excellent statement, designed for popular distribution, of the principles of Unitarian Christianity. The great truths of the primitive Gospel are said to be "the fatherhood of God, the Messiahship of Jesus, and the brotherhood of man." We would add, the doctrine of a Resurrection. Mr. Heap is the zealous pastor of the new Unitarian society at Huddersfield, which, though in its infancy, promises to become a not unimportant station. Of this little tract several thousand copies have been distributed.

Philip and Theodore; or a Dialogue on the Evangelical Alliance. Pp. 31. London-Longman & Co.

A WELL-EXECUTED exposure of the impracticableness and deceitfulness of the recent efforts to effect an union amongst self-styled "evangelical" Christians. The writer well shews that there has not been, and will not be, any "advance beyond the union of the platform and the sympathy of orations," and that the position of the evangelical allies is not less contradictory than their sentiments.

PERIODICALS.

The British Quarterly Review, No. VI., May,-The current No. of Dr. Vaughan's Review is, we think, fully equal to the best of its predecessors. Like all of them, it lacks articles of a light and sparkling character to relieve the didactic heaviness of the whole; but there is much solid thought which will be appreciated by those who prefer instruction to amusement. The 6th art. in the present No. is a very pleasant and lively review of Miss Wood's interesting book, the "Letters of Royal and Illustrious Ladies of Great Britain." We hope to meet the writer again in the pages of this Review. The article on "Oxford and Cambridge and University Reform," is perhaps, on the whole, the best-written article which has adorned the pages of the British Quarterly. It is evidently written by an University-man, quite equal to his topic, and possessed of large views and a liberal spirit. In recommending, as he does (p. 375), the Legislature to pass, amongst other resolutions, one in condemnation "of religious tests on those who hold place or preferment in the Universities or Colleges," this writer was not bound to know that he was indirectly censuring the course adopted by the Lancashire Independents, who impose upon their College Professors, and we suppose on their worthy Principal, Dr. Vaughan, too, a very stringent religious test, requiring subscription, not indeed to 39, but to 11, articles of faith of very singular construction. Remembering this fact, we could not but smile when we, upon a not very remote occasion, saw many of the leading Independents of Manchester unite together in a public meeting for agitating the question of University Reform and the abolition of Religious Tests. In their behalf it may be said, that they have at great cost established their collegiate institution for the upholding of their own creed, and for the instruction of a succession of ministers in conformity with its doctrines, and that this being the case, they are justified in taking such steps as they may think will secure this end. But will this plea justify the imposition of their eleven-articled test on the Classical Professor, which is, we believe, provided for in the trust-deed of the Lancashire College? Is a scholar more likely to comprehend the philosophy of the subjunctive mood, or the delicate shades of meaning given by the Greek particles, or to dig out the exact sense from a tough passage of Tacitus or Thucydides, because his notions square on the subject of the fall of man or regeneration with the prescribed Independent creed? If, indeed, our worthy neighbours have the idea that the spirituality or orthodoxy of their institution will be endangered by a high standard of classical scholarship, they have perhaps, according to their notions, taken an effectual method of preventing the evil. But unless they are very singularly lucky, the result of their narrow exclusion from the Classical chair of all but the members of an Independent church, must be a low standard of scholarship.-We have been led into these remarks by observing in the first article of the No., which evidently is from the pen of the Editor, and which is entitled the "Priesthood of Letters," an attempt to set up a test to decide what literature is, and what is not, Christian. If the worthy Dr. were to carry out his principles to their proper length, no literature could be called Christian except it were such as would receive the imprimatur of the examining elder of an Independent church. But the Principal shall speak for himself:

"He is a Copernican who holds what is distinctive of the philosophy of Copernicus, not the man who holds only so much of the truth taught by Copernicus as was common to him with other philosophers. By a Newtonian, we understand a man who is a disciple of philosophy as it was left by Newton, not as it was found by him. In like manner, by a Christian we understand the man who holds what is distinctive of the teaching of Christ, and not merely what is common to that teaching along with the teaching of multitudes beside who have happened to discourse about theism and morality. The Trinity, the Incarnation, the Atonement, the Influence which Regenerates, these we must deem the distinctive truths of Christianity. Modify these doctrines as you may, reduce them to indefiniteness and shadow as you please, still doctrines to the effect of what is commonly understood by these terms we must maintain are inculcated there; and we can no more regard the man who wholly rejects these doctrines as a Christian, than we could regard a man as a Copernican, while maintaining that it is not the earth which moves in the changes of day and night, but the sun-or than we could regard as a Newtonian, who could pretend that the evolutions of the heavenly bodies are to be explained, not by the doctrine of attraction and repulsion, but in some other manner. We judge not the moral state nor the moral destiny of the man who, in place of entering the temple of Christian truth, halts thus at its threshold. But to expect us to speak of him as a Christian, is to expect us to seek the praise of candour at the cost of truthfulness and honesty. All such expectation we account as very weak or very wily, and, once for all, we say, never expect compliance with it at our hand.”P. 312.

We suppose we ought to be thankful to the Principal for having limited the essential creed of a Christian to four articles; but we submit that if he is entitled to set up four, he would be equally entitled to set up eleven or thirtynine, as the case might be. The omissions of his creed are very remarkable. The resurrection of Christ and the consequent future resurrection of mankind is not thought worthy of being specified as an essential element of Christianity. The net-work of this four-articled creed is so constructed as to catch the Unitarian like Dr. Beard, who is now receiving the grateful acknowledgments of learned men of all parties for his successful defence of their common historical Christianity, and lets the Hegelian mystic through, who, though he treats the whole sacred narrative as a mere myth, a fable, yet has his “incarnation" and "atonement," and all the other jargon of orthodoxy. We regret that this article on the "Priesthood of Letters" is disfigured by this little bit of intolerance. We will not yield to the worthy Professor or any Christian writer in zeal for upholding the essential characteristics of the Gospel of Christ. Our test shall be evangelical and apostolical. Every man we will admit to the rights of the Christian name who receives Jesus Christ as the Messiah, whose mission was attested by signs and wonders which God did by him.

Dr. Vaughan, equally with the late John Foster, acknowledges that literature wears not a friendly countenance towards the dogmas of the orthodox creed. He observes (p. 295), "The spirit dominant in our literature is not friendly to real Christianity." With this conviction on his mind, we almost wonder at the complacency with which he regards the new priesthood of letters. He admits that "it is plainly from the will of the All-wise, and must be good." If it were true that literature and "real Christianity" were opposed to each other, we should have little hope for the maintenance of the latter. But we believe not in the opposition asserted. Between the spirit of the Gospel-which is a spirit of love and liberty-and the highest efforts of literature, there is a general and constantly-increasing union. It is indeed consoling to the enlightened Christian and the ardent friend of the human race to observe that real Christianity, often slighted and sometimes outraged in that which professes to be its special depository-the Church,-still speaks with a living voice in our best literature, and, passing by some who most eagerly affect to be its champions, inspires the legislator with wisdom and the philanthropist with love.

But our readers must not take their estimate of the general tone and the literary merits of this essay on the Priesthood of Letters from the exceptions and criticisms we have felt bound to make. There is in it much of a better quality than that which we have noticed with disapprobation, and it will amply reward a careful perusal. We rejoice that Dr. Vaughan speaks out so fearlessly on the subject of the neglect by the Nonconformist body even of their own best literature, to say nothing of literature generally. We wish we could honestly say that our own little section of the Nonconformist body did their duty in this respect. Is it not true of us, as of other bodies of Dissenters, that we not merely slight the labours of those amongst us who devote themselves to literature, but that we make most inadequate and unsatisfactory arrangements for the maintenance of an enlightened, independent and hightoned ministry? Let the following words be read and pondered by our wealthy laity:

"From the poverty of the poor, a good man would bear much, but it is no part of his duty to submit to suffering inflicted by the meanness and parsimony of those who are not poor. The labours both of the pastor and of the scholar must be of higher value among Nonconformists, if they would possess these in a higher quality. That their priesthood may be a priesthood of power, in these times, it must be a priesthood of letters, and that it will not be in the degree required, until they shall themselves give proof that they have learned to value literature in its relation to Christianity after a much improved mode of reckoning. At present they are the last to appreciate the literary power really existing among them. What they possess of this kind is often more justly estimated elsewhere than among themselves. On this whole matter they have much to learn."-P. 319.

At p. 294, the writer, more bold than wise, shivers a lance with that amusing personage, Punch, whose wit is generally well directed, and who is more humane and more wise, and we believe does more good, than three-fourths of our moralists and instructors by profession. Our reviewer says,

"Nor are we certain that some of our wise men do wisely, who are going abroad just now with their cap and bells, in the hope of securing better attention to their lessons of wisdom from the foolish. A fondness for grotesque jokes and everlasting caricature, bears as little resemblance to manly feeling as the ecstasies of our young lady friend over the last new novel."

Then follows a not very lively homily on the gravity of truth, and the incompatibility of broad farce with "reverential feelings." It would have been far better to have left this unsaid. People must sometimes laugh, as well as weep. Laughter, like reason, is one of the characteristics of man; and they do not shew, in our estimation, the greatest wisdom who would fain confine it to fools. The undue earnestness of the reviewer will only excite the suspicion that Mr. Punch has some time trodden upon his corns. Has the humourist been so irreverent as to make merry with some of the anilities of Exeter Hall?

We have only one other observation to make on this No. of the British Quarterly. When next Dr. Vaughan employs the writer of the article on Humboldt's "Kosmos," we trust he will also employ some one to translate him into English, and will favour his readers with the English version. We know one or two Independent deacons whose spectacles will almost of themselves leave their wondering brows when they read such words as thesephenomenal godhood" (p. 354); "the cold sceptic Analysis has hypothetized and synthetized in obedience to their prejudications" (p. 355).

66