own. It is the mellow fruit of a ripe and valuable mind, though left very much to fall at "its own sweet will," or at the bidding of the passing breeze, than shaken down of set purpose, and by an earnest effort, at the appointed time. Even in the most miscellaneous of his works, the "Guesses at Truth," there are, scattered here and there, papers of much depth and considerable elaboration, which owe their fugitive appearance simply to their position. Take, for instance, some of his papers on matters of literary criticism, or that on the respective functions of poetry and history, in the first volume; or his disquisition on the true doctrine of human progression, or that other on eclecticism in philosophy, in opposition to the true Platonic comprehensiveness, in the second. In his volumes of notes, too, there are several elaborate investigations on questions of controversial theology, which in point of candour, insight, comprehensiveness of view, thoroughness of research, and force and vividness of expression, may be pointed to as models in that kind. Among these we would instance the well-known note W., in the second volume of the "Mission of the Comforter,"* vindicating Luther from the calumnies and assaults of three hundred years, which we have always regarded as a pleading worthy of being delivered in a great cause before the tribunal of the world. Such a production only finds its right place when it is given, in compliance with a general wish, to the public in a separate and permanent form. Altogether, we think our author would very greatly have enhanced the value of his more important writings by throwing the less elaborate matter of his notes into the form of notes proper, at the foot of the page to which they seve rally belong, and giving the larger disquisitions, with such modifications in their substance as might be thus rendered necessary, in the shape of separate dissertations on the important subjects to which they refer. Thus, to take the most recent example, his last work, entitled, "The Conflict with Rome," in answer to Dr Newman's late lectures, requires only to be thus metamorphosed, recast, and in some parts more fully wrought out, to constitute the most complete, as it is already perhaps the most triumphant and crushing, reply which that notable sophist and rhetorical juggler has yet received.

To all this must be added, as a prime source of the influence of our author's writings, the charm of a style of singular beauty, richness, and vividness. Deeply imbued with the poetic element, and with a fine eye for the hidden analogies which run through all things, he is a master in that highest form of the metaphor, in which it is not a mere ornament of diction, but

In the first edition. In the second, this mammoth note is removed for separate publication, and the original work reduced to one volume.

the living body, and almost itself the evidence of the truth it expresses. Hence, there are few writers that so richly abound with what are called quotable sentences, and from whom it were so easy to cull a rich anthology of beautful thoughts embodied in beautiful and vivid language. Thus, just to glance over a few pages of the "Mission of the Comforter :"--speaking of the heavenly unction that rested on the first disciples, he says grandly:"Destitute as they were, and though the wilderness was spread around them, He gave them spiritual food wherewith to feed the whole world through all the generations of men and worldfuls over and above." Referring to the

successive transitions of the human being from infancy to childhood, and from childhood to youth, &c.:-" These several stages, however, are not, at least they ought not to be, removals into a different region of life. Rather should each

successive state be an expansion of that which went before, even as the bud expands into the blossom, and as the blossom, after shedding its robe of beauty, expands into the fruit." The conservative influence of home memories and affections is thus finely touched :-"That which has been the good spirit of the past should abide with us as a guardian angel through life, manifesting itself more and more clearly to the soul as we rise from one step to another." "Woe to him" (the youth launched on the wide world). "if he forget the principles which he imbibed at his mother's knee. If he clings to those principles, he may maintain a steady course amid the temptations that will beset him. Else he will drift along like a fallen leaf, the sport of every casual impulse,—a moral and spiritual vagrant." The youth escaped from the strict tutelage of the family and the school to the comparative freedom of college life, but not yet exposed to the full brunt of the world's stern probation, is "in a sheltered creek,” in which "he may practise himself in a boat of his own, before he launch out into the open sea of life." Sin in the heart is “ evil spirit lurking" within, "and ever and anon rising and shaking himself, and shattering the brittle crust with which amiable feelings and conventional morality may have covered it over:" sin in the world, "a herd of evil spirits howling and prowling on every side around you, tearing the vitals of society, mangling every soul they can seize; while others more craftily put on the mask of pleasure, and gain, and honour, and use every art in fawning on our self-love." The terrible power of evil, and the impotency of all the efforts of philosophy or mere moral teaching to restrain it, is thus flashed upon us in a few vivid words: How much does the world heed it or care for it? No more than the crater of Etna cares for the roaring and lashing of the waves at its feet. The smoke of sin will still

an

rise up and stain the face of heaven; the flames will still burst forth, and spread desolation far and wide, although the waves of reproof should roll around it unceasingly for century after century." The guilty libertine is rebuked as "snapping the holy bond by which all the families of mankind are held together in peace and happiness "as "rudely tearing off the blossoms of that one fair plant which our first parents brought with them out of paradise." The thorough-paced worldling is "only one among the myriads of horses set to drag on the chariot of Time, whose only pleasure is to snatch what provender he can as he rushes on his way-his only glory to surpass his yoke-fellows in speed; and then anon, when his strength fails, the chariot will pass over him, and millions of hoofs will trample him to dust." These specimens, gathered, with a single exception, from within the limits of a few consecutive pages, may serve, perhaps, to give those who are unfamiliar with our author's works some idea of his peculiar manner, as well as of the rich exuberance and welling freshness of his mind.

Those who are disposed to connect Archdeacon Hare and Mr Maurice most closely together as exponents of one common school, will perhaps be divided as to which they ought to assign the precedence as the leading spirit of the movement. In some respects the latter is the more notable and forceful mind of the two. Less rich in sentiment and expression, less replete with varied learning, more meagre in positive doctrinal statement, with a strong bent, too, to the region of the mystical, he yet excels his friend in philosophic depth, and general originality and grasp of thought. His position, too, is commanding. A professor of divinity in King's College, chaplain of Lincoln's Inn, mingling intimately with whatever is most stirring and pregnant in the spirit of the age, at its great London heart, he has become the intellectual centre of a large body of the cultured mind of the rising race. The young barristers at Lincoln's Inn hang upon his lips. Other ardent minds, who shrink from the heathenism of Carlyle, while doing homage to his power, turn to him as the true Christian prophet of the age. His large popular and social sympathies, too, have given him, along with another younger but congenial spirit,* an influence with extensive classes of the community, which are otherwise in great measure severed from all sympathy with religion and religious men. His influence is steadily on the increase. In every successive production of his pen, he seems to rise at once in earnestness of religious tone, and in originality and strength of thought; and his last work, on the "Pro

*Rev. Charles Kingsley, author of "Alton Locke," "Yeast," "Village Sermons," "Loose Thoughts for Loose Thinkers," &c.

phets and Kings of the Old Testament," has already stamped its impress deeply on the public mind, and promises to raise its author to a higher position than ever as a leader of modern thought. Altogether, his position is one which cannot fail to be regarded with anxious interest and solicitude by every enlightened friend of Christianity and of religious truth.

His fellow-professor, Mr Trench, is inferior in calibre both to him and Mr Hare. His writings show a strong bent toward the patristic style of thought and feeling, and it is his merit that he has, with so much sound taste and discrimination, distilled into his volumes whatever is most valuable in the fruits of ancient exposition. In this point of view, his works on the parables and miracles are of great value, and well deserve the large acceptance they have met with, both in this country and elsewhere. With much freshness and beauty, however, he is comparatively deficient in original power, and has availed himself occasionally of the results of German thought to an extent which renders him, to say the least, a very large debtor, and to which some, perhaps, might not scruple to apply a harder name. Such is the triple alliance of congenial minds which has been viewed in some quarters with such unmeasured alarm, and which, we are free to confess, we are ourselves disposed in some respects to regard with somewhat of anxiety and misgiving.

The two most obvious facts in regard to the writings of Archdeacon Hare, considered historically, are the influence upon his mind of the philosophy of Coleridge on the one hand, and that of the German literature on the other. The former he himself again and again gratefully acknowledges as one of the mainsprings of his intellectual life; the latter was more or less the inevitable result of an intimate con

verse of thirty years. It does not, however, appear to us that either of these influences has exercised an uncontrolled sway over his mind, or that he has adopted the thoughts of others without having fully digested them and assimilated them with his own. In regard to German philosophy and theology in particular, we deem it but simple justice to say that he has not been an undiscriminating admirer and importer of foreign theories and speculations; that he appears to have traversed that field with a wholesome sense of the dangers with which it is beset; and that, in fact, the author whom he oftenest quotes, and with whom he manifests the warmest sympathy, is one whom most will allow to be one of the safest of modern German divines, the admirable Olshausen. Thus much we thought it right at the outset to state in justice to one, who, in violation of all truth, had been classed with Strauss and his pantheistic followers. The actual nature and amount of the

two influences we have mentioned, on our author's course of thought, will best appear as we proceed to examine the intrinsic character of his writings, in their bearing on those great evangelical principles, to the cause of which this Journal is devoted.

There are two aspects or points of view in which the Christian system may be regarded; according as we take one or other of which, our conceptions of its subject-matter will be materially different. The one regards it simply in the light of a remedy for a certain given evil-a grand and divine antidote to a terrible and ruinous disease. Accordingly, the whole contents or subject-matter of revelation is considered with reference to this, and drawn as it were within the vortex of this great predominant principle. The preachers of this theology are simply evangelists-the preachers of a remedy for the world's sins and miseries. The disease and the remedy, the ruin and the redemption, is the one burden of all their thoughts and of all their preaching. "Behold, I bring you good tidings which shall be to all people; " such is the opening of their benignant and most blessed message, and when they have fully uttered that message, and told it again and again in the ears of the perishing, their task is done. Hence, theology with them consists mainly or exclusively in a series of responses to those questions which an awakened spirit puts in regard to the things that immediately belong to his everlasting peace; as, What shall I do to be saved? How shall a man be just with God? How shall my soul be renewed and sanctified? What shall become of me after death-throughout eternity? The Scriptures, we say, are questioned by the class of minds we refer to on these vital and all-concerning matters, and the clear, full, authoritative response which they give forth from all their oracles in regard to these constitute in their view the sum and substance of theology. As this is "all their salvation," so it is "all their desire; " nor have they a higher or further wish in regard either to the science of theology or the business of religion, than to explore the heights and depths, and lengths and breadths, of this one stupendous mystery of love. They would know nothing, in the strictest possible sense," but Jesus Christ and him crucified." Now, there can be no doubt that the view taken by these men is in the main, and when not held too narrowly or exclusively, the New Testament view of the gospel system. The aspect of divine truth on which they dwell, is that which forms the essentially evangelical element in the theology of all churches and of all times, and it is the more or less prominence of this that constitutes a writer or a preacher, in common parlance, evangelical or not. The more he has of this, and the more powerfully and livingly it is present in