"that, as a guide to the true knowledge of Paul's life and writings, it is worth any half-dozen commentaries we have met with." And the North British Review called it "a valuable help toward understanding the New Testament. The Greek and Latin quotations are almost entirely confined to the notes; any unlearned reader may study the text with ease and profit." Dr. Conybeare was also well known, to those who were interested in the religious aspect of the times in the Anglican communion, by a novel which appeared shortly before his death, entitled Perversion, or the Causes and Consequences of Infidelity. This work was met with a warm welcome from some quarters, and by a storm of adverse criticism from others, the National Review writing of it as The Hard Church Novel. THE TENDENCY OF RATIONALISM. I acknowledge, indeed, that if I were to yield myself to the guidance of the speculative understanding, I could not stop short of that system of atheism which it is now the fashion to call pantheism; for I quite agree with you in finding no resting-place in the shallow deism of Theodore Parker or Francis Newman; indeed, I cannot imagine how anyone who has read Butler should ever have halted at such a half-way house. But I can feel deeply the attractiveness of Spinoza's creed, or rather of that ancient system of oriental speculation of which Spinoza has been the greatest modern exponent; but to which he added nothing essential that had not been said by Chinese and Indian pantheists three thousand years before him. So far as the mere intellect is concerned, I could embrace that grand idealistic philosophy which identifies the perceived with the perceiver, matter with spirit, and man with God-which represents all physical and all moral phenomena as unVOL. VI.-24 alterably determined by antecedent fate-all things but parts of one tremendous whole-all wheels in one vast machine, impelled by irresistible and incomprehensible laws. I could believe (with Fichte) that "everything is what it is of absolute necessity, and cannot be other than it is;" or (with Miss Martineau) that "I am as completely the result of my nature, and impelled to do what I do, as the needle to point to the north, or the puppet to move according as the string is pulled." And I could proceed (with Emerson) to identify good with evil, and could quote Goethe to prove the idleness of wishing to jump off one's shadow. But, when the understanding has entangled me in this web of necessitarianism, conscience rises in rebellion, and cries out indignantly that good is different from evil, that sin is sinful, and that guilt demands atonement. And the longing of my heart convinces me that I cannot do without a heavenly Father to love me, a heavenly deliverer to save me from myself.-From Perversion, a Tale for the Times. COOK, ELIZA, an English poet, was born at Southwark, London, December 24, 1818; died at Thornton Hill, Wimbledon, September 23, 1889. At an early age she became a contributor to the Literary Gazette and other periodicals. Her first volume, Melaia, and Other Poems, was published in 1840. A few years later she became editor of Eliza Cook's Journal, a weekly magazine, intended to advance mental culture, which she conducted until failing health forced her to relinquish the care in 1854. Her poems have passed through many editions. Among her books are Jottings from My Journal (1860) and New Echoes (1864). Among her single poems are The Old Arm-Chair, The Old Farm Gate, Oh, Why Does the White Man Follow My Path. BUTTERCUPS AND DAISIES. I never see a young hand hold The starry bunch of white and gold, Tell me, ye men of wisdom rare, Are there, I ask, beneath the sky There seems a bright and fairy spell And though old Time has marked my brow Is, that the one who raises A HOME IN THE HEART. Oh, ask not a home in the mansions of pride, Where marble shines out in the pillars and walls; Though the roof be of gold it is brilliantly cold, And joy may not be found in its torch-lighted halls. |