worlds may not have required a Saviour." Sir David Brewster, however, sees that this is to cut the knot rather than to untie it, for the supposition "is opposed to the very system of analogy, which guides us in proving a plurality of worlds." "If we argue that Jupiter, a planet with moons, must be inhabited because the earth which has a moon is inhabited, is not the Infidel or the Christian entitled to say, that since the inhabitants of the earth have sinned and required a Saviour, the inhabitants of Jupiter must also have sinned, and required a Saviour? To maintain the contrary opinion is not only against analogy, but it is a hazardous position for a divine to take when he maintains it to be probable that there are intellectual creatures occupying a world of matter, and subject to material laws, and yet exempt from sin, and consequently from suffering and death. A proposition so extraordinary we can not venture to affirm. If it be true, the difficulty of the sceptic and the Christian is at once removed, because there can be no need of a Saviour; and we are driven to the extravagant conclusion, that the inhabitants of all the planets but our own are sinless and immortal beings that never broke the Divine law, and are enjoying that perfect felicity which is reserved only for a few of the less favored occupants of the earth.”—Pp. 136, 137. He reasons thus: Man, "subject to physical laws," is "helplessly exposed to suffering and death;" and "the instincts of self-preservation and of parental affection" necessarily place him" in antagonism to his fellow-sufferers," and "in the collision of interests and feelings, laws human and divine are broken." P. 143. But though thus "controlled and suffering" under the laws of matter, "we feel that all is good and wise, and under this feeble gleam of reason there is light enough to show us if we are disposed to have it shown-that the spectre of moral evil has been conjured up by ourselves: "All discord, harmony not understood; All partial evil, universal good."—POPE. He rejects, then, "the idea that the inhabitants of the planets do not require a Saviour," and maintains as "the more rational opinion, that they stand in the same moral relation to their Maker as the inhabitants of the earth." P. 144. And he thus meets the difficulty that "God had but one Son whom he could send to save them." "When our Saviour died, the influence of his death extended backward, in the past, to millions who never heard his name, and forward, in the future, to millions who will never hear it. Though it radiated but from the Holy City, it reached to the remotest lands, and affected every living race in the old and the new world. Distance in time and distance in place did not diminish its healing virtue. "Though curious to compute, Archangels failed to cast the mighty sum.' "Ungrasped by minds create,' it was a force which did not vary with any function of the distance. All-powerful over the thief on the cross, in contact with its divine source, it was in succeeding ages equally powerful over the Red Indian of the West, and the wild Arab of the East. Their heavenly Father, by some process of mercy which we understand not, communicated to them its saving power. Emanating from the middle planet of the system, why may it not have extended to them all-to the planetary races in the past, when the day of their redemption had drawn nigh; and to the planetary races in the future, when their fulness of time shall come?" -Pp. 145, 146. And if this view should not satisfy the inquirer, he suggests, though without himself adopting, another consideration, to wit, "May not the Divine nature, which can neither suffer nor die, and which, in our planet, once only, clothed itself in humanity, resume elsewhere a physical form, and expiate the guilt of unnumbered worlds?" We have given a clear and full statement of this religious view, substantially in the very words of the author, without exaggeration or suppression, that our readers might the more justly appreciate the bearing of this plurality hypothesis upon the Christian religion, because we regard this as a point deserving the most profound attention. If the theory of a plurality of worlds is proved true, we must receive it, as we are bound to receive all the other ascertained truths of science. The revelations of nature are prior in order to the revelations of Scripture, and must govern them so far as they are positively known to be true. But in the invention or adoption of a mere hypothesis, not directly sustained by a single fact in science, or a solitary text or word of Scripture, and resting only upon a few fanciful analogies, Christianity has a right to be taken into the account as one of the facts to which our hypotheses ought to conform. The author is correct in carrying out the analogies. We have at least as good reason to believe that the inhabitants of the planets are sinners, as to believe that the planets are inhabited. But the views of the Christian religion, to which the hypothesis drives him, are quite untenable, and, in fact, alarming. He starts with the theology of Pope's Essay on Man, that "all partial evil" is "universal good"—a doctrine that virtually annihilates the distinction of right and wrong. The consistent poet boldly adopts the inference, that "whatever is, is right." And it is written on the hearts of men, deeper than all the instructions of revelation or deductions of reason, that whatever is truly good cannot be really wrong. Moral Evil is not "a spectre conjured up by ourselves;" it is evil, or it would not have been prohibited by a good God; it is evil, or it would not bring remorse for its commission. It is the transgression of the law that makes the evil, and nothing can make it good. The wisdom and goodness of God, which counteracts it, and brings good out of it in other relations, takes nothing from its character as evil. The remedial scheme must meet the case as it is, which is done by the humiliation and death of the Son of God among men. The benefits of that death are not a radiation to fall upon its subjects from without, but a power upon their hearts within, to be prepared for by repentance and received by faith, and accompanied with submission to the laws of the Redeemer. And this requires knowledge, for how shall they believe in him in whom they have not heard? And who shall preach the Gospel of Calvary to every creature in the planet Jupiter? Or how is the treasure in earthen vessels to be borne to sinners inhabiting he fixed stars? Sir David Brewster meets this difficulty by a still more extraordinary supposition, that the Son of God may go from world to world, clothing himself in the physical nature adapted to each, and in that form making expiation for every one in its turn. Then, says the Apostle, must he have often suffered since the foundation of the world; whereas, in fact, Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many, and, by one offering, he hath perfected for ever them that are sanetified; and, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins, for ever sat down at the right hand of God, and is to appear the second time without sin unto salvation.-Heb. 9: 26, 28, and 10: 12, 14. Can there remain a possibility of doubt, to a believer of the Bible, that the great propitiation, as a measure of God's moral government, is made once for all? The nature of the case presents insurmountable difficulties in the way of a contrary supposition. If each planet and every star in the heavens is to receive its separate redemption through the agency of the same Son of God, the redeemed of all these provinces will either remain distinct and separate kingdoms of grace, isolated as they are at present, or in some future age they must be brought in communication with each other, and merged in one grand kingdom together. In the former case, it is but doing the same thing over and over, in similar circumstances, and with the same results, developing the same principles, and establishing the same successful administration, in a myriad of spheres, which is now in progress in our own; and to no end but just for the sake of multiplication. It is obvious that no possible multiplication of similar results can be any advance; for it cannot make the exhibition of God's character any more complete, neither does it come any nearer to an exhaustive exercise of his creative power or redeeming love. And on the other supposition, that all these myriads are to be brought into one fellowship, it amounts to no more than another mode of increasing the number of the redeemed, which, if desirable, could be as surely effected by prolonging the duration of the earth alone. And, then, we must remember that after death is the judg ment, and the Redeemer is the appointed Judge. The doctrine is plainly taught in Scripture, that he is Judge because he is Redeemer; it is one of the established proprieties of the administration of heaven. But what inextricable confusion do we find ourselves plunged into by attempting to suppose that the tremendous scenes of judgment, as described in the Bible, are to be acted over as often as there are planets in the universe. So many repetitions of humiliation and exaltation would almost establish redemption as the rule, and law as the exception, in the moral universe. In short, there is no end to the absurdities and contradictions in which we become involved, the moment we endeavor to harmonize this gratuitous theory of a plurality of worlds, with the fundamental principles of revealed religion. There is but one redemption, as there is but one Redeemer. It were a waste of time, in this connection, to go into the inquiries which the writers before us have started, in regard to the possibility of an atmosphere in certain valleys of the moon; in regard to the degree of heat in Mercury, or of cold in the planet Neptune; in regard to the rate of gravitation in Jupiter, or the cosmical inferences to be drawn from the polarity of certain rays of light; in regard to the spherical form of the asteroids, the causes of spiral motion in the nebulæ, or their separability into distinct stars. We may admit that where two such men disagree as to the known facts of science, and the valid conclusions to be drawn therefrom, there is great need of further discoveries before the world at large can regard the question as settled. But we cannot think that either "the creed of the philosopher," or "the hope of the Christian," should rest upon conclusions drawn from facts so unknown. We must say this, however, that by comparing what is known of the heavenly bodies in the present state of astronomical science, with what was known thirty, fifty, or a hundred years ago, the progress of discovery seems to be more and more adverse to the theory of a plurality of worlds. The present knowledge in regard to the various bodies offers continually accumulating evidence that they are unfitted for the support of even animal life, and still less adapted to be the abodes of rational and accountable beings, capable of moral government and subjects of redemption. So that while all the analogies in the kingdom of morals are seen to be utterly irreconcilable with the theory, the supposed analogies in the material world are fading away in the clearer light of advancing science. We think Professor Whewell has rendered a good service both to science and religion, by the profound sagacity and the great learning which he has brought to bear on the question. CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE OF THE LAST THREE MONTHS. History of the United BANCROFT. Vol. VI. HISTORY. NOTHING but an uncommon degree of historical conscientiousness could sustain the patience of the writer in his minute researches concerning British legislation, antecedent to the actual breaking out of the Revolution in the American Colonies. The topics which he has thus raked out of the oblivion of the past possess comparatively little intrinsic interest; they are connected with no thrilling incidents or picturesque scenes; they lead us away from the excitements of active life to the dim and venerable halls of Parliament; no battles are described but the wordy conflicts of legislative debate; and only the acuteness of an antiquarian eye can discern the relation of many of the political measures to the grand struggle for freedom which forms the subject of the volume. Mr. Bancroft, however, has devoted himself with singular diligence, to an investigation of the Parliamentary action which precipitated the Revolution. He has zealously explored the dusty archives of the last century, to gain a broad and integral view of the subject. Alert to detect the faintest evidence which bears upon the question, he has submitted a formidable mass of documents to a faithful examination; and with his rare skill in condensing the pith of voluminous materials into a narrow compass, has converted the repulsive details of legislative disunion into a clear, luminous, vivid, and delightful narrative. The present volume commences with the effects of the repeal of the Stamp Act in 1766, and closes with the Penal Acts of 1774, which dissolved the moral connection between the two countries and began the civil war. Since the publication of the previous portion of the History, materials have rapidly accumulated on the hands of the writer, and the abundance of documents to which he had access in the composition of this volume, must almost have been a source of embarrassment. In addition to his own extensive and valuable collection of printed works, and the rich treasures of Harvard College, the Boston Athenæum, and the British Museum, he enjoyed the free use of a great mass of manuscript authorities, such as has seldom been placed at the disposal of a historian. Among these, he especially notices the records of the State Paper Office of Great Britain; the records of the Treasury; a variety of private letters, journals, and reports, preserved in France, England, or America, giving full and trust |