'Bampton Lectures,' from Blanco White. Indeed, it is hardly honest, by quotations of the kind employed in it, and bare references at the foot of the page, to make it seem that Dr. Hampden holds similar opinions to those which are maintained in Popular Christianity. We refer our readers to the Introduction,' in the second edition of the Bampton Lectures,' for full and clear information respecting the amount of sympathy which the Bishop has with such hopes of the development' of Christianity as this writer entertains.

The Nemesis of Faith' is a work of a very different kind from Mr. Foxton's. Written in a most captivating style, with many passages of great beauty, and displaying a genial frankness and vivacity, it is the very book to become a favourite with those to whom Mr. Froude apparently has particularly addressed it—the youth under Anglo-Catholic training at Oxford. Its home-truths respecting the Church will make it doubly dangerous in that quarter. A reply to it can hardly be expected from that venerable establishment; and should one appear, it would not be quite suited to our purpose; we therefore offer a few remarks upon it, with great brevity, without noticing anything relating to biblical criticism, and evidences of Christianity, and which is not essential to the chief end of the book.

Mr. Froude mildly complains, in the explanatory preface' prefixed to this second edition, that whereas he wrote a tragedy,' he was supposed to have written a confession of faith;' and proceeds to show the moral which he intended to set forth by his drama. We give this in his own words :—

Faith ought to have been Sutherland's salvation-it was his "Nemesis"-it destroyed him.'-P. xiv.

'It is idle for the mind to hope to speculate clear of doubt in the closet, as for the body to be physicked out of sickness kept lying on a sofa. Employment is for the one what exercise is for the other.'-P. vi.

'Man is a real man, and can live and act manfully in this world, not in the strength of opinions, not according to what he thinks, but according to what he is. And what can make us really men, what can enable us in any proper sense to be, but the steady faith in Him who alone is, and in whom and through whom is all our strength? The child brings with it into the world the impulse to turn to him; the first effort of the dawning mind is ever towards heaven, and when this instinct receives its proper culture, there is no danger that when the child grows to be a man, he will not find light and strength enough to clear him of every perplexity, and carry him safe through every trial. But our present education is not its proper culture. The impulse which it should maintain, it strangles; the light which it should feed, it stifles; a veil is before the face of heaven, and the best affections of the heart are intercepted, and squandered upon the legends of the early world.'-P. ix.

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We should never have discovered all this in the 'Tragedy,' and it would have been much better if in this second edition the tale had been made to explain itself; for few will read the Preface, compared with those who devour the story; and all that seems to be exhibited by the sorrows of this clerical Childe Harold (see p. 29), whom Mr. Froude has selected for his hero, is, that Catholicism' does not furnish the true theory of the world (p. 144); that all real arguments against Catholicism' are, in fact, arguments against Christianity' (p. 148); and that for a weak, clever' man like Markham Sutherland, who is a Hamlet without his faith or his philosophy, speculation leads to undertaking the duties of a clergyman against his conscienceto carrying about on the person a deadly poison for years-to entangling the affections of another man's wife-to attempted suicide to the profession of Romanism in a convent-and, after all, to the exchange of that profession for the blankest scepticism and despair. Sutherland never had any faith; but it was not even his creed' that proved his 'Nemesis '—it was his unbelief that destroyed him.

If the shocking conclusion to this story of a life should deter any from that speculation, in which doubts are cherished, not from any disposition to believe, nor with any expectation of finding truth to be believed, this book will not have been written in vain. But we should deplore, as the worst consequence of the portraiture of such an extravagant scepticism, the employment of it to prevent that inquiry without which there can be no intelligent reception of the truth. We quite agree, however, with Mr. Froude, that action is the natural corrective to speculation. Nor do we differ from him respecting the secret of manful acting in this world: mere opinions and thinkings will never lead to it, but being really men' infallibly will; and the faith in God, which in the eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews is so variously illustrated, is assuredly the sole basis of this manfulness of heart. So far we can go with our author.

But in what child has he ever discerned this impulse towards God, this effort towards heaven, which needs only proper culture' to make its after-life so noble and divine? True it is, there is in every heart what, even in earliest childhood, is capable of responding to, as well of receiving, instruction respecting God and heaven; but the idlest of all theorists' dreams is this which Mr. Froude has put forth here, and one which is contradicted by universal experience. There is no such impulse, no such light; and so the Bible stories can neither stifle nor strangle them; neither do they hang a veil before the heaven of childhood, nor pervert the affections which should be given to God. This thought is repeated in several passages of the Tragedy.' Thus

Markham writes respecting his early training :- Woe to the unlucky man who, as a child, is taught, even as a portion of his creed, what his grown reason must forswear' (p. 124). And yet, how is it possible to teach a child anything about religion, without using language and imagery which are not only inadequate to represent what we know respecting it, but, if taken by any child as a creed,' must lead it miserably astray? Mr. Froude seems afterwards to have dimly seen that what he had said upon this subject was untenable; for in his Preface he says, There is life in the parish school-the child's nature is the same as that which gave the old stories birth' (p. xi.); an admission which might be pressed to consequences very unexpected by the writer.

To this moral, however, we have other objections. What is the 'proper culture' by which these imaginary impulses and efforts might be cherished to the height of true manfulness? This ought not to have been left untold. Again, by what compulsion is speculation to be prevented from sweeping away even that article' which Mr. Froude has admitted- Faith in Him who alone is? If historical criticism and scientific discovery have,' in his opinion, uniformly tended to invalidate the authority' of the Bible histories (p. 145), on what recognisable principle can he reject the conclusions of those who find no deity. but the universe itself, or some unknown power they call 'law?' Especially since, although he says he believes in Providence with all his heart' (p. 5), he speaks with a half-expressed doubt of the justice of the judgments of that power' (p. 53); and in the last sentence of the book, and in several other passages, questions the wisdom and the love which brings into life others than the prosperous and the happy (pp. 78, &c.); and in one place writes thus:- Nature has found a remedy for the heaviest of ordinary calamities in the torpor of despair; but some things are beyond her care, perhaps beyond her foresight. Perhaps, in laying down the conditions of humanity, she shrank from seeing the full extreme of misery which was possible to it' (p. 194). Steady faith in Him who alone is '-how is this faith, or any faith, possible, if the lot of man here suggests such thoughts as those we have marked in the last quotation?

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These are not all our objections. The gospel system is distinctly disavowed (pp. 68, &c., 86, &c.), although we find the religion of Christ' called the poor man's gospel, the message of forgiveness, of reconciliation, of love' (p. 19); and a theory of its origin propounded (pp. 88-90), which exceeds in absurdity and inconsistency with historical facts everything of the kind we ever met with. The Bible (notwithstanding Mr. Froude says in the Preface most energetically, 'I do not dishonour the Bible:

I honour it above all books-the New Testament alone, since I have been able to read it humanly, has to me outweighed all the literature of the world' (p. xv.); calls it 'beautiful and magnificent' (p. x.); declares, I believe that we may find in the Bible the highest and purest religion . . . . most of all in the history of Him in whose name we all are called' (p. 18); and the best which can be said to individuals to urge them to their duty, is in that book' p. 45)—notwithstanding all this, of the Bible he says, that he is sure that it contains things which are both insulting and injurious' to the pure majesty of God' (p. v.); that not the Devil himself could have invented an implement more potent to fill the hated world with lies, and blood, and fury' (p. 63); and things of like import elsewhere (pp. 10-14), all showing that it spreads a veil before the face of heaven,' and is a curtain which conceals' God (pp. ix. x.). How then are men to know Him who alone is how know surely that he will answer their steady faith?'

Mr. Froude appears to rely upon three or four revelations: of one he says, 'the great Bible which cannot lie is the history of the human race' (p. xii.); of another, 'what is ever before their eyes-in the corn-field, in the meadow, in the workshop, at the weaver's loom, in the market-places, and the warehouseshere, better far than in any books, God has written the tables of his commandments' (p. 42); and of the others, we have our conscience too' (p. 45); and, more than all, experience-the experience of our own hearts' (p.46).

Now, precious beyond all price as these revelations are for the confirmation and establishment of our trust in God, when once we know Him, not one of them, nor all together, without some other revelation, ever taught man that which Mr. Froude rightly makes the root and ground of true and manful life. We dare Mr. Froude to the proof; we are confident that the nearest approach man ever made to trust in God, by such means, was a 'perhaps,' or a hope, that was only an agony of despair. But, how can this writer appeal to the Bible of universal history,' when 'with Niebuhr-criticism for a reaping sickle' (p. 153), he has cut down and cast out of the history of the human race the histories of the Bible and the gospel of Christ? And what history of the human race would remain after such a reaper as he, armed with such a sickle, had gone over the field? We know what can be read in that great Bible,' apart from our Bible; there is not one word like this- Come unto me, all ye that labour, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. We have already seen what sort of revelations Mr. Froude has discovered in Nature's book-miseries of men beyond the care, perhaps beyond the foresight' of God. This would not encou

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rage trust in him; and, if it could, yet it would not say to man, 'Son, thy sins be forgiven thee !'

Strange as it may seem, Mr. Froude admits the reality of sin. It is true that there is an elaborate speculation in pp. 90-96, by which the idea of sin is got rid of entirely; but in the Preface (which does not appear to be the best place for the refutation of such a fatal mistake), we read that that speculation contains 'only half the truth.' 'If we doubt whether sin be or be not a reality relatively to our individual selves, let us try it and see -let us measure what we are with our own knowledge of what we might and could be, and our doubt will not last long' (p. viii.) This is the extent of the revelations of conscience. And now, we appeal to every one who ever knew for himself, thus, the reality of sin-and we ask, if faith in Him who alone is,' of such a kind as to lead to manful living and acting in this world, is possible when conscience thus testifies against us? or if conscience has one promise to allay the terrors she has excited? or if workshops and warehouses tell of anything more than human worldly duty? Experience is the test of revelation, not revelation itself; and it serves to hold us fast to what we have known of God. When once we have proved the response of 'Him who alone is' to our faith, it would aid greatly in making that faith steady;' but it cannot lead us with the boldness of humility to exercise such confidence, when its results are only an unassured hope. How then is man to know God?-how know certainly that he will accept his faith? Mr. Froude has no answer to these questions, on which any but a madman would rely-and such a one even might be staggered by contradictions like those we have seen in our review.

We have spoken as if Mr. Froude had not disclaimed the writing a Confession of Faith'-for he says in the Preface, 'In all questions of pure speculation-and in these I include the whole systematic framework, historical or doctrinal, of religionI am ready to avow as my own whatever, so far, my hero expresses' (p. vii.) And without this assent of the author, we should not have hesitated to do as we have done; for the fiction is too transparent to hide the fact.

Looking back upon the Nemesis of Faith,' we are constrained to say that, with the exception of what he has said of Mr. J. H. Newman and his aim, which deserves a place in the ecclesiastical history of the day, it would have been better had Mr. Froude not written this book. The story is too full of revolting incidents to be instructive; the objections to the Bible have not even the charm of novelty; and the speculations are so shallow and one-sided, that an explanatory Preface' was needed to