'Man cannot save himself; neither in cassock, nor in surplice, nor in ermine, nor in lawn, nor in royal robe, can man save himself.-P. 13.

The following passage is really very terrible. Its irreverent flippancy borders on the profane, while some of its epithets are ridiculous or absurd.

'If I cannot, my dear friends, have a God to take care of my soul, I will risk the experiment of taking care of it myself. It is too great to be committed to an angel: too precious to be trusted to a creature. Arm of flesh may fail, an angel may fall, either may forget or change; if, therefore, I cannot have God to take charge of my soul, no creature instead shall. Whoever, short of God, offers to take charge of it, to him I would say, be he angel, or saint, or priest, or prelate, or pope, as Abraham said to his servants of old, "Stand you at the bottom of the mount," while I go up alone to its sunlit pinnacle, and there speak face to face with my God, and hear from his own grand lips those glorious accents, "Look unto me, and be ye saved, for I am God, and there is none else." I must hear the original, the echo will not do. I must drink from the fountain, the canonized cup is not sufficient.'Pp. 15, 16.

It is only by very great violence that a 'cup' can be spoken of as 'canonized.' We much doubt, indeed, whether, supposing the expression 'canonized cup' to have escaped the lip in a hurried address, any speaker would suffer it to present itself in the reporter's notes without blotting it out-except Dr. Cumming.

But what are we to think of the following? Never was a great subject so degraded and disgraced by a low similitude:

'If I desire to enjoy an oratorio I must not only have a ticket, which is my title of admission, but I must have a musical ear, which is my fitness for the enjoyment, It is so with respect to heaven. Accordingly, I have in Christ's work the ticket or title, and in the Spirit's work the new nature, which is my fitness.'-Pp. 20, 21.

We are thoroughly sick with just taking as they come, and picking up and putting together these offensive expressions; yet we cannot conclude without adding to these samples of bad taste, one or two specimens of what we suppose was meant for something very fine and eloquent. We will give them without remark:

'Have you ever noticed that almost everything that man does is cumbrous; everything that God does is simple? Only recently has science in its greatest achievement made an approximation to something of the simplicity of God. The wire that connects two countries together, and enables London to converse with Paris, and Paris to reply to London, is simple, exquisitely simple. It is therefore grand. This is man's nearest and closest pursuit of the footsteps of his Maker,

in thus laying hold of the red lightnings, and making them to do his errands; it is the noblest feat that man has ever done; and yet it is not creation, but merely the combination of God's materials. Everything in God's world is simple; out of a little sap, or water, and a few combining elements of oxygen and carbon, he forms all fruit, and flower, and leaf, and blossom; by a single power called gravitation he binds worlds together, and makes each march in its orbit as if it were evermore listening and evermore responding to the bidding of the great Controller of all.'-Pp. 22, 23.

Passing by, on page 24, the sun, the moon, the stars, the beautiful flowers, the green earth, the panorama around the sanctuary, and the human countenance, with all its chromatic phases, aspects and transitions,' we come to the following, which we suppose is some recollection of an Exeter-hall speech, or which, at least, might do for that; but which, we presume to think, was not quite in its place in 'the Church of Crathie, Balmoral'—

"Whatever be the relative value of ecclesiastical differences, ours is not a gospel for the Churchman, or a gospel for the Dissenter, but it is for all that "look" whether they look through the oriel windows of a cathedral, or the humble casement of a chapel, it is still "Look, and be ye saved." It is that blessed gospel that discloses to every one a Cross without a screen; that gives a Bible without a clasp; that offers salvation without price, and assigns the limits of the globe as the circumference of its free and its joyous action. That Saviour still speaks from the throne, and says: "Look unto me, all the ends of the earth-dwellers on the Missouri and the Mississippi, in the prairies and backwoods of America; upon the Andes and in the isles of the Pacific; from the mountains of Thibet, and the plains of China; from every jungle in India, from every pagoda in Hindostan; from the snows of Lapland; Arab, in thy tent, and Cossack on thy steppes; ye ancient Druse from Mount Lebanon; weary-footed wanderer of Salem, speaking all tongues, drinking of all streams-civilized and savage;-all the ends of the earth, look unto me, and be saved." In all the phases of human sorrow and joy, toil and travail, “look." In the wildest beating of the despairing heart; in the hour of sorrow-that sorrow that is too great for tears; in the tidal sweep of ages; in the surges of a nation's suffering, and in the ripples of individual grief-to quote from a grand litany," in all time of our tribulation, in all time of our wealth, in the hour of death, and in the day of judgment,"—" look unto me, and be ye saved.”’Pp. 27-29.

It is not to be denied that, delivered as Dr. Cumming could deliver it, this passage would be very effective, and the close of it, we acknowledge, strikes us as approaching to the beautiful; still, it is too laboured, too artificial, and altogether out of keeping with our notious of calm, simple, Christian teaching. One passage more and we have done.

From all considerations of its nature and its acts [the soul's], we

gather a conception of its greatness. Multiply ages into ages-carry century to century, to their highest cube, and all is but an infinitesimal preface to its inexhaustible being. The pyramids of Egypt, just opening their stony lips to speak for God's word; the theatres of Ionia; the colossal remains of Nineveh, experiencing a resurrection from the grave in which God buried it; the iron rail, that strings the bright villages like pearls on its black thread; the paddle-wheel, that disturbs the stillness of the remotest seas; the electric telegraph, that unites minds a thousand miles apart; the tubular bridge, that spans broad firths and great chasms, are all witnesses to the grandeur and powers of the soul of man.'-Pp. 30, 31.

In addition to this exhibition of the bad taste and tumid style, the combined puerility, vulgarity, and ambitiousness, which distinguish this production of Dr. Cumming, we had intended to make some remarks on its theology, for with that, too, we are dissatisfied. We are not sure that it is quite consistent with the standards of his own Church; we are sure, or next to it, that it is out of harmony with the mind of Christ, and repugnant to common sense. We think him hardly correct on either 'faith' or 'repentance;' we object to the following description of man previous to actual sin, for, if we understand him, it is to humanity simply as such, and before volition, affection, or deed, that he refers: The once holy heart has made itself deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; so much so, that the exposure in the light of God's countenance of a naked human soul-just as it is, a fallen apostate soul-would be a spectacle that man could not bear!' This may do for two sister '-churches, each of whom holds a species of baptismal regeneration; but it is not, we think, consistent either with the redemptive act of the Christ,' or with the import of the words of Jesus. We do not like, either, the bald statement on the 17th page: Jesus has endured all that I deserve as a sinner, and obeyed for me all that I owe as a creature.' We neither think this possible nor scriptural. It is destructive of all grace, and therefore subversive of everything like a gospel. Not only is there no grace' or favour in such a system, but there is 'law' twice over. Rigid, inflexible justice may stand upon its demands for one of two things; it may claim either all the obedience, or all the penalty, but it is surely injustice to require both. But if it gets both, and yet, if, after that, it is to be insisted upon that every thing is given for nothing, we are at a loss to comprehend the meaning of words. There is nothing free or gratuitous in the proceeding; there must be a mistake somewhere. We cannot, however, enter, at present, into these various subjects. We have said enough to lead our readers to reflect-whether we, ourselves, are right or

And now, in concluding what has been to us one of the most painful duties we have ever discharged in the whole course of our literary life, we beg to assure Dr. Cumming and his friends, if either he or they deign to look into this journal, that we are not conscious, in the smallest degree, of having been actuated in what we have done by any personal or unworthy feelings. Dr. Cumming is a man at once of high character and superior talents. He has few equals in equipment for the Romish controversy-not a superior in his readiness in debate. He is a taking, vivid, telling speaker on the religious and philanthropic platform; he is looked up to, and worthily so, we have no doubt, by a large flock, as a good minister of Jesus Christ.' But his weaknesses have misled him in one of the most important moments of his life; and, instead of rejoicing the hearts of the faithful, and eminently serving the truth, he has made the one sad, and all but disgraced the other. His sermon is now in the thirteenth thousand: it has been bought and read by persons of all creeds, and of no creed. It is within our own knowledge that men of no evangelical belief have procured it: and, alas! it is also within our knowledge, that it has served to strengthen and rivet their prejudices. In one direction it is a thing for a jest-in another for tears; there it provokes laughter, here it covers with shame! Popularity, reputation, are talents entrusted to a man by the Master; they give influence for good or evil; they involve many and great responsibilities. An inferior man, in an obscure corner, may say or write what, however absurd, can do no harm; for a distinguished man, in a great public service, to presume on his reputation, and to trifle with his talents, is to incur guilt as well as blame-to give an advantage to foes and to discourage friends. It is as 'when a standard-bearer fainteth.' We have spoken from the depths of our heart, and have accomplished a duty very severe and oppressive to ourselves. Faithful are the wounds of a friend.' No unfriendly hand has inflicted those which this paper may possibly occasion. Truth only can give point to the arrows of criticism-venom and bitterness can be easily despised. There is truth, we believe, in what we have said, or we should not have said it; may the motive and the feeling with which it has been said, cause our censure to become, in due time, an excellent oil!'

1

ART. VI.-Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Thomas Chalmers, D.D., LL.D. By his Son-in-law, the Rev. William Hanna, LL.D. Vols. I. & II. Edinburgh: Sutherland and Knox.

His

BIOGRAPHY may justly be styled, history in brief; for as history is the narrative of some larger or smaller section of the human family, biography records the life of the individual man. tory, therefore, is made up of many biographies. As philosophy teaches in history by many examples, and in biography by one only, so there will be in the latter a prominence of feature and a boldness of outline which are not possible in the former, where heroes and miscreants, philosophers and fools, are portrayed in groups. Thus, while in history the reader finds large ideas and colossal phenomena, in biography-the life-writing of one man -he contemplates the anatomy of an individual soul. In the one he finds what men did; in the other, what they were; and as the life of every man has two parts-the outward and the inward-the latter of these two will be learned from biography alone. Now the life of every man is determined by the nature of its ultimate end, and its narrative is good in proportion as the author faithfully delineates. It is portrait-painting for posterity. The present age only shall distinguish the true likeness from the caricature. Alas! what mere daubers have some of our biograph-limners proved themselves! they have painted for us either angels or demons. Their colours have been too bright, or their shadows too deep. The biographical art languishes for naturalness. We want not monsters in our memoir books, whom to see is to abhor; we ask only for the portraits of men. Let us, who knew the beautiful soul lately among us, whose life' is partly written in these volumes, see whether the author has herein faithfully pictured him for the benefit of 'far posterity.'

Thomas Chalmers was born at Anstruther, a sea-coast town in Fife, on March 17, 1780. The little fellow was named Tom.' His father was a 'general merchant'-a man possessed of that astuteness and vigour of mind which obtain more extensively among the lower classes in Scotland than among Englishmen of a similar rank. To have his son early and well trained, seems to have been the great endeavour of this good man; and the parish schoolmaster, to whose care he was entrusted, by the fact of his having schooled young Chalmers, is rescued from that utter oblivion to which the name of many a worthier Dominie is consigned.

The parish schoolmaster, Mr. Bryce, had a fair enough reputation Ꮓ Ꮓ ?