to religious acts and interests. If they were wrong, they were earnest in their service. If they did the work of the Lord mistakenly, they did not do it deceitfully. We have no such feelings of unqualified rebuke for even the mariolatry of the thirteenth century, as turned us away in utter disgust from the perusal of the large marble slab in the Tribune of St. Peter's, on which the present Pope has caused to be inscribed the solemn inauguration of the dogma of the "Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin" in this second half of the nineteenth century. Even the charity of a Sir Thomas Browne, one would say, must be gravelled at a folly so gratuitous and out of date: "I could never hear the Ave Mary bell without an elevation" (writes the author of Religio Medici) “or think it a sufficient warrant, because they erred in one circumstance, for me to err in all, that is, in silence and dull contempt: whilst therefore they directed their devotions to her, I offered mine to God, and rectified the errors of their prayers, by rightly ordering mine own." This closing hint is admirable. But the days are gone forever when Christian men can throw a very large cloak over these abominations standing in the holy place.

ARTICLE III.

STANLEY'S EASTERN AND JEWISH CHURCHES.

Lectures on the History of the Eastern Church: with an Introduction on the Study of Ecclesiastical History. By ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY, D. D. New York: Charles Scribner. 1862.

Lectures on the History of the Jewish Church. Part I. Abraham to Samuel. By ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY, D. D. With Maps and Plans. New York: Charles Scribner. 1863.

DR. STANLEY is quite a voluminous author. His first work was the Life and Correspondence of Thomas Arnold," which has taken rank as one of the standard biographies of the age, and which sets forth with rare accuracy the life of a won

derfully active man. The second was "Sermons and Essays on the Apostolic Age." He then published a memoir of his father, the late Bishop of Norwich. This was followed by a "Lecture on Modern History"; and this by a work entitled "Historical Memorials of Canterbury." In 1856, he published the well-known volume on biblical researches "Sinai and Palestine." He has since written a commentary on the Epistles to the Corinthians. His last two works head this article.

He has been known thus far as the eminent pupil of Arnold. He belongs to that school in the English Church which was originated by Coleridge, who in one sense is the father of all the biblical scepticism which, in our very mother English, has suddenly come upon us like a flood. To this school belong the Seven Essayists. It is known as the Broad Church party. Dr. Stanley has not gone the lengths of this school, like Bishop Colenso. But it is evident from every volume which he has published that his sympathies are with the most inquisitive and daring of modern scholars. He quotes them, commends them, relies upon them. Few will admit that Arnold, Coleridge, Maurice, Hare, Jowett, Temple, and Colenso are sound evangelical divines: Dr. Stanley refers to them as if their opinions were to stand for truth. This makes us feel cautious in receiving the strong statements which abound in these last two volumes. There is a degree of unsoundness in the man which we must be on the watch for. It is well in the outset to understand his position. Then we can make allowance for his opinions. But this school of theology has an attractiveness which some other schools might safely imitate. It lends to theology the grace and finish of a cultivated literary taste; it is in deep sympathy with the vital questions of this age; it is trying to cure the religious diseases with which the age is sick but to us the cure is worse than the disease. Strip off the glitter of literary refinement, and you find that the cure is to be effected by a carefully medicated poison which only increases the natural fever. Take up any one of the numerous expositions of the "Essays and Reviews" and you can see what this poison is. Now Dr. Stanley, with all his fine and accurate scholarship and his noble sympathy is unmistakably one of those men who are trying to doctor the Bible with all the suggestions of modern opin

ion. His position, as developed in the Jewish church, is this: strip the Bible of everything which is not beyond the reach of doubt. Let the Bible enter into combat with these new thinkers; we have nothing to fear. We cannot agree with him. The Bible must be read and studied with that reverence which is the human counterpart of the spirit in which those revelations were given. When you go to the Bible in a coarse worldly spirit, you miss the spiritual teaching which it was written to supply. Dr. Stanley writes like an honest man; he is no doubt sincere in his convictions; he would strike the via media of theological differences; but in a time like the present, he inclines to the other extreme; he has too much feeling to take a middle view; he stands committed to a party, in spite of his catholic sympathy.

Yet when we have explained his position, we have said the worst. Let us turn now to some of his excellences, as a historian. He is unquestionably a successful author; and this success is not based upon his open ear to heresy. It is a solid

and real success. And he has won nearly all his reputation as

a historical scholar.

One element of this success is the living, active spirit which glows through his pages. He is not buried beneath his books. He wears all his "weight of learning lightly like a flower." He writes with the freedom of a man of the world. Though upon subjects out of the range of ordinary sympathies, his writings are popular. They interest every one. He has brought so much genuine human feeling to his task that we listen to the story with unflagging interest. His writings will always have a certain standard value, because, like Burns, and Burke, and Bacon, he has written upon important subjects with the feelings common to all men. Again, he writes with a full head; he is well informed not only upon his special topics but upon those even remotely relating to them. He writes as if no information were beneath him. And he writes too, if we may say so, without prejudice. Truth to him is truth, whether found with Calvin or Laud. There is nothing narrow in the man. His sympathy with modern doubt is perhaps in part owing to his desire to let the truth shine in upon him from every quarter. And this catholic sympathy is indispensable to a historian of the church.

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However much he may incline to the Broad Church, he does not write in the interest of any party. He writes like the pupil of Arnold and the son of Bishop Stanley. Again, he is a literary artist. Compare his lectures with the lumbered and artless pages of Fleury. In the one there is skill in the arrangement of topics; you have a series of pictures; the narrative is full of life in the other, there is childish diffuseness, an absence alike of varied knowledge and literary skill. Undoubtedly it is easier to write cursively; but he who makes a carefully finished narrative, with every fact in its proper place, with the side-lights of contemporaneous history nicely adjusted, and who infuses his pages with the spirits of a man who is alive to all things going on in his own day, presents a story which will not need to be told again. Lord Macaulay was not a more skilful master of rhetorical effect than Dr. Stanley; but the latter never wearies you with antithesis and glitter; yet we have heard the criticism made that even Dr. Stanley had sometimes, like the late historian, missed the truth to make a point. It is, indeed, the tendency of all those who write for pictorial effect to strain important facts and often give them an imaginative coloring. He is thought also to have specially slandered the character of Arius in the Eastern Church by quoting largely from a prejudiced writer, and to have filled in his character with spurious incidents; but Arius would hardly be known to us personally were it not for Epiphanius; he is simply unfortunate in being known to us through an enemy. No doubt many such charges could be substantiated, had one the leisure to look up the proofs; you can find them in all writers. As specimens of his literary skill we refer to his lectures on the Council of Nicæa, to his contrast of the Bible with the Koran, and to his sketch of Deborah. In point of style he is open to much criticism. He uses too many Latinized words. It is no easy matter to read his writings aloud. He uses these words when plain Saxon would express his meaning quite as well. They mar a style otherwise racy and idiomatic. They turn your mind from the thought to its expression, which in the best writing is never the case. You seldom think in reading Ruskin how easily he is expressing himself, because he uses almost your own language with such inimitable ease but in Stanley you often wish some words were

out of the way; they are stumbling-blocks to the meaning; they hide the sense. He has not the highest ease of expression; his fault might be called scholastic stiffness. This seems strange in one whose writings throb with so much human feeling. This stiffness belongs to all his writings; but we are glad to see some improvement in his Jewish Church.

We have also often paused to mark the spirit of philosophy in which his writings abound, that strong philosophy of common sense which belongs to the best English minds. This is indispensable to the historian of the church. When there is too much, as in the history of Neander, it absorbs the narrative; events do not stand out clearly. Here Dr. Stanley strikes the happy medium between two extremes. He always shows a wise philosophic spirit; yet his observations are interwoven with the story itself; they never overlay events by their number or length. They are suggestive rather than exhaustive, and hence tend to cultivate in the reader the habit of reading thoughtfully. He who has read for days in Fleury or Tillemont, and who has been wearied by the endless succession of events with hardly a single suggestion from the author to relieve monotony, understands what we mean. It is a great relief to turn from such authors to one who, like Dr. Stanley, thinks wisely, as he writes. His introductory lectures on ecclesiastical history have many deep veins of thought which open up the whole subject. They give a student wide views; they make him unprejudiced; they enable him to see his subject in all its bearings. Take some specimens. In speaking of the catacombs he says:

"The barbarous style of the sculptures, the bad spelling, the coarse engraving of the epitaphs, impresses upon us more clearly than any sermon the truth that God chose the weak, and base, and despised things of the world to bring to nought the things which are mighty. He who is thoroughly steeped in the imagery of the catecombs will be nearer to the thoughts of the early church than he who has learned by heart the most elaborate treatise even of Turtullian, or of Origen."

This passage is not profound, yet who shall say that it does not place the catacombs in a new light? Their lesson is clearly and distinctly given. It is such remarks as this that enliven