restore, is driven into recklessness. This is the true Christian doctrine of absolution, as expounded by the Apostle Paul, 2 Cor. ii., 7-10. The degrading power of severity, the restoring power of pardon, vested in the Christian community, the voice of the minister being but the voice of them. Now then let us enquire into the Christianity of our Society. Restoration is the essential work of Christianity. The gospel is the declaration of God's sympathy and God's pardon. In these two particulars, then, what is our right to be called a Christian community? Suppose that a man is overtaken in a fault,' what does he, or what should he do? Shall he retain it unacknowledged, and go through life a false man ? God forbid. Shall he then acknowledge it to his brethren that they, by sympathy and merciful caution, may restore him? Well but it is not certain, that it is exactly from those to whom the name of brethren most peculiarly belongs, that he will receive assistance. Can a man in mental doubt go to the members of the same religious communion; or does he not know that they precisely are the ones who will frown upon his doubts, and proclaim his sins? If a woman be overtaken in a fault, will she tell it to a sister woman? Or does she not feel instinctively that her sister woman is ever the most harsh, the most severe, and the most ferocious, Judge ? Well, you sneer at the Confessional; you complain that mistaken ministers of the Church of England are restoring it amongst us. But who are they that are forcing in the Confessional? who drive laden and broken hearts to pour out their long pent up sor rows into any ear that will receive them? I say it is we; we by our uncharitableness, we by our want of sympathy and the unmerciful way in which we break down the bridge behind the penitent, and say, On, on in sin-there is no returning. Finally, the apostle tells us the spirit in which this is to be done, and assigns a motive for the doing it. In the spirit of meekness.' For Satan cannot cast out Satan; sin cannot drive out sin. For instance, my anger cannot drive out another's extravagance. The meekness of Christ alone has power. The charity which desires another's goodness above his well-being, that alone succeeds in the work of restoration. The motive is, 'considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.' For sin is the result of inclination, or weakness, combined with opportunity. It is therefore in a degree the offspring of circumstances. Go to the hulks, the jail, the penitentiary, the penal colony; the statistics will almost mark out for you beforehand, the classes which have furnished the inmates, and the exact proportion of the delinquency of each class. You will not find the wealthy there, nor the noble, nor those guarded by the fences of social life; but the poor and the uneducated, and the frail, and the defenceless. Can you gravely surmise that this regular tabulation depends upon the superior virtue of one class compared with others? Or must you not admit that the majority at least of those who have not fallen are safe because they were not tempted? Well then, when Saint Paul says, 'considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted,' it is as if he had written, Proud Pharisee of a man, complacent in thine integrity, who thankest God that thou art not as other men are, extortioners, unjust;-hast thou gone through the terrible ordeal and come off with unscathed virtue? Or art thou in all these points simply untried? Proud Pharisee of a woman, who passes by an erring sister with a haughty look of conscious superiority; dost thou know what temptation is, with strong feeling and mastering opportunity? shall the richly cut crystal which stands on the table of the wealthy man, protected from the dust and injury, boast that it has escaped the flaws, and the cracks, and the fractures which the earthen jar has sustained, exposed and subjected to rough and general uses? O man or woman! thou that wouldst be a Pharisee, consider, O consider, thyself, lest thou also be tempted.'' - Robertson, Brighton. " GREAT MEN HAVE ALWAYS TENDER FEELINGS. "There is an incident in the life of Edmund Burke, which is familiar to all who cherish his great fame. When in the evening of public life, he lost his only son, then at the age of twenty-one, of the rarest genius and varied accomplishments, the favorite horse of this young man, after the death of his master, was turned into the park and treated with the utmost tenderness. On a certain day, long afterwards, when Mr. Burke himself was walking in the fields, this petted animal came up to the stile, and as if in expression of his mute sympathy, put his head over the shoulder of the bereaved father. Struck with the singularity of the act, and overpowered with the memories which it awakened, he flung his arms around the neck of his horse, and burst into a flood of tears. The incident was observed by one passing by, and gave rise to the rumor, that Mr. Burke had been smitten with insanity. But never did the mind of that great statesman display a manlier quality; and when that sudden tear-flush had subsided into a calmer recollection, had you asked England's philosophical orator for an analysis of that experience, and to give you the balance of sorrows and joys, he would have answered you in the words of England's Laureate, "Better to have loved and lost, Dr. Adams, New York. ART. "All art, worthy the name, is the energy-neither of the human body alone, nor of the human soul alone, but of both united, one guiding the other; good craftsmanship and work of the fingers joined with good emotion and work of the heart. Without mingling of heart-passion with hand-power, no art is possible. Fine art is that in which the hand, the head, and the heart, of man go together."-Ruskin. ORIGINAL SIMILITUDES. JOY IN JESUS CHRIST. This joy is better felt than told. Peter calls it "joy unspeakable." Often, there is grief in the human heart that lies too deep for words; but here is joy that cannot be expressed. To explain what is unspeakable is impossible. Like water filling the depth of its rocky bed, or the capacious arch of its ice cavern, and gushing forth with fulness, freshness, and brilliance that defy description, joy in Jesus Christ abounds within us, and reveals itself, in cheerful looks and happy excitement, [WE hold it to be the duty of an Editor either to give an early notice of the books sent to him for remark, or to return them at once to the Publisher. It is unjust to praise worthless books; it is robbery to retain unnoticed ones.] THE REVIEWER'S CANON. In every work regard the author's end, Since none can compass more than they intend. QUIET HOURS.-New Series; BY JOHN PULSFORD. Edinburgh : T. C. Jack. London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co. To elicit the sense of Divine revelation, to analyze and arrange, where possible, the Scripture doctrines, to shew by aid of psychology their relations to the faculties and the needs of humanity, to illustrate by the craft of imagination, and to incarnate the result in human and universal language, is a task to which few are competent; yet for which, perhaps, fewer still have greater competency than the writer of these remarkable pages. We are inclined to regard him as designed for the foremost rank of the champions of Divine truth. Designed, we say, for he has not yet reached his proper place. While we have small sympathy with the clamor raised against him by men who rest in system, we yet think that, by attempting what he, in common with all men, is incapable of, he fails of that which he is peculiarly fitted to accomplish. He appears to have no clear percep tion of the limits of human thought; and, by reason of frequent attempts to transcend these limits, we often find in this volume words high-sounding and obscure, instead of plain conceptions. Humanity has, of course, to deal much with the metaphysical and the metalogical, and the Bible deals much with them; but this business, in genuine Christian divinity, is to be conducted after a method ever conditioned by the incomprehensible character of the subject, a method purely practical. As in the world, so in religion, our life ever transcends our knowledge; and while practical logic is of service, speculation is obstructive and even deadly. We would once more, with sincere respect, and with affection and earnestness, dehort this gifted writer from the attempt to soar higher or dive deeper than where safely guided by revelation: which, in all its heights and depths, has a moral aim; to wit, distrust of self and reverence for God. HARRY HARTLEY. H. LEA, Warwick Lane, London. ROMANTIC philanthropists! why go abroad in search of heathenism? very door, you shall find a heathenism every whit as bad, and for many reasons worse, than has been detailed by the pen of a Williams, or the tongue of a Moffat. Were a true report of the moral condition of your metropolis to be published and laid before the converts of some of the Islands of the Southern seas, one can imagine, that inspired with compassion for lost souls, they would call a meeting, organize a Missionary Society, and dispatch their emissaries, to convert your London heathen. It is time for the British Church, after it has been circumnavigating the globe in search of heathen, to explore its own moral regions. Books from the pen of men who have "penetrated the interior" of London paganism from time to time, appear amongst us, and give revelations at which we may well turn pale. Harry Hartley is a volume of this class. Harry, who is an English workman, here gives a report of those nether and densely populated districts of London life which he explored and where the majority of his class revel in nameless immoralities. We want this Pagan London brought into day-light; and we should like to see a column of the coming "Dial " devoted to such a purpose. Had we space we would endeavor to give the plan of this deeply interesting and ably written volume. The author is evidently a man of sinewy intellect, lively imagination, powerful heart impulses, and undoubtedly capable of distinguishing himself in the literature of his age. A HOMILY FOR THE YOUNG, ON The Way of the Tempter. "Now there dwelt an old prophet in Bethel; and his sons came and told him all the works that the man of God had done that day in Bethel the words which he had spoken unto the king, them they told also to their father. And their father said unto them, What way went he?" &c.-1 Kings xiii. 11-32. OMEWHERE about one thousand years before Christ, the old Hebrew kingdom was riven into two great divisions. The ten tribes revolted, and organized themselves into an independent power. Jeroboam became their first monarch. He was a man of great native ability, and had risen to considerable influence in the kingdom, prior to the disruption, under the illustrious reign of Solomon. Not having his ambitious views realized, he became inspired with the most malignant hatred towards the kingdom of Judah. From this feeling of opposition, it would seem, he gave himself to the promotion of idolatry in its most hideous forms. He established shrines at Dan and Bethel,-the extremities of the kingdom; where he set up golden calves for the people to worship. To the kingly office he united that of an idolatrous priest, and acted as the great pontiff of the nation. Whilst thus officiating at the altar of Bethel-at the very outset of his idolatrous career, -the great God in mercy sent to him a "prophet from Judah," to warn him of his impiety and to predict his doom. The prophet walks up to the altar, confronts the king as he is officiating, flashes his burning Vol. IX. F |