7. PHILOSOPHY OF THE PLAN OF SALVATION. By an American Citizen. With an Introduction, by Calvin E. Stowe, D. D. Boston: Gould, Kendall & Co. Cincinnati: G. L. Weed. FEW theological works of modern times have excited more attention, or been more extensively read than this. As a short, original, understandable, and vigorous treatise on the subject, written by one who was not hampered by a false philosophy, and who had no favorite theological scheme or school of his own to sustain, it has scarcely its equal. It is written with great power. Its philosophy is that of the Bible. Its teaching is in the main, we think, correct, and highly important. We are glad to know that it is so extensively appreciated. The present is the eighth edition: it was first published in 1841. We have before fully expressed our views of it. No intelligent man can neglect to read it, without injustice to himself. 8. THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LEIGH HUNT: with Reminiscences of Friends and Contemporaries. In two volumes. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1850. CONSIDERABLE interest has been awakened in regard to this work, in advance of its publication, not only on account of the known characteristics of Hunt's mind and genius, but also because of his relations to many of the distinguished literary men of the past generation. Our own impression is, that it falls considerably short of meeting the expectation which had been raised in certain quarters in reference to it. It has an interest, certainly, but not of the highest kind. It is immeasurably inferior, in many respects, to the volumes on Campbell. Leigh Hunt is certainly a man of genius, and of great versatility of power and gifts, and possesses many charming traits of style, thinking, and character. But his weaknesses, according to his own showing, are many and excessive; he has no elevation of moral sentiment, or sympathy with moral and religions truth. His vanity is nauseating; his personal antipathies are inveterate; his blunders have been serious and numerous. He tells the story of his life without any reserve, and with great apparent candor and fidelity; and discusses the merits and faults of his friends and contemporaries" with great freedom. His life has been anything but a happy, serene, and prosperous one; and the insight he gives us into the lives of many distinguished literary men of his times, presents a sad and humiliating illustration of human nature. The religious views of Mr. Hunt, he has taken no pains to conceal, and they are of the loosest and most erroneous cast. Of the Scriptures he appears to be perfectly ignorant. And we should infer from his crude sayings, that he had never spent an hour in his life in the sober exercise of his reasoning and reflective powers on the subject of Christianity; and yet, as Carlyle would say. he has a gospel to preach; a Jesus to reveal to mankind; an ideal faith to avow, to which the world must be converted or be damned. And he sums up, on this point, after the fashion of Carlyle, and our own Parker and Emerson, in the following language: "It seems clear to me, from all which is occurring in Europe at this moment, from the signs in the papal church, in our own church, in the universal talk and minds of men, whether for it or against it, that the knell of the letter of Christianity has struck, and that it is time for us to inaugurate and enthrone the spirit. * * Such, and such only, are the texts (texts that speak only of love) upon which sermons will be preached, to the exclusion of whatsoever is infernal (which he calls the doctrine of future punishment,) and unintelligible. No hell. No unfatherliness. No monstrous exactions of assent to the incredible. No impious Athanasian creed. No creed of any kind, but such as proves its divineness by the wish of all good hearts to believe it if they might, and by the encouragement that would be given them to believe it, in the acclamations of the earth. The world has out-grown the terrors of its childhood; and no spurious mistake of a saturnine spleen for a masculine ne cessity will induce a return to them. Mankind have become too intelligent; too brave; too impatient of being cheated, and threatened, and put off; too hungry and thirsty for a better state of things in the beautiful planet in which they live, and the beauty of which has been an unceasing exhortation and preface to the result. By that divine doctrine will all men gradually come to know in how many quarters the Divine Spirit has appeared among them, and what sufficing lessons for their guidance they have possessed in almost every creed, when the true portions of it shall hail one another from nation to nation, and the mixture of error through which it worked has become unnecessary. For God is not honored by supposing him a niggard of his bounty. Jesus himself was not divine because he was Jesus, but because he had a divine and loving heart; and wherever such greatness has appeared, there has divineness appeared also, as surely as the same sunshine of heaven is on the mountain-tops of east and west." For the benefit of Americans we give a specimen of a different character, which is not only characteristic of the Author's extreme vanity, but expressive also of his amiable feelings towards us, and his appreciation of our national character: 66 How many poems of mine, or editions of poems, or prose writings, have appeared in America, I cannot say; but I believe the booksellers there have republished everything which I have written; and I confess I cannot but be sensible of the shabby honor thus done me, and heartily glad of every genial hand into which my productions may be carried in consequence; but I should like to know what an American publisher would say if some English traveler were to help himself to the fruits of his labor out of the till, and make off with it on board ship. Being a cousin-germane of the Americans, I am very popular in their country, and receive from them every compliment imaginable, except a farthing's payment. How came my mother to be born in such a country? * I hold in due favor their Bryants, their Emersons, their Lowells, and their ambassadors. But I wish I could get rid of the impression which I have before mentioned, to wit: that one great shop-counter extends all down their coast from Massachusetts to Mexico. two among them, and thus learn that there is something else in the world Why do they not get a royal court or besides huffing and money-getting? To be slaveholding in the south, paymentshirking in the north, and arrogant everywhere, is not to go ahead of the nations, but to fall back into the times of colonial Dutchmen." * * 9. FIVE YEARS OF A HUNTER'S LIFE IN THE FAR INTERIOR OF SOUTH AFRICA. By R. GORDING CUMMING, ESQ. With illustrations. Two volumes. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1850. THESE Volumes have no lack as to the exciting and the marvelous. They are the adventures of a "fierce and blood-thirsty Nimrod," in hunting the lion, elephant, rhinoceros, giraffe, hippopotamus, and the like, in the wilds of South Africa. The man must have a strange taste who could exchange the Highlands of Scotland, and the charms of civilized society, for the perils and hardships of an African forest, and the society of the wild men and wilder beasts of prey that prowl in their native haunts, and who could seem to find the highest of earthly happiness in the indulgence of the most daring and destructive propensities. The adventures are exciting, novel, and wild to the highest degree. The volumes have a value, too, as giving much information relating to the natural history of the southern portion of that little known continent. 10. DARIUS THE GREAT. BY JACOB ABBOTт. With illustrations. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1850. ANOTHER Volume of Abbott's historical series, pleasingly written, beautifully illustrated, and in a style of real elegance, corresponding with the previous numbers. We have often commended these Histories, and do again, as eminently adapted to instruct the younger class of minds in this important branch of learning. The style is pleasing; the subjects are well chosen; and a great deal of historical information is condensed into a small compass. 11. THEOPNEUSTY, OR THE PLENARY INSPIRATION OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. By S. R. L. GAUSSEN. Translated by Edward Norris Kirk. Fourth American, from the second French edition. New York: John S. Taylor. 1850. THE theory of inspiration advocated in this work by Prof. Gaussen, is already so well known that it is unnecessary to speak particularly of its peculiarities and excellences. It takes high ground on the whole subject of inspiration, and maintains it with an array and force of argument which we have not yet seen destroyed. There are orthodox ministers and writers, not a few, who think its views are extreme; but it is better infinitely to err on the rigid side, than to adopt the latitudinarian views which are so prevalent in the old world, and which we fear are making headway in our own country. But, for ourselves, we do not think its views are extreme; we believe they are true and scriptural, and the only consistent and safe views which can be held on this important subject. We are glad to see a new edition of this valuable work. It has been carefully revised and enlarged by the author. It treats of a fundamental subject. It discusses it with great ability and force. The subject and discussion are eminently timely, and worthy the profound attention of all who reverence and receive the Scriptures as the inspired testimony of God. Great laxity of views on the subject prevails with many; we are in no little danger from this source. We cannot be too watchful and vigilant here. And we know, on the whole, of no work so well adapted to meet and expose the prevalent false philosophy and rationalistic views on the subject, as the book before us. 12. THE LIFE OF LUTHER; with special reference to its Earlier Periods and the Opening Scenes of the Reformation. By BARNAS SEARS, D. D. 12mo. Pp. 528. American Sunday-School Union. LUTHER has fallen into much better hands than Calvin in the preparation of a new biography. Dr. Sears was the man to give a standard work in English, on the great Reformer of Germany. He possessed himself of all the materials needed to furnish a full and faithful life of him, and he has used them with discrimination, skill, and judgment. Those the most competent to judge, pronounce this by far the best life of Luther accessible to the English student. It is written in a popular and pleasing style, and the Society have put it into a beautiful and substantial form. 13. A BIBLE TRINITY. BY THEOPHILUS. 12mo. Pp. 332. Hartford: Edwin Hunt. 1850. WE are sorry that the venerable Author should have wasted so much time and money on so crude and worthless a book. It is altogether beyond our criticism. The Author has sought to present the doctrine of the Trinity as he thinks he finds it in the Bible, regardless of all theories and creeds. And he may have given "a Bible Trinity" view of the great subject, but he has failed totally to give the "Bible Trinity" doctrine as held by orthodox men. The volume is inscribed to "all who love divine truth more than the dogmas of the schools; who receive the Holy Scriptures as a sufficient rule of faith and practice, and bow to the authority of no other creed; and who, thinking for themselves, allow all others to enjoy that sacred birthright, unmolested by bigotry, superstition, antiquated error, or arrogant power." Hence, the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds are "superannuated fictions," "monstosities;" and such orthodox views of the Trinity as were given in the Bib. Repository, by Dr. Edward Beecher, Oct. 1849, are denominated" speculations the most daring, presumptious, audacious, and benighted." The views of the auther, we think, will find little favor in any quarter; they are not likely to originate another "Bushnell controversy," or school of theologians. We felicitate the author in the matter of the only wise thing we see in the book-its fictitious fraternity. |