rather be made to understand the living man as he is, body and soul together, with all his "senses, dimensions, affections, passions," than to be present at the nicest and most graceful dissection of an ideal personage, which "nature's journeyman has made and not herself." And who shall say that they are not wise in their preferences? Who shall say that they are not more competent judges of their own wants, than the mere essayist, who criticises only for the sake of criticism, avoiding all reference to the real sources of human subsistence and enjoyment, lest he shall seem utilitarian; and who speaks of literature, as if in that alone, could be found the end and aim of man's existence. It is a very shallow device for self-gratulation to which such a lecturer resorts, when he charges the want of attention at his recitations, and the obstinate refusal to applaud his studied wit and rhythmical sentences, upon a want of mental cultivation among his hearers. They ask to be instructed in sound practical truths, not amused by prettiness of speech, or the forced conceits of cloister criticism. Men, whose daily music is the clanging of the hammer and the groan of the engine, or who have been accustomed from boyhood, in the open country, to the sound of winds and waters, to the thunders of the storm, and the more awful silence of the cloudless night, are not to be pronounced dull of hearing, if they refuse to give attention to any thing else, than the good old Saxon of their mother tongue, the strong, iron bound vehicle of just and practical thought, which can be doubly loaded with its appropriate burden and not break down. When the lecturer addresses them in that language, they know in the outset that he has something to say. They know that his words will not serve him in the endeavor to conceal thought or the want of it. They know too, that when men use such language, they must speak of things that belong to the realities and necessities of human life.

In order then that popular lectures may actually secure to the community at large any considerable portion of the good that was once anticipated from them, and may consequently be sustained with a corresponding interest and liberality; lecturers must be employed who can give a good answer for themselves when they are asked, "What can you teach us?" It is instruction that our people want on such occasions, not an hour's rehersal of truisins and paradoxes; not high wrought eulogiums upon authors that are never read, or minute analyses of characters that never existed. They wish to learn truths which are sufficiently ponderable to be weighed in the balance of their own judgments; which may be tested by their own observation, and confirmed by their own study; and which may be turned to practical account in the various exigencies of daily life. And there is no want of subjects, from which such truths can be drawn, and so presented,

as to be perfectly understood and appreciated by any audience convened as a New England Lyceum. The whole domain of the physical sciences, embracing within the compass of its investigations, all objects, all agencies, all laws, existing or acting, in "the heavens above, the earth beneath, and the waters under the earth" the countless orders of animal and vegetable life, spread through every zone-all the elements of the material world, from the mightiest and most mysterious, down to the "dull clod which the rude swain turns with his share and treads upon"-all the multiplied, and constantly developing methods of bringing those original sources of exhaustless power and productiveness into subjection to man's convenience and advantage-all that is known, and all discoveries that may be made, in reference to the physical conformation, productions, climate, inhabitants, manners, customs, history, of any portion of the earth's surface-every step of progress in the useful arts, every chemical combination, every new application of the mechanic powers for the purpose of increasing and perfecting the amount of useful production-all reasonings and investigations, which bring to view the imperfections and necessities, together with the means of remedying the evils, of the social state-all judicious modes of bringing professional knowledge within the reach of all, stripped of unnecessary technicalities, clothed in the clear, intelligible language of everyday life, showing the relation of the citizen to the state, and to his fellow citizen; making man acquainted with his own constitution, dissipating the numberless errors and superstitions in respect to the means of preserving life, and recovering from disease; explaining natural phenomena as well as mental laws and obligations-every fact, principle or argument which shall make man understand what he is, and by what means he can most surely attain the end of his existence here and hereafter-all these and all other subjects like them can be made plain, comprehensible, and instructive to any audience; and they certainly lay open a field so wide and fertile that though he, who aspires to bring its riches within the reach of all, concentrates all his efforts and abilities upon it, he can not exhaust his theme, and need not tire his hearers. And whenever popular lecturers are willing to go through with the study necessary to prepare themselves to write and speak appropriately upon such subjects, and whenever Lyceum committees are resolved to employ only such as are thus prepared; then lecturers and committees will no longer have occasion to condole with each other over the want, on the part of the public, of a disposition to sustain, or an ability to appreciate, their efforts in the work of general instruction.

W.D. Budington

ART. III.-CHALMERS ON THE INDUCTIVE METHOD IN THEOLOGY, AND THE NATURE OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE.

Institutes of Theology. By the late THOMAS CHALMERS, D.D., LL.D. In two volumes. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1849.

CHALMERS is a name of power and attraction on both sides of the Atlantic, and in all Protestant communions. He belongs, not to Presbyterians, but to Christians of every name; not to Scotland, but wherever the English language is spoken, and sacred eloquence is valued. He was a man and a Christian; he had breadth of understanding and catholicity of feeling enough to identify himself with the interests of humanity rather than of a party or a sect, and his life was devoted to the illustration and enforcement of our common Christianity. He has originated no school of theology, nor is he claimed as the exponent of any. Leaders of conflicting parties, champions of the old school and of the new, unite to do him homage; for they severally find in his writings a recognition of the very doctrines which kindle their separate fires. He was neither an argus-eyed conservative, nor a flaming herald of progress; and yet conservatives trusted him, and progressives quoted, if they did not claim him. And when we take into consideration the times in which Dr. Chalmers lived, so fruitful of novel theories and angry controversies in both religion and politics, and especially when we call to mind that memorable struggle, which issued in the exodus of the Free Church of Scotland, and in which he acted as a leader and a master-spirit, it is surely a remarkable fact that he enjoyed to so large an extent the respect and confidence of opposite parties; and it must be held to be a tribute not only to his greatness as a man, but also to the moderation and soundness of his views, and the purity and consistency of his character. Now that he has passed from among us, we can see that he enjoyed a posthumous fame while living. The interest with which his works are received, the eagerness with which his biography is read, and the veneration felt for his memory, are but the continued growth of the love and admiration. with which he was regarded in the midst of his intellectual and Christian activities.

If now we were asked what gave to Chalmers his peculiar and acknowledged power, we should be disposed to reply that the secret lay in his strong common sense, in union with great powers of analysis and a lofty imagination. He was an earnest and practical man, and he grew to be an eloquent preacher, a brilliant writer, and a profound thinker; but in all and equally he was

eahest and practical. His history is illustrative of this-it is altogether a natural one. He was both a preacher and a theologian; but a preacher first. Beginning with a direct application of the Gospel to the wants of men, as he found them in their actual circumstances, and in the various walks of life, he proceeded onward and upward to those high and tasking problems, which grow out of the condition and destinies of men; and upon their solution, he expended the whole force of his earnest nature and disciplined intellect. We believe that he approached these questions by the right avenues, and in the right spirit, and consequently that he has been preeminently successful in his investigations and results. He did not commence in the schools, amid the factitious difficulties of an artificial life; but he left off in the schools. Or rather, carrying with him the facts and lessons of experience, he filled the lecture-room and his study with the vital air of daily life. They were to him shady and refreshing bowers by the road-side, not hermitages on the mountain, away from the hum and haunts of men. To us it seems the most prominent and also the most beautiful trait in the life of Chalmers, that his profoundest studies were expended upon the practical concerns of meu, and that the loftiest flights of his genius were sustained by the aspiration of Christian benevolence. He lived and had his being amid the wants of men, and the remedies of the Gospel. No questions interested him so much, upon none did he task himself so willingly, as those which related to the application of Christianity to the masses. The stroke of his wing was strongest and boldest, and his sweep the most majestic, when he started from the scenes of actual life, and soared to mid-heaven, that he might obtain wider views and fresh inspiration for the objects of his

And what was true of Chalmers, we think, was strikingly true of the late Thomas Arnold and John Foster,-men who may stand as representatives of our times, each exhibiting the spirit of the age truly, and yet differently; both united to humanity by ties of intensest sympathy; both earnest believers in Christianity, but one giving expression to a hopeful and liberal spirit, the other to mingled skepticism and fear. We claim it to be the distinguishing character and honor of our generation, that genius and learning, not less than Christian benevolence, are chiefly busy in the habitations of men and around the walks of daily life; that the greatest men, as well as the best, find their themes of study, and their sources of inspiration, in the wants of mankind, and the remedies provided by God. Neither poetry nor science are what they once were, as to their subjects or their spirit. It is now safe to believe that Wordsworth has propounded and acted upon the true theory of poetry, in making the characters, events and scenes of ordinary life, the fittest materials for the imagination to work upon; and we hold it as actually demonstrated, that

modern science has discovered the only true method of scientific investigation, by making facts the basis of deductions. Just so with theology and the theologians. Their proper field lies around the hearts of men,-their homes and their altars. There is as little of dignity as of truth, in that theology, whose first and surest doctrines are other than the most practical and necessary; and we accord no greatness to that theologian, who does not find his deepest studies growing ever out of the actual condition of men, and whose system is not primarily and chiefly an application of Christ's Gospel, on the broad scale, to the regeneration of human character, and the reconstruction of human society.

The above remarks we have designed simply as an introduction to what we have to offer upon The Institutes of Theology, which constitute the 7th and 8th volumes of the Posthumous Works of Chalmers, issued under the editorial supervision of his son-in-law, Dr. Hanna, and republished in this country by the Harpers. This work is a digest of the lectures delivered by Dr. Chalmers before the theological classes of the University of Edinburgh. On the labor of recasting these lectures into the form of Institutes, he was engaged at the time of his death; the work was left incomplete, and the editor has appended in their original shape the lectures, which their lamented author had not time to transform according to his intention. We do not intend at present to consider the details, or even the general features, of Chalmers's theological system; our object is merely to make some observations upon his method, as presented in his introduction, and as it bears particularly upon the nature of Christian doctrine, and systematic theology.

We learn from the introduction, that in his course of lectures, as first delivered, Dr. Chalmers began with Natural Theology, and the Evidences of Christianity, and next in order entered upon the subject of the character and constitution of the Godhead. When, however, he had gone through with his discussion of the Trinity, he became thoroughly convinced that this order of topics, although generally adopted by systematic theologians, was unphilosophical, and productive of mischievous consequences; and he consequently changed it for another and a more natural method. So deep were his convictions on this subject, and so important did he esteem it, that he prepared a lecture at that time and gave it to his class, on the right order of a theological course. This lecture Dr. Hanna has judiciously published as an introduction to the whole work. In it Dr. Chalmers with characteristic clearness and force sets forth the two methods in which theology may be studied and presented. The first, the common and most ancient one, begins with God-his being, and character, and the constitution of his person-and proceeds in the order of a high chro