obligation discharge itself, or the sorrow and agony in the divine mind find relief and end, except in the restoration of even the fallen angels, and Satan himself? If Christ would have lost character by refusing to redeem man, how can he maintain it while refusing to redeem angels?

In all this salvation by obligation, what becomes of salvation by grace? True, it is grace towards us, for we had no claim; but on his part it is only meeting obligation, a debt, a due, to the eternal law of right. He has done that which was his

duty to do.

"Doth he thank that servant, because he did the things that were commanded him? I trow not."

The language and spirit of this volume, as bearing on the attribute of divine justice, require a special reference. We do not think the author is conscious, how strongly repugnant to this attribute his feelings and expressions are. The vehemence, petulance, acrimony, and irony, so commonly manifested toward it, are a blemish marked and bold in the book. The style here reminds one of the workings of the natural heart under conviction, after the commandment has come and sin revived. Eternal justice stands in the way of this new scheme of atonement, and greatly to the discomfort of the author. His varied declamations against it remind us of the remark of Socinus, the great predecessor of Dr. Bushnell in this theory: "If we could but get rid of this justice, even if we had no other proof, that fiction of Christ's satisfaction would be thoroughly exposed, and would vanish." A few of the phrases of our author concerning the attribute will indicate his feelings:

"A God, back of the worlds, whose indignations overtop his mercies, and who will not be satisfied, save as he is appeased by some other, who is in a better and milder feeling." p. 72. "The prior right of justice, that mercy shall not come in, only as she pays a gatc-fee for the right of entrance." p. 276. "I see no honor accruing to God's justice when it mortgages his whole nature besides." p. 288. "The wrath that is to bridle and bestride everlastingly his will and council." p. 381. "Having a good mortgage title to pain or suffering as against an offender, he will never let go the title till he gets the pain, if not from him, then from some other." p. 491. "The blood of slaughter, signifying that God is reconciled only when sin draws blood." p. 543. Christ" is no quantitative matter, like a credit set in a book, or a punishment graduated by satisfaction."

p. 214.

p. 161.

"God's wrath, that could be assuaged only by his blood."

"Is it the truest firmness of justice, that it is itself fast bound by the letter, having no liberty but to exact precisely the pound of flesh, suffering no reduction?" p. 281.

Though some of these expressions are caricatures only of the notions Dr. Bushnell would refute, they indicate a very deep hostility to the governing attribute of the Almighty, as evangelical Christendom has conceived of it, the attribute of justice, "whose seat is the bosom of God, and whose voice is the harmony of the world."

As we run our critique over these pages we feel that we are doing a work that ought not to have been imposed on any defender of the evangelical system. A production so at variance from our standards, and so subversive of the fundamental doctrines of orthodoxy, ought not to have assumed the position and signature of the Calvinistic faith. The volume would have entered on a more honorable career had its title corresponded with its contents, and its Introduction announced its departures. Then its origin would have precluded the necessity of examining and exposing it, as a nominally orthodox book. It is its source, and not its doctrines, that now call for notice; and in the present united working and abundant evangelical labors, providentially imposed on our denomination, it should have been spared the painful toil of saving the untaught from this reviving and clustering of effete heresies, and of assuring other faiths that these things which can not be shaken among us do yet remain. With unfeigned sorrow we turn aside to do the work that the author compels.

But it is time we were done with this book. With all our pointed, and yet we trust candid and kindly criticisms, we find much in it to admire. An excellent duodecimo could be taken out of it. The rare good qualities of the author abound in it, making our regrets more deep for its errors. It is a growth, a development of Dr. Bushnell, and in perfect consistency with his earlier volumes. So far as it treats of the fallen nature of man, and regeneration, the germs are in his Christian Nurture, and all its other leading thoughts are found seminally, in his God in Christ, and his Christ in Theology. We mark no real addition.

We have sometimes called this theory of atonement, or some of the adjustments of other doctrines to it, new and peculiar. New, we mean, to the unread in the history of, doctrine, not to the scholar. There is no new error in theology. Christianity crowded opposing and wandering inventors to their limits centuries ago. New combinations alone are now possible; though old errors may be honestly original with him now adopting them. The misleading paths from the great thoroughfare of evangelical truth have all been distinctly indicated and named by the historians of theological opinions, from the apostles to this day; and so when one branches off at any point, it is no difficult thing to foretell his logical destination. It may be the gentlest curve from the track, but it is a "switch" nevertheless; and as it is a point of absolute departure for the wanderer, so it is of certain prediction to the intelligent beholder.

When those earlier volumes were issued, the departures of Dr. Bushnell from orthodoxy were pointed out, and the logical ends foretold. Men more sympathizing or less discerning called this criticism and warning, persecution and heresy-hunting. The result shows who were the ablest critics and the most faithful watchmen. Yet so it is; some know the thistle by the single, unplanted seed, and others only by the growing acre. The important departures of modern writers from our faith are few and cardinal and ancient. They lead to old sects and schools; and where the paths are so foot-worn, and the inns and ends so certain, it would seem to be but the office of scholarly and Christian kindness to warn the entering wanderer, and the retinue of admiring followers. The case before us will

have, at least, one good result, in exploding the fallacy of so many peace-makers, that it is a difference in words and terms, mainly, that has caused so much doctrinal discussion among us in New England during the last thirty years. Years ago our author diverted his steps, causing alarm, grief and exclamation on the part of many. To such his present issue is more a sorrow than a surprise. We have followed him in our exposition painfully, and close it willingly, finding, by accommodation, singular import in his own confessing and concluding words: "Into what strange places, and how far away, hath our foolish conceit been leading us!"

ARTICLE V.

SIR CHARLES NAPIER.

AMONG the brilliant names to which the English point with pride as illustrative of the greatness of their race, there are few which shine with a brighter lustre, than that which stands at the head of this paper. We have chosen him from among a long list of heroes, as one of the finest types of a true soldier that Great Britain has yet produced, and the sketch which we offer to our readers, shall be, in the language of his brother, Sir William Napier, "the story of a man who never tarnished his reputation by a shameful deed-of one who subdued distant nations by his valor, and then governed them so wisely that English rule was reverenced and loved where before it had been feared and execrated." It will be the story of a man who united to the chivalry and romance of a Bayard, the stern, high sense of duty of a Wellington.

Indeed it would have been strange if he had lived the life of common men. On his mother's side, he was the sixth in descent from Henry IV. of France, and the fourth in descent from Charles II. of England. On his father's side, says Sir William Napier, "he traced his lineage to the great Montrose, and the still greater Napier of Merchiston, the inventor of logarithms. Hence the blood of the white plumed Bearnois commingled with that of the heroic Highlander in his vains, and his arm was not less strong than theirs in battle.” The high reputation won by the celebrated Napier brothers in the present century proves that they were worthy of such illustrious ancestors. They had little reason, however, to feel proud of their descent from Charles II. The grandson of the great mathematician lost his lands fighting for Charles I., and having asked them back at the hands of Charles II. was refused, and died in destitution. "Had the confiscated lands been restored," says Sir William," the Napier inheritance would have been vast; for the lost estate is said to have comprised all the ground covered by the new town of Edinburgh, up to the tower of Merchiston."

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The history of the immediate ancestors of Sir Charles Napier is scarcely less romantic than his own. His maternal grandfather was the second Duke of Richmond, who was married, when a mere youth, to a daughter of Lord Cadogan, then still in the nursery. The parents of the young couple having become involved in a gambling debt, resolved to settle it by a marriage of their children. Lord March was summoned from college and his bride from the nursery, and the marriage performed in spite of his entreaties and protests against being united" to such a dowdy." As soon as the ceremony was over, he hurried away to the Continent with his tutor, resolving never again to meet his wife. He remained abroad for several years, and on his return, in stead of going to his house where his wife awaited him, went to a theatre. There his attention was attracted by a beautiful woman who sat in the box opposite him, and whose loveliness was the theme of every conversation. Upon asking her name, he learned to his astonishment that it was "the dowdy" he had married in his youth. He instantly made himself known to her, and so devoted was the love they afterwards bore each other, that when he died his widow followed him in a year, from a broken heart.

Her daughter, Lady Sarah, the mother of Sir Charles Napier, was one of the most beautiful women of her day. Horace Walpole said of her, "She was a lady of the most blooming beauty, shining with all the graces of unaffected but animated nature." George III. was devotedly attached to her, and in spite of her refusal of his hand at first, persevered until she accepted it. Nothing but the opposition of his mother, whose influence over him was at that time unbounded, prevented his making the lovely lady Sarah Queen of England.

The father of our hero, the Honorable George Napier, was by no means an insignificant person. He was a pupil of Hume, the historian, and served in the American war. He afterwards filled numerous civil positions, none of which were suited to a man of his capacity. His sons regarded him with the deepest veneration. Sir Charles Napier has left the following in his journal concerning his father.