this spirit only, with this generous intention alone, that it is lawful for us to examine into the probable consequences of its accomplishment. We take indiscriminately the believer and the unbeliever, and we attach to their respective professions of faith and of unbelief two opposite results. Is such profession without its perils? Then who can absolve from it, seeing that it involves no sacrifice, and is a duty? Is it dangerous? Does it expose to the loss of some advantage, to opprobrium, to persecution? Then duty becomes virtue; then duty is felt to be duty; if it be not binding under these circumstances, it never is so. And it is then also that duty bears its fruits, then that it is useful, then that it exemplifies the dignity of human nature and the pre-eminence of the mind over the body, of eternity over time. Such professions, whatever may be their object and their substance, do honour to the immortal and Divine principle within us; they tell against the traditions of materialism; they preserve those of our holy origin; they protest vigorously against the tendencies of those debasing doctrines which would resolve human existence into a handful of dust at the bottom of a coffin, and sum up man's destiny in the grave;they tend to ennoble the present, and to throw light upon the future.

"We have not said too much; for every thing depends upon this. He who respects and honours not the truth which is within him, is destitute of morals; he who disowns it before men, inwardly despises it. If this fundamental truth be trampled under foot, what will become of the rest? What will become of all our principles, of all our duties, which have no better security? Let us not be misunderstood: wherever dissimulation on the subject of religion has become the rule, although it may not in every instance immediately occasion the entire falling away of the whole moral man, it insensibly produces in the mass of society a vast moral decay, the just retribution for the abandonment of a first principle. Sincerity and candour in the profession of religious belief are pledges of the moral health of the community; so long as profession is honoured, all moral convictions are in safety; but with the dissimulation of religious opinion, come, in rapid succession, doctrinal and practical indifference, a preference given to the expedient over the right, and in the end the complete subversion of morality."-pp. 81-83.

Having very elaborately illustrated and improved the duty of giving publicity to our views of truth, as a duty to truth itself, to our neighbours, and to God, the essayist proceeds to show that this duty is opposed by the very existence of national religious establishments. The principle on which the argument proceeds, and indeed an epitome of the argument itself, is thus given :

"No one assuredly will pretend to say, that the duty of the individual being to declare his faith, the duty of society can possibly be to prohibit such declaration. To maintain such a position we must infer, that society and the individual were not conceived by the same mind, nor with the same design; that society and the individual are two distinct creations, totally destitute of mutual relations, whom a ridiculous chance has forced to dwell together; and that God, not being the author of one of the two, must of necessity be the author of neither, since his wisdom would certainly have suited society to the individual, and the individual to society. But such a thought would be impious. Let us then set out with the contrary supposition, and let us say, that right cannot be opposed to right, duty to duty, necessity to necessity; and that, if it be the duty of the individual to profess his faith, it must be the duty of society to respect that profession. The one truth implies the other. When we shall have demonstrated that the duty of society is to repress all personal belief, and even to impose its own, we shall not be asked to prove further, that the

duty of the individual is to conceal his religion, or to accept one ready-made from the hands of power; this would have been sufficiently shown. Let it be granted to us then, in the present case, that our first demonstration renders the second superfluous."-pp. 170-1.

In following out these ideas, the writer proceeds to show that the interference of the state in matters of religion, implies the absurd notion that the state possesses a religion, and that consequently the individual in sound logic cannot possess one. In pursuing his course, he grapples with the popular as well as the more recondite arguments directed against the voluntary principle; and how well he answers them, our readers may imagine from the specimen we subjoin, and with which, for want of further space, we must conclude; at the same time commending the volume to the careful study it deserves :

"Should we be asked: 'What do you desire that religion should become without state support?' we merely reply: Let her become what she can; let her become what she ought to become; let her live, if she have the principle of life within her; let her die, if it must be so sit ut est, aut non sit. She has come into the world, for the purpose of proving that spirit is stronger than matter, strong without matter, strong against matter; we must not hinder her from proving this. If she cannot exist of herself, she is not the truth; if she can live only by artifice, she is herself nothing but an artifice; but if she be of God, it has been given to her, as it was to Jesus Christ, to have life in herself.' She must demonstrate this; this is her first mandate, this the indispensable seal of her divinity; and its evidence, like its dignity, has every thing to lose in the minds of men, from a system which always allows it to be a matter of doubt, whether it be indebted to itself for what vitality it possesses, or whether it owes it to the assistance of the public power.

"To this test it must always be ready to submit; if it were not always ready, it would not be of God; but we perfectly understand, that after it has been for a long time incorporated with the state, a trial like this would be resisted, whose conditions would not then appear the same as at the commencement. But if this resistance goes to the extent of believing, that the very existence of religion is menaced by the separation; what an avowal is this! what an idea must be entertained of a religion, which has no root in the human mind, no innate strength, but which must fall, as soon as it is abandoned by the state! Ah! as this is the case, the more resolutely this test may be opposed, the more imperatively shall we insist upon it. It is necessary that it should be known what this religion is; whether it have, or have not, any foundation; it is necessary that it should be known what these believers are; whether they believe in God, or whether they believe in the state; it is necessary that they should know it themselves; it is necessary that without any other predilection than that for the truth, apart from the threats and allurements of power, it is necessary that they should examine themselves, in order to ascertain whether that, which even to this day they call their religion, be a want or a custom, a conviction or a prejudice; it is necessary that they should reconstruct their religion, under these favourable auspices, under these serious impressions. There will be, say they, some defections; this is as they would have it understood; we ourselves think, that those who really believe, will never cease to believe, and that those who do not believe, will have nothing to abjure; and when they tell us, This is all very well for the living, but what will you do with the dead? The dead!-we will tell them to live; they will never find a more favourable opportunity. It is especially for the

interests of the dead, that we call for this test.

However this may be, God desires a willing people; let this willingness display itself; if you believe, you ought to desire this; you ought, then, to desire that every thing which takes the place of a willing mind, should disappear, that interest, prejudice, authority, should give way, and that the truth should remain alone."-pp. 301-3.

Rome as it was under Paganism, and as it became under the Popes. 2 vols. 8vo. London: Madden & Co. 1843.

THE title is taking. "Rome,"-what a mystic grandeur there is about that word! What a field does its history furnish for the contemplation of the most imaginative mind, what a problem its rise and fall, for the solution of the profoundest understanding! Surely then, thought we, a book which describes its glory and its gloom, which gives its heathenish and its christian story, must be a book of deep and mellow interest. Or, if the object be not merely historical or philosophical, but religious, if its design be to show how much pagan and popish Rome differ, or rather how much they agree, it must teach us solemn lessons, and do good service to the cause of "pure religion" and social progress. What is popery but in great part, a modification and extension of pagan ideas and rites? As Middleton observes in the conclusion of his celebrated "Letter from Rome, showing an exact conformity between Popery and Paganism :"-"The facts already produced, sufficiently prove, that it is no mistake to affirm, that the catholic borrowed from the heathen; or that pagan ceremonies were introduced into the church, while there were strong prejudices subsisting in favour of them, which, from these beginnings, have been operating in it ever since with more or less effect, in proportion to the decay of its discipline, and the corruption of its rulers, till they have perfected that form and system of worship, which we now distinguish by the name of popery. From this view then of the question, as it is now placed in its true light, it appears impossible, in any sense whatsoever, that the papists could be originals in their use of those ceremonies. From the first promulgation of the gospel, as all history informs us, there was a perpetual contest between the pagan and christian rites, through a long succession of ages; in which the pagan rites were forcibly imposed upon the Christians by the pagan emperors; rejected again in their turn by the christian emperors; and all of them distinctly marked out and described, at different times, by the imperial laws; so as the Christians in all ages might clearly know and avoid them. For example, the laws of Theodosius, as I have already observed, forbade all people, under severe penalties, to light up candles, burn incense, or hang up garlands to senseless images. Now these laws, from the time of their publication, have been in the constant possession of the Romish church;

perpetually read, commented, and published by their clergy; so that, when the particular rites, therein prohibited, were introduced into the christian worship, in what age soever we should suppose it to have happened, the introducers could not be ignorant of their being pagan rites, and consequently could not be originals or inventors; but, as I have affirmed in my letter, the mere borrowers of them from their pagan ancestors."* Entertaining the views expressed in this passage, what was our surprise and disappointment to find the work before us nothing more than an historical defence and commendation of popery, not veiled at all, but real proper Romanism! The spirit of the whole is well expressed in the preface :—

"If it be asked who is the hero, or can there be one, seeing that the action extends over the lifetime not of an individual, but of an empire? the story may be said to have a hero in St. Peter. He is as vividly present, speaking still historically, in the last as in the first act; as influential in the resurrection of the empire of the West, in the baptism of modern Europe, when Charlemagne was proclaimed emperor before his shrine, as he is represented to have been when he entered the palace of Lateranus, or raised the son of the patrician from the dead; is as sensibly recognised in the interview of Leo and Attila, in the correspondence of Pope Stephen and King Pepin, as he is supposed to have been when he crossed the Roman Forum with the senator Pudens, or stood on the Tarpeian tower, admiring the imperial city, and disputing with Seneca, Lucan, Petus Thrasea, and the other leading men of the time, concerning its future destinies."

This is a clue to all. Our readers may easily imagine the rest. Of course Peter's residence and preaching at Rome "it is not possible to deny," though the New Testament is silent as the grave about it, though no reference to it occurs in the letter Paul wrote to Rome, mentioning nevertheless, many other and far inferior names, nor in any of the letters Paul wrote from Rome; and history gives a very "uncertain sound." Of course Peter's supremacy over the other apostles is the plainest possible matter, however insufficient the words supposed to affirm it are for that purpose, however inconsistent it is with many occurrences and facts of apostolical history-of course he became bishop of Rome, whatever incompatibility there was between the universal apostolical office and the local episcopal office, though it would be as improper to call an apostle a bishop, "as it would be to call a king of England a mayor of London." Of course he had unlimited catholic dominion, and not only he, but all his successors likewise, "all the bishops of the world being bound to be in communion with the popes of the catacombs," whatever the want of any scripture reference to a succession

* We would recommend the "Letter," &c., from which we have made the above extract. It is one of the best exposures of popery in existence. If no cheap reprist of it has been published, (of which we are not aware,) it is high time there should be one.

of popes, even if Peter were proved to be one, and whatever the resistance to the assumption before it was generally recognised and submitted to. These things are all, of course, indubitable facts, simple matters of plain interpretation and obvious history, though we will be bold to affirm that if such a series of gratuitous assumptions as these opinions involve, which are the essential basis of all the claims of Rome, had been made by a few heretics instead of the so-called catholic, but really and only Roman church, they would have been spurned as men incompetent to form a judgment upon things historical and critical.

The work before us, is for the most part made up of extracts. All kinds of authors are made to contribute something. Authors profane and religious, historical and theological, ancient and modern, poetical and prosaic; all yield something to the statements or proofs or adornments of the book. There is but little of the author's or rather compiler's own. That little shows him to be a man of vivid fancy and considerable powers of description. He has one qualification for such a composition—a most intense faith, alias credulity. He believes like a Roman. Nothing comes amiss to him in connexion with the church. Had the countryman's story of Jonah swallowing the whale been true, it would have been nothing to this man's capacity of credence. It is on a scale worthy of the magnificence of the "eternal city." The only test he seems to know of truth is its direction towards popery; and as full many things have that direction, in full many things he sees the evidence of truth. Popery is with him a veritable Midas, it turns whatsoever it touches into gold, (do not imagine, gentle reader, that word has any carnal slyness in it.) "Whatsoever touches that altar is holy."

Perhaps we wrong him. He owns to "some slight imaginative embellishments;" he explains that "the materials of all this have been arranged and cast together under the auspices of imagination!" This makes the reader's task difficult. To separate the chaff from the wheat, the real facts of history from the prolific creations of the author's own fancy, is a very hard and delicate employment. The orthodox faith respecting pagan Rome now is, that its early history is all fabulous, that the witchery and romance of its origin and rise are all moonshine, that the stories that used to delight our boyhood, bringing without a figure often heaven and earth together, though found in histories, are scraps and myths, without certainty and evidence, having passed through many refracting and magnifying media. This is the growing opinion of much that used to be received as plain matters of fact about Rome the empire. We are heretical enough to believe that it is very near the truth about Rome the church. We would undertake to match any amount of the secular fables with fables ecclesiastical. There is nothing in the stories of Mars and Rhea Silvia, Romulus and Remus, Faustulus and Acca Laurentia, the wolf and the vultures, which is not fully