We have fallen upon better days. The high debate which is now engaging the attention of Christendom is conducted, for the most part, on both sides, with distinguished courtesy. Not that the question at issue is, or is felt to be, any less vital than former ones. The aim of modern free-inquiry is to remove religious life from the dogmatic basis, upon which, in Christian lands, it has hitherto stood. Denying the existence, and sometimes the possibility, of a supernatural revelation, now admitting, now doubting, and now rejecting the personal immortality of the soul, our freethinkers profess a high regard for the religious culture of the race. They would found a new scientific faith, and make spiritual life an outgrowth of the soul's devout sensibilities. The soul is to draw its nutriment from Nature, science, and all inspired books; so that, if preaching is as fashionable in the new dispensation as under the old, the future saints will be in as bad a plight as, according to eminent theological authority, were those of a late celebrated divine:—
"His hearers can't tell you on Sunday beforehand,
If in that day's discourse they'll be Bibled or Koraned."
But is such a religion possible? M. Guizot thinks not, and comes forward in full philosophical dignity to repel recent assaults upon supernatural religion. The chief gravity of these attacks has doubtless consisted in exegetical and historic criticism. M. Guizot deems these matters of minor consequence, and believes that the most important thing is to settle certain fundamental metaphysical questions, and correct prevalent erroneous ideas respecting the purpose of revelation. His book consists of eight Meditations: Upon Natural Problems,—Christian Dogmas,—The Supernatural,—The Limits of Science,—Revelation,—Inspiration of the Scriptures,—God according to the Bible,—Jesus according to the Gospel. These themes are presented so skilfully as to attract the interest of the careless, while challenging the fixed attention of the trained thinker. The reader will find himself lured on, by the freshness of the author's method of handling, into the very heart of these profound and difficult questions. He will be charmed to find them treated with calm penetration and outspoken frankness. No late writer has displayed a better comprehension of all phases of and parties to the controversy. There is a singular absence of controversial tone, a marvellous lucidity of statement, and a visible honesty of intention, as refreshing as they are rare,—while a spirit of warm and tender devotion steals in through the argumentation, like the odor of unseen flowers through a giant and tangled wood. Yet there is no want of fidelity to personal convictions, no effort by cunning shifts to bring about an apparent reconciliation of opponents which the writer knows will not endure. With a firm hand he touches the errors of contending schools of interpreters, and demands their abandonment. To Rationalist and Hyper-Inspirationist in their strife he says, like another Moses, "Why smitest thou thy fellow?"
Those who have watched carefully the tendencies of these parties for many years must sometimes have grown despondent. The progressive school has claimed with unscientific haste the adoption, as a fundamental principle of Biblical interpretation, of the negation of the supernatural. Their argument is simply, that human experience disproves the supernatural. Man, a recent comer upon the globe, who has never kept a very accurate record of his experience, who comes forth from mystery for a few days of troubled life, and then vanishes in darkness,—he in his short stay upon earth has watched the play of its laws, which were before him and will remain after him, and has learned without any revelation that God never has changed, never will, never can change or suspend them! Who shall assure us that our experience of these laws does not differ from that of Peter and John, the Apostles? How much better to say of them with Hume, Whatever the fact, we cannot believe it, or to query with Montaigne, Que sais-je? Far better might we say that human experience can never overthrow faith in the supernatural, for none can ever say what has been the experience of the countless dead over whom oblivion broods. Shall a few savans say, Our experience outweighs the experience of the Hebrews plus one hundred generations of dead Gentiles plus one universal instinct of humanity? Credat M. Littré, non ὁι πολλοι, M. Guizot, vel Agassiz. But the laws of Nature are uncha——Ah! that is the very point in dispute. Why can they not alter? Because they are invari——Tut! Well, then, b-e-c-a-u-s-e——When you find a good argument, put it into that blank. Till then, adieu.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Those who claim a plenary verbal inspiration as essential to a real revelation are, according to M. Guizot, equally remote from a truly scientific spirit. Errors in rhetoric and grammar, passages where the writers speak of astronomical and geological matters in consonance with the prevailing, but, in many cases, mistaken theories of their times, being pointed out in the Bible, these cry out, "There can be no real errors in an inspired book,"—and we are at once amazed and disgusted to hear men deny the reality of things which they can but perceive, quite as sturdily as the Port-Royalists refused to allow the presence of sundry propositions in their books, which, notwithstanding the Pope's infallible assertion, they had no recollection of thinking or writing, which they supposed they had always hated and disavowed, and which they could by no ingenuity of search discover. Sir Thomas Browne might enjoy, could he revisit the world, the privilege of seeing many who are reduced to defend their faith with Tertullian's desperate resolution,—"It is certain, because it is impossible." If ever we escape from such ineptitude, it will come about by the diffusion of a more philosophic temper, and the use of a logic that shall refuse to exclude the facts of human nature from fair treatment, that shall embrace and account for all the questions involved, and that shall decline to receive as truth errors of finite science because found in an inspired book. We welcome this volume as an example of the right spirit and tendency in these grave discussions, and shall look eagerly for the promised three succeeding ones.
This translation, though "executed under the superintendence of the author," evidently does no justice to the original. We have not seen the book in French, but we venture to say that M. Guizot never wrote French which could answer to this version, awkward, careless, and sometimes obscure. A certain picture of dull and ancient aspect, which had long passed for an original from the hand of Leonardo da Vinci, and, despite the raptures of sentimental people who sought to tickle their own vanity by pretending to perceive in it the marks of its high origin, had commonly awakened only a sigh of regret over the transitoriness of pictorial glory, fell at length into the hands of a skilful artist. By careful examination, this worthy person became satisfied that the painting was indeed all that had been claimed, but that its primal splendors had been obscured by the defacing brush of some incompetent restorer. With loving care he removed the dimming colors, and to an admiring world was revealed anew the Christ of the Supper. Will not some American publisher perform a like kindly function for Guizot?
History of the Anti-Slavery Measures of the Thirty-Seventh and Thirty-Eighth United States Congress, 1861-64. By Henry Wilson. Boston: Walker, Wise, & Co. 12mo. pp. 384.
Senator Wilson is admirably qualified to record the anti-slavery legislation in which he has borne so prominent and honorable a part. Few but those engaged in debates can thoroughly understand their salient points, and fix upon the precise sentences in which the position, arguments, and animating spirit of opposite parties are stated and condensed. The present volume is a labor-saving machine of great power to all who desire or need a clear view of the course of Congressional legislation on measures of emancipation, but who prefer to rest in ignorance rather than wade through the debates as reported in the "Congressional Globe," striving to catch, amid the waste of words, the leading ideas or passions on which questions turn.
The first thing which strikes the reader in Mr. Wilson's well-executed epitome is the gradual character of this anti-slavery legislation, and the general subordination of philanthropic to military considerations in its conduct. The questions were not taken up in the order of their abstract importance, but as they pressed on the practical judgment for settlement in exigencies of the Government. When Slavery became an obstruction to the progress of the national arms, opposition to it was the dictate of prudence as well as of conscience, and its defenders at once placed themselves in the position of being more interested in the preservation of slavery than in the preservation of the nation. The Republicans, charged heretofore with sacrificing the expedient to the right, could now retort that their opponents were sacrificing the expedient to the wrong.