Although this book has been published more than a year, we do not think it too late to notice it in these pages. It is not one of those evanescent publications, which appear during a summer, and are then forgotten; but it is one of the most valuable contributions which has been made for some time to a certain branch of our literature. We do not propose to do more than to bring it to the notice of our readers; and this we shall do mainly by such copious extracts as will themselves be the best evidence of the character of the volume. To those accustomed to think on a certain class of subjects, we are sure it cannot fail to be interesting. It is itself evidently the work of a disciplined and thoughtful intellect, and we are much mistaken if the young author whom it has brought into notice, is not destined to make his mark in the arena of literature. The subjects touched upon show a mind which has ventured upon every department of thought, and which has seized with a giant's grasp those practical problems which belong to the age. This would be sufficiently indicated by the fact, that Mr. Bayne has been an ardent admirer and student of Mr. Carlyle, from whom, however, he radically dissents.

The volume consists mainly of biography, though there are several explanatory and illustrative papers bearing on the general subject which comes under consideration. The object of the book is this:

first, to bring out clearly the practical effect and working of Evangelical Christianity on the individual character; and secondly, to define the value and efficiency of Christianity as an instrument and principle of social amelioration. It is an ef fort to exhibit Christianity as a Power, and to show by history and example its energetic and vital reality. In the biographical delineations attempted, the writer undertakes to exhibit the fallaciousness of an extended and popular opinion, that the Christianity in question does not " comport with solidity and compass of intellect."

We think it will be perceived at once, that the object proposed is one of the very gravest importance, and of the most difficult character to handle. There is a vast amount of practical scepticism as to the efficacy of Christianity. To a man of the world-the world of business or the world of letters-the idea of any actual re-vitalizing energy "when a man is old," does seem extravagant. That old Nicodemian doubt will throw a shadow upon the sober judgment. The idea of the super-natural occurring every day, and that right in our midst, and with respect to gross, ignorant men-despite of all Sabbath-school lessons to the contrary-by cold, worldly men is sub rosa repudiated. Men are very willing to recognize Christianity as a Belief, but it is a very different thing to accept it as a Life. They are very willing

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to consider the Christian as a man under the influence of a certain code of ethics, but they do not regard him as one whose inner nature is quickened and instinct with a new vital principle.

The object of the volume before us is calmly and dispassionately to meet this question-not by assertion-not by rhapsody-not by enthusiastical " experiences"-but by a simple narrative of the lives and history of some half-a-dozen wellknown men. Three of them are men "not extremely remarkable in an intellectual point of view, and who received their belief in the Christian Revelation in the natural way in which an accepted form of religion is transmitted from generation to generation, not through argument and unaffected by intellectual doubt." These are John Howard, William Wilberforce, and Samuel Budgett. The other three were minds "which will be allowed to belong to a high order, and in which the Christian faith became finally the pillar of character, only after having been more or less rocked in the wind of doubt." One of these was Thomas Arnold. "Rocked in the wind of doubt"-how touchingly and truthfully does this apply to the clouded and stormy career of Foster! The third was the heroic Chalmers-the noblest spirit of them all-the Lion amongst those vigorous intellects whose career has just ended-whose very life was an epic!

Surely any man who would give us a truthful picture of these six men, would deserve our thanks-if his purpose went no farther.

Mr. Bayne says, that Mr. Carlyle has proved, in his article on Burns, that a biography can be given in the compass of a review article: that essay, he considers, "one of the most perfect biographies he ever looked into." He attempts in the delineations of the present volume to emulate the methods of "him whom he believes to be the greatest biographic writer that ever lived."

Any reader of this volume will observe at once the powerful influence which Car

lyle has exercised on the writer. He himself alludes to it in his preface, as the strongest his mind was capable of receiving-both as regards his modes of thought and his style. At the same time he considers Carlyle vitally and essentially wrong in his philosophy-and bis pantheistic sentiments become the special subject of criticism and refutation in the course of the work. He evidently regards Carlyle as the greatest thinker of the day, and there is something almost moving to see, with what affection and adoration he constantly recurs to a man, whom he thinks so totally and radically in error. Once he breaks out into enthusiasm (in his paper on Chalmers): "Ah! what a prospect might we have had now, had Carlyle and Chalmers toiled side by side in the Church of Scotland." But he dismisses the subject-as a vain regret. The two men--in their king-like greatnesshave evidently a greater charm for him than all others.

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To discuss the value of Christianity as a reforming and social agency, we stated was the second object of this work. Mr. Carlyle's social theories are here, also, taken up. We consider his "Latter-Day Pamphlets," his "French Revolution," his Past and Present," the most powerful plea in behalf of despotism we have ever read. His views are met in the most masterly way: the philosophical truth of freedom is finely defended. And the object of freedom is most ably and clearly delineated.

But we must proceed to our task. We shall make few comments. We shall mainly give extracts taken very much at random-but which we hope will indicate the ability of the volume, and set our readers to an examination for themselves.

The first chapter is entitled "The Individual Life," and, declining to consider the hypothesis of Atheism, discusses and compares the Pantheistic system of Fichte and Carlyle, (with regard to the Existence of the Divine Being, and our relation to Him), with the doctrine and system of Christian Monotheism.* It considers

these two hypotheses as they connect themselves with this problem-the formation of individual character-" or rather the procuring for its formation a vital principle and solid basis."

The author in the following passage fastens on that celebrated "Hero-worship" of Mr. Carlyle as the underlying principle of this spiritual pantheism.

Long and careful study of the works of Fichte and Mr. Carlyle give us assured confidence in defining the essential starting point and characteristic of Fichtean pantheism. It is its assertion of the divinity of man. This is of course broad and explicit in the philosophy of Fichte. It is not so clear and definite in the works of Mr. Carlyle; that great writer, although giving evidence of a powerful influence from Richte, having experienced one still more powerful from Goethe, and having clothed his doctrines, not in the statuesque exactitude of philosophic terminology, but in the living language of men. It were, however, we think, difficult to conceive a more perfectly workedout scheme of pantheism, in application to practical life, than that which Mr. Carlyle has furnished us, and its essential principle ever is, the glory, the worship, the divinity of man. In our general literature, the principle we have enunciated undergoes modification, and for the most part, is by no means expressed as pantheism. We refer to that spirit of self-assertion, which lies so deep in what may be called the religion of literature; to that wide-spread tendency to regard all reform of the individual man as being an evolution of some hidden nobleness, or an appeal to a perfect internal light or law, together with what may be called the worship of genius, the habit of nourishing all hope on the manifestation of "the divine," by gifted individuals. We care not how this last remarkable characteristic of the time be defined; to us its connection with pantheism, and more or less close dependence on the teaching of that of Germany, seem plain, but it is enough that we discern in it an influence definably antagonistic to the spirit of Christianity.

How much truth there is in this passage, we leave to those to judge who are familiar with the literature of the day. How far such a "spirit of self-assertion" has ever entered into the pale of the church-those who are acquainted with the theological history of New Haven and

Andover in this country, and with the writings of Maurice, Jewett and Macnaught in England, can answer.

The writer then hastily attempts to show, in opposition to pantheism, the separate existence of a Divine Being from the evidence of conscience. This he thinks conclusive-and puts very strongly. He then in a very fine passage, contrasts the universe of the pantheist with the creation as regarded from a Christian point of view.

Pantheism is a theory of God, man, and the universe, which cannot be denied to contain elements of great sublimity; atheism can say nothing of the world, but that, for the living, it is a workshop, and for the dead a grave; nothing of the soul of man, but that it is the action of organism, and that the possibility of its separate existence is a dream; but pantheism, whether delusively or not, and at least in its popular representations, admits a theory of the world which is sublime, and a theory of man which is exalted. When clothed in the chastened beauty of the language of Fichte, or wrapped in the poetic gorgeousness of that of Carlyle, these can scarce fail to awake enthusiasm; and it is when, with express intention or not, such writers cast a passing glance of contempt on the apparently dead and rigid universe of one who refu ses to say that the All is God, that an entrance is apt to be found for those general modes of thought which are of the nature of pantheism. It were well, therefore, to look fairly in the face the express or tacit assumption of the pantheist; to contrast, with all impartiality and calmness, his universe and his God with those of the Christian.

Ye make the great All a machine, say the pantheists, a dead piece of very superior mechanism; the tree Igdrasil of the old Norsemen was better than that; to look on the universe as godlike and god, how infinitely better is that? Let us consider. One mighty tide of force filling immensity, its waves, galaxies and systems, its foam sparkling with worlds, one immeasurable ocean of life, swelling in endless billows through immensity at its own vast, vague will; such is at once the universe and the God of pantheism. The pantheist is himself one little conscious drop in the boundless tide, in the all-embracing infinite. In the branching of the stars, this infinite rushes out; in the little flower at your feet, it lives. In all the embodying of human thought-in the rearing of nations and politics, in the