with liberty. From the alliance, separation, or collision of these three principles, all the facts of history have emanated. The world's inhabitants he divides into three classes: pagans, Christians, and barbarians; and shows how, in the first centuries of our era, they existed together in a confused way, afterward commingled in the medieval age, and finally constituted the society which now covers a vast portion of the globe. During the same year (1826) the author published his Natchez, 2 vols. 8vo, containing his recollections of America, and Aventures du dernier des Abencerages, in 8vo,-a romance not less charming than his Atala, and free from the objectionable character of that publication. The works that came from the author's pen after his retirement into private life, are, besides those mentioned above, Essai sur la Litérature Anglaise, fc., 2 vols. 8vo; Le Paradis Perdu de Milton: traduction nouvelle, 2 vols. 8vo, 1836; Le Congrés de Verone, 2 vols. 8vo, 1838; Vie de l'Abbé de Rancé, in 8vo, 1844,—rather a picture of the manners of the French court in the seventeenth century than a life of the distinguished Trappist. But the pen of the immortal writer still displays the vigorous and glowing style of his earlier productions, though certain passages criticized by the religious press show that it is not unexceptionable.

The Mémoires d'Outre-Tombe, a posthumous work of the author, was published at Paris in ten, and has been reprinted in this country in five volumes. Chateaubriand here sketches with a bold hand the picture of his whole life; a mixture of reverie and action, of misfortune and contest, of glory and humiliation. We see grouping around him all the prominent events of

contemporaneous history, which he explains and clears up. A remarkable variety exists in the subject-matter and in the tone of this work. The gayest and most magnificent descriptions of nature often appear side by side with the keenest satire upon society, and the loftiest considerations of philosophy and morals are blended with the most simple narrative. The vanity of human things appears here with striking effect, and the sadness which they inspire becomes still more impressive under the touches of that impassioned eloquence which describes them. At times we discover in the writer the ingenious wit, and the clear, expressive, and eminently French prose, of Voltaire. These Mémoires, however, are not faultless. The first part, in which he portrays the dreamy aspirations of his youth, may prove dangerous to the incautious. reader. Critics charge the author with an affectation of false simplicity, with the abuse of neology, and with a puerile vanity in speaking either in his own praise or otherwise. They pretend, also, that the work is overwrought, contains contradictions, and betrays sometimes in the same page the changing impressions of the author.

But, whatever the defects of Chateaubriand's style, he is universally allowed by the French of all parties to be their first writer. "He is also," says Alison, “a profound scholar and an enlightened thinker. His knowledge of history and classical literature is equalled only by his intimate acquaintance with the early annals of the Church and the fathers of the Catholic faith; while in his speeches delivered in the Chamber of Peers since the Restoration, will be found not only the

42

NOTICE OF VISCOUNT DE CHATEAUBRIAND.

most eloquent, but the most complete and satisfactory, dissertations on the political state of France during that period which are anywhere to be met with. . . . . Few are aware that he is, without one single exception, the most eloquent writer of the present age; that, independent of politics, he has produced many works on morals, religion, and history, destined for lasting endurance; that his writings combine the strongest love of rational freedom with the warmest inspiration of Christian devotion; that he is, as it were, the link between the feudal and the revolutionary ages, retaining from the former its generous and elevated feeling, and inhaling from the latter its acute and fearless investigation. The last pilgrim, with devout feelings, to the holy sepulchre, he was the first supporter of constitutional freedom in France, discarding thus from former times their bigoted fury, and from modern their infidel spirit, blending all that was noble in the ardor of the Crusades with all that is generous in the enthusiasm of freedom."*

* Essays, Art. Chateaubriand.

THE

GENIUS OF CHRISTIANITY.

Part the First.

DOGMAS AND TENETS.

BOOK I.

MYSTERIES AND SACRAMENTS.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION.

EVER since Christianity was first published to the world, it has been continually assailed by three kinds of enemies-heretics, sophists, and those apparently frivolous characters who destroy every thing with the shafts of ridicule. Numerous apologists have given victorious answers to subtleties and falsehoods, but they have not been so successful against derision. St. Ignatius of Antioch, St. Irenæus, Bishop of Lyons, Tertullian, in his Prescriptions, which Bossuet calls divine, combated the inno

1 Ignat. Epist. ad Smyrn. He was a disciple of St. John, and Bishop of Antioch about A. D. 70.

2 In Hareses, Lib. vi. He was a disciple of St. Polycarp, who was taught Christianity by St. John.

3 Tertullian gave the name of Prescriptions to the excellent work he wrote against heretics, and the great argument of which is founded on the antiquity

vators of their time, whose extravagant expositions corrupted the simplicity of the faith.

Calumny was first repulsed by Quadratus and Aristides, philosophers of Athens. We know, however, nothing of their apologies for Christianity, except a fragment of the former, which Eusebius has preserved.1 Both he and St. Jerome speak of the work of Aristides as a master-piece of eloquence.

The Pagans accused the first Christians of atheism, incest, and certain abominable feasts, at which they were said to partakeof the flesh of a new-born infant. After Quadratus and Aristides, St. Justin pleaded the cause of the Christians. His style is unadorned, and the circumstances attending his martyrdom prove that he shed his blood for religion with the same sincerity with which he had written in its defence. Athenagoras has shown more address in his apology, but he has neither the originality of Justin nor the impetuosity of the author of the Apologetic. Tertullian is the unrefined Bossuet of Africa. St. Theophilus, in his three books addressed to his friend Autolychus, displays imagination and learning; and the Octavius of Minucius Felix exhibits the pleasing picture of a Christian and two idolaters conversing on religion and the nature of God, during a walk along the sea-shore.

and authority of the Church. It will always be an unanswerable refutation of all innovators that they came too late; that the Church was already in possession; and, consequently, that her teaching constitutes the last appeal. Tertullian lived in the third century. T.

1 This curious fragment carries us up to the time of our Saviour himself; for Quadratus says, "None can doubt the truth of our Lord's miracles, because the persons healed and raised from the dead had been seen long after their cure; so that many were yet living in our own time." Euseb. Eccles. Hist. lib. iv. K. 2 Justin, surnamed the Martyr, was a Platonic philosopher before his conversion. He wrote two Defences of the Christians in the Greek language, during a violent persecution in the reign of Antoninus, the successor of Adrian. He suffered martyrdom A. D. 167. K.

3 Athenagoras was a Greek philosopher of eminence, and flourished in the second century. He wrote not only an apology, but a treatise on the resurrection, both of which display talents and learning. K.

4 St. Theophilus was Bishop of Antioch, and one of the most learned fathers of the Church at that period. T.

5 He flourished at the end of the first century, was Bishop of Antioch, and wrote in Greek. See the elegant translation of the ancient apologists, by the Abbé de Gourey.