chivalrous eagerness to roam through these hitherto undiscovered regions of thought and knowledge, and a corresponding contempt for the less promising and better known dominions of tried wisdom and truth. And the mind once unsettled and embarked in this ceaseless voyage, becomes too generally incapable of rest. It can find no abiding place; it hovers on from scheme to scheme, ever dissatisfied and ever changing. The far-off scene is beautiful, the immediate neighbourhood tame and profitless. The promise is great, but the possession small; and one endless flight of pursuit forms the mind's whole career,-ever learning, but never arriving at the knowledge of the truth.

The religious opinions of a vast body of Christians are derived in a way which gratifies their love of novelty and excitement, without imposing upon them any labour of research. Reputation has invested some teacher with authority, and the sanction of a band of admirers has sealed his doctrines with the signet of unquestionable truth. To him, at the commencement of their career, they look up with deference; and upon his words, they hang with the devotion of the most ardent worshipper. For they are then strangers to religion, whose character and duties they have neglected, and with which they must therefore be almost entirely unacquainted. Every thing then wears the aspect of novelty, and is therefore viewed with that favourable regard with which a warm heart generally receives what is new to it. They are beginning to move in a new element, are learning to become conversant with themes and topics of the deepest importance and most mysterious sublimity, yet with which others around them appear to have gained a perfect familiarity, and to remain long unacquainted with which, would, in the general opinion, argue slowness of comprehension or want of zeal. The terms of religion, and the doctrines of faith, are therefore all at once placed in hurried array before them; and their questionless reception is demanded by the teacher as the only proof of genuine belief; and their familiar use required, as the evidence of sincerity of profession and advancing proficiency in the faith. It is thus that the Christian character shoots into strength, with all the luxuriance and rapidity of growth that mark the productions of a tropical climate. It springs up and arrives at maturity with a celerity truly astonishing; and oftentimes the man, who, but a little month before, was one of the thoughtless thousands that entertain no concern for the future world, is found to have become a leader of the ranks of the faithful, the arbiter of deep and mysterious questions, the profound teacher, and eloquent expounder, of the awful truths of revelation. His religious opinions have been suddenly formed; a light, like that of the lightning flash, has blazed upon his soul; and the broad lines of truth have been so deeply engraven there, that he carries within him an inward test

and pattern, whereby to try the excellence and truth of others' tenets. There is a peculiar advantage which, in the assurance of credulity, he knows himself to possess,-he is certain that his religious opinions are unadulterated gospel truth. It is very possible that his conduct may not be consistent with his creed, still the creed is truth; and his very infirmities are to him a proof of its excellence and soundness. In fact, human infirmity, he conceives, may affect his conduct as a man, but cannot obscure his understanding as a Christian; and it is this fearful delusion that the intellect cannot err, even though the heart and the passions rebel, that strengthens the persuasion of his own religious knowledge, and confirms him in the obstinate maintenance of doctrines which can only be spiritually discerned by the matured Christian, but to the adoption of which he has hastened with a proudly-humbled heart and an unreflecting mind. Opinions thus adopted are of a very accommodating character. They admit of modification and change, without being subjected to the charge of inconsistency. For as they are never accurately defined, there are no fixed positions, beyond which their maintainers may not advance at pleasure; and within which they cannot at all times retire. In fact, the whole scheme of redemption is their spiritual domain-but the subject of the day is the grand object of their attention; and the creed of the day, their special belief. Unity of plan, and consistency of faith, are not important: these would require thought, and cripple imagination; would introduce difficulties, and destroy the confident assurance of faith. And in religion, an unhesitating mind is the proof of spiritual knowledge, and unflinching assurance the certain test of salvation. But whence does this knowledge proceed, and from what sources have their cherished opinions been derived? Not from private study and public worship; not from the closet or the scene of lonely meditation, but from the loud harangue, the enthusiastic exercises of some highly gifted guide, the public lectures of some incoherent brother, whose zeal is unfettered by prudence, whose fervency increases as his judgment faulters, and whose love for truth is then highest when his admirers are most thickly gathered round him. They are opinions adopted in a crowd, and from the leaders of a crowd. In their adoption, no step has been taken, no arguments weighed, no reflexion used, except in the public assembly, and before a company of witnesses. And after their adoption, on all public occasions, the duties of the teacher and the taught are, discussion and criticism, excitement and feeling. If a doctrine be expounded, the exposition is given as proof of knowledge, and is received, not as instruction, but to be minutely examined, to discover whether it be rightly maintained, or whether it be not, alas! ignorantly misrepresented, and differ from that infallible rule, which the private judgment of each member

of the body dictates as the test of truth. If exhortation follow, then it is but poor and meagre, unless it stir up the dormant fires of enthusiasm, which, often kindled, ask for a stronger breeze and fiercer fuel to bring them to their wonted heat.

It is melancholy to reflect upon the nature and tendency of the opinions entertained by such religionists. Haste and ignorance, prejudice and passion, presided at their adoption; and ever after exercise both separate and united influence over those who maintain them. The effect produced is, an unwavering assurance of their own superiority, and a self-complacent and contemptuous pity for those who entertain different opinions, and who must, therefore, be labouring under spiritual delusion or wilful infatuation. With the pride of the Pharisee of old, though exhibited under a different form, they can thank God that they are not as other men are: they bring no learning or philosophy to contaminate and subtilize away his word; they institute no anxiouslyscrutinizing comparisons of apparently conflicting texts; they desecrate not scripture by subjecting its holy pages to the unhallowed investigations of reason; they hesitate not to yield assent to all that is written, and are not solicitous to inquire whether or not their interpretation of it embraces contradictions. They believe readily, they maintain decisively, and understand perfectly, all God's counsel that man can comprehend; and their experience teaches, and their frames and feelings prove distinctly, that all, save the unsearchable mysteries of the gospel, are clearly revealed and fully understood by them: and all this, by a kind of intuitive comprehension of the word of God, or by special communications of grace; and not only without the aid of those powers which are granted for acquiring knowledge upon ordinary subjects, but almost in direct opposition to them, for what need can there be of reason when there is a better teacher-Revelation? And does not the gift of the latter require that the former be dispensed with? Such are their notions, and such their self-estimate. And by the neglect of reason and submission to a blind credulity, they convert the fair temple of religion into an intricate labyrinth, amongst whose outer courts and fancy-created wares they are ever roaming unprovided with the clew that guides to the inner sanctuary and to the pavilion of God's presence, even to the Holy of Holies. They are familiar with the terms and doctrinal phrases of scripture; they can select disjointed passages, and, however really unconnected, can combine them to prove the accuracy of their opinions; but those opinions have been hastily adopted from pulpit persuasion, or sudden conviction, or capricious decisions; and, after being fixed, are fortified and guarded by these harshlytortured texts, sought out expressly for the purpose, and when discovered, cruelly torn from all their necessary connexions, and, by force, impressed into a service foreign to their spirit and

destructive to their power. What effect can such opinions, so maintained, produce? Good may indeed be mingled up with evil; but if the better principle do not struggle into superiority, it will melt away before the rising power of the worse. Ignorance, passion, and prejudice, if unsubdued, become triumphant. And then pride reigns, and folly governs under it, and obstinacy confirms them both in their power. Nor is spiritual delusion long unaccompanied by sensual irregularities. These are the fruits for whose production the spirit of evil sows and rears, with fostering hand, the seeds and plants of heresies and intellectual error; well knowing that, if they but take root in the heart, it will not long prove a barren nursery; conscious, too, that the weeds that choke the tender plant of holiness and grace are left to flourish most securely, in all their pernicious luxuriance of growth, when they are confidently believed to be but the off-shoots of the holy plant itself.

But too much room would be occupied by a complete discussion of this subject, which has now been but imperfectly and superficially considered. If, however, what has been written shall have the effect of inducing some individual of greater power to investigate the subject more narrowly, the writer's purpose will have been more than adequately answered.

L.

SCHELLING'S LECTURES ON CHRISTIANITY.

I HAVE been favoured by an intelligent foreigner with an account of a series of Lectures, which Schelling delivered last year, on the subject of Christianity. He imagines that the characteristic traits of Christianity, as a system, may be reduced to three grand principles, each of which was a leading feature in the character of one of the three most prominent apostles. These three principles are the principle of obedience, as shewn in St. Peter, that of protestation, as shewn in St. Paul,-and that of love, as shewn in St. John. Schelling conceives that each of the two former principles, carried to the extreme, is faulty, but that the Christian scheme requires the development of all three in their due proportions. Thus the principle of obedience is the leading characteristic of the Romish church, but it had been carried to excess by the time of the Reformation, and as it was fast bringing the Christian church into destruction, that church required the aid of one of the counterbalancing principles of Christianity. The corrective to be applied was the element of protestation. An example of an exercise of this principle, even in the apostolic days, was afforded by St. Paul, and accordingly the Reformers acted or that example, and applied the remedy furnished by their great prototype. Their principle, again, is liable to very great abuses,

and the disunion of Christians, caused by the establishment of constant appeals to the right of private judgment, is the evil which an undue use of this principle introduces into the Christian world. This principle Schelling conceives now to be exhausted, as far as any useful results are to be attained, and, looking on the state of Christianity, as affected by the abuse of the two principles hitherto most prominently displayed, he feels that the remedy for the evils is to be sought for by the development of some other element contained in divine Revelation itself. That element consists in the principle of love, a principle too much forgotten, while the others have been receiving their full development. It is this element which must serve to heal the wounds in the side of the Christian church, and to restore the body of Christ to health and integrity; and to this point, therefore, the endeavours of Christians must now be directed.

As I only write from a recollection of the conversation of one of the hearers of Schelling, I cannot, of course, vouch for the accuracy of this sketch, though I believe it be correct in its main points. There is certainly ingenuity in the view, and a fund of thought opened by it for any thoughtful man; and however the reader may be supposed to agree or to dissent from these ideas, he will be gratified in knowing the latest doctrines advanced by a man so celebrated as Schelling. My informant (himself a Roman Catholic) possesses, and is about to publish, the minutes of a conversation between Schelling and La Mennais on the subject of the present divided state of Christian Europe. He himself entertains the most sanguine hopes that some means may be devised for uniting the great body of the Christian church in one faith, and thus presenting to the assaults of the spirit of infidelity in every part of Europe, such a resistance as zeal and learning, aided by strict union, might establish. He knows that this cannot be effected without concessions on both parts, on the side of the Roman Catholics and of the Protestants also; and he believes that the Roman Catholic church would be willing to meet the Protestant churches by great concessions. This was a subject which occupied the attention of Schelling and La Mennais during a very long conference, and certainly two names could scarcely have been better chosen as vouchers, the one that Protestant liberty should not be endangered, the other that the integrity of the Roman Catholic religion should be maintained. At all events, the publication of a conference on such a subject, maintained by two men of such distinguished abilities and such high reputation, would be matter of very great interest.*

R.

The hopes of an union here alluded to are, it is to be feared, a mere dream. Yet considering how decided a Romanist La Mennais is, it will certainly be very interesting to know what his party will now concede. And to know, as one does from this paper, what has long been matter of private conversation, that Schelling is a sincere and earnest Christian, is a subject for sincere rejoicing.ED.