contains a fund of information and sound political science, of which no British subject should willingly be ignorant.

Dissent its Character, its Causes, its Reasons, and the way to effect its Extinction. London: Jackson and Walford.

A BRIEF history of Nonconformity in England, in its double aspect as hostile to any establishment, and as holding Episcopacy unwarranted by Scripture. It is temperately and clearly written. The style does not overlay the argument; and is, therefore, a good book for distribution. The cure for Dissent recommended is, of course, the abolition of compulsory conformity. When will it be seen that unity in difference is far to be preferred before division in uniformity ?

Literary Intelligence.

Just Published.

Adam Clarke Pourtrayed. By James Everett. Vol. II.

Egypt, and the Books of Moses; or, the Books of Moses Illustrated by the Monuments of Egypt. With an Appendix. By Dr. E. W. Hengstenberg, Professor of Theology at Berlin. From the German, by R. D. C. Robbins, Abbot Resident Theol. Sem., Andover. With Additional Notes by W. Cooke Taylor, Esq., L.L.D., M.R.A.S. of Trinity College, Dublin.

Elementary Education; the Importance of its Extension in our own Country. With a Sketch of the State of Elementary Education on the Continent. By Henry Edwards, Ph. D.D.D.

The Church in the Navy and Army: including Original Autobiographies of Officers in both Services. A New Series.

Letters on the Psalms. A short and familiar Introduction to Sacred Criticism. By the Rev. G. H. Stoddart, A.M.

Bokhara: its Amir and its People. Translated from the Russian of Khanikoff. By the Baron Clement A. de Bode.

Tahiti. Containing a Review of the Origin, Character, and Progress of French Roman Catholic efforts for the destruction of English Protestant Missions in the South Seas. Translated from the French. By Mark Wilks.

The French in Rheinstadt: a Romance of the Day. A Friendly Voice from the Avon's Banks to the Nations of Germany. With other Poems. By James Nisbett.

The Nature, Grounds, and Claims of Christian Humility. By the Rev. Henry Edwards, Ph. D.D.D.

The Jubilee Services of the London Missionary Society. Held in London in the Month of September, 1844. With a brief Introduction by the Directors.

An Elementary Treatise on Algebra, Theoretical and Practical:_ with an Appendix on Probabilities and Life Annuities. By J. R. Young, Professor of Mathematics in Belfast College.

The Christian Gleaner. Consisting of Original and Selected Pieces. The Law a Rule of Life to the Christian. Considered in Eleven Lectures on the Decalogue. By the Rev. Charles Smith Bird, M.A., F.L.S. Political Dictionary. Containing all the General Terms, whether Historical or in Present Use, of Constitutional and Ecclesiastical Law, of Civil Administration, of Political Economy and Social Relations. Vol I. Part I.

The Life of the Rev. Andrew Bell, D.D., &c. Comprising the History of the Rise and Progress of the System of Mutual Tuition. The First Volume by Robert Southey, Esq., P.L., L.L.D.: the last two by his Son, the Rev. C. C. Southey, B.A. 3 vols. 8vo.

A Journey from Naples to Jerusalem by way of Athens, Egypt, and the Peninsula of Sinai; including a Trip to the Valley of Fayoum. Together with a Translation of M. Linant de Belleford's Memoire sur le lac Moris.' By Dawson Borrer, Esq.

The History of British India. From 1805 to 1835. By Horace Hayman Wilson, M.A., F.R.S.

Travels in Luristan and Arabistan. By the Baron C. A. de Bode. Vol. II. Notes, Critical, Illustrative, and Practical, on the Book of Job: with a New Translation, and an Introductory Dissertation. By Albert Barnes. Vol. I.

The Sabbath Question Illustrated. By a Roadside Enquirer.
Difficulties of a Young Clergyman.

Reality of the Gracious Influence of the Holy Spirit. By the late John Jamieson, D.D., F.R.S. and F.S., A.S., Author of the Scottish Etymological Dictionary, &c. &c. With Memoir by the Rev. Andrew Somerville,

Dumbarton.

Life of Sir Thomas More. By the Right Hon. Sir James Mackintosh. The Life, Progresses, and Rebellion of James Duke of Monmouth, &c. to his Capture, and Execution. With a full account of the Bloody Assize, and copious Biographical Notices. By George Roberts, author of the History of Lyme Regis, &c. In two volumes. Vol. I.

The Glory of the Redeemer in his Person and Work. By Octavius Winslow.

The Amelioration of Ireland Contemplated, in a series of papers. The questions of Repeal and Federalism considered.

Lachrymæ Ecclesiæ. The Anglican Reformed Church and her Clergy in the Days of her Destitution and Suffering, during the great Rebellion, in the Seventeeth Century. By the Rev. George Wyatt, L.L.B., F.S.A. Shepperton Manor; a Tale of the Times of Bishop Andrewes. By the Rev. J. M. Neale, B.A.

Letters on Church Reform. By the Rev. W. Carlisle.

Logic: Designed as an Introduction to the study of Reasoning. John Leechman, A.M.

By

A New View of Insanity. The Duality of the Mind proved by the Structure, Functions, and Diseases of the Brain, and by the Phenomena of Mental Derangement, and shewn to be essential to moral responsibility. With an Appendix. 1. On the influence of religion on insanity. 2. Conjectures on the Nature of the Mental Operations. 3. On the Management of Lunatic Asylums. By A. L. Wigan, M.D.

The case of David Salomons, Esq., being his Address to the Court of Aldermen, on applying for admission as Alderman of the Ward of Portsoken, on Tuesday, Oct. 15, 1844. Revised by himself.

Sermons for the Season of Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany. By the Rev. G. R. Cleig, M.A.

The Religion of Ancient Britain: or a succinct Account of the several Religious Systems which have obtained in this island, from the earliest times to the Norman Conquest: including an investigation into the early Progress of Error into the Christian Church, the introduction of the Gospel into Britain, and the State of Religion in England till Popery had gained the ascendancy. By George Smith, F.A.S.

The New Englander. October.

The Institutions of Popular Education. An Essay to which the Manchester Prize was adjudged. By the Rev. R. W. Hamilton, L.L.D.,DD.

THE

ECLECTIC REVIEW

FOR FEBRUARY, 1845.

Art. I. The Sacraments. An Enquiry into the Nature of the Symbolic Institutions of the Christian Religion, usually called the Sacraments. By Robert Halley, D.D. Part I., Baptism. 8vo. pp. 620. London: Jackson and Walford.

AMONGST the natural tendencies of the human mind by which it has in all ages, and among men of all races, been swayed to the adoption of corrupt and carnal systems of religion, there are two to which we may, without much fear of error, assign the chief place. These are the tendency to prefer what is outward and sensible to what is spiritual, and the tendency to exchange a personal for what has been happily styled a vicarious religion. These two tendencies we find so universally operating, that we may justly call them natural to man; and whilst each of them has sufficient power of itself to do incalculable mischief to the best interests of the race, their impulse is so invariably directed along the same line, that they are seldom if ever found alone, but almost universally in co-operation.

That in religious matters there should be in the human mind a tendency towards what is merely formal will not appear surprising, if we reflect that, in our present state, we are altogether more the creatures of sensation than of reflection. The outward senses are the inlets of a very large portion of the knowledge we are daily receiving, so that they are making continual demands upon our attention. External objects, moreover, are so much more readily apprehended by us, than objects of pure thought, that it requires an effort to detach the mind from the former, and engage it with the latter, such as the majority of

men are usually unwilling to make. Hence, from the force of mere habit, and through a sort of indolence, the mass of mankind are content to confine the range of their interests and engagements within the sphere of the material and the sensible. They find it far more easy to observe than to reflect—to imitate than to plan-to take things in the gross than to analyse them into their component principles. Facts they can easily gather, and therefore facts are plentifully gathered; but ideas they can obtain only by a continuous mental process, and hence their stock of ideas is, for the most part, small. They are more at home in a museum, than in a laboratory. They are more fitted to excel in the senate or the forum than at Tusculum, or amid 'the groves of Academe.' They place great faith in the maxim, that seeing is believing,' and can little comprehend either the possibility or the pleasure of living by faith and not by sight.'

6

The habit of pondering abstract relations being thus one of the last which men generally are disposed to acquire, it ceases to be surprising that the religion of the mass should tend universally toward a mere outward form. At first sight, indeed, nothing would seem more irrevocably placed beyond the sphere of the merely sensible than the religious relations of man. Here all is essentially spiritual; or, if anything material be introduced, it can be only in the capacity of an instrument or adjunct. Perhaps, however, this very circumstance only the more directly induces in man a disposition to carnalize his religious system; for when the alternative is proposed between a purely spiritual system and no religion at all, the almost certain result will be that man, following the bent of his native impulses, will adopt neither side of the alternative, but will construct a religion for himself that shall effect a compromise between his conscience and his senses-between his inability to do without a religion and his unwillingness to embrace one that constrains him to deal with spiritual things as realities. In point of fact, we find that it is so, for, wherever man has been left to form a religion for himself, whether out of materials supplied by revelation, or from such resources as tradition and nature could supply, it has been invariably the case that the formal has usurped the place of the spiritual, and that the adjunct has been substituted for the essential. In systems of purely human origin all is material; the object of worship is himself symbolised, and the worship offered comes to be a mere outward form, sometimes a superficial farce. Where revelation has shed its light, the grosser parts of this material system are relinquished, the spirituality of Deity is admitted; the necessity of moral rectitude in his sight is conceded; but after all, wherever

the natural tendencies of the human mind have been allowed to operate in determining the kind of religion which should really and practically be embraced, the mind has invariably swerved from spirituality of sentiment and worship, to take refuge in rites and ceremonies, penances and mortifications. These, however burdensome, or however painful, it would seem are preferable in the estimation of mankind generally, to a religious system which demands reflection, meditation, self-examination, and the exercise of the higher functions of our intellectual and moral nature.

In close and active co-operation with this tendency towards a merely ritual religion, is the second influence to which we have above referred-the tendency to prefer a vicarious to a personal religion. Whether it be that man is not fond of viewing him. self directly in his relation to Deity, or that he finds personal religion too serious and difficult a subject for him to deal with, or that he feels more composure in transferring his anxieties to, and reposing his confidence in another, of whose follies, imperfections, and sins he has not that painful consciousness which he has of his own; the fact itself appears unquestionable, that there is a strong tendency in men generally, to settle their relations with God through the medium of a priest, rather than on grounds involving their own personal responsibility. Now this tendency, coexisting in the mind with a natural tendency towards mere ritual worship, not only accords with the latter, but electively coalesces with it, and a mutual action goes on between the two. For if there be rites and penances, there must be some one to perform the rites and exact the penances; and though, under certain circumstances this might be done by the person himself, yet the tendency to transfer all matters involving responsibility to a priest, naturally leads to the reposing in his hands the duty and the power of settling such points. On the other hand, where people have transferred their religious responsibilities to another, they have, ipso facto, invested the latter with a right to demand of them implicit obedience to his appointments; and, moreover, as a vicarious religion can be carried on only by means of something which the responsible party does to or for those who have placed the care of their souls in his hand, his appointments come of necessity to have respect exclusively to matters of outward performance. Thus a ritual system grows naturally out of a vicarious system, and a vicarious system naturally craves the aid of a ritual system. Between the two, man becomes the votary of a religion, from which all spiritual vitality has been withdrawn; which is of the earth earthy; and which, instead of improving and elevating its followers, seldom fails to make them the slaves of superstition,