the communication of that influence, and for the extension and preservation of the system. It was sown by our blessed Redeemer in the soil of the human mind, to draw and transmute into its own substance what was contained there, to grow and spread by what it so drew up and transmuted-and this according to the general laws of human nature and the special laws of its own being-nourished by the same gentle rain from Heaven, and the same influences of earth, as the noxious weed, or the noble yet fruitless trees that grow wildly there. The Gospel and the Church influence and are influenced by the world in which they are, according to the general laws by which the world is governed.

These are some of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, some of the facts brought out in the history of Christianity considered as a visible system, as an external institution existing in the world. Its secret influence, its wide extension, and yet, in the case of numberless individuals, and it may be of whole portions of what once was its own domain, its entire failure;its coming to nothing, and being as if it had never been;-the presence and continuance of evil men within it; of those who are offences,'-who are arguments with others for rejecting Christianity-and those that do iniquity;' and, lastly, its propagation, and growth, and continued life being seemingly the effect of the general laws of nature, without any apparent interposition on the part of Him who originated it these things are mysteries, and full of difficulty. Minds there are without number that take things as they are and acquiesce in them, some from simple faith, some from profound humility, some from a just conviction of the ignorance of man, the result of having searched out all things, and found this as the one lesson taught by all things,-but (in most instances it is to be feared), not from any profound confidence in the goodness and wisdom of God, but in a kind of inconsiderate indifference. These may see no difficulty, but when one comes really to consider these things truly, the questions that open on us are innumerable. We come to know and feel that the history of Christianity is replete with mysteries.

The reason of this we will refer to presently. Let us now observe that the fact is fully contemplated by the first promulgators of the religion. Let the evils, the scandals, the inconsistencies which the history of the Church brings in appalling distinctness before our minds, be set at the highest; the Eye which at its first introduction surveyed the course of that religion and its fruits on earth foresaw these things. The parables predicted them; prophecies, warnings, numberless anticipations distinctly taught them. The history of Christianity and the

predictions of its sacred books entirely harmonise. Be that history ever so unlike what we should have anticipated, it is not unlike what the first promulgators of it said it would be.

Take the most appalling fact of all. According to the received views of Catholic Christians-of Christians we may say of all ages-respecting the established order of the Christian ministry, whether the Episcopate or the Papacy, the difficulty which presents itself is this:-That Christ should have instituted an order of men for the highest and holiest work, to be the guides, and teachers, and the shepherds of His people; to teach, rebuke, reprove,nay more, to be the appointed channel through which His sacramental gifts should flow to the souls of His people; to have power to open and to close the kingdom of heaven; to remit and to retain sins; to convey the gifts and graces of the Holy Spirit-and that this order of men should at any time become utterly corrupt; that individuals on whom the holiness of the Church might seem to turn should be more debased in wickedness than heathen men-should be murderers, adulterers, deceivers; and that this corruption should extend widely and continue long, whereby they who ought to guide others to good should become their corruptors this is what was not only predicted in various forms, but distinctly intimated by our blessed Lord Himself in words of warning given to that very Apostle who specially represents the Christian ministry, and in whom his successors are inheritors of the warning as of the privileges. The following words in S. Luke (xii. 41) are evidently said with special reference to the Christian ministry in contradistinction to the people generally :—

Then Peter said unto Him, Lord, speakest thou this parable unto us, or even to all? And the Lord said, Who then is that faithful and wise steward, whom his Lord shall make ruler over His household, to give them their portion of meat in due season? Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when He cometh shall find so doing. Of a truth I say unto you, that He will make him ruler over all that He hath. But and if that servant say in his heart, My Lord delayeth His coming; and shall begin to beat the menservants and maidens, and to eat and drink, and to be drunken; the Lord of that servant will come in a day when he looketh not for Him, and at an hour when he is not aware, and will cut him in sunder, and will appoint him his portion with the unbelievers.'-S. Luke xii. 41-46.

These words speak of a steward, one appointed as a ruler over his brother servants to tend, govern, and feed them, to give them their portion of meat in due season; and he becomes corrupt and unworthy of his high office. He possesses power-spiritual power-he abuses it to the purposes of tyranny and of persecution; he takes advantage of his independence to indulge in luxury and sensuality, participating in the vices of the most

corrupt, and wronging, scandalising and ill-treating those over whom he was appointed for good. Yet does he not thereby lose that authority or that office; he is the ruler over the household still; there is no intervention to deprive him, no sudden destruction to remove him. The complaining household may desire their Lord's interposition, they even may cry out, Lord, how long?' and yet He does not interpose. This condition of things is contemplated as continuing, the rulers being, as it may happen, good or evil, till the second coming of Christ. The office of the Christian minister abides independently of his abuse of it; it is not incompatible with such abuse; so that the appointed guide and ruler may be worse than any of his flock; all this Christ foresaw, and contemplated, and premonished us of as a possible event. The direct predictions of our Lord state the same truth explicitly. Those of the Apostles agree with them. And the fullest unfolding of the future condition of the Church in the book of the Revelations exhibits one series of pictures of confusion, sin, and evil predominant, the good few in number and oppressed.

And the cause of these evils is to be found in that special feature of the Christian system, its being carried on through the instrumentality of man, combined with that great principle of the Divine government, whereby the free will of man remains unconstrained. God might, so far as we know, have carried on the work of the Gospel by the ministry of beings of another order than our own. He might have used the services of angels to be channels of grace to His Church, to teach, to baptize, to consecrate, to absolve, to support and comfort. This He has not done. Man is made the instrument of good to man. The body of revealed truth was communicated at first through men; committed to writing by men of varying abilities and natural dispositions, it is perpetuated and administered by man, by men sympathising with men, knowing each other's wants and infirmities, and so working together. The system of truth and supply of grace in the Gospel is committed to the world in connexion with a society drawn out of the world, a society of men, framed like any other society, and having a history like any other society. Hence it is that the Church of Christ may be regarded solely in its human aspect. It may be looked on as if it were only human. It is to this law of the Christian dispensation, according to which Divine purposes are carried out by the instrumentality of moral agents, and to the freedom of those agents that these results are obviously to be attributed. In the instance of the individual Christian, the influence of Divine grace, nay, the presence of the Divine Spirit does not destroy the natural character; it is compatible

with the presence of much that is weak, sinful, imperfect in the understanding as well as the will. This is the condition ever of the holiest of men, and imperfection and occasional wrong conduct is the result. How much more when in the body of men acting together there are persons of every degree of mixed good and evil, and the majority quite evil.

Yet amid all this corruption the truth in its substance has held its place. It is with religion as with moral truth; it commands deference where it cannot gain obedience, and secures the assent of the understanding whilst the will remains rebellious. It lives on, exercises influence, recovers power where it seemed to be almost utterly destroyed.

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ART. II.-The Life of Mrs. Sherwood. By S. KELLY. 1 vol. London: Darton & Co.

THE sphere of biography extends from day to day. We are so accustomed to see announcements of the lives of persons whose names have scarcely reached us, that it ceases to be a question as it once was, what remarkable things has such an one done, or seen, or thought that, now he has passed away, the world must be made acquainted with his private history. Rather we are arrived at the conclusion that every life is interesting if we can only have its truthful history, and to acquiesce in and even believe ourselves gainers by this communicative habit of our own time. It does not, in fact, require celebrity to make a biography either agreeable or useful; the changes of an ordinary life have enough of variety and romance in them to engage the interest of others in the like position. It only requires that these changes should have made deep impression-that the subject of the memoirs should have lived for a purpose, and that what has been done, seen or thought, should be vividly portrayed.

In the present abundance of biographies, then, we have no need to ask why the particular one under review has been published. Every person has at least heard of Mrs. Sherwood. Many in their childhood were familiar with her works; not a few, if not of our own readers, yet of readers in general of a certain standing, have received their first notions of doctrinal religion from her fluent and prolific pen. Such being the case we took up the book with both interest and curiosity. However little we might expect to agree with the lady's theology, however little we may have sympathised with her mode of instructing young minds in Christian truth, she had influence in her day, and with a large party; and we naturally wish to know the character, and something of the history of every mind possessed of this mysterious power. But the book disappoints expectation. It is tedious and heavy, so much so, especially at the commencement, that without the stimulus of duty, which ought ever to be paramount in the reviewer's bosom sustaining him through mighty achievements of dull reading, it would be next to impossible to read it honestly through. The cause of this failure presently dawns upon the mind. An autobiography,which this book is with the exception of a few concluding chapters by her daughter,-should be produced by a clear and accurate memory, assisted by copious notes taken at the time, either in the form of letters to friends, or of a daily record of