succinct sketch of the work done since 1813, and a special chapter on Zenana-work. In the same succinct, yet interesting way, missions in Burmah, in China, and Japan, in South Africa, Western Africa, Central Africa, Madagascar, Polynesia, and Melanesia, are passed in review: and no reader will come to the end of the work without feeling that, in very brief space, he has been put in a position to follow the future history of Foreign Missions with an intelligence to which he had hitherto been a stranger.

In connection with a re-issue of the Latin Ecclesiastical Writers, we have before us the fifth volume of the series, Pauli Orosii Historiarum adversum Paganos, Libri vii., to which is added his Liber Apologeticus (30). It is a very fine edition of a writer who is little known to us moderns, but who deserves no mean place in our regard. Paul Orosius, who was a Spaniard, and a contemporary of Augustine, wrote his History in the year 417, at this great theologian's request. It had a very special purpose, for it was designed to refute the constantly reiterated charge of those days, that Christianity had ruined the Roman power by leading the people to forsake the deities who, it was said, had led Rome on to victory. What Paul Orosius set himself to do was to show by unanswerable facts the baselessness of this charge: and the result was a work which represents, we believe, one of the earliest attempts made by Church writers to frame a philosophy of history. His work must have been the result of extraordinary labour, and it is of value, apart altogether from its apologetical aspect, as a perfect storehouse of early history. The edition before us may be described as a variorum one, the various readings being given at the foot of the page, and also references to authors to whom Orosius is supposed from time to time to refer. The work is prefaced by a critical introduction, and at the end are two copious indexes, one of authors quoted by Orosius, the other an index rerum, both so full and minute as to make the History a valuable book of reference.

(30) Vienna: Apud C. Geroldi Filium Bibliopolum Academiæ, 1882.

BRITISH AND FOREIGN

EVANGELICAL REVIEW.

OCTOBER 1882.

ART. I.-Natural Religion.

THE author of Ecce Homo now gives us Natural Religion. Presumably this is the long-promised book upon fundamental theological questions. In the problematic preface to the earlier work, the ambiguity of which had the effect of a surprise, it being impossible in the darkness, studiously utilised, to tell whether it was the ensign of friend or foe, we were informed, it will be remembered, with a certain eccentricity of definition, that theological questions would be avoided. "Christ, as the creator of modern theology and religion," was to form the theme of another volume, "which, however, the author did not hope to publish for some time to come." More than a decade and a half of years have passed away, and now a further work appears by the anonymous author, dealing professedly with theological questions; and although it is very largely a collection of papers contributed to a monthly magazine, there are some reasons for inferring, notwithstanding, that it is not intended to be a mere reprint of fugitive papers, but that we have before us the long-talked-of speculative foundation of his treatment of the life and work of Jesus. Certainly this new book is a kind of complement to the earlier one. Whereas that discussed," How can we esteem Christ if the supernatural

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is disregarded?" this discusses "How, if the supernatural is eschewed, can we regard Christianity?" And the two books seem to be carefully arranged on the same plan. There is in each a mysterious preface; there is also in each a first and a second part of a similar design. In the first part in each the author's plan apparently is to conceal his ultimate opinions with some care, and in addition to the perplexity caused by indefiniteness of statement, to introduce several chapters wholly beside the main argument, in obedience, it would seem, to the Ciceronian advice about exordia "reddere auditores benevolos attentos dociles;" then having endeavoured to make his readers "sympathetic, alert, and tractable," to unfold in the second part, without let or hindrance, his more esoteric teaching; the whole in each case being completed by a concluding chapter, as apparently hesitant upon the most vital points controverted as the preceding exposition has been decided. Still, with all the apparent similarity of the two books, the prominent fact in comparing them is a manifest and wide divergence of standpoint. In Ecce Homo, for example, it was possible for the author to write as his last words upon the origin of the Church of Christ, "No man saw the building of the New Jerusalem; . . . it descended out of heaven from God." In Natural Religion both God and heaven have become as much figures of speech as the New Jerusalem, for God is the universe, we are told; and when we not unnaturally ask, "But why say God, if you merely mean universe, or world, or nature," we are assured in reply that the question is only verbal.

For some features of Natural Religion unfeigned commendation may be expressed. Style makes the fortune of books, and so oftentimes do incidental statements. In both respects

Natural Religion is noteworthy. It has many felicities of expression, beauties of thought, and aptnesses of quotation. Take the following apothegm upon the unity of the Bible :

"Mr. Mill," it is said on p. 169, "refers with a touch of sarcasm to those who fancy the Bible is all one book. It is a great mistake to do so; but it is perhaps a still greater mistake to think that it is not one book, or that it has no unity. The writings of which it is composed, allowing a few exceptions, agree together and differ from most other books in certain characteristics. Certain large matters are always in question, and the action moves forward with a slow evolution, like the dénouement of a play, through a thousand years of history."

Excellencies.

And in another place the author continues (p. 176) :—

603

"That which is peculiar to the Bible, and has caused it to be spoken of as one book rather than many, viz., the unity reigning throughout a work upon which so many generations laboured, gives it a vastness beyond comparison, so that the greatest work of individual literary genius shows by the side of it like some building of human hands beside the Peak of Teneriffe."

But for its length, I should like to quote the eloquent and acute reflections given in the third chapter, on the distinction. between intuitive and intellectual knowledge. Having a long course before us, however, one additional quotation must suffice, which it will not be surprising to hear cited again and again against the author himself and his new gospel :

"It is said," the author writes on p. 181, "that the theophilanthropist Larevellère-Lepeaux once confided to Talleyrand his disappointment at the ill-success of his attempt to bring into vogue a sort of improved Christianity, a benevolent rationalism which he had invented to meet the wants of a sceptical age. His propaganda made no way,' he said; 'what was he to do?' he asked. The ex-bishop politely condoled with him, feared it was indeed a difficult task to found a new religion, more difficult than could be imagined, so difficult that he hardly know what to advise! 'Still' so he went on after a moment's reflection-'there is one plan which you might at least try; I should recommend you to be crucified and to rise again the third day.'”

And there are noteworthy features besides the literary finish and acuteness of occasional thoughts. There is an evident earnestness, sometimes rising to fervour, in pleading the necessity of a religion for the most materialistic. There is also

a clear recognition of the great intellectual conflict in which this age is called to engage, and it is well to be reminded sometimes that in the present strife between Christianity and science

"The question is nothing less than this, whether we are to regard the grave with assured hope, and the ties between human beings as indissoluble by death; or, on the other hand, to dismiss the hope of a future life as too doubtful to be worth considering, even if not absolutely chimerical" (p. 4). The great social crisis through which the age is passing also comes in for an earnest and almost desperate recognition, for we read of the "vast rebellion of the less prosperous classes against the whole system which has nursed them,"-of the "fierce repudiation on their part of the whole system or law, way of viewing the universe or worship, which lies at the basis of the civilised world," and we are pointed to a result

"of which few measure the awful importance, almost threatening the death of European civilisation itself." Nor is the loud lament over the divisions and inactivity of the churches, which might be the effectual antidote to these subtle social poisons, without its value, and we may heartily thank the author for reminding us that "there is a mine under modern society, which, if we consider it, has been the necessary result of the abeyance in recent times of the idea of the church," the State requiring a church, as the body wants a soul. Perhaps however, the greatest gratitude is due to the anonymous author for attempting this reconciliation of his between modern thought and religion, secularism and faith, culture and Christianity, and letting the light of day fall on its emptiness.

The bad features of "Natural Religion" seem to be its frequent exaggeration, its looseness of definition, and its totally inadequate perception, whether of the great need of humanity on the one hand, or of the absolute character of the work of Christ on the other. Two faults certainly vitiate the entire work, namely, the serious exaggeration of representing science and Christianity as contradictions, and the very inadequate perception of the necessity and importance of the Christian redemption. Of each of these notice must be taken at tolerable length further on. For the present, it will answer the purpose of substantiating the above charges, to call attention to two or three minor errors.

How egregious an instance of loose definition is given, for example, when it is said that the theological view of the universe is "all summed up in the three propositions that a Personal Will is the cause of the universe, that that Will is perfectly benevolent, that that Will has sometimes interfered by miracles with the order of the universe!" This definition may do for a leveller who is concerning himself with the elements common to all theistic religions; it is altogether unsatisfactory to regard these several propositions as together equivalent to the distinctive features of Christianity; and, be it remembered, that the whole point of the discussion is Christianity-not Theism-versus science. Possibly this narrowness of view is the consequence of another remarkable instance of definition. The author seems to be under the impression that the etymology of such a word as theology will lead him to its