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fresh to them; they loved it with all their heart and soul, and to it they sacrificed reputation, comfort, and even life. Theirs was the fresh, exciting, early dawn; ours, comparatively, the clear, settled, quiet afternoon. They had their absurdities and follies, it is true, and so we have ours. The difference is, we can see theirs and not our own; and with retributive justice a later posterity will look upon us as we now look upon them.

6.- GUERICKE'S MANUAL OF CHURCH HISTORY.1

Henry Ernst Ferdinand Guericke was born in Wettin, on the 25th of February, 1803. He pursued his university studies at Halle in 18211824. At the age of twenty-six he became Professor extraordinary at Halle; but six years afterward, on account of his opposition to the Church Union in Prussia, he was obliged to relinquish his Professorship, and he then became the Preacher at the old Lutheran Church, in Halle. The Prussian government, however, did not allow him to perform clerical duty in the old Lutheran communion more than three years. He then became the subject of a severe persecution. Not until 1840 was he allowed to return to his Professorship in the university. In 1824-1825 he published his work on the Catechetical School of Alexandria; in 1828-1831, his Contributions to the Historico-critical Introduction to the New Testament; in 1831, his Christian Symbolism; in 1833, at the age of thirty, his Manual of Church History, the last volume of the eighth edition of which appeared in 1855. In connection with Rudelbach, he has been for many years editor of the Journal of Lutheran Theology. With all his differences in opinion and ecclesiastical relations from Tholuck, Julius Müller, Twesten and Nitzsch, he has lived in personal friendship with them. He is admitted by all to be a man of inflexible resolution, indefatigable industry, and honest piety. The criticisms most frequently pronounced against him are, that he is unfair in his arrangement of facts, uncandid in his interpretation of them, and too free in appropriating to his own use the materials collected by other historians, particularly by Neander and Hase. Severe against others, he has provoked equal severity against himself.

We are glad that the substance of his History of the Ancient Church is now given, in their mother tongue, to English and American scholars. We hope that Professor Shedd will continue the work which he has so successfully begun, and translate Guericke's History of the Mediaeval, and of the Modern Church. An author like Guericke deserves this respect. His writings ought to be presented, and so far as perspicuity will admit, pre

1 A Manual of Church History, by Henry E. F. Guericke, Doctor and Professor of Theology in Halle. Translated from the German by William G. T. Shedd, Brown Professor in Andover Theological Seminary. Ancient Church History, comprising the first six centuries. Andover: Published by Warren F. Draper. New York: Wiley and Halsted. Philadelphia: Smith, English and Co. 1857. pp. 422. 8vo.

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sented as they are, to our countrymen. Translations from the German authors, and especially such authors as Guericke, are far more useful than they are thought to be. We derive a benefit not only from the substance, but also from the manner, of German treatises. The spirit of the men is seen in their methods of reasoning and classification; and it affects, as it ought to affect, the influence of their works. We cannot approve the custom now beginning to prevail, of an American or English author's remodeling the substance of a German work, and then presenting it as his own to the public. Let the translator give as faithful a version of the German treatise as the classical English idiom will easily allow, and then give to that treatise the name and the credit which are its due. On this subject we think that some decided cautions need to be addressed to a few authors, who are in danger of falling into semi-plagiarism. We do not insist on servile translations of the German theologians, especially of such as write in Guericke's prolix and crabbed style. We regard Professor Shedd's version, now under notice, as a happy specimen of the transfusion rather than translation, which many of the German treatises should receive. Professor Shedd has reduced the cumbrous phraseology of his author to a vigorous and yet flowing English. The style of his version is far superior to that of the original. Still he has given us the substance, and, so far as he could wisely do so, the spirit of the German work; and the author of the work instead of complaining, as some of his countrymen have complained, that American authors conceal, as well as repudiate, their literary debts, will have reason for gratitude to his translator for exhibiting in an attractive style, what had been previously valued in despite of its harsh and lumbering phraseology. Seldom, as in the present case, does a translation do better than justice to its original.

7.- GRAEBER ON THE APOCALYPSE.1

THOROUGH critical scholars are approximating towards an agreement in their interpretations of the Apocalypse. The Commentary of De Wette, published in 1848, that of Hengstenberg, translated and published in Clark's Theological Library, at Edinburgh, in 1851, and the work of Auberlen, which has already been noticed in the Bibliotheca Sacra, are all fitted to turn the mind away from that view of the book which would make it a political and ecclesiastical history of modern Europe, and to inaugurate an interpretation on broader and more general principles, which will recognize not only the symbolical character of the Book itself, but also of the very events which the Book in the first instance predicts. The events themselves are symbolic of other and more remote and more important events, so that each particular prophecy has, as Lord Bacon expresses it, springing and

Versuch einer historischer Erklärung der Offenbarung des Johannes mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Auslegungen von Bengel, Hengstenberg und Ebrard, von H. J. Gracber, Pfarrer in Meiderich. Heidelberg. 1857.

germinant accomplishment throughout many ages, though the height or fulness of it may refer to some one age. For example, the judgment on Jerusalem in the 24th of Matthew is itself but a symbol of the great final judgment, and so also is the judgment on Idumea in the 34th of Isaiah; see especially the 2d, 5th and 6th verses.

The work of Graeber is neither very original, nor very erudite, nor very profound; but it is a pleasant and profitable study. It is a well meant, and on the whole, a successful attempt to mediate between the extreme historic view of Bengel on the one hand, and the extreme symbolic view of Hengstenberg on the other, on the basis of the more moderate historical interpretation of Ebrard. In all that is well done, every little helps; and it is not extravagant to expect, that true scholars will be substantially agreed in their interpretation of the Apocalypse, some time before the millennium dawns upon us.

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Dr. J. P. Thompson, pastor of the church recently worshipping in the Broadway Tabernacle, has given us, in one of the pamphlets now on our table, an instructive history of the religious uses of that edifice. Professor Finney of Oberlin, Dr. Duffield of Detroit, Dr. Joel Parker of New York, Rev. E. W. Andrews, and Rev. Dr. Thompson have successively officiated in the Tabernacle, as pastors or stated ministers. Many impressive instances of the good results of their ministrations are noticed in this DisThe Tabernacle is consecrated in the memory of thousands by the sacred eloquence which has been called forth under its roof for a series of years, at the anniversaries of various national associations. The house has thus gained a national importance, and the sermon preached on the Sabbath before its demolition is interesting, not merely to the citizens of New York, but also to "the strangers scattered throughout " the land, who have worshipped on the spot "whither the tribes went up" to their yearly festival.

course.

Dr. Thompson has also laid the religious community under obligations to him by another Discourse, containing a fine portraiture of the ministerial character and services of the late Dr. Lansing. This eminent divine was born in 1785. He was of Dutch descent, and did not learn the English language until he was somewhat advanced in his boyhood. As his grandfather was Patroon or Patentee of a large manor in the neighborhood of Troy, N. Y., young Lansing's early associations must have been with the rich and

I. The Last Sabbath in the Broadway Tabernacle. A Historical Discourse, by the Pastor, Joseph P. Thompson, D. D. With an Account of the Services on that Day, April 26, 1857. New York: Calkins and Stiles. 1857.

II. The Faithful Preacher. A Discourse commemorative of the late Dirck C. Lansing, D. D., by Joseph P. Thompson, Pastor of the Broadway Tabernacle Church, New York. Calkins and Stiles, 348 Broadway. 1857.

the gay; and on a youth of a different native temperament, such a mode of life would have been extremely disastrous. His naturally serious disposition seems to have protected him against these influences. In the year 1800, at the age of fifteen, he became a member of Yale College, of which Dr. Dwight had then been President for about five years. The readers of Dr. Dwight's Life will remember the picture there given of the religious state of the College at that period, and his wise, and eventually successful efforts to check the rapidly advancing tide of infidel opinions. His influence was felt by the youthful Lansing, who seems to have been radically changed in character during the year 1802. This change was speedily followed by a determination to become a minister of the Gospel. He studied theology, principally under the care of Rev. Dr. Blatchford of Lansingburg, N. Y., and was licensed to preach in 1806. In the autumn of that same year he joined a church at Onondaga, N. Y., a spot then almost a wilderness. Of this church he became pastor.

From this date his ministerial career- though impeded often by ill health, may fitly be termed a series of brilliant victories over the powers of evil. A pastor successively in Onondaga, in Auburn, where, during a ministry of twelve years, he was instrumental in the conversion of more than a thousand persons-in Utica, in New York City, over two different churches; an Evangelist for several years, subsequently pastor of a Congregational Church in Brooklyn, N. Y., he was in all these positions a powerful and successful preacher. He is said to have been instrumental in the promotion of more than sixty revivals of religion in forty different towns. His ministry in most of the places above mentioned was during the memorable era of religious interest in western New York and New England. Dr. L. entered into these exciting scenes with all his characteristic zeal.

He was always a strenuous advocate of doctrinal discussion in the pulpit, as a means both of producing and perpetuating pure revivals of religion. His success as a preacher is strikingly illustrative of the soundness of this view, and of the preeminent effectiveness of the general theological system which he advocated. During a religious excitement at Auburn, N. Y., he considered himself as doing precisely what was most needed in order to the permanence of that revival, by publishing a volume of doctrinal sermons. He was a student and admirer of the works of the New England divines, Edwards, Hopkins, Bellamy. His conviction of the great worth of doctrinal preaching, and consequently of the need of thorough training for the ministry, led him, while a pastor at Auburn, to project the estab lishment of the Theological Seminary in that place. By his personal exertions he secured to this Seminary an endowment of $100,000, and for some time, besides the duties of a pastor in the town, he performed those of Professor of Sacred Rhetoric in the Seminary. He was also one of the original Trustees of Hamilton College.

His private religious character was in keeping with the character of his ministry. He was distinguished for the ardor of his spirit, his intense love

of truth, and the general purity of his life. Cincinnati, March 19, 1857, at the age of 72.

He died at Walnut Hills,

This commemorative sermon of Dr. Thompson breathes a spirit of affectionate sympathy with the faith and the zeal of the departed teacher. It deserves to be read by all clergymen, especially those who complain of doctrinal discussion as chilling the fervor of sacred eloquence.

9.- TAULER'S LIFE AND SERMONS.1

THE principal sources from which the present Life of Tauler and his coadjutors is derived, are the writings of Professor Schmidt of Strasburg, on Johannes Tauler von Strasburg; on Eckart, in the Theologische Studien und Kritiken for 1839; and on Die Gottesfreunde in Vierzehnten Jahrhundert; also Wackernagel's Essay on the Gottesfreunde, Neander's and Hase's Church History, and Milman's Latin Christianity, etc. From such sources it were easy, one would think, to compile a better record than is here presented us of Dr. Tauler and of his co-laborers; a record more symmetrical, more philosophical, more distinct and impressive.

The selection from Tauler's sermons, in this volume, is made for the people, not for the schools. Literary men would be more interested in those discourses of this remarkable man, which develop more fully his theological opinions, even his metaphysical and mystical notions. His more profound theories shaped his sermons, and the sermons cannot be exactly understood unless his philosophical speculations are definitely stated. His philosophy of human nature, for instance, lies concealed under the following remarks on page 337 of this volume: "What the Lord of nature ordains for a creature, that it is natural for the creature to observe, and if it departs therefrom, it acts contrary to nature." "Inasmuch as the disciples surrendered themselves utterly to the Divine Will, they were in the highest sense in harmony with nature, and their nature did not perish, but was exalted and brought into rightful order." His philosophy of inspiration lies hidden under his remark on page 340: "Did the disciples in this highest school of the Spirit obtain an insight into all those sciences which are learnt in the school of nature? I answer, yes; it was given them to understand all science, whether touching the courses of the heavenly bodies, or what not, in so far as it might conduce to God's glory, or concerned the salvation of man; but those points of science which bear no fruit for the soul they were not given to know."

In various passages of these sermons glimpses may be caught of Dr.

1 The History and Life of the Reverend Dr. John Tauler of Strasbourg, with twenty-five of his sermons (Temp. 1340). Translated from the German, with Additional Notices of Tauler's Life and Times, by Susanna Winkworth, Translator of Theologia Germanica - and a Preface by the Rev. Charles Kingsley, Rector of Eversley and Canon of Meddleham. London: Smith, Elder and Co. 65 Cornhill, MDCCCLVII, pp. 415, small quarto.

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