wide unbounded region of German thought, descending deep into the abyss of metaphysical questioning, and rising high into those loftiest regions of religion where we are invited to drink of the waters of the river of life that flow from beneath the throne of the Everlasting. This region is as yet untrodden by the most of us; and so far as we can judge from the echoes of strange Babylonic voices, and the dark shadows of gigantic distortions that have thence wandered over to our coasts, there seems to be no sufficient reason why we should disturb the peace of our souls by launching forth into this new voyage of perilous discovery. So far as we, from our point of view, can perceive, German theology, or German metaphysics, (for they are at bottom the same,) is a waste howling wilderness of hopeless scepticism-an baros spnua more wild and wintry than that in which Prometheus was rock-bound by the anger of Jove-a province of Cimmerian darkness, where there is only light enough to see long dismal rows of cold intellectual faces prying curiously into the dissected body of the dead Beautiful. Nor do we allow ourselves to be deceived by the number of wandering lights that ever and anon perform strange evolutions through that atmosphere of darkness. We see that these luminaries have no healthy permanency like the sun; and we know that the fields do not grow green beneath them. And if at any time some calm dignified shape (a Novalis perhaps), with the carriage of an angel, sails solemnly through the inextricable tumult of vain opinions, we are more confounded than consoled by such apparition; we have not been accustomed to deal with religious phantasmagoria; at all events a little floating poetry in the air will not compensate for the cold barren reality of the earth; the Englishman as yet sees nothing that can invite him to the serious study of German theology.

There can be no doubt that the Englishman in thus concluding, is acting in perfect conformity with that sound sense for which above all the races of men he is so remarkable. A genuine Englishman (we speak not of the few who delight in playing mountebank tricks) will not embark on a journey, merely for the pleasures of sailing in a balloon; he must know where he is going, and he must also know that the vehicle in which he travels will convey him thither in the most direct and expeditious manner. Now, what does German theology offer to us by way of useful helps and aids in the perplexed journey that we all travel to the grave, and to the undiscovered country beyond it? Has Inimanuel Kant with his searching analysis and his comprehensive grasp has Herder with his restless spirit of investigation, and his fiery heart that literally raged with humanity-has Schleiermacher with all his pure Platonism of sentiment-has Gesenius

with all his Hebrew-or Wegscheider with all his reason,-been able more clearly than we do to see through that rent in the coffin of mortality beyond which the star of the Christian's hope shines benignly? Not they. On the contrary, the tendency of all their doings seems to have been to undermine the foundations of Christianity, and to leave us (with the exception of some smooth pious phraseology) exactly where we were when Tacitus denounced the "exitiabilis superstitio" and the "odium humani generis" that distinguished the vulgar sect of the Nazarenes. The fact is undeniable. The Germans are not an irreligious nation-far from it; but they certainly have succeeded most effectually, so far as their own national belief is concerned, in evaporating all that is solid and substantial in Christianity, in taking away from beneath our feet all that is real and historical in the faith of centuries. If to the English theologian the life of Christ is sometimes little better than a mechanical series of miracles, here at least we have a frame-work into which a soul may be breathed; but to the German theologian there is no life of Christ at all; the whole is mythus, allegory, epos; the miracles, if they are not old wives' tales, are mere magnified and glorified pictures of nature's most common common-places; and to be a Christian is merely to live in the God-begotten idea of moral perfectionation, of which the name of the Messiah doubtless is the enduring type, but the name of Plato as much so. The Titanic architecture of the Old Testament evaporates by a like process into smoke. As Wolf taught a new catechism to the scholars of his country, so that we now hear no longer of Homer's Iliad and Homer's Odyssey, but only of the Homeric ballads; so he also seems to have lent a watchword to the theologians, and we hear no more of the books of Moses, but merely of the Mosaic legend, the Mosaic mythus, the Mosaic epos; and that which was late a mystical volume, out of whose pages flowed fountains of living water, has now become an ancient scroll for the curious to read, a Hebrew parchment for the learned to comment on. The finger of God moves no longer visibly, writing bright hopes upon the walls of our prison-house; like Homer's ghosts (dwλa auaupa) we wander melancholy, dark amid darkness; and we hear nothing but confounding voices of foolish opinions, and infantine babblings, of which, whether coming from ourselves or others, we had long since been sick even unto the death. The anchor of certainty has again been torn from the intellect of man; our brightest hopes, which Christianity made to shine like the stars in the firmament, are now a second time sent to float as loose bubbles on the ocean of bottomless speculation; we cannot even look devoutly for the second advent of Christ to convince us that there ever was a first; for

Immanuel Kant has made every man his own legislator, and the Categorical Imperative will not submit to be taught even by the Epiphany of a God.*

* In confirmation, or rather attestation, of these general views which we have ventured to express on the subject of the present state of Christianity in Germany, we beg to submit two interesting and very characteristic specimens of religious criticism from one of the first literary papers of the day-Menzel's Literatur-Blatt. We make the extract purposely from a literary paper, because the state of religion is always to be sought for more among the laity than the clergy, who have an official character to preserve, and represent more the opinions of a caste than the sentiments of a people. The first extract is in the shape of a criticism on Bohlen's exegetical work on Genesis, Königsberg, 1835. The second expresses some general views on the state of Protestantism in Germany, that fully justify any expressions, however strong, that we have been led to use on the subject :

"We think the author has treated the historical contents of the book of Genesis somewhat too cavalierly. We are far, indeed, from wishing to conceal our ignorance behind what is called an orthodox exegesis. We give up the whole form of this book to the sharpest grammatical and historical criticism. It is to us a matter of the utmost indifference whether one author or two have composed it, or who that author was. But the Mosaic legend of the creation has an internal significancy which raises it far above all other mythological representations of the ancient world. It is at once more simple, and more profound than all the rest. The manner in which the mysterious separation of the sexes, and the origin of evil are explained, sufficiently attest this. We ought accordingly to place the superior excellence of the book of Genesis, not in the merely external circumstances of its age, of Moses' authorship, but in the weight of its contents, and the depth of its ideas. To estimate this properly, to penetrate, so to speak, the mystic kernel of the narration, is far more edifying for the purposes of philosophy and religious consolation, than occupying ourselves with the mere shell. It is the thing, not the author that concerns us. The eternally true and beautiful requires no documents to prove it; as little can it be quibbled away by sophisms and subtleties. It attests itself, and asks for no outward witness. Α sublime idea remains the same, from whatever brain, and in whatever region, it had its birth."-Literatur-Blatt, redigirt von Dr. Wolfgang Menzel, 28 Novbr. 1836. "Christianity with us seems to stand pretty much in the same position that Heathenism did in the days of Hadrian. As in those days foreign gods were greedily adopted from all parts of the world, and the immeasurable population of Rome ran in rivalry after the worship of Egyptian and Syrian idols, more for curiosity's sake than from real pious motive, amusing themselves also learnedly in the accommodation of these several systems to any philosophy that might happen to be fashionable for the day-so the German Christians are now hovering in uncertainty between every different Confession of Religion, without seriously adhering to any. The Catholics march in the van of modern enlightenment, and become as sober and rational as any Protestant; the Protestants begin to think they have gone too far, draw back from their original stout reliance on private judgment, and have commenced a public coquetry with Catholic ideas, and Catholic forms. (The Oxford tracts among ourselves!) The difference between Lutheran and Reformed is no more heard of. A whole herd of North-German poets and philosophers, born Protestants, have made a pilgrimage to the Catholic world, and thence, metamorphosed into the most violent ultramontanes, they have s nt forth a new Crusade against the ancient brethren. Among the Catholics again, we have a whole party, the Anti-Celibatists, between whom and the Protestants there exists really no essential difference. Then we have the fashionable philosophies succeeding one another, or co-existing, and these philosophies possess a wonderful flexibility by which they can be adopted to any of the existing religious creeds, as easily as they can be made the instrument of creating a peculiar religion, each for itself. In the midst of all this confusion, the majority of the people find it most comfortable to remain in indifference, and, where one thing seems as good as another, generally remain in the religion of their fathers."-Literatur-Blatt, 7 Novbr. 1836.

Why therefore, it will be asked, do we tempt God, by opening up this shoreless sea of doubt, and throwing the helmless barks of human souls abroad upon its waves? Are we envious of the fate of Pliny and desirous to throw away the precious gift of existence, for the idle curiosity of contemplating with nearer gaze this smoke and fire of a burning mountain? If this analogy were perfectly appropriate in all points, the course of every wise man would be clear-to keep out of harm's way. But if God has thrown the dark valley of the shadow of death in the direct road between us and Heaven, it is not for us to turn aside from that perilous passage, because the light on the road which we have hitherto travelled has been uniformly pleasant and comfortable to the eye; and most certain it is that doubt and perplexity are the portals of Faith, as sorrow and anguish of soul and honest selfreproach are the beginnings of Sanctification. True it is that human nature in its present frail estate can scarcely afford to lose the glorious hope of immortality for any thing that Kant, or Hegel, or Göthe, have to offer in its stead; but still less can human nature afford to lose truth, and the love of truth, and the search of truth, and the constraining power of reality. What avails it to me that I hold the sceptre of the world in my hand, if all the while I am haunted with the suspicion that it is the mere bauble of a child? And thus in religious matters especially it is of the utmost importance that what a man believes he believe with his whole soul; for certainly not so much upon the quantity as upon the quality of his faith does his salvation depend. If a man, therefore, has any doubts upon religious subjects, and German theology comes in his way, it is in vain for him to say to his difficulties:-Get ye gone for this time; when I have a more convenient season I will call for you. If the faith in which the religious man seeks to live is to be any thing better than a floating cloud, he must examine and question; and no one ever examined and questioned to any purpose who had not first learned to doubt. If our religion is to be anything better than a mere garment, a mere piece of heraldic blazonry-it is of essential importance that we should know exactly where we are. If there be any suspicion about the matter, let us make minute inquiry whether it be mid-day or midnight, or merely the "morning-rednesse" of a day that shall be. And if the Devil be abroad any where, let us by all means see him; for the prince of the power of the air works ever most dangerously in the dark.

But the fact of the matter is, that there is, after all, not near so much of the devil in German theology as people are apt to imaginea proposition which might sound strange after what

we have said above, did we not know very well that in this world, so full of multitudinous and inextricable folds, the best things are often strangely mingled up with the worst. The French Revolution was at once the most energetic assertion of the moral liberty of man, and the most humiliating manifestation of the use he makes of that liberty. The history of Christianity in Germany presents a spiritual revolution of similar character, and similar aspects; and as we have shown the one side of the picture sufficiently black, it is but fair that we should look for a moment upon the other. Let us, therefore, inquire a little more particularly what this phenomenon called German Neology, or rather more at large German Protestantism, really is-whence, and how it arose what the manner of its working-what have been, so far as yet discernible, its effects-and what are likely to be its future results. And, in the first place, they appear to us to err egregiously, who look upon German Rationalism as something peculiarly German, something of which the origin and causes are to be sought for within the narrow limits of the Augsburg Confession, or the Heidelburg Catechism. It is not a German, but a European, fever, that here disturbs the calm flow of the vital humours; nay more, that which we denounce and anathematize as the most insidious foe of our common Protestantism, is neither more nor less (as has been often remarked) than that same Protestantism run to seed. We do not mean by this to defend the maxim, that religion, like chemistry, or any of the experimental sciences, is a thing that must grow and expand with the times, and with the development of the human mind, (though certainly religion will always be one thing to an enlightened, and another thing to a darkened intellect): we do not mean to say that the Reformation, in the mind of Martin Luther, was merely the commencement of a series of changes destined to progress onwards to that happy period when the Bible shall be stripped of everything that now distinguishes it from the Enchiridion of Epictetus, or Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments. But we do say that the principle of individual judgment, apart altogether from the tradition of the Church, arrested by the early reformers, though not applied to that effect by them, has nevertheless, if rigorously carried out, the necessary tendency to produce, when external circumstances are favourable, exactly such a state of things in the Christian Church as was exhibited in Germany in the latter half of the last century. The Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible, is the Shibboleth of all Protestants; yet what Protestant teacher ever puts the Bible into the one hand of his scholar, without at the same time putting the Church Cate