since the Nazarenes are charged by the Faithful with a most impudent and profane violation of it.

If, however, Mr. Forster shall, upon mature consideration, retain his belief that the Christian cause has been, or is likely to be, debtor to this mystery of deception, it is undoubtedly incumbent upon him to retract, without delay, certain vehement denunciations against it, wherewith he has disburdened his spirit, in its moments of fierce and zealous indignation. We find considerable difficulty in comprehending how a scheme of faith, which stands in the gap between Christianity and heathenism—which, according to Mr. Forster, has done so much for the improvement of the human mind, that it appears as if "Isaac without Ishmael could not have been made perfect"*—and which forms the bridge or causeway over which Christianity may possibly have to march to the conquest of the world-we cannot quite comprehend how a belief, which merits these descriptions, can fairly or properly be designated as the most devastating of all apostasies, and as nothing better than an Antichristian perversion of divine truth. Either Mr. Forster must have formed an extravagant estimate of the services which the delusions of Mahomet are likely to render to the truth of Christ, or else we must accustom ourselves to contemplate as a blessing, rather than a curse, the dispersion of "the perspicuous book" throughout the more uncivilized regions of the globe. Should the views of this writer become universally popular, we should hardly be surprised by the circulation of proposals for the formation of a Society for the Propagation of Islam! As, however, we are not yet quite prepared to look, with much complacency, on a project of this nature, we must, for the present, rest satisfied with what we believe to be a far more excellent way of bringing barbarians into the path of salvation, namely, by introducing among them civilization and Christianity hand in hand together, rather than by relying upon falsehood as the herald and forerunner of truth. If this method be pursued, with a due combination of energy and prudence, there will, assuredly, be no necessity for a passage through Mahometanism, from the darkness of Pagan superstition to the marvellous light of the Gospel. We may, then, reasonably hope, that the nations that sit in the deadly shadows of idolatry may be brought forth into the open day, without being entertained or bribed by the way with visions of black eyes and lemonade"-the eternal ingredients of Musulman felicity!

66

We are compelled to suppress a variety of reflections and remarks, which we had accumulated in the course of our progress through this work; but the insertion of which would, it is to be

* Vol. ii. p. 277.

feared, render the impatience of our readers positively outrageous, notwithstanding the vivid interest which attaches to the subject;an interest made additionally vivid by events which, while we are writing, are rapidly deploying before our eyes. The occurrences of the last few months seem to indicate the no very distant accomplishment of a traditional notion, which has long been current among the true believers, that the infidel dogs are destined, at last, to worry and chase them out of Europe. The pack has of late been cheered on, with tremendous effect, by the mighty hunter of Muscovy. The Thracian barrier itself has presented no impediment to his career. The circle appears to be closing in upon the Scythian buffalo. Notwithstanding the breathing time which is now, reluctantly, allowed him, the hounds may before long be once more let slip-they will then soon be upon his haunches; and, after perilous laceration, will drive him, bleeding and mutilated, back into his Asiatic domains. All this seems more than probable: and with whatever emotion the politician may look upon the prospect, the Christian can hardly contemplate it without feeling his heart burn within him. There is something animating in the thought, that perhaps the present generation may not have wholly passed away, before the abomination which maketh desolate, shall be removed from the Temple of St. Sophia, and its dome echo once more with the anthems of Christian adoration. We forbear, however, to pursue, in imagination, the march of these awful vicissitudes into the regions which are hidden from human gaze. We have hardly caught from Mr. Forster the tone of sanguine confidence, which is needful to carry us forward into the depths of that wilderness of speculation. To him, these events may, possibly, supply a multitude of signs and indications, which speak of a decisive confirmation to his system. To us, they at present furnish nothing more than an additional and powerful motive for observing, with reverent attention, the developement of God's gracious purposes towards the Church, which his own word has pronounced to be indestructible.

ART. II.-The History of the Church of England. By J. B. S. Carwithen, B. D. of St. Mary Hall, Oxford; Bampton Lecturer for 1809; and Vicar of Sandhurst, Berks. London. Baldwin and Cradock. 8vo. 2 vols. 1829.

On

Ir cannot, assuredly, be considered any disparagement to one of the most pleasing and, yet more, one of the most useful works which has appeared in our times, if we state our opinion, that Mr. Southey's Book of the Church has by no means precluded other writers from directing their steps in a similar course. the contrary, his most interesting volumes have created an appetite and awakened a taste which require farther gratification, and which, indeed, demand yet more substantial nutriment than is to be found in the bocca dolce which he has afforded them. If this were all the good which Mr. Southey had effected by his choice of subject, he would sufficiently demand the gratitude of every well-wisher of our Establishment-how much he has done beyond this, it is scarcely necessary that we should here express to any of those who are likely to open our pages.

The sketch of our Church History, which Mr. Southey has so happily dashed off, is rapid, brilliant, spirited, and attractive. The figures, for the most part, are of the heroic cast, and they stand out from his canvass in bold relief. All that he purposed to himself he has executed, most skilfully and successfully; and if beauty of colouring and correctness of outline were every thing which the pencil can furnish, it were idle to seek for these elsewhere. To quit our metaphor, it is obvious that a Work intended for what is called popular circulation; which is to allure those whom business or indolence, activity or sloth, may prevent from more laborious reading; and whose chief hope of success is rested on its power delectandi pariterque monendi, must be framed on principles excluding much which the Historical Student will reasonably expect and demand, in a composition more immediately addressed to his use. The Book of the Church, viewed in this light, stands in the same relation to the volumes now before us, as that which is occupied by Memoirs,* in comparison with History. Each in its peculiar line may attain the highest excellences of its kind; but as their kinds are distinct, so also are their excellences.

There is no want of materials for a History of our Church; and one of the great merits, among the many great merits, which

Such ought to have been Mr. Southey's title, Memoirs of the Church of England. It is to be regretted that it did not occur to him that TO BIBAION is exclusively reserved for a Book not written by Mau.

Mr. Carwithen has exhibited in his present publication, is to be found in his nicety of selection. Burnet and Strype, not to mention numerous other authorities less immediately at hand, doubtless must be read and mastered by every one who seeks to acquaint himself profoundly with the rise and progress of our national Religious discipline and doctrine. They hold the keys of the English Reformers' armoury; and they furnish a choice of weapons of proof, without borrowing from which the Theologian must not presume to enter the fight, nor to gird himself against any of the Philistines who challenge us to come out and set our battle in array. It is to the pages of the Bishop of Sarum, and of the Minister of Low Leyton, that the Divine, the Statesman, the Philosopher, the Antiquary, and the patient inquirer after every species of Truth, must, in the first place, direct his researches, if he would accurately learn the springs and causes, the birth, growth, adolescence, and maturity of our present Ecclesiastical Polity. But when the memory has once become deepdyed, imbued, and impregnated by these writers; when we are incocti honesto; when the thirst has been slaked at the fountainhead, and we begin to sip for the indulgence of a fastidious taste, rather than for the relief of an insufferable drought; it cannot be denied that, although no other waters may be more salubrious, many may be brighter to the eye and sweeter to the palate. Strype's pretensions scarcely exceed those of a painful annalist and a laborious compiler; and we have little doubt that he took much credit to himself for the cumbrousness of his unwieldy honesty. So Burnet, (putting aside certain peculiarities of opinion,) though for the most part perspicuous, distinct, nervous, and masculine, is assuredly rough, sometimes even to coarseness, and never oversolicitous of elegance. Even if the pleasure of reading be considered (as doubtless it ought to be) but a secondary object, there is no little profit to be obtained by a concentration of the widely scattered and discursive narratives of the authors whom we have just named. Strype, indeed, avowedly throws all his facts into loose packages and separate bundles; and sometimes, when we have been surrounded by the compact and closely-printed octavos, for which we are so much indebted to the liberality of the Clarendon Press, and have felt, perhaps, a little confused and perplexed by the countless atoms and unnumbered molecules of information which were emanating from every letter of every line,—we have fancied ourselves not wholly unlike the Princess in the Faerie Tale, who was instructed to assort, and assign to their respective owners, in a given time, the feathers of every bird known under heaven, which had been heaped and mixed together in the uttermost entanglement of disorder. We would willingly, also, have received

assistance from the wand which, at a touch, distributed this plumage, and reduced it to its natural arrangement.* In like manner, with Burnet, there is a perpetual reduplication and retrogyration, a second treading in former steps, over which Ovid would have quibbled through a score of antithetical hexameters :

ambiguo lapsu refluitque fluitque

Occurrensque sibi venturas aspicit undas.

We have no sooner arrived fairly at the settlement of the Reformation under Elizabeth, and congratulated ourselves upon our emancipation from the thraldom of the Scarlet Lady, than we are wafted back far beyond the very beginning, out of sight of Henry VIIIth and his Blue Chamber, to the Great Schism of Rome and Avignon, the Council of Basil, and the Pragmatic Sanction; and having concluded this supplementary prologue, we are led on through a whole volume of new matter, upon the reigns which we supposed that we had long since exhausted. In point of fact, Burnet has quite as many more last words" as Baxter himself.

We are glad, therefore, to find the hand of a master-artist employed in remoulding the huge mass of undigested materials, -some of them yet unfused and rough from the mine, others already cast into strange shapes and uncouth images,-which lie so abundantly before him. One or two attempts of a similar kind, some of them of recent date, have appeared to us to be failures; and we are by no means surprised to find them so; for the task requires a nice combination of qualities which do not often meet together in the same intellect. There must be diligence to collect facts, sagacity to compare them, dexterity to combine them; a spirit which flags neither under the toil of compilation nor of composition; accuracy, judgment, taste, scholarship, impartiality, soundness of Religious opinions, attachment to established institutions, firmness, and fidelity;-let the reader arrange these qualities in that order which best pleases him, and then let him place under their guidance the pen of a ready and practised writer. All these endowments must be brought to the trial, if it is to be prosecuted happily; and all these, we feel justified in averring, are exhibited in the volumes before us by Mr. Carwithen.

A preliminary chapter, of little more than forty pages, carries the reader, in very rapid progress, from the early visit of Augustine to our islands, down to the opening of the XVIth century. Mr. Carwithen is fully aware that the ground over which he has

* We must acknowledge that such assistance is now afforded by the copious and elaborate Index which appeared in 1828.