law. In fact, the mystery of the Incarnation itself is the most opposed, in its external appearance, to the manifestation of God in the Old Testament, as a Pure, Spiritual, Infinite Essence, that we can conceive one part of a Divine revelation to be to another. Reason cannot reconcile them. We have, in the mystery of the Incarnation, the very source and principle of all the external changes which have been made in the Divine Economy, including that which relates to images; and this consideration dissipates all the difficulties which overshadow the subject. The great thing to be desired by one who acknowledges the Divinity of our Lord is, to discover the reason for the change of the Jewish discipline in regard to images in the grand fact of the Incarnation, and a necessary connection between the veneration paid to them and this central doctrine of the faith, by which the former shall appear to have grown out of the latter. In order to obtain clear and accurate knowledge of that mode of representing "the invisible things of God" which is agreeable to his will, and also of the nature of that perversion of his law which he condemns as idolatry, it is necessary to reason up to some first principle grounded upon the very nature and being of God, and upon the primary doctrines of the Christian faith. The question will reduce itself at last to this: "Is it possible, and in accordance with God's will, that he should be represented by a material image?" The question is decided by the simple fact that God has created such an image of himself, the body of his Son. If God had made no such manifestation of himself as this, we might, in our ignorance, imagine, that the visible representation of God or of any spiritual substance is essentially impossible, and inconsistent with the true idea of divine and spiritual essence; and that the attempt to do so would be a sin, not merely of presumption, but of atheism. But when the Incarnation is admitted, we are obliged to regard all forbidden and sinful methods of representation, in short, every thing which is included under the name of idolatry, as perversions of the Divine Economy, but not as intrinsically contrary to the Divine Essence. The sin of idolatry consists rather in the substitution of counterfeits for realities, than in the attempt at representation. Accordingly, there is a plain reason why the use of images should be restrained before the coming of Christ, and encouraged afterwards. Arnold saw this truth, and has stated it clearly and forcibly. The Fathers and Saints of the age of Iconoclasm, and the whole Council of Nice, made it one of their first principles, when, with such depth of wisdom, they elucidated and defended the Catholic doctrine. They reason invariably from the Incarnation to the veneration of images, and illustrate their doctrine by analogies drawn from every part of the creation and revelation of God, in order to show that a common principle pervades all. It is a proof that the fixed and precise doctrine of the Church declared at Nice is a necessary consequence of the doctrine of the Incarnation, because the arguments by which the former was defended were actually derived from the deepest views of the latter. It may be remarked also, in passing, that they invariably place images in the same class with other sacred things, as temples and altars, and trace the usage of the Church in regard to all to one principle, their sacredness, and consequent claim to veneration, which is differently exhibited according to the different nature and signification of the objects to which it is applied. They disregard, also, the distinction between images and symbols. In conclusion, we simply remark, that the great difficulty and repugnance which many persons experience in regard to the Catholic custom of venerating images is purely imaginary, and is much more effectually dissipated by making the stations of the cross, kissing the feet of a crucifix, and praying before an image of Our Lady, than by all the arguments of St. Thomas, or any other profound theologian. To such persons we say, as the Greek bishops did to the nonjurors, "Behold, you have stood in great fear, where no fear was." ART. III.-1. Evangeline, a Tale of Acadie. By HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. Sixth Edition. Boston: William D. Ticknor & Co. 1848. 12mo. pp. 163. 2. Kavanagh, a Tale. By HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. Boston Ticknor, Reed, & Fields. 1849. 12mo. pp. 188. THERE are some authors who take the world by storm, and, happening to produce at the first effort precisely what popular taste demands, escape the long probation of unrequited drudgery and unmerited neglect, and secure with one bold, brilliant leap the honor and emolument of literary success. There are others of equal power, who steal slowly and si lently into public favor, after weathering years of ridicule and indifference, in which the consciousness of strength, the conviction of ultimate triumph, and, perhaps, a fixed resolve to work out an interiorly recognized mission of good to mankind, have sustained and inspired them. Those, the few, who can discover and admit merit, in the course of some years, amount, with their proselytes, to a considerable body, often large enough to influence the world of letters, and to constitute their approval a passport to the consideration of that very exclusive, but passive and obedient creature, the reading community. To this class Mr. Longfellow, in some respects, belongs. His poetry was never destined to rapid and universal popularity, for it lacks the Satanic glare of Byron, the epicurean glitter of Moore, and the strong, natural, genuine, deep, unaffected pathos, humor, and home-interest of Burns; while it certainly cannot boast that indefinable magic of a higher and the highest genius, which it is not in man to resist. Had Mr. Longfellow been born fifty years earlier than he was, he never could have lived to enjoy his reputation. But Wordsworth, and the whole tribe of Lakers in England, Goethe in Germany, and kindred, though lesser, spirits in Belgium and Sweden, have smoothed a path for him, and created the taste to which he appeals. During the last halfcentury England has contained two mutually hostile schools of poets, -one of passion, the other of reason, and neither perfectly natural; for the one went out of its way to avoid simplicity, whilst the other went out of its way to get it. Of late years the passion party have almost ceased to write, except in prose, leaving to France the completion of Don Juan in the deliberate orgies of Eugene Sue, and the hypocritical, seductive sentimentality of Lamartine. The reason partythe moralists, the Levites - remain in undisputed possession of the field. We rejoice at their victory only as a choice of evils, for we fear the use they will make of it. It is true that their verses are undefiled by impurity and open profanity; but they extol natural piety until they forget revealed religion, and celebrate the dignity of the creature until they lose sight of the majesty of God. But let us give them their due. It is not easy for a poet, unsustained by the sacraments of the Church of God, to reject the delicate impurities that rise before him like Venus from the flashing foam of the Egean, to dispense with the sensual rouge which the morbid taste of the majority has made essential to beauty. Nor is this virtue simply a want of ability to sin; for NEW SERIES. - VOL. IV. NO. I. 8 the hand that sketched so finely the fate of poor Lucy might easily have made it a temptation instead of a warning, and the father of the Tryad might have created their opposites. It is not easy for one actuated chiefly by earthly ambition and worldly motives to write for the calm approval of the virtuous and discriminating few, instead of the adulation and fervent applause of the many, to be content with the attention of the old and the wise, the enthusiasm of certain metaphysical young men and transcendental young women, - with here and there the tributary but momentary tear of a belle, whose heart may have retained a spark of feeling in spite of fashion, or a beau, whose occasional glimmerings of intellect show that he has missed his vocation. It is a noble and difficult thing to labor for the good of mankind at the expense of their applause. -- Nor is it easy, while suffering from public scorn and private affliction, while encountering the stern trials, the petty annoyances, the disappointment, shame, mortification, and regret of life, after seeing the weaknesses of those we most admired, and exposing our own to those we best loved, after juvenile heartbreaks and adult headaches, -independent friends and thoroughly democratic children, to refrain from an indignant burst of universal contempt and defiance, and to compose every line to meekness, forgiveness, charity, and instruction. What, then, has inspired the poet to attempt this difficult career? The ambition to be a priest! The mighty mind of Goethe "set that ball in motion." Protestantism was beginning to decline, as the fanaticism of reform expired; her churches were without an altar; she had no hold on the skies; she had cut away all those consoling ties with which Jesus of Nazareth united heaven and earth; her aspect was forbidding and cadaverous; there was no principle of life and beauty in her. Too proud to admit or to accept the guidance of an infallible Church, the great German declared, "The poet is the priest of God"; and as such is Goethe regarded by his disciples. But there has been a change since his day. Goethe wished no union with Protestantism; it was reserved for England and America to effect the combination. Can any thing well be plainer, than that the British bard is now the adjunct of the British parson, that poetry is invoked to keep Protestantism alive, and supply a deficiency in her system which is every day becoming more and more evident? "Hearken to us!" exclaim these priests of Parnassus ; "our numbers shall serve you instead of Gothic cathedral, chant and vest ment, picture and statue, and our intelligence shall instruct where your mission fails." This sounds ludicrous enough when brought down into plain prose such is the case, nevertheless. Deduct the unwitting followers of Carlyle, Wordsworth, Emerson, and Co., and you diminish English-language-Protestantism more than one half so much more attractive is a song than a sermon. Mr. Longfellow has something of this ambition, and his verse and prose are intended to be religious. So far as he appears in these two volumes, he is not wholly undeserving of our respect. He has a perception, if not of the truth of the Catholic Church, at least of her beauty, and writes like an upright, earnest, pure, benevolent man. He has won a large circle of admirers, and enjoys a fair reputation throughout the country; and perhaps, in the fulness of his pride, he may turn away in self-complacency from any praise or censure of ours. if poets do not entirely escape humanity, they cannot be indifferent to the honest opinion of any unprejudiced, capable reader, - and such an opinion he may expect from us. Our business as a critic, where morality is not invaded, is rather to instruct those who write books, than serve up to those who read them a hash, in which a thousand far-fetched spices disguise the original flavor. But Evangeline is the daughter of Benedict Bellefontaine, the wealthiest farmer of Grand-Pré, a little village in the Acadian land, on the shores of the Basin of Minas. She is thus described : "Fair was she to behold, that maiden of seventeen summers. Black were her eyes as the berry that grows on the thorn by the way-side, Black, yet how softly they gleamed beneath the brown shade of her tresses! Sweet was her breath as the breath of kine that feed in the meadows. When in the harvest heat she bore to the reapers at noontide Flagons of home-brewed ale, ah! fair in sooth was the maiden. Fairer was she when, on Sunday morn, while the bell from its turret Sprinkled with holy sounds the air, as the priest with his hyssop Sprinkles the congregation, and scatters blessings upon them, Down the long street she passed, with her chaplet of beads and her missal, Wearing her Norman cap, and her kirtle of blue, and the ear rings, |