New Publications
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NEW PUBLICATIONS.
THE WESTMINSTER REVIEW,1 for January. New York: Leonard Scott — Co.,2 Fulton street.
The Westminster is always able and interesting; it deals with live topics, and handles them well. Rarely have we read a more interesting number than the present. The article on Spiritualism is the toughest bone which the advocates of that system have yet had to pick. That on the “Religious Weakness of Protestantism” says with great force and plainness that which thousands upon thousands of educated men, nominal Protestants, think and feel. We have not space to analyse the article, though greatly desiring to do so; there is one point, however, that requires mention. The reviewer takes issue with the claim often preferred that modern civilization is the child of Protestantism. He cites Spain, under Ferdinand and Isabella, and Belgium now, as proofs that a Romanist country is not necessarily stagnant. The civilization of Europe and America he attributes to material progress—to the free scope given to scientific discovery. Protestantism has paved the way for this, by relaxing the iron fetters in which Rome held the minds of Christendom; but the spirit of progress, once unloosed, breaks from the bands of Protestantism as the latter burst from the weightier bands of Rome. The reviewer seems to think that the days of Protestantism are numbered. Her weakness consists in denying church authority, while she relies on dogmas supported only by the authority she repudiates. Hence there are two forces within her each working her dissolution, though in opposite ways. The conservative Protestant, alarmed at the growth of free-thinking tendencies, falls back more and more on tradition and church authority, and is logically driven through the several degrees of High Churchism into Romanism. On the other hand, the radical Protestant finds himself compelled to abandon one outwork of orthodoxy after another, until he gets fairly without the Scriptural pale, though still claiming to be a Christian. Those who are not sincere and courageous enough to follow either course, shrink from scrutinising the basis of their position, confine their doctrinal utterances to vague generalities, and become mere teachers of morality instead of preachers of the gospel. The reviewer concludes his remarks thus:
Europe has yet to wait for a religion which shall exert any good influence over public measures. A distinguished foreigner, in his own conciousness a true Christian—whose name we could not properly here bring forward—on a recent day said, in a select circle" "I begin to doubt waether Christianity has a future in the world." "Why so?" asked one present, in surprise at such an augury from such a quarter. "Because," he replied, "neither in India nor in America, nor anywhere at all in Eurpoe, does any of the governments called 'Christian'—I do not say, do what is right, but—even affect and pretend to take the RIGHT, as understood and discerned by itself, as the law of action. Whatever it was once, Christianity is now in all the great concerns of nations a mere ecclesiasticism, powerful for mischief, but helpless and useless for good. Therefore, I begin to doubt whether it has a future; for if it cannot become anything better than it is, it has no right to a future in God's world."
The writer of this paper—no Catholic by the way—has thrown a terrible bombshell into the camp of the Evangelicals, and we expect the religious hebdomadals will find themselves occupied as briskly as the English were at Lucknow in repelling the assault.
Among the remaining articles are—a review of Dr. Livingston’s African travels, dissertations on the financial crisis, the banks, and the Indian mutiny, &c.
EUROPEAN ACQUAINTANCES. By J.W. De Forest . New York: Harper and Brothers.
For a witty, genial, entertaining narrator of travels, commend us to the author of this pleasant volume. Did not want of space forbid, we should like to extract from the opening chapters the experiences of Mr. De Forest at Graefenburg, and his treatment by the Water Cure, under the auspices of the high-priest of that medical heresy, the great Priesnitz. They are comical in the extreme. The remainder of the volume is devoted to pictures of life in Divonne, Venice, Paris and Florence, the whole abounding in sparkling reminiscences, personal and otherwise, together with bits of anecdote and adventure that prove the traveller to be keen-sighted, well-educated and wide-awake to all that makes a volume of this sort readable and enjoyable. We heartily commend the book to the favorable regards of the reading public. The exuberant spirits and hearty bonhomie of the writer are so genuine that if they do not prove contagious, it will only argue unmitigated stolidity on the reader’s part.
SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. By Geo. Eliot . New York: Same Publishers.
These “scenes” were originally published in Blackwood’s Magazine, where they attracted much attention from their serious view of sentiment and vraisemblance of character-drawing. There are three stories in the present volume severally entitled: “The sad misfortunes of Rev. Amos Barton,” “Mr. Gilfil’s Love Story,” “Janet’s Repentance.” The “Love Story” is admirably told and will doubtless be the most popular of the three among generality of readers. The religious public will find much in the volume to interest them. The author has evidently had a strict moral purpose in view and the tales, though without a particle of cant, come under the denomination of the “religious novel.”