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The one, not recognized by Mr. Monro, is that the child becoming sensible of this system of observance and experiment that is being exercised upon it, learns to feign feelings and motives such as it knows are expected from it. In other words the child becomes a hypocrite. Again, the individual treatment and guidance of children has a tendency to remove from out of sight the existence of positive external rules. It is the unbending, and sometimes even unreasonable sternness of those laws, we verily believe, which tells so well in our public school education; and for this fact in his protest against the arbitrariness of systems" we scarcely think that Mr. Monro makes sufficient allow

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It is seldom that we have read anything better calculated to attain its object, and that how high a one! than the Bishop of Brechin's Plea for Sisterhoods. (Masters.) Whether we regard it as addressed to churchmen generally, showing the great use of such institutions, or directed specially to the removing of such objections as are likely to be felt by parents to the surrender of their own children to a religious life, it appears truly admirable. We trust that it may gain a wide circulation among the mothers and daughters of England.

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A cheap edition of Nicholson's Exposition of the Catechism, (J. H. Parker,) has been just published in the Practical Christian's Library." It is generally allowed, we believe, to be the best existing treatise on the subject.

Masters' Guide to the Daily Service of the Church, besides being a useful manual for travellers, affords encouraging information as to the spread of Catholic principles among us. It appears that there are in England, Wales, and Scotland about three hundred and fifty churches, which celebrate the Daily Service. If so many parish Priests are able to carry it on, why do not as many again make the experiment ?

We have read with very great pleasure A few plain words on the present position of the English Church in the Island of Madeira, and the duties of Visitors in regard to it. The Pamphlet is written by a casual "Visitor," in a very temperate and persuasive tone, and cannot, we think, be without effect upon any seriously-minded person whose fortune it is to visit that island. It is awful to contemplate the responsibility of the man who tempts Christians as the last act of their lives (for of course many who go to Madeira in search of health, never return home,) into the sin of schism.

The BISHOP OF EXETER, we are glad to see, has put forth a plain statement of Mr. Shore's case, in a " Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury." (Murray.) It should be generally circulated.

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Two pamphlets, by CHANCELLOR HARINGTON, of Exeter, in defence of the Anglican Reformers," (Rivington,) from Mr. Macaulay, as well as two by DR. MAITLAND, in attack of the "Ecclesiastical History Society's" disgraceful edition of Strype's "Cranmer," we reserve for notice in an article upon the time of the Reformation.

USE AND ABUSE.

Use and Abuse: A Tale by the Author of Wayfaring Sketches amongst the Greeks, Turks, &c. London: Rivingtons, 8vo. pp. 445.

THOSE of our readers who are acquainted with the former work of this lady, or remember the notice of it which appeared in these pages some ten months since, will anticipate a rich treat in making acquaintance with this new product of her pen. Nor will they be disappointed. As a whole, perhaps " Use and Abuse," is scarcely so brilliant and striking a book as "Wayfaring Sketches;" while it retains some faults of style which we should have expected to see corrected by the additional experience she has since gained. To some of these we shall have occasion presently to advert. first it is our pleasing duty to acknowledge the very great excellencies of the book. There is more than one scene in it, to which it would be difficult to find anything superior in works of this class. The tale is not in any sense obviously didactic: but at the same time it is impossible not to see that the author does possess the highest views of Christian duty, and that it has been her aim indirectly to make what she has written subservient to their advancement in the world.

But

The two principal personages in the volume, and types respectively of the "use and abuse" of intellects of the highest order, are two men of mature age, who cross each other's path under very peculiar circumstances at Constantinople. Whether or no the scene is first laid here and again shifted to other points of interest in the Asiatic and European Continents, for the purpose of giving scope to the authoress for exercising what is certainly one of her most remarkable gifts, the description of landscape, with its characteristic accompaniments of sea and sky, we cannot of course tell. If no higher end were intended, still the gain is the reader's; for he is thus introduced to some most agreeable sketches. To many however the circumstances under which the miserable individual of whom we shall have so often to speak incurs that waste and ruin of mind which has already made him a sceptic and an infidel will suggest grave thoughts concerning the irremediable injury so many of our countrymen inflict upon themselves by the practice of foreign travel; which to the great majority is only an occasion for the indulgence at once of sensual lusts and religious cavils.

The name of this individual is Philip Arabyn; and the person who devotes himself religiously to counteracting the impious and hateful devices of the infidel, having first vainly endeavoured to VOL. VII.-JUNE, 1849.

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convert him, is named Raymond. And these two characters the author would doubtless have us receive as an allegory representing a fact which she again and again brings before her readers, and to impress which the more vividly upon us, she, somewhat unnecessarily, we think, brings her hero into contact with a Persian Magus, that there are in the world ever at work two great antagonistic principles of Good and Evil. This is ultimately the moral of the book. Hence arises man's Trial and his Duty, to resist the latter and to advance the former by all means in his power. In the glowing words of the author:

"Yes! there is a purpose, there is a work, and Raymond had long known it--and both are in this great task-the overcoming of evil with good this is the tremendous work, the date of whose commencement and whose certain termination are hidden from us, but which is even now advancing throughout the interminable circles of the universe, and every human being that breathes upon the earth, is called upon, however weak and feeble, to be an agent and an instrument in its stupendous scheme. All things created, animate and inanimate, are moulded to the furtherance of this one object; for this the Deity became Incarnate, and woe, alas! to that man who leaves unaccomplished his portion of the labour. The flower, born at noon, to fade at eve, who by its beauty has drawn away a worldly eye from the contemplation of earth's vanities but one moment, has well and surely done its appointed task; the babe cradled and coffined on its mother's breast, in the selfsame day, if by its unconscious wail, it has awakened one spark of natural affection in the heart of a father, dead in sin, has lived to a noble purpose; for there is nothing too great, and nothing too small, for the carrying on of this work, and the hastening of its consummation."

But here the question will present itself to many minds, whether a writer is justified in obtruding upon the public a narrative of such painful details. The actual everyday world in which we live presents us, alas, with too many such veritable characters. In France and Germany their experiences form well nigh the staple of popular literature, and the names of Messrs. Blanco White, and J. A. Froude, and we fear we must add Mr. Francis Newman,* will not permit us any longer to regard such a temper as an exotic. But why should fiction aid in propagating so deadly a responsibility? Are not such weapons at the best dangerous? and may not some minds, while they receive the bane, reject the antidote? We admit that it is a grave responsibility; but it is one, we are persuaded, which the author has duly weighed; and after all it is one of those questions of which it may be said Solvitur ambulando. It turns

*See his recent volume "The Soul," &c.

in short upon the skill of the writer. Doubtless in intending to do good many well-meaning persons produce a result directly contrary. But upon the result in this case we think the writer may confidently rest her defence. The infidel has not in any one particular the best of the argument; and the whole effect of the tales is to leave a feeling of the most intense detestation of him on the mind of the reader. In no respect is the skill of the writer more to be commended than in this, that while she has really left no room for commiserating the wretched sceptic, there is that in his history which may be said to account almost naturally for his infidelity-not as he himself, and Mr. Froude, and others would plead, in the force of irresistible external circumstances; but in the sins and errors of himself, and his no less guilty father.

There are persons, however, we should quite expect, who will bring this charge of a sceptical tendency against the book. These are our friends the "Insensibles." They are like the Parthians of old; they recognize no friend. The moment a man begins to have doubts or scruples of any kind they give him up. The nature of his doubts is of no importance whatever. Whether it be the Archbishop of Dublin, sportively insinuating his "Historic Doubts" about the existence of Napoleon Buonaparte, or Mr. J. A. Froude questioning the Truths of Inspiration, or Miss Strickland modestly pleading that Queen Mary was not so bad, or William III. so good as they are commonly represented, or the Dean of Hereford demurring to elect one under the suspicion of heresy to be a Bishop of the Church, or a Curate scrupling to say the Burial Service over the body of an adulterer, they are departing from the established modes and standard of thought, and so they are to be resisted and put down. Nor does their righteous indignation stop here. It is extended to the friends of the doubters-to their kith and kin, and to all who venture an excuse in their behalf. "Use and Abuse," therefore, we doubt not, will come in for a full share of their reprobation: it reminds them of the unpleasant fact that there are eccentric intellects and ill-regulated minds.

A juster view of the matter we conceive is as follows:-Minds there are among us that are liable to be drawn aside into this fatal perversion of unbelief. Consequently, if we would save them from destruction, it becomes necessary for some to study the symptoms of the disease, to note its predisposing causes, and the remedies which are of force to cure it. It is vain to ignore the existence of the evil which encompasses us: when the danger is threatening, it becomes folly and cowardice to do so. Instead therefore of staying to vindicate the subject-matter of this tale, we proceed simply to inquire how far the proper precautions have been used to neutralize the natural ill effects of making the readers of it acquainted with the poison of infidelity.

The history of the infidel, as recorded by himself, is briefly this.

Arabyn was born to the "inheritance of evil;" "* he was the child of a double crime; his father, an Englishman, having first seduced and afterwards abducted a slave, who became the mother of himself and a sister, Nadine, from the house of a Russian nobleman. In order to escape the opprobrium which would attach to him in England on account of this mésalliance, the elder Arabyn made Italy his residence; and on his death the son came to England for a short season only to learn that he was heir to a bankrupt estate and a blasted name. Thence he returned to the Continent and betook himself to foreign travel, the accustomed resource of minds which are on ill terms with themselves, and with their neighbours. An intellect from infancy unused to the restraint of discipline runs riot in aimless ambitious speculations; a heart never visited by the softening dews of God's grace, because ever denied the ordinances which convey it, strengthens itself in a cold unloving attitude of defiance towards the whole human race, at once hating and despising its fellows. And having gone so far, how shall it stop here? Hatred of the creature leads almost necessarily to hatred of the Creator. The mind which perversely refuses to see anything of good in the world proceeds speedily to inquire why the world was made. The things which should have been for its wealth become an occasion of falling. The gift of life is itself resented.

"I had looked on life, and it was to me as a scroll written in unknown mysterious characters; I saw that I could not understand it. I would not believe that a Power all evil ruled this world, still less could I deem this wonderful universe the offspring of a misguided chance ; yet, if not, what meant that mystery of woe, which, unarrested, dragged its desolating steps wherever there was a man with a soul capable of feeling, and a body of enduring agony: nay, what meant my own actual existence? As I stood there in the prime of life, of energy, of strength, mental and physical, by a power over which I had no control, blasted within like the stalwart tree scathed and blackened by the sudden lightning, so utterly dead to all hope or joy that I could not even wish, and all was drearily the same to me. I had not one desire; I looked over the blank, dismal, vacant life that might stretch on unasked for, through long joyless years, and there was no light earth could bestow that could inspire one faint wish within me; except, perhaps, to be one moment free from the undying gnawing pain which preyed upon my soul, for ever yearning to behold one face I might not see, to hear one voice I never more might hear;-Oh! truly this creation was to me an interminable mystery. I no longer sought to comprehend it, and I sank into a deadly apathy. I wandered an outcast, branded with misery, from land to land, and found every where the same inexplicable discord, the jarring elements of good and evil. As for me, though I

The striking tale that bears this name is said, we believe on good authority, to be by the same author.

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