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to virtue," then the tone of philanthropy which these writers affectif we must suppose it to be falsely assumed, which we are far from admitting is no slight evidence of the better tendencies of the age.

"The cause of the people" has become a phrase of deep moral significance, a phrase often, doubtless, adopted for political effect or selfish ends, but often, also, used with entire honesty and nobleness of purpose. There is twofold encouragement in the example of men of acknowledged ability laboring to produce a mitigation and final removal of the oppressive circumstances under which life has been held by the lower classes. They are the prophecies. and pledges of a change in the treatment which these classes have hitherto received from those who have only condescended to look down upon them, and they show us what can be accomplished by individual, but earnest, minds. Honorable as was the title by which Elihu Burritt was known when fame had spread the story of his wonderful acquisitions, he is now earning a name by his philanthropic exertions in England, before which the celebrity of his learning fades and almost disappears.

Some of the enterprises of moral reform which distinguish our day may be styled Quixotic, and the manner in which they are conducted may seem to mark the extravagance of the insane, rather than the sobriety of an enlightened disciple of Christ. But the purpose, this it is on which we insist, -the purpose is a noble and a sacred one. In the sacrifice of personal ease for the good of others we have evidence of the benign and penetrating spirit of Christianity. We see, too, in these reformers a moral courage and a confidence in the success of benevolent effort worthy of all admiration. They maintain, and we certainly agree with them, that a moral evil, whether in our own hearts or in the heart of society, should arouse all our energies for its extirpation. They believe that no sin can permanently hold its ground against disinterested and unwearied labors for its removal; — are they not right in this belief? Already we see the two institutions which have been most deeply imbedded in the habits of mankind, war and slavery, each of them almost coeval with our race, and attending the progress of the race through the ages, beginning to yield to the sentiment which is directed against them by those who hold them to be as unchristian in their character as they are barbarous in their

origin. Beginning to yield? It is scarcely beyond the distance of a single generation since the first practical assault was made upon the institution of slavery, and now our own country and one other alone enjoy the disgraceful preëminence among civilized nations of being its strenuous supporters. Within the recollection of persons in middle life, war was universally considered the chief means of national glory. What a change has been wrought in the convictions and sentiments of the people within this period! There are few now who will not confess that war is an outrage upon all that is sacred or tender in human relations; and they who undertake the task of its apologists are driven to the last argument within which its defence can be conducted, that it is a necessary and ineradicable evil.

These are the two great social institutions against which Christianity and Christians need now to direct the moral force before which they must disappear. Intemperance, licentiousness, and fraud, those three chief personal vices which destroy the well-being of man, must also be exposed, rebuked, and driven from society. Legislation and punishment, the two methods by which government brings itself into connection with the life of the individual, must be regulated by a regard to the good of the individual, and not to the strength of the government. The misery which now exists in countless dwellings, and the sin which is a consequence of that misery, must be visited by the heart of philanthropy and the arm of reform. And, in a word, whatever is wrong in the opinions, usages, or organization of society must be changed. If we are asked, How? we answer, Not by the violence of revolution, nor by the force of theories which are of man's invention, but by Christianity, by the application of the principles of the religion of Jesus Christ to the affairs of the world, all its affairs, all its relations, all its interests. Against the philanthropists of the day, as a class, having, however, within itself many exceptions to the remark, may be brought three charges, which, established by numerous examples, prove their unfitness to conduct the social regeneration of the age, of which we are willing to consider them the pioneers. They fall into the common error of mistaking a part of religion for the whole, making philanthropy the synonyme for all goodness, and, through their desire to bring the religion of society into proper estimation, underrating and neglecting both the religion of the Church and the religion of

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the individual. They rely too much on changes in the social order, without making Christian faith, as they should, the foundation on which to build their structures of happiness for man. And, like most persons who are captivated by one object of interest, they are unjust, bitter, and fierce towards those who differ from them in regard either to principles or methods, and, by the violence of their language, disgust and repel many who would be glad to coöperate with them in calmer measures. But what if they commit these and many other errors? They are fallible men, and so are we all. They are earnest and sincere men, and such, alas ! are not all. If the philanthropy of the day is partial, arrogant, and censorious, it is, beyond comparison, preferable to the indifference which looks on the evils and vices that deform society, and cares not for them. Better be a bigot in goodness, than a slave to selfishness or to custom. Better defeat one's own good purposes by extravagance of language or conduct, than not have any good purposes. Much as we deplore the mistakes connected with the movements over which is inscribed the title of reform, we believe there is one thing still more deplorable, and that is unconcern respecting the terrible woes of humanity. God forgive our want of sensibility to the miseries which afflict multitudes of our race, of our countrymen, of our townsmen and townswomen! We can excuse the error of the man who sees in social injustice the origin of all sin, and imagines that better social arrangements would secure universal virtue; but we cannot excuse the apathy which is content to let millions of God's immortal children wear out their earthly life in toil and sin, without even attempting to change the dire necessities of their condition.

Philanthropy and reform, they are words which the Christian must not give up, and they denote exercises of thought and feeling which he must not neglect. Let him reverence the Church, with its sacred teachings, its various institutions, and its needed influences. Let him attend to the

wants of his own soul, and make himself a partaker of spiritual grace and heavenly life. But let him also care for his fellow-men, and give the support of his sympathies and his coöperation to the enterprises of a divinely inspired benevolence, such a benevolence as was seen in Him who preached the Gospel to the poor, and went about doing good. O brethren! we would say to all whom our 9

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4TH S. VOL. VIII. NO. I.

words may reach, let us help, not hinder, the work begun by the great Philanthropist and Reformer; let us hasten on, not delay, the time when society shall be pervaded and shaped by the plastic influence of Christianity. Then shall there be a healthful reaction from society upon the individual and the Church. Then shall partial manifestations of the religious sentiment be lost in the apprehension and exhibition of the perfect whole. And then shall come the millennium, when there will be no need of revivals, and no complaint of spiritual torpor. Such a result, we believe, must be brought about by the Church and the individual, each maintaining and expressing the Christian life; the Church through which, the individual in whom, with society on which, Christianity shall exert its divine power. We have little faith in the value, and none in the permanence, of reforms which separate themselves from the sympathies of the Church; we lament the mistake of those who, in their zeal for the cause of reform, neglect the cultivation of the more private graces of Christian character, or fail to acknowledge their obligations to Christ as the source of all genuine philanthropy; but we long for the time when Christianity, with its visible organizations and its personal influences, shall also determine the whole structure, spirit, and action of society.

E. S. G.

ART. VI.-MARTIN LUTHER.*

THE name of Martin Luther stands for an era, and that era one of the most important in human annals. It is a name with which all are familiar, and which should be kept in constant remembrance. The publication of M. Michelet's compilation rendered into English should, we think, be duly appreciated. It places within the reach of every reader an opportunity for obtaining insight into the life and character of the great Reformer nowhere else to be found. As its title indi

cates, the materials of the book are gathered from Luther's

The Life of Martin Luther. Gathered from his own Writings. By M. MICHELET, Author of "The History of France," "The People," etc. Translated by G. H. SMITH, F. G. S., Translator of Michelet's" History of France," etc. New York: D Appleton & Co. 1846. 12mo. pp. 314.

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own writings. Thus speaks M. Michelet in his Introduction : 66 Throughout the work Luther is his own spokesman, Luther's life is told by Luther himself. Who could be so daring as to interpolate his own expressions into the language of such a man! Our business has been to listen to, not interrupt, him; a rule we have observed as strictly as possible."

Never, perhaps, since the age of Luther and the era of the Reformation, has the press been more fertile in works bearing immediately or remotely on the persons and principles identified therewith, than at the present day. Luther, mental liberty, Romanism, the Reformation, these are topics which now stand on the pages of many of our most popular books. The artful and persevering disciples of Loyola are again making their appearance in certain countries of the European continent, and this circumstance has aroused some of the greatest minds and most eloquent pens of France on the subject of mental freedom and human progress. The Jesuitical organization is a polypus in society. The one seems as impossible to eradicate as the other. If a fibre of either be suffered to remain, danger still hangs round the subject. It will live, multiply itself, and shoot forth, to disturb, perhaps to destroy. In the Jesuits are seen the enemies of freedom and progress, and therefore they have been assailed by fact and by fiction, by direct argumentation and through the instrumentality of the exciting popular tale. Elsewhere in the Old World we perceive palpable, important, and widely differing religious movements, at once the result and the cause of much deep religious thought and earnest religious discussion. Some are verging towards Rome, smitten with the love of patristic lore and an antique ritual, and seem anxious to make up the quarrel with ancient Mother Church. Others, shocked by the exhibition of the holy coat of Treves, are flying away from her, exclaiming against her knavery and oppression. movements with which the names of Newman and Pusey, of Ronge and Czerski, are connected were not the mere growth of an hour. That in Germany, we know, developed itself with greater suddenness in its time than did the movement in England. But this was owing to an accidental circumstance. The fields in both countries had been prepared. Thought had been exercised and expressed on the subjects. involved, and those fields in due season became ripe unto the harvest. In the one country we perceive doctrines, hitherto

The