of the whole subject could have so egregiously blundered upon this description of it. With just as much propriety might the ocean, in which the Creator has gloriously mirrored his immensity and his power, be styled a salt water revelation of the Unseen. The book no more defines the mode of the display in the one case, than salt water does in the other. Possibly had any superficial but overzealous advocate of the Christian faith, adopted this method of depreciating the ocean as the glass of the Invisible, he would have been severely rebuked, and very justly, too, for a stolid dulness of apprehension in regard to the spirit of things material, or more likely, for that intemperance of affection for a supernatural system which blinds the eyes of reason to the outspread volume of Nature. Is there not a possibility of fanaticism on the sceptical side? And may not even acute minds, under its influence, be led into marvellously childish and silly mistakes? A book-revelation! As if the supreme Ruler of the Universe (such is the implied sarcasm of the phrase) had no better way of showing himself to maukind, than getting his nature and perfections written about under his own immediate superintendence! But what? Is all history, then, to be regarded as a mere book description of mankind? Surely, the great and good of our race, from the time of Moses downwards, have illustrated the high capabilities of humanity, and its generous or heroic virtues, in those deeds and trials, in those struggles and victories of theirs, for which their names are yet illustrious in the annals of the world, and will evermore continue to be so. And because the record of these acts and sufferings was kept on parchment for the benefit of all succeeding generations, are we to cast contempt upon history as but a parchment exhibition of what Man is, and can do? Should we venture, on any other subject but Christianity, and in the name of intellectual philosophy, moreover, to set down, as the descriptive and discriminating quality of the historical development of humanity, that it is one made by means of paper and print? And if not, why is Christianity to be thus mis-described? Why is this slur to be cast upon its character, and by men who pass for the disciples of pure reason?"

Now there is only one objection to all this. The Christianity here described is not the Christianity which exists in the world: and the functions here attributed to the Book are not the functions for which it is used by the Christianity to which these derided writers were objecting. And our Author has nowhere the boldness to say that nearly the whole Christian world must change their ground, revolutionize their fundamental conceptions of Christianity, before the defence he has set up will cover

their position, or in the smallest degree apply to their case. Yet, as we must quote an admirable passage to show, our Author knows perfectly well that the defence of a Book-Revelation which he gives, will not serve a dogmatic Christianity. Why then not tell all the churches that they are holding by an Idea of Christianity, for which no authority that can be maintained for the Bible will serve as a Basis? Why protest against "uncharitable suspicions" of not participating in an Orthodoxy which he has unbased? Why not openly say, that if there are no other Bases of Belief than those he has laid down, then all the existing Churches, with a minute exception, are hurled from their foundations?

"The showing of God to men, happily, as we venture to think, is effected by means of something far less liable to derangement, to misunderstanding, and to the possible accidents of time, which could have been guarded against only by a perpetual miracle, than it would have been had it depended upon any mere collocation of words, or any dogmatic expression of belief. The display is made in a glorious life, in describing the main features of which truthful men well acquainted with it, could not greatly err, whatever their common liabilities to incidental and trivial inaccuracy. Such being the mode of revelation, the world needs not that it should be looked at through any more transparent medium than the conscientious narratives of credible witnesses-and if the gospels can fairly maintain this character, the authority of the revelation, and surely, to a great extent, its moral power also, will still survive any conceivable settlement of the controversy as to how far they are the result of divine inspiration. The memoirs of a great man do not lose their suggestive nor their educational virtue, because written by a biographer open to much censure, nor can the life of the divine man be in any danger of failing of its transcendent purpose, because in the verbal sketches of it, traces may, perchance, be discoverable, that the writers themselves were not in all things infallible.”

In speaking of Mr. Miall as defending Christianity from the positions of Modern Unitarianism, and leaving it undefended at all points not covered by those positions, we have not the smallest thought of disturbing the natural progress of opinion by jealous demands for recognition of the previous footmarks of others upon the same track. But we protest against his assuming our positions as so original to himself as to free him from all charge of borrowing, and then quietly using them for the support of

the ordinary Christianity whose very foundations they overturn, as if they were either compatible with it, or covered the whole of its ground. Mr. Miall, or any one else, may take unchallenged whatever they can find in our religious system or literature, but they must use it fairly. And if they sustain Christianity from its point of view, and can sustain it from no other, then they must openly disavow all the forms of Christianity that, as fundamentally inconsistent, it will not sustain. We cannot permit our positions to be used in the service of Christianity, without distinct notice that if they serve Christianity, they will not serve the popular conception of Christianity. If Mr. Miall spoke out the whole truth as logically it is laid down in his Book, he would have to say to the orthodox world, that is to nearly all Christendom, 'I have given a defence of Christianity, but then it is a defence that does not apply to your case; it is grounded upon positions which vindicate a sufficient authority for the Bible to sustain a Revelation in my understanding of it, but it will not in the smallest degree sustain your understanding of it; and if you will not abandon all the fundamental positions of your Theology, then my defence is no defence for you.' We have no respect for the lambent liberalism that flashes outwards for a purpose, and yet deprecates "uncharitable suspicions" of defective doctrinal fellowship with Churches that have their very roots in dogmatism. Else, in all his leading views of the nature, agencies, influences and operations of Christianity, we might claim Mr. Miall as an ally and fellow-labourer. But this will not do. Neither Christianity, nor we, can be served this way.

"Non tali auxilio, nec defensoribus istis
Tempus eget."

ART. III.-FRÀ DOLCINO AND HIS TIMES.

A Historical Memoir of Frà Dolcino and his Times; being an Account of a general Struggle for Ecclesiastical Reform, and of a Anti-heretical Crusade in the early part of the Fourteenth Century. By L. Mariotti. London: Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans. 1853.

WHEN Beausobre early in the last century commenced his researches with a view to a history of the Reformation, he very properly wished to trace to their source, the various streams of moral influence flowing through the ages, which had finally issued in that great event. In the prosecution of his object, he was struck with the constant imputation to nearly every sect which he encountered, of the Manichæan heresy. Anxious to discover the origin of this prevalent feeling, he was led on step by step in his inquiries, till he lost sight of his first design, and at length gave to the world instead of a history of the Reformation, a very elaborate critical work in two volumes quarto on Manichæism*. For the application of this term to European sectaries, little reason could be given beyond a vague rumour, that their doctrines and practices had been imported from the East, and a persuasion vaguer still, that Manichæism was some terrific heresy of ancient date belonging to the same mysterious region. What it was, thousands who spoke of it with abhorrence, had no idea. Their fear grew out of their ignorance, and was studiously kept up by those who had an interest in encouraging it. Manichæism in the middle ages was a word of the same dread, undefinable power as Socinianism is now-a vague generality which the popular prejudice associated with everything shocking and impious, and applied at random to any principles supposed to be at variance with the discipline and doctrine of the Church. But the term, both from the remoteness of its origin and the extent of its application, however ignorantly used, was still expressive,

* The work on the Reformation did not appear till after his death.

and indicated an important fact; that through the entire history of the church from the third and fourth century downwards, there had ever been movements of various name and aspect, but all allied in tendency, which resisted the demands of the priesthood, which called for a return to apostolic freedom and simplicity, and pronounced the wealth and temporal dominion of the hierarchy a heathenish corruption. The Paulicians, ramified in successive migrations through Asia Minor and Thrace to the western confines of the Greek empire, though an offshoot rather from the Gnostic than from the Manichæan heresy, contributed to the belief so widely diffused over Europe, and form the historical link between those ancient doctrines of the East, and the mysterious sectaries who appear all at once at Orleans, Arras and other places in the eleventh century, and who sowed the seeds of the general sympathy manifested at a later day, with the bolder preaching and more decided action of Arnold of Brescia, Frà Dolcino and Savonarola.

To the illustration of a brief but not unimportant chapter in this vast history, the volume of M. Mariotti now before us, is devoted. It is a monograph evincing much research and industry, but limiting its object to the recovery of a single link in the great chain of ecclesiastical development, for the investigation of which even the comprehensive works of Schroeckh and Neander can spare but a few pages. The period when Frà Dolcino lived, gives a peculiar interest to whatever can now be ascertained respecting his character and fortunes. It was pre-eminently a transition period. He was moreover a contemporary of Dante, who alludes in a few enigmatical lines to the struggle in which he was engaged*. The last of the crusades into the East had passed. The illustrious line of the Hohenstaufen that had so strenuously encountered

* Inferno, c. xxviii. 55-60. M. Mariotti, pp. 142-5, assumes Dante's entire concurrence with the warfare of the Mountain Chief. That the great poet was thoroughly anti papal in spirit there can of course be no question. But his feelings as to this particular enterprise of Dolcino are rendered doubtful by the way in which the allusion to it occurs-put into the mouth of Mahomet, who is described as cleft through the middle in punishment of the unholy separation he had caused, and surrounded by "sowers of scandal and schism." We think this point should have been cleared up by our author. Neander in his account of Frà Dolcino, and Dr. J. A. Carlyle (prose transl. of the Inferno), appear to have viewed the subject in a different light.