world. Biblical students owe a mighty debt to Dr. Robinson. What is thought of it at home?" I told him I thought it was highly appreciated. "It's well it is," said he. "You Americans, I believe, appreciate all your own things better than you do your own writers." He manifested considerable interest in regard to an edition of his own works, which he understood had just been, or was about to be, published in this country (America), and showed that he had a strong affection for his intellectual offspring. I mentioned his Lectures on the Epistles to the Romans, which I had read shortly before leaving home. 66 Ah,” said he, "that was a hasty work. The lectures were written currente calamo, thirty years ago, when I was minister in Glasgow, for my ordinary Sabbath afternoon service. Some of the aged people there remembered them, and clamoured for them, and I just sent them, without revision, to the publisher." I said I valued them as a sample of an admirable and (in America) much neglected style of preaching, and expressed the opinion that that method of easy exposition, as a common thing, was the best way of instructing the people. "You are right," replied the Doctor. "What the people want is exposition and application. God's truth is gladium in tagina. The preacher's business is to draw the sword by exposition, and to apply it by cuts and thrusts at men's hearts and consciences. Make the people understand the Scriptures. This the laborious and well-furnished minister can do, and then try, with God's help, to make them feel and do what the Scriptures teach."

After much more similar conversation, in which Dr. Candlish participated, the Doctor said, "Come, brethren, I can talk better on my feet. Let us go into the fields." And away we went into the fields. I started now the object most interesting to myself at that time--the Disruption, and the Free Church. On this theme Dr. Candlish was all energy and fire. Dr. Chalmers was less enthusiastic than I had expected to find him. He said it was a great experiment. He had faith in it, and was willing with all his heart to give it a trial. He was be lieving more and more that God would own the move

ment.

It became necessary for Dr. Candlish to leave us, to meet a pastoral engagement. As he went away, and as soon as he was out of hearing, Dr. Chalmers said, pointing his finger after him: "There goes a very remarkable man; a very great and good man. Scotland could not do without him."

When at length I was forced myself to leave him, he said," But you shall not go alone; you have taken a long walk this morning to see me, and now I'll go with you, a bit, at least."

As we were walking towards the city, a little incident occurred showing the gentleness and kindness of his nature. We met a little girl, a daughter to one of his neighbours, who, as soon as she saw him, came running up with great glee, to claim a recognition. "Ah, Maggy," said the Doctor, "is it you? and how are you this braw day? And how is mother and Alek!" And stooping down, he clasped little Maggy in his arms, and kissed her with a will. It was evident from the child's manner that she felt herself peculiarly favoured.

The Doctor accompanied me to the outskirts of the town, where he took his leave, with a hearty good-bye and blessing. His "God be with you," is sounding in my ear yet.

I shall not soon forget that day. I have been hoping at some future time to renew the pleasure of it. But O inexorable death! I cannot think that Dr. Chalmers is dead, and not feel desolate. He has left a void behind him indeed. In that range of elevation, at which the eye has been accustomed to behold him, it sees nothing now. He stood alone there, and has died leaving no fellows.

I am sometimes asked if Dr. Chalmers had not a

very strong Scotch accent. It seemed to me, that in ordinary conversation this was not so apparent as many have represented it. I recollect hearing the following anecdote related some years ago by a distinguished friend in this country. In company with the Doctor and some other of the Edinburgh literati at one time, he expressed his surprise that educated Scotchmen retained so much of the peculiar accent of their country. Dr. Chalmers immediately turned to him, and said, "What, sir, ye dinna think that I ha'e ony o' the brog, d'ye?" Now this was undoubtedly a jest. He had a rich and fine accent, which I loved exceedingly to hear, but he was certainly as free from the "brog," except when he sometimes humorously affected it, as myself. The tones of his voice, according to my recollection, were ordinarily not melodious; but I remember being struck with the singular gracefulness and beauty of his inflections, and with the perfect expression, which in animated conversation he invariably gave to every shade of thought or feeling. His words, when there would have been no peculiar force in them had they been written, as he uttered them, painted. They gave you his idea in a form, kindled and glowing with the life of his own emotions. It was not my privilege to hear him preach, but I can well imagine how he would preach. I can read now his printed discourses with a new and surprising interest. I can put them on his own lips, and catch his unprinted fire. I can see and feel the play of his living, leaping thoughts, and surround myself with the moving imagery that sprang up almost entirely from the manner of his utterance.

The best idea of the Doctor's eloquence that I have ever received from any attempts at a description of it, I have received, I think, from plain, uneducated men, who had often heard him, and who described rather its effect upon themselves, than his eloquence itself.

66

"Tell me about Dr. Chalmers," said I to a person of this class, with whom I was one day conversing. Oh, Dr. Cha'mers!" (in Scotland almost universally the name is spoken as though it were spelt Chawmers.) "Oh, Dr. Cha'mers!" he replied, "he's just unlike any man ye ever heard of." "Well, but what is so peculiar about him?" Indeed, I canna just tell; but he quite amazes you- he takes away your breath.”

"Have ye heard Dr. Cha'mers?" inquired another of me on one occasion. "No, I have not." "Eh, sir, but you should hear him." "Have you no preachers," I asked, "who can do as well as he?" "Indeed, sir, we've many good preachers; many excellent preachers. There's Dr. G-, and Mr. G-, fine men, very fine men; Mr. B― is a very fine man, and Dr. C- is a powerful gifted man-a great man; but oh, sir, Dr. Cha'mers! Dr. Cha'mers! he's the man to mak' the rafters roar."

Yes, Dr. Chalmers made the rafters roar, I have no manner of doubt. He amazed people, and took away their breath-not more by the striking bril

liancy and originality of his thoughts, than by the simple, earnest, natural eloquence with which he uttered them. Absorbed himself with his theme, he had the power of absorbing others with it also. When he spoke, he stood in the world of his own mind, and he had the power of drawing up his hearers with him into the same world, and of holding them while the occasion lasted; or if they were utterly stifled there with amazement at what they heard and saw, he could let them down now and then for breathing spells, and catch them up again when it pleased him.

One of the best evidences of his greatness, is the fact that his popularity never waned. He did not acquire his position by overtaxing his powers at any one period of his life, but by doing from the first what his heart prompted, and what his genius fully enabled him to do. The time never came to him, when with a mind and body enfeebled by over-work, he found himself burdened with a reputation too mighty to be sustained. Great as was the fame which he acquired, he did not go beyond himself in the labours that acquired it. He got it naturally. He acted out what was in him, and the fame came to him. Had Dr. Chalmers ever been troubled about his "reputation,” had he ever come to that "pinchingplace" in the paths of ordinary great men, and found it necessary to substitute the " keeping up of his name," for the honest, true-hearted, and Christian motives that had actuated him in the efforts by which he made it, there would certainly have been an abatement before he died of the interest which he excited. But he was above this evil, and above this folly.

THE LATE SHERIFF SPEIRS.

[We adopt the following tribute and expression of feeling on this distressing bereavement, from the Scottish Guardian. It is from the pen of one who knew intimately our departed friend, and who fully appreciates and can depict the many and remarkable features of his character]:

"It is with profound sorrow that we record the death of another of those servants of God who were honoured to take a leading part in the Disruption, and whose hands were actively employed in building up the walls of our Zion. This year, already so fraught with chastisement and sorrow--which has witnessed the removal of Chalmers, and Hamilton, and Stewart-sees also, ere its close, that of their fellow-worker, Mr. Speirs. The Lord has, indeed, chastised us sore, but let us be dumb before Him, for it is his hand; and, in the midst of our sorrow, we can even give thanks for the good accomplished by his servants, while he was pleased to spare them to us. Among the laymen who took part in the contest which preceded the Disruption, and in the labours which ensued, there was no one whose character commanded more respect, or whose adherence carried more weight. Sound in judgment, prudent in counsel, consistent in walk; with feelings not indeed easily ruffled at the surface, but, when stirred to their depths, showing an intensity in accordance with their power; of active and steady benevolence, wisely careful, as a steward ought to be, of his substance, but freely spending it with open-hearted liberality, in the relief of distress, in the support of religion and every work of charity,

and in deeds of hospitality and kindness; exhibiting in his outward bearing a gravity of deportment, relieved by courtesy; like the cloud turning its silver lining to the earth;' which corresponded well with the sober strength, deep thoughts, and deep affections within; all his faculties were sanctified by an earnest and humble piety, and by being devoted wholly to the service of his God. Of his value and usefulness in the Church, we need not speak. His continued and important labours in various departments, and particularly in the one over which he personally presided-that intrusted to the Committee on Sites; and which he conducted with such judgment, calm but fervid zeal, resolute firmness, and delicate propriety, are too well known to the friends of the Free Church of Scotland, and indeed, to the community at large, to require to be mentioned by us. He has been called away before he was privileged to see his efforts for freeing our congregations from the persecution under which many of them yet suffer, in reference to the matter last mentioned, crowned with success; but the victory for which he contended, whensoever won, will be mainly owing to the arrangements and preparations so wisely planned and executed by him; and among the tributes to his loss, none will be more touching or more sincere than the simple and deep sorrow of those who, still worshipping in the open air, exposed to the blasts of winter, were looking to him as the instrument through whom they might at last obtain the shelter of a roof under which to worship their God after the manner of their fathers. It was not, however, in the Church alone that his value was known, and that his loss will be felt and mourned. In society, throughout a large and extended circle, reaching to the highest ranks of life, he ever appeared in that most winning of all characters-a Christian gentleman; and in discharging the varied and important duties of his judicial office, he presented

a model of that still more exalted character-a Christian magistrate. To a sound and vigorous intellect, well-balanced mind, secure against prejudice and partiality, an accurate knowledge of law, patient investigation and untiring attention, he added a strong innate sense of justice, and an earnest philanthropy, which led him to encourage and promote all regulations and institutions by which that vice and crime, of which he saw so much pass before him when on the bench of judgment, might be prevented and checked in the bud, or by which its victims might, if possible, be rescued. In every walk of his life he showed the superior excellence which the graces of a truly Christian man give to natural gifts and endowments.

"He was little beyond fifty in age. His father was the late Mr. Speirs of Culcreuch, in Stirlingshire (brother of Mr. Speirs of Elderslie); and his mother was of the family of Gartmore, from which he had his Christian name 'Graham.' In early life he entered the navy, but leaving it at the peace, he studied for the bar, to which he was called in the year 1820. Shortly after the accession to power, in 1830, of the Whigs, of whom he was a consistent supporter, he was appointed sheriff of Morayshire, from which county he was afterwards transferred to Edinburgh; giving up, as is required in regard to the sheriffships of the counties in which our two metropolitan cities are situated, his practice at the bar, which was steadily advancing, with a fair prospect of placing him, ere long, in the higher ranks of his pro

fession. His health, of late years, had not been robust, but there were no apparent grounds for anticipating an early close to his eminently useful career. In the beginning of winter he was attacked by the prevailing influenza, and suffered two relapses, the last of which issued in the fever that brought to a close his earthly pilgrimage. He had, however, long borne himself as truly a pilgrim and sojourner, travelling onward to another and a better country; and, with firm faith in the Redeemer who accompanied and sustained him, he died in the peace, and has now entered into the rest, of God."

Reviews.

THE CONSTITUTION OF THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE: A Practical Explanation of the Correspondence with the Right Honourable W. GLADSTONE on the German Church, Episcopacy, and Jerusalem, with a Preface, Notes, and the complete Correspondence of CHRISTIAN CHARLES JOSIAS BUNSEN, D.Ph. and D.C.Q. Translated from the German, under the superintendence of, and with additions by, the Author.*

THIS is a work of no limited pretension, arising, as its title-page informs us, out of a correspondence between the author and a British statesman regarding the English Bishopric of Jerusalem. It embraces in its range, at least in principle, and by implication, nearly all the great questions regarding the constitution of the Church that have been raised in former times, or in our own. We call it a work of no limited pretension; for its title would lead us to suppose that "The Constitution," which the author so eloquently develops, is not designed for any kingdom, or district, or any local Church. The Chevalier Bunsen contemplates" The Church of the Future," and reasons regarding it. We shall subsequently see how far his title is correct, or his principles ever likely to become embodied realities among earnest Christian men.

Germany is proverbially many-minded. For the past seventy years at least, that country has been in a mental ferment; and theory after theory, or system after system, have appeared, each to demolish or supersede its predecessor, with a rapidity, and yet a diversity, which astonishes all thinkers. In more recent times, the Schlegels, with their misty sophisms sapping truth, Schelling, Fichte, and Hegel, with their bold Pantheism, dragging man down to the lowest deep of selfishness, have poured over Germany an amount of speculation fitted to upset a nation more rooted in truth than the Germans can claim to be. We agree with our author that it is "half-hearted and old womanish" to lament" over the unbridled boldness of German science and philosophy." He who makes the wrath of man to praise him, will do the same by German Rationalism and Pantheism. These form a step in the evolution of Jehovah's decreed and revealed purposes; but that does not hinder wide, lasting, eternal injury from meanwhile accruing to the unstable from such affectations of depth, such realities of inanity, when viewed in the light of eternity, as we often meet with in Germany.

We do not class Chevalier Bunsen with these minds. Though exhibiting not a little of the German idiosyncrasies, both in his thought and style, he is * London, 1847.

more under the control of sound scriptural principle than the men to whom we have referred. We knew him first at Rome the learned and graceful archæologist, the accomplished patron of art, and the centre of Protestantism in the capital of Popery. We have since beheld him in various characters as an author of great power and a diplomatist of high repute, and he now comes before us, in some sense, as the exponent of that Church life, and Church spirit, which is so stirring and prominent throughout the world in our day. As the friend and confidant of the King of Prussia, moreover, the Chevalier Bunsen, independent of his intrinsic power, is one of those who are raised up to influence, if not control, many minds; and with his work before us, we would now offer some remarks, first, on his general principles, and second, on the system which his book appears to

advocate.

Have our readers been in Germany? Have they mingled with its thinking, reading, speculating classes? If so, they have seen a tall and somewhat ungainly figure forming the centre of a group of earnest men. His countenance is florid. His hair is sand-coloured and long. His eyes are bright blue. His gesticulation is animated, or more-you would think that the interests of a kingdom hang upon his pleading. He has only got hold of some abstraction, true or false, and is beating it out, as some men beat gold, till it becomes so attenuated that if not valueless, it is impalpable. Such is, in some respects, the bearing of our author; but in others, he departs far from pure Germanisin. He knows that existence is not a theory, but a life, and acts accordingly, combining deep speculation with practical details. Speaking as the advocate of " the Church of his own people, and his own faith, the United Evangelical Church as established in Prussia," he is earnest, even impassioned, and anxious to be understood. No one that reads his work can question his benevolence and generosity; and were it not for the somewhat ambitious title of the volume, not a few of his tenets would pass unchallenged, nay, with high applause. We mean, were he pleading only for Church-reform in Prussia, his speculations would scarcely require critique.

Did our space allow, it would be a pleasing task to advert to our author's sentiments as in many respects scriptural, catholic, and evangelical. He announces some of the cardinal doctrines of revelation in a way which shows that he feels them. Under the influence of these truths, blessed by the Spirit of God, to whose agency Bunsen often pointedly refers, the ultimate perfection of humanity" is, in his view, the terminus ad quem of political and national life, and we can overlook what is romantic or idealizing in the peculiar opinions of the author, for the sake of such farreaching truths as the following :-" It is the Christian who offers the sacrifice, not the minister." "No merely human mediator is conceivable between the Christian priesthood (all Christian men), and the Father; the only possible mediator is the eternal Word become man-the God-man-God the Son."

But passing from these general views, we approach opinions more immediately connected with the object of the volume before us. Bunsen's mind regarding the priesthood is, in many points, antagonistic to that of the Anglican Church. Gladstone had said that he looked to "the Episcopate as the basis of a truly apostolical institution and discipline," for "the hope of recovery from the sins, and scandals, and unwor

national, thoroughly popular community, which shall recognise itself, and claim to be regarded by others, as a branch of the catholic Church of Christ." We may grant it, but will that realize Bunsen's view of a nation of Christianized men; in other words, will the Church and the nation be commensurate? Never, until, on the one hand, there arise some spiritual Procrustes, or on the other, the day of millennial glory dawn. Our author makes his Church not an εκκλησία, but Οἱ πολλοι.

We pass, then, from this wholesale view of the Church and nation to consider some details. Our author, again and again, speaks of the separate spheres of the ecclesiastical and the civil in a nation. While he wishes "the body politic to comprise things human and divine, he thinks that the civil and ecclesiastical administration of a State by its parliaments and synods, respectively, are two different streams of the one national life, and that the purity of those streams, and the healthfulness of this life, will be best insured by their complete separation." He does not wish his Church to be "a State Church." Such a Church he calls a "dangerous political institution;" and anticipates only corruption for itself, and persecution for other bodies, from it. In contradistinction, he aims at a National Church; and he says, "the difference between these two is very great. A State Church is exclusive; and, therefore, persecuting and oppressive: the National Church (that is, we suppose, the Church comprising the entire nation) is in nowise so. The one is the Church of the clergy-the other, a Church of the people;" and yet, with these distinctions, which are so far sound, we find the Chevalier giving so large a share of the government of this Church to the king, to the king's ministers, and councillors of State elected just to manage the ecclesiastical institution, that we suspect our interpretation of his language. While he speaks, at one place, of "the spiritual sovereignty of the whole congregation;" at another, he lets in, by a wide door, the entire Erastian element, and undesignedly lays a foundation for a despotism as complete as ever harassed the bodies and trampled on the consciences and spiritual rights of men. What can be more absolutely Erastian than the following:-" Let ecclesiastical matters belong to the Church, civil matters to the State; but with this plain understanding, that the State in all particular cases in which there is a dispute as to the boundaries of Church and State, can recognise no higher judge on earth than the law of the State." This is well nigh Hobbism; it is painfully familiar in Scotland as unmitigated Moderatism.

When we read such a sentiment as that which we have put in italics, one is tempted to surmise that our author has scarcely planted one firm footstep within the proper ecclesiastical or spiritual domain. By substituting nation for Church, he brings in the national rulers often pari passu with the ecclesiastical, nay, as their lords paramount; and not one sentiment do we find strictly akin to that radical maxim, that Christ hath appointed office-bearers in his Church distinct from the civil magistrate, and, in their own province, the Church-the spiritualia-independent of them. After what has recently been done, upon a national scale, in Scotland, our author, profound as he is, might have deigned to face, and discuss the clear, scriptural, and unchallengeable principle so often asserted, so triumphantly vindicated among us. He has not done so; and the result is, that, departing from Scripture, his book, though deserving

the most thoughtful study, will be limited in its effects.

As we advance in the study of this volume, our wonder increases when we notice how soundly the author reasons on some of the points which emerge. For example, he announces the truth that Christ is the Head of the Church, and at a subsequent page he argues that His body should be utterly independent. He says: "So long as the Church has not sufficient faith to cast away those police crutches on which she has become a complete cripple, she is not the Church of which we speak;" yet in the very next page he argues thus: "Let the State, as the legal guardian of the minor, continue to oblige baptized parents, who have not become Baptists, to bring their children to baptism. We should hardly think this course required any explanation. No one who has a voice among the German people will think it an act of despotism. "Probably not; but some-many

millions in Britain will presume to do so. The State may compel a recusant parent to register a birth; but with baptism, a sacrament of the Church, the State, as such, can, in the nature of things, have nothing to do. Indeed, this sentiment, so boldly avowed by our author, may be regarded as a key to many passages in his work. The view which it advocates terminates our surprise that the theory of "The Church of the Future" is apparently so diverse from Scripture.

Had any doubt existed as to the view we have taken of Bunsen's Church principles, that doubt would be dispelled when, in a subsequent passage, he treats it as a matter "of course" that the Sovereign must approve of the decrees of the Church. He is virtually its head; and who will deny that the Church thus contemplated is not the Church of the New Testament? Indeed, we cannot but conclude that the distinction between the things of God and the things of Cæsar is practically set aside. "PARLIAMENT

AND CHURCH CAN ONLY FIND THEIR POINT OF UNION IN THE ROYAL AUTHORITY; THEY ARE ENTIRELY DISTINCT UP TO THAT POINT."-That is a sentiment held by the able author of "The Church of the Future." The Word of God is not the rule for the two. The king is the master of both. Is not the Chevalier's own sentiment, that "true political wisdom ..... should believe that full liberty of conscience (to the Church as well as individuals), and, therefore, of religious life (life according to the Word of God), can never do harm to truth and religion," fatal to his own theory?

But we must hasten our remarks to a close. Had we gone elaborately into the work, it would have been requisite to dwell at length on various other topics. Our author, for example, earnest and profound as he is, sees no incongruity in holding up the Church of Prussia as a model, though in that land the Popish and the Protestant Churches are both supported by the State. With an honesty which amounts to naivetè, the Chevalier tells us in his appendix, that, according to the last published accounts of the expenditure of the State, the Roman Catholic Church receives altogether 712,215 dollars, the Protestant only 239,775, although the Protestants form nearly two-thirds of the population. As regards the Rhenish provinces, the Roman Catholics (1,889,000 in number) draw 293,000 dollars; the Protestants (590,000 in number) only 33,274." Now, when error is thus put not merely abreast but far ahead of truth, without remonstrance or objection, can we marvel at the disjointedness of the theory laid before us by our author? We