ten before Newman became a Roman Catholic. These "Essays are now republished, with annotations for the correction of errors, retractations after the manner of the great Augustine; though retractations, it should not be forgotten, signifies not "retractions," but "reconsiderations." Mr. Ffoulkes was driven back from Romanism by a study of the Greek controversies, and of the history of other so-called schismatical bodies. He still holds to his theory of priestly succession; but with Pusey and his party considers that "Catholic" comprehends the Greeks and Anglicans, not less than the Latins who acknowledge the primacy of the Pope. The Dublin Review, in its complimentary notice of Newman's volume, regrets that the essay on Lamennais, which reflects on the Pope's temporal power, should be reprinted with so little correction. It is a hard thing for a man like Newman to accommodate his thinking to ultramontane orthodoxy. He is a singular example of the power of a single idea or conviction to govern intellect and conscience. Starting with the fixed belief in a visbile, external, organized Church, he looks for a society answering to his ideal, and finds it in the Roman communion. Misgivings, difficulties, historical perplexities, suggestions of conscience and of taste, are counterbalanced and neutralized by this one notion of an external spiritual commonwealth. Yet it is hard for so intellectual a man to keep his reason in chains. There will be some point where symptoms of rebellion will appear.

The same number of the Contemporary Review contains an Article by Mr. John Hunt on Rationalism and Ritualism in the English Church. Mr. Hunt has published an excellent book on the "History of Religious Thought in England," the second vol. ume of which has just appeared. He knows well the history of Anglican theology, and, among other valuable services, incidentally exposes the false readings of that history which have been put forth by the Puseyite school. There are no more disingenuous perversions of theological history than the attempts of Pusey, Newman, and others, to interpret the fathers of the English Church into a conformity with " Anglo-Catholic" themes.

Speaking of the Roman Catholics, we are reminded of a matter on which we sought for light in the last number of the NEW ENGLANDER (Jan., 1872). We there compared the Creed, in the Récit d'une Sour, with the same as translated and published by the Catholic Publication Society in New York. The original

creed has been interpolated aud mutilated in an astonishing manner. Who is responsible for this altering of a document signed and attested? We have had no response to our inquiry. We shall be obliged to reiterate it until some response is given. We make no charges. There are dishonest Protestants as well as dishonest Roman Catholics. It is no pleasure to find dishonesty anywhere. But here is a religious publishing house which puts forth a translation differing essentially from the original. Large additions are made in a particular theological direction. Wilful changes of this nature in a business paper would send the author of them to the penitentiary. We repeat the inquiry, How are the great discrepancies between the creed of a Roman Catholic lady as written by herself and as printed by the Catholic Publication Society to be explained?

The withdrawal of the Rev. George H. Hepworth from the denomination of Liberal Christians has attracted more attention from other religious bodies and from the public in general than similar events usually occasion. It is not a very unusual occurrence for a so-called orthodox clergyman to go over to the Liberal ranks. It less frequently happens that a Liberal clergyman comes into the fellowship of the orthodox-perhaps, because the number which he leaves behind is relatively small. But the seceder is usually allowed quietly to follow his convictions, and is dismissed with no very violent demonstrations of disrespect. Mr. Hepworth has not been so fortunate as to escape a little rather rough handling from some members of his own former communion. Some things have been said of him which, whether true or false, might better have been left unspoken under the circumstances, at least by those who uttered them; and which those who uttered them undoubtedly regret by this time more sensibly than their best friends could do for them.

That his associates should have been disturbed by his departure from the Liberal body is not in the least surprising. He had been a popular clergyman, and a clergyman for the people—one of the few of his denomination who were conspicuous for success among He had been conspicuous in Boston not only as a drawing preacher, but as bent on raising up others like himself who should carry the simple, Liberal gospel to the consciences and hearts of plain every-day men and women, and fire their souls with a fervent zeal for the spiritual life to promote which this gos

common men.

pel has long been said to be eminently fitted. When a conspicuous and costly church in New York needed a popular preacher, Mr. Hepworth was transferred to that city of all faiths, to exercise his special function in fulfilling the sign for which Liberal Christianity has so long waited to see fulfilled-"To the poor the gospel is preached." He tried the experiment, and with what results? According to his own testimony, he had found that so far as the truths which he has preached have been commended to the hearts of his hearers, they have been most nearly like those which Evangelical Christians believe and preach; and that so far as he has sought to kindle his own soul to the fervor and zeal which should give him power with men, Christ had more and more completely filled the field of his mental vision, till he was at last constrained to confess him, in the words of a disciple of old--" My Lord and my God!”

So far as the testimony of Mr. Hepworth's experience of the Liberal doctrines in his own soul and in his preaching is concerned, this testimony is worth no more and no less than Mr. Hepworth's competency to judge and honesty to assert, may make it to be. If he is as weak and vacillating, as excitable and ambitious, as his quondam friends now assert that he always has been, his testimony is worth less than it otherwise would be. We do not wonder that these friends are especially sensitive that it should have been so emphatically pronounced, and by a man who at least has the ear of the public, if he does not deserve their confidence. For this testimony touches a point upon which Liberal Christians have always been the most positive, and in respect to which they have scarcely admitted a denial-that their more rational views of man's needs, and what the gospel can do for them, need only to be tried by any man to be commended to his confidence; and that the reason why the orthodox reject them, is because they cannot deliver themselves from the films of prejudice and the fears of tradition. But Mr. Hepworth says: "I was born, cradled, and bred amid the influences of Unitarianism. I drew its peculiarities. in with my mother's milk; and every tendency in my early life ran in that direction." He asserts "that with one painful effort he tears himself up by the roots," and yet that he is constrained to do this by the failure of Liberal Christianity to satisfy his spiritual wants. We know the Protestant sometimes says this when he becomes a Roman Catholic, and the non-Ritualist when he proclaims that he has discovered the Church; but neither proclaim,

with Mr. Hepworth, that what he has been seeking for is the Christ for which his soul has longed, not knowing what it was longing for. When the Protestant becomes a Romanist, or the nonRitualist becomes an intense Churchman, those whom he leaves can give as a reason, that he is not satisfied with the simpler gospel of Christ, because there is in the evil heart of unbelief a powerful bias to forsake Christ; but when a man like Mr. Hepworth goes from the Liberal scheme to the Evangelical, the Liberal friends whom he leaves cannot, on their theory of man's wickedness or his wants, very easily explain the process. It is almost by a logical necessity that they are forced to explain it on the orthodox theory, and to say that he could not leave their fellowship and demand another Christ than they themselves allow, unless he is a bad or a weak man.

We express no opinion at all upon the wisdom or unwisdom of Mr. Hepworth's conduct in respect to the Unitarian body. Holding the views which we do in regard to the person and work of Christ, we welcome to our fellowship any man who accepts these views. We are, however, especially gratified that Mr. Hepworth has discovered that it is not to the dogma as a scholastic statement, or to the words of a creed as words, that many of the so-called orthodox attach any special importance; but it is because the dogma and creed which they accept set forth in the language of reflection and of science man in the guilt and wants of which he is conscious, and the loving Christ in the help and deliverance which he offers. All men who hold right practical views of the Gospel are true believers we doubt not, whether their creed is long or short, whether it is definite or vague; and to all such we extend our most cordial Christian sympathy, as "holding the mystery of faith in a pure conscience." When the creed or dogma is exalted above the practical truths and the personal forces which it symbolizes, then it becomes an empty idol. Those Unitarians who agree with us in these opinions, will not find it difficult to understand why it does not strike us as very courteous on their part to assume that no man can accept the doctrine of the Trinity or the Incarnation, and yet have any claim to the name of a truly Rational or Liberal Christian.

The habitually or almost habitually supercilious tone in which many Unitarians speak of these doctrines as entirely beneath the consideration of any man who respects his own intellect, indicates a narrow judgment of the mysteries of existence, as well as a limited acquaintance with the history of human speculation.

ARTICLE IX.-NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS.

PHILOSOPHICAL.

ÜBERWEG'S HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY.*--The publishing house of Scribner have embarked in an enterprise which deserves the support of all lovers of learning, and especially of all students of theology and metaphysics. It is proposed to issue a series of works which shall serve as manuals, thorough and learned, without being too copious, upon all departments of these sciences. The ability, erudition, and the judicious and catholic spirit, as well as the literary experience, of Drs. Smith and Schaff, the superintending editors, augur well for the success of the undertaking. The great fault of Clark's Theological Library, the well known Edinburgh series, is the faulty character of so many of the translations. The editors of the projected American Library will guard against this evil. Their first publication, the first of the two volumes of Überweg's History of Philosophy, a handsome book of 487 pages, has made its appearance, a comely and welcome herald of the volumes that are to follow. Überweg is in some respects a model manual. It is not too long, nor is it too short. A difference of type separates the more from the less important statements, the principles from the elucidations. But the feature that will first attract the eye of the experienced student is the bibliography, a characteristic of capital value and importance. Almost every earnest student loses much time in ferreting out the sources of knowledge, in ascertaining what they are. The lists of books in Überweg are singularly full and exact, and the brief criticisms upon them are quite serviceable. The present volume carries the subject through the middle ages. In the volume that is to follow, President Porter will add notes upon English and American philosophy. Parishes and individuals who are inquiring for the right works to add to the minister's library, cannot do better than to subscribe for this series.

* Theological and Philosophical Library; a series of text-books, original and translated, for Colleges and Theological Seminaries. Edited by HENRY B. SMITH, D.D., and PHILIP SCHAFF, D.D., Professors in the Union Theol. Seminary, New York. Vols. I and II. Überweg's History of Philosophy [translated by Geo. S. Morris, A.M., with additions by Noah Porter, D.D., LL.D.], &c., &c. New York:

Charles Scribner & Co. 1872.