with consequences affecting all the remaining spheres of life.

The tales whose titles we have placed at the head of this notice have the merit of having attempted, and in general successfully attempted, this task. While they are all of a distinctly religious cast, and there is not one whose interest turns on the common themes of the novelist; while the hopes and anxieties of the reader are all made to centre on the spiritual condition of the various characters, the effort is constantly sustained to exhibit religion as a principle of conduct in close relation to other impulses and affections, and to clothe it constantly in the external actions and circumstances of man's natural life. Of course the attempt is successful in different degrees. In the children's tales, Amy Herbert and Laneton Parsonage, the authoress has succeeded, we think, in painting the minds of children (at least of girls) with truth and beauty not often equalled ;-seldom becoming didactic beyond what is agreeable to childish taste (which is not averse to serious thoughts where there is a practical case under discussion that interests their feelings), and kindling the religious sentiments without direct appeal, by blending them inseparably with human sympathies. Neither of them, especially not the latter, is without the defects to which we intend directly to refer, and which are perhaps inseparable from the ecclesiastical atmosphere of their birthplace; yet for graphic beauty and moral truth of delineation, pure sentiment, and rich experience in the secrets of children's hearts, it is vain to look for higher or more complete moral qualification. Gertrude, and the Earl's Daughter, are tales for older minds, but scarcely of less merit. The object of the former seems to be to contrast the earnest moral energy of an undisciplined heart, that works its way with effort and self-denial, yet with wear and friction to all less earnest minds around, with the quiet and winning humility and noiseless energy of a mind sustained by spiritual power, and disciplined to self-distrust. The object of the latter (the Earl's Daughter) is rather to contrast the influence of a saintly but severe and puritanic abstinence from worldly pleasures, with the gentle grace that can take innocent enjoyments, and yet subordinate their attractions to spiritual purposes; that at once sanctifics and fascinates

proud and worldly minds, without yielding anything of purity, or losing the joyousness of freedom. This last is, without doubt, far the most beautiful of the older tales, if not the most fascinating of all, and is less tainted by Puseyite ecclesiolatry than many of the others. Margaret Percival is the most theologico-didactic of these tales, and the only distinct failure. It is written to contrast the Anglican with the Roman Church, of course to the advantage of the former. The argument is of this kind; Required what causes can justify an individual in leaving the Anglican for the Roman Church. Answer-Sufficient proof that the Church is schismatic. Again-What are the sources for proof or disproof? Answer-Inaccessible to all but those who have a life of study to devote. When to this cruel difficulty it is asked, What then are we to do with suspicions that our Church has not the authority of divine sanction? the answer is simple-Crush them. "You are born," they say, "under spiritual authority which you have no right to disown, unless you are in a position to investigate its sources. Till you can weigh all the intricate evidence of historical authority, you must obey the guidance under which Providence has placed you and this particular evidence is just what you never can weigh, unless you are in the position of a clergyman, devoting your whole life to such a study. All doubt arising from present internal evidence that the Church is not divine, must be put down as unworthy suspicion, till the higher question of her original divine commission has been decided in the negative-a question quite inaccessible to ordinary resources of time and thought. Thus the Church insists, first on the sin of questioning her authority from internal difficulties till one can completely inspect her credentials, and next explains how ponderous is the task, and how subordinate the duty of doing so,—forbids her children to attack her authority with any weapon but one, and then laments that the use of that one is for the most part beyond their skill. They may doubt if they please, but not on account of inconsistent doctrines, or gross practical abuses, only on grounds of critical learning, and antiquarian research. A cruel son may demand from the Church, if he will, the fulfilment to the very letter of that Protestant bond so carelessly given in the presump

tuous flush of early prosperity; he may exact his pound of flesh, in the shape of evidence, from the very region of the ecclesiastical heart; only the permission is crippled with the caution, that no leave is given to use any means which shall spill a drop of her blood and endanger her present life. This is the kind of argument by which an English Clergyman demonstrates to his niece the impossibility that she could conscientiously regard even as an open question the possibility that her church might not be divine. It is more worthy of the logic of the reverend Editor himself, and the platform oratory of a baptismally-regenerated assembly, than of the pages of this high-minded and spiritual authoress.

"You have but to remember that the English Church claims to be the true Church; that her claims can only be set aside by admitting the supremacy of the Bishop of Rome; that the fact of this supremacy is utterly beyond your own investigation, and has been again and again refuted by English Divines; and that to adopt the opinion of any other person against theirs is a wilful turning aside from the guides whom God has appointed you to follow. And above all, Margaret, read your Bible, and pray with your Prayerbock, and keep a careful watch over a criticising, discontented spirit, and you will never become a Romanist.' . . . There seemed still, however, to be doubts rankling in her mind, and her reply was, 'Doubts will come continually. Most certainly they will; but Í will give you two rules for dealing with them. At the moment they arise do not attempt to argue against them. Crush them as you would a sceptical or infidel doubt.' And how?' 'By making what I would almost call a physical effort against them. Let your first help be prayer, very short; it can scarcely be too short if it is earnest. Afterwards, repeat verses, walk about, read, sing, do anything which shall be actual occupation for the moment. Every one knows what an incipient thought is; in that stage it may be kept down with comparatively little effort. Then, do not trouble yourself at any time with more arguments than are necessary. Your own ignorance, the duty of remaining where God has placed you, unless you have absolute demonstration, which you never can have, that the English Church is no true Church, and the entire accordance of the Bible and the Prayer-book, will be sufficient. Try these in any way you please, they cannot be controverted; and until they are controverted, Romanism can be nothing to you.' 'I shall seem to be resisting truth,' said Margaret. Yes, there will be your great difficulty. Sceptical thoughts you know at once to be wrong; these on the contrary will assume the guise of truth; but it will be

sufficient for you to remember that you will do no good by entertaining them at that exact moment. When doubts are suggested in a sudden way, the mind is incapable of reasoning upon them. Rid yourself of them for the time being, and in a different mood you will see clearly that they were temptations.'"- Margaret Percival, vol. ii. ch. 24, p. 271.

To such mournful self-deception is a Church reduced, whose only self-acknowledged title to obedience does not lie in immediate, positive, and spiritual evidence gained in the highest moments of thought and study, and communion with Heaven,-but is so unmanageable that its very clumsiness becomes its security, enabling it to enforce submission under the intolerable alternative of examining its historical credentials. This specimen will suffice to indicate the general subject and style of Margaret Percival, which, though not without much of the authoress's usual ability and beauty, fails greatly in interest from its controversial and speculative turn. She has deviated from her usual plan of exhibiting Religion only in its relation to the conduct of life, and has passed into theological discussions, which spoil her fiction, while giving us fuller insight into the purposes and interior spirit of these works. For this reason we have selected it chiefly for comment, since it has both more of what is repugnant to free thought and moral earnestness, and exhibits more explicitly and systematically what it is elsewhere wished impli citly to convey. It would be impossible, and perhaps profitless, for us to review minutely and separately each of these beautiful tales, and therefore we shall only glance at those of their distinguishing features which are due to their Anglican origin, and indicate how we think that a purpose of a kind no less noble might be worked out with more effect and freedom, from a different and less confined centre of spiritual thought.

One of the special points then which it has pleased us to notice in these tales, is that their Anglican dress hangs quite loosely upon them, and is, we think, in no way essential to their beauty and interest, wherever it does not materially injure them. To those who are accustomed to regard the Puseyite movement as an advance to Romanism, this will appear strange if not incredible:-for without doubt the Roman Catholic faith is fundamentally distinct in its influences from that of Protestants, and, notwith

standing some points of theoretic affinity in which Rome sides with us against the ultra-Calvinistic school of religion, the Romanist views of public and private duty, and of worship, differ so broadly from that of all Protestants, that it is impossible we could feel much sympathy with their representation of the discipline by which individual minds and hearts should be trained into purity and religious love. Protestants and Roman Catholics must always differ essentially in their views of education.

The Roman Church has always been a spiritual army, and, like all military organizations, has regarded her individual members rather as means of warfare than as the end of victory, disciplined them as her servants, and used them for external purposes, the extension of her empire, and the glory of her Lord. Ecclesiastical Rome, with the same military instinct as imperial Rome, has erected the cross in the place of the fallen eagles, valued it even more as a standard that would rally her troops, than as a symbol to each of neglected duty, and has gone forth conquering and to conquer, because she has prized "the influence of holiness still more than its purity, and invented an ulterior purpose even for virtue, because her eye has wandered past the individual perfection of her children, to the visionary glory of the empire that, through them, she might attain. And hence with the quick and practised eye of habitual command, she has ever seized on the various genius and moral gifts of her children to devote them to her purposes, to guide them into the channels in which they would best magnify her power, and extend her sway. She has applied the talents of her subjects to promote her own authority, instead of using her authority so to restrain and guide those talents as might best chasten and harmonize each single mind. As is well said by the authoress of these tales, the Roman Church has rather provided a vent for all natural enthusiasm in her worship, than taught men to temper and subdue it to an inward yoke, so as to obey the slightest check from the controlling thought. Now whatever may be the leading element in the faith of those who have tarried in Anglicanism only as a stage on the way to Romanism, no one can read or study with any attention the writings of the permanent Puseyites, without seeing that they entirely retain the