earth, time and eternity, with all their duties and interests, are in themselves holy. It writes holiness to the Lord upon everything, and sums up its sublime teaching in that grand synthesis, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and mind and soul and strength, and thy neighbor as thyself."

But the Church failed to embody this idea; it misapprehended the conditions on which it was to be realized. Instead of understanding Jesus to assert the holiness of both spirit and matter, it understood him to admit that matter was rightfully cursed, and to predicate holiness of spirit alone. It took its stand with spiritualism, and condemned itself to the evils of being exclusive. This fact explains the doctrines, the ceremonies, and the assumptions, exhibited by the Church, in opposition to Christ. It abused and degraded matter, but could not annihilate it. It existed in spite of the Church. It increased in power, and at length rose against spiritualism and demanded the restoration of its rights. This rebellion is Protestantism. But, properly speaking, Protestantism finished its work, and expired in the French Revolution at the close of the last century. then there has been a reaction in favor of Spiritualism.

Since

This reaction was favored by the disastrous catastrophe of the movement in France. In consequence of this, men again despaired of the earth; and when they despair of the earth, they always take refuge in heaven. They had trusted materialism too far; they would now not trust it at all. They turned back and sighed for the serene past, the quiet and order of old times, for the mystic land of India, where the soul may dissolve in ecstasy and dream of no change. When the sigh had just escaped, that mystic land reappeared. The old literature and philosophy of India were brought to light. The influence of the ancient Braminical or spiritual word is visible everywhere. It is remarkable in our poets. It moulds the form in Byron, penetrates to the ground in Wordsworth, and entirely predominates in the Schlegels. It acts with equal power on philosophy, religion, society.

What, then, is the mission of the present? The East has reappeared, and spiritualism revives; will it again become supreme? This, according to our author, is out of the question. We of the present century must either dis

pense with all religious instructions, reproduce spiritualism or materialism, or we must build a new church, organize a new institution, free from the imperfections of those which have been. The first is impossible. Men cannot live in perpetual anarchy. They must and will embody their ideas of the true, the beautiful, the good, the holy, in some institution. Neither can an exclusive spiritualism or materialism be reproduced. This were an anomaly in the history of humanity; for humanity does not traverse an eternal circle; it advances, in one endless career of progress towards the Infinite, the Perfect. But spiritualism and materialism both have their foundation in our nature, and both will exist and exert their influence. Shall they exist as antagonist principles? Is the bosom of Humanity to be eternally torn by these two contending factions? This cannot be. The war must end. Peace must made.

Here then is the mission of the present. We are to reconcile spirit and matter; that is, we must realize the atonement. Nothing else remains for us to do. Stand still we cannot. To go back is equally impossible. We must go forward; but we can take not a step forward, but on the condition of uniting these two hitherto hostile principles. Progress is our law, and our first step is union.

The union of spirit and matter was the result contemplated by the mision of Jesus. The Church attempted it, but only partially succeeded, and has therefore died. The time had not come for the complete union. Jesus saw this. He knew that the age in which he lived would not be able to realize his conception. Hence he spoke of his second coming. This will take place, when the idea which he represents shall be fully realized. That idea will be realized by a combination of the two terms, which have received thus far from the Church only a separate development. The doctrine which shall realize the idea of the atonement is, that all things are essentially holy, that everything is cleansed, and that we must call nothing common or unclean. Neither spiritualism nor materialism was aware of this truth. Spiritualism saw good only in pure spirit. God was pure spirit, and therefore good. Our good consisted in resemblance to God, that is, in being as like pure spirit as possible. Our duty was to get rid of matter. All the interests of the material order were sinful.

Materialism, on the other hand, had no recognition of spirit. It considered all time and thought and labor bestowed on that which transcends this world as worse than thrown way. It had no conception of inward communion with God. It counted fears of punishment or hopes of reward in a world to come mere idle fancies, fit only to amuse or control the vulgar. It laughed at spiritual joys and griefs, and treated as serious affairs only the pleasures and pains of sense.

The doctrine of the Atonement reconciles these two warring systems. This doctrine teaches us that spirit is real and holy, that matter is real and holy, that God is holy, and that man is holy, that spiritual joys and griefs, and the pleasures and pains of sense, are alike real joys and griefs, real pleasures and pains, and in their places are alike sacred. Spirit and matter, then, are sacred. The influence of this doctrine cannot fail to be very great. It will correct our estimate of man, of the world, of religion, and of God, and remodel all our institutions. It must, in fact, create a new civilization as much in advance of ours, as ours is in advance of that which obtained in the Roman Empire in the time of Jesus. We shall cease to regard man as the antithesis of good. The slave will become a son. Human nature will be clothed with a high and commanding worth. It will be seen to be a lofty and deathless nature. It will be felt to be divine, and infinite will be found traced in living characters on all its faculties. Man will reverence man. Slavery will cease. Wars will fail. Education will destroy the empire of ignorance. Civil freedom will become universal. It will be everywhere felt that one man has no right over another, which that other has not over him. All will be seen to be brothers and equals in the sight of their common Father. Religion will not stop with the command to obey the laws, but it will bid us make just laws, such laws as befit a being divinely endowed like man. Industry will be holy. The cultivation of the earth will be the worship of God. Working men will be priests, and as priests they will be reverenced, and as priests they will reverence themselves, and feel that they must maintain themselves undefiled. The earth itself and the animals which inhabit it will be counted sacred. We shall study in them the

manifestation of God's wisdom, goodness, and power, and be careful that we make of them none but a holy use. Man's body will be deemed holy. It will be called the temple of the Living God. As a temple, it must not be desecrated. Men will beware of defiling it by sin, by any excessive or improper indulgence, as they would of defiling the temple or the altar consecrated to the service of God. Every duty, every act necessary to be done, every implement of industry, or thing contributing to human use or convenience, will be treated as holy. Religious worship will not be the mere service of the sanctuary. The universe will be God's temple, and its service will be the doing of good to mankind, relieving suffering, and promoting joy, virtue, and well-being. When all this takes place, the glory of the Lord will be manifested unto the ends of the earth, and all flesh will see it and rejoice together. The time is yet distant before this will be fully realized. But we assert the doctrine as an idea; and ideas, if true, are omnipotent. As soon as humanity fully possesses this idea, it will lose no time in reducing it to practice. Men will conform their practice to it. They will become personally holy. Holiness will be written on all their thoughts, emotions, and actions, on their whole lives. And then will Christ really be formed within, the hope of glory. He will be truly incarnated in universal humanity, and God and man will be one.

The tones of a sincere voice are heard in the conclusion of the volume, a part of which we copy.

"Here I must close. I have uttered the words UNION and PROGRESS as the authentic creed of the New Church, as designating the whole duty of man. Would they had been spoken in a clearer, a louder, and a sweeter voice, that a response might be heard from the universal heart of Humanity. But I have spoken as I could, and from a motive which I shall not blush to own either to myself or to Him to whom all must render an account of all their thoughts, words, and deeds. I once had no faith in Him, and I was to myself a child without a sire.' I was alone in the world, my heart found no companionship, and my affections withered and died. But I have found Him, and he is my Father, and mankind are my brothers, and I can love and reverence.

"Mankind are my brothers, they are brothers to one another. I would see them no longer mutually estranged. I labor to bring them together, and to make them feel and own that they are all made of one blood. Let them feel and own this, and they will love one another; they will be kindly affectioned one to another, and 'the groans of this nether world will cease;' the spectacle of wrongs and outrages

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oppress our sight no more; tears be wiped from all eyes, and Humanity pass from death to life, to life immortal, to the life of God, for God is love.

"And this result, for which the wise and the good every where yearn and labor, will be obtained. I do not misread the age. I have not looked upon the world only out from the window of my closet; I have mingled in its busy scenes; I have rejoiced and wept with it; I have hoped and feared, and believed and doubted with it, and I am but what it has made me. I cannot misread it. It craves union. The heart of man is crying out for the heart of man. One and the same spirit is abroad, uttering the same voice in all languages. From all parts of the world voice answers to voice, and man responds to man. There is a universal language already in use. Men are beginning to understand one another, and their mutual understanding will beget mutual sympathy, and mutual sympathy will bind them together and to God."— pp. 113–115.

Such is a very slight sketch of a work which we have called one of the most remarkable that has appeared in the literature of this country. It labors under the defect, however, of an excessive brevity; some of its most important statements are hints rather than details; and the condensed, aphoristic style of its composition may blind many readers to the fulness of thought which it presents, and the true logical sequence in which it is arranged. In spite of this obstacle to popular success, this work cannot fail to act with great power on all minds of true insight. Its profound significance will be apprehended by many, who find here the expression of their own convictions, the result of their own strivings, which they have never before seen embodied in words. And it has already formed a conspicuous era in the mental history of more than one, who is seeking for the truth of things, in the midst of painted, conventional forms.

Since the publication of this work, Mr. Brownson has gained a more numerous audience and a wider reputation by the establishment of the "Boston Quarterly Review." This Journal stands alone in the history of periodical works. It was undertaken by a single individual, without the coöperation of friends, with no external patronage, supported by no sectarian interests, and called for by no motive but the inward promptings of the author's own soul. A large proportion of its pages, and it has now reached the middle of its third year, is from the pen of Mr. Brownson himself. The variety of subjects which it discusses is no less striking, than the vigor and boldness

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