right, deserves a better name than weakness. His polemical zeal looked like religion; but it was a religion that neither restrained him from habitual profaneness, nor prompted a decent observance of the forms of godliness. Whatever was his creed, he was an antinomian in practice; and his gross dissimulation and perjury would tempt one to believe that he had embraced the Romish scheme of morals, and relied either on his kingly prerogative or on priestly absolution, in setting the vulgar obligations of truth at defiance. No name could have been more unlucky than that bestowed upon him by his courtly panegyrists, of a second Solomon, which is said to have provoked from Henry IV. the biting sarcasm, never to be forgiven, that ⚫ he hoped he was not David the fiddler's son.'

In taking leave of these volumes, we cannot but express ourselves highly satisfied with their general execution. Although the subject is less captivating than that of the Author's former work, we are strongly inclined to give the preference to these Memoirs, in point of literary merit. Miss Aikin's style is, we think, not a little improved; and she has availed herself of some valuable manuscript documents, as well as of the rich variety of published materials. The work is fairly entitled to the praise of competent ability, some research, calm impartiality, and substantial correctness. It is but fair to add, that it is by no means spun out; and the Memoirs are quite free from philosophizing or sentimental digression. On the whole, it deserves at least to become equally popular with the Memoirs of the Court of Elizabeth.

Art. II. 1. Hints on Missions. By James Douglas, Esq. 12mo. pp. 118. Edinburgh. 1822.

2. A Retrospect of the First Ten Years of the Protestant Mission to China. Accompanied with Miscellaneous Remarks on the Literature, History, and Mythology of China. By William Milne. 8vo. pp. 376. Malacca. Printed at the Anglo-Chinese Press. 1820. 3. The Influence of Protestant Missionary Establishments in developing the physical and moral Condition of Man, and elucidating the dark Regions of the Globe, briefly delineated. With a coloured Map, exhibiting the Progress of Christianity, and the professed Religions of Mankind. By Thomas Myers, A.M. of the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. 4to. pp. 16. Price 3s. London. 1822.

4. The History of Greenland: including an Account of the Mission carried on by the United Brethren in that Country. From the German of David Crantz. With a Continuation to the present Time, illustrative Notes, and an Appendix, containing a Sketch of the Mission of the Brethren in Labrador. 2 vols. 8vo. pp. xii, 684. Price 11. 1s. London. 1820.

IF

F there is less of a Missionary spirit in the present day, than there was in the times of the Apostles, there is, as Mr.

Douglas remarks, more of a Missionary spirit than has ever existed since the times of the Apostles and their immediate successors.' And to a devout believer, this very circumstance is a presage of the most inspiriting kind. This simultaneous kindling of a zeal which has lain dormant or smouldering for ages, this new, and widely spreading, and still increasing spirit of Missionary enterprise in almost every denomination of Christians, cannot be satisfactorily accounted for on any other principle than that of an intention on the part of the Divine Governor of the world, to employ the instrumentality thus called into action, for the consummation of his revealed designs. Our confidence that this feeling will not evaporate, must rest on the persuasion which ascribes it to an out-pouring of a celestial influence. And viewed in this light, the general feeling and expectation of Christians, is an unequivocal sign that events of no ordinary character are at hand, to which, judging from the analogy of the Divine proceedings, the instrumentality employed will bear the relation of subordinate means, not of an adequate cause, so that the excellency of the power shall appear to be of God and not of man. Even now, to use the glowing language of a powerful Missionary advocate, Christians can descry through the gross darkness ⚫that covers the pagan regions, a mystical signature by the finger of God on every spot, to indicate its assignment by that covenant which has given to the Messiah the heathen for his inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession. That declared decree in heaven, that substance of the thing hoped for, is brought down to the earth in the confident anticipations of the faithful, and beheld as in the fact of a ⚫ universal kingdom.'*

Still, there are times when the immense numerical disproportion between even the nominally Christian, and the Mahommedan and Pagan portions of the human race, occurs to damp the ardour of expectation, and to suggest the most overwhelming reflections. Six hundred millions of heathens appeara compact mass of substantial darkness, which it is hopeless to attempt to permeate by the light which is beginning partially and faintly to illuminate the wide surface. The harvest to be reaped so vastly transcends the physical powers of the labourers, that we feel convinced that we see but the feeble beginnings of a work which will require an array of means and agencies indefinitely diversified and multiplied beyond any thing that we have as yet witnessed. If nothing in the shape of a miraculous inter

• Foster's Missionary Discourse. p. 525.

position is to be looked for, moral changes would seem to be previously necessary, which, not to require the lapse of ages in their accomplishment, would be little short of miraculous.

In opposition to this dispiriting view of things, Mr. Douglas has succeeded in shewing, that the undeveloped means which lie within our power, are adequate to produce, and that within a comparatively short term, a revolution of the most important and extensive kind. If his Hints should answer no other purpose, they will, we think, have a very beneficial effect as they tend to infuse a higher degree of animation into the hopes and exertions of Christians. The comprehensive view which he has taken of the whole sphere of Missionary exertion,—of the agency actually in operation, and of the resources and means which it remains to employ, is at once highly interesting and valuable. If, while we follow him through his review, we are made to feel that the cause is as yet in its infancy; if we are led to look back on the past ages of the Church as barren in their greatest splendour, and to contemplate with shame our own apathy; if the time that has been lost appears as a most fearful account against the professors of the Christian faith; still, he shews that it will not require ages to repair that neglect. An accumulation of means, such as have never been in the possession of any former age, are placed in our hands, at a juncture the most critical. If the numerical proportion of Christians is wofully small, the population under Christian government, or accessible to Christian influence, is greater, perhaps, than at any former period. The simple means of evangelization are the same that they have ever been; and yet, in the application of them, they appear to possess all the freshness of a new discovery. Translation, as now applied to the Scriptures, seems almost like a new mechanical power. The art of Printing itself led not to a more rapid and extensive multiplication of written works, than the art of translation, or the wonderful extension of that art, has to that of books. Translation is not, as Printing was, a new discovery, but it is a conquest of difficulties equal to a discovery; and in its multiplying powers, or rather in the facilities of communication which it creates, it is to Printing, what Printing was to Writing. And if the means is not new, the power brought to act through that means, the impulse which has put the machinery in action, has origi nated in the spirit of the present times. The Bible Society has been the chief agent both in promoting and in circulating versions of the Scriptures in all the languages of Babel. It has, so to speak, created a market for translations; and the demand has created the supply. The Bible Society, however, is but one centre of impulse and exertion among many, to

which the present day has given birth. And all these operations of the various institutions which have for their object to act upon the darkness and vis inertia of heathen nations, are but preliminary to those internal movements which may confidently be anticipated to take place among the natives of those benighted countries, when once roused into moral life and action.

Many,' says Mr. Douglas, deem the conversion of the world chimerical without sensible miracles; but as long as the laws of the mind remain the same, we may be of good courage as to the ultimate success: the only miracle necessary, is, that Christians should have some concern for the souls of their fellow creatures.

While belief is connected with truth, we shall never want converts; and while the belief of truth impels to the communication of truth, we shall never want preachers.

"I believed, and therefore have I spoken." Here is a measure derived from heaven to judge of the sincerity of belief. The laws of the human mind are not circumscribed within degrees and parallels. He who has no desire to proclaim the gospel abroad, has none to proclaim it at home, and has no belief in it himself; whatever professions he may make, are hollow and hypocritical. Bodies of Christians who make no efforts to Christianize others, are Christians but in name; and the ages in which no attempts are made to send the glad tidings to heathen countries, are the dark ages of Christianity, however they may suppose themselves enlightened and guided by philosophy and moderation.

The ages of Christian purity have ever been the ages of Christian exertion. At the commencement of Christianity, he who believed in the gospel became also a preacher of the gospel. "We believe, and therefore we speak." The effort was correspondent to the belief, and the success to the effort. Christians grew and multiplied, and their very multiplication insured a fresh renewal of their increase. The primitive prolific blessing was upon them, and one became a thousand.

But faith waxed feeble, and with faith charity, and with charity all efforts to instruct and to save; and Christians, instead of publishing the truth to others, disputed about the truth among themselves; and the Bible in their hands, instead of being a highway for the simple, became a labyrinth of subtleties for the disputers of this world; and, no longer proclaiming peace, was changed into a magazine of weapons, offensive and defensive, where every combatant might be furnished to his need; where texts were set in array against texts, Evangelist against Evangelist, and Apostle against Apostle.

Religion, stripped by the fury of contending parties of every peculiarity belonging to it, remained but an empty name, or retained, like vacant space, the sole attribute of being infinitely divisible, while each division contained within itself the living germ of a future subdivision ; and sects sprung from sects, as numerous and as noisy as the whelps Milton describes to have littered in the womb of sin, “hourly conceived and hourly born."

'At the Reformation, when religion was risen to second life from the

rubbish under which for so many centuries it had been buried, the zeal of the Reformers for spreading truth kept exact pace with their discovery of truth; but when, like Augustus, grown old and despairing of further conquest, they attempted to fix the bounds of its empire, those boundaries continually shrunk in, and their successors, instead of gaining ground, had to maintain a perpetual and unsuccessful struggle for what had already been achieved. Yet it was not unnatural to expect that wisdom should die with them, seeing that it had come into the world at their breath and bidding, and that, therefore, it ought to be embalmed with all possible speed in creeds and confessions, and that the truth which, though unendowed, had won themselves, now that it was older and of longer standing in the world, had need of wealth and revenues, in order to procure to itself other and younger lovers. It is not very surprising, then, how soon religion became stationary and even retrograde; how quickly its early glow of charity was overcast by dark and doubtful disputations, and that the Reformation itself needed anew a reform in the spirit, if not in the letter.

That second Reformation has begun. It makes less noise than that of Luther, but it spreads wider and deeper: as it is more intimate, it will be more enduring. Like the Temple of Solomon, it is rising silently, without the din of hammers or the note of previous preparation; but, notwithstanding, it will not be less complete in all its parts, nor less able to resist the injuries of time.'

This is eloquent writing; but, what is more, it is as just as it is eloquent. In the contrast between the means and the agencies employed in the present day to extend the moral conquests of Christianity, and those which the Reformers were tempted to call in, we have the surest pledge that this second reformation will not be overlaid by patronage, or circumscribed by polemical zeal, or overborne by opposition. The first successes of the Reformers were achieved by the sword of the Spirit; but the day being won, they laid by the spiritual weapon, and thought only of securing their conquests by the sword of the magistrate. The extinction of the Missionary spirit was the inevitable consequence,not only because their own exertions became paralysed, but because the genius of human governments is at variance with the aggressive zeal of the Missionary. It is true, that the Church of Rome, prompted by the lust of empire, encouraged enterprises of this nature; and the Jesuits have been distinguished by their efforts to bring wanderers into the papal fold. The very universality of its claims, the all-comprehending grasp of its ambition, supplied, in this case, motives to extend the nominal triumphs of Christianity, and to procure at least an external subjection to the true faith. But the well-defined boundaries and insulated character of a national Church, admit of the operation of no such stirring motive. Accordingly, the modesty of Protestantism has been one cause of its