most suitable for Ecclesiastical purposes; but we again urge the reconsideration of the Medieval form, which certainly was not any more than the internal arrangements contrived by its inventors, for the purpose to which it is now applied. Neither do we advocate churches of huge dimensions; but we do ask that the building should correspond to its profession; whether built for 500 or for 5,000, it should provide profitable room for them. What we want to see, in short, is, not the increased following of the old examples, but that original development of them which shall produce a structure, grand, simple, and solemn in character, like the service for the celebration of which it is erected, and where, instead of nooks and corners, and huge sight and sound obstructing pillars, reared as though in mockery of the reality on which Mediævalists so pertinaciously insist, merely to support a light timber roof, all shall be fair and open, and where the results of the highest science of construction and acoustics shall be combined with our noblest attainments in art."

We will barely allude to another vicious manner of building, which is getting much in fashion among ourselves. It is usually seen now in expensive Country Seats and rural residences, but sometimes reaches as far as the Church. It consists in budding out the main body of the building, on every side, with tiny projections, like turret, balcony, and bartizan, and topping the chimnies and other projections, as if they had been intended for dove-cotes or bird-houses; thus destroying all unity of design or fellowship between different portions of the building. We have seen some such baby Schoenbrunns, where the sole object of the builder would seem to have been, to make as many holes in the walls, and as many topple-down projections, as could be consistent with safety, either within or without. The effect of this style upon Churches is thus described by our English critic :

"As an example of the current phase of Church Architecture, we give an engraving of St. Mark's, Nottingdale, just completed. It is marked, throughout, by studied irregularity. Every part, that can be, is made to differ from its corresponding part. The Transepts are lower than the Nave, and the windows on the South differ from those on the North. The tall spire is of slate; the brooch spire of stone. The church is built of ordinary yellow stock bricks, with black bands; the arches are of blueish-black and white bricks. The angular flying buttresses are of the like magpie Polychromy. The walls of the interior are also of many colored bricks. The Nave, arches and Clerestory, are borne on cast iron columns with wrought iron capitals."

*British Almanac and Companion, 1864.

We incline to think that the general style of Church Architecture among us would be much improved, if the periodicals of the country would, now and then, give it a judicious and timely notice; or, what would be still better, if Architects and builders would establish a periodical of their own. What is wanted is, a purer, truer, Christian taste; and this must grow in part out of interchange of opinion among professional men. As an example of this sort of criticism, we might refer to the Articles on Public Improvements which have been for many years published annually in the British Almanac and Companion, from which we have quoted somewhat largely in this paper. The tendencies of the writer are in favor of the simpler form of the Gothic, and in this respect agree with our own. We conclude with an extract from his notices for 1864, which is written in a more hopeful strain than usual :—

"In our Churches, there is discernible some re-action from the passion for elaborate irregularity and quaintness. The new Churches are all Gothic, and mostly Gothic of an advanced type, foreign, or semi-foreign, symbolical, rigorously Mediæval; but there is little that is positively grotesque, though the striving after a novel setting forth of an antique model occasions, now and then, a combination that is at least bizarre. But our newest Churches are a decided improvement on those of a few years back. There is more thought in the design, more care in the arrangement, and a more finished execution.”

ART. III.-ECCE HOMO.

Ecce Homo: A Survey of the Life and Work of Jesus Christ. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1866. 12mo. pp. 355.

This is the title of a work, an edition of which has been recently issued in Boston, and which has reached its tenth edition in England. The book is said to be causing what is called a sensation; though it surprises us that, in this age of startling novelties, such a book as this could produce such an effect. How much of its success is owing to that system of hired fulsome adroit criticism, which is in vogue in certain quarters, how much to its literary merits, which are considerable, and how much to its adaptedness to the peculiar phase of Modern Infidelity, it would be difficult exactly to determine. There have been so many "Harmonies of the Gospels," so many philosophical explanations of Christ's Personality and Life, for private as well as public use; there have been, and there are, so many Commentators on that which ought not to be freely commented on, that the work before us is a matter of real surprise. Cui bono? may be asked. What end has the author proposed unto himself? Is it either to add his mite to the treasury of Sectism, or to secure the doubtful reward of theological eccentricity? If this be his purpose, he will no doubt succeed in the "Hub," whose "mission," it seems to be, to dethrone Christ, and make an idol of Humanity. "Worship thyself," is its first and great commandment. But we cannot avoid the expression of utter amazement at the eulogistic, or apologetic, or dubious manner in which some professedly Christian critics have spoken of the work.

After the Title, which the author gives to his book, he writes a Preface, in which, though only a Preface, there is more polished infidelity, more sheer impudence, and more ignorant and pompous assumption condensed, than we remember to have 34*

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seen in the same amount of composition in all the works of modern scepticism. In his Preface, he says, as follows:

"Those who feel dissatisfied with the current conceptions of Christ, if they cannot rest content without a definite opinion, may find it necessary to do what to persons not so dissatisfied it seems audacious and perilous to do. They may be obliged to reconsider the whole subject from the beginning, and placing themselves, in imagination, at the time when He whom we call Christ bore no such name, but was simply, as St. Luke describes him, a young man of promise, popular with those who knew him, and appearing to enjoy the Divine favor, to trace his biography, and accept those conclusions about Him, not which Church doctors or even Apostles have sealed with their authority, but which the facts themselves, critically weighed, appear to war

rant."

We are delighted to see, that this apostle of facts acknowledges that facts will "warrant" the operation of being critically weighed. To "critically" weigh facts in true scales and with just weights, has not even the semblance of audacity or peril. But to critically or uncritically weigh facts, and that too, facts of eternal import, in false scales and with unjust weights, is not simply " audacious and perilous," but decidedly malevolent in intention and in execution.. The author has a dim consciousness that be is entering upon an "audacious and perilous" task, in having thrown away the Apostolic and Ecclesiastical scales and weights, and adopting those of his own clumsy manufacture. He confesses, at the outset, that he is among those, who are dissatisfied with the "current conceptions of Christ." Of course, every infidel, sceptic, and modern rationalist, claims brotherhood with him in this particular. But what astonishes us, in his case, is, that he, emerging from a peculiar "bewilderment," is to satisfy Christendom that it ought to be dissatisfied with the present "current conceptions of Christ ;" and that Christendom, with the full blaze of light of Apostles and Martyrs, ought to fall down in an ecstasy of homage, to do honor to the demented royalty of his genius. We would suppose, that the teaching of almost nineteen centuries, which has moulded the present "current conceptions of Christ," would not leave any modest man dissatisfied. Yet the author is dissatisfied; and, by an uncouth, gigantic egotism, he proudly wafts himself to the dawn of the

Christian era, not upon the wings of fact, but upon the pinions of a singularly disordered imagination. He does this, not to be taught of Christ, or of His Apostles, but to become president of the Apostolic College, and to teach it what God Himself utterly failed to illuminate or illustrate.

Of a morning's walk on London Bridge, should the author meet the Universe, no doubt he would address it, patronizingly, in some such fashion as this:-" Good morning, master Universe! What have you done with that lost Pleiad? Restore it, sir, else I will declare abroad the theft. None but MYSELF and thee know that thou art the thief!" It is indeed curious that a man like the author, hovering about Christ, in the darkness of a prurient and conceited imagination, should know more about the Saviour's motives, objects and feelings, than His own daily and intimate companions. The special tuition of such companions, year after year, recorded by the pen of Inspiration, was just the very truths which make up the "current conceptions of Christ." But the author, gazing upon these truths from afar, through a speculum dimmed by a thousand intervening objects, speculates and dogmatizes with an impudence that is indescribable and insufferable. The author proceeds to "critically weigh facts." He says, that this "may appear audacious and perilous." Why the operation of weighing facts critically should appear "audacious and perilous," is a discovery worthy of the author. The world however must be very old, ere it can comprehend its utility. The wise man can see no audacity or peril, in weighing any amount of facts. It has remained for the author, however, to make the discovery, that substituting bold and vapid assumption, verbose oracularisms, foolish imaginations, and downright falsehood, for critically weighed facts, has merely the appearance of audacity and peril.

Let us take up one or two of his "critically weighed facts," by which he overthrows the "current conceptions" of Christ. He says:

"Let us ask ourselves, what was the ultimate object of Christ's scheme?" The answer is, "In the language of our own day, its object was, the improvement of morality." (p. 100.)