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and of old associations, that more would be lost than gained, in some, or many, or most of our congregations, by attempting to introduce customs and usages long laid aside, and wholly unobjectionable in themselves. Time, and education, and the advancing culture of the age may, and we believe will, make it proper to restore them.

Such is the general aspect in which the whole subject of Ritualism is presented before the American Church at the present day.

We will not bring this paper to a conclusion without alluding to another matter. Why is it, that the present time has been seized upon by the gentlemen who controlled the late Meetings in New York, to foment alienations and divisions among us, and increase the violence of party spirit in the Church? The question is worth asking. We leave our readers to answer it for themselves. Was all this outside pressure intended as a goad for the Bishop of New York, in return for the stand which he has so nobly taken, and which the Laity of this city are so almost universally endorsing? The public report, as given above, distinctly affirms this. Was it, also, an attempt to keep alive a Church quarrel, to fan the embers of a bitter partisan warfare, which were surely dying out? Was it because of the rapid growth of sound positive Church principles, throughout our whole Church and country? Was it determined to follow up the Meetings of the regular Constitutional Board of Missions, by such fierce attacks and bitter denunciations, in order to destroy the moral power of those Meetings?

Whatever the cause may have been, that effort, and every effort to arrest the growth of Church principles, and stop the progress of the Church as such, will be utterly in vain. The "no party" men, as the Bishop of Massachusetts well terms them, are not in any very immediate danger of being broken upon the wheel of popular contempt. It would not be strange, if the danger should be found to lie in quite another direction. The truth is, the Church is growing, and growing rapidly; not as a Sect, but as the Church; and never so rapidly as now. She is becoming heartily sick of party,

and of party men. The recent elections to the Episcopate; the substantial and rapid increase of the Church in every Diocese, where she is carried in all her fulness by loving, patient, fearless men; the spiritual barrenness and death which, like a blight, rest upon those portions of the field where a noisy, but mis-called and treacherous charity is sacrificing her fundamental principles; the call of the age and times for a positive Faith, and that men shall be honest in telling what they believe, if they believe anything,-all these are facts, too patent to be overlooked or denied.

In our examination and estimate of the Meetings of the Church Missionary and Evangelical Knowledge Societies, lately held in this city, we are willing to concede the utmost honesty and sincerity of motive, on the part of the gentlemen who conducted them. But they are most certainly mistaken, as to the measures which they propose to adopt, for the peace, purity, and prosperity of the cause of Christ. Secession has already been given up, frankly and gracefully, in all matters pertaining to the State. We put it to these gentlemen, as honest, conscientious men, if it is not about time to abandon it, in regard to those things which belong to the honor and welfare of the Church of the living GOD?

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ART. VII.-BIOGRAPHICAL STUDIES.

THIS is an age of books. Every department of literature is fully represented. History, Fiction, Biography, Poetry, Science, Art, Political and Social Economy, Public and Domestic life, Religion and Infidelity, all have their champions in the list of authorship. Nothing is written so foolish, weak, or false, even, that it does not find admiring readers and zealous defenders. No scheme of pleasure or profit, no project of philanthropy or business, and no system of Religion or politics,— neither individuals, communities, States or Nations, can flourish, and attain a vigorous development, becoming firmly grounded and rooted in popular estimation and favor, without the aid of the pen, whose silent power and bloodless victories are mightier than the conquering sword. If the wise man, speaking of his own age, when books were but the curiosities of the learned few, and authorship the especial wonder of the many, could say, "Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness to the flesh," what, what shall be the appropriate motto of this age, when the Press scatters the productions of the pen, as November gales the leaves of the forest ?

But there is one prominent, and, as we conceive, much abused department of authorship, to which we wish to call special attention. We mean, Biography. What should be the characteristics of any book which claims to be a Biography? Each of the other divisions of the great field of authorship have their area and boundaries more or less clearly defined, upon and within which they work. While Poetry has greater license than any other department of composition, yet even it has its laws and its sphere of operations. History also has its appointed task; and its mission is faithfully accomplished, only when it gives us a correct and impartial narration and interpretation of past events. Fiction, while free to portray imaginary persons and scenes, and give them "a local habitation and a name," yet may not palm upon us the improbable fan

cies of an unbridled imagination. It must draw its outlines of character and incident from real life.

No department of authorship, however, is more definitely bounded, or has its peculiar characteristics more distinctly marked, than Biography. Certainly, no species of writing so signally fails to fulfil its required conditions, or so continually transcends its proper limits. We have model Historians, model Poets, model Novelists, model Editors, and model writers on Law, Politics, and Religion; but where can we point to an author, either in ancient or modern times, who is worthy to be styled a model Biographer, when his work is tested by those conditions under which he ought to write? Biographical writings, it seems to us, are radically defective, unsatisfying, and most signally fail of accomplishing what should be their true object. It undoubtedly requires talents and character of the highest order, to successfully execute this species of composition. There is scope for the finest genius and culture, and an imperative need of the power of rigid discrimination and analysis, of Spartan firmness and impartiality, and especially of high moral and religious character. Without the latter qualification, the subject of the Book will be wreathed with a false halo of glory, at the expense of the patience and profit of the reader.

more.

What, then, are the marked characteristics of a proper Biography? We define, first, negatively. It is not, simply, the history of an individual life. It is this; but it is much There must be a correct analysis, and impartial summing up of the character, as deduced from the life. A writer who deals only with the former may be a good historian, but he lacks an indispensable qualification of a Biographer. Posiitively, we affirm, that every Biography should contain two things; first, a complete history of those things which an indi-. vidual has done; and secondly, an impartial estimate of the individual character. All secular Biographies, when tested by these conditions, fail, and have no right to the name. Plutarch's Lives, for example, fall below the true standard. They are, rather, sketches of exploits and labors, either military, civil, or literary, than complete Biographies. And were our

object, at present, critical, rather than didactic, we would expose the glaring faults of a work, just now so exceedingly popular, Carlyle's History of Frederick the Great. It is not a Biography, in any true sense of the word.

No life and character of a person may properly be styled Biographical, unless the entire life and character are impartially and completely portrayed. A bust is not a statue. A sketch is not a Biography. The life and character must be viewed as one compact whole. The writer is not at liberty to cull out and record only, or chiefly, the brilliant epochs, the noble deeds, the strong points, and heroic achievements of the life of his subject. He is bound to show us the selfish in his nature, as well as the generous; the weak, contrasted with the strong; the shrinking and fearful, in the back ground of the courageous and heroic; the good, darkly shaded with the evil. If a painter were to portray a landscape flooded only with the sunlight, and were he to introduce only such objects as were beautiful or graceful, he might give us an ideal representation, but it would be destitute of true power and beauty; and, more than all, the effort would be a libel upon Nature. The beautiful in Nature can be fully revealed, only by the dark back-ground of that which is unsymmetrical, and, taken by itself, positively unsightly. That beauty which can be felt in the lake-like appearance of the waving grass of the meadow, as the morning or evening sun falls upon it, is heightened by the contrast of the sterile peaks, and rocky boulders, and shaggy outlines of the mountain range beyond. Such dark and bold contrasts do not diminish or conceal the majesty, beauty, and loveliness of Nature; they only bring out sharply and strongly what had otherwise been unobserved. The stillness of a Summer's noon-day fills the soul with its sublime quiet, because of the contrast between it, and the confusion and uproar of the tempest in its devastating march. As our minds are so constituted that they love to be roused and subdued by the strong contrasts and opposing forces of Nature, so they reject a uniformity which is untrue, artificial and false, either in Art or Literature.

In like manner, Biography derives its chief interest, power, and value to please, arouse, encourage, and instruct us, by the

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