natural and necessary contrasts of its glancing light and deep shadows. We could never have had the prophet Nathan's Parable of the "Ewe Lamb," with the startling, indignant application to the royal sinner, "Thou art the man," had those foul sins of David, which, like a dark cloud, lie in the background of his Biography, been suppressed. Nor should we have had the Fifty-first Psalm, with its wail of royal, yet sincere penitence, sounding ever down the pathway of the ages, as a model confession for the penitent sinner of every condition and age.

As before remarked, we demand, in Biography, the real contrast between what a man has done, and what he has been and felt; or, the subjective, as a back-ground for the objective life. We insist on seeing the struggles within the man, as well as without him; the knowledge of his inner life, as well as the outward; the subjective defeats and victories, as well as the objective losses and triumphs. We do not want model men painted up for our inspection, and for the very good reason that they are, and must be, the production of the author's own brain, without any foundation in fact, and, consequently, only the proper stuff for dreams and fiction.

Now we make the deliberate assertion, that all that numerous class both of light and ponderous Religious Biographies,. so-called, which flood the Christian world, and which, by many Religionists, are so diligently read and reverenced, are most seriously and culpably defective, just in this direction. Under the mask of Biography, they portray heroes for our admiration, rather than men of like passions with ourselves, for our possible imitation. Such heroes, as are described, never did live, and probably never will. Such Biographies give us the picture of life only in the sunshine, not life as it meets us in the reality of every day's observation. These writers seem to suppose that pious deception will do more good than that Christian honesty and impartiality, which confesses that the subject of the Biography had serious faults, as well as great virtues, and was a corrupt sinner, like all the rest of our race. Perhaps the character is drawn, just at the point where the Dramatic and Epic struggles of character and action culmi53*

VOL. XVIII.

nate in splendid achievement. We are summoned to gaze with awe and wonder upon a supposed result, which, to the reader, is as powerless for good as it is false. Is it too much to say, that amid the entire range of uninspired Biographies, it is almost impossible to find a book which is so true to nature and so judiciously written, as to inspire us with respect for the author's impartiality, sound discrimination, and rigid analysis of that which is truly valuable and indicative of character. Neither Holy Scripture nor observation warrant us in believing that there is, or ever has been a perfect man, except One; and still, Biography insanely persists in manufacturing them to order, and demands that they shall be canonized as true saints, and held up to the world as models. The partial, and not unfrequently highly embellished record of such lives and characters, are thus set up as a Religious shrine, where credulous. readers offer blindly the incense of praise and adoration, of which no human life was ever worthy. Biographical reading has thus become a kind of hot-house culture, producing no mature and choice fruits. In many cases, it begets a sickly ideal of character, prompting to desires and aspirations in the reader's mind, which are as powerless for instruction, encouragement and help, in achieving a noble character, as they are one-sided and unreal. Many a person has thus been commemorated in a royal octavo volume or two of unstinted eulogium, whose deeds and character never challenged any marked degree of respect and admiration; and yet, by dint of elegant authorship and pious deception, he rises into the horizon of the literary, moral, or religious firmament, and thenceforth shines as a star of the first magnitude.

The remark of the old philosopher, "that no man can be accounted happy until his death," finds striking exemplification in Biographical writings. The age imperatively needs another kind of Biography. It should be closely modelled upon the specimens contained in Holy Scripture. In the first place, let their wonderful and concise brevity be carefully imitated. The men of our day are quite too busy to read a long, prosy, glorification of any man, however distinguished in literature, ethics, or Religion. The age is especially intolerant

of prosy efforts to improve it, in morals or religion. Wo be to that teacher, whether speaking from the printed page, the pulpit, or the rostrum, who is tedious as well as censorious, and who tries to relieve his intolerable stupidity, by being impudent and ill-mannered. With one of the great oracles of our Modern Pulpit, on whose lips crowds hang with gaping wonder, irreverence is often mistaken for smartness, and low vulgarity for wit. He is capable of better things; but it would not "pay" in that market, and he is Yankee enough to know it.

And secondly, let the Biographer imitate, by all means, the Scriptural impartiality and honesty. Let him candidly narrate the faults of his subject, as well as his virtues; his folly, as well as his wisdom; his failures, as well as his successes; his weak, as well as his strong traits of character. We want the plain unvarnished tale. Biography would, doubtless, lose much of its false glare, if such a course were pursued; but it would gain, immensely, in moral power and effect. As the hero takes the place of the man of like passions with ourselves, light, help, and encouragement, would be cast upon our life, and our struggle with temptation and sin. Instead of being pointed to an immaculate Saint, who never lived, we should see the bleeding feet, and bruised body, and the dusty pilgrim, toiling from earth to heaven.

Above all, let God be honored in Biography. Let the reader be constantly reminded, that the Planet, whose orbit, density, velocity, and force, he seeks to describe, shines only by borrowed light, reflected from the Sun, the great central luminary of the visible Heavens above us. When Biography comes to occupy and busy itself upon such a lofty, yet natural sphere of observation, then will it excite interest, awaken sympathy, and possess a power for usefulness, which we can scarcely estimate.

As we have already said, we are not now writing a review of any one of the Biographies which, in such numbers, fill the shelves of our private, Parish and Sunday-School Libraries. We are sick, almost to loathing, of the greater part of them. We do ask, and we demand, that a species of composition which might be made so exceedingly useful, shall be divested of those unrealities which now render this class of publications well nigh worthless, if not mischievous.

NOTICES OF BOOKS.

A COMMENTARY ON THE HOLY SCRIPTURES-Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical. By JOHN P. LANGE, D. D., in connection with a number of eminent European Divines. Translated from the German, and edited, with additions, original and selected, by PHILIP SCHAFF, D. D., in connection with American Divines of various Evangelical Denominations.

VOLUME IV. THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. An Exegetical and Doctrinal Commentary, by Gotthard Victor Lechler, D. D., Ordinary Professor of Theology and Superintendent at Leipsic. With Homiletical Additions, by Rev. Charles Gerok, Superintendent at Stuttgard. Translated from the Second German Edition, with Additions, by Charles F. Schaeffer, D. D., Professor of Theology in the Theological Seminary of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, at Philadelphia. New York: Charles Scribner & Co. 1866. 8vo., pp. 480.

When we have said, that this massive work is not a Church Commentary, as our readers understand the meaning of that phrase, and that there is in it no positive teaching of sharply defined Christian Doctrine, according to the standard of the Primitive Creeds, we have described it in two particulars of great importance. In what the special value of this work consists, and it has such value, we stated in our notice of the previous Volume (July No., pp. 289-90). As we come down, however, in point of time, from the Gospels, to the Acts of the Apostles, and enter upon the History of the Church, the character and teaching of any Commentary assume a new aspect altogether. The Apostolic Age of the Church is really the great battle-ground of Christianity, between our branch of the Church on the one hand, and Rome and the countless modern Denominations on the other. Admit that such and such things are Apostolic, as the Doctrines of the Trinity, of Infant Baptism, or of the Three-fold Ministry, and we claim, and insist, that they are divine, that they have the authority of the Holy Ghost. The argument never has been answered, and never can be. It is as simple and self-evident as an axiom. The man who denies it, is not a man to be reasoned with.

Now, it is no small credit to the better class of German Commentators and of German scholars generally, that, in all matters of fact, they are almost always honest. They will not wilfully deny what they know to be true. But as reasoners, they are utterly undeserving of the slightest reliance. We cannot explain this phenomenon, without more space than we have at our command. It is a question, partly of race, aud partly of philosophy. It was the one great ruinous fault of the Continental Reformation; and has already made that Reformation almost a failure.

All these excellences, and all these faults, stand out in bold relief, in this Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles. Prof. Lechler admits, that it was the Apostles to whom Jesus Christ gave those instructions during the "forty days." He admits, that Philip, the Deacon, preached at Samaria, and that the Apostles went down and laid hands on the disciples, who received the Holy Ghost. And yet, he will not allow that this was Confirmation; and he contends, that to these Deacons the Ministry of the Word" was not primarily entrusted; that they were invested with no Ecclesiastical Office whatever"; and "that no human being, and no finite Ordinance can be regarded as necessary, and absolutely indispensable."

The work, however, as far as we have examined it, and we have tested it in several instances, is "orthodox" in the matter of Miracles, and Inspiration, and Supernatural manifestations, and that, too, in cases where even such a writer as Neander has proved false and treacherous. In this volume, as in the preceding ones, there is a wealth of learning, gleaned mostly from modern sources; and, in the department of Textual Criticism, it is especially rich and valuable.

THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF JAMES GATES PERCIVAL. By JULIUS H. WARD. ton: Ticknor & Fields. 1866. 12mo., pp. 583.

Bos

In making his debut as an author, Mr. Ward has ventured upon a subject worthy of the very best critical talent and most practised pen. We do not hesitate to say, that he not only has not failed in his work, but has so far succeeded as to deserve the thanks of all scholars. Reserving a more thorough examination of the vol ume for another Number, we only remark here that we might have looked for a more judicial estimate of Percival as a poet, and a scholar, for a more satisfactory explanation of the eccentricities and almost weird features of his strange history, and for a clearer statement of his religious opinions and character. Mr. Ward will perhaps say, that it was his constant aim to let Percival become his own interpreter, and by means of his Letters and other writings, sketch the features of his own portrait. In ordinary cases, this is, undoubtedly, the most successful method of biography. But Percival was an extraordinary man. We knew him from the year 1830, were a member with him of the Connecticut Academy, and had as good an opportunity of studying his character as any one, save the two or three who were admitted to his intimate companionship. He was always an enigma to us, and he is so still, notwithstanding all we find in Mr. Ward's carefully prepared volume. In some respects, the work will correct popular misapprehension. For example, it used to be current among the gossips, that Percival's shyness and misanthropy, were the result of disappointed love, which so crushed his affectionate, sensitive spirit, as to unman him, and wreck his otherwise brilliant prospects. There was just enough foundation for this silly story to prevent its being an unmitigated falsehood.

We shall not attempt now a delineation, or an estimate, of Percival's character, the want of which we have spoken of as a defect in this volume. The Atlantic Monthly, of Boston, in its Article, "The Pleiades of Connecticut," in February, 1865, asserts, that Connecticut never produced a Poet, and does not even name Percival among those who have made pretensions to the gift of song. We do not hesitate to say, that we believe there was more genuine poetry in Percival, poetry of a truer and loftier type, than in any and all the poets to whom Massachusetts has ever given birth. He did not write ballads for the people, and has no such place in the popular heart as Longfellow and Whittier; but he belonged to another order of men than that, with which the old Bay State is just now afflicted; who have a fatal facility in grinding out doggerel to order, in any quantity, and on any occasion. The Mutual Admiration Society call it Poetry! Percival was a man of different mould. He possessed brilliant genius, the very highest order of talent, and attainments so diversified, and yet so thorough, that he was the wonder of professional scholars in each department. And yet, with all these rare endowments, and these rich treasures of learning, there were weaknesses in his character, we do not mean vices, which lead us now to look back upon him with pity as well as admiration. As proof of his learning in one department, he wrote verse in thirteen different languages; and, it is said, had imitated all the Greek and German

metres.

In respect to Percival's religious character, Mr. Ward, although he has scarcely entered upon the subject, confirms us in the opinion which we have long entertained. Had Percival been born in the Church, and had his lofty genius caught its inspiration at her altars, and been brought into communion with the sanctified talent and learning which have worshipped at her shrines, he would have been another man, and might have become the Keble of the American Church. At one period in his history, he seems to have caught a glimpse of the Church, and even determined to enter upon Holy Orders. But alas for him, the narrow, revolting dogmas of Calvinism, which he inherited as his birth-right, cast their pall over his vision, even from his very infancy, and the dark cloud hung between him and the Gospel of Christ, even to the very last. Among the "orthodox" of New England, he was reputed a skeptic. He died in Wisconsin, while engaged in making a scientific exploration of that State,- -a position urged upon him, as one of the rewards of his well-earned reputation. By a remarkable Providence, his closing hours were passed in a kind family of that Church to which, in his spiritual gloom, he had once so longingly turned. Here he was most tenderly watched over, and that