bold grasp of his subject, by presenting the origin and characteristics of two opposite views of religion; the one being expressed by a Priest with his Ritual, who takes up, and appropriates the mediatory relation of man to God, barring all other means of approach and sanctification; the other being expressed by the Prophet with his Faith, who leaps the gap of Separation either by time or space, appealing to a light within, and bringing the future near. He then proceeds to show that the Church of England in its doctrine of Sacraments coincides with the former, while Christianity adopts the latter. The Church of England attributes to the Sacraments a charmed efficacy on the human soul. This position is most irrefutably sustained by quotations from the articles and offices of the Church relating to Baptism and the Lord's Supper, and from the mediatory authority assigned to the priesthood. With this is contrasted the anti-sacerdotal character of primitive Christianity. Jesus was a Prophet, not a Priest; he denied and superseded all forms and rites, he placed no dividing or intervening processes between man and God. Baptism is an initiatory form, the Supper is an act of commemoration. The familiar associations, which Judaism had gathered around Baptism by using it as the sign of washing away a foul idolatry from its proselytes, led to its adoption by the Saviour. The Lord's Supper is a simple commemoration of the Saviour's dying love, and of that event which enlarged his office from that of a Hebrew Prophet to that of the Prophet and Saviour of the whole world. The Lecture closes with a judicious retrospect of the controversy, a gathering up of fragments, and a clear expression of great principles.

“And now, friends and brethren, let us say a glad farewell to the fretfulness of controversy, and retreat again, with thanksgiving, into the interior of our own venerated truth. Having come forth, at the severer call of duty, to do battle for it, with such force as God vouchsafes to the sincere, let us go in to live and worship beneath its shelter. They tell you, it is not the true faith. Perhaps not: but then, you think it so; and that is enough to make your duty clear, and to draw from it, as from nothing else, the very peace of God. May be, we are on our way to something better, unexistent and unseen as yet; which may penetrate our souls with nobler affection, and give a fresh spontaneity of love to God and all immortal things. Perhaps there cannot be the truest life of faith, except in scattered individuals,

till this age of conflicting doubt and dogmatism shall have passed away. Dark and leaden clouds of materialism hide the heaven from us; red gleams of fanaticism pierce through, vainly striving to reveal it; and not till the weight is heaved from off the air, and the thunders roll down the horizon, will the serene light of God flow upon us, and the blue infinite embrace us again. Meanwhile, we must reverentially love the faith we have to quit it for one that we have not, were to lose the breath of life, and die." - p. 53.

We have thus traced this controversy from its commencement to its conclusion. Another series of valuable, we may say indispensable, aids is now furnished to those who are inquiring into the great questions of Trinitarian Theology. We expected to find that the arduous part, which the three Unitarian Ministers have sustained in the Controversy, would be acknowledged by the members of their congregations; and we record with pleasure the following resolutions passed at a meeting of the "three Congregations."-That, in the opinion of this Meeting, the zeal and ability with which the late Unitarian Controversy, in Liverpool, has been conducted by the Rev. James Martineau, the Rev. John Hamilton Thom, and the Rev. Henry Giles, through the medium of a Public Correspondence, and of Evening Lectures at Paradise Street Chapel, (in answer to the thirteen Lectures in Christ Church, by as many Trinitarian Clergymen,) have been, at once, creditable to the Ministers engaged in it, and advantageous to the cause of religious truth. That the varied learning and talent displayed, the great labor of critical research undergone, and the admirable temper and discretion maintained throughout the Controversy, under circumstances of singular provocation and excitement, call for the expression of our high admiration, as well as of our heartfelt and grateful acknowledgments.

G. E. E.

VOL. XXVII.

- 3D S. VOL. IX. NO. III.

47

ART. IV. Memoir of the Life and Writings of Mrs. Hemans. By her SISTER. Philadelphia: Lea & Blanchard. 12mo. pp. 317. 1839.

THIS is precisely such a biography as we should desire of such a woman as Mrs. Hemans; a sister only, and very few sisters, could have written it. It is a graceful and feminine portraiture of a most graceful and feminine mind, which we cannot doubt, after making all due allowances for the partiality of a sister's pencil, gives us a faithful likeness. It is an exquisite painting in enamel, which flatters by its very delicacy. It is in this character of a true picture, that the volume before us has delighted us; as a mere narrative, it possesses no extraordinary interest; the few events that make up the life of a retired woman, derive their interest from her character; and it is the charm of her character that alone makes us eager to follow the fortunes of Mrs. Hemans.

From her earliest childhood she appears to have been marked by singular personal attractions, and extraordinary tokens of genius. Her memory was almost miraculous, and her imagination and sensibility made her life a perpetual dream of excitement. Verse seems to have been in a manner the spontaneous expression of her mind; her first volume was printed when she was only fourteen years of age. Music and drawing were natural and favorite accomplishments. She grew up the admiration and delight of all around her. She married early, and unhappily; lived a life of keen trial, intermixed with the highest enjoyment; and died at last, it may be said, of exhaustion, at the age of forty-one;- having won the purest, most affectionate, and most enduring fame on earth, and showing herself exalted by the influences of religion, amid her severe discipline, to a peculiar ripeness for heaven.

Mrs. Hughes has already been favorably known, as one who can herself weave sweet verses, and clothe verse in the sweet harmonies of music. It was she who composed the noble strains of that anthem, "The Pilgrim Fathers," to which the patriotic hearts of New England thrill, as to some native and familiar air, some "Ranz-de-vaches" of American mountains. She has now done what she ought to do, in giving this bright sketch to the world. She has told us much that we like to know of the haunts and habits of that youth passed in roman

tic Wales; of the wonderful memory, the immense reading, the graceful accomplishments, the filial and maternal tenderness, the real sufferings of her gifted and idolized sister: — and she has told it all in such a manner as to rivet the reader to her pages. Even when the volume is closed, we can hardly break the spell, and perceive that a bright haze still hangs between us and the subject. We hardly dare own that, on reflection, we miss certain prosaic details, which might seem important to the practical-minded American reader. For instance, we dare not wonder what Mrs. Hemans was among the duties of the ménage, to which her circumstances, at some period of her life, (especially when she was left motherless.) must have required her attention. We content ourselves with saying, How could she be everything? And we are satisfied to look upon her as posterity will, as Mrs. Hemans, the Poetess; a graceful, powerful, lovely development of female mind, which, with its melancholy elegance, dwells in our fancy, an image by itself; such as to her was the sad, fair statue of the Grecian Sappho.

It is a great satisfaction to find the life and character of a distinguished author harmonize with his works. This gratification may be particularly enjoyed in the case of Mrs. Hemans. It is delightful to lay down the poems, and, while still glowing under their tender and exalting influences, to look at the woman. We take them up with redoubled interest, after having satisfied ourselves, that they were the genuine outpourings of her mind; that they embodied, as well as words could do, her true soul; that she was in real life, and in plain prose, a high-minded, refined, affectionate, and virtuous woman. To have found her otherwise would have been a severe shock; yet sometimes in perusing the volume before us, we have been almost startled at finding how completely she was all that our imaginations had painted her.

Sad, however, very sad, are some of the convictions which these pages have deepened within us. Unconsciously, we believe, the writer has disclosed to us some of the deeper recesses of a highly poetical nature, and a solemn voice speaks to us thence, like the voice of a caverned prophetess, full of unearthly wo. Believing the character of Mrs. Hemans to be one of the most complete manifestations of that nature, which was ever unfolded under earthly influences, we rise from its study with a confirmed impression, that such is not the constitution of mind most replete with the elements of happiness. It appears essen

tial to the poet, that Imagination should take the lead of all the other faculties; they must not be destroyed nor impaired, or the sanity of the mind is affected; but they must be subservient to this power, and, as it were, work under it. Memory, the reasoning power, in the operations of a poet's brain are subjected to the imagination, and toil for it. The visible world and all events act more forcibly on his imagination than on any other of his mental powers; it is that which instantly takes up and deals with every new idea that enters through the senses; the more rapidly and ably this is done, the stronger, probably, are the poetical conceptions formed. But the fine poet is seldom a judicious man; especially if he separate himself from the every-day world, and become an author by profession. Things do not appear to such a mind, as they do to one whose powers are more equally balanced; they do not appear as they really are. So supremely wise and good are the Divine arrangements, that no coloring, no transposition of the relative importance of things by the most gifted fancy, can improve them. He, therefore, has the best chance of happiness, who most clearly sees all things as they really are. It is the partial, exaggerated, or distorted perception of what is, that constitutes the chief mental suffering of man. And the highly imaginative are most constantly doomed to struggle with such false perceptions.

It is vain to say, that their glowing fancies supply them with felicities, which real life cannot furnish; no sane mind can derive permanent happiness from illusion; and when a bright illusion fades, the darkness seems intense by the contrast. The pleasant, sober, every-day light suffices not for him, who has imbibed a morbid taste for watching the meteoric flashes which light up with dazzling, but evanescent glory, the shadowy world of Imagination.

With this mental temperament is usually connected a peculiar delicacy of physical organization; almost invariably in woman, very frequently in the robuster frame of man. The great Scottish bard has been quoted as a complete exception; but what finally prostrated him in his fresh old age? His highly imaginative genius indeed appeared upon earth, in a robust frame; the constitution he inherited from a hardy ancestry, and the habits of his early life might be thanked for this; and to it, we may undoubtedly attribute much of that healthy and happy tone of disposition, to which he modestly alludes, in