new churches are all slate, and some all pinnacle and finery. The one dingy and melancholy, while the other reminds us of the vulgar finery of an ill-dressed person.

The Life of Wedgwood. Two Vols. 8vo. By Elizabeth Meteyard. London: Hurst and Blackett.-Wedgwood was one of the few great men who create an art which becomes the source of boundless wealth, while it raises the character and purifies the taste of his country. Before his time the pottery ware of England was coarse, and scarcely worthy of a place, either amongst the fine arts, or the important manufactures of England; its highest ambition was to supply plates and dishes of the most ordinary kind, which had scarcely superseded the pewter dishes and wooden trenchers of our forefathers. Everything better than these was imported from Holland, and bore the name of Delft ware. Wedgwood, not by slow degrees, but all at once, produced a kind of earthenware which rivalled the chayney of our grandmothers. He made beautiful statuary in close imitation of Parian marble; and he copied successfully the vases of Etruria, from whence he borrowed a name for his new manufactory-Etruria, now a considerable town in the Potteries. Besides this, he was an eminent philanthropist; he was with Wilberforce in the great work of Negro Emancipation, and by his beautiful cast of a negro kneeling and in chains, with the motto, "Am I not a man and a brother," contributed more than many speeches to the grand result. His son trod in his father's steps. He continued the manufacture with great success. He was an accomplished gentleman, and likewise a true philanthropist, at a time when those around him were plain, kind-hearted men, but who had not yet learned to concern themselves about suffering negroes. The life of such a family, fairly told, deserves a place in our general literature. Mrs. Meteyard's book, we observe, is dedicated to Mr. Gladstone, who seems at present to be the popular statesman of the Staffordshire Potteries; but we write chiefly from our own recollections.

Seven Sermons preached in the Time of Cholera in 1832. Together with a Narrative of the Visitation in South Staffordshire. By the Rev. C. Girdlestone, M.A., formerly Vicar of Sedgley, now Rector of Kingswinford. New Edition. Rivingtons. 1866.-The republication of Mr. Girdlestone's seven Sermons at the present crisis is very opportune. They are plain, faithful discourses, calculated to rouse the impenitent, and to encourage the servants of God in a time of great danger. Mr. Girdlestone was Vicar of an enormous parish in the centre of the district most grievously smitten in 1832; and the Narrative prefixed to the Sermons gives a striking account of the impressions produced on the rough population of South Staffordshire, when they found themselves brought face to face with such an awful and devastating plague.

The Schoolmistress of Herondale; or, Sketches of Life among the Hills. London: Seeley and Co. 1866.-This is a well-conceived and well-executed story. The heroine, Lucy Balfour, is the daughter of parents whose whole life had been a struggle. Her mother, the orphan of a clergyman of small income, married an artist; whose uncertain health greatly hindered his advance in fame and fortune. Lucy, the eldest child, soon finds it necessary to seek for some means of self-maintenance; but the want of finish is quickly felt. She has

not studied French at Paris, or German at Dresden, or music in Italy: hence preference is given to foreign-taught candidates, and Lucy bethinks her that the more independent post of a trained village schoolmistress might offer, in several respects, advantages which the private family could never yield. She meets with an advertisement requiring a teacher for a village school in one of the northern counties, obtains the appointment, and is soon settled down in a pretty cottage at Herondale. And here the actual story of her life begins. It is well told, and abounds in useful lessons. The writer evidently feels, with Miss Charlesworth, in "The Ministry of Life," that much of the education of the poor, as now carried on, is a great mistake. The village school as managed by Lucy Balfour is, in reality, one in which "useful knowledge" is imparted. A contrast is presented in a "model school" a few miles off, to which some friends of Miss Balfour carry her on a holiday trip. The description of this school, its master, and its appointments, show both talent and knowledge of the subject. We regret that we are unable to find room for a specimen. More important, however, is the narrative of the schoolmistress's own proceedings. This is given with judgment, delicacy, and real Christian feeling. No one will commence the story without following it to its close. The book has a recommendation which to us is a strong one, it is deeply interesting, without being a love story.

PUBLIC AFFAIRS.

THE war on the Continent is closed. Italy is free from the Alps to the Pyrenees, and the once dreaded Quadrilateral is already in the hands of Italy; all she wants is moderation and political wisdom, which are only to be had by experience. We speak not of that higher wisdom, which God alone can give. But the Bible is abroad; it is read with avidity, and we trust the fruits will appear. She is impatient, too, for the possession of Rome, and determined no longer to submit to the claims of the Papacy to secular authority. If the Emperor of France makes good his engagement, and withdraws his army, great changes are at hand. The conduct of Prussia is overbearing and unjust. She has annexed the smaller states of Germany, and treats them with arrogant contempt. Hanover and other kingdoms have issued their solemn protests, but these have had no effect; all Germany is Prussian as far as the ancient territory of Denmark. Those predictions are freely uttered, with respect to Continental affairs, which generally work out their own fulfilment. Prussia will not long, it is said, be able to retain her ill-gotten territory; and another war, fiercer and more enduring than the last, is soon to come. We believe that come it must; for of nations as well as of individuals it is true, that "the triumphing of the wicked is short;" and an act of spoliation more unjust than the seizure of the smaller States was never perpetrated by the first Napoleon himself.

Mr. Bright and his followers are agitating the country in favour of a Reform that shall include household suffrage. It should be clearly understood that household suffrage would, in our great manufacturing towns, throw the representation entirely into the hands of the working

class; for they are two or three to one compared with the classes above them. As if to give a specimen beforehand of the extreme folly of such a system, we have only to look at the state of the working classes at this moment at Sheffield and Nottingham. At each of these towns there is a strike. It is conducted by a working men's league or association, the leaders of which hold not only their followers, but every working man in the town, in abject thraldom. No slavery could be more complete, or more abject. In each of these towns the working man who dares to resist the fiat of the leaders of the conspiracy is threatened with the vengeance of these English Fenians. Vengeance means assassination. At Sheffield and Nottingham houses have been blown down by explosive balls, or gunpowder, in the dead of the night, and the tenants have scarcely escaped with their lives. The leaders of the workmen's league have, it is true, assembled and denounced these outrages; but as they have had the effrontery to suggest at Sheffield that the poor sufferer himself had blown his own house about his ears, we may judge at once as to the value to be placed upon their disclaimer. It will be no uncharitable conclusion, that the men who set forth the insolent document are themselves the leaders who contrived the outrage. In these towns it is the reign of terror, both to the workmen and their employers, who receive letters threatening them with a similar fate, when they have attempted to introduce workmen from other towns. We perceive that the advocates of Mr. Bright's opinions are extremely angry with those who, with ourselves, infer the complicity of many in the wickedness of few; and ask with an air of triumph if we dare even to suggest that the great body of the men who strike for higher wages are assassins. We answer that no Englishman entertains any such suspicion; but the bondage of the whole working class is the question to be considered. How many of these at Sheffield, or at Nottingham, at this moment would dare to resume their employment? Further, who amongst them ventures to give such information as would lead to the detection of the guilty parties? These are the real points at issue. At an election, when party spirit ran high, the representation of a whole town would be in the hands of a few such conspirators.

Our readers will see, on another page, what our views are on Convocations. We believe the bishops, as a body, are opposed to them. But if they can do no more, the time is surely come when they should publish their solemn, emphatic, and united protest against Congresses, or at least against Popery and Popish vestments. If the rulers of our Protestant Church do not act with decision and without delay, these questions will soon be taken out of their hands, and settled by the laity.

We regret that the Archbishop of Canterbury has been so ill-advised as to lay the foundation stone of a cathedral at Perth. The newspapers comment upon his Grace's conduct with much severity, and in a way which it distresses all true Churchmen to be compelled to hear in silence. The proceeding is beyond all question illegal. The Scotch Episcopal Church is a schismatical Church by the law of Scotland; and if the General Assembly think proper to resent his Grace's conduct, they have it in their power to place the Primate of England in, to say the least of it, a very painful position.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

A WRITER, who signs Anonymous, writes to us, without giving any clue to his name or residence, except that his letter bears the Madras post-mark, to complain that our reviews "are written in a manner which cannot fail to cause pain to those against whom they are directed," and he asks if this is true charity? He gives but one instance, and therefore we suppose he has selected what he considers to be the worst. It is from our review of "Ecce Homo," and more particularly to the words contained in page 501, in our July Number, commencing with, "The vulgarity and the bad taste," &c. Now we cannot help fearing that our censor is one of that school, rapidly increasing in numbers, who seem to hold that

"Black's not so black, nor white so very white."

Here is a book which has distressed the minds of thousands, and overthrown the faith of some; and it is a breach of charity, it seems, even to speak of its vulgarity and bad taste. Was our Lord thus anxious not to "hurt the feelings" of those who despised His message, when He told the people of Chorazin and Bethsaida, that the day was coming when it should be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah than for them? Or the Scribes and Pharisees at Jerusalem, that publicans and harlots should enter into the kingdom of heaven when they were shut out? Or St. Paul, when he did not satisfy himself with what our Indian instructor calls "a protest in the name of the Bible, beyond which no man's right ought to extend," when for a fault which shrinks into insignificance compared with those of " Ecce Homo," he "withstood Peter to the face," brother Apostle as he was, "because he ought to be blamed? We might cite more instances, such as his command to Titus, a very young minister, to rebuke the Cretan Church " sharply," that is, as Scott and others have remarked, “with cutting severity."

Our controversial reviews are invariably written by elders of the Church, who are well known and have long been held in high esteem; or by laymen whose character both for literary attainments and Christian consistency are well established. If, as we have some reason to suppose, our anonymous friend is a missionary, we entreat him to make himself more deeply acquainted with his Bible, and to take heed that he be found at last a faithful and fearless minister of Christ; in a word, to be less afraid of giving offence to men, and more courageous in doing the work of God. A courteous protest will not save the soul of a devil-possessed Fakir, no more than of an English profligate or infidel.

WE have received, as we expected, replies, protests, and explanations from Plymouth Brethren, enough to fill one of our Numbers. Now we are not conscious of the slightest ill-feeling towards the Plymouth Brethren, or any one of them, any more than towards the unhappy nuns in an Italian or an English convent. But we must live and die protesting against the errors both of the one and the other. In one respect, we extend the same pity to both alike. Gentle natures, too timid to face the world, they fly to similar retreats, the convent or its counterpart behind this Plymouth breakwater. Both break at once with the world, and believe they are safe:

66

rupes, geminique minantur

In cælum scopuli: quorum sub vertice late
Equora tuta silent:"

but this is to shun the battle, not to brave the contest, and receive the victor's crown. With regard to what we write, and shall write hereafter, we have only to say, that every writer who publishes a book must expect to have it read, not through his own spectacles, but in the sense which it seems to bear to other readers; and that our papers on this subject, as well as on all controversial subjects, are written by contributors who have at least this quali fication, that they are well known and have a character to lose.

THE

CHRISTIAN OBSERVER.

SERIES.} No. 348.

DECEMBER.

[1866.

"AND THE EARTH WAS WITHOUT FORM, AND VOID; AND DARK. NESS WAS UPON THE FACE OF THE DEEP."

RATHER more than thirty years ago, the late Dean Conybeare, in one of his contributions to the "Christian Observer," gave the following valuable piece of Biblical criticism:

"I regard Gen. i. 1. as an universal proposition, intended to contradict all the heathen systems, which supposed the eternity of matter, or polytheism. And verse 2. I regard as proceeding to take up our planet in a state of ruin from a former condition." The sacred historian then goes on to describe a succession of phenomena, effected in part by the laws of nature (which are no more than our expression of God's observed method of working), and in part by the immediate exercise of God's creative power."

This position, be it observed, is precisely that taken by us in our last Number. It satisfied the powerful and searching intellect of Chalmers; it satisfied Dr. Buckland, and Archbishop Sumner, and Dr. Pye Smith, and it has, more recently, obtained the concurrence of Archdeacon Pratt. No valid argument has ever been brought against it. Unhappily, however, one earnest and enthusiastic enquirer, Hugh Miller, in his latter days, and probably while suffering from the inroads of that mental disorder which finally destroyed him, yielded to the temptation of a new hypothesis, and made a schism in the ranks of the believers in the Divine Word, by propounding a novel theory of interpretation. According to this theory, the whole first chapter of Genesis was to be read as one connected and continuous narrative, from verse 1 onwards to the close, and the "six days" were, of necessity, interpreted to be six geological periods of vast duration. But Hooker's wise and solid maxim