space justify new and accurate language upon the subject that task can be dispensed with for the present, for we all know part of the meaning of such phrases. In the centre of Mr. MacDonald's mind, when the "life of nature" comes to him for (what is called) interpretation by human analogies, there is a peculiar sense of the sadness of aimless effort, and a correspondingly vivid sense of the joy of effectiveness and fruition. Of all life, considered as a chain; of its actions and reactions; of life as an ascent of pulsations up to the Divine, he has an electrical consciousness; and it runs through all his writings. This gives his imagination a buoyancy which permits him to lay heavy burdens on light wings-but they float, and we are deeply impressed, though the brightness of the page is not for a moment dimmed. Look at this:-"The season went on, and the world, like a great flower afloat in space, kept opening its thousand-fold blossom. Hail and sleet were things lost in the distance of the year-storming away in some far-off region of the north, unknown to the summer generation." Here the use of the word "generation "—totally unexpected by the reader—unfolds with a touch the panorama of history. Again:-"The birds. . . awoke to utter their own joy, and awake like joy in others of God's children." Here the words "of God's children," again totally unexpected, bring thus with them a burden of love and hope which yet does not weigh down the rest of the sentence. Once more:"The birds grew silent, because their history laid hold upon them, compelling them to turn their words into deeds, and keep eggs warm and hunt for worms.' Here the touch about "words " "deeds" is not well managed, and carries with it a "edification;" but the words in italics, "because their history laid hold upon them," show the hand of a master. In the hands of the greatest living novelist, George Eliot, the doctrine of

"That supreme, the irreversible past,"

and

savour of

But in Mr.

becomes a gospel of despair for the individual soul. MacDonald's writings there is another "Supreme," and the happy use which he makes of "the past" in his narratives is one of the most striking of their distinctive peculiarities. If he would only not speak in the same way of truths of vision and truths of belief (however strong the belief, and though it have been historically or necessarily an antecedent to the possibility of the vision) the effect of his writings would be perfect. The incongruity in question appears always in proportion to the poetic receptivity of the producing mind. We do not feel it in reading Paley or Mansel; but we do in

The idea of floating is one of the recurring ideas of Mr. MacDonald's mind. It seems to have run itself to a sportive climax in "The Light Princess." It is not impossible to make a psychologico-physiological guess at the reasons for all this.

Mr. Lynch's exquisitely beautiful "Sermons for my Curates," though not so much as we do in reading Mr. MacDonald. In the prayers added to those sermons the incongruity almost wholly disappears; and so it should in poetry, where the general key-note is universal. It does not arise in a writer like Watts. But in Mr. MacDonald the atmosphere of the work is so charged with the electricity of vision or faith, that when any matter of "evidence" slips in, we feel as if we had suddenly dropped from wings to wheels.

The question will not be shut out-How is it that, if Mr. MacDonald's genius is primarily poetic, it is not in poetry that he has, to use a common phrase, made his very strongest mark? There is a great deal to be said in all such cases; for his is by no means singular. What would the reader say to a discussion of all the reasons-some of them known to but very few-for thinking that the differentia of Mr. Ruskin's mind was primarily poetic, and that his right course would have been to go on writing verse? At all events, Mr. MacDonald has, himself, in "The Disciple," and elsewhere, taken the world so far into his confidence that it is safe to affirm that his case has been that of his own nested birds-his "history" has "laid hold upon him":"When thou wast young thou girdedst thyself and walkedst whither thou wouldst; but when thou shalt be old [er] . . . . another shall gird thee and carry thee whither thou wouldst not." There is nothing to complain of; and there is all eternity to write poetry in-though even there one's history may lay hold of one in some unforeseen way! But, putting together the numerous hints scattered about the poetry and prose of Mr. MacDonald, we have little difficulty in drawing still another conclusion—namely, that he has had much illness, of a kind which compelled passivity of body and even of mental mood. This would account in great part for the mirror-like quality of so much of his poetry, and for the too frequent lack of the accent of the beating wing. Something, however, must still be allowed to temperament, especially as the same peculiar passivity appears in poems which are understood to have been by Mr. MacDonald's deceased brother. But this is not all. We are again going no further than Mr. MacDonald's own confidences, more or less direct, carry us, when we refer to the immense influence which his early training in Scotland, and his subsequent history in England, must have had in giving his mind a twist towards direct edification. Look at the Roadside poems in this collection. The "Child-mother" is stimulating, if anything on earth Mr. Martineau has defined the spirit of religion to consist in "looking up and lifting up," and the very essence of it is in that sweet idyll, but without a word to call attention to the fact that it is so. Now, as Aunt Glegg said, "Very well, that's the Dodson

ever was.

sperrit," by which we mean the true spirit of the muses. In the next in merit of these Roadside poems, namely, "The Wakeful Sleeper," we come a little closer to "edification;" but still the beauty of the story itself, and its boundless suggestion, are not blotted or limited; for the last two verses are as indefinite as either. "The Sheep and the Goat," again, is beautiful; but such words as "let priests say the thing they please," strike a false note. In others of the same series the poetry splits sheer upon the rock of edification or conventionality; and the same peculiarity which makes the reader sometimes say, "Here are imaginative data, but a want of imaginative action," exhibits itself in a too great tendency to "occasional " poetry.

We believe then that illness of a peculiar kind, prolonged training in differing, though continuous, schools of "edification," much susceptibility to social influences expressed in quintessential forms, and something of personal temperament, have, in the case of Mr. MacDonald, combined to this result:-We can see that he is primarily a poet; he sometimes reaches that perfection of poetic form which carries with it the infinite suggestion that may make a small poem more valuable than a big prose book, however good. Yet the superiority, in point of force and profusion, rests with his prose works; and, since we are not there so exacting in points of artistic form, we see less of his shortcomings than we do in his poetical writings. This may seem, to impatient people, a very complex verdict, but we have not the shadow of a doubt that it states, or at least contains, the truth upon the question at issue.

The prose writings generally of Mr. MacDonald, from "David Elginbrod" onwards, are not before us. It would have been better for variety of effect if they had been, for the field of comment in his more finely imaginative writings is not wide. Of his wide-and always genuine-culture, and of the varied apprehensiveness of his mind, we should speak more easily in dealing with his prose. It may be a hazardous thing to say, but he reminds us more of Mendelssohn than of any writer. We have already hinted that we take his genius to be, on the whole, the flower of certain spiritual tendencies of our time, and a very beautiful and fragrant flower it is. In the dainty little casket which shuts over these ten volumes there is more of a talismanic virtue than the reader will appropriate in a lifetime.

HENRY HOLBEACH.

"I hold every man to be a debtor to his profession; from the which, as men of course do seek to receive countenance and profit, so ought they of duty to endeavour themselves by way of amends to be a help and ornament thereunto."

BACON.-Maxims of the Law.

THE fact that theology ought, as a matter of course, to make a part of the mental training of clergymen is widely, though not universally, acknowledged; but there are very many schemes, from the lists of divinity schools and examining chaplains to the more elaborate recommendations of formal treatises, to guide the young ecclesiastic in the selection of books.

No doubt, theological study in England is in a highly unsatisfactory condition, and can hardly be said even to exist. Not any serial, magazine, or journal devoted solely to this vast and interesting pursuit, whatever may have been its school, has succeeded in maintaining a footing. If not subsidized it has died; if subsidized, it lingers on as a feeble exotic, incapable of vigorous continuance and propagation.

That which passes here for scientific theology at the present day is either minute textual criticism, or vague, pietistic declamation, both of them holding a certain position in the field of divinity, but a merely subordinate and ancillary one, no more to be confounded with the scope of the main subject than a dissertation on enclitics, or a panegyric of Homer, can be substituted for an intelligent grasp

of the moral, religious, political, and mental development of ancient Greece.

And the remarkable inexactness of thought and paucity of information as to the very terminology of divinity prevalent amongst the great mass of the educated public, clerical and lay; the current lack of knowledge as to its axioms, definitions, and postulates; nay, as to its broadest historical facts, might seem to make the discussion of the theological studies of the clergy a matter of much more pressing importance than that which I have adopted as my theme.

When a journal of such high position as the Times can air its own profound ignorance, and presume on that of the public so far as to define the well-known term "Jansenism" as meaning "attaching too little importance to the forms and ceremonies observed by the Church," it would surely seem to be time to speak up for theological study.

But in a matter of this kind common sense may be trusted to make its way in the long-run. We have learnt, by no means too quickly, that soldiers and lawyers both need some exact professional training before being permitted to lead troops and conduct suits; and we may be very certain that the same notion will at last obtain recognition in the case of religious teachers. I have thus no fear upon this head.

I confess, however, to a very strong, and, as it seems to me, wellfounded apprehension about the future general training of the English clergy, which looks as though on the brink of graver perils than the existing ones.

What I mean is this. Up to the present day the great bulk of the Anglican clergy has been drawn from the Universities, and the tide of literates which flowed in a few years ago has for the time somewhat receded. And however little the average pass-man may have availed himself of his opportunities of culture, yet he must needs have been surrounded for several years of his life with an intellectual atmosphere, which cannot but influence his subsequent tastes and habits, and produce some, at least, of the effects of higher education.

Now, on the other hand, one danger has come, and another is near. The steady change, amounting to a practical revolution, which has affected our public schools and Universities, making athletics and physical training the main subject of study, while science and literature are relegated to the background, and pursued, it would seem, even by their few votaries, as a means of pecuniary gain or of official advancement, rather than from any true love of learning, makes it quite possible for a young man of our day to * Times, October 5, 1871, p. 8, foot-note to first column.