sellor who hath instructed him?' Factum est." This is all that can be said of the mystery of redemption, or of the doctrine of atonement on its divine side.

And here emerges another important principle of the Coleridgian theology. While so great an advocate of the rights of reason in theology, of the necessity, in other words, of moulding all its facts in a synthesis intelligible to the higher reason, he recognizes strongly that there is a province of divine truth beyond all such construction. We can never understand the fulness of divine mystery, and it is hopeless to attempt to do so. While no mind was less agnostic in the modern sense of the term, he was yet, with all his vivid and large intuition, a Christian agnostic. Just because Christianity was divine, a revelation, and not a mere human tradition, all its higher doctrines ended in a region beyond our clear knowledge. As he himself said, "If the doctrine is more than a hyperbolical phrase it must do so." There was great pregnancy in this as in his other conceptions; and probably no more significant change awaits the the ology of the future than the determination of this province of the unknown, and the cessation of controversy as to matters which come within it, and therefore admit of no dogmatic settlement.

(2.) But it is more than time to turn to the second aspect, in which Coleridge appears as a religious leader of the thought of the nineteenth century. The "Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit" were not published till six years after his death, in 1840; and it is curious to notice their accidental connection with the 66 Confessions of a Beautiful Soul," which had been translated by Carlyle some years before. These "Confessions," in the shape of seven letters to a friend, gather together all that is valuable in the Biblical criticism of the author scattered through his various writings; and although it may be doubtful whether the volume has ever attained the circulation of the "Aids to Reflection," it is eminently deserving. small as it is, nay, because of its very brevity of a place beside the larger work. It is eminently readable, terse and nervous, as well as eloquent in style. In none of his writings does Coleridge appear to greater advantage, or touch a more elevating strain, rising at times into solemn music.

The "Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit" were of course merely one indication

In his well-known translation of Wilhelm Meister.

of the rise of a true spirit of criticism in English theology. Arnold, Whately, Thirlwall, and others, it will be seen, were all astir in the same direction, even before the "Confessions" were published. The notion of verbal inspiration, or the infallible dictation of Holy Scripture, could not possibly continue after the modern spirit of historical inquiry had begun. As soon as men plainly recognized the organic growth of all great facts, literary as well as others, it was inevitable that they should see the Scriptures in a new light, as a product of many phases of thought in course of more or less perfect development. A larger and more intelligent sense of the conditions attending the origin and progress of all civilization, and of the immaturities through which religious as well as moral and social ideas advance, necessarily carried with it a changed perception of the characteristics of Scriptural revelation. The old rabbinical notion of an infallible text was sure to disappear. The new critical method besides is, in Coleridge's hands, rather an idea a happy and germinant thoughtthan a well-evolved system. Still to him belongs the honor of having first plainly and boldly announced that the Scriptures were to be read and studied, like any other literature, in the light of their continuous growth, and the adaptation of their parts to one another.

The divinity of Scripture appears all the more brightly when thus freely handled. "I take up the work," he says, "with the purpose to read it as I should read any other work so far as I can or dare. For I neither can nor dare throw off a strong and awful prepossession in its favor, certain as I am that a large part of the light and life in and by which I see, love, and embrace the truths and the strengths organized into a living body of faith and knowledge have been directly or indirectly derived to me from the sacred volume." All the more reason why we should not make a fetish of the Bible, as the Turk does of the Koran. Poor as reason may be in comparison with "the power and splendor of the Scriptures," yet it is and must be for him a true light. "While there is a Light higher than all, even the Word that was in the beginning - the Light of which light itself is but the Shechinah and cloudy tabernaclethere is also a Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world;' and the spirit of man is declared to be the candle of the Lord."" "If between this Word," he says, "and the written letter I

ficient in breadth of historical knowledge. Milner's history, if nothing else, serves to point this conclusion. The idea of the Church as the mother of philosophy and arts and learning, as well as the nurse of faith and piety, was unknown. It was a part of the Evangelical creed, moreover, to leave aside as far as possible mere political and intellectual interests. These belonged to the world, and the main business of the religious man was with religion as a personal affair, of vast moment, but outside all other affairs. Coleridge helped once more to bring the Church as he did the gospel into larger room as a great spiritual power of manifold influence.

This volume "On the Constitution of Church and State according to the idea of each" was published in 1830, and was the last volume which the author himself published. The Catholic Emancipation question had greatly excited the public mind, and some friend had appealed to Coleridge expressing astonishment that he should be in opposition to the proposed measure. He replied that he is by no means unfriendly to Catholic emancipation, while yet "scrupling the means proposed for its attainment." And in order to explain his difficulties he composed a long letter to his friend, which is really an essay or treatise, beginning with the fundamental principles of his philosophy and ending with a description of antichrist. The essay is one of the least satisfactory of his compositions from a mere literary point of view, and is not even mentioned by Mr. Traill in his recent monograph. But amidst all its involutions and ramblings it is stimulating and full of thought on a subject which almost more than any other is liable to be degraded by unworthy and sectarian treatment. Here, as everywhere in Coleridge's writings, we are brought in contact with certain large conceptions which far more than cover the immediate subject in hand.

It has been sometimes supposed that Coleridge's theory of the Church merely revived the old theory of the Elizabethan age so powerfully advocated by Hooker and specially espoused by Dr. Arnold in later times. According to this theory the Church and State are really identical, the Church being merely the State in its educational and religious aspect and organization. But Coleridge's special theory is different from this, although allied to it. He distinguishes the Christian Church as such from any national Church. The former is spiritual and catholic, the latter institutional and local. The former is

opposed to the "world," the latter is an estate of the realm. The former has nothing to do with States and kingdoms. It is in this respect identical with the "spiritual and invisible Church known only to the Father of Spirits," and the compensating counterpoise of all that is of the world. It is, in short, the divine aggregate of what is really divine in all Christian communities, and more or less ideally represented "in every true Church." A national Church again is the incorporation of all the learning and knowledge-intellectual and spiritual in a country. Every nation in order to its true health and civilization requires not only a land-owning or permanent class along with a commercial, industrial, and progressive class, but moreover an educative class, to represent all higher knowledge, "to guard the treasures of past civ ilization," to bind the national life together in its past, present, and future, and to communicate to all citizens a clear understanding of their rights and duties. This third estate of the realm Coleridge denominated the "Clerisy," and included not merely the clergy, but, in his own language, "the learned of all denominations." The knowledge, which it was their function to cultivate and diffuse, embraced not only theology, although this pre-eminently as the head of all other knowledge, but law, music, mathematics, the physical sciences, "all the so-called liberal arts and sciences, the possession and cultivation of which constitute the civilization of a country."

This is at any rate a large conception of a national Church. It is put forth by its author with all earnestness, although he admitted that it had never been anywhere realized. But it was his object "to present the idea of a national Church as the only safe criterion by which we can judge of existing things." It is only when "we are in full and clear possession of the ultimate aim of an institution" that we can ascertain how far "this aim has ever been attained in other ways."

These, very briefly explained, are the main lines along which Coleridge moved the national mind in the third decade of this century. They may seem to some rather impalpable lines, and hardly calcu lated to touch the general mind. But they were influential, as the course of Christian literature has since proved. Like his own genius, they were diffusive rather than concentrative. The Coleridgian ideas permeated the general intellectual atmo sphere, modifying old conceptions in criti

cism as well as theology, deepening if not always clarifying the channels of thought in many directions, but especially in the direction of Christian philosophy. They acted in this way as a new circulation of spiritual air all around, rather than in conveying any new body of truth. The very ridicule of Carlyle testifies to the influence which they exercised over aspiring and younger minds. The very emphasis with which he repudiates the Coleridgian metaphysic probably indicates that he had felt some echo of it in his own heart.

JOHN TULLOCH.

From Blackwood's Magazine. LIFE IN A DRUSE VILLAGE.

PART II.

WHEN my house was completed, and I moved up from Haifa to take possession of it, the whole village of Dahlieh turned out en masse to receive me. As we wound up the pretty valley, at the head of which it is situated, the scene was both novel and picturesque. The female part of the population, clad in bright array of many colors, lined the highest terrace; while the men, some on foot and some on horseback, came down the winding path to meet us, the latter, in spite of the rugged nature of the country, forcing their horses to attempt impossible equestrian evolutions, and dashing here and there over the rocky ground, with right arm thrown back and extended, after the manner of jereed-players, and the former drawn up in line, and making profound salutations as we passed; while the women set up the shrill, ululating scream which is usual with them when they desire to give vent to their feelings of pleasure and satisfaction, or to celebrate any great

event.

My first days were pretty well taken up holding levees, and giving and receiving hospitality. Having had some experience of the curiosity and unintentionally obtrusive habits of the people, I had taken the precaution, in order to secure privacy, to have a liwan or reception-room partially detached from the house; and on the simple divan which was its sole furniture, I passed the greater part of the first few mornings, dispensing syrup-and-water and coffee, making acquaintance individually with nearly all the inhabitants, and finding out as much as possible about the condition of local affairs generally. The accepting of hospitality was a more ardu

ous undertaking, for it consisted in par taking with one's fingers of elaborate repasts, first at the houses of the two sheikhs, and then with one or two of the notables, and which consisted generally of an immense pyramid of rice, boiled mutton, stewed chicken, sour milk, honey, eggs fried in oil, and other dainties.

There are always two sheikhs in a Druse village-one who looks after its secular affairs, while the other manages its spiritual matters; and I very soon discovered that they regarded each other with feelings of some jealousy, as the heads of rival factions, and that it would require the exercise of some diplomacy to maintain such a strict impartiality in my intercourse with them as should preserve the friendship of both. The whole village may indeed be said to consist of two buge families, of which the two sheikhs are the respective heads; and though they have intermarried to any extent, this has served rather to complicate than to conciliate the family differences which were likely to arise under such a state of things. The great facility of divorce among the Druses increases this liability to discordant domestic relations. A Druse, when he wants to change his wife, has only to tell her to go back to her parents; and she is obliged on the spot to decamp, enlisting naturally the sympathy of her own inother and the rest of her family against the heartless husband who has turned her out. I must say, however, that upon these occasions there is a stronger instinct than that of family - one which manifests itself under another form in more advanced countries under the name of "woman's rights." I have seen sev eral village rows now, and all the women are invariably on one side, and all the men on the other. Whatever happens when high words begin, woman flies to the defence of woman, with a sisterly heroism which is truly remarkable; and the males finding their tongues utterly useless in the encounter, generally end by coarsely tak ing to their fists. However, I will say for Dahlieh that it is not worse than other villages in this respect indeed I think it is better — and that the people, taking them as a whole, form a remarkably or derly and good-tempered community; the storm soon blows over, and in a few hours everybody is apparently on terms as affectionate as if it had never happened.

Under these circumstances, life in a Druse village may be made dull or interesting in the degree in which one iden tifies one's self with the interests of the

inhabitants. People wonder what one can find to do in this out-of-the-way corner of Palestine; but practically we never seem to have a moment to spare. In the first place, what would be a trifling operation elsewhere, here becomes an important matter of business, attended with all manner of difficulties. The purchase of half an acre of land, for instance, takes days, and sometimes even weeks: the discussion of the price is a serious matter, and must not be hurried; and when that is arranged, the process of securing a valid title is one requiring both time and money, and probably a journey to Haifa, and difficulties there involving backsheesh. If the value of the land is ros., the time taken to buy it is at least as many days, and the incidental expenses perhaps as many more shillings. Everything included, however, the best arable land in Carmel costs on an average from 20s. to 30s. the acre; but there are thousands of acres on the mountain susceptible of cultivation which are now lying waste. These may be appropriated by any one who chooses to go to the expense of clearing, and of cultivating them for three consecutive years. He may then receive a title from the government, provided always he is already a landholder in the village within the limits of which the waste land lies.

I have found it impossible to obtain from the natives of Dahlieh any estimate of the extent of land, cleared and uncleared, within the village boundaries; but it probably does not fall far short of five thousand acres, of which they only cultivate about seven hundred. Of these, three hundred are in the plain of Esdraelon, and form the main source of the revenue of the village: the rest are on the mountain; and the uncleared land affords pasture for their cattle and goats, of which they have large herds. The government tax, which they are called upon to pay in cash upon this total, amounts to about £320 a year.

been assessed at a very high rate to pay an annual sum in cash, and they know not which way to turn. The amount assessed is in most cases so excessive, that the money-lenders themselves are appalled at the prospect of lending the villagers the necessary sum, even at exorbitant rates of interest, taking the village itself as security, if their security is so heavily bur dened with taxation that it may prove a white elephant on their hands. When the news was first promulgated this year, the sheikhs of all the villages in this part of Palestine united in a protest, and have sent deputations to the authorities to seek relief. But so far their efforts have been unavailing: those who refused the engagement for the payments were threatened with imprisonment if they did not sign it; and they have in most instances done so, though they are in despair at the prospect before them. In some cases they have succeeded in borrowing the money at thirty or forty per cent.; but this means handing themselves and their lands, body and soul, over to the extortionate moneylender, whom they will never be able to repay. In other cases, they are waiting in helpless misery to see what will turn up when the money is not forthcoming. But all unite in believing and hoping that practically it will be found so impossible to meet these new demands, that they will have to be abandoned by the government and a new scale substituted. The only fault, indeed, in the new system is, that in almost every instance the amount fixed has been too high. The substitution of a fixed assessment for the old farming sys tem, which gave rise to so many abuses, is to be commended rather than other. wise; but unless the present scale is reduced, it would seem as though it would complete the ruin of the country. When I came to take up my summer abode in Dahlieh, I found the village in the throes of financial difficulties arising from this cause, which, however, I hope they will now succeed in tiding over.