they themselves advertise in The Times, thus challenging attention to it, the meaning of which is, that Christian doctrine and soundness in the faith is of secondary moment; since a man may be a Christian, nay, an eminent and successful minister in "the church of our common Lord and Master Jesus Christ," who denies the atonement, and thus, as some even of themselves would allow, makes of none effect the doctrine of the Deity of that common Lord and Master. "As we trust," they say in conclusion, "we are all united in our several vocations in the one object of promoting glory to God in the highest, peace upon earth, and good-will towards men, we hail with satisfaction the honour done to a fellow-labourer in the great cause." And they say this, some of them at least, professing to believe that Paul wrote as he was moved by the Holy Ghost when he penned those awful words, "though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed;" and that the be loved disciple was under the same divine influence when he wrote: "He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed: . . for he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds."

High upon the list we observe the name of Dr. Jacobson, Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford. Does Dr. Jacóbson really believe that Mr. Maurice, or any man of Mr. Maurice's sentiments, "has been eminently successful in bringing the practical truths of the gospel to bear upon the mind of the working-classes," or any other class, "of the community ?" Does he really believe that Mr. Maurice is "a fellow-labourer" with himself in his great vocation" of promoting glory to God in the highest ?" Is it consistent with his theology that any man can do this, however amiable, however gifted, however abundant in labours, who holds and teaches what Mr. Maurice has long held and taught with regard to the work and person of the Son of God? We do not believe it. If we did believe it, we should not hesitate a moment to say, that Oxford was deeply disgraced in the person of her theological professor. Several examining chaplains have subscribed their names: Dr. Stanley, examining chaplain to the bishop of London; Mr. Cook, examining chaplain to the bishop of Lincoln; Mr. Perowne, examining chaplain to the bishop of Norwich, and four archdeacons, ex-officio examining chaplains to their several diocesans. With what face can these gentlemen, at the next ordination, tell the candidates who may appear before them that a pure faith is indispen sable either to a holy life or a successful ministry? One of them, we perceive, has already attempted to justify his conduct, in a letter to the Record. Will his bishop be satisfied-will the Great Shepherd and Bishop of Souls be satisfied with his boyish declamation about Galileo and the dungeons of the Inquisition? The question is not, be it remembered, about Mr. Maurice's private virtues; nor does it have respect to his exertions as a disinterested, though, as we think, enthusiastic, advocate of secular instruction, or to his merits as a scholar, or his conduct as a gentleman of refinement and warm affections. These have never been called in question. It is of his fitness for a ministerial post of high importance in the church of England, and of his qualifications as a minister of the gospel of the ever-blessed God; and those who have signed the address will do well to consider how

far their conduct, as men of truth and integrity, is consistent with their ordination vows; or, if laymen, with their profession of attachment to a church whose creeds and articles they read in their own book of common prayer. Examining chaplains who have signed this address may be very honourable men; but we need not tell them what

their own consciences must have told them already, that they will be very base men if they venture to advise the bishops whom they serve, at any future ordination, to pluck those candidates who shall have the courage to challenge them with the open avowal: "Sir, I hold all that Mr. Maurice teaches, and I glory in it!" Is there a bishop on the English bench, except the bishop of St. David's, who will quietly permit this state of things? We are persuaded there is not one.

The Italian drama hastens its speed, and it is evident the crisis is near. Naples has opened its gates to Garibaldi, who entered it almost unattended by his soldiers, amidst the frantic acclamations of a liberated people. The king retired, with the few troops who still continue faithful to him, to Gaëta, from whence, on the day after Garibaldi's occupation of his capital, the 8th instant, he addressed a proclamation to his army, making a last impotent appeal to "their honour, their loyalty, their reason even." Honour they have none; their loyalty perished when they saw their master's cowardice; their reason tells them that his case is hopeless: and thus Francis II. falls unpitied, and almost too contemptible even to be despised. It does not seem to be known whither he has fled, or if he still remains at Capua; to which he had retired when Garibaldi's forces, a few days ago, were approaching him.

The difficulties of the liberator of Italy are of another kind; and it now remains to be seen whether his wisdom and firmness are equal to his courage. His position is one of the greatest difficulty; and if he be merely a soldier, it is possible that he may still lose all that he has gained, for want of skill in diplomacy, and the foresight of a statesman. He has not yet made over his conquests to Victor Immanuel, and he has issued a proclamation affirming that he will not do so until he can proclaim a united Italy from the Quirinal Hill. He will leave the pope no footing in Italy, not even the city of Rome; and it is probable that at the head of his victorious army he may soon be in a condition to fulfil his boast. But he distrusts Cavour, the Sardinian minister; openly avowing his want of confidence in the man by whose connivance Nice and the Savoy were sold; and he seems to be waiting for some pledge or security, before he parts either with his dictatorship in Sicily, or the power which his easy conquests have placed in his hands in the Peninsula. However, according to the last accounts, he is still pressing on towards Rome, and has now probably entered the Roman territory from the southern or Neapolitan frontier.

Meanwhile a Sardinian army under general Cialdini has entered the Papal States from the north; Victor Immanuel having first issued a proclamation, in which he avows his intention of wresting the Papal States from their spiritual despot, and leaving him no other patrimony than the city of Rome, and the small adjacent territory. Garibaldi refuses to leave him even this. Against this invasion of the Papal territory the emperor of France has issued a formidable protest, which he has followed up by withdrawing his ambassador from Turin.

This step, however, has had no effect, except perhaps to hurry on the movements of the Sardinian army. Cialdini has met Lamoricière at the head of the pope's army in the field, and he and his mercenaries, including the Irish brigade, have been shamefully routed. The slaughter was not great, for the mercenaries were swift of foot; but the pope's army has disappeared.

What, then, will be the next move? If Garibaldi and the Sardinian general understand each other, they have only to advance upon Rome at their leisure from the south and north; for there is no force to withstand them. Arrived under the walls of Rome, however, they will find a French army, more formidable to deal with, though comparatively few in number, than any which Garibaldi or the Sardinians have yet encountered. Will they attack them? And are the French instructed to fight or to surrender? Is the emperor of France, in short, determined to maintain the pope in Rome, and to break with the Sardinian allies? Let him take either alternative, and still his difficulties are by no means ended, nor is the peace of Europe secured. The pope remains. The mysterious power, incomprehensible to secular politicians; their tyrant, and their slave; their foot-ball, and yet their torturer!

On the 24th the cardinals were to meet in grand consistory. It is said that the question to be discussed is, whether the pope shall withdraw from Rome or not; and if he withdraw, where he shall seek an asylum: in Spain, or France, or Austria. A strange perplexity; driven, as he will then be, from his palace, not by the rude assaults of infidels, but by the most ancient, and, by prescriptive claim and title, the loving children of the church. Has the time, then, come at length, when the children of the mother of harlots "hate her, and make her desolate and naked, and eat her flesh, and burn her with fire ?" Has God, indeed, put it in their hearts thus "to fulfil His will ?"

And yet "she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow." A Roman Catholic newspaper of the last week, after commenting on the destruction of Lamoricière and the pope's army, consoles itself with the reflection, that after all throughout Christendom the papal religion is not in the least disturbed or shaken. Let what may befall his Italian states, the papacy is safe, safe in the undisturbed affection of the millions who see in the pope God's image and vicegerent upon earth. The boast is true. The suggestions connected with it, to those who accept that interpretation of the Book of Revelations, which points to Rome as the mystic Babylon, most solemn. But we have no system of interpretation to propound. It is enough to remind our readers of the words that are written: "Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy; for the time is at hand!"

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

Advertisements should be sent to our Publisher, and not under cover to the Editor. They are often delayed in consequence of being thus directed.

I. SCIENCE and Religion are sisters, in that they each profess to aim at the cultivation and maintenance of truth. But Science possesses one advantage. Although it ought to be Religion's handmaid, yet it outsteps its superior and elder in one great peculiarity. We allude to the fact, that from time to time Science evidently attains positions, where it rests secure, unassailable and unassailed. Doubts, debates, and personalities may, indeed, attend the first announcement of its discoveries, such as the circulation of the blood, and the gravitation of natter; but when the earlier race of disputants has passed away, it quietly funds its acquisitions, and goes on to increase its wealth.

It may be hoped and believed that, upon the whole, Religion advances also in knowledge and in practice; but its course is more arduous and troubled. Its onward movement is apparently marked by considerable irregularity. It is subject to great relapses. It has to do with human thoughts and passions; and thus from the heaving ocean of man's mind clouds arise and re-arise most unexpectedly, and, whilst we are fondly hoping for a more open sky, threaten us with primeval darkness.

Such is our present state. Against a belief we deemed perfectly secure, and from a quarter we deemed most unlikely, has rapidly grown up a cloud, which is now swelling into a tempest.

The belief attacked is that in a divine atonement. It is nothing less. After some hesitation as to whether we had rightly understood the objectors, no doubt remains. The controversy has been revived about this great cardinal question. On other questions we were prepared for protracted differences. The nature and extent of inspiration, the connection of church and state, the five points of Calvinism, we never expected to be quickly settled. But after the discomfiture, more than half a century ago, both amongst scholars and the people, of those who assailed the doctrine of the

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Atonement, we certainly never dreamt of this recommencement of the feud.

The quarter whence it proceeds, is no less astonishing. It is not only within the church of England, but especially amongst those members of it whose avocations and positions would, we should have thought, have naturally made them extremely cautious how they lightly touched a matter so momentous.*

II. The fact of the movement has been stated; its character should be next considered.

As it is true, that there is nothing new under the sun, it is also true that there is nothing old under the sun. When old errors are revived, they usually wear a fresh face; they are animated with another spirit. They are, in truth, called into existence by a new combination of circumstances; and thus, whilst we observe most curious resemblances between things past and present, each, we see, has its own peculiarities, which must be studied to be understood. The resemblances spring from the sameness of the efficient cause, which is the human heart; the peculiarities from the diversities of the formal causes, which are the conditions of the day.

The last great contest concerning the divine Atonement formed the sequel of that war between the Unitarian and our own advocates, which was, no doubt, in a measure owing to the general ferment occasioned by the French revolution. In any time of moral and political disturbances, the Apocalyptic vision of the locusts may be, and often is, realized anew. The abyss opens, darkness spreads, and green things are devoured. The strife of opinions becomes intensified and enlarged. And thus the great work of Magee on the Atonement may be looked upon as betokening the rear-guard, whilst the works of Horsley issued from the vanguard of the defenders of the long-cherished faith. When we read some of the majestic sentences with which Magee begins, we might think that his opponents had precisely the character which we should attach to some of ours; for he speaks of the "haughtiness of lettered scepticism" rejecting the terms of salvation, because it cannot trace with the finger of human science "the connection between the cross of Christ and the redemption of man." And yet, as intimated above, we believe the Unitarian objectors had their distinctive features. They impugned the Atonement, we believe, on grounds very different from those of our contemporaries. It was because an all-efficient atonement was felt to involve the divinity of Him who made it, that, if our sus

* Amongst those who signed the Address to Mr. Maurice, many are engaged in tuition. Yet the logic of the Address was not striking. Virtually, it stated, that they honoured Mr. Maurice for his exertions in the diffusion of Christianity, *but that they differed from him and from

each other as to what Christianity was. This is something like the awkwardness in a popular work, "The Shadow of the Cross," where the light from Christ is not supposed to be reflected, but intercepted by his cross.