But then she must not shrink from sneers, nor be startled at paradox. With seeming paradox at least she will have to grapple, and sneers she will assuredly incur while she circulates the Scriptures without limit, and yet asserts one particular construction of them through Catholic and local formularies; while she at once claims authority and encourages inquiry. She attempts, without doubt, a very arduous task; for while she, no less than the Church of Rome, aspires to the inaintenance of that living idea of a changeless faith, and of a divinely appointed organization, binding the past, the present, and the future Church to one another, and to their Head, she differs from that Church in substituting publicity for mystery, and in the desire to add to faith knowledge, instead of securing the former by the exclusion of the latter. On the other hand, while she agrees with other bodies around her in leading the individual straight to the fountain head of his faith, and making him acquainted as it were with her case, in the proofs on which she relies, yet she stands widely apart from them, inasmuch as they admit no higher authority, and seek no higher guarantee, than the private spirit. An ample scope for gibe and for invective she affords, in aiming seriously to combine conditions, which are certainly antagonistic, and which some deem incompatible. But though bold, this is not visionary, nor does she move without regard to the lessons of experience. For, first, she only seeks to reproduce, in the domain of religion, a spirit analogous to that mixture of loyalty and freedom, of deference to authority with the sense of individual responsibility, which has been the peculiar characteristic of our political system. Secondly, this view of her proper functions is itself the result of the most profoundly rooted tendencies and most fundamental convictions of the nation itself, which have outwardly expressed themselves in the form of its ecclesiastical polity. Nor has any other scheme, even in the time of lukewarmness, supplanted the scheme of the Church in the public affections. If she be weak as compared with her work, yet, as compared with her rivals, she is strong. England has assumed to herself the task of solving for the advantage of the world at large, certain great problems of trade and intercourse upon which the material interests of the human family are supposed to depend. It seems as though in her person were to be solved a higher and deeper problem; the question, namely, whether the advancing wave of modern society is or is not to carry the ark of the Church upon its crest. But for this she must be faithful to her calling, not under one alone, but under all of its conditions. Long years of the toil which is content to sow, that future times and not its own hand may reap, of searching self-denial, of sedulous and eager approxi mation to the neglected masses and study to win their affections, of progressive elevation both of the ideal and of the working standard-long years of such patient toil are before her. But besides the immediately practical parts of the art, she must consider her science- she must abound in the fruits of leisure even while she is losing its ease and enjoyment. If she is to conquer, it must be by remaining true to her fundamental idea, and not vainly seeking to ape the character of bodies actuated by a different spirit and intention. The idea not only of supernaturalism or revealed religion, but of a given and fixed dogmatic system with its visible exponent or counterpart, she must holdand yet hold in a free and living contact with the consciences of the members at large; and must be faithful to the principle of a twofold witness, so variously subjected to unnatural divorce, of the Word and of the Church. Further, neither as to herself, nor as to the sacred text of which she is the keeper, must she look askance at inspection as an enemy, but must invite and challenge it; and she must give the hand of kindly welcome to historical study, to critical investigation, and to scientific discovery. Let her wage incessant war against the myriad counterfeits of the common sense and reason of mankind; yet let her cast shame upon the impostures, not so as to disparage the original, but so as to do it more abundant honour, and to show that she can never be on evil terms with the human understanding, except when it has become the blinded and brutish organ of proud or angry or lustful passions. For all the gifts of God in nature and revelation are in unison together; and as the lower may not rebel against the higher, so neither may the higher displace the lower, and the hand may no more say to the foot I have no need of thee,' than the foot to the hand. Such is the relation of the Church to the intellectual temper and movement of the day. We shall touch but gently on the more embarrassed question how her political position is to be adjusted, from time to time, to the great and rapid though silent changes in the public sentiment, and the more and more free recognition of the principles of representative government. This is a more embarrassed question-not because its intrinsic difficulties viewed by the impartial eye are greater, for on the contrary they are less; but because its decision is in the hands not of those who reflect, so much as of the multitudes, and because dealing at once with the higher and the lower inducements to action, with truth. at one end of the scale and gold at the other, it stirs up the half-subdued carnal with the half-matured spiritual elements of our nature into a dark and formidable compound. But thus much we venture to say, that of this problem also the Church of England appears to us to be working out by slow and cautious cautious degrees a solution. Her roots are in the heart of man. The very fact that with such masses of indifference around her, the shadow of religious allegiance that still remains among the neglected crowds is paid to her-the fact that she still possesses all but universal respect, is the proof that she may soon possess all but universal affection;-and though such affection be infinitely less precious than the jewel of truth, how far does it transcend every other dowry! The secret of her strength will lie in her giving proof, as occasion may arise, that her spiritual work is not only first, but first and last in her thoughts, and that all her prerogatives and appurtenances which belong to earth, the venerable gifts of ancient piety and wisdom, she will judge nevertheless with an exclusive regard to their bearing upon her prospective discharge of that work, and with reference to such bearing only will claim the adherence of the people and the support of the legislature. ART. VI.—1. A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions during the Years 1839-43. By Captain Sir James Clark Ross, R.N. 2 vols. 8vo. London, 1847. 2. Notes on the Botany of the Antarctic Voyage conducted by Cap. tain Sir J. C. Ross. By Sir W. J. Hooker. London, 1843. THIRTY years have elapsed since one of our colleagues first addressed himself to the task of directing the public mind to the subject of Arctic exploration.* He has lived to see many of his expectations justified-and we hope he may yet see others of them realised. During the interval, those so long honoured with the fruits of his horæ subsecivæ have never been inattentive to the progress of that system of discovery which owes so much to the suggestions and official encouragement of that veteran. Few greater pleasures, indeed, are ours than when, from our literary signal-post, we can make the number of one of those gallant vessels, returning 'rough with many a scar' of bloodless conflict with the floe and iceberg, and with its log one continuous record of danger and difficulty vanquished by courage and intelligence, and of triumphs unpurchased by other human suffering than the voluntary endurance of the wise and brave in pursuit of noble ends. Well pleased have we lingered so long within the confines of that Arctic circle which has been penetrated by so many expeditions, and with interest which accu * Quart. Rev., vol. xviii. P. 199. mulates mulates by the hour do we watch for the return of those two vessels which are, perhaps, even now working their southward course through Behring's Straits into the Pacific. Should the happiness be yet allowed us of witnessing that return, we are of opinion that the Erebus and Terror should be moored henceforth on either side of the Victory, floating monuments of what the Nelsons of discovery can dare and do at the call of their country in the service of the world. Meanwhile these two portentous names, whatever be the fate of the vessels which own them, are associated with services as brilliant and discoveries as striking, at the extremity of the globe Antipodean to the region of their present employment, as any which have yet invited the notice of our columns. That such notice has not been sooner invited we can only ascribe to the fact, that between the task of collecting scientific materials and that of arranging them for publication of overcoming danger and difficulty, and reciting their Odyssea to the public-there is all the difference to men of action and enterprise that lies between catching a hare and cooking it. We know no other reason why three years should have been suffered to elapse from Sir James Ross's safe return and the present publication, or why no authorised details of the expedition should have been made known, other than were sparingly afforded in Sir W. Hooker's botanical work of 1843. The purely scientific results have doubtless meanwhile been privately accessible to those who could turn them to account. They have, we may be sure, occupied the attention of Gauss and Humboldt and Sabine.* They may have supplied new elements for those wondrous calculations which enable the former from his study at Berlin to prick off on the map, to a near approximation at least, the place of the magnetic pole; they have probably suggested paragraphs for a new volume or a new edition. of the Cosmos.' To guide the investigations, to correct the conclusions of such minds as these, is a privilege of which a British sailor may be proud. pass. 6 The more popular results of this expedition, such as are appreciable by the mass of the reading public, lie in a narrow comThe record is not diversified by any encounter with any southern counterpart to those secluded tribes of the human family who burrow in the farthest regions of the North, habitable as these regions are, and civilised in comparison with the volcanic deserts of the South. No northern explorer has, we believe, yet passed the limits of vegetable life. Even on Melville Island the lichen and the alga yet retain their place in the scheme of *See on this subject, Quart, Rev,, vol. Ixvi. Art. Terrestrial Magnetism.' Nature Nature. But on the ice-clad peaks of the land discovered by Sir James Ross not the minutest trace of a cryptogamous plant is discernible, and the ocean, which freezes to their base, is equally barren of aquatic vegetation. Some features, however, of the Antarctic region have a character of far greater sublimity than attaches to any scenery yet observed in the North. A continent of vast and, as yet, unmeasured extent, the northern extremity of which is situated in the 71st degree of south latitude, sheathed in eternal ice from where its sea-line gives harbour to the seal and the penguin to where its summits, attaining three or four times the height of Hecla, like Hecla give vent to subterranean fires;— extending at nearly a right angle to this continent a precipice of ice, varying from 100 to 150 feet in height, and presenting for some 500 miles an impervious barrier to the bowsprits of 'Those sons of Albion who, with venturous sails, On distant oceans caught Antarctic gales :'— these are in themselves objects which, however briefly described or roughly sketched, must take at once the highest rank among the natural wonders of the world. Before we proceed to cite the passages in which these and other memorabilia of Sir James's expedition are described, we think it advisable to give, as far as we are able, a measure of this officer's performance by a sketch of those of his predecessors. With respect to the Arctic circle, this task has afforded Sir John Barrow the naterials of a valuable volume, to which, perhaps, some additions might be obtained from the recent researches of the Society of Danish Antiquaries into the records of early Scandinavian navigation. A few lines may suffice to convey all we know of Antarctic discovery anterior to the period of Wilkes, D'Urville, and Ross. Many obvious causes have contributed to direct the attention of governments and independent navigators rather to the North Pole than the South. The dream of an available passage to Cathay has been, like many other visions, pregnant with practical results. In England, after these visions of mercantile advantage had lost their influence, the official directors of maritime enterprise have still been stimulated by the desire to resolve the geographical problem of the North-west passage, and also to map out the configuration of the continent of North America, and of the great adjacent masses of land-thus to finish off, as it were, a work which has been in progress since the days of Baffin and Hudson-rather than to break up new ground and seek for the conjectured Terra Australis. With the exception of the expedition of Captain Cook, of which the exploration of the |