most brilliant scholars of the day are the tutors and professors, and where fellowships and dignities are the meed of the most successful student; neither do they affect it. Thus much, however, may fairly be claimed for them: that their preachers as far exceed those of other sects in information as they do in Christian spirit. It is to be noticed, also, that there are no men more free from affectation, and from what is familiarly called cant, than the Methodist preachers. This will, doubtless, appear a strange assertion to many; but those who best know the truth of the case, will be best persuaded that our statement is correct. They are often men of wit and humour, abounding in anecdote, and enlivening religion by a rational cheerfulness; and we may with reason exclaim, both with regard to preachers and people, "Cum tales sitis, utinam nostri essetis."

The social position of the Wesleyan minister next claims our attention; and here we find exactly the system pursued which most tends to perpetuate Methodism. With regard to Wesleyanism, it is certainly the case that "not many mighty, not many noble are called;" its members are taken from the middle and lower classes, and the preachers necessarily from the same: the travelling preacher meets, from time to time, all the members of his flock-visits them as he finds it convenient; while the class leaders and local preachers keep up the regards of the people by their constant attention. Every Methodist is reached, and that frequently, by the authorities of the body; cach, therefore, feels that his personal welfare is never lost sight of.

The maintenance which the itinerant ministers receive is just sufficient for respectability; their travelling expenses are paid, assistance is given in cases of sickness or accident, and a newly married preacher has always a small present from the same fund. The conference make an additional grant of eight pounds per annum for each child in a preacher's family; and it must be remembered that there are two excellent schools for the children of the preachers-one at Kingswood, near Bristol, one at Woodhouse Grove, near Leeds. There is also a proprietary school in the neighbourhood of Sheffield for the sons of Wesleyans generally; but of this it will not be necessary to speak further.

Thus, then, we have before us the present state of this remarkable and interesting body. The "centenary" celebrated in 1839 gave an impulse to their proceedings which could hardly be expected to be permanent; and it is possible that a reaction may follow this period of excitement. Whether this be the case or not, it is quite impossible to contemplate the

schism with other feelings than those of deep regret; or the kind and Christian line of conduct which, though schismatics, the Wesleyans have exhibited, without admiration. We have endeavoured impartially to make their condition and their sentiments known to the Church-and to do this without compromising, on the one hand, the principles of Churchmen, or, on the other hand, wounding the feelings of Methodists.

It is very important that their polity should be fully understood, because they form by far the larger part of British dissidents, and because they are the only body who ever separated from any church without hating the church from which they had departed. We see clearly the duty of all parties; but, alas! will it ever be performed? The Methodists should have their preachers made priests by ordination, and their meeting-houses chapels by consecration; and Churchmen should avoid all railing-all unkind feeling towards individuals—all hatred, malice, and uncharitableness-and put away all "evil speaking out of their mouth."

ART. II.-The Ecclesiastical and Political History of the Popes of Rome during the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. By LEOPOLD RANKE, Professor in the University of Berlin. Translated from the German by SARAH AUSTIN. 3 vols. London: Murray. 1840.

THE long expected and prodigally announced English translation of Professor Ranke's "History of the Popes from the beginning of the Sixteenth Century" has now, for a good part of a year, been before the public, and has attracted some criticism. We congratulate our countrymen on its appearance. It is well calculated to excite both taste and curiosity on a subject, on which those who are, or aspire to be thought, students in history have been eminently indifferent, and, of course, but partially informed. Very important misconceptions relative to it have, up to the present time--and the prospect does not appear to be clearing-been allowed to form the current kind and measure of information respecting a novel and most interesting -a mysteriously spiritual, or pretendedly spiritual power, asserting and wielding the dominion of the secular and every other power in all their peculiarity and force. The circumstances attending this phenomenon are worthy of very minute study, and are fraught with instruction of incalculable value, in reference to the highest interests of moral and accountable beings.

The Prussian Professor's history is not more calculated to excite interest than to reward it. His qualifications for producing a work of merit, in the sphere of his particular professorship, were confessedly great. Independently of his manifest learning, acumen, and application, he was-for years are passing on and changing everything-in the vigour of his age when engaged in the work; being now about fifty, and having occupied the Professor's chair since the year 1825. The work truly discovers a vast compass of historic information. The materials are, in a great degree, new and highly important, drawn from manuscript and very recondite sources. A lucid order is in general observable in the disposition and arrangement of the contents; and the inferences and reflections are not unfrequently profound, sagacious, and just. The substantial style, whether in the original or the translation before us-the French has had its day, and is gone to sleep-may be considered as the best specimen of that in modern or present favour. But this is very much a matter of taste. In short, the history by this distinguished and Protestant foreigner appears destined to hold an illustrious place among the multitudinous literary productions of the nineteenth century; and it would be disingenuous as well as unjust to refuse the meed to which it is so richly entitled.

It is, therefore, to us no little mortification to feel, from a careful and impartial perusal of the work, that it will be a duty, urged upon us by sacred considerations, materially to qualify our commendation. This will appear as we proceed in a particular examination of the volumes. Indeed, we think it so far expedient to anticipate our general conclusion, as, thus early, to enter a calm but decisive protest against the leading principle on whicht he whole moral estimate of the events recorded rests. We know well enough that it is stark heresy in the code of the majority of self-constituted censors, the present arbiters of intellect, to believe and maintain that there is an essential and important difference in the quality, and, what is most to the purpose, the effects, of certain systems of belief, particularly religious belief. In vulgar estimate all religions are equal-very respectable when adopted, and in the forms adopted, by governments which must have a religion for such of the governed as will not be satisfied without one, but perfectly needless for the intelligent, who do better with none. And here we are sadly afraid that the mark which we have hit is no other than the dominant and all-pervading principle, which, whether visibly or latently, animates and governs the whole of the philosophic production about to be examined. It is no contradiction, but even a part of this hypothesis, as well as a fact which we are not at all inclined to

deny, that the Professor occasionally exhibits a very decorous and satisfactory respect for the established religion of his country.

It is only fair dealing, however, under such an imputation, to allow the author to speak for himself. It is not to be expected that he will formally plead guilty; but, if we mistake not, there is a passage in the work which much staggered us when we came to it, and which appeared to furnish the key, most uniformly and effectually calculated to open all the locks which we shall have to encounter in the work before us. The passage

occurs vol. ii., p. 20, where the subject is the rising exertions of the Papacy to recover the power upon which Protestantism had made such formidable inroads :

"Hitherto Protestantism alone had filled the theatre of the world with those brilliant results which carried away the minds of men; but another spirit, which, if contemplated from the elevated region of enlarged and dispassionate thought, is perhaps equally deserving of veneration, though in direct opposition to that which had actuated the first Reformers, now entered the lists, equally skilled to engage the hearts of men on its side and to rouse them to activity."

The word "perhaps" may a little, as was evidently intended, soften the sentiment; but, with every deduction, the proposition stands forth in full deformity and fatuity, that there is no fundamental or essential difference between Protestantism and Popery -between the comparatively pure Christianity of the reformed creed and the polluted and polluting superstition of Rome. Some of the lights of our own age and country-for there is a wonderful harmony in such things-have given their powerful support to the same theory; and it has, moreover, the additional advantage of being equally favourable to the heathen persecutors, Julian among them, in their differences with the professors of Christianity in their day. The passage which we have thus brought out cannot be regarded as an accidental effusion. It is plainly the ruling spirit of the performance-the dominant, or rather key-note of the piece, though not always so distinctly intoned; for which we are much indebted to the writer, who must excuse us if we understand, and therefore do not extravagantly estimate, the value of "his elevated region of enlarged and dispassionate thought."

Will our readers allow an observation or two on moderation? A very excellent virtue is moderation: it would be well if it flourished in richer abundance; and a promising speculation it would be to institute a Moderation Society. But every good thing may be abused, and this has been in a high degree the fate of moderation. Like liberty, it may be exclaimed of this

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virtue, "How many crimes have been perpetrated, promoted, or justified, under thy sacred and abused name!" It is not enough to hear both sides, and straightway determine that truth or right are in the middle. This mechanical and somewhat pliant process will in some plain cases prove a little unsafe. For example, in the instance of robbery, it would not be eminently wise, or philosophic, or moderate, to decide that the property stolen should be equally divided between the two parties concerned, who might pleasantly enough be represented as warm controvertists. Of course, no talented and prudent writer of the nineteenth century, looking down from his elevated region of enlarged and dispassionate thought, would hazard his popularity by taking either side; and it is well if, to set his liberality beyond the reach of suspicion, he did not patronize the robber's plea. The great ambition of modern historians is to write philosophically. There is certainly such a thing as true and applicable philosophy, and such a thing as false and inapplicable, or rather applicable only in subservience to the particular fact, or series of facts, which are made its ground or object; and miserable is the havoc made in one of the finest provinces of literature by the the non-observance, or ignorance, of this distinction, by incompetent or designing writers. For what with distortion and colouring of facts, what with suppression or interpolation, and what with the attempted solution of the connection of cause and effect by an insane and ricketty system of ratiocination-history, in hands so perverted, instead of being the herald of truth and valuable instruction, has become the pander to falsehood, delusion, and crime of every sort and degree.

We have likewise something preliminary to say respecting the sources from which the history of Professor Ranke is principally derived. These are manuscripts and rare printed works, both, in general, exceedingly valuable and satisfactory, but needing no common qualification. When documents of this class coincide with and confirm printed and published history of a respectable and approved character, they may be admitted with very little hesitation; if any hesitation is necessary, it is where additions occur. But when, on the contrary, such documents contradict received and published history, they require to be well and rather severely sifted, according to the circumstances. Manuscript materials are of all sorts-deliberate or carelessformal and attested records, or trifles never apparently intended for publication-the mere occupation of leisure hours, simple amusement, or diversion of ennui-some with good pretensions to knowledge, sagacity, and honesty-others with strong presumptions of ignorance, partiality, and contempt of truth.

The