Church in Boston,' may be an operation in nature and art new to English readers, we extract Mr. Theodore Parker's own account of this remarkable and instructive process:

'On Sunday, January 4, 1846, Rev. THEODORE PARKER was installed as Pastor of the Twenty-eighth Congregational Society in Boston. The exercises on the occasion were as follows:

INTRODUCTORY HYMN.

PRAYER.

VOLUNTARY ON THE ORGAN.

'The Chairman of the Standing Committee then addressed the Congregation as follows:

'By the instructions of the Society, the Committee have made an arrangement with Mr. Parker, by which the services of this Society, under its new organization, should commence with the new year; and this being our first meeting, it has been set apart for such introductory services as may seem fitting for our position and prospects.

The circumstances under which this Society has been formed, and its progress hitherto, are familiar to most of those present. It first began from certain influences which seemed hostile to the cause of religious freedom. It was the opinion of many of those now present, that a minister of the Gospel, truly worthy of that name, was proscribed on account of his opinions, branded as a heretic, and shut out from the pulpits of this city.

At a meeting of gentlemen held January 22, 1845, the following Resolution was passed:

""Resolved, That the Rev. Theodore Parker shall have a chance to be heard in Boston."

To carry this into effect, this Hall was secured for a place of meeting, and the numbers who have met here from Sunday to Sunday, have fully answered our most sanguine expectations. Our meetings have proved that though our friend was shut out from the temples, yet that "the people heard him gladly." Of the effects of his preaching among us I need not speak. The warm feelings of gratitude and respect expressed on every side, are the best evidence of the efficacy of his words, and of

his life.

'Out of these meetings our Society has naturally sprung. It became necessary to assume some permanent form-the labour of preaching to two Societies, would, of course, be too much for Mr. Parker's health and strength-the conviction that his settlement in Boston would be not only important for ourselves, but also for the cause of liberal Christianity and religious freedom-these were some of the reasons which induced us to form a Society, and invite him to become its minister. To this he has consented; with the understanding that the connexion may be dissolved by either party, on giving six months' notice to that effect.

At his suggestion, and with the warm approval of the Committee, we have determined to adopt the old Congregational form of settling our minister; without the aid of bishop, churches, or ministers.

'As to our Choice, we are, upon mature reflection, and after a year's trial, fully persuaded that we have found our minister, and we ask no ecclesiastical council to ratify our decision.

'As to the Charge usually given on such occasions, we prefer to do without it, and trust to the conscience of our minister for his faithfulness. 'As to the Right Hand of Fellowship, there are plenty of us ready and willing to give that, and warm hearts with it.

And for such of the other ceremonies usual on such occasions, as

Mr. Parker chooses to perform, we gladly accept the substitution of his services for those of any stranger.

The old Puritan form of settling a minister is, for the people to do it themselves; and this let us now proceed to do.

'In adopting this course, we are strongly supported both by principle and precedent. Congregationalism is the Republicanism of the Church; and it is fitting that the people themselves should exercise their right of selfgovernment in that most important particular, the choice and settlement of a minister. For examples, I need only remind you of the settlement of the first minister in New England, on which occasion this form was used, and that it is also used at this day by one of the most respectable churches in this city.

'The Society then ratified the proceedings by a unanimous vote: and Mr. Parker publicly signified that he adhered to his consent to become the minister of this Society, and the organization of the Society was thus completed.

OCCASIONAL HYMN.

DISCOURSE BY MR. PARKER.
ANTHEM.

BENEDICTION.'

This display of what law and religion and Puritan congregationalism means in Boston is not without its value.

Of the discourse itself, we have little to say, except that it falls infinitely short of the very clever and sometimes eloquent volume from which we have quoted. In the Idea,' Mr. Parker assumes a tone of humility, hints that 'martyrdom is not extinct-that a true church will always be the church of martyrs-that Christianity began with martyrdom-that he is beginning a true church-and that the sacrifice is ready.'-(P. 23.) He distrusts 'neither God nor man, nor his congregation,-only himself.'(Ibid. p. 31.) He, meek man! has no eloquence to charm or please with; he only speaks right on.'-(P. 33.) Thus, for example:-He knows when his own life is measured by the ideal of that young Nazarene, how little he deserves the name of Christian.'-(P. 34.) For

'If Jesus be the Model-man, then should a Christian church teach its members to hold the same relation to God that Christ held; to be one with Him; incarnations of God, as much and as far as Jesus was one with God, and an incarnation thereof-a manifestation of God in the flesh. It is Christian to receive all the Truths of the Bible; all the truths that are not in the Bible just as much. It is Christian also to reject all the errors that come to us from without the Bible or from within the Bible. The Christian man, or the Christian church, is to stop at no man's limitation; at the limit of no book. God is not dead, nor even asleep, but awake and alive as ever of old; He inspires men now no less than beforetime; is ready to fill your mind, heart and soul with Truth, Love, Life, as to fill Moses and Jesus, and that on the same terms,—for inspiration comes by universal laws and not by partial exceptions. Each point of Spirit, as each atom of space, is still bathed in the tides of Deity.'-Pp. 7, 8.

But we are weary with quoting this most atrocious blasphemy. We have added it to our previous remarks only to show that Mr. Parker is no ephemeral teacher: that he is, as he expresses it, in choice American phraseology, organizing a permanent churchaction;' that he has been teaching as a minister of the Gospel' for six years; and successfully too; and all this in the most refined and educated town in the United States. In America, it is to be feared, we may anticipate our own tendencies: and we may learn what is meant when we are informed that the Church which did for the fifth century or the fifteenth, will not do for this. What is well enough at Rome, Oxford, or Berlin, is not 'well enough in Boston. It must have our Ideas, the swell of our ground, and have grown out of the religion in our soul. The freedom of America must be there.'-(P. 26.) We really thank America for the lesson; and we believe that it will not be altogether thrown away.

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402

ART. V.-1. Le Juif Errant. Par EUGENE SUE. 10 Vols. Bruxelles. 1844.

2. The Wandering Jew: a Tale of the Jesuits. D. M. AIRD. London: Bruce & Wyld.

Translated by

A WELL-KNOWN philosopher and divine of the last century, describes, with a mixture of wonder and pain, a class of readers who, reading for their own entertainment, and having a real curiosity to see what is said,' nevertheless have no sort of curiosity to see what is true;' and he continues, The great number of books and papers of amusement which, of one kind or another, daily come in one's way have, in part, occasioned, and 'most perfectly fall in with and humour, this idle way of reading and considering things. By this means time, even in solitude, is happily got rid of without the pain of attention: neither is any part of it more put to the account of idleness, one can scarce forbear saying is spent with less thought, than great part ' of that which is spent in reading. Thus people habituate them'selves to let things pass through their minds, as we may speak, ' rather than to think of them. Thus, by use, they become 'satisfied merely with seeing what is said, without going any 'further.'

What would this writer have thought of the state of the reading public in this day? What would he have suggested as a remedy against 'this idle way of reading and considering things?' Novels and newspapers go far towards overwhelming or enervating men's minds: so as that truth is well-nigh lost sight of in reading or judging them. Whatever the state of the case may have been 150 years ago, the mischief must be now greatly increased. There is such a mass of abuse, of slander, of wilful exaggeration, of transparent lies, of violence and irreligion, of falsehood and wrong, which is brought under the eye, in the ordinary news of the day, and we become so accustomed to them as things of course, that the mind scarcely pauses to pronounce judgment upon them. Being often repeated, they are received into the mind almost mechanically. Such things are and will be,' and there is an end of further reflection-and whether they are reported in one way or another,—whether they are set forth under one colour or another,-whether evil is called good and good evil, or not, makes no difference. What is told in the cleverest and most amusing way finds most readers, very small regard being had of the principles shown in the manner of telling, or to what the principles may tend. Thus it is with newspapers, and the effect which the constant reading of them tends more or less to produce on the mind. And ordinary novels of the day have much in common with newspapers. They both profess to reflect real life, the manners and opinions

of the time, the motives by which men are swayed, the character of passing events,-the one in facts, the other in fictions. They are read once and thrown aside. They supply subject for conversation; they are a refuge from listlessness, or for relief at weary times. And as long as vice is made interesting, and cloaked with tolerable decency, it is no drawback to the popularity of a novel, but rather otherwise; for it stimulates and gratifies a latent vicious curiosity about evil, and creates interest by its very monstrosities.

This is offered as something of a true account of the fact, that such a book as the Wandering Jew' has been received with avidity among us. It is a work of fiction, it is a novel, and people hear it is interesting, and read it, and find it interesting, and they concern themselves no further about the principles of the book or of its author. They have been excited and carried on, and have had new scenes, and regions, and actors, brought before them. They suffer the author to exercise a literary mesmerism over their notions of right and wrong, and give themselves to his guidance without pausing to reflect, where he is taking them, or what he is depicting, or what insults he may offer to their taste and understanding. Honestly, we do not believe, that a tale made up of such a tissue of gross profligacy, such meagrely cloaked infidelity, would have found readers, had it appeared by an English author. We do not believe that a publisher of any sort of respectability would have undertaken its publication. But the book came before the English public with several recommendations. It is foreign; and there is a growing taste for foreign novels. We have German novels, Italian novels, Swedish novels, French novels; and most of them have been great acquisitions to the English reader in that line. The Wandering Jew' came also with an established reputation, having made a great stir in Paris; and it professed to be an exposure of dreadful iniquities, connived at and sanctioned among the Jesuits. It was a violent attack upon a body dreaded and hated in England, and of which the worst charges would be readily believed,- but a body very little really known, against which, therefore, the most extravagant statements might be made without outraging our common sense of justice. Upon the merits of the Wandering Jew,' as a literary work, or as an attack upon the Jesuits, nothing will be here said. This notice will deal simply with its morality: and there really is good reason to do this. Already there are several English versions of this novel; one stereotyped in double columns, the

1

1 One published by Chapman and Hall, 186, Strand, another by Bruce and Wyld, 84, Farringdon-street; and there is a series of illustrations, by Heath, in sixpenny numbers. To these we may add what is called Roscoe's Library Edition (Appleyard): a spurious and mutilated one, to which the name of Diprose is attached; one by Clarke, of Warwick-lane, and we believe two others.