sincere gratification. The other is, that Mr. Young learned, in St. Petersburg, that immediately after our last General Convention, Archbishop Hughes wrote to a Papal journal, published in the city of Rome itself, a detailed account of the whole movement towards inter-communion, then and there begun; an account which is thus closed:-"So the Anglican Communion is going to place itself in a worse position than ever, by seeking affiliation and inter-communion with the schismatical Greeks!"

It ought to be widely known among us, that one of the first acts of the present Czar Alexander, after coming to the throne, was to order a revision of the translation of the whole Bible in the vernacular, under the direction of the Holy Synod, for publication and unrestricted distribution throughout all Russia. For this purpose it is issued in different forms, and at various prices, all got up very neatly and yet very cheaply. A really nice copy of the whole New Testament can be bought for twelve cents, and in a style of type and paper superior to anything yet turned out at that price by any British or American Bible Society. The Holy Scriptures are now actually bought in immense quantities, both by peasants and nobles. The Czar has also ordered steps to be taken for the elevation and improvement of the temporal condition of the clergy throughout his empire, and this good work is still going on. In connection with that great measure, the Emancipation of the Serfs-which has filled the civilized world with admiration there has been a general movement, on the part of the old proprietors, to establish schools for the serfs, and to instruct and elevate them in every way, so as to qualify them for the intelligent performance of their new duties as citizens. In Moscow, which is the chief seat and centre of the old nobility of Russia, many of the leading ladies have united in organising a general depository for all sorts of approved educational books, published in the various governments of the empire. They have gone further, and are enlarging the native stock of juvenile literature, not only by translating from foreign languages, but even by writing new works, where suitable ones cannot otherwise be found.

On reviewing the whole of this happy movement towards inter-communion, from its beginning in the General Convention of 1862 down to the present moment, its friends have, certainly, every reason to "thank God and take courage." It seems, thus far, at any rate, to receive the blessing of Him Who alone "maketh men to be of one mind in an House."

MR. BUCKLE'S ATTACK UPON SCOTLAND.

[CONCLUDED.]

In accordance with the promise made in our March number, we proceed to consider

1. The assault made by Mr. Buckle on the Presbyterian views respecting the nature of the Almighty.

2. The question of Toleration, in so far as it affects Scotland. 3. The needlessness of supposing opposition between the use of material and spiritual aids against suffering.

I. That there exist most grave objections to the representation of the Divine attributes, set forth in the Westminster Confession, is undeniable. How strongly this is felt by Presbyterian ministers may be gathered from the fact that not one in a hundred ever preaches, in this respect, the doctrine to which he has subscribed. The great majority of Scotchmen would probably feel with us, that such teaching was only too obnoxious to the remark of Gibbon, that "it made God a jealous tyrant." Had Mr. Buckle confined his strictures to the distinctively Calvinistic features of Presbyterian theology in Scotland, it would not have concerned us to interfere. Our own Communion in this realm is a living and standing protest against these very serious and injurious errors.

But Mr. Buckle's onslaught is not made on those points wherein the Calvinistic teaching concerning the Almighty is at variance with the Catholic creeds of Christendom. On the contrary, he has selected for his animadversion precisely those features wherein the teachers whom he denounces are most correct, most unimpeachable, most thoroughly in harmony with all the best instructors of all time. The mistake of supposing that the view of Theism reprehended by him is peculiar to Scottish divinity, arises from this author's utter want of acquaintance with the rudiments of scientific theology. In physical science, Mr. Buckle would have been the first to admit the necessity of some acquaintance with the general, before proceeding to the particular. He would justly have scorned the pretensions of the man who should have essayed to indite a description of the peculiarities of the strata in Auvergne, or in the Hebrides, without having first made acquaintance with the leading principles of the science of geology; for how can the exception be recognised, unless there be admitted the existence of a rule?

The question at issue between Mr. Buckle aud Christian divines in reality amounts to this: Is the Creator of the universe an absolute

Sovereign, unfettered by any laws save those which He himself has made, or which spring necessarily from His own attributes; or is He a mere constitutional Monarch, hedged in by restraints which He did not originate, and unable to interfere with the creatures of His hands?

Positivism in general (and only too large a portion of contemporary writing that is not avowedly positivist) implies or insinuates that the latter of these alternatives is the true one. Strauss, in his famous Leben Jesu, assumes that the view so much in vogue among modern men of science, conveys the true idea of the Most High. But then he most frankly admits that this Being, whom the race of savants recognise, is not the God of the Old Testament. Let us add that He is not the God whom real Theists, of any sort or kind, adore. Not only Hebrews of old, not only Christians of every communion, repudiate this miserable fiction, but even Mahomet, with all his faults and delusions, never sank so low in his estimate of the Creator. The God of the Koran is, at any rate, a real Maker and Preserver of all things, with whose will nothing, in earth or in heaven, can presume to interfere.

The description of the God of the Old Testament given by Strauss is just and forcible. As, however, we do not happen to have his work at hand, we will quote another of very similar character. Our object is to show that the doctrine to which Mr. Buckle objected, as peculiar to Scotch Presbyterians, is by no means a special feature of that creed. Accordingly, out of many statements that might be quoted, we choose one from a writer of a communion furthest removed from Calvinism. "By the term God," says this writer, "I mean a Being who has the supreme good, or rather, is the Supreme Good, or has all the attributes of good in infinite greatness; all wisdom, all truth, all justice, all love, all holiness, all beautifulness; who is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, ineffably one, absolutely perfect; and such, that what we do not know, and cannot even imagine of Him, is far more wonderful than what we do and can. I mean one who is Sovereign over His own will and actions, though always according to the eternal rule of right and wrong, which is Himself. His are all beings visible and invisible, the noblest and the vilest of them. His are the substance, and the operation, and the results of that system of physical nature into which we are born. The laws of the universe, the principles of truth, the relation of one thing to another, their qualities and virtues, the order and harmony of the whole-all that exists, is from Him; and if evil is not from Him, as assuredly it is not, this is because evil has no substance of its own, but is only the defect, excess, perversion, or corruption of that which has. The primary atoms of matter, their

properties, their mutual action, their disposition and collocation, electricity, magnetism, gravitation, light, and whatever subtle principles or operations the wit of man is detecting, or shall detect, are the works of His hands." This is the language of a Roman Catholic divine, but it is not on such points that either we, or our Presbyterian fellow-Christians, are in anywise at variance with Dr. Newman.*

2. We proceed to the second point-that of Toleration. Now, Toleration is one of those topics which lecturers at public meetings, and speakers on the hustings, are frequently inclined to dismiss with a wave of the hand, as being among the simplest and easiest of questions. A very little thought will suffice to convince any candid and religious mind that few problems are more profound and more difficult. We may assume that the readers of this Magazine will admit that earnestness in religion is in itself an excellent thing. Now, earnestness implies, of course, a readiness to hold our own, and to defend it against aggression. And here emerges the problem-how are we to discover the line at which defence of what we hold dear, becomes unjust aggression upon somebody else? The Times declared, within the last few months, that public opinion in London would probably be unwilling to tolerate the erection of a Mahometan mosque. We own to a certain amount of sympathy with this state of sentiment, but we observe that Dr. Guthrie has announced that he would be in favour of giving sites to all (including nominatim the Moslem) who wor shipped God in sincerity. Still, it is evident that even this principle only amplifies the circle without annihilating it. Dr. Guthrie intimates that he would refuse a site to polytheistic idolaters. He feels (and we perfectly agree with him thus far) that, to a certain extent, we are compelled to be intolerant.

This principle, however startling it may sound, has been admitted by many who have thought deeply on the problem at issue. We may mention S. T. Coleridge, Arthur Hallam, and perhaps Charles James Fox. "Standing," says Coleridge, "includes withstanding." And again, I fully coincide with Frederic H. Jacobi, that the only true spirit of tolerance consists in our conscientious toleration of each other's intolerance. But notwithstanding this deep conviction of our general fallibility, and the most vivid recollection of my own, I dare avow with the German philosopher that, as far as opinions, and not motives, principles, and not men, are concerned, I neither am tolerant, nor wish to be regarded as such." From the context it is, however,

*The entire passage, a long and very striking one, occurs in his "Discourses on University Education." (Discourse III., p. 91, et seq. First Edition.)

+ The Friend, Vol. I. Compare Arthur Hallam's Remains, Essays on Rosetti.

clear that Coleridge only meant to extend his intolerance towards all that was base, cruel, and unjust; including superstitions that might be fairly so stigmatised, as for example Hindoism, with its car of Juggernaut rolling over prostrate devotees. The Reformers, no less than their opponents, were all on the side of intolerance, as has been justly pointed out by the Scottish historian, Dr. Robertson. It may indeed be questioned whether the idea of toleration was anywhere admitted at an earlier period than the close of the seventeenth century. But in such a matter there are many gradations; and undoubtedly the inquisitorial spirit was especially strong in Scotland. With Mr. Buckle's critic in the North British Review we may admit that "it is impossible to defend the meddlesome intolerance" of the Presbyterian clergy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

And yet while granting this, it by no means follows that we should admit more than a portion of Mr. Buckle's case. We differ from him utterly in points of detail; we differ from him still more utterly in respect of remedies. Thus, when Mr. Buckle pours out the entire strength of his invective upon the kirk, because on one occasion it bade a widow to separate herself from her own son; we may forbear to judge the particular case, because our information is scanty and defective, but we cannot venture to assume that the kirk was of necessity in the wrong without erasing from our Bibles the text, "He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me."

Still less can we gaze with complacency on Mr. Buckle's sole remedy for intolerance, namely, indifference. The North British Review has with perfect justice called attention to the fact that this remedy enjoyed a full, only too full, a trial towards the close of the last century, and that it failed most lamentably. Small as is our sympathy with the fanaticism of the Covenanters, we would rather see their spirit dominant in Scotland than the tone which breathes through the Memoirs of Dr. "Jupiter" Carlyle.

But the great problem still remains. Is it posssble so to train a nation that its men and women shall be earnestly religious, and yet at the same time tolerant? We will not, for our part, despair of such a consummation. But it must, we think, be frankly owned that, up to the present time, such a spectacle has nowhere been witnessed. The Spaniards have been, till within the last thirty years, earnestly religious according to their light, but they have also been deeply and ardently intolerant. The modern Jews seem tolerant enough in matters of religion; but alas! it is apparently at the price of a surrender of all deep convictions. And yet if individuals can be taught to combine and we must all have met living proofs of such combination-zeal for their own communion with charity towards others, it is