within the last few years, a fresh development; Romanism has made unheard-of efforts to conceal the breaches effected in it by the spirit of the age, and especially by the spirit of the Gospel. Of these Geneva has had a large share. She has been calumniated in her faith and story with an audacity that seemed impossible in our days, and the very excess of which rendered refutation unnecessary.

"In the beginning of this year, however, after Romish discourses more than usually violent, many asked if the moment were not come to take some step. The consistory, after deliberate examination, decided that Conferences should be preached, in which the principles of the Reformed Faith should be confronted with those of Rome. It requested the company of pastors to designate the clergymen for this office. It also decided that these discourses should be delivered on the Sunday and Wednesday evenings, at 7 o'clock, in the Magdalen Church. They began the 6th of March. Such was the affluence, that the following week a second church was opened, that of St. Gervase."

The first of these six Conferences, styled in the index, "the History of the Reformed Faith,” i. e. the Historical justification or the Reformation, was preached by M. Bungener, from Genesis i. 3, "God said, Let there be light, and there was light." It is a masterly condensation of the causes, mental and material, that brought about the Reformation. He showed what was fermenting in all minds towards the close of the fifteenth century, when "it was still chaos, but the Spirit of God was beginning to move upon the face of the waters; when the new Genesis was at its second verse, and the Lord with his mighty hand was going to write the third." He showed how, from century to century, in all classes and in all conditions, arose to heaven the eternal anguish-cry of the human heart, oppressed with sin and sorrow, feeling its need of a Saviour, and the utter powerlessness of man's appliances to relieve and succor; and they who were privileged to hear will never forget the thrilling ac cents of his holy eloquence.

The effect of this discourse was unparalleled. This one briliant dis

play of oratorical genius triumphantly established M. Bungener's fame at home, on that proud eminence to which his works had long exalted it abroad.

Since then he has twice preached on solemn occasions; on Easter-day and on the great fast-day in September, wielding each time with equal power the sword of the Spirit, and forcing on the soul its need of pardon and peace. And truly, to use his own words, "earth offers no grander sight than that of the sacred orator chasing before him his fellow-men, narrowing at each step the space in which he permits them to move, till he has hemmed them, breathless, between the law that condemns and the cross that saves." No one is more successful in conquering the attention of a densely crowded auditory, and in subduing it to his will. And here I am involuntarily reminded of the imagery by which he describes a kindred eloquence. But if, like the illustrious Jesuit, he advances, beating down with serried array of argument the desperate wiles marshalled by the heart against truth; like the Eagle of Meaux, of eloquence more kindred still, he soars aloft, bearing on wing sublime the contrite, pardoned, and rejoicing spirit up to the very gates of heaven.

The extraordinary development of M. Bungener's power in the pulpit must unquestionably be ascribed to affliction and its sanctifying influences. When we feel alone on earth, then it is we cling closely to our heavenly Father's hand; it is sorrow, not joy, that makes us seek after communion with him - and is not communion with God - prayer the very nerve of preaching? Till 1851, he had not known the solitude of the heart; then he lost the admirable woman, whose elevated character he had portrayed in the Madeleine of "The Priest and the Huguenot." "She it was," says Bruyn, "who taught me to keep my eyes fixed on heaven. Never did the contemplation of divine things raise me so high that she had not already preceded me on the summits of faith, and that she did not stretch forth her hand to assist me to a yet higher elevation."

2*

The following is the order of M. Bungener's publications, with their names in French and English :

If to these ten volumes, in the space of ten years, we add occasional pamphlets, (some very remarkable,) three courses of public lectures, academical teaching, literary lessons in public and in private, sermons preached, committees attended, reports drawn up, publications corrected and edited, we cannot fail to form a high estimate of the energies, intellectual and physical, of a man who, doing all this, has yet found time to cultivate the social and domestic charities.

A few words may be permitted, in conclusion, respecting the general character of M. Bungener's works. All bear witness to their threefold origin; the wit and fancy of Provence are there to shape the precious blocks hewn in the Swiss and German quarries. This is not the place to discuss the oft-agitated question how far fiction is allowable in such works let us rather admire the exquisite skill with which, restoring some grand historic scene, the artist has dipped his pencil in her glowing tints, not to violate all the rules of moral perspective, and confuse all our preconceptions, but to revive what has paled, to bring anew into relief what has sunk beneath the hand of time, and, in sublime earnest, to render once more instinct with life the illustrious dead.

Thousands had stood before the dying gladiator, and admired the sculptor; but, till the poet came, who had seen aught beyond the mere physical agonies of death? Who had seen that his eyes

"Were with his heart, and that was far away ? ""

But who, now, that sees not the whole touching picture drawn by the poet-the rude hut by the Danube the Dacian mother- the young

barbarians all at play, while he, their sire

? And to whom does

not the sublime, "Arise, ye Goths, and glut your ire!" seem his own avenging suggestion?

This is what M. Bungener has done by the admirable groups that enrich the historic gallery of his native land. He has seen, for instance, in Claude, the Christian energy to grapple with sin in high places; in Bourdaloue, the aching consciousness of paltering with duty; and, with these two suggestives of incident that had escaped the vulgar gaze, combined with what all saw of weakness in Louis the Great, and of might in him of Meaux, he has brought before us a picture, so true to nature in all its parts, that we at once admit its retrospective divination. In other words, what the poet has furnished to the historian is in harmony so perfect, in keeping so complete with the rest, that the happiest, boldest inventions wear all the semblance of faithful narrative. We read on and on, and caress the thought, perchance, that we too could have done as much had we but possessed the requisite documents. Self-flattery, indeed! but the proudest of triumphs for the author, proving, as it does, that truthfulness of conception and ease of execution, which attest the hand of genius.

Truthfulness in the design, truthfulness in the details, truthfulness, from first to last, reigns supreme in M. Bungener's productions. Nor does his accuracy ever degenerate into frigid correctness. No author imparts a reality more vivid to his impersonations: they are not mere ideas, dressed up like men and women, but living creatures of flesh and blood; not chilling cold" snow-creations, such as those which were the despair of Laila's dreary solitude. Whether he conducts us to the splendors of Versailles, ushering us into the presence of him who pervaded all with his majesty; whether we pace up and down with him the Philosophers' walk, listening to the eloquently pious discourses there; or, whether we draw our breath trembling at the dread conflict engaged between the Preacher and the King, we yield ourselves to the magic illusion, with the unreasoning, intuitive confidence, which the truthfulness of genius never fails to inspire.

In "The Preacher and the King" we are presented with Versailles only; in "The Priest and the Huguenot," the circle has widened to embrace Paris and the Desert; but the centre idea remains, the confrontation of Popery and Protestantism in their most distinguished religionists, and in their respective influence on men and manners. Rabaut and Bridaine inherit the interest inspired by Claude and Bourdaloue. The change which has come over the face of the nation, since the mighty hand of Louis XIV. has ceased to stem the torrent of corruption with decorous church conventionalities, is well shown in the Philosophers' saloons of D'Alembert and his motley crew, that have succeeded to the Philosophers' walk of Bossuet and his dignitaries. Here M. Bungener has amply proved his French extraction, and lighted up his pages with that brilliant wit, which cannot be denied his countrymen. But, however he may seem to linger while he culls an anecdote or records a discussion, we feel that he is pressing forward to the mark; that his aim is not to make a book, but to prove from history the intimate connection between Popery, infidelity, and proffigacy; to show what were those men whom Rome tracked like wild beasts, whose blood she shed like water upon the scaffold, when, more merciless still, she did not consign them to the life-long horrors of the infamous oar. In a work so admirable as a whole, it may seem invidious to detach, as especially fine, any one passage. Yet some there are so pathetic, so thrilling, so magnificent, that they force themselves upon the memory. Who, for instance, can forget the Cevenol's narrative of his treachery; Rabaut's visit to the tower of Constance; or that of Bridaine to the Calas family? Who, the struggle in the royal libertine's conscience, between the awful voice of the man of God, and the steady, serpent eye of the man of Loyola ? Or who, the touching monologue of the venerable missionary, on the eve of preaching before all Paris in the Church of St. Sulpice? Above all, who can forget the sublime Dantean vision which discloses to those aged, overcome with pious vigils, the fearful on-coming doom of suicidal France?