we fear, much of their attraction. We care not to call his writings infidel writings, or their author a Pantheist or an unbeliever. In a certain sense he deserves neither of these appellations, while yet the influence of his writings and of the man pleases and fosters that current of feeling which is even now pressing on, with a silent, yet deep and powerful tide, which we call the practically infidel feeling of the literary men of the age. This infidelity is not metaphysical; it does not preach atheism with D'Holbach, nor Pantheism with Spinosa, nor man's irresponsibility with Hume; for metaphysics is not to its taste. It does not concern itself with the infidel exegesis of the German students of the Scriptures, for this is a study which it despises. Nor does it dishonor the moral effects of Christian truth or the record of its religious experience, as many an infidel churchman has done, for even Carlyle discourses of the regeneration of Cromwell, and with so much earnestness in his interpretation of the event, that many a Christian might not see the sneer behind. What, then, is it? How can it be infidelity? We reply; It is natural theology without a personal God. It is moral philosophy without a responsible agent. It is Christianity without the belief of its historic truths, acknowledging some of its effects, even those called spiritual, yet without connecting them with its facts, the government of a Holy God, and the redemption of a revealed Redeemer, and the cleansing of a Holy Spirit. It is rather unbelief than disbelief. Subtle, refining, symbolizing all living truths and real facts into inert. and powerless mythi, and yet exerting its influence unconsciously to the man himself. Let the dreamers of Oxford, on both sides the Atlantic, understand it and ask themselves, whether Christianity has no work for them to do, except to make her more offensive to such men, by hanging about her neck other mill-stones than those which have well nigh sunk her already; and whether the Church has no demand for them, except to fill her courts with grotesque and chattering priests, and to busy their brains with inquiring what are the dimensions of that surplice which makes the wearer most devout, and what the size of the cross upon the back of the priest, that leads the spectator most effectually to put on Christ. Let hair-splitting and angry theologians ask themselves, whether Christianity and the Church had nothing for them to do, but to contract their influence, and narrow

their minds, and exhaust their energies. Amateur divines also, and petit maitres in the pulpit, may inquire with profit, whether, as they have to do with men, they had not best act the part of men, and arm themselves for manly

contests.

As next in order, we name the Transcendentalists in the Unitarian communion, of the different sorts of which class. Mr. Ripley and Mr. Parker may be taken as specimens. They are not Pantheists, and hence, deserve not to be classed with Mr. Emerson; while they are too decidedly theologians to be named with Carlyle. They take their character as a school, and perhaps their name, from the fact that while in the Unitarian connection they have gone widely aside from that exclusive reliance on the historical evidences of Christianity, which has been so characteristic of those divines, and have planted themselves on the moral evidence, not only as superior, but as supreme and decisive. The truth of its doctrines and its facts, they ground upon their fitness to the reason of man, and only so far as the reason sees and feels them to be true, so far are they to be received. So also they prove the being of God, from the wants and aspirations of our nature, rather than the fact of his existence from the visible universe, and the principles of his moral administration and his own moral attributes, from the course of his own actual providence with man. From the fact that they have rejected and labored to depreciate the only species of proof for the Christian system, which Unitarians have been accustomed to acknowledge, they have seemed to many Unitarians of the older stamp to be no less than rejectors of the system, and their principles have been called "The latest form of Infidelity."

In the writings and general course of thought of some of them, there is certainly much to approve, and we cannot but hail that distinct recognition which they allow to the facts of Christian experience, and to its authority and importance in interpreting the word of God, as well as the honor which they give to man's moral nature,—the greatness of its wants, and the greatness also of the change within which it must experience to be the omen of a purer theology and a more spiritual religion. As far as they constitute reason, the voucher for all truth, both in Natural and Revealed Theology, so that of truths that are within her province, none

are to be received to which she does not consent-and of truths but partially revealed, nothing is to be believed which plainly contradicts her voice, and as far also, as they give the highest place and the most convincing energy to those truths, which make themselves manifest to the conscience, so far are they to be commended, as holding truth, and important truth. But when they exalt reason to the seat of judgment, and flatter her vanity till she forgets the limits within which she is competent to judge, and yields herself to the perverting influences of an evil heart, then do they dishonor the truth which suffers by their perversion, and send out the words of God's revelation, a poor, tattered thing of shreds and patches, stripped of its venerable authority, and robbed of its aspect of benignant love. Surely religion was never more dishonored, under the garb of philosophy, than in that noted discourse "On the Transient and Permanent in Christianity," by Mr. Parker, a disciple of this school. All that is characteristic of the Christian system, or that could be deemed such, has he taken away, under the nanie of the Transient, except the name of " the Galilean Youth," to whom he renders no higher honor than more than one of the English Deists have done. Under the name of "the Permanent," has he left a poor caput mortuum, which is spiritless, impotent and contemptible. In his own words, "Christianity is a simple thing; very simple. It is absolute, pure morality; absolute, pure religion; the love of man; the love of God, acting without let or hindrance. The only creed it lays down, is the great truth which springs up spontaneous in the holy heart-there is a God. Its watch-word is, be perfect as your Father in Heaven. The only form it demands is a divine life, doing the best thing, in the best way, from the highest motives; perfect obedience to the great law of God. Its sanction is the voice of God in your heart; the perpetual presence of Him who made us, and the stars over our head; Christ and the Father abiding within us." Did not Tindal say as much as this in his "Christianity as old as the Creation." Surely if the name of a Christian, in its most superficial meaning, and its largest extension, signifies anything, on the ground of past or present usage, he whose creed is nothing more than this, ought not to claim it to himself. This is but a more distinct and decided avowal of the infidelity of the age. An infidelity that admits " the moral" of the Chris

tian system, but denies its facts on earth, and the facts which it reveals from heaven; which honors the regenerate man, but honors not those truths, by the belief of which, and those influences by whose power and aid his regeneration is secured.

Mr. O. A. Brownson might here be naturally named, as being himself a variety altogether peculiar. But we shall not attempt to describe him. A preacher and a politiciana critic and theologian-a determined reformer of all the present forms of society, and a stern defender of the powers that be-a vulgar demagogue and a teacher of æsthetics-a philosopher of the spiritual and of the experimental school -he is beyond the powers of any one who would seek to portray him. As he is manifestly and avowedly in a state of continued transition,-in a condition of perpetually becoming, but of never being-of unquestioned vigor of intellect, of no inferior capacity for investigation in the moral and intellectual sciences-possessed of surpassing facility and force in stating and defending his opinions, we can barely give his name as one of those who bear the name of Transcendentalists, without giving a history of his past transformations, or venturing upon a prophecy of what he is yet to be.

We come now to speak more at length of those Transcendentalists, who are known and acknowledged as men, strenuous for evangelical and spiritual Christianity. In remarking upon the opinions which they hold, and the influence which they exert, we shall present certain suggestions which apply with equal force to all who call themselves par eminence, spiritual philosophers, and others which are appropriate to the common position which we hold as believers in the same system of Christian faith. It will not be forgotten that they are Transcendentalists rather in popular phraseology and by common usage, than in the strict and scientific sense. They do not profess to be deeply and learnedly metaphysical. Many would say of themselves, that they are mere disciples and beginners in the school, which yet they are satisfied is the school where truth is most purely taught. Others would tell you that they neither wish nor expect to master all the heights and depths of the spiritual philosophy, while yet they know that it is the only philosophy that is the friend of poetry, and of noble sentiment, and of true and spiritual religion; the fount of manly principles, of self-sacrificing benevolence, and of pure and reverential worship. They point you with

confidence to the opposing classes of opinions which have ever divided the scientific world, which are represented by the two great masters of Grecian philosophy, and called after their names; and affirm that according to the structure of their minds and the divinity or earthliness of their original genius, and perhaps according to their moral dispositions, all men have, and all men must be the followers, either of the shrewd, severe, and unbelieving Aristotle, or of the divine and believing Plato. The systems are contradictory, and tend to opposite directions. The one is earth-born, and has its sphere and its limits in the understanding, while it tends to sensuality, selfishness and unbelief;-the other is from heaven, and carries the soul upward, and in its direct and remoter influences, elevates the spirit above the world of sense, purifies benevolence, and blends in delightful harmony with the faith and love of the believer.

Of the prevailing English philosophy, and of the system of Locke in particular, they express their hearty dislike, not merely on account of individual opinions which Locke, or certain of his disciples have held, but because of the inevitable tendency of its spirit, and its master principles. They trace its fatal consequences, in the struggle which philosophy has been maintaining with Christian truth ever since its prevalence, in the enfeebling and corrupting influences which the sensual philosophy has ever imparted to scientific theology. They find its appropriate results in the Socinianism of Priestly, the Pyrrhonism of Hume, and the Atheism of the French Revolution. They regard with no friendly eye the metaphysical theology of New England, based as it is on the sensual philosophy, and would substitute in its stead the more spiritual Platonism of Germany and of a better age in the past. Our description we acknowledge to be incomplete, but it will answer its design if it indicates with sufficient precision the class of men of whom it affirms, and with whose spirit and opinions many of our readers are familiar.

Others there are, who are Transcendentalists, as the result of close investigation and scientific research; and who, while they would consent to all that is affirmed by their brethren, do yet rest with firm conviction on their opinions, because, as philosophers, they have proved them true. With them, at present we have no concern. The arena of strictly scientific discussion, is the only arena on which we would