ance with the man. Indeed, we should not know him did. we pass him in the street. Beyond a few items of gossip and of newspaper comment which are current at the present juncture, we have never learned anything of his history, or of his personal peculiarities. All that we know of him we have learned from his published works. At the time of its first appearance, we read a good part of the volume entitled "Sermons for the People." We have glanced somewhat cursorily over the collection of sermons named at the head of this article; reading with care, and we trust with candor, the twentieth sermon, entitled "Life, Salvation, and Comfort for Man in the Divine Trinity "-the sermon in which he states the argument which has led to his change of religious belief. In what we have in this way learned of Dr. Huntington, we find no explanation of the popular interest felt in his career. As a cause of this result we find nothing at all adequate either in his thought or style. His thought and style indeed, so far from accounting for the sensation attending his course, only make that result the more inexplicable. It is clear that he is gifted with far more than the average of intellectual power; that he has a high order of culture; and that his moral and religious sensibilities are strong. But though the emotional qualities always give a man proportionate influence over his fellows, we could name scores of much less prominent men than Dr. Huntington, in whom these qualities are equally positive. Intellectual ability of itself never makes a man popular; while scholarship usually tends to narrow the circle of admirers to the select few in whom the excellences of culture find appreciative tastes and judgments.

As a writer, and, we repeat, it is in this character only that we know anything of him,-Dr. Huntington's style has nothing of the "sensation" cast. It is elaborate, and somewhat ornate: and will strike few readers as natural. It is highly meditative; suggests more than it directly states; will have a charm for persons of the same kind of culture as the author; but will repel the common reader as lacking directness and even clearness. We trust that we betray no unusual lack of perception, when we confess ourselves compelled to read many sentences twice, some of them frequently, before their meaning is evoked. Take an example on this point. On page 365 of his new work,

having stated the fact that difficulties may easily be forced upon the doctrine of the trinity, he continues: "All readers of theological controversy know well enough beforehand what they will be. And if the deeper want has been awakened in them, they know presently just as well how unsatisfying these objections are, as well as their steady proclivity to a bold and extreme negation of what they regard the peculiar glories of the religion of the gospel."

The grammatical structure of the latter sentence correctly enough points to the word "objections" as the antecedent of the word "their" which we have italicized; yet, on the first reading of the sentence, it seems natural to make the word "their" its antecedent; the more especially as the strict, if not the only meaning of a proclivity requires that it shall be affirmed of a person rather than of a thing or an abstraction. A second reading, therefore, will be necessary to perceive that it is not the "readers of theological controversy," but certain objections which have a "steady proclivity." Our author's style is largely characterized by features similar to the one just noticed. We do not, let us add, offer this criticism in any captious spirit. Many of our favorite authors-among others Martineau, whom we cannot praise too highly-often write in a similar style. We are not sure but such a style inheres in minds of a meditative cast, which are seldom over careful to adapt themselves to the capacities of the less appreciative reader. Our object is simply to illustrate our statement, that Dr. Huntington's style is not what is technically called "popular." It requires on a reader's part more care than the common mind has the patience to bestow. We need but read the most casual paragraph thrown off by the distinguished pastor of the Plymouth Church, to find the secret of his wide-spread popularity. We see at once that here is a man who comes directly to his people. Nothing whatever intervenes between himself and his thought. He that runs may read and understand. And so of the popular preacher across the water, who, with far less of general talent and culture, still speaks with a directness and naturalness which always take the multitude captive. We need not hear him, or know anything of his personal peculiarities, to account for his popularity. The reading a single sermon explains everything on this point. If then,

we are right in saying that there is nothing in Dr. Huntington's thought and style to account for the interest shown in his career,-if we are right in deeming his style as a writer positively unpopular,-it becomes a question of some importance, What is the secret of the sensation attendant on his recent change of ecclesiastical position? It may be that he is endowed with strong, commanding personal qualities such as are obvious to those within the circle of his personal influence, though not apparent to a mere reader of his works. As, however, we cannot speak advisedly on this point, we will suggest a different explanation of the result.

Any strange occurrence, an event out of the ordinary course of things, and contrary to every seeming probability, very naturally arrests public attention. The alleged phenomena of spiritualism excite curiosity because they seem unnatural. If discovery were made of a stream of water wending its way up a hill-side, curiosity to see the strange phenomenon would be universal. Nondescripts in nature, animate or inanimate, work strangely on the imaginations of men. Siamese twins, wild men from Borneo, bearded women, giants and dwarfs, always make a "sensation, and fill the pockets of showmen. Let anything strange, monstrous, or unnatural happen or be discovered, and the public eye is at once arrested. Quacks displace educated practitioners, simply because their pretensions are preposterous, and their methods of cure miraculous. Anything that is a matter of course is commonplace and creates but little stir. Anything unnatural is of course wonderful, and every one is eager to see wonderful things.

Such is the law as respects objects of sense and observation. The same law holds, though less palpably, as respects the operations and the phenomena of mind. A psychological eccentricity, anything improbable in the career of a human mind is at once a passport to notoriety. Were a leading American divine to become a Mohammedan, the circumstance would occasion more speculation as to the cause, and a more general sensation, than the conversion of a whole nation of pagans to nominal Christianity. Should he give the world reasons for his change, should he proffer an argument for the truth of Mohammedanism, he would have for readers thousands, who, otherwise, would hardly

deem the subject worthy a moment's attention. Curiosity would be strong to know by what process of argumentation so strange a result could have been brought about. Several years since, a distinguished American writer, a leading intellect, made a formal avowal of faith in the dogmas of the Roman Catholic church. That he should change his opinion gave no one surprise, for a frequent exhibition of his faculty in this particular had led the public to calculate upon such a movement as a matter of course. But it did occasion very general surprise that so acute a logician, so independent a thinker, should go over to a communion in which, as Protestants think, the deductions of logic find a substitute in the edicts of a self-asserted infallibility, and a ban is put upon all thinking, that, in its results, does not accord with dogmas authoritatively announced. The unnaturalness of the phenomenon made it the theme of general wonder. The result has been, that hundreds have been curious to read the productions in defence of Romanism, put forth by its distinguished convert, who otherwise, would not have deemed the subject entitled to a serious thought.

The doctrine of the trinity,-of three persons in the Godhead, specifically distinct yet numerically one,-whether true or false, is, to say the least, as severe a tax upon the faith of the believer as any of the dogmas of Romanism. The notion of transubstantiation-of the literal presence of the body of Christ in the bread and wine of the eucharist, -has, to our understanding, less of mystery, and of itself is less difficult of belief. It was thought strange that a thinking Protestant could become a Catholic, not because of a lack of Scripture proof in favor of Catholicism-for comparatively few have brought the subject to a Scripture test,. -but because of presumed difficulties, of absurdities inherent in Romanism. Protestants, as a body, feel at liberty to assume that such dogmas as transubstantiation and papal infallibility cannot be true; that no testimony can substantiate them; and that any interpretation of Scripture in their favor may, without farther thought, be dismissed as a necessarily false interpretation. If then, for such reasons, the conversion of a Protestant to Catholicism seemed strange, for precisely the same reasons, the conversion of an intelligent Unitarian to the doctrine of the trinity must VOL. XVII. 17

seem not less strange. Nothing in the matter of belief can seem inexplicable to persons who heartily assent to Mr. Mansel's convenient theory, that no seeming absurdity, no apparent contradiction in a dogma can neutralize the force of external testimony. If we should be called upon to repudiate all the axioms of mathematics and of morals, the monstrosity of the demand would of itself weigh nothing as against the external evidence. But with that immense

majority of Protestants who will never be able to appreciate the force of Mr. Mansel's reasoning, any change of conviction in opposition to the seeming protest of reason will be regarded as a strange phenomenon.

The simple fact is, the conversion of Dr. Huntington to a belief in the trinity, strikes nearly everybody at all interested in theological matters, as, under all the circumstances, somewhat unnatural; and people are interested in the phenomenon, and are disposed to inquire into its cause, on the general principle that unnatural_occurrences arrest the attention and provoke investigation. That so many eminent men are believers in the trinity is nothing strange. The fact is in most cases rationally accounted for. Born as it were with a faith in the doctrine, its name associated with their earliest recollections, all the education of life in its favor, reared to look upon it as mystery to be received without question,-with such antecedents, the belief is a matter of course. Certainly we shall not be called upon to prove, what the slightest acquaintance with the history of opinions will assure any one, that there is no dogma so monstrous but the strongest intellects will give it unwavering credence, provided they receive a strong bias in its favor early in youth. We shall be pardoned if we quote in this connection one of the wisest sayings of Locke.

"There is nothing more ordinary than children's receiving into their minds propositions (especially about matters of religion) from their parents, nurses, and those about them: which being insinuated into their unwary as well as unbiassed understandings, and fastened by degrees, are at last, (equally, whether true or false,) rivited there by long custom and education, beyond all possibility of being pulled out again. For men, when they are grown up, reflecting upon their opinions, and finding those of this sort to be as ancient in their minds as their very memories, not having observed their early insinuation, nor by what means