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tains not far from fifty plates, in the highest style of artistical beauty, and more than twice as many wood-cuts of coins, buildings, and single features of natural scenery. The typography is perfect, and the publishers have spared no expense to carry out the design to the utmost extent that can be desired for use or ornament. While it is a luxury to read volumes of such faultless taste and elegance, they furnish ample material for the profounder work of exegesis; and they are all the more valuable, because the authors have kept clear of debatable ground, and have produced, not a work which can be deemed the property of a sect or party, but one which neither derives nor loses value from their position as members of the Church of England, and professors of a peculiar modification of Christian doctrine.

As regards style, we might, were we in a fault-finding mood, speak of the lack of simplicity and directness. Undoubtedly the story is told in more words than is absolutely necessary. Imaginary or barely possible incidents are sometimes dwelt upon with needless prolixity, and the preaching vein is occasionally worked to waste. But these are minor blemishes, compared with the conscientious fidelity, the openhearted candor, and the earnest piety, the traces of which are manifest on every page. The authors are thoroughly enamored with their work, and evidently had in view, not a mere book-making enterprise, but the honor of divine revelation, the extended influence of the precepts of their religion among the followers of Christ, and the awakening of a more earnest spirit of investigation, as regards the history and records of the Christian faith. We close our grateful notice of their labors by such extracts as our limits will allow, from their admirable Introduction.

"After we have endeavored, with every help we can command, to reproduce the picture of St. Paul's deeds and times-how small would our knowledge of himself remain, if we had no other record of him left us but the story of his adventures. If his letters had never come down to us, we should have known indeed what he did and suffered, but we should have had very little idea of what he was. Even if we could perfectly succeed in restoring the image of the scenes and circumstances in which he moved, even if we could, as in a magic

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mirror, behold him speaking in the school of Tyrannus, with his Ephesian hearers in their national costume around him, we should still see very little of Paul of Tarsus. We must listen to his words if we would learn to know him. If fancy did her utmost, she could give us only his outward, not his inward life. His bodily presence' (so his enemies declared) was weak and contemptible;' but 'his letters' (even they allowed) were weighty and powerful.' Moreover, an effort of imagination and memory is needed to recall the past, but in his Epistles St. Paul is present with us. 'His words are not dead words, they are living creatures with hands and feet,' touching in a thousand hearts at this very hour the same chord of feeling which vibrated to their first utterance. We, the Christians of the nineteenth century, can bear witness now, as fully as could a Byzantine audience fourteen hundred years ago, to the saying of Chrysostom, that 'Paul by his letters still lives in the mouths of men throughout the whole world; by them not only his own converts, but all the faithful even unto this day, yea, and all the saints who are yet to be born, until Christ's coming again, both have been and shall be blessed.' His Epistles are to his inward life, what the mountains and rivers of Asia and Greece and Italy are to his outward life, the imperishable part which still remains to us, when all that time can ruin has passed away. "It is in these letters then that we must study the true life of St. Paul, from its inmost depths and springs of action, which were 'hidden with Christ in God,' down to its most minute developments, and peculiar individual manifestations. In them we learn (to use the language of Gregory Nazianzene)' what is told of Paul by Paul himself.' Their most sacred contents indeed rise above all that is peculiar to the individual writer; for they are the communications of God to man concerning the faith and life of Christians; which St. Paul declared (as he often asserts) by the immediate revelation of Christ himself. But his manner of teaching these eternal truths is colored by his human character, and peculiar to himself. And such individual features are naturally impressed much more upon epistles than upon any other kind of composition. For here we have not treatises, or sermons, which may dwell in the general and abstract, but real letters, written to meet the actual wants of living men; giving immediate answers to real questions, and warnings against pressing dangers; full of the interests of the passing hour. And this, which must be more or less the case with all epistles addressed to particular Churches, is especially so with those of St. Paul. In his case it is not too much to say that his letters are himselfa portrait painted by his own hand, of which every feature may be 'known and read of all men.'

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It is not merely that in them we see the proof of his powerful intellect, his insight into the foundations of natural theology, and of moral philosophy; for in such points, though the philosophical expression might belong to himself, the truths expressed were taught him of God. It is not only that we there find models of the sublimest eloquence, when he is kindled by the vision of the glories to come, the perfect triumph of good over evil, the manifestation of the sons of God, and their transformation into God's likeness, when they shall see Him no longer 'in a glass darkly, but face to face,' -for in such strains as these it was not so much he that spake, as the Spirit of God speaking in him; but in his letters, besides all this which is divine, we trace every shade, even to the faintest, of his human character also. Here we see that fearless independence with which he 'withstood Peter to the face, because he was to be blamed;'. - that impetuosity which breaks out in his apostrophe to the 'foolish Galatians ;' that earnest indignation which bids his converts 'beware of dogs, beware of the concision,' and pours itself forth in the emphatic God forbid,' which meets every Antinomian suggestion; that fervid patriotism which makes him wish that he were himself accursed from Christ for his brethren, his kinsmen acording to the flesh, who are Israelites ;' that generosity which looked for no other reward than to preach the glad tidings of Christ without charge,' and made him feel that he would rather die, than that any man should make this glorying void;' that dread of officious interference which led him to shrink from 'building on another man's foundation;'-that delicacy which shows itself in his appeal to Philemon, whom he might have commanded, 'yet for love's sake rather beseeching him, being such an one as Paul the aged, and now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ,' and which is even more striking in some of his farewell greetings, as (for instance) when he bids the Romans 'salute Rufus, and her who is both his mother and mine; that scrupulous fear of evil appearance which would not eat any man's bread for nought, but wrought with labor and travail night and day, that he might not be chargeable to any of them ;'that refined courtesy which cannot bring itself to blame till it has first praised, and which makes him deem it needful almost to apologise for the freedom of giving advice to those who were not personally known to him; that self-denying love which will eat no flesh while the world standeth, lest he make his brother to offend ;' - that impatience of exclusive formalism with which he overwhelms the Judaizers of Galatia, joined with a forbearance so gentle for the innocent weakness of scrupulous consciences ;- that grief for the sins of others, which moved him to tears when he spoke of the enemies of the cross of

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Christ, of whom I tell you even weeping;

- that noble freedom

from jealousy with which he speaks of those who, out of rivalry to himself, preach Christ even of envy and strife, supposing to add affliction to his bonds, What then? notwithstanding every way, whether in pretence or in truth, Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea and will rejoice;' — that tender friendship which watches over the health of Timothy, even with a mother's care; - that intense sympa

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thy in the joys and sorrows of his converts, which could say, even to the rebellious Corinthians, 'ye are in our hearts, to die and live with you;'-that longing desire for the intercourse of affection, and that sense of loneliness when it was withheld, which perhaps is the most touching feature of all, because it approaches most nearly to a weakness. When I came to Troas to preach Christ's gospel, and a door was opened to me of the Lord, I had no rest in my spirit, because I found not Titus my brother; but taking my leave of them, I went from thence into Macedonia.' And 'when I was come into Macedonia, my flesh had no rest, but I was troubled on every side; without were fightings, within were fears. Nevertheless God, who comforteth those that are cast down, comforted me by the coming of Titus.' 'Do thy diligence to come shortly unto me; for Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world, and is departed unto Thessalonica; Crescens to Galatia, Titus unto Dalmatia; only Luke is with me.”

Nor is it only in the substance, but even in the style of these writings that we recognize the man Paul of Tarsus. In the parenthetical constructions and broken sentences, we see the rapidity with which the thoughts crowded upon him, almost too fast for utterance; we see him animated rather than weighed down by 'that which cometh upon him daily, the care of all the churches,' as he pours forth his warnings or his arguments in a stream of eager and impetuous dictation, with which the pen of the faithful Tertius can hardly keep pace. And above all, we trace his presence in the postscript to every letter, which he adds as an authentication in his own characteristic handwriting, 'which is the token in every epistle; so I write.' Sometimes as he takes up the pen he is moved with indignation when he thinks of the false brethren among those whom he addresses; 'the salutation of me Paul with my own hand, if any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema.' Sometimes, as he raises his hand to write, he feels it cramped by the fetters which bind him to the soldier who guards him, 'I Paul salute you with my own hand, - remember my chains. Yet he always ends with the same blessing, 'The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you,' to which he sometimes adds still further a few last words of affectionate remembrance, My love be with you all in Christ Jesus.'"

"In conclusion, the authors would express their hope that this biography may, in its measure, be useful in strengthening the hearts of some against the peculiar form of unbelief most current at the present day. The more faithfully we can represent to ourselves the life, outward and inward, of St. Paul, in all its fulness, the more unreasonable must appear the theory that Christianity had a mythical origin; and the stronger must be our ground for believing his testimony to the divine nature and miraculous history of our Redeemer. No reasonable man can learn to know and love the Apostle of the Gentiles without asking himself the question, 'What was the principle by which through such a life he was animated? What was the strength in which he labored with such immense results?' Nor can the most sceptical inquirer doubt for one moment the full sincerity of St. Paul's belief that 'the life which he lived in the flesh he lived by the faith of the Son of God, who died and gave himself for him.' 'To believe. in Christ crucified and risen, to serve Him on earth, to be with Him hereafter; these, if we may trust the account of his own motives by any human writer whatever, were the chief, if not the only thoughts which sustained Paul of Tarsus through all the troubles and sorrows of his twenty years' conflict. His sagacity, his cheerfulness, his forethought, his impartial and clear-judging reason, all the natural elements of his strong character are not indeed to be overlooked: but the more highly we exalt these in our estimate of his work, the larger share we attribute to them in the performance of his mission, the more are we compelled to believe that he spoke the words of truth and soberness when he told the Corinthians that 'last of all Christ was seen of him also,' that by the grace of God he was what he was,' that whilst he labored more abundantly than all, it was not he, but the grace of God that was in him.'"

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ART. IX.-1. The History of Henry Esmond, Esq., Colonel in the Service of her Majesty, Queen Anne; written by himself. By W. M. THACKERAY, Author of Pendennis, &c. New York: Harpers.

2. The History of Pendennis, his Fortunes and Misfortunes, his Friends and his Greatest Enemy. By W. M. THACKERAY. New York: Harpers.

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