the great writers and doctors of the church, during the most prosperous and enlightened age of any preceding the reformation; and that, on this head, popery has no peculiar culpability.

5. That the notions and practices connected with the doctrine of the superlative merit of religious celibacy were at once the causes and the effects of errors in theology, of perverted moral sentiments, of superstitious usages, of hierarchical usurpations; and that they furnish us with a criterion for estimating the general value of ancient Christianity; and, in a word, afford reason enough for regarding, if not with jealousy, at least with extreme caution, any attempt to induce the modern church to imitate the ancient church." pp. 103-107.

It will be seen that the author proposes only the celibacy, and we may add the monkery, of the ancient church, as the direct object of his illustrations; but these two features extend so widely over the entire system to which they belong, that in tracing them out we obtain, from time to time, clear glances at the general character of the Christianity professed and taught at that period. We again commend the work, as one of the truest exhibitions of ecclesiastical antiquity that we have seen in our language.

4. An Historical Presentation of Augustinism and Pelagianism, from the Original Sources, by G. F. Wiggers, D.D. Professor of Theology in the University of Rostock, etc. Translated from the German, with notes and additions, by Ralph Emerson, Prof. of Eccl. Hist. in the Theol. Sem. Andover, Mass. Andover: &c. 1840. 8vo. pp. 383.

The question between Augustinism and Pelagianism, under some of their modifications at least, has been the great subject of internal conflict in the church, from the beginning of the fifth century down to the present time. The original state of man, his fall, original sin, total depravity, moral inability, free-will, foreordination, eternal election and reprobation, irresistible grace, the nature of regeneration, &c. are the points it involves, but has not settled, and probable never will completely settle. The dispute, in which this far-reaching question was first agitated in the church, forms what may be called a transition point in the developement of religion: the current system of doctrine has never since been precisely what it was before. A complete and faithful history of that controversy, in which nearly all the ground was traversed that has as yet been surveyed, must of course furnish the reader with the means of tracing the origin of many of the doctrines embraced, of defining their original grounds, and of estimating their value to a certain extent, by the arguments that were employed in their behalf before the ingenuity of ages had succeeded in sophisticating them.

Such a history we think is presented to us in the work under consideration. It appears to have been written in the thoroughgoing method of the German scholars, exhausting all the original sources of information, and combining the materials with a judgment unbiased in favor of either party. The completeness of

the preparatory research, and the scrupulous care of the execution, may be judged of from the following advertisement :

"For a complete survey of the progress of the controversy," says the author, "I first read cursorily, and in chronological order, the controversial writings of Augustine against the Pelagians. I then read them a second time, and very carefully took extracts. After this, I read his other_chief works, extracting from them what seemed needful for my purpose. I then turned to the few extant writings of Pelagius, studying and extracting as before; and then to all the remaining productions (partly in the smallest fragments,) both of the disciples and the opponents of Pelagius, as Cælestius, Julian, Jerome, Marius Mercator, and others; and also to the very important ordinances of the emperors, and the canons and decrees of councils, &c. that pertain to the subject. After this I went to the construction of my work, and in such a manner as, without looking at any later writers, to draw from the sources with which, by long intercourse, I had gained a familiar acquaintance. But before I had completed my labor in this respect, I compared all that has been written of importance on the subject in ancient and în later times, and profited much by the information thus gained." pp. 15, 16,

The period embraced in this work extends from about A. D. 411, when Pelagius and Cælestius went into Africa, to A. D. 431, when the Calestians were condemned in the third general council at Ephesus. A brief examination, however, is added, of the opinions of the fathers previous to Augustine, in regard to the contested doctrines. A second part has been published, in German, following down the controversy through the dispute between Semipelagianism and Augustinism, to the second synod at Orange, A. D. 529; but this part has not been translated.

The notes and numerous additions by the translator (all of which are sufficiently distinguished from Dr. Wiggers' language) are generally valuable, and evince a resolution to be strictly im partial. It appears to us, however, that at times there is a little leaning in favor of Augustine; and, in one or two instances, we have thought there was a somewhat striking oversight of some of the plainest facts in ecclesiastical history, as when we are referred to Origen's doctrine of original sin, (i. e. sin in the preexistent state,) in proof that the elements of Augustine's theory were already in the church. Nor do we think the translator has paid sufficient regard to well-known tendencies in the human mind, when he pleads that Augustine's later notion of the complete thraldom of the will cannot have been derived from his former Manichean sentiments, because, on leaving the Manicheans, he inclined, at first, to the doctrine of free-will, and even zealously maintained it. Now nothing would be more natural, or more consistent with experience, than that, on breaking away from an abhorred heresy, his opinions should at first turn violently in the opposite direction; but that the former habits of thought, which had been so long indulged, should subsequently resume their influence, and unconsciously affect his conclusions. On the whole,

however, we have found scarcely a fault worthy of mention, even in the translator's part of the book; and, taking the work as a whole, we cannot but regard it as an invaluable contribution to the dogmatical as well as historical literature of religion. If we do not mistake the power of its influence, it will aid on the work, which is now in progress, of thoroughly breaking up the old creeds of the so called orthodoxy, and of introducing more liberal sentiments among the popular sects.

ART. XXII.

The Power of Prayer.

A WIDOW knelt, at eventide, in the holy act of prayer,
Amid the young and sireless band entrusted to her care:
Meekly and trustfully she sued before the Power divine,
Yet closed each prayer with these deep words, "Lord, not my
will, but thine."

She prayed for all this sorrowing world, its sinners and its saints,
For every stricken heart, too weak to utter its complaints:
She prayed for blessings to descend on every human head,
The rich, the poor, the high, the low, the dying, and the dead.

She prayed her little ones drew near-for all the fatherless, And, with clasped hands, besought our Lord her tender flock to bless,

And with the needed strength to nerve her faint and erring heart To train them in the way from which they never might depart.

She prayed her voice grew tremulous - for one who long had been

A reckless wanderer from her arms, a reveller in sin,

Her first-born son, who scorned alike her prayers and her reproof, And from his home and God, for years, had coldly kept aloof.

She prayed; and the warm eloquence of stung but hoping love Bore on its swift and fervid wings these heart-wrung words above: "O Lord! my Lord! thou yet wilt have compassion on my tears, Nor turn to dust the lone desire of all my widowed years.

"He is my child, — he was the first fair blossom from thy hand,
Pure as the snow-drop when the spring first breathes upon the land:
He loved thee ere the blight of sin had fallen on his soul,
Or vile companions had enticed to drain the maddening bowl.

"I know, dear Saviour, thou hast borne with scoff, and taunt, and

jest,

And deeply have these insults pierced and rankled in my breast:
I know that justice calls aloud for vengeance on his head;
Yet save him, Lord! nor vainly let thy widowed suppliant plead.

"O! by the holy water poured upon his infant brow,
When, with rapt soul, I breathed to heaven the dedicating vow,
And by the prayers and by the praise of his unsullied youth,
I pray thee call him back again by thine all-saving truth.

"By all my heavy, darkened days, by all my sleepless nights, When striving with this cankering woe, that every pleasure blights,

By the last boon his father craved 'mid dissolution's pangs,
I pray thee snatch my dying child from out the tempter's fangs.

"Call home the prodigal, a feast of love awaits him still;
Yet pardon this weak heart, if aught it asks against thy will.
Oh! frenzied is a mother's love, such frenzied love is mine;
Yet shall it yield its strength to thee: 'Lord, not my will, but
thine.'"

A cry is heard; a loathsome form in tattered garb draws near;
A sobbing voice breathes "Mother" in the widow's startled ear!
O, doth the mighty God at last her sad petition heed?
He doth, he doth, and answers it, in this her hour of need.

The wanderer weeps upon her neck, hot, penitential tears;
He had come back, with callous heart, to bid farewell for years,
When that wild prayer his bosom pierced, like lightning from the
heaven;

And now, as when a little child, he prays to be forgiven.

O, ye
who mourn o'er blighted hopes, o'er loved ones gone astray,
Do ye, like him who craves for bread, importunately pray?
Though many blessed gifts are ours without our anxious thought,
There are some boons that with our prayers and tears alone are

bought.

J. H. S.

ART. XXIII.

The Fear of Death.

THE question often occurs, Whence is it that the fear of death now exercises so strong and paralyzing an influence on the mind? Christianity is in the world, reason has become enlightened, science has opened her stores, and silently speaks of a power at the helm whose wisdom and goodness are commensurate with omnipotence; a voice from heaven has proclaimed that the "dead shall rise," and that "in the resurrection they shall be as the angels of God in heaven." And yet, after all this, we fear, and cherish doubts and misgivings that shut out the blessedness of all these divine revelations. We listen not to the murmurs of the streams of Paradise; we dwell not on all that shall be given us in the fulfilment of that glorious promise of becoming like the angels in heaven; there floats no music from those unseen realms to gladden our sojourn here, and our exit hence; but unreal and unfounded terrors triumph over faith, and bow our reason to the dust. Light is in the world, and we walk in darkness. A mystery, lying in our onward path, has power to make us cowards as we approach its secrets. A dread something, that comes not within the scope of reason, or the senses, makes us quail and shrink. The skeleton at the ancient Egyptian feasts is a not unapt emblem of the spectre that haunts the human heart, sitting there in its silent gloom whenever the cup of joy is raised, and still more sternly frowning when the bitterness of life is mingled in the draught. Yet the old Egyptian was a merrier being than many of our day who profess a bright and consolatory faith; for he ate and drank, and his ghastly companion served only to fix his heart more resolutely on the pursuit of pleasure, and on the attempt to crowd into the fleeting moments all possible enjoyment. With most of the ancients, the view of death only incited them to make the most of existence, and to banquet and revel while the warm blood was yet in their veins, before the