Divested of the figures here used to give it sacredness, and an appearance of being recognised by Holy Scripture," Meditation"-in this sense of the word-is really nothing but falsehood and irreverence. The true Christian will wait for the Divine command before he begins to fill his vessels with oil, or pour out costly liquor from the water-pots; and if he should be tempted to command " the stones of the desert to germinate and yield him bread," he will remember the example of Him who was once assailed by the same temptation, and resisted it. In truth, the illustrations are as unhappy as the doctrine is false.

This is the way of the divinely illuminated mind, whether in matters of sacred doctrine or of sacred history. Here we are concerned with the latter. I say then, when a true and loyal lover of the brethren attempts to contemplate persons and events of time past, and to bring them before him as actually existing and occurring, it is plain, he is at loss about the details; he has no information about those innumerable accidental points, which might have been or happened this way or that way, but in the very person and the very event did happen one way,— which were altogether uncertain beforehand, but which have been rigidly determined ever since. The scene, the parties, the speeches, the grouping, the succession of particulars, the beginning, the ending, matters such as these he is obliged to imagine in one way, if he is to imagine them at all.-p. 2.

But how can he be obliged "to imagine them at all?" Why is he not content to be ignorant, where the providence of God has left him in the dark?-What

66

a true and loyal lover of the brethren" may or may not do, it is hard to determine beforehand,for many such have done things, which it would have been happier for themselves and others if they had left undone:-but, most assuredly, no man who has any love or reverence for truth, can feel any pleasure in turning imagination into history; and those who hate and abhor falsehood, and know how difficult it is, to keep in quick and healthy exercise the love of truth, in the midst of a world of falsehood and delusion, will be far more likely to hold tight the bridle on their imaginations, than to give a loose rein to fancy, and call it meditation.

The case is the same in the art of painting; the artist gives stature, gesture, feature, expression, to his figures; what sort of an abstraction or a nonentity would he produce without this allowance? it would be like telling him to paint a dream, or relations and qualities, or panic terrors, or scents and sounds, if you confine him'to truth in the mere letter; or he must evade the difficulty, with the village artist in the story, who having to represent the overthrow of the Egyptians in the sea, on their pursuing the Israelites, daubed a board with red paint, with a nota bene that the Israelites had got safe to land, and the Egyptians were all drowned. Of necessity then does the painter allow his imagination to assist his facts; of necessity and with full right; and he will make use of this indulgence well or ill, according to his talents, his knowledge, his skill, his ethical peculiarities, his general cultivation of mind. pp. 2, 3.

Of course, if people will paint what they have never seen or could see, they must draw on their

imaginations; but I hope they will forgive my saying, that, if they would only employ their imaginations on some other than sacred subjects, Christianity would lose nothing by their forbearance. But, how does this illustration assist the argument? If the painter professes to give the world the offspring of his fancy and nothing more, his veracity is not called in question, whatever sentence may be pronounced on his judgment, taste, or skill. But if he should call it a portrait, and publish it as a likeness of a place or person he had never seen, people would not scruple to call him a dishonest man.

In like manner, if we would meditate on any passages of the gospel history, we must insert details indefinitely many, in order to meditate at all; we must fancy motives, feelings, meanings, words, acts, as our connecting links between fact and fact as recorded. Hence holy men have before now put dialogues into the mouths of sacred persons, not wishing to intrude into things unknown, not thinking to deceive others into a belief of their own mental creations, but to impress upon themselves and upon their brethren, as by a seal or mark, the substantiveness and reality of what Scripture has adumbrated by one or two bold and severe lines. Ideas are one and simple; but they gain an entrance into our minds, and live within us, by being broken into detail.-Ibid.

Stript of its sophistry, this extraordinary passage can scarcely fail to shock and disgust the mind of every serious person. We must insert details indefinitely many in order to meditate at all. must insert details! What! into "the gospel history?" Surely one would have supposed, that if

"We

this be what is meant by meditation, any man who had the fear of God before his eyes would feel that meditation is sinful. But where is this to end? Or rather, I repeat, when did it begin? Is it only within the last ten years, that meditation of this fashion became lawful? Is it only the party who follow Mr. Newman as their leader, that have a right to "insert details indefinitely many" into the gospel history, and "fancy motives, feelings, meanings, words, acts," and anything else they please, as connecting links" between the facts of the sacred narrative? Are they the only "holy men" who are at liberty to "put dialogues into the mouths of sacred persons?" It would seem not. They do not pretend to have a patent right to such profaneness. If not, then the fearful question again occurswhen did this right begin to be exercised?-when did holy men begin to "insert details," and "fancy motives, feelings, meanings, words, acts," and "put dialogues into the mouths of sacred persons?" Had. the Evangelists no right to do such things? and if they had,-how far did they exercise it? How far is the gospel a fact or a mythic legend?

How far

are its words and syllables truth, on which we can rest the well-being of our immortal spirits?-or the "mental creations" of what,-however it be dignified with the name of Meditation,-is, in truth, no better than the irreverence of a licentious imagination? This system strikes at the root of Christianity

itself, and the more it shall be developed, the more clearly will this appear.

Hence it is, that so much has been said and believed of a number of Saints with so little historical foundation. It is not that we may lawfully despise or refuse a great gift and benefit, historical testimony, and the intellectual exercises which attend on it, study, research, and criticism; for in the hands of serious and believing men they are of the highest value. We do not refuse them, but in the cases in question, we have them not. The bulk of Christians have them not; the multitude has them not; the multitude forms its view of the past, not from antiquities, not critically, not in the letter; but it developes its small portion of true knowledge into something which is like the very truth though it be not it, and which stands for the truth when it is but like it. Its evidence is a legend; its facts are a symbol; its history a representation; its drift is a moral. -pp. 3, 4.

"Something which is like the very truth, though it be not it." What notions of truth these writers must have! The only parallel is Mr. Newman's idea, that, "in certain cases a lie is the nearest approach to truth."

The author proceeds:

Thus, then, is it with the biographies and reminiscences of the Saints. "Some there are which have no memorial, and are as though they had never been ;" others are known to have lived and died, and are known in little else. They have left a name, but they have left nothing besides. Or the place of their birth, or of their abode, or of their death, or some one or other striking incident of their life, gives a character to their memory. Or they are known by martyrologies, or services, or by the traditions of a neighbour

VOL. I.

Ꭱ