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far less than that which Watts brought and employed in his task." This is purely a matter of opinion: the facts above presented seem to justify the opposite conclusion. Nor does it appear why Wesley "must yield the palm for originality, catholicity, and versatility of genius." "There is far less appearance of effort in his (Watts') hymns than in Wesley's; they are less strained and artificial, and bear in a higher degree the stamp of being the spontaneous effusion of devotional feeling." It happens that Wesley was the most fluent and natural of versifiers; song was the natural language of his heart; much of his poetry came out of him, as it were, without his help. It will be news to Methodists that their hymns are "artificial;" and Mr. Milner, if he had not been pressed to make, by any means, the best of a bad case, must have seen that there are no hymns in the world of such " spontaneous devotion;" none so loftily spiritual; none so unmistakably genuine and intensely earnest, as the best-known and most largely used of Wesley's. It is the highest praise of the few noblest hymns of Watts and Cowper, that they reach an elevation on which the Methodist poet generally sat, and express a mental state which was habitual with him. But a graver charge has been brought against our author, and is commonly credited. Many of his pieces," says the same critic, "wear the exclusive aspect of the sectarian: he casts his mite into the treasury of a party; he writes as the 'poet of Methodism,' not as the servant of the universal church." It ought to be known, that when John and Charles Wesley commenced writing hymns, and preaching in houses, streets, and fields, they had no other object than to revive true religion, save perishing souls, and glorify God. It was years before Methodism grew into an outwardly definitive system, or threatened to form an independent ecclesiastical body; and with this last prospect Charles, as a strict and zealous Churchman, had no sympathy. It is true, the brothers had mental peculiarities, and held views of their own. As before stated, their character was strongly individualized, and they impressed that individuality deeply and permanently upon their disciples: the Methodist church of this day is the product and resultant of two mighty and intensely earnest minds. But that which is personal is not necessarily sectarian; and the peculiarities of Wesleyan doctrine and life are not so far distant from positive Scripture and catholic Christianity as we are apt to imagine. The brothers were not bigots, but men of a liberal, loving spirit. They held their own views, indeed, strongly, as it was in their nature to do; but when other Christians have, by any accident, come to understand those views better and approach them more nearly, it does not appear that any serious injury has resulted. This is certain, that if we-compilers of hymn-books, students of sacred literature, ministers, and Christians in general-would lay aside our prejudices, and give the Wesleyan productions a fair trial, we should find more to sympathize with than to object against them, and the poetry and piety of our hymn-books would greatly gain thereby.

[The second of Mr. Bird's articles is chiefly occupied with a brief review of the various poetical tracts and volumes of the Wesleys. His criticisms are always candid and friendly in their spirit, though some of them belong to the minute, and are not always correct. We should also hesitate to endorse some of his representations of Wesleyan doctrine. But as we are not reviewing these very friendly articles, we must content ourselves with this single observation, and proceed with our extracts.]

The Funeral Hymns of Charles Wesley are, perhaps, the noblest specimens of his genius......There is a joyous, triumphant tone about the Wesleyan elegies, very different from the doleful sound of an ordinary death-knell. Other poets offer solemn or languid consolation in the hackneyed strains of long or common metre ; but the Methodist bursts forth : "Rejoice for a brother deceased!

Our loss is his infinite gain!"

Our propriety is apt to be shocked by such abrupt and untimely raptures ; but our propriety is in fault. We may talk unimpassionedly about the shortness of life, the solemnities of eternity, and the sorrows of the bereaved, when the circumstances forbid our getting higher; but at the funeral of a genuine and positive Christian, nothing else can be sung so appropriate as several of the Wesleyan hymns. What can be more edifying, consolatory, or instructive, at such a time, than that noble poem,—

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This jubilant tone was in perfect harmony with the spirit of the early Methodists, who used to make the streets or valleys ring with such songs of triumph, as they carried their dead to the grave. Religion was a living reality to them; they shared in their Master's victory over the last foe. Said a physician to Charles Wesley: "Most people die for fear of dying; but I never met with such people as yours. They are none of them afraid of death; but calm and patient and resigned to the last." "Madam, be not cast down,” was said to a dying woman. She answered, smiling : "Sir, I shall never be cast down.”

Such examples in the poet's daily experience supplied him with ever fresh and varying themes. Often tried by the loss of near and dear friends, his sensitive heart learned the lesson of perfect resignation and unquestioning faith:

"If death my friend and me divide,

Thou dost not, Lord, my sorrow chide,
Or frown my tears to see:
Restrained from passionate excess,
Thou bidst me-mourn in calm distress
For them that rest in Thee."

When his children, one after another, were taken from him, he could say with David :

"Wherefore should I make my moan,

Now the darling child is dead?

He to early rest is gone,

He to paradise is fled:

I shall go to him, but he
Never shall return to me."

Some respectable hymn-books still offer to mourners such cold comfort as this:

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But Charles Wesley sees hope and heaven very much nearer, and cries :— "Disconsolate tenant of clay,

In solemn assurance arise,

Thy treasure of sorrow survey,

And look through it all to the skies."

*

The immense power of the Wesleyan poetry upon those who use it has been noticed. "One of the greatest blessings," said Fletcher, "that God has bestowed upon the Methodists, next to the Bible, is their Collection of Hymns." We cannot but believe that this blessing was intended for wider use than the limits of a single denomination; and that the piety and taste of the rest of us will be improved, when we shall raise enough of both to make much larger inroads into the Wesleyan poetry, and enrich our reservoirs by more copious streams from that neglected but generous fountain.

It is an easy task to compare our poet with the other more eminent hymnists. Doddridge and Steele are diluted reproductions of Dr. Watts. Montgomery, a professed and life-long poet, is inferior to Wesley in all the qualities mentioned above, and in no respect above him in propriety, harmony, and grace of style: Heber, the most elegant and mellifluous of sacred poets, is not more polished and fluent than his Methodist predeces sor; nor has he anything of his solidity, strength, and fire. Cowper is the greatest name in the hymn-books; but Cowper's best poems, which are very few, are but equal, not superior, to Wesley's best, which are very many. Toplady approaches most nearly to the Methodist poet; but Toplady borrowed his inspiration from Wesley, and reproduced his style; and it is the Calvinist's highest praise that his finest pieces are undistinguishable from those of his Arminian neighbour. No other names in British sacred lyric poetry can be mentioned with that of Charles Wesley; and when it is remembered that all these counted their poems by dozens or hundreds, while he by thousands; and that his thousands were, in power, in elegance, in devotional and literary value, above their few, we call him, yet more confidently, great among poets, and prince of English hymnists.

639

THEOLOGY IN HOLLAND.

BY A ROTTERDAM CLERGYMAN.*

Ir you do not often receive reports about theology in Holland, it is not, indeed, because subjects worth mentioning are wanting. The contrary is true. I think there is, in these days, perhaps no part of Europe where, in proportion to the extent of the country, the church of Christ offers a field of so much struggle and contest, where the great questions of the day are debated with more earnestness,-in a word, where intellectual and religious life, in all the variety of its forms and symptoms, reveals more interesting facts to the eye of the observer who is not wholly a stranger to what is taking place. There is in this unlimited variety of discussions and dissensions nothing to be wondered at. Holland, indeed, is designed to be, more than any other land, the chosen battle-field of the most contrary religious opinions.

Mark, in the first place, the geographical situation of the country, its position and size, and the truly cosmopolitan character of our mercantile people. By our wants and customs we are in continual contact with all neighbours around us. Our frontiers are too limited to give our people anything of the proud self-sufficiency of the English, of the petulant arrogance of the French, of the distrusting partiality of the German. Ours are other faults and other qualities. The consumptive demand, if I may say so, for intellectual food, is far greater than the native production can supply, even in departments in which we can boast of eminent writers. German, French, and English books are amongst us quite at home. Every well-educated man is more or less acquainted with these languages; and, moreover, there is no foreign book, that has any merit or success, which is not instantly translated. So there is always an importation of ideas from abroad, meeting no barriers or obstacles whatever. Each wind of learning may freely blow from every side through the open air of these Low Countries.

Besides, Holland has ever been the fatherland of religious liberty, in the most unlimited sense of the word. Freethinkers and unbelievers of every kind sought and found an asylum here in days when they were not tolerated elsewhere, and the government was ever zealous of vindicating the most ample toleration, and averse to every restriction of its principle. Add to all this, that the character of the people, and of its religious life, always had rather more a democratic than an aristocratic stamp; that there is amongst us nothing of what might be called, more or less, a high-church spirit; that there is no privileged church of the state; that our universities and their theological chairs stand in no connexion at all with the church, their occupants being named by government as mere scientific

* In reference to the style of the following paper, the Editor of "Christian Work," from which valuable periodical we have selected it, remarks,-"The writer of this article writes in English; and we have, while making necessary alterations, not attempted to obliterate certain foreign modes of expression."

teachers, responsible to nobody for what they like to teach: think, lastly, that the great majority of the people take a lively interest in theological questions; and after this you will readily conceive why Holland must be the scene of combat, where the various parties meet one another with their whole strength, and unroll their banners with the greatest openness, (there being no reason for crypto-heresies,) whilst the various opinions reveal themselves in their most extreme consequences. I am not here to judge this state of things, though I can hardly retain the utterance of the conviction, and I cannot fear any objection from English readers, that this unlimited liberty, even with all its unavoidable disadvantages, affords still more good; and that where truth and error have equal rights, the holy and eternal truth, by its own force and its power on the conscience, will, without any outward assistance, prove victorious at last. But, as I said, I now only wish to state the actual condition without giving an opinion, and in this view it certainly cannot be denied that such a condition offers a highly interesting spectacle to the Christian mind. If you like to hear every opinion pronounced without the least reticency; if you want to see your Reviewers and Essayists far outstripped, or from the other side desire to see orthodox convictions philosophically and theologically maintained; if you are anxious to know what these same discussions produce, moulded in a more popular form, and transferred to practical every-day life, then turn your eyes to Holland, and you will be amply satisfied.

To begin with the universities, which, though not connected with the church, have, as forming the future clergymen, a great influence on the religious life of the people. They are three in number,-in Leyden, Utrecht, and Groningen.

That of Leyden has been for the last fifteen years the stronghold of the most advanced liberal opinions. The leading men of the theological faculty are Drs. Scholten and Kuenen. Both may be known to the learned in England; the former by his Dogmaticæ Christianæ Initia, the latter by his Critices et Librorum Novi Foederis Lineamenta. Without any doubt both have paved the way for the modern theology of these days; Scholten by his dogmatical writings, of which "The Doctrine of the Reformed Church" is the most important; Kuenen by his critical and exegetical works. It is in a work of Dr. Kuenen-" The Books of the Old Testament "—that Bishop Colenso found the weapons to contest the authenticity of the Pentateuch. Both Scholten and Kuenen are men of great gifts and authority amongst the students, though it can hardly be denied that the former observes, with a painful sensation, how he is left far behind by his former pupils, pressed forward by the fatal consistency of the principles in which he once instructed them. A fixed, philosophical determinism, destructive of sound morality and of the idea of individual responsibility, seems the strong feature of his theology.

In Utrecht, orthodox theology is represented by three professors of great learning and renown,-Doedes, Ter Haar, and Van Oosterzee; the latter much appreciated abroad for his erudition and eloquence. Their orthodoxy,

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