and bid them remember, that they are now called on to defend Constitutional Freedom, and also that they are on the side of truth, justice, humanity, and a righteous God, whose providence suffers nothing to escape it, will not permit their labors to go unrewarded.* EDITOR. ART. VIII. LITERARY NOTICES. Hereditary Property Justified. Reply to Brownson's Article on the Laboring Classes. Cambridge: Metcalf, Torry, & Ballou. 1841. 8vo. Pp. 51. We notice this pamphlet because it is the only respectful reply we have seen attempted to the doctrines, we threw out sometime since on hereditary property, and because it is, we are informed, the production of an estimable young man, whose exertions to cultivate his mind and acquire a truly liberal education are worthy of all praise. We thank him for his pamphlet, which is serious and candid, displaying a cultivated mind and respectable talents. As a reply to us, we have found nothing in it that seems to demand a rejoinder. The author has hardly done himself justice. He can do better, and will, if he will take the trouble to look deeper into the subject, and seize upon certain ultimate principles to which his detached observations and reasonings may be reduced. A man to write well must not write from the surface inwards, but from the centre outwards. We have read the pamphlet very attentively, but we have not been able to ascertain on what ground the author objects to us; so we cannot say whether we are refuted or not. We must therefore be excused from attempting any reply. We seize this occasion to say a word or two in explanation of the position we choose to occupy in regard to this doctrine of hereditary property. The community has been apparently not a little alarmed by our speculations. Their alarm, were we not of a serious make, would afford us much amusement, and perhaps has afforded us some; but now that the clamor raised against us has died into an echo, we hasten to say that it was wholly uncalled for. We never * We have in this and the foregoing article spoken in strong terms of the policy the President has seemed to us to recommend. It may be that we have charged upon him the policy of his party, and assumed that he will support measures which he may finally oppose. If so, we shall be glad, and shall be ready to do ample justice to him; for we have always heretofore had a high respect for his character and views. brought forward the abolition of hereditary property for the adoption of the community, but for its discussion. In considering the various means which were necessary for the real elevation of the laboring classes, we suggested, that it would ultimately be found necessary to proceed to the length of abolishing hereditary property, as had already been done in regard to hereditary monarchy, and hereditary nobility. We have as yet seen no very cogent reason assigned to show that we were wrong. We still believe that the equality, which many of our democrats are contending for, can be effected by no measure less searching and radical. But we knew well that these democrats would in general shrink from it; and one reason we had for suggesting the measure was to show, that the real elevation of the laboring classes was a work they were by no means prepared for. We were willing to expose their cant and hypocrisy, by showing them that they had by no means the nerve to look any measure in the face, sufficiently strong to effect the object they professed to have at heart. But we knew the measure could not be adopted at present, if ever; and therefore we never proposed to ourselves to embark in the Quixotic enterprise of attempting to secure its adoption. We stated at the time, that we did not propose it for adoption, that the time had not come for its adoption, and that we would be the last to bring it before the legislature. We therefore threw it out, as we said, merely for discussion, confident that its discussion could do no harm, and also that discussion would raise it up, in the long run, friends and champions. In this way we thought possibly it might after a series of ages come to be adopted. We have accomplished the purpose we had in view in bringing it forward; we have placed it before the public; made it a subject of thought; and, having said all we choose to say on it, we leave it now to make or mar its fortune. If founded in truth and justice, in some shape it will ultimately be adopted; if in error and iniquity, as the wise public say, it will of course sink to the bottomless pit, where in that case it would belong. One word as to the elevation of the laboring classes. The manner in which our articles on the laboring classes have been received, while it gives us ground of hope for the future, and proves that the number, who really desire the elevation of the workingman, is greater than we had supposed, teaches us what we knew before, that the regard expressed for him is in general mere cant. It is fashionable to talk of his elevation, and to profess great regard for him, but the country is by no means ripe for the adoption of any measures that will give him an equal rank in society. The day of his redemption is not yet. It will dawn we hope. En attendant, all we can do for him seems to be, to labor earnestly for the establishment of a just and economical government, and especially of a sound system of finance, by means of which labor shall secure a larger portion of its proceeds. We see nothing else that can be done at present, except the free and full discussion of all principles and measures having or likely to have a bearing on the mutual relation of capital and labor. The measures which might be effectual are now so repugnant to prevailing convictions, that all hope of securing their adoption should be abandoned. Names and Titles of the Lord Jesus Christ. By CHARLES SPEAR. Fourth Edition. Boston: B. B. Mussey and Abel Tompkins. 1841. 12mo. pp. 400.- This book would seem to be, as the trade would say, a successful one; for although it has been published but a few months, it has already reached a fourth edition. We have read it, not very attentively, but sufficiently to perceive that it is the production of a serious, earnest mind, disposed to religious reflection, and possessed of much genuine religious feeling. The book is rather a devotional book than otherwise, and is quite creditable to the industry, the acquirements, the intellect, and the heart of the writer. It is a book from which we doubt not many may derive much spiritual nutriment. The theology of the book, however, is not in accordance with ours. Mr. Spear does not take that view of the Saviour, which after many, many years of doubt and inquiry, we have been led to take. He is not a Trinitarian nor yet a Humanitarian, but seems to favor what is sometimes called the Superangelic scheme. He appears to have shrunk from relying on Jesus as a man, and to have been unable to perceive the strict identity of the Son with the Father, and so gets for a Saviour a being neither God nor man. The doctrine of the two natures, it seems to us, would have saved him from this, to us, least excusable of all hypotheses with regard to the Saviour. The conclusion to which our inquiries have led us is, that the Saviour was very God and very man, and in him we see the union of perfect God and perfect man. The Christ is one with God, was God, and the Christ, the true God, was incarnated in the man Jesus, a true man, and type of the perfect man. Mr. Spear's error comes therefore from not being able to admit the mystery of the two natures. The low view which he takes of Christ, and his want of true spiritual insight, may be collected from the following. "The word Christ is frequently used by Paul as a trope, denoting sometimes the Christian spirit and temper, as when he says, 'My little children, of whom I travail in birth again, until Christ be formed in you.'" We have not been in the habit of regarding the word Christ here as a trope, but as used literally. We had supposed that Christ must be formed literally, not figuratively in us, before we could be Christians, and we are in the habit also of regarding the Christian spirit and temper as manifestation of the true, real indwelling Christ. The want of this spiritual insight gives after all a cold and material aspect to the book, forbidding and unsatisfactory to the man of deep inward religious experiences. We find much in it to commend, many eloquent remarks and much power; but we do not find our Saviour in it, the Son of God, one with the Father, through whom alone we can be cleansed from all sin, and presented blameless at the last day. ART. I.1. The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Edited by MRS. SHELLEY. London: Edward Moxon. 1840. 2. Essays, Letters from abroad, Translations and Fragments, by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Edited by MRS. SHELLEY. Philadelphia: Lea & Blanchard. 1840. IT is much the fashion of this grandiloquent nineteenth century to boast itself as the age of free principles and enlightened liberality, when the human mind. is left to walk forth unshackled in its native dignity, and man no longer dares to step in between the conscience of his brother and Him who made it. We refer with complacent satisfaction to our own time, so happy in comparison with others, and feel a thrill of indignation as we read the long and mournful records of persecution for opinion's sake. Our cheeks glow with shame and anger, when we recount the innumerable wrongs of the early disciples of the Saviour, we sympathize deeply with the noble army of martyrs that suffered for the faith; -the Roman cross and the fires of Smithfield excite the same abhorrence, and our very heart's blood chills at the recital of the enormities of the Inquisition. As one page of history after another shows some new attempts to enchain the intel lect and bind down the spirit upon the Procrustes-bed of a creed, framed by narrow dogmatism and enforced by sectarian bigotry, we turn from it with loathing, and thank Heaven that our lot has been cast in a more fortunate era. But yet it may be allowed us to doubt whether the great evil alluded to has been eradicated, even to suspect that the old leaven still works, if more covertly, yet not the less potently. We have the outside of the cup and platter clean, but have we not, like the Pharisees of old, left them as foul within as ever? The sepulchre is whitened and stands beautiful enough outwardly, but is it less full of rottenness and dead men's bones? We may not stone the prophets, but it is to be feared nevertheless, that we sometimes persecute them that are sent unto us. It is true indeed, that the secular arm is not now called in to enforce uniformity of belief. The cross is cast down, and the rack is broken. The amphitheatre no longer resounds with the agonizing shriek of victims perishing in the grasp of wild beasts, nor does the dungeon open to receive the heretic in its living tomb. Maddened crowds are not now led on by an evil priesthood to massacre their brethren in the blasphemed name of a God of Love, and our bright sky is never clouded by the smoke of an Auto-da-Fe. This is much, and great reason have we to be thankful for so many and great blessings. But, as has been said, the evil is mitigated, not destroyed. The spirit of intolerance is as rife as ever, although displayed in other forms. The great multiplicity of sects and parties, nearly equally balanced as to numbers and influence, have caused less bitterness to exist on minor topics, so that the difference of a hair's breadth is no longer considered sufficient reason for mortal enmity. Let but a man, however, depart widely from the tenets of the mass, let him broach doctrines foreign to those generally received, and which have been branded as impious or wicked, and he will not fail to receive condign punishment. Above all, let him embrace despised and rejected truths in the love of them, and proclaim them |