but the two volumes of essays and letters now published show a graceful, easy, and perspicuous style. The Defence of Poetry is an elegant and triumphant vindication of his glorious art, and, at the same time, an example showing how poetry may be written without rhyme, and melody of intonation, as well as thought observed without a regular division into verses. Pope would have written the Defence in heroics, and even then it would have been cold in comparison. But Shelley had, as he informs us, "a horror of didactic. poetry," and agreed with the proposition since laid down by Carlyle, that nothing need be sung which can be as well said, that no thought should be rhymed, unless there is an internal necessity for its being rhymed. His metaphysical fragments display a profundity of thought for which he has never received credit; but are too imperfect to give us any clear view of his opinions.

And now, we have endeavored to introduce to the favorable notice of the readers of this Journal, the works of one of the greatest minds of the present century. In life, he was the object of almost universal distrust and contumely, and it is only now, when his heart has ceased to beat with quickened pulsation at the sound of applause, and his bosom to yearn for the approving sympathy of his fellow-men, that his works. begin to meet a merited regard. What estimate posterity will ultimately put upon them, it is impossible for us to know. That it will be higher than ours, there can be no doubt. It is the fate of most great men to be unknown or unadmired by their own age and country. Homer wandered, a blind minstrel and beggar, from city to city, and no one was found to record his birthplace for the gratification of the countless thousands whom he has since instructed and entertained. The gallants of Queen Elizabeth's court could crowd the theatre to witness the plays of "that clever varlet, Will Shakspeare," but they never dreamed that the nations, in after ages, would bow down to this humble player, as one of the mightiest spirits ever vouchsafed

to this undeserving earth. The gay cavaliers of Charles the Second's time knew nothing of the author of Paradise Lost, but that there was one John Milton, a blind man," who was sometime Latin Secretary to the usurping Roundhead, Cromwell, and wrote verses. Yet his clear fame shall live through all time, in enduring brilliancy, while their names have long ago rotted with their mortal bodies. That such will be the fate of Shelley we do not pretend to prophesy. This much, however, we may predict, that he will stand in the foremost rank of English poets, when some of the literary idols to whom we have bowed ourselves down shall be forgotten, or remembered, like the monkey-gods of Egypt, only as objects of wonder and contemptuous pity.

H. S. P.

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ART. II. A Discourse on the Transient and Permanent in Christianity, preached at the Ordination of Mr. Charles C. Shackford, in the Hawes-Place Church in South Boston. May 19, 1841. By THEODORE PARKER. Minister of the Second Church in Roxbury. Boston; printed for the author. 1841. 8vo. pp. 48.

THIS Discourse is a favorable specimen of an order of sermonizing, which we should like to see more generally cultivated in our churches. Its style is rich and flowing; its imagery appropriate and striking; its tone earnest and reverent; its thought philosophic and profound; and its effect, when delivered, must have been for the most part pleasing, and even thrilling upon the audience. Its chief fault, if fault it have, is, perhaps, in putting forth some propositions new to the community generally, without accompanying them with the developments and proofs necessary to render their reception easy and certain by those, who might be

previously unprepared to adopt them. He, who brings forward views not generally entertained, should support them in the onset with arguments and demonstrations, that in some degree prevent resistance, and silence objectors. Nevertheless this is but a slight fault, and one which after all chiefly concerns the preacher himself. Taken as a whole, the Discourse can hardly fail to secure to the author a high literary rank, and to place him among the ablest and most successful of our preachers.

The Discourse itself may be regarded as a bold, eloquent, and manly appeal for the truth of Christianity, the reality and permanence of religious faith. We feel while reading it, that it is the outpouring of a soul filled and overflowing with a living faith in the Infinite, the Unseen, and the Eternal; in the permanence, reality, and surpassing glory of the spiritual world. The author has no doubt, no secret misgiving; he speaks with full assurance, and as one who knows that whereof he affirms. It is not a little cheering, in this age of half-faith, and of no-faith, when even learned professors and scientific defenders of religious belief, reduce all our certainty to merely a high degree of probability, to hear from the pulpit a voice speaking in the tone of strong conviction, and recalling to our memories the faith that overcomes the world.

Mr. Parker selects for his text the words of Jesus, recorded by the Evangelist Luke, in the twenty-first chapter and second verse of his Gospel;-"Heaven and Earth shall pass away, but my WORDS shall not pass away." His purpose apparently is to establish the truth of the assertion contained in the latter clause of this passage, to show that the WORD of Jesus, that is, Christian truth, Christianity, is eternal and unalterable TRUTH; and that it always has been, and always will remain, the law of the soul's perfection, of its redemption from sin, and its union with God. Forms of worship may alter, theological doctrines, or the forms with which men clothe their conceptions of Christian truth, may pass away, and be as if they had not been; but

Christianity itself shall remain ever the same, unaffected by time and its mutations, ever fresh and vigorous in its eternal youth. This is the leading thought of the Discourse; and it seems to have been intended as a rebuke to those dreaming spirits, at home and abroad, who are rashly predicting a period when Christianity will be outgrown and superseded.

But in speaking of Christianity, we must distinguish between Christianity as it lies in the Divine mind, and Christianity as it lies in our conceptions, in our doctrines, or systems of theology. The first only is permanent, the last is transient.

Christianity, as it lies in the Divine mind, and was borne witness to by Jesus and his Apostles, is the law of the soul's growth and perfection. Man by virtue of the fact that he exists as a specific being, has a specific nature, or constitution. This constitution imposes upon him a law, obedience to which is essential to his existence, and the fulfilment of his destiny as a human being. Christianity taken absolutely is this law. God in making man made him to exist, grow, and attain the end of his being by the principles of the Christian religion. These principles then constitute the law after which God made man; the only law by observance of which man can fulfil the great purposes of his being; or, what is the same thing, find acceptance with his Maker. Hence, it is written "there is no other name given under heaven among men whereby we must be saved."

Every organic being, animate or inanimate, is organized in accordance with some specific scheme or plan, which scheme or plan, idea or dos in the language of Plato, is its law, the condition of its existence, and of its attaining to the end for which it was made. Just so far as the being departs or is removed from this law, it ceases to be itself, which is the same thing for it as ceasing to be at all. The law of the oak is in the acorn; but the acorn becomes the oak only on condition of fulfilling it. The lion is a lion only on condition of conforming to the law of its species; and man is man,

properly speaking, only on condition of fulfilling the law after which he was created. If he depart from that law under its physical relations, he suffers physical death; if under its spiritual relations, he sins, or dies a moral death. “The wages of sin is death." "In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." If he conform to this law in the first view of it, he enjoys physical health and vigor; if in the second view of it, he enjoys spiritual health and vigor, or, in the language of Scripture, "life," "eternal life." Christianity, strictly defined, is then this law of man's nature, after which man was created under both of these relations, and is therefore the law of man's life in God. In its practical sense, it is called the "bread of life," the living bread, which came down from heaven and gives life to the world. Hence, says Jesus, "except ye eat, ye have no life in you." "He that eateth shall not

die, but live forever."

Christianity taken in this sense, absolutely, is what Mr. Parker terms the Permanent in Christianity. Thus viewed, it cannot pass away, nor change, so long as man continues to be man, or God's will remains unaltered.

But, this law of our being, owing to the limited nature of our faculties, is never but imperfectly comprehended by us. We cannot embrace it in its entireness. Ever will it on all sides escape us. This is true, in regard both to our powers of original discovery, and also in regard to our capacity to receive and comprehend supernatural revelation. Finite beings cannot comprehend infinity, nor imperfect beings perfection. Christianity, by our own unassisted efforts, could never have been discovered. Our natural powers are not equal to its discovery. But although assisted, although a revelation of it be made to us, still the revelation actually made must always be measured by our capacity to receive it. Say, Jesus saw and comprehended the whole of this law, all it implies, that is, the whole of Christian truth, and embodied a complete view of it in his words, he could have so embodied it only to the appre