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Messrs . Macmillan , the Cambridge publishers , have issued a prospectus of a series of Essays on the Restoration of Belief , intended to counteract the rapidly spreading doctrines rejecting Christianity—doctrines which assail orthodoxy even in its very universities , as we have the best of all reasons for knowing . We are heartily glad to see this undertaking , and promise its author the most deliberate and emphatic recognition . He has a distinct conception of the difficulties , as may be seen in these sentences from his prospectus : — -
" These facts are however beyond doubt ; and they call for the most serious regard : —1 st , That disbelief , under a somewhat new guise , is at this time openly avowed by perhaps a larger proportion of the educated classes than it heretofore has been : 2 ndly , That a settled disbelief claims as its own some who refuse to make any sUch avowal ; but whose state of mind can be no secret to their intimate friends : and 3 rdly , That many in all circles are much troubled and disquieted , and are rol > bed of their comfort , and are in danger of losing for ever what they hold with a trembling grasp . " The writer , in the present instance , has no inclination to attempt the recovery of these
of those who belong to the first-named class ; and yet the recovery even , he would think less improbable than that of those who take their place in the second . But it is in the confident hope of rendering a timely aid to the many around and near usr , belonging to the third class , that he now comes forward ; and what he means by the Restoration of Bemef , includes vastly more than the bringing back into minds that have lost it , a logical conclusion to this effect- — that Christianity is from God . What the writer desires to do for those who will listen to him , is to lead them , without reserve ; into the cordial approval of Christianity , and its amplitude of doctrine , as held and professed by the Faithful
of all times , " We welcome this attempt , as we welcome all free deliberate discussion the only final way of settling difficulties . Inquisitions , auto-da-fes , censorships , and press laws may intimidate Truth—they cannot finally destroy it ; like a cork pressed under water , it is sure to bob up in some other place . As to the evil of free discussion—that it gives publicity to errors and follies which mislead mankind—it must be accepted with the good . The same objection may be brought against the universe itself ; and yet we are tolerably content to accept it . The only healthy method of suppressing error is by setting truth at liberty . To imagine error can be suppressed , or eliminated altogether , is chimerical ; and , as Royeb Col-lard sarcastically said , when the censorship was under discussion in 1830 , —" There must have been a great want of foresight at the Creation , otherwise man would never have been suffered to go forth into the world
free and intelligent , for thence have evil and error issued . A higher wisdom now undertakes to repair the fault of Providence . " If the lessons of history did not fall upon ears deaf as adders , the present absurd crusade against a free press on the Continent could never be sustained . Is Louis Napoleon to succeed where all have failed ? The ancient monarchy of France refused liberty to the press . We know how it perished . Napoleon inaugurated the reign of the sabre ; yet the press dethroned him by disheartening France . The Restoration certainly spared no restrictions on the press ; yet its fall was occasioned by the protests of the journalists . The Monarchy of July would not suffer a free prcsg where is it ? Louis Napoleon , by his alliance of the sabre and the surplice , hopes , no doubt , to suppress opinion . Yet the very priests whom he calls round him could assure him that the Christianity they
profess is a striking example of how a doctrine may triumph without a press , and in spite of sabres and surplices ! The mention of Louis Napoleon recals a sentence of his , quoted in the Bulletin Fran $ ais , which ought to be placarded on all the dead walls of France : " he titre que fambitionne le plus , e ' est le titre d'honndte homme—I have but one ambition , that of earning the name of a perfectly honourable man \» Certainly after this it is idle to set a limit to the extravagance of ambition ! is
The Bulletin Francais , from which we have just quoted , now a newspaper , published in London by Mr . Jkkfh , its proprietors being resolute , and not to be put down . Driven out of Belgium , they pass over to England , and here scqurely print their journal , and circulate it largely in Fiance , Germany , Belgium , and England . " Gkorgis . Sand has made another unsuccessful dramatic experiment , Pandolptie en vncances , which distresses the admirers of her genius , who desire to sec her renounce a stage to which that genius is clearly not adapted , in spite of Le Champi and Claudie . In the last Revue dd * Deux Mondes is commenced a skilful translation of Mrs . Norton ' s beautiful novel , Stuart of Dunleath , by Emile Forgubb ; and an intimation is given of this vein being actively worked . It is but right we should furnish Franco with some return for all we take from her . Lovers of epigrammatic writing and Sparkling aphorisms will bo glad to
learn that the works of Cham fort are ^ collected into one octavo volume of the " Charpentier format , " ( or , as the French call it , " format Anglais " \ with a preliminary essay by Arsene Houssaye . These writings abound in anecdotes , and sharp sentences , picturesque , ear-catching , brief and suggestive phrases , which may , to quote Boileau , ^ * VParle prompt effet d'uri sel rejouissant Devenir quelquefois provefbes en naissant . "
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BANCROFT'S AMERICAN REVOLUTION
History of the American Revolution . By George Bancroft . Vol . I . Bentley . A solid and brilliant book : conscientious in its research and winnowin g of evidence , lucid and splendid in its exposition . Only the first volunie has appeared , arid that is introductory to the great subject , opening with ari excellent survey of the state of affairs in 1748 , when first America claimed legislative independence , and relating the history down to the year 1763 , when the Revolution may be saidt to have fairly begun , although the "War of Independence did not break put till 1775 . To tiiose who possess Mr . Bancroft ' s valuable Jfistory ' qjF the United States , this volume will be a most desirable continuation and companion ; but the work will
be complete in itself . A writer so rhetorical , so musical , and so graphic , is apt to inspire an uneasy suspicion that he may be " dressing up for effect . " We can scarcely name a writer of whom that can less truly be said ; and we place Mr . Bancroft ' s conscientiousness foremost among his qualities , because we see how completely the truthful historian has kept the " fine writer " in abeyance . Let Bancroft be compared with Macaulay in this respect ! Whatever style can do to animate the dead past , Bancroft- rightly aims at ; he makes no attempt to coerce history into an epigram , or to sacrifice truth to antithesis . Beyond this general truthfulness he has a high , impartial view of history , and , while truly national in feelings , he recognises that truth Which takes the edge from national prejudices and asperitiesthe truth that the human race is one , and that Humanity has a common life working onwards to a common end .
" The authors of the American Revolution avowed for their object the welfare of mankind , and believed that they were in the service of their own and of all future generations . Their faith was just ; for the world of mankind does not exist in fragments , nor can a country have an insulated existence . AH men are brothers ; and all are bondsmen for one another . -. All-nations , too , are brothers , ancLeach is responsible for that federative humanity which puts the ban of exclusion on none . New principles of government could not assert themselves in one'hemisphere without affecting the other . The very idea of the progress of an individual people , in its relation to universal history , springs from the acknowledged unity of the race .
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It will be pleasant hews to hear that all Sydney Smith ' s papers have been placed in the skilful hands of Mrs . Austin , to arrange for- publication , it being his widow ' s desire that every scrap should be published . Sydney Smith was one of those thoroughly delightful minds whose very fragments have their interest : valuable or trivial in the thought , they are certain to be charming in the manner .
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254 THE LEAP EB . [ Sa ^ prpay ,
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dependent . Were it not so , there would be no great truths inspiring , no laws regulating human achievements ; the movement of the living world would be as the ebb and flow of the ocean ; and the mind would no more be touched by the visible agency of Providence in human affairs . In the lower creation , instinct is always equal to itself ; the beaver builds his hut , the bee bis cell , without an acquisition of thought , or an increase of skill . ' By a particular prerogative , as Pascal has written , ' not only each man advances daily in the sciences , but all men unitedly make a never-ceasing progress in them , as the universe grows older ; eo that the whole succession of human beings , during the course of so many ago * , ought to be considered as one identical man , who subsists always , and who learns
action " While the world of mankind is accomplishing its nearer connexion , it is also advancing in the power of its intelligence . The possession of reason is the engagement for that progress of which history keeps the record . The faculties of each individual mind are limited in their development ; the reason of the whole strives for perfection , has been restlessly forming itself from the first moment of human existence , and has never met bounds to its capacity for improvement . The generations of men are not like the leaves on the trees , which fall and renew themselves without melioration or change ; individuals disappear like the foliage and the flowers ; the existence of our kind is continuous , and its ages arc reciprocally
without and . ' „ ,. " It is this idea of continuity which gives vitality to history . Ko period oi timo has a separate being ; no public opinion can escape the influence of previous intelligence . * Wo are cheered by rays from former centuries , and live in the sunny reflection of all their light . What though thought is invisible , and , even when effective , seema as transient as the wind that raised the cloud ? It is yet free ana indestructible ; can as little bo bound in chains as the aspiring flame ; and , when oiice generated , takes eternity for its guardian . Wo are the children and tho heirs of the past , with which , as with the future , wo are indissolubly UnKott together ; and ho that truly has sympathy with everything belonging to man , will , with his toils for posterity , blend affection for the times that are gone by , and sccic to live in the vast life of the ages . It is by thankfully recognising those ages as a part of the groat existence in which wo share , that history wins powen » to niovo the soul . She comes to us with tidings of that which for us still lives , of that wiuu has becomo the life of our life . She embalms and preserves for us the lile-woou ,
not of master-spirits only , but of generations of tho race . " From one arrived at that lofty point of view wo regret to see an occasional phrase escape , which implies a lower and a narrower conception human history—e . . ? ., "For it always holds truo , that Heaven pianw division in the council of tho enemies of freedom . " Wo are ashamoa w have to ask Mr . Bancroft if he really thinks that Hoavoji dowwatoa b « far as thus with potty interference to meddle in human affaire—« *}? v ^ jj thinks that only in the " councils of tho enemies of freedom arc cuvih caused by Hoavon , and that the divisions in tho councils oi tiie jrwn of freedom havo another parentage P ' . . , ^ nra We turn to moro pleasant . images . Whilo tho country ** P % ^ 3 i L or less bv tho crv of protection , it may bo amusing to road this iiiubuuw
of it , which takes its place in Mr . Bancroft ' s narrative : — " America abounded in iron ore f its unwrought iron wan excluded by j * l from tho Englistt ** narket ; and its peoplo wore rapidly gaining skill Ilt ; ' ° . « lfl 0 and tho forgo . In February , 1750 , tho aubject engaged the attention ot tno * of Commons . To chock tho danger of American rivalry , Charles f ownw -Robert placed ut tho head of a committee , on which Horatio Walpolo , eomor , ana x
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Leader (1850-1860), March 13, 1852, page 254, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1926/page/18/
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