pitch, and may properly be thought to be imaged in the works of the time.

The graceful mythology of the Greeks had the greatest charms for M. Constant: he revels in the various disquisitions to which it gives rise. The Greek fables have about them all the freshness of nature, and their contradictions are the true record of the manner in which the various accidents of life affect mankind. The quarrels and jealousies of the Homeric Gods, unworthy as they seem, and destructive of all true reverence, Heaven being made the scene of conflict, yet, after all, correctly pourtray the perplexity of human affairs. For why in Homer did the Greeks conquer, or Trojans perish? and if it was ordained that the last should be destroyed, why was the war prolonged with doubtful victories, which cast either side alternately into hope and despair? The Greeks sought a particular interference of the Deity to account for each varying accident of life, and hence naturally fell into a complex system of deities continually interfering with one another. We escape the difficulties into which they were plunged, by viewing life as a whole, ordained to the end of moral improvement by its author; and yet even with this faith for a guide, how little can we interpret the riddle, life presents to us!

An interesting part of this essay lies in the manner in which he points out how the already nascent controversy of Freewill and Necessity disturbed the views of the mythologists. On the subject of Fate, Hesiod brings forward "theological subtleties to reconcile the omniscience of Jupiter with the success of the artifices of man ;" and the inconsistencies of the Greeks on this idea, resemble those of modern necessarians; for the poets represent "the laws of destiny by turns as irresistible and as capable of being eluded. Sometimes Jupiter and the gods yield to fate; at another time we are told that Neptune would have made the hero of Ithaca to perish, in spite of destiny, if Minerva had not succoured him.” His observations on this point are well worthy of consideration :

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An absolute fatality, by rendering the Deity useless to man, would be destructive of all worship. If some nations have been thought to be entirely fatalists, it is because men are often deceived concerning their own opinions. They look at them in the

aspect which suits their momentary convenience, and abandon them when they have need of the opposite opinion. Thus, the Mahometans affirm that no one is able to escape his destiny, when they find in this assertion something which enables them to drive far from the heart the fear of danger and death; but in their habitual life they do not make the fewer vows, or address the fewer prayers, or practise fewer ceremonies, which would be illusory, if man was in subjection in the smallest as in the greatest things to an eternal and immutable law.

We recognise in these fluctuations the efforts of the mind to discover a system which will at once represent the gods as good and powerful, and man's misfortunes as not convicting them of injustice or of weakness.

The unity of God, far from resolving this problem, seems at first sight to complicate it still more. Since Polytheism did not attribute omnipotence to the gods, and often shows them to us divided, men conceived a destiny superior to them which rules them, and which would be in some sort their common rule; but in the system of the unity of God, his power being without bounds, and destiny placed in his will, there is some difficulty in reconciling this belief with the efficacy of worship and the free will of man.' 99.

Our space reminds us that we must now take leave of our author, though there are other interesting subjects, as the Greek mysteries and the Hindoo religion, which we should have had pleasure in noticing.

Whatever may be thought of M. Constant's theories, or the manner in which he has viewed the Religions of the world, we think none of our readers will refuse their assent to the lesson he has drawn from their history, that "nothing can be more mournful for religion itself, than any obstacle opposed to its progressive perfectibility; and that "at every period we should demand religious liberty, unlimited, infinite, individual; for this will surround religion with an invincible force, and will guarantee its perfectibility. It will multiply the forms of religion, of which each will be more pure than the preceding."

ART. III.-CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP.

1. The Relation of Jesus to his Age, and the Ages. A Sermon, preached at the Thursday Lecture, in Boston, December 26, 1844. By THEODORE Parker, Minister of the Second Church in Roxbury, Boston.

2. The Fourth Quarterly Report of the Executive Com*mittee of the Benevolent Fraternity of Churches. Boston. 1845.

3. The True Position of the Rev. Theodore Parker, being a Review of Rev. R. C. Waterston's Letter, in the Fourth Quarterly Report of the Benevolent Fraternity of Churches. Boston. 1845.

4. The Ministry at Suffolk Street Chapel: its Origin, Progress, and Experience. By JOHN T. SARGENT, late Pastor of that Chapel. Boston. 1845.

5. The Exclusive Principle Considered. Two Sermons on Christian Union and the Truth of the Gospels. By WILLIAM H. FURNESS. Boston. 1845.

6. A Letter to the Boston Association of Congregational Ministers, touching certain matters of their Theology. By THEODORE PARKER. 1845.

7. Deism or Christianity? Four Discourses. By N. L. FROTHINGHAM. Boston. 1845.

8. A Plea for the Christian Spirit. By A. B. MUZZEY. Boston. 1845.

9. The Excellence of Goodness. A Sermon, preached in the Church of the Disciples, Boston. By THEODORE PARKER. 1845.

WHAT is Christianity? It would be well if we could find an answer for this question which would be sufficient for practical agreement; that is, which would define the spiritual conditions, the personal relations to Christ, the sentiments of the heart, the directions and efforts of the will, the temper, aspirations, and life,—which, taken together, would unquestionably constitute a true Discipleship. And it would appear, at first sight, that there could be no essential difficulty in arriving at such an answer.

For Christianity is an Instrument of God's for producing certain definite effects on the hearts and lives of men, for establishing certain fixed relations between the Infinite source of existence and the children of his Spirit upon earth, and wherever these effects appear, wherever these relations exist, and moreover are distinctly referred, in whatever measure they may be found, to the Christian Idea, to the power of God over the heart as the Father and Inspirer of Jesus Christ, as his God and our God, his Father and our Father, there surely it may be affirmed both that Christ is accepted, and that Christianity is present in vital act. Christian frames, expressly proceeding from a sense of real relations by which Christ has connected us with himself and God,-here would appear combined the practical power, and the open confession of Discipleship.

Nor is there any controversy respecting what are Christian frames, what constitutes the Christianity of the heart, the will, the tongue, the life. All who claim the Christian name are absolutely agreed in two things;-in the conditions of soul, temper, thought and action, which are its final result, and in the distinct reference of these, in their own case, to an efficacy proceeding from their personal relations to Christ, from the power and grace of the Gospel as an Instrument of God. Whether these spiritual states which constitute the Christian frame may exist, without having a Christian origin, is not now the question; in that case they would be coincident with Christianity without owing to it their existence or necessarily involving Discipleship, but we are speaking now of those who recognise this spiritual frame as the perfect state of man, and moreover trace their own connection with it to the operation of Christ's spirit, to the efficacy of Christ's mission; and we say that, so far, all who claim the Christian Name are absolutely agreed.-To love the Lord our God, with all our hearts, and soul, and strength, and our brother as ourselves, and to do this through the avowed and felt efficacy of the spiritual relation by which Christianity allies us to God and man,-this would be universally admitted as the most perfect result of Christian Discipleship, nor is there a Sect or Creed on earth which would deny that a man fulfilling these conditions was, in all respects, a Chris

tian. They would deny indeed that it was possible to reach this spiritual frame except through the operation of certain doctrinal views, but they would not deny that the frame itself, if attained, both implied an acceptance of Christianity, and constituted its living Power.

Waiving this point respecting the doctrinal antecedents, it is evidently possible practically to define that state of the affections, mind and life, which all would admit to be a true condition of Christian Discipleship. It is not necessary that we should fix its Natural History, in order to determine what it is. We may agree as to what the Christian frame is, though we differ as to the means of reaching it. Christianity throws the hearts and characters of men into certain known relations to God, to Sin, to Righteousness, to the World, to Death, to our Brethren on earth, and to the Souls of the departed; and not only practically to acknowledge these spiritual relations, but distinctly to attribute our own participation in them to the teaching and fellowship of him whom St. Paul describes as the Second Adam, the Spiritual Man, is to be one with Christ, and to abide even as branches in the Vine. And we say that the relations to earthly and heavenly things into which Christianity casts the hearts of its Disciples are certainly known, because it will not be denied that Christ is the absolute exemplar of a Christian, and that both the inward frame of his spirit, and all its living attitudes of action or endurance, are completely manifested to us. He is perfect man. All Christian Theologies agree in that. The aim and highest result of the Christian Mission, is to form men in his image, to fill them with his spirit, to make their holiness and their mercy to proceed, like his, not from constraint, but from the connections of their souls with God. He is a Christian, then, who recognizes, as a fact, the filial relations of the man Christ Jesus to the Father of Spirits, and takes it upon him, as his discipleship to that Master, to live in the same fellowship himself, to be ever God's true, obedient, holy, and trusting child, amid his own conditions of existence. Christ's mighty offices and gifts do not prevent the lowest of the sons of men from sharing this relation with him, and being also sons of God. It is not the place we hold, nor the powers entrusted to us, nor the service we are employed on,—but the oneness of our