edition, whom she thinks the first social regenerator of the day,' and whose 'Greek-fire sarcasm' and 'levin-brand denunciation' she overwhelms with such extravagant panegyric. Let her mark how, while looking every where for Snobs' to denounce, he has himself fallen into one, and not the least vicious, phase of that very character which he denounces. Or let her seek a more signal and ominous example in the history of that far higher mind which, after demolishing innumerable 'shams,' has itself, for want of a real faith of its own, sunk into the mournfullest sham of all. Let her reconsider her preface, and see how conventional may be the denouncer of conventionality, how great an idol the iconoclast may leave unbroken in himself. Let her cease, if she can, to think of herself as Micaiah, and of society as Ahab. Let her be a little more trustful of the reality of human goodness, and a little less anxious to detect its alloy of evil. She will lose nothing in piquancy, and gain something in healthiness and truth. We shall look with some anxiety for that second effort which is proverbially decisive of a writer's talent, and which, in this case, will probably be decisive of the moral question also.

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ART. V.-Undesigned Coincidences in the Writings both of the Old and New Testament, an Argument of their Veracity, &c. By the Rev. J. J. BLUNT, B.D. Margaret Professor of Divinity. London: J. W. Parker. 1847.

It is a hard necessity that is imposed on the Christian Advocate and Hulsean Lecturer in the University of Cambridge by the terms of their foundation; and we cannot but fear that the duties of the latter, as at present performed, are greatly detrimental to the highest interests of the academic body. Our quarrel is not, of course, with the present lecturer, who is admirably qualified for the post, nor with the munificent founder of these liberally endowed offices, whose pious care for the integrity of the Church's faith is worthy of all commendation. Living at a time when infidelity was rife both in England and on the Continent, and when the full powers of some of the highest intellects of the day were unhappily directed against revealed truth, he fell into the very natural and pardonable error of believing that the strife once commenced must continue for centuries, and that the impugners of the Christian faith, among whom was enrolled such an array of diversified talent, would require still to be confronted by the ablest champions of orthodoxy, such as it was his anxious care to provide for all succeeding generations. Thus the learned and ingenious person,' who holds the office of Christian Advocate for a term not exceeding five or six years,' is bound to compose yearly, whilst in office, some proper and judicious answer or answers every year, to all such new and popular, or other cavils ' or objections against the Christian and revealed religion, or against the religion of nature, as may seem best or most 6 proper to deserve or require an answer, whether the same be 'ancient or modern objections, but chiefly such as are most 'modern; and especially such as have appeared in the English language of late years against Christianity, and which may not 6 seem to have received a full and sufficient answer.' His field is further restricted in a subsequent part of the will; for his answers are to be directed only against notorious infidels, 'whether atheists or deists, not descending to any particular " controversies or sects among Christians themselves, except 'some new or dangerous error, either of superstition or enthusiasm, as of popery and methodism, either in opinion or 'practice shall prevail. Such is the office of the Christian Advocate; but for fear his defence of the faith, endangered as it was still to be by hosts of adversaries, should prove alone

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unavailing to rescue it from jeopardy, the front of the Christian battle was further strengthened by the Hulsean Lecturer or Christian Preacher' an annual office, though usually in practice biennial. His duty is, by the founder's will, to preach and to print twenty sermons in each year, the object of which is to show the evidence for revealed religion, or to explain some of the most difficult texts, or obscure parts of Holy Scripture or both.'

Such was the provision made by Mr. Hulse, just seventy years since, for the maintenance of revealed truth in the University of Cambridge, against all cavils and objections of atheists, infidels, or heretics for ever. But happily for the University, and for the country, it came to pass that even before his intentions could be carried into effect, the necessity had well-nigh ceased: for not only had the impugners of revelation been signally defeated, and the whole tide of atheism and infidelity driven back, but the controversy had furnished the Church with weapons of proof against all future assailants, much more potent than were likely to be forged in a time of peace and security, which she wisely laid up in her armory, and in the use of which she required her children to be practised before they ventured to seek her Lord's commission for the office and work of the ministry. But it was obviously very undesirable to perpetuate the memory of bygone controversies by annual publications, and weekly sermons through six months in the year. It was a questionable advantage to the academic body to have served up to them exploded arguments of defeated sceptics, and to have the foundations of their faith shaken only to show how strong they were. Add to which, the ingenious person,' who held the appointment was oft-times sorely perplexed in his choice of an error to demolish. Driven to cater for blasphemies among the obscure pages of some unknown infidel writer, whose arguments had not received a sufficient answer simply because they were too contemptible to require one, he was little likely to gain much advantage himself, or to be of material benefit to others. Christian truth is far too sacred a subject on which to exercise the dialectic faculties; an atheist or infidel is in far too awful a position to serve as a mere foil and dummy on which to exhibit the skill or strength of a fencer or a pugilist. Besides, the spirit of controversy was sure to haunt the University pulpit, long after the demon of unbelief had been driven out; and if copious doses of Paley-and-water were administered Sunday by Sunday to listless boors in country villages, threadworn arguments far above the low level of their dull comprehensions, in proof of doctrines which they had neither the wit to understand nor the will to question, the ordinary or select

preachers in the University pulpit were sure to bestow sufficient attention on the outworks of the Christian faith, without any special provision made by Mr. Hulse, or others, and without any great advantage to their audience, except, perhaps, to demonstrate to the luckless undergraduates in the galleries the great advantage of mastering their 'little-go' subjects, that they too, in their turn, might astonish an admiring congregation by a similar display on the same stage.

But the founder's will was explicit; and however the ordinary supply of authors or preachers was more than sufficient to counteract and defeat all opposition to the faith, yet the annual volume of the Christian Advocate, and the Twenty Sermons of the Lecturer, ever dealing with 'notorious infidels, whether atheists or deists,' were still to be continued through all time. It was like continuing a cannonade after the enemy's guns were silenced, and his stronghold surrendered; or rather like raking up the ashes of a heretic, in order to commit them to the flames, and disperse them to the winds of heaven, to spread their pestilential influence far and wide.

The result might have been anticipated. Productions of a very mediocre character have been inflicted on the patient University by the learned and ingenious persons who have succeeded in getting up some infidelity for the nonce. Jejune sermons, scarcely listened to, and never read, have been teeming from the pulpit and press for more than a quarter of a century. True, the Court of Chancery, in mere pity to the young men, (whom, as minors, it may naturally regard with feelings of tender affection-as wards), has ordered the number of Lectures to be reduced to eight; but those eight occupy the University pulpit on the afternoons of two of the most important months in the year, and stand in the way of subjects of far greater importance, or at least of far higher interest at present. We do not wish to undervalue the evidences of Christianity; we do not deny that they ought to form part of an University education, not merely for candidates for Holy Orders, but for all degrees and estates of students; but we do deeply regret that the young men who enter upon their University career in the October Term from year to year, should be entertained for the whole month with grave discussions of knotty points of theology to which they are for the most part, it is to be hoped, entire strangers, and for the consideration of which they are in no wise prepared. Surely it would be much more profitable to them to receive practical directions not unbecoming such a presence, for their protection against those numerous snares to which many are for the first time exposed, and for their guidance in their academic course, which must give a tone and colour to their whole future life.

But this golden opportunity of bending the tender twig in the right direction, of instilling Christian principles which might impart a durable character to the youth of England, is now wasted in worse than useless discussions, the chief result of which is to create doubts on points that were before-time matters of unquestioning faith, and to foster a captious, cavilling, controversial spirit-the 'disputandi pruritus, Ecclesiæ scabies.'

It is well that the Christian student in a Christian University should be taught to prove the authority of the Sacred Canon, and to discriminate between the canonical and apocryphal books, (although, as times are, there is more danger of his underrating the apocrypha than of the contrary extreme); but there is something of higher importance still; and that is, the formation of such habits, the selection of such friends, the cultivation of such studies, as may enable him to pass his University course uncorrupted, and to look back upon it without compunction, and as may fit him for the faithful discharge of those duties for which God's providence has designed him.

We have said nothing of the impropriety of devoting the season of Lent or Easter to subjects such as those which are to form the staple of the Hulsean Lectures, (the second month in the academic year assigned to that much enduring functionary is the month of April), for the grievance is more tolerable than that which has now been noticed. On the whole, then, it would appear that the University, in the present generation, is no great gainer by the munificence of Mr. Hulse; nor are we sure that the country is much the wiser for the lucubrations of the Christian Advocates. There seems to be a fatality among their publications. They never live. Like Jonah's gourd,' they come up in a night, and perish in a night.' Few men out of the University know that there is such an office. Once, perhaps, in a half century, there may rise up a giant in theology, a malleus hæreticorum, who is so unfortunate as to find in the prolific soil of Germany a monster progeny of infidels against whom to direct his well-aimed blows; and a series of such publications as those of Dr. Mill On the application of the Pantheistic Principles to the Theory and Historic Criticism of the Gospels,' will live, as they deserve, long after the controversy which called them forth is forgotten; but, for the most part, the authors and their productions are consigned together to a well-merited, but inglorious oblivion, after having astonished a small circle for nine days, by curious discoveries in the field of Scripture criticism, or by treating the Divine discourses of our Lord as a piece of complicated mechanism-a process which involves the sublime and simple majesty of our Saviour's practical teaching in obscurity and seeming confusion, from which it is to be extricated by the