closing with the death of John Wesley. He specifically disavows confounding this with any subsequent religious movement under that name, except only as "predictive" of some future, undefined development, not of technical Methodism, but of Christianity itself, which he chooses to designate by that honored appellation.

Some characteristic speculations, as to the periodic cycle of great mental revolutions, introduce the section on "Methodism, as related to the present time." Intervals of "forty and fifty years" are affirmed to have been the usual limits within which they are confined. Assuming that these revolutions always originate in the minds of "two or three individual men," and not that of any one man, (an hypothesis which appears to have been adopted for the case before him,) he thinks it a satisfactory explanation of the phenomenon, that "a term of forty or fifty years gives the extreme limits of the personal energy and influence of any such band of men." Admitting these two assumptions, first, of the period, and secondly, of the origin of such revolutions, the explanation may be admitted as plausible. But we are not obliged to admit either, as historically true. Is it a fact, that all great mental revolutions have reached their climax and abated within fifty years? Did the great revolution introduced by the Baconian philosophy subside with the death of its author? Did that of Mohammed decline with the life of the prophet? Every reader will answer, no. These entire periods were only the salient points of those mental revolutions; not to mention any inspired examples. Is it true, that such revolutions arise simultaneously in the minds of several men, or most frequently in the mind of one man? Discoveries in science and presentiments of great events have sometimes simultaneously occurred, but it is not true that the source, the fons et origo, of any great mental revolutions can thus be traced. They generally, if not always, are the product of some master mind, around which others are the first to arrange themselves, as in the instances cited above. And besides, the author's hypothesis has an internal improbability. To give intensity to any such movement, it seems to

be a necessity that it possess unity in its source. It receives its concentration and its energy from that fact.

The very first assumption of Mr. Taylor concerning the Methodism of the 18th century, appears to us to be erroneous, that is; that it holds only a technical relation to the Methodism of the present day, and that this fact gives him a peculiar advantage in subjecting it to his scrutiny. We do not set out to find fault with Mr. Taylor's principles, but a latent error in the very commencement, especially such as this, gives type to his subsequent speculations. The assumption certainly gives him the apparent advantage of evading a conflict with an existing powerful denomination; and one can scarcely repress the apprehension that such a desire inadvertently betrayed him into this fictitious distinction; a distinction which, if it were real, would entitle him to speak with a freedom which he would not otherwise hazard. He accordingly speaks not only with caution, but with courtesy, of existing Methodism, while in respect to primitive Methodism he indulges in a vein of sufficient severity. But this distinction is not sustained by him, and is, in fact, a fallacy. Is the following assertion true; true, at all, in the sense of the author?

"No disparagement to that body of eminently useful men who now, in their stations, farm the spiritual inheritance bequeathed to them by their fathers, is intended, when we affirm, that their own peculiar relationship to those men, the fathers and founders of their communion, appears to the eye of an impartial bystander, to be made up more of what is technical, or conventional, than of what is substantial, in a purely religious sense." P.

11.

Is not the substance of Methodism, in a purely religious sense, identically the same now as formerly? Or is it so changed that nothing but technicalities perserve its memory. What then is its substance? We shall learn from him on page 137. If we shall prove that the change is only technical, we shall demonstrate the fallacy of his own testimony. So far as the actors and the circumstances in which they acted are concerned, they may be viewed in a different light, but Methodism cannot, as we shall evince. Their Methodism did not expire with themselves.

To the qualifications, in general, which he assigns those who are to sit in judgment upon the question which he is about to submit, we may not demur. He wishes his tribunal to render an unprejudiced verdict, and endeavors to prepare them for a fair hearing of his cause. Nay, he would school himself before bringing so grave a question to the bar for public adjudication. The charge to his jury is remarkable for its sagacity, and is worthy of note. The verdict they will render, he asserts, must inevitably be twofold. It will contain, first, their simple decision, which may be, in itself, true or false; and secondly, it will reflect, infallibly, the state of their own minds. Thus while passing a judgment upon the defendant they will with equal certainty pass judgment upon themselves. "We decide, in each instance," he says, "according to our own dispositions, our principles, and our moral condition." His illustration of this reciprocal character of our judgments is both striking and beautiful.

"The metallic reflector which the astronomer presents to the celestial field may image the bright objects before it truly or falsely, clearly or dimly; but infallibly it gives notice of any flaws that mar its own surface, and tells of its own variations from an exact parabolic figure."

The standard by which we judge of the men of a past age, is equally true, he observes, with respect to the revolutions which they have set on foot. We form our estimate of them under the illusion that our own stand-point is immoveable, and that every thing else around us is in motion; while, in fact, we ourselves are "afloat upon the eddying Euphrates of time." We resemble, he says, "a spectator on the deck of a vessel leaving the quay with the wind in her sails, who cannot resist the impression that the motion which he observes, is really in the objects he is leaving, until he meets with the shock of the open sea. This deceptive influence he deprecates in the trial now pending, with the caveat, that in "the strange region" of Methodism to be explored, we may "gather some sharp lessons of humiliation." To this ingenious, this wise precaution to his readers, we enter only one demurrer. The stand-point of our mere opinions is undoubtedly fluctua

ting, however stable we may imagine it to be; nor can we pronounce a faithful judgment until we ascertain our true position by calculating, to speak mechanically, both the absolute and relative forces by which we are affected. Yet, if we could indoctrinate the same august jury before which our advocate so eloquently opens his case, we would remind them that there is one stand-point which is not illusive, and we should urge them to take it before making up their final decision. That stand-point resembles neither "the eddying Euphrates nor the vessel with the wind in her sails." If they will take their position on this solid foundation, we will abide the issue without apprehension. Marvellous beyond measure is it that, throughout this whole captivating volume, there is so little explicit deference paid to the authority of Divine revelation; so little attempt to sustain its assumptions by this sovereign test; the only one by which such a case can be ultimately determined. Where, we demand, in all this prosecution, is "the book of the law," which is the guide both of the judge and the jury? The tribunal is erected, the jury are impannelled, the witnesses are sworn, but the statutes of the realm cannot be produced. The Bible is not there. What, then, must a Christian commonwealth think of the constitution of such a court? What respect can it entertain for the mere formality of an extra-judicial sentence? We advertise our readers, that while there is much of truth and beauty in the pages of Mr. Taylor, they will concur with the writer, that he has substituted the oracular utterances of a philosophical speculation for the simple and convenient dicta of the word of God.

The interval between the Methodism of the eighteenth century and the present day, he makes a point of considerable importance in his investigations. It is unquestionably great; more on account of intermediate changes than of the lapse of time. But, in our opinion, he has exaggerated its greatness beyond all reasonable bounds, and we bring this allegation to the proof. A specimen of his phraseology will convince us of this species of fallacy. He says, that the Me

thodism of the eighteenth century "has no extant representative among us; that there are none now, who can interpret its phrases, or warmly and forcibly speak of it, or plead for it, as a reality with which they themselves are conversant; that a vast interval, as if it had been of a thousand years, divides us, of this present time, from the obsolete religious condition of our ecclesiastical progenitors of the last century."

p. 17.

Exaggeration is one of Mr. Taylor's fundamental faults, and must forever mar the solidity, how much soever it may augment the effect of his argument. The chasm which he surveys, however frightful, is neither so wide nor so deep as he represents it to be; for he leaves not a bridge to span nor a chain to connect its opposite banks. Is it within the limits of history or of possibility, that the lapse of only sixty years should have so thoroughly annihilated a movement, which he himself denotes as "the starting-point of our modern religious history," as to make it now a matter of conjecture, what was the spirit which animated it, or the import of "the phrases" which it employed; or to render the condition of its originators already "obsolete?" Does not the imaginary magnitude of the interval contravene his favorite hypothesis of the transmitted power of early Methodism? As a question of fact, men are this day living who received Methodism from the hands of Wesley, both as ministers and members of the Church of Christ; Wesley and his contemporaries recorded every step in their progress, and explained every doctrinal phrase which they employed; and the same spirit, though to a great extent modified, actuates Methodism in England, but especially in the United States. Distant as is the period, and different as are the circumstances referred to, we ask, is it historically true, that they are as great "as if a thousand years" had intervened? Has not Mr. Taylor perpetrated an act of unintentional injustice to prejudice the jury in his favor?

In proof of the vast moral and religious interval which has occurred since the death of Wesley, he instances those changes which have affected other Christian communions, and even Methodism itself. The index of the former of these, he thinks, is