shuddering awe has come over us. These emotions are the child's yearning for the Father's eye. We cannot bear to find ourselves in a universe so vast, unless we stand in the felt presence of one, who numbers the hairs of our heads and the sands of our lives. The Atheist would carefully cut himself off from every grand and extensive view of nature, would shun the ocean and the mountain, would close his eyes to the crimson sunset and the gemmed vault of night; for all these things would tell him what a lonely being he was and how unsheltered, would speak to him of agencies beyond his control or calculation, of powers of nature far mightier than his boasted intellect. In like manner, could the polytheist have taken no unalloyed satisfaction in the contemplation or description of nature; for to him it was cantoned out among gods many and lords many," among deities of limited power, of conflicting interests, of brutal passions, among deities, who might sleep or be on a journey, whose presence could not be invoked, or their aid depended upon with any degree of assurance. In a fatherless universe, or in a creation tenanted by vague, uncertain, and divided deity, the social craving is not met. The cry still is,

66

"Live not the stars and mountains? Are the waves

Without a spirit? Are the dropping caves

Without a feeling in their silent tears?

It is only, when nature speaks to us in accents of love, when our souls in very truth feel

"the intense

Reply of hers to our intelligence,"

that her hills and valleys, her stars and waters invite and attract us. It is only this intimate communion with the paternal spirit in nature, which can give either the wish or the power so to portray her scenes, that the portraiture shall live in the memory of man, and pass from land to land and from age to age. All those, who have written sweetly and constrainingly in this department, have occupied the attitude of high-priests and interpreters of Nature as she lies bathed in the Creator's blessing, and have discharged this loving ministry in a loving spirit. It is because Cowper occupies this position, that he lives still, while many of his contemporaries of greater vigor of thought, and finer polish of style, are already consigned to ob

livion. It is because Wordsworth exercises the same ministry, that neither ridicule nor reason can deprive him of his power over our sensibilities, or make him otherwise than a favorite with the people.

Of all modern writers, Shakspeare undoubtedly exhibits the most of the philanthropic element. He holds the key to every chamber of the human heart, and to every department of human experience. He touches chords, that vibrate among all classes and conditions of men. So pointedly, and yet in so loving a spirit, does he express many of those ideas and sentiments that are common to all men, that numerous single sentences of his have detached themselves, and worked their way into the mouths of those, who never read a line of Shakspeare. If he ever transgresses truth in his representations, he errs on the side of humanity. His guilty heroes are, it may be, clothed with more noble traits of character, with more that claims sympathy, and the mingling of reverence with detestation, than we often find in the history of actual crime. But then he never palliates guilt. He only makes you love the man in spite of his sin, makes you admire the temple in its defilement and its ruins. He cannot even mask the humane element long enough to carry a stratagem through. In the feigned death of Juliet, when he arrives at the real sorrow and heart-agony of her parents, he cannot let them go uncomforted, and having no other comforter at hand, he inconsistently enough puts into the lips of the very author of the stratagem, whose words of consolation, if he uttered any, should have been few, slow, and measured, that surpassingly rich flow of soothing and elevating sentiment:

"Heaven and yourself

Had part in this fair maid; now heaven hath all,
And all the better is it for the maid;
Your part in her you could not keep from death;
But heaven keeps his part in eternal life.
The most you sought was her promotion;
For 't was your heaven she should be advanced;
And weep ye now, seeing she is advanced,
Above the clouds, as high as heaven itself?
O, in this love, you love your child so ill,
That you run mad, seeing that she is well."

Of modern authors, who have enjoyed a wide-spread celeb

rity, Scott has perhaps the least of the philanthropic element. He has sympathy, but it runs in veins, love, but it is for man's accidents, not for man himself. He is a worshipper of the conventional. Piety must wear the robe of the establishment, patriotism must be wrapped in a tory's mantle, else he is more likely to hold it up for scorn and contumely, than for respect and reverence. In saying this, we forget not Jeannie Deans; but, in reading her story, we forget Scott, and cannot believe ourselves guided through so lovely an exhibition of pure, simple-hearted Scotch piety, by the same man, who elsewhere never loses an opportunity to make sport of religion in Presbyterian attire, and spares not even the truly apostolic zeal and sanctity of those good old Covenanters, of whom the world was not worthy. We have called Scott a worshipper, we might better have termed him the high-priest, of the conventional. He moulded it into the most life-like forms; but the Promethean spark is wanting. His works have met with no more fame, than his genius merited. His vivid fancy reproducing scenes and groups of olden time, his vast power of combination, his fidelity at once to his plot and to the individuality of every personage, his easy and fluent diction, his general loftiness and purity of moral sentiment, undoubtedly constitute him the most perfect artificer of fiction that the world has ever seen. As such, he has been idolized by the generation just passing off the stage, and by that now upon the stage; but it cannot be denied that his promised immortality has passed its climax. With the rising generation he is supplanted by authors embodying more of that philanthropic element, without which the ascendancy of no man's genius will much outlast his life-time.

Of these new favorites, in a former article, we spoke at some length of Dickens, then the last favorite, and still our last, though it is hardly possible that his whole year's silence, and then his free and righteous strictures upon American manners, should not have transferred to other brows the laurels given by a changeful public. His men are not indeed made of the fine porcelain earth, of which Scott knows how to shape them. But then they are made, as God made man, out of the dust of the ground; and they are living men, -as men, because they are men, claiming our sympathy and reverence. His stories

March, 1842.

are confused in plot, hurried and awkward in the denouement, sometimes slovenly, though oftener surpassingly beautiful, in style, sometimes lingering too long amidst coarseness and vulgarity; but, all the while, they breathe a tender sympathy with man as man, in whatever garb, under whatever culture. He is doing more than any other living or recent writer, to open the fountains of kindly feeling, and diffusive world-embracing charity, and to inspire deep compassion, earnest prayer, faithful effort for the toiling, suffering, and neglected of our race. That his works will outlive his own generation we may not presume to say. But they cannot lose their hold upon the general heart, till other writers shall arise, who shall blend his spirit of humanity with more exquisite art and a more highly finished diction.

A word or two in conclusion, with reference to the province and duty of authors. The only worthy object of writing is to convince men of that which is true, or to persuade them to that which is good. The highest aim is to convince of truth, or to persuade to goodness the greatest number. Love is the only lever, which can move the moral universe. The counsel then to the future author should be: Cultivate the true spirit of philanthropy. Cherish every principle and element of our common nature. Form yourself to a close and tender sympathy with the universal heart. When you write, address yourself to that heart. Speak as man to man. Be not satisfied, unless you feel the pulsation of your own heart sent back to you from those, for whom you write. Write not for fame; if you do, you will never get it. Write not for self; for the law of all self-seeking is, "None that seek shall find." But write in love. Write what a loving spirit prompts. Write that you may do good. This purpose will give you strength, will add nerve to your thoughts and wings to your words. You will do good, and get good. You may trace your own rill of benevolent effort far and long, before it mingles with the full tide of human progress; or, if not, in that better world, where all high aims and worthy efforts are treasured up, the rill will flow apart again and forever.

A. P. P.

VOL. XXXIV. 3D S. VOL. XVI. NO. II.

19

ON THE DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT.

THE doctrine of the atonement is sometimes described, both by its friends and adversaries, as if it implied that sentiments of mercy in the Divine Father were first inspired by the mediation of the Son; that the former was full of wrath, until it was assuaged by the interposition of the latter. But, on the contrary, it is distinctly maintained by others, among whom may be numbered Calvin and Watts, that the design of redemption, by the ministry of the Son, originated with the Father; that it was not the Son who disposed the Father to thoughts of mercy, but the mercy of the Father induced Him to appoint the Son to the office and the work of saving men from their sins!

The difference may be expressed by the terms, "would not," and "could not." Those who embrace the "could not" theory of the atonement, as the orthodox one, reject the other as a misrepresentation. It was not, they say, that God wanted a heart, and "would not" be merciful, but because he "could not" (could not consistently, could not with moral propriety,) spare, forgive, and save sinners, that the work of making atonement was indispensably needful. There must be satisfaction made to the law, truth, and justice of God. The atonement, therefore, is vicarious in its character. It is one thing substituted for another. It is the death of the "Just One" in the room and stead of the ungodly.

This view of the doctrine of the atonement is thought to be sustained chiefly by 1. The literal interpretation of certain texts of Scripture; 2. Its indispensable necessity to the support of moral government, which, if God should pardon the sins of men on the ground of their repentance only, would be essentially impaired, and even virtually annulled.

Having given what we understand this theory and ground of the doctrine of the atonement to be, we shall proceed to make a statement of some of the difficulties to which it is manifestly exposed.

1. It is not sustained by the sense of the word atonement, either in the Old Testament or in the New. It is acknowledged that the use of the word, in the New Testament, is not in this sense. It here signifies the reconciliation of man to God, not the reconciliation of God to man. But it is contend