that they are introduced to the world by such men as the Head Master of Rugby, the Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford, and the Bishop of Natal in South Africa. So patronized, and bearing the attractive title of "the Study of Holy Scripture," it is confidently expected that even the boldest theories of the French and German school may pass current; and that, by degrees, the obstinate "Bibliolatry" of the bigoted English may be effectually subdued.

MACNAUGHT'S CHRISTIANITY AND ITS EVIDENCES.

Christianity and its Evidences: an Essay; with an Epistle of Dedication to his former Congregation. By JOHN MACNAUGHT, M.A., Oxon., formerly Incumbent of St. Chrysostom's Church, Everton, Liverpool.

"Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much."(James v. 16.) "In Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love.”—(Gal. v. 6.)

London: Longmans & Co. 1863.

It is impossible to read this essay without some emotion. It comes from a stricken heart, and makes its appeal at once both to the judgment of the reader and to his sympathy. Prior to September 1861, Mr. Macnaught was the incumbent of St. Chrysostom's, Everton. He had been so for a period of twelve years; beloved, for his works' sake, by a large congregation, and esteemed by a wide circle of friends beyond it, including most of the distinguished clergy of Liverpool.

In an evil hour he was led to entertain sceptical trains of thought. He did not give way to them all at once; for he calls those to witness who knew him intimately, how "long, and how miserably, he wrestled with them before he allowed himself to be severed from his ministry." Still he fainted before the fight was done. His own account is very touching. Having once entered upon a course of growing unbelief, "I lost," he says, "that loving appreciation of Christ and Him crucified, which is the vital breath of our religion. Living under the unfavourable condition of habitual doubt, I lost-what every clergyman and every Christian should pray and strive to retain in all their freshness-the sense of sin forgiven, the consciousness of dependence upon God and Christ for every thing, the habit of constant communion with Him who tells us to come to Him and find rest unto our souls."

His doubts increased as they were indulged; at length, he

was led into "a state of mind in which all miracles appeared impossible, and the characteristic doctrines of the Gospel untenable." Still he was honest; he felt that he could not continue his ministry in the Church of England, and, on the date we have given above, he publicly announced his resignation of "a church which had been built for him, and always filled with a loving congregation.'

Yet his heart clung to the Church of England, and he urged the flock from whom he sorrowfully parted still to worship in their accustomed house of prayer. For he still felt the necessity for prayer and praise and exhortation in some house of God, "and I knew none," he says, "I still know none, where you and I might worship so well as within the precincts of the dear old Church of England." His congregation, he tells us, were perplexed. How could it be right for them to worship in a church in which it was not right for their pastor to continue his ministrations? Alas, the disease was deeper than he had allowed himself to divulge; deeper, perhaps, than at the time he was able to explain. He told them some of his objections, but not all. He thought it unnecessary, and therefore unkind, to draw others into the unenviable abyss of doubt into which he had begun to plunge, and he left untold, under the vague expression, "other points not specified," many of the real grounds of his secession. In short, he had begun to doubt, not only of the miracles, but of the incarnation, the atonement, and the resurrection. He was lost and bewildered, and he was a wretched man.

But God, who is rich in mercy, did not leave him in his unbelief; and he now, at length, with the courage and humility which only the truth of the Gospel, received into the heart by faith, supplies, tells the world of the depth and extent of his misery, and of his merciful escape. His misery he describes in the words of M. E. Renan; they have already appeared in our pages. Mr. Macnaught, from his own experience, speaks of their melancholy truth; and we feel that we render no superfluous homage to the cause of revealed truth if we call attention again to the dreadful contrast they exhibit between infidelity and true religion, and publish them once more :

"Shall we ever,' asks M. E. Renan, 'obtain a more certain view of man's destiny and of his relations with the infinite? Shall we ever know more clearly the law of the origin of beings, the nature of conscience, what is life and what is personality? Will men-still abstaining from credulity and persisting steadily in the pursuit of positive philosophy-ever regain their joy, their ardour, their hope, their far-reaching thoughts (les longues pensées)? Will there ever come a day when life will be worth the pain of living, and when the man who believes in duty will find his recompense in the discharge of duty? Will this science, to which we consecrate our life, ever

repay us for the sacrifice? I know not. That which alone is certain is, that, in seeking truth by the approved method of science, we shall have done our duty. If truth be sad, we shall at least have the consolation of having discovered it according to the proper rules, and we shall be able to say that we had deserved to find it more consoling.'

Mr. Macnaught adds:

"Alas for philosophic disbelief! What a picture is here given us of the wretchedness to be found, even by a brave and noble spirit, in 'positive philosophy' and sceptical religiousness! Doubt in the meanwhile, sadness in prospect, and, at last, the possibility of being able to console ourselves by casting the blame of all on Him who made us and truth to be such melancholy companions. What, then, is the anticipation of this philosophy but to curse God and die? Yet the words quoted above are, it is to be feared, a faithful delineation of the too probable career of one who, in the midst of the world's present thoughts and feelings, loses faith in the simple Christianity of the New Testament. Some of the bitterness of this cup I have tasted, my dear friends. This it was which separated us. Had I not reason for leaving my farewell letter to you in its incompleteness? Was it not best that I should only refer vaguely to other points' which caused me to leave my sacred ministry? Would it have been wise or kind, on my part, to have named to you my doubts and disbeliefs at a time when I saw no way to escape from them and the misery they caused me ?"

The steps of his recovery show that he had never lost that tenderness of conscience which proves that the Spirit of God still continued to strive within him; and that, although under sore temptation, he had not entirely quenched His sacred influences. He thought of a life of commercial industry, but soon abandoned the idea; then he thought of entering himself as a student for the bar, but his tastes lay not in that direction. It was a noble career for others, but its charms were not great for him. The pulpit had become habitual to him, and no other pursuits than those of the ministry were congenial. He began to think again "of the glorious work of moulding the hearts and minds of men after the example of Christ." Still he was not a believer. He was not, in the proper sense, a Christian. He did not believe in the miracles, nor, of course, in "the characteristic dogmas of Christianity." "It was," he says, "the morality of the Gospel, not its religion, which commanded his belief and admiration." While in this state of mind, he was led to consider the propriety of ministering in connexion with some of the existing bodies of Nonconformists. We presume that he must refer to Arians or Socinians; for he speaks of his friends among the Nonconformists as being willing "to leave their ministers free to preach just what may commend itself to the mind as God's truth;" and this is a compliment which we hope, and sincerely believe, that no congregation of orthodox dissenters would accept. But Mr.

Macnaught's mind was in the state St. James describes, "like a wave of the sea, tossed to and fro, and buffeted." One thing he knew; it admitted of no doubt; there was no footing for scepticism there :—he was not happy; he had found no repose. But he still clung to the Church of England, and even worshipped, or strove to worship, in her courts. He was saved from the mad delirium which has impelled some others to scatter abroad the scorching embers of their unbelief, and to take an insane delight in cajoling their friends into the same net in which they are themselves ensnared. His worst doubts he had not revealed, and he still concealed them; for his Liverpool friends invited him to return; they would have built him an edifice for a free Church of England, in which the Prayer-Book should be used, as little altered as might be consistent with the requirements of his own conscience; but he felt that he could not consistently accept the offer.

Yet these solicitations could not fail to strengthen the desire "to resume the office of a Christian preacher," or rather, as he himself, correcting this expression, more truly says, desire to exhort men to the imitation of Christ." And he determined at this conjuncture to give the best reconsideration he could to Christianity and its evidences. "In doing this," he says, "I was chiefly assisted-under God-by a volume on the Evidences, by the late Dr. Thomas Chalmers, and by a reperusal of The Christ of History, by Mr. John Young."

Since Mr. Macnaught has thus laid open to the world the secrets of his fall and the steps of his recovery, we should like to know, without prying too curiously into those inner workings of the heart which thoughtful men in general are so unwilling to disclose, whether, during this gloomy period, he entirely gave up the practice of private devotion? Or, if he prayed, whether his petitions were in any way, however vaguely, offered to the Father through a Mediator? Again, did he ask for the teaching of the Holy Spirit? We trust no idle curiosity prompts these inquiries. His book will fall into the hands of not a few who are in the same perplexities, or the same unbelief, from which he has been rescued. How important, then, that they should be informed of all the means which contributed to his recovery! His feet were almost gone; his steps had well-nigh slipped. But so it was even with the Psalmist himself;* and in a psalm which has been a help to thousands in every age who have wandered through this dark valley of unbelief the Valley of the Shadow of Death, nay, of death itself -he relates the means of his recovery. They were not intellectual. No fine process of argument convinced him of his folly. He went into the sanctuary, and then the truth flashed upon him; for God disclosed eternity, and showed him the

* Psalm lxxii.

vision of the fearful end of those whose prosperity had first led him to entertain sinful doubts as to the justice and righteousness of God. But it does not follow that the great Shepherd of the sheep should reclaim every wanderer in the same way. With some the process is more an intellectual one: so it was with Mr. Macnaught. The study of the Evidences, mixed, we cannot doubt, with humble prayer, were the instruments employed; and the weary wanderer returned to the Shepherd and Bishop of his soul. He gratefully acknowledges, amongst the influences blessed of God to the bringing about of his present faith and happiness, "the unceasing tolerance and kindness, as well as the unwearied prayers, of Christian friends among the laity and clergy, who have always been faithful to me," he says, "through every crisis." We are not surprised that, while he lost their confidence, he should not have lost their respect. But had this last cord been snapped, they would have felt that their duty was still the same. A bishop may be an infidel. Ministers of Christ may overthrow the faith of some, and riot over the waste places they have made in the Church of God. Others, again, may apostatize, and live in spiritual adultery with the mother of harlots. But the duty of the Church of Christ is still the same; to pray that God would give them repentance, to the acknowledgment of the truth, and save them from the wrath to come.

Mr. Macnaught thus concludes his "Confessions;" they are written in a few pages; but in the present condition of the Church of England we cannot well over-estimate their worth :

"As I became again influenced by the convincing power of Christ's Gospel, I communicated my change of views to the committee which had proposed to build me a free church; and I also gave them to understand that, my scepticism being removed, my old predilection for the Reformed Church of England was awakened in all its power, so that, if ever. I preached to them again, it would be in some pulpit of the English Church.

"What my future is to be I know not yet; but if, by God's blessing, I can find a suitable opening, my desire is to resume my labours in the Church of England.

"It would be wrong were I not to mention here that the Bishop of London, in whose diocese my present abode is situated, has shown me an amount of kindness, and given me comfort and counsel in a manner which I had no right to expect, and which I shall be always unable sufficiently to acknowledge.

"This, too, is the proper place in which to mention the great pleasure with which I find myself most cordially welcomed back to the ministry by Dr. M'Neile, and all other clergymen whose opinions on the subject have been made known to me.

"Nor can I here refrain from expressing a regret, which I have long entertained, that anything like personal feeling or anger was