through a hundred or a thousand miles, they are to start afresh and gather all the pebbles, and then make the journey for a third time catching all the butterflies. If history, as some have represented it, is really a mighty river, down which the historian is conducting a company of travellers, how distressing is the very thought of first descending one bank, then the other, then the middle of the stream, then the channels upon either side, throughout the whole course, from its rising to its estuary! How much more delightful, and more useful too, to make but one descent, surveying both banks and the stream itself, passing from one side to the other, with irregular, but, for that very reason, less fatiguing changes, and receiving every moment the entire impression of the undivided landscape! The first-named method may be best for the surveyor or the engineer, but surely not for the great crowd of voyagers in search of health and of general improvement. The other may be difficult to manage well: but so is every thing intended to secure by complex means a great harmonious result. If possible, it surely is worth trying. Let the church historian, in his own preliminary studies, act the engineer or the surveyor; but before he undertakes to pilot and to entertain a great mixed multitude of pleasure-seeking passengers, he ought to be prepared to take a less professional and more attractive

course.

Dropping these figures, which we have not strength or skill to manage, let us briefly compare this favourite method of Church History with the general usage of historiography. Why has it been so much confined to the school of the Magdeburg Centuriators? Why do we find so little trace of it in classical or sacred history? How have the most eminent historians of other kinds been able to dispense with it? If the life of Washington or Bonaparte, each really the history of an age and nation, can be skilfully and powerfully written on the old and simple plan, without continually going back to start afresh and run a parallel to what we have already done; if, with a few insignificant exceptions, wholly or partly generated by this bad example, no one thinks of giving us the life of Washington, from end to end, first as a man, then as a soldier, then again as a statesman; if, should any one be able so to write it, no one save himself could read it; why is it utterly impossible to write about the church and its vicissitudes, except in the peculiar form impressed upon the subject several centuries ago, by men whose strength lay not in taste and form, and that too for a temporary purpose, which has long since been accomplished? It is equally curious and provoking to observe, that the contemporary Germans, with all their characteristic scorn for old opinions, and spontaneous preference for what is new

as to substantials, should philosophise and reason about this venerable relic of the Magdeburg historians, as an axiomatic principle to be assumed in all their reasonings and plans, without the least doubt or discussion of its truth or its necessity. We wish that, among ourselves at least, while every lawful use is made of their researches and accumulations, a return may take place, in the mode of exhibition, to the primitive and simple method sanctioned by the usage of the Bible, the classics, and historians in general.

But what is this method? Leaving out of view all peculiarities, personal or national, and looking at the great authoritative models just referred to, as a class, we have no hesitation. in answering that the only genuine historical method is that which aims to exhibit the ingredients as elements of history, not in independent strata, but in one homogeneous composi tion; not as separate pictures, but as figures in the same; and this not merely with a view to more agreeable effect, but as essential to the highest intellectual and moral end to which history itself can be conducive; and which no detached and desultory inspection of the topics can secure, without a simultaneous and harmonious view of all together.

If it be still asked how these views are to be realised and put in practice, we reply, first, by discarding all traditional, unnatural, and peculiar methods, and by bringing Church History back into connection with its kindred branches of the same great subject. In the next place we suggest, as highly probable at least, that this is not to be effected by the use of any one expedient, any more than medical empiricism can be remedied by simply substituting one patent nostrum or quack doctor for another. What we most desire for this department of theology among ourselves is freedom and variety of form with unity of substance; a wise dependence upon those who have gone further than ourselves in the discovery or illustration of historical truth, with an equally wise independence of the same men as to things in which we are at least their equals. In realising this idea, we should not regret to see different experiments conducted by the hands of native authors, not excluding those of foreign birth and education who have freely made this their adopted country. One such corrective might be tried by following the example, set already both in Germany and elsewhere, of giving history a more biographical or personal character, exchanging rigid chronological or topical divisions for the living individuality of great men, into whose lives contemporary history might easily be wrought, without either violence or undue refinement. Another equally desirable experiment would be to let the chronological arrangement be entirely superseded by the topical, or rather absorbed in it;

that is, by treating in succession the great subjects of history in the order of their actual occurrence; now a council, now a controversy, now a critical event, now a typical or representative man, without applying the same set of stereotyped rubrics to each period in succession. This would, it seems to us, approach most nearly to the form and usages of history in general; but as some might find it difficult to navigate the stream without a fixed point to steer by, we would also recommend an improvement on the Magdeburg method, which might still retain whatever advantages it really affords. This modification of the system would consist in substituting for the several co-ordinate topics of inquiry, one alone to which the others should be incidental and subservient. But which would be entitled to this preference? On this point, we propose to say a few words in conclusion.

We have said already that the later German writers have reduced the categories of the old Centuriators to a smaller number, and to better relative proportions. The crude mass has been boiled down, as it were, to a more manageable size and shape. According to the views of the best modern writers, Church History exhibits Christianity in three great aspectsas an Organization-as a Doctrine-as a Life; and as these three phases are produced by the revolving of the same orb in its orbit, we may add a fourth important topic, as included in all recent exhibitions of the subject. This is the area or sphere within which Christianity has operated. Under this head is included the extension of the Church, and, as a kindred topic, its relation to the world, society, and human government. This covers the whole history of persecutions, church establishments, and missions. Under the head of Christian Life is comprehended all that relates to its public or private manifestations, i. e., to worship, and to Christian. morals, or practical religion. Under the head of Doctrine is included the history of controversy and opinion, together with that of theological literature. Under the head of Organization are included the two topics of Church Government and Discipline.

Now, in order to determine which of these four phases of the subject is entitled to the preference as the leading topic of Church History, we have only to inquire which is the least dependent on the others for its own existence or importance, and at the same time most essential to theirs. If this test be applied to the external relations of the Church, it cannot be sustained at all, for it is evident that these derive their very being from the Church itself, and that the Church itself might have existed as a self-contained or esoteric institute, without any such relations at all.

The same is true, though in a less degree, of organization, i. e., government and discipline, which derive their value from the ends which they secure, namely, purity of doctrine and holiness of life. We can conceive, indeed, of an organization existing for its own sake, without reference to any thing exterior or ulterior to itself. But no one will pretend that the Church, as depicted in the Word of God, is such a system.

The choice must therefore lie between the two remaining topics of church history, corresponding to the two great aspects of the Christian system as a Life and as a Doctrine. With respect to the relation between these, there has occurred a very marked change in the prevailing modes of thought and expression. It has become a favourite idea with the Germans and their followers, that Christianity is not a Doctrine, but a Life; by which they do not mean, of course, to deny its doctrinal contents or substance as a system of belief, but simply to decide the question now immediately before us-what is the grand distinctive character of Christianity, to which all others may be made historically incidental? The answer given by the class in question is, that it is not a Doctrine, but a Life. This admits of two interpretations. It may mean that the Church has a personal life of its own, in which its members must participate. Thus understood, it is a mystical and dangerous conceit, to which we have sufficiently done justice upon other occasions. Or the words may mean that the great end of Christianity is, not to communicate the truth and stop there, but to engender and promote the spiritual life of its professors. This is true; but it is only true because it represents experimental or practical religion as the fruit or the effect of truth; and as the cause, whether primary or secondary, must precede the effect, it follows that the history of Christianity, considered as a Life, presupposes its existence as a Doctrine or a system of belief.

On the other hand, this system of belief, though really designed to stand connected with an outward government and discipline on one hand, and with a religious experience and practice on the other, and to be maintained within certain definite external limits, and in certain relations to the world around it, is perfectly conceivable apart from each and all of these concomitants, and yet, as we have seen before, essential to the being, and, of course, to the historical description of them all. It follows, therefore, that the priority, in such a scheme as we have been considering, is due to this great aspect of the subject; or, in other words, that a complete Church History must be a history of the true faith, as rejected or received, expounded or corrupted, by the men to whom it has been sent, and as producing, in various degrees of purity,

according to the mode of its reception, a system of government and discipline, adapted to preserve it and enforce it, and a definite religious life and character, both inward and outward, individual and collective, within certain limits both of time. and space, and under certain definite but varying relations to civil rulers and society at large.

If this result of our induction be a just definition of Church History, it suggests a very practicable method of determining its form and structure, by making it a history of Christian doctrine, and subordinating all the other topics to it, not as separate subjects of historical inquiry, but as elements of one unbroken narrative. It is true the Germans have made "Dogmengeschichte" a thing by itself; but that is no more a reason for denying it its just place in a system of Church History, than any man or number of men choosing to recount the history of Washington's administration, or his history as a statesman, without any reference to the rest of his life, would require or authorise his subsequent biographers to pass this most essential portion of their subject by in silence, or to slur it over as of small comparative importance.

We are glad to see that this correct view of the place due to the doctrine of the Church in the construction of its History, is recognised, not only by Professor Humphrey, in the excellent address which has occasioned these remarks, but likewise, if we may rely upon the somewhat vague and irresponsible reports which we have seen of his inaugural discourse, by Professor Shedd of Andover, the two most recent additions to the corps of Church Historians in America. We use the title in the

wide sense of historical instructors, whether from the chair or through the press, in which more permanent and extensive mode of influence we hope to welcome and to learn from both hereafter.

ART. VI.-History of the French Refugees, from the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes to the Present Time. By CHARLES WEISS, Professor of History at the Lycée Buonaparte. Translated, with the assistance of the Author, by FREDERICK HARDMAN. William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh and London. 1854. 8vo, pp. 595.

AMONG the signs of our times none of the least suggestive is the attention which is now devoted to the records of French Protestantism. On the continent, as at home, this interest has been coincident with the return of the spring-time of reformation truth and life, under a more genial sky, after the break