Mr. Furness says (page 197), "That there may be a mixture of the fabulous in the history of Jesus, I do not deny, I admit to a certain extent. It would be strange were it not so. But still, that the story, substantially, in regard to all the principal facts, should be fictitious, is just as impossible as that we should be able to imagine a new creature."

The following events in the life of Jesus Mr. Furness so explains as to discharge the miraculous element, and change them into commonplace phenomena. The immaculate conception he considers a mistake, founded on some dreams of Mary (p. 20). Jesus was the Son of Mary and Joseph (p. 25). The Holy Ghost, descending like a dove, was an inward purpose of the soul of Jesus, accompanied with the outward fact of a dove flying by (p. 44). The temptations in the wilderness were reflections in his own mind upon the use he might make of his remarkable powers (p. 48). His prophecies proceeded from great sagacity and foresight, but he did not foresee all the great obstructions which would hinder the progress of the truth (p. 85). His cures were wrought partly by a special power of healing, and partly by the faith he inspired in those who came to be healed (p. 34). Practically, however, Mr. Furness seems to attribute the cures chiefly to the faith of the patients, and seems sometimes to assume a little too readily, that, addressed by Jesus in a tone of authority, the cure of the sufferers must have followed as a matter of course. Thus he says of the insane man (p. 71), of whom faith could hardly be predicated, that, being "personally addressed, and with an air of unearthly authority, . . . . . no doubt from that moment he regained his self-possession completely." He supposes that the centurion's child had caught his father's faith, and that the expectation of seeing the wonder-worker would cure his palsy very naturally. "He must needs have got well." So of the woman who touched him. The touch cured her in a natural way. It was "no medical efficacy in his clothes, but the person's own faith, which wrought the cure." "The touch must have been to her like an electric stroke." (p. 91.) In short, she cured herself. Even in the case of Lazarus, whom Mr. Furness supposes to have been really dead, it was the faith of the dead man which enabled

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So of the

him to be brought to life again (p. 199). young persons whom he raised from death. We are not told of their having any faith in Jesus, but Mr. Furness says that their youth supplied the absence of it, for "between him and the young there was a living sympathy. They were in the same sphere." (p. 200.) And, believing fully in the resurrection of Jesus himself, he thinks that he woke to life again "by the native force of his mighty God-inspired being, prompted to this unprecedented act by the love he bore his disciples, and by his interest in the truth, with which his inmost life was identified. That reanimated his lifeless body." (p. 287.)

Now, if we were disposed to criticize these statements and explanations, we should perhaps dissent, more or less, from all of them. We have no doubt that Mr. Furness has struck a vein of truth, in supposing that miracles have their laws and conditions, but we think he overvalues his explanations. But these questions have been so often argued, and need for their discussion so much more minute and accurate a criticism than would be proper here, that we pass them by with these few words.

And now gladly do we return, after our necessary protest, to sit at the feet of our poet, and listen to the music of his strain, while in glowing words he sounds the praises of his great Master. Through the long summer afternoon, while the shadows of the trees are lengthening around us, we could listen well content to that earnest exposition of the loftiest theme on which the human mind can dwell. The love of Mr. Furness for the beautiful and true, in all domains of nature and art, fits him well for the high discussion. Dissenting from him in a great principle, and in details, we feel wiser and better for having heard him. His "History of Jesus" is not the final word on this matter, but it is fitly spoken, and spoken in season, and will awaken to a deeper thought multitudes of kindred minds.

J. F. C.

ART. VII.- LITURGICAL AND EXTEMPORANEOUS WORSHIP.

THE Unitarian denomination has, from its origin, in this country, enjoyed the advantages of both modes of religious worship, the liturgical and the extemporaneous. Dr. Freeman, the earliest pastor of any church who avowed himself a Unitarian, had been educated as a minister of the Episcopal Church, and retained his preference for the liturgical method of worship, and continued to use the Book of Common Prayer after the change of his religious sentiments and those of his people, and the alterations in the service which that change of opinion rendered necessary. But the clergymen and churches which sympathized most nearly with him, and which successively avowed Unitarian sentiments, were of those who had been accustomed to the extemporaneous method, the method introduced by the Pilgrims, and all but universally in use in New England. This difference of forms in Unitarian worship produced no disagreement in sentiment; but, on the contrary, by gradually bringing each class of worshippers into familiarity with the mode practised by the other, taught them a proper estimate of forms, as important only so far as they were efficient in nourishing the sentiment of devotion. Thus gradually those prejudices which once alienated the Churchman and the Puritan, and led each to abhor his brother's mode of worship, gave way; and the ear accustomed to the prayer-book might often trace its rich devotional phraseology interwoven in the texture of the extemporaneous service; while, on the other hand, each successive edition of King's Chapel Liturgy gives evidence of renewed attempts to adapt more and more the fixed form to varying circumstances. Further indications of the same tendency are exhibited in the adoption by two societies in this city, and by one at St.

* 1. Book of Common Prayer, according to the Use of King's Chapel. Boston. 1850.

2. A Manual of Prayer for Public or Private Worship. St. Louis, Mo. 1842.

3. Service Book, for the Use of the Church of the Disciples. Boston. 1844. 4. Service Book for the Church of the Saviour. 1846.

5. The Christian Liturgy and Book of Common Prayer, &c., &c. 1847.

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Louis, of a mode compounded of the liturgical and the extemporaneous. We would now treat the subject, as far as possible, with impartiality, as one which Christians may properly discuss. Each of these methods has its peculiar advantages and disadvantages. In order to judge in what cases each is preferable, let us reflect for a moment on the distinction between common and proper or occasional prayer.

Common prayer applies to those things which are common to all men; proper prayer to those which are peculiar to each individual. Common prayer is for all times; proper prayer is for special emergencies. Common prayer is calm, thoughtful, comprehensive; proper prayer is ardent, specific, personal. Common prayer is enduring, special prayer is temporary. Common prayer may therefore fitly hold a fixed form, while special prayer varies its utterance with the occasion. To Christians who assemble, on every returning Sabbath, for united worship, a form may furnish an appropriate vehicle for their common devotions; but for missionary purposes, and to rouse the impenitent and thoughtless, it is less adapted. We have seen an engraving representing the scene of "The First Prayer in Congress." When we reflect that Bishop White, who officiated on that occasion, would not probably have allowed himself to use any prayer but those in the volume which is open before him, we cannot but feel how much less touching such must have been, than one that the occasion would have called forth from a heart as warm and true as his, if left to its own utterances. On the other hand, any one who has observed the irksome effort of some painful or hesitating speaker in extemporaneous prayer, in common Sunday worship, so to go over the familiar topics as to give them apparent variety, and not to repeat himself, while half his mind is in active exercise to select his language, and only the other half is at liberty to contemplate his theme, will be disposed to ask, Where is the expediency of requiring variety of expression for uniformity of topics, and, when all the conditions of teacher, people, and theme remain the same, of attempting to give variety to the language in which the petition is laid before the throne?

But it is not our intention to discuss so wide a subject

as the comparative merits of the two methods of public religious worship, satisfied as we are that each possesses advantages of its own. But as our topic is the new edition of the "Book of Common Prayer, according to the Use of King's Chapel, Boston," we will briefly name one or two considerations, which appear to us to show the peculiar appropriateness of such a book, at this time, to the religious condition of our country, while we leave unquestioned the advantages of the prevailing method of worship. If we seem to speak in the character of an advocate, the same pages are free to others.

It is a book, then, which may be used by Christians of every name, without jarring harshly on the feelings of any. As says the preface,

"The Trinitarian, the Unitarian, the Calvinist, the Arminian, will read nothing in it which can give him any reasonable umbrage. God is the sole object of worship in these prayers; and as no man can come to God but by the one Mediator, Jesus Christ, every petition is here offered in his name, in obedience to his positive command."

P. vi.

It omits allusions to disputed doctrines. Thus, what is retained is of the character best suited to nourish devotion, and it is left to those who use the book to supply its omissions, if they think necessary, from other

sources.

In a country so wide as ours, so thinly peopled, where little clusters of inhabitants often find themselves separated from other neighbourhoods by distances which preclude resorting to any place of worship, much less such a one as each would prefer, how useful it would be, if a book of religious worship could be adopted, that would enable any respectable individual to conduct the common prayers of such a circle, with propriety and solemnity, preserving also those associations with the services of their early days and former homes, which would cling around the prayer-book to which they had been accustomed.

These associations which cluster round a book of common prayer are of themselves a strong argument in its favor. As the religious affections of the traveller glow warmer when he treads the plains of Galilee and the hills of Jerusalem, kindled by the associations of the place, as the picture or the relic of a departed friend