punishment was contrary to reason, and incompatible with the love and goodness of God, but when I became forced to study the Scriptures more attentively, in order to defend Universalism against the objections I had to meet, I became satisfied that they did not teach the final salvation of all men, if literally interpreted, and that I must either reject them as authority for reason, or else accept the doctrine of endless punishment." (p. 67.)

We cannot wonder that any period of connection with a faith concerning which one had such misgivings, would be a most "anti-Christian period." We will, however, give Mr. Brownson the benefit of his disclaimer, that all this while he was not playing his brethren false. He made no secret, he tells us, of his doubts. "I did not," he says, "write or preach differently from what I thought and felt; nobody could really be deceived as to the state of my mind. Many of my brother ministers knew my doubts. They blamed me, it is true, not for entertaining them, but for not keeping them to myself." (p. 80.)

We cannot be surprised that he was dissatisfied with Universalism, considering the form in which he held it. Here is his statement of the light in which he viewed its relation to the foundation of morality.

"As God inflicts pain only for the sake of reformation, as he never punishes sin or rewards virtue, all idea of moral accountability must be abandoned. God will never bring us into judgment for our conduct. Then there is no power above us to defend oppressed innocence, and to vindicate the majesty of right. Then what is the criterion of right and wrong? Both must be alike pleasing to God, and if both are alike pleasing to him, if he regards with equal complacency the sinner and the saint, what is the radical difference between them? None that I can see. God wills our happiness; then what makes us happy must be regarded as good, and what makes us miserable must be regarded as evil. An action is virtuous, then, because it promotes our happiness, produces pleasurable emotions in our selves, or in others, and vice is that which does not promote our happiness, which causes painful emotions in us or in others. Virtue is virtue because it promotes happiness, and vice is vice because it brings misery. Then no objective distinction between virtue and vice, between good and evil. Here, said I, is the very foundation of morality undermined." (pp. 77, 78.)

profess such Uni

We should most earnestly advise all who versalism, to get rid of it as soon as possible. We should look

upon it, did we know where to look for it, with loathing. Mr. Brownson cannot, however, be ignorant of the fact, that if the Calvinism, which was still in the minds of many converts to Universalism at that early time, led some to reason away the distinctions between right and wrong, -as consistent Calvinism must do,—such notions as he enumerates were by no means essential to Universalism. We are surprised to find that so acute a thinker could ever for an instant be imposed upon by such nonsense. Our older brethren complain much of his course while connected with them in the ministry; and are not quite ready to receive his explanation, touching his profession of Universalism, at the time he was really an unbeliever. The distinction, by which he would have it appear that his inconsistency of profession and real want of belief involved no insincerity, they look upon with more than suspicion. But of those particulars we cannot speak with assurance. They were before our day. It is evident, however, from the representation which he makes of Universalism, and his statements relative to prominent preachers of the faith, that his connection with the denomination was not pleasant on social grounds, and that in taking his leave he carried away some root of bitterness.

Mr. Brownson's sketch of the Rev. Hosea Ballou-on the whole, we think just, and certainly eulogistic-will interest most of our readers.

"He (Mr. Ballou) was, I think, of French descent, the son of a small New England farmer, and obliged in his youth to assist his father and elder brothers in the cultivation of the farm, and in supporting the family. Nature was bountiful to him, both physically and intellectually. She gave him a tall athletic frame, symmetrical and finely moulded, handsome features, and an air of dignity and authority. His natural genius and ability fitted him to take rank with the most distinguished men the country has produced; but, unhappily, his education was very defective, and his acquired knowledge and information were even to the last very limited. But his intellect was naturally acute, active, fertile, and vigorous. He always struck me-and I knew him well in the later years of his life-as one who, if he chose, might excel in whatever he undertook. In his earlier years, he was regarded as harsh, bitter, and sarcastic in his temper, but when I knew him personally, he was witty indeed, fond of his joke, like most New Englanders, but an agreeable and kind-hearted old gentlemen, very fond of children, and possessing great power to fascinate young men, and win their confidence and affection. In my boyhood he was settled in Barnard, Vermont, about five miles from the old people with

whom I resided, and I often heard them speak of him, as some of their relatives belonged to his congregation. He was then a young man, but distinguished. From Barnard he removed to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and after a short residence there he removed to Boston, where he continued to reside till his death, which occurred five or six years ago. He was the patriarch of American Universalism, and at the time when I became a Universalist minister was its oracle, very nearly its Pope. (pp. 47, 48.)

Of the Treatise on the Atonement, considered as an intellectual performance, our author speaks in very high terms; while his denunciation of its "heresies" is not less emphatic. Having given an analysis of its contents, he continues:

"These views are set forth and defended with great freedom and boldness, with wonderful acuteness and power, in language clear, simple, forcible, and at times beautiful, and even eloquent. A book fuller of heresies, and heresies of the most deadly character, not excepting Theodore Parker's Discourse of Matters pertaining to Religion, has probably never issued from the American press, or one better calculated to carry away a large class of young, ingenuous, and unformed minds. The heresies are indeed old, but they were nearly all original with the author. He had never read them, and there were no books within his reach, at the time when he wrote his Treatise, from which he could derive them. My only aids in writing my Treatise on the Atonement,' said he personally to me, in answer to a question I put to him, 'were the Bible, Ethan Allen's Oracles of Reason,' a deistical work, and my own reflections.' In the circumstances under which it was written, it was certainly a most remarkable production, and if it did the author no credit as a sound thinker, it certainly entitled him to rank among the most original thinkers of our times." (pp. 51, 52.)

The author seems to us not a little constrained in the sketch he gives of his connection with the Fanny Wright party and world-reform theories. Nor can we wonder at this. Here is a statement of the Fanny Wright scheme.

"The aim was, on the one hand, to relieve marriage of its burdens, and to remove the principal reasons for making it indissoluble; and on the other, to provide for bringing up all children in a rational manner, to be reasonable men and women, that is, free from superstition, all belief in God and immortality, or regard for the invisible, and make them look upon this life as their only life, this earth as their only home, and the promo

tion of their earthly interests and enjoyments as their only end. The three great enemies to worldly happiness were held to be religion, marriage or family, and private property. Once get rid of these three institutions, and we may hope soon to realize our earthly paradise. For religion we are to substitute science, that is, science of the world of the five senses only; for private property, a community of goods; and for private families, a community of wives." (p. 129.)

To these detestable notions, however, Mr. Brownson never gave unqualified assent. He now thinks, that so far as they concern the relations of the sexes, they are logically deducible from the Protestant notion of marriage, which notion denies the grace of the sacrament, without which grace our Catholic author assures us, "Christian marriage is above the strength of human nature!"

"Marriage in the Christian sense is really practicable with the majority of the non-laboring classes only by the grace of the sacrament. For men and women in easy circumstances, who are not Christians, but abandoned to simple unassisted nature, it is a burden too great to be borne, as the experience of all ages sufficiently proves. Almighty God under the old law dispensed the Jews from many of its rigors, and the Protestant Reformers, denying marraiage to be a sacrament, authorized divorce from the bond of matrimony, and in certain cases permitted polygamy. Christian marriage is above the strength of human nature in our present fallen state, and needs Christian grace. It need not surprise us, then, that honest and enlightened men and women, far enough themselves from being of a licen tious turn, yet ignorant of the Christian faith, and with no knowledge of, or belief in the Christian sacraments, should revolt at Catholic marriage, and labor not only to render it dissoluble, but easily dissoluble, and for slight, even trivial causes." (pp. 117, 118.)

Of the book as a whole we are free to say that we find it both interesting and instructive. It is a curious mental process -this progress (if such is the proper word) of a really great thinker from Presbyterianism to negative-never, it would seem, to positive, Universalism,-thence to unbelief, thence to a quasiUnitarianism, thence to Transcendentalism, and finally resting by submitting his reason to the guidance of the Catholic Church, which he now assures us he considers "the noblest exercise he can make of his reason and free-will!" He writes with his accustomed force, perspicuity and elegance. No work from so able a hand can be unworthy a reader's attention.

2. The Pitts-Street Chapel Lectures. Delivered in Boston by Cler gymen of Six different Denominations, during the Winter of 1858. Boston: John P. Jewett & Co. 1858. pp. 366.

The occasion of the delivery of these lectures was eminently peculiar, and deserves mention as an exemplification of that much enlarged spirit of liberality and mutual toleration among the several churches or sects, which so distinguishes-greatly for the better, we trust, the present generation of Christians from any preceding generation. The Pitts-Street Chapel is an establishment which flourishes under the auspices of the Boston Unitarian Ministry-at-large. Last year the persons having its management in charge invited six clergymen of different denominations to give as many lectures in answer to the question, "What shall I do to be saved?" "This year," we quote from the Introduction of the book before us, "the same association invited clergymen from six denominations to preach a series of sermons in which each should plainly declare why he is compelled to hold and teach his creed. The interest in this course was so wide spread and intense, that a call has been made for the publication of the same. Hence the issue of the present volume."

The several lectures are by Rev. William R. Clark, for the Methodists; Rev. T. B. Thayer, for the Universalists; Rev. James N. Sykes, for the Baptists; Rev. Nehemiah Adams, D. D., for the Congregationalists; Rev. George M. Randall, D. D., for the Episcopalians; Rev. Orville Dewey, D. D., for the Unitarians. The course concluded with a lecture on Spiritual Christianity, by Rev. T. S. King; in which he speaks not for any sect, but simply with a view to present the distinguishing element of Christianity, which is true everywhere, whatever the sect in which it may be found.

It would require much space to give an analysis of the several lectures which make the bulk of this remarkably elegant book. We need not however attempt so exhaustive a notice, for we have no doubt that a very extensive sale will bring its whole contents before the candor and criticism of a very large number of readers. We may say, however, that no one of the several denominations has occasion to complain that its exponent, on the occasion of the lectures, did not, as a general thing, do justice to its distinctive claims. It is, in fact, the most sectarian, and at the same time the most liberal book that we could readily name. It is sectarian, for the several speakers have done what each could do to bring forward and defend .the distinctive convictions of his creed and communion; it is liberal, for all the several sects have agreed to submit their arguments to the private