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then a settled minister in Liverpool. Since that time, his occasional publications from year to year have been winning a wider audience, and awakening a deeper admiration. The history of his mind has been a broadening track of light. And now the Association feel that they cannot do a greater favor to the reading public, or better aid that cause of Liberal Christianity whose servants they are, than by printing a collection of the later writings of this gifted man, whom they first introduced to American Unitarians a quarter of a century ago.

      The list of works prefixed to the article here entitled "Distinctive Types of Christianity," as it appeared in the Westminster Review, and the opening sentence referring to them, have been accidentally omitted. Two or three of the papers belong to the author's earlier years, but are inserted here equally on account of their eminent ability, their special timeliness, and their striking adaptation to the general purpose of the work; namely, to throw light on the true nature of Christianity. They will also be new to most of those whom they now reach. The last paper in the volume is one of the first its writer published, in his comparative youth. We shall be disappointed if the benignant wisdom and moral fidelity of its catholic lessons do not secure a sympathetic response in many a quarter once closed against such appeals.

      In selecting from Mr. Martineau's numerous invaluable articles, not already published in book-form, the contents of the present work, the rule has not been so much to choose the ablest productions, as to take those best fitted to meet the wants of the time, by diffusing among ministers, students of divinity, and the cultivated laity a knowledge of the most advanced theological and religious thought yet attained. We regret that the necessary limits of the volume exclude several of the author's most instructive and inspiring essays; particularly the magnificent one in the National Review upon "Newman, Coleridge, and Carlyle"; also the one upon "Lessing as a Theologian."

      We have called this volume "Studies of Christianity," simply as a convenient indication of the general character of its contents. In justice to the author, it should be borne in mind that the separate papers were prepared to meet various occasions, without a suspicion that they would ever be brought together to form a book. Of course they do not express his complete views of the mighty subject which they fragmentarily treat. The relative order and rank of his convictions, the interpretation of Christianity from its inner side, appear much better in his "Endeavors after the Christian Life,"—by far the richest and noblest series of sermons in the English language. Still, a kind of unity pervades the different pieces composing this collection. One Christ-like strain of sentiment breathes through them all. The same consecrating fealty to truth presides over them all. The same grand outline of principles and unvarying standard of judgment are constantly evident. The same marvellous acumen, breadth of learning, and exquisite culture, everywhere appear. Each article is more or less directly an illustration of Christianity, as something moral, spiritual, vital, dynamic, to be practically assimilated by the soul, in distinction from the common exposition of it, as something sacerdotal, dogmatic, formal, forensic, once enacted and now to be mimetically observed. The energetic patience of labor, the detersive intellect, the unalloyed devoutness of spirit, the telescopic range both of faculty and equipment, revealed even in these wayside products, awaken in us an unappeasable desire for a more purposed and systematic work from the same mind, now in its fullest maturity. In the mean time we will express our grateful appreciation of the contributions already furnished, by giving them further circulation, assured that no truly pious and intelligent person, free from bigotry and shackles, can peruse them without receiving equal measures of delight and profit.

      Mr. Martineau is so thoroughly acquainted with the processes and results of spiritual experience, with the sciences of nature, and with the whole realm of metaphysical philosophy, and his own wealthy faculties are so tenacious in their activity and freshness, that every subject he touches receives novelty, light, and ornament. He is emphatically a teacher for the teachers—a greater guide and master for the common guides and masters. Traversing the whole domain of human contemplation with the defining lines of analysis, clothing the severe materials of science with the colors of æsthetic art, he sheds on every theme the illumination of intellectual genius, and transfuses every thought with the distinctive sentiments of piety. Thus is afforded that rarest of all spectacles—and the one now most needed by the cultivated religious world—of a man who is greatly endowed at once as philosopher, poet, and Christian, and who with simultaneous earnestness in each capacity is devoted, by the whole labors of his life, to the instruction of mankind.

      For these reasons, we feel it a duty to attract as much attention as possible to Mr. Martineau's past and expected publications. The peerless intelligence, the bracing fidelity, the essential nobleness and catholicity, the tender beauty and reverence, of his utterances, his consummate mastery of the great topics he handles, seem to us fitted in a solitary degree to meet the highest wants of the age—to do divine service in the conflict of scepticism, sensuality, and decay against all that is truest and purest in the religious faith and moral life of Christendom. Therefore, to persons who, unacquainted with the author's previous works, may read the papers here collected, we would recommend as the best books for educated and earnest Christian thinkers, Mr. Martineau's "Rationale of Religious Inquiry," the volume of his "Miscellanies" edited by the Rev. T. S. King, and the two series of "Endeavors after the Christian Life" recently republished in one volume by Messrs. Munroe and Company.

      We shall make up the rest of this introductory paper by quoting from some of Mr. Martineau's articles, not generally accessible, a few specimens of those thoughts which, if freely received in these times of theological doubt and turmoil, would lead many a religious thinker towards the truth and peace he covets.

      How clearly the following passage shows the true

      RELATION BETWEEN NATURAL AND REVEALED RELIGION.

      The contempt with which it is the frequent practice of divines to treat the grounds of natural religion, betrays an ignorance both of the true office of revelation and of the true wants of the human heart. It cannot be justified, except on the supposition that there is some contradiction between the teachings of creation and those of Christ, with some decided preponderance of proof in favor of the latter. Even if the Gospel furnished a series of perfectly new truths, of which nature had been profoundly silent, it would be neither reasonable nor safe to fix exclusive attention on these recent and historical acquisitions, and prohibit all reference to those elder oracles of God, by which his Spirit, enshrined in the glories of his universe, taught the fathers of our race. And if it be the function of Christianity not to administer truth entirely new, but to corroborate by fresh evidence, and invest with new beauty, and publish to the millions with a voice of power, a faith latent already in the hearts of many, and scattered through the speculations of the wise and noble few—to erect into realities the dreams which had visited a half-inspired philosophy, interpreting the life and lot of man;—then there is a relation between the religion of nature and that of Christ—a relation of original and supplement—which renders the one essential to the apprehension of the other. Revelation, you say, has given us the clew by which to thread the labyrinth of creation, and extricate ourselves from its passages of mystery and gloom. Be it so; still, there, in the scene thus cleared of its perplexity, must our worship be paid, and the manifestations of Deity be sought. If the use of revelation be to explain the perplexities of Providence and life, it would be a strange use to make of the explanation were we to turn away from the thing explained. We hold the key of heaven in our hands. What folly to be for ever extolling and venerating it, whilst we prohibit all approach to the temple whose gates it is destined to unlock.

      One would search long to find a finer illustration than is here given of the real

      NATURE OF DEVOTION.

      In Devotion there is this great peculiarity—that it is neither the work nor the play of our nature, but is something higher than either—more ideal than the one, more real than the other. All human activities besides are one of these two things—either the mere aim at an external end, or the mere outcome of an inner feeling. On the one hand, we plough and sow, we build and navigate, that we may win the adornments and securities of life; on the other hand, we sing and dance, we carve and paint, that we may put forth the pressure of harmony and joy and beauty breaking from within. Mechanical Toil

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