guide its effort. As a reaction not so much from Paganism as from material pursuits and an earthly ideal, the Christianity of the first three centuries was perhaps a purer, more penetrating, more vital element in the world than it has ever been since. It was not so much a religion as a revelation. In the rapid breaking up of the Empire after the age of Constantine, in the dark and stormy forming-time of the new civilization, it shared in the superstition and was degraded to the uses of a new dominion, which under the form of a hierarchy aspired to regain for a college of ecclesiastics the lost Empire of the Cæsars, a relapse into barbarism, a thraldom of error, which still enslaves Christianity, and still darkens the world. Over the seas and through the ages there echoes now in our ears the crash of a falling empire, the jubilee of men redeemed. It admonishes us, as by divine voices, that in the perilous times and the tremendous task upon which we have entered, in this new world set apart from the old, saved it must be, if for fiercer struggles, for a higher destiny and the final deliverance, it is for us never to forget that empire, however vast, and government, however beneficent, is but a form, a means, an invitation to personal struggle and aspiration and faith. It is a summons to the national regeneration and progress and hope, ceaseless, profound, permanent, which recognize in military success and the sovereignty of force the stimulus and the obligation of spiritual activity, of humility, of love, not a temptation to luxury, to discord, or to pride. - Les Libres Prêcheurs-devanciers de Luther et de Rabelais. Étude Historique, Critique et Anecdotique sur les XIV, XVe et XVI® Siècles. Par ANTONY MÉRAY. Paris. 1860. 12mo. pp. 210. In this very little compilation with a very loud-sounding title, M. Méray has, we think, rendered a service to popular literature, though by no means such a service as he might have rendered. His book seems designed for entertainment rather than instruction, and yet the matter of it suggests instruction before entertainment. It is too serious to amuse, and too amusing to be serious. As a study in the history of Church or of people, it is very incomplete. As a critical study, it is inadequate; as a collection of anecdotes, it is meagre. It is simply a handful of specimens of the pulpit oratory that marked the closing period of the Middle Age, and as such it is interesting to those who are unacquainted with the original works of the old preachers, or with the larger compilations from them of Peignot and others. We shall not attempt at present to set forth any detailed theory respecting the functions of the pulpit; but, following our author's example, shall speak rather of the place it holds in history, seeking illustration, in part, in anecdotes and facetiæ from his pleasant little volume. The epochs of the world's moral life have been epochs of popular preaching. When the soul has been dead, the prophet of the soul has been mute. In the old Hebrew times, prophecy rose or fell with the rise or fall of spiritual life in the people. When faith in the Lord was low, the "servant of the Lord" lay neglected in obscurity, or fled, hiding himself from popular rage; when faith in the Lord revived, he took his place, and poured forth his burden to listening ears. The prophet was always the leader of the age, if the age had any leader, if it marched with open eye or purpose in any direction. If it had no leader, it was simply priest-ridden. The worshippers stayed clustering about the altars, chanting prayers by rote, and shedding profusely the blood of rams, instead of the sacred tide of their own hearts. The prophet VOL. LXXV. - 5TH S. VOL. XIII. NO. I. - 6 gathered into himself the genius of the nation, and enriched that genius by the contribution of his own. When he came, there was "vision." Through him the Lord spoke. Through him the Spirit was poured forth. Through him communication was made from the everlasting "I AM"; and when communication was not made through him, it was not made. At his coming the altar-fires paled before the day-star from on high; and the priestly forms vanished, without stopping to greet the "beautiful feet" that sparkled on the mountains of the dawn. At his disappearing, religion became a business again, and men settled down to the dull routine of altar and ritual. But for those grand old preachers, the Hebrew history would be a blank to us, the Hebrew oracles would be voiceless, the Hebrew race would have no visible link to connect it with the other races of the globe. But for them, Christianity would have had no historic past, and Judaism no historic future. But for them, our sacred literature would suffer the most grievous impoverishment; our stock of moral ideas would be very painfully diminished; the weight of moral authority in modern society would be very sensibly lessened; the hearty faith in a living, breathing, inspiring God would miss, if not its wings, yet in a large measure the holy air on which those wings are upborne. They have ministered more to our worship than any other class of men, and if they contributed nothing to ecclesiastical forms, to the sanctity of the altar or the pomp of the ritual, they contributed that earnestness of conviction, hope, and love, without which altar form and ritual are worse than unsubstantial. The early Christian age was an age of preaching. Jesus was a preacher, a popular preacher, who took stone or fishingboat for a pulpit, hillside or shore for a place of congregation, the present crowd for an audience. There was no choir that we hear of; the singing was by the people, the prayer was short. The stately temple service was not used; the responsive liturgies were omitted, and probably were not missed. The words that he spoke were spirit and life. The Great Teacher summed up his faith in a sermon. What were the New TestaIment without it? The "Sermon on the Mount," not the temple on Moriah, marks the coming in of the new dispen sation. The whole of Christianity is in the Sermon. It stands on the very first page of Christian literature. It is the life of the Gospels. When faith is earnest, the Sermon is read and re-read. When faith loses vitality, and sinks into ceremonial, the only hope of its revival lies in the Sermon. It was the fiery tongue that brought the multitudes together on the first Pentecost morning, gave the world the Gospel in a universal speech, and by the power of conviction it carried demonstrated the presence and the action of the Holy Ghost. In the Greek cities, in the cool of the afternoon, when the people thronged the public square to lounge and gossip, Paul left his tent-making and his book, and drew the crowd together under some deep porch or archway to tell of the Christ in the soul and the great resurrection; and wove that chain of breath which bound the savage wolf of Paganism in bands invisible, but adamantine. The man of the fourth century in the Eastern Church was Chrysostom, and Chrysostom the preacher. What Christianity there was in Constantinople found utterance from his "golden lips." And when that voice was silenced by the prelatical power whose horror of a living faith was no whit less than its horror of Paganism, perhaps was far greater, there was no Gospel left in the imperial city. The deadest of all churches for centuries was the Eastern Church; and the Eastern Church, since Chrysostom, can produce no great pulpit names. Ecclesiasticism hates preaching. Stanley, in his pleasant history, describes the dismay of the clergy when Nikon, the "Russian Chrysostom," introduced among other bold reforms a sermon, a thing not heard of for many centuries in the Eastern Church. "Remark, brother," says an archdeacon to his friend, "what happened now, an occurrence which surprised and confused our understandings. Not only did he (the Patriarch) read the lesson for the day, but he preached and expounded the meaning of the words to the standing and silent assembly, until our spirits were broken within us during the tedious while. God preserve us and save us!" The Patriarch is pitiless, and does the abominable thing again. "The Patriarch was not satisfied with the ritual, but he must needs crown all with an admonition and copious sermon. God grant him moderation! His heart did not ache for the Emperor, nor for the tender infants standing uncovered in the intense cold. What should we say of this in our country?" This was written by a functionary of Antioch. So that the anti-parenetical rage was not confined to Moscow; nor were the cold feet the sole objection. Feet were not apt to be cold in Antioch. In fact, we are disposed to think even the Muscovite frigidity exaggerated. Ecclesiasticism usually takes good care to warm its places of worship. The day may, however, have been uncommonly bleak for Moscow, and the preachment was possibly a little hard for people who were not used to it. Clearly they were not used to it. They were used to the omission of it, just as they were used to the omission of the moral virtues which Nikon exerted himself to establish. Preaching was disagreeably associated in the Eastern liturgical mind with purity. The sermon suggested sweetness of behavior. The homily squinted at honesty, decency, and kindred graces of religion. Therefore it had fallen into disrespect. In the Western Church it was almost as bad for a long season. Roman bishops, till Leo the Great, never were in the habit of addressing their people from the pulpit. And for all that period religion was not in the habit of addressing the people in any form of speech that reached their intelligence or touched their soul. Its arrangements were ordered with the utmost art to make an impression on the senses, but the impression was no image of a living God. Its lessons were veiled in symbol, or shadowed forth inarticulately in the gorgeous dumb-show which bent the people in awe before the pomp of its pageantry, and dissipated the gathered sentiment of reverence by colored lights. It was the epoch of the priest. The services were conducted in the Latin tongue, even in countries where Latin was not the native speech, and the congregation were thus taught to pray incoherently, and to allow the charm of a musical language to steal away the substance of their adoration, and lull their souls into a luxurious slumber. The long roll of the ritual, instead of rousing spirits to the battle of life, induced them to sleep more soundly, in the belief that all that ringing of bells, and pattering of pater |