111.0IIDE'S NEMESIS OF FAITH. * THIS remarkable book is an emanation

of that deep thought on the con- dition of man and the conventions of society, which is going on to a flinch greater extent, we imagine, than Parliamentary or public-meeting speakers wot of, though it takes very various and even opposite direc- tions, according to the circumstances, education, and religious tempera- ment of the thinker. Neither the intention of the author nor the con- clusions he wishes to be drawn from this book are perfectly distinct ; but what The Nemesis of Faith does is to exhibit the struggles of a conscien- tious though a weak mind, involved in the religious movement of the age, unhinged by the sceptical doubts which at an early period of life beset Arnold and others, entering the church by the advice of religious friends with these doubts unresolved, exposing himself to the criticism of theological parishioners, resigning his living into the hands of his patron-bishop, becoming entangled in an attachment to a married woman, and, after taking refuge from wretchedness in the bosom of a church omnipotent "to bind or to loose," relapsing into doubt, and dying in obscurity.

"Markham's new faith fabric had been reared upon the clouds of sudden vio- lent feeling; and no air castle was ever of more unabiding growth: doubt soon mapped it, and remorse, not for what be had done but for what he had not done; and amidst the wasted ruins of his life, where the bare bleak soil was strewed with wrecked purposes and shattered creeds—with no hope to stay him, with no fear to raise the most dreary phantom beyond the grave—he sunk down into the barren waste, and the dry sands rolled over him where he lay; and no living being was left behind him upon earth who would not mourn over the day which brought life to Kulthani Sutherland?'

If we look only to the last section of the book, The Nemesis of Faith may wear a sufficiently orthodox air, as showing the necessity of some external authority to restrain the conduct and fix the belief, by exhibit- ing the "vengeance of faith" which overtakes those who fall off from their creed. The style in which objections to the inspiration of the his- torical parts of the Old Testament are put forth, the distinctness with which the arguments against the more supernatural parts are urged, and the Rationalistic criticism to which the New Testament is subjected, al- most forbid the idea of any peculiar kind of Tractarianism in belief; while the attack upon the worldly character and poverty-stricken formalism of the "professional" Anglican priesthood leaves hardly a loophole for conven- tional "explanation." There is therefore probability enough in the re- port that 7'he Nemesis of Faith has been burned by the authorities in the Hall of that College of which the author is a Fellow.

The structure of the work is not very new or artistica], though well adapted to the objects of the author. It opens with a series of letters, from Markham Sutherland to an intimate friend, written from the house of Markham's father, to which be has retired on leaving Oxford. They be- • The Nemesis of Faith. By J. A. Fronde, M.A., Fellow of Exeter college, Oxford. Published by Chapman. gin with his difficulties as to the choice of a profession, his doubts as to the religion for whose ministry he has been educated, his unpleasant position among his family when his scepticism is suspected ; and they tell the story of the manner in which he is offered and accepts preferment, the difficulties of a doubting clergyman, his confession to his bishop, and his resignation of his living. The second part consists of an autobiographical account of Markham's early years, his home education, his college life, and the man- ner in which his scepticism grew, from comparing the precepts of the Anglican Church with the practice of churchmen, his consequent ten- dency to Tractarianism, and the revolt of his reason from a dogma of his master Newman, that " reason must be surrendered"; this revolt being indirectly aided by the perusal of Carlyle. In these two parts the ostensible author of the volume does little more than throw in an occa. sional passage of commentary to connect or explain. The third section is written by him from Markham's letters; and describes Markham's life in Italy, whither he had gone for his health, his accidental encounter with an ill-assorted English couple, the manner in which the passion be- tween Markham and Mrs. Leonard grows, the shock he receives from the death of Mrs. Leonard's little daughter, which he interprets into a judg- ment of God, his flight from Mrs. Leonard before what the world calls actual criminality bad taken place, his conversion to Romanism in his state of confusion and distress, and the final fate both of Helen and Markham.

The author has exposed himself to attack on account of some Shelley- like passages in the first part of the book, which, though dramatically consistent with Markham's character, had better have been omitted, both on the score of taste and a regard for the feelings of many religious people. Into the theology or its taste, however, we shall not here enter,

either argumentatively or vituperatively. Our business is literary criticism ; and in that point of view The Nemesis of Faith pos- sesses the first requisites of a book. It has power, matter, and mastery of subject, with that largeness which must arise from the writer's mind, and that individual character—those truths of de- tail—which spring from experience or observation. The pictures ot an English home in childhood, youth, and early manhood, as well AIS the thoughts and feelings of the student at Oxford, are painted with feeling pervaded by a current of thought ; the remarks on the humbug of the three learned professions, more especially on the worldliness of the church, are not mere declamation, but the outpouring of an earnest con- viction; the picture of Anglican Protestantism, dead to faith, to love, and to almost everything but wealth-worship, with the statement of the ob- jects that Newman first proposed to himself, form the best defence of Trac- tarianism that has appeared, though defence does not seem to be the ob- ject of the author. The circumstances connected with the growth of the passion between Helen and Markham are not perhaps very probable, but they are skilfully contrived for their purpose and the display of the pas- sion itself—the recklessness to everything in ;he woman, and the consider- ation of future consequences in the man—are portrayed with great skill. As the main literary object is to display the struggles of a mind with the growth and grounds of opinion, incidents are subordinate to the intel- lectual resolts that spring from them • but there is no paucity of incident if the work be judged by its own standard. The mind of the writer has not the poetical or mystic tenderness of Newman or Wilberforce, though not devoid of depth and feeling, and possessing considerable power. Traces of a training for the preacher are found in a peculiar kind of hor• tative exclamation ; and the general character of the composition is rhetorical—but it is the rhetoric of earnestness, not of emptiness.

In our extracts we shall avoid passages of theology, or matters of merely intellectual struggle, and confine ourselves to such topics as exhibit the world in its conventionalism or individuals struggling against it. A bishop, from his observation of Markham at college, of- fers the living to him through his father. The result is told in a letter to Markham's correspondent.

"It was odd to see how flattered my father was, and how immediately his own opinion of me began to alter when he saw great people disposed to make much of me. He was embarrassed, however, in telling this to me; and he evidently had more doubts how I should take the information than he had liked to tell the bishop. Both the ordinations could be managed within a short time of one another, so there was no escape that way. My face did not brighten, and my father's consequently fell: I saw he had set his heart, upon it. I could not bring myself to mortify him with the peremptory 'No,' which my conscience flung upon my lips.: I said I would think about it, and give him my answer in two days. In justice to him as well as myself, I felt I could not act any more entirely on. my own judgment; I could not open myself to him: no matter why, I could not. But the next day I rode over to to talk to the dean, my uncle. I made no mystery of anything with him ; I told him exactly how it was with me, my Own difficulties, and my embarrassment at home. It relieved me to see how little he was startled; and he was so kind that I could ill forgive myself for having so long shrunk from so warm a mediator. He said he was not at all sur- prised: not that he thought there was anything particularly wrong about myself which should have led me astray, but my case, he said, was the case of almost all young men of talent before they passed from the school of books into that of life. Of course revelation had a great many most perplexing difficulties about it; but then, he said, just as my father said before, I must remember that the real discipline of the mind is action, not speculation; and regular activity alone could keep soul or body from disease. To sit still and think, was simply fatal: a morbid sensitiveness crept over the feelings like the nervous tenderness of an unhealthy body ; and unless I could rouse myself to exertion, there would be no end at all to the disorder of which I complained. It was odd he treated it simply as a disorder, like one of the bodily disorders we have once in our lives to go through, which a few weeks' parish routine and prac- tical acquaintance with mankind would dissipate as a matter of course.I felt I was sinking; but I made another effort: would it not be better, I asked, if I was to make trial first, and take work as a layman under some sensible and ex- perienced rector? He thought not; it would be difficult to find a person with' mind which could influence mine, and it would not do to risk a failure. The really valuable lessons were the lessons we taught ourselves; and as this oPPer- Wally had offered, it would be wrong, he fancied, to reject,it: my father's feeling,' ought to weigh with me. Then surely, I said, I ought to tell the bishop, at soy rate, something of which I had told him: bat my uncle said no again. At pre- sent, at least, there was no occasion: of course it was all nothing, as mYn'T good sense in a very short time must show me; and though a person in high antbiaity Mightlibti Mgr' wittiont'anYineonveniencei yet it ititollecir: offrial eethmaisleraticatuwettld, e,an; embarraising suballengetanion,bisn to takers re., for whieb.irravialltersbe Might he React aurt, tkee SWAP 0,;0 The jiistiftektOrly'x attain% of .Inact4afianislAt.?4:1tke ,RAPPs4i9u a.Ast causes, is well *drab perdsfag by tha student of ; opinion„as, indicative ef the earnest part Of society whether religious or infidel.: The following is a specimen. What a sight must this age of ours have been to an earnest believing man gte Newman, who had an eye to see it and au ear to hear its voices l—a foolish church, chattering, parrot-like, old notes, of which it had forgot the meaning ; clergy who not tardy thought not at all, but whose .heavy ignorance, from long ' unreality, clung about them like a garment, and who mistook.their fool's tap and hells fork crown, of wisdOm and the.musio of the spheres; ;selfishness alike recog- aired practically as the rule of conduct, and , faith in, man, in virtue, ex- changed for faith in the belly, in fortunes, parriages, lazy sofas, and cushioned pews; Bentham pelitics,and Paley religion ; all thellipught deserving to be called thought, the flawing tide of Germany, and the philoaophy of Hume and Gibbon ;

all the spiritual feeling, the light froth of the Wesleyans and Evangelicals; and the only real stern life to be found anywhere in a strong, resolved, and haughty democratic independence, heaving and rolling underneath the chaff-spread sur-

face. How was it like to fare with the clergy gentlemen, and tie church turned respectable, in the struggle with enemies like these? Erastianism, pluralities,

Fekndal stalls, and pony-gigging parsons,—what work were they like to make

against the proud, ragged, intellectual republicanism, With a fire sword between its lips, bidlling-eant and lies be still ; and philosophy, with Niebuhr criticism for g reaping-sickle, mowing down their darling story-books? High time it was tO move indeed. High time for the Church warriors to look about them, to burnish up their armour, to seize what ground was yet 'remaining, what time to train for

the battle. '

"It would not serve to cultivate the intellect. All over Europe, since Spinoza wrote, what of strongest intellect there was had gone over to the euemy. Genius

was choosing its own way„,acknowledging no- longer the authority either of man or document; and unless in Some way or other the heart could be preoccupied— unless the Church could wia back the love of her children and temper thetn quite differently from the tone in which they were now tempered—the cause was lost, and for ever!'

It is a frequent ease with didactic fictions, or with books where the facts and sentiments are derived from reality though thrown into the fic- titious form, that they fail in their teaching purpose ; and The Nemesis of Faith is no exemption to the rule. Markham's career does not point the moral of faith or-religion, -but of weakness of character or of tempera- ment. He was Dot bound to the church ; the world lay all before him where, to cheese. He failed as a clergyman, from straining at gnats and swallow- ino. camels, from a morbid incapacity to carry out a course which would have been less bad than the entering upon it. In Italy his weakness led

him into the entanglement with Mrs. Leonard, and made him the instru- ment of the Romanist friend by whose means he was entrapped into the Itomish communion. Hence, the real value of the book consists more in

its incidental sketches of English life, and its pictures of respectable Eng- lish "conventions," than in anything to be drawn from the peculiar ex-

ample of the hero save the reiteration of the patriarchal judgment—" un- stable as water, thou shalt not excel." In this point its exhibition of useless struggles and wasted powers is almost tragic.