FEUERBACIT'S ESSENCE OF CHRISTIANITY.'

countless shades of opinion, may be. called by the general name of " free," what our Rivingtons and Parkers are to orthodox theology. .

Renewing our acquaintance with Feuerbach now he has become

4 ,

who runs may read, but he who, reads it certainly ought to run. reader back upon the writer's manner. .

twenty, approaches the miraculous. , quent punishment: while religion enables Vivra ta" Siff port the Feuerbach's main propositions are these. First, there are certain disappointment, and C \ entually to.accept a more worthy husband. qualities so essential to human nature that, far from being in the ' The conception of some of the scenes convected with this story individual, the individual is rather in'them : such are love, will, is exaggerated end improbable. An equable style is generally and understanding. Secondly, the unreflecting individual, instead maintained. This scene will give an idea of the writer's mannee. of regarding these qualities as subjective, projects them out of him- IfTs• 1-419, her suspicions already strongly aroused, has observed self, and thus constitutes an imaginary being whom he regards as Lord Clarenham secretly give a latter to Blanche, and she deter:

e_ deity. Thus, in the Christian scheme, the First Person in the mines to seek an explanation: . Trinity is the projected understanding, the Second Person is the "On our reaching home, I followed Blanche to her room without allowing

Projected love, and so on. Thirdly, this very projecfion is the quest totobe sea emtohme moment teelrorc:n;igairennahcaamlm, sveteady vtceiesavvietbc BlIrche, Ire- cause of illiberality and its concomitant horrors, inasmuch as men blood rushed to her cheek and brow, but a fad3er in a moment, leaving her Frseente each other for the sake of gratifying a creature of their deadly pale; and in a voice as composed as my own, she replied, 'I know of own imaginations • whereas, if they ceased to regard the Deity as no letter, Aunt Lyle—whet are you speaking of ?'

a personal independent being, and recognized Him as an idealized " ffer composed manner would have almost shaken my belief, had not the

dried up, some powerful emotion was needed to make her change colour. I therefore 1 continued—' When you lost your glove as we were leaving the wood, and In plain English, this system is rank Atheism; but whether it Lord Clarenham returned with you to seek it, I followed : you know, is equally so in plain German, we much doubt. Abstraction and Blanche, what I saw,—and, as your guardian, I desire you to give me the unreality are identical according to English notions ; but we are by letter you then received.' at: ineans sure that the essential human nature, which, according"She stood perfectly still and silent for a moment, and then said, 'I deny . Feuerbach, lies at the foundation of the human individual, is not "'A paper then, whatever it was. Blanche, for your character's sake, if in his view a sort of substance. The German mind is ever more • Vivia: a Journal. By Mrs. J. Elphinstone Dalrymple. In two volumes. Pub-

,€,LThe Essence of Christianity. By Ludwig Feuerbach. Translated from the tidied by Hurst and Blackett. r

!, . atl German Edition, by Mary Evans, Translator of " Strauss's Life of Jesus." ; The Star-Chamber: an Historical Romance. By William Harrison Ainsworth,

uanshed by Chapman. I Author of "The Toner of London," Sec. Published by Routledge and Co.

JUST before the year 1848 changed the aspect of modern Europe, three men stood conspicuous as the literary chiefs of that party who to freedom in religious matters united extreme Radicalism in politics. Of these the most renowned was David Strauss, anther of the "Lebeu " ; next came Ludwig Feuerbach, author. of "Bas Wesen des Cbristenthurns"; and lastly there was Bnino Bauer, compared- with whom Strauss was mild and orthodox. A caricature, published some eight or ten years ago, introduced all the three, in symbOlicaI forms, in the act of assailing the Cross; a pain- Ding application of names converting Strauss into an ostrich, Bauer

into a German peasant, and Feuerbach into a brook of fire: -

Loud as these men were in the time of peace,--Strauss was even the involuntary balm of a reactionary -revolution in Zurich,— they were not lond enough to be heard through the tumult of 1848, and since that year they have been little talked about. Speculative Republicanism awl Inlidelity were forgotten amid practical, revolution, and they have not revived during the period of reaction Hence -the appearance of Miss Evans's translation of Feuerbach's " Wesen des Christenthums," makes us feel for the moment two or three lustres younger—takes us 'back to the time when there Neap, 4 whole polemical literature devoted to Strauss alone, and when Feuerbaeh was a splendid name to write on the banner of a faction. Looking around us, however; we-find that the names of these great apostles are no longer productive of excitement, arid that eh," Wesen des Christenthums," far from

humanity only, one great source of the world's troubles would be inclined to Pantheism than to Atheism in the oldfashioned sense of the term; in other words, it puts the zero lower down in the theo- logical scale than we should be inclined to do here.

In his criticisms on the religious character, Feuerbach shows great acuteness, and even a knowledge of those "experiences" which are so much talked about by Evangelical pietists and Ca- tholic devotees. If some of the pages were torn out, they might almost pass for portions of a devotional volume, and many a pious person would applaud with rapture Feuerbach's strictures on the rationalizing theology of Germany. It is a principle of Feuer- bach's strategy to attack everything in the shape of rational reli- gion. He maintains that the most irrational form of Christianity is the most genuine, on purpose to overthrow the entire scheme from the stand-point of reason. However, the whole work is a mere sketch of a theory, which for its completion requires a great deal of supplementary matter. Granted this theory of projectiles, why did projections of such and such particular kinds take place at such and such particu- lar periods ? There is scarcely a line in reference to the his- torical genesis of any positive religion ; and yet, unless this genesis is made out, we have little more than a hypothetical sum total with- out explanatory items. Nor is even the sketch, such as it is, always in harmony with itself. The natural consequence of the main theory would be, that the deity of a particular people would share some of the characteristics of that people,—just as, for in- stance, Odin represents the warlike disposition of the old Scan- dinavians. But Feuerbach lays down another proposition, teethe effect, that when a man transfers a quality into his deity, he takes it out of himself. Thus, the Catholic monk having placed a queen in heaven, devotes himself to celibacy on earth. Here are twa opposite doctrines, which, unless their limits be defined, threat to : neutralize one another. If the Peacia Socty should make; itself a coat of arms, would the dove with the olive branch, or the god Mars, be the more appropriate symbol ? From Feuerbach's book we could get an argument in favour of both.

Miss Evans has executed her bard task capitally ; her discovery of equivalents in language, not only reudering the, bookas readable as its nature will admit, but proving beyond a doubt her thorough comprehension of her subject.