CURRENT LITERATURE.
Essays, chiefly on Questions of Church and State. By A. P. Stanley, D.D. (Murray.)—These Essays range over a period of twenty years (1850- 1870), and they furnish a series of singularly interesting illustrations of the great controversies which have agitated that time. In the Edinburgh Review for July, 1850, appeared the first of the number, dealing with "The Gorham Controversy." The volume concludes with one which, though not the last in point of time, makes an appropriate termination, a sketch, full of wise and kindly criticism, of John Keble. The two taken together indicate the great object for which, whatever storms have agitated the Church, Dean Stanley has steadily striven to make the borders of the National Establishment as widely comprehensive as possible. His own sympathies are sufficiently marked, though they never hinder him from being just and charitable, but nothing is further from his heart than any wish to "dwell alone." Even in speaking of "Ritualism,' which, more than any other contemporary phase of belief, provokes him to take up a -distinctly antagonistic attitude, he takes the opportunity of pleading for comprehension and toleration ; putting, as he says, the principle to the -severest test of which it is capable, but not shrinking from its conse- quences. To deal with these essays separately and with the fullness which they deserve, would be to discuss agivin almost every great ques- tion, theological or ecclesiastical, which has occupied the present gene- ration. We can but recommend the volume in the heartiest way ; not the less heartily now that so great and dangerous a crisis in the history of our National Church is upon us, when we have to strive against the sinister effects of greater party triumphs than have for more than one generation disturbed the "balance of power." Every one, indeed, of the Essays has achieved in its day a success which makes recommenda- tion unnecessary; but some of them belong to a date which is beyond the recollection of our younger readers; others have appeared in the ephemeral form of pamphlets ; or have been buried in the back numbers of magazines and reviews, and will find many glad to renew acquaintance with them.
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