reduced to one solitary instance, and taking the New Testament for our guide, it would be as unnatural to deny, that divine worship is paid to Christ, as it would be just to accuse us of offering only human salutation to God, when we profess to worship him in his house, because we have lately addressed one of our civil magistrates as the worshipful the mayor.' But the proportion of instances only presents a part of the evidence. When this same homage, described by the same word (#poσkuvéw), was offered to a man or angel, where it could possibly be misunderstood, as by Cornelius to Peter, or by John to his prophetic guide, the action was immediately rebuked, and the worship straightway diverted from the creature to the Creator.

"Nor is this all. It is not only that Jesus was worshipped, but the affections and petitions which accompanied that worship, manifest, if not always distinct recognition of his true Godhead, at least, such humble dependance on his aid, as divine aid, that if he were not God, he must needs have rectified so dangerous an approximation to idolatry. The leper not only worshipped him, but besought superhuman assistance: Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.' The ruler not only worshipped him, but implored his divine interference-' My daughter is even now dead; but come and lay thy hand upon her, and she shall live.' It was after he had manifested his god-like power in quelling the storm, that the disciples worshipped him, saying, ' Of a truth, thou art the Son of God.' He demanded the implicit confidence of the man born blind, ere he received his worship. Natural love found utterance in that piercing prayer, when the woman of Tyre worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me.' His resurrection power challenged and compelled the adoring worship of the Mary's and the apostles; and the glory of the ascension warranted the homage they paid on Olivet.” (p. 42.)

Not that the argument rests upon the meaning of a single word, though of course it is by an accumulation of instances such as these that the evidence becomes overwhelming, and the conclusions irresistible. The worship which John saw when the veil was drawn aside in the celestial temple, was emphatically the worship of the Lamb, as described in Rev. v. 8. 14. And "this testimony, as Mr. Bickersteth remarks, "is guarded on every

side:"

"You have, first, the redeemed adoring the Lamb only, with prostrate adoration. Then numbers without number of the angels adore the Lamb likewise. Then the whole universe, in similar adoration, bless both the Eternal Father and the Lamb. And, lastly, there is the expressive echo of praise to the Eternal Father alone. You cannot say it is not the highest worship, for once it is offered to the Eternal alone. You cannot say it is offered to the Father alone, for once the Lamb is united to the Father. You cannot say it is offered to the Father only through the Son, for twice it is offered alone to the Lamb that was slain. It is the utmost homage heaven can pay. The spirits of the just made perfect have no higher tribute to give. The angels of light can offer no more exhaustive ascription of their devotion. No vision that you could have conceived, no language that you could have employed, could more distinctly authorize our rendering to Christ the highest and the deepest adoration, seraphic love, confiding trust, everlasting praise." (p. 47.)

We cannot follow Mr. Bickersteth through the remainder of his work; nor is it necessary that we should do so. We have mentioned three propositions,-other three complete the argument. Of these, the first asserts, "that scripture, in the Old and New Testament alike, presents to us the incarnation and mission of the Saviour as the extremity of condescension in Jehovah, that thereby he might exalt us to everlasting life." On this we make no comment; for it would be difficult, we think, to gainsay the position. The next maintains "that scripture, in the Old and New Testament alike, proves the coequal Godhead of the Holy Spirit with that of the Father and the Son." We have said that the burden of the controversy rests upon the Godhead of the Son. It is remarkable that, when the divinity of Christ is once admitted, the personality of the Holy Spirit is no longer questioned. Manifold as have been the sects, and various the opinions, which from the days of Arius have distressed the church, no such thing was ever heard of as a dualistic heresy; no party ever appeared who allowed, in the orthodox sense, the divinity of the Son, and denied the personality of the Spirit. And yet the direct assertions of scripture on the latter point are few in comparison of those which maintain. the divinity of the Son. The fact deserves to be thoughtfully considered. How is it to be explained? Is it that the battle having been fought and lost upon the one point, the opponents of the orthodox faith have been unwilling to renew it on the other? Or is it, rather, that the Godhead of the Son of man, having been now confessed, light has beamed upon the soul; that he has honoured the first feeble faith of those who had hitherto denied him, and sent his Holy Spirit to remove all further doubt, and to testify within them that the Spirit of Him who raised up Jesus from the dead, even God the Holy Ghost, is a person of equal power and Godhead with the Father and the Son?

Mr. Bickersteth concludes with this, his sixth and last proposition, "That scripture, in the Old and New Testament alike, assures us that, in the trustful knowledge of One God,-the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,-is the spiritual life of man, now and for ever." To this the whole argument converges; this is its practical issue. He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life; but the wrath of God abideth on him." The question between Unitarians and ourselves is no dispute of words, no mere logomachy; it strikes into all that is vital, all that is essential in the Christian faith. Believing this, we use great plainness of speech in our controversy with those whose errors, we are assured, expose them to the most fearful jeopardy. This Mr. Bickersteth has felt, and he has written with deep sincerity, and yet with respect and christian courtesy. Who, indeed, can regard the Unitarians with other feelings than those of the deepest sorrow, mingled with such esteem, as private purity, benevolence, and an ever-forward zeal in promoting the temporal welfare of society, are calculated to excite? Who would not wish

that, in the place of their cold philosophy, they could be led to substitute the faith of Jesus Christ, and draw living water with joy from the wells of salvation? Nor are we without hope that a great change is near, and that these wanderers, finding no rest, may fly into the ark; that these weary sheep, after traversing so long a desert waste, may return to the Shepherd and Bishop of their souls. Certain it is that Unitarianism wears a different character from that which it sustained in the days of Belsham and of Priestley. We dare not say that its tenets are less dangerous; but its features, viewed from without, are less repulsive. It is no longer hard, contemptuous, scoffing: it begins to feel and to acknowledge its want of power, of spirituality, of warmth, and love. Sermons are occasionally preached in its chapels which give touching utterance to these wants; and, from time to time, converts of the highest class-those who have been most eminent, we mean, for zeal and earnestness-are won over by the cheering doctrines of the Cross.

Mr. Bickersteth, we see, refers to the tractate of the late Sergeant Sellon. His name will still recall feelings of respect, not only among private friends, but in the wider circle of the bar and on the magisterial bench. In the comparative retirement of his later days, his accomplished mind was led to dwell upon the great verities of the Tractarian controversy, urged thereto by the spiritual anxieties of some of those around him, who shared largely in his warm affections; and he wrote the treatise to which we have referred-simple, argumentative, and forcible-in defence of the doctrine of a Trinity. We would put it with all respect to the Unitarians of Hampstead, whether their principles produce that spiritual consolation, that zeal for the salvation of others, that calm repose in the prospect of dissolution, which they witness, and candidly tell us they admire, in consistent evangelical Christians? And yet these are the tests of true religion. For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, and righteousness, and truth. It embraces love, and joy, and peace, and faith towards God, as well as long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, meekness, temperance, with respect to man. And the religion which fails in love, and in kindling spiritual affections, and arousing zeal for the eternal welfare of mankind, is assuredly no more the religion of the Bible than that which dethrones the Saviour to make way for the mediation of saints and the worship of the Virgin Mother.

THE LIFE OF S. T. COLERIDGE. By James Gilman.
BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA.

MANY years ago, a friend of ours was invited to pass an evening in London; amongst the company were two men of note. The one was the Presbyterian preacher, Mr. Irving, then in the fulness of

his reputation, before he had clouded it by the eccentricities of opinion which disturbed his later years. But though Mr. Irving was one of the company, and took in the conversation an important part, he acted but as the prompter to the mind of the central figure of the group, to whom the eyes of all were directed; and the person who thus monopolised both the attention and the discourse of the evening was a man who, once heard, was not to be forgotten; whose reputation, then considerable, has vastly grown since his death; and who, by his works and words, still exercises a large influence over many leading minds. His was a mode of talk peculiar to himself, and unlike that of other men. He had a broad massive forehead, a mild and dreamy eye, a look that seemed to gaze into the air, as if it followed some abstraction which floated there, and as if the objects of sense were unseen, and the dreamer moved in a world of his own imaginings,-this was the outward appearance of the person to whom the great Scottish preacher addressed his conversation with the docility of an inferior and the reverence of a disciple. The answer came in a low, sweet, musical voice, which rolled forth a continuous stream of eloquent discourse, rose at times to elevation, and seemed to soar into the clouds, passing away like distant music with a faint dreamy sound,then dropping down and coming to subjects nearer the audience, to books and records and the characters of men,-passing into. labyrinths of reasoning, yet always at last, as by some clue, extricating itself and reaching its end; though it diverged into various by-paths of illustration, and scattered round it, in its progress, countless flowers of fancy, and rare gems, gathered from all quarters of antiquity and literature, and brought with marvellous power to adorn or to set off the thread of the continuous discourse. Such was the spectacle of the evening, presented for the first time to a curious and wondering observer. The speaker was Samuel Taylor Coleridge, one of the remarkable trio, of whom Wordsworth and Southey formed the two best known to fame. With the one Coleridge was connected by marriage, by friendship, and congenial taste; and with the other, by an admiration which lasted through both their lives. But he presented to both, in his singular fortunes, a painful yet instructive contrast. Of his mind and literary history, it is our wish to speak; touching on the incidents of his life which formed his character, and on the habits, some hereditary and some personal, which marred the hopeful prospects of a gifted mind.

Samuel Coleridge was the youngest son of a clergyman of Devonshire, vicar of Ottery, and master of its grammar-school; a man of guileless simplicity, who, though he died when his more celebrated son had only reached his seventh year, had left upon the mind of the boy the deep impression, which never forsook him, of the gentle life and humble faith of the parent. He seems from his earliest years to have had a delicate constitution,

and as his brothers were robust and buoyant, the feebler child was cast out of their bolder sports, and was left to take his stool by his mother's side, and to find his amusement in books. To works of fancy he was early drawn, and before he was six years old he had thrice read through the tales of the Arabian Nights, and in his solitary hours he followed the dreams of fancy, realizing them in his games. His father's death forced his family to remove him from home; and a presentation to Christ's Hospital led the delicate, depressed, and sensitive orphan from his quiet home, and the tranquil haunts of Devon, to the stir and din and crowds of London. He went there in the summer of 1782; and there, as Wordsworth describes it, the images of the country, of the old church and tower, and green meadows, carried their reflections into the recesses of the boy's mind, and filled it with delightful thoughts, as he roamed, fancy free, in the dingy streets. At that time, the diet of the school was coarse and unsavoury. On holidays, the boys were turned adrift after a scanty breakfast to seek amusement where they pleased; those, who were poor and penniless, passed the day without food, till they returned in the evening to school. Among six hundred boys the homeless child felt himself solitary; though at times he joined the lads in their excursions to the New River, and bathed and wantoned with them in the stream. In winter he used, with his companions, to wander through the streets, stand shivering at the doors of the print-shops, or resort with spiritless languor to the Tower, which was open to them, but which, visited again and again, had ceased to please. Coleridge early showed his prevailing taste; for his master found him reading Virgil for amusement. His absence of mind procured him, in an unexpected manner, means for gratifying his tastes; for strolling down the Strand, absorbed in a reverie, and fancying himself Leander swimming across the Hellespont, he thrust out his hands before him like a swimmer, and one of them touching a gentleman's pocket, he was by him seized as a pickpocket. The scared and sobbing boy explained the fact, and the stranger was so much interested that he gave him admission to a library in King-street, in which he used to read, devouring catalogues, folios, and all sorts of books, borrowing daily the two books allowed him, and then, if he could find a sunny corner, crumpling himself into it in order to read, unconscious of the objects around him, and absorbed in his subject and his dreams. This life of reverie led to strange fancies, and the books, which he devoured, conducted him to curious and various opinions. Many took notice of the wild Blue-coat Boy, who was ever won by kindness, and answered it with a childlike affection. A shoemaker and his wife were drawn to him, and his fancy was to become their apprentice. His brother came to town to walk the boards of the London Hospital. On the Saturday, Coleridge went there, feeling himself in bliss if he were allowed to