_Sermons preached in the Chapel of Harvard College._ By JAMES WALKER,
D.D. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 12mo.
The great reputation which Dr. Walker has long enjoyed, as one of the
most impressive pulpit orators of the country, will suffer little
diminution by the publication of these specimens of his rare powers of
statement, argument, and illustration. To the general reader, they are,
to be sure, deprived of the fascination of his voice and manner; but
as the peculiarities of his elocution have their source in the
peculiarities of his mental and moral organization, it will be found
that the style and structure of these printed sermons suggest the mule
of their delivery, which is simply the emphatic utterance of emphatic
thought. The Italicized words, with which the volume abounds, palpably
mark the results of thinking, and arrest attention because they are not
less emphasized by the intellect than by the type. In reflecting Dr.
Walker's mind, the work at the same time reflects his manner.
Every reader of these sermons will be struck by their thorough
reasonableness,--a reasonableness which does not exclude, but includes,
the deepest and warmest religious sensibility. Moral and religious
feeling pervades every statement; but the feeling is still confined
within a flexible framework of argument, which, while it enlarges with
every access of emotion, is always an outlying boundary of thought,
beyond which passion does not pass. Light continually asserts itself as
more comprehensive in its reach than heat; and the noblest spiritual
instincts and impulses are never allowed unchecked expression as
sentiments, but have to submit to the restraints imposed by principles.
Even in the remarkable sermon entitled, "The Heart more than the Head,"
it will be found that it is the head which legitimates the action of
the heart. The sentiments are exalted above the intellect by a process
purely intellectual, and the inferiority of the reason is shown to be
a principle essentially reasonable. Thus, throughout the volume, the
author's mental insight into the complex phenomena of our spiritual
nature is always accompanied by a mental oversight of its actual and
possible aberrations. A sound, large, "round-about" common sense, keen,
eager, vigilant, sagacious, encompasses all the emotional elements of
his thought. He has a subtile sense of mystery, but he is not a mystic.
The most marvellous workings of the Divine Spirit he apprehends under
the conditions of Law, and even in the raptures of devotion he never
forgets the relation of cause and effect.
The style of these sermons is what might be expected from the character
of the mind it expresses. If Dr. Walker were not a thinker, it is plain
that he could never have been a rhetorician. He has no power at all as
a writer, if writing be considered an accomplishment which can be
separated from earnest thinking. Words are, with him, the mere
instruments for the expression of things; and he hits on felicitous
words only under that impatient stress of thought which demands exact
expression for definite ideas. All his words, simple as they are, are
therefore fairly earned, and he gives to them a force and significance
which they do not bear in the dictionary. The mind of the writer is felt
beating and burning beneath his phraseology, stamping every word with
the image of a thought. Largeness of intellect, acute discrimination,
clear and explicit statement, masterly arrangement of matter, an
unmistakable performance of the real business of expression,--these
qualities make every reader of the sermons conscious that a mind of
great vigor, breadth, and pungency is brought into direct contact
with his own. The almost ostentatious absence of "fine writing" only
increases the effect of the plain and sinewy words.
If we pass from the form to the substance of Dr. Walker's teachings, we
shall find that his sermons are especially characterized by practical
wisdom. A scholar, a moralist, a metaphysician, a theologian, learned
in all the lore and trained in the best methods of the schools, he is
distinguished from most scholars by his broad grasp of every-day life.
It is this quality which has given him his wide influence as a preacher,
and this is a prominent charm of his printed sermons. He brings
principles to the test of facts, and connects thoughts with things. The
conscience which can easily elude the threats, the monitions, and the
appeals of ordinary sermonizers, finds itself mastered by his mingled
fervor, logic, and practical knowledge. Every sermon in the present
volume is good for use, and furnishes both inducements and aids to the
formation of manly Christian character. There is much, of course, to
lift the depressed and inspire the weak; but the great peculiarity of
the discourses is the resolute energy with which they grapple with the
worldliness and sin of the proud and the strong.
_The Monks of the West, from St. Benedict to St. Bernard_. By the COUNT
DE MONTALEMBERT, Member of the French Academy. Authorized Translation.
Volumes I. and II. Edinburgh and London: W. Blackwood & Sons. 1861. 8vo.
pp. xii. and 515, 549.
These volumes form the first instalment of a work in which one of the
great lights of the Romish Church in our day proposes to recount the
glories of Western Monasticism, and to narrate the lives of some of the
remarkable men who successively passed from the cloister to the Papal
throne, or in positions scarcely less conspicuous permanently affected
the history of the Church. His original design, however, does not appear
to have extended beyond writing the life of St. Bernard of Clairvaux,
which he intended to make in some measure a complement to his life of
St. Elizabeth of Hungary. But he judged rightly, that, in order to
exhibit the character and influence of that remarkable man under all
their various aspects, it was needful at the outset to retrace the early
history of monastic institutions in the West, and to show how far
they tended to prepare the way for such a man. Only a part of this
preliminary task has been accomplished as yet; but enough has been done
to show in what spirit the historian has approached his subject, how
thoroughly he has explored the original sources of information, and
what will probably be the real worth of his labors. For such a
work Montalembert possesses adequate and in some respects peculiar
qualifications. His learning, eloquence, and candor will be conceded by
every one who is familiar with his previous writings or with his public
life; and at the same time he unites a passionate love of liberty,
everywhere apparent in his book, with a zeal for the Church, worthy of
any of the monks whom he commemorates. While his narrative is always
animated and picturesque, and often rises into passages of fervid
eloquence, he has conducted his researches with the unwearied
perseverance of a mere antiquary, and has exhausted every source of
information. "Every word which I have written," he says, "has been drawn
from original and contemporary sources; and if I have quoted facts
or expressions from second-hand authors, it has never been without
attentively verifying the original or completing the text. A single
date, quotation, or note, apparently insignificant, has often cost me
hours and sometimes days of labor. I have never contented myself with
being approximately right, nor resigned myself to doubt until every
chance of arriving at certainty was exhausted." To the spirit and temper
in which the book is written no well-founded exception can be taken; but
considerable abatement must be made from the author's estimate of
the services rendered by the monks to Christian civilization, and no
Protestant will accept his views as to the permanent worth of monastic
institutions. With this qualification, and with some allowance for
needless repetitions, we cannot but regard his work as a most attractive
and eloquent contribution to ecclesiastical history.
About half of the first volume is devoted to a General Introduction,
explanatory of the origin and design of the work, but mainly intended to
paint the character of monastic institutions, to describe the happiness
of a religious life, and to examine the charges brought against the
monks. These topics are considered in ten chapters, filled with curious
details, and written with an eloquence and an earnestness which it is
difficult for the reader to resist. Following this we have a short and
brilliant sketch of the social and political condition of the Roman
Empire after the conversion of Constantine, exhibiting by a few masterly
touches its wide-spread corruption, the feebleness of its rulers, and
the utter degradation of the people. The next two books treat of the
Monastic Precursors in the East as well as in the West, and present a
series of brief biographical sketches of the most famous monks, from
St. Anthony, the father of Eastern monasticism, to St. Benedict,
the earliest legislator for the monasteries of the West. Among the
illustrious men who pass before us in this review, and all of whom are
skilfully delineated, are Basil of Caesarea and his friend Gregory
Nazianzen, Chrysostom, Jerome, Augustine, Athanasius, Martin of Tours,
and the numerous company of saints and doctors nurtured in the great
monastery of Lerins. And though an account of the saintly women who have
led lives of seclusion would scarcely seem to be included under the
title of Montalembert's work, he does not neglect to add sketches of the
most conspicuous of them,--Euphrosyne, Pelagia, Marcella, Furia, and
others. These preliminary sketches fill the last half of the first
volume.
The Fourth Book comprises an account of the Life and Rule of St.
Benedict, and properly opens the history which Montalembert proposes
to narrate. It presents a sufficiently minute sketch of the personal
history of Benedict and his immediate followers; but its chief merit is
in its very ample and satisfactory exposition of the Benedictine Rule.
The next book traces the history of monastic institutions in Italy and
Spain during the sixth and seventh centuries, and includes biographical
notices of Cassiodorus, the founder of the once famous monastery of
Viviers in Calabria, of St. Gregory the Great, of Leander, Bishop of
Seville, and his brother Isidore, of Ildefonso of Toledo, and of many
others of scarcely less renown in the early monastic records. The Sixth
Book is devoted to the monks under the first Merovingians, and is
divided into five sections, treating respectively of the conquest
of Gaul by the Franks, of the arrival of St. Maur in Anjou and the
propagation of the Benedictine rule there, of the relations previously
existing between the monks and the Merovingians, of St. Radegund and her
followers, and of the services of the monks in clearing the forests
and opening the way for the advance of civilization. The Seventh Book
records the life of St. Columbanus, and describes at much length his
labors in Gaul, as well as those of his disciples, both in the great
monastery of Luxeuil and in the numerous colonies which issued from it
and spread over the whole neighborhood, bringing the narrative down
to the close of the seventh century. At this point the portion of
Montalembert's work now published terminates, leaving, we presume,
several additional volumes to follow. For their appearance we shall look
with much interest. If the remainder is executed in the same spirit as
the portion now before us, and is marked by the same diligent study of
the original authorities and the same persuasive eloquence, it will form
one of the most valuable of the many attractive monographs which we
owe to the French historians of our time, and will be read with equal
interest by Catholics and Protestants.
_Eighty Years' Progress of the United States, showing the Various
Channels of Industry and Education through which the People of the
United States have arisen from a British Colony to their Present
National Importance_. Illustrated with over Two Hundred Engravings. New
York: 51 John Street. Worcester: L. Stebbins. Two Volumes. 8vo.
A vast amount of useful information is treasured up in these two
national volumes. Agriculture, commerce and trade, the cultivation of
cotton, education, the arts of design, banking, mining, steam, the
fur-trade, etc., are subjects of interest everywhere, and the present
writers seem to be specially competent for the task they have assumed.
If the household library should possess such books more frequently, less
ignorance would prevail on topics concerning which every American ought
to be well-informed. Woful silence usually prevails when a foreigner
asks for statistics on any point connected with our industrial progress,
and very few take the trouble to get at facts which are easy enough
to be had with a little painstaking. We are glad to see so much good
material brought together as we find in these two well-filled volumes.
_Electro-Physiology and Electro-Therapeutics: Showing the Rules and
Methods for the Employment of Galvanism in Nervous Diseases_, etc.
Second Edition, with Additions. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1861.
At a time when the partition-wall between Jew and Gentile of the medical
world is pretty thoroughly breached, if not thrown down, and quackery
and imposture are tolerated as necessary evils, it is agreeable to meet
with a real work of science, emanating from the labors of a regular
physician, concerning the influences exerted by electricity on the human
body, both in health and disease.
Electricity is one of the great powers of Nature, pervading all matter,
existing in all mineral, vegetable, and animal bodies, not only acting
in the combinations of the elements and molecules, but also serving as a
means for their separation from each other. This imponderable fluid or
power, whatever it may be, whether one or two, or a polarization of one
force into the states + and -, is one of the most active agencies known
to man, and although not capable of being weighed in the balance, is not
found wanting anywhere in Nature. It courses in great currents beneath
our feet, in the solid rocks of the earth, penetrating to the very
interior of the globe, while it also rushes through our atmosphere in
lurid flashes, and startles us with the crash and roar of heaven's
artillery. It gives magnetic polarity to the earth, and directs the
needle by its influence; for magnetic attraction is only an effect of
the earth's thermo-electricity, excited by the sun's rays acting in
a continuous course. Both animal and vegetable life are dependent on
electric forces for their development; and many of their functions,
directly or indirectly, result from their agency.
If this force controls to a great degree the living functions of our
organs in their healthy action, it must be that it is concerned in those
derangements and lesions which constitute disease and abnormal actions
or disorders. It must have a remedial and the opposite effect, according
as it is applied.
Is such a gigantic power to be left in the hands of charlatans, or shall
it be reserved for application by scientific physicians? This is a
question we must meet and answer practically.
It may be asked why a force of this nature has been so long neglected by
practising physicians. The answer is very simple, and will be recognized
as true by all middle-aged physicians in this country.
For the past fifty years it has been customary to state in lectures in
our medical colleges, that "chemistry has nothing to do with medicine";
and since our teachers knew nothing of the subject themselves, they
denounced such knowledge as unnecessary to the physician. Electricity,
the great moving power in all chemical actions, shared the fate of
chemistry in general, and met with condemnation without trial. A young
physician did not dare to meddle with chemicals or with any branch of
natural or experimental science for fear of losing his chance of medical
employment by sinking the doctor among his gallipots.
Electricity, thus neglected, fell into the hands of irregular
practitioners, and was as often used injuriously as beneficially, and
more frequently without any effect. The absurd pretensions of galvanic
baths for the extraction of mercury from the system will be remembered
by most of our citizens, and the shocking practice of others is not
forgotten.
It was therefore earnestly desired by medical practitioners who
themselves were not by education competent to manage electric and
galvanic machinery, that some medical man of good standing, who had
made a special study of this subject, should undertake the treatment of
diseases requiring the use of electricity. Dr. Garratt was induced
to undertake this important duty, and he has prepared a work on this
practice which embraces all that has appeared in the writings of others,
both in this country and Europe, while he has, from his own researches
and rich experience, added much new matter of great practical value.
Among his original contributions we note,--
1st. A definite, systematic method for the application of Galvanic and
Faradaic currents of electricity to the human organism, for curing or
aiding in the cure of given classes of diseases. (See pages 475, 479,
and 669 to 706; also Chap. 5, p. 280.)
2d. Improvements in the methods of applying electricity, as stated on
pages 293 to 296, and 300, 329, and 332, which we have not room to copy.
3d. He has introduced the term Faradaic current to represent the induced
current, first discovered by Professor Henry, and so much extended in
application by Faraday.
4th. The determination of several definite points in sentient and
mixed nerves, often the seats of neuralgic pain,--thus correcting Dr.
Valleix's painful points.
5th. The treatment of uterine, and some other female disorders, by means
of the induced galvanic current (pages 612 to 621).
A careful examination of this book shows it to contain a very full
_résumé_ of the best which have been written on the subjects embraced
under the medical applications of electricity in its various modes of
development, and a careful analysis of the doctrines of others; while
the author has given frankly an account of cases in which he has failed,
as of those in which he has been successful. He does not offer electric
treatment as a panacea for "all the ills which flesh is heir to," but
shows how far and in what cases it proves beneficial. He has shown that
there is a right and a wrong way of operating, and that mischief may be
done by an unskilful hand, while one who is well qualified by scientific
knowledge and practical experience may do much good, and in many
diseases,--more especially in those of the nerves, such as neuralgia
and partial paralysis, in which remarkable cures have been effected. We
commend this work to the attention of medical gentlemen, and especially
to students of medicine who wish to be posted up in the novel methods
of treating diseases. It is also a book which all scientific men may
consult with advantage, and which will gratify the curiosity of the
general scholar.
_Memoir of Edward Forbes, F.R.S., Late Regius Professor of Natural
History in the University of Edinburgh_. By GEORGE WILSON, M.D.,
F.R.S.E., and ARCHIBALD GEIKIE, F.R.S.E., etc. Cambridge and London:
MacMillan & Co.
Dr. Wilson did not live to finish the memoir which he so ably began.
The great naturalist, Edward Forbes, deserved the best from his
contemporaries, and we are glad to have the combined labors of such
distinguished men as Wilson and Geikie put forth in commemoration of
him. The chair of Natural History at Edinburgh was honored by him
whose biography is now before us. His advent to that eminent post was
everywhere hailed with a unanimity that augured well for his career, and
no one could have been chosen to succeed the illustrious Jameson for
whom there could have been more enthusiasm. His admitted genius and the
range of his acquirements fully entitled him to the office, and all who
know him looked forward to brilliant accomplishments in his varied paths
of science. Death closed the brief years of this earnest student at the
early age of thirty-nine. Cut off in the prime of his days, with his
powers and purposes but partially unfolded, he yet shows grandly among
the best men of his time.