LITERATURE.

Otago Witness, Issue 1834, 14 January 1887, Page 34

LITERATURE.

CRITICAL SKETCHES.

By Aristarchus.

GEORGE WILLIS' COOKE'S EMERSON.

This is a masterpiece of biography. ■ It is thoughtful, appreciative, suggestive and inspiring. At times it is heavy, but always instructive. • Emerson utters grand thoughts. The key-note of his writings is : 'Man is his own redeemer. Oooke's style is vitiated by frequent violations of orthography and grammatical accuracy — e.y., mold for mould, &c. Again,|speaking of Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Carlyle, he says, " His visit to the latter." It should be the last. Emerson talks a deal of transcendental nonsense, and mystical rhapsodies about man, nature, the soul, and God. Nevertheless, there is grand inspira- | tion in his writings, and Oooke thoroughly enters into his spirit. Emerson is harmless for the multitude. For the few he is really dangerous ; for he not only loses himself in his ideal pantheism, but he also causes his followers to lose all faith in a traditional theology and in a personal God. He is a man of genius. The difference between talent and genius is this:— "Talent amuses ; genius instructs. Talent shows what another man can do; genius acquaints me with the spacious circuits of the common nature. The one is carpentry • the other is growth." Cooke is a man of talent ; Emerson, a manj£of genius. Rousseau,, Herder, Lessing, Coleridge, &c. are "the intellectual awakeners and stimulator's of their age; not the thinkers of a gene- ! ration, but its inspirers."' Like Boehme ! Schelling, Eckhart, &c, , Emerson is ah; ecstatic intuitionalist — a mystical, 1 dreamy, theosophist.' " The created spirit loses itself ! in the' spirit of God, yea, is drowned in thebottomless' sea of Godhead." Tlid great man • is_ fuller than others'of the Over-soiil. ''When nature has^ work to be done she creates a genius to do it." Neither 1 Jesus' nor any other, man " must usurp the place of the soul, or. stand to us instead of the descending, of God's truth into us from above." Like the Quakers, Emerson believes in an' Inward Light. The universal soul speaks through man as its agent. "It is yet a debated questibn whether the Buddhist, who is a pure mystic, believes in annihilation or in an utter cessation of that which is merely individual." In the latter sense Emerson was a Buddhist ; for, according to him, " nothing is contrary to God but self-love." Accordingly, all writing comes by the grace of God, aye, and all doing and having. "He saw in religion not a church, not a historic faith, but the union of the soul with God through intuition which is possible to all men, and which annuls and condemns every other worship." Emerson is not a materialist, nor an agnostic. j He is purely a mystic, a transcendental intitutionalist, an ideal pantheist." "He sees no j need of a Messiah who has a perpetual mediator in his own intuitions." According to him, " the churches are not built on Christ's prinj ciples, but on his tropes. Religion is intuition, communion with God, and morality or obedience to God's laws." Emerson is a great .moral influence, and a keen spirit of intellectual perception. He is, as Cooke says, the herald of the dawn, and a sunbeam that dissipates darkness. A valuable monitorto the students, but an ignis fatuus to the masses of unreflecting humanity. MASSILLON'.S SERMONS. Chalmers and Massillon were princes of' the pulpit, and excelled in eloquence. Both possessed an intimate knowledge of the heart. In style, they resemble the waves of the sea. Massillon is chaster in expression, and more daring in oratory than Chalmers. - Occa-_ sionally he gives rein to his lofty imagination, and addresses the Deity in a style I bordering even • upon blasphemy. Excepting, j of course, ".certain relegious dogmas, these sermons constitute a magnificent body of iethical ; truths such as < cannot easily bo matched in literature. His sentiments are very pure, elegantly worded, and instruct the mind and purity the heart. Piety is adorned in the robesof beautiful rhetoric, and sublime pratory.^ He was .a prophet in France, andan ornament to the Catholic Church. He reproved, rebuked, and instructed his generation with apostolic zeal and charity. When shall we see his like again ? , Massillon's talents, eloquence, rhetoric, imagination, and ratiocination culminate in one point-^-to,wit, to render virtue lovely, attractive and, fascinating, and to make vice odious, hideous, repulsive, and contemptible. By innumerable examples he demonstrates that the! path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more into the perfect day : while the way of transgressors leads downward to the blackness of darkness, desolation, and death. How charminpr. refreshing and inspiring the great bishop's sermons really are ! They elevate the sonl upon jthe wings of devotion to the ethereal spheres of tho good*, theperfect, and the fair. Whatpigini.es modern preachers, are when compared' {tq a ; .phalmers.:or. Massillon! Moreover, they believed what they uttered, and were not whited sepulchres. Hence the great pathos of their exhortations.

FIFTY WEARS IN THE CHOroh '(M 1 ROMB. ; .•"-;';•- I In this ponderous folio-volume of 832 pagjf Father Chiniquy narrates the' history of; m education, ordination,, labours, aspiratiotl troubles, trials, persecutions and .prosed tions as a member and priest of Romauisj] Coming from a- man .of 76 years of 'age, m book is indeed a marvellous work. ' fil attachment to his fait^wajs^indeed^gt^ when' it., .lasted ~sp „10ng.., . He^is-ja^go^ reaaonei\^aJcre4ivitlunk"br^knd^aCpllasat writer. Indeed his style is racy, graphj, and picturesque. ; ( He left, at last; 'the fab; Ipus rites of one faith and accepted anoth| but less degrading superstition. He no resta his hopes of salvation on the. blood < Calvary. No man knows so well as he thj the Church of Rome "is the, most skilfe human machine the world' has : ever seen A Romanist believes as an idiot, and has i mind nor, will of his own any more-; than corpse. But, is not the dogma of the Incai nation as revolting to reason . asi* transit stantiation— the wafer god?,' „'>•; ■•

The education of Borne is entirely worth! less. It makes " asses of us." RomanisiJ is ♦• the most dangerous, th 6 most imply able enemy of intelligence; -progress,- anl liberty." The conscience is smothered;- "anl the Bible is a sealed book". '"We'^nuist'iiui plicity obey the' chnrch in everything. ' Sh| is a ' perfect despotism.' ( ( • AH tMngs-f-lyrngj perjury, adultery, theftrmurder^ are lal^yfaf for the good of the ohurch. ' She 'is'thj "determined enemy of truth, "justice, 1 f ans liberty." We are assured that the Canadian clergy, with four exceptions, were ' infidelt and atheists. He waxes eloquent on " the dark and lying traditions of Borne, hei miraculous cures, impositions/ depeptions, impostures, and hypocrisies, miracles," &c." Chiniquy refused three bishoprics. ,Whj did he not accept them ? He could, have! done far more good as a bishop ,than;asa§ mere priest. The Canadians w^reuneduJ cated, and the priests we're, jolly, ,epicur,eam.i He was justly styled the Temperance Apostle! of Canada. His labours in this line were really wonderful. Many ministers, as well as priests, are only " a band of comedians." Bomish addresses are more sentimental than scriptural. Chiniquy has laboured to " pull down and demolish the huge fortress of sophisms, falsehoods, idolatries" of Borne, in Canada, the United States,' Europe and Australasia. Chiniquy should, however, remember that to pray to any one, Mary 01 Jesus, besides God, is idolatry. When 1 we depart from the truth, we are sure to follow lies, whether in the shapes of ' transubstantiation, auriculer confession, purgatory, the supremacy of Peter, or the absolute supremacy of the Pope over the whole church and the world. Priests, outside the Bomish communion, are often •• vile, traders ,of souls, under the mask of religion." , They are, of ten pious, swindlers and grossly immoral? men. Theic powers, whether as popes, or pastors, are a sacrilegious usurpation Their churches are dens of .thieves, drnnkards^.ancl impure atheists. According (j to Chiniquy, Home is a den of thieves, a school -of infidelity, and the,, very antipod.es of. the Church of Christ. , • In 185?, s Chiniquy founded a colony ,of French Canadians in Illinois. He built a chapel, a , college, and a female academy in his newlyformed town of St. Anne. ■ This colony in 1858, to the number of 6000, seceded with him from Borne and abandoned her mummeries, chaplets, , indulgencies scapularies, auricular confessions, invocation of the Virgin, holy water, masses, purgatory, wafer god, &c. This event tooic place on the 3rd September 1858, on the hill of- St. Anne, Illinois. On the 15th April 18(50 he, with 2000 communicants, joined the Presbytery of Chicago. Since that event 30 public attempts had been made in different parts of the world to kill him. He was publicly struck 20 times. " DuriDg 18 years they kept me in the hands of the sheriffs v prisoner, under bail, as a criminal," But out of them all his God delivered him, and mercifully led him " from the darkest regions of superstition, to the blessed regions of light, truth, and life." On the whole, Chiniquy is cast in the true mould of a radical reformer. He evidently is sincere, albeit, a bit of a fanatic ; he is, nevertheless, one of the grandest men of , the nineteenth century. 1 His life is fuller of perils than .was Paul's chequered career.