HEADLEY'S LIFE OF HAVELOCK.* It will be difficult for any one possessed of either martial spirit or Christian emotion to commence this volume and not read it to the end. There is much in it to kindle both martial and Christian ardor. A braver heart than Havelock's certainly never led a column of soldiers to a charge. A more beautiful Christian example than his was never set before the world. It seems, indeed, almost incredible that in the midst of camp and campaign duties, the most stern and trying, which were never neglected, and in the midst of dangers the most appalling, which were never shunned, two hours daily should have been given, by this Christian soldier, to the reading of the Scriptures, to prayer, and to religious meditation. It is marvellous that neither the trying duties of camp discipline, nor the terrors and tumults of actual warfare, ever interfered with his habits of private devotion. The example is one with which all Christians would do well to make themselves familiar.

In writing this work Mr. Headley has had at command very ample and reliable materials, including manuscript memoirs of his campaigns by Havelock. A great deal of conscientious labor has been expended on this life, and there is no reason to doubt that the author has given us a very authentic and trustworthy memoir.

The battle pieces are not, what some might expect, mere repetitions of those furnished in "Napoleon and his Marshals."

By some strange oversight the name of Dr. Marshman is uniformly written Marsham.

We commend this volume as one the reading of which, while it will not make the reader love war less, will be likely to make him love a pure Christian life more.

TRUTH IS EVERYTHING.†-This is an American reprint of one of Mrs. Geldart's excellent books for children. A more useful book cannot be put into the hands of young persons. The polite duplicity and graceful deceptions of society have so blunted our moral sensibilities that slight deviations from truth, are received with almost universal indulgence. Yet truthfulness must always lie at the foundation of whatever is beautiful and excellent; and a book which teaches that there can be no twilight blending of truth and falsehood, but that truth is truth, and what is not truth is a lie, cannot be too widely circulated and read.

FRANK ELLIOTT OR WELLS IN THE DESERT.‡-This is an attempt to hang upon a very slight thread of fiction the distinctive views of those calling themselves Disciples, and popularly known as Campbellites. The dialogue is constrained and awkward, marring without concealing the didactic aim of the author. The book will hardly make many converts, but will doubtless strengthen those who are already of the author's way of believing. But perhaps we do not enough appreciate its merits, as we freely confess, that from the author's views of faith, as well as of the office of the Holy Spirit, and of the ordinance of baptism, we should totally dissent. Fiction has never seemed to us the best method of conveying sectarian views to the public.

*The Life of General H. Havelock, K. C. B. By Prof. J. T. Headley, author of Napoleon and his Marshals," &c. New-York: Charles Scribner, 1859.

Truth is Everything. By Mrs. Thomas Geldart. New-York: Sheldon & Co., No. 115 Nassau street. 1859.

Frank Elliott: or Wells in the Desert. By James Challen. Philadelphia : James Challen & Son. 1859.

THE

CHRISTIAN REVIEW.

NO. XCVIII.—OCTOBER, 1859.

ARTICLE I-DR. CARSON AND THE ROMISH CONTROVERSY.*

THE history of the world bears ample testimony to the care of God for the interests of His kingdom. For the promotion of His cause, He has been pleased to bestow upon His people talents in great variety, talents which in the aggregate comprise a large proportion of the intellectual power of the world. His love and sovereignty are seen, both in the kind and degree of talent conferred, and in the choice of time and place for the manifestation of his gifts.

The Gospel is to be opened to the stubborn and persecuting Jews, and the bold and dashing Peter is chosen for the work. The tribes of Asia, the philosophers of Athens, and the dwellers in imperial Rome, are to receive the word, and the versatile and philosophic Paul is the appointed instrument. The deep rooted errors and superstitions of the medieval papacy are to be checked in their course, and the pure truths of the gospel brought out into the broad daylight, and the dogmatic and indomitable Luther walks forth, fearless of men and devils, and with hearty good will brings all his array of destructive weapons to bear upon the Papacy; while the calm and contemplative Melancthon draws out of the word of God, and sets in due order the purer theology of the Reformation. The people of

* Life of Alex. Carson, LL.D. By George C. Moore. E. H. Fletcher, N. Y. The Romish Controversy. By Dr. Carson. Sheldon, Lamport & Blakeman, N. Y.

Hindoostan and Burmah, after long ages of darkness, are to receive the light of the Bible, and there comes forth, at the proper season, a Carey and a Judson to perform the sacred task. It was the same wise and beneficent regard for His people and His cause that gave to the Baptist Church at Tubbermore, to Ireland, and to the world, the voice and the pen of Dr. Carson.

In the rich variety of gifts that the Great Head of the Church has bestowed, there have been men of eloquence, to sway great masses by the living voice, and men of thought, to exert a more silent and unobserved, but probably not less powerful influence, from the shelter of their quiet retreats, by the use of the pen. It is not proper to assert, for the means of proof are not within the reach of finite mind, that the pen is the more potent instrumentality for the promotion of the truth. Yet the probabilities seem to point towards that conclusion. It can scarcely be doubted that men like Doddridge, Alleine, Flavel, Edwards and Fuller, produced very happy results by their power in the pulpit; but it seems scarcely probable, that the near and remote result of their pulpit labors can, in any degree, compare with the effects that they have already accomplished, and are yet to produce, by their writings. John Bunyan and Richard Baxter were in their day what we might call eminently successful preachers of the gospel. Yet we feel that we would willingly have given twice twelve years of Bunyan's active labors, had it been needed, rather than have wanted the Pilgrim's Progress; and the addition of twice twenty-five years to the long and laborious public ministrations of Baxter would have ill compensated the world for the want of his "Saint's Rest," and his "Call to the Unconverted."

Dr. Alexander Carson combined in himself both kinds of talent. He was an eminently successful pastor and preacher, and, at the same time, by his pen, he has won for himself a high rank in the world of letters.

"The scene of Dr. Carson's labors for nearly fifty years was Tubbermore, a small town in the north of Ireland, containing about two thousand inhabitants. The place is so mean in appearance and so unimportant, that geographers and travellers—

these universal describers-have scarcely deigned to notice it. Its principal buildings consist of two meeting-houses and a postoffice. The rural scenery around is much disfigured by the vicinity of a large Irish bog, on one side of which, fronting toward the miry waste, stands the white-washed cottage of Dr. Carson."

The people of the north of Ireland partake of the peculiarities of the Protestant population of Scotland, while the western counties have all the characteristics of the original Irish stock. The village of Tubbermore is a kind of border town where both the Scotch and Irish races meet. They are broadly distinguished by complexion, by language, and by religious views. On the one hand, the Scotch are strongly Protestant, on the other, the Irish are bigoted Roman Catholics.

It was in these scenes, and amid this people, that Dr. Carson, after completing his studies, and graduating with the first honors at the University of Glasgow, commenced his labors in the year 1798, as the pastor of a Presbyterian Church.

His attention was called, at an early period in his ministry, to the consequences resulting from infant church membership. He was distressed by seeing its tendency to introduce worldly persons into the Church, and to perpetuate a character at variance with the spirituality of the Church as delineated in the New Testament. His experience, in some degree, corresponds to that of Dr. Jonathan Edwards, in those memorable difficulties which removed him from his people at Northampton, after a pastoral charge of twenty-four years, and sent him forth to the wilderness, a martyr for the truth. Dr. Carson at first withdrew from the Synod of Ulster, because he felt that the worldly domination to which he was subjected, was inconsistent with the discharge of his duties as a minister of Christ. He was led, at this time, to adopt those views of the independence of the churches which he held and promulgated during the remainder of his long career in the ministry. His change of views was the means of bringing about a great change in his temporal circumstances. He at once gave up the govern ment support which he had formerly received; and for long years the products of a farm he had taken, was the principal

For some

support for himself and his increasing family. years, however, he continued to occupy his former place of worship, and to preach to his former congregation. Subsequently, by gradual steps, he arrived at those views of the mode and subjects of baptism which he so ably advocated in his later work on that subject. Thus was he led to give up views and practices whose main support is tradition, and to cling more closely to the great Christian principle, the Bible alone, the rule of faith and practice. God was preparing him to wage a war with tradition, and to do battle for the supreme authority of His own word.

For nine years the little band to whom he now ministered had no settled place of worship. During the interval from 1805 to 1814 they met in barns, or in the open air when the weather permitted. The raising of their rude house of worship was a difficult work for the poor Baptists of Tubbermore. The raising of the spiritual house was also a long and arduous work, and with exemplary patience did Dr. Carson apply himself to it. He preached the Word in faithfulness and in hope, and God eventually gave it great success.

The spirit of the pastor is seen in a prayer which he penned on the first of January, 1805: "As I give up all for Christ, may I have the satisfaction to be the instrument of turning many to righteousness.' "As I go out like Abraham, not 'knowing whither I go, may the blessing of Abraham come upon me. Not only let my natural offspring be Thine to the remotest generation, but my spiritual seed be as numerous as the sand of the sea, or the stars that cannot be numbered."

The spirit which actuated him in this crisis of his destiny, seems never to have left him. In his later work on the Atonement, he says: "If a man perceives any thing to be a command of Jesus, and out of worldly views, avoids obeying it, he has no pretensions to the character of a Christian. If he says he knows Him and keepeth not His commandments, he is a liar, and the truth is not in him. My friends, this is the reason why I observe some of those ordinances which are looked upon to be ridiculous. This is the reason why I observe the Baptism, the Lord's Supper, &c., of the Apostles, and not the