Whether describing a battle, or criticising a play, or discussing a philosophical system, or chastising a bad poet, he is always carried forward in the same flow of never ceasing, ever changing picturesqueness and brilliancy.

For ourselves we are sincerely glad that his writings have been republished and circulated so widely in this country. We wish that such specimens of manly eloquence were in the hands of every American youth. We wish that in the study of models for their style, they may

have before them a writer who always uses the English language in its native strength and purity. We wish that from the perusal of his writings even our senators may learn wisdom; and that every preacher and teacher and student through the land may be well convinced, that "for magnificence, for pathos, for vehement exhortation, for disquisition, for every purpose of the poet, the orator, and the divine, this homely, unpolluted dialect, the dialect of plain workingmen, is perfectly sufficient."

THE likeness which forms the frontispiece to our present number, gives some idea of the physiognomy of one of the most distinguished living theologians of Germany. We have thought it might afford pleas ure to our readers, as many of them have already heard his name and known something of his writings, and it is probable he will be come still more extensively known among us in consequence of the recent republication of his "History of the Planting and Training of the Christian Church by the Apostles," History of the Christian Religion and Church during the

and his "

History of the Planting and Training of the Christian Church by the Apostles. By Dr. Augustus Neander, Ordinary Professor of Theology in the University of Berlin, Consistorial Counsellor, etc. Translated from the third edition of the original German, by J. E. Ryland. Complete in one volume. Philadelphia, 1844. Large 8vo. pp. 331.

The History of the Christian Religion and Church, during the three first centu ries. By Dr. Augustus Neander. Translated from the German, by Henry John Rose, B. D., Rector of Houghton Conquest, and late Fellow of St. John's Coll. Cambridge. In one volume, containing, &c. Philadelphia, 1843. Large 8vo.

466.

PP.

three first centuries," the former, translated by Mr. Ryland of Northampton, England, a "dissenter," we believe-and the latter, by Mr. Rose, a clergyman of the church of England. In the first and third volumes of the Biblical Repository, edited by Dr. Robinson, are given a few notices of Neander's life and writings, and a very brief biographical sketch, extracted from the Ger

man

"Conversations-Lexicon," is prefixed to Ryland's translation. From these sources we may be allowed to repeat the few prominent facts of his history which are known to the world, and then we shall attempt to note some characteristics of his mind.

ties of marking the lineaments of Those who have had opportunithe Jewish face, will not be surprised to learn that Augustus Neander was born of Jewish parents. The place of his birth, as stated in theConversations-Lexicon," was Göttingen, and the date, January 16, 1789. But he was brought up at Hamburg. As an awkward, bashful boy, he frequented the shop of an eminent bookseller of that city, where he spent whole days in reading a variety of books which

attracted his attention. He drew the notice of the principal, who became interested by his thirst for knowledge, and liberally afforded him every facility for acquiring it by reading, and sent him to the Gymnasia of Hamburg, where his education began.

At this time he was still of the religious persuasion of his fathers. It was not until shortly before his entering the University of Halle, in 1806, that he embraced Christianity, doubtless from an earnest conviction. He must have been strongly bound to his early patron, by a sense of gratitude, yet the several years of his intimate connection with that individual had not, it seems, induced him to renounce his hereditary faith. Nor would he have been subject to any disabilities, in a Prussian university, had he remained attached to the synagogue. We are not aware that Neander, at any period of his life, was overborne by the rationalistic infidelity of Germany. A deep faith in Christ, from a personal sense of spiritual need, seems always to have been a controlling principle of his mind, since he outwardly embraced Chris tianity; and we are disposed to be lieve, in the absence of positive information, that his renunciation of Judaism was owing to that germinating of true piety in his soul.

He finished his academical studies at the University of Göttingen, under Professor G. J. Planck, who is distinguished in Germany principally for his works relative to ecclesiastical history. Here he afterwards remained a short time, holding the place of a Repetent* in that University. In 1812, he was called to be Professor Extraordinary of Theology at Heidelberg. The year

* A small appointment peculiar to Göttingen, given to young men who have been already admitted to the privilege of teaching in the University without salary, for which they are required to give a few public lectures.

previous he had come forward there with an essay, the title of which— "De fidei gnoseosque ideæ qua ad se invicem atque ad philosophiam referatur, ratione, secundum mentem Clementis Alexandrini”—indicates that he had already gone far back in the history of religious opinion, to trace the distinction between that liberty connected with faith in a Redeemer-the emancipation from sin with which Christ makes free, and that fancied self-emancipation from sin, which gnosticism borrowed from oriental philosophy, and taught might be attained by the mere spon taneous efforts of the mind itself, and the notion of which had intertwined itself with the truth in the theological school of Alexandria. In the year 1814, or '15, Neander became Professor Ordinary of Theol ogy at Berlin, where he has since remained, being now in the fifty fifth year of his life.

All his published writings have reference to the history of Christianity. Their titles may be found noted in the Biblical Repository, Vol. 3, p. 70. His principal works are the history of the church in the time of the Apostles, of which the title has been already given, and the "Allgemeine Geschichte der Christlichen Religion und Kirche," i. e. "Universal His tory of the Christian Religion and Church," to which the former is properly an introduction, and which is not yet finished. In 1841, it was brought down to A. D. 1294. The work translated by Mr. Rose, to which we have already referred, is only a portion of this great work.

The writer had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of Neander, some years ago, at Berlin, and has ever since retained a lively im pression of the character of this distinguished man. The attempt to draw some of its features, that others may learn to know and love him, is too grateful to the feelings of one who partook of his hospi talities, to be declined; though so

slight a sketch as this can not but come short of its subject.

Neander is a man who thinks humbly of himself, and has great benevolence of heart. He is somewhat reserved, and quite negligent of the "convenances" of society. But whether seen in his study, or at his table, or in the lecture-room, his manner is delightfully simple, childlike, and forgetful of self, and his countenance expresses a sweet complacence in the enjoyment of those around him. When the writer was in Berlin, an occasion occurred with him, which is wont to create a sort of self-apotheosis of feeling in the distinguished men of the German universities. His bust had been made in marble at the request of his pupils, and was presented to himself on his birth-day, wreathed with flowers, with all the honors of a "Fackelzug," or torch-procession. He was addressed with gratulation and flattery. And quite in keeping with all this, and almost essential to the ceremony is it considered in Germany, that the lauded professor should indulge in at least a few modest expressions of selfcongratulation by way of confirm ing the estimation of others. But not so with Neander, high as are his claims. As the students were gathered around his window, he simply thanked them for this distinguished mark of their esteem, of which he felt himself entirely unworthy, and reminded them, that, in thus rendering tokens of esteem and affection to man, they must not forget that Being to whom the highest love and reverence is due; and his manner assured of the sincerity of his soul. So in the discharge of his official duties, he appears at the farthest distance from vanity. He is forgetful of himself, even to a fault. In illustration both of this trait and of his kindness of heart, we may be allowed to refer to a story current in Germany, that a certain old hat was retained in ser

vice by him not a little time after it had become entitled to the privileges of an "emeritus," and would have been worn with the most unwitting simplicity still longer, had not an occasion presented of bestowing it upon some one to whom it was a charity. A particularly pleasing manifestation of his love of doing good, is his frequent familiar intercourse with his pupils, to converse with them on the various topics of theology, with special reference to difficulties and dangers connected with their individual states of mind. He draws them out to express themselves freely, points out to them more particularly than he can in public, the errors they should avoid, and the truths they should be convinced of, and bows with them in prayer to Him in whom is Life, and whose Life imparted to the soul is its Light. He is also known to contribute largely according to his means, to relieve the temporal necessities of young men struggling against poverty to obtain the riches of a cultivated mind.

This spirit is the characteristic of Neander, which would probably first strike any one on becoming a little acquainted with him. Nor is it without a more special reason that we mark this, first; but because it is rare to find in the scholars of Germany, that prime condition of true wisdom, a childlike humility; and because, where it is found, there exists a principle which imparts a healthy, natural life to those accumulated acquisitions of learning for which the Germans are so distinguished, but which often burthen their minds as a dead weight upon them, or are waywardly perverted to error. The garner of mere historical truth may be ransacked, and every thing in it be brought to view, but it remains a mere inanimate mass, or has only a deceptive significance, to the mind which has not the enlightening and life-giving

power belonging to docility and a desire to benefit mankind. It was said with much depth of meaning by Wilhelm v. Humboldt: "Wie man es immer anfangen möge, so kann das Gebiet der Erscheinungen nur von einem Punkte ausser demselben begriffen werden, und das besonnene Heraustreten ist eben so gefahrlos als das Irrthum gewiss bei blindem Verschleissen in demselben. Die Weltgeschichte ist nicht ohne eine Weltregierung verständlich," * i. e. "However one may make the attempt, the field of the phenomena of events can be comprehended only from a point out of itself, and to step out of it with discretion is as void of danger, as error is certain, if one is blindly shut up within it. The history of the world is not intelligible, apart from a government of the world." And the mind is not fully possessed of this essential point of observation, till it has understood its own relations to that Being whose providence orders all, and is deeply convinced, that whatever it truly knows, it must learn in humbly tracing the workings of that Providence which we can never fully find out, and in throwing itself into the current of that great design of a benevolent Creator, to do good, which characterizes all His arrangements.

But Neander does not possess this spirit without that deep sense of the soul's need of redemption, and that abiding in Christ as a Savior from sin, which is the source from which it springs. In one of the notes to his history of the apostolic age, he says with emphasis: "I know of no sin from which a man could be justified on the standing-point of the law." He once himself stood on that ground, and many a hard struggle he undoubt edly had to attain to a legal righteousness. Certain it is, his writings

*Wilhelm v. Humboldt's Gesammelte Werke. Berlin, 1841. Bd. I, 18.

the

are very full of allusion to "the radical evil of human nature," existence and action in all ages alike of the same tendencies of human nature opposed to Christianity, which it must overcome, in order to take root in the soul," and to "the power of Christianity, alone, to transform and ennoble human nature in its inward being." Indeed, the key to his whole view of church history, is the recognition of a contest carried on at different times in different forms, but ever essentially the same in principle, between a corrupt nature in man and the healing influence of the plan of redemption through a Di vine Savior crucified, and a belief in the power of the cross as suffi cient to gain a universal victory over moral evil, and finally to renovate the world-inferred from personal experience of its having subdued one's own unruly propensities opposed to God, and having made effectual one's own endeavors after conformity to His will, which had without it been utterly fruitless.

Perhaps it may have been expect. ed, that in this introduction of Neander to our readers we should give an outline of his theological opinions. But this is not our intention. His views of the authenticity of cer tain books in our canon of Scripture, and on some topics of dogmatic theology, would not harmonize with the prepossessions and sentiments of our religious community, nor would we wish to commend them to public notice. These points belong to the discussions of our theological lecture-rooms. They are the less deserving of our notice in this attempt to characterize an individual, since it is so true, as Neander himself observes, that “ as the influence which Christianity exercises over mankind is not always accompanied with a clear discernment of its principles, there have been many erroneous tendencies which, though hostile to Christiani