The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 69, July, 1863

It is just here that the realistic preaching of the Spurgeon school is available, and nothing else is. Here things must be taken just as they are found,—must be taken and presented in their natural coloring, in their roughest shape. Polish the thought here, or let it be anything save the strictest rescript from Nature, and you make it useless for your purposes. Here it is not the crystal that is wanted, but the unshapely boulder. And provided you wield your weapons after a masterly fashion, it matters very little what your manner or style may be as regards the graces of composition; if only a giant, you may be the most unseemly and awkward one of all Jötunheim.

Now these elements of success Spurgeon has in an eminent degree. He deals not simply with realities of the grossest sort, but with those which are forever present to common humanity; he seeks to move men to religious feelings through precisely the same means that they are daily moved by, the same things which daily excite whatever of thought is transacted in their cramped-up world of mind. This is particularly evident in the material structure upon which his sermons proceed.

Preaching from the text, "But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered awhile, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you," he causes the whole matter to be indelibly impressed on their minds by the very mechanical comparison of Perfection, Establishment, Strengthening, and Settling to four sparkling jewels set in the jet-black foil of past suffering. This is just that kind of illustration which his audience craves. It matters not whether he meets this audience through a vague or a transparent medium, provided the vagueness or the transparency be common both to the speaker and his hearers. Nothing, for instance, could have better accomplished the end designed, yet nothing could be more vague, than such an appeal as the following:—"Have ye never on your bed dreamed a dream, when your thoughts roamed at large and a bit was taken from your imagination, when, stretching all your wings, your soul floated through the Infinite, grouping strange and marvellous things together, so that the dream rolled on in something like supernatural splendor? But, on a sudden, you were awakened, and you have regretted hours afterwards that the dream was never concluded. And what is a Christian, if he does not arrive at perfection, but an unfinished dream?" Now there is nothing more universal among the most unintellectual of the children of earth than just this sort of mystical reverie, thus grand and thus inconclusive, where the mind, moved, perhaps, to this enthusiastic rapture by that infusion of animal force which comes from a hearty dinner, remaining always just in the same place, seems to wheel away, it knows not whither, but seemingly, and as it flatters itself, into the regions of the Infinite. Really there is no mental movement at all,—nothing but an outgoing through the myriad channels of animal sensibility; yet there is always associated, in such minds, with reveries like these a spiritual elevation approaching to inspiration. "Oh," think they, "if the dream might only be completed, that would be the consummation of a divinely spiritual being!" On this association Spurgeon founds a comparison, which, though utterly false when analyzed, is yet no less effective as illustrating the particular idea which he wishes to convey. Such associations, where he cannot correct them, it is the business of the popular preacher to inherit as if they were his own, and to build upon as if they were gospel truths.

Spurgeon, again, is continually indulging in the most startling suppositions, and just those which are most commonly entertained by vulgar minds,—as, for instance, the supposition of some one, himself or some unfortunate hearer, dropping down dead in his chamber. And, in general, he makes abundant use of that apprehension of death, which is far stronger in the uneducated than in the more refined, as a source from which he may gather thunderbolt after thunderbolt with which to startle the indifferent and hardened heart. What matter though the sentiment to which he appeals be a perverted sentiment? what matter how severely wrenched out of its normal channel? if through this tortuous channel something of the divine truth reaches the awakened conscience, then is there hope, that, through divine grace entering with the truth, all these perversions and anomalies of sinful nature may be set right, and the soul again arrive at celestial harmony with the universe.

The method of such preaching is as organic, considering the circumstances, as that of Beecher's preaching. The only difference is, that the latter finds an audience that through intellectual facility is able to follow him in any path; while Spurgeon, on the other hand, finds his audience destitute of any such facilities, yet finds them facile in every direction where he can bring into alliance with his power their emotions or their peculiar modes of mental action.

Nor do the grosser realities of the world, as present ever with the hearer, and as present ever with the preacher, at all disturb the efficiency of human faith: indeed, they form the most beautiful relief upon which faith is ever to be discovered, for thus is that which in its supernatural alliance is entirely heavenly seen shining through the lowest bases of our nature, which in their alliance are everlastingly associated with earth.

A Treatise on the American Law of Easements and Servitudes. By EMORY WASHBURN, LL.D. Philadelphia: George W. Childs. pp. 640.

"Easements" is no easy subject for a law-writer. In its development he will be thrown, to a great extent, upon his own resources in collating and unfolding the topics, for the literature upon the subject existing in our own language is so meagre that the form of its presentation has not been cast in any conventional mould. We have heretofore had no American treatise whatever upon the general subject, and the English bar has furnished us only with that of Gale and Whately, which almost wholly ignores the American cases. It is evident, therefore, that it required an original and fresh intellectual effort to gather together the hundreds of adjudications scattered through our various State reports, classify them, compare them, study them, and construct a homogeneous and extensive analysis of their doctrine. This sort of distillation, if we may so speak, from the crude mass, has been most thoroughly performed by the author of the work before us; and the result is, that, instead of merely making a book, he has indeed written one. In reading it, we recall the great authoritative treatises of the profession, such as Abbott on Shipping, or Sugden on Vendors, and we are also the more disgusted with the hotchpots of the "United States Digest," called law-books.

Professor Washburn is fairly before the public as the author of the "Treatise on the American Law of Real Property," and his merits as a writer have thus become so well known as to render any new commendation superfluous. His style is plain, clear, and compact. He addresses himself directly to the subject of which he is treating, spinning no curious refinements, and admitting no irrelevant digressions. Nor does he keep the reader oscillating between text and notes, in a state of dizzying, unstable equilibrium which would task an acrobate. There be books we have seen printed, and heard others praise, and that highly, not to speak it profanely, in which the text was so shingled over with layers of notes, or the notes were so underpinned by a slight propping of text, that it was difficult to say, in the language of Easements, which was the servient and which the dominant tenement. Our author's volume, we are happy to say, is not thus bifurcated. His law is in his text, and his sources are in his notes.

There is another feature which we dare not overlook, and that is, the hearty conscientiousness with which the writer does his work. He takes nothing at secondhand, but goes straightway to the authorities. It begets confidence in a writer, when he is enabled to say for himself, as the Professor apologetically does in his Preface, "It has been my aim to examine for myself every reported case which bore sufficiently upon the topic under consideration to warrant a reference to it as an authority"; and when we are further told that "the cases thus examined considerably exceed a thousand in number," we may form some conception of the great industry as well as the rare literary honesty of the writer.

The arrangement of the book is admirable. At the commencement of each chapter we have the titles of the various sections, and each successive section is introduced by a statement of the contents of each clause. This facilitates search, though it necessitates the cumbrous mode of reference adopted in the foot-notes to chapter, section, and placitum.

It would be easy for us to prolong this notice, but we must content ourselves with an earnest commendation of the work to the profession. It is literally indispensable to the general practitioner, not merely because it is the only book which contains the collected law on the subject as administered in this country, but also because, if it had a dozen competitors, its intrinsic value would be all the more fully developed by the comparison.

The Astronomy of the Bible. By O.M. MITCHELL, LL.D. 12mo. New York Blakeman & Mason.

This work contains seven Lectures, in which the distinguished and lamented author has undertaken to prove not only that the science of Astronomy does not discredit the inspiration of the Sacred Scriptures, but that it affords many clear evidences that they are a Divine Revelation. The first demonstrates, against the Atheist, the being of God. The second adduces evidence that the God of the universe is the Jehovah of the Bible. The third considers the cosmogony revealed by the present state of astronomy; and the fourth compares the Mosaic account of creation with the theory advanced in the preceding lecture. The fifth is devoted to the ancient and venerable Book of Job with reference to the astronomical allusions it contains. The sixth is on the astronomical miracles of the Bible; and the seventh is on the language of the Bible with reference to astronomy.

This brief statement of the subjects discussed is sufficient to show that the work is one of no ordinary character. The interest the publication of these lectures will awaken will be intensified by the considerations, that they contain the matured views of one of the first astronomers of the age, on a subject of transcendent importance,—and that they are the last contributions to the cause of science and religion from his gifted pen. They were delivered within the last few years, in our principal cities, to very large and deeply interested audiences; and their appearance in print just now is most timely. The question respecting the relations of Christianity and Science to each other is now exciting a very general and intense interest. The Bible was written during a period in the history of the world when true science was almost unknown. The writers of the several books which compose the sacred volume, with scarcely an exception, made no pretensions to scientific investigation; and they did not so much reason out as announce great truths and principles intimately related to almost every department of human knowledge. These venerable writings have been and now are subjected to a test which no other professed revelation has been able to bear. If, then, it shall be found that their direct teachings and their numerous references to the works of Nature harmonize with the averments of science in this age of its greatest achievements—still more, if it shall appear that the different sciences, unknown when they were written, strongly corroborate their teachings, direct and indirect,—it will be difficult for candid minds to resist the conviction that their origin is Divine.

No one of the sciences was less understood, in those remote ages, than Astronomy; and yet to no part of the works of Nature does the Bible make more frequent references than to the heavenly bodies. In this department, therefore, if anywhere, we might expect to find discrepancy between the teachings of science and revelation. But the impartial reader will rise from the perusal of this volume, not only with his faith in the inspiration of the Scriptures confirmed, but with the conviction that the sublime science of Astronomy affords a far more just conception of the pregnant meaning of the eloquent language of Job, David, and Isaiah, than without it we could attain.

These lectures will be regarded as the more valuable, because they are the voluntary contribution of a Christian layman, as well as of a man of eminent scientific attainments, to the great argument on which depends the religious faith of mankind. Possessing a mind of extraordinary powers, trained under the promptings of an intense thirst for knowledge to patient and thorough investigation, he made for himself a reputation which secures the strongest confidence in his ability to treat the momentous and difficult questions he undertook to discuss in these lectures; whilst the remarkable clearness of his views, his brilliant imagination, and an extraordinary affluence of language and felicity of expression, both enlighten the understanding and gratify the most cultivated taste. Professor Mitchell did more than any other man to popularize the science of Astronomy; and the use he has made of it in defence of Christianity seems a fitting termination of his noble labors.

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