REVIEWS.

Historical Sketch of the Rise, Progress, and Decline of the Reformation in Poland, and of the Influence which the Scriptural Doctrines have exercised on that Country in Literary, Moral, and Political respects. By Count Valerian Krasinski. 2 vols. 8vo. Murray and Co.

London:

The buoyant and bold-hearted have often said, "Great is the truth, and it must prevail.” But this saying, we suspect, has been as much a favourite with the indolent as with the active; with the timid, when shrinking from duty, as with the fearless, when addressing themselves to the perilous discharge of it. The power of truth is not from itself, but is apportioned to the degree of sympathy into which the mind may be brought with it, and the measure of corresponding effort to which the mind may be prompted in its behalf. The truth is like seed corn, which has in it the principle of vitality, but is dependent for development and productiveness on its contact with a genial soil, and a genial state of the elements. The gates of hell may not prevail against the church. This is true with regard to the church universal; but it is not necessarily true with regard to any particular branch of that church. The powers of darkness have prevailed in many regions where Christianity once flourished, so as almost to have blotted out its very name. What has happened in this respect may happen again. No region can be accounted as secure against a similar revolution. In a word, the free who do not study to deserve the continuance of freedom, will soon find that its immunities are matters which may pass away from them, and be given to others more worthy: and the church which shall forget her first love, and cease to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints, may be made to learn a similar lesson. Liberty and truth do not come as a bounty upon indolence and selfishness, but as a stimulus to wakefulness and effort. They will flourish if we labour adequately in ministering to their nourishment and growth; and they will perish, as far as we are concerned, if we are unmindful of our obligations in relation to them.

There is much to suggest reflections of this nature in the History of the Reformation in Poland. The rapid progress and speedy decline of that reformation, present an instructive picture to the Protestant reader. Within half a century, the Protestant cause so far prevailed in that country, as to justify anticipations of its complete triumph. In the course of another half century, however, it was every where shaken, and almost destroyed. Dr. M'Crie has published narratives which exhibit a similar reaction in Italy and Spain. But in these countries,

and some others, the enemies of truth and improvement prevailed by wielding the force of legally constituted authorities. It was not so in Poland. There the same end was accomplished by the insidious working of a bigoted and unprincipled faction, acting not with the assistance, but in opposition to the laws of the country. It is this feature in the history of the Polish reformation which gives it a place in a great degree apart, and renders it especially admonitory. The very freedom of the Polish institutions, which had proved for a while so favourable to the progress of Protestantism, was converted into a machinery for its suppression. The Jesuits, who defended the interests of Rome, could not demand, in this instance, the aid of fire and sword. But what they could not extort by force they endeavoured to secure by policy. By this means, they brought on Poland more severe calamities than might have been occasioned by the most sanguinary conflicts between religious parties. According to the laws of Poland, no man could be prosecuted on account of his religious opinions; and the utmost stretch of the Jesuitical policy was demanded, to give plausibility to the conduct of men, who, while professing to uphold these laws, succeeded in evading, neutralizing, and counteracting them. The Protestants were mostly of the middle class, and the aim of the Jesuits was to augment their power with the aristocracy on the one hand, and with the lower classes of the people on the other. Their acquirements enabled them to insinuate themselves into the families and confidence of persons of rank; and by means of the pulpit and the confessional, they contrived to get a strong hold on the passions of the populace. Thus they could stimulate the rabble to excess and riot, and persuade the authorities to leniency or silence. During the long reign of Sigismund III., which extended from 1587 to 1631, the Jesuits exerted a paramount influence over the affairs of Poland; and although the pernicious effects of that influence were counterbalanced for some time by the efforts of some noble-minded men who appeared during that period, it finally produced the most fatal consequences to the country. The disciples of Loyola, learned themselves only that they might, if possible, be capable of neutralizing the learning of other men, aimed to restore the dominion of the Papacy in Poland by a depression of the national intellect. They became so powerful as to mould the received systems of education, and, as the effect, science and literature were almost annihilated. It was at such a price that Romanism was saved in Poland; and no country in the world affords, perhaps, a more striking illustration of the blessings which a political community derives from the introduction of a scriptural religion, and of the calamities which are entailed on a nation by its extinction. The national intellect in that country expanded wonderfully as the new religious opinions made progress, and collapsed as remarkably from the moment the Catholic reaction became powerful. With the abolition

of the Jesuits, at a later period, it was found that an incubus had been removed from the genius of that people; and nothing but the almost unparalleled wrongs and misfortunes, of which their civil history has since been made up, could have prevented their becoming, in all respects, a great people. But the candid and intelligent author of the work at the head of this article justly observes on this subject

"Although the Jesuits were chiefly instrumental in defeating the cause of the reformation in Poland, they would never have succeeded in their object, had not the Protestants themselves greatly contributed to the triumph of their enemies, by committing many grave errors. The unfortunate jealousy and ill-will which the Lutherans constantly evinced against the united churches of the Helvetian and Bohemian confessions, at a time when it was necessary to lay aside all the minor differences which divided the Protestants amongst themselves, in order to act with united forces against Romanism, the common enemy of all, produced deplorable consequences to the Protestant cause in Poland. But nothing did so much harm to the same cause as the anti-trinitarian doctrines, which rose amidst the Helvetian churches of that country. The errors with which they infected many reformed churches, not only altered the purity of their doctrine, and increased dissensions among Protestants; but they deeply injured the most powerful arm by which the reformation was, and always will be promoted—the searching of the Scriptures. Many persons, terrified by the boldness of the anti-trinitarian speculations, were seduced by the Romanist doctrine into the belief, that the study of the Scriptures ought not to be allowed to all Christians, as being dangerous to the purity of their faith, and consequently remained in the Roman Catholic communion, which they were on the point of abandoning; or even having already abandoned that church, returned to its pale, preferring that persuasion, in spite of its acknowledged errors and abuses, to a philosophical school, which reasoned away revelation itself, and reduced Christianity to a mere code of ethics. It is almost superfluous to add, that one unavoidable consequence produced by such a school was religious indifference, and that such indifference was destructive to a party, whose followers were constantly tempted to desert it by every kind of seduction on one hand and persecution on the other, as was the case with the Protestants in Poland.”—Preface, pp. xi. xii.

Such is, in substance, the story which these volumés present to the English reader. Count Krasinski, the author, is a Polish refugee, who has suffered the loss of all things, so far as respects his native land, as the consequence of his noble efforts to protect his much-loved country from the yoke of the oppressor. Many have become purchasers of his volumes, as a delicate mode of ministering to the necessities of a generous-hearted exile: and we trust there are many readers of the Congregational Magazine who will be prepared to follow their example. The work itself also, altogether independent of any such circumstance of recommendation, is one of real interest and value, containing a large portion of matter for the most part new to the English student. It furnishes some new evidence of the influence put forth by the writings of our great reformer Wycliffe, on the early movements of the continental reformation; and it is written, as the above passage will indicate, in a clear style, with much judgment, and under the influence of sound religious views. The first volume embraces an interesting

sketch of the earlier ecclesiastical history of Poland, and the history of the half century during which the Protestant cause continued to be prosperous. The second volume embraces the history of the faults, and of the consequent sufferings, of the Polish Protestants, and if consisting of less pleasant reading than its precursor, is deserving of a most thoughtful perusal. Poor ill-fated Poland! thy story has taught us that it is true of nations as of individuals, that the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong! May the power of thy oppressors be broken, and the time, the set time to favour thee, soon come!

The Antiquities of Egypt, with a particular Notice of those that illus trate the Sacred Scriptures. 8vo. London: Religious Tract Society. Illustrations of the Bible, from the Monuments of Egypt. By W. C. Taylor, LL.D. 12mo. London: Charles Tilt.

Egypt has become to the Biblical student "a very fruitful land," having already afforded, and promising still further to yield, most valuable materials, both to confirm and illustrate the early history and the prophecies of sacred writ. Those stupendous temples and pyramids, which the world has been accustomed to count among its wonders, the church is now delighted to regard as monumental evidence in favour of the word of God.

In early days, Egypt ministered to the sustentation of the people of God; it saved Abraham from famine; it became the refuge of Jacob and his sons, the scene of Joseph's sorrows, virtues, and glory, the afflictive school of the Israelites, the witness of Jehovah's might and of his terror, and the unwilling contributor to the erection of his tabernacle: in after times, it was the rod of correction to the proud and forgetful kings and people of Judah, and then again the means, by its splendid translation, of making the Old Testament Scriptures accessible to the whole civilized and learned world; and, when that tender life which constituted the hope of mankind was exposed to the fury of Herod the king, "behold, the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him. When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt; and was there until the death of Herod: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called my Son."

Now, indeed, its glory has passed away like a dream of the night; the successive dynasties of its kings have gone to their magnificent sepulchres; its priesthood have become extinct, leaving behind only the strangely-figured temples which arose under their powerful sway; and yet, from the recesses of its tombs, and from the walls of its deserted

temples, we now may gather attestations of the truth of God's word. The papyri wrappings of its mummies, the pictures which cover the interior of its tombs and palaces, and the storied sarcophagi of its kings, have furnished confirmations of the inspired narrative as satisfactory as they were unexpected.

True, indeed, the adversaries of religion entrenched themselves amidst the mysterious monuments of Egypt, and eagerly attacked her verities from behind their shelter. To adopted the language of an accomplished scholar

"They called upon those huge and half-buried colossal images, and those now subterraneous temples, to bear witness to the antiquity and early civilization of the nation which erected them; they appealed to their astronomical remains, to attest the skill, matured by ages of observation, of those who projected them. More than all, they saw in those hieroglyphic legends the venerable dates of sovereigns, deified long before the modern days of Moses or Abraham; they pointed in triumph to the mysterious characters which an unseen hand had traced on those primeval walls, and boasted that only a Daniel was wanted that could decipher them, to show that the evidences of Christianity had been weighed and found wanting; and its kingdom divided between the infidel and the libertine! Vain boast! The temples of Egypt have at length answered their appeal, in language more intelligible than they could possibly have anticipated, for a Daniel has been found in judicious and persevering study. After the succession had been so long interrupted, Young and Champollion have put on the linen robe of the hierophant; and the monuments of the Nile, unlike the fearful image of Sais, have allowed themselves to be unvailed by their hands, without any but the most wholesome and consoling results having followed from their labour."*

But we must not anticipate the history of this discovery. Yet as believers in the inspiration of the Bible, it is the occasion of holy triumph and devout praise, that the proud expectations of infidelity in reference to Egypt have been dashed in the dust. "According to Clement of Alexandria, an Egyptian temple was ypáμμa, 'a writing,' it addressed itself to the mind in the same manner as a book.". (Antiquities of Egypt, p. 69.) It is nearly thirty centuries since these "books" were compiled, since this pictorial history of Egypt was written down by its own priests; the age in which impartial testimony was to be given for or against the veracity of Moses and the prophets has at length arrived, and, in the language of Dr. Taylor, at the conclusion of his interesting volume

"We have found the most minute circumstances recorded in the biographies of Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, and Moses, respecting their residence in Egypt, perfectly correspondent with the sculptured and pictorial representations of Egyptian manners on the monuments. Thence it follows, that the narrative of the Pentateuch could have been written only by a person who had resided in Egypt during the reign of the Pharoahs, and was thoroughly conversant with its usages."—p. 198.

The means which have led to the partial recovery of the ancient Egyptian language, and the treasures of Scripture illustration it con

* Wiseman's Connexion between Science and Religion.—Vol. II. pp. 61, 62.