three hundred pages - traces the various transformations which Christianity has undergone at the hands of its adherents, from the time immediately succeeding the death of Christ to the close of the fourth century. It displays great learning and careful research, and yet avoids all those technicalities and scholastic digressions which render so many church histories incomprehensible and uninteresting to the general reader. The simplest mind can understand and enjoy the plain statements, the reasonable conclusions, of this little book; the keenest intellect must admire the wonderful simplicity of its diction (which is the perfection of art in style), the cogency of its arguments, and the irresistible naïveté displayed in the declaration of its most startling positions, which, in many instances, contain, in a single terse sentence, as calmly laid down as though it were an axiom or an undisputed fact, a clear solution of points which have filled volumes with unprofitable discussion, and embittered the minds of hundreds of men who have allowed prejudice to falsify history. With great liberality of thought, our author is reverent toward all that is true in every phase of religious sentiment; and, under his skilful handling, the abnormal developments of Christianity, which we recognize in the form of dogmatic creeds, enfeebling superstitions, and spiritual tyrannies, are presented, not as miraculous institutions, having fixed conditions, which cannot be accommodated to the progress of humanity, but as the natural sequence of events, the unavoidable result of traditionary influences: thereby enabling us to fear them the less, and to escape from their injurious bondage the earlier.

The treatment of the theme is so methodical, that it would be unjust to the author not to follow the same arrangement in our notice of its excellencies. And, while we do this, we shall, in order to avoid continual reference to the text, present a faithful, though brief, summary of the contents of the work in our own words.

No one can deny, that a new and very strong impulse has recently been given to religious inquiry, and to critical investigation of the authority of existing creeds and forms of worship. This activity is met by renewed zeal, on the part of long-established religions, in defence of their doctrines and practices. Islam, no less than Christianity, seems animated with fresh vigor; and, in Christianity, both Popery and Protestantism are on the alert. The tendency everywhere is towards larger liberty: the conflict is caused by the effort -of conservatism to restrain the progress of free thought.

It is undeniable also that every individual has an interest in these great questions, and a right to examine their conditions, and their bearings upon human welfare. With the diffusion of education, they demand more general study: they cannot be ignored. Ecclesiastical prohibitions cannot keep them hidden; carelessness and selfish ease cannot escape their intrusion. Many deprecate the free discussion of opinions on spiritual subjects, imagining that, because old creeds are trembling to their fall, religion itself is in danger of being overthrown. This is because the world has so long been trained to believe that religious knowledge must always be abstract and vague, not subject to the same laws of reason which govern other departments of human thought. But, in our days, men are beginning to venture to study religion in the light of history; and whoever does this with an unprejudiced mind and a fearless heart will be in no danger of losing sight of God, the infinite and absolute, or of that sentiment in man's nature which responds to His eternal and immediate presence.

Religions, like every thing else under the law of material and moral nature, are constantly undergoing modification. When a religion ceases to obey this law of change, it is a proof that it no longer contains any element of improvement for the world, any power over the consciences of men: it is dead. But while a religion retains life, it may be modified in several ways: it may develop in conformity with its nature and thus increase in strength, or contrary to its nature and thus become constantly weaker, or there may be at once elements of decay and of prosperity in its changes, so that the result is neither wholly beneficial nor utterly injurious. Religion is so fruitful in ideas, and admits of such great variety of sentiment, that, of widely different beliefs, each may contain true principles, and be deserving of respect and attention on account of its own peculiar contribution to the sum of human improvement: therefore, in view of these facts, and for the sake of historical impartiality, it is most correct to characterize the various modifications of the Christian religion as transformations, because this word does not imply prejudgment of their results, as the word deviation or development might seem to do.

The three great transformations of primitive Christianity are Roman Catholicism, the Greek or Russian Church, and Protestantism. But as these transformations cannot be understood without a survey of the work of the Founder of Christianity, and as even this was in some degree dependent on what preceded it, it will be necessary first to glance at the condition of the world before the coming of Christ.

No religion can properly be said to have been created by any individual, or by any body of men, or by any people. The religious sentiment is innate with every human being. There is an aspiration towards the infinite in every soul, and the conviction of its affinity with a superior power becomes stronger and more satisfactory with every new development of its own capacities. If this instinctive feeling be nurtured in a reasonable and healthful manner, it ennobles the whole nature; but, if it be perverted, it corrupts every thing: in any case it is the most powerful expansive force in the moral world, and must continually work either rapid progress or cruel devastation. Religion distorted and vitiated has always been the bane of true liberty; and it is on this account that many earnest men have revolted entirely from all acknowledgment of religious claims, and have declared themselves atheists.

Some religions have grown up, like languages, from the contributions of many souls for a long period of time: others bear the distinct impress of individual thought, the prevailing influence of some gifted man, wise enough to understand the wants of his time and strong enough to satisfy them. But in such a case the work of the Founder never remains precisely as he left it: if he was too far in advance of his age, his followers necessarily retrograde to more comprehensible ideas; if he stood but little above the ordinary level, he is soon surpassed.

When a people has developed gradually and harmoniously, its religion will also unfold from low and coarse outlines to a form of symmetry and beauty. Such a religion was Grecian polytheism, - particularly interesting to us from its direct influence upon the foundation of Christianity; while the religions of India and Scandinavia had no part in either the intellectual or spiritual agitations of that era. The natural development of the polytheism of the Greek is sufficiently and beautifully illustrated by tracing the course of one of their favorite divinities.

Far back in the legendary ages, the shores of Greece were settled by wanderers from the distant East. These brought with them the impulse - which is that of all infant and uncultivated minds - to worship those great powers of nature, so necessary to their existence, and yet so entirely beyond their control. One of these meteorological divinities, who was called Herakles, the "Glory of the Air," as the restorer of fine weather after storm, and therefore conqueror of the evil spirits of the tempest, became, in the modification of Greek thought, the divination of force in the human body, - Hercules, subduer of wild beasts and monsters; and, at a later day, after this noble race had discovered that moral strength is superior to physical energy, the same Hercules is chosen as the type of human struggles after perfection. Seated at the branching of two roads, he is invited by Wisdom on the one hand, and tempted by Pleasure on the other, and decides heroically for virtue, in spite of all the allurements of vice. This was the highest idea of which polytheism was capable; and no effort of after-times to extend its provisions or deepen its influence by giving a symbolical meaning to mythological characters was able to attain more than a brief and spasmodic success.

But all this while philosophy had been developing its various systems, and had arrived at the same result with polytheistic religion, although by a different method. With reference to the origin of Christianity, it is commonly urged by Christians, that, when Christ came, the world was weary of vain imaginings, and fully realized a spiritual need which nothing but his scheme of redemption could satisfy. This is true; but the inference generally drawn from the fact is not correct. It was not because the Pagans of Greece and Rome were sunk so low in ignorance and crime that a new salvation was demanded, but because they had reached such a point of intellectual culture and spiritual enlightenment, that the old religion, though modified and expanded to its utmost capacity, no longer possessed any purifying or elevating power. The human race will always be indebted to Greek philosophy for the early discovery of many important truths, and for the correct, though only partial, recognition of the capacities of the soul. Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, Zeno and Epicurus, with many others, gradually and successively approached the secret of moral life and happiness; while a host of illustrious characters exemplified in their own conduct the best thought of their age.

And, to strengthen these ennobling influences, a kind of alliance was formed between the philosophy of the period and the highest form of the popular religion, which resulted in the celebration of the mysteries. These mysteries were a kind of dramatic representation, serving to veil the declaration, on the part of the initiated, of a belief in immortality and the resurrection; doctrines which were considered too subtile and lofty to be appreciated by the common people. Consequently, the masses were in no wise benefited by the secret contemplations and revelations of this select class, which was always a very small minority. Meantime a consciousness of the insufficiency of the existing religious system was universally felt; and the confusion was only increased by the intermingling of Roman superstitions with Grecian polytheism, in the vain hope of finding some cure for the wounds of awakened conscience. The idea of expiation was strengthened by the general despair. Animals of many kinds, and even human beings, were sacrificed, to atone for the crimes and errors of living men, and the common course of events was made gloomy and alarming through the cloud of signs and omens of evil that obscured the pathway of every individual.

Nor was the Jewish religion exempt from the modifying influences of time and experience. It is a common mistake to suppose, that the Jews have always kept their theology as