well as personal causes, it enjoyed much of his favor and patronage. Dr. Merle D'Aubigné, however, thinks that though the Protector" went very far in religious liberty, it was still not far enough.".... "Had he left all sects free, without protection as without restraint—had Evangelical Episcopacy, in particular, been able to move freely-religion would have escaped that narrow mannerism, that cant with which it has been reproached sometimes, perhaps with reason, by men of the world." This seems true liberality, though it must be kept in mind that all sects holding what are termed evangelical doctrines are only here meant, at least if the above sentiment is to be reconciled with other parts of the book which we have already cited. Though the whole of this work may rather be described as a panegyric than a Life or "Vindication" of the Protector, some of his errors, as we have seen, are hinted at, or pointed out, though many more are palliated. One leading fault is, however, repeatedly dwelt upon for reproof and warning. From fanatical enthusiasm from spiritual pride, or an over-weening self-sufficiency-Cromwell, and many good men of his time, claimed, in following frames and moods, to be acting under the immediate inspiration and guidance of the spirit of God; thus rejecting, or, at least, neglecting the "more sure word of prophecy." This delusive arrogancy Dr. Merle D'Aubigné never fails earnestly to rebuke. One illustration of this species of delusion may serve for all. Before the parliamentary military leaders had openly, or in deeds, declared the purpose upon which they were pretty well resolved beforehand, namely, of "calling Charles Stuart, that man of blood, to sharp account for the blood he had shed, and the mischief he had done," they assembled in conclave, and for three days were exercised in prayer in Windsor Castle; and here our author inquires "who can entertain any doubt of their uprightness, of their true piety, and lively faith?" There may be room for grave doubts; but no one can question that the crisis was come, and that it was full time to be resolved and up and doing. As in nearly every similar case, recorded in profane history, the answer to these solemn prayers was exactly such as might have been foretold; and, notwithstanding his admiration of the fervent piety of the chiefs who thus combined secret political deliberation with public diets of prayer, our author is constrained to inquire — "And yet, were they really in the right path? We entertain some doubt on this point. There is perhaps no case in which we see more clearly the importance of being enlightened on the true principles of christian conduct. When the leaders of the army wished to know what they ought to do, they examined into what they had done when they felt happiest and nearest to God: such are not the means prescribed by Heaven. They command us in "His Word?" It is not by our should have asked themselves, What does God feelings that He will guide us, but by his commandments. Our feelings may lead us astray. There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. The Word of God never misleads us.' A Christian's walk is in the divine commandments; to act according to one's own sensations, one's interior illumination, is the walk of the mystic. If the officers assembled at Winsdor did not then fall into fanaticism, they were at least in a path which might lead to it; and some of them fell into it afterwards." Under similar impulses of a mind already made up, Oliver, after some natural relenting and great apparent spiritual conflict, signed the death-warrant of Charles I. 66 The temper in which a man, or body of men, commences such devotional exercises, as those described below, ever argues a foregone conclusion." Such men seek not guidance that squares not with their own views. What a sad picture of gross self-delusion, if not worse hypocrisy, it presents! passed on Charles, and freed him from all his "It was this which guided him in the sentence doubts and scruples. John Cromwell, at that time in the Dutch service, had come to England with a message from the Prince of Wales and of Orange to endeavor to save the king's life. When introduced to his cousin Oliver, he reminded him of the royalist opinions he had formerly entertained at Hampton Court. The latter, still uncertain as to the line of conduct which he ought to pursue, replied, that he had often fasted and prayed to know the will of God with respect to the king, but that God had not yet pointed out the way. When John had withdrawn, Cromwell and his friends again sought by prayer the path they ought to follow; and it was then the parliamentary hero first felt the conviction that Charles's death alone could save England. From that moment all was fixed; God had spoken; Oliver's indecision was at an end; it remained now merely to act and accomplish that will, however appalling it might be. At one o'clock in the morning, a messenger from the General knocked at the door of the tavern where John Cromwell lodged, and informed him that his cousthe arguments so long put forward by the most in had at length dismissed his doubts, and that all decided republicans were now confirmed by the will of the Lord. Enthusiasm, then, was the cause of Cromwell's error. This is a fault in religion; but may it not extenuate the fault in morals?" Dr. Merle D'Aubigné here advances some rather questionable opinions; for what enormity has not been committed while the perpetrator has most sincerely believed that, instead of obey ing his own evil and blinding passions, he was obeying the will, and promoting the glory of God? He, however, acknowledges that, in this instance, the Lord spoke not by Cromwell, and that the execution of the King was an unnecessary step; though, like every reasonable man who understands and loves civil liberty, he fully recognizes the necessity of the Revolution, independently of the special reasons for which he chiefly values it, namely, the destruction or extirpation of Popery in the British Islands of that anti-christian faith, which he maintains that Charles I., like all the Stuarts, systematically strove to establish. This "error in religion"—the fatal and presumptuous error of obeying the passionate impulses of his own secret desires, under the warrant of an imaginary direct answer to prayer, instead of soberly searching out the will of God as declared in the Scriptures-our author considers" the only important blemish to be found in Cromwell.” "At the same time," he adds, "it is the key which opens and explains his whole life. His piety was sincere, but it was not always sober." And yet, how does the Doctor account for Cromwell's uniform sobriety of mind, and calm, consummate wisdom in the field, the cabinet, and in the early councils of the rebel leaders? The key does not fit every ward of the lock. Dr. Merle D'Aubigné condemns the death of the Royal martyr (as Charles I. is still fancifully called,) but yet palliates the deed, while, what many will regard as worse acts in his hero appear to him to require no labored vindication, or rather to merit praise. Of the fearful campaign in Ireland, he adopts Mr. Carlyle's view, without basing that view upon the same large, if untenable, premises. Of the death of Charles, it is said "The death of the king must for ever bear in history a mark of reprobation. We condemn it in the most explicit manner. But if the ideas of Milton and of so many Englishmen in the seventeenth century are erroneous, their error is akin to that of Melancthon, Farel, and Calvin, and of the churches of Berne, Zurich, Schaff hausen, and Basle, in the case of Servetus. We shrink with as much horror from the death of the heretic as from that of the despot. We abhor these executions, as we abhor the piles of John Huss, of Savonarola, and of the thousands of victims whom Rome has immolated. And yet we should take the peculiarities of the times in to consideration." It is surely going far enough for a lover of religious freedom to place the heretic and the despot in the same category; as if their errors or guilt were at all equal either in degree or kind, as if an individual entertaining some speculative opinion or dogma of belief, which his fellow Christians condemn or disapprove, were as dangerous to society as the acts of the chief magistrate who, by secret intrigue and open force, seeks to subvert the constitution, and destroy the rights and liberties which he is appointed to guard. Those who admit that the death of Servetus was a crime in any sense- and some hardy spirits, we believe, even in our enlightened time, do not scruple to justify what Dr. Merle D'Aubigné "shrinks from with horror". must confess that the unhappy heretic who used no weapons but his pen and his tongue, was much less criminal than the despot, who, according to our author, sought at once to crush the liberties of England, and to introduce popery — who had "with one hand torn the time-honored charters of the nation, while he stretched the other towards the despotic pope of Rome." We shall not enter into the defence of the illegal and arbitrary acts—the usurpation, or the alleged ambition of Cromwell. The Protector's own pithy explanation is, we conceive, enough; "while Parliament deliberated, the nation would have had its throat cut." He stepped in, though unlawfully, and saved England from so fatal a catastrophe; and this is his brief yet ample vindication. A few sentences from the summary of the Protector's character, which follows a long account of his death bed, will serve to show what the author's opinions are, and whether the reader may concur in them all or not. "It is seldom that a great man is a Christian; but Cromwell was both. The result has been, that men of the world have scouted him as a hypocrite. them of the greatest glory, namely, Religion.' | For some occult reason of climate, latitude, or local boundary, Dr. Merle D'Aubigné, singularly enough, considers Presbyterianism quite unsuited to England, and imagines that what had once very nearly been the established religion of that country can never again take root, or thrive on the south side of the Tweed. Nor not to lay down their arms until they had obtained it. The independents had shed their blood for parliament in maintaining the liberties of England, and they thought it strange they should be allowed no other liberty than that of expatriation. The presbyterians in the English Revolution represented, generally, order, moderation, and respect for the Constitution; but the independents, it must be acknowledged, knew much better than they the great principles of religious liberty. If we call to mind the manner in which presbyterianism afterwards vanished from England, leaving behind it only a small number of Unitarian congregations, we cannot help thinking that some bad principle must have crept into this party. Scotland is the true country for this system of church constitution, which has never been able to maintain its footing on the south of the Tweed." terian form which is elsewhere termed an This ill adaptation of the south to the Presby"exotic" in England - appears a remarkabie fact, though it must not hold true at all times, as in a corrective foot-note we are informed that professing the principles of the Free Church," is taking root in the ungenial southern soil, and is already, in numerous congregations, “bringing that the various bodies of Scottish Presbyterian forth fair fruits." We have always understood Dissenters, now known as the United Secession Church of Scotland, had many vigorous and thriving off-sets in the south long before the Free does he seem, in the abstract, greatly to admire the Presbyterian form, though, from particulara young Presbyterian Church in England, circumstances, he is at present more disposed to fraternize with the Free Church, which holds by the principle of Establishment, than with the Scottish Voluntaries, who approach more closely to his own opinions on Church government, and of the many evils necessarily attending the alliance of Church and State. He certainly pays no compliments to our Covenanting ancestors, at the expense of historical truth. Charles I. had flattered himself that the quarrels of his enemies, the Puritans and Presbyterians, would lead them to extirpate each other, but this hope failing, he rather leaned to the Puritans, who had the English army with them, than to the Presbyterians, who were bound by their covenant to "extirpate Episcopacy," while the Puritans, i. e. Independents, believed, that if the Presbyterians got the upper hand "they would tyrannize over conscience as much as the bishops themselves had done." And our author does not consider this alarm groundless, when he roundly asserts, "In fact the presbyterians, whenever they of fered to treat with the king, always proposed that steps should be taken to suppress the Independent opinions, as well as those of other sectaries." In the famous manifesto of the Parliamentary Army, a principal point insisted upon was "religious liberty." "The independents consented that the presbyterian religion should be the religion of the nation, thus granting to the latter body a superiority over their own party; but they claimed for all Christians the full enjoyment of civil and religious rights. This, says Lord Clarendon, was their great charter, and they were determined Church came into existence. But this is an error Neale's "History of the Puritans,” not always a fair historical work; it is sometimes inaccurate in matters of detail. Cromwell and his Times can consider the present No one at all conversant with the history of work either as an original, philosophic, and impartial treatise, or a searching and well-digested historical and biographical narrative; and it might with far greater propriety and effect, we should think, have appeared in France or Geneva than in this country. Yet it is adapted to a large class of readers among us who consider Dr. Merle D'Aubigné a high authority, and who might never have been induced to look into a better book upon the same subject, if wanting the stamp of a popular religious name. What we have ventured to deprecate as its great lead- | ascendency of Popery in Britain than the Gen ing fault its attempt farther to arouse the already active and embittered spirit of religious animosity in these islands - some of its readers will consider its chief merit. But as all who are intelligent, and at the same time candid among them, must possess better means or opportunities of comprehending the exact degree of danger to be apprehended from the spread or evese Divine, we would hope that profiting by the lessons of freedom of religious opinion given by Cromwell, and exercising their own understandings, they will surmount all idle terrors of either the Pope or Mr. Newman. If the soil and air of England cannot foster, as Dr. Merle D'Aubigné thinks, Presbyterianism, much less are they favorable to Romanism.-Tait's Mag. TRAVELS IN CENTRAL AMERICA. Travels in Central America; being a Journal of nearly Three Years' Residence in the Country. By ROB'T GLASGOW DUNLOP, ESQ. London: Longman & Co. 1847. This book does not consist merely of travels through Central America; it also embraces a history of the country, concisely written, and a practical treatise on the productions, climate, and population. Mr. Dunlop derived his information from direct inquiry on the spot, and he has used it judiciously. There is not a word thrown away upon speculation. The author was happily ignorant of the art of book-making, and his simple plan was to record exactly his immediate observations, to collect useful facts at the fountain-head, and to put his stores together with as much brevity and homeliness as might be consistent with accuracy of detail and truthfulness of description. He has consequently furnished us in a small volume with materials out of which your practised tourist might easily have conjured up three of giant build. The course of Mr. Dunlop's journeys and excursions in Central America lay on the shores of the Pacific, between Guatemala and the Gulf of Nicoya; running from time to time into the interior to visit remarkable places. The country, although frequently traversed by the English, who often meditated colonization in the rich valleys of Nicaragua, and who already possess to the north the settlement of Belize, is not very well known; and the scanty accounts occasionally published by travellers are by no means so full or trustworthy as to render Mr. Dunlop's labors unnecessary. He appears to have spent upwards of two years in the republic, and to have applied himself with great diligence to the task of collecting facts for the elucidation of its history and resources. The practical turn of his mind, directed by a sound education, enabled him to turn his opportunities to the best advantage; and the only source of regret with | which we enter upon the volume arises from the announcement in the preface, that while the book was going through the press intelligence was received from Guatemala of the death of the author in his thirty-second year. His constitution, originally delicate, gave way under repeated attacks of fever, common to the country upon which he had cast his fortunes, and at last he sunk after a month's illness. His travelling experiences in Central America are not very encouraging, so far as mere personal comforts and sensations are concerned. The heat is so oppressive that it is almost impossible to make progress in the daylight; while the difficulty of travelling in the dark, where the tracks are almost obliterated, and movement is perpetually impeded by broken trees and irregularities on the surface, renders the alternative hardly less objectionable. Separate accommodation for travellers is scarcely to be met with even in the towns, where the houses, as usual on volcanic soils, are all on the groundfloor, and generally built of mud; so that, except for business or scientific inquiry, there is very little inducement for strangers to visit this luxuriant region. Being in the neighborhood of Lake Nicaragua, Mr. Dunlop took some interest in the important proposition, which our readers may remember was agitated a few years ago, of connecting the Atlantic and the Pacific at that point by a ship canal- -a project which was ultimately dropped for want of funds. Mr. Dunlop was clearly convinced of the practicability of the scheme, and strenuously urges its completion upon the consideration of the naval powers most interested in its adoption. The moral soil of this country appears to be as liable to sudden eruptions as the earth itself. Mr. Dunlop witnessed one morning the whole progress of a regular revolution, from beginning to end, without stirring out of his inn. history is thus given: The 99 On the 8th of October I was surprised at seeing a great stir in the village of the Union; the men began to escape as quickly as possible, and the women to run about like troubled spirits. I asked several what was the matter, but they only shook their heads and replied (quien sabe) "who knows;" at last one said (hay una revolucion fuerte) "there is a great revolution; some advised me to escape to the woods with the rest, but having no cause to fear one faction more than another, I positively declined to do 80. About three P. M. our speculations were brought to a close by the arrival of General Cabanas with about 200 troops. The government soldiers having made their escape, leaving their arms behind, he quietly took possession of the place, and having come to the public house kept by Dona Lorenzo Zapata, where I was residing, he immediately asked me to what nation I belonged, and remarked that I was happy in not having occasion to fear any party, or the effects of any revolution. On their arrival, Cabanas and his officers gave out that there was a revolution in the capital of San Salvador, and that the government of Malespein was overturned, but this turned out not to be the case; in fact, they were flying from that government, which they were informed intended to put them to death. Having chartered the British brig "Diana" to take them to Realejo, they left on the 11th, having conducted themselves with the greatest moderation, and taken nothing without paying for it. Cabanas is a smart little man, of a mild address, and has about the best character of any who have mixed in the revolutions of Central America; though often holding high commands he has always remained poor, and is one of the very few whose hands have never been stained by plunder. He was accompanied by a son of the late General Marazan, a very gentlemanly and good looking young man, and apparently well educated for the country; also by Colonel Banas, the late governor of San Miguel, a good officer, but far from possessing the mild and moderate disposition of General Cabanas. Shortly after the "Diana" had left the harbor, about 100 government troops arrived, pretending to be in pursuit; but as it appeared that they halted about two leagues' distance, till they heard that Cabanas was off, it was pretty plain they were of opinion that discretion was the better part of valor. This tendency to off-hand emeutes, and the sneaking way of escaping out of them which manifestly distinguishes both sides, says little for the character of the people. Nor are they much to be relied upon for integrity or courage. There are shades of differences in the different states, but it is only by a shade darker of the same vices they are to be distinguished from each other. Incontinency is universal; but in some states they laugh at it publicly, in others they only do not boast of it. We do not find that anywhere there is much honesty observed in the ordinary affairs of life, and in most places robbery is universal. discovers a state of curious semi-barbarism, The domestic economy of Central America probably unparalleled. It is perplexing to find so many elements and means of civilization so closely neighboured by absolute grossness. Hog's-lard is universally eaten; it is combined with every thing, even chocolate. Smoking is universal; all ranks and sexes smoke. Very few houses have windows in them; and when There light is wanted the door is thrown open, and in rush the dogs and pigs with the sun. are no carpets—the luxury in that way being matting. The only articles of furniture are a hammock, a table, a bedstead (without a mattress) and two or three chairs. And all this, with natural productions of every sort gushing around them, and the arts of life literally flourishing in their principal town. A glimpse into the houses will show taste (such as it is) and filth side by side: Central Americans and all the Creole Spaniards The only luxury in furniture, for which the show a passion, is prints and paintings, which cover the walls of all respectable houses. In the cities, the most common are French, with, occasionally, a few English prints. Tolerable foreign paintings are of course rarely seen, and only in a few of the first houses; but figures of the saints, painted in the country, are stuck upon the walls of every house, and are the general remedy employed for all kinds of sickness, each do no good, they are, probably, at least less complaint having its patron saint; and if these noxious than the quack medicines used by the poor in England. Furnished lodgings are never to be met with in any part of Spanish America, not even in the capitals; and when a stranger has succeeded in engaging apartments he finds, on entering, nothing but bare walls, and has, probably, the first night (before furniture can be procured) to sleep on the floor, in company with fleas, neguas, and many other unpleasant bedfellows, unless he be so far naturalized as to carry a hammock with him on all occasions. The whole road-side resources of the traveller are described in the following passage : No inns, nor any sort of houses for public accommodation, exist in Central America, but every town or village possesses a public building, called the Cabildo, where justice is administered, and the meetings of the town officers are held; here, all travellers having a government passport are entitled to sleep at night, paying two reals (one shilling) for its hire, the constable (aguacil) being obliged to furnish them with fire and water, and purchase for them at the current there is no cabildo, and, indeed, in most parts, price whatever the place will afford. Where the inhabitants rarely object to admit a stranger into their houses, without expecting any payment beyond the value of what they may eat, |