calmness amid this storm of words cannot but be vexed that rhetoric so efficient should frequently be combined with notions so narrow, with bigotry so besotted, with religious principles so materialized; that the man who is loudly proclaimed as the greatest living orator of the pulpit should have so little of that Christian spirit which refines when it inflames, which exalts, enlarges, and purifies the natures it moves. For Mr. Spurgeon is, after all, little more than a theological stump-orator, a Protestant Dominican, easy of comprehension because he leaves out the higher elements of his themes, and not hesitating to vulgarize Christianity, if he may thereby extend it among the vulgar. It has been attempted to justify him by the examples of Luther and Bunyan, to neither of whom does he bear more than the most superficial resemblance. He is, to be sure, as natural as Luther, but then his nature happens to be a puny nature as compared with that of the great Reformer; and, not to insist on specific differences, it is certain that Luther, it alive, would have the same objection to Mr. Spurgeon's bringing down the doctrines of Christianity to the supposed mental condition of his hearers, as he had to the Romanists of his day, who corrupted religion in order that the public "might be more generally accommodated." Bunyan’s phraseology is homely, but Bunyan's celestializing imagination kept his "familiar grasp of things divine" from being an irreverent pawing of things divine. Mr. Spurgeon’s nature works on a low level of influence. Deficient in imagination, and with a mind coarse and unspiritualized, though religiously impressed, he annualizes his creed in attempting to give it sensuous reality and impressiveness. If it be said that by this process he feels his way into hearts which could not be affected by more spiritual means, the answer is, that the multitude who listened to the Sermon on the Mount were not of a more elevated cast of mind than the multitude who listened to Mr. Spurgeon’s sermon on “Regeneration.” But the truth is, that Mr. Spurgeon’s preaching is liked, not simply because it rouses sinners to repentance, but because it gives sinners a certain enjoyment. It is racy, original, exciting, and comes directly from the character of the preacher. It is relished, as Mr. Spurgeon tells us in his Preface, by "princes of every nation and nobles of every rank," as well as by humbler people. But we doubt whether Christianity should be vulgarized to give jaded nobles a new "sensation," or in order to be made a fit "gospel for the poor."
Roumania: The Border Land of The, Christian and the Turk. Comprising Adventures of Travel in Eastern Europe and Western Asia By James O. Noyes, M. D. Surgeon in the Ottoman Army. New York: Rudd & Carleton, 310 Broadway. 1857.
Dr. James Oscar Noyes,, the author of this book, is an American all over. He has the rapidity and eagerness of mind that the champagny atmosphere of our northern hills gives to those who are stout enough not to be wilted by our hot summers. For briskness, thriftiness, energy, and alacrity, it is hard to find his match. He has made a book of travels, and will make a hundred, unless somebody finds him a place at home where he will have an indefinite number of labors-of-Hercules to keep him busy,—or unless some African prince cuts his head off, or he happens to call upon the Battas about their Thanksgiving-time.
Here he has been streaming through Eastern Europe and Western Asia, so hilarious and good-tempered all the time, so intensely wide-awake, so perfectly at home everywhere, so quick at making friends, so perfectly convinced that the world was made for American travellers, and so apt at proving it by his own example, that his friends who missed him for a while not only were not astonished to find that he had been a Surgeon in the Ottoman Army, during this brief interval, but only wondered he had not been Grand Vizier.
In this instance the book is the man, if we may so far change Monsieur de Buffon's saying. It is full of fresh observations and lively descriptions,—perhaps a little too overlarded and oversprigged with prose and verse quotations,—but as lively as a golden carp just landed. It describes scenes not familiar to most readers, tells stories they have never heard, introduces them to new costumes and faces, and helps itself by the aid of pictures to make its vivacious narrative real. We are much pleased to learn that the work has met
