The Christian doctrine of immortality brings that great primary principle of our nature which urges us to the constant pursuit of happiness into the closest alliance with virtue. It teaches us that all the good of which we are capable will come in the train of goodness. Compared with the majestic motives which it presents, all other motives sink into insignificance. It is the link that connects us with angels and with God. It is the great absorbing thought of the Christian's soul; the motto on his banner; his rallying cry in the conflict with the hosts of evil. The standard which leads the soldiers of Christ to victory, shines now as it shone to Constantine — in the skies.

E. W.

ART. III.-CHARLOTTE ELIZABETH AND HER

WRITINGS.*

THERE are few who have not heard of Charlotte Elizabeth, but many who have only heard the name, and know not whether even that be real or assumed. Multitudes have read some of her writings; if any have read them all, they must have had much spare time, and a little patience. Her books already published cannot amount to less than forty, as we should infer from having seen full half that number, and found allusions to many more. are any of these books very small, while many are large duodecimos. They are now for the first time collected, and in the process of publication, in a "new uniform edition," making already two royal octavos, containing

Nor

1. Personal Recollections. By CHARLOTTE ELIZABETH. New York. 1844. 12mo. pp. 357.

2. Principalities and Powers in Heavenly Places. 12mo. pp. 298: 3. English Martyrs. 12mo. pp. 300: 4. The Siege of Derry; or, Sufferings of the Protestants: A Tale of the Revolution. 12mo. pp. 292: 5. Helen Fleetwood. 12mo. pp. 332: 6. Wrongs of Woman. Four Parts. 18mo.: 7. Poems. The Convent Bell and other Poems. 18mo. pp. 346: 8. The Deserter. 12mo. pp. 239: 9. The Rockite. An Irish Story. 12mo. pp. 203: 10. Judah's Lion. 12mo. pp. 406: 11. Judæa Capta. 18mo. pp. 234: 12. Alice Benden, or, The Bowed Shilling. 18mo. pp. 177: 13. The Simple Flower, and other Tales. 18mo. pp. 166: 14. Tales and Illustrations for Young Persons. 18mo. pp. 228: 15. Philip and His Gardner. For Sunday Schools. 18mo. pp. 151: etc. etc. By CHARLOTTE ELIZABETH.

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twenty-two separate productions. These do not comprise all that have yet appeared, and as the author is still writing, with an exuberant fancy, great industry, and a facility that hardly waits for subject or method, we may expect other volumes as large as these. Indeed in extent and variety of productions, she is not surpassed by any female writer unless it be Mrs. Sherwood, and in a certain kind of popularity and influence we doubt if she has been equalled by any of her sister authors since Hannah More, to whom many of her admirers compare her.

We have an obvious reason therefore for a special notice of Charlotte Elizabeth- the first that has appeared in this journal-independently of the intrinsic value of her writings. These writings fill too large a place in the religious reading of the present generation, young and mature, to be overlooked. They have obtained a reputation which secures for them an unhesitating reception among most of those called Evangelical Christians, and carries them, with little discrimination, perhaps no question, into the libraries and schools of the largest denominations in England and America. Some question, it is true, has lately been raised and doubts expressed, on account of the rapidity with which volume upon volume comes from the same untiring pen. On inquiring at some Sabbath-school depositories for her recent books, we have been answered in the negative, with a manner that seemed to say they had stopped taking her works, suspicious at least of the haste with which they are thrown off. Still they are read and commended, as much probably as any books of a religious character now issued. And they find their way into other beside professedly orthodox families and schools. Imbued as they all are with the language and religion of Calvinism, yet their fame and peculiar interest procure many readers who hold not an opinion perhaps in common with their pervading theology. This is one proof of the power of the author. We have felt this power, the more we have read. And we are the more anxious to analyze it, to examine the character of these numerous and successful works, and weigh impartially their claims upon the confidence of the community.

Charlotte Elizabeth is a remarkable woman. She is remarkable for great activity and fertility of mind, with

absolute devotion to her own views of truth and duty; and equally remarkable for an exaggerated idea of her reasoning powers, a dogmatic temper, and great knowledge of the letter rather than the spirit of the Scriptures. We have read her writings with increasing admiration of her perfect self-consistency and self-complacency, her unquestioning faith, inflexible principle, fearless courage, fervent piety, and withal an overweening estimate of her own learning and logic, and a sense almost of infallibility, while enslaved to a system of false doctrine, restricted charity, and monstrous incongruity. We have found in her volumes far more interest and instruction than we expected. We took them up as a task, and have perused them as a pleasure; seldom unmixed pleasure, but enough to carry us on, and make us wish to see the end. Few of her works have we seen that call not for great discrimination, and therefore there is little that we could put freely into the hands of the young, or the library of a parish. Still there is something deeply interesting, in seeing a woman devote herself, so unreservedly and generously through a life of varied trial and serious obstacles, to the one great work of converting souls to Christ. And the fact, that her idea of conversion, n its process and proofs, seems to us erroneous and injurious, while she deserves the expression of our confidence in her entire sincerity, makes us the more desirous of giving a brief sketch of her life, with comments on her different writings.

The name of this author is not assumed, as seems to have been commonly thought. Charlotte Elizabeth Murray was her maiden name. And her use of only a part of it as an author was not fanciful, but owing, as we infer from her delicate allusions, to the danger of losing all the profits of her pen after her marriage with Mr. Phalan, an Irish officer. That marriage was not happy, but whether dissolved by divorce or death, we do not know. She is now Mrs. Tonna, residing near London, and devoting herself entirely to writing. Most that is known of her is learned from the "Personal Recollections," one of her largest and best works. It is an autobiography, in Letters to a friend who urged her writing it, and to whom she gives this reason for consenting that the correspondence and papers of public characters are always seized after

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their death, and often improperly used; and as she does not wish to expose herself to this danger, she is willing to write her own history. This reason, which she extends over two or three pages of the introduction, may illustrate the simplicity and complacency to which we have adverted, and which appear in many parts of the "Personal Recollections," though never offensively. After the celebrity already acquired, we can pardon that anticipation of posthumous importance, which led her to keep a friend, as she did for many years, under a solemn pledge to proclaim her wishes in regard to her correspondence immediately after her death, that she might not be left "at the mercy of ill-judging or ill-informed survivors."

In this autobiography there are no dates and few names. She has certainly not been guilty herself of betraying confidence, and has made none but the most cautious allusions to her more private life. The account of her childhood is full of interest. She was born at Norwich, England, in a house just opposite "the dark old gateway of that strong building, where the glorious martyrs of Mary's day were imprisoned." To this fact she ascribes some of her early and indelible impressions in behalf of the cause of Protestantism, to which she dedicated her life. No feature of her character is more prominent, no feeling does she more frequently record, than her hatred of Romanism. We must call it hatred, for it is such to a degree that seems to us hardly consistent with the Christian temper. It makes by far the largest subject of her writings, being the direct topic of many of them, and appearing in nearly all. It is in fact her peculiar mission to be remembered by all who would know her life, and do justice to her character- the mission to which she believed herself early called, and which she has followed to this hour; namely, to expose the gross and fatal errors, the enormous iniquities, of the Roman Catholic religion. Naturally of a fervid temperament, highly imaginative and for a time boldly speculative, reveling in nursery tales of fairies and goblins, with a beautiful buoyancy of spirit prompting to the greatest activity of limb and mind, a passionate lover of nature, music, ancient architecture, and all real or imagined wonders, imbued moreover from infancy, with a reverential awe of God and an utter abhorrence of

idols and idolaters, it is easy to understand, with what feelings she looked daily on the gloomy prison of the Protestant martyrs, lingered around the "Lollard's Pit," and listened to her father who often talked to her on the spot "where Mary burnt good people alive for refusing to worship wooden images. Her father was an eminent clergyman of the Established Church, and in answer to his daughter's many questions about the prison and the pit, he one day placed on a chair the old folio of " Foxe's Acts and Monuments," in venerable black letter, and left the child to examine it. Long and intensely did she pore over it, unable to decipher much of the letter, but devouring the wood-cuts "with aching eyes and a palpitating heart; and when she had finished, asking her father in trembling emotion" Papa, may I be a martyr?" The answer encouraged rather than repressed the feeling. And thus at six years old began the purpose and the "Protest," which she has been uttering ever since. Her prayer still is, as she expresses it in the "Personal Recollections," and as it breathes through all her life and works, that "whenever the Lord calls me hence, or whenever the Lord himself comes to earth, he may find his servant not only watching, but working against the diabolical iniquity that filled the Lollard's Pit with the ashes of his saints."

At this early age, Charlotte Elizabeth met with two peculiar trials, one of which has followed her through life. Her love of books and passion for acquirement led her to read so constantly, especially in bed at early dawn, as to bring on total blindness. She then gave herself up to the enjoyment of conversation and music. Her father's house was the resort of literary men, among whom she names Dr. Parr, and speaks of the effect upon her eager mind of the animated discussions and collisions of such disputants, leading her to become "a thinker, a reasoner, a tory, and a patriot." But her great and absorbing enjoyment was music. In this she was fully gratified, her father and other friends feasting her with sacred melody, until she would whisper, in an ecstacy of joy, "I don't want to see, I like music better than seeing." But soon this gratification also was withdrawn, by the loss of her hearing; and this enthusiastic child, an ardent lover of books, nature, conversation, and all harmony and beauty, became blind and deaf! It