Page:Letters of John Huss Written During His Exile and Imprisonment.djvu/10

 “The present volume is devoted principally to Huss, to Jerome of Prague, and to our own Wycliffe; but it is also plentifully interspersed with historical and biographical anecdotes, which cannot fail, in the present day especially, to draw attention to those principles of sound and holy truth, on which our own Church, emerging from the dark and gloomy errors of Papacy, was at last led firmly, and we trust, permanently to rest.”—Felix Farley’s Bristol Journal, January 18. 1845. “The author has performed the same service for the age of Huss and Jerome, as D’Aubigné has done for that of Luther and Calvin; and the one production will form a meet and appropriate introduction to the other. M. De Bonnechose brings a prodigious amount of historical research to bear upon his task; and if he exhibits less perhaps of the profound spirituality of D’Aubigné, he possesses no small share of that eminent man’s Christian philosophy and glowing eloquence of style. The extreme candour and catholicity of feeling evinced by the author, combined with the literary merits of the work, seem peculiarly fitted to gain access for it amongst many of the author’s countrymen, who might be repelled by a more formal and direct defence of Protestantism; and his repeated allusions to the condition of France, as a nation without a faith, shew that he is deeply affected with the state of his country in that point of view, and impressed with the necessity of embracing the present opportunity, which is in many respects so favourable and inviting, of replacing the cast-off doctrines of Popery with the pure faith of the gospel, and rescuing his countrymen from the prevailing infidelity in which Popery has ingulphed them.”—Scottish Guardian, January 28. 1845.

“This important work, which is published at a time when it is sought by some portion of the so-called ‘Reformed Church,’ to throw discredit on the noble struggle which broke the adamantine fetters of Roman despotism, deserves well of the friends of religious freedom. The work is important and interesting, and we owe a debt of gratitude to the writer and to the translator for its production.”—Cheltenham Free Press, February 1. 1845.

“There is something striking in the title-page, as well as the contents of this book. The author is a Frenchman, and while the fear entertained in England is a tendency of Protestantism to Romanism, this book indicates the formation of a body of churchmen in France whose tendency is from Romanism to Protestantism. The principal object of the work is to celebrate the Reformers who lived before the Reformation, and chiefly him who stands most prominent on the canvass, John Huss, the disciple of Wycliffe, and the forerunner of Luther. But the accessary objects of the work are scarcely less important. The object of the author, as he avows, is not to engage in proselytism, at the expense of any church;—to advance no creed, and no particular formula, as the only true one; but to serve the only universal Catholic church, and that ‘one religion above Roman Catholicism as above Protestantism; and that religion is Christianity.’ In this bond of faith all good Christians will concur.”—Cambridge Advertiser, February 5. 1845.