thoughts seem absolutely to have the rain on them, like his own flowers. "The grateful things Put on their robes of cheer; They hear the sound of the warning burst, Rockwell wrote with the same impetuosity, and the same inequality, standing at his types sometimes, we dare say, as we have seen him. He did not know how to "take pains," as it is called. If words favored him, as here "And the violet sunbeams slanted, Wavering through the crystal deep,' it was well; but at all events he dashed on. There are some other curious passages of this sort. We are gratified to see the names of Buckingham, Holbrook, and Apthorp, added to this melancholy list, not so much of specimens, as of me mentoes. It would be pleasant to dwell a little on some of the topics suggested by the very sight and name of this volume. It might not be an altogether unprofitable labor, especially, to point out, as we think it not difficult to do, those operating causes to which distant allusion has been made when we spoke of a family likeness between the parts of this collection, and of what we have called a Boston spirit, or, in foreign phrase, the genius of the place. Something could, perhaps, be said, in the same connexion, of the " Institutions of Boston," which Mr. Quincy has but referred to in the eloquent passage upon that subject the Editor has here selected from his writings; on those Institutions, we mean, which directly or indirectly, and that most powerfully beyond a doubt, affect the literary character of the city, and which also are in a great degree peculiar to it. This, however, would lead us too far. We close then, as we began, with saying, that the Boston Book is a good one in itself; a good compilation; and that the design, more particularly, will bear to be recurred to, and repeated, hereafter. It is such as to justify the pains which are necessary to improve and perfect the execution. Its deficiencies are those of a first experiment. Its excellencies are its own. B. B. T. ART. IV. Sermons on Various Subjects, chiefly practical. By ROBERT ASPLAND, Minister of New Gravel-pit Chapel, Hackney. London. 1833. 8vo. pp. 496. THESE Sermons have been two years before the public in England. We first met with a copy on this side the water only a few weeks since, or we should have taken an earlier opportunity to bring them into notice, not less out of respect for the author, than a desire to call attention to his excellent discourses. Mr. Aspland is less known in this country than might be expected from the influence and long established reputation he has acquired at home, not only among Unitarians, but among Dissenters generally. He edited for many years, with industry and spirit, "The Monthly Repository. "He established and edited, at the same time, "The Christian Reformer," which now, in an enlarged form, and still under his management, is a useful and extensively circulated Journal. The cause of Liberal Christianity in England is much indebted to his faithful and laborious services. His manner as a speaker at public meetings, and in the pulpit, is earnest and impressive. A friend, recently from England, says that he heard him preach, at Mr. Fox's Chapel, decidedly the most powerful and impressive sermon which he heard while abroad, from any preacher of any denomination. It produced a very perceptible effect upon the congregation, and was spoken of in terms of strong feeling by many persons. For twenty-eight years, he has been minister of New Gravel-pit Chapel, Hackney. At the united request of this Society, as we learn from the following passage in the Dedication, the volume before us was printed. "The Sermons are printed nearly as they were preached. In many respects, I am fully sensible that they might have been improved by deliberate and slow revision; but I was restrained from attempting any great alterations, by the feeling that I should not show becoming deference to your flattering request, unless I published them in substance as they were delivered.' pp. iii, iv. When writings are to be published, however, and the world constituted judges, and the work itself is to have its share of influence in forming the literary taste, as well as in moulding the moral character of the age, this deference to the partial VOL. XIX. -3D S. VOL. I. NO. III. 41 judgment of friends may be carried too far; and in one or two instances we cannot but regret that Mr. Aspland did not make the "deliberate and slow revision," of which he speaks. Thought like water runs with a deep, strong, resistless current, in proportion as it is brought into a narrow channel, and in each case when the topic has been expanded into two sermons, as in the sermons on "Benevolent Social Intercourse," on "Every Man has his Proper Place in Society," and on "Retirement, Self-Communion, and Devotion recommended from the example of Our Lord," we think the subject would have been presented with more force, and a more distinct and vivid impression left upon the mind, had the style been more nervous, the illustrations shortened, and the whole compressed into one discourse. The extract we have just made from the Dedication, however, while it satisfactorily accounts for some slight defects and inaccuracies which, otherwise, would not have appeared, in a measure disarms criticism. Indeed we know of no literary productions that require or have such claims to be judged charitably as sermons, we might add, there are none that are often so flippantly and unsparingly criticized. If the orator, with all the powerful aid which the peculiar events or circumstances, that give occasion for his address, are calculated to afford, make two or three good orations in the course of the year, if the statesman, with all that there is of immediate and exciting interest in his situation, make one profound and powerful speech, during a session of Congress, it is enough to gain for him fame, reputation, influence. His claim to consideration is established. He is thought to have done a great work, and far be it from us to imply that he has not. We acknowledge that he has. But the clergyman has to prepare at least fifty orations or speeches in the course of the year. In each of these he is expected to be more or less profound, original, exciting, impressive. He must continually present truth in a new dress, and illustrate and enforce duty with "words sought out and set in order." It will be answered, perhaps, that he has a wide, vast, unbounded field in which to roam; that the subjects of which he has to treat are in their nature infinite and inexhaustible, opening to him the loftiest reaches of thought, feeling, and imagination. But the ever outstretched wing must sometimes tire. The eye that looks for ever from the mountain-top, must sometimes be pained and wearied by the very vastness of the prospect, and the finite mind must some times feel its limits and weakness, even in its study of the infinite and the eternal. The mind of the clergyman must be sometimes wearied and exhausted by the very greatness of the subjects he has to contemplate and unfold, and yet oftener by the multiplied cares and duties of a parochial nature which press upon him. But in the midst of these he must write, write continually, unceasingly. Sunday will come, and he must be prepared, and often must the preparation be made in a hasty, hurried manner that comports not with excellence, or beneath a languor of body and of mind that cannot attain it. Compositions thus written, need consideration and candor in those who judge. In the effect upon the profession, of the literary demands now made upon clergymen, there is much to gratify and awaken. hope for the future improvement of the profession and the community, but something also to regret and apprehend. It cannot be denied that much more importance is now attached to the sermon than was formerly the case, and that one of the important objects of our public religious exercises seems to be in a great measure overlooked. We seldom now-a-days hear a person say, "I went to join the public worship of God at such a place," but "I went to hear Mr. Such-an-one preach." As Mr. Aspland remarks, in one of the sermons of this volume; *** "Places of worship are frequented without a view to worship. The prayers are of little account, the Sermon alone of importance. The church, as the church of Christ, is forgotten, and the preacher only regarded. Curiosity is stimulated by indulgence, and Sermons are valued in proportion, not to the light which they throw on the Scriptures, or the impression they make on the conscience, but either to the sum of novelty which they contain, and in so beaten a road as morals and theology, novelty is very far from being the same as excellence, and they who are constantly striving after it, will be in danger of striking into eccentricity and running into folly, or to their brevity, one of the modern standards of pulpit excellence, being the minimum of matter which a discourse obtrudes upon the hearer. As a consequence of this, hearers wander from their places, careful of their own gratification, and careless of the damps which their absence casts upon the spirits of their brethren. By degrees, local Christian attachments are worn out, gospel fellowship ceases, and if piety still lives in the heart, it is at the lowest degree of temperature under which it can subsist." -pp. 211, 212. We would by no means imply, that these last sentences are applicable to this community, or in any great degree descriptive of its condition. Though many hear with "itching ears,' and, like the Athenians, ask for some new thing, there is but little wandering, and a good measure of strong "local Christian attachments." It is however a true account of the effect of this state of things upon the style of preaching. It is a temptation to many to forget the simplicity of the Gospel, and some of them do forget it. They aim at novelty," which is far from being the same as excellence." They begin with the assertion of startling paradoxes, that they may excite attention, and then so illustrate and explain them, that they amount to nothing but truisms. They introduce into the pulpit, topics not suited to its dignity, nor bearing upon its great objects, however well they may be calculated to gratify a vain curiosity in the hearer, or to display the quaint conceits, and imaginative powers of the preacher. But there is another side to the picture, full of interest and of hope. The diffusion of knowledge, the higher degree of intellectual cultivation in the community, which are the causes of the greater importance now assigned to the sermon in our public religious services, have imparted, and will continue to impart a quickening and stirring influence to the clergy. They have felt it. The charge often made, that religion is stationary, while in other things mankind are going forward, that the clergy are behind the age, is now without foundation. This conviction is strengthened in us by the volume under review, when compared with the Sermons of Lindsey, Rees, and their contemporaries. Religion is here exhibited as the times demand that it should be exhibited. Christian philosophy is applied to life in modes of illustration and reasoning that men can feel and comprehend; and, though the Sermons embrace a variety of topics, having little direct connexion with each other, they all aid in producing in the mind the deep conviction, that the great objects of existence are spiritual and eternal. The second Sermon in this volume is entitled, "The Divine Dispensations a Series of Moral Discipline," in which the importance of looking upon the Jewish dispensation as only a "schoolmaster to bring us to Christ," and the effect of this view of Divine Revelation in silencing infidels and scoffers, are forcibly illustrated. "Any one who should look at the mere apparatus of the Jewish religion, regardless of its ultimate design, would be in danger of run |