have made their more elaborate performances so valuable to the public, acting with all its energy to prevent their attempting them. In the centre of confusion, and of confusion made by their crafty foes to bear special reference to themselves, where shall our churchmen find that calm and collected temper which is indispensable to research on the loftiest subjects of earthly contemplation? It was a singular case, that of the great French painter of ocean scenery who was wont to launch into the midst of storms, in order to catch and transmit instantaneously to his canvass the realities of nature in these her most awful phases: few can be composed enough, when the fiercer tempest of a maddening populace rages round them, to turn to the desk and forget the dangers of the scene in the fervour of the intellectual exertion. Or we might borrow another illustration from the same element, and remind those who may be pleased to censure the church's supposed deficiency in spiritual literature, how hard the pilot has ever found it to take due note of the heaven that is above him and draw from thence the knowledge that is to guide himself and his companions in their difficult pathway over earth, with the vessel in which he is borne rocking beneath his steps, and its unsteady motion disturbing all the continuity and definiteness requisite to give any stability or value to his observations. It is not for us to suggest the remedies that even now might be proposed in order to alleviate this partial defect. We have not time to enter into the details which such an enquiry would demand. But our "reform" would be, we can promise our readers, of a very different kind from the blundering robbery (for it is quite as stupid as it is criminal) which our modern renovators are engaged in accomplishing. Glad indeed should we be if we could behold a system in operation by which the sinecures of our church establishment, instead of being rudely erased from its roll, were secured to that class of clergy (perhaps the highest of all) who, formed more for thinking than acting, and for teaching the age than teaching a parish, are ill adapted for the physically laborious duties of parochial ministration, and destined by nature and constitution to be, not the armed warriors who sally from the gates to personal conflict, but the watchmen who sound the trumpet and guide the entire host, crowning the topmost towers of the "City of God." However this question be determined and would to Heaven that the heads of the Irish church, taking into their counsel its most prominent ministers, and making a glorious sacrifice of petty jealousies and private ambition, would but lay themselves seriously to consider this and similar difficulties!—however, we say, this promotion of future exertion be thought to be best secured, of one point our own experience leaves us little doubt, and that is, of the creditable advances that are made, even in spite of the appalling discouragements which we have noticed, in pure and elevated meditation and the high spirit of Christian philosophy among our clergy. To speak of the practical piety of our rising ministers were wholly unnecessary; even the cant of our enemies admits their "working" and laborious excellence; and we sincerely believe them to be at this moment the most exemplary body of clergy in the world. But our elder ministers have duties beyond this. From them is expected not solely practical piety, but that mature wisdom which, though the result of practical piety, is something yet more: that wisdom which arises when the Spirit of meditation has reduced the varied and manifold results of long experience into one harmonious whole capable of being reproduced by him who has mastered the divine art of instruction, for the confirmation of those who are yet to run their own career of difficulty and danger. Among the members of our church who are most distinguished in this high and holy path, assuredly the author of the volume before us merits a prominent rank. We presume that many of our readers have already enjoyed the privilege of hearing from his own lips that tone of lofty exhortation with which he has occasionally animated the pulpits of our city, and which is continued, or exalted to a still higher strain, in these most interesting pages. A style which combines much of the graceful purity with more than the fervour of the English school of divine literature enables him to convey with touching effect views of the nature of Christian truth and the influences of the affections which it evolves, always original, often profound, and not unfrequently invested with a character of the highest moral sublimity. It is indeed a book which, though its unaffected style is the very antithesis of ostentation or pretence, we suspect our theological libraries can seldom parallel -one of those which not only is itself pregnant with thought, but has the higher and rarer merit of setting its readers thinking; and-above all which, not content with this discipline of the intellect, makes it all subservient to the lovelier instruction of the heart. To use a phrase of Mackintosh, a paragraph of it "sets with a blow the two worlds of reason and sentiment in motion." "Some authors," says an old writer, “are like the moon which giveth light without heat, some like a stove which giveth heat without light, but the better sort are like the great sun himself which bestoweth light and heat together." A book which contains so great a variety of subjects, even our practised criticism can with difficulty characterize, except by general approbation. There is no universal system to be analyzed, no continuous theory to be examined. It is not one vast and uniform structure, but a group of separate edifices of various forms and no mutual connection-except, indeed, that secondary connection which they all derive from the common relation of each individual instance to the one great system of Christian truth. It becomes the duty of the honest critic, who is placed in such a position, to warn his readers that no citations or remarks which he can make, devoted as they must be to particular and isolated subjects, can at all be regarded as doing justice to the merits of the entire work ;-a single draught may tell the quality of its own fountain; but, were we to exhaust the fountain itself, it could give us no knowledge (beyond that conjectural knowledge derived from the identity of the soil in which they rise) of all the springs in the neighbourhood. Reduced to some difficulty in selecting where so much is attractive, let us try the sortes, and abide the hazard of fortune. We open upon the third essay. Truly, no very promising topic: God's knowledge of our past and secret history. But as we read, the subject brightens into value, and we begin to wonder how so rich a vein of meditation should have remained so long unwrought. We will let our readers see what pure ore our gifted author can discover in it. "The devout communion of a soul with God embraces a wide extent of objects, and draws its sustenance from a vast variety of materials. there is no more endearing motive to that Amongst the rest, exercise than the consideration that God is the only being to whom we can appeal, as intimately acquainted, not only with our present thoughts, but with the whole of our past experience. Self-preservation is styled the first law of nature. does this law imply merely the wish that life, and its attendant blessings, should be continued: it includes, in addition, an Nor anxious desire to know that the successive There is portions of our existence will not perish in the using. The wish is bound up in man's inmost nature, that his past history, with all its fleeting moments and impressions, should be preserved; and that frail memory, a record should be kept of somewhere, independently of his own all he has felt, and all he was. then, I say, something unspeakably delightful in the consideration, that this memorial is faithfully registered on high: wilderness, and through all the mazes of that our path through the perils of this our past existence, is traced unerringly upon the map of God's remembrance, is noted in his book, and laid up for ever in the storehouse of his mind. Carried, as we "I know not how others feel it but to me, without this consoling thought, the past would press with insufferable weight upon my heart. are, along the stream of time, looking on each object as we pass, and, like the mariner bound from home, straining the eye of memory, till they fade successively from our view, it would be to me, I say, distressing to the last degree, to think that when I had forgotten them, their memorial could nowhere be found. But it is not so. Not a hair of our head has perished. No passing moment which was once our present life, no day of childhood, no sun that ever rose, or evening that ever closed upon our view-none of oblivion. All live in the bright con- that in our future life we shall be permitted, while we look upon God, to read the record of our past eventful history; to meet again our early days, our dangers, our deliverances, our fears, our hopes, and prayers; to recognize our own portrait, in bright exhibition, and drawn at full length, in the mirror of the infinite mind? "If this appear too fanciful to some, they will at least admit the following to be a fair conjecture. They will allow that He, who, while here on earth, invited the humblest of his creatures to his familiar presence, continues the same yesterday, today, and for ever. If so, may we not be yet permitted to hold converse with him on the subject of our former lives; to hear his observations upon things we know not now, but which we shall know hereafter; to sit at his feet, and learn from his lips how all the changes and chances of mortality were working together for our good-how, in our darkest days, his hand was in the storm, and his mercy in the raging of the waters; and how both wind and waves arose at his command, to waft us to the land of everlasting life? "But it is not merely in the general retrospect, but in special instances of fond remembrance, that it is consolatory and delightful to find that there is a witness always at hand. Without this conviction, man would be but a solitary wanderer over the ruins of the past. When the images of days long since departed rise in all their tenderness before him, in vain does he look, amongst his fellow-creatures, for one who can revisit with him the scenes which open to his soul. The companions of those times are, perhaps, now numbered with the dead; or, if still living, other thoughts may occupy their minds. Even if they should retain some interest in the objects which engage him, yet he may want their sympathy at the very moment when they are least at liberty to lend it. Besides, when we invite a fellow-creature to travel back with us to any past event or scene, all that he can remember are the outward circumstances, and the objects which then surrounded us. But to the impression which these were making upon our minds-to what is primary in the recollection-to our concern and interest in the thing-in a word, to the image which rises before our view, and to the thoughts which press upon the heart to all these the nearest friend on earth is as insensible as the cold and : lifeless statue. The impression was all our own; and, consequently, in the remembrance of that impression, we are, as it respects human sympathy, isolated and solitary beings. "It is, then, in this solitude of the soul that we find it good to draw nigh unto God. When days, now lost for ever to those around us, rise in all their freshness to the mind, we feel, with inex pressible comfort, that there is a witness more intimately conscious of their presence than we are ourselves. On such occasions, we instinctively look up to Him, who not only sees the object to which we point, but knows its hold upon our affections, and its bearing upon our hearts, and what it is which throws an air of sacredness around it. Does memory recur to seasons of gloom and trial? We can, with the Psalmist, say, "When I was in heaviness thou knewest my path.” Or do we look back on bright and happy days? It was God that gave them all their brightness and all their charm. Do we recall the early years of childhood? He was with us ever since we were born, and "was our hope when we yet hanged on our mother's breast." Or do we, in imagination, place ourselves in the midst of that animated circle who once surrounded us under a father's roof, but now are scattered through the earth, or sleeping in the silence of the grave? Alas! where shall the full heart betake itself, but to the Being before whom the members of that beloved circle were daily assembled, to offer up the morning and the evening sacrifice ?" Do we err when we say that the brightest musings of Hall or Fenelon cannot fairly be said to surpass the soft and solemn beauty of these affecting reflections? The continuation is even more impressive. He shows the preeminent blessing of this divine companionship in the visitation of a sorrow when, in his own musical language, occasioned by sudden bereavement : the mourner's "remembrance of things which were merges in the animated belief of things which are. And thus his departed friend meets him in his solitary contemplations, not as the shadow of what he was, but as the bright substance of what he is—a saint now living an immortal life in heaven." If we wished to turn the attention of our readers to matter more argumentative, we might refer to the inge nious discussions of the second essay ;* to the very valuable descriptions and illustrations of the secret connection discoverable in our Lord's discourses, which may be said to constitute a new species of evidence for the genuineness of the sacred records and the reality of the Saviour's character; to the analogy traced between the systems of Romanism and Judaism, and the conclusions based on it relative to the millenarian question; to the very striking speculation as to the final causes of the implantation of the passions of patriotism and loyalty in the human breast, in the eighth essay; to the metaphysical reflections on the nature of eternity, in the ninth, which at least engage if they do not convince; and indeed-if we had leisure to make the references to some part of almost every dissertation in the volume, as they are all characterised by more or less of the same originality and acuteness. But there is no peculiarity of this writer's style which is more calculated to charm than the extraordinary fertility and felicity of his powers of illustration. We must, in spite of our very limited space, subjoin the following beautiful comparison, which forms part of an essay in refutation of the supposition that Christianity alters the subordination of ranks and due influence of wealth in society. "Christianity is frequently compared in Scripture to light. And in nothing does the resemblance hold with more exactness than in this-that neither the one nor the other can, by any description, be made apprehensible, unless the object itself be directly presented to the appropriate faculty. Let us suppose a person to have lived from infancy in a region on which material light had never shone. Let us suppose him to be told, that light was now about to visit that realm of darkness; that when it came, it would fill, at once, the whole expanse, and be present, at once, in every department and naturally conclude, that at the approach of corner of the land. Such a person might this new visitant the whole system of things moval must be made, to leave room for must be displaced, and that a general rethe presence of this all-occupying substance. But these false notions would be wholly dissipated when the dawn arose. Then, and not till then, it would be manifested how light can be every where, and yet disturb nothing; how it can occupy every place, and still remove no former occupant; how it can, in a word, co-exist with every thing but darkness. Thus it is with that which is, in a higher sense, the light of the world.' The office of religion is to fill and to pervade the whole, and shed abroad its influences through every ramification of the system. But it is not its nature or its province to remove the landmarks, or to make way for itself, by levelling the scale and order of society. All notions which imply this arise, more or less, from a want of discerning the spiritual character of religion. • Which, by-the-by, have been most strangely misrepresented by a facetious, but not very accurate, contemporary reviewer (in the British Magazine). Mr. Woodward's object, if we understand him aright, is simply to remind us of the grounds upon which that remarkable ordinance of nature proceeds, that man should be often dependent on the benevolence of his fellows; and to show that the consequent obligation of benevolence is appointed in the real and ultimate design of Providence for the benefit, not of the object, (who plainly might have been assisted without any such intervention, had it been God's good pleasure,) but for that of the agent. Upon this, the reviewer talks of the possibility of double motives for the same act (by which he only confirms our author's reasoning); and seems astonished that our own advantage should be set down so unblushingly as the sole motive to our social charities. As if, by the very apposite illustration derived from bodily exercise, Mr. Woodward had not guarded against this misconstruction, and evinced the real nature of his doctriné; first, that there may be final causes for certain obligations, which it would be injurious to keep in mind while fulfilling these obligations; secondly, that therefore it is no valid objection to the reality of such final causes to affirm that they ought not to be so kept in mind and made immediate motives of action; and, thirdly, that nevertheless it may be useful not wholly to lose sight of these original causes in the progress of our life and conduct. We regret to have to add that the accounts which are given in the same article of the sentiments of Mr. Woodward, relative to the education of the children of religious parents, are still more grossly erroneous and exaggerated. The reviewer first sets up a phantom, and then overthrows his own creation most valiantly. In sooth, a cheap way of gaining They are bottomed on a misconception to think God altogether such an one as of its mode of operation. They confound himself; to think of him, in a word, as a the kingdom of grace with the kingdoms literary God. His own heart is centred of this world; and turn the animating in the love of letters; his highest ambiprinciple into the rival of the very things tion is to be an author; and, therefore, which it comes down from heaven, uot the God he is chiefly conversant with is to disturb, but to sanctify, to purify, and the writer of a book, the Author of the to bless." Bible. It is not the door of mercy opened by a Saviour's merits; it is not the living bread which came down from heaven, or the well of water springing up into everlasting life: it is not the matter, but the expression, the choice of words, and turu of phrase-which engage the mind of the mere literary student." Some of the occasional reflections, which form the second portion of the volume, are very striking. The apparent enigma, that the crime of being ashamed of the profession of religion should be mainly prevalent among those who profess the true one, is strongly expressed and satisfactorily explained. "And thus, while the votaries of the most senseless superstitions glory in their shame, the worshippers of the true God are ashamed of their glory. In ancient Greece and Rome the gods were honoured with open and ostentatious display. Amongst the Hindoo and other nations of the East, religious rites are matters of pomp and magnificent parade. The Mahometan boasts of the unity of God, and glories in the name of the false prophet. The Jews performed their devotions in the corners of the streets, and for a pretence made long prayers. The Romanist carries the host in triumph through the public ways. It is, in a word, the professors of the true faith alone who know what it is to be ashamed of their religion. Whence this cowardice? this proneness in the soldiers of the cross to desert their standard? It is because their standard is the cross. Other reli gions are "of the world." They tread with confidence, because they tread on friendly ground." And there is much ingenuity in the proof of our original destination for happiness, derived from our manifest anxiety to appear to possess it. The statement, however, is altogether too long for citation. In a style somewhat different, how keen and searching is the following description of the literary religionist! "This may illustrate to us the disposition in every man, in some sense, to make a god for himself; or, in other words, to see God through the medium of his own governing tastes and feelings. Of this many examples might be given; but I shall content myself here with one. There is, I believe, in what may be termed the mere literary man, a tendency manner of the revelation-the mode of Perhaps our favourite passage in this portion of the volume is the very forcible view of the real nature of that imaginary solitude which the disposition of man so deeply dreads. "It has," says Mr. Woodward, "no existence in the truth of things. It is a dark illusion of the mind; a spectre which haunts the soul while dead in trespasses and sins, but which flies at the approach of light, and vanishes at the dawn of an eternal day." And this he proves by bringing before us the magnificent assemblage which surrounds the confiding believer in the truths of religion. To him loneliness is impossible: he reworld to his closet, only to find himself tires from the tinselled pomps of the instantaneously encompassed by the throng of blessed spirits that crowd the levees of the Monarch of the universe" the general assembly and church of the first-born, which are written in heaven." What wonder that the human heart should naturally abhor a solitude which in the actual constitution of the world has no real existence? Of the sermons we have left ourselves no room to speak adequately. But we are not employing the formal eulogies of an indolent (and therefore dishonest) criticism, when we say that in our language we know nothing superior to the tenderness and beauty of some of them. Nor can we easily call to mind any which they strongly resemble. Perhaps Alison, if he were somewhat more scriptural in language and feeling, (we speak not of doctrine, but of style,) might furnish a closer parallel than any other pulpit orator. In defiance of the reclamations of editorial economy, we must insert the following fragment from a sermon in be |