knowledge its excellency and advantages, and to be under its influences and control. But they form to themselves mistaken notions on the subject of that branch which is pure and undefiled: they build on an unsafe foundation; they conceive that if they unite in acceding to the importance and authority of religion, and attend to some of its outward and (if such an expression be proper on such a subject) least momentous particulars, they have fulfilled its requisitions. They behold the object, but do not desire to possess it. They are in error as to the very essence of religion they stumble at the very threshold; and, like Chorazin and Bethsaida, will come into greater condemnation; since, sinking with the light of "the glorious gospel of the blessed God" shining resplendently around them, they refuse to be cheered by its vital and vivifying influences.

The difference then, which exists between speculative and experimental religion must certainly be great. While the speculatist and the formalist may go on day after day, to the appearance of their fellow-men, walking according to the truths of religion, they are destitute of that inward witness which attests that it is not a cunningly-devised fable, or a specious and fallacious imposition, which the wisdom of God has devised. The carnal nature exerts its powerful sway in their various actions; and though the first appearance may deceive, a closer attention will manifest that they still lack "the one thing needful." Even that man who may descant upon the blessings and privileges of Christianity; who may illustrate it by his expositions; and who may wade very far into the labyrinths of speculative truth, may be as far from the kingdom of heaven as the east is from the west. The publicans and harlots, the vilest of the vile, transformed by renewing grace, will enter with joy and gladness into the mansions of eternal felicity, while the learned sinner, with an unsoftened heart, will lift up his fiery eyes in the lake that burns for ever and ever.

The experimentalist is in a certain and happy state; he has embraced the gospel with all his heart. His nature has been renewed he has been born of water and of the Spirit: he is in possession of that faith which purifies the heart, and "justifies the ungodly." He can lay his hand upon his heart, and, with the most sincere and indubitable satisfaction, point to the witness which he there feels of the truth and bless

edness of the gospel. He is convinced

131.-VOL. XI.

not only by reason, but also by experience, a guide which "opens wisdom's way;" and, in the prospect of his final dissolution, can triumphantly and delightfully exclaim: "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth; and though, after my skin, worms destroy this body; yet in my flesh shall I see God; whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another." Thus his reason and his understanding cordially unite with his affections in the delightful work of his salvation.

The system of the Christian religion was devised, and is adapted for other purposes than those of speculation. Its astonishing and invaluable privileges were intended really to be partaken of, as well as to be believed in; to be subject to practice and experience, as well as to theory. The Christian religion is designed to restore to man the long-lost image of his Creator; to alleviate the toils and contingencies of life; to regulate his desires and actions; and to inspire him with the hope of a future and incorruptible inheritance in eternity. And does it not most unequivocally answer its design in the heart of the true Christian? Does it not display all its efficacy and beauty in such a character? The divine Spirit applies the doctrines of truth with power to his soul. If in prosperity, he is preserved from pride and forgetfulness; and his breast is expanded with heavenly benevolence: if in adversity, his reliance is on his Saviour, in the hopes and promises of the gospel; though storms may beat around him, he is securely fixed upon "the rock of ages;" and in the midst of appalling darkness, supernal light arises in his soul. is a happy example of light and love. He perceives the excellency and suitability of spiritual objects, possesses an ardent attachment to them, feels their divine energy upon his soul, and hence it is that his religion is of an experimental nature." Not so the man whom a speculative religion has unhappily possessed; all his hopes are uncertain and vain; all his reliances are falsely placed; he has no comforts springing from heartfelt experience; he grows cold to religion; neglects its requirements, and, feeling not its power, loses all its blessings.

"He

It is experience which is the true test of the Christian, whereby he indeed finds the gospel to be "the power of God." The longer he lives, the more he becomes convinced of the corruption of his own heart, and of the vanity and instability of the world; while his desires after God, after holiness,

3 R

ON DRUNKENNESS AND ITS EFFECTS.

AN amiable and intelligent physician in

Dublin has, on several occasions, through the Morning Post, drawn public attention to this demoralizing vice, with the purpose of dissuading the working classes in particular from the practice of it. His essays are rather long; but the following extracts will, it is hoped, tend to direct serious attention to the subject. The police reports prove that the pernicious effects of drinking are as extensively felt in this part of the country as in Dublin; and, were a society established for the purpose of correcting the practice, it is very probable, that the happiest consequences might be produced. Perhaps those worthy individuals who have interested themselves lately in endeavouring to prevent the profanation of the Sabbath, would find it an important auxiliary to their well-meant exertions, and they would not fail to meet with powerful co-operation.

We would be very far from wishing to prevent or check unnecessarily, the few humble recreations and enjoyments of the working classes; but by kindly advice, their indulgences might be so regulated, as to prove a blessing to their families instead of being a curse to society.'

'I shall commence with a remarkable little narrative of an event which occurred to the great and good Sir Matthew Hale, when he was a young man, together with an extract of a letter from him, when afterwards Lord Chief Justice of England. And I may here propose, if you should so value this letter, that you read it yourselves, individually-read it for your families read it for your acquaintances, keep it safely by you, and read it for your children when they are grown to that age, in which they will have to mix with men, and be otherwise exposed to bad company, bad examples, and deluding and cruel temptations. I wish that you had always laid out, and would henceforth always lay out your pence as well. I shall say no more hereon, but proceed to Sir Matthew Hale:'

The great Example of Judge Hale. "Judge Hale, Lord Chief Justice of England, in his youth was fond of company, and fell into many levities and extravagancies. But this propensity and conduct were corrected by a circumstance that made a considerable impression on his mind during the rest of his life. Being one day in company with other young men, one of the party, through excess of wine, fell down apparently dead at their feet. Young Hale was so affected on this

occasion, that he immediately retired to another room, and, shutting the door, fell on his knees, and prayed earnestly to God that his friend might be restored to life, and that he himself might he pardoned for having given countenance to so much excess; at the same time he made a solemn vow that he would never again keep company in that manner, nor drink a health while he lived. His friend recovered, and Hale religiously observed his vow. After that event there was an entire change in his disposition; he forsook all dissipated company, and was careful to divide his time between the duties of religion, and the studies of his profession. He became remarkable for his sober and grave deportment, his inflexible regard to justice, and a religious tenderness of spirit, which appear to have accompanied him through life."

Extract from Judge Hale's Advice to his Grandchildren.

"I will not have you begin or pledge any health, for it is become one of the greatest artifices of drinking and occasions of quarrelling this day in the kingdom.

"Avoid that company and those companions that are given to excessive drinking; you shall thereby avoid infinite inconveniency, that will necessarily arise from such company. For you must know, that it is a principle among such people, that they must draw others into the same excess and disorder with themselves: they cannot endure that any man in the company should be sober and in his wits, when they make themselves drunk and mad; for that they think to be a reproach to themselves; and if they can bear drink better than you, (which, you must know, they take to be their glory and perfection,) if they can but drink you down, you be come their laughing-stock and perpetual

slave.

"Therefore, if you meet any person given to excess of drinking, remember that your grandfather tells you such a person is not fit for your company: you must

avoid him and his company, for he is laying a snare for you, to betray you, to bereave you of your reputation, your estate, your innocence, to withdraw you from your duty to God, to put you out of his blessing and protection, and to make you a perpetual slave, to expose you to all kinds of enormities and mischiefs: he solicits you to unman yourself, and put you into a baser rank of beings than the very brutes themselves. If you yield to such solicitations, it is a thousand to one but you are undone.

"But if you have that resolution and courage to deny them at first, and to decline such companions and solicitations, these vermin and pests will give you over, as not fit for their purpose: and if they do persist in it, yet such a resolute denial by you against their company and practices, will enable you with more and more courage and success to reject them thereafter, and to make their attempts to pervert you insignificant and ineffectual.

"The places of judicature which I have long held in this kingdom, have given me an opportunity to observe the original cause of most of the enormities that have been committed for the space of near twenty years; and by a due observation, I have found that if the murders and man-slaughters, the burglaries and robberies, the riots and tumults, the adulteries, fornications, rapes, and other great enormities, that have happened in that time, were divided into five parts, four of them have been the issues and product of excessive drinking, of tavern or alehouse meetings."

"What now follows, is from a little compilation which I could wish very widely circulated. May you read it with advantage equal to its importance!'

"Whoever attentively considers the movements of his own mind, and the temptations incident to our common nature, must be convinced that his passions, far from needing any excitement, require constant attention for their control; that, even with the aids derived from religious principle, from a good education, and from the sense of shame which ensues on misconduct, a course of honest and virtuous action is not in general to be maintained without the utmost vigilance against surrounding evils.

"The better sort of heathens, 'who having not the law, were a law unto themselves,' could propose to themselves the mastery of a single passion as a more glorious achievement than the subjugation

of a kingdom: even they knew how to live above the brute,' by the practice of sobriety and temperance. How then shall any, under the present dispensation, to whom the glorious light of the gospel is afforded for their guidance, disgrace their Christian profession, desert the very principles of natural religion, nay, sink below the irrational animals, by indulging in the degrading vice of drunkenness ?

"To mark exactly," it has been judiciously observed, "the line which separates sobriety from excess, is not easy. While a man preserves his eye and his understanding clear, while he speaks without faltering, while his passions are undisturbed, and his step firm, who shall accuse him? Yet with all these favourable appearances, he may be guilty. There may be excess, where there is no discovery of it; it is well for those who abhor the former as much as they would dread the latter. To them, conscience is a better guide than a thousand rules.

"There are some, whose fondness for strong drink is kept under such exact restraint, as scarcely to be perceived, even by their intimate acquaintance. Occasionally, the appetite is indulged; but, with so much caution, and under the veil of circumstances so much, that, perhaps, for years, little injury is felt by themselves; no suspicion excited in others. By degrees, this lurking propensity grows in strength. The man rises up early, that he may go to his bottle. This takes place of every other object, in his waking thoughts. For a season, he is satisfied, perhaps, with a morning dram. Unsuspecting of danger, his relish increases by indulgence, till he is slow but steady progress, the habit begiven up to follow strong drink. With comes inwrought into the constitution; the man reels in the street-is callous to shame and remorse-loses the use of his limbs-his tongue-his reason.

To

"Some fall under the influence of strong drink by using it as a medicine. remove some pain of the stomach, or to restore exhausted strength, is their apology for the first stages of intemperance.

"With others, the habit commences by drinking at set times. Many, in early or middle life, adopt the practice of using spirits at their meals, and, before they are aware, are drawn into confirmed drunkenness.

"Others become followers of strong drink by frequenting places of resort, where they are peculiarly exposed to temptation. There, by degrees, the warnings of conscience are stifled, and the fear of God

is extinguished. To shun the reproach of fools, or to be reputed social and liberal, they sacrifice their sober judgment, resign themselves as victims to worse than iron bondage, and part with their money, their credit, and their senses, as the price of their own undoing.

"Let us now consider some of the miserable effects which result from intemperate drinking:

"It destroys industry. Our nature and circumstances in this world render some lawful occupation essential to our happiness. The mischiefs which arise to individuals, and to the community, from habits of sloth, must be obvious to every one who has had his eyes open on the world around him.

"Now the fact is unquestionable, that drunkenness and idleness are kindred vices. The man who becomes a follower of strong drink, becomes, for the same reason, a neglecter of all regular business. The hours that should be spent in the field or the shop, he loiters away in vain company.

Drinking to excess destroys health. It is the more important to be explicit on this point, because many contract a love of spirits by supposing their effects to be salutary to the constitution. An eminent physician of our country enumerates a list of stubborn diseases as the common effects of spirits, and adds, "It would take up a volume to describe how much other disorders, natural to the human body, are increased and complicated by them.

"Taking strong drink to excess impairs reason. An intoxicated man is, for the time, in a delirium. If he fall under the power of intemperance, as a habit, the understanding naturally becomes torpid; the memory and all other faculties of the mind, sink into mopish inactivity, till at last he becomes exactly that useless and contemptible creature, described in one comprehensive syllable-a sot!-Would it be sin and folly for one to destroy his own limbs? How much more to destroy his reason! He that was born an idiot, or deprived of his senses by sickness or disaster, is to be pitied; but he that makes himself a madman or an idiot, can never be sufficiently censured.

"It leads to lying. When estate and character are ruined, and conscience stran. gled to death in strong drink, no regard to truth is to be expected. In such a case, promises are made and broken without ceremony; the tongue becomes the organ of imposition in business; every principle of integrity or honour is laid out of the question, when there is opportunity to take advantage of the ignorance, the credulity, or the necessity of a fellow-creature.

"It leads to profane swearing. The folly and impiety of this practice admit of no apology. No motive of appetite or interest, no constitutional propensity, can be pleaded as an excitement to this vice. It is, indeed, such an outrage on the first principles of religion, reason, and decency, as ought not to be expected from any one in the sober exercise of his mental faculties.

"It leads to contention. Three-fourths of the vulgar quarrels which happen, proceed from ardent spirits, or other strong drink. Wine is a mocker; strong drink is raging. Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes? They that tarry long at the wine.' How often do men meet in good humour, then drink to excess, talk nonsense, fancy themselves insulted, take fire within, blaze at the mouth, rave, threaten, come to blows; and then the dignity of the law must be prostituted to settle a quarrel of fools. Long ago, Seneca spoke of those who 'let in a thief at the mouth to steal away the brains.' How often does the drunken-revel end in the cry of murder! How often does the hand of the inebriate

In one rash hour, Perform a deed that haunts him to the grave!"

66

Following strong drink extinguishes the best sensibilities of the human heart. Did the proper limits of the subject allow a minute illustration of this point, I would offer myself an advocate for the poor brutes. I would plead the cause of the faithful horse, the ox, and the ass, so often worn out with starving and stripes, and subjected to intolerable hardships from drunken masters.

Our

"Will these men say, if we suffer for

own indiscretion, it is nothing to others? Is it nothing to cast yourselves as useless drones and burdens on the community? nothing to reduce them to the painful alternative of seeing you starve, or feeding you with the hand of charity? nothing to blast the hopes of your dearest friends?-Ye whose hearts are not past feeling, let me point you to the flowing tears of an aged father and mother, whose gray hairs are brought down with sorrow to the grave. Once they hailed the birth of a promising son. They nursed him in the cradle of infancy. They watched over the pillow of sickness. Their affections grew with his growing years, and anticipated the time when he should become the solace of their declining days, and a blessing to the world. Now he is the follower of strong drink. At midnight, corroding care preys on their hearts: their slumbers are invaded