kind of Christianity which they embrace, requires for its diffusion a gloomy Sabbath, the Puritan Sabbath; and we incline to believe that they are desirous to separate the Lord's-day as much as possible from all other days, to make it a season of rigid restraint, that it may be a preparation for a system of theology, which the mind, in a natural, free, and cheerful state, can never receive. The Sabbath of the Puritans and their Calvinistic peculiarities go together. Now we wish the return of neither. The Puritans, measured by their age, have indeed many claims on respect, especially those of them who came to this country, and who, through their fortunate exile, escaped the corruption, which the civil war, and the possession of power, engendered in the Puritan body of England. But sincere respect for the men of early times, may be joined with a clear perception of their weaknesses and errors; and it becomes us to remember, that errors, which in them were innocent, because inevitable, may deserve a harsher appellation if perpetuated in their posterity.

'We have no desire, it will be seen, to create huge Associations for enforcing or recommending the Lord's-day. We desire, however, that this interesting subject may engage more attention. We wish the Lord's-day to be more honoured and more observed; and we believe that there is but one way for securing this good, and that is, to make the day more useful, to turn it to better account, to introduce such changes into it as shall satisfy judicious men, that it is adapted to great and happy results. The Sunday which has come down to us from our fathers seems to us exceedingly defective. The clergy have naturally taken it very much into their own hands, and, we apprehend, that as yet they have not discovered all the means of making it a blessing to mankind. It may well excite surprise, how little knowledge has been communicated on the Lord's-day. We think, that the present age admits and requires a more extensive teaching than formerly; a teaching not only in sermons, but in more instructive exercises, which will promote a critical and growing acquaintance with the Scriptures; will unfold morality, or duty, at once in its principles and vast details; will guide the common mind to larger views, and to a more religious use of nature and history; and will reveal to it its own godlike powers. We think, too, that this great intellectual activity may be relieved and cheered by a mixture of greater benevolent activity; by attention to public and private charities, and by domestic and social kindnesses.* It seems to us that we are waking up to understand the various uses to which Sunday may be applied. The present devotion of a considerable portion of it to the teaching of children, makes an important æra in the history of the institution. The teaching of the ignorant and poor, we trust, is to follow. On this subject we cannot enlarge, but enough has been said to show in what way Sunday is to be recom

Would not the business of our public charities be done more effectually on the Lord's-day than on any other, and would not such an appropriation of a part of this time accord peculiarly with the spirit of Christianity ???

A

mended to the understandings and consciences of men.'-Remarks on Associations, p. 33-35.

We had noted other instances, but this must suffice, in which our Author fearlessly throws himself into the very centre of the enemy's legions, and raises a standard which there is only his own arm to uphold and fight for. And yet no man conciliates attention and regard more extensively. Some causes have been assigned for the degree of general regard in which he is held, such as Mr. Southey's having praised him in the Quarterly, and his having written against Napoleon, which may have a little contributed, but which are obviously inadequate to such a result. It is, we think, mainly owing to the simplicity, sincerity, earnestness, and benevolence, which are so plainly impressed upon every page of his writings: at least to these in combination with the generous, humane, and philosophical theology which they inculcate; and which commends itself, in spite of creeds and prejudices, to all clear heads and kind hearts.

One source of interest and power in Dr. Channing's productions is their strongly-marked individuality. They seem to bring us into intimate acquaintance with the man. They are like the private letters of a friend, relating indeed to topics of public nature and universal concern, but giving us his personal convictions, feelings, and wishes, in all their genuineness and fervency. He is no retailer of other men's phrases or other men's opinions. He uses words to express thoughts, his own thoughts. What his mouth utters, or his pen indites, his mind has first distinctly conceived, has elaborated, has arrived at the conviction of, by its own efforts, has wrought into itself, and surrounded with its own peculiar associations. If his language expresses emotion it is because he is moved. There are no

rhetorical common-places, put in because their introduction is thought becoming. None of his sermons have the impersonality of too many homilies, which bear no marks of relation to time, place, or person. They are what he thinks, and what he feels; and as he thinks originally and feels nobly, they are read with an interest proportionably deep and vivid. For writings to excite, in a high degree, this personal interest in their author, is characteristic of genius. The eloquence of Rousseau and the poetry of Byron wrought in a similar way upon the public mind. It was the case even with Junius, who, all unbaptized abstraction as he was, and must perhaps remain, had yet a personified existence in the imaginations of his readers, a fearful being, with whom they could not sympathize, but whom they could not expel, and in whom they beheld those fierce passions and mighty energies, before whose external manifestations all that

was conspicuous in the nation trembled. Open Dr. Channing's volume almost any where, and you instantly feel as if in the presence of an extraordinary man, and one of whom you must know more. His mind comes into direct contact with The fascination of genius is upon you; and in this instance, happily, the spell is a benignant one.

your own.

In the same spirit in which Dr. Channing invites the philoso pher to enter the domains of theology, he has himself made sundry excursions into the fields of literature and politics; and he has erected an honourable trophy in each, by the articles on Scott's Life of Napoleon, and on the posthumous work of Milton recently discovered.

The Essay on Napoleon consists of two parts; the first an analysis of his character, the second an estimate of " the principle of action which governed him, and of which he was a remarkable manifestation;" which principle Dr. Channing considers to be the love of power.

The general tendency of this essay is admirable. It shows how contemptible a thing a conqueror may be in one point of view, and how detestable he is in another. It proves how pitiful a modicum of intellect may suffice for a successful general. It exposes the folly of that idolatry of victory and splendour, to which the world has been so long addicted, and for which it has paid so dearly. He pursues a nefarious ambition from the field to the cabinet, and from the cabinet to the church, and allows it no right of sanctuary or benefit of clergy. He corrects the delusions by which the friends of freedom have suffered themselves to be blinded, and the practical mistakes into which they have too often fallen. And he announces, with subdued tone, yet prophetic dignity, the mode in which the enslaved nations of Europe may retrieve their liberties, and fix them on an everlasting foundation.

'A great question here offers itself, at which we can only glance. If a moral preparation is required for freedom, how, it is asked, can Europe ever be free? How, under the despotisms which now crush the continent, can nations grow ripe for liberty? Is it to be hoped, that men will learn, in the school of slavery, the spirit and virtues, which, we are told, can alone work out their deliverance? In the absolute governments of Europe, the very instruments of forming an enlightened and generous love of freedom, are bent into the service of tyranny. The press is an echo of the servile doctrines of the court. The schools and seminaries of education are employed to taint the young mind with the maxims of despotism. Even Christianity is turned into a preacher of legitimacy, and its temples are desecrated by the abject teaching of unconditional submission. How then is the spirit of a wise and moral

freedom to be generated and diffused? We have stated the difficulty in its full force; for nothing is gained by winking out of sight the tremendous obstacles with which liberal principles and institutions must contend. We have not time at present to answer the great question now proposed. We will only say, that we do not despair; and we will briefly suggest what seems to us the chief expedient, by which the cause of freedom, obstructed as it is, must now be advanced. In despotic countries, those men, whom God hath inspired with lofty sentiments and a thirst for freedom, (and such are spread through all Europe,) must, in their individual capacity, communicate themselves to individual minds. The cause of liberty on the continent cannot now be forwarded by the action of men in masses. But in every country there are those who feel their degradation and their wrongs, who abhor tyranny as the chief obstruction to the progress of nations, and who are willing and prepared to suffer for liberty. Let such men spread around them their own spirit by every channel which a jealous despotism has not closed. Let them give utterance to sentiments of magnanimity in private conference, and still more by the press; for there are modes of clothing and expressing kindling truths which, it is presumed, no censorship would dare to proscribe. Let them especially teach that great truth, which is the seminal principle of a virtuous freedom, and the very foundation of morals and religion; we mean the doctrine, that conscience, the voice of God in every heart, is to be listened to above all other guides and lords; that there is a sovereign within us, clothed with more awful powers and rights than any outward king; and that he alone is worthy the name of a man, who gives himself up solemnly, deliberately, to obey this internal guide through peril and in death. This is the spirit of freedom; for no man is wholly and immutably free but he who has broken every outward yoke, that he may obey his own deliberate conscience. This is the lesson to be taught alike in republics and despotisms. As yet it has but dawned on the world. Its full application remains to be developed. They who have been baptized, by a true experience, into this vital and all-comprehending truth, must every where be its propagators; and he who makes one convert to it near a despot's throne, has broken one link of that despot's chain. It is chiefly in the diffusion of this loftiness of moral sentiment, that we place our hope of freedom; and we have a hope, because we know that there are those who have drunk into this truth, and are ready, when God calls, to be its martyrs. We do not despair, for there is a contagion, we would rather say, a divine power in sublime moral principle. This is our chief trust. We have less and less hope from force and bloodshed, as the instruments of working out man's redemption from slavery. History shows us not a few princes, who have gained or strengthened thrones by assassination or war. But freedom, which is another name for justice, honour, and benevolence, scorns to use the private dagger, and wields with trembling the public sword. The true conspiracy, before which tyranny is to fall, is that of virtuous, elevated minds, which shall consecrate themselves to the work of awakening in men a

consciousness of the rights, powers, purposes, and greatness of human nature; which shall oppose to force the heroism of intellect and conscience, and the spirit of self-sacrifice. We believe that, at this moment, there are virtue and wisdom enough to shake despotic thrones, were they as confiding as they should be, in God and in their own might, and were they to pour themselves through every channel into the public mind.'-Works, p. 75, 78.

Entering, as we do most heartily, into the spirit of this Essay, we must yet express our regret that the author has not more severely scrutinized the alleged facts on which some of his censures are founded; that he has failed, as we think, to do justice to many qualities by which Napoleon was raised so immeasurably above the vulgar herd of kings, conquerors, and usurpers; and that he should not have perceived how much an antagonist power to legitimacy was worth to the world, even though that power was an imperial usurpation. Nor shall we forgive him if, having proved his skill in moral anatomy, and dissected Napoleon with so unflinching a hand, he do not follow up his work by lecturing on the very next subject which can be procured to illustrate his assertion, that "the greatest crime against society, that of spoiling it of its rights, and loading it with chains, still fails to move that deep abhorrence which is its due." Napoleon at least professed to hold every thing from the people. Let the legitimate despot be dissected too. Let the tyranny of generations be tried by the same principles as that of yesterday; its duration has only made it more productive of misery and debasement. Weigh aristocracy in the same moral balance. Let not a single thief be executed, out of the hundreds and thousands by whom mankind are plundered, merely because he was not the son of a thief. Impunity may more safely be conceded to an usurper than to any other robber of our rights; for he stands alone; he is not the member of a gang, but has to contend with it; there can rarely be the opportunity of following his example; and his fate, instead of warning them, confirms their security, sanctions their rapacity, and swells their insolence. Dr. Channing owes it to his own fame, and to the world, not to let its regular, established, prescriptive, insatiable, and everlastingly formidable plunderers, and their jackalls, escape unjudged.

For doing justice to the character, and raising a not unworthy monument to the memory of John Milton, our author was eminently qualified, and the attempt is an eminently successful He had a theme completely after his own heart; and with all his heart did he apply himself to the task. Never has a writer been more completely "filled, rapt, inspired" by his subject than Dr. Channing was on this occasion, He did not

one.