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ligious institutions of Massachusetts and Connecticut have been seated deep in the habits and affections of the people, yet the constantly accumulating power of this formidable lever has at length heaved them from their base. It is now left to men, as individuals, to associate for the purpose of supporting public worship, as they would associate for the promotion of any object merely of private and worldly interest. In our cities and other large and populous places this may be done. Enough may be found already united in sentiment to unite in the formation of a Christian congregation. But when you look beyond them, and contemplate the small villages and hamlets, the population of which is thinly scattered over an area of many miles, you behold the same divisions rending society into shreds and patches, various in texture, and form, and colouring. The few of each religious denomination cannot agree to worship together, and are unable, from the smallness of their number, to support separate places of worship. The consequence is that they are left destitute of the means of religion. The sanctity of the Lord'sday is either violated by an attention to worldly concerns, or is observed in a manner worse than the violation, by being made the occasion of idleness and vice. In this part of our country, religion was supported by law until it became the habit of the community; and therefore it still continues to act with the force of an establishment, as a wheel continues to turn after the force applied to it is stopped. Yet even here we are beginning to feel the evils arising from division, and to feel them severely. Our parishes are crumbling into ruins. Party is arranged against party. To settle a minister becomes impracticable, or if two or more are settled, the scanty pittance given for their support obliges them to escape from the horrors of poverty by removal.

"If it be so here, what must it be CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 260.

in our newly settled territories, where religion has no nursing fathers or nursing mothers? One clergyman, it is said, is necessary for every thousand souls. Be it so; but when it is remembered that this thousand may be composed of five or six different denominations, it will be seen at once how the divisions of the Christian community, by increasing its wants, increase the difficulty of supplying them. Can it be a matter of surprise, that, in the midst of all that life and energy which are exhibited in our new settlements, the goodly plant of Christianity should have taken no root, and is withering and dying for want of nourishment? The sound of the axe may ring through the forest;-the plough may pierce the sod which had been before undisturbed for centuries, excepting by the hunter's tread;-the streams may be pent up in their narrow bed, and powers not their own given them, to turn the mill-wheel, and afford nourishment and protection to man;-villages, and towns, and cities, may spring up and flourish :But while the smoke is seen to curl from many a domestic hearth, where, alas, are the altars! where is the village-spire, pointing to heaven, and telling to the distant traveller, that he is approaching the abode of Christian as well as of civilized man! My brethren, the divisions, the hapless divisions, of this little community, weaken their strength, and deprive them of all the means of grace. Their children remain unbaptized and uninstructed. The incense of prayer never ascends from the altar of their hearts. The walls of the sanctuary never reverberate with their praises. The memorial of their Redeemer's love never touches their lips. The oblation of charity is never offered by their hand. In the first generation, religion wears itself away by a gradual decline; in the second, it can hardly be said to have existed. As our population increases, therefore, the prospect is shrouded by a more portentous gloom; and there is 3 T

great danger, that, with all the exertions which the pious and benevolent can make, we shall become a nation of heathens, and not of Christians.

"My brethren, this is no exaggerated description, for the purpose of making an impression on your minds. It falls far short of the dreadful reality."

I have not cited this passage with any invidious feeling towards our Western brethren; but partly with a view to invite serious attention to the subject among your numerous American readers, in order that, if they have not a religious establishment, they may feel more strongly the duty of individual exertion for promoting the cause of religion, and chiefly as an ar

gument of great weight in some pending discussions nearer home. Even admitting, what I think is very questionable, that it would ever be sound policy in a government,

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only to tolerate, and not to support Christianity," and "to blend together a heterogeneous mass" by the exclusion of what ought to be the cement of state, "religion," such a measure would certainly be neither politic nor justifiable in a country like our own, where the recognition of Christian truth and Christian institutes has long ago been admitted as an established part of our national regulations, with a powerful and most beneficial, though often too much overlooked, influence among all ranks of the people, our dissenting brethren themselves not excepted.

AN EPISCOPALIAN.

REVIEW OF NEW PUBLICATIONS.

For the Oracles of God, four Orations. For Judgment to Come, an Argument in nine Parts. By the Rev. EDWARD IRVING, M.A., Minister of theCaledonian Church Hatton Garden. Second edition. London. 1 vol. 8vo. 12s. pp. 548.

It is scarcely possible to mention the writer of this work, within ten miles of the metropolis, without calling forth the language of exalted praise or excessive vituperation. Neither ladies nor gentleman, however moderate on other subjects, can shew any moderation upon this. It is admitted on all hands that Mr. Irving is no ordinary man; but whether he be more entitled to a bad eminence among the merely extravagant part of our species, or to a high station among the wise and the excellent of the earth; whether his principles, talents, and attainments ought to place him among the intellectual lords of the creation, or his bad taste, black

hair, and Scottish dialect ought to sink him to the level of the lowest, is a point which, in the present conflict of popular opinion, is not likely soon to be decided.

For ourselves, we strongly reprobate the practice of measuring the ministers of Christ, like scenic actors, by their voice and person and gestures; and, besides, having never yet set foot within the walls of Mr. Irving's chapel, we must profess our utter incompetence to deliver a judgment on several matters which are said to involve his character as a public speaker, and to affect sundry classes among his hearers. Our opinion of him is formed, not from the impression produced by his personal appearance, or by the nature of his elocution, whether these be attractive or the contrary; whether, as it was said in old times of St. Paul, his presence be weak and his speech contemptible, or precisely the reverse. We can pronounce upon him only through the medium

of his book: though if, according to the statement of our old friend, the Spectator, "a reader seldom peruses a book with pleasure till he knows whether the writer of it be a fair or a black man, of a mild or choleric disposition, married or a bachelor, with other particulars of the like nature, that conduce very much to the right understanding of an author," the public are abundantly qualified to understand and to take pleasure in his publication, from the intelligence, so lavishly detailed in the magazines, newspapers, and conversation of the day, that Mr. Irving is not a little, nor a fair, nor a married man; that he has a voice of unusual power and intonation, and an eye and an expression of countenance peculiarly striking; and that, if the strength of his mind correspond in any measure with the athletic vigour of the frame which contains it, he will neither be easily borne down by opposition, nor injuriously elated by the extraordinary burst of popularity which it is his fortune, or, he would probably say, his misfortune, to have excited. Indeed, one of the most remarkable features of Mr. Irving's character, as we infer from the perusal of his work, is the fearless and undaunted spirit with which he avows his sentiments and feelings. An unfledged writer is usually timid in presenting himself before the tribunal of the public. He is, on most occasions, sufficiently ready to bespeak the good opinion of his readers he takes to himself an air of modesty, which, he hopes, will conciliate even those who are unwilling to be pleased: he is careful to excite no man's jealousy, to offend no man's self-love, to invade no man's province: he presents his book with affected humility, and perhaps real fear: and, if castigated he must be, if the blue covers of the North and the brown covers of the South are determined to shut him up in a disastrous immortality, he will at least plead for every mitigation of the punishment,

and be no party to his own disgrace.

Such, however, is not Mr. Irving. He comes forward in his Preface with perfect fearlessness of character, with an uncompromising avowal of his views and intentions, and hurls at criticism the language of defiance. Not that he deems himself invulnerable; but that he is too chivalrous to care for assault. His very first sentence (couched in his own very singular style, of which more hereafter), is of most uncompromising aspect: "It hath appeared," he says, "to the author of this book, from more than ten years' meditation upon the subject, that the chief obstacle to the progress of divine truth over the minds of men is the want of its being properly presented to them."-But perhaps he qualifies the passage in the next sentence; intimating that he does not apply the statement to the European subjects of Great Britain, but to heathens; or possibly to the Continent; or, if to any of our fellow-subjects, that he restricts it to Ireland, or to some outlandish corner of his Majesty's dominions, Not at all: the next sentence fixes the charge: "In this Christian country there are, perhaps, ninetenths of every class who know nothing at all about the applications and advantages of the single truths of revelation, or of revelation taken as a whole and what they do not know, they cannot be expected to reverence or obey."-But Mr. Irving, it may still be rejoined, surely intends to cast the blame rather upon the reluctance of men to hear, than upon any defect in their instructors. If such be the impression of any one, he takes special care at once to undeceive him: "This ignorance," he adds, "in both the higher and the lower orders, of religion, as a discerner of the thoughts and intentions of the heart, is not so much due to the want of inquisitiveness on their part, as to the want of a sedulous and skilful ministry on the part of those to whom it is entrusted."

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If this were the only evidence which we have of our author's moral courage and independence of spirit, and the careless indifference with which he plunges into the ranks of hostility, we might possibly be led to suspect, that, at the expense of the public teachers of religion in general, he was not unwilling to ally to himself that numerous party in the kingdom whose delight it is to trample upon the sacredness of the ministerial character, or to gratify some narrow-minded religionists, who can see nothing good beyond the pale of their own little communion. But a candid perusal of the work will do away this suspicion. The writer holds no terms with the enemies of Revelation; he advances with the port of a man who is ready to measure weapons with them in any field which they may choose, and in full confidence of victory. And as to the views of this or that class of persons in the religious world, he stands aloof from them all; determined to propound without reserve whatever sentiments appear to him to be founded upon the Word of God, and with an absolute unconcern as to the judgment which may be passed upon him by any human being.

To this intrepidity of character it is probable that Mr. Irving owes much of the popularity which has attended his ministry. We love to listen to a man who in a great question refuses to compromise his independence, and in the assertion of what he deems to be the truth reckons little upon consequences. But to this cause, likewise, must doubtless be ascribed much of that hostility which has already come upon our author, and which he may be yet doomed to experience. His confidence will be censured as presumption his daring attempts to work a religious reformation, will be ascribed to an overweening estimate of very limited powers. The infidel will hate him; for, if his statements be true, there exists not a more contemptible thing than infidelity: no

terms can express how groveling and despicable are its nature and pretensions. The formalist will shew him no reverence; for he has found none at his hands. Those who indulge in the "virulence of party feeling, and violence of personal abuse, and cruel anatomy of men's faults and failings; and those inventions of wit and humour to disguise truth and season falsehood, which issue forth from the press among the people" (p. 94), wilt array against him that formidable machine, and spare no pains to crush their assailant in the dust. Even among the ministers of reli gion he must expect few very cordial friends: for, although Mr. Irving guards himself against the charge of intentional reflection upon their piety or zeal, what does his whole volume imply, but that he hopes to accomplish what they have been unable to effect? and what do his compressed and overflowing congregations bespeak, but the desertion of their wonted pastors to follow a new shepherd from the North? Neither let him calculate with much confidence upon the friendship of those who are considered as among the more strictly religious part of the lay community. A mind tenderly and conscientiously alive to what are considered by most seriously disposed persons to be the doctrines of Divine truth, will be apprehensive lest Mr. Irving should sometimes appear to hold certain matters of importance in too little regard, or occasionally to qualify a principle which in their view cannot be too broadly stated. And as to the class of persons, be they many or few, who can tolerate no truth which is not dressed up in their own precise phraseology, there is really in this volume so much to trouble and distress them, that their consciences, we should think, will not suffer them to look with any very profound veneration, certainly with no great partiality, on its author. -In this enumeration we have not mentioned all the descriptions of

persons who may be expected to array themselves against him. The most formidable is yet to come; a race proverbially irritable: and, unless we are misinformed, there is gathering in a certain quarter, to which Mr. Irving has directed very pointed attention, a dark thundercloud, destined ere long to burst upon his head.

Now, without taking upon our selves at present either very loudly to applaud or very vehemently to condemn that bold and uncompromising spirit which the author has infused into every page of his writings, and which, as we suppose, appears likewise in his pulpit ministrations, with action and attitude suited to make it still more obvious and remarkable; it is incumbent upon us to say, that, as far as we can judge from his book, his confidence appears to be not so much in himself as in his subject. Although possessing very considerable powers, and evidently conscious that he possesses them, yet it is the great cause itself, the cause of Eternal Truth, which appears to impel him to the conflict; and it seems to be under the solemn sense of its importance and its dignity that he appeals with such unyielding resolution to the hearts and understandings and consciences of men. In the high and commanding tone which he so frequently assumes, he does not appear to seek to magnify himself, but to set forth with due authority the mighty interests of religion: and, with the strong conviction that the cause in which he is engaged is the noblest in the world, and that his argument is one which involves the everlasting destiny of mankind, he may venture, we think, to plead in his vindication, that he can hardly be too bold in the assertion of the truth, or too earnest and authoritative in the enforcement of it.

A writer who avows it as his object to stir up the public mind, and challenges the regard of the more refined and intellectual classes of society, "imaginative men, and

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political men, and legal men, and medical men," will certainly subject himself to some inquiry as to his qualifications for the task; and Mr. Irving must not expect that the question shall always be put in the most friendly tone, or the scrutiny carried on in the most impartial manner. A very slight acquaintance with the volume now in our hands, will satisfy any man that he has to do with a writer who will not be fettered, either as to his opinions or his language: if he succeed at all as an author, his success will be remarkable: if he fail, he will fail most egregiously. A passage has been selected from this work, and copied by one hostile publication after another, with a view of exposing him to general ridicule and contempt: the passage is certainly in the very worst taste; but it is not a fair specimen of his talent for composition. A more extensive examination would shew, that at least every paragraph is not liable to such exceptions; and that, in the midst of some things which we cannot but censure, there are many which extort our approbation. With all his faults-and we mean not to extenuate them-there is an energy of mind, a vigour of intellect, a strength of reasoning, and a force of appeal, which we seldom have the privilege to witness in these later days. Mr. Irving is evidently a man of commanding intellect; and it is equally evident that his intellect has not been suffered to lie idle. His powers have been well exercised, though not strictly disciplined. He has been conversant with the master spirits of other times; and if on this account he sometimes talks in a dialect which sounds strange to modern ears, his eloquence, nevertheless, is often of a very high order, and his impassioned appeals are almost irresistible. We have heard of the excitement which his addresses from the pulpit have produced upon some who are not easily to be excited: we have heard of the impression, as to the importance

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