while it was reforming the clergy of the Episcopal Church, while it was guiding to its true aim the renovated zeal of the old bodies of Dissenters. But the principle that religion is a vital, personal and practical concern, leads necessarily to the doctrine of free inquiry, of individual examination of the Scriptures, their genuineness and authenticity, of the comparative indifference of outward forms and ecclesiastical government, so that the gospel be preached: and there was a time when the Evangelical party in the Church were almost ready to unite in an endeavour to free the Establishment from the bondage of the State and of lay, unevangelical patronage, and to place her in a condition to undertake the large and searching reformations which they deemed she needed. Again, the principle that religion is a vital, personal and practical concern, leads also, by easy, upward steps, to an individual and rational interpretation of the Scriptures, to the casting aside of tradition, authority, common consent of all Christians in all ages, and any other extra-scriptural supports of commonly-received doctrines, until there must be a safe landing in liberal theology, far from Athanasian Creeds, Assembly Catechisms, or John Wesley's Sermons.

The High-Church party took alarm at this double tendency of Evangelical principle, and the stronger-minded, clearer-headed, more learned and more bold among them trod their way back firmly, decidedly, and with large strides towards the traditions of the first four centuries of the Christian era, and now sympathize with Rome far more than with Geneva, stigmatize the Reformation as a great evil, contend for the independent existence of the English Church, and desire to be known as Anglo-Catholics, or the English portion of the Universal Church. It is a strong position which they have taken, the only position which is tenable, short of unlimited individual inquiry and responsibility,-a position which they can make good against all who set up "the peculiar doctrines of the Gospel" as a bar against freedom, but a position which they must hold by and for themselves-the multitude have, and can have, no sympathy with them. These Tractarian leaders-nothing need be said of the motley tribe of aspirants to priestly authority who babble in their train-these Tractarian leaders have spoken out too plainly, too forcibly, too candidly, of what the Scriptures do teach, and of what they do not teach, unless they be interpreted by tradition, not to alarm the Evangelical portion of the clergy of the Established Church, who, for the most part, have lately held back from intercourse with Dissenters, and have become more loud than ever in their denunciation of rational theology, in order to shew that their principle of the individuality of religious faith and practice does not lead to Socinianism. Their outcry is echoed back by orthodox Dissenters, angry at being deserted by their former allies and "dear friends," and at the imputation cast upon them that their voluntaryism, their independency, their doctrine of a purely personal conversion, acceptance and justification, leads by ever quickening steps, if duly followed out, to the much-dreaded regions of Heterodoxy. We see, then, how it is that High-Church and Low-Church, Episcopalian and Dissenter, are more divided than ever against each other, are full of contention and bitterness, are struggling for the ascendancy in all directions, and each and all direct the envenomed arrows of their odium theologicum against our small, but, we trust, firm band. The

Tractarians boldly say-" Not Scripture alone, but Scripture and Tradition!" The others, equally resolved to maintain" the peculiar doctrines," contend indeed for the Scriptures as the only rule of faith, but say that they must be interpreted by the Holy Spirit; that is, that men are perverse and carnal reasoners if they do not come to sound orthodox conclusions.

Thus, then, Methodism gave the modern impulse to individual religion-Tractarianism sees clearly its natural and necessary tendency; and when the latter shews to the former the upward bearing of its path, do we wonder or complain that it should not at once be able to bear the light? Having had its eyes bandaged by mystery, when the bandage is removed by a hostile hand, on purpose that it may be dazzled by the glowing sun, do we express astonishment that it should persist in shutting its eyes, and prefer, at present, to grope on in darkness? We are only in the crisis of a great change, and no crisis is pleasant, especially for those who stand between opposing forces, and seem to be, if they are not truly so, the main cause of their angry disputation and fierce opposition. When, under such circumstances, we are smitten on the one cheek, without turning the other, we must expect to be smitten on that also. But patience-let patience have her perfect work. Let us have courage, trust, charity, and all will be well-if not in our time, in the time of those who shall succeed us. Our part is to stand firm in the day of tribulation. "Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand." Our position is, still to maintain the standard of free inquiry, to defend it against all assaults, to prevent it from being mutilated by false friends, to invite, to persuade men to it, and to warn them against trooping after merely sectarian banners, with the narrow restrictions, the unchristian jealousies, and the unholy fears by which they are ever accompanied-to shew that our freedom is not freedom from the law of Christ, from the demands of duty, from the requirements of conscience, from the loveliness of that charity which is so beautifully and affectingly described by the apostle Paul; but that it leads directly to the feet of our Divine Master, into whatever path is straight before our steps, to that active, earnest, practical love which finds objects for its exercise in all the true and varied interests of humanity.

INDIFFERENCE OF SOME PATRIOTS TO RELIGION.

IT is startling to observe the indifference of such men as Romilly, and Horner, and Mackintosh, to the religious questions of their day, and, though they conformed to the established worship, the cold reserve with which they abstained from closely identifying themselves with any great religious interest. There must, one would think, have been something deficient or repulsive in the contemporaneous theology, to account for the alienation of pure and elevated minds from a subject, which its close affinity with morals and jurisprudence must else have rendered attractive. Perhaps a clergy that, like the late Sydney Smith, would have expounded the truth of Christianity in a spirit of manly wisdom, and benevolent application to the actual wants of society, without enthusiasm, priestly pretension, or doctrinal refinements, would have been most acceptable to the feelings and have best fulfilled the wishes of this order of minds.-Rev. J. J. Tayler's Religious Life of England, pp. 450, 451.

PEN-AND-INK SKETCHES.*

THIS is a very readable volume of gossip, written by a good-tempered and tolerably attentive observer, who has had opportunities of talking with some of the dii minores of the age, and of hearing its great orators. The principal subjects of our author's sketches are, Robert Hall, John Foster, Southey, Wordsworth, Coleridge and Montgomery. None of the sketches display remarkable intellectual discrimination, but the descriptions of person, style of address, and other little matters, which are interesting when they relate to remarkable men, are graphic and clear, and, where our personal knowledge enables us to judge, sufficiently accurate. The sketcher appears to be an habitual lion-hunter, and to put himself in the way of seeing and hearing every thing that will give him a subject for his Note-book-whether it be the first fiddler or the first preacher of the day, a temperance lecturer at Philadelphia, a fashionable preacher at a London chapel, or a walk at midnight with Wordsworth by Esthwaite-water. In taste and spirit he is equally catholic, listening on the Sunday night with rapt attention to Baptist Noel or Mr. Sherman, and a night or two afterwards to Sergeant Talfourd's new tragedy; equally delighted to stumble by accident on Percy Bysshe Shelley on Hampstead Heath, vainly pleading for the admission of a fainting or dying woman into an aristocratic mansion, and to offer an arm to a lame clerical stranger, who proves to be Legh Richmond, on his way to preach at the Temple Church at Bristol.

Of Robert Hall, our author tells nothing good which has not been often told before in print. The anecdote concerning his courtship would have been better left in the undisturbed possession of the vivavoce gossips. Anticipating by a few weeks the publication of the Life of Mr. Foster, he is able to give some less threadbare stories respecting this able essayist and worthy but eccentric person. Passing them by, however, we will offer to our readers a sketch, of the accuracy of which they will be able to form their own opinion. At all events, they will not find fault with the spirit in which it is penned.

"Another noted Bristol contemporary of Hall's was Dr. Lant Carpenter, a man of extraordinary abilities. It must be now nearly sixteen years since we first heard him; but not then as a preacher; it was on the occasion of his delivering a series of lectures in the theatre of the Bristol Philosophical Institution. We remember, as if it were but a thing of yesterday, the crowded lecture-room, the delighted audience, and the person of the lecturer. All the intellect that Bristol could muster was there, but the greater portion of it consisted of members of Dr. Carpenter's own religious community, for few among those worshiping at other churches in Bristol would have ventured to listen to an Unitarian, although only poetry was his theme; but it may be said, by way of excuse for such, that poetry then was, as it is now, considered to be an unprofitable thing, which does not possess any remarkable rate or value.

"The reader must imagine the lecturer; he was what might be called a 'little man,' by which I mean, one rather under the middle size, as it is termed. His frame was so remarkably slender and attenuated, that at the first glance his head seemed to be strangely disproportioned to it in size; and seldom has any eye looked upon a more splendid cranium, or one which, phrenologically

* Pen-and-Ink Sketches of Poets, Preachers and Politicians. London-Bogue.

Pp. 275.

speaking, indicated a more accurately-balanced mental organization. The forehead was singularly high and expansive, bald, or nearly so, on its upper portion, and the temples were thinly covered with lightish hair. His eyes were grey in colour, and possessed an inexpressible calmness and sweetness in their expression. The nose was very, nay, remarkably long, but not by any means aquiline, and the mouth was benevolently formed. So very remarkable was the breadth of the forehead on the summit, that the whole face somewhat resembled, when seen in full, a pyramid in shape, the apex being formed by the point of the long chin, just the reverse, in fact, of the facial appearance of his Majesty, Louis Philippe, whose pear-shaped head and face, the stem part upwards, has afforded such abundant and ludicrous material to caricaturists. A simple white cravat encircled his collarless neck, and, of course, the Doctor's attire consisted of plain, clerical, sober black.

"The voice of Dr. Carpenter was remarkably striking and beautiful, and, says his son, in a Memoir of his father, from its peculiar qualities he was able, in a remarkable degree, to combine solemnity with the cheerfulness of confiding faith in his addresses to the Deity. In his reading of the Scriptures and the hymns, he often conveyed thoughts which were not before connected with the words.' We can bear willing testimony to the truth of these remarks, for never have we heard hymns 'given out' as they were by Dr. Carpenter. Well do we remember hearing him recite that beautiful hymn of Chatterton's, commencing with

O God! whose thunder shakes the sky,
Whose eye the atom-globe surveys,

To thee, my only rock, I fly,

Thy mercy in thy justice praise.

And distinctly, too, do we recollect the repetition of an admirable prose poem, which we shall presently allude to. It was said that, as a boy, he was distinguished as a beautiful reader: and the deafness of his adopted mother obliged him to cultivate the important habit of speaking clearly. None who ever listened to him, are likely,' says a friend, 'to forget his reading of poetry: and one of his hearers remarked, that the manner in which he read the hymns, inspired in him emotions, and called up thoughts, which a whole service from another often failed to excite.' In the lecture to which we have especially referred, Dr. Carpenter read some of Wordsworth's noble Sonnets, which poems have ever since seemed to us to be the most beautiful ever penned by the bard of Rydal Mount. Dr. Carpenter often lectured on scientific subjects at the Bristol Institution, for he was a man of almost universal attainments; and, as might be supposed, his courses were extremely popular. These exercises, however, did not interfere with his pulpit or pastoral labours, in both of which he was unceasing.

*

"The last time we ever heard Dr. Carpenter preach, was on the occasion of his delivering a sermon on the duration of future punishment, which he held not to be eternal. This discourse attracted much attention, and, from those opposed to him in doctrine, great censure. One of the ministers (the Rev. Mr. Jack) announced a sermon on the following sabbath evening, when we attended the Castle-Green Chapel. We had been in our pew but a few minutes, when we observed a stir in the chapel, and presently what should we see but the noble and shining head of Dr. Carpenter, who had come to hear what arguments might be adduced against his doctrine. His presence certainly proved that candour for which he was ever distinguished; for, never swayed by narrow prejudices, he was a Liberal in opinions, to the very fullest extent of that much-abused term."-Pp. 43-50.

We will next extract our sketcher's account of his visit to "Percy Chapel," to hear the popular declaimer known to the public by the name of Satan Montgomery, to distinguish him from the poet. As Mr. Robert Montgomery has achieved some portion of his pulpit

popularity by his denunciations of "Socinians," our readers may wish to know something of his pulpit performances, without encountering his Athanasian declamation.

"Percy Chapel is one of the metropolitan fashionable places of worship. There was a very pompous beadle at the door, who bustled about prodigiously whenever a carriage drew up, and who drove away from the house of the Lord every one who had a poverty-stricken appearance, with most exemplary vigilance. On entering the body of the chapel, this functionary hinted to me that I had better go into the gallery; so I mounted the stairs, and in a trice found myself amongst a company of Lillyputian grandmothers, who are called charity-girls. It was rather a chilly morning, and I quite pitied the poor little creatures as they sat in their cold corner, with blue noses and purple arms, on either side of the organ, and thought that a cloak would have been no very great breach of charity-school etiquette. People passed by me to their seats, but no one offered me one; so at last I applied to one of the pewopeners, a pinched-up looking widow, as she hurried past me. It was no use, however; for although there were plenty of seats vacant, she paid me no more attention than if I had been a block of stone. At last, when tired

of standing, I remembered that I was in a fashionable church, where piety must be paid for; so, when the old lady next approached me, I put my hand in my pocket, and immediately perceived that the action had the effect of relaxing the muscles of her grim countenance Before long (oh! potent shilling) I was snugly ensconced in a comfortable pew directly fronting the pulpit. This same pulpit was a very well-padded one, and the cushion was so much stuffed, that it appeared plethoric and ready to burst with pride, as a fashionable church's pulpit cushion should. ** A curate read the prayers; and when they had terminated, and whilst a Psalm was being sung, the Rev. Robert Montgomery ascended the pulpit stairs. He stood so high in the pulpit, that two-thirds of his figure were visible above the aforementioned well-stuffed cushion. He was what one would call a 'pretty-looking parson; his hair, of a dark colour, was carefully parted in the centre of his forehead, and combed aside, terminating in two very precisely-arranged curls. His eyebrows were as regular as if pencilled; he had pretty good dark eyes, and as he affectedly glanced round on the crowded congregation, it seemed as if a faint smile of self-satisfaction played upon his lips. * Mr. Montgomery, after giving out his text, commenced his discourse with great fluency, using no notes, except[ing] occasionally referring to a slip of paper which was inserted between the leaves of his small Bible. It appeared to me that he had learned his discourse, and was now reciting it, as a school-boy does his lesson. His voice was harsh and ill modulated, and his manner very affected. As to the sermon itself, it appeared to be little else than a tissue of laborious conceits wrapped up in very hard words. Simplicity had nothing to do with it; and if ever a grain of wheat shewed itself, he hid it beneath the chaff of his illustration. There was nothing like argument; or if he did attempt any thing in that way, he only created tinselled giants for the purpose of displaying his own dexterity in knocking them down. There were such observations as these: he talked of 'God radiating his own eternity from his own essence;' 'God-ward accretions of grace and Devil-ward accretions of sin;' of light touching sentiment in its most exquisite centre.' He remarked that ‘a holy man in a room radiated sanctity; observed that 'when he visited poor people, they sometimes said they had such and such a feeling, but that he always told them that they had nothing to do with feeling.' And in winding up his discourse, he assured his hearers that he had arrived at certain views after prayerful and hard study.' The sermon was indeed

a fine specimen, on the whole, Of rhetoric, which the learned call rigmarole.'