battle to noble Spartan youth; and it rejoiceth the heart of sin-oppressed nature, as the voice of liberty from Tully's lips rejoiceth the senate-house of Rome upon the famous Ides of March, when the godlike Brutus

-Shook his crimson steel And bade the father of his country hail. pp. 138, 139.

From this single quotation our readers will see that this book is much like a work in mosaic-composed of many party-coloured stones -in which black and white sometimes lie quite adjacent--the purpureus pannus is often out of place:-the author's imagination sometimes lights him on to a bog-into which no very stupid traveller would have any chance of falling.

But it is time to put our remarks into order; and we shall show that whatever censure we may bestow upon the volume, our estimate of the author's genius is high, and that we readily pronounce his orations and argument deserving of much study aud of great, if not unbounded. admiration. We should not put in so many 'bating clauses, if we did not deprecate the imitation of Mr. Irving, by multitudes who can never have any pretension to his genius, his general knowledge, and his learned and polite audience.

The book commences with four orations for the oracles of God, to which we shall, in the present number, confine our attention; leaving the argument for judgment to come, for subsequent consideration. The subject of the orations is divided into the three topics-the preparation for consulting the oracles of God; the manner of consulting the oracles of God, and the obeying the oracles of God. The first naturally treated of is "the preparation for the announcement," in which the author develops his subject as follows.

When God uttereth his voice, says the Psalmist, coals of fire are kindled; the hills melt down like wax, the earth quakes, and deep procla:ms it unto hollow deep. This same voice, which the stubborn elements cannot withstand, the children of Frael having heard but once, prayed that

it might not be spoken to them any more. These sensible images of the Creator have now vanished, and we are left alone, in the deep recesses of the meditative mind, to discern his comings forth. No trump of heaven now speaketh in the world's ear. No angelic conveyancer of Heaven's will taketh shape from the vacant air, and, having done his errand, retireth into his airy habitation. No human messenger putteth forth his miraculous hand to heal Nature's immedicable wounds, winning for his words a silent and astonished audi ence. Majesty and might no longer precede the oracles of Heaven. They lie si lent and unobtrusive, wrapped up in their little compass-one volume, amongst many, innocently handed to and fro, having no distinction but that in which our mustered thoughts are enabled to invest them. The want of solemn preparation and circumstantial pomp, the imagination of the mind hath now to supply. The presence of the Deity, and the authority of his voice, our thoughtful spirits must discern. Conscience must supply the terrors that were wont to go before him; and the brightness of his coming, which the sense can no longer behold, the heart, ravished with his word, must feel.

For this solemn vocation of all her powers, to do her Maker honour and give him welcome, it is, at the very least, necessary that the soul stand absolved from every call. Every foreign influence or authority, arising out of the world, or the things of the world, should be burst when about to stand before the Fountain of all

authority. Every argument, every invention, every opinion of man forgot, when about to approach to the Father and oracle of all intelligence. And as subjects, when their prince honours them with invitations, are held disengaged, though pre-occupied with a thousand appointments-so, upon an audience fixed and about to be holden with the King of kings, it well becomes the honoured mor

tal to break loose from all thraldom of men

and things, and be arrayed in liberty of thought and action, to drink in the rivers of his pleasure, and to perform the commissions of his lips.

Now far otherwise it hath appeared to, us, that Christians, as well as worldly men, come to this most august occupation of listening to the word of God, pre-occupi ed and prepossessed, inclining to it a partial ear, a straitened understanding, and a disaffected will.

The Christian public are prone to preoccupy themselves with the admiration of those opinions by which they stand distinguished as a church or sect from other Christians; and, instead of being quite unfettered to receive the whole council of the divinity, they are prepared to welcome

it, no farther than as it bears upon and stands with opinions which they already favour. To this prejudgment the early use of catechisms mainly contributes, which, however serviceable in their place, have the disadvantage of presenting the truth in a form altogether different from what it occupies in the Word itself. In the one it is presented to the intellect chiefly, (and in our catechism to an intellect of a very subtle order ;) in the other it is presented more frequently to the heart, to the affections, to the imitation, to the fancy, and to all the faculties of the soul. In early youth, which is so applied to with those compilations, an association takes place between religion and intellect, and a divorcement of religion from the other powers of the inner man. This derangement, judging from observation and experience, it is exceeding difficult to put to rights in after life; and so it comes to pass, that, in listening to the oracles of religion, the intellect is chiefly awake, and the better parts of the message-those which address the heart and its affections, those which dilate and enlarge our imaginations of the Godhead, and those which speak to the various sympathies of our nature-we are, by the injudicious use of these narrow epitomes, disqualified to receive.

In the train of these comes Controversy, with his rough voice and unmeek aspect, to disqualify the soul for a full and fair audience of its Maker's word. The points of the faith we have been called on to defend, or which are reputable with our party, assume in our esteem an importance disproportionate to their importance in the Word, which we come to relish chiefly when it goes to sustain them, and the Bible is hunted for arguments and texts of controversy, which are treasured up for future service. The solemn stillness which the soul should hold before his Maker, so favourable to meditation and wrapt communion with the throne of God, is destroyed at every turn, by suggestion of what is orthodox and evangelicalwhere all is orthodox and evangelical; the spirit of such readers becomes lean, being fed with abstract truths and formal propositions; their temper uncongenial, being ever disturbed with controversial suggestions; their prayers undevout recitals of their opinions; their discourse technical announcements of their faith. Iutellect, cold intellect, hath the sway over heaven-ward devotion and holy fervours. Man, contentious man, hath the attention which the unsearchable God should undivided have; and the fine full harmony of Heaven's melodious voice, which, heard apart, were sufficient to lap the soul in ecstasies unspeakable, is jarred and interfered with; and the heavenly spell is broken

by the recurring conceits, sophisms, and passions of men. Now truly, an utter degradation it is of the Godhead to have his word in league with that of any man, or What matter to me any council of men. whether the Pope, or any work of any mind be exalted to the equality of God? If any helps are to be imposed for the understanding, or safe-guarding, or sustaining of the word, why not the help of statues and pictures for my devotion? Therefore, while the warm fancies of the Southerns have given their idolatry to the ideal forms of noble art-let us Northerns beware we give not our idolatry to the cold and coarse abstractions of human intellect."-pp.17-20.

In his endeavour to procure for the oracles in whose favour he is pleading solemn and unconstrained audience, we think Mr. Irving has run into an unjust and unmeasured censure of the usual mode of conveying christian knowledge into the minds of the young. So sacred and difficult a subject should be touched delicately whether we can do without these "abstractions of the human intellect"-whether youth can be trained up in christian doctrine without catechisms, would seem to be decided by universal experience. It has ever been the labour of the christian church to instruct the young

to scatter the seed upon the soil, yet in the fallowness of spring-time. And the wisest and most conscientious men have supposed that as it is impossible to find in any one portion of the divine volume, an exact summary of the contents of all its parts,

its doctrine should be set forth in some such form as may best fit the capacity of learners; and that it is no error in education, to lay up in the stores of memory what the daily improving judgment cannot yet appreciate. We doubt not that there has been an error of the kind which Mr. Irving indicates --yet to point out an error in the use of catechisms is not to prove their inutility. We rejoice in the increasing prevalence of Bible instruction, in which the truth is brought to the mind in its original simplicity and beauty, and embodied in the example of the Son of

Man. But we would not therefore have the good habit of the catechism disused. If system and method be found expedient for learners in every science, and of every age, we see no reason for their exclusion from the nursery and we are not without apprehension that the very prevalence of sabbath schools and scripture recitation at the present day, by inducing parents to rely too much upon them and to think themselves absolved from faithful, domestic catechetical instruction, may have an effect to leave the minds of the rising generation stored with a confused mass of religious sentiments, rather than furnished with a well arranged system of divine truth. But, without fully discussing the subject here, we merely add that, if the present is an age of improvement, it is also an age of innovation, and there may be danger of our too lightly laying aside some of the most sacred usages of former days. The kind of instruction objected to by Mr. Irving derives the best argument of its utility from the thorough scriptural views and holy lives of many great men whose praise is in the churches.

We feel ourselves obliged to say so much in defence of the ancient order of things-yet since Mr. Ir. ving's youth and our own have been trained up in the same catechism, we regard his hint as very valuable. It is an excellent rule in practical life to attend to what our enemies report against us, as it is most probable that quick-sighted malice will fasten upon the really weak points in our character. Mr. Irving is no enemy to the Westminster confession of faith and catechism; on the contrary "he is proud to profess such as his church doth acknowledge"he would have them "to discern heresy, and to preserve in the church a unity of faith" we may hear then from him the rebukings and cautions of a friend; we only object to the tone, manner, and measure.

But we will now suffer Mr. Irving

to speak for himself upon topics in which we quite agree :

It is a goodly custom, inherited from the hallowed days of Scottish piety, and in our cottages stiil preserved, though in our cities generally given up, to preface the morning and evening worship of the family with a short invocation of blessing from

the Lord. This is in unison with the

practice and recommendation of pious

men, never to open the Divine Word without a silent invocation of the Divine Spirit. But no address to Heaven is of any virtue, save as it is the expression of certain pious sentiments with which the mind is full and overflowing. Of those sentiments which befit the mind that comes into conference with its Maker, the first and most prominent should be gratihold commerce with such wretched and tude for his having ever condescended to fallen creatures. Gratitude not only expressing itself in proper terms, but possessing the mind with an abiding and over-mastering mood, under which it shall sit impressed the whole duration of the interview. Such an emotion as cannot utter itself in language-though by language it indicate its presence-but keeps us in a devout and adoring frame, while the Lord is uttering his voice. Go, visit a desolate widow, with consolation and help, and fatherhood of her orphan children-do it again and again-and your presence, the sound of your approaching footstep, the soft utterance of your voice, the very mention of your name-shall come to dilate her heart with a fulness which defies her tongue to utter, but speaks by the tokens of a swimming eye. and clasped hands, and fervent ejaculations to Heaven upon your head! No less copious acknowledgment to God, the author of our well-being and the father of our better hopes, ought we to feel when his Word discloseth to us the excesses of his love. Though a veil be now cast over the Majesty which speaks, it is the voice of the Eternal which we hear, coming in soft cadences to win our favor, yet omnipotent as the voice of the thunder, and overpowering as the rushing of many waters. And though the veil of the future intervene between our hand and the promised goods, still are they from His lips, who speaks, and it is done, who commands, and all things stand fast. With no less emotion, therefore, should this book be opened, than if, like him in the Apocalypse, you saw the voice which spake; or like him in the trance, you were into the third heavens translated, companying and communing with the realities of glory, which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man con

ceived.

Oth

Far and foreign from such an opened and awakened bosom is that cold and formal hand which is generally laid upon the sacred volume; that unfeeling and unimpressive tone with which its accents are pronounced; and that listless and incurious ear into which its blessed sounds are received. How can you, thus unimpassioned, hold communion with themes in which every thing awful, vital and endearing, do meet together! Why is not curiosity, curiosity ever hungry, on edge to know the doings and intentions of Jehovah King of Kings? Why is not interest, interest ever awake, on tiptoe to hear the future destiny of itself? Why is not the heart that panteth over the world after love and friendship, overpowered with the full tide of the divine acts and expressions of love? Where is nature gone, when she is not moved with the tender mercy of Christ? Methinks the affections of men are fallen into the yellow leaf. Of your poets which charm the world's ear, who is he that indicteth a song unto his God? Some will tune their hearts to sensual pleasures, and by the enchantment of their genius well nigh commend their unholy themes to the imagination of saints. ers, to the high and noble sentiments of the heart, will sing of domestic joys and happy unions, casting around sorrow the radiancy of virtue, and bodying forth, in undying forms, the short lived visions of joy! Others have enrolled themselves the high priests of mute Nature's charms, enchanting her echoes with their minstrelsy, and peopling her solitudes with the bright creatures of their fancy. But when, since the days of the blind master of English song, hath any poured forth a lay worthy of the Christian theme? Nor in philosophy, "the palace of the soul," have men been more mindful of their Maker. The flowers of the garden and the herbs of the field have their unwearied devotees, crossing the ocean, wayfaring in the desert, and making devout pilgrimages to every region of Nature, for offerings to their patron muse. The rocks, from their residences among the clouds to their deep rests in the dark bowels of the earth, have a raost bold and venturous priesthood; who see in their rough and flinty faces a more delectable image to adore, than in the revealed countenance of God. the political welfare of the world is a very Moloch, who can at any time command his hecatomb of human victims. But the revealed sapience of God, to which the harp of David and the prophetic lyre of Isaiah were strung, the prudence of God which the wisest of men coveted after, preferring it to every gift which Heaven could confer-and the eternal Intelligence himself, in human form, and the unction of the Holy One which abideth,-these the

And

common heart of man hath forsaken, and refused to be charmed withal.

1 testify, that there ascendeth not from earth, a Hosannah of her children to bear witness in the ear of the upper regions to the wonderful manifestations of her God! From a few scattered hamlets. in a small portion of her wide territory, a small voice ascendeth, like the voice of one crying in the wilderness. But to the service of our general Preserver there is no concourse, from Dan unto Beersheba, of our people; the greater part of whom, after two thousand years of apostolic com mission, know not the testimonies of our God; and the multitude of those who do, reject or despise them!

But, to return from this lamentation, which, may God hear, who doth not regard the cries of his afflicted people! With the full sense of obligation to the Giver, combine a humble sense of your own incapacity to value and to use the gift of his Oracles. Having no taste whatever for the mean estimates which are made, and the coarse invectives that are vented against human nature, which, though true in the main, are often in the manner so unfeeling and triumphant, as to reveal hot zeal, rather than tender and deep sorrow, we will not give in to this popular strain. And yet it is a truth, by experience revealed, that though there be in man most noble faculties, and a nature restless after the knowledge and truth of thingsthere are, towards God and his revealed will, an indisposition and a regardlessness which the most tender and enlightened consciences are the most ready to acknowledge. Of our emancipated youth, who bound after the knowledge of the visible works of God, and the gratification of the various instincts of nature, how few betake themselves at all, how few absorb themselves with the study and obedience of the word of God! And when, by God's visitation, we address ourselves to the task, how slow is our progress, and how imperfect our performance! It is most true that Nature is unwilling to the subject of the Scriptures. The soul is previously possessed with adverse interests; the world hath laid an embargo upon her faculties, and monopolized them to herself; old Habit hath perhaps added his almost incurable callousness; and the enemy of God and man is skilful to defend what he hath already won. So circumstanced, and every man is so circumstanced, we come to the audience of the word of God, and listen in worse tune than a wanton to a sermon, or a hardened knave to a judicial address. Our understanding is prepossessed with a thousand idols, either of the world religious or irreligious-which corrupt the reading of the word into a straining of the text to their service; and when