in slavery-with a people which have so long enjoyed the blessings of a true religion, that it may almost be said that it is their hereditary privilege to know their God-with an established church, amply endowed and provided with a pious and learned ministry, inferior to none upon earth, we at once perceive the immense national facilities which we have for advancing the cause of religion, and we learn to estimate the immeasurably increased responsibilities of duties which are common to us with all men. And is not the conclusion irresistibly forced upon our mind, that this position and these blessings have not been given us without an object-but that it is the design of the all-wise Disposer of events that England should signalise herself by efforts in his cause. Certain it is, that the obligation to become the guardian of religion upon earth is one as naturally arising from the peculiar circumstances of England as any relative duty arises from the peculiar circumstances of the individual. The church and the country owe an obligation to Dr. Croly for this discourse. Our clergy have too long and too systematically neglected to instruct their people on their political duties; and truths which our ancestors would have never dreamed for an instant of forgetting, are now left out of sight as the mere visions of the enthusiast. National responsibilities are unthought of. Men exercise the franchises of the state without any remembrance that they are thus exercising a power which is more or less to influence the destinies of mankind, and for which they are responsible to their God. The neglect of the pulpit is to blame for this. Our clergy have not taught the people the national responsibilities which entail with their individual obligations. They have practically told them that they did not need the guidance of revelation in that act which, of all others, most needs an humble reliance on teaching from above-the exercise of political power. Men talked of the separation of politics and religion, until, while religion has not become, in men's minds, less political,politics have become irreligious. This must be remedied. The watchmen of the nation must warn the people of all their duties-not merely their duties to each other in the common and ordinary transactions of life, but of their higher and more solemn duties to each other to all society-to generations yet to come— to mankind-and to their Creator, as members of the great compact of the state. Let this be done by our clergy, and it is not in the power of the hollowness of all her statesmen-no matter by what party name they disguise their forgetfulness of the principle of truthto destroy or even impair the Christian Constitution of Britain. But we need this from the pulpit to infuse a better and more righteous spirit into our politics. What a contrast is it to turn from the grand principles put forward by Dr. Croly to the policy pursued in the senate, even by those who are the advocates of the constitution? Where is the boldness, the manliness, the uncompromising opposition to evil which should belong to men who feel that when they resist the demolition of our ancient institutions they maintain the cause of God? The Conservatism that is based on any other foundation than this must fall. The reformed religion of Britain is the rock against which the defenders of her institutions must plant the bayonets of their resistance, or they will be as they have been, driven back from post to post-and just so long as they shrink from the broad and plain principle, that England must act as a nation for the advancement of true religion, just so long will they be defeated, because just so long will they deserve it. The real struggle that is now going on is, whether England shall continue the guardian of true religion or fall a prey herself to the powers of evil, which it needs no prophetic eye to discern are gathering their strength from all quarters of the earth. Influences are abroad among mankind that seek the overthrow of religion in the world; and if England's church and institutions were destroyed, there would then be but little in the frail and decaying fabrics of popery on the continent to preserve even the semblance of opposition to infidelity-if popery itself be not the form in which irreligion would establish its gloomy and terrible ascendancy over mankind. Such are the interests that are involved in the present struggle. We need scarcely stop to observe that such are the interests that are intrusted to the keeping of the Protestants of Ireland. Ireland is now the scene of this momentous conflict. If popery once established a supremacy here, the great That love of shadowy space and height The ivied roost, the soaring flight So fleet, and sorrow free At once, my bird, thy wish I caught, As true as words can tell, Full oft I've dreamed the same wild thought- In thought, on wing like thine, full oft I've yearned to mount away Through yonder bright blue fields aloft To pass unquestioned, and at will I knew thy wish, my bird, and still But, ah, too soon thy youngling eyes The surface sunniness that lies O'er dim, cold shades below Thou err'dest—as they who fondly dream Of joys and new delights that seem Deceived by each false outward grace The mask of smiles on every face Oh! bird forlorn, in yon fair wild While day by day new griefs are found— There shall wild creatures of thy kind Like blue-winged couriers of the wind, And then thou'lt lift thy drooping head Thou hast not learned, all wings are spread Thou'lt hunger there at evenfall, Thou'lt turn to catch some friendly sound And cast with mournful glance around The hawk, with martial plumery, So gallant and so gay, Shall find thee on thine orphan tree An unresisting prey. The pie, the raven, for their own Shall mark thy friendless life To such is pity ever shown In this world of care and strife? There is for thee no help-no stay, All scattered, stained, and few, J. U.U. LIFE OF WILBERFORCE.* THIS is an interesting work, and one respecting which our readers should have had an earlier notice, were it not for the pressure of other important avocations. We must, however, at the outset, protest against the book-making peculiarities by which it is distinguished, as discreditable alike to the publisher whose name appears in the title-page, and the eminent individual who is its subject. Murray, it is understood, outbid his brother booksellers in competing for the copyright, by a sum which would have left him a serious loser by the transaction, if the work were not swelled into five volumes, by the wholesale insertion of a most rambling, desultory, and almost unintelligible journal, and a scattered and multifarious correspondence; and hence the heterogeneous character of the compilation before us, which may be characterised as the "rudis, indigestaque moles" of the biography of Wilberforce, and which so far resembles the present ministry as that it also may be said to consist of "squeezable materials," from which, however, by judicious compression, (and herein it differs from them,) something good might be extracted. It is much to be lamented that Murray did not induce the young men, the sons of Wilberforce, to put their papers into the hands of some one who really knew how to write, and by whom something like justice might be done to the memory of their respected father. As to the young men themselves, they should no more have undertaken to write his life, than to paint his likeness. It is true, no one ought to know him better than his own children; but it does not, therefore, follow that his own children were the best qualified to render a faithful account of him to the world. To do that effectually it would be necessary to deal with matters of general interest, upon a comprehensive scale, in a manner that would require no mean share of the sagacity of the politician, the wisdom of the statesman, the elevation of the Christian philosopher, and the knowledge of the historian; and of these requisites no one can pretend that the sons of Wilber force were possessed. It is, indeed, to be lamented that they did not possess even so much of them as would have taught them to distrust themselves in dealing with matters so clearly above their comprehension, as were many of the subjects which necessarily came under review in the biography of their father; and that filial piety, as well as historical justice would be best consulted, by consigning the task to some man of eminence, (were we asked to name, we would say, above all others, to Robert Southey), by whom we have little doubt, something worthy of the great Christian philanthropist of his age would, ere this, have been given to the world. He was born at Hull, in the year 1759, and was the son of a respectable merchant, who could number amongst his ancestors some of the leading gentry of the county of York. From his earliest years his health was delicate, and his frame feeble, so much so as to be a source of perpetual anxiety to his watchful parents, who placed him, at the age of seven, at the grammar-school of Hull. His earliest religious impressions appear to have been derived from his aunt, a methodist of Whitfield's school, with whom he spent much time until he was thirteen years of age, when he was brought home by his mother, and "it became an object of his friends," his biographers tell us, "by the seductions of gaiety and self-indulgence, to charm away that serious spirit which had taken possession of his youthful bosom. 'Et sanctos restinguere fontibus ignes.'" This was no easy task, although the expedients employed at length appear to have produced the desired effect, and Wilberforce was gradually weaned from many of the peculiarities which had separated him from the merely nominally Christian world. Nor was he himself without recognizing a peculiar providence in that temporary estrangement from the ways of holiness and peace, as a means of his being connected with public men, and useful to the promotion of public objects. Had he not been removed from his uncle's, The Life of William Wilberforce. By his Sons, Robert Isaac Wilberforce, M. A. Vicar of East Farleigh, late Fellow of Oriel College; and Samuel Wilberforce, M A. Rector of Brighstone. 5 vols. London: John Murray, Albemarle-street. 1838. the aid of which he had rendered his meet as friends and relations, or rivals, apartment like a Dutch swamp in au- and consequently enemies. tumn, the only portion of his own figure Before I had time to take my resovisible through the mist being his short lution, Guy had recognized me, and legs and heavy shoes. seizing me by the hand with both his, On reaching the house in the Rue called, “ Harry, my old friend, how are de la Paix, where the Callonbys had you? how long have you been here, resided, I learned that they were still and never to call on me? Why man, at Baden, and were not expected in what is the meaning of this ?" Before Paris for some weeks; that Lord I had time to say that I was only a Kilkee had arrived that morning, and few hours in Paris, he again interwas then dining at the Embassy, having rupted me by saying : "and how comes left an invitation for me to dine with it that you are not in mourning ? You him on the following day, if I hap- must surely have heard it." Heard pened to call. As I turned from the what !" I cried nearly hoarse from door, uncertain whither to turn my agitation. “Our poor old friend, Sir steps, I walked on unconsciously to- Guy, didn't you know, is dead.” Only wards the Boulevard, and occupied those who have felt how strong the as I was, thinking over all the chances ties of kindred are as they decrease in before me, did not perceive where I number can tell how this news fell upon stood till the bright glare of a large gas my heart. All my poor uncle's kindlamp over my head apprized me that I ness came one by one full upon my was at the door of the well known memory ; his affectionate letters of ad, Salon des Etrangers, at the corner of vice ; his well meant chidings too, the Rue Richielieu ; carriages, cita- even dearer to me than his praise and dines, and vigilantes were crowding, approval, completely unmanned me, crashing, and clattering on all sides, as and I stood speechless and powerless the host of fashion and the gaming-table before my cousin as he continued to were hastening to their champ de ba- detail to me the rapid progress of Sir taille. Not being a member of the Guy's malady, an attack of gout in the salon, and having little disposition to head, which carried him off in three enter if I had been, I stood for some days. Letters had been sent to me in minutes looking at the crowd as it con- ditferent places, but none reached; and tinued to press on towards the splendid at the very moment, the clerk of my and brilliantly lighted stairs, which uncle's lawyer was in pursuit of me leads from the very street to the rooms through the highlands, where some of this palace, for such in the magnifi- mistaken information had induced him cence and luxury of its decorations, it to follow me. really is. As I was on the very eve of “ You are, therefore,” continued Guy, turning away, a large and very hand- unaware that our uncle has dealt so some cab-horse turned the corner from fairly by you, and indeed by both of the balustrade, with the most perfect us : I have got the Somersetshire appointment of harness and carriage I estates, which go with the baronetcy ; had seen for a long time. but the Cumberland property is all While I continued to admire the yours, and I heartily wish you joy of taste and propriety of the equipage, a having nearly eight thousand per anyoung man in deep mourning sprung num, and one of the sweetest villas from the inside and stood upon the that ever man fancied on Derwente pavement before me.“ A deux heures, water. But come along here," contiCharles," said he to his servant, as the nued he, and he led me through the cab turned slowly round. The voice crowded corridor and up the wide stair. struck me as well known. I waited till “ I have much to tell you, and we can he approached the lamp, to catch a be perfectly alone here; no one will glimpse of the face; and what was my trouble themselves with us.” Uncon. surprise to recognize my cousin, Guy scious of all around me, I followed Lorrequer of the 10th, whom I had Guy along the gilded and glittering not met with for six years before. My lobby, which led to the Salon, and it first impulse was not to make myself was only as the servant in rich livery known to him. Our mutual position came forward to take my hat and cane with regard to Lady Jane was so much that I remembered where I was. Then a mystery, as regarded myself, that I the full sense of all I had been listening feared the result of any meeting, until to rushed upon me, and the unfitness, I was sufficiently aware of how mat- and indeed the indecency of the place ters stood, and whether we were to for such communications as we were |