knees-a proof of the poet's dependence on the Eternal. The inspiration of the Most High is in this powerful inscription of praise. The darkness of his circumstances overclouded not even his spirit: at seasons it could vent itself in strains of exquisite beauty and impetuous eloquence.

There is much about his tale that binds all our sympathies to the man. The gloom of his soul-the confusion of his affairs-his insanity-his fervent piety-all link our feelings to the bard: and then, when brought to the lowest degree of misery and degradation, do we behold him towering upwards in the greatness of his intellectual might and hallowed principles of his soul, uttering, as he ascends, the vehement Song to David. When the sunshine of prosperity beamed upon him, when sorrow and despair were unthought of, when his dreams were young and ardent, when his fancy revelled in scenes of quiet happiness, his muse was sickly and weak: but when darkness came, and ruin, and desertion of friends, and clouded intellect, and burning madness, then did he uplift himself in "the greatness of his strength," and sweep the strings of an immortal lyre. When he stood in the gay hour of youth, "with his blushing honours thick upon him,' his writing wore not the garb of immortality; but when pale sickness came, and dark aberration, and anxious care, then he arose, like the eagle in its mightiest glory, and gazed on the sun in the clear noon-day firmament, awaking his deepest, and sweetest, and holiest music.

To account for this we may ever be unable. Perhaps, however, his sorrows and trials opened up a clearer view of the sublime attributes of the Everlasting; and thus enkindled the enthusiasm, deepened the love, and exalted the intellect of the poet. A just knowledge of the Invisible-the belief in a spiritual and divine influence-the faith that God giveth to those who ask it of him-might have led Smart to the footstool of the Throne where the glory and resplendent beauty of the Deity would ever meet his gaze. Nothing tends

so much to raise and dignify song as communion with the Unseen. Dependence here is strength; weakness, might; broken sounds, sweetest melody. Thus, our massive Milton rose, and rolled out vast harmonies of tremendous grandeur; and our own Cowper breathed such holy hymns, more delicious than, even in the ancient world, issued from harp or lute. But to the poet: speaking of the melodious harper, he says:—

His muse, bright angel of his verse,
Gives balm for all the thorns that pierce,

For all the pangs that rage:

Blest light still gaining on the gloom,
The more than Michael of his bloom,

The Abishag of his age.

He sang of God, the mighty source

Of all things, the stupendous force,

On which all strength depends;

From whose right arm, beneath whose eyes,
All period, power, and enterprise
Commences, reigns, and ends.

In the paraphrase of God's command to Moses, what beauty is not perceptible:

Tell them "I AM," Jehovah said
To Moses while earth heard in dread,
And, smitten to the heart,
At once above, beneath, around,
All nature, without voice or sound,
Replied "O Lord, Thou art."

"All thy works praise thee, O Lord," is the expression of the sweet singer of Israel. With what grace has not our bard amplified the idea in these lines:

For adoration, incense comes
From bezoar and Arabian gums,
And from the civet's fur:
But as for prayer, or e'er it faints,
Far better is the breath of saints
Than galbanum or myrrh.

For adoration, all the paths
Of grace are open, all the baths
Or purity refresh ;

And all the rays of glory beam
To deck the man of God's esteem,
Who triumphs o'er the flesh.

But the conclusion of the hymn is in a still finer and richer tone. What exquisite pauses, and then what vehement eloquence, swelling. into grandeur:

Sweet is the dew that falls betimes,
And drops upon the leafy limes;
Sweet Hermon's fragrant air;
Sweet is the lily's silver bell,
And sweet the wakeful tapers smell,
That watch for early prayer.

Sweet the young nurse, with love intense,
Which smiles o'er sleeping innocence;
Sweet when the lost arrive:

Sweet the musician's ardour beats,
While his vague mind's in quest of sweets,
The choicest flowers to hive.

Sweeter, in all the strains of love,
The language of thy turtle-dove,
Paired to thy swelling chord;
Sweeter, with every grace endued,
The glory of thy gratitude,
Respired unto the Lord.

Strong is the horse upon his speed;
Strong in pursuit the rapid glede,
Which makes at once his game:
Strong the tall ostrich on the ground:
Strong through the turbulence profound
Shoots xiphias to his aim.

Strong is the lion-like a coal
His eyeball-like a bastion's mole
His chest against the foes:
Strong the gier-eagle on his sail,
Strong against tide the enormous whale
Emerges as he goes.

But stronger still in earth and air,
And in the sea, the man of prayer,
And far beneath the tide :
And in the seat to faith assigned,
Where ask is have, where seek is find,
Where knock is open wide.

Beauteous the fleet before the gale;
Beauteous the multitudes in mail,
Ranked arms, and crested heads;

Beauteous the garden's umbrage mild,

Walk, water, meditated wild,

And all the blooming beds.

Beauteous the moon full on the lawn;
And beauteous when the veil's withdrawn,
The virgin to her spouse:

Beauteous the temple, decked and filled,
When to the heaven of heavens they build
Their heart-directed vows.

Beauteous, yea, beauteous more than these,
The shepherd king upon his knees,

For his momentous trust;

With wish of infinite conceit,

For man, beast, mute, the small and great,
And prostrate dust to dust.

Glorious the sun in mid career;
Glorious the assembled fires appear;

Glorious the comet's train;
Glorious the trumpet and alarm;
Glorious the Almighty's stretched-out arm;
Glorious the enraptured main;

Glorious the northern lights astream; Glorious the song, when God's the theme; Glorious the thunder's roar:

Glorious hosannah from the den:
Glorious the Catholic Amen;

Glorious the martyr's gore:

Glorious, more glorious is the crown
Of Him that brought salvation down,
By meekness called thy Son;
Thou that stupendous truth believed,
And now the matchless deed's achieved,
Determined, dared, and done!

JOHN STEVENSON.

Nor much of religious eloquence in these days. We mean, not much of intense spiritual insight into the inner meaning of Christianity, There is a continual sameness; a continual repetition. Indeed the language uttered by the worshippers of Protestantism has become a settled dialect. It has shaped itself into a peculiar phraseology. It is technical. None but the initiated may understand it. It is learnt by all our preachers. It is not the original expression of the great human heart; no deep wild cry, no bursting oratory.

There are some exceptions truly: men who have spoken with heart-language; men whose insight has been clear and deep, and whose utterance has been music. Among these is one who has published a volume of Essays, chiefly on religious topics, and the author of Christ on the Cross.

Of the essayist we speak first. He has broken from the theological expression, and given us a more manly and unshackled breathing of eloquence. His voice is the voice of Israel's prophets; it bears the majesty of Isaiah in its fearless denunciations of sin, and its adoration of the holy. Thunder-pealing are its accents; bursting its tones of wrath. It is the inspiration of the Almighty; his lips have been touched with a "live coal from off the altar;" his eye has seen mighty visions, and his ear has been opened to the music of heaven. He is not bound by theologic rule; no imitator is he; none: rather speaks he for himself. And in this he does well. Let him live in this eternal element: see for himself, listen for himself, speak for himself. "The man on whom the soul descends, through whom the soul speaks, alone can teach. Courage, piety, love, wisdom can teach; every man can open his door to these angels, and they shall bring him the gift of tongues. But the man who aims to speak as books enable, as synods use, as the fashion guides, and as interest commands, babbles. Let him hush." Many may dislike this true language, may deem it folly; but every new author, if he writes himself, must be at first despised. He has to mould the public taste to his own; and this requires years and sometimes centuries. Look at those names which are the most brilliant among the

modern constellation; thirty years ago, and they were scorned as bright twinkling stars, and looked upon as some misty vapour in the blue immensity. Ever must it be so. To speak as other men, is well; but to speak as one himself thinks and feels, is to be a scoff and derision. Soon, however, the despised becomes the living orator to a million souls. Thus,

doubtless, will it be with all that emanates from this writer for a season. But rather than dream over the future, let us look into what has been already done.

We should not have said so much, had not his essays fully borne out our conclusions. They may have faults, but they are the faults of a fine and lofty spirit. Such faults could not be committed by a common writer. His stale smooth tale could not give utterance to such throbbings of the heart; he speaks the language of little men, and hence he is understood by them and praised. But though there are no such faults found in his volume, the volume itself is a fault. It is not speech; it is not utterance; it is not language: it is jargon; music and soft-lipped indeed it may be, but jargon still, moveless, inert, already passing

away.

The faults of our essayist, we say, are the faults of a fine spirit. There is something good in them; they are not lifeless, they are not dead. We may learn much from them, we may listen to much liquid music. The notes may be broken, but there is melody still; yea, there is the sound of the richest and most magnificent instrument. A difference truly between the tiny musical box, soft and bird-like, and the splendid bursts of an old and untuned organ in some time-worn minster. Such the difference between this work and others which the people praise.

Perhaps this production resembles most some ancient window in "an antique oratory," with the sun gleaming through its aged but richstained glass. The colours are diverse; but they are deep and glowing. There is crimson and blue, as though borrowed from the western day-god in woody districts, and from the wide illimitable heaven above us. Crimson and blue falling streaming down upon the still quiet marble, broken here and there by tree or ivy; but richest, most glorious colouring still, ruby and sapphire gem-lights.

The book is full of oratory; it is not so much essay as oration. It bears some resemblance to the French divines. It is like the thunderspeech of Massillon and the torrent-utterance of Bourdaloue. No soft note of Fenelon is heard, no liquid music of Saurin; no, it is the deep burst of Bossuet when wrought up to the highest pitch of eloquence. There is withal beauty as well as power. Scarcely any resemblance does it bear to our English theologians. No classic period of Hall, no elegant paragraph of Atterbury, no silver starlight of Paley, no cold formality of Hugh Blair, no tender sweetness of Alison, no rock-like language of Foster, no simplicity of Doddridge, no pearl-sparkling sentence of Barrow, no liquid sweetness of Hopkins. It is a mingling of the strength of Horsley with the flowery luxuriance of Jeremy Taylor; a fine eagle-piercing style. There is

something of Irving, but there is a something which is truly his own.

He rises into highest and loftiest eloquence when donouncing wickedness; it is then that the spirit of Israel's God descends and moves his lips with prophetic utterances. His language is deep and piercing; it is oceann-hymned. Not powerless is he; not weak, not nerveless. There is gigantic energy; and oftentimes biting sarcasm. Of terrible anathemas, some of his are not the least; "a great God is in them, and he grows not old." To us his future course is clear, to become the great and mighty reprover of the world's sin, the living orator in God's temple. May blessings be upon him and his for ever!

But needs be that we turn our attention to that venerable name which heads our paper; and yet we could not pass away from speaking of religious literature without noticing the other.

If the one reminds us of richly-stained glass seen in some minster pile, the author of Christ on the Cross no less bespeaks the pure mellowed light, softened and deepened, of early dawn. He has all the still quiet beauty of morn. The light is what we might suppose to beam on the most inviolate purity; the light that surrounds the throne of the Holiest; the light that gleamed upon a risen God in the garden of the tomb; the light that brooded over the Saviour's heart. No tiniest atom there! All pure, intensely pure.

So with this precious volume. Perhaps it is the purest ever written; its spirit pure, its expressions pure, its influence pure. You cannot peruse it without feeling that there is a purer atmosphere than that in which we live; without feeling that none but the pure shall behold the face of God, that none but they whose spirits are washed in the pure fountain of a Redeemer's blood, can ever enter the mansions of the blessed.

Honourable to our hallowed English Church is this exquisite production: honourable that such men minister at her altars. And, indeed, that Church may well glory in her privilege. What names she may count among the brightest, the greatest, the holiest of earth! And the author of this book will not be long ere he receives the homage of every one of her sons, whether those sons move among the lowly, or among the titled and coroneted and crowned of the land.

We said that there seems a light, divine and pure, encircling this exposition; and what we said we repeat. Its style is beautiful without being cold; it is elegant without being stiff. It is infinitely preferable to Atterbury or the men of that school. There is something of Thomas Dale, the sparkling pearl-beam of his writings; but we think it a deeper language.

Melvill it is totally unlike. There is none of the grandeur of Croly, none of the magnificence of Trench, none of the splendour of Montgomery, none of the dogmatical fervour of Christopher Wordsworth; none. Unlike Chalmers, unlike M'All, unlike Kirwan. But though it possesses none of the distinctive elements of these Christian orators, it has that which is not less glorious. It is what we would

call, the eloquence of Jesus; simple, chaste, but boundlessly expressive: simple, chaste, but carrying deepest and profoundest meaning. It is a heavenly language; it is the purest language; white, snow-white language, "the stream that overflowed the star-paved court of heaven, and blanched the purple lily, as fables tell, less white, less pure,' and yet not cold as snow, but warm, and embracing, and tenderly-loving as the heart of God.

Perhaps it may seem to bear some resemblance to Bishop Horne; something, too, to Bishop Hopkins; but it has in it, if that be possible, a holier intonation than theirs.

The twenty-second Psalm is chosen for the exposition. The first portion is dark and gloomy, the second bright and cheering; yet the reader feels no gloom, no darkness, there is a light beaming forth as if from the throne of God.

His theme is the greatest that can employ man's thought, and task his highest faculties. It is the incarnation of perfect and unsullied love: the incarnation of unblemished purity. In the descent of the Son of God both were united, taintless holiness, and boundless love. All that humanity had ever dreamt of, found its centre in Jesus. Their visions, their longings, their aspirations were more than realized in him. The world had ever yearned after this full embodiment of the pure and hallowed: from the sunset of Eden's pristine beauty, even till this incarnation hour, had its hopes been fixed on love: from the "deep abysmal pollutions of its heart, had it ever and anon sent its desires forth, and as often had they returned desolate and disappointed. Priests, altars, and temples, painting, statuary, and poetry, ever pointed to this one divine expectation. The world's throes and the world's tossings had ever and anon subsided, and then had come mourning and lamentation and despair! Then again had the music of its better being broken forth and it hymned its renewed anticipations, and heaven seemed sweeter and earth fairer in those seasons of the spirit's sunshine. Then at last, when the hope had almost failed and the eye of the humble loving one had become almost dim, came the incarnation of the highest affection and the most unsullied purity; and bound this far-off orb with its way-gone and fatherless children to the Creator and the Redeemer.

And in the coming brightness of the earth's spiritual morn, love will be the great principle, the great and alone necessity there: it will rule, it will quicken, it will vivify; it will throw a beauty over every occurrence of life.. It will burn more brightly than the fire-flame which erst illumined with its odoriferous light the still silent darkness when Zoroaster ministered; it will burn more brightly than the sacrificial gleam fed daily on the one altar of the Jewish nation, ever pointing to the one offering and the one oblation for sin. Love, that will be our presiding, pervading blessing; it will be the highest object of our being, even to progress in love, to tread onwards in love, to look upwards at the cross, the perfect unsullied incarnation of love. Onwards, onwards in love: we shall know no other language but the dulcet language of love; it will be the