around us; and we return slowly to our homes, and to the society which surrounds us, with the wish only to enlighten or to bless them.' p. 329-381.

It is the unvarying character of nature, amid all its scenes, to lead us at last to its Author; and it is for this final end that all its varieties have such dominion upon our minds. We are led by the appearances of spring to see His bounty;- we are led by the splendours of summer to see His greatness. In the present hours, we are led to a higher sentiment; and, what is most remarkable, the very circumstances of melancholy are those which guide us most securely to put our trust in Him. We are witnessing the decay of the year; we go back in imagination, and find that such in every generation has been the fate of man ;-we look forward, and we see that to such ends all must come at last ;-we lift our de ponding eyes in search of comfort, and we see above us, One, "who is ever the "same, and to whose years there is no end." Amid the vicissitudes of nature, we discover that central majesty "in whom there "is no variableness nor shadow of turning.' We feel that there is a God; and, from the tempestuous sea of life, we hail that polar star of nature, to which a sacred instinct had directed our eyes and which burns with undecaying ray to lighten us among all the darkness of the deep.' p. 332, 333.

The most eloquent, however, of these Discourses, are those which Mr. Alison delivered on days of public abasement, or of public exultation. Avoiding all reference to party politics, the preacher indulges in the warmest expressions of attachment to his country, and dilates in the tone of elevated confidence, on the wisdom and equity of Eternal Providence. The following passage is extracted from the discourse on the Fast of 1806.

It is a cause in which the unchangeable laws of the Almighty are with us. The world has seen other conquerors and other despots. It has wept before the march of temporary ambition, and bled beneath the sword of transitory conquest. But nature has reassumed her rights; and while conquerors have sunk into an execrated grave, and tyrants have perished in the zenith of their power, the race of men have raised again their dejected heads, and peace, and order, and freedom have spread themselves throughout the world. Such, my brethren, will also be the termination of the tragedy of our day, and such is the confidence which they ought ever to maintain, upon whom "the Almighty hath lifted up the "light of his countenance." We are witnessing, indeed, the most tremendous spectacle which the theatre of nature has ever exhibited, of the pride and ambition of man. For years, our attention has been fixed upon that great and guilty country, which has been fertile in nothing but revolution, and from which, amid the clouds that cover it, we have seen at last that dark and shapeless form arise, which, like the vision that appalled the King of Babylon, "hath its "legs of iron, and its arms of brass." We have seen it extend its terrific shadow over every surrounding people, and the sinews of

man to wither at its approach. We see it now collecting all its might, and thinking to change times, and laws, and speaking great words against the MOST HIGH. Yet, while our eye strains to measure its dimensions, and our ear shrinks at the threatening of its voice, let us survey it with the searching eye of the prophet, and we shall see, that its feet are of base and perishable clay. Amid all the terrors of its brightness, it has no foundation in the moral stability of justice. It is irradiated by no beam from Heaven,-it is blessed by no prayer of man,-it is worshipped with no gratitude of the patriot heart. It may remain for the time, or the times that are appointed it. But the awful hour is on the wing, when the universe will resound with its fall; and that sun which measures out, as with reluctance, the length of its impious reign, will one day pour his undecaying beams amid its ruins, and bring forth, from the earth which it has overshadowed, the promises of a greater spring.' pp. 270-272.

The reader will have observed, as a slight deduction from the merit of these compositions, that the style, though elaborated into harmony and dignity, is not altogether free from blemishes: it wants ease and variety; it is sometimes verbose, satisfying the ear at the expense of the understanding. Sonorous epithets, which add little to the sense, such as lofty, sublime, magnificent, and especially, mighty, occur with wearisome frequency. We find the last epithet in combination with stage, compensation, object, obligation, scene, day, hour, time, language, tragedy, reward, preparation, prophecy, and a long catalogue of other words which seemed to require to be magnified. We have also ardent tears,' p. 429, and tears to be reapt,' p. 444. But these last are probably casual slips of the pen, which, in compositions of an inferior nature, we should have forborne to

notice.

We have hitherto considered these Discourses simply in the light of literary compositions, in which point of view, they certainly maintain high pretensions. But we should ill discharge the duty we owe to the public, were we to content ourselves with adjudging this praise to productions, of which the literary merit ought to constitute a very subordinate recommendation, and might possibly form only a subject of regret. It must have been felt as an objection to these sermons, from the perusal of the copious extracts we have given, that they are not sufficiently Christian. It must have been apparent that the strain of exhortation is altogether secular; the topics chiefly insisted upon, being fame, reputation, and interest; and that an efficacy is ascribed to the efforts of reason, and to the impressions of material nature, which is disproved by observation, and opposed to the declarations of inspired truth. But we must speak more freely. Mr. Alison sustains a highly important and responsible station in the Episcopal Church. He presents to us a com

manding combination of character, as the Philosopher, and the Christian instructer; and his addresses, designedly adapted to persons of elevated rank and of proportionate influence in society, and to young men preparing to act distinguished parts in life, have been already cited as models, both of language and sentiment, by Journalists whose opinions have extensive currency. They have not scrupled to venture the assertion, that they know, in fact no sermon so pleasing, or so likely both to be popular and to do good to those who are pleased with them. And they close their panegyric, with a sentence which we are persuaded Mr. Alison himself, equally with ourselves, must contemn for its flippancy, as well as reprobate for the temerity of the insinuated comparison which it contains of the elegant Essayist, with a prelate of powers so vast, and of attainments so comprehensive, as were combined in the Bishop of St. Asaph. We will quote their words.

It is a fine thing, we make no doubt, to compose a learned commentary on the prophet Hosea, or a profound dissertation on the intermediate state of the soul;-but we would prefer, doing what Mr. Alison has done in the volume before us: and we cannot help envying the talents by which he has clothed so much wisdom in so much beauty-and made us < find, in the same work, the highest gratifications of taste, and "the noblest lessons of virtue.'-Edinb. Review, No. 46, p. 440. One would imagine that nothing but the consciousness of possessing that sort of credit with the public, that will procure for all the sentiments they may be pleased to utter, unhesitating acquiescence, could have reconciled them to the imbecile extravagance of this sweeping encomium.

The defect in Mr. Alison's sermons to which we have alluded, is not of partial extent, nor of slight importance. It amounts, we are constrained to say, to a systematic exclusion of the grand peculiarities of the Christian system. It is an attempt-say his encomiasts, to lead us on to piety, through the purification of our taste, and the culture of our social affections-to found the love of God on the love of Nature and of man :' but we feel compelled to characterize it as an attempt to conduct the process of inoral education and of religious instruction, with a careful avoidance of every principle, every motive, and every sanction, which is peculiar to the religion of Jesus Christ. We do not say that not a casual reference is made to any of the doctrines of Christianity, or that the name of the Son of God, as the Saviour of the World, is not occasionally introduced with becoming reverence. We do not mean to cast any imputation upon Mr. Alison's personal belief, or upon the purity of his design. But we must seriously submit to him the consideration, whether, by the style of address which he has adopted in these

Discourses, he may not have inadvertently countenanced the dangerous presumption, that to persons in the higher ranks, or in the more respectable conditions of society, a modification of religious truth is to be offered wholly different from that Gospel which the Poor are to have preached unto them. The persons whom Mr. Alison addressed, were, perhaps, such firm believers in the doctrines of revelation, that they needed neither instruction nor exhortation, in respect to the objects of faith: yet this belief had been found so inefficient in supplying sentiments of piety, or motives of action, that the Preacher was compelled to have recourse to auxiliary and confessedly inferior principles. Despairing of the efficacy of appeals to the conscience, adapted to a common audience, of the power of inducements drawn from the love of the Redeemer, from human impotence, or from the promise of Divine influence, Mr. Alison would try the effect of the sentiments of moral philosophy, and the persuasive influence of taste! But in his thus becoming all things to all meu, have the design and the hope which inspired the apostolic exemplar, been retained? Has his object been, that he might by any means save some? Or is there any object below that of saving his hearers, with which a Christian minister has found it possible to content himself? Let us not be understood as objecting to the style of these Discourses independently considered: Rather let all the magic of eloquence and the splendors of diction be reserved for themes of infinite interest. But is there, then, any style of sentiment or of language, which would require the exclusion of the grand topics of Christianity from a sense of their incongruity? Is it safe, is it decorous for the Christian philosopher, in descanting upon themes of the most attractive or commanding interest, to pre-occupy the minds of his readers with associations of thought and feeling uncongenial as it should seem, with the genius of the Gospel?-to dissociate the enthusiasm of the patriot, or the emotions inspired by the contemplation of nature, from those corrective principles, without which our noblest passions and our sweetest pleasures are fraught with danger and impurity? Or has Mr. Alison found, on analyzing the principles of taste, that the emotions of imagi native pleasure cannot exist in combination with the element of spiritual life, the hidden principle which unites the heart to Christ?

We know we have pronounced that name, which, though it is exalted, and ought to be endeared, above every name, would produce on the minds of some, the same effect as the name of Allah is fabled to have on the unhallowed spells of enchantment. There is a false devotion, to which the mind is sometimes wrought by the power of sensation, and with which the touching beauty, or solemn magnificence of nature, is adapted to inspire

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the contemplative mind. The same excitement of feeling is sometimes produced by the power of music, and by the pompous ritual of the Roman Catholic Church. The feelings thus excited, being of that deep and indefinite nature, that they will not attach to the determinate forms of sense, refer themselves to invisible objects, and become embodied in vague sentiments of devotion, the character of which depends on the circumstances by which they are suggested. We term that a false devotion, which is thus produced, because it has no necessary connexion with the state of the heart, or the habitual tendency of the character. It has no reference to the revealed character of the Divine Being, nor does it partake of the nature of enlightened obedience to his will. It has nothing in it distinguishing, but in common with the whole class of sentiments to which it belongs,-the benevolence, the melancholy, the sensibility of mere taste;-it is altogether factitious; it may consist with any system of religious belief, or disbelief; it is a mere ebullition of feeling, which leaves behind it no moral residuum.

The inefficiency of this sentimental religion is not the only reason for which it is to be deprecated. The mind learns to rest with complacency in the vague and imperfect notions which it finds most favourable to the indulgence of imagination, and in the fancied security induced by the possession of such undoubted claims to the rewards of piety; it excludes as unnecessary to its own peace or safety, if not as unworthy of its regard, those considerations which respect the very first principles of Christian truth. The religion of the New Testament, though it may be professedly honoured, is felt to be at variance with their habits of association; and the name of Christ falling upon their ear, in their moments of most devout feeling, would be discordant, would sound as if it belonged to a lower and less refined order of sentiments: nay, it is possible that to the mind of the philosophic enthusiast, the name of a Saviour, would come connected with the bare idea of Methodism.

Now we submit it to Mr. Alison, whether the 'views and illustrations' to which he has confined himself, may not have a tendency to encourage in his readers the dangerous errors to which we have adverted. The concluding reflections to his Essays on the Principles of Taste, always appeared to us to be a defective sequel to his philosophy; but we had hoped, that in his Sermons, we should find this deficiency supplied. Our disappointment has been proportioned to the high estimate we have formed of Mr. Alison's powers of mind, and to the opportunity which his fame and influence afforded him of so beneficially impressing the minds of his readers. It was not a common impression which Mr. Alison ought to have contented himself with producing. It was not a small purpose to which his great