to call forth such a sympathy with itself, as to bring into exercise capacities and feelings of which he might be previously unconscious. For this, indeed, it generally requires that the mind be entirely committed to the commanding influence of the superior spirit, unfettered and unchilled by any effort of critical attention. If, then, we are universally known to be the dullest, and most indurated of the species; if, while engaged in the very exercise of our hardening and cramping occupation, we have actually felt for once something like an inspiring and expanding influence; our readers may judge, by such a fact, of the claims of a work to their regard, by which so extraordinary an effect has been produced; avoiding, however, as much as possible, personal remark, we shall endeavour to give some general idea of the objects and contents of the work. We learn, from a brief advertisement, that the hope of a bright era of renovation, presently awaiting the Christian church, "has impelled the author to undertake the difficult task of describing, under its various forms, that FICTITIOUS PIETY which hitherto has never failed to appear in times of unusual religious excitement;" and we learn further, "that while it has been his principal aim to present before the Christian reader the character of that perilous illusion, which too often supplants genuine piety, he has also endeavoured so to fix the sense of the term Enthusiasm, as to wrest it from those who misuse it to their own infinite danger." The double object, therefore, of the writer, would seem to be, to describe to the Christian what is enthusiasm, and not religionand to show to others, what is religion and not enthusiasm, that both may be upon their guard against taking, though in opposite senses, the one for the other. The work consists of ten sections; of these, as it would be impossible to give any thing like a correct analysis, we shall here enumerate the titles, from which a general idea of the nature of the work may be formed. 1. Enthusiasm, Secular and Religious. 2. Enthusiasm in Devotion. 3. Enthusiastic Perversions of the Doctrine of Divine Influence. 4. Enthusiasm, the Source of Heresy. 5. Enthusiasm of Prophetical Interpretation. 6. Enthusiastic Abuses of the Doctrine of a particular Providence. 7. Enthusiasm of Philanthropy. 8. Sketch of the Enthusiasm of the Ancient Church. 9. The same subject-Ingredients of the Ancient Monachism. Hints on the probable Spread of Christianity, submitted to those who misuse the term-Enthusiasm. 10. have To us the first of these sections is the least satisfactory, for though it is designed to ascertain and fix the meaning of the term, it does not contain any very clear or pointed definition of it. The author has chosen to convey his views rather by general illustrative observations. We should been glad, in such a work, to meet with something more specific and logical. It would have been easy for him, if he really had in his mind a certain individual conception which he attached to the term, to have constructed some precise definition, embracing that one and only sense in which he understood and intended to employ it. Had he done this, in connexion with a few animadversions on its common but improper applications, his readers would immediately have possessed a perspicuous view of the general principles on which he proceeds. We do not say that he has not done something like this; almost all that we have required may, to a certain degree, be obtained by close attention to his introductory remarks; still, in establishing primary positions, of which it is so important that our notions be neither redundant, imperfect, nor confused, we certainly prefer a style less eloquent and discursive than that which, in its proper place, constitutes one of the distinguishing charms of the present work. The following passage contains the writer's general view of what is, and what is not, Enthusiasm. "Nature has furnished each of the active faculties with a sensibility to pleasure in its own exercise: this sensibility is the spring of spontaneous exertion; and if the intellectual constitution be robust, it serves to stimulate labour, and yet itself observes a modest sobriety, leaving the forces of the mind to do their part without embarrassment. The pleasureable emotion is always subordinate and subservient, never predominant or importunate. But in minds of a less healthy temperament, the emotion of pleasure, and the consequent excitement, is disproportionate to the strength of the faculties. The efficient power of the understanding is therefore overborne, and left in the rear; there is more of commotion than of action; more of movement than of progress; more of enterprise than of achievement. "Such then are those who, in due regard both to the essential differences of character, and to the proprieties of language, should be termed Enthusiasts. To apply an epithet which carries with it an idea of folly, of weakness, and of extravagance, to a vigorous mind, efficiently as well as ardently engaged in the pursuit of any substantial and important object, is not merely to misuse a word, but to introduce confusion among our notions, and to put contempt upon what is deserving of respect. Where there is no error of imagination-no misjudging of realities-no calculations which reason condemns, there is no enthusiasm, even though the soul may be on fire with the velocity of its movement in pursuit of its chosen object. If once we abandon this distinction, language will want a term for a well-known and very comN. S. No. 54. mon vice of the mind ; and, from a wasteful perversion of phrases, we must be reduced to speak of qualities most noble and most base by the very same designation. If the objects which excite the ardour of the mind are substantial, and ducive to their attainment; if, in a word, if the mode of pursuit be truly conall be real and genuine, then it is not one degree more, or even many degrees more, of intensity of feeling that can alter the character of the emotion. Enthusiasm is not a term of measurement, but of quality."--pp. 6, 7. His notions of religious enthusiasm may be learned from the following passages. supplanted by a religion of the imagina"The religion of the heart may be tion, just in the same way that the social affections are often dislodged or corrupted by factitious sensibilities. Every one knows that an artificial excitement of all the kind and tender emotions of medium of the imagination. Hence the our nature may take place through the power of poetry and the drama. But every one must also know, that these feelings, however vivid and seemingly however nearly they may resemble the pure and salutary they may be, and genuine workings of the soul, are so far from producing the same softening effect upon the character, that they tend rather to indurate the heart."--p. 9. "A process of perversion and of induration precisely similar may have place also among the religious emotions; for the laws of human nature are uniform, whatever may be the immediate cause which puts them in action; and a fictitious piety corrupts or petrifies the heart not less certainly than does a romantic sentimentality. The danger attending enthusiasm in religion is not then of a trivial sort; and whoever disaffects the substantial matters of Christianity, and seeks to derive from it merely, or chiefly, the gratifications of excited feeling; whoever combines from its materials a paradise of abstract contemplation, or of poetic imagery, where he may take refuge from the annoyances and the importunate claims of common life;-whoever thus delights himself with dreams, and is insensible to realities, lives in peril of awaking from his illusions when truth comes too late. The religious idealist, perhaps, sincerely believes himself to be eminently devout; and those who witness his abstraction, his elevation, his enjoyments, may reverence his piety; meanwhile this fictitious Tt happiness creeps as a lethargy through the moral system, and is rendering him continually less and less susceptible of those emotions in which true religion consists."--pp. 10, 11. From these, and similar pas sages, it would seem, that the writer limits the use of the term enthusiasm to what is specifically bad. It would be improper, therefore, to speak of "philosophic enthusiasm, or "patriotic enthusiasm," or to apply the word to any display of character of which we wish to express admiration. This is frequently done, although it is generally used as expressive of contempt; and against this employment of the same term, to designate the objects of such opposite sentiments, the "author of the Essays" enters his protest. The term, he thinks, should be invariably used in a condemnatory sense; it indicates exclusively what is extravagant, ideal, and factitious. It is enthusiasm to fix attention and to expend feeling on the accidents rather than the currency of things; to pursue phantoms instead of substances; to aim at an elevation in virtue, incompatible with the laws and duties of the present state; or to indulge any feeling uncalled for by existing realities. But no fervour of emotion; no sacrifice of self; no energetic display of mind or character, secular, or religious, can properly be denominated enthusiasm, if the exciting or impelling object be justly apprehended, and only adequately felt; or, in practical matters, if the purpose be worthy man, and the means worthy the purpose. So long as the feeling and the conduct are in keeping, so to speak, with the mind's just perceptions, resources, and duty, the individual is not to be represented as actuated by enthusiasm; where there is not this correspondence, We are inclined to question some two or three of the positions assumed or expressed in this section, but to do so would require a disquisition into which it is impossible, at present, to enter. We must hasten to inform our readers of the exquisite repast furnished for them in the succeeding divisions of the work. The second section contains some of the most powerful and splendid illustrations of the whole book. Besides exhibiting the true idea of devotion, it dissects, in an admirable manner, the enthusiasm of the Romish worship, and the enthusiasm of popular eloquence. The third is pre-eminently beautiful and just. It is distinguished throughout by the most exquisite purity of language, and exhibits both the subject and its perversions in a way, which as much convinces the understanding by its rational philosophy, as it charms the ear by its felicity of diction. The fourth displays great originality; it comprehends the enthusiasm of mysticism, and the enthusiasm of simplicity; that is, the Antinomian and the rationalist; the Christian stoic, and the philosophical believer. The fifth is a powerful piece of clear and convincing argument, and a fine elucidation, both of Scriptural principles, and Christian duty, in relation to the subject in question. It establishes an admirable rule, discriminative of the just medium between the neglect and the mania of prophetical interpretation. The sixth may be eminently serviceable to the sanguine and the inexperienced, in correcting their absurd anticipations of futurity, and teaching them the true philosophy of life. The events and circumstances of existence are divided into two classes, those which are so certain and regular as to partake of the nature of fixed laws; and those which are so unexpected in their occurrence, as not to be forseen by any extent of human sagacity. The one are those with which we have to do, and upon which all plans and calculations should proceed; the other, so to speak, are those which "the Father hath put in his own power;" he who calculates perpetually on the latter, is an enthusiast, even though he were remarkable for nothing but a general apathy and sluggishness of mind and feeling; he who proceeds on the former is not, even should he display, in the prose cution of his purposes, the most intense and fervid manifestations of character. These, and similar topics, are illustrated at length, in a manner the most forcible and felicitous. The seventh enumerates the peculiarities of Christian benevolence, as distinguished from what we may term natural philanthropy, and displays the provision which is made in the Gospel by opposite considerations, to prevent, at once, languor and enthusiasm, and in a way which, as to the first topic, at least, is both original and striking. The eighth and ninth are the most learned, and the most vigorously written, perhaps, of any in the volume; and they show too, the most thorough acquaintance with human nature. The writer has powerfully exposed the absurdity of aiming at unearthly excellence, and has evinced, by many admirable observations, the propriety of eminence being sought by man only in human and attainable virtue. The tenth and last chapter deserves the profound attention both of the friends and the enemies of missions. It confirms and animates the one by arguments, appealing to reason, rather than to faith; and it urges on the other, with the precision and force of a scientific demonstration, the fact, that the past history of Christianity, combined with the signs of the times, indicates its speedy prevalence as a universal religion, irrespectively of the question of its truth or falsehood. It We cannot attempt to give extracts from any section so as to afford our readers an idea of the mode in which any particular subject is designed and illustrated; but we shall append to these remarks a few specimens, from different parts of the work, from which some judgment may be formed of the talents of the writer. Of the style, (though always in itself con- · sidered a subordinate thing,) we must be permitted to remark, that it is distinguished by copiousness, purity, amplitude and force. combines, in general, the chasteness of Hall, with the powers of Forster. It has more strength, indeed, than the one, and more flexibility than the other. It is occasionally broken, however, by something like a harsh expression, or grotesque figure, very similar to what we sometimes meet with in the latter writer; and the work abounds, like the productions of the same person, with images distinguished at once by their adaptation to the subject, and their own intrinsic grandeur and beauty. The volume is destined, we do think, to produce a very powerful impression on the rising race of Christians and ministers, and, perhaps, to forward, in a very great degree, that splendid consummation, on which the mind of the author, in common with that of all good men, seems intently to be fixed. Who or what the writer is, we know not, and we have not a conjecture. We can only say, that we believe the popularity of the work, though thus cast like an orphan on the world, will soon prove, in spite of the querulous complaints of disappointed authorship, that the public can appreciate the productions of genius, when it actually has such upon which to pronounce its verdict; and still farther we can say, that the author is a Christian, and an intelligent one; he may be a Churchman, or he may be a Dissenter for any thing that appears, but a Quaker it does appear that he most certainly is not. on Every ambitious attempt to break through the humbling conditions which man may hold communion with God, must then fail of success; since the Supreme has fixed the scene of worship and converse, not in the skies, but on earth. The Scripture models of devotion, far from encouraging vague and inarticulate contemplations, consist of such utterances of desire, or hope, or love, as seem to suppose the existence of correlative feelings, and of every human sympathy in Him to whom they are addressed. And though reason and Scripture assure us that He neither needs to be informed of our wants, nor waits to be moved by our supplications, yet will He be approached with the eloquence of importunate desire, and he demands not only a sincere feeling of indigence and dependance, but an undissembled zeal and diligence in seeking the desired boons by persevering request. He is to be supplicated with arguments as one who needs to be swayed and moved, to be wrought upon and influenced; nor is any alternative offered to those who would present themselves at the throne of heavenly grace, or any exception made in favour of superior spirits, whose more elevated notions of the divine perfections may render this accommodated style distasteful. As the Hearer of prayer stoops to listen, so also must the suppliant stoop from the heights of philosophical or meditative abstractions, and either come in genuine simplicity of petition, as a son to a father, or be utterly excluded from the friendship of his Maker."--pp. 30, 31. "From the accidents of the position in which we are placed, the divine influence may appear under an aspect immensely unlike that in which we should view it, if our prospect of the intelligent universe were more extended than it is. mer's noon. Thus the sad tenant of a dungeon, who has spent the days of many years alive otherwise of the light of the sun, as he in the darkness of the tomb, thinks watches the pencil ray that traverses his prison wall, than those do who walk abroad amid the splendours of the sumOr we may imagine a world of once animated beings to be lying in the coldness and corruption of death, and we may suppose that the creative power returns and reanimates instantaneously to the warmth, and some among the dead, restoring them vigour, and enjoyments of life. The spectator of this partial resurrection who had long contemplated nothing but the dismal stillness and corruption of the universal death, might, in his glad amazement, forget that the death of so many, not the life of the few, is anomalous, and strange, and contrary to the order of nature. The miracle, if so he will term it, is nothing morenothing else, than what is every instant taking place throughout the wide realms of happy and virtuous existence. The life-giving energy, whose beams of expansive beneficence had been for a while, and in this world of death, intercepted or withdrawn, has returned with a kindling revulsion to its wonted channel ; and now moves on in copious tranquillity. And yet the dead may out-number the living: nevertheless the condition of the former, not that of the latter, is extraordinary; and the return to life, however amazing it may seem, can with no propriety be called supernatural. "The language of Scripture, when it asserts the momentous doctrine of the renovation of the soul by the immediate agency of the Spirit of God, employs figurative terms which, while they give the utmost possible force to the truth so conveyed, indicate clearly the congruity of the change with the original construction of human nature. The return to virtue and happiness is--a resurrection to life; or it is a new birth; or it is the opening of the eyes of the blind, or the unstopping the ears of the deaf; or it is the springing up of a fountain of purity; or it is a gale of heaven, neither seen nor known but by its effects; or it is the growth and fructification of the grain; home of a friend, or the residence of or it is the abode of a guest in the the Deity in His temple. Each of these emblems, and all others used in the Scriptures in reference to the same subject, combines the double idea of a change --great, definite, and absolute; and of a change from disorder, corruption, derangement, to a natural and permanent condition; they are all manifestly chosen |