now beats high with virtuous or with vitious desire, will gradually sink, and then must stop for ever. We rise from our meditations with hearts softened and subdued, and we return into life as into a shadowy scene, where we have "disquieted ourselves in vain."

"Yet a few years, we think, and all that now bless, or all that now convulse humanity will also have perished. The mightiest pageantry of life will pass-the loudest notes of triumph or of conquest will be silent in the grave;—the wicked, wherever active, "will cease from troubling," and the weary, wherever suffering, "will be at rest." Under an impression so profound, we feel our own hearts better. The cares, the animosities, the hatreds, which society may have engendered, sink unperceived from our bosoms. In the general desolation of nature, we feel the littleness of our own passions;-we look forward to that kindred evening which time must bring to all-we anticipate the graves of those we hate, as of those we love. Every unkind passion falls, with the leaves that fall 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.

"If there were no other effects, my brethren, of such appearances of nature upon our minds, they would still be valuable-they would teach us humility-and with it they would teach us charity." P. 323 -331.

The final application of this great moral of nature is as follows:

"There is an even-tide in human life; a season when the eye becomes dim, and the strength decays, and when the winter of age begins to shed upon the human head its prophetic snow. It is the season of life to which the present is most analogous; and much it becomes, and much it would profit you, my elder brethren, to mark the instructions which the season brings. The spring and the summer of your days are gone, and, with them, not only the joys they knew, but many of the friends who gave them. You have entered upon the autumn of your being; and whatever may have been the profusion of your spring, or the warm intemperance of your summer, there is yet a season of stillness and of solitude which the beneficence of Heaven affords you, in which you may meditate upon the past and the future, and prepare yourselves for the mighty change which you are soon to undergo.

"In the long retrospect of your journey, you have seen every day the shades of the evening fall, and every year the clouds of winter gathering. But you have seen, also, every succeeding day, the morning arise in its brightness, and in every succeeding year the spring return to renovate the winter of nature. It is now you may understand the magnificent language of heaven-it mingles its voice with that of revelation-it summons you, in these hours when the leaves fall, and the winter is gathering, to that evening study which the mercy of heaven has provided in the book of salvation: And, while the shadowy valley opens which leads to the abode of death, it speaks of that hand which can comfort and can save, and which can conduct to those

green pastures, and those still waters," where there is an eternal spring for the children of God." P. 338. 340.

In the discourse on Summer, there is more of practical admonition. After mentioning it as the season when the great and wealthy retire from the business and the dissipations of the town to their possessions in the country, he takes occasion to make some admirable observations on the peculiar advantages and duties of great landed proprietors in a country like ours,

"Other men," he observes, "must struggle with the world, before they can raise themselves into distinction and influence. He, on the contrary, is born a ruler of the people; and the same laws which convey to him the title to his lands, convey to him the welfare or the wretchedness of the men who inhabit them. His opinions, in many ways, become the model of theirs;-his example is able, either to strengthen or to shake their most important principles of morality :and his power can make itself felt, even within the walls of the lowest cottage, either in disseminating joy, or diffusing sorrow. From the agitations of the great world, the obscurity of the poor renders them happily free: and, amid the calm occupations of sequestered industry, even the influence of legislature is but distinctly felt. But the influence of their landlord is felt in every day and in every occupation of their lives; and he alone, of all the various members of society, has the power of realizing the beautiful description of the Patriarch of old: "When I went out of the gate, the young men saw me, and hid themselves; and the aged arose, and stood up. When the ear heard me, then it blessed me: and when the eye saw me, it gave witness unto me. I delivered the poor and the fatherless, and him that had none to help him, The blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon me, and I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy." P. 200-202.

And a little after, he breaks out into the following touching and persuasive appeal:

R Seated in the midst of an obedient and humble people, how many are the blessings which even common kindness may diffuse! If it be the young who are wandering into error or folly, it is your advice which best can restrain, and most effectually warn them. If it be talents and genius which are struggling in obscurity, it is your hand which can raise them up, and lead them into the road of honour and independence. If it be misfortune which bows down the poor man's head, and makes him look to futurity with tears, it is your pity and forbearance which can give him more than wealth, and rekindle anew the spirit of industry, and the hope of better days. If it be the gray hairs of the decayed labourer which bend before you, it is you who can give them shelter, and, in some little corner of your land, let them fall to the grave in peace.

"How well, too, is this situation suited to the exercise of female humanity! and, in the scenes far from the turbulent pleasures of fashionable life, how well may female virtue exert its noblest powers! To be the patterns and the protectors of their sex-to cherish the purity of domestic virtue-to guide the mother's hand in the rearing of her children, and teach to them the important lessons of religious education and domestic economy-to awaken, by kind praise, the ambition of the young, and to sooth, with lenient hand, the sorrows of the old-these are the opportunities which such situations afford to female benevolence; the means by which they may exalt the character, and extend the virtues of their sex; and shed upon the lowly cottage of the peasant, blessings which can compensate for all its wants, and all its poverty.

"Nor think, my brethren, that, in this detail of beneficence, there is little use, or that these simple virtues perish with the day that gives them birth. It is they, in fact, which have given its character to our land-and which, knitting by insensible means the affections of the people to their masters, have maintained, in many an hour of danger, the rights and the liberties of all, and spread the riches of cultivation which distinguish our country. And even now the traveller, as he passes, can mark both on the face of nature and on the face of man, whether it is by wisdom or folly-by benevolence or by cruelty, that the district he surveys is governed;—and, while he sighs at the sterility which folly causes, and the misery which oppression has produced, he leaves his blessing on those fields which the wisdom of the landlord has made fertile, and on those men whom his beneficence has made happy." P. 208-210.

He afterwards points out the infinite importance of the promotion of general instruction, among the duties which are enjoined by such a situation; and replies, in the following impressive passage, to the tyrannical and degrading doctrines, over which we rejoice to think that reason and humanity seem at length to have established their triumph.

"There is, indeed, a doctrine of another kinda doctrine which would teach us that the tranquillity of society is only to be maintained by the ignorance of the people-which, for the sake of the few, would consign all the rest of mankind to barbarity and gloom--and which would purchase the gross repose of rank and affluence by the sacrifice of all the qualities of immortal men. To such a doctrine I need not reply. It is replied to by the indignation of every heart that is akin to humanity. It is replied to, in deeper tones, by the history of the world, and by those terrific scenes which our sister island has lately presented to our view. It is in the annals of her late sanguinary story, that you will see what are the fruits of ignorance and barbarity-with what facility the demagogue and the hypocrite may act upon the minds of an untutored people-and to what lengths of savage cruelty they can go, when they burst the only fetters that restrain them. It is there, my

brethren, you will learn, that, by the eternal decree of heaven, the perfection of society is united with the perfection of the individual; that to improve the lower ranks of men, is to give stability to the higher; and that the peace of a nation can never be so securely trusted, as in the hands of those who share in its prosperity, and who are capable of knowing both their rights and their duties." P. 205, 206.

Contrasted with the engaging picture of a beloved and benevolent chief, the preacher has also sketched, though with a more rapid pencil, the portrait of rank degraded, and power abused. Mr. Alison is too gentle in his nature, and too earnest in his holy function, to interweave personalities with his pious admonitions; but it will be difficult, we believe, for his readers, not to make an application of the following odious representation.

"You have seen, even in this country, rank degraded, and power abused-riches dissipated amid every ignoble pleasure-influence devoted only to the dissemination of base or vitious manners-and all the fairest gifts of heaven converted, as by the spell of an enchanter, into the elements of more than mortal death. On such examples, it becomes you well to pause. There was a time, when the lost beings you now behold were innocent and pure-when life opened to them with all the prospects of usefulness and honour-and when the promises of youth afforded no presage of the baseness of their maturity, or the ignominy of their age; and it is for you well to consider, whether theirs be the career that you would wish to run, or theirs the death you would wish to die." P. 184, 185.

We turn now to what may be called the political discourses; and, disgusted as we have been with the hollow vaunting and hostile imprecations with which most of our pulpits have resounded for the last twenty years-we turn to them with a feeling of exultation and delight, which neither the recollection of our past misfortunes, or of our recent deliverance, can abate or repress. They are full of heroic patriotism, christian humility, and prophetic confidence:-no more eloquent or animating exhortations were ever addressed to men arming for their country;-no more upright and temperate sentiments ever expressed, on occasions of great public interest and dissension;-no more weighty and liberal truths ever urged upon the conscience of an intelligent people. Independent altogether of their merit as splendid pieces of eloquence, we know no compositions better calculated to fix, in all youthful and ingenuous minds, an ardent and exalted love of their country, and a knowledge of the reasons for which it should be loved. We begin with the fast sermon of 1801, immediately after the breaking of the peace of Amiens.

"When we look back," says the preacher, "upon the history of antiquity, the prospect is like that of the waves of the ocean; and nations are seen rising for the moment above their ordinary level, to fall back again into the mass from which they arose. If we search for the causes of their fall, we shall find them in their views and their policy. All of them, in their day, have had their own devices-some of them to enslave the people whom they govern--some to extend their power by the atrocities of conquest-others to monopolize the commerce of the world, and to become rich by the oppression of all around them. These mighty devices are now past. The sleep of many hundred years has buried their pride and their guilt in oblivion;-and when we trace the principles upon which they acted, we rejoice, even now, at their fall; and feel the justice of that law, by which the counsel of God alone' is destined to 'stand.'

“We live in times, my brethren, when these truths are not the hearing of the ear,' but when we see them with our eyes.' We live in times, when the judgments of the Lord are in the earth,' when nations are falling around us, and when scarcely a year passes without being marked by the dethronement of monarchs.--Do we look for the causes of these awful events? We shall find them in their national sins; in the corruption of their private manners; in the injustice or oppression of their internal governments; or in the ambition or avarice of their national policy. The period of the devices of man's heart' has arrived, and the counsel of the Lord arises to stand. The foot of guilt has long trod upon the earth, and legions of armed men are sprung up to avenge and to purify it.

"These also, with all their pride, and all their atrocity, will pass. The storm which is now raging over a suffering world will renovate, but not destroy. The empires which perish, will perish only to be re newed in nobler forms, and under more auspicious rule. The power itself, which the Almighty hath made the instrument of his justice, will last but for the time that is appointed; and, when the devices of ambition have passed, like the storms of winter, over a suffering world,' the counsel of the Lord will stand,' and awaken a nobler spring." P. 80-83.

In the same strain of liberal and manly sentiment, he proceeds to consider the war upon which we were then entering.

"If the war we pursue be one which is neither founded in justice nor necessity; if it be a war undertaken to overturn the independence, or abridge the prosperity of any other people; if it be to add to our wealth by the spoils of the world, or to seek our glory by the tears of innocent, or the blood of unoffending, nations; if these be our secret objects in the war, let us not think, nor hope, nor pray for success. Victory may follow victory; achievement may succeed achievement: The pulse of national vanity may beat high; but the counsel of the Almighty' is against our devices. The secret vice which silently pursues its end, is undermining the fabric of all our prosperity; and the destroying angel, who comes from the throne of God to justify Vol. V. New Series.

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