around us, to bring us at once into contact and sympathy, and make us even to-day members of the same family, it cannot surely be inferred, as some have hastily imagined, that we hereby contemplate the communication to you of extraordinary powers, or recognize any increased authority to your ministration, but such as may result from a heartdeeply affected, and an understanding influenced by the lessons of experience. We dread superstition, and deprecate the unauthorized assumption of transmitted sanctity. We are no favourers of ought that would narrow the road to heaven, or would impede it with obstacles of human invention. But it is possible, we think, to be "supersti tiously afraid of superstition ;"-and we would not reject the unexceptionable means to a good end, because these means may be occasionally associated with objectionable practices. Religion is not bad because some extract from it little but bitterness and gloom, uncharitableness and anathema, or soil its purity by allying it to worldly ambition and individual cupidity. Public worship is not to be abandoned because it may be, and has been, converted into idle pageantry and heartless show. We will not discard our simple ministry through dread of the pomp and circumstance of mitred churches and political establishments. And therefore, Sir, as we hope that you are to aid us in fashioning the youthful mind to the reception of the highest and purest motives, and the conduct of our children to practical virtue; and that your instructions will tend to guard all against the inroads of that selfishness which active engagements in the world are too apt to generate, and to strengthen all in whatever is praiseworthy and of good report-we do not think it either unnatural or unwise to commence our connexion with you by listening to admonitions and joining in a service calculated simply to impress upon our minds the vital importance of the objects we are pursuing, and the means most likely to ensure their attainment. Having thus imperfectly stated the feelings and intentions with which we have invited the services of this day, I will conclude, my dear Sir, by again tendering to you the right hand of fellowship, and expressing, in the name of the congregation, our most fervent wishes for your success and happiness. Epitaph in Wanstead Churchyard on a Tomb-stone erected The battle fought ;- -we hope the crown is won. The Restoration of Israel. By the Rev. George Croly. [From "The Amulet, or Literary and Christian Remembrancer" for 1827, a beautiful little volume which is cordially recommended to the reader.] "And I heard a voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and HE shall dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God."-REV. xxi. 3. KING of the dead! how long shall sweep Has Israel steeped her bread in tears; Flight, famine, shame, the scourge, the sword! The world within their hearts has died; The lip, involuntary prayer; The form still marked with many a stain Brand of the soil, the scourge, the chain; The serf of Afric's fiery ground; The slave, by Indian suns embrowned; The weary drudges of the oar, By the swart Arab's poisoned shore, The gatherings of earth's wildest tract On bursts the living cataract ! What strength of man can check its speed? Who leads their march? Beneath His wheel Even for this hour thy heart's blood streamed ! What flames upon the distant sky? Scenes! that the patriarch's visioned eye Whose sceptre shakes the solid globe, Whom shapes of fire and splendour guard? Down in the dust, aye, Israel, kneel; Evangelical Preaching. Homerton, October 15, 1826. SIR, RAM'S CHAPEL in this place was introduced to the readers of the Christian Reformer in your last volume, pp. 19-28. I was induced to visit it on Sunday last, by the public announcement that two Sermons in behalf of the Church Missionary Society would be preached there by the Rev. Hugh M'Neile, M. A, "Rector of Albury, and Chaplain to his Excellency the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and to his Grace the Archbishop of Dublin." The fame of this gentleman preceded his appearance, and produced, in the evening especially, an overflowing audience. -He is without doubt an extraordinary man: very prepossessing in his appearance, and earnest, eloquent, impassioned in his delivery. There is a sort of witchery about him, which, even in spite of themselves, rivets the attention of his hearers. He that should go to laugh, would be disposed to remain and seriously hear; not because he would admire the preacher's doctrines-they, I should think, are rather too high-seasoned to be palatable to the majority of regular professors-but because of the solemn earnestness which characterizes his discourse throughout. Mr. M'Neile is the most violent preacher I ever heard, yet there is no appearance of cant or affectation. The most hardened scoffer would swear to his sincerity: tone, look, action, all declare that what he says he feels. There is, all the freshness of nature about him. He is an orator, and a fine one; but his is not the oratory of the college feeling, not rule, regulates the tone of his voice. He gave us a sermon in the morning on Human Depravity-one which few of his hearers can hardly ever forget: it must have made their blood run cold. Talk of the horrors of the Assembly's Catechism-they are nothing in comparison. The doctrines were the same, but Mr. M'Neile gave them all the advantage of his fine and commanding oratory, and the effect on his audience must have been powerful. I could not forbear an involuntary shudder now and then as this Rev. gentleman described the state of man here and his prospects hereafter. He is, Heaven knows, no preacher of "smooth words." The old arch Enemy of man could not speak more rancorously of human nature than he did. All the opprobrious epithets which St. Paul : applies to particular classes of wilful transgressors were borrowed by Mr. M'Neile to describe the character of every natural man. We are idolators, adulterers, drunkards, revellers, murderers, lovers of witchcraft, strife, sedition, heresies, and I know not what else besides. These vices meet in and branch out from the heart, like the spokes of a wheel (the preacher's own figure) from its centre. Much had been said about the dignity of human nature. Even in Christian England, philosophers had talked and written about man's inherent love of justice, of his gratitude, his generosity, his high sense of honour, his love of piety and goodness his mind had been compared to a sheet of white paper, on which either good or bad impressions might be written by education. But," said the reverend gentleman, "'tis a lie-as black a lie as was ever hatched by Beelzebub himself."-He spoke of "the pest of Socinianism," which he was informed greatly infested the neigh bourhood-a -a system which went to the utter denial of the most plainly-taught doctrines of God's word: man's fallen state was one which it discarded, although without that doctrine there was "neither beauty nor symmetry in the gospel."-Adam represented the whole human race; when he sinned all sinned and became justly exposed to eternal damnation, Every generation that shall exist to the end of time, as much transgressed in the sight of God as did the actual transgressor, for by disobedience man's whole nature became changed. As the offspring of Adam, we partake of his nature in all its baseness and offensiveness of consequence, we must be hateful to a God of purity. Many persons, Mr. M'Neile said, shrank instinctively from the reception of this doctrine when it was presented to to them in its plain, naked form. But what did this prove? That "our thoughts are not as God's thoughts." It was a doctrine taught plainly, unequivocally in Scripture; those who professed to believe in the Bible were bound to receive it. God had spoken in his word; man's part was to hear, receive, obey. After the statement of a doctrine comes its application. Mr. M'Neile argued, first, that the notion of man's complete depravity is a grand corrective of pride. This will be granted on all sides. No very great self-esteem can that man have who really believes himself incapable of thinking and doing aught but evil. Quite as natural a result, too, from this doctrine, which the preacher did not |
