We may just discern the shadow all the realities are behind the scenes. From these accusatory periods I again retire, with a painful consciousness of the powers of recrimination possessed by our adversaries; as the exercise of these might so fairly expose the inconsist encies of the Reformed Church. "Thou that abhorrest idols, dost thou commit sacrilege??? With regard to the Estimate of the Religion of the Times made in this treatise, much of it may be examined either as a question of fact, or as a question of degrees. To ascertain the exact truth, is difficult; and we all form our opinions on such subjects as influenced by personal and local circumstances. Many will consider an observer of mankind, if placed in the retirements of the country, as far less able to draw up a report on the spiritual statistics of an empire, than one who resides in the capital, at the head-quarters of human existence. A contrary opinion will be advocated by such as think, that they who dwell among the swarms of a metropolis see mankind chiefly in the mass, while a retired man contemplates his fellows in detail: what he knows, partakes more of familiarity; and is therefore less likely to be inaccurate. A parish is a little world. The history of the neighbouring cottage tells much, very much, of what has been confessed by the inmates of palaces; when they had laid aside the robes of state, and discovered the original equality of man in sorrow, pain, and guilt. In this view, the annals of the poor, as far as the present student has read them, are neither short nor simple. He has not examined the record by the lights of Goldsmith and Thompson, but under the tuition of such masters as Cowper and Crabbe-or rather, he trusts, as guided by the Volume, where one of these poets found that scheme of Divine philosophy which he explained and applied, with such extraordinary skill and fidelity, in reference to all classes of society. WE,' said Henry of Agincourt to his Princess-or, at least, our dramatic historian, with his ready sagacity, has said iț for him— WE are the makers of manners.' What is thus made, descends, by regular gradations, to our villagers; and on this point I may be forgiven, by the admirers of good sense, and of the eloquence of poetry, if I cite, for the second time, what I have employed on a very different occasion * : 'Yet why, you ask, these humble crimes relate? • Memoirs of a West-India Planter.' 1827. 19. To shew the great, those mightier sons of pride, Such are their natures, and their passions such, His own low pleasures, and degenerate mind; As to the literary demerits of this book, let them be visited with all the severity of criticism; but on one condition,-that my guilt as an author shall not draw the judge's attention from my subject. On this head, I would re mind the reader of Dr. Johnson's remarks on the degeneracy of the dispute between Milton and Salmasius. I am also conscious how extremely unfavourable it must be to a writer's claims to consistency, and to the orderly arrangement of his materials, when, as in the present instance, a work has been composed at various times, and during a succession of events bearing upon the topics under examination. It is, further, exposed to offences of repetition. At the close of the Reflections on the Revolution in France,' first published in the autumn of 1790, their author says to his cor * Crabbe's Works.' 1823. i. 22. respondent I have told you candidly my sentiments. I think they are not likely to alter yours: I do not know that they ought. You are young: you cannot guide, but must follow the fortune of your country. But hereafter they may be of some use to you, in some future form which your commonwealth may take. In the present, it can hardly remain; but, before its final settlement, it may be obliged to pass, as one of our poets says, through great varieties of untried being;" and in all its transmigrations to be purified by fire and blood.' The prophetic character of the last sentence was verified by the desolations of Europe for the succeeding twenty-five years. At the end of that period, peace was restored to France and to the surrounding nations. The reflectors of the present day think that we are on the eve of another revolution, which will assume the form of a war of opinions; while many exclaim, in the lines following Mr. Burke's citation from Addison, Through what new scenes and changes must we pass! Those who honour this essay with a perusal, will soon discover that its author looks to the gloomy quarter of the horizon. At the same time, he would aspire to the confidence, that t there is not the least cause of anxiety as to the final result of whatever calamities God may, in the interval, choose to inflict upon mankind. If he should see fit to purify his church by fire and blood, such as pass through the painful process will yet have cause to own, "True and righteous are thy judgments, thou King of saints!" If, on the other hand, the world continue its present comparatively pacific course, and so pass onward to a period of millennial glory, we know-or ought to know that the servants of God, of whatever division of the universal church, will be preserved from the allurements and insidious temptations ever attendant upon a state of external tranquillity. "I pray not," said the Son of God to his Father, that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word. And now I am no more in the world; but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me; that they may be one, as we are." Would that the feelings, which this act of the Redeemer's intercession ought properly to inspire in our bosoms, were ever present and influ a |