Bedarkens and confounds the mind of man. Vol. 11. p. 77. There are many such passages, which show an aptitude for observation and a depth of moral remark. Still he cannot be numbered with the moral poets; he cannot be placed by the side of Cowper, for example, or Southey, or Wordsworth. It is observable, too, that he has availed himself scarcely at all of the fine religious uses of such a catastrophe; he sends no thought of the suffering and the penitent up to God, casts no glance of the disappointed and dying beyond the grave. In Roderick, the whole story of abandonment and crime is hallowed, and every thought of indelicacy is rebuked, by the commanding presence of a religious idea; the agonies of a wounded conscience and the peace of devout penitence are taught in powerful and pathetic strains. To no such great results are we led in the work before us. The story goes on according to the progress. of the natural retributions of Providence; there is the stern law of error, then suffering, then death, and there is the end; -a process which a heathen poet might equally well have depicted, and which gave to a Christian an opportunity, never by such an one to be passed by, for teaching the high and immortal philosophy of human life, as it stands in revelation ;for connecting the story of this feverish and wretched existence, not only with the severe law of an invisible Providence, us irrefragable as fate, but with the benignant purposes of the sympathizing Father, and the everlasting destinies of the spiritual world. We are aware it may be said, that these remarks go rather gainst the whole subject and purpose of the poem, than to prove an error in the execution of the plan, being what it is. And in truth this is what we have wished to say. We are longing for a poem of a totally different character. We want to see the great poem which shall be produced by the perfect union of genius, philosophy, and true religion, exerted of set purpose, not to amuse, but to instruct and elevate. We are tired of the low and unmeaning purposes to which poetry has been so long devoted. Genius has a better task to perform, owes a higher debt to society and man, than to paint this outside of the soul in colors which are to fade, than to sing of virtue and humanity in strains which cannot be sung in heaven. Literature has too long been content to be superficial, to hold it her perfection to manage sentences and treat light subjects gracefully. Wonderful is it, how much talent has been wasted in composing, and how much panegyric in applauding, works of high pretension, which have no merit beyond their finished execution, which impart not a glow to one good feeling, which teach no truth to the understanding, which encourage no good sentiment in the heart. The world ought to be tired of this empty labor of its gifted minds; those minds ought to disdain. the insignificant employment; and all who care for the virtue or improvement of man, who would have society any thing more than a company of light-minded and effeminate idlers, should be as incapable, as was Cuvier, of reading a book which "teaches nothing" without the "greatest irritation." We do not mean to overlook the fact, while we are writing thus, that there are those who have done their duty in the manner that we suggest, and consecrated their pens to the lasting themes of truth and man. It would be ungratefully to forget some of the most admirable names on the record of time. Let us never mourn the worse than waste of genius in the times of Charles the Second, without remembering, that it was preceded by the glorious Milton; and when we speak sadly of the profligate pen of Byron, and the objectless effusions of many of his distinguished contemporaries, let us not forget the several lofty names among them, that have been sternly true to their holy trust. We certainly cannot join the apotheosis with which his idolatrous followers are honoring the departure of Coleridge; we cannot be persuaded that the strenuous efforts of Wordsworth's admirers will raise him to the rank which they claim for him; but we reverence and applaud both of those eminent men for their fidelity to the higher nature of man, and their endeavour to lift poetry out of the earthy and trifling track in which it has been so much condemned to walk. We acknowledge also the claim of Southey, a writer whose fame, in our humble judgment, is yet to soar high above many who have been more admired, - to the honorable place of a religious poet. We join heartily the tribute which has been paid to the devout and heart-sustaining minstrelsy of Mrs. Hemans, who made faith and heaven charming even to the worldly; not to forget Montgomery and others, who have given noble proof that they not barely desired to please the ear with a sweet sound, but were anxious to purify and instruct. It is time that all were such. It is time that every poem had its object, and that object a lofty one; and there is none lofty, in any adequate sense, excepting that which recognises, as chief in man, the spiritual nature and the spiritual life; which loves, and addresses itself to, the sentiments that belong to his immortal condition; which communes with him as a creature infinitely exposed, tried, perilled, and infinitely blessed, and sings to him in strains which breathe of heaven, which help him to find the way to heaven, which are responses to the harps of the angels and the hymns of the cherubim, and which he may as fitly sing in the paradise of God and in company with the Eternal, as in this vale of mortal pilgrimage. Already there is much of this holy song floating on the heavy atmosphere of earth, and filling it, to those whose ears are open, with the deep enchantment of heaven. Genius has oftentimes put on the wings of an angel, and borrowed the strings of a seraph's lyre, when he has poured out his soul in overflowing melody. We would it were always so. Pity that the poeta should ever be disjoined from the vates. He ought to regard himself, inspired as he is beyond other men, as consecrated to the highest range of thought, -as one of the servants of the universal altar, on whose frontlet should be written "Holiness to the Lord." What is earthly and perishable he should leave to a meaner race, and, aspiring to immortality, should feel the immortality of earthly fame to be insufficient. H. W. JR. ART. VII.- A Narrative of the Visit to the American Churches by the Deputation from the Congregational Union of England and Wales. By ANDREW REED, D. D. and JAMES MATHESON, D. D. In Two Volumes. New York. 1835. 12mo. pp. 336 and 363. In the spring of the last year two gentlemen were deputed by the Congregational Union, an active and powerful body among the English Dissenters, to reciprocate sentiments of Christian affection and fellowship with their Orthodox brethVOL. XIX. - - 3D S. VOL. 1. NO. II. 33 ren in this country, and also, by careful and exact inquiries on the spot, to obtain a better understanding of the character and tendency of some recent movements in the American churches, and of the constitution and government of the churches themselves. We are far from wishing to call in question the general competency of these gentlemen for the work they undertook, or the general fairness and impartiality of their accounts in regard to those things which they themselves saw or heard. The gross and often ludicrous blunders occurring in their "Narrative" are to be traced for the most part, we presume, either to their own innocent mistakes as strangers and foreigners, or to the easy credit which they naturally gave to the misstatements of those who ought to have known, and probably did know better. Soon after their arrival at New York they proceeded to Washington, Congress being in session; then returned to New York so as to be present at the religious anniversaries in that city early in May; then repaired to Philadelphia to attend the meetings of the General Assembly; then hurried away to Boston, where they passed Election week; from Boston they went by the way of Burlington to Quebec, visited the Falls on their way back, and proceeded thence to Erie, on Lake Erie. Here the gentlemen separated, Dr. Matheson traversing the interior of Pennsylvania alone, while Dr. Reed made a rapid tour through the Western States, and returned by the Virginia route to Philadelphia, where they again met. After this they spent some time in the western counties of New York, and in a second visit to New England, and then returned to Liverpool, in the same vessel which brought them out, Dr. Reed having, as he says, travelled in seven months no less than thirteen thousand miles. Of course it is not in our plan to follow these gentlemen step by step in their journeyings; but it may be useful to set down some of the general conclusions to which they came on subjects on which they had the best means of making up a well-considered and impartial judgment, and also to correct a few of the absurd inaccuracies into which they fell by trusting in other matters to idle rumors, or to the hearsay of prejudiced or perverse informers. No one subject occupied so much of the attention of the Deputation as the new measures adopted in what are called "Revivals of Religion." In speaking particularly of the "Anxious Seat," Dr. Reed observes ; "Then, as an evidence of character, it is certainly among the worst that can well be employed. It is a measure highly inviting to the ignorant, the vain, and the self-conceited; and it is equally repulsive and difficult to the timid, the modest, and reflective. I can hardly conceive of a delicate and well-educated young female, being able to meet such a demand in the face of a large congregation, unless she regards it as a duty to Christ, and a term of her salvation; and then in obeying she does violence to those feelings, which are the safeguard and the beauty of her character. I have seen such young persons shrink and shudder at the call, through modesty, and then comply through fear; and, when complying, writhing from distress under hysterical tortures. But who has a right to exact all this amount of suffering? And is it not the worse, if it is not only unnecessary, but prejudicial, to the end proposed, by diverting the attention to a bodily service, from what alone is of acknowledged importance?"— Vol. 1. p. 33. He afterwards speaks of the hazardous and precipitate conclusions to which it leads. "Such notices as the following are common in the several religious papers: "Last Sabbath day I attended a camp meeting; it was orderly and solemn; and thirty-one professed to indulge hope.' "On Saturday an awful solemnity was on the assembly. On Sabbath morning three persons gave themselves away to Christ, and were admitted to the church.' "A protracted meeting began on Monday. On the following Saturday the session examined twenty-one; all of whom were next day admitted to the church.' "On the second day of the meeting, the anxious and the converts were called on to separate themselves from the rest of the congregation.' "On the last day,' at another meeting, about four hundred, if I mistake not, assembled in the anxious room. The converts being called on to separate themselves from the anxious, about one third declared themselves converts.' "A revival preacher, after delivering a sermon, called on the anxious to meet him in the lecture-room. About two hundred obeyed. He called on them to kneel in prayer; and he offered an alarming and terrific prayer. They arose. As many of you,' he said, "as have given yourselves to God, in that prayer, go into the NewConvert room.' Upwards of twenty went. Now,' he said to the remainder, 'let us pray.' He prayed again in like manner. He then challenged those who had given themselves to God in that prayer, to go into the New-Convert room. Another set fol |