Since the publication of Lady Austin's volumes on the Life and Character of Sydney Smith, almost every literary organ has spoken out with regard to that most remarkable man, and his mental and moral traits have been presented to us as seen from nearly every point of view. Whig and Tory Reviewers have discussed his political opinions and his advocacy of them-gayer writers have pointed their pages with his wit, sarcasm and drollery, as given to the world in the Edinburgh, during many years of the infancy of that brilliant periodical-his bon mots thrown loose among "the walnuts and the wine" at the dinner table, have been collected and put in type, and the whole society of the period in which he moved, has been set before the world as belonging to the life of the joking, eccentric, ease-loving but hard-working Canon of St. Paul's. It has occurred to us that the readers of the Messenger would be interested in the verdict passed upon him as a minister of the Gospel, and with this idea we have selected from two of the ablest religious magazines of the United States, certain passages which will give the evangelical opinion with reference to his clerical career. It will be readily enough supposed that to many fervent Christians Sydney Smith appeared as even an irreligious man. He was certainly very much attached to the objects of sense. The good things of this world-the fleshpots of Egypt-were never to him objects

of indifference. He considered a well arranged dinner one of the greatest triumphs of civilized life. He found in roast mutton a pure and elevated joy. One of the severest trials of his rural ministry was experienced, as he tells us, in living twelve miles from a lemon. He was accustomed to express himself in terms of extravagant affection for those earthly delights which less rosy and more serious divines agree to ignore or to disapprove. He did not belong to that class of believers who take no thought of the morrow what they shall eat or what they shall drink, but, on the

contrary, he kept an eye constantly to the episcopal larder, and anticipated with peculiar satisfaction the diocesan sherry. And it seemed to afford him a rare pleasure-as if it contributed to his digestion -to hold up to ridicule those many excellent people, who look with disfavor upon social festivity and merriment, as bigots and ascetics. For them there was little charity, we fear, under his capacious waistcoat, and we should not therefore wonder if they, in turn, were uncharitable towards him.

As we do not design to submit any remarks of our own on the subject, it may be well for us, without farther introduction, to draw upon the first article which we desire to condense. It is given in the July number of the Biblical Repertory and Princeton Review, a periodical devoted to the interests of the Presbyterian Church, and well known to a large number of our readers for the ability with which it is conducted. The writer is rather hard on the Canon throughout, from the beginning to the end of his spiritual labours. The early portion of them is thus noticed.

His first scene of ministration was the parish of Netherhaven, near Amesbury, a village consisting of a few scattered farms and cottages. It is often no disadvantage for a young clergyman to be called to labour at first in a small and obscure parish, where the mind and heart can be well Even if no field of extensive disciplined. usefulness be at once offered, he can remain quiet, trimming his secret lamp, which may one day shed its light far and wide. Some of the most eminent ministers in the church of God have been thus trained. Bishop Wilson, the excellent and devout Bishop of Sodor and Man, after his ordination, was appointed to a small curacy, where he lived in great retirement; where his annual stipend was but thirty pounds; but where he was eminently fitted for the conspicuous station in the church which he ultimately occupied. It was so with Hooker, who populated parish, containing less than two was at first settled in a poor and thinly hundred inhabitants. And Doddridge used often to remark, how grateful he

was that he was thus early called to such a situation, and how it prepared him for extensive usefulness in a higher sphere.

Did Sydney Smith feel and act thus? Did he, according to his ordination vow, regard his office as one of high responsibility? He found his parishioners ignorant, unrefined, and miserable. Did he, feeling the value of their souls, strive to enlighten, and refine, and make them happy? Did he instruct the illiterate, reprove the wicked, exhort the negligent, alarm the presumptuous, strengthen the weak, visit the sick, comfort the afflicted, and reclaim the wandering? If he had acted thus, "the wilderness," in a moral sense, "would have been glad, and the desert would have rejoiced, and blossomed as the rose." But instead of this, he complained of want of society, of books, of food, of everything; and, at the end of two years, resigned his living. After this, he departed with the eldest son of the squire to whom he was tutor, and engaged to go with him to the University of Weimar, in Saxony; but in consequence of the disturbances in Germany, occasioned by the war, he went to Edinburgh. He arrived at that city in 1797, with his pupil, Beach, and remained there about five or six years; associated with politicians and men of science, attended the me lical lectures at the University, and, as a Dissenter, preached occasionally for Bishop Sanford, in the Episcopal chapel. He was not, however, much known as a clergyman, but distinguished as uniting with Jeffrey and others in the establishment of the Edinburgh Review, and appreciated for his talents-especially for his wit and satire.

It is, however, not so much for want of zeal in the cause of evangelical religion, for mere negative worldliness and for not exhibiting that earnest faith in labours of piety which should characterize the Christian minister, that the writer arraigns Sydney Smith. It is for his sins of commission and not his sins of omission. The listless preaching of the Word in his own parish might, perhaps, call for a mild rebuke, but the articles in the Edinburgh Review demand severe animadversion, and it is upon these that the paper is mainly based. And first, the article on Methodism is brought up against him as follows

In the discussion of this subject, the author is careful to tell us that he is no

infidel: "It has been our good fortune to be acquainted with many truly religious persons, both in the Presbyterian and Episcopalian churches; and from their manly, rational, and serious characters, our conceptions of true practical piety have been formed." The religion which he professes, and of which he is the minister, is Christianity shorn of its beams, and deprived of all those peculiar qualities which the hand of God has stamped upon it; a religion which lets conscience sleep, while the heart is unchanged, and by which a man is lulled into a state of complete self-complacency; a Christianity, if it deserve the name, which has in it nothing worthy of its Author; nothing great or noble, nothing spiritual or holy, nothing raised above the world; nothing, in short, which puts to shame the claims of a Pagan philosophy. Possessing such a religion, not of divine, but of human workmanship, why should he flee to infidelity, and deny the authenticity of the Scriptures? Why should he not love, and defend, and worship it?

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He shows the sentiments of the evangelical party by quoting largely from their organs, or monthly magazines; endeavours to prove that their "religion is not the religion which is established by law, and encouraged by national provision;" and promises to present their "opinions and habits as objects of curiosity and importance." What are these opinions? They are the simple and fundamental doctrines of the special providence of God, the corruption of man, the necessity of faith in the Redeemer, the importance of holiness, the inefficacy of preaching and the sacraments, without the influences of the Holy Spirit. These doctrines, expressed sometimes in narratives, sometimes by notices, and sometimes by essays, held up to ridicule, and regarded as the very cant of fanaticism. Take the following, which expresses, his views of religion, sneers at divine grace, and conveys a personal sarcasm : We had hitherto supposed that the disciples of the established churches in England and Scotland had been Christians; and that after baptism, duly performed by the appointed ministers, and participation in the customary worship of these two churches, Christianity was the religion of which they were to be considered members. We see, however, in these publications, men of twenty and thirty years of age first called to the knowledge of Christ, under a sermon by the Rev. Mr. Venn; or first admitted into the church, under a sermon by the Rev. Mr. Romaine. The apparent

admission turns out to have been a mere mockery, and the pseudo-christian to have had no religion at all, till the business was really and effectually done under these sermons by Mr. Venn and Mr. Romaine." That which gives joy to angels seems to him the source of sacrilegious mockery. For instance, a letter from a pious chaplain of a man-of-war, found in the Evangelical Magazine: "Off Cadiz, Nov. 25, 1806. My dear friend,I have only time to tell you that the work of God seems to prosper. Many are under convictions; and some, I trust, are converted. I preach every night, and am obliged to have a private meeting afterwards, with those who wish to speak about their souls. Capt. raises no objection. I have nearly a hundred hearers every night at six o'clock. Pray for us." And another letter from the sailing-master of his majesty's ship Tonnant : "It is with satisfaction that I can now inform you, that God has deigned, in a yet greater degree, to own the weak efforts of his servant, to turn many from Satan to himself. Many are called here, as is plain to be seen, by their pensive looks and deep sighs. Our thirteen are now increased to upwards of thirty." Nothing seems to provoke the defender of "rational and orthodox religion" more than the following facts: "We must remember that the Evangelicals have found a powerful party in the House of Commons, who, by the neutrality which they affect, and partly adhere to, are courted both by ministers and the opposition; that they have gained complete possession of the India-house; and, under the pretence, or perhaps with the serious intention of educating young people for India, (as much as they dare, without provoking attention,) in their own particular tenets."

The gross misrepresentations which he gives of the whole evangelical party are too numerous to be repeated. He says, "they lay very little stress upon practical righteousness; they say a great deal about faith, and very little about works; what are commonly called the mysterious parts of religion are brought into the foreground, much more than the doctrines which lead to practice." They are always gloomy and unhappy: "Ennui, wretchedness, groans, and sighs, are the offerings which these unhappy men make to a Deity who has covered the earth with gay colours, and scented it with rich perfumes. They hate pleasure and amusements. No theatre, no cards, no dancing, no punchinello, no dancing-dogs, no blind fiddlers. All the amusements of the rich and of the poor must disappear, wherever

these gloomy people get a footing." It is a religion which leads to insanity: "There is not a mad-house in England, where a considerable part of the patients have not been driven to insanity by the extravagance of these people. We cannot enter such places, without seeing a number of honest artizans, covered with blankets, and calling themselves angels and apostles, who, if they had remained contented with the instruction of men of learning and education, would have been sound masters of their own trade, sober Christians, and useful members of society."

We have observed a remarkable coincidence between the language of Chief Justice Jeffreys, at the trial of Baxter, and that of the reviewer in this article. The judge cried out, "These fellows have appropriated God to themselves: 'Lord, we are thy people, thy peculiar people, thy dear people!" "And then," the historian adds, "he snorted, and squeaked through his nose, and clenched his hands, and lifted up his eyes, mimicking their manner, and running on furiously, as he said they used to preach and pray." Sydney Smith says, "They consider themselves as constituting a chosen and separate people, living in a land of atheists and voluptuaries. The expressions. by which they designate their own sects, are, the dear people, the elect, the people of God. The rest of mankind are carnal people, and the people of this world. The children of Israel were not more separated, through the favour of God, from the Egyptians, than they are, in their own estimation, from the rest of mankind."

Throughout the whole article, everything valuable in the Christian religion is made the subject of sport, with an asperity worthy of Voltaire. Evangelical truth had before this been opposed, and at that time was impugned with violence and misrepresentation; but it had never been held up to such contempt, (particularly by a professed Christian,) and by invective so bitter. Compared with it, Lavington's "Comparison between Popery and Methodism" is lenient; and Swift's Treatise on the "Operations of the Spirit" is but little worse.

Jeffreys, Voltaire, Swift! these are rather disreputable characters to be called up in association with a Christian minister of the nineteenth century, but the Dean of St. Patrick's is constantly occurring to the writer's mind as the prototype of the Canon of St. Paul's, and we shall find another allusion to him farther Here is the arraignment for the

on.