to bless, is the only part that becomes those who are the inheritors of a blessing.' Many such persons, however, may justly be regarded as acting under the perverting influence of a capital mistake. Better information, if it did not cure their dislike of the holy requirements of the religion of Christ, would at least restrain them from much of the misrepresentation and impiety with which they are chargeable. They do not mean to assail Religion, for whose name they have an indefinite respect; but, having no personal acquaintance with her heavenly lineaments, it is not surprising that they should wound her unawares. Their consternation would doubtless be mingled with surprise, were the voice which struck Saul of Tarsus to the ground, to address them with,-" Inasmuch as ye did to the least, the weakest of my disciples, ye did it unto me."

And how blameable soever may be the prejudice, or ignorance, which leads this class of persons to take so false and injurious a view of religion and religious persons, so long as they are under the delusion which leads them to believe the lie, their aversion is not unreasonable. That which they impute to religionists, hypocrisy, sectarianism, intolerance, display, covetousness, egotism, cant,-is odious; and these qualities are occasionally found co-existing with the semblance of high religious profession. Many individuals are the victims of a false association of ideas with regard to Religion, originating, perhaps, from some unfavourable circumstances in their immediate connexions in early life. And having since receded further and further from the society of the good, they have not had the opportunity of disabusing themselves; while, at every retrogressive step, those motives acquire additional strength, which induce the man of pleasure to think ill, and to speak ill, of those who go not with him to the same excess of riot or of recklessness.

It is difficult for religious persons adequately to conceive of the powerful barrier which the simple opposition of tastes, the result of different habits of life, creates between them and their calumniators and opponents. In nothing are persons more intolerant, than in matters of taste; that is to say, in regard to each other's likings and dislikings. Religious people have their distinguishing tastes and habits, apart from their essential principles, and which they have as good a right to indulge, as the worldling has to enjoy his less innocent gratifications. But, unhappily, the clashing of opinions and principles, does not drive men so irreconcileably apart, as a discordance of tastes. This evil can never be remedied by that awkward and disgraceful compromise which the Scriptures term conformity to the world; but it deserves to be borne in mind, that some of the ridicule and obloquy which genuine Christianity encounters, is occa

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sioned by her speaking the accent and having the air of a foreigner.

Had not the Writer of the present work made the doctrines and precepts of Christ specifically the subject of his profane ridicule, had he confined himself to burlesquing Bible Society meetings, or to inveighing against sectaries and ultra-religionists, we could have found still further excuse for him. The picture which the Novelist has drawn of the evangelicals, and of the religious world in general, scarcely differs, even in its colouring, from that which has been given in works of a far graver character. We do not now refer to such miserable party bigots as Norris, O'Phelan, and the early assailants of the Bible Society, but to slanderers of loftier pretensions. By the representations of Irving, Haldane, Andrew Thomson, M'Neile, and others of their stamp, the Novelist might substantiate, so far as such evidence would avail him, the worst that he has imputed to the religious world and its leaders on the score of display, hypocrisy, pride, folly, and dishonesty. In this point of view, the work before us is highly instructive. We dare say, the Author reads and admires the Edinburgh Christian Instructor; and as he comes from the North, he is probably an occasional attendant at Regent Square. From Mr. Irving, he would learn the folly of flinching from the world and fleeing into any narrow religious circle. By the same Christian Teacher he would be warned against the pharisaical contemners of the material creation',the religious separatists, whose discipline flows out of pharisaic 'pride, and is made perfect in pharisaic cruelty, which is still worse than the condition of publicans and sinners.' On the same authority he would learn, that none are so rude and riotous against any one who does not row in their boat, as are the 'people commonly called the Religious World '; that the great end of public meetings and speech-makings is, to raise money; and that the covetousness of the religious societies of the reli'gious world passeth all bounds, and is only to be found paralleled by the zeal of the begging friars, seeking alms to enrich 'their over-grown and luxurious convents.' All this, and much more of the same kind, the Novelist would hear from the Orator referred to; and can we be angry at finding such representations assumed as true in works of fiction, which are the theme of indignant declamation from the pulpit? The Author is to be blamed for making mockery of Religion, but he does not betray her to the scornful world with a kiss.

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But possibly, the Sectarian and the other dramatis persona are coloured from life and experience', and the Author might rest his defence upon the truth of the libel. We say at once, that we have no doubt of there being individual characters who

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might supply the leading traits of the Author's ill-drawn traits, and occurrences of a nature closely resembling those which form the main texture of his story. Preaching adventurers, antinomian teachers, Hanbys and Provans, are to be met with; and there is such a thing as sectarianism and pharisaism, although their true nature is ill understood by those who employ these words as forms of invective. The Author has, however, deprived himself of whatever benefit he might derive from the supposed truth of any part of his representation, by the use he has made of his materials. His title is, the Church and the Meeting-house. His obvious design is, to exhibit the religion of the Meeting-house in contrast with the anti-puritanism which he identifies with the Church. And he seems more especially to aim his calumnies at the Baptists. Now, with every disposition to extenuate his offence against truth and integrity, and to judge candidly of his motives, we cannot exonerate him from the guilt of wilful defamation. Yet, the Church suffers far worse treatment at his hands, than the Meeting-house. His sectarians' are far more respectable than some of his good churchmen; and his misrepresentation of the doctrines of the Church of England, is still more palpable than his caricature of the more Scriptural sentiments attributed to the meetingers. To what sect the Author himself belongs, may be inferred from the following passage:

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"But why should the name of Hume have been such a bug-bear to the people?"

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Why, Sir, it was all through Squire Hanby, who said every where, that this Hume was a detestable atheist, and deist, and wretch, who had corrupted all the people of Scotland."

That his writings have corrupted a great number of the people of Scotland, is but too notorious a fact. The following panegyric upon the Church of England, will admirably harmonize with the above sentiment:

"But I will tell you further, Lydia, why men of sense and weight in the nation conscientiously admire as well as agree with the Church of England. It is for her philosophic liberality of spirit, whereby she alike disarms the audacity of a vulgar infidelity, and obviates the scruples of enlightened students of holy writ. She attracts the respect, while she satisfies the conscience of the abstracted and generalizing man of science and philosophy; and so embraces within her dignified portals all that essentially constitute the upper and influential orders of British society. Were it not for her generally liberal spirit and suitable forms, the sound learning and exemplary lives of her ministers, and the graduated organization of her dignified hierarchy; where might our men of taste and talent, where might our virtuous and delicate mothers and sisters, find refuge from the impudence of pretending de

magogues, and the forward intrusion of discoverers of new lights, and abettors of every species of pretended theology?"

"The benevolent zeal of the English public having lately emigrated from home, and vented its efforts in an expensive crusade for heathen conversion; the Church of England has been led in, by popular fervour, to join in the mania for public meetings and self-styled religious societies, and to degrade herself by a partial union with fiery sectarians and crazy speech-makers, with whom in their own way she need never have attempted to cope. By thus chiming in with weak zealots, and by giving her countenance to irrational fanaticism, the Church of England has lowered herself in the eyes of thinking men, and endangered public respect even for religion itself. Still I grant she was placed in perilous times; and when the cry of infidelity was raised at the French revolution, she fell into the natural error of directing all her efforts to the discomfiture of the scorner. She held out her right hand to sectarianism. All sorts of absurdity that defiled religion by impiously assuming the name, became at once creditable and praiseworthy; and sectarianism, with its thousand heads, and in its thousand shapes, was, under her own countenance, eating into her vitals."- pp. 208, 9.

We had intended to offer a few remarks upon the true grounds and limits of that separation from the irreligious, which it is the main object of these volumes to hold up to detestation and ridicule. This duty, like every other, is liable to perversion, as every truth has its counterfeit. The notions on the subject of marked separation', which some time ago were maintained by the Dublin Sandemanians, (and it is remarkable that the Writer makes his heroine attach herself to a sect in that capital,) were as foreign from scriptural principles, and as opposite to the spirit of the Gospel, as they were mischievous in tendency. Those whose holiness consists entirely in the strictness of their communion, whose separation from the world is purely ecclesiastical, be they Baptists or Pædo-Baptists, English, Irish, or Scotch, we can regard in no other light than as pestilent schismatics, causing divisions and offences contrary to the 'doctrine of the Gospel, serving, not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own interests, and deceiving the hearts of the simple.' Such persons existed in the days of St. Paul; and it is no wonder, that they should infest the Church in our own times.

Christianity has, it is true, always been charged with causing schisms and divisions,-with setting the father against the son, the son against the father, and making a man's own household his enemies. Our Lord, in reference to this foreseen issue of his doctrines and requirements, warned his disciples, that he came to send, not peace on earth, but divisions and a sword,contention and persecution. But in no case has religion been the real cause of these evils. They have uniformly originated in the intolerance of the irreligious. The sword has not been

wielded by the saint, but by the worldling, whether arrayed in the garb of secular, or of ecclesiastical authority; and the cruel domestic divisions to which religious differences so often lead, are, in at least nine cases out of ten, involuntary on the part of the conscientious sufferer. Were we disposed to write a tale, we should be at no loss for a theme, in facts of this description, that would amply illustrate the intolerance of irreligion. What will not a man of the world forgive, in his friend, his child, or any of his associates, sooner than the unpardonable crime of being more in earnest about religion, or more happy in his religion, than himself? What was the offence of Abel? St. John tells us. His works were righteous, and his brother's evil, and therefore Cain slew him. "Marvel not, therefore," he adds. "if the world hate you." The imprudence of the pious may often have inflamed this hatred, but it could not produce it; it cannot justify it,

We are restrained from pursuing this topic any further, as our present Number contains an article bearing so directly upon the question, in reference to the Dissenters in Switzerland, against whom, as pietists and separatists, the same vague charges and bitter invectives are levelled, as those to which sectaries in our own land have long been familiarized; but, happily, in this country, the civil government is not a persecutor, but a protector. Should these pages meet the eye of our Author, we would earnestly recommend that article to his perusal. We can assure him, that we bear him no ill will, nor have we any wish to proselyte him to the meeting-house. We hope that he goes to church; and if he persevere in that practice, he may become better informed upon subjects of which he is at present lamentably ignorant.

In

Art. VII. Lectures on Sculpture. By John Flaxman, Esq., R.A. With a brief Memoir of the Author. Royal 8vo. pp. 270. Portrait and Fifty-one Plates. Price 21. 2s. London. 1829. PUBLICATIONS of this kind are exceedingly to our taste, especially when they are the work of practical men. that case, they are the result, not merely of inquiry taken up accidentally and for a temporary purpose, but of research continued and consecutive; they become literally the labour of a life, and their doctrines are the legitimate issue of knowledge and experience. There are not, among the various subjects of intellectual application, any more difficult or more complicated, than the investigations connected with the arts of design; and yet, there are none on which men are more prone to fancy themselves infallible judges; none on which more rash, crude, and