temptation which it hits out the motient, vi fong themselves possessed of the talent of ready and fuent sccunico, are sometimes induced to dispense with previous study atreener: rising to their power of unpremeditated expression to trag den toeg al ffettes. This mode of feeding the flock with chari, trove a 1 sau pemension of a useful accomplishment to the purposes of des « frillity, cant be too strongly reprobated. But may be said that we ought not to age fra the abuse of a talent again a repoimaine, and that this abuse in particular must be coated & fose who are devoid of it snowLESS Of mind, or feeling of the diguity and respros culty of their sñce.

The concluding chapter commits a senes of practical suggestions for facilitating the attainment and exerse of the hotty. Most of these are highly sensible and judicious, and we deserve the young preacher's attention, in whatever mode ne may think I advisbie szedly and habitally to conduct his public services Lideed, we cannot conclude without repeating our wish, that the whole essay were more accessible to our young divines, who would find in it much to admire and profit by, though they should not be persuaded to adopt in its full extent the arbor's favourite method. We rise from it with a very pleasing idea both of his talents and general character. He is evidently an elegant scholar, an agreeable writer, and a conscientious and able labourer in his Master's vineyard.

We insert the concluding passage, which no one, we think, can read without a wish to see what precedes

“After all, therefore, which can be said, the great essential requisite to effective preaching in this method, or indeed in any method,, is a devoted heart. A strong religious sentiment, leading to a fervent zeal for the good of other men, is better than all rules of art; it will give him courage, which no science or practice could impart, and open his lips boldly, when the fear of man would keep them closed. Art may fail him, and all his treasures of knowledge desert him; but if his heart be warm with love, he will speak right on,' aiming at the heart, and reaching the heart; and satisfied to accomplish the great purpose, whether he be thought to do it tastefully or not.

"This is the true spirit of his office, to be cherished and cultivated above all things else, and capable of rendering all its labours comparatively easy. It reminds him that his purpose is not to make profound discussions of theological doctrines, or disquisitions on moral and metaphysical science; but to present such views of the great and acknowledged truths of revelation, with such applications of them to the understanding and conscience, as may affect and reform his hearers. Now it is not study only, in divinity or rhetoric, which will enable him to do this. He may reason ingeniously, but not convincingly; he may declaim eloquently, but not persuasively. There is an immense, though indescribable, difference between the same arguments and truths, as presented by him who earnestly feels and desires to persuade, and by him who designs only a display of intellectual strength, or an exercise of rhetorical skill. In the latter case, the declamation may be splendid, but it will be cold and without expression: lulling the ear and diverting the fancy, but leaving the feelings untouched. In the other, there is an air of reality and sincerity which words cannot describe, but which the heart feels, which finds its way to the recesses of the soul, and overcomes it by a powerful sympathy. This is a difference which all can perceive, and all can account for. The truths of religion are not matters of philosophical speculation, but of experience. The heart, and all the spiritual man, and all the interests and feelings of the immortal being, have an intimate concern in them. It is perceived at once, whether they are stated by one who has felt them himself, is personally acquainted with their power, is subject to their influence, and speaks from actual experience; or whether they come from one who know

them only in speculation, has gathered them from books, and thought them out by his own reason, but without any sense of their spiritual operation. But who does not know how much easier it is to declare what has come to our knowledge from our own experience, than what we have gathered coldly at secondhand from that of others;-how much easier it is to describe feelings we have ourselves had, and pleasures we have ourselves enjoyed, than to fashion a description of what others have told us;-how much more freely and convincingly we can speak of happiness we have known, than of that to which we are strangers! We see, then, how much is lost to the speaker by coldness or ignorance in the exercises of personal religion. How can he effectually represent the joys of a religious mind, who has never known what it is to feel them? How can he effectually aid the contrite, the desponding, the distrustful, the tempted, who has never himself passed through the same fears and sorrows? Or how can he paint in the warm colours of truth, religious exercises and spiritual desires, who is personally a stranger to them? Alas! he cannot at all come in contact with those souls which stand most in need of his sympathy and aid. But if he have cherished in himself fondly and habitually the affections he would excite in others, if he have combated temptation and practised self-denial, and been instant in prayer, and tasted the joy and peace of a tried faith and hope;-then he may communicate directly with the hearts of his fellow-men, and win them over to that which he so feelingly describes. If his spirit be always warm and stirring with these pure and kind emotions, and anxious to impart the means of his own felicity to others, how easily and freely will he pour himself forth! and how little will he think of the embarrassments of the presence of mortal man, while he is conscious only of labouring for the glory of the ever-present God! This, then, is the one thing essential to be attained and cherished by the Christian preacher. With this he must begin, and with this he must go on to the end. Then he never can greatly fail; for he will feel his subject thoroughly, and speak without fear.""

CRITICAL NOTICES.

ART. IV.-A Letter addressed to the Right Hon. George Canning, First Lord of the Treasury, &c., intended as an Humble Vindication of the Present Ministry. By A. S. Wade, D. D., of St. John's College, Cambridge, &c. 8vo. pp. 32. 1827.

THE lamented death of Mr. Canning has not entirely taken away the interest which we feel in such publications as this; since Mr. Canning's name is used as the index to a liberal system of policy, domestic and foreign, which, thanks to His Majesty is likely to be still maintained. Dr. Wade is one of the few members of the clerical body who look with unqualified approbation upon the present liberal administration. He is the declared enemy of the Holy Alliance, of the Bourbon influence, and of Turkish despotism; he is the avowed friend of free trade, of the independence of the Continental and South American States, and of religious liberty, with regard to

both Roman Catholics and Protestant Dissenters. In his aversion and opposition to Toryism, he takes his "late much-revered friend Dr. PARR" for a guide and authority. That sound politician and eminent scholar would have been ready to acknowledge Dr. Wade as a disciple in the former character, but not in the latter for what, in the name of all that is liberal, could have induced this Cambridge man to pen the following silly, Cobbett-like sentence?" The classical learning on which the nominally Great pride themselves so much, however befitting it may be to idle gentlemen and men of taste, is of very little practical value." (P. 10.) We acknowledge the independence of the clergyman who can defy the "Great," but the reverend gentleman need not surely condemn the aristocracy for their "too much learning." Anxious, however, to remove the impression made by this morsel of vulgar feeling and incoherent writing, the Rev. Doctor boasts in a note,

ART. VI-Elements of the History of Philosophy and Science from the earliest Records to the commencement of the Eighteenth Century. By Thomas Morell. 8vo. London. 1827.

THIS book contains a great fund of information in a condensed and judicious form. In the space of a moderate octavo, it combines an abridged view of the history of philosophy, as useful for the general student as the larger work of Brucher, and at the same time the general progress of knowledge and science on other subjects.

The analyses of the works and systems of the principal philosophers are carefully and accurately executed. We take the first which occurs to us, that of Lord Bacon.

"Passing over the events of Bacon's political history, as foreign to the design of this volume, this illustrious individual will at present be regarded alone as the father of experimental philosophy in all its branches, and the inventor of an enlightened logic, founded on the principles of right reason. To this view of his literary character the inestimable writings of this great philosopher bear ample testimony. The first of these was his well-known and justly-admired treatise on the Progress and Advancement of Learning, (De Augmentis Scientiarum,) which made its first appearance in 1605, though the subject of which it treats had long before occupied his thoughts and studies. This was followed, in 1610, by a treatise on the Wisdom of the Ancients, which bears the same characters of original inventive genius, and in which the proposed object of his former work was steadily pursued, and carried forward most successfully. In 1620, his great work, entitled Novum Organum, was published, which formed a second part of his Instauration of the Sciences; the treatise on the Advancement of Learning being now considered as its first division, Next to these were published, at different periods, and amidst the pressure of state affairs, the results of his physical researches and experiments in a series of treatises on the phenomena of the universe, natural history, and many other branches of practical science. The whole train of his philosophical productions terminated with his Scala Intellectus, a highly intellectual dissertation intended to trace the steps by which the human mind ascends in its philosophical researches, from the lowest grade to its highest degree of elevation; from insu

;

lated facts to general truths; from the simplest elements of knowledge to the perfection of science. The Historical the latest productions of his genius, and, Tracts and Moral Essays were among together with many of his philosophical pieces, were written after his political fall and degradation. The Lord Chancellor Bacon terminated a life of extraordinary mental exertion and activity, in 1626, in the sixty-fifth year of his age.

"But, to form a distinct conception of the intellectual qualities of Lord Bacon, and a correct estimate of the value of those celebrated works which are unquestionably to be reckoned among the chefs d'œuvres of human genius, it is requisite to view them in their relative connexion; for they constitute, in reality, but one magnificent whole, and afford an exquisite specimen of the Scala Intellectus which he recommends to others. In the first of the abovementioned works, (the treatise De Aug mentis,) the author proposes to take a general survey of human knowledge, contemplating the intellectual faculties under the three great divisions of Memory, Fancy or Imagination, and Understanding. Corresponding with these, all the arts and sciences are classed under three heads, namely, History, Poetry, and Philosophy. Under each of these, an inquiry is instituted into what is erroneous or defective; and the most proper means are suggested for correcting the errors, amending the defects, and supplying the omissions in all. The next surveys the works and discoveries of the ancients, and both enumerates and estimates the inventions of past ages, tracing out, as in one general chart, the several tracts of science that still lay uncultivated and waste, and suggesting, as he proceeds, the most desirable improvements and the probable discoveries to be made by future philosophers. Having thus cleared the way for his great and principal design, he proposed, in his Novum Organum, to

raise and enlarge the powers of the mind by a more useful application of its reasoning faculty, to all the objects of philosophical research.' In this admirable treatise, a new and rational logic is exhibited, which forms a striking contrast to that of the Scholastics; a logic calculated, not to supply arguments for controversy, but arts for the use of mankind-not to triumph over an enemy by subtle and sophistical disputation, but to subdue nature itself by experiment and analysis. Rejecting with deserved contempt the logomachies of the school