of little or no meaning, with which professors of evangelical religion, more sincere than wise, have involved the fair simplicity of the Gospel.

The religion of Jesus Christ, like the blue vault of Heaven, is all majesty and simplicity. It contains all that can touch the heart and exalt the mind. He by whom "all things were made," voluntarily takes upon himself "the form of a servant," and descends into the world as "the Saviour of Sinners."

Why should the simplicity of the religion of Jesus be disfigured by the tasteless appendages of men? by any thing tawdry, or conceited, or obsolete? It needs not the aid of foreign ornament, but is, when unadorned, adorned the most!

We are anxious to press these reflections on our readers, as we wish to convince those among them who are possessed of the requisite talents, and who may be inclined benevolently to employ themselves in writing tracts,—that they are the most likely to succeed, who write the most simply and the most naturally; and who seek to inform the understanding and affect the heart by narratives which fix the attention by the artlessness of their style, and the lively and faithful traits which delineate the characters.

We learn from the preface that the work before us, intitled Familiar Scenes,' was originally written for the Cottage Magazine.' They are now reprinted in a separate volume by the advice of some friends of the author's, whom she esteems as judicious advisers.' We scarcely know how far the circulation of the Cottage Magazine' extends. If its circuit be wide, we should be ready to think that it was superfluous to reprint the Familiar Scenes.' The book is however free, in most respects, from the objections at which we before hinted; and the style is generally easy and familiar, without being low.

Though we must conclude that upon the whole the Author is a lady of a Catholic spirit, and that this spirit diffuses itself through the work; yet the sentiments expressed in one place do not seem to agree with those which we find expressed in another. We shall give an instance. The 12th and 13th chapters are devoted to the delineation of the character of a pious female. This person was questioned by her friend as "to the fact of her being or of her not being a Methodist. Her reply proved the liberality of her disposition, and we wish the sentiment (the sentiment we conclude of the author) were engraven on the heart of every professing Christian.

I call myself a member of the Church of England, and I rejoice that in this place the pulpit and the reading desk are in unison, and I can therefore avail myself of the privilege; but I am a citizen of the religious world, and feel at home with every denomination where Jesus Christ is held forth as the way, the truth, and the life.' p. 104.

Now we should take it for granted that the character here intended to be represented, is that of one who styles herself a Churchwoman, upon principle, with a heart open to all who love the Saviour.-Under this character we honour her. We are the more convinced of this liberal spirit from the following passage. The same person was addressed in early life by a young man of piety-a Baptist.

He avowed his attachment to the dissenting interest and his expectation that his wife should attend him to dissenting places of worship. To this she made no objection; but when her mother was informed of the circumstance, a total change took place in the affair; and strange as it will appear to the enlightened reader, who can love all those who "love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity" of every sect and clime, this misguided and ill-judging parent opposed the connection on the ground of a difference in religion, thus mistaking the form for the essence' p. 92.

In a passage that follows we think that there are readers who will remark something at least very incongruous with the passages already quoted. The person before mentioned, goes one evening to the Bristol Tabernaclenor goes in vain. She hears a sermon from these words;"There is no peace to the wicked, saith my God;”—and she is convinced that she has sinned. Though,' proceeds the narrative, it had pleased God to enlighten her understanding by means of dissenting teachers, she never became, strictly speaking, a Dissenter, or united herself to any sect in Church fellowship.

As there is certainly much liberality of opinion and amiableness of disposition apparent in this little volume, we should be very unwilling to attribute the foregoing sentence to an invidious design; yet we cannot forbear thinking that as it stands literally, it has somewhat the aspect of invidiousness. We should be glad to know why the appellations 'teacher' and sect should be applied exclusively to ministers and congregations without the pale of the Established Church? We know that they are rarely used with kindness or candour; those, therefore, who would lay claim to these Christian qualities, should be cautious in applying them. Some who are very anxious to observe a broad distinction, are careful always to call the ministers of the endowed Church, Clergymen; and never to apply the word to a minister who dissents. But what is a clergyman? simply-a man set apart to the ministration of holy things. It is not peculiar to one body of Christians. It would be absurd for any to assume it exclusively, while the ministers of other denominations are as regularly educated and set apart as their own. Every man who professes to instruct is a 'Teacher,'

whether he be a Churchman or Dissenter. Against the term 'sect' we have very strong objections, because it has scarcely ever been used but in a bad sense. The meaning attached to it has been mostly that of a lawless, factious set of persons, averse to all discipline and all order. How little this applies to the Dissenters, who are generally so observant of regularity and of good order, is well known to all who are acquainted in any measure with the discipline of their Churches.

If sect' be applied to distinguish all who separate from the Church of England, in a sense similar to that which schismatic is made to bear-then the members of the Church of England are a sect,' in exactly the same import, having separated themselves from the Church of Rome.

But we proceed to give some further extracts from the book.

"As I walked home, I mused deeply on the scene I had just quitted, and endeavoured to trace the reason, why a number of my fellow-creatures, maintained by the charity of their parish, when they were incapable of maintaining themselves, should be so unhappy I soon found the reason to be the want of humility. Of all the Christian graces, this is the most necessary for our happiness. Those who are most sensible how little they deserve, will seldom feel mortification at the little they may receive. They will consider that having forfeited both spiritual and temporal blessings by sin, every thing short of its due punishment is mercy. They will view men as instruments in the hands of God to convey to them undeserved kindnesses, or deserved chastisements. This is that poverty of spirit on which our Lord pronounced his first blessing; and which is a needful qualification for the enjoyment of heaven itself, where gratitude, the offspring of humility, produces in every spirit the work of unceasing praise.' p. 17.

The Author visits an honest barber, and finding the shop and kitchen doors open and no one present, walks in and seats himself. The man returns and apologizes for his absence.

'I accepted his excuse very readily, as it affected myself, but expressed my surprise at his desertion of his house. "Ah! Sir," he replied, "I can trust God with my house and all it contains." "And you can tempt him too as well as trust him," 1 replied. "But what could I do, Sir," rejoined he, "I had promised the gentleman his wig. I could get no one to carry it, and the lock to the house door is out of repair, so I have a couple of bolts within side" There was some difficulty in the case I acknowledged, which would all have been avoided by a little prudent foresight, for in the first place the promise should not have been made on the uncertain method of conveyance, and in the next, the house-door lock ought to have been mended immediately. I soon convinced the honest barber of his folly and presumption.' p. 24.

Every peasant and labourer I met, seemed raised in my estimation by the reflection, that it lay in his power to spread the glory of

the British name, for, says the Scripture, "Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people." It is therefore the height of folly for any to boast of love to their king and country, who neglect to fulfil the duties of their own private stations, and vain will prove the attempts of the best and wisest ministers to advance our national interests, if they are not aided by a general disposition in all to maintain order, subordination, and good morals.' p. 72.

These extracts will afford a fair specimen of the style of this unassuming little volume. Its general character is certainly useful, and as such we cordially recommend it.

The Author having introduced herself in the preface as a Lady, it seems strange to find her addressed as a Gentleman in every part of the narrative, where she personates no character. She is already well known to the public as the author of "An Antidote to the Miseries of Human Life," and "Cottage Sketches."

Art. XIII. History of the University and Colleges of Cambridge; including Notices relating to the Founders and Eminent Men. By G. Dyer, A. B. formerly of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. Illustrated by a Series of Engravings by Greig, 2 vols. pp. 750. 4to. with Proofs on India Paper, 71. 7s. royal 8vo. 31. 3s. demy 8vo. 21. 28. Longman and Co., Sherwood, Neely, and Jones. Deighton and Sons, Cambridge, 1814.

THAT fond and reverential partiality with which our scholars and authors, and even our statesmen and heroes, of a former age, were accustomed to refer to the Universities where their minds had been trained and enriched, has a very pleasing appearance as combined with that sort of poetical character with which times long past present themselves to the imagination. In bestowing their homage and their caresses on Alma Mater, they look graceful even when they seem to us to grow almost extravagant and superstitious. A mother who could give the world such sons as some of them were, seems entitled to demand even from us a degree of the same -grateful veneration.

Their affection and their homage will the less appear to us excessive, the longer we reflect on the grand superiority which, in those times, the Universities possessed over other situations and other portions of the community, in their comparative monopoly of great proficients in literature, of accomplished teachers, of comprehensive libraries, and of multitudinous literary society and co-operation;-to say nothing of the subsidia afforded to study and to musing, by their

commodious and magnificent edifices, and by the academic groves. They had much of the nature and pretensions of an intellectual metropolis, where disproportioned accumulations of mind were surrounded by accumulations of the means to qualify it for illuminating and governing the world.

By slow degrees Universities have been losing somewhat of their proud pre-eminence. The national mind has been roused into exertion, and refuses to bow to the sovereignty of these institutions, on which, from the advancement and free diffusion of knowledge, it no longer feels itself to be dependent. Pursuits, and teachers, and institutions of the intellectual order, have been multiplied through the country. Many things have risen to great importance as subjects of knowledge, which Universities have not been accustomed to teach, and which, from reluctance to innovation, they have not condescended to admit into their system. The paramount importance of some of those acquirements on which the Universities had founded perhaps the proudest of their honours, has been depressed, by the progress of human affairs, in the general estimation. And the partially antiquated, economy of their discipline, together with their indispensable imposition of forms of faith, have provoked an extensive alienation from them in an age and a nation inspired or perverted by the spirit of free-thinking.

Within the last half century, a college life, college notions, and college formalities, have not seldom been the objects of satirical allusion or attack among wicked wits; parts of their system of instruction, and of their routine of observances have incurred the severe reprehension of graver censors; efficient practical men (than whom the most erudite scholastics cannot have a more assuming self-estimate,) have been in the habit of making light of what they have been pleased to denominate the idle study of words; experimental philosophers have been found to join in the hostility; and the distinguished actors in the great national affairs, and the more extended than national operations, of the astonishing age which is just now passing off, have contributed to the, undervaluation of these learned and venerable establishments, by never recollecting or caring to ascribe any part of the honour of their distinguished endowments and successes, (as the eminent performers of past ages were glad and proud to do,) to those seats of wisdom in which they had sojourned in earlier life. And the effect of all these causes has but been aggravated by the imputed stately, self-idolizing, supercilious, and unreformning character of those venerable institutions, which have been accused of affecting, when the world, by its progress, was threatening