which should embody its dynamic forces. This desideratum Charles Wesley supplied. With a rhythmical ear, a clarified taste, and a tender sympathy with every phasis and transition of spiritual experience, an emotional nature always profoundly moved, an intimate conversance with the Scriptures, and a lyrico-dramatic power of elaborating all their materials, whether of history, doctrine, precept, or prophecy, he became the life and soul of the new movement. In their metrical form, in their musical cadence and mellifluous flow, his hymns occupy the first place, and an almost solitary eminence in the English language. They can hardly be read unmusically, and almost sing themselves. Then, too, it has been well said of them, that they are not written on abstract subjects, such as faith, humility, resignation, but always represent the religious life in some one of its concrete states or movements, so that each might be assumed as a leaf of autobiography. But we can do them more ample justice by the following paragraphs from Mr. Taylor :

"Ought not then the disposing hand of God to be acknowledged in this instance, remarkable as it is, that, when myriads of uncultured and lately ferocious spirits were to be reclaimed, a gift of song, such as that of Charles Wesley, should have been conferred upon one of the company employed in this work? To estimate duly what was the influence of this rare gift, and to measure its importance, one should be able to recall scenes and times gone by, when Methodism was much nearer to its source than now it is, and when Hymn 147, page 145,' announced by the preacher in a tone curiously blending the perfunctory with the animated,

O love divine, how sweet thou art!" woke up all ears, eyes, hearts, and voices, in a crowded chapel. It was, indeed, a spectacle worth the gazing upon! It was a service well to have joined in (once and again) when words of such power, flowing in rich cadence, and conveying, with an intensity of emphasis, the loftiest, the deepest, and the most tender emotions of the divine life, were taken up feelingly by an assembly of men and women, to whom, very lately, whatever was not of the earthearthy' had neither charm nor meaning.

"Rugged forms were those that filled the benches on the one hand; nor were they the fairest in the world that were ranged on the other; but there was soul in the erect posture when the congregation rose to sing, as well as in the glistening eye; and it was a cordial animation that gave compass to the voices of these, the ransomed of Methodism. Perhaps it was a little more than a particle of meaning that some gathered from the hymn. But to the hearts of many, its deepest sense-the poet's own sense of the words-was quite intelligible, and was intimately relished. Who could doubt

it, that had an eye to read the heart in the beaming countenances around him? Thus it was that Charles Wesley, richly gifted as he was with graces, genius and talents, drew souls thousands of souls-in his wake, from Sunday to Sunday, and he so drew them onward from earth to heaven by the charm of sacred verse!

"It may be affirmed that there is no principal element of Christianity, no main article of belief, as professed by Protestant Churchesthat there is no moral or ethical sentiment, height or depth of feeling, proper to the spiritpeculiarly characteristic of the gospel-no ual life, that does not find itself emphatically, and pointedly, and clearly conveyed in some stanza of Charles Wesley's hymns. These compositions embody the theory, and the prac tice, and the theopathy of the Christian system; and they do so with extremely little admixture of what ought to be regarded as questionable, or that is not warranted by some evidence of Scripture. What we have here before us is a metrical liturgy; and by the combination of rhythm, rhyme, and music, it effectively secures to the mass of worshipers much of the benefit of liturgical worship. Such a liturgy, thus performed by animated congregations, melted itself into the very soul of the people, and was perhaps that part of the hour's service which, more than any other, produced what, to borrow a phrase, we might call digestive assimilation. It would secure this, its beneficial effect, in molding the spirits of the people, by its iteration, by its emphatic style, and by aid of the pleasurable excitements of music."

THE MOUNTAINS OF PALESTINE.

PALESTINE surprises one unfamiliar

with its features by its hilliness. Two ranges of mountains run through it from difficult of ascent, and frightful from their north to south, some of them exceedingly frequent precipices, but passed by the strongly-shod Syrian horse in perfect safety. These lofty and bold heights leave a grand impression. Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon tower sometimes eleven thousand feet above the sea, and wear their snow-caps, in spots, nearly all the year. Hermon is now termed the Sheikh's Mountain, and rises above the rest of the Lebanon range, reminding some travelers of Mont Blanc, but not seen so advantageously upon its own elevated plain. Tabor is a model of beauty; a truncated cone, with some ruins of crusaders' fortifications, and shrines of various ages, well wooded, and seemingly fertile; dividing the waters of the east from those that empty into the Mediterranean, it never fails to fill the traveler's eye. It is one thousand feet above the level of the country.-Christian Examiner.

WASHINGTON.

FACTS RESPECTING HIS RELIGIOUS CHARACTER.

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VOLUME has been published respecting the religious sentiments and character of Washington. A writer, in a late article in the Boston Christian Witness, reviews the subject briefly, giving, besides some well-known facts, further and very interesting evidence of the piety of that greatest of modern men. The writer says: "Numerous extracts illustrating this subject are brought together in Washington's Writings, vol. xii, pp. 401-485.

See also in the same volume

(p. 408) an interesting letter from Bishop White to the Rev. B. C. C. Parker, on the same subject. The House of Burgesses, of which he was a member, passed an order, May 24th, 1774, in reference to the act of Parliament for shutting up the port of Boston, that the first day of June should be set apart as a day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer, devoutly to implore the divine interposition for averting the heavy calamity which threatened destruction to their civil rights, and the evils of civil war.' On the day appointed, he writes in his diary: Went to church, and fasted all day,' thus conforming not only in spirit, but to the strict letter of the order. This diary was kept for many years with much particularity. A Sunday rarely occurs in which he did not attend church. If there was an omission, it was caused by the weather, or badness of the roads; the nearest church being seven miles from his residence. While attending Congress, he adhered to the same practice. For a full knowledge of his religious opinions and habits during the Revolution and afterward, and of the importance he attached to the principles and observances of religion, the reader is referred to his published writings. After an attentive perusal of them, no doubt can be left in any candid mind. To say that he was not a Christian, or at least that he did not believe himself to be a Christian, would be to impeach his sincerity and honesty. Of all men in the world, Washington was certainly the last whom any one would charge with dissimulation or indirectness; and, if he was so scrupulous in avoiding even a shadow of these faults in every known act of his life, however unimportant, is it likely, is it credible, that in a matter of the highest and most

serious importance he should practice, through a long series of years, a deliberate deception upon his friends and the public? It is neither credible nor possible. I shall here insert a letter on this subject, written to me by a lady who lived twenty years in Washington's family, and who was his adopted daughter, and the grand-daughter of Mrs. Washington. The testimony it affords, and the hints it contains respecting the domestic habits of Washington, are interesting and valuable :--

"WOODLAWN, February 26, 1833.

"SIR,-I received your favor of the 20th last evening, and hasten to give you the information which you desire. Truro Parish is the

one in which Mount Vernon Pohick Church and Woodlawn are situated. Fairfax Parish is now Alexandria. Before the Federal District was ceded to Congress, Alexandria was in Fairfax County. General Washington had a pew in Pohick Church, and one in Christ Church at Alexandria. He was very instrumental in establishing Pohick Church, and I believe subscribed largely. His pew was near the pulpit. I have a perfect recollection of being there, be fore his election to the presidency, with him and my grandmother. It was a beautiful church, and had a large, respectable, and tendants. He attended the church at Alexwealthy congregation, who were regular atandria when the weather and roads permitted, a distance of ten miles. In New-York and

Philadelphia he never omitted attendance at disposition. The afternoon was spent in his church in the morning, unless detained by inown room at home; the evening with his family, and without company. Sometimes an old and intimate friend called to see us for an prohibited for that day. No one in church hour or two; but visiting and visitors were attended to the services with more reverential respect. My grandmother, who was eminently pious, never deviated from her early habits. She always knelt. The General, as was then the custom, stood during the devotional parts of the service. On communion Sundays, he left the church with me, after the blessing, and returned home. He sent the carriage back for my grandmother. It was his custom to retire to his library at nine or ten o'clock, where he remained an hour before he went to his chamber. He always rose before the sun, and remained in his library until called to breakfast. I never witnessed his private devotions. I never inquired about them. His life, his writings, prove that he was a Christian. My mother resided two years at Mount Vernon after her marriage with John P. Custis, the only son of Mrs. Washington. I have heard her say that General Washington always received the sacrament with my grandmother before the Revolution. When my aunt, Miss Custis, died suddenly at Mount Vernon, before they could realize the event, he knelt by her, and prayed most fervently, most affectingly, for her recovery. Of this I was assured by Judge Washington's mother, and other wit

THE CHRISTIANITY REQUIRED BY THE TIMES.

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N increase of its spiritual life, and a reform of its sectarianism, are required of the Church by these times, we have said. Another improvement more minute, and, if less important, yet urgently desirable, may be suggested; a reform in that peculiar style of religious expressioncommon to the pulpit, to the conversation and to the literature of religion-which gives origin to, if it does not justify, the reproach of cant so often charged against evangelical Christians, especially in the light literature of the day.

As bigotry is, to most minds, the most repulsive feature which can deform religion, cant, by a trait of weakness or whimsicalness, which seems inseparable from it, is the occasion of a species of scorn which, from its very levity, becomes the more fatally satirical and influential. Not only does the habitual scoffer avail himself of this petty foible, but the mass of irreligious, yet respectful men, feel more than they express its pernicious influence. Its absurdities of pretension and language float about under the form of piquant quotations, in the casual conversations of such men on religious subjects, and not unfrequently associate themselves detractingly with their deepest impressions of religious truth. On more select minds, from whose superior powers we have the right to demand a better discrimination between essential religion and the adventitious defects which arise from the weakness of its followers, this evil is not without its influence; and John Foster, in his superb essay "On the causes by which evangelical religion has been rendered unacceptable to persons of cultivated taste" devotes two of his longest and ablest chapters to the subject.

As every science must have its peculiar language, its technology-theology, as a science, must also be allowed its appropriate vocabulary. It is not against this that we would speak, but against that general style of expression on religious subjects, which is popularly current, and by which religious topics of even the most popular kind are placed without the limits of the direct, simple, and natural treatment that the popular mind usually gives to all other subjects of importance. If this peculiarity gave to religious subjects peculiar rever

ence or dignity, it would be more defensible; but, on the contrary, it detracts from them; it is characterized, as we have said, by weakness and whimsicalness, and brings upon religion a species of reproach, which, though logically insignificant, is practically powerful. The subject is not without its delicacy; we are therefore happy, in referring to it here, to avail ourselves of Foster's sensible views upon it. He thus describes it :-" I suppose it will be instantly allowed that the mode of expression of the greater number of evangelical divines, and of those taught by them, is widely different from the standard of general language, not only by the necessary adoption of some peculiar terms, but by a continued and systematic cast of phraseology; insomuch that in reading or hearing five or six sentences of an evangelical discourse, you ascertain the school by the mere turn of expression, independently of any attention to the quality of the ideas. If, in order to try what those ideas would appear in an altered form of words, you attempted to reduce a paragraph to the language employed by intellectual men in speaking or writing well on general subjects, you would find it must be absolutely a version. You know how easily a vast mass of exemplification might be quoted; and the specimens would give the idea of an attempt to create, out of the general mass of the language, a dialect which should be intrinsically spiritual; and so exclusively appropriated to Christian doctrine as to be totally unserviceable for any other subject, and to become ludicrous when applied to it.* And this being extracted, like the Sabbath from the common course of time, the general range of diction is abandoned, with all its powers, diversities, and elegance, to secular subjects and the use of the profane. It is a kind of popery of language, vilifying everything not marked with the signs of the Holy Church, and forbidding any one to minister to religion except in consecrated speech.

"That there is a great and systematical alienation from the true classical diction,

expedient with the would-be-wits to introduce some of the spiritual phrases, in speaking of anything which they wish to render ludicrous; and they are generally so far successful as to be rewarded by the laugh or the smile of the good fortune of hearing wit, and have not the circle, who probably may never have had the sense or conscience to care about religion."

"This is so true, that it is no uncommon

is most palpably obvious: and I cannot help regarding it as an unfortunate circumstance. It gives the gospel too much the air of a professional thing, which must have its peculiar cast of phrases, for the mutual recognition of its proficients, in the same manner as other professions, arts, crafts, and mysteries have theirs. This is officiously placing the singularity of littleness to draw attention to the singularity of greatness, which in the very act it misrepresents and obscures. It is giving an uncouthness of mien to a beauty which should attract all hearts. It is teaching a provincial dialect to the rising instructor of a world. It is imposing the guise of a cramped formal ecclesiastic on what is destined for an universal monarch."

After insisting that the best style of religious language is that neutral vehicle of expression which is adapted indifferently to common serious subjects, he proceeds to describe more particularly the alleged defect. It has three distinctions: "The first is a peculiar way of using various common words. And this peculiarity consists partly in expressing ideas by such single words as do not simply and directly belong to them, instead of other single words which do simply and directly belong to them, and in general language are used to express them ;* and partly in using such combinations of words as make uncouth

phrases. Now what necessity? The answer is immediately obvious as to the former part of the description; there can be no need to use one common word in an affected and forced manner to convey an idea, which there is another common word at hand to express in the simplest and most usual manner. And then as to phrases, consisting of an uncouth combination of words which are common, and have no degree of technicality,—are they necessary? They are not absolutely necessary, unless each of these combinations conveys a thought of so exquisitely singular a turn, that no other conjunction of terms could have expressed it; which was never suggested by one mind to another till these three or four words, falling out of the general order of the language, gathered into a peculiar phrase; which cannot be expressed in the language of another coun

“As, for instance, walk and conversation, instead of conduct, actions, or deportment; flesh, instead of, sometimes body, sometimes natural inclination."

try that has not a corresponding idiom; and which will vanish from the world if ever this phrase shall be forgotten. But these combinations of words have no such pretensions. When you obtain their meaning, you may well wonder why a peculiar apparatus of phrases should have been constructed, to bring and retain such an element of thought within the sphere of your understanding. And it would be found that these phrases, as it is within our familiar experience that all phrases consisting of only common words, and having no relation to art or science, can be exchanged for several different combinations of words, without materially altering the thought or lengthening the expression."

The second part of this dialect he describes as consisting, "not in a peculiar mode of using common words, but in a class of words peculiar in themselves, as being seldom used except by divines, but of which the meaning can be expressed, without definition or circumlocution, by other single terms which are in general use. For example, edification, tribulation, blessedness, godliness, righteousness, carnality, lusts, (a term peculiar and theological only in the plural,) could be exchanged for parallel terms too obvious to need mentioning."

The third distinction of this religious dialect consists, he remarks, "in words almost peculiar to the language of divines, and for which equivalent terms cannot be found, except in the form of definition or circumlocution. Sanctification, regeneration, grace, covenant, salvation, and a few more, may be assigned to this class. These may be called, in a qualified sense, the technical terms of evangelical religion. Now, separately from any religious considerations, it is plainly necessary, in a literary view, that all those terms that express a modification of thought which there are no other words competent to express without great circumlocution, should be retained. But, the definitions of some of these Christian terms are not absolutely unquestionable. The words have assumed the specific formality of technical terms without having completely the quality and value of such terms. A certain laxity in their sense renders them of far less use

in their department, than the terms of science, especially of mathematical science, are in theirs. Technical terms have been