very existence of Christianity. We are to look for no new lights here; and a modern Apostle may be suspected on primâ facie evidence, of being an imposter. The assumption of the character of Founder of a sect, implies a degree of pride and corresponding want of humility, hardly consistent with true piety. At the same time, it evinces rashness and ignorance. Modern religious reformers generally begin by discrediting the labors and talent of previous teachers, in order to raise the value of their own. In an attempt to go back to the standard of primitive Christianity, they discredit the succession of wise and good men, who have filled the interval with their pure thoughts and holy lives.

In effect, too, they hurt their own cause, where they treat the ministers of religion with contumely; for they destroy a respect for those external decorums, which are not only becoming in the best Christians, but considered no less than essential in the department of a polished gentleman.

Enthusiasm is, at once, the strong and the weak point of the religious reformer, enthusiasm, real or assumed; the most vulnerable point of attack.

The control of a multitude by the sympathetic feeling of enthusiasm may be spoken of as a species of animal or spiritual magnetism. We see the effect of it in such hands as those of Mahomet, Cromwell, Whitfield, Napoleon. But this is a vulgar passion, not the enthusiasm of noble natures for objects of equal worth. Ordinary religious enthusiasm is both degrading and impious; degrading as it is irrational, aud impious from presumption and familiarity. As to the vulnerability of enthusiasm, we only need to read Hudibras. Yet are we no believers in the sophism of "ridicule being the test of truth." It may furnish a searching test of artificial It is a touchstone for absurdities in conduct. But

manners.

religion is above it; its principles are too sacred for such a connection. The practices of fanatic religionists are, however, more absurd than any ridicule that can be heaped upon them, and they are fair game for the pen of the satirist.

The truest Christians have been, in general, moderate in their views, no advocates of human perfectibility, no Fifth Monarchy men. Pious persons, with a vein of mysticism in their characters, as Norris, Fenelon, Herbert, or Farrar, may indulge themselves in raptures and ecstasies; but these have a certain real beauty, and at least disturb not the peace of their neighbors. Modern ranters split the ears, while they would invade the souls of the groundlings, and seem to think the kingdom of Satan can be carried by the same means which toppled down the walls of Jericho.

It is a little singular, that, with a single exception, the author of Hudibras, the keenest satires on religious extravagances, and the severest censure (however humorously allegorized) that has been passed on the defects most visible in the clerical character, should have come from the pens of churchmen. Yet such has been the case from the time of Erasmus to the day of the Rev. Sidney Smith, the most celebrated of living clerical wits, including, among other names in the interval, those of South, Eachard, and Swift,--a trio, that for wit, sense, and honesty, cannot be paralleled.

Those who are most in the habit of railing at the clergy and at religious persons in general, show great ignorance and narrowness. They confound the worthy with the worthless, under a common denomination of hypocrites. It is a usual saying with such people, that they consider themselves as good Christians as any. Having seen villany and worldliness masked under the appearance of religion, they conclude all Christianity to be a deception. This is as much as if one

should pretend an accurate knowledge of human nature, from having filled the station of a jailer all his life, and seen much crime. The Newgate Calendar is but a chapter in the great Book of Life. Religious satire is not for such readers, as it gives them ideas on one side, and that the worst side, which they possess neither inclination nor ability to rebut. Their situation has precluded the possibility of an acquisition of true views on this subject, and of seeing how much more good than evil there is in the world after all (wicked as it is), despite the sneers of the profligate and the scorn of the misanthrope.

XVII.

PROSE OF BARROW.

THERE is an eloquence of the reason as well as of the imagination and of the affections. Perhaps it is more firmly based than either, and produces in the end the surest effects. It is less captivating than the descriptive eloquence of Taylor; it has less hold on the taste than the sentimental passages of Rousseau or Hazlitt, less touching than the pathos of Sterne or Mackenzie, less brilliant than the declamation of Burke or Macaulay but it is anchored in truth; it is founded in reality; it convinces the understanding. Finally, all eloquence. must come to this. We may be captivated by the glittering flashes of a copious fancy, and charmed, for an hour, by the attractive graces of manner; but the only true eloquence is that which is always such, which equally interests a future age and a foreign nation, and which is the pure essence of

the noblest reason, couched in the clearest, the most forcible, and the richest expression. Those brilliant contemporary speakers, of whom we have only a traditionary knowledge, such as Dean Kirwan, Patrick Henry, and Emmett, are rather to be regarded as consummate actors than solid

orators.

To give the praise of finished oratory to the sermons of Barrow would be an extravagance of eulogy; and yet his fame is great, and his sermons most able. He possesses the utmost fulness (this side of extravagance) in point of thought and expression; yet we can hardly say as much of his style and manner. The characteristic trait of Barrow is his power

' of exhaustive analysis. He is a perfect mental chemist, analyzing every topic into as many parts as it is composed of, and precipitating (so to speak) all the falsehood in it, leaving a clear solution of truth. Our divine is one of the most liberal-minded of men. He has a wide range of thought, and mines, as it were, into the very depth of his argument. He gives you every side of every subject he handles. He knows all the false appearances sophistry may be made to wear, as disguises of the truth. He is thoroughly informed of all the bearings of his subject, and leaves no part of it untouched. Though without imagination, Barrow had such a fertility of intellect (so well cultivated was the soil), as to appear almost possessing invention in the way of topics and illustration. The secret of his invention lay in long and severe study, aided by a capacious and powerful and ready

memory.

Reason was the master faculty of Barrow's mind. He seems to have had but little fancy-no imagination; not much of an eye for nature-no humor-hardly anything like delicacy of sentiment. His understanding was a robust,

hard-working faculty. His analysis was very acute and thorough his logic exceeding close, searching, and patient. He had much and varied erudition, and a memory that was not crushed by the weight of it. This is an argument for the original force of Barrow, as well as for most of the great old prose writers, that their learning was not too much for them. No foreign acquisitions could obscure the clear light of their own reason: learning served them for evidence, for illustration. But they never confounded knowledge and wisdom, and knew as well as the old dramatists, their grand compeers that

"The heart

May give a useful lesson to the head."

Hence, without vanity, they relied more on themselves than most scholars, who are too often mere pedants.

It is worthy of remark, that most of Barrow's sermons are rather moral dissertations, than what we would call, at the present day, evangelical discourses. Barrow comes nearer to a teacher of moral philosophy, than the ordinary standard of modern preaching will allow. It was his practice to write a series of sermons on certain topics of practical ethics (none the less Christian, though some would have us think so); thus, he has four sermons on industry, eight on the tongue, &c., &c. He seldom wrote less than two, and frequently three, on a single text. These are complete moral treatises. Though, in one sense, this may be considered a defect, yet, in our view (perhaps mistaken), it is a merit. Preaching too often departs from the themes of daily importance- the offices of familiar duty. Most congregations require to be taught their moral as well as their religious duties (both parts of the same great scheme, and essentially one). We have