clergy, owing in part to the increased benevolent efforts of the times. If a minister considered it a principal object of his life to study, not only would the people be better satisfied with his labours, but he would think less of the inconvenience and trials of his place.

He

It is but of little consequence, to a good and faithful minister, where he is settled, as it regards his own profit, or his influence on the world. A man may be almost buried in a hamlet amongst the mountains. The world may never read or hear his name. faithfully uses the trust committed to him, and dies almost unknown Such an one may not only be acknowledged hereafter as a better servant than another, whose name and fame were great amongst men, but it may also happen, that the tradition, if not the contemporaneous record, of his hidden life, is published to the world; and then his simple faith, his unambitious spirit, his devoted love for his Master and his charge, have a greater effect upon the world, than he could have produced, if he had preached to thousands, and had spent his life in the scenes of a great city. There are places, small and inconsiderable, in our own and in other lands, which will probably be known, for many generations, by their association with the name and memory of the minister who spent his life in their quiet and almost unknown retirements. We are deceived, if we think that our characters or usefulness depend, mainly, upon our places of labour Young ministers, especially, need to learn, that their usefulness is not to be computed by their immediate and obvious success. Opposite the window, at which we are writing, there is a tall, young elm. Its trunk, black with the rain which is now falling, shows, in strong contrast, the few tufted leaves which it has yet been able to produce, while, not far from it, a young fruittree is already full of leaves and blossoms. The latter will not long retain its present beauty, it cannot yield much fruit, and, fifty years hence, it will probably be a suitable emblem of a man of God, beneath whose quiet influence the generations of a people, their flowers and their taller grass, have fallen asleep. This is an age of sudden and violent impulse to do good, to reform mankind, to hasten the cycles of the divine decrees. Young ministers partake, to some extent, of the spirit of the times, and are unlike the nation which the Prophet said, had not, from its youth, been emptied from vessel to vessel. We are persuaded that one great means of curing the evil is, (not to be less benevolent, not to have a jealousy and fear of all reforms, but) to recognise and practise this truth, that a prominent object of a minister's life should be self-cultivation.

We have spoken chiefly of intellectual culture. The Christian ministry affords the best possible opportunities for moral self-cultivation. In observing examples of excellent goodness, and also of the unsuspected deceitfulness of the human heart, in commending

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and reproving others, a minister will be reminded of his own deficiencies; and while he seeks to make others better, how can he, without hypocrisy, neglect his own teachings? Secluded from the world in a degree favourable to reflection, and yet continually called into the world, at least by his official intercourse with his people, he may fully realize all that is good in the idea of the monastic life. He is not taken "out of the world," but is in a great measure kept from the evil." He has advantages for learning all that is of general value in other callings, without the undesirable liabilities and necessities of those callings. His studies, for instance, may lead him into some of the paths of the profession which is concerned with the principles of law; for a knowledge of these principles is of use in the statement and illustration of Christian truth; but how different with him is the object and use of such knowledge, from its employment in the perplexing and wearisome contests of man with his neighbour. So with respect to the facts and principles of almost every other calling; the Christian minister has an advantage from them, in which, compared with those who are employed in their practical application to the arts and purposes of life, he is like the earth, which drinks in the showers which the sun, and and clouds have wrought. He seems to be set apart in every respect, by the arrangements of Providence, for the highest advantage to his moral improvement, and, at the same time, he is deprived of no privilege, nor excluded from anything which is necessary to his consciousness of being a member, in full communion, of the great human family.

sea,

The improvement of these opportunities for moral culture will show itself in the character of his appeals from the pulpit. A man, who has done nothing but inform himself, by study, with regard to facts and theories, will address himself only to the understanding, and that with but little success. He will be, perhaps, an instructive, but certainly a hard, dry, uninteresting preacher. We remember Burke's opinion of "the heart of a thorough-bred metaphysician." The subjects, with which a preacher is conversant, and the motives which are supposed to influence him, will, of course, sever his heart from the cold and inhuman influences which gather round. the soul of one whose chief employment is to practise metaphysical alchemy upon the nature of man. But, next to him, in doing injustice to the nature which God has given us, is the man who sets forth moral and religious truth, as though we had only the power of cold and barren intellection. What a mysterious and dread power is the human conscience! To approach it, and deal with it successfully, requires more art and care than in approaching a Pythoness; -to secure its well-instructed aid, to prevent its encouragement of evil doing, is oftentimes a harder work than was the bringing back of Eurydice from hell. The man, who would do it successfully,

must be able to say, in sympathy with Apostolic goodness," We trust we have a good conscience." He must know its ocean-like depths and changes, its troubled billows, its halcyon peace. He must have experienced the bitterness of sorrow at its silence with regard to his errors and sins, when it was spell-bound by evil desire ; he must have felt its power, when it afterward shouted, like a giant by reason of wine. Of the human conscience, it may be said, " Its roaring is the roaring of a lion, but its favour is as dew upon the grass. Surely none but he who has made himself a study, can speak of such thing successfully to his fellow-men; and we say, that there are no opportunities for such study more favorable than those which he enjoys, who has the "cure of souls," and is thereby led, if he is a sincere and honest man, to a self-application of the errors, and the self-deceit, and the good moral examples of others.

Emotion is indispensable to the highest usefulness in preaching; and there are no circumstances which call into exercise the various emotions of the human soul, to be compared with those which occur in the experience of a parish clergyman. The necessity of sympathizing with the joys and sorrows of his flock, gives one, who is sincerely engaged in doing good to his fellow-creatures, that moral sensibility which is essential to completeness of character. He is forbidden to be a Stoic, by the irresistible appeals which the circumstanes of his people make to his heart. He cannot be diligent without having continual occasion for the exercise, and so for the cultivation, of feelings, which, to some, strangely seem unmanly, but without which man is not complete. Pride makes us strive to conceal a softness and delicacy, which nature and the providence of God conspire to produce by things and events around us. We cannot yield ourselves up to the influence of natural objects without being softened; and the natural influence of many of the events of life is to make us tender and gentle. We need not be ashamed of this, for true genius always has a touch of the feminine. Even in those cases, in which the reign of horrid passions has made the heart desolate of every good thing, no sooner does trouble come, then we discover this same attendant of greatness; as when the frost falls on an evergreen, the vine, which had hid itself in the changeless tree, turns red, and shows itself, in striking contrast to the unyielding green.

But there is danger, to some extent at the present day, of an undue predominance of sentiment in the character and feelings. The pulpit determines the moral sentiments of men, more than any other instrumentality, when the clergy are men of proper intellectual and moral influence. The philosophy which they teach, in connexion with religion, pervades the community. They may inculcate a cold, unfeeling system of moral sentiments, and perhaps this is generally the greatest danger. But there is another and opposite

error. By appealing to the religious principle in man, which is intimately associated with the love of the mysterious, it is easy to affect meditative minds with such a passiou for spiritualizing, that they will dwell continually in an ideal world. There is a luxury to some in spiritual dreams; a witchery in an imagination, to whose eye new and strange forms of beauty and of supposed truth come forth from common or heretofore unheeded things, investing characters and places with sentimental charms, and making mystery hang around us.

It is true enough, that we live in a world where sensitive minds are exposed to painful contact with vulgar people. It is also true, that it is rare to meet with those who are natural and simple in their feelings, who have instinctive and just perceptions of natural beauty, who are artless, and humble, and modest, aud free from selfishness. In weariness of the world around them, in the desire for something better than the senses furnish, there is a temptation, with many, to indulge in reveries, and roam in the solitudes of a fanciful creation, and, when they return to every-day life, to feel and think about every thing with a spiritualized habit of mind. The danger from this is a prevailing effeminacy of thought and feeling, and a more exquisite state of the moral sensibilities than is consistent with the absolute duties of life.

We have no sympathy with those who allow no refined sentiments, which are incapable of demonstration by an anatomical knife, or by figures. But when a system of morals, or of natural or revealed religion is built upon them, and, chiefly, with them, there is cause for alarm. We deplore that austere and unfeeling method of representing religious truth, as though men had no fancy or imagination. He who overlooks these powers, in addressing men, must be strangely ignorant of the history of literature, and the universal sympathy of the human mind with those productions which are characterized by imaginative genius. He must even be ignorant of the Bible, of the chosen method in which the Most High, to a great degree, has seen fit to instruct men. With some, every thing which is brought in as a means accessory to a bare declaration of truth, is undervalued and decried. Strange as the ancient match of Vulcan and Venus may appear to us, we could wish that it were more frequently seen spiritualized, in many pulpits. We have sometimes heard men, in conversation, find fault, almost contemptuously, with the refinements of thought and speech in preaching, of which they manifestly needed an infusion, to correct their overgrown propensities of another kind. It is a great attainment to have such a knowledge of the human mind, as to be able to address truth to it in accordance with its various susceptibilities to impression. But, while it is unphilosophical to set forth truth in such a form that it can affect only the understanding, it is a worse error

to consider the fancy or imagination as the governing power of the mind. The characteristic influence of the former method will be, not to do much good, but of the latter to do much hurt. For he who practises upon the latter principle, will lead men to disregard the old foundations of truth, and rely upon unsubstantial and visionary sentiments, The young are in danger of this tendency, whether they teach or learn. Many are so fascinated with the charms of beautiful and poetic thought, that they seem like one, who, having for the first time looked through a prism, is so delight. ed with the rich, gorgeous colours, that the common light is afterwards unsatisfying.

The leading and commanding power of a preacher should, no doubt, be investigation and argument. But let him add to his faith, virtue ;-let moral sentiments, and feelings coming from the original depths of the soul, blend with his intellectual conceptions. He is only half a man and half a preacher, if he fails of this. His example and authority for it are the teachings of him, who spake as never man spake. Some, who are in earnest in preaching against error, preach truth in such forms, and with such absence of emotion, that their truth is practical error. The studies, the meditations, the devotions, the various scenes, which are incident to the Christian ministry, it would seem, are sufficient to make any one ardent in this calling, and to excite and cultivate those emotions, which are the beauty and excellency of an intelligent mind.

But the reason why so many educated minds have so little individuality, no doubt is, an extreme haste to enter upon professional life. Youth and inexperience catch at the nearest examples and helps. In after life, it is difficult to begin the work of original selfcultivation. There is need, that teachers should, to a greater extent be teachers of the individual, rather than of classes; and that the pupil, who is past the season of youth, should have a sense of his separateness of character from other minds.

ART. XIII.

1. The History of Banbury. By ALFRED BEESLEY. Part 1. Nichols. and Son.

2. The History and Antiquities of Leath Ward in the County of CumberLand. By SAMUEL JEFFERSON. Nichols and Son.

3. The History and Antiquities of Syon Monastery, the Parish of Isleworth, and the Chapelry of Hounslow. By G. J. AUNGIER. Nichols

and Son.

THESE works supply a variety of interesting information not merely the inhabitants of the localities embraced by them, but to the student of national history and antiquities,-of family genealogies and ancient manners. The first and second strikingly testify and VOL. I. (1841) No. I

I