the spiritual authority, which forms the ultimate and the sacred sanction of our own system. We are peculiarly gratified to see a man of Mr. M.'s talents and respectability, educated and ordained among ourselves, supporting, with such steady ability and such conciliating candour, the same system, in circumstances so different. We have much satisfaction in seeing him honoured with the high distinction of Domestic Chaplain to our young Princess. If he rise, as he deserves, and as he probably will rise, to high preferment among us, his disinterested services in the humble Church to which he is now attached, will be a source of great personal satisfaction to himself, and will entitle us to hope that he will come among us, actuated by the highest and purest principles of our sacred profession. Our Establishment is interesting to ourselves, and important to the constitution of our country. It is best supported, however, by those who, to a respect for the civil sanctions by which it is guarded, add a reverence for its spiritual authority, on which we would ultimately rest its de. fence. We are proud of our Establishment; but we would rather claim the allegiance and the devotion of her members to the ordinance of God, than to the arrangements of man. On this account, we always hail our Scottish brethren as friends, on whose purity of principle we can rely in every extremity. They have been tried in the school of adversity, and they show us the value of that principle, which, after all, is the greatest ornament and the best support of our Church.

From Romans chap. i. ver. 1. Mr. M. points out, first, the "duties which follow from a separation unto the gospel." He considers the divine authority of the ministerial commission and the sacred import of the sacramental seals, the administration of which is exclusively committed to those who are regularly separated unto the gospel. In this view, as ministers of a REVEALED RELIGION, and administrators of rites which are of divine institution, he justly claims the right to magnify his office, the source and intention of which are equally sacred and salutary. After considering "the dignity of the office of the Christian priesthood," he proceeds, in the second place, to point out and enforce the duties which attach to it." He considers, in the third place, with great and affecting impartiality," the nature of those dangers which lie in the way of the faithful discharge of the clerical office." Mr. M. concludes his very able and interesting discourse with a slight sketch of the present circumstances of the community to which he now belongs. We select the following, because the facts are very interesting:

**The Episcopal Church in Scotland, of

which we have the happiness to be members, was, as you too well know, from its supposed political attachments, for many years an object of suspicion and jealousy in this country; and I believe it is now generally acknowledged, that it was forced to undergo many severities from the dark character of the times, which it required all its firmness and principle to bear with Christian magnanimity and patience. It is, I believe, now as generally acknowledged, that this poble part it performed -that throughout every trial and severity, its pastors stood firm to the religious principles which they maintained;" and exhibited, amid persecution, and poverty, and neglect, somewhat of the faith and fortitude of the primitive martyrs. These disastrous days are past; the temporary wrath of man has ended in the praise of God;' and while we of this Church look back with gratitude to those humble but intrepid men who have secured to us tho unbroken order of a spiritual descent, we look back with veneration upon those examples of patience, of perseverance, and of piety, which they have so fully afforded us, and by which alone we feel, that the Church they have preserved and adorned, can be, in our hands, either adorned or preserved. To be a member of such a Church, carries with it, indeed, a more than common obligation to become ' separated unto the gospel of God,' without any private or less holy view. In the days which it has been our blessing to see, the faith and the purity se admirably displayed by this Church, during the times of her persecution, have as bountifully been rewarded. The political calamities in which she was involved have happily passed away, and the government of our country has wisely and generously felt, that the opposition which principle alone occasioned, would be converted into as strenuous support, when principle also demanded it. In the same auspicious hour, the Church of England stretched out the right hand of fellowship, upon the first notice of the wishes of her holy, though humble, sister, and with the true feeling of apostolical times, acknowledged the equality of her spiritual claims, although unsupported by the outward dignity of temporal distinction. The sons of that great and wise establishment now join in communion, and in every reciprocal interchange of love and duty with their Episcopal brethren in this part of the island. Something of support, as well as of honour, has thus been conferred upon this northern Church; while she, in return, holds examples, nurtured in her bosom, of a well tempered zeal, of modest worth, and of professional learning, which well deserve to be studied and copied by -the noblest and most prosperous establishments. Thus, happy in her connexion from

without, she is now no less happy in her situation at home. The jealousy of for mer times, let us thank God, is gone: the liberal and enlightened establishment from which she dissents, looks upon her almost with a kindred eye; and I am sure 1 may say, that, of all who dissent from it, she would be the last to touch its privileges with a rude and sacrilegious hand. While she is sincere in believing that her own constitution approaches nearer to the purity of primitive times,, she yet acknowledges, with gratitude and veneration, that the established Church of Scotland has well performed its duty; that it has reared and fostered a thinking, a sober, and a religious people; that its roots are interwoven, and deservedly interwoven, with their habits and with their hearts; and she is well ware, that nothing short of its own internal corruption (happily, as little likely to ensue, as it would be deeply to be deplored,) ever can or ought to shake the stability of a Church, the labours and fidelity of whose ministers Providence has so long and conspicuously blessed. In every path of light and of religion, their distinguished names, indeed, may well awaken her emulation; but this is all the rivalry which she can ever feel. It is, in truth, her singular and characteristic glory, that she is not established; and they, I am convinced, know little of the peculiar honours to which she has it in her power to -aspire, who, for a moment, would wish her to be so. It is her lofty destiny (shall I say?) amidst the recollection of her former faith and sufferings; amidst her present friendly ties and friendly dissensions; with the respect and protection of rulers, on whom, at the same time, she has no political dependence; fostered in a country conspicuous for the light of genius, of science, and of philosophy; it is more within her reach than perhaps has ever fallen to the lot of any other Christian body, to hold up to the eye of a civilized and inquisitive age, the truth, the simpli city, and the independent dignity of the gospel; to unite the primitive model of apostolic faith and purity, with every thing enlightened, excellent, and wise, which has been evolved in the course of ages; and while her sons are separated unto the gospel of God,' free from political and worldly avocations, at the same time to exhibit them free from the narrowness of any partial sect, and wedded only to the boundless charities of their Master !" We have long been persuaded, on what we conceive to be sure and solid grounds, that the Episcopal Church in Scotland affords the most perfect model of what a Church, not established, ought to be. She did so amidst contempt and persecution: she has done so since she was admitted to the rights of toleration; patient and peaceable in the one case, modest and respect

ful, and unassuming in the other. We are pleased to find the conclusion, which he had formed from other sources, confirmed by an authority so respectable and unsuspicious. We were led to suspect, from some things which we have heard and remarked in occasional visits to Scotland, and from some publications which we have perused, that the established clergy did not entertain for their Episcopal brethren the candid and sympathetic feelings which we are convinced that they have always merited. We are willing to believe, on the testimony of Mr. M. that there is a salutary change. We heartily rejoice to hear it, and earnestly trust it will be per manent.

Lines written by the Poet MASON, at the Age of 72.

"The feeble effort of a genius almost exhausted, of a light twinkling in the socket, but the tribute of a humble and holy spirit prepared to meet its God."

Again the year on casy wheels has roll'd

To bear me to the term of seventy-two:
Yet still my eyes can seize the distant blue
Of yon wild peak, and still my footsteps bold,
Unpropp'd by staff, support me to behold

How Nature, to her Maker's mandate true,
Calls Spring's impartial heralds to the view,
The snow-drop pale, the crocus spik'd with gold;
And still, (thank Heav'n!) if I not falsely deem,
My lyre yet vocal freely can afford

Strains not discordant to each moral theme Fair truth inspires, and aid me to record,

(Best of poetic palms!) my faith supreme In thee, my God, my Saviour, and my Lord!

Mun's Demerit.

The following is from the forcible pen of the "judicious Hooker."

Our very virtues may be snares unto us. The enemy that waiteth for all occasions to work our ruin, hath found it harder to overthrow a humble sinner than a proud saint. There is no man's case so dangerous as his whom Satan hath persuaded that his own righteousness shall present him pure and blameless in the sight of God. If we could say, we were not guilty of any thing at all in our consciences, (we know ourselves far from this innocency, we cannot say, we know nothing by ourselves; but if we could,) should we therefore plead not guilty before the presence of our Judge, that sees further into our hearts than we ourselves can do? If our hands did never offer violence to our brethren, a bloody thought did prove us murderers before him. If we had never opened our mouth to utter any scandalous, offensive, or hurtful word, the cry of our secret cogitations is heard in the ears of God. If we did not commit the sins which daily and hourly, either in deed, word, or thoughts, we do commit; yet in the good things which we do, how many defects are there intermingled! God, in that which is done, respecteth the mind and intention of

not.

the doer. Cut off then all those things wherein we have regarded our own glory, those things which men do to please men, and to satisfy our own liking, those things which we do for any by-respect, icerely and purely for the love of God, and a small score will serve for the number of our righteous deeds; let the holiest and best things which we do be considered. We are never better affected unto God than when we pray; yet when we pray, how are our affections many times distracted! how little reverence do we show unto the grand majesty of God, unto whom we speak! how little remorse of our own miseries! how little taste of the sweet influence of liis tender mercies do we feel? Are we not as unwilling many times to begin, and as glad to make an end, as if in saying, Call upon me, he had set us a very burdensome task? It may seem somewhat extreme, which I will speak; therefore let every one judge of it, even as his own heart shall tell him, and no otherwise; I will but only make a demand: If God should yield unto us, not as unto Abraham, if fifty, forty, thirty, twenty, yea, or if ten good persons could be found in a city, for their sakes this city should not be destroyed; but, and if he should make us an offer thus large, search all the generations of man since the fall of our father Adam, find one man, that hath done one action, which hath passed from him pure, without any stain or blemish at all; and for that one man's only action, neither man nor angel should feel the torments which are prepared for both. Do you think that this ransom, to deliver men and angels, could be found to be among the sons of men? The best things which we do have somewhat in them to be pardoned; how then can we do any thing meritorious, or worthy to be rewarded? Indeed, God doth liberally promise whatsoever appertaineth to a blessed life to as many as sincerely keep his law, though they be not exactly able to keep it. Wherefore we acknowledge a dutiful necessity of doing well, but the. meritorious dignity of doing well we ut terly renounce. We see how far we are from the perfect righteousness of the Law; the little fruit which we have in holiness, it is, God knoweth, corrupt and unsound: we put no confidence at all in it, we challenge nothing in the world for it; we dare not call God to reckoning, as if we had him in our debt-books: our continual suit to him is, and must be, to bear with our infirmities, and pardon our offences.

The Liturgy.

(From a late Charge of the Bishop of Gloucester.) The censers of Dathan and Abiram, those sinners against their own soul

though once filled with strange fire, and used by unworthy worshippers, yet remained the same, hallowed as before, un perverted and unpolluted; so is our Liturgy unaffected by the weakness or the corruption, the false opinions, or even the evil motives, of those into whose hands it may, possibly, at any time be intrusted. It ever remains unchanged, ready to become the vehicle for the purest incense; for the most genuine and the liveliest devotion. But we must never forget, that, after all, incomparable, unalterable as it is, it is but a vehicle. The feelings of our hearts must correspond with the sentiments expressed; the prayers must be appropriated by each worshipper, and made his own; the fair and exactly proportionate image must be kindled into life by the breath of the soul; the offering on the altar must be set on fire, and its savour ascend, or it will never reach Heaven, and be acceptable to Him who is a Spirit, and must be worshipped with the spirit and with the understanding.

It is our design to make this publication in some degree a Literary Register; and occasionally to introduce literary articles friendly to piety and morals. With this view, we insert the following article, abridged from a late number of the British Review. While it does justice to the genius of the author whose work it criticises, it displays, we think, with great force and interest, the licentious tendency of that popular pro

duction, and contains many correct remarks on modern poetry in general.

BERTRAM, or the CASTLE of ST. ALDOBRAND; a Tragedy, in Five Acts. By the Rev. R. C. Maturin.

The epidemic among modern poets is the disease of affectation, which is for ever carrying them into quaint, absurd, and outrageous extremes. One is determined to say nothing in a natural way, another is for saying every thing with infantine simplicity, while a third is persuaded that there is but one language for the drawing-room, the Royal Exchange, the talk of the table, and the temple of the muses, One consequence of this fatal propensity to affectation among our poets, is a terrible sameness or mannerism in each of those who have been encouraged to write much; and the worst of it is, that each of these luminaries, while he moves in his own orbit in perpetual parallelism with himself, has a crowd of little moons attending him, that multiply the malignant influence, and propagate the deceptious glare. But the most insufferable of all the different forms which mothe cant and gibberish of the German school, dern affectation in composition has assumed, is which has filled all the provinces, as well of imagination as of science, with profound nonsense, unintelligible refinement, metaphysical morals, and mental distortion. Its perfection and its boast is, to be fairly franchised from all the rules and restraints of common sense and common nature; and if domestic events and social manners are the theme, all the natural affections, ties, charities, and emotions of the heart, are displaced by a monstrous progeny of vice and sentiment, an assemblage of ladicrous

hörrors, or a rabble of undisciplined feelings. We shall hail the day, as a day of happy auspices for the moral muse, when our present fanatic race of poets shall have exhausted all their "monstrous shapes and sorceries," and the abused understandings of our countrymen shall break these unhappy spells, forsake the society of demons, and be divorced from deformity. To us especially whose duty condenins us to the horrible drudgery of reading whatever men of a certain reputation may choose to write, it will be a great refreshment, if it be only for the novelty of the scene, to find ourselves once more, if not at the fount of Helicon, or on the summit of Parnassus, yet at least in a region where fog and gloom are not perpetual, and poetry is so far mindful of its origin and ancient character as to proceed in the path of intelligibility, and to propose to itself some meaning and purpose, if not some moral end.

Rotten principles and a bastard sort of sentiment, such, in short, as have been imported into this country from German moralists and poets, form the interest of this stormy and extravagant composition. The piece is so much in the taste of Lord Byron, that the public have let that nobleman into a large share of the credit of the performance. How that may be we dare not say, but we venture to advise the reverend dramatist, for the sake of the holy and immortal interests connected with his profession, to withdraw himself from all connexion with Lord Byron's tainted muse, and to the greatest distance he possibly can from the circle within which the demons of sentimental profligacy exert their pernicious incantations. The best amulet we can recommend him to use by way of security against the influence of these spells and sorceries, is the frequent, the perpetual per usal of the word of God, of which it is his happy privilege to be the organ and expounder. Let him bind it for a sign upon his hand, and let it be as a frontlet between his eyes, and he may set at nought all the fascinations of depraved poetical examples. In that source of sublimity, simplicity, and beauty, will be found the forms and models which the poet, and especially the clerical poet, may study with security, advantage, and delight, there will be found a holy standard of moral perfection, a magnificent display of real grandeur, towards which the soul may erect itself in an attitude of correspondent elevation, and carry its views safely beyond the boundaries of material existence into regions of intellectual splendour, and among those happy inspiring objects which bear the poet aloft on seraph's wings,

"And wake to ecstacy the living lyre." The very dramatis persone of this performance sufficiently announced to us what we were to expect, and particularly the ominous line at the bottom of the page, "Knights, monks, soldiers, banditti, &c. &c. &c." recalled to our minds the alarm which we felt on reading Lord Byron's motto to his last redoubtable performance-"Guns, trumpets, blunderbusses, drums, and thunder." The story of this piece is told in a very few lines. Count Bertram, a nobleman of Sicily high in the favour of his sovereign, was attached to Imogine, a young lady of com paratively humble birth, who returned his love with an equal passion. By a sad reverse, the consequence of his ambition and rebellion, the count is deprived of all his fortune and honours, and banished from his native land. With a band

of desperate followers he continues to keep the shores and the state itself in alarm. His great enemy and fortunate rival, to whose ascendency he was forced to give way, is St. Aldobrand, a valiant and a loyal subject, who, to complete the mortification of the discomfited rebel, btains the hand of Imogine in the absence of first lover. The lady's excuse for this breach of constaney is the starving state of a parent, whose wants she is thus enabled to relieve. Count Bertram, with his desperate band of followers, is shipwrecked upon the coast near the monas. tery of St. Anseln, and within a little distance of the castle of St. Aglobrand. They are re ceived at the monastery with the hospitality usual in such places, and soon after a message comes from the fair Imogine to invite the shipwrecked voyagers to the castle of St. Aldobrand, as being capable of affording them better accommodation and refreshment than the com vent. In the meantime, in a conversation with the prior of the convent, Count Bertram reveals himself, and makes a full declaration, with all the bitterness and rage of disappointed passion, of his deadly hate towards St. Aldobrand, and determined purpose of destroying him. He is made acquainted with the temporary absence of his enemy, then with the Knights of St. Anselm. Upon learning this he expresses a horrid joy, considering the opportunity as now arrived of satiating his vengeance. He goes to the castle of St. Aldobrand, where his followers are feast. ed. His interview with Imogine, and the dire impressions on his mind when the full disclosure of her situation is made to him, are exhibited in a scene of great tragic pathos and terror.

At the next meeting of this luckless pair, which is at the convent of St. Anselm, after much painful conflict, Bertram extorts a promise from Imogine to meet him under the castlewalls, and yield him an hour's intercourse. The appointment is kept, and in a wretched moment the stain of guilt is added to the sorrows of the unhappy wife. Immediately after the parting, Bertram hears that Lord Aldobrand had reecived a commission from his sovereign to hunt down the qutlawed Bertram. From this moment he forms an inexorable determination to murder (for whatever gloss is given to the act, in reference to the manner, place, and time of doing it, no other name could properly describe it) his devoted enemy. His horrid purpose is declared to the wretched wife, whose pitiable and mad despair, on being unable to move him from his purpose, is certainly a most distressing picture of female anguish. The murder is com mitted; and all that succeeds is the utter misery, madness, and death of Imogine, and the death of the count by his own hands.

That there is much deep distress in the story of this tragedy, very considerable foree in the expression of feeling and passion, and both vigour and beauty in the imagery and diction, we are very ready to adnit; but in dignity, proprio ty, consistency, and contrast, in the finer movements of virtuous tenderness, the delicacies of female sensibility, the conflict of struggling emotions, heroical elevation of sentiment, and moral sublimity of action, this play is extremely deficient. The hero is that mischievous compound of attractiveness and turpitude, of love and crime, of chivalry and brutality, which in the poems of Lord Byron and his imitators have been too long successful in captivating weak fancies, and outraging moral truth. Let but your hero be wellfavoured, wo-begone, mysterious, desperately

the doer. Cut off then all those things wherein we have regarded our own glory, those things which men do to please men, and to satisfy our own liking, those things which we do for any by-respect, not ' icerely and purely for the love of God, and a small score will serve for the number of our righteous deeds; let the holiest and best things which we do, be considered. We are never better affected unto God than when we pray; yet when we pray, how are our affections many times distracted! how little reverence do we show unto the grand majesty of God, unto whom we speak! how little remorse of our own miseries! how little taste of the sweet influence of his tender mercies do we feel? Are we not as unwilling many times to begin, and as glad to make an end, as if in saying, Call upon me, he had set us a very burdensome task? It may seem somewhat extreme, which I will speak; therefore let every one judge of it, even as his own heart shall tell him, and no otherwise; I will but only make a demand: If God should yield unto us, not as unto Abraham, if fifty, forty, thirty, twenty, yea, or if ten good persons could be found in a city, for their sakes this city should not be destroyed; but, and if he should make us an offer thus large, search all the generations of man since the fall of our father Adam, find one man, that hath done one action, which hath passed from him pure, without any stain or blemish at all; and for that one man's only action, neither man nor angel should feel the torments which are prepared for both. Do you think that this ransom, to deliver men and angels, could be found to be among the sons of men? The best things which we do have somewhat in them to be pardoned; how then can we do any thing meritorious, or worthy to be rewarded? Indeed, God doth liberally promise whatsoever appertaineth to a blessed life to as many as sincerely keep his law, though they be not exactly able to keep it. Wherefore we acknowledge a dutiful necessity of doing well, but the meritorious dignity of doing well we ut terly renounce. We see how far we are from the perfect righteousness of the Law; the little fruit which we have in holiness, it is, God knoweth, corrupt and unsound: we put no confidence at all in it, we challenge nothing in the world for it; we dare not call God to reckoning, as if we had him in our debt-books: our continual suit to him is, and must be, to bear with our infirmities, and pardon our offences.

The Liturgy.

(From a late Charge of the Bishop of Gloucester.) The censers of Dathan and Abiram, those sinners against their own soul

though once filled with strange fire, an used by unworthy worshippers, yet remained the same, hallowed as before, unperverted and unpolluted; so is our Liturgy unaffected by the weakness or the corruption, the false opinions, or even the evil motives, of those into whose hands it may, possibly, at any time be intrusted. It ever remains unchanged, ready to become the vehicle for the purest incense; for the most genuine and the liveliest devotion. But we must never forget, that, after all, incomparable, unalterable as it is, it is but a vehicle. The feelings of our hearts must correspond with the sentiments expressed; the prayers must be appropriated by each worshipper, and made his own; the fair and exactly proportionate image must be kindled into life by the breath of the soul; the offering on the altar must be set on fire, and its savour ascend, or it will never reach Heaven, and be acceptable to Him who is Spirit, and must be worshipped with the spirit and with the understanding.

It is our design to make this publication in some degree a Literary Register; and occasionally to introduce literary articles friendly to piety and morals. With this view, we insert the following article, abridged from a late number of the British Review. While it does justice to the genius of the author whose work it criticises, it displays, we think, with great force and interest, the licentious tendency of that popular production, and contains many correct remarks on modern poetry in general.

BERTRAM, or the CASTLE of ST. ALDOBRAND; a Tragedy, in Five Acts. By the Rev., R. C. Maturin.

One

The epidemic among modern poets is the disease of affectation, which is for ever carrying them into quaint, absurd, and outrageous extremes. One is determined to say nothing in a natural way, another is for saying every thing with infantine simplicity, while a third is persuaded that there is but one language for the drawing-room, the Royal Exchange, the talk of the table, and the temple of the muses. consequence of this fatal propensity to affectstion among our poets, is a terrible sameness or mannerism in each of those who have been encouraged to write much; and the worst of it is, that each of these luminaries, while he moves in his own orbit in perpetual parallelism with himself, has a crowd of little moons attending him, that multiply the malignant influence, and propagate the deceptious glare. But the most insufferable of all the different forms which modern affectation in composition has assumed, is the cant and gibberish of the German school, which has filled all the provinces, as well of imagination as of science, with profound nonsense, unintelligible refinement, metaphysical morals, and mental distortion. Its perfection and its boast is, to be fairly franchised from all the rules and restraints of common sense and common nature; and if domestic events and social manners are the theme, all the natural affections, ties, charities, and emotions of the heart, are displaced by a monstrous progeny of vice and sentiment, an assemblage of ladicrous