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sions in early life, for difference of constitutions, for latent seeds of disease, for peculiarities in the animal system, acting with an imperceptible influence on the temper and manners, and for unknown circumstances that give a peculiar colour to the character. Though men may not take these things into the account in the opinion which they form of others, our heavenly Father, it is a consolatory thought, "knoweth our frame." The worthy person, whose history we are giving, to return from this digression, united with the gifts of the Christian minister a love of literature, a taste for the belles lettres, and the manners of the gentleman. His spirit and principles, as a professor of Christianity and a Protestant Dissenter, like those of a consistent friend to religious inquiry, were liberal and catholic. His temper and manners in the social relations of life were affectionate and generous. "To serve a friend and to relieve distress," it has been observed by one who knew him well," were to him the most delightful offices:" and he had a very lively sense of the respect and friendship shewn to him by others; and, though a warmth and hastiness of temper, truth will concede was a principal failing in his natural disposition, candour will hear with pleasure, that he was known to have laboured very hard to regulate and subdue it. His domestic character will live in the memory and in the mournful regrets of his widow, his children and his pupils. On being laid aside from the stated and usual services of the pulpit, he removed to Leicester, and engaged in a plan of education. He had, during his residence at Stourbridge, conducted, with great reputation, a seminary for young gentlemen. For the education of youth he was, by disposition and acquirements, particularly qualified. He was now induced to change the objects of his literary labours, by directing them to the cultivation of the female mind, in conjunction with Mrs. Jenkins, a lady well-qualified herself to form the youthful intellect and manners of the sex. His laudable efforts in this use

ful and important department were, alas! soon terminated, by a sudden dismission from this scene of activity and trial. He was, indeed, prepared for the awful close of life. He had anticipated it. He had wished for it: he had no fear of death, and met it, in the few moments of recollection, which, after awakening from sleep, preceded it, with composure of mind and resignation, Oct. 23, 1814, aged 53.

"Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord; who sweetly fall asleep in Jesus: they rest from their labours, and their works do follow them." Feb 2, 1815.

A FRIEND.

P.S. On occasion of Mr. Jenkins' ordination at Banbury, in 1793, the late Rev. Samuel Palmer delivered a very appropriate, judicious, and impressive discourse, from Cantic. i. 6. under the title of a charge, "On the Necessity of keeping our own vineyards;" which, in the course of the next year was repeated at an association, and published at the request of several ministers. From the apology for undertaking that part in the services of the day, and with which the discourse opens, it appears that Mr. Jenkins had stood, in a former connexion with Mr. Palmer; perhaps, as an assistant in his seminary.

During Mr. Jenkins' residence at Banbury he entered into the matrimonial relationship with a young lady of a respectable family, in the congregation. At that time the parish church was rebuilding, and the members of the Establishment met for religious worship at suitable times, in the Meeting-House of the Protestant Dissenters, under the sanction of an act of parliament, which was passed to legalize marriages and other parochial services performed in it, till the parish church was opened again. Under these peculiar circumstances, Mr. Jenkins was married by the parochial clergyman in a pew in his own meeting-house.

The Funeral Sermon, for Mr. Jenkins, was preached by the Rev. Dr. Toulmin, of Birmingham, from Rev. xiv. 7. The everlasting gospel. A poem by Mr. Jenkins was inserted ix. 572.

EXTRACTS FROM NEW PUBLICATIONS.

State of France.

[From "Notes on a Journey through France, from Dieppe through Paris and Lyons to the Pyrennees, and back through Thoulouse, 1814. By Morris Birkbeck. 8vo.]

HE approach to Rouen is noble:

and comfort. Since I entered the country I have been looking in all directions for the ruins of France; for the horrible effects of the Revolution, of which so much is said on our side of the water: but instead of a ruined country I see fields highly cultivated, and towns full of inhabitants. No houses tumbling down, or empty; no ragged, wretched-looking people. I have inquired, and every body assures me that agriculture has been improving rapidly for the last twentyfive years; that the riches and comforts of the cultivators of the soil have been doubled during that period; and that vast improvement has taken place in the condition and character of the common people. In the early part of the revolution, more was done in promoting the instruction of the lower orders than the sinister policy of the late Emperor was able to destroy: and, though much remains to be desired on this point, enough has been effected to shew that a well-educated commonalty would not be wanting in industry or subordination.

On my first landing I was struck with the respectable appearance of the labouring class; I see the same marks of comfort and plenty every where as I proceed. I ask for the wretched peasantry, of whom I have heard and read so much; but I am always referred to the Revolution: it seems they vanished, then.

July 16.-Corn market, Rouen: -A retail business chiefly. Wheat about 34s. per quarter, coarse and light; oats good, 13s. 6d. per quarter; vetches for pigeons and fowls, 24s. per quarter; oil cake 4d. for 6 lb. 12 oz. English weight.

Formerly there were, in Rouen, forty convents. These buildings are mostly now the property of individuals, and are applied to a variety of useful purposes: a few remain unsold, as public warehouses, barracks, &c.

That of the Benedictines, a noble structure, is the Hotel de Ville. The libraries of the other convents have been collected, and deposited in this building for public use. It is open five days in the week. A splendid gallery of pictures, collected in the

open) to the public. The garden, formerly belonging to this convent, is kept in good order, and forms an agreeable promenade, which is much frequented by the citizens.

Gypsum, in large quantities, is brought down the Seine from the neighbourhood of Paris. It is used in the interior of buildings; and for manure on clover, after the first crop.

July 17.---Visited a small farmer a few miles from Rouen. Labourers' wages 10d. per day, and board; 20d. per day without board. As all provisions, every article of expenditure, may be taken at something under half the English price, by doubling their wages, we may find the proportion they bear to our's. Great numbers of turkeys are kept here, and fowls of all descriptions. Poultry is an important object of French farming: it is a question whether there is more weight of mutton consumed than of poultry. The daughters of this farmer were both notable and polite : and the ploughman and boy were eating an omelet with silver forks.

On a sheep-walk above Deville, a man was collecting fresh sheep dung, which he sold at three farthings per ib. It is used in dyeing cotton red. I note this trifle because it may be worth knowing; but especially as an instance of the danger of observing superficially. I thought that he must of course be a wretched pauper, who was collecting sheep dung to sell as manure: this excited my curiosity, which was agreeably relieved by the above information. At a very poor inn in a remote village, where we stopped on our morning's ride, the landlady kept a child's school, and her daughter was weaving cotton check; her sister kept a little shop, and was reading a translation of Young's Night Thoughts. This was more than we should have expected in a village alehouse in England..

A dirty fellow, with a good voice, and a fiddle with three strings, alternately chanting and preaching to the crowd in one of the market places at Rouen, attracted my attention. The morale was the collection of three sous each from his hearers, for a sacred charm: being much amused and somewhat edified, I purchased a packet. It contained two papers of prayers and saintly histories; a small crucifix, and a very small bit of the real cross. When I displayed my treasure at the hotel, our landlady's son, a boy of about thirteen, who spoke a little broken English, cries out, on seeing the crucifix, "Dat is God,”. --" Dat is God."

Sunday is but slightly observed in this part of France, (fifty miles south of Paris,) at any season; very slightly indeed in harvest. Some go to church for about an hour; but, before and after, no great marks of Sabbath are perceptible. This is to be regretted a day of rest is at least an excellent political regulation: good for man and beast. It is, however, pleasant to perceive how little hold the church has upon the minds of the people. Surely it can never recover its influence. The churches here are modest structures; not so imposing as those of Normandy; and I fancy they have less influence on the imagination of the inhabitants.

Roanne. Sunday. Religion seems to be monopolized by the women, if we may judge by the attendance at church. Twenty women to one man is about the proportion. At the Petits Minims here, to-day, there might be 800 persons present to hear the sermon; 40 of them men!

Aug. 14. (St. Urban.) In every part of France women employ themselves in offices which are deemed with us unsuitable to the sex. Here there is no sexual distinction of employment: the women undertake any task they are able to perform, without much notion of fitness or unfitness. This applies to all classes. The lady of one of the principal clothiers at Louviers, conducted us over the works; gave us patterns of the best cloths; ordered the machinery to be set in motion for our gratification, and was evidently in the habit of attending to the

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whole detail of the business. Just so, near Rouen, the wife of the largest farmer in that quarter, conducted me to the barns and stables; shewed me the various implements and explained their use: took me into the fields, and described the mode of husbandry, which she perfectly understood; expatiated on the excellence of their fallows; pointed out the best sheep in the flock, and gave me a detail of their management in buying their wether lambs and fattening their wethers. This was on a farm of about

400 acres. In every shop and warehouse you see similar activity in the females. At the royal porcelain manufactory at Sevres, a woman was called to receive payment for the articles we purchased. In the Halle de Bled, at Paris, women, in their little counting-houses, are performing the office of factors, in the sale of grain and flour. In every department they occupy an important station, from one extremity of the country to the other.

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In many cases, where women are employed in the more laborious occupations, the real cause is directly opposite to the apparent. You see them in the south, threshing, with the men, under a burning sun;---it is a family party threshing out the crop of their own freehold a woman is holding plough ;---the plough, the horses, the land is her's; or, (as we have it) her husband's; who is probably sowing the wheat which she is turning in. You are shocked on seeing a fine young woman loading a dung-cart ;---it belongs to her father, who is manuring his own field, for their common support. In these instances the toil of the woman denotes wealth rather than want; though the latter is the motive to which a superficial observer would refer it.

Who can estimate the importance, in a moral and political view, of this state of things? Where the women in the complete exercise of their mental and bodily faculties, are performing their full share of the duties of life. It is the natural, healthy condition of society. Its influence on the female character in France is a proof of it. There is that freedom of action, and reliance on their own powers, in the French women, generally, which, occasionally, we observe with admiration in women of superior talents in England,

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The Doctrine of Common Sense with regard to Sacrifices.

all? Where is it revealed? To whom is it revealed? What is the penalty of rejecting it?

As the sacrifices offered to God by the patriarchs and enjoined by the Mosaic dispensation have been represented as expiatory and typical, and some of them expressly intended to represent, not only the death of the Messiah, but also the end for which he died, namely, as is commonly taught to satisfy the wrath of God, we shall begin our inquiries, by endeavouring to understand their true nature: and we would hit to your readers, that some things will be submitted as plausible conjectures only; others, and those the most interesting, will be asserted as facts, on the ground of scriptural evidence; deductions, inferences, and explanations, will of course arise out of these facts, and they will be cheerfully offered (as they have been fairly made to the best of the writer's ability) to the plain understandings of sincere Christians of every denomination.

That sacrifices were offered to the Deity from the earliest ages all history testifies, but it is not clear that animals were slain in sacrifice in the first age of the world, nor can it be proved by scriptural authority, that any such were enjoined at that time. The first offerings were probably nothing more than what are called in the Levitical law thank-offerings; I think there is no proof to the contrary in either sacred or profane history, The poet Ovid, that collector of old traditions, as well as heathen fables, says, lacte mero veteres usi narrantur et herbis, sponte sua signa terra ferebat. And it is likely that while the inhabitants of the world were but few, their food was not the flesh of animals, but the fruits of the earth, this appears to have been the food of the first parents of men, it is therefore probable that in those days bloody sacrifices were not offered, and if so great a portion of the inhabitants of India have in all past ages abstained from animal food, occupying, as they are supposed to do, the original seat of mankind, we have then an instance of the continuance of this custom to this day, by millions of the human

race.

If we take the scriptural account of the first ages of the world literally,

we must believe that God did, by some
visible and audible medium, make his
presence obvious to mankind in those
ages, and that it was so is very pro-
bable, because no man could acquire
ideas of God, truth and duty, without
adequate means of instruction, and
though natural religion might teach
the existence of Deity, some of the du-
ties which we owe to him, to ourselves
and to one another, yet I think the
state of the heathen world, after they
had lost by their crimes just ideas of
God, and degenerated into idolatry,
proves that there is much of God and
of duty, and the means of happiness,
which cannot be known, except by
revelation: if this be a mistake, it
would be difficult to prove the neces-
sity of such a revelation, and if ever,
it was always necessary, and never
more so than in the infancy of know-
ledge, while language was barren,
because ideas were few, and arts un-
known. I am speaking of such a re-
velation only, as was adapted to the
then existing circumstances of the
world. The art of language is one of
the most valuable discoveries made by
man; it must have been perfected by
degrees, as ideas increased, and if not
taught as to its first principles, by the
Author of our being, it is one of the
highest proofs of the grandeur and ex-
cellence of human nature. I conceive
then, that the parents of the world,
very likely by divine instruction, had
methods by which they acknowledged
their dependence upon, and obliga-
tions to their Creator.
Here seems
to be the origin of worship and sacri-
fice; a sacrifice was an act, speaking
the language of gratitude, adoration
and praise. As Hosea expresses it,
"We will render thee the calves of
our lips;" and that this was the idea
of St. Paul is, I think, evident from
his exhortation, Rom. xii. 1, "render
your bodies a living sacrifice to God.
holy, acceptable."

Several of the sacrifices offered to God after the patriarchal times, seem to have been refinements on the simple original idea, and in after ages that idea was almost lost, together with the knowledge of the true God, by the far greater part of mankind; certainly the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans, considered many of their victims in the light of vicarious sacrifices, but that the enlightened among

the scite of the Bastille; from which a grand street was projected to the front of the Louvre, through the whole length of the city. The canal of Ourque, a grand work of his for the supply of Paris with water, was to have formed a fountain through the proboscis of the elephant. It is said that he invited the artists to furnish him with designs for a monument, to be erected on this spot, and having received them, he proposed his own of the elephant, which was characteristic of its author, but will probably never be completed. Whereever you turn is some majestic monument of his taste. In fact, the grandeur of Paris was his creation, and you now see workmen busy in all parts, scratching out his name and defacing his eagles. This is very pitiful. The Bourbons, in their attempts to disgrace Napoleon by pulling down his statues and obliterating the ensigns of his power, are directing their attack against his least vulnerable part, and inviting a comparison greatly to their own disadvantage. He executed many great works of lasting utility, and many of amazing splendour. Under his auspices the internal government of the country was wise and effectual: property was sacred, and crimes were rare, because they could not be committed with impunity. It was through the madness of his external policy that his tyranny had become intolerable; for this he drained the best blood of his people, and sacrificed the commerce and manufactures of France; and to render the nation subservient to his ambition he laboured to enslave it. Let his successors pursue an opposite course: let them study peace, encourage commerce, and cherish liberty; then they will have no rival in Buonaparte. I think there is not in France any political party in his interest.

If we view France at large, apart from the busy politicians of the metropolis, nine-tenths of the people will he republicans when put to the test. To the republic, they owe all they possess of property and independence; but their only present prayer is for repose and security. Let the restored monarch look to this. There is a strong party in favour of tranquillity; but very little love for royalty out of the immediate circle of the court. Touch, or only threaten, the present

arrangement of property, and such a fermentation will be excited in the republican mass, as will shake Paris, and "discover its foundations."

With regard to the late Emperor, there seems to be no cement by which a party can be united for him. Many, no doubt, have lost situations of profit which they held under his government. The host of officers of revenue, and of all the departments of state who have been displaced; these naturally regret the power which nonrished them; but they are now mere individuals, who, with their places, have lost much of their influence. The army too may regret him; but it had suffered so deeply by his latter madness, that I really believe, highly as they respect him in character of General, they do not wish for exactly such a leader. Beside, a large part of the army is now re-settled in good pay and quarters under the present government; and there is little prospect of Napoleon's being in a situation to stand forward as a rallying point for the discontented among the remainder. A good lesson this for the present king. The fermentation of twenty-five years has purged off that mystical affection called loyalty, (so serviceable to kings and governments, that they have classed it among the cardinal virtues of a good citizen,) and they will value their government like other things, according to its usefulness. Their experience has given them more to fear than to hope from their rulers: reverse it, and they need not fear a competitor, though backed by all the potentates of Europe.

In speaking of parties I had forgotten the brood of priests which is hatching in all quarters. They are objects of derision and disgust whereever they appear. Their contracted shoulders, inclined heads, and hands dangling from their weak wrists, together with their immense hats and long camblet gowns, give them a sneaking demeanour, which contrasts most unfavourably with the erect gait and manly air of all other descriptions of people. It is a miserable thing that a class of men, born like their fellows, "Vultu erecto conspicere cœlum,” should be so debased by bigotry or hypocrisy. Religion, that most sub. lime relation, which connects man with his Maker, must ennoble the

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