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to disguise them. He talks, too, of certain Syrian and Phenician fables, which he calls ineffable; and he concludes the fable of the golden age with these remarkable words, "But these things we must omit until there appear to us some fit interpreter:" which declaration shews that he judged the fable capable of a better interpretation than he was able to give it and that a suitable interpreter was expected. For in his Second Alcibiades he introduces Socrates telling Alcibiades that it is necessary they should wait until such a one should come, to teach them how they should behave towards God and towards man. Upon hearing which, Alcibiades cries out, 'Oh, when shall that time come, Socrates? And who shall be that teacher? How greatly do I desire to see that man who he is."-Socrates: He is one that careth for you. But I think, as Homer tells us that Minerva dispelled the mist from the eyes of Diomede, that he might discern the gods from mortals, so it behoves you to have the mist dispelled that hangs over your soul, and then to bring those things near by which you are enabled to discern between good and evil; for you seem to me not to be able of yourself to do this."Alcibiades: "Let him dispel this mist if he will, or do what else he pleases: for I am prepared and willing to omit nothing of all that shall be commanded by him, whoever he may be, so I may become the better man."-Socrates: " And he hath your interest greatly at heart." -Alcibiades: “I therefore judge it best to defer this sacrifice to that time. -Socrates: "You judge right."

As to the point of what is called Natural Religion, no nation or tribe can be found, strictly speaking, in a state of nature, all mankind having descended from the family of Noah. The religion of nature, therefore, is a mere creature of the imagination. Every thing that comes under this description is nothing but heathenism or idolatry; and it is notorious that in many things these bear a resemblance to the true worship of the God of the Scriptures, so that it has been justly said of them, that they are all "mythological distortions of theological truth."

The believer in the Bible, when he contrasts the ephemeral and impure nature of the Pagan orgies with the durability and holiness of Divine Revelation, is not only satisfied that he is right, but does all that in him lies to disseminate the knowledge of Christ to all who are perishing for lack of that knowledge.

A HUTCHINSONIAN.

ON BEING MOVED BY THE HOLY GHOST.

To the Editor of the Christian Observer.

THE inquiry, on being moved or influenced by the Holy Spirit respecting the sacred office of the Gospel ministry, proposed by " An anxious Inquirer" in your Number for February, is peculiarly interesting and important. The very attempt to reply requires the gracious aid of the same Spirit of truth, that the answer may be appropriate and satisfactory.

The providence of God in the common affairs of this world is often wonderfully mysterious: and not less, if not more, mysterious is that providence (if I may make the distinction) in reference to the purposes of His grace; purposes which (to speak it with reverence) are the most splendid acts of his mind and will respecting this lower world.

But to come to the object of these remarks: how wonderful is the providence of God in the choice of agents in the sacred ministry; a ministry which seems eminently the appointment designed by Him to accomplish his purposes of grace. Now, whatever previous preparation is made that is appropriate to this object by endowing the mind with suitable furniture, CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 376. 2 G

it is evident that so far there is the leading of Providence. And if in the course of that preparation the person concerned becomes, by whatever means, the subject of a work of Divine grace in his soul, or was so at the commencement; if he is graciously enlightened in his mind, and affected in his heart, by the Holy Spirit (for it is His work), then so far also it is evident that providence and grace concur in calling him to the sacred office. And if the work of grace be genuine, and is consequently carried on by the same gracious Agent, in the use of appointed means, up to the time of ordination, he is so far led by the Holy Spirit. And if, previous to that solemn period, his mind is devoutly and submissively tempered-so that he is willing or not willing to enter upon an office so high, so holy, and important, in child-like simplicity, and in conformity to the will of the Holy Spirit, or, which is the same, to the will of the Great Shepherd and Bishop of souls-all seems manifestly right; and if he enter upon the office, he needs not fear to answer in the affirmative the solemn ordination question, that he is "inwardly moved by the Holy Ghost to take upon him the sacred office." But how mysterious is Divine providence, connected with grace, respecting the sacred ministry, that persons have entered upon it in gross spiritual ignorance, and yet have afterwards been eminent lights. I mention this only as an instance of the mystery and sovereignty of the ways of God; and not that any, unmeet, should presume upon that high and holy calling.

SEXAGENARIUS.

DEFENCE OF COTTAGE ALLOTMENTS.

To the Editor of the Christian Observer.

It has caused me much regret to observe, in so valuable and widely circulated a publication as the Christian Observer, sentiments which, according to my views, are calculated in no small degree to mislead the public on the important subject of cottage husbandry and spade culture; which, in the opinion of many persons of practical experience, are more likely to relieve the present distress of the agricultural labourer, without the smallest sacrifice on the part of his superior, than any plan hitherto suggested: and so far from being a species of pauperism, any land proprietor wishing to try the experiment will, I am persuaded, find that tenants occupying from a rood to an acre of land each can afford to pay a higher rent than is usually obtained from the farmer, and be at the same time essentially benefited in a pecuniary point of view-especially when the land is of good quality, and contiguous to his cottage-and that, too, without producing premature old age.

In considering the question of profit, some misunderstanding arises from blending two things-namely, colonies at home, and small allotments of land. It is the latter I am now pleading for; and I think the opponents of the plan do not sufficiently consider the amount of time which most agricultural labourers have upon their hands in the course of the year; and also the difficulty, in many cases, of finding employment for their families. The amount of time and power so unoccupied I take to be quite sufficient to justify a labourer in undertaking, according to his means, to cultivate from a rood to an acre of land. In estimating the physical disadvantages of the plan, excess of labour is but one which may tend to the shortening of life insufficient diet, fuel, clothing, and bedding, must not be overlooked, as important items in the catalogue of a poor man's sufferings. The sum of from five to ten pounds a year added to a labourer's income, would enable him to obtain many of these necessaries of life, which he and his

family at present suffer for want of, and which sum might be obtained by the occupation of an acre or less of land. So far from improvident marriages being encouraged by increasing the comforts of the poor, I believe they will be found to prevail as moral degradation prevails: they act and react: but whatever tends to raise the labourer above pauperism, to make him feel (in the right sense of the term) his own consequence and the importance of his actions, leads to habits of provident forethought. The tendency, then, of providing labourers with small portions of land, appears to me to be, to raise him in the scale of society; to promote his domestic enjoyment; to keep him from the public-house, and yet supply him with good beer; to keep his children out of mischief, and inure them to habits of industry.

But merely to express opinions on the advantages of a system, without producing any proof, would, I am aware, avail but little : I will therefore state two instances of cottage husbandry which have this year come under my own notice. The first I shall mention is a tenant of my own, a respectable labourer, to whom I let an acre of land in the year 1831, and built him a cottage upon it. That year he planted it with potatoes, and sold them for upwards of 201. The crop of the present year consists of wheat, potatoes, mangle-wurzel, and a few et cateras, which amount to the sum of 201. 13s. 4d. The quantity of land sown with wheat was a rood, which produced fourteen bushels; and this extraordinary crop I attribute, in a considerable degree, to spade culture. The second instance is, an acre of land which I pass almost daily; and, being forcibly struck with the luxuriance of the crops, consisting principally of potatoes and manglewurzel, I was induced to inquire of the tenant the amount he had made of the produce, which he informed me was 181. 17s. 3d.; and this under some unfavourable circumstances, the land being planted with five rows of appletrees of fifteen year's growth, the fruit of which sold for no more than twenty shillings, owing to a failing crop.

On the subject of spade culture, I beg to state the result of some experiments of an intelligent farmer in my own immediate neighbourhood, whose accuracy may be fully relied on; who has, by digging after the plough, obtained on an average for three successive years, an extra produce of oats of three quarters per acre, and of wheat one quarter one bushel three pecks; the remainder of the field being cultivated each year on the old system, and no difference whatever in the treatment of the land, except in the use of the spade in digging after the plough, the farmer himself inspecting every process. And although the sub-soil is a strong clay, the digging did not cost, in any instance, more than twenty-five shillings per acre, at which price the men made two-and-sixpence per day in winter; that part of the work being materially expedited by attaching a blade to the side of the plough, which cuts the land as deep as the spade requires to go. It is necessary to dig once in three years, as the advantage is by no means confined to the first crop, but extends to the two succeeding ones at least: and if this plan of digging was adopted on all suitable soils, it is fair to conclude that few agricultural labourers in such districts need be unemployed during the autumn and winter months, and at the same time the farmer would get upwards of two hundred per cent. upon the extra outlay; yet, so far from their being generally ready to adopt such improvements as would evidently be beneficial to them, I believe the more intelligent of them will allow that the contrary is proverbial. P. T.

CALVARY, A SACRED ODE.

To the Editor of the Christian Observer.

THE following sacred ode, written for and adapted to Pergolesi's celebrated Stabat Mater," having been put into my hands by a friend, I am anxious to communicate to your readers the pleasure I have myself received from it. Those who are musical will be glad of a substitute for the Roman-Catholic hymn; and those who are not may at least profit by the piety and sentiments.

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REVIEW OF NEW PUBLICATIONS.

TAYLOR'S LIFE OF COWPER.

The Life of William Cowper, Esq., compiled from his Correspondence and other authentic Sources of Information: containing Remarks on his Writings, and on the Peculiarities of his interesting Character, never before published. By THOMAS TAYLOR. London. 1833.

MR. TAYLOR considers it necessary to explain why he has attempted a new life of the Poet Cowper-(or, as the title-page still calls him, William Cowper, Esquire. Who says John Milton, Esquire ?)-and perhaps some of our older readers may think we ought equally to explain why, at this late hour, we devote another review to the subject of Cowper, after the many papers which have appeared in our pages respecting him. We will grant them that satisfaction.

Our earliest notice of Cowper was in our very first volume (May 1802, just two years after his death); when we had occasion to animadvert upon the British Critic's review of Mr. Greatheed's funeral sermon for him, which the good critic made the basis for some zealous declamations against "Methodistical divines;" the principal feature of Cowper's life being, he said, that it contained "an awful warning against the errors of Methodism." If, instead of falling into the company of such a "Methodistical divine" as Mr. Newton, Cowper had conversed, says the reviewer, with "a divine more able to give him sound instruction in the Gospel," he would not have passed "thirty years of his innocent and very pious life" in a state of "religious melancholy." Now it is very possible, that, if he had really found an "able divine" who could have persuaded him that instead of being a sinner before God he stood at his tribunal "innocent" and thankworthy, not needing pardon, but challenging justice; his eyes might have been so blinded that, whatever form his lunacy took, it would not have taken that of humiliation. If the Pharisee in the Gospel had chanced, like poor Cowper, to have become insane, his mental aberrations would probably not have assumed exactly the same type with those of the Publican, had he also been visited by so dire a calamity. This may very readily be granted; and yet the proud lunatic might have been quite as wretched as the humble one; and his wretchedness might have even taken the form of what is vaguely called "religious melancholy." Dr. Johnson was often religiously depressed, and considered himself a cast-away; and yet his "able instructor," Dr. Strachan, was not a "Methodistical divine." Lunatic asylums in all ages have had ample specimens of religious melancholics, so called, who had never been perverted by any "Methodistical divine;" and in no case has the disease assumed a more affecting form than where the party was his own unremitting accuser, while miserable comforters were urging his good deeds and "innocence," instead of sending him to have his wounds bound up at the cross of the Saviour.

So much for possibilities: but facts are much more powerful; and in this respect, in breaking our youthful lance with the aforesaid critic, we had both wind and sun in our favour. For so it was, that poor Cowper had suffered the first, and a most painful, attack of his malady long before he knew any thing of Mr. Newton or Methodism; and his mental sufferings had actually caused him three times to make an attempt upon his own life; which indicated a degree of morbid desperation and exacerbation of mental disease far greater than ever manifested itself after that change of religious views to which the critic attributed his malady. And so it was, also, that when Cowper embraced those religious views which the critic considered

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