paramount importance and ceaseless responsibility of their sacred calling?"

After a detail more than ordinarily serious, our author thinks it necessary to relieve the attention of his reader by a seriocomic tragedy, the death of Miss Eunice Kick. She was a female quack. She was the greatest patroness of patent medicines in the village; and prescribed with singular readiness, for all complaints, classes, ages, and conditions, 'St. James's Powder,' 'Widow Welch's Pills,' Daffy's Elixir,' and Dalby's Carminative."" But why does the Curate put Dr. James upon the calendar of saints? Is it because of the transcendent virtues of the celebrated powders? For our part, we think the proprietors of the other medicines whose names he inserts, will have great reason to complain, if in his next edition he does not make them all equal with their predecessor, by admitting them also to their highly-deserved canonization. We shall then hear of "St. Welch's Pills," "St. Daffy's Elixir," "St. Dalby's Carminative."

Poor Miss Kick died by taking mercury instead of magnesia; not, however, so suddenly, but that she had time to make her will, and to found a "Kick scholarship" in the village before her departure.

The clergyman now fears that he has made his readers laugh a little too loudly, and strives to bring them back to a moment's sobriety, by speaking of his own recovery from severe sickness, and the feelings he had on first going to church; but, do what we will to bring our minds to a calm consideration of the passage, Miss Kick or her ghost incessantly intrudes; and it is impossible to get rid of her in any such summary method as our author employs for the purpose. How can he thus strive to string diamonds and pebbles together?

The second chapter, or essay, in the book, is on sermonizing; in which he tells a ridiculous story, and not a very probable one, of his old mathematical tutor; who, venturing on the seacoast in a fit of mental abstraction, suffered the tide to overtake him in a situation from which he could not escape. “He waved his wig thrice, and then sunk in a billow."

This unfortunate mathematician, though a divine, could not make his own sermons.

He had filled up, in large staring text, and regularly preached, three volumes of "Benson's Plans for Sermons, and Hints for Sermons." p. 62.

Our author must here be guilty of a slight anachronism. Benson's Sermons, &c., were printed in parts; four of them only were published in 1825: the two remaining parts, which made up the three volumes, were some time after this: so

66

that, if the tutor only died just before the publcation of the Living and the Dead," he could not have been alive a year, or nearly, from the first of the first announcement of the work which he had so industriously copied out, and preached week after week in his parish." This may give some idea of the extent of our Curate's reading.

There are some suitable remarks in this chapter: but, without pausing over the rest, we shall now lay before our readers one which will make them acquainted with the style of the writer's divinity.

The preaching, I must confess, which I admire, is preaching to the heart; that which alarms the conscience, comes home to the feelings, arouses the understanding, excites inquiry. I have long been persuaded that there is nothing which more frequently cramps the energies of the young clergyman than the dread of being called "Evangelical." It is a vampire which hovers over the youthful aspirant after extensive usefulness, and too often effects the ruin of all that is excellent in thought and energetic in practice. Now if being " Evangelical" means being Calvinistic-if it is synonimous with holding the narrow, bigotted creed of election, and preaching doctrines fatal to morality-if it is being tainted with that unscriptural leaven which renders man a mere puppet, and Christianity a system of all others the best calculated to encourage the confident hypocrite, and drive modest virtue to despair: against such a creed, no one can protest more loudly than myself. But if being Evangelical is to preach with fervour and with earnestness-to press the subject home to the hearts of our hearers-to lead a life that harmonizes with the holy functions we have assumed to visit not by fits and starts, but regularly and assiduously, the afflicted, the dying, and the diseased-to make our own parish the sphere of our usefulness and the theatre of our fame-and to exhibit some degree of self-denial towards the vanities and amusements of a busy and a thoughtless world:-then I think it high time the appellation should be abandoned as a stigma of reproach. But I quarrel with the term. I think it a most unjust and illiberal application of an epithet to a part of the Establishment which may fairly be claimed by the whole. pp. 74, 75.

It is impossible to dwell minutely upon each of the errors contained in this short passage. But we will make a few general remarks upon the whole.

1st. We grant him, that the preaching which reaches the heart and comes home to the conscience, is the preaching which is to be useful.

much

2dly. We also grant that many young men are very afraid of being called Evangelical; but it is not the dread of being called so which cramps their energies, but the dread of being so. The name is nothing, the reality is every thing

3dly. Being Evangelical does not mean being Calvinistic: for those who are most sincerely attached to the doctrines of Calvinism will yet allow, and allow with delight, that many who reject the peculiarities of their system are yet Evangelical.

4thly. Our author should have attended to the recommendation of Bishop Horsley (himself no Calvinist): "Be sure, before

you attack Calvinism, that you know what Calvinism is:" and then he would not have made Antinomianism sit for the picture which he, in the plenitude of his theological wisdom, is pleased to call by the name of Calvinism.

5thly. He is not less mistaken when he begins to describe what evangelical preaching is. A man may do every thing which he recommends, and never approximate to an evangelical minister. He says not a word of the doctrines which form the basis of evangelical truth-not a word of that change of heart which the Gospel requires-not a word that comes home to the peculiarities and the grand essentials of sound evangelical doctrine. Were he right, it would be high time to discard the appellation of Evangelical altogether, as one which distinguishes between two classes of ministers; but as long as there are crude and uninformed ministers like himself, who know not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, so long will it be necessary to have some term to point out the difference between his class of preachers, and that which is at direct antipodes to him on subjects of vital and eternal importance. None would rejoice more than we, could it be proved that all the ministers of our Church were truly evangelical; but we are no advocates for removing the appearance of difference, unless the difference itself be removed.

The Country Curate having failed in his attempt, both at the negative and the positive description of the word Evangelical, we would just beg leave to say, that the truth lies equally remote from the two extremes which occupy his attention. In opposition to his negative view on the subject, we contend that there is nothing necessarily narrow or bigotted in that system against which he contends: it preaches nothing unfavourable to morality; it does not render man a puppet; it does not encourage the hypocritical, nor drive modest virtue to despair: but it teaches that salvation is by grace; that there is one only Mediator by whom the sinner can have access to God; that we must live by faith on this Saviour; and that this can only be done by him who is born again of the Holy Spirit.

And here let him take care that he does not rest upon his own positive view of the subject. It is possible he may be fervent and earnest-so may the followers of Johanna Southcote. He may think he leads a life in harmony with his profession, when it is any thing but a life of serious devotedness to God. He may visit the sick, confine himself to his own parish, and blame those who do not; and yet may want all that is valuable in true religion. He may exhibit some degree of self-denial

towards the vanities and amusements of a busy and a thoughtless world; and yet, if he does not" come out from among them and be separate, "if he does not cut off the right hand and pluck out the right eye which offend, he may find, which we sincerely hope he never will, that, after having preached to others, he himself may be a cast-away!

In a chapter headed" The Leading Idea," our author begins with a story, not very well told, of an eminent cricket-player, who could never speak a sentence without allusion to his favourite game. At length, however, he pounces upon Mr. Simeon of Cambridge; and would endeavour to make it appear, that the devotion of this holy man to the cause of the Jewish Society was a thing of the same kind with the propensities of the cricketplayer. We do not say but that Mr. Simeon may possibly give a greater preponderance of his attention and influence to this society, than most pious men in his circumstances would feel themselves justified in giving; but, at the same time, are we to be his judges in this matter? Are we to look upon his pursuit as upon a favourite hobby to which caprice has attached him? No: the whole tribe of little critics, with the author of the Living and the Dead among them, misunderstand the character of the man whom they censure. He is too great for their puny minds to be able to comprehend him. He has, for more than forty years, taken a course in which they could not follow him; and has pursued and attained objects far, very far, above their reach. They call him an excellent, well-meaning man. Yes, well-meaning, and well-acting too: a man to put them to the blush, and make them" hide their diminished heads."-The attempt, in page 168, to render his personal peculiarities a subject of merriment, is too stale, and has been repeated too often, to succeed now. It also argues a littleness of mind, of which we should have been glad to acquit the writer. What is become of his profession, to say "nothing of the living that is uncandid or unjust?" whom every

,

How he will settle his account with Lady one in Cambridge knows from his description, we are not anxious to determine. We cannot think it very candid, or very just to retail such anecdotes as are here given of her, be they true or false, especially as she has done nothing to merit the exposure. We are treated with a day's visit to Olney; in which Cowper forms, as might be expected, the prominent feature of the picture; while Newton and Scott, after a sly attack upon the tendency of their principles, receive as much commendation as men who are both Evangelical and Calvinistic can expect from one who is

neither. The closing sentence of the chapter is, however, an indecent attack upon the memory of two of the greatest ornaments of any age or any church.

To me......'tis something to have walked in Cowper's garden, sat in Cowper's summer-house; and stood in the pulpit from which Newton bounced and Scott scolded! p. 216.

It is in this way that the names of the best of men are sneakingly assailed by mere sciolists in divinity. How does the Country Curate know that Newton bounced? Newton was impressive, earnest, affectionate; and his action might, perhaps, be somewhat more energetic than that of the Country Curate, especially as he preached extempore; but the manner of Newton never merited from any one the name of bouncing. Scott, too, was, by some, said to scold; but, in our humble opinion, this, if it ever had been a fault of his, was removed in his latter days; and never do we remember to have heard more sound goodsense, more evangelical piety, more faithful and affectionate appeals, and we will add, less scolding, than from that venerable man. We cannot form a better wish for the Country Curate, than that he may know the Gospel as Newton and Scott knew it; may preach as they preached, may live as they lived, and die as they died!

Our author seems to deal out his personalities with increased freedom as he advances. In a long diary, called " The Sorrows of a Rich Old Man," he introduces a garrulous lady of the name of Ibbotson, that through her he may give his specimens of the living. Of course he is careful "to say nothing of them that is uncandid or unjust!" He makes Mrs. Ibbotson speak of Lady Byron with commendation of her mode of educating her daughter; and then the following passage is added:

If she was "learned" and "mathematical," most assuredly it never appeared in her conversation. It was that—and that only-of a highly accomplished and very well-informed woman. An incident occurred-I don't choose to divulge it-which was perfectly conclusive to my mind that Lady B-was still fondly attached to him. And from the accounts of others, who know the facts, I am thoroughly satisfied that Lord and Lady Byron might have been living together at this very hour, had his life been spared, but for the intervention of a third person.-Lady Noel never could endure him; and the feeling was reciprocal. She was perpetually haunted by the idea that his Lordship was an unfaithful husband. On the other hand, he never spared her; and unhappily Lady Noel's temper, and unguarded expressions, afforded ample scope for the most biting satire and caustic irony. p. 275.

In all this, Lady Byron seems to escape pretty well; but what a wanton attack is it upon Lady Noel? And is the writer of the Living and the Dead thus to cast forth his firebrands into living families, and, calmly looking upon the effect of misrepresentations, to say, "Am I not in sport?" Is he to excuse by

VOL. NO. III.

2 Q