on the part of the author." tion-and never was there any publica- | his audience, is Isa. xxvi. 9. For Upon the principle of this apo- which he did not, at the time of ing out the proper improvement of the dispensation, he chose as subjects of discussion two other topics, which, whether correctly stated or not, did not certainly belong to the text read out to his audience. These topics are-1. The loyalty of subjects to the government; and, 2. That it is the The Sermon before us, was which will exalt the nation. Nor righteousness of the people alone delivered on a very interesting are even these subjects well exoccasion to British subjects, on plained. On the contrary, the the day of the funeral of the attention of the reader is carried Princess of Wales. Charlotte Augusta was the only legitimate away by a declamation, brilliant child of George Augustus Frede- indeed, but affected; often elorick, the Prince Regent of Eng- quent, but at times pressed beEng-yond the boundaries of our reland. She died in childbed be-j fore she completed the 22d year publican ideas of sober truth. of her age; and as the infant did "I rejoice in the present appointnot live, in her is terminated the ment, for the improvement of that sad and sudden visitation which has so dedirect line of hereditary succes-solated the hearts and the hopes of a sion to the crown of Great Britain. whole people."—p. 5. Hinc ille lachrymæ. "Death! thou hast indeed chosen the time and the victim, for demon strating the grim ascendency of thy power over all the hopes and fortunes of our species! Our blooming Princess, We feel grateful for those repubwhom fancy had decked with the co-lican institutions, which the death ronet of these realms, and under whose gentle sway all bade so fair for the of a single woman or child cannot good and the peace of our nation, has affect, and whereby we are perhe placed upon her bier! And, as if mitted, without any impeachment to fill up the measure of his triumph, of our humanity or patriotism, to has he laid by her side, that babe, who, confess that our families feel more but for him, might have been the monarch of a future generation; and he acutely the pangs of woful domestic has done that, which by no single visitation, than sympathy for the achievement he could otherwise have death of a king's or a governor's accomplished—he has sent forth over granddaughter. the whole of our land, the gloom of p. 10. such a bereavement as cannot be re- Dr. Chalmers, however loyal, placed by any living descendant of roy- is by no means of slavish political alty-he has broken the direct succes- opinions. He claims the right for sion of the monarchy of England-by the Christian ministry of examinone and the same disaster, has he wakened up the public anxieties of the ing the maxims and the conduct of country, and sent a pang as acute as their civil rulers in the light of that of the most woful domestic visita- divine revelation. He discards tion, into the heart of each of its fami- the doctrine of passive obedience lies."-p. 7. to every kind of government and "The judgment under which we now labour, supplies, I think, one touching, administration, as unmanly and and, to every good and Christian mind, unchristian; and maintains the one powerful argument of loyalty."-principle, with what consistency "What ought to be, and what actually which the Scottish Presbyterians of application we do not judge, is, the feeling of the country at so sad an exhibition? It is just the feeling of the have so ably and so often urged, domestics and the labourers at Clare that the true Christian tendency mont. All is soft and tender as woman of the administration of governhood. Nor is there a peasant in our ment is the proper test of its land, who is not touched to the very worth in a Christian country. heart when he thinks of the unhappy stranger who is now spending his days Mere partisanship he justly disin grief, and his nights in sleeplessness cards as unbecoming the pulpit. -as he mourns alone in his darkened Whether ministerialist or antichamber, and refuses to be comforted— as he turns in vain for rest to his ministerialist, ought not to be the troubled feelings, and cannot find it-question. The ambassador of as he gazes on the memorials of an af Christ should aim at higher obfection that blessed the brightest, hap-jects than serving the ins and the piest, shortest year of his existence-as he looks back on the endearments of the his remarks we entirely concur, outs of office. With the spirit of bygone months, and the thought that they have for ever fleeted away from and we dismiss this discourse him, turns all to agony-as he looks with a quotation. forward on the blighted prospect of this world's pilgrimage, and feels that all which bound him to existence, is now torn irretrievably away from him! There is not a British heart that does not feel to this interesting visiter, all the force and all the tenderness of a most affecting relationship."—p. 13. In reading this sermon we are happy that we are Americans. never take offence at a minister who "A religious administration will of men, even though they should haprenders a pertinent reproof to any set underlings; and that, on the other hand, pen to be their own agents or their own a minister who is actuated by the true spirit of his office, will never so pervert or so prostitute its functions, as to de scend to the humble arena of partisan 21 ship. He is the faitful steward of such |tian magistracy, and tell them of their things as are profitable for reproof, and errors-though animated by such a for doctrine, and for correction, and for spirit, he, to avoid every appearance of instruction in righteousness. His single evil, will neither stoop to the flattery of object with the men who are within power, nor to the solicitations of pareach of his hearing, is, that they shall tronage-and though all this may bear, come to the knowledge of the truth and to the superficial eye, a hard, and rebe saved. In the fulfilment of this ob-pulsive, and hostile aspect towards the ject, he is not the servant of any ad- established dignities of the land-yet ministration-though he certainly ren-forget not, that if a real and honest ders such a service to the state as will principle of Christianity lie at the root facilitate the work of governing to all of this spirit, there exists within the administrations-as will bring a mighty bosom of such a man a foundation of train of civil and temporal blessings principle, on which all the lessons of along with it-and in particular, as will Christianity will rise into visible and diffuse over the whole sphere of his in- consistent exemplification. And it is fluence, a loyalty as steadfast as the he, and such as he, who will turn out friends of order, and as free from to be the salvation of the country, when every taint of political servility, as the the hour of her threatened danger is most genuine friends of freedom can proaching—and it is just in proportion desire. "There is only one case in which it racter, that you raise within the bosom as you spread and multiply such a chais conceived that the partisanship of a of the nation the best security against Christian minister is at all justifiable. all her fluctuations-and, as in every Should the government of our country other department of human concerns, ever fall into the hands of an infidel or so will it be found, that, in this particular demi-infidel administration-should the department, Christians are the salt of men at the helm of affairs be the patrons the earth, and Christianity the most of all that is unchristian in the sentiment copious and emanating fountain of all and literature of the country-should the guardian virtues of peace, and order, they offer a violence to its religious and patriotism."—p. 9. establishments, and thus attempt what we honestly believe would reach a blow to the piety and the character of our population-then, I trust that the lau- pamphlet before us is older by The second discourse in the guage of partisanship will resound from three years and four months than many of the pulpits of the laud-and ap that it will be turned in one stream of its companion; and upon the pointed invective against such a minis-whole, it is a better sermon, altry as this-till, by the force of public though preached by the Pastor of opinion, it be swept away as an intolera- Kilmany before his promotion to ble nuisance, from the face of our king the city of Glasgow. It contains dom."-p. 18. note. "Permanent security against the an eloquent apology for missionwild outbreakings of turbulence and ary institutions. The text is John disaster, is only to be attained by dif- i. 16. And Nathanael said unto fusing the lessons of the gospel through-him, Can any good thing come out out the great mass of our population even those lessons which are utterly and of Nazareth? Philip saith unto is criminal and wrong in the spirit of dental historical record is well in the spirit of Christianity; and though prejudice even upon an honest animated by such a spirit, a man may mind, for it was a man, in whom put on the intrepidity of one of the old was no guile, that made the obprophets, and denounce even in the ear jection; and it points out the of royalty the profligacies which may disgrace or deform it-though animated proper corrective of prejudice, by such a spirit, he may lift his pro- a due examination of the case, testing voice in the face of an unchris-Come and sex. The preacher ac commodates the text to the cor-selytism bas far outstript that sober pre rection of the existing prejudices against missionary societies. "The precept is, 'Go and preach the gospel to every creature under heaven.' The people I allude to have no particular quarrel with the preach; but they have a mortal antipathy to the go-and should even their own adinired preacher offer to go himself, or belp to send others, he becomes a missionary, or the advocate of a mission; and the question of my text is set up in resistance to the whole scheme, Can any good thing come out of it? 6 paratory management, which is so much contended for. Why, they have carried the gospel message into climes on which Europe had never impressed a single trace of her boasted civilization. They have tried the species in the first stages of its rudeness and ferocity, nor did they keep back the offer of the Saviour from their souls, till art and industry had performed a sufficient part, and were made to administer in fuller abundance to the wants of their bodies. This process, which has been so much insisted upon, they did not wait for. They preached and they prayed at the very outset, and they put into exercise all the weapons of their spiritual mi "I never felt myself in more favour-nistry."-pp. 35, 36. able circumstances for giving an answer to the question, than I do at this moUpon the solution, which the ment, surrounded as I am by the Members of a Society, which has been la- Doctor gives of the principle of bouring for upwards of a century in the opposition to missionary labours, field of missionary exertion It need we demur. Objections may posno longer be taken up or treated as a speculative question. The question of sibly be made in certain cases to the text may, in reference to the sub- the plans upon which societies for ject now before us, be met immediately spreading the gospel have resolvby the answer of the text, Come and ed to act, and to the qualifications see.' We call upon you to look to a of some of the missionaries taken set of actual performances, to examine the record of past doings, and like good into their employ ; but we cannot philosophers as you are, to make the suppose, that either the name sober depositions of history carry it missionary, or the fact of being over the reveries of imagination and sent to preach the gospel, is in prejudice. We deal in proofs, not in promises; in practice, not in profession; itself detestable to any one who in experience, and not in experiment. really loves the preaching or its The Society whose cause I am now ap- evangelical subject. We suspect pointed to plead in your hearing, is to that the radical opposition is disall intents and purposes a Missionary like for the gospel itself, rather Society. It has a claim to all the bo go. nour, and must just submit to all the than for either the preach or the disgrace which such a title carries along with it. It has been in the habit for. Some mistakes in philosophy many years of hiring preachers and occur in this discourse; and we teachers, and may be convicted, times lament that a preacher who so without number, of the act of sending them to a distance. What the precise boldly, and often indeed successdistance is I do not understand to be of fully, appeals to the sciences, any signification to the argument; but should err in relation to the seteven though it should, I fear that in the tled doctrines respecting the inarticle of distance, our Society has at times been as extravagant as many of tellectual powers of the human her neighbours. Her labourers have mind. A scholar of rank, in the been met with in other quarters of the country of Hume, of Campbell, world. They have been found among of Reid, and of Dugald Stewart, the haunts of savages. They have dealt with men in the very infancy of social ought not to confound, as Dr. improvement, and their zeal for pro-Chalmers has done in the first sentence of his exordium, the power of the association of ideas, with the faculty of generaliza tion. The following specimens will give our readers a high idea of the author's talents and piety. practice. He sees in every man a partaker of his own nature, and a brother the human mind in the generality of of his own species. He contemplates its great elements. He enters upon the wide field of benevolence, and disdains those geographical barriers, by which little men shut out one-half of the species from the kind offices of the other. His business is with man, and let his localities be what they may, enough for his "In our attempts to carry into effect large and noble heart, that he is bone of the principle of being all things to all the same bone. To get at him, he will men, let us never exait that which is shun no danger, he will shrink from no subordinate; let us never give up our privation, he will spare himself no fareckoning upon eternity, or be ashamed tigue, he will brave every element of to own it as our sentiment, that though heaven, he will hazard the extremities. schools were to multiply, though mis- of every clime, he will cross seas, and sionaries were to labour, and all the work his persevering way through the decencies and accomplishments of social briers and thickets of the wilderness. life were to follow in their train, the In perils of water, in perils of robbers, great object would still be unattained, in perils by the heathen, in weariness so long as the things of the Holy Spi- and painfulness, he seeks after him. rit were unrelished and undiscerned The caste and the colour are nothing to amongst them, and they wanted that the comprehensive eye of a missionary. knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ, His is the broad principle of good will which is life everlasting. This is the to the children of men. His doings ground upon which every Christian are with the species, and overlooking will rest the vindication of every mis- all the accidents of climate, or of counsionary enterprise; and this is the try, enough for him, if the individual ground upon which he may expect to be he is in quest of be a man-a brother of abandoned by the infidel, who laughs at the same nature-with a body which a piety or the lukewarm believer, who few years will bring to the grave, and a dreads to be laughed at for the extrava-spirit that returns to the God who gance to which he carries it. The gave it."-p. 46. Christian is not for giving up the social virtues; but the open enemy and the cold friend of the gospel are for giving up piety; and while they garnish all that is right and amiable in humanity, with the unsubstantial praises of their eloquence, they pour contempt upon that very principle which forms our best security for the existence of virtue in the world. We say nothing that can degrade the social virtues in the estimation of men; but by making them part of religion, we exalt them above all that poet or moralist can do for In these two sermons we perceive traits of the same bold and adventurous spirit, we see flashes of the same eloquence which we admired in his discourses on the astronomical question. We find many instances of the conclusive reasoning which uniformly accompanies the best of his works, the Essay on the Evidences of them. We give them God for their ob- Christianity, published in the New ject, and for their end the grandeur of Edinburgh Encyclopedia; and we eternity. No! it is not the Christian meet also with the same kind of who is the enemy of social virtue; it is verbiage which we formerly rehe who sighs in all the ecstasy of sentiment over it, at the very time proved. Dr. Chalmers has cultithat he is digging away its founda-vated a genus dicendi not very tion, and wreaking on that piety which consistent with his own good is its principle, the cruelty of his sense. His grain of gold is beat scorn "-pp. 41, 42. "What the man of liberal philosophy out until the precious metal beis in sentiment, the missionary is in comes lighter than a feather. Its |