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O sad and heavy's the sorrow,

O would it but crush this poor heart,
E'er comes on the dismal bleak morrow
Whan from my sweet Mary I part!
Her mother! my dear faithful Ellen,
Now sleeps in the grave, cold and low,
And our hut on the braes of Portnellon
Is lone 'mang the wild heath and sloe!
My kindred, they ha'e me forsaken,
And left my poor babe to its fate-
My stout heart itsell is now shaken-
All earthly relief is owr late!

May heaven its best care and protection
Spread round the sweet pledge of our love,
And O may a father's affection
Plead for her in realms above!
Wha will dandle my Mary, &c.

Besides the little interesting history attached to this beautiful air in Captain Fraser's Melodies, there is another anecdote connected with it, which, though equally interesting, appears not to have been known to that gentleman, unless, indeed, it be to it that he alludes in his note on this

air.

In one of the wildest of the Highland districts of Perthshire, and at a time when chieftainship was in the plenitude of its power, a fine young Highlander, from another district, and who had only been married about eighteen months before, was found traversing the hills in quest of deer. He had killed one, when a party of the Clansmen of the Chief came upon him, seized him, and, according to the customs of the times, immured him in the dungeon of the Castle of Loch Dochart, situated in the middle of the

Without even the

loch of that name.
formality of a trial, the unfortunate
young man was condemned to be sent
to the wilds of America. During his
confinement in the castle, his wife and
their infant child, Mary, were per-
mitted to come several times to visit
him, and his great delight was to sit
and "dandle" his poor little Mary.
To sum up the sad story, the wife,
a few days before her husband was
sent away, died literally of a bro-
ken heart;-and the foregoing ver-
ses were supposed, according to the
tradition of the country, still current
in the district of Loch Dochart, to
have been written by the husband on
the night previous to his being sent
off to America. He was not allowed
to take his infant with him, and it is
to that circumstance that he alludes in
the beginning of the Lament.

VERSES BY THE LATE DR CHARLES BURNEY,

Written on one of his Fellow-Students when at King's College, Aberdeen.
A Fragment.

ALTHOUGH he's Fancy's froward child,

In hope too sanguine, and for thought too wild ;
Dupe of the eye, and passion's slave,

Where Nature's hands the lines of beauty gave,
Or e'en with animation blest,

When temper'd sweetness rules the female breast;
Yet still a knave his soul abhors,

Too proud to flatter, or to court applause;
Suspicion ne'er corrodes his mind,

His earnest wish is still to love mankind,
Never to lose an honest friend,

With joy to live, with joy to meet his end-
And, till he feels the tyrant's dart,

May friendship's flame shine clear in

's heart.

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THIS number of "The Christian and Civic Economy," which concludes a volume of 358 pages, is entitled "On Sabbath Schools." But twothirds of the pamphlet are taken up with a piece of special pleading respecting the necessity of ecclesiastics being men of learning as well as piety. The truth is, that Dr Chalmers has printed here the greater part of the speech which he delivered in the last General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in support of the overture from the Presbytery of Glasgow, for the more regular attendance of Students of Divinity at the respective Halls at which they are enrolled. This speech, as will be recollected by all who heard it, or who afterwards read the report of it in the newspapers, had but a remote, if any, reference to Sabbath schools, or to the teachers of such schools. And while, in the pamphlet before us, we were reading about the advantages of making provision for the learning as well as for the subsistence of a regular clergy, about the respective endowments of Bishop Horsley and President Edwards, and about the impression of a seal, and bodily and spiritual inoculation, and so forth, we could not help asking ourselves, what has all this to do with Sabbath Schools?

We afterwards found, however, that

the use which the Doctor wishes to make of his reasonings and illustrations, in this part of his work, is, that though learning be necessary to enable men to judge of the genuineness of Christianity, and to defend it against the attacks of infidels, it is not necessary to its influence upon the heart and the life; and, therefore, as pious, though unlearned Christians, may be instrumental in producing Christianity in others, so their labours for the accomplishment of that end should not be discouraged; in other words, they should be employed as teachers of Sabbath schools.

"We, therefore, do wrong," says the Doctor, "in laying such a weight of discouragement on the labourers who produce, and throwing the mantle of our protection and kindness only over the labourers who prune. And what, it may be asked, are the ingredients of mightiest effect, in the

VOL. IX.

character and talent of a productive labourer? They are not his scholarship, and not his critical sagacity of discernment into the obscurities of Scripture, and not his searching or satirical insight among the mysteries of the human constitution. With these he may be helped to estimate the Christianity that has been formed, and to lop off its unseemly excrescences; but with these alone we never shall positively rear, on the foundation of nature, the edifice itself. This requires another set of qualifications which may or may not exist along with that artificial learning to which, ready rendered by us, and qualifications we trust, an adequate homage has been alwhich, whether they are found among endowed or unendowed men, ought to be enlisted on the side of Christianity. They may exist apart from science, and they may most usefully and productively be exerted apart from science. The possessors of them are abundantly to be found in the private or humble walks of society, and may be the powerful instruments of propagating their own moral and spiritual likeness, among their respective vicinities."

pp. 324, 325.

Dr Chalmers then takes up the objection against Sabbath schools, from the alledged malignant influence they exert on family religion; and he answers it in this way.

"Now, it ought to be remembered, that to come in place of a better system is one thing, and to displace that system is another. Is it possible for any man, at all acquainted with the chronology of Sabbath schools, to affirm that they are the instruments of having overthrown the family re

ligion of Scotland? Have they operated as so many ruthless invaders, on what, at the time of their entrance, was a beauteous moral domain, and swept away from it all that was affecting or graceful in the observations of our forefathers? Whether did

they desolate the territory, or have they only made their lodgment on what was already a scene of desolation? The truth is, that for many years previous to the extension of this system, a woful degeneracy was going on in the religious habit and character of our country-that, from the wanton outrages inflicted by unrelenting patronage on the taste and demand of parishes, the religious spirit, once so characteristic of our nation, has long been rapidly subsiding that, more particularly in our great towns, the population have so outgrown the old ecclesiastical system, as to have accumulated there into so many masses of practical heathenism :-and now the state of the alternative is not, whether the rising generation shall be trained to Christianity in schools, or trained to it under the roof of their fathers; but whether they

P

ever since whether it shall be suffered to

be far more effectually obtained without the intervention of Sabbath

shall be trained to it in schools, or not trained to it at all. It is whether a process of deterioration, which originated more schools. To obtain it we have only than half a century ago, and has been rato apply the system, which, for that pid and resistless in its various tendencies end, the wisdom of our ancestors arcarry our people still more downward in ranged, employed, and handed down the scale of moral blindness and depravity; to their posterity, and which the exor whether the only remaining expedient perience of ages has proved to be a for arresting it shall be put into operation. system of great efficiency for the proWere it as easy a task to prevail on an ir-motion of knowledge, piety, and virreligious parent to set up the worship and the instruction of religion, in his family, as to get his consent, and prevail upon his children, to attend the ministrations of a Sabbath school, there might then be some appearance of room for all the obloquy that has been cast upon these institutions. But as the matter stands, in many a city and in many a parish, the Christian philanthropist is shut up to an effort upon the young, as his last chance for the moral regeneration of our country. In despair (and it is a despair warranted by all experience) of operating, with extensive effect, on the confirmed habit and obstinacy of manhood, he arrests the human plant, at an earlier and more susceptible stage, and puts forth the only hand that ever would have offered for the culture and the training of this young immortal. In the great majority of instances, he does not withdraw his pupils, for a single moment, from any Christian influence that would have descended upon them in another quarter, but showers upon their heads and their hearts the only Christian influence they ever are exposed to. He is, in fact, building up again that very system, with the destruction of which he has been charged, and rearing many young, who, but for him, would have been the still more corrupt descendants of a corrupt parentage, to be the religious guides and examples of a future generation."

pp. 341-343.

The ideas expressed in this passage are extended over several pages more, and exhibited in a variety of different aspects. The Doctor concludes with an exhortation to the Methodists to persevere in their labours.

Such is a general account of the last published part of "The Christian and Civic Economy of Large Towns." But we have the misfortune to differ from the Doctor in almost every one of the positions which he so zealously advocates. With regard to the advantages of a religious education, both in a particular and a general point of view, we are perfectly aware there can be but one opinion. But we think, that in our country this incalculable benefit may

tue. In this country every parent is bound by the most solemn engagements to impart to his offspring a knowledge of that religion which he professes to believe; and every parish minister is bound to see that parents do their duty in this respect. Dr Chalmers cannot but know, that the establishment of parochial schools resulted from the superintendence which the clergy exercised over the religious education of the younger members of their congregations; nor can he be ignorant that the instructions of parents, whenever convenient, but especially on the Sabbath, of parochial or other regularly appointed teachers on week days, and of ministers in the course of their visitations and examinations, and before the admission of young persous to the Lord's Supper, until about the time of the French Revolution, constituted the whole system of means in use for the information, and the religious and moral improvement of the young. For the method in which, under this system, family religion was conducted, and parental instruction imparted, we cannot refer to a more faithful description than Burns's "Cottar's Saturday Night;" nor for the happy effects which it produced, than to the character of Scotsmen for intelligence, piety, and integrity. We believe that the same system is still pretty generally at work, with the happiest effects, throughout the country; and we know, that in many places it is still exclusively employed with its primitive salutary influence on both the old and the young.

Such, however, is our love of novelty, that when Messrs Rowland Hill, Bogue, and other dissenters from England, first visited Scotland on preaching expeditions; when Messrs Ewing and Innes deserted their charges in the church, to unite with the Messrs Haldane in forming a new religious sect in Scotland; and when

self-conceited, and wrong-headed young men, issuing from the loom, and the stall, itinerated through the country as preachers; though no particular fault was found with the old system, yet a wonderful revival of religion was deemed to have taken place, and a total revolution of the Church of Scotland supposed to be at hand. The strangers from England, the deserters from our National Church, and the untaught itinerants, were followed by vast multitudes. Congregations were organized, tabernacles pitched, Sabbath schools instituted, and libraries formed in almost all the towns and villages of the country. This, indeed, like other popular fevers, was but of short duration. The public curiosity was soon satisfied: the leaders of the new sect quarrelled about the management of their temporal affairs, and began to differ in opinion about doctrines and modes of worship; so that their congregations diminished daily, and they themselves ultimately separated. But it was from this new order of things that the Sabbath school system resulted, which has since become so general throughout Scotland. Now, our objection to the Sabbath school system is, not so much that it is a bad one, as that it tends to supersede a system of approved excellence, the influence of which had been long diffused through the cottages of the peasantry, and mingled with all the feelings and principles which went to form the national character. And as this is not only an excellent system, but fully adequate for the purposes of religious instruction, we would rather revive and extend it as circumstances may require, than substitute another in its place. For this end, our clergy, in their respective parishes, have only regularly to visit and examine their people, and to exhort heads of families to do their duty, as the instructors and guardians of their children and servants. And, notwithstanding all that has been alledged to the contrary, we are disposed to believe that these duties have been, in general, conscientiously performed. In those cases where neglect can be detected, or where the means are obviously too limited, a remedy of sure and certain application is at hand.

But our objection to this general introduction of the Sabbath School sys

tem is not merely because we have already one far better and more efficent, but on account of its liability to abuse. Dr Chalmers has said a great deal about pious people producing their own likeness on the neighbourhood where they live, by becoming the religious instructors of its youth. But is not genuine piety of an humble and retired character, not apt to conceive itself fitted or called upon to take an extensive management of the education of others? And are not fanaticism and hypocrisy forward and designing? Would not a good man most effectually and most surely "produce his own likeness," to use the Doctor's phrase, by imitating the example of other good men set before him in the Scriptures by commanding, like Abraham, "his children and his household after him, that they shall keep the way of the Lord, and do justice and judgment,"

and, like the psalmist, by behaving himself wisely, walking within his house with a perfect heart, and by seeking the faithful of the land to dwell with him, as his servants ?*

But we go farther, and assert that these schools exert an influence, directly and positively pernicious. Parents who are careless, indifferent, and lukewarm, are thereby exonerated from the discharge of one of the most imperative, and at the same time delightful, of a parent's duties, namely,communicating to his offspring a knowledge of the great and fundamental truths of the gospel. It will perhaps be said that the parent is ignorant: granted; but how far is he surpassed in knowledge by the selfconstituted teacher? He may be ignorant, but without some stimulus to exertion, he will never acquire a knowledge of his Bible. It is the great characteristic of the system, which we contend for, that the parent, while he is catechising his child, is instructing himself, and thus giving religion, if we may so speak, a double chance of success. Is it good that he should be furnished with a pretext for neglecting his duty? The Sabbath day ought specially to be devoted to this purpose: how will the parent, in all probability, spend the Sabbath, when the arts of the popularity-hunting Methodist have succeeded in attracting his children to the Sunday School? Any man who has eyes to see withal,

Gen. 18-19, and Psalm 101.

and who has ever passed an ale-house on a Sunday evening, will, in the clamour and vociferation by which his ears will be stunned, be admonished of the consequence of relieving parents from those sacred duties which God and Nature have equally imposed on them.

Besides, the men who deem themselves qualified to teach Sabbath Schools are frequently far from being disposed to submit themselves to the direction of the minister in whose parish they exercise their assumed vocation. It is now a considerable number of years since Dr M'Gill of Glasgow complained in the General Assembly of the Church, of some person who taught a Sabbath School with shut doors during the time of Divine service. We surely need not inform Dr Chalmers, that the Methodists of England, whom he praises and encourages so much, make it a common practice to teach a large proportion of their schools during the regular hours of worship; and that reading, writing, and arithmetic, are at least as much the order of the day as religion. To say nothing of what may occur in going to and returning from the schools, and of the association of the good and the bad once a week for a few hours; is there no danger of the emulation which is excited rising to vanity or pride on the one hand, and sinking to envy on the other? In England, whence we borrowed the system, display is carried the length of an anxiously got up exhibition. It is quite customary there to have an annual sermon, with an extraordinary collection for the benefit of the schools. A popular preacher is brought from a great distance, professional musicians are hired, and wealthy people are in vited from all quarters to come to the entertainment, with the expectation that they will contribute freely to the support of the establishment.

We had a great deal more to say on this subject, but we must desist for the present with remarking, that the old system of religious instruction in Scotland, with a very few exceptions, is applicable to great towns, and is greatly preferable to that which, within these few years, has threatened to take its place; and that it is the imperative duty of parents, of guardians, of masters, and of ministers, not only to revive, but to extend, that mode of religious educa

tion recommended to our attention by the example of our pious ancestors and by the word of God.

SOME HINTS CONCERNING INTRODUCTIONS, BY OLD MULBERRY.

MR EDITOR,

In a paper entitled "On the Dry Rot in Brains," which I met with in some Magazine lately, I observed it stated, among other things, that the want of original and spirited matter is owing to what the author has been pleased to designate "this prevalent distemper." But I am of a very different opinion, and by a little reflection I have been convinced, that, when this scarcity occurs, it proceeds from a less material and irremediable cause, namely, the difficulty of finding a way of introducing those numberless ideas which constantly float about in our crania, like the atoms of an atheist's universe, arranging themselves into essays, poems, romances, and sometimes, alas! into air-built castles.

That we are not inferior to those who have gone before us in originality of conception, and the wealth of our mental possessions, is evident, I think, from the profusion of thought, aye, and new thought, which we meet with in familiar conversation, where the constraint and formality of authorship are laid aside; and that we want only a variety of introductions for various occasions, in order to give our thoughts a tangible shape, may be proved by the evidence of those good things, which burst forth without waiting for any introduction at all, or which come lagging after what the plain-thinking people in our own critical town call "a heap o' out o' the way phrasin'."

Now, Mr Editor, the application of this lies nearer home than perhaps you are aware of. You are supposed to be a new Editor, and it is expected that a new impulse will be given to a Magazine whose long-standing had given it some of the wrinkles, with all the authority of age. And, doubtless, a freshness and sudden vigour will re-appear in all its parts, if you will condescend from your editorial greatness for a moment, and listen to the whispers of an humble contribu

tor.

By one of those strange accidents, which happen once in a century, I lately fell in with the majority of

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