before,' instantly, without any apology for a lapse of memory, the retort would be made-only substituting speaking for writing, To write the same things to you, to me indeed is not grievous, but for you it is safe.' .

His artillery is often the heaviest when he indulges in declamation. There he excels,-indignant-scowling-severe-bold-with a thundering volume of voice; as if Jupiter himself were speaking from his throne, and sending abroad his bolts. . His materials, as far as quality and quantity are concerned, are rather good than fine-excellent than extensive; the article being such as will always command a ready market, so to speak, not from the delicacy of its texture, or the novelty of the pattern, but owing to its substantiality, and the wants of the people. It is intended to profit rather than please; for the many rather than the few; and it is such as no one need be ashamed to offer. No man living, perhaps, carries on such an extensive trade with so moderate a capital; and no man disposes his stock to better advantage. There is never much on hand; all is held in requisition; he is not in the first, but in the best line; and no one, who buys the truth from his lips, is disposed, provided his mart is open, to go elsewhere, or to wish for any thing besides that which he has to present. Though always useful and popular, the last fifteen years has added, beyond all precedent, to the extent of his usefulness, and to the tenacity of his hold on the public mind. He mellows with age; and like wines of a peculiar vintage, improves by keeping..

That a man like this should exercise an influence somewhere is naturally to be expected. But where? Not immediately in the government of the Wesleyan body. A hundred men could start up, and on matters of mere policy could dispute the point with him, and would be listened to by their brethren with respect, in the annual legislative assembly. While his influence is on the mass from without, on all ranks and communities, attracting all by the magic of his oratorical powers, the gentleman who stands first on the list of these sketches (Dr. Bunting) sits supreme within-seen no where but in his usual seat, and heard only with his single voice, in the midst of his brethren; and yet, like an invisible power, moving every where, and felt in every thing. Object to it, who may; but deny it, who can! and find, who will, two men better calculated to hold the influence they have honestly acquired from within and without, or who will wear their honours more meekly!'

We must now proceed to express our opinion of the volume before us and of its contents. The author of these 'Wesleyan "Takings' appears to us to have attempted a work of questionable utility. He will do little more by his labors than gratify the curious, the critical, and the captious. He has not simply taken the artist's pencil, he has ascended the censor's chair, and too often adventured to pronounce judgments for which he is inadequately qualified. In matters of taste and questions of style, he arbitrates with an authority to which his own production shows he has no title. There is an air of pedantry in the

display he makes of classical lore, which will disgust sound scholars. His fondness for figures disfigures every page; his own style is about as bad as any style can be to be readable, and to crown all, his taste is frequently vulgar and low. 'Barclay's entire'-'floors every man'-' grovels in the mud''crawls with the worm'-'the herd of mankind who neigh, and 'bellow, and bray so much alike, that the finest ear cannot distinguish one from another'-with many similar expressions, show that the author either affects vulgarity for the sake of the people for whom he writes, or that it has been an element in his own education. He must allow us, moreover, to add, that he has spoiled the effect of his delineations by the extravagant eulogies and absurd illustrations in which he has frequently indulged. Some excess of admiration might have been tolerated in one who, being of the body he describes, is expected to write so much con amore. But the general excess of praise, the tendency to rate the style and order of Wesleyan preachers as so much above all comparison, is quite intolerable. That there are eminent preachers in the body no one will doubt, but that the mass are superior men, will not be credited by the public. Nor must the preachers themselves imagine that the progress of their denomination is attributable to any such cause. It is not for us to enter minutely into this subject. It is enough to express an opinion of the present performance, which we cannot but describe as self-complacent and extravagant in a degree altogether unwarrantable. When some dozen of men, of eminent pulpit talent, are excepted, the great body of Wesleyan preachers cannot be described as rising in any particular, save their boldness and assumption, above the mass of preachers in other denominations. In point of education they sink below most others, and nothing is more striking in their general character than the tone and manner which are the invariable indications of self-taught men.

Notwithstanding these strictures on the present volume, which we have deemed it but justice to make, we admit that the volume displays considerable acuteness, and no mean acquaintance with the men described and the affairs of the body at large. The author possesses a knowledge of the classics, and a familiarity with literature in general, far beyond most of his brethren, but his propensity to show his learning betrays him into very absurd paroxysms of allusion and citation. Upon the whole we find no fault with his notions of what preaching ought to be, though we should very much question whether his own is distinguished by the qualities he commends. There is betrayed throughout the book too great an admiration of mere talent, and the importance of oratory is magnified beyond just bounds. We should have been glad to have observed warmer and more

frequent recommendations of apostolic simplicity, truth, and earnestness. But the temper of the book is-who but we?

Of the twelve portraits which occupy the first 300 pages, six are of departed preachers, the remainder of living men. Deducting these twelve from the hundred sketches in the volume, the eighty-eight which comprise both dead and living are despatched ordinarily in less than half a page. Such a sketch is brief and unsatisfactory in the extreme. The plan appears to us essentially defective, in not being restricted either to the memoirs of departed men of eminence, or the living, of whom the author boasts that hundreds might be selected from the present ministry of the connexion. Then why not exhibit them in greater numbers instead of giving us only six? The 'outlines ready for filling up,' seem intended merely to fill up the volume and excite expectation for another. Of the memoirs of departed preachers, that of Richard Watson, by far the ablest man the Wesleyan body has ever produced, is the best in the volume, because it is in all respects the most just and the most carefully written. That of Dr. Adam Clarke is extravagant, and will be esteemed, by all who knew him thoroughly, a failure.

We cannot dismiss this article without suggesting to our readers the inquiry-with what feelings will the Methodist body contemplate the course of ecclesiastical policy likely to be pursued by the party to which they have lent their assistance? The check which has been given to liberal men and measures, to all improvements in church and state, and to the cause of liberty civil and religious, has been, in a great degree, aided by the Toryism of the Wesleyans, and particularly by that of their ministers. Can they now contemplate the work of their hands with conscientious satisfaction? If Puseyism could have dictated a prime minister and a cabinet, it could scarcely have found men more to its heart's wish ;-will the Wesleyan body congratulate itself upon the assistance it will have rendered to the cause of anti-protestantism? and will it anticipate a return of kind offices from the party which is now on the road to domination in the church? Are the evangelical Wesleyans about to reciprocate fraternity with the Oxford school? And will they remember with gratitude the day in which they helped to place the Tories at the head of the state, and the Puseyites at the head of the church? We shall see. They have been glad in times past to fight by the side of the regular dissenters, and divide the spoils of the triumphs we have won. But they have turned tail and gone over to the enemy. Will they be taken on the staff? Or will the people allow themselves to be thus betrayed to their natural enemies? Methodism is undoubtedly at present on the strongest side, but it will soon find

that it is not on the most numerous. When a change will take place we venture not to predict, for we are quite at a loss to understand the auguries of the body, or the nature of the policy which guides it. But change it must, or cease to be the religion of the working people. Every working man ought, as a sacred duty, to teach his children that Methodism has been a principal means of strengthening the hands and setting up the power of his oppressors. The people in the great manufacturing districts, where are the strongholds of Methodism, ought, with united voice, to tell their preachers, that they, as a body, have brought the bread taxers into power, and that they have refused to lift up their voice for justice and humanity, while he that grinds the face of the poor has received their support. The people are yet silent, but let them speak out, and they will not only be heard, but be successful. The Methodist ministers, after all, are nothing without their people. There is a point beyond which the patience of these people will not extend-when that is reached-when the people of Methodism see that their interest identifies them with the rest of the people in their demand for untaxed bread; that moment the downfall of the present dynasty is sealed, Toryism and Wesleyanism will be divorced, and the accession of strength to the cause of free trade in corn will compel any government to yield to justice, what will probably, till them, be tenaciously held by the avarice of the aristocracy.

Art. IV. 1. The Knowledge of Jesus the most excellent of the Sciences. By ALEXANDER CARSON, A.M. Edinburgh. 1840.

2. History of Providence, as manifested in Scripture; or Facts from Scripture illustrative of the Government of God: with a Defence of the Doctrine of Providence, and an Examination of the Philosophy of Dr. Thomas Brown on that subject. By ALEXANDER CARSON, A.M. Edinburgh. 1840.

THE

HE title of the former of these volumes is both true and fascinating. The knowledge of Jesus is in one sense a science, and assuredly it is the most excellent of the sciences. All other knowledge sinks into insignificance and worthlessness in comparison with it; and happy will it be when those who pursue science shall cease to idolize it, and shall neither disdain nor neglect to sit at the feet of Jesus, and to learn of him. In opening the book to which this title is prefixed, however, the reader will not find that it is devoted to an illustration of the sentiment so aptly-we may say, so beautifully expressed.

VOL. X.

2 G

There is much, indeed, said about and (with too much reason, but not always with justice) against philosophers; but there is not, as the title might have led us to expect, an exhibition of the sciences ordinarily so called, and a contrasted exhibition of the gospel of Christ, for the demonstration of its greater excellency. What the contents of the book really are, and wherein the principal value of it (in the author's judgment) consists, will appear from the following summary furnished by his own pen.

'I have now, I think, proved seven grand points. First, That God manifests himself in his works, as to a part of his character. Second, That, though God manifests himself in his works, no man ever from these works learned the lesson which they teach. No man, without the Scriptures, ever learned from creation and providence as much of God as is taught by the works of creation and providence. Third, That the character of God, in which there is ground of confidence to sinners, is to be learned only from the Scriptures. There only is God seen as a just God and a Saviour. Fourth, That the character of God as he is manifested in the gospel contains its own evidence. It cannot be known without being believed, and on this ground the rejection of it is condemnation. Fifth, That the character of God is manifested in his Son Jesus Christ. The Father is known only by knowing the Son. Instead of knowing the Father better than the Son, nothing is known of the Father but as it is seen in the Son. Sixth, That the gospel is neither more nor less than a manifestation of the divine character. The character of the Son, and of the Father, and the gospel, are all virtually identified. The gospel reveals the Father by revealing the Son, in whom the Father is seen. The plan of salvation through the atonement was necessary to show God to be what he is. Seventh, That the Scriptures employ phraseology about the gospel that implies that it is a self-evident truth. If the view which I have given of this subject is truth, it brings forward truth that hath lain unnoticed in the Scriptures since the days of the apostles. I am not aware that these views will be found in any human writings. If my positions are fairly made out, they are of incalculable importance in many respects.'-pp. 302, 303.

Our readers will see from this quotation that Mr. Carson travels over a wide space, and touches, unquestionably with a vigorous and masterly hand, a great variety of topics. He challenges attention, however, particularly to a sentiment of 'incalculable importance,' which (in his judgment) has lain ' unnoticed in the Scriptures since the days of the apostles,' and which, so far as he knows, is not to be found in any human 'writings. This is an announcement, certainly, of stirring import, and is fitted to engage prompt and serious attention. For ourselves, we yield it readily at such a call.

Upon looking after the sentiment in question, we find it expressed in the following terms. The character of God, as