neglect to repair the damage, and thus an author is made responsible for words and sentiments which he never put together. It may be very true that the alteration is, in some cases, an improvement; yet we should ourselves prefer bearing the disgrace of having written a bad line, to the chance of being praised for good lines which were none of ours: and, excepting where the doctrine is so objectionable as to annihilate all sympathy between ourselves and the writer, we much prefer that devotional compositions should be left as their authors left them. There is a peculiarity in every man's way of viewing religious subjects, and the substitution of even one word for another is in some cases sufficient to

diminish greatly the value of the whole. Why should Cowper's beautiful introduction of the solitary Bird of Night, in the Hymn,

"Far from the world, O Lord! I flee," be made to give place to such a line as this,

"There, in high ecstacy, she pours," &c. ? And why, above all, is Mrs. Barbauld's exquisite poem,

"Sweet is the scene when virtue dies!" to begin,

"How bless'd the righteous when he dies!"? And, if the two succeeding stanzas must be omitted, what hand has had the temerity to substitute for them the following? "A holy quiet reigns around,

A calm which life nor death destroys; Nothing disturbs that peace profound, Which his unfetter'd soul enjoys." Not many alterations are introduced in such of Mr. John Taylor's beautiful Hymns as are reprinted by Mr. Lewis. What there are, however, are no improvements. But we wish that a charming Hymn of Sir J. E. Smith's could have been allowed to escape as well. We allude to No. 420 of the Norwich Supplement. In Mr. Lewis's Selection the first and second stanzas are omitted; the two next, as the excellent author wrote them, stand thus:

"Still may thy children, in thy word, Their common trust and refuge see; O bind us to each other, Lord,

By oue great tie, the love of Thee! Here, at the portal of thy house,

We leave our mortal hopes and fears; Accept our prayer, and bless our vows, And dry our penitential tears."

But Mr. Lewis prefers the following reading:

"Unite us to each other, Lord,

By one great bond, the love of Thee. Now, at the portal of thy house

We leave our earthly care and fear;
Accept our praise and bless our vows,
And our united pray-ers hear."

Supplement, and also in the Liverpool
An anonymous Hymn, in the Norwich
Renshaw-Street Collection, beginning,

has also the benefit of an "entirely new
"Come to the House of Prayer,"
arrangement" of its concluding two
stauzas, which, at the same time, we al-
low had great capabilities for improve-
ment. Dr. Drummond also passes under
revision:

"No balm that earthly plants distil

Can soothe the mourner's smart,
No mortal hand, with lenient skill,
Bind up the broken heart;"

is thus given

"No earthly balm can heal this ill

Or soothe the mourner's smart,
No mortal hand, with lenient skill,
Can bind the broken heart."

Never

We should be sorry Mr. Lewis should understand these observations as implying a strong, individual ceusure upon himself. He has only done what numrized to do, for the attainment of what bers beside think themselves fully authothey consider to be a good, and many have taken far greater liberties. theless, holding it to be a sacred maxim, that we should not "do evil that good may come," we object to all such trespasses upon the identity of an author's property, and think they ought to be discouraged to the utmost of our ability. The writer of a bymu, like the writer of any other poem, would mostly, we should suppose, prefer doing his work alone. If others think they can improve upon his ideas, let them, wherever it can be done, make the suggestion with frankness, and trust to its being received in a right spirit; but let them beware how they meddle with the long treasured memorials of the dead, for, in so doing, they run a great risk of gradually lowering the reputation of a writer who has no longer power to redeem his fame from the feebleness, perhaps absurdity, they have indirectly helped to connect with

it.

ART. V.-Evangelical Tracts No. I.
The Genius of Christianity. By
W. H. Furness.

WE wish to call the attention of our
readers to this series of Tracts. The
following announcement of his plan we
give in the Editor's own words, express
ing our hope, that such encouragement
will be afforded by the public, as will
enable him to carry it fully into effect.
"Those who have engaged in the be-
nevolent work of visiting the sick and
the poor,-who are accustomed to ob-
serve family worship in their houses-to
supply their inmates with useful reading
-to foster the religious sentiments of
their dependants-and, generally, to im-
prove the opportunities which their sta-
tion gives them of promoting piety and
goodness, will often have felt the want
of suitable compositions. This want it
is proposed to supply, in the series of
Tracts of which this is the commence
ment. The pieces published will be sim-
ple in their language, affectionate in their
spirit, and practical and devotional in
their tenor; in other words, such as may.
be put into the hands of domestics, poor
neighbours, and workmen, or such as.
are fitted to be read in the family circle,
or such as may exhibit to Christians at
large the essential truths of the gospel
as they are held by those who believe
that the Father alone is the true God.
As the sole object which he has in view
is to do good, the Editor will be deter-
mined in the choice of what he publishes
by a regard to the usefulness, rather than
the originality of the compositions which
he may have at his disposal. But while
the series will, for the greater part, con-
sist of reprints, it will also comprise ori-
ginal pieces. In order to be enabled to
carry into effect the design now com-
meuced, the Editor respectfully and ur-
gently solicits the aid of the friends of
Christianity. By using the tracts for the
purposes for which they are designed,
by pointing out tracts or passages of
works worthy of republication, and by
furnishing original compositions fitted
for the proposed objects, they may ren-
der him importaut aid.

"Communications addressed to the Editor of Evangelical Tracts,' to the care of T. Forrest, Printer, Market Street, Manchester, will receive attention."

ART. VI.-The Gifts of the Spirit.
Printed for R. B. Lusk, Greenock.
Pp. 24.

A PAMPHLET of few pages, and bearing

a simple title, but which has produced no small stir in the North; the production of Mr. Erskine, the author of several treatises of a Calvinistic character.

The main object of this tract is to argue the probability of the continuance of the miraculous operations of the Spirit in the Christian Church. Our author is not satisfied with the reasous commonly assigned for the belief that they have ceased to exist; such as, that the purpose of them was merely to put God's seal and sanction upon the canon of scripture; and that, therefore, when that canon was completed, they ought to cease, as having answered their purpose; and 2ndly, that as they were in the primitive times enforced by the laying on of the hands of the apostles, they neces-sarily ceased with the cessation of the apostolic office.

"I now see another use of the gifts, namely, for edifying the body of Christ, and demonstrating the oneness of the body on earth with the glorified Head in heaven."-P. 5. In proof of this view lowing passages: Rom. xii. 3—8; 1 Cor. of the spiritual gifts he refers to the folxii., xiii., xiv.; Eph. iv. 4—16.

The

"If miracles were intended to have ceased, I cannot but wonder at the following statements, and others, being made so indefinitely-I mean so unlimitedly; referring to Matt. xvii. 19, 20; Mark xvi. 17, 18; Luke x. 19. simply with the attestation of the truth. power is connected with faith, and not And that the gift of the Holy Ghost is not exclusively connected with the laying on of the hands of the apostles, appears from Paul himself receiving it by the laying on of the hands of Ananias, Acts ix. 17; and from the falling of the Holy Ghost on the family of Cornelius, not by laying on of Peter's hands, but while he was yet speaking,' so that the cessation of the apostolic office does not necessarily imply the cessation of miracles."—P. 13.

is to certain pretensions to miraculous The application made of this doctrine gifts, which, strauge to say, have been recently made in the west of Scotland; and which Mr. Erskine, in whose pamphlet we see proofs of a sincere sense of religion, and considerable cultivation of mind, believes to be well founded. Some particular examples are given in the pamphlet which is next noticed.

in a writer who lays hold upon our sym pathies as Mr. Johus does. And there are, moreover, in harmony with that pervading tone of piety and goodness which is the vitality of a sermon, other qualities of a higher value than those which we have just specified. There is a courage and a pathos in these discourses which we feel to be creditable to the head and heart of the writer. He excels in the delicate, soothing, and useful management of the appropriate topics of a funeral sermon; it is by such hands "that the stones of all our human graves may be piled into a tower whose top shall reach unto heaven" (vide 2nd Sermon, p. 22); and while his character of Mr. Madge, the late patriarch of the Crediton congregation, is a touching portrait of one who being dead yet speaketh' by the remembrance of an old age of piety and worth, that of Mr. Hazlitt is the production of a poetical, a patriotic, and a Christian spirit; it is the manly discharge of a debt of justice and gratitude to the memory of one who was out of grace with the world and the church; it is marked by justice, discrimination, and feeling; it is "beautiful and brave."

We regret that we cannot make room for some passages which we had purposed to extract.

GENERAL LITERATURE.

ART IX.-The Present State of Australia; a Description of the Country, its Advantages and Prospects with reference to Emigration, and a particular Account of the Manners, Customs, and Condition of its Aboriginal Inhabitants. By Robert Dawson, Esq., late Chief Agent to the Australian Agricultural Com

pany.

THE next thing to the personal enjoy ment of the cloudless skies and sunny prospects of a southern climate, is to read of them in such a book as this of Mr. Dawson's, where, without being convicts, we may enjoy in fancy all the charms of that paradise of evil-doers, New South Wales.

The author's pursuits led him repeatedly into the wildest paths of this unfrequented region. The whole country presents the appearance of a vast forest, occasionally broken into glades and vistas of great beauty.

"The hills are every where clothed with wood to their summits, with eternal verdure beneath them, in their natural

state, unaccompanied by brush or underwood, so that we are often reminded of gentlemen's pleasure grounds seen from a distance.""I could discern, to a considerable distance, the bendings of the stream, which was marked by a fringe of casurino and mimosa plants. The sun was just receding behind the western ranges, which on that side bounded this comparatively extensive plain. The beautiful effect of its departing rays, as reflected from the opposite hills and broken ranges in the distance, formed a magnificent picture. The stillness of the scene was only interrupted by the chirping of grasshoppers, and the grazing of the horses upon the luxuriant herbage at a short distance from the tent."-Pp. 52, 190. Alone, with the exception of a few attendants, he met the native savages, of whom we have heard so formidable a description; and here we have, perhaps, the most interesting portion of the work, an impartial and picturesque account of the aborigines of the country:

"The natives are a mild and harmless race of savages; and when any mischief has been done by them, the cause has generally arisen, I believe, in bad treatment by their white neighbours. They have usually been treated in distant parts of the colony as if they had been dogs, and shot by convict servants, at a distance from society, for the most trifling frequently that white pellow' shot causes. The natives complained to me their relations and friends, and shewed me many orphans whose parents had fallen by the hands of white men near this spot. They pointed out one white man, who they said had killed ten; and the wretch did not deny it, but said he would kill them whenever he could.""Their painted bodies, white teeth, shock heads of hair; their wild and savage appearance, with the reflection of the fire in a dark night, would have formed a terrific spectacle to any person coming suddenly and unexpectedly upon them, They are, however, one of the best-natured people in the world, and would never hurt a white man if treated with civility and kindness."-Pp. 57, 68.

Most of this gentleman's attention appears to have been given to the observation of the capabilities of the climate and soil of the colony for rearing sheep for the production of wool; and the result, in his opinion, is, that the fleeces of New South Wales might, under good management, compete with the finest productions of Europe.

Our limits will not allow us to do justice, by longer extracts, to this interesting volume, which we recommend to our readers as by much the most full and clear account which has yet appeared of New South Wales, and of the objects to be kept in view by persons proposing to settle there.

MISCELLANEOUS CORRESPONDENCE.

Inquiry respecting Continental Anti- and again," the remains of this unfor