HAVING awoke from the slumber in which we have lain for more than half a century, on looking around we have been alarmed at the depredations which have been committed upon our ranks by enemies of different casts; and, animated by the virtuous energy of the champions of gospel truth in the metropolis, we have attempted in the country to rally our forces, and by every honourable and virtuous means to engage the kingdom at large in a serious examination of the doctrines which have been passing current amongst us since the period of the reformation. We have the satisfaction of knowing that our exertions have not been in vain, that Unitarianism has spread and is still going on to spread; and there is a promise in the present state and appearance of things of a still greater harvest which God will give to our labours: for truth extends itself on every side as it advances, and every accession of strength that it acquires is an assurance of a double and threefold vigour which it will gain at the next stage.

Under these pleasing views of futurity, we look with a considerable anxiety to every means by which Scripture truth is taught, and are much more alive to the influence of each of them than were our ancestors fifty years ago. With most concern we look to our public teachers, the most important of all our means, and are anxious that they should be as free from imperfection as possible, and provided with all those facilities and energies that can render their labours the most effective. And I trust that if these observations should fall into the hands of any of the young men who are now rising up to hecome public teachers, or into the hands of those who have recently engaged in the work of the ministry amongst us, they will believe that I am not wanting in a high respect both for themselves and for the very able instructors

of whose lessons they have enjoyed the advantage, but that it is my wish to offer a few remarks on a subject of which there appears to be a general complaint.

It is well known that the class of religionists which has been willing to be known by the name of Rational Dissenters, have endeavoured to support their pretensions to the character, by despising altogether the influence of the passions, by disapproving of all means of public instruction which savours in the least of methodism and of proselytism, and by enclosing themselves within no other fences than than those of plain logical and Scrip tural proofs of the goodness of their cause. This plan of cool calculation was not likely to have an influence upon the mass of the people; there. fore not only have the mass of the people been indifferent to the argu. ments of these men of reason, but their own advocates and friends have found the regions they inhabited so very unanimating and chilly, that they have forsaken then for the more lively services of the orthodox or the more profitable ones of the professors of the national faith. Now, although I flatter myself that a very different view of the subject is cherished in the minds of the young ministers who are now educating amongst us, vet I fear that the mode of instruction is not altered in our colleges, and that they are still educating men who will shine only in the paths of logical accuracy, who, completely absorbed in the rules and practice of rhetoric, will neglect, perhaps think lightly of, the more effectual and sure way to the heart of the multitude, by the graces of elocution and the influence of manner. Never may the preachers of Unitarianism become the loose and careless demagogues, who try to "tear a passion to rags," that they may "split the ears of the groundlings." But, they have a part to act which requires that they also should "suit the action to the words, the words to the action," and shew all that native ease and lively energy in the defence of gospel truth, which others shew in supporting one assumed character after another, in order that they may amuse and instruct the genteel au dience of a theatre.

It is certainly a matter of no sur prise, that among the men who are educated for the ministry, there are very few of real eloquence. If the students of the fine arts of drawing and music were selected with the same indifference as to their natural qualifications, as our students in divinity are selected, at the age of sixteen, and they were afterwards to pursue those lines as a business, whatever abilities they might discover, good or bad, we should certainly have very few of them excelling in these arts. How few of the many lawyers that are called to the bar obtain a sufficient eminence to secure briefs enough to pay the expences of the circuit? Many are obliged to retire altogether from public life; and many others who wear the gown feel themselves under an obligation to their more fortunate brethren, when they nominate them as arbitrators, or refer a cause to them upon which they are not willing to enter. And let any one attend but half a session in the Houses of Parliament, he will see how very few of the gentlemen there, who have all possible advantages of education, can deliver a tolerable speech with a tolerable degree of propriety. And why should it be otherwise with Dis senting ministers? Considering the necessity a Dissenting Diss minister lies under, of having his double weekly service prepared against the Sunday, whether any new idea may or may not strike up, or his mind be in a state to prepare it or not, and the little pains that are taken to instruct him in giving effect to what he is to deliver; it is rather surprising that there are about us so many ministers who maintain a high degree of respectability in their public services: and our congregations are unreasonable in expecting more from them. It is however extremely desirable that the qualifications of ministers should be increased. Nor can it be said that our colleges give them a proper education, when no attempts are made to render the vehicle interesting and inviting in which they send out into the world the truths they hold sacred. With respect to the great bulk of mankind, manner is even more than matter; and one man will give interest and effect to an empty discourse, while another suffers an able and superior treatise to die away on his

lips without making even a solitary impression.

The Unitarian orator istina case somewhat unfortunate. He cannots if he would, employ the powerful scenery and machinery which his Calvinistic brother has at command. He has neither the poetic licence of a Milton, nor the gloomy but awful apprehensions of a Young or a Cowper, 10 give energy to his discourse.. The Calvinist, when he seeks to move the passions, can play with firebrands and with vengeance. He has an angry and revengeful King, almighty and terrific, at his command, frowning upon his rebellious subjeets, and at his feet he can place a lovely child soothing him to mercy. Who can resist the influence of such a scene? Terror first and then love seize upon the yielding mind. What father can sit unmoved What mother has not her bowels yearning within her? What child does not desire to be in that child's place, and thus to triumph by a genthe and an amiable mastery? Who has read the Arabian Nights Enter. tainments, and does not know the charm of secret influences? These also the orthodox divine has at his command. He has a cruel foe, who is always lurking about and still un+ seen, a hellish fiend armed with power little short of almighty, and with cunning and malice far above human opposition. Against these too he can oppose celestial agency. As on the boards of a playhouse, so in the house of God, they have recourse to strange attachments, to high wronght scenes, to deep plots and to terrific developements. In these we sadly fail. The cultivated and not the natural wickedness of the human heart, is the most terrific scene the Unitarian preacher can unfold-a seene so little inviting to the taste of the multitude, that they turn from it ill understood. Failing in machinery, what can we substitute in its room?

Add to this consideration, that the practice has long prevailed in our societies for our educated men to prepare their addresses to the people upon paper, and deliver them with proper form and ceremony to the congregation. Their attention is necessarily taken up with their compo sitions, which they are desirous of appetites.

evil is, perhaps, yet more increased by another practice, which has of late been finding its way into our societies, of reading in a dull and lifeless manner prayers which have been previously composed with precision and art. Could written prayers be delivered in such a way as that they seemed to come fresh from the heart, no reasonable objection could be urged against them; because all that anxiety is removed by them from the breast of the congregation, and all that embarrassment from the minister, which are surely destructive of devotion. But the evil is in this, that, while the service of the church is proverbially gabbled over from the mere habit of repeating it, our reading ministers go sometimes through their prayers with so much heaviness and stupidity, as to lead the congregation to conceive they have no interest in them, and that they are meant only for the people's use. There are indeed ministers who read their prayers in a manner so serious and impressive, that no one would suspect them to have been pre-composed but from watching their eye; and certainly there may be as much, nay there should be more deep and true devotion in the man who reads a solemn address to the Almighty, which he has digested, and to which he has formed his mind in his study, than there can be in the loose chance-directed effusions which are poured forth on the spur of the moment.

No one can be ignorant of the difference between the tone of voice in which we relate an event that has happened within our knowledge, and. that in which we should read the same from a book or a newspaper. In the latter instance our attention is engaged by the words, which we are anxious to read correctly, and we lose all the interest of conversation; the eye, which most of all discovers the passions and affections of the mind, is fixed on the paper, its influence is lost to the listener, and the hands and arms give no help to the story: while the words are delivered with a certain' solemnity, and at such regular distances, that they must inevitably be to a certain extent monotonous. But in extemporary delivery we distinguish the passion and emotion of the speaker, by the various quickness with which the words are delivered, and by the tone of voice, which varies as he proceeds. It is almost impossible that a sermon or a prayer when it is read, should be delivered with the same energy, with the same natural pauses, and the same variation of voice, as a free address, and therefore it is less interesting and moves far less the persons who are the hearers. Here lies, I apprehend, the true secret of producing effect: could our reading ministers be SO well acquainted with their compositions before they deliver them in public, and so feel the sentiments they contain, as to accompany them with the same variation of voice and the same pauses and motions which they would employ in saying the same off-hand, such are the advantages that the composer of a prayer or sermon possesses, in point of style, of correctness and of variety, that there would soon be an universal approval of the reading of sermons and prayers in our societies. Let but a man read with the life and ease of colloquial address, he would inevitably rivet the attention of his audience, and move their feelings in the highest degree. This is actually done on the stage, and with surer success might be done from the pulpit.

. I have said that the Christian minister has a part to act. I wish that this truth was more considered than it is, and that ministers would not be either afraid or ashamed to regard themselves in the capacity of actors, and actors too in the highest and most honourable of characters; and that they would think a little more, not only of the sentiments they have to deliver, but also of the manner in which these sentiments are to proceed from their mouths. I would have them consider, that the great object for which they mount the pulpit is to produce a most important effect, and that there are certain means by which alone that effect can be produced. It is not often that a valuable moral impression is produced by the skill of the rhetorical artist in a formal and dry discourse; while the homely language of the extemporaneous speaker, who is warmed by his subject and speaks from the dictates of his heart, provided only that he observe a moderation and a chastity in his language, is always gratifying to the audience, and will sooner carry conviction to the heart.

It is well known to be a rule in the colleges in Scotland, to encourage the young divines to prepare their sermons in their study, and deliver them me moriter, or from such copious notes as will supply them with an abundance of matter to fill up the half or three quarters of an hour. If a man have self-command, and possess a tolerable stock of modest assurance, the latter mode is preferable, and by degrees he will acquire a fulness of utterance, and be a workman that needs not to be ashamed. This plan therefore is recommended to their young men; and I believe it is also recommended in the most respectable of those institutions that are educating ministers for the Independent or moderately Calvinistic societies. But some of the Scotch professors rather prefer the entire composition of the sermon, and committing it to memory; assuring their students, that, however difficult it may at first be found by a person who is not accustomed to the exercise of the memory, it will become by industry and diligence inconceivably easy. This is manifest in the experience of even the common actors on a stage, and in the exercise of school boys, whose memories are found to strengthen in an extraordinary manner by frequent and regular exercise. Dr. Alexander Gerard, of Aberdeen, was a remarkable instance of what may be done by the exercise of the memory. When he first as

sumed the office of a preacher, this recollection was so inert, that with the greatest difficulty he committed a sermon to memory in a fortnight, and never ventured to preach more than once during that time, unless he could deliver the same sermon in another place. But as he practised the art of learning his sermons, he found his memory strengthen perceptibly, till at length he could repeat the whole of a discourse accurately after reading it only twice. Here is an instance of a man's acquiring by mere dint of industry the mastery of an art for which he did not appear to be fitted by nature, which may serve as an encouragement to a young man of the most obtuse recollection.

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There have been amongst the English Dissenters few instances of eloquent preachers; but none, I believe, in which they have not obtained their celebrity by other means than by the stiff rules of a college. Of Dr. Foster I can say nothing from personal knowledge. I knew something of Dr. Fordyce; both men greatly celebrated in their day. I believe the cause of their popularity might be found in a happy art of delivering their addresses well, and giving them an interest which was strictly their own. The most distinguished character which the present generation of Dissenters has known as a preacher was Mr. Fawcett, who was many years morning preacher to the society at Walthamstow, where he resided, and who delivered a Sunday evening lecture during the winter season at the Old Jewry. His eloquence was of a rare and striking kind. Not only Dissenters of all classes, but Churchmen of the highest rank, and some of the leading dramatic characters of the day, were his hearers. Mrs. Siddons and her brothers were frequent attenders on his evening services. But Mr. Fawcett, of Walthamstow, in the morning, was a very different man from Mr. Fawcett, of the Old Jewry, in the evening: a manifest proof that his great excellence was assumed, and therefore that it was acquired by art. He may have had a natural aptitude of speech and gracefulness of manner: but it is well known that he improved these by great care. When he was a student at Daventry, he was so impressed with the importance of