Dr. PRIESTLEY, when he published his great work, in two volumes, entitled The Corruptions of Christianity, sent the Historian a copy, begging his perusal of it, and inviting him to the examination of Revealed Religion. Enraged at the present, he indignantly refused to enter the lists, and took his revenge by consigning over the intrepid, but honest, Divine to the notice of the civil and ecclesiastical constitutions of his country; pointing to two passages in his works, at one of which he said, "the priest," and at the other," the magistrate, may tremble." This was cowardly, and savoured of the blackest malignity. But Dr. WATSON, the late Bishop of Llandaff, met with better treatment. He addressed an able series of letters to Mr. Gibbon, entitled An Apology for Christianity, most strangely considering the Historian as a believer, who had incautiously expressed himself on the subject. This was grati. fying to his vanity, and accordingly a very complimentary letter was return ed the Prelate on the presentation of a copy of his work. But, alas! this

* The first of these obnoxious passages simply predicted the fall of all antichristian establishments, and the other, awfully portentous to the infidel and worldly ecclesiastic, runs thus, concluding with a prayer for the arrival of the Millennium, in which the devout of every denomination might join throughout Christendom: "It is nothing but the alliance of the kingdom of Christ with the kingdoms of this world, (an alliance which our Lord expressly disclaimed,) that supports the grossest corruptions of Christianity; and perhaps we must wait for the fall of the civil powers before this most unnatural alliance be broken. Calamitous, no doubt, will that time be. But what convulsions in the political world ought to be a subject of lamentation if it be attended with so desirable an event? May the kingdom of God and of Christ (that which I conceive intended in the Lord's Prayer) truly and fully come, though all the kingdoms of the world be removed in order to make way for it!"

+ Waving the discussion of the subject, he artfully remarks in the note, "Mr. Gibbon entirely coincides in opinion with Dr. Watson, that as their different sentiments on a very important point of history are now submitted to the public, they both may employ their time in a manner much more useful as

courteous effort to reclaim the pseudobeliever met with no success. The obnoxious passages of his History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire remained unrectified, and he sunk still deeper into the mire of infidelity.

Now mark the attempts to recover LORD BYRON. They indeed were of a more private nature, but equally unavailing, and both attended with a nearly similar treatment.

These statements are drawn from authentic sources, and shall be transcribed with scarcely any note or comment. They speak for themselves, and will, I trust, generate an useful impression upon the minds of the rising generation.* R. C. DALLAS, Esq., has just published Recollections of the Life of Lord Byron from the Year 1808 to the End of 1814, in which the following expostulatory letter occurs, addressed to his Lordship respecting his infidelity:

"I compare such philosophers as you and Hume and Gibbon (I have put you into company that you are not ashamed of) to mariners wrecked at sea, buffetting the waves for life, wards land, where, meeting with rugand at last carried by a current toged and perpendicular rocks, they

*The writer here begs leave to recommend to his young friends two excellent little manuals-Lectures on Natural and Revealed Religion, by the Rev. Lawrence Holden, of Tenterden; and Illustrations of the Evidences of Christianity, by Mrs. Maria Hack, of Chichester. There is also an anonymous pamphlet well worth perusal, entitled An Address to Deists, said to have been written by the Rev. Mr. Grosser, Particular Baptist Minister at Maidstone. See a late number of the New Evangelical Magazine, where its merits were duly appreciated; whilst by the Old Baptist Magazine it had the honour of being reprobated.

decide that it is impossible to land, and, though some of their companions point out a firm beach, exclaim, Deluded things! there can be no beach unless you can melt down these tremendous rocks. No! our ship is wrecked, and to the bottom we must go! All we have to do is to swim on till fate overwhelms us! You do not deny the depravity of the human race. Well, that is one step gained: it is allowing we are cast away; it is, figuratively, our shipwreck. Behold us, then, all scattered upon the ocean, and all anxious to be saved-all, at least, willing to be on terra firmathe Humes, the Gibbons, the Voltaires, as well as the Newtons, the Lockes, the Johnsons, &c. The latter make for the beach; the former exhaust their strength about the rocks, and sink, declaring them insurmountable. The incarnation of a Deityvicarious atonement - the innocent suffering for the guilty-the seeming inconsistencies of the Old Testament and the discrepancies of the New, &c. &c.-are rocks which I am free to own are not easily melted down; but I may be certain that they may be viewed from a point on the beach in less deterring forms, lifting their heads into the clouds indeed, yet adding sublimity to the prospect of the shore on which we have landed, and by no means impeding our progress upon it. In less metaphorical language, my Lord, it appears to me that Freethinkers are generally more eager to strengthen their objections than solicitous for conviction, and prefer wandering into forced inferences to pursuing the evidence of facts-so contrary to the example given to us in all judicial investigagations, where testimony precedes reasoning, and is the ground of it. The corruption of human nature being self-evident, it is very natural to inquire the cause of that corruption, and as natural to hope that there may be a remedy for it. The cause and the remedy have been stated. How are we to ascertain the truth of them? Not by arguing mathematically, but by first examining the proofs adduced, and if they are satisfactory, to use our reasoning powers, as far as they will go, to clear away the difficulties that attend them. This is the only mode of investigating with any hope

of conviction. It is, to return to my metaphor, the beach on which we may find a footing, and be able to look around us; on which beach I trust I shall one day or other see you taking your stand. I have done-and pray observe that I have kept my word: I have not entered on metaphysics on the subject of Revelation. I have merely stated the erroneous proceeding of Freethinking philosophy, and, on the other hand, the natural and rational proceeding of the mind in the inquiry after truth. The conviction must, and I am confident will, be the operation of your own mind."

Mr. Dallas then adds, "LORD BYRON noticed, indeed, what I had written, but in a very discouraging manner. He would have nothing to do with the subject. We should all go down together, he said; 'so,' quoting St. Paul, Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die'! He felt satisfied with his creed, for it was better to sleep than to wake. Such were the opinions which occasionally manifested themselves in this unhappy young man, and which gave me a degree of pain proportioned to the affection I could not but feel for him; while my hopes of his ultimately breaking from the trammels of infidelity, which were never relinquished, received from time to time fresh exciteinent from some expressions that appeared to me to have an opposite tendency."

At a later period, LORD BYRON was addressed respecting his infidelity by another gentleman, who has furnished us with the correspondence, attached to a second edition, just published, of an interesting little volume entitled, Thoughts chiefly designed as a Preparative or Persuasive to Private Devotion, by John Sheppard. This communication is of a singular and impressive nature, and shall be transcribed. It exhibits his Lordship in a more favourable light, and reflects some degree of honour on his memory.

"To the Right Hon. Lord Byron, Pisa.

"Frome, Somerset, Nov. 21, 1821.

"MY LORD,

"More than two years since a lovely and beloved wife was taken from me by lingering disease, after a very short union. She possessed un

I trust, that you will again meet, cannot be contemplated without the admiration due to her virtues and her pure and unpretending piety. Her last moments were particularly striking; and I do not know that in the course of reading the story of mankind, and still less in my observations upon the existing portion, I ever met with any thing so unostentatiously beautiful! Indisputably, the firm believers in the gospel have a great advantage over all others, for this simple reason, that if true, they will have their reward hereafter, and if there be no hereafter, they can be but with the infidel in his eternal sleep, having had the assistance of an exalted hope through life, without disappointment, since (at the worst for them) out of nothing-nothing can arise,' not even sorrow! But a man's creed does not depend upon himself. Who can say, I will believe this, that, or the other, and least of all that which he least can comprehend? I have, however, observed, that those who have begun life with extreme faith, have in the end greatly narrowed it, as Chillingworth, Clarke, (who ended as an Arian,) Bayle and Gibbon, (once a Catholic,) and some others; while, on the other hand, nothing is more common than for the early sceptic to end in a firm belief like Maupertuis and Henry Kirke White. But my business is to acknowledge your letter, and not to make a dissertation. I am obliged to you for your good wishes, and more than obliged by the extract from the papers of the beloved object whose qualities you have so well described in a few words, I can assure you that all the fame that ever cheated humanity into higher notions of its own importance, would never weigh in my mind against the pure and pious interest which a virtuous being may be pleased to take in my welfare. In this point of view, I would not exchange the prayer of the deceased in my behalf for the united glory of Homer, Cæsar and Napoleon, could such be accumulated upon a living head. Do me at least the justice to suppose that-

Video meliora proboque, however the deteriora sequor may have been applied to my conduct. I have

the honour to be your obliged and obedient servant, "BYRON.

"P. S. I do not know that I am addressing a clergyman, but I presume that you will not be affronted by the mistake (if it is one) on the address of this letter. One who has so well explained and deeply felt the doctrines of religion, will excuse the error which led me to believe him its minister."

Upon this characteristically interesting epistle of LORD BYRON, Mr. Sheppard makes several appropriate reflections; for which I refer to his work; whilst the following paragraph is deserving transcription, being fraught with the divine spirit of charity: "Intercessions I cannot doubt had long been anxiously offered on his behalf, at least by relatives, and some of these in the blessed spirit of Christian forgiveness; others, as the preceding pages affectingly shew, by one unknown to him, from the pure promptings of a Christian solicitude for his welfare, enhanced by his fine gifts and high responsibility. Till the heavenly records of Christian charity shall be at last unrolled, we know not what more and similar petitions may have been poured from hearts that responded to his genius and deplored Nor can any proits aberrations! nounce till after the judgment is set and the books are opened, that these were ultimately and altogether use

less."

"Unto us a child is born," i. e. to our assistance, Immanuel, whose birth the prophet had foretold, ch. vii. 14, and whom he had called the Preserver of his country, when describing the incursions of the eneiny. According to the prophetic manner, he represents the future as if present before his view.

"Unto us a son is given," who shall work out our deliverance. This repetition of the same sentiment is [here] a mark of exultation.

“And the government is upon his shoulder.” He administers the affairs of the state. Pliny employs a similar expression, Pan. Traj. ch. x.: "Since your father has abundantly tried how well the sovereignty sits upon your shoulders." Cicero also, in his Oration for Flaccus, § 94, thus addresses the judges: “In this trial, (judicio,) I say, that you support the whole Republic on your shoulders." Others understand the Hebrew word of the royal robe, as in Jonah iii. 6; for here the word 8 is used of the royal robe, worn by the king of Assyria, the insignia of royal authority worn about the shoulders. Grotius thinks, that by these words the birth of a monarch is signiċed, who should bear the royal purple from his cradle.

“And his name shall be called," or ** he sietää otil his mone.” – Kai xa TRI T3 B3JMA AUT, is the reading of the LXX.

“Wonderful?” Isaiah xxv. 1. The abstract for the concrete object of admiration, — Vulgate, Admirabilis; Aquila, Qazmaçi, Symmachus, Ila

darunc, derived either from CIJE 35, beyond expectation, as Hesychius explains it, or from mzozdağaça, -I mase Lustrious, glorious,-in which sense the word is used by those Hebrews who ived among the Greeks, as is evident from 2 Miriam Al The appellation #mderful may be apcibed to this ñvine hero, buci sa account of his miraculous birth of the virgin, and an account of the many E istrives works ione 39 kim. N. B.] The same name is given to the divine Messenger who appeared to Mangah, ami in Wondrousie, me, I 83. ← Cinze Jr.*" inparing salary conces nan jut if the stares if his own visam. Sime mines, after Theodocon, in this either with the przesting, tans, #mieru Cruns

lor, Javμaçã, Bouλever; but in oppo sition to the genius of the language, which in that case requires that the order of the words should have been inverted.-Since by the epithet Coun sellor the wisdom of Immanuel is denoted, so his power is described by the next words maab (in the English Version] Mighty God, Deus, fortis heros-God, or mighty hero.

properly denotes a mighty one, and is applied to Nebuchadnezzar, who is called the mighty one of the heathen. But in the verse before us the Supreme Being is to be understood, (Remark See ch. x. 21, where the same words are manifestly employed in this sense; and by comparing these two passages, it is known that these two words are not to be separated, as some interpreters have attempted, as if they were written, God, mighty; which is proved by the Masoretic point placed under , to denote that it should be joined to the next word. na denotes one who excels in valour, strength, power, and is the title of a hero, Gen. x. 8; 1 Sam. xvii. 51; and is applied to Jehovah, Deut. x. 17; Zeph. ii. 17; Ps. xxiv. 8. That God, clothed in human nature, may appear among men, was the persuasion of all anti"quity. (*) See Huet. The Indian Brahmins to this day teach that the Deity has been concealed, in the forms of certain great men, and thus held intercourse with the human race; and that Vishnu, i. e. conqueror, SIKATUD, who, they say, is the second person of the three-one God, has already assumed a body nine times, and sometimes even a human body; and that the same will yet be done by him once more. He maintains, that under the name of Carishan, and the character of a teacher of morais, the same has descended to promote the reformation of men of wicked habits. See the Astatic Researches-The divine nature of the great hero and prince described by our prophet in this passage, is designated by the additional epithet 728, Father of eternity, (ie eternal, for possessor of eternity, as in 2 Kags 18, possessor of hairs, i. e. bary. Nothing is more frequent with the Arts, than in similar forms of expression to employ ficter for pusassur. Hence the balsam-tree is, at the present day, caused by the Arabs