of arguments can be employed with little prospect of success against our modern infidels. Mo-y Art. 28. A Sermon on the Sanctification of the Sabbath, and on the right Use and Abuse of Sunday Schools, preached Oct. 1, 1797; by the Rev. M. Olerenshaw, Minister of Mellor, Derbyshire. 8vo. 6d. Matthews, &c. Art. 29. A Defence of Sunday Schools: attempted in a Series of Letters addressed to the Rev. M. Olerenshaw, in Answer to his Sermon, &c. By J. Mayer. 12mo. pp. 98. 1s. Chapman.. Sufficient time has elapsed, since the institution of Sunday schools, to enable us, from experience, to form some opinion as to their utility. The very essential benefits, at first promised by their sanguine supporters, have been perhaps but partially obtained in their whole extent; yet few places will be found, in which these institutions have been countenanced by the well-judging as well as opulent inhabitants, without an adequate reformation of the rising members of society in the lower ranks having been the apparent result. These pamphlets do not refer to the universal or partial utility of the plan, but to its strict legality, consonant with the Levitical prohibition from labour on the sabbath. The first of these authors insists that the teaching of writing and arithmetic to children, on the Lord's day, amounts to that description of work from which we are commanded to rest, or abstain. The attack is harshly conducted; and we cannot discover in the reply so much candour and forbearance as a subject, intimately connected with the great interests of religion, certainly demands from its advocates. Art. 30. The Constitution and Order of a Gospel Church considered. By Several Dall Hi. Several strokes in this picture shew that it comes from the pencil of no vulgar artist, though it must be acknowleged to be deficient in point of resemblance with its original. Neither are the lights and shades so properly cast as they might have been; some would think that several objects are brought too forwards which would have been better kept in the back-ground; and certainly sufficicat attention is not paid to the keeping. Indeed, it would require much labour, and an uncommon share of patience, to cleanse the original from the smoke and incrustations of dirt which for ages have been suffered to gather on it, through the negligence of some of its proprietors, the ignorance of others, and the vile varnish of mercenary and conceited dealers. The parts of which the present artist has been able to get a view, through this heap obstruction, are not badly copied but still very much remains to be done, before we can hope to be presented with a faithful resemblance of the prototype. From several circumstances, we are tempted to imagine this to be the work of a beginner in the art; if so, we would advise him not to be discouraged: he certainly has the clue; and, by unremit ting study and perseverance, we may expect some laudable performances from his hand. In our opinion, the farther out of sight he keeps the works of both Mr. G. and Mr. W. the better the former are in too coarse a style to captivate those who have a knowlege of the art; and with respect to the latter, there is such a meretricious method of colouring in them, that they dazzle and disgust the beholder :-neither of them will be lasting. Art. 32. A Letter to a Merchant, Member of the House of Commons; on his public Declaration, that he sees no business Bishops have in Parliament. By a Layman. 8vo. pp. 45. Is. Bell. 1798. The author of this spirited and ingenious pamphlet takes up the cause of the Bishops in a lively strain of humour, which cannot fail of agreeably affecting his readers:-at least, we were much entertained in the perusal of it. His arguments, drawn from the comparative merits of Bishops and Merchants, are not inferior to his wit, whether he pleads for his clients or retaliates on their mercantile adversary. Being kept, by our humble sphere of life, at too remote a distance from the exalted personages who fill the sacred bench in the upper house of parliament, to permit us to enjoy that intimacy with them to which our happier layman appears to be admitted, we are glad to hear him declare his persuasion, that, without a single exception, they are men of piety as pure as belongs to human frailty, and of erudition the most varied and profound.' After this, the other class of people concerning whom he writes are not likely to be gainers by the comparison with their lordships. Let us observe what he says of the Merchants: While speaking of "unlettered senators," I should be unjust if I involved the whole of your body in one general indiscriminate censure. There are among you men of expanded minds and cultivated understandings-men of real and profound learning, glowing with warm and generous hearts-men, whose sentiments are refined, and whose manners are elegant. Some of them I have the happiness Tooke. and. and the pride to call my friends.-But you must pardon me, Sir, if, speaking in general terms, I should pronounce you to be a set of insolent, ignorant, and purse-proud upstarts. Although I do not entirely agree with Mandeville, that private vices are public benefits, yet perhaps there would have been no great danger in allowing you the undisturbed enjoyment of your antient privileges-you might have continued to keep your girls and drive your gigs, and to bluster and be troublesome in theatres and in taverns. Thus far you might have trodden upon the heels of men of quality, without any material inconvenience to the State: but the moment that you walked into Parliament as representatives of boroughs and of counties, you, in my opinion, advanced a step too far and, notwithstanding your slender talents, became formidable to your country.' However partial we may be to the clergy, we cannot immediately bring ourselves to think, with this layman, that it would be to the advantage of the country that they should be eligible to seats in the lower house. Though we should agree with him on the subject of their distinguished endowments and virtues, yet might not that esprit du corps, which is yet more conspicuous in them than in the professions of arms and the longrobe, and among the country gentlemen, be admitted as an apology for our hesitation? We will conclude with one more extract,-to which, without scruple, we heartily subscribe: To hope that a voluntary reform may gradually be produced in the morals of the people, is, I should conceive, no visionary idea. Let us all contribute our share of exertion, and something, at least, may be done. Do you, Sir, set the example.-Begin, either as senators or as individuals, the great work of restoring public virtue, and we will then endeavour to forget, that to you must be attributed her present extinction. Sacrifice that unmanly resentment, which, unproductive of benefit to yourselves, proves ruinous to your debtors. Propose a mitigation of those severe and murderous laws, which at once excite and sanction the malignant passions of an offended creditor; and which, condemning the unfortunate tradesman to a life of captivity, expose his unprotected family to all the miseries and to all the temptations of want. Consent to forego those profits which you derive from public lotteries. After the information communi cated by Mr. Colquhoun, in his most excellent book of police, let them cease to disgrace our resources of finance-and, what is of infinitely more importance than all the rest, unite in immediately drive ing from their counters those contemptible men-millmers, and emas culated six-feet measurers of lace and of ribbon, who disgust our eyes in every haberdasher's shop throughout the kingdom; and who occupy that only intermediate station, which indigent females can possibly find, between a life of servitude and a life of dishonour." Art. 33. A Letter from Citizen Gregoire, Bishop of Blois, to Don Raymond Joseph d'Arce, Archbishop of Burgos, Chief Judge of the Inquisition in Spain, upon the Necessity and Advantage of suppressing that Tribunal. Translated from the French. 6d. Darton and Harvey. 1798. 12m0. Took Though Though it may be said that little danger is likely to accrue to these kingdoms from the tribunal of the holy inquisition, yet, while religious persecution subsists under any form, this letter from the French Bishop may be read with profit. Indeed, as mankind are apt to run from one extreme into another, we see no certainty that bigotry and superstition may not again have their day; and the idea of the horrors which they inevitably bring in their train cannot be too deeply impressed on the human mind. At any rate, we must confess that, though written by a Roman Catholic bishop, this epistle contains sentiments which we heartily approve. • If it be pretended, (says the humane bishop,) that the inquisition, reduced now to the state of a passive instrument in the hands of policy, rejects the censure of a foreigner, who avows the principle consecrated by nature, and enregistered in the French Constitu-" tion, which prohibits an interference with the government of other countries, I shall observe, that certain attempts against humanity form an exception in the code of the rights of nations: posterity has loaded with praises the hero who forbad the Carthaginians to sacrifice human victims: but the maiming of men, the traffic in negroes, slavery, and the inquisition, may well enter into the list of exceptions; and besides, who can dispute with any individual the right of expressing his wishes for the welfare of humanity; to give those wishes, supported by all the power of argument, that publicity, the extent of which the press has so very much enlarged? for happiness is also the bond of union among nations: woe be to him who lays the foundation of his own prosperity upon the oppression of. others!' National egotism, like individual egotism, is a crime; whoever partakes of it is guilty of inhumanity. This sentiment accords with the attachment of predilection we feel for the body politic of which we are members, under whose guardian laws we live, and the moment is doubtless not far distant, when nations shall become sensible that their happiness, like that of individuals, cannot be pure and lasting, unless they share it with all mankind.' After having adduced many substantial arguments for the suppres sion of this odious tribunal, the writer concludes with the following apology for himself and his motives in this address: • Men interested in the maintenance of those abuses by which they live, will doubtless cast an odium on this my demand. Imposture, which, to use the expression of one of our writers, asserts every thing and proves nothing, will be ready to class me among those who are charged with plotting to overthrow the church and the state: to do good to these slanderers is the only revenge which religion per mits, the only one I desire to exercise; and certainly, if by suffering reproach we can hasten the destruction of an establishment which revolts against every principle, what friend of humanity but would applaud himself for having effected such a purpose at such a price? How often, both in speech and writing, have we censured certain, legislators, whose criminal imbecility wished to separate the social state from all ideas of religion, and to break the indestructible chain between heaven and earth: it would be easier to build a city in the air, exclaimed an antient philosopher, who held principles rather sounder sounder than most of our moderns. I pride myself in being the associate of those French bishops, who have evinced their attachment to religion and the republic, by having suffered in defending them. While men, known for having basely deserted each other, were propagating false reports against us in foreign countries, especially in Spain, here, with our worthy fellow-labourers, exposed to outrages and misery, in the face of scaffolds, on which many of our brethren had suffered, after the example of those celebrated martyrs, of whom Eulogius Cordubensis has left us so affecting a picture, we stood in the gap, to defend our august religion, assailed by a tempest the most furious of any of which the records of the Gallic church have preserved the remembrance. I am in this matter but the organ of the French clergy; who, in a writing confirmed by their approbation, have declared their abhorrence of the inquisition.' I cannot but persuade myself that the great judge of the inquisition has a soul heroic enough, that is to say, so far Christian, as to promote the suppression of a tribunal over which he presides; he will only gloriously accele rate what the irresistible power of events must soon produce, brand. ing also with infamy those who attempt to oppose it: and God knows what a deluge of writings, then overflowing Spain, will falsely reproach Christianity with a spirit of dominion to which it is repugnant, and which is only entertained by a class of men who abuse its name to the purposes of oppression. Leave to Geneva the infamy of having consecrated, at the close of the eighteenth century, the most rigid intolerance in the constitution which they have just adopted. As ministers of the God of peace, let us be continually remind. ing the individuals of the human family, that they are all brethren; that in this lower world, called very justly, by a certain writer, a vast infirmary, every one ought to display his resolution on the part of truth against error and vice, to reclaim the wandering and the vicious, by causing the light of truth to shine before them: let us be incessantly admonishing them, that our transient existence upon earth is but the entrance into life; it is always too long to be employed in evil, but too short for doing good; that every one should hasten to love, to serve his fellow-creatures, and to win them over to virtue by forbearance, good example, charitable exhortations, and friendly actions.' Art. 34. Falsehood Detected: being Animadversions on Mr. Paine's Letter to the Hon. Thomas Erskine, on the Trial of Thomas Williams, for publishing "The Age of Reason:" wherein his attacks upon the Bible are examined and shewn to be founded in Misrepresentation and Falsehood. By John Marsom. 8vo. pp. 33. 6d. Sold by the Author. Mr. Paine, by his hasty attacks on the Bible, exposes himself to easy refutation: yet it is proper for the sake of truth that he should be refuted; and Mr. Marsom, by his examination of Mr. P.'s Supplement to his " Age of Reason," has shewn how unfounded are his objections to the Scripture-History. We do not agree, however, with Mr. M. that the strata in the bowels of the earth are evidence of the Deluge. Tock Mov NOVELS. |