Under the present system of public instruction, at least where the minister does little or nothing as a teacher but prepare and deliver his weekly discourses, it surely may, without hazard, be said, that the requisite instrumentality of divine truth can be expected to reach a few only of the individuals under his charge. How vast a difference would there be in this respect, did he frequently address and instruct each individual and family separately, and hold up before their minds the transforming mirror of grace and love! How different would his sermons themselves be were he to deliver them to each individual alone, with a direct view to his obedience and salvation, instead of pronouncing them before a mixed congregation, under the constraint of hackneyed forms, at regular intervals, and often under circumstances unfavourable both to him and to his hearers!

It is related of a certain minister, that coming to his church on a stormy Sunday, he found there a single individual only of his congregation, an aged man who had never been affected by the Gospel. Being convinced by this incident of the little interest which his people took in his public services, he resolved not wholly to lose the present opportunity, but having obtained the consent of his auditor, preached his sermon to him alone, with all the impassioned fervour which the circumstances were adapted to excite. The result was the conversion of this lone, aged, individual hearer. His teacher brought the love and mercy, the claims and sanctions of the Gospel, to bear directly upon him, as an individual, with the same force and solemnity as though they were applicable to no one else.

What was done for this man, needs substantially to be done, and can be, and must be done, for every other individual. The Gospel must, after the manner of Paul, be preached, testified, and applied to every one, "to every creature," personally. It must be exhibited to each mind, not merely as a theory of doctrine, or as a stern system of commands and obligations, but as a message and testimony of the grace of God, and of the unspeakable love and compassion of the Saviour. It must be applied to men as a gracious proffer of gifts and benefits, in such a way as to manifest the interest which the compassionate Giver feels in them, and at the same time to disarm their opposition, conciliate their feelings and their confidence, and win their hearts.

What would be thought of one wishing to convince per

sons who had always excluded from themselves the light of day, that the sun was a benign, beautiful object, should he begin by a course of occasional lectures to explain to them the abstract principles of science, the doctrines of astronomy and optics, and the nature of light and heat, and also to defend his own and combat other theories, and oppose all the errours which had ever prevailed on these subjects; instead of causing the splendour of the sun itself to fall upon them, and inducing them at once to open their eyes, and behold the uncontroverted effulgence and glory of its light?

Many considerations might be adduced to show the impossibility of arresting and deeply engaging the attention of the minds of men to the subject of religion, or any other subject, by periodical discourses, without employing, during the intervals, suitable means, so to interest their feelings as individuals as to render such subject the theme of their conversation, and of their constant and most earnest meditation and inquiry. It is universally true, that no subject whatever does seriously and effectively engage the attention of communities or of individuals, without becoming the theme of constant thought and conversation. This, accordingly, always occurs in revivals of religion, where the personal bearing of all the most affecting and overwhelming truths is vividly presented to each individual mind.

What thus occurs occasionally, and in particular instances, may and must take place universally. The Gospel must be so presented to men individually, as to arrest, excite, and engross their attention. Its exhibition of boundless love and compassion, its transcendent importance, its personal relations, its divine sanctions, must be perceived and felt by every mind.

Cannot this be done? May not the ministers of the present day so direct their labours, as to accomplish all this with respect to the individuals of their charge? What should hinder them, relieved as they are from the necessity of secular employment for their temporal support, what should hinder them, from exercising their gifts and talents, as Christ and his apostles did, in season and out of season, night and day, publicly, and from house to house, teaching, exhorting and warning every man ?

All that is proposed, all that the case requires, has been, can be, and must be done. It only demands a just view of the nature and relations of the object, a just view of the sim

ple instrumentality which is equally necessary, and equally adapted to every mind, and a just view of the nature and duties of the ministerial office, to justify confidence as to the result.

There are not wanting examples, since the primitive age, to encourage our hopes and expectations. As an instance, the writer may be excused for mentioning, that on a visit, near twenty years since, to the parish of Kidderminster, for the purpose of inquiring as to the effects of Baxter's ministry there, he was told by some of the descendants of those to whom Baxter preached, that on his acceding to that charge, which was then in a most degenerate state, he set himself to gain, by a course of personal visitation, of fire-side and wayside instruction, every family and every individual, over to the cause of religion; and that he was so successful, as within a short period to bring about the regular observance of family prayer in every house, a round of weekly catechetical instruction of the children and youth, an attendance on public worship of far greater numbers than the church would hold, and such a reformation of manners, and such numerous conversions of old and young, as to excite the attention of the surrounding country, and occasion benefits, the influence and results of which, were still perceptible.

Cannot the like be done by every minister at the present day? What, it is again asked, should hinder? What does hinder, but such wrong notions of the subject, as have been referred to, and habits, which, instead of making the minister a busy, plain-dealing, out-door, common-sense man, make him a retired, formal tenant of the closet? Is it not time to discover, that a change of clerical habits is demanded by the altered state of society; that knowledge has passed from the cloister to the world; that what was tolerated in the days of hooded monkery, when religion was studied and treated as though it were a chaos of controversial subtleties, mysteries and abstractions, is no longer allowable? Is it now necessary for every minister, who in heart, and in his knowledge of the essential truths of the Gospel, is qualified for his office, to perch himself constantly on the watch-tower of sectarian, critical, philosophical, or fanatical controversy, and to spend his energies in preparing to combat all possible enemies, as though the battle of Armageddon was to be fought on the first day of every week, and the heads of all the frog-like spirits of errour, by which the kings of the

earth and the whole world are deceived were to be cut off with the sword of theological disputation?

Is it not time that our minds were recalled to the true genius of Christianity-to its spirituality and simplicity—to its applicability to individual man, to its transforming tendency, as a proclamation of divine love and grace-to the transcendent excellence of its essential truths, and their adaptation to arrest and enchain the attention, in preference to any subordinate topics-to the only source of all efficacy and success, to the method of teaching it, by which all the force of its requirements may be brought to bear on each person, and by which each one may be prepared to appear, as he must appear, at the bar of judgment as an individual, alone, to answer for himself? Is it not time to discover that controversy, at this day, owes its existence and influence to the attention bestowed on it by the learned teachers of Christianity, and would die and be buried, were they wholly to neglect it, and apply all their energies and all their time, in the simplest and most direct manner, to the personal instruction and salvation of their hearers; opposing errour only, by exhibiting the truth in love, and manifesting the spirit, the grace, the light, the blessedness of religion, in all their conduct?

Is it not time that educated worldly men, who exhaust their lives in studying every thing but Christianity, who lavish their intellectual and bodily energies upon the transient objects of secular pursuit, endeavouring to check the currents of evil, not in their source, but at their extremities, or labouring to acquire a momentary consolation from worldly applause, for their toils and efforts, uncheered by a ray of hope beyond the horizon of their temporal life;-is it not time that such men should, by beholding a just exhibition of Christianity, and a just application and direction of its power, be made ashamed of their ignorance, and of the comparative littleness and meanness of the objects for which they sacrifice their immortal interests? Is it not time that Christianity were so exhibited and so applied by its teachers, as to command the attention and homage of the intellectual world, assert a practical sway over the sympathies and associations of the common mind, expose the baseness of indifference, and the impudence of skepticism, and become universally the unrivalled and constant theme of thought, conversation and feeling, as comprising all that befits and concerns us in our moments of probation on this threshold of our

being, as ministering a cure for all the evils of our apostacy, and opening before us the pathway and prospect of infinite and eternal blessedness!

ART. VIII. REVIEW OF MONTGOMERY'S MESSIAH, AND MANT'S GOSPEL MIRACLES.

By ISAAC CANDLER, Baltimore, Md.

1. The Messiah: a Poem in six books. By Robert Montgomery. London. 12mo. 1832.

II. The Gospel Miracles, in a Series of Poetical Sketches, with Illustrative Conversations. By Richard Mant, D. D. M. R. I. A., Lord Bishop of Down and Connor.-London, 12mo. 1832.

"Pity, religion has so seldom found
A skilful guide into poetic ground!"

SUCH was the exclamation of Cowper, who himself acted subsequently as guide, with unusual success, endeavouring to remove from English literature the reproach of having a large body of poetry with few distinctive marks of Christianity; so that he has been styled, and not inaptly, the poet of the New Testament. Devotional poems had indeed been published by Herbert, Watts, and others; but their compositions were valued for piety, rather than for poetical merit; while the pieces of a similar character in the works of Pope and Thomson, though enriched by harmony of versification and beauty of imagery, were considered, with some exceptions, little superiour, in a religious point of view, to those of heathen moralists; and Young's Night Thoughts, though containing some magnificent passages, were rejected as too gloomy and ascetic. Milton's Paradise Lost, though professing to

-'Assert eternal Providence,
And justify the ways of God to men,"

was more read and admired for its sublimity in describing Pandemonium, for its picture of "obdurate pride" in the master-spirit of hell, and for its happy delineation of two innocent beings in paradise, than for its tendency to elevate the soul above earth and earth-born cares, and waft it on the wings of rapture into the Empyreum!