they have any? Nor can we hope to allay the tumult of undisciplined passions by the still small voice of religious humility. The mild precepts of religious forbearance could be urged with but little effect on one, whose heart was burning with anger, or corroded by hatred. When the tempest has abated and the flood retired, we may set up our landmarks and fortify them against future encroachments; but we cannot preach forbearance to the winds and the waves when the storm is in all its fury.

The true christian character is only one; but the deviations from it are many. There is only one right path, but we may go astray from it in a thousand different directions. It is not enough that we distinctly teach what that path is; we should be able to tell every one how to regain it, when he has wandered, and afford him encouragement and confidence in the attempt. Our moral disorders, like those of our physical frame, assume a great variety of characters. The physician who should endeavour to remedy every variation from health by the same method of treatment, would not be more unsuccessful, than the moralist, who fails to adapt his instructions to the peculiarities of those whom he addresses.

It must be obvious, that the same kind of public instructions cannot be beneficial to every kind of hearers; and not only this, but farther, that they alone are not sufficient to produce that improvement of character which it is the object of religion to effect. We are not insensible to the immense importance of public preaching, and do not deny it to be of more consequence than any other single means of promoting religion. But a considerable proportion of mankind require much preparation, to fit them for the reception of religious impressions from the exercises of the sabbath; and they require also that means should be used to follow up those impressions, and ensure their application, to the details of life. The mass of men are slow to perceive the practical deductions to be drawn from any course of general reasoning or even didactic instruction, and still slower in making the application to real events. General descriptions of our duties, general directions and exhortations to their performance, do not alone produce an effect sufficiently specific or personal to influence all. Something is wanted to impress it upon our convictions, that we personally, individually, are to perform these duties; that they are to make part of our lives, and influence our characters. In the acquisition of all science we can find our way in its rudiments, only by exemplifications of its rules. Something like this is true in Religion and Morals. Their general details are, from their very nature, dry and uninteresting to the young and uninstructed. But individualize them-represent them as influencing and form

ing particular characters-as directing their lives so as to be happy and prosperous here, and filled with hope for hereafter, and we touch the cords of human sympathy; we find an entrance to the human heart which would be barred against every other attempt. When we reflect how admirably and how successfully Miss Edgeworth has inculcated in this way her principles of education and morality, may we not hope that much might be done also for religion? And when too we recollect with what commanding power the bitter lessons of adversity are brought home to our hearts by Miss Brunton in her novel of Discipline, a field seems open to our hopes, in which the labourers might be many, and the harvest great.

But to confine our views more particularly to certain classes of society, the dissemination among them of such tracts, as those the names of which stand at the head of this article, may be made an important subsidiary instrument in producing that kind of religious influence which is of the most benefit in the conduct of life. The labourer may go home from public worship after an admirable discourse on the virtue of contentment, no better satisfied with his condition than when he went. He has heard fine maxims and fine reasoning, which no doubt have had their due effect upon the refined and intelligent part of the audience, still he does not feel their particular applicability to his own case. But let him read the story of Henry Goodwin, the Contented Man; he finds something which he can realize, which comes home to his own bosom. He will rise from its perusal better satisfied with his own condition, and grateful to God that, in spite of all his labours and privations, he has still so much to be thankful for.

Now this is the point at which we would arrive. Something is wanted to do that, which public instruction cannot alone do; to carry the influence of religion into the conduct and life of those, whose impressions from public instructions are vague and indistinct. Something to keep up in their minds the conviction, that they, themselves are responsible beings; that every action and every motive,-not merely those which bear a particular relation to religion-are included in the account we are to render. To effect these purposes, the distribution of tracts, among other measures, would seem to promise success. One, who had imperceptibly imbibed the prejudice, that religion is not a thing for every day, but entirely distinct from the affairs of life, might have that prejudice imperceptibly weakened, or entirely removed, by the contemplation of a lively picture of a man similar to himself in occupation, in habits, in temper, who was made contented, patient, humble and forbearing by the influence of religion on his daily duties.

The Tracts, whose publication has been commenced with those at present under consideration, seem to us peculiarly well calculated to effect the purposes, for which this kind of writing is intended, and to be superior in every respect to those which have been usually circulated in our country. Their excellence and their superiority consist in the views of religion they exhibit, as it relates to the conduct of life-their views of the nature and extent of our moral duties as religious beings, in our various relations, and likewise in a truth and probability of representation, which brings home to every individual the feelings, the principles and the motives they delineate. Most of them are in the form of narrative; are respectable in point of literary execution, and capable of exciting an interest in the reader sufficiently strong to impress upon his mind the valuable instruction, which is mingled in, almost imperceptibly, with the characters and incidents which form the basis of the composition. There is a peculiar advantage in this informal method of teaching men their duty, especially those in the lower classes of society. The principles we imbibe are more firmly fixed in the mind, than when conveyed by direct precept. They are more like the results of personal experience, for they are connected in the mind with the same sort of associations, as those which gave their permanency and value to those results.

There is another view, in which the Tracts before us appear highly important. They are free from all false and extravagant statements of the nature and requirements of christianity. The ideas, which they tend to form upon this subject, are of the most wholesome and practical kind. They représent religion—as it isintended for the present life, as well as for a future. They teach us to connect our religious principles and feelings with those of morality-to found our hopes of the favour of God upon the performance of our duties towards his creatures, our fellow men. The necessary connexion of religion and morality in order to the perfection of either, is constantly kept in view and strongly enforced. They are represented as inseparable companions in the human breast, as accomplishing hand in hand the great work of reformation and amendment in the heart of man; one, the actuating principle-the other, its practical fruit. We find also ample exemplifications of the mode, in which our good principles are to be made our guides and guards in the every-day concerns of life. They have a direct tendency to remove that pernicious prejudice, to which we have before alluded, that religion is only a thing for times and seasons, is to be present in our hearts during the exercises of the Sabbath, but may be laid upon the shelf with our Bible, when that day is past.

The influence of religion upon life and happiness is impressively exhibited. Not as exciting us to gloomy reflexions, to melancholy views of every thing around us; not as if it were to be exhausted in solitude and in silence, or in unmeaning sentiments, heaped crudely together in the mind, but as affording a motive to go through life, unrepining, and making the best of it in spite of its temptations and privations, teaching us to submit. cheerfully to personal self-denial, to practice personal forbearance, when virtue requires the sacrifice to be made. We are presented with pictures, true to nature, of individuals, supported only by religion, contentedly submitting to reproach, poverty, and suffering; denying themselves not merely the unnecessary comforts of life, but many of its most rational enjoyments, merely from a sense of duty, founded on a regard to the existence and government of God.

In short, these tracts seem peculiarly calculated for the purposes to which they are devoted; to make men moral, religious, and happy here, and more perfectly so in another life. We know of few works, intended for the perusal of the uninstructed, which are so unexceptionable in a religious point of view. We are happy, that they are re-publishing among us; and trust, they will be widely and freely circulated. It is the duty of every one, who has the cause of Christianity at heart, to do something in such a way, as he is able, to promote its practical effect upon mankind. Many of us might contribute our mite in disseminating instruction among our poorer brethren by the distribution of Tracts, who would otherwise be unprofitable servants in this great work. The seed may be scattered by the way-side; it may fall among rocks; it may be choked by thorns; but some of it will fall upon good ground, will spring up and flourish, and blossom, and yield to us, as well as to others, the blessed fruits of virtue.

INTELLIGENCE.

Conversion of the Jews.-A few months since we copied from a British publication some statements on this subject, which were unsatisfactory to the friends of the Jews' Society. The following short history of the operations of that Society, prepared for us by a distinguished individual, who has taken a principal interest in the subject here, we insert with pleasure, as we are desirous of avoiding all partial representations, and have no object but to make known the simple and exact truth.

The London Society for Promoting Christianity amongst the Jews was formed in 1809. The Institution consisted of Episcopalians and Dissenters of various denominations. For some time their efforts to ameliorate the temporal and spiritual situation of the Jews seemed to have the desired effect. The Society, which was small in its commencement, increased in numbers and respectability. A chapel for the converted Jews was in 1813 erected at Bethnal Green, and in the course of one year, attended, by one hundred Jews; in the building of which, the Dissenters cordially united with the Established church. The following year their prospects were clouded; the pecuniary affairs of the Society became embarrassed, and other inconveniences were foreseen. It was therefore agreed, in the year 1815, that their affairs should be entrusted to a committee of the established church. The Dissenters still, however, continued their contributions. Mr. Lewis Way, who is eminently rich, as well as pious and charitable, cleared the debts of the institution. But his disinterested benevolence was abused by a pretended convert named Josephson, who was found guilty of stealing from him various articles of silver, and robbing his church of the communion plate and surplices, and likewise detected in a forgery on his banker to the amount of six hundred pounds. He is since banished to Botany Bay.

Several other pretended converts were detected in immoral practices and dismissed from the Society. Much odium was cast on the Institution by their conduct. Yet may not candour require some allowances to be made for a new society, in which the managers were at first too sanguine and wanted experience to direct them? Ought we not to consider that the society ever inculcated the purest principles of morality? One of the members of the Institution observes, "It was never in contemplation with a single individual in this society, merely to proselyte to a system of religious opinions. I am persuaded I speak the sentiments of the whole committee, when I say, that not one of them would go over the threshold of his door to make a Jewish convert, unless he could thereby make him a better member of society, and lead him in the way of everlasting life."* One of the authors of the Jewish Expositor observes, "Where had been the present most venerated church of England, if St. Paul had desisted from his labours amongst the Gentiles, because Demas departed from the faith, having loved this present world?”

The London Society considered those painful events as a trial of their faith and patience; and for a time left it to their conduct

*Jewish Repository, May 1813.

The Rev. Mr. Way has, however, lately published an answer to the British Critic, which does not appear to have reached this country.