for examples to his purpose; and record, with triumphant exultation, the ultimate confessions of Whitfield and Wesley, respecting the relapse of many of their early converts. Yet where is the definable distinction between men transiently impressed by the sermon of a fieldpreacher, and men who repent, believe, and become happy, within sight of the gallows? These inconsistent divines seem to be perfectly unconscious of their own practical adhesion to "the dangerous delusions of sectarianism."

We may reasonably complain, on the other hand, of some narrators, who ought to know better, when they virtually echo back the statements delivered by chroniclers whom they themselves would also, on other occasions, denounce as children of ignorance, and yet forming a junction with this very party on the platform of the gibbet. We know very well, that each party has meanings, expressions, inferences, cautions, and illustrations of its own: but we are only contending that, in point of fact, each ar rives at the same conclusion, and tells the same tale: and here we leave this portion of the discussion. The writer of The Gamester, as we calculate, would support our re

monstrances.

It may be well, perhaps, to give a specimen of what has actually, and very recently, appeared in the newspapers, relative to the last days and deaths of criminals." John Orchard," says the Exeter Alfred of April 16, "was executed to-day at the new drop of the Devon County Gaol. His case excited very general attention, and, from his large family and respectable connexions, produced a considerable degree of sympathy in the public mind; so that motives of curiosity attracted a vast assemblage of persons to witness the awful spectacle of his death; and the more so, from the consideration that this unhappy victim to the laws of his country had for many years borne an ir

reproachable character, and was even instrumental, as an occasional preacher, in the Methodist connexion, of disseminating those important truths and precepts which, we lament to say, did not sufficiently impress his own heart with the real duty he owed to God and to his fellow-men. In the moment of delusion he committed the act which rendered him amenable to the punishment he has undergone. Since the sentence of condemnation was passed upon him, he became gradually more and more resigned to his fate; and in addition to the unremitting attention of the Rev. Mr. Chave, chaplain of the gaol, who daily visited him, he has been in the constant habit of also having religious advice given him by Mr. Burges, the Methodist minister officiating in this city. During the whole of the melancholy preparations, he was engaged in prayer, and on ascending the fatal ladder, and after the rope was adjusted round his neck, he still continued to supplicate for mercy, apparently unconscious of every thing around him. It was almost one o'clock when the drop fell, and his struggles were not violent, though several seconds elapsed before life was totally extinct. His wife and family, consist ing of four small children, and a daughter by a former wife, have been constant in their visits to him; and yesterday his wife, daughter, with his wife's aunt, took their last and sad farewell. Every interest that could possibly be made was exerted in his favour, and up to Friday last hopes were entertained that he would be reprieved; but on Thursday his brother had an audience with Mr. Peel, who informed him that his case had been duly considered; but the circumstances attending it were of a nature too aggravated to entitle him to recommendation for mercy. The following lines, written by him, were sung by the congregation at the gaol yesterday and to-day, at his request, he leading the choir.

always undermining his spiritual prosperity, though unseen by human eye. Had the Exeter Alfred delivered a detailed and faithful account of Orchard, telling of the individual all that he knew of himself, it is very possible that we should have had confessions on the part of the felon, of his having arrived at a capital crime at last, whether it was forgery, violation, murder, or treason--for we are quite ignorant on this point - as an overt act of sin, the first properly discernible by his fellow-creatures, but the result of concealed habits of guilt, such as he had contrived to hide from every witness, except from God and himself. It appears that he had once been a teacher of others. Perhaps he mistook a knowledge of religion for the possession of it; or he might have been dazzled by some degree of popularity into a persuasion of his own sincerity. Or he was, to a certain extent, successful, and assumed that he really valued the boon he communicated to others. But, was he conscientious in private prayer-in the study of the Scriptures in vigilance against the intrusions of animal appetite-in trying to keep himself unspotted from the world

in maintaining family religion-in pastoral fidelity, and simple adherence to the doctrines of the cross of Christ-and in so exercising himself unto godliness, as to be a living sermon of the truths he delivered from the pulpit? If the reply to these inquiries be conveyed in the form of a suspicious, hesitating, half-consent; or if there be a dubious and qualifying negative, uttered with embarrassment and blushes, we have a solution of this man's delusion. It was no surprise, but the bitter fruit of a course of hypocrisy. He sowed to the flesh, and of the flesh reaped corruption and death. "We are surprised," said Mr. Newton, in his table-talk with his biographer, "at the fall of a famous professor; but, in the sight of God, the man was gone CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 305,

before; we only have now first discovered it. He that despiseth small things, shall fall by little and little." It is the same with persons occupying the lower, or lowest, walks of religion; and thus, individuals who pursue the ruinous path which, after numerous windings, terminates on a scaffold, may have measured many a league on their downward path, before their progress has been perceived by human vision.

We feel the solemn importance of adverting to these things, in order to disabuse inexperienced readers of the notion, that men sin as by a kind of irresistible impulse, as though they were stimulated onward by unfair and rude violence, and such as would destroy their moral responsibility. If this were really the case, temptation would not appear in the form of allurement, but of compulsion; and there would probably be no way of escape, that the tempted might be able to bear it. But we are dealt with, in this relation, as creatures who may indeed have to struggle hard with the enemy, but with one who may be subdued. "Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." Take the instance of Judas; an observant reader of his history will mark the traitor's approaches to his ultimate crime, and will also mark our Lord's consciousness of the false disciple's character. There were the betrayer's affected compassion for the poorhis hardihood at the paschal supper, when his treachery was prophetically disclosed-and other circumstances, indicative of something hollow and suspicious-altogether a proof that his sin was premeditated, and only the overt act of a man whose heart had long been estranged from his Master. Yet his character and project were a profound secret to his brethren. When Jesus declared the presence of a traitor, the rest of the disciples wondered of whom he spake. But to the divine prescience of his Lord he was already fallen. In the eyes of how many 2 P

at Jerusalem did Judas probably pass for an irreproachable character, perhaps among the disciples themselves.

We will farther illustrate our views of this serious question, by an easily supposable case; similar to what frequently occurs in the annals of domestic delinquency in our own times. The house steward of a nobleman, high in his lord's confidence, is suddenly arrested and conveyed to prison, on a charge of forgery; and it is an imitation of his patron's signature. The family - and he has held a succession of situations in the household for twenty years-is thrown into grief and consternation; while the rest of the domestics, and the inhabitants of the village where the mansion is situated, are confounded as by the shock of an earthquake. Then come universal expressions of surprise from the surrounding district, since the accused party has borne "a most excellent character" during his whole service; and the general impression is, that some infernal agent of over-powering might has suddenly made him the passive victim of his malice. But, as the period of the assizes draws on, there also steal out numerous expressions of suspicion, that the steward's domestic treason was only one crime among many. It then comes out, that, of late years, he had clandestinely formed connexions which portended no good. He became a speculator in abortive schemes; and his savings were lost. But an appetite was created for fresh experiments; and as his own funds were exhausted, there was a necessity for resorting to those of another and so the links of fraud were rivetted together, till all were at length burst asunder. Yet the man's heart was perhaps not so seared, but that he intended to restore the money, when his last project had succeeded. This theory, however, was never realized. He had his moments of delusion, and they were numerous enough to con

stitute hours, and days, and months of the deceitfulness of sin; but of that species which is not imposed upon us; but allowed to operate without strenuous endeavours, on our part, to oppose its intrusions.

The uneducated people of this enlightened country, and some even of their superiors, find another, and an extraordinary, apology for sin, in the plea of their having been fated to defraud and destroy. The polytheism of the ancient world, which subjected even the gods themselves to the mystic influence of fate, the fatalism of the mosque, and the defence of sin as now described in our own island, illustrate the identity of human ignorance and superstition; as well as the universal efforts of fallen creatures to release their consciences from the burden of guilt, by transferring it to some unknown agent. The rustic thief will palliate his robberies, by pleading this same fate as at once the cause and the excuse for his dishonesty. And when certain divines account for the increase of crime, by the diffusion of Antinomianism, we are perfectly able to assure them, that there is no need to call in the aid of such allies. Our villagers and our manufacturers are already in possession of opiates to quiet the pangs of conscience; and they are too adequate to their intended effect.

He who would reform mankind has to define to them the distinction between voluntary and involuntary submission to the devices of the tempter. We always know enough, did we faithfully obey the inclinations of the monitor within our bosoms, to pause at the first suggestions of evil - enough to avoid the evil, if perceptible and tangible. When it is shewn indistinctly, and takes a shadowy and uncertain form, the case may be otherwise; but, without wandering into metaphysical subtleties, we must insist again, that sin is never so entirely delusive as to darken the mental vision of any man who

fairly tries to see clearly. Why did God give over some of old to a reprobate mind? Because, that "when they knew God, they gloriIfied him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened: they did not like to retain God in their knowledge." The author of the Confessions of a Gamester could not honestly have called the career of his hero "delusion." He might have characterized his elaborate arrangements at the gaming table, and on the turf; his efforts to form conjugal relations solely on mercenary principles; his refusal to attend his wife's dying bed, because he was found by the express messenger too deep in the orgies of play to be disturbed; all this, and a profligate life of eighty years, might have been readily smoothed down by an extenuating phrase. But if it were delusion, it was such as was arrived at in the steady courses of deliberate iniquity. Did not this gambler know all the while what he was doing? Was conscience always preserving an inviolable silence?

As far as we remember, we scarcely ever read the memoirs, either real or fictitious, of a reprobate-and fictions of the kind in question are generally accurate copies of truth without observing, that the worst life had its flashes of remorse, its momentary convictions of guilt. And we believe that so far there can be no delusion, and that Orchard might have been deceived just as much as, and no more than, Fauntleroy and Thurtell. In the mean time, a million of readers peruse with avidity such accounts as the one we have copied; and, such among them as want the flattering unction applied to a disturbed conscience, when they are meditating the commisssion of crime, will find it ready prepared in such examples as that before us; and will pass on to sinful deeds, as to their moments, not of avoidable guilt, but of venial delusion; though a

monitor may all the while audibly whisper within their bosom, "The end of these things is death."

But Orchard, like ten thousand other executed felons, became grudually more and more resigned to his fate. On what grounds? Did he adopt the confession of the crucified penitent, "I indeed justly, for I receive the due reward of my deeds;" or, were the physical terrors of death removed by a gradual process, independent of the sighings of a contrite heart, and unaided by a deep contrition, similar to that of one who said, “ Against Thee, Thee only have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight!" We are by no means asserting that the unhappy man whose case we have alluded to did not repent; but, as far as the record goes, we find a dubious and undefined resignation to his fate the only substitute for repentance. Connected with this uncertainty it is painful to advert to the felon's four stanzas, as a kind of dying confession and creed. Look particularly at the last four lines, which express not a trembling hope, but a distinct personal assurance of salvation. Do they not directly speak of having boldness to enter into the holiest? We will not quarrel with the abstract theology of the hymn, but only pause at the awful inquiry, who can safely use such a hymn?We know who said, "I know whom I have believed; and I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day." We know who asserted, "I have fought a good fight: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness." But if a convert of fourteen days, weeks, or months, be sincere, and, of course, if sincere, allowed to have gained a station within the mystical church; yet, at the close of the longest period supposed, he is but a novice; and, in his immature state, has surely no claim to adopt the high anticipations of an advanced and ripe believer. The infant in Christ cannot speak the language of the