of doctrine which overthrew, not merely some feeble philosophy, or some harsh and popular superstition, but both theory and establishment of the state religion, guarded and fought for by the armed strength of the most powerful government of the greatest of all empires. Thousands and tens of thousands owed their daily bread to their connexion with that religion. Millions on millions had identified it with all their conceptions of life, of enjoyment, and of that obscure hope in which the heathen saw a life to come. The noble families owed a large portion of their rank and influence to it. The emperor himself was the high priest. Old tradition invigorating into living belief, made it the pledge of safety to the empire-a sacred protector, without which the glories of Roman dominion were destined to inevitable ruin. Yet against this haughty and colossal erection; the consummate work of subtlety and strength; stood forth a solitary Being, and at his word the whole pile, the great fortress that towered up to heaven, came wall and gate to the ground. And by what means had this been done? By nothing that can find a parallel in the history of human impulse. Signal austerity, enthusiasm, wealth, military genius, the promise of splendid success, visionary doctrines, the displays of a sensual paradise, have made proselytes in barbarous ages, or among the loose creeds of contending heresies. But the founder of Christianity, cast away all those weapons of our lower nature. He shrank from no declarations of the most unpalatable truth. He told the Jew that his spiritual pride was a deadly crime. He declared that the cherished impurity of the Gentile was a deadly crime. He plucked up the temporal ambition of his followers by the roots, and told them that if they were to be great, it must be through the grave. In the full view of popularity, desertion, and death, he pronounced to the Jews the extinction of their national existence-to the disciples, their lives of persecution. At the time of his death, his name had scarcely passed beyond his despised province; and when at length it reached Rome, it was known only in contemptuous connexion with that crowd of unfortunate men condemned to the rack and the flame. Yet within the life of man his religion was constituted the worship of emperor and people, his doctrines were acknowledged as inspiration, and the civilized world bowed down before him as the God whom the heaven, and heaven of heavens cannot contain. Those wonders are fa-. miliar to the Christian, but they are still wonders, the mightiest phenomena on which the spirit of a man can gaze, the stars of our mortal twilight, and worthy of our loftiest admiration till

the gates of the grave shall be unbarred, and the vision of glory shall spread before us without a cloud."

Towards the close of the history, the writer adverts to the signal success which have characterized England during the late war, and gives a passing sketch of each of the four pre-eminent public men by whom the country has been led to glory. We have room but for one-Pitt.

"In all the interpositions of Providence, the fewness of the instruments is a distinguishing feature. In the commencement of the great European conflict, a man stood at the head of English affairs, fitted, beyond all his predecessors, for the crisisgifted with all the qualities essential to the first rank in the conduct of empire-an eloquence singularly various, vivid and noble; a fortitude of soul that nothing could shake or surprise-a vigour and copiousness of resources inexhaustible. But he had a still higher ground of influence with the nation, in the unsullied honour and superiority to all the baser objects of public life -the utter stainlessness of his mind and conduct-the unquestionable purity of the zeal which burned in his bosom, as on an altar for the glory of England. The integrity of Pitt gave him a mastery over the national feeling that could not have been won by the most brilliant faculties alone. In those great financial measures, rendered necessary by the new pressure of the time, and on which all the sensitiveness of a commercial people was alive, the nation would have trusted to no other man. But they followed Pitt with the profoundest reliance. They honoured his matchless understanding; but they honoured more the lofty principle and pure love of country, that they felt to be incapable of deception. The British minister formed a class by himself. He was the leader, not only of English counsel, but of European.He stood on an elevation to which no man before him had ascended. He fought the battle of the world until the moment when the struggle was to be changed into victory; he died in the night of Europe, but it was when the night was on the verge of dawn. If it could ever be said of a minister, that he concentrated in himself the mind and heroic heart of an empire, that he was at once the spirit and the arm of a mighty people, Pitt was that man."

It is not our province, nor have we ever entered the field of theology, to decide any of its great questions brought forward in books which we have been called upon to notice in the Literary Gazette; nor shall we here depart from our neutral principle.But we would ill discharge our duty of fair reporters to the public, if we dismissed Mr. Croly's work without expressing our

very high admiration of the abilities and genius it displays. Of the powerful mind he has brought to his inquiry, of the extraordinary vigour of his style, the originality of his historical views, of the energy with which he seeks to elicit what he considers to be truth, and of the great and various intellectual endowments which he displays, it is our pleasant task to speak in terms of the warmest eulogy. It is long since we have read a production of equal fervour and force; and we can safely say, that even those who are disinclined to peruse polemical writings, will find in this volume an infinitude of literature, history and topics of general interest to instruct and delight them.

TRIBUTE OF PRAISE.

The following interesting incident at the close of a funeral sermon delivered by the Rev. Mr. Oliver, after the death of the Rev Adam Gibb, of Edinburg, in the church of the deceased is related in the last Reformed Dutch Church Magazine:

"When he had finished the sermon he was proceeding to pronounce his character and eulogy. He made a long pause. He attempted to speak what he had prepared; but the venerable grayhaired pastor was unable to utter a word. He covered his face with his hands, and wept with the weeping audience. He dried up his tears and once more raised himself up to pronounce the eulogy. Again his voice was stifled. He bowed down, and wept for several minutes. A third time the aged pastor of Linlithgow attempted to pay the last tribute to one whom he loved as his own soul. But he burst again into tears and wept aloud. The whole audience melted into tears and the most of them sobbed and wept. And after a long silence, interrupted by sighs and groans, the clerk rose and gave out the 15th verse of the 116th Psalm. (Scottish version,) "Dear in God's sight is his saints' death," &c. and the mournful melody of " Old Martyrs" flowed from the lips of two thousand weeping people. It was without affectation and without design. And it was one of the most touching and eloquent perorations, perhaps, which ever closed a funeral sermon over departed piety and worth.”

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APPALLING FACTS

Mr. Hewitt, agent of the American Society for the promotion of Temperance, established in Boston in 1826, has communicated the following facts, on the best estimate he has been able to make:

The ardent spirits drank in the United States, it is calculated, cost forty millions of dollars annually, and the pauperism occasi

oned thereby upwards of twelve millions more. Out of 1060 criminal prosecutions in the city of New-York in 1820, more then 800 were connected with intemperance. In 1826 of 739 persons sent to the almshouse in Baltimore, 554 were the victims of intemperate practices in drink. More then 10,000 persons die annually in the United States of diseases induced by intemperance.-Taking this as the basis of the calculation 31,750 die annually in the United States from the effect of intemperance. In London, one in eight deaths is attributed to this cause; but the above estimate would make one in three over twenty years of age in the United States. We would hope this was too large an estimate. It is ascertained there are 100,000 drunkards in the United States, and these carry misery and affliction into at least 200,000 families

1840

From the Gospel Magazine of 1796.

ON THE CHARACTER OF THE RIGHTEOUS.

That none of the children of Adam are righteous, in the strict and proper sense of the term, is held forth to us in every part of the sacred page. There is none righteous, no, not one. They are all gone out of the way, they are altogether become unprofitable." To this melancholy declaration, every age and every clime, every heart and every conscience, bears its sad and irresistible testimony. Still, however, the same page of scripture frequently speaks of the righteous, describes the blessedness entailed on such persons, and seems to be written with particlar attention to their interests.

Is it worthy of note, that when the scripture speaks of the blessedness of the righteous, it generally speaks in the present tense, and not merely in the future-thus, Psalm i, 1. "Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly." Not merely "blessed shall be the man," (which follows after, ver. 3.) but blessed is he. So Ps. cxix. 1. "Blessed are the undefiled in the way. Blessed are they that keep his testimonies." The same is observable with respect to the performance of certain righteous acts. Ps. xli. 1. "Blessed is he that considereth the poor." Ps. xl. 4. "Blessed is that man that maketh Jehovah his trust, and respecteth not the proud, nor such as turn aside to lies. Ps. cvi. 3. "Blessed are they that keep judgment, and he that doeth righteousness at all times."

It appears, then, that the truly righteous are blessed of God; and that not on account of their righteousness, but antecedent to it; so that this blessing is productive of every thing in them, that deserves to be so called. The man who is desirous to know his

true state toward God, should therefore begin his enquiries where the history of righteousness always begins, namely, in the communication of divine favour and grace, for all righteousness which does not proceed from thence, is spurious. It may make men proud and conceited, but it affords them very little reason to be so.

Now the truly righteous, in the sense of scripture, are distinguishable, chiefly by the three following particulars:

1. A cordial and thankful reception of the righteousness of Jesus Christ, as the only and exclusive ground of their acceptance with God, and of acquittal in their own consciences from the guilt of sin. Those who are not righteous in themselves, can only be properly considered as such by the imputation of another's righteousness to them, which righteousness must include in it a satisfactory atonement for those offences which are to be done away by it. How then is it possible for any to be truly righteous, who reject the righteousness of Jesus Christ? Where will they find another in its place? It is in vain to urge that sincerity will stand in the stead of perfection, for this is not only acknowledging unrighteousness, but sitting down contented with it, and leaving every thing just where it was. It is with the perception of a real atonement that true righteousness must begin. Such is the atonement made by our Redeemer, an atonement highly acceptable to the awakened mind; and already actually accepted of God. This affords rest and peace to the conscience, and presents a new ground of acceptable obedience. God is henceforth no longer considered as a hard master, "reaping where he hath not sown, and gathering where he hath not strawed;" but as the God of grace, "pardoning real iniquity, transgression and sin, and who taketh pleasure in them that fear him," that is, "in them that hope in his mercy."

2. The truly righteous man thirsts for general and universal rectitude of his understanding, heart, and life. He "delights in the law of God, after the inner man," and aims at thorough conformity to it. It was a conviction of the guilt, defilement and demerit of sin, that made, and still makes, the sacrifice of Jesus Christ so heartily welcome to him. He is therefore "dead to sin." He neither loves its practice, nor fears its curse. He cannot then live in it from the pleasure it affords him, or have recourse to it to stupify those alarms of conscience, for which he has now found a safe and infallible remedy. On the contrary, whenever he falls into it, it grieves and distresses him, and he sees with a concern that nothing but the view of pardon by the blood of Christ can pacify, the numberlesss imperfections that cleave to every thing