about 14,000l. sterling. From this sum, in the year 1813, were supported fifty-three Missionaries of various nations, with their families; nineteen translations of Scripture were carried on, six thousand volumes printed, with nearly twenty thousand volumes of Gospels, and twenty-five thousand smaller books; and above one thousand children of various nations were instructed in useful knowledge." "It is said that the distribution of the Scriptures, and of religious tracts, in the vernacular tongue, has had the effect of exciting a lively interest in the knowledge of the Gospel; and that of late many instances have occurred of conversion, by means of these translations alone, without the intervention of any Missionary: that many Brahmins, and others, of high cast, have recently been baptized, and that a great number of native preachers have met with the greatest success in various parts of India And yet (says Dr. Carey) we are sneeringly told that these Missionaries make only rice Christians in India." -See Quarterly Review, November, 1816. 1 profess myself utterly at a loss to comprehend why such methods of diffusing the blessings of Christianity are to be branded as "visionary schemes of fanaticism," as "wild and discordant efforts of unauthorized missions," because, forsooth, what the British Critic calls the only true "rallying point of sound and active union" is wanting. I would beg leave to suggest to the readers and admirers of the British Critic the following questions: Does the nation generally feel the importance and necessity of establishing a church and a clergy" in every part of the world where such an establishment is required? And, if it does, is the country enabled to carry such an extended measure into effect? And if all that is desirable cannot be accomplished, is that a sound reason for attempting nothing? I readily allow that the best way to propagate the Gospel would be to establish a church and a clergy" as a rallying point of sound and active union;" but the British Critic knows, or ought to know, that such a measure, considered as a general plan, is not easy of attainment. We are, therefore, compelled to adopt the next best method of proceeding, which he is pleased to call "fanaticism." Fanaticism indeed! Every real and genuine endeavour to regulate our lives, and to try our actions by the Gospel standard, is now-a-days branded with the appellation of enthusiasm or bypocrisy ; and all attempts to promote, by the only practicable means, the extension of Christianity is called fanaticism. As a great maritime and commercial people, we have the opportunity of diffusing the blessings of the Gospel beyond the ability of any other nation in Europe: and as masters of a large portion of India, we have not only the opportunity, but (as experience proves) the power of extending those blessings to millions. Do we then want the inclination, or do we undervalue the gift? Or, because it is utterly impracticable to accomplish this event in the mode prescribed by the British Critic, are we to abandon the fruits of our present success, and to begin the work afresh at some distant and undefinable period of time? It has been sensibly remarked, that, whilst we nominally prize the doctrines of our religion; whilst such feeling is at the root of our enmity to missions and missionaries. In the Scriptures, 66 we are never suffered (say's Bishop Horne) to forget, that the end of Messiah's exaltation to the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens, was the conversion and salvation of the world; so continually do the Prophets and Apostles delight to dwell upon that most interesting topic, the conversion of the nations' to the Gospel of Christ. Why do we vainly imagine that we belong to Him, unless his spirit reign in our hearts by faith?" (Commentary on Psalms, p. 280.)-When shall we learn to soften, rather than foment, "the unhappy disputes of the present day; disputes which serve only to irritate the minds of the contending parties, to grieve all moderate men, and to delight the advocates for schism and infidelity?" PAULINUS. For the Christian Observer. ON THE INFLUENCE OF THE LITERATURE OF FICTION. An impression of the importance of my subject, deepened by farther consideration, and by the hope and prospect of its more extended investigation in your journal by other correspondents, persuades me to tender for insertion, a second paper on the Expediency of novel-reading, the prevalent in Auence of fashionable literature, and a few collateral topics. In renewing the discussion, and reverting to the state of the religious world, as depressed and secularized, when compared with itself in an earlier day, I would, in 4he first place, remark, that not a few thinking persons, who watch the signs of the times, are startled by the very circumstance of the expediency of novel-reading being, at the present period, regarded as an open question. It is argued, that a verdict has long ago been obtained against the defendants in the cause, by the general decision of the Christian public; and that to move, at this late period of time, for a new trial, either supposes the judges to have been since corrupted; or, that the defeated parties have transferred the matter to another and more liberal court, where they calculate upon a definitive reversion of judgment. It is, however, my own suspicion, that the court which originally decided, and which still retains a positive opinion on the general demerit of the writers interested in the decision, does yet incline to view them now with far more lenity than formerly; and, it must be conceded, that this decrease of severity is so far justifiable, as the offenders have corrected the tone of their compositions. If the individual who now records this concession, were allowed to appear as counsel for the plaintiffs, he would act as, he presumes, the Attorney General would act under parallel circumstances. To illustrate this, let us suppose that officer to be addressing a jury in a prosecution implicating the circulation of seditious writings. We might imagine him, among other allegations, to say;-"It is true, gentlemen, that the accused party is not formally charged with high treason; nor even with having achieved the seditious depravity of the Paines of a former crisis, or of the Cobbetts who have more recently degraded the political stage. The law bas nevertheless been violated; and, although no statutes can provide penalties exactly corresponding with the varied shades of human guilt; yet, the object of the law is practically obtained, in a case like the present, when its decisions tend to the subversion of the principle of disaffection; when the infliction of its penalties restrains an offender from future deviations; and so menaces his associates as to awe them into silence, and furnish them with a beneficial opportunity of discovering what must have been the ruinous conse- in the index expurgatorius even of accommodating moralists, and to be found, I presume, in no decent family, let us pause at the name of Goldsmith. Of the Vicar of Wakefield, it is sufficient to observe, that from its details of obsolete manners, deficiency of sentiment, and general homeliness, it is least likely to injure those who are least likely to read it; I mean young persons, and especially young women of delicate romantic super sensitive minds; who certainly will never descend into the dull profound of The Primroses while they can soar with Mathilde. In fact, sir, these are the readers to whom an indulgence in novels is a draught of moral hemlock. One has no trembling solicitude for students of either sex whose souls are insusceptible of impassioned emotion. In passing on to the guarded name of Richardson, you will allow me to transfer some degree of the severity which will, I suppose, be imputed to me by his protectors, to the author of the following enlightened criticism. "Vice (for vice is necessary to be shown) should always disgust; nor should the graces of gayety, or the dignity of courage, be so united with it as to reconcile it to the mind. Wherever it appears, it should raise hatred by the malignity of its practices, and contempt by the meanness of its stratagems; for while it is supported by either parts or spirit, it will seldom be heartily abhorred." If these observations, by Johnson, be just, and they appear unanswerable, Richardson's Lovelace, for example, is a character which ought never to have been drawn. In the graces of gayety and the dignity of courage, in liberality without profusion, in perseverance and address, he every where appears the first of men; and that honour with which be protects the virtue of his Rosebud, if any instruction is to be drawn from it can only lead the admuers of Richardson to believe, that san other Clarissa might be perfectly safe, were she to throw herself upon the honour of another Lovelace. Yet in the composition of this splendid character there is not one principle upon which confidence can securely rest; and Lovelace, while he is admired by the youth of both sexes, and escapes the contempt of mankind at large, must excite in the breast of a Christian moralist, sentiments of abhorrence and detestation. A French critic, speaking of this character, says, By turns I could embrace and fight with Lovelace. His pride, his gayety, his drollery, charm and amuse me; his genius confounds and makes me smile; his wickedness astonishes and enrages me; but at the same time I admire as much as I detest him." Surely this is not the character which ought to be presented to the inexperienced and ardent mind.* Yet Richardson, in sooth, is the writer" who taught the passions to move at the command of virtue!" The numerous productions of Charlotte Smith are generally characterized (as far as dim remembrance enables me to describe them) by an honourable sense of what the world usually understands by propriety. Combined with this they contain a fair average amount of passion, adventure, heroism, and heroineism, mixed up, in her earlier performances, with democracy; and decorated with taste, talent, and a competent knowledge of living manners. Mrs. Radcliff's romances far surpass all works of her school, in brilliancy, in commanding vigour of genius, in delicacy and depth of feeling, and in the varied beauties of an original, splendid, and inexhaustible imagination. Indeed, the writings of this authoress form a class of their own. To adopt the exclamation of a former writer in your pages," What a pencil is ***The above criticism appears in the Encyclopædia Britannica. Art. Novel. The context may bereadwithadvantage. hers! with power to adorn all that is elegant, and darken all that is awful!"*-and, let me add, to fascinate beyond all names of fascination, any young mind, too ignorant of life's serious realities, and, pursuing and pursued, by the magic illusions of romance. Yet, with all the dangerous charms of this unrivalled artist, nothing is combined of a nature properly immoral; unless the enchantment diffused over her works, tends to enfeeble and subdue the soul, and by such deliquescence to demoralize it; and this it surely does, if it impel the main currents of passion towards points from which all the discipline of domestic instruction, and the influence of domestic example is, in a thousand instances, vainly employed to divert them. It may be a hopeless attempt to restrain our sons, at the great schools and universities, from touching either the best or worst among established works of fiction; as every schoolboy and gownsman may command any thing with money, and may read trash of every description, without the inspec tion of father or tutor. But where sons and daughters (particularly the latter) remain under the tutelary supervision of parents, it is at least possible for the heads of the family to proscribe, within their ex visible, diurnal sphere," ceptionable books. In thus referring to the exercise of domestic authority, it is of high consequence to inquire by what anomaly in the prevalent system of education and general economy of families, Christian mothers can passively allow their daughters to range at will among the degenerate literature of the times. The sterling value of the national character, as it shines in private and home life, and ras opposed to the habits of obtrusion and display of the continental fashionables, will be perpetuated 望你 * Christian Observer for 1809, p. 115 (if perpetuated at all) in a most controlling degree, by the women of this island; and specifically by those who, in an age splendid in female intellect, and generally favourable to its farther develop ment, give colour to the literature of their country. I trust that, as yet, the native good sense, simplicity, frankness, delicacy, and innocence of British females has lost none of its lustre, though exposed to the corroding action of continental manners. What may hereafter be lost by repeated and daring exposure to the French atmosphere, I cannot calculate. I am conscious that the hardest and most polished gem may be rendered opaque, and even crushed or consumed and without suggesting a more direct analogy, I own myself to be too deeply interested in the preservation and yet higher elevation of the character already possessed by my country women, not to be aware, that in proportion as novels, compiled on either side of the water, constitute the favourite reading of the daughters of Britain, in that proportion the dignity and purity of those makers of our manners and happiness will sink into the elegant degradation of the goddesses of Paris. There still exists a broad interval between the characters of the rival countries. A complete nationality exhibits itself both in their virtues and their crimes. Among ourselves, goodness is more real with less pretension; and vice does not habitually embarrass itself to be mistaken for innocence. In France, it is precisely the reverse. It is a soil fruitful in Lovelaces; admired on their surface, and detested when examined. The influence of our indigenous novels is exasperated by a circumstance yet to be mentioned; namely, that we have not only prose but metrical performances of this kind. Walter Scott led the way in the Lay of the Last Minstrel; a poem which was received and ordered to be laid upon the table, nem. diss. by the literary legislature of the empire; and speedily domesticated in the majority of the strictest private circles. Hoc fonte derivata clades! A long procession of romances in rhyme followed. They were bought, read, idolized; but were beginning to wane at the approaches of criticism and satiety, when the meteor-star of Lord Byron arose in the horizon: and in the progress of its swift and radiant ascent quickly diverted, astonished, and fixed the public attention. It was not, however, foreseen by the governors of religious families, that when, but twelve years since, they sanctioned the circulation of The Lay, the entrance of the domestic library was opened for the admission of its compeers, successors, and imitators, with a large retinue of the fashionable authors of modern literature.* It was not foreseen, among a thousand collateral consequences, that even the musical collections of their daughters would be decorated by such compilations as have since found admission. This is a tangible illustration of the moral lassitude and too secularized state of the Christian world. At the same time, how unconscious of the evil veiled beneath its decorated surface are those young persons-not indeed in all instances-whose voice and speech are suffered to add to their master's compositions, a new and living potency! If novels, which are indebted to no extrinsic sources of fascination for their effect, are, as I have endeavoured to prove, highly baneful to the rising generation, how greatly chronology in assigning the above date, * I may be accused of inaccurate as the period when the first inundation of indiscriminate reading diffused itself over the stricter order of families. It might be more correct to say, that the waters had been gradually rising for flood-height about the time specified in many previous years, and gained their my remarks. |