one table for guests of every description; and yet even there, were I at a public ordinary, good in other respects, I would rather conform my taste in some measure to that of my neighbour, than be reduced to the melancholy necessity of eating my morsel by myself alone.

The Dissenters cannot be supposed to pass over in silence Mr Wakefield's strictures upon the manner, in which they have chosen to conduct their public and social worship. They are surprised and sorry to find themselves treated with such a mixture of bitterness and levity, by a man whose abilities they respect, and whom they have shewn themselves ready to embrace as a brother. They have their prejudices, they acknowledge, and he perhaps has his. Many forms and observances may to them be dear and venerable, through the force of early habit and association, which to a stranger in their Israel may appear uncouth, unnecessary, or even marked with a shade of ridicule. They pity Mr Wakefield's peculiar and insulated situation. Separating through the purest motive from one church, he has not found another with which he is inclined to associate; divided by difference of opinions from one class of Christians, and by dissonance of taste from another, he finds the transition too violent from the college to the conventicle; he worships alone because he stands alone; and is, naturally perhaps, led to undervalue that fellowship, which has been lost to him between his early predilections and his later opinions.

If, however, the Dissenters are not so happy as to gain his affection, they must be allowed to urge their claims upon his esteem. They wish him to reflect, that neither his classical knowledge, nor his critical acumen, nor his acknowledged talents, set him so high in the esteem of good men, as that integrity which he possesses in common with those whom he despises ; they believe further consideration would suggest to him, that it were more candid to pass over those peculiarities, which have originated in a delicate conscience and the fervour of devotion; and they cannot help asking, whether they had reason to expect the severity of sarcastic ridicule from him, whose best praise it is, that he has imitated their virtues and shared their sacrifices?

The Dissenters, however, do not make it their boast that they have nothing to reform. They have, perhaps, always been more conspicuous for principle than for taste; their practices are founded upon a prevalence of religious fervour, an animation and warmth of piety, which, if it no longer exists, it is vain to simulate. But what they do make their boast is, that they acknowledge no principle which forbids them to reform; that they have no leave to ask of bishops, synods, or parliaments, in order to lay aside forms which have become vapid. They are open to conviction; they are ready to receive with thankfulness every sober and liberal remark, which may assist them

to improve their religious addresses, and model them to the temper of the public mind.

But, with regard to those practices of suberabundant devotion, which have drawn down upon them the indignation of the critic, it is the opinion of those who best know the Dissenters of the present day, that they might have been suffered to fall quietly of themselves; they are supported by no authority, defrayed by no impost. If they make long prayers, it is at the expense only of their own breath and spirits; no widows' houses are devoured by it. If the present generation yawn and slumber over the exercises, which their fathers attended with pious alacrity, the sons will of course learn to shorten them. If the disposition of their public services wants animation, as perhaps it does, the silent pews will be deserted one by one, and they will be obliged to seek some other mode of engaging the attention of their audience. But modes and forms affect not the essence of public worship; that may be performed with a form or without one; by words alone, or by symbolical expressions, combined with or separated from instruction; with or without the assistance of a particular order appointed to officiate in leading the devotions; it may be celebrated one day in seven, or in eight, or in ten; in many of these particulars a certain deference should be had to the sentiments of that society with which, upon the whole, we think it best to connect ourselves, and as times and manners change, these circumstances

will vary; but the root of the practice is too strongly interwoven with the texture of the human frame ever to be abandoned. While man has wants, he will pray; while he is sensible of blessings, he will offer praise; while he has common wants and common blessings, he will pray and praise in company with his fellows; and while he feels himself a social being, he will not be persuaded to lay aside social worship.

SECTION V.

In what Respect many of the Forms and Habits of Public Worship are susceptible of Improvement.

It must, however, be acknowledged, that, in order to give Public Worship all the grace and efficacy of which it is susceptible, much alteration is necessary. It is necessary here, as in every other concern, that timely reformation should prevent neglect. Much might be done by judgment, taste, and a devotional spirit united, to improve the plan of our religious assemblies. Should a genius arise amongst us qualified for such a task, and in circumstances favourable to his being listened to, he would probably remark first, on the construction of our churches, so ill adapted are a great part of them to the purposes either of hearing or seeing. He would reprobate those little gloomy solitary cells, planned by the spirit of aristocracy, which deform the building no less to the eye of taste

than to the eye of benevolence, and insulating each family within its separate inclosure, favour at once the pride of rank and the laziness of indulgence. He might choose for these structures something of the amphitheatrical form, where the minister, on a raised platform, should be beheld with ease by the whole wave of people, at once bending together in deep humiliation, or spreading forth their hands in the earnestness of petition.

It would certainly be found desirable, that the people should themselves have a large share in the performance of the service, as the intermixture of their voices would both introduce more variety and greater animation; provided pains were taken by proper teaching to enable them to bear their part with a decorum and propriety, which, it must be confessed, we do not see at present amongst those whose public services possess the advantage of responses. The explaining, and teaching them to recite such hymns and collects, as it might be thought proper they should bear a part in, would form a pleasing and useful branch of the instruction of young people, and of the lower classes; it would give them an interest in the public service, and might fill up agreeably a vacant hour either on the Sunday, or on some other leisure day, especially if they were likewise regularly instructed in singing for the same purpose.

As we have never seen, perhaps we can hardly conceive, the effect which the united voices of a whole