Bailey. I heard, subsequently, that the author had immortalised himself under the name of Douglas, and that he had done his friend the honour of taking him as the original of Lefevre, but the work had excited too little interest in my mind to make me very anxious about the persons of the drama.

I hesitate in proceeding farther, but as there is something unmanly in shrinking from the avowal of sentiment, I shall add, that a hasty glance at Mr. Barnett's Memoirs' has given me much pain. I cannot but anticipate the delight which that publication must give to the enemies of religion, and the sarcasms in which they will indulge on so inviting an occasion; at the same time it appeared to me that, in the portions which I read, Mr. B. had made out a case of grievance, and, however I may lament the effects of the course which he has felt it necessary to adopt, I cannot blame him for taking his remedy.

The work which has just appeared under the title of Martha,' by the author of 'No Fiction,' I have not read, nor do I feel any inducement to read it. If nothing had previously occurred to shake my faith in its authenticity, the strange jumble of books employed in a two or three years' education of a young female by her brother, (if I may trust the catalogue now lying before me, in a small pamphlet recently published by Mr. Barnett,) would completely satisfy any curiosity I might feel on the subject.

I cannot help adding the expression of my hope, that the controversy to which I have alluded, will, in its painful results, give a strong lesson to the religious public; that we shall be taught to discard all such writings, and to value more highly those of a less dubious, less imposing, but more substantial character.

I am, Gentlemen, yours, C. V.

THE BRITISH MUSEUM, Ir the antiquity of art be thus venerable and impressive-if the imagination be thus kindled at the sublime memorials of ancient grandeur and power-what should be the effect upon the mind, when it is carried back to the period at which the materials of these wonders were first wrought, and the voice of the Great Artificer called, from the void and formless earth, the elemental orders, the variety and vicissitudes of nature, the beauty and magnificence of the universe? There is, in truth, a strange contrast between the trim arrangements of scientific classification, displayed in frames and cases, and the original disposition of natural productions. The fossils, the minerals, the shells, the corals, which are here displayed in the compact array of artificial order, were once scattered throughout the farthest zones and climates of the earth. From the bosom of the rock, from the sands and shoals of the ocean, and from the secret caves of its awful depths, have they been collected by the restless curiosity of man, and here they lie in mockery of his ignorance and his weakness. He can copy, he can describe, and he can destroy; but his brightest inventions are at a distance not less than infinite, from the originality of nature, and his noblest productions but a feeble transcript from an unapproachable model. Man has the genius, not of creation, but of imitation and analysis, and even in these his impotence is manifest; he can separate, but he cannot reconstruct; he may, perhaps, command some of the more simple forms of combination, but the fine principles of material mixture and coherence are beyond his controul. He can shatter the mineral, but he cannot re-unite its parts; he can fuse it to a molten mass, or evaporate it to an ethereal fluid,. but he cannot call back the dis

turbed and separated elements, and restore them to their original state of union. Man is the master of solvents, but he has no power over solution.

It is somewhat difficult to disengage the mind from the minute detail of scientific distribution, and to direct it towards the grandeur of nature in its own domain. It is of these small fragments, that the pinnacles and precipices of the Alps and Andes are built up. These sparks of gold, and these glittering spars, once gemmed the dark vaults and buttresses of the cavern and the mine. And these substances, vitrified or calcined, were thrown forth, amid smoke and flame, from the mouth of a volcano. The mind must take a long journey before it can quit the present scene, and expatiate amid the native regions of these different productions;-and it must take one longer still before it can reach the presence of Him, whose wisdom and whose power are stampt alike on the great and the minute, are as clearly visible in the smallest segment of his mighty works, as in the loftiest, widest range of his infinite creations. It is, however, an invigorating exercise to accustom ourselves to these abstractions; to pass from parts to the whole; to reason from matter to mind, from the thing made to the eternal, self-existent Maker-to identify his works, to link events to causes, to trace the mysterious connexion between the different sections of the great system, between creation, destruction, and renovation,—a world originated, a world destroyed, a world renewed, -and to contemplate not with the borrowed glass of science, but with the piercing eye of faith, the glorious whole of Jehovah's plans.

But we must turn from the elevating contemplation of the immediate works of God—works where the traces of his hand are as distinctly marked, as the chisel of

Phidias in the friezes of the Acropolis-to a different scene, where the malignity of human passions betrays itself, without the veil which the artifices of civilized life throws over its odiousness, and where the rude but sufficient inventions of savage life offer a severe satire on the fastidious luxury of modern habits. The warrior, who slays his enemy with the club or the tomahawk, and suspends his scalp from the rafters of his hut, we stigmatize, and justly, with the name of barbarian; but what then are we?—are our more destructive weapons, and our not less ferocious usages, to exempt us from a brand of equal infamy? When will mankind learn to distinguish between the show and the substance, the crust and the core? When will they know, that the plumed chief of the southern isles, and the crested leader of disciplined armies, are on the same level, and that there is no real distinction, but between the slaves of the arch-rebel, and the followers of the Prince of Peace?

We are here surrounded by the various instruments of war, of agriculture, of traffic, and of domestic occupation, as well as by the useful and ornamental parts of dress, adopted by the natives of imperfectly civilized countries. Here are specimens of manufacture in all these different branches, from Nootka and from Taheite, from Tonga and from Oonalashka. Some of them might give a lesson to our own makers and lovers of decorations.

I cannot see why the finery of a savage should be more exposed to ridicule, than the finery of an European. These feather cloaks, gorgets made of red seeds, head-dresses of red plumage, shell necklaces, bracelets of boar's tusks, and leggings of human teeth.—I cannot understand why they should stir a louder laughter than the still more

capricious absurdities amid which we move, and of which we all more or less partake. Be this, however, as it may, it is gratifying to witness the various ingenuity of human industry, and amusing to observe the different methods which human wit devises, for arriving at the same end.

I profess myself unable to join in that false discrimination, which reserves its antipathy for the degrading worship of the Eatooa and the Morai, Mexitli or the Fetiché, while the classical mythology, as it is courteously termed, of Greece is held in admiration as the refined source of poetic inspiration, and the origin of all that is delightful in painting, sculpture, and architecture. I cannot forget that the coarse fanaticism of the savage, and the demoralizing superstitions of the accomplished Greek are alike unsubstantial in the grasp of reason, alike abominable in the sight of God, adverse alike to the immortal interests of man; nor can I but lament, that a system of injurious delusion is selected by the dangerous empiricism of our times, as the legitimate basis of a Christian's education.

But before we quit this well furnished treasury of science and of art, let us take one glance through yonder range of apartments, where stand, in long-drawn files, the weary labours of many an anxious and aching head. Repeatedly, even since I began this brief and hasty sketch, have I paused to wonder at the hardihood of the luckless wight, who saith within himself" I will write a volume!" A volume! Alas, for the author! How many score folios are here, of whose loss, if the rats were to devour them from the title to the colophon, the world would be utterly insensible. How many, sent forth with joyous anticipation of fame

and wealth, have brought disgrace and poverty upon their parent. How few have been written with pure intentions: how few could have had honestly inscribed as their dedication-" To the welfare of man, and to the glory of God!" With what advantage to the manageableness of the great system of printed lore, might some vigorous hand sweep away the cobwebs of classical commentators, the scourings of the schoolmen, the rubbish of the Rabbins, and fifty other alliterative incumbrances equally worthless, from the conservative shelves of large libraries. And how much would be gained to the morals of mankind, if all that is base, and servile, and prurient, were condemned to pass through the fire."

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It is well that there should be extensive and well chosen libraries to which, under proper regulations, all may have access; but as a general rule, I should say that a large collection of books in the possession of an individual, was mischievous rather than beneficial. It tends to scatter the mind, to attenuate its powers by volatilizing its attention, to give it a habit of fastidious and cursory perusal, and to disqualify it for a resolute grappling with the labour of research, collation, and inference. We are continually raking among second-rate authorities, instead of seeking knowledge at those first and few sources, whence its fertilizing, but too much diverted and ramified,streams have been lavished on the world. We prefer the shallow rill to the gushing fountain, because it is easier of access, and, perhaps, somewhat more sparkling in its hues from the sands or pebbles over which it rolls; but we may be assured that the virtue, the fulness, the purity of the spring is impaired; it has become vapid by exposure and by want of depth, it is tainted by foreign

mixtures and impure filtrations, the freshness and raciness of the fount is lost.

"Few books and good"-is the law by which every real student should be guided. Instead of wandering from tome to tome, and from subject to subject, let him keep to the masters of literature; let him digest their labours till they have thoroughly nourished his mind, and imbued it with their own lofty character. A genuine library may be comprized in an astonishingly small compass. If a man aspire to the character of a talker, his mind may inhabit the wilderness of books; but if he wish to think, he will take no more into the boundaries of his garden than he can cultivate with his own hands.

I cannot close without adverting to the Book of Books. In every point of view this should be the centre of our labours, the pivot on which they all must turn. History, poetry, philosophy, morals, divinity, all must take this as their starting point, or they will be incomplete. He who should study all others to the exclusion of this, would, in more senses of the word than one, be ignorant, while he who should study this to the exclusion of all others—an extreme, however, which I am not recommending-would be emphatically learned.

allured to their own ruin; hence suspicion, jealousy, and distrust, have so deeply infected and poisoned the intercourse of human life. The violation of truth is often palliated or pleaded for, by men who would still be thought the advocates and friends of morality. Plato accounted it lawful for statesmen; Cicero and Plutarch reckoned it among the arts of a wise man; Origen and Lactantius have maintained, that in some circumstances it is allowable and even meritorious in a Christian. Let any one, however, turn to the inspired volume, and impartially examine its pages. There the practice which courtly sages and jesuitical divines have speciously defended, is uniformly and most pointedly condemned. "Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but they that deal truly are his delight." "All liars shall have their portion in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone."

I shall not adduce a multitude of testimonies from the Bible, which could easily be done, nor expatiate in any lengthened comment on those which have been just quoted; but there is one evasion which I cannot pass unnoticed. The quibbling doctors of the Romish church have placed malignant lies, or such as are directly intended to injure others, in the class of mortal sins; but what they term officious or jocose lies, designed for our own advantage, or the entertainment of others, are accounted light and venial offences. Every one conversant with the world must know, that this artful and convenient casuistry, is not confined to schoolmen and Jesuits, but prevails too generally in all countries, and all parties. This doctrine, by whomsoever espoused, assuredly comes from hell, and leads to hell. Christians bound by the most solemn obligations, to an inflexible adherence to the truth, at all times, and in

are

all circumstances.

Their words must correspond with their intentions, and their actions with their words. "Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour; for we are members one of another." It is the grossest inconsistency imaginable, for a Christian to utter, or in any manner to sanction, falsehood. He professes to receive and hold fast the word of truth, to honour and serve the God of truth, to be guided and influenced by the spirit of truth, and must, therefore, forsake and abhor the way of lying, whatever glittering gains or tempting pleasures may be scattered over it, or suspended in fascinating forms on the right hand or on the left.

The lax notion of expediency, so grateful to fallen nature, has not only insinuated itself into the systems of morality, but also into the sentiments and creeds of divinity which are espoused by many of the present day. The evil of lying, according to this notion, consists wholly in its mischievous influence on society; it is hateful just so far as it is found to be palpably hurtful. But this is gliding over the surface of this important subject, rather than entering into the nature and spirit of it. The testimonies of Scripture clearly prove that lying is a gross evil in itself, a heinous sin against God, apart from all views of its consequences. If one principle for the regulation of our conduct is more firmly established by the Gospel than another, it is this, that we are never allowed, in any case, to do evil that good may come. Fictions which have been employed to serve the cause of religion, some have designated pious frauds, and defended on the principle, that the end justifies the means; but they might with just as much reason talk of pious robberies and pious murders to defend deeds of violence and blood,

As veracity, in the Gospel, occupies high and firm ground, being sustained and enforced by the authority of God; as its importance to the welfare and happiness of mankind is acknowledged by all; it will follow, that this virtue ought in the strictest manner to be conscientiously exemplified.

He who is alive to the unutterable importance of veracity, cannot be indifferent to the means by which it may best be inculcated and encouraged. Need I observe how necessary it is that Christian parents and masters should vigilantly guard their children and servants against the violation of truth, by deeply impressing on the mind the intrinsic evil and direful consequences of this vice? When all the separate and combined powers of mischief from without are beginning to act upon the mind, if veracity is not rooted as a principle, and established as a habit, nothing can be expected but licentiousness and profligacy. Let Christians, therefore, who have the care and management of the rising generation, watch over their momentous charge with unremitting solicitude; warn them against feigning plausible tales or excuses to hide their faults, as well as against using evasive and extravagant language. Let them train them up in the way in which they should go, and when grown old they will not depart from it; but dwelling in Zion, shall continue to walk uprightly, to work righteousness, and speak the truth from their hearts.