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he kept the administration of all affairs in his own hands. In this situation, likewise, he revised, corrected, and published, in four volumes octavo, his Discourses preached at the Temple Church, which are in many respects some of the most exquisite and masterly productions of the kind that are to be found in the English, or, perhaps, in any other language. The first volume was published in 1754, and was followed by the rest soon after. He died the 18th of January, 171, in the 84th year of his age, and w. interred at Fulham, in a vault made for that purpose; where, likewise, a munient is erected to his memory, with an inscription drawn up by Dr. Nicholls, who succeeded him in the Mastership of the Temple.

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Bishop Sherlock was a man of the most acute parts, and his ambition is said to have been equal to his capaci ty; insomuch, that he would have thought it an indignity to have been the second in any character in which he chose to appear. His extraordinary abilities, indeed, were universally acknowledged; and his learning was One who was intimately acquainted with our Prelate, "God had given him a great and an understanding mind, a quick comprehension, and a solid judgment." These advantages of nature he improved by much industry and application, and in the early part of his life, he read and digested well the ancient orators, both Greek and Latin, the philosophers, poets, and orators, from which he acquired that correct and elegant style which appears in all his compositions. His knowledge in Divinity was obtained from the study of the most rational writers of the Church, both ancient and modern; and he was particularly fond of comparing Scripture with Scripture; and especially of illustrating the writings of the Apostles, which he thought wanted to be more studied, and of which we have some specimens in his own discourses. His piety was constant and exemplary, and breathed the true spirit of the Gospel. His zeal was warm and fervent in explaining the great doctrines and duties of Christianity,

at ainter

and in maintaining it, and establishing it upon the most solid foundations. His munificence was large and diffusive. The instances of his public character, both in his life tin his death, were great and like me. He gave, we are told, large sums of money to the corper. n of the sons of the clergy, to several of the hosp tals, and to the Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts. The private flow of bount to many individuals, was ecstant and regular; and upon all just occasions, he was ready to stretch forth his hand to the needy and afflicted. He was, indeed, a person of great candour and humanity, had a tender feeling for distress, and was easily touched with the feeling of others. No one was ever more happy in domestic life, and no man could show greater gentleness, good-nature, and affection to all around him.”*

Besides the works we have mentioned, Dr. Sherlock was the author of an excellent Pastoral Letter in the year 1750, addressed to the clergy and the inhabitants of London and Westminster, upon occasion of the earthquakes. Of this letter, it is said, there were printed in quarto, 5000; in octavo, 2000; in duodecimo, 3000; besides pirated editions, of which not less than 50,000 were supposed to be sold.

The public have also been presented, since the Bishop's death, with another volume of his discourses, preached on several important occasions, and separately printed by their author. "In which," says the Editor, "the judicious reader will discover the same energy of sentiment, and purity of diction; the same pathetic and convincing address to the heart, which so eminently distinguishes the rest of this Prelate's discourses."

Criticism on Lord Byron's Description of ROUSSEAU, in his "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto 3d." Extracted from the British Review for February, 1817.

Some part of the poet's description of that wretched thing of vanity and passion,

Dr. Nicholis's Sermon.

selfishness and sophistry, Rousseau, is vigorous, beautiful, and just; and the only fault we find with it is its too much leaning to 3 apology. The love of woman iemu was little more than the love of woman's idolatry: to be admired and flattered was his ruling passion; and this incense, he kne was to be obtained in much larger quantity, and at a much Leaper rate, from women than from his own sex What he principally wanted in a companion was an unlimited toleration of his egotium, an erstanding not to be startled by parau and an ear sub

missive to eternal repetition; and such a companion he found among the softer sex, whose kindness he repaid by dragging her with him through a degraded existence, the sport of his caprice, and then casting her offspring adrift upon the world, defrauded of the rights of nature.

His love was the raving of metaphysical bombast; but it is a great question whether he loved any woman or women upon earth, as well as any one of his favourite paradoxes. These very paradoxes seem to have been counterfeited for the sake of the distinction they conferred, or to gratify the spleen of disappointed vanity. He launched them into the world reekless

of their consequences, and expended all the powers of his eloquence, which were doubtless very great, in giving them a fatal currency. Perhaps, Voltaire except ed, there has scarcely lived a human being who has sent among mankind so many unextinguishable mischiefs as this philosophical incendiary. We doubt much whether Mr. Burke was right in his opinion,* that, "if Rousseau were now alive, and in one of his lucid intervals, he would be shocked at the practical frenzy of his scholars." It is wonderful with what a steady eye and regular pulse the philosophers, the orators, and preachers of these maxims of universal disorder, contemplate the dreadful medium through which they are to prosecute their ambiguous ends. The painted distresses, the theatric woes, with which they fill their imaginations, dissolve them into tenderness; but the tremendous realities to which their principles inevitably conduct, are felt, under stood, intended, and promoted by them without the smallest concern. Lord By ron seems to have much consulted the Confessions of Rousseau, and to have drawn from that drivelling register of a debauch ed imagination the matter of which his seventy-eighth and seventy-ninth stanzas are composed, with which we have somewhat doubted whether it would be safe to sully our page; but, considering what is the presumable character of the readers of this journal, and that it is necessary sometimes to face a mischief in order to

*See Reflections, p. 59.

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Flash'd the thrill'd spirit's love devouring heat; In that absorbing sigh perchance more blest, Than vulgar minds may be with all they seek possest."

To these stanzas we have a note, which refers us" to the account, in the Con fessions,' of Rousseau's Passion for the Comtesse d'Houdetot (the mistress of St. Lambert,) and his long walk every morning for the sake of the single kiss, which was the common salutation of French aequaintance. "Rousseau's description of his feelings on this occasion may be considered as the most passionate, yet not impure description and expression of love that ever kindled into words, which after all must be felt from their very force to be inadequate to the delineation: a painting can give no sufficient idea of the ocean."

Those who have read the "Confessions" of Rousseau, in which the interior of a very bad heart is pretty fairly laid open, (thanks to his inordinate vanity which hid from him at least half of his own turpitude!) have read enough to satisfy them that he was from first to last an animal feræ naturæ, utterly incapable of domestication, of an unrestrained sensuality of thought, and passions so impotently fierce as to find their only corrective in their mutual interference. In the stormy inte rior of his mind, qualities at once rude and refined were in a sort of "ruin reconciled;" and all which the pruriency of his wishes suggested, the power of his imagination supplied the means of producing, so that together they conspired to send into society a sentimental savage, with his appetites in their brutal strength and original freshness, but at the same time decorated with all that the fancy could bestow to impose upon the heart and affections., The kiss of desire, surreptitiously enjoyed under the pretence of a common salute, is not, in our minds, what Lord Byron calls it, "a passionate but not impure expression of love," but a sort of mental treachery, in the profligate

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avowal of which there was the grossest impurity The story is in perfect congruity with other disgusting confessions of this unblushing betrayer of himself, which every manly mind is desirous, for the credit of human nature, to drive from his memory. "His love," says Lord Byron, "was passion's essence,' "an ethereal flame" which "no living dame" could satisfy, but which found out for itself" an ideal beauty," which became "in him existence itself," and "teemed along his burning page." This "ideal beauty," however, in the language of this fascinated poet, "breathed itself into life in Júlie," and thus "hallowed, too, the memorable kiss;" the account of which has been already given; so that after all, the Platonic vision embodied itself occasionally in the person of some matron or virgin, and led to impertinences and indig nities on the part of the philosopher very deserving of summary chastisement. Lord Byron supposes that a greater bliss might accompany these precious moments of Rousseau's existence than vulgar minds enjoy in the possession of their direct and natural pleasures. But we take leave once again to enter our protest against this insulting misapplication of the word "vulgar." We have no patience with an aristocracy of sentiment among men who upon other occasions will tolerate nothing but nature unmodified by culture. Upon the whole, we are convinced that there is no such riddle in the character of Rousseau as is generally pretended. He was a raving, romantic, bloated egotist, with a fine imagination, but a selfish, unfeeling heart: self-banished from society by his own suspicious and unaccommodating temper; incapable of esteem for the wise, respect for the great, or love for the virtuous; and expecting all, whether great, or wise, or virtuous, to worship his caprices, on pain of incurring his implaca

ble resentment; fond of the female sex, not from feelings of chivalrous devotion, but upon an engrossing and self-loving principle, which he denominates besoin d'étre aimé, without studying the means of making himself amiable. We are happy to dismiss him from our thoughts for the present: reminded of him we must often be by the theorems of moral and political philosophy which, emanating from his pen, and dressed in his eloquence, still keep the sober world in alarm for the first principles of civil society.

Proceedings of the late General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church, held in the City of New-York from the 20th to the 27th of May, 1817.

It is our intention to exhibit in the present and succeeding number of the Christian Jourmal, the most important proceedings of the late

General Convention, extracted from the printed Journals. These being confined in their circulation, many of our readers may not have an opportunity of seeing them; and we presume they will all be desirous of being acquainted with the transactions of the Convention.

The House of Clerical and Lay Deputies, and the House of Bishops, daily attended divine service in Trinity Church; when service was performed by one of the Clerical Members of the former House, and a sermon preached by the Bishops in succession, with the exception of the Bishop of the Church in New-York; the Convention being held in his diocess, and the service being performed in the parish church of which he is Rector.

From the Journal of the House of Clerical and Lay Deputies we extract the following

REPORT

ON THE STATE OF THE CHURCH.

The House of Clerical and Lay Deputies, in compliance with the 45th Canon, have taken a general view of the state of the Church, and offer to the House of Bishops the result of their inquiries, respectfully requesting that venerable body to draw up, and cause to be published, a Pastoral Letter to the members of the Church,

EASTERN DIOCESS. New-Hampshire.

Since the last General Convention the Church in this state has greatly increased. An Episcopal congrega tion has been formed in the town of Concord, the seat of the state legislature; gularly performed there on Sundays and Episcopal service is reby a clergyman or a lay reader. We trust that they will soon be able to erect a building for public worship. A new Church has been established at Bradford, and another at Hopkinton. An Episcopal Church has also been incorporated at Drewsville, which is a part of Walpole, and they annually derive a hundred and thirty dollars from their Church lands. St. John's Church, at Portsmouth, contains more than seventy families, and has about seventy communicants. The Church at Cornish is without a clergyman, but divine service is generally performed on Sundays by a lay reader. Union Church at Claremont, and Trinity Church at Holderness,

we trust, continue to improve under the labours of their respective ministers. The necessity of the encouragement of Missionary Societies will appear, when it is suggested, that five of the few churches in this state want either the ability or the opportunity to provide themselves with pastors. We feel much pleasure in stating, that the aid and visitations of the Right Rev. Bishop of the Eastern Diocess have been, through the great goodness of the Divine Head of the Church, an essential blessing to the churches of this state.

Massachusetts.

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In this state we are gratified to observe an increase of churches, and a growing attention to our doctrine and discipline. With but few exceptions, the congregations are regularly supplied, and a zeal is manifested among those who are not favoured with stated ministrations, to contribute as much as is in their power to obtain this desirable object. From the formation of societies for the distribution of Prayer Books and Episcopal Tracts much good has resulted. And, it is presumed, at no former time have such efforts been made for the increasing prospects of the Church-nor any been crowned with greater success.

Vermont.

The aspect of the Church in this state is much more pleasing than it was at the time of the sitting of the last General Convention. The question in regard to the Church lands remains yet undecided; but, it is thought, is in a way soon to be decided in favour of the Church. There are at present two clergymen only who officiate in this state. The Rev. Mr. Brunson officiates at Arlington and Manchester; his congregations are large and respectable." Mr. Beach," says Bishop Griswold, "is now officiating at Fairfield, St. Albans, and Sheldon, in Vermont; and of his success we have the most pleasing intelligence. A very considerable number of communicants have already been added to those churches. Large congregations attend his preaching

a spirit of religious inquiry and awakened concern for the one thing needful, extensively prevails in those parts of the state where he labours; and cheering are the prospects of still greater increase, both in members and piety. At Fairfield they are erecting a house for the worship of God, and already is this pious work in great forwardness. Indeed, the number of churches which are now building, or will probably soon be commenced, is one of the best proofs of the increasing zeal amongst our people, for the service of God, and the support of his holy worship." At Bellow's Falls, also at Windsor and Middlebury, are churches now erecting. All that is wanting for the rapid growth of the Church in Vermont, is a number of zealous clergymen. O that the Lord of all would send more labourers into his harvest.

Rhode-Island.

The Church in Rhode-Island, through the Divine blessing, is in a flourishing condition. Since the last General Convention a new congregation has been formed in the village of Pawtucket, and a neat and spacious church edifice nearly completed. The other churches of this state are also prosperous. It has pleased the Lord to awaken many to righteousness; so that large additions have been made to our communion, and our congre gations considerably increased. Much good is expected to result from societies which have been instituted for the distribution of the Book of Common Prayer and religious Tracts.

EASTERN DIOCESS-generally.

Since the last Convention, there have been admitted to the order of Deacons, Silas S. Safford (since deceased,) Walter Cranston, John L. Blake, Stephen Beach, Thomas Carlile, Chever Felche, George S. White, Joseph R. Andrus, George T. Chapman, Gideon W. Olney, Jonathan M. Wainwright, George Leonard, and Benjamin B. Smith; and Titus Strong, John L. Blake, Thomas Carlile, George S. White, and Joseph R. Andrus, Deacons, have been ordaine

Priests. The Rev. Titus Strong has been instituted Rector of St. James's Church, Greenfield; and the Rev. Thomas Carlile, Rector of St. Peter's Church, in Salem. Six hundred and seventy-five persons have been confirmed. There are fourteen candidates for Holy Orders.

In May, of 1815, Bishop Griswold, being invited according to the directions of the 20th Canon, visited some of the churches in Connecticut, confirmed 131 persons, and admitted Ezekiel G. Gear and Reuben Sherwood to the order of Deacons; and the Rev. Birdsey G. Noble, Alpheus Gear, Harry Croswell, and Aaron Humphrey, Deacons, to that of Priests.

Connecticut.

In the Diocess of Connecticut the prospects of the Church are in a high degree flattering. A rapid increase of numbers-a growing zeal-and a proportionate measure of industry and liberality, on the part of both the Clergy and Laity, are among the circumstances on which we calculate, through the blessing of God, for raising the Church from its late depressed state, and for ensuring its lasting prosperity. From the journals of the Diocesan Conventions, it appears that there has been a considerable accession of members to our communion since the last report; and as the balance of emigration is against the Diocess, it is evident that these additions have been principally drawn from other denominations: and that the liberality of our people has been proportionate to this increase, is manifest from the great number of edifices which have been erected for the celebration of the ordinances and worship of our Church-and from the munificence displayed in the construction of these edifices. Trinity Church, in New-Haven, which was consecrated in February, 1816, is surpassed by very few, if any, in the Union, for size, convenience, or simple elegance. The Church in this Diocess has laboured under very serious inconvenience since the death of its late lamented Diocesan, Bishop Jarvis, by being in a great measure de

prived of the benefit of Episcopal visitations. This inconvenience, however, is now in a considerable degree remedied, by an arrangement with the Right Rev. Bishop Hobart, of New-York, who has been regularly invited by the Convention of the state, under the 20th Canon of the General Convention, to take temporary charge of the Diocess; and has accordingly done so.

Under this arrangement, Bishop Hobart has visited a part of the Diocess-consecrated several churchesand administered the rite of confirmation to about 1600 persons. Still, however, the want of a resident Diocesan is much felt; and we confidently hope that the time is not far distant, when the fund for the support of a Bishop, amounting already to little less than 15,000 dollars, will be sufficient to supply this necessity, and to meet the wishes, and fulfil the most sanguine expectations of the friends of the Church throughout the Diocess.

New-York.

We have reason to be thankful to the great Head of the Church for the degree of prosperity with which he has blessed that portion of it which forms the Diocess of New-York. Fidelity in the Clergy, and an encouraging spirit of zeal and devotion in the Laity, very generally prevail. And this fidelity, zeal, and devotion, are marked with a scrupulous adherence to the Canons, Rubrics, and edifying usages of our excellent Church. The sufficiency of her provisions to secure the influence and happy consequences of evangelical piety, has been, in some instances, most eminently displayed. In illustration of this remark, we refer to the following extract from the address of the Bishop of this Diocess to the Convention of 1816.

"In St. Paul's Church, Troy, 78 received confirmation, principally young persons; many of whom, at the first opportunity, came to the communion. I deem it of importance to state, that in this congregation, during a season of unusual religious excitement, its

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