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cluding volume of a series of lectures on the Evidences of Divine Revelation, comprizing an examination of its Facts, Prophecies, Miracles, Parables, Doctrines, and Duties, and summed up in the present Comparison of its claims, with those of the different leading systems of religious faith and practice, which have been, at various periods, offered to the ready acceptance of a wayward and misjudging world. Twenty years have elapsed since their commencement, and, whatever minor defects a minute criticism may have detected in the execution of so extensive a plan, it is impossible for captiousness itself not to admit, that Dr. Collyer has displayed singular industry, perseverance, and ability in the prosecution of this interesting course. The Lectures," though not exclusively," were "especially" addressed to the young; and with this view, the eloquent preacher "endeavoured to make familiar, subjects which had been too often dismissed as abstruse; and to render attractive, evidences which had been considered formidable, because of the modes under which they were usually discussed." In this design he has fully succeeded; he has communicated instruction in a form admirably calculated for popularity; he has employed, in the execution of his task, the resources of an accomplished mind, and he has scattered the flowers of an eloquent fancy over a repulsive subject.

It would be at all times a matter of considerable importance that Christians should not only feel the positive value of their faith, but that they should be enabled to form a sufficiently accurate estimate of its comparative excellence. But in times like the present, when Christianity is engaged in such close and extensive conflict with the delusions of human or

diabolical invention, it seems more than commonly requisite that there should be some popular and comprehensive manual, which might put every one in ready possession of the precise state of the question. Information is reaching us daily, and from all quarters, referring, with more or less distinctness, to the systems and superstitions of the unbelieving world, and it is desirable that there should be a convenient and intelligible text-book to bring all to a point, and to explain many peculiarities which would otherwise be inexplicable. In this view the present volume is of high value. It gives a fair representation of the various systems which claim consideration in connexion with man's present condition, and eternal destinies; it analyses their materials, examines their pretensions, and with a happy mixture of argument, illustration, and appeal, proves the inexcusableness of those who reject the evidences, the restraints, the incitements, and the prospects of the Gospel. We shall not be expected to enter on a detailed exposition of the systems of the Hindoo, the Mahommedan, and the Deist, nor to follow Dr. Collyer through the path which he has cleared amid the thorns and broken ground of this moral and mythological wilderness. We have referred with sufficient distinctness to the nature of his work, we have given our attestation to its value and seasonableness, and it now only remains that we give a specimen or two in justification of our praise.

Our first shall be the close of the very excellent preliminary discourse, which opens the vo lume, on the unity of principle in Christianity and Judaism.

"Upon the whole, Judaism and Christianity must be one in principle or Judaism would be the religion of a day-a religion of expedients a body

without a spirit-every thing but what the New Testament describes it. Still more-without such a connexion as is here supposed, and which amounts to identity of principle, it will be impossible to assign any reason for the majority of the institutions of the former dispensation, to understand their import, to discover what object they had, or whether they had any, to conjecture what end they could possibly answer-or to find any issue to which they led. We are also as much in the dark respecting their termination, as their institution: since, if they are not consummated in Christianity, in order to which they must have been virtually a part of it, there is as little reason apparent for the time and the manner of their abolition, or cessation, as there is for their original enactment, and long observance. Without such an unity as that for which we contend, the whole of the ancient economy, and of the Jewish religion, is an enigma not to be solved. We are therefore prepared to maintain, that the dispensations have one Author, one Object, one Principle, one Testimony; and to abide by all the consequences of this conclusion, as the discussion proceeds through the remaining lectures.

"Before Moses a double vista opened -back through the events of more than two thousand years, rising before his inspired vision in succession to the beginning of time-and forward nearly two thousand more, through types, shadows, and ordinances, to the triumphs of Calvary-the first blended with facts transmitted from father to son, till they reached him-the second with great and precious promises given immediately to him from a faithful and unchanging God.

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What though the former dispensation was a day in which the light was neither clear nor dark'-still it was one day known to the Lord.'-What though it be neither day nor night,' expresslyit was the morning twilight-the parting clouds gave way to the day-break. Faith soared high, in the Patriarchal ages, and, like the lark, showed the slumbering world the gleams of the unrisen sun upon her wings. Prophets caught the signal-and ascended the mountains, whose summits, already illuminated, lifted their points of light amidst the darkness, and appeared as day-stars to the valleys, still overshadowed with night. The nations looked, and beholding the Messenger of salvation enshrined in glory, like the Angel in the Sun, exclaimed, How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace: that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth !'

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"To one object all eyes are directed. Amidst the twilight of breaking day, Moses looks from his tables of stone and the Covenant of works to Him who was made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.' Aaron glances from the altar and its mysterious and multiplied sacrifices, to the cross of Calvary, and to Him who by one offering hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.' David strikes his harp with a bolder hand, as he gazes upon the ascending sun, which pours upon its strings a flood of celestial fireeven' Him, the sun of righteousness arising upon those that fear his name, with healing in his wings.' Solomon sees the magnificence of his temple absorbed and lost in Him, whom the heaven, and heaven of heavens, cannot contain.' And even the poor Gentile priest drops the knife which he was about to plunge into the heart of a human victim -himself to, find an atonement in His death who' I gave his life a ransom for many.'-The authors of all this misery, our first parents, exult to behold the whole mischief of their fatal apostasy repaired. The serpent, bruised, and crushed, is banished the new Paradise, and hides himself in the shades of everlasting night-While death lies prostrate, pierced with his own dart, and expiring under the triumphant feet of the Redeemer, as he is seated upon his eternal throne."-pp. 34-37.

Our next shall be the last paragraph of the concluding lecture.

"In fine, we shall do well to consider the limitation of human wisdom, whenever we touch Revelation, whether as friends, or as enemies. The adversaries of the Bible might learn modesty from experience. Man presumes too much that he has reached the summit of science; and often argues against Revelation from present attainments: a little further information (may prove relative to existing difficulties, what has been often shown in reference to obsolete doubts-that the Bible is right, and may demonstrate on the principles of science itself, that the objector is wrong. A similar important lesson of humility might be advantageously learned by the friends of revealed religion, who but too often contend too earnestly for system. Principles may be right, when conclusions are false. Before we give to human inferences from Revelation, the credit due to Revelation itself, we should be quite certain that there is no error in the steps which lead to the demonstration and as it is impossible we should be certain of this, unless we were omni

scient, it will follow, that no inferences from revealed principles, can, or ought to, have the force, assent, and confidence, due to the principles themselves. When Deists object to the truth of revealed religion, because of the different sects into which it branches, they ought to recollect, that the laws of nature, perfect as they are in themselves, and represented by visible effects, are not so well understood as to preclude difference of opinion respecting them: yet, who would therefore deny the reality of these laws? or refuse his assent to the demonstrations of material existence ? I repeat, it appears to me that the concession of Deism to the being of God, is conclusive to establish the claims of the Bible for if there be a God, it does not comport with an all-wise and all-good intelligence, such as he must be, to leave man in ignorance of his will; and if there be a revelation, from a fair com

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parison with all the systems of religion

which ever existed, the Scriptures must be that revelation. Upon the whole, these alternatives present themselves. Jesus must have been a senseless enthusiast-and this the wisdom and consis

tency of his instructions disprove; or a corrupt and designing impostor-and this the sanctity of his character, and the purity of his system render impossible; -or he must have been what he professes to be a teacher sent from God, and the Saviour of mankind-which

establishes the Bible as a divine revelation, and eternally fixes upon it the stamp of CERTAINTY.-Upon these simple and intelligible principles we rest the argument-fearless of consequences!"pp. 648-650.

It is but right to observe that we have not chosen these sections from their superiority to other parts of the volume, for we could have chosen other passages of even a higher order; but we found so much difficulty in separating from the deductive and argumentative portions, a fragment which should be at once complete, a fair specimen, and of suitable dimensions, that we have been compelled to adopt a less discriminating plan of selection than we should otherwise have preferred.

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ESSAYS on Italy, by an American! Impressions produced by the representative of the Ancient World, on a native of the New! Rome described by the inhabitant of regions scarcely yet redeemed from the wilderness! With some such, mental interjections as these did we take up the present volume, and glance hastily over the preface and the running titles, preparatory to our regular perusal of the book itself. Whatever may be the quality of the contents, at least he has a good taste in the selection of his subjects-was our inference from this casual inspection. And when we had made ourselves masters of the contents

and qualities of the work, we came to the final conclusion, that whatever might have been the author's habitat, and with what region soever his early associations may have been connected, he knows how to put together a sensible, entertaining, and instructive book.

It is something rather new, so far at least as our present recollection extends, to find a traveller of seriousness and piety journeying through Italy, contemplating, with the eye of a man of taste and judgment, the majestic though shattered memorials of her early glory, casting a shrewd and searching glance on her actual condition, and mingling with all his observations and inferences, the calm and serious reflections of a Christian philanthropist. Tourists of all kinds and casts have crossed the Alps, and traversed the Valdarno, the Pontine marshes, and the Appian way. Dupatys have sentimentalized; mans and Forsyths have ransacked the repositories of art; and Eustaces have given full effect to the gorgeous heathenism of the Romish ceremonial; but we cannot refer to any who have given to the world their Italian reminiscences in the decided spirit of a

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follower of Jesus, until the present publication. We are aware that most Protestant travellers have thought it expedient to express a decent contempt for the memory of the papal hierarchy, and that Romanists, in their way, have talked about religion; but here we have a man of evangelical principles, applying them to all that he encounters, as the only sure test, and taking a firm stand on the truth as it is in Jesus, while he describes the withering superstitions of this beautiful, though blasted land. And the effect of this is exceedingly impressive; there is something at once elevating and affecting in this prostration of human devices before the simplicity of the Gospel-in this just comparison of the deceitful brilliancy of human genius, and the transient magnificence of human rituals, with the pure and everlasting glory of Divine truth. In connexion with a visit to the little chapel of San Paolo, "at the three fountains," which is supposed to mark the spot where the great Apostle of the Gentiles was beheaded, the "American" introduces the following suitable reflections.

"It brings our fancy as well as our reason into contact with some of the

most glorious realities of our faith, to consider the Apostle Paul, a man of like passions with ourselves, meeting a population not very unlike that which now inhabits the Bay of Baia and the Roman territory, and proclaiming, as he went forward to Cæsar's judgment-seat that the altars which were raised were to unknown Gods,

"When the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus stood in all its splendour; when the power of the great, the prejudices of the ignorant, and the interests of the priests, formed a threefold alliance in favour of idolatry, a single man, bound in chains, alone lifted up his voice in this region, filled with immortal beings, against the worst of all slavery. The minister of true religion appeared in a garb which did not unfitly represent the

outward show of his crucified Lord; while the ministers of sin, and panders for lust, and provokers to crime, stood

bedecked in all that is most flattering to human pride, arrayed in the richest robes, and their ceremonies set forth with the accumulated wealth of ages.

"Nor was the outward vision alone

addressed: the infamous Venus had her Anacreon, the Jupiter dyed with a thousand crimes had found poets, from Homer downwards, to sing the praises of the Father of the Gods; and Paul landed within three miles of the school of Virgil and his tomb, to uncover the most finished of human fables, and shew them to be blasphemous and vile imaginations.

"Who then that sees how little reason weighs against passion, how little arguments drawn from a future world arrest the Christian's theory and practice are to the present flow of crime, how repulsive the spirit of a world that lieth in wickedness, can believe that any thing short of divine power could give victory to him odds; or make this single champion for who fought apparently at such fearful truth, the leader of a corps, who in a few years after trampled upon the altar of Jupiter, and upon Cæsar's throne? It brings us into the midst of the realities, and women of ancient times, and enables us to measure the height and breadth of the obstacles to be overleaped, and to know all the obtrusive difficulties which hung upon his course, more heavily than the chains on his feet, when we visit the Campagna of Rome, now relapsed into superstition. We come off from the ground of a remote and undefined antiquity, and enter upon the terra firma where the battle was truly held; and our very senses give proof that victory came not by might nor by power, but by the spirit of the Lord.'"-pp. 78-80.

and makes us almost converse with the men

Occasionally there is much novelty and piquancy given to this writer's descriptions by his familiar conversance with the scenery of his native land. Passing from a country without any other antiquity than the vicissitudes of nature in its various changes, its growth, and its decay, or the casual vestiges and obscure traditions of nomadic savages, to a region which, if not the birth-place of civilization, was the home of its maturity, and the scene of its decline; and where the majestic footsteps of ancient genius are still impressed luxuriance of a southern climate; on a soil, glowing with the richest he sometimes brings them with great felicity into contact with each

other, as in the description of the residence of civilized men; and he recascade at Terni.

"There is a rare union of beauty and grandeur in the Falls of Terni. Though the quantity of water be much less than the Rhine discharges at Schaffhausen, yet the scene is much more imposing, from the greater height of the precipice. Niagara alone more completely absorbs the imagination. The American cataract has an overwhelming majesty that belongs to its flood of waters, and which at first stupifies the faculties of every observer; but Terni has an attractive grandeur, which induces you to advance deliberately to examine a wonder which nature and art have united to produce.

"The rapids in the American river, before you reach the edge of the precipice, combined with the distant roar of the falls, form a more sublime spectacle than the full view of Schaffhausen, while the prospect from the Table Rock is like a glance into eternity. We are obliged to call up the force of our minds to keep us from recoiling with dread. But at the Cascata del Marmore, as this Italian waterfall is styled, the eye rests upon the scene with a pleasing astonishment, in which there is more of delight than

terror.

"It is situated at a few miles distance from Terni. The country is beautifully romantic. The road lies for the most part through fields of olive trees. At Papinia, you are obliged to leave the

carriage; and after descending and cros

sing the Nera, and traversing a garden, and beautiful line of orange trees, you approach the celebrated fall. When I saw it, the melting of the snow, and the the late rains, had swollen the river to nearly double its ordinary size. This outlet for the Lake Velinus has been most happily chosen; for there are few situations

where an artificial cataract could be more than beautiful, but this is exquisite. An ancient castle crowns the summit of the lofty mountain near you; and numberless rills run down near the main sheet of water. But one of the most beautiful objects is occasioned by the quantity of foam, produced by the fall, which ascends in clouds, and, being collected by a projecting ridge, runs down in innumerable little cascades; and as you cannot at first divine the cause, the rock seems bursting with the waters it holds in its bosom. Besides its other attributes, this fall has the best of all charms-association. It is in Italy, it is a work of the Romans,-these foaming waters wash the walls of the Eternal City!

"When the admirer of Nature's wonders visits Niagara, he travels through distant forests, just beginning to be the

CONG. MAG. No. 66.

flects upon the generations of aboriginal inhabitants that vanished from these woods during many centuries, as the foam of the cataract has risen daily to fall again, and to be swept away. But they have passed, and have left no memorial: the traveller is forced inward for topics of meditation; the scene wants drapery; it is too much like the summit of Chimborazo, of unequalled loftiness, but freezing cold.

"On the contrary, the Fall of Velino has been approached in a course from the Vale of Clitumnus towards the banks of the Tiber; the ruin of Augustus' Bridge at Narni is to be the picture of to-morrow; Agrippa's Pantheon is soon to be seen. We have not the feeling of sadness that we are at the end of an enjoyment when we have beheld this wonder, a sentiment which forces itself upon the traveller who stands between Erie and Ontario. Such causes give a richness and mellowness to the scene, which cannot operate upon the transatlantic cataract."-pp. 89-93.

Under the head of "Papal Ceremonies," there will be found some interesting matter, and we shall venture on an extract from this portion of the volume. The author is describing the public benediction annually pronounced from the gallery of St. Peter's, on the multitude assembled on the grand esplanade before that superb Cathedral. The Pope appears under a state canopy, borne by prelates of rank, and, amid the ringing of bells, military music, and the salvos of artillery, gives his triple blessing.

"The spectacle is ever prodigiously imposing, to behold such an immense multitude assembled in so wide a place, surrounded with a semicircular colonnade, and adorned with an obelisk and fountains in front of this majestic edifice, upon the Vatican Mount, in the act of receiving a blessing, which they conceive to be an authoritative dispensation of kindness from the Lord of earth and heaven. The following is the formula of benediction: -

"The Holy Apostles, Peter and Paul, in whose power and authority we confide, themselves intercede for us with the Lord. Amen.

"Through the prayers and merits of the blessed Mary, always a virgin, the blessed Archangel Michael, the blessed John the Baptist, and the Holy Apostles,

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