betrayed into this uncertain and incomplete species of criticism. Mr. Irving is no servile imitator, he stands on his own merits, and on that ground he may well claim from us an estimate unimpaired by an invidious reference to illustrious names either among the dead or the living. The latter, indeed, we have carefully avoided, and those of the former whom we have taken as our standard, are of the highest rank in genius and in fame. We confess, however, that Mr. Irving takes us entirely off the carpet-ground of criticism, which, in the greater number of the works that come before us, renders our task tolerably easy. With excellences of a high order, he combines peculiarities which, in our view, are exceedingly injurious to the effect of his composition. If his taste were equal to his strength and energy, if he were more alive to the supremacy of simplicity over all the other elements of style, if he would steadily repress the rhetorician, and abstain from mingling artificial excitement with the mastery of genuine power and feeling, which he frequently displays, he might take his stand, if not among the highest, at least not far below the highest, of cotemporary orators. We cannot perceive any advantage gained by adopting certain antiquated forms of expression, nor by the introduction of words and phrases commonly used in a low or ludicrous sense. We had marked some of these as we went through the volume, but we have no relish for the work of carping at minor defects amid substantial excellence, and we willingly pass forward with the simple observation that we do not like to see in a man of genius, the slightest appearance of voluntary descent.

We shall, at present, confine ourselves to the "Orations for the Oracles of God," leaving to ano

ther article the "Argument for Judgment to come."

"I have set," writes Mr. Irving in "the example of two new his preface, methods of handling religious truththe Oration, and the Argument; the one intended to be after the manner of the ancient Oration, the best vehicle for addressing the minds of men which the world hath seen, far beyond the sermon, of which the very name hath learned to inspire drowsiness and tedium; the other after the manner of the ancient Apologies, with this difference, that it is pleaded not before any judicial bar, but before the tribunal of human thought and feeling."

We are not quite sure that we have a clear apprehension of Mr. Irving's meaning. The resemblance between his "Argument" and the ancient Apologies, we shall not now discuss, as we have not as yet read the former with sufficient attention to be able to say how far it approaches or recedes from the model; but with respect to the "Orations," we are not able to perceive their dissimilarity from "the Sermon," excepting in a less decided use of sub-division. Division, or arrangement, which is in reality the same thing, must exist in every intelligible address; but if it be meant merely to exclude the formality of "heads," principal and subordinate, there is no novelty in the practice; it has been done by Bossuet, Chalmers, Robert Hall; it has been expressly recommended by Cheminais; and it is frequently acted upon by preachers both in and out of the Establishment. It is only a few weeks since we heard, in this metropolis, a sermon, deficient, indeed, in evangelical savour, but of exquisite polish, written as nearly as possible on the plan of these Orations, though immeasurably inferior in energy and usefulness. We agree, however, most completely, with Mr. Irving in his main principle, that preachers of the Gospel have taken too narrow ground, that they have not availed themselves of all the comprehensiveness of their high

commission, nor of the large scope of their celestial ministries.

In these Orations, three points are discussed. The due preparation for receiving the Oracles of God-The manner of consulting them-and their strict observance. On all

these topics we have much most eloquent and interesting exhortation, and we trust that this volume, in its extensive circulation, will carry its effective and invaluable instructions into recesses where the Gospel has never yet been allowed to penetrate; we rejoice that such warnings as the following will find a way into cabinets where the refinements of luxury, or the pursuits of secular literature, have hitherto shut out the awful realities of revealed truth.

'Tis written, 'tis written, 'tis sealed of heaven, and a few years shall reveal it all. Be assured it is even so to happen to the despisers of holy writ. With this in arrear, what boots liberty, pleasure, enjoyment-all within the hour-glass of time, or the round earth's continent, all the sensibilities of life, all the powers of man, all the attractions of woman!

"Terror hath sitten enthroned on the brows of tyrants, and made the heart of a nation quake; but upon this peaceful volume there sits a terror to make the mute world stand aghast. Yet not the terror of tyranny neither, but the terror of justice, which abides the scorners of the most High God, and the revilers of his most gracious Son. And is it not just, though terrible, that he who brooked not in heaven one moment's disaffection, but launched the rebel host to hell and bound them evermore in chains of darkness, should also do his sovereign will upon the disaffected of this earth, whom he hath long endured and pleaded with in vain."-pp. 64, 65.

"Hell is not to be despised, like a sick bed, if any of you be so hardy as to despise a sick bed. There are no comforting kindred, no physician's aid, no hope of recovery, no melancholy relief of death, no sustenance of grace. It is no work of earthly torture or execution, with a good cause to suffer in, and a beholding world or posterity to look on, a good conscience to approve, perhaps scornful words to revenge cruel actions, and the constant play of resolution or study of revenge. It is no struggle of mind against its material envelopments

and worldly ills, like stoicism, which was the sentiment of virtue nobly downbearing the sense of pain. I cannot render it to fancy, but I can render it to fear. Why may it not be the agony of all diseases the body is susceptible of, with the anguish of all deranged conceptions and disordered feelings, stinging recollections, present remorses, bursting indignations, with nothing but ourselves to burst on, dismal prospects, fearful certainties, fury, folly, and despair. the world, but of Christians, to despise "I know it is not only the fashion of the preaching of future woe; but the methods of modern schools which are content with one idea for their gospel, and one motive for their activity, we willingly renounce for the broad methods of the Scripture, which bring out ever and anon the recesses of the future, to upbear duty and downbear wickedness, and assail men by their hopes and fears as often as by their affections, by the authority of God as often as by the constraining love of Christ, by arguments of reason and of interest no less. Therefore sustained by the frequent example of our Saviour, the most tender-hearted of all beings, and who to man hath shown the most excessive love; we return, and give men to wit, that the despisers of God's laws and of Christ's gospel, shall by no means escape the most rigorous fate. Pain, pain inexorable, tribulation and anguish shall be their everlasting doom! The smoke of their torments ascendeth for ever and ever. One frail thread snapped and they are down to the bottomless pit. Think of him who had a sword suspended by a hair over his naked neck while he lay and feasted,think of yourselves suspended over the pit of perdition by the flimsy thread of life-a thread near worn, weak in a thousand places, ever threatened by the fatal shears which soon shall clip it. You believe the Scriptures, then this you believe, which is true as that Christ died to save you from the same. If you call for a truce to such terrific pictures, then call for mercy against the more terrific realities; but if you be too callous or too careless to call for mercy, and ensue repentance, your pastors may give you truce to the pictures, but God will give no abeyance to the realities into which they are dropping evermore, and you shall likewise presently drop, if you repent not."-pp. 66–68.

And we would hope that even in those residences of pride and self-indulgence as those to which. we have first alluded, the following spirit-stirring appeal would not be altogether unfelt.

"Come over, cast in your lot with the saints, you have every thing to gain -peace of conscience, a divine joy, a fellowship with God, a special providence, a heritage of promise and blessing, a triumphant death, and a crown of everlasting life. The choice of men are here -the prime specimens of manhood, the royal priesthood and chosen generation of mankind-and worth domestic, with Piety, her guardian genius, is here; and worth public, with Charity, her guardian genius, is here; and enterprize heroic, with Faith, her guardian genius, is here; and the chief fathers of science and knowledge have likewise clave with the saints; and the greatest inventors, the inventors of reformation in all worthy matters, are here; apostles, and prophets, and patriarchs, are here; and, finally, the first-born of every creature, who is God over all, blessed for ever! Amen."-p. 74.

After having described the frame of gratitude and devotion in which the Scriptures ought to be received and consulted, Mr. Irving goes on to describe the awful contrast presented by the real state of things in the human heart and in the world at large.

"Far and foreign from such an opened

and awakened bosom is that cold and formal hand which is generally laid upon the sacred volume; that unfeeling and unimpressive tone with which its accents are pronounced; and that listless and incurious ear into which its blessed sounds

are received. How can you, thus unim passioned, hold communion with themes in which every thing awful, vital, and endearing, do meet together! Why is not curiosity, curiosity ever hungry, on edge to know the doings and intentions of Jehovah King of kings? Why is not interest, interest ever awake, on tiptoe to hear the future destiny of itself? Why is not the heart that panteth over the world after love and friendship, overpowered with the full tide of the divine acts and expressions of love? Where is Nature gone when she is not moved with the tender mercy of Christ? Methinks the affections of men are fallen into the yellow leaf. Of your poets, which charm the world's ear, who is he that inditeth a song unto his God? Some will tune their harps to sensual pleasures, and by the enchantment of their genius well nigh commend their unholy themes to the imagination of saints. Others, to the high and noble sentiments of the heart, will sing of domestic joys and happy unions, casting around sorrow the radiancy of virtue, and bodying forth, in undying forms, CONG. MAG. No. 68.

the short-lived visions of joy! Others have enrolled themselves the high priests of mute Nature's charms, enchanting her echoes with their minstrelsy, and peopling her solitudes with the bright creatures of their fancy. But when, since the days of the blind master of English song, hath any poured forth a lay worthy of the Christian theme? Nor in philosophy, the palace of the soul,' have men been more mindful of their Maker. The flowers of the garden and the herbs of the field have their unwearied devotees, crossing the ocean, wayfaring in the desert, and making devout pilgrimages to every region of nature, for offerings to their patron muse. The rocks, from their residences among the clouds to their deep rests in the dark bowels of the carth, have a most bold and venturous priesthood; who see in their rough and flinty faces a more delectable image to adore than in the revealed countenance of God. And the political welfare of the world is a very Moloch, who can at any time command his hecatomb of human victims. But the revealed sapience of God, to which the Isaiah were strung, the prudence of God harp of David and the prophetic lyre of which the wisest of men coveted after, preferring it to every gift which heaven could confer-and the eternal Intelligence himself, in human form, and the unction of the holy one which abideth,-these the common heart of man hath forsaken, and refused to be charmed withal.

"I testify, that there ascendeth not from earth, a Hosannah of his children to bear witness in the ear of the upper regions to the wonderful manifestations

of his God!

From a few scattered

hamlets, in a small portion of his wide territory, a small voice ascendeth like the voice of one crying in the wilderness. But to the service of our general Preserver there is no concourse, from Dan unto Beersheba, of our people; the greater part of whom, after two thousand years of apostolic commission, know not the testimonies of our God; and the multitude of those who do reject or despise them !”—pp. 17—19.

Mr. I. returns to this important subject at the close of his fourth Oration, and after a most admirable description of the general literature of our day, he expresses his "solemn conviction,"

"That until advocates of religion do arise to make unhallowed poets, and undevout dealers in science, and intem. perate advocates of policy, and all other pleaders before the public mind, give place, and know the inferiority of their various provinces to this of ours-till 3 H

this most fatal error, that our subject is second rate, be dissipated by a first rate advocation of it-till we can shift

these others into the back-ground of the great theatre of thought, by clear superiority in the treatment of our subject, we shall never see the men of understanding in this nation brought back to the fountains of living water, from which their fathers drew the life of all their greatness.

Many will think it an uachristian thing to reason thus violently, and many will think it altogether unintelligible; and to ourselves it would feel unseemly, did we not reassure ourselves by looking around. They are ruling and they are ruled, but God's oracles rule them not. They are studying every record of antiquity in their seats of learning, but the record of God, and of him whom he hath sent, is almost unheeded. They enjoy every communion of society, of pleasure, of enterprise, this world affords; but little communion with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. They carry on commerce with all lands, the bustle and noise of their traffic fill the whole earth; they go to and fro, and knowledge is increased,-but how few in the hasting crowd are hasting after the kingdom of God. Mean while death sweepeth on with his chilling blast, freezing up the life of generations, catching their spirits unblessed with any preparation of peace, quenching hope and binding destiny for evermore. Their graves are dressed, and their tombs are adorned. But their spirits, where are they? How oft hath this city, where I now write these lamentations over a thoughtless age, been filled and emptied of her people since first she reared her imperial head! How many generations of her revellers have gone to another kind of revelry; how many generations of her gay courtiers to a royal residence where courtier arts are not; how many generations of her toilsome tradesmen to the place of silence, whither no gain can follow them! How time hath swept over her, age after age, with its consuming wave, swallowing every living thing, and bearing it away unto the shores of eternity! The sight and thought of all which is our assurance that we have not in the heat of our feelings surpassed the merit of the case. The theme is fitter for an indignant prophet, than an uninspired sinful man.' pp. 96-98.

But we must, for the present, desist from farther citation, though we are reluctantly leaving several passages that we had marked. Before, however, we close this division of our article, we

must advert to a subject on which, while we are, to a certain extent, disposed to admit the justice of Mr Irving's comments, we cannot help being of opinion that he has used stronger language than is either just or expedient. Large

as our

extracts have been, we

must allow Mr. I. to state his sentiments in his own language.

"That which I have sketched of the soul's necessities needeth something more than to rake the Scriptures for a few opinions, which, by what authority I know not, they have exalted with the proud name of the doctrines: as if all scripture were not profitable for doctrine-Masterful men, or the masterful current of opinion, hath ploughed with the word of God, and the fruit has been to inveigle the mind into the exclusive admiration of some few truths, which being planted in the belief, and sacrificed to in all religious expositions and discourses, have become popular idols, which frown heresy and excommunication upon all who dare stand for the unadulterated, uncurtailed testimony. Such Shiboleths every age hath been trained to mouth; and it is as much as one's religious character is worth, to think that the doctrinal Shiboleths of the present day may not include the whole contents and capacity of the written word. But, truly, there are higher fears than the fear even of the religious world; and greater loss than the loss of religious fame. Therefore, craving indulgence of you to hear us to an end, and asking the credit of good intention upon what you have already heard, we summon your whole unconstrained man to the engagement of reading the word; not to authenticate a meagre outline of opinions elsewhere derived, but to prove and purify all the sentiments which bind the confederations of life; to prove and purify all the feelings which instigate the actions of life; many to annihilate ; many to implant; all to regulate and reform;-to bridle the tongue till its words come forth in unison with the word of God, and to people the whole soul with the population of new thoughts, which that word reveals of God and man-of the present and the future. These doctrines, truly, should be like the mighty rivers which fertilize our island, whose waters, before escaping to the sea, have found their way to the roots of each several flower, and plant, and stately tree, and covered the face of the land with beauty and with fertilityspreading plenty for the enjoyment of man and beast. So ought these great doctrines of the grace of God in Christ,