works of genius; one opinion, on all productions really worthy of remembrance, will be transmitted to the most distant periods of time. Thus, true merit, though originally perceived by few, necessarily outlives the successive idols of the crowd. Long duration consecrates the sentiment which arose, at first, in the hearts of a small number, and forces acquiescence even from the unthinking. This assent, after all, is the mere natural deference of the weak to the strongthe respect paid by those of " the ignorant present time" to the voice of ages. The real lovers of those great poets of our country, whose names all profess to revere, have not perhaps very greatly increased since the days when they were themselves candidates for public applause. How few among the "reading public" of the present "enlightened age," know more than the names of Chaucer, of Spenser, and of our elder dramatists! How small a number of the admirers of Dr. Chalmers have given even a fair reading to the works of that immortal poet to whom they have dared to compare him! They may have looked through Paradise Lost, because it seems to support their religious system; but did they ever luxuriate in the natural loveliness of Comus, or muse with a sobered joy over the classic melancholy of Lycidas? The world in general profess to idolize Shakspeare; but how small is the number who know any more of him than they gather from the exhibition of his plays! Thus the applause conferred by the mass of mankind on the most celebrated authors, arises from little more than the magic of a name, But while the real immortality of a poet is in the hearts and affections of a few, the multitude will, at last, be compelled to profess a sympathy with the wise and great of other times. Thus real excellence is almost sure to be lasting. It has a deep root in the feelings of its admirers, while the successive favourites of the populace pass away like the kings of Banquo's issue. It keeps its steady progress, undisturbed by the fluctuations of opinion and the caprices of fashion, until authority has pronounced it sacred. It appeals to natural beauty and grandeur, which are the same in every age; and

it must, therefore, live while these shall endure, and there shall remain hearts to love and revere them. Successive generations only add to its fame an additional tribute, and shed over it a more venerable sanctitywhile numberless idols of the public have had their praises successively pronounced immortal, and successively forgotten.

We shall, therefore, proceed to examine the merits of the author before us, unbiassed by the amazing popularity which he at present enjoys. And this we shall endeavour to do by inquiring first, what additional support he has given by his reasoning to our common faith; and secondly, what new stores of beauty and grandeur his imagination has been able to unfold.

1. It is to be remembered, that the professed object of these Discourses is to defend the Christian religion, against an objection which the discoveries of modern astronomy have been supposed to countenance. Since it has been established that this world is but a small part of the universe; that there are millions of spheres superior to it in size, which even we are able, by the assistance of art to discern; it may have struck the contemplative mind as something almost too marvellous to believe, that the Maker of these innumerable globes, and all which inherit them, should, in order to save one of the least of them, take the nature of its guilty inhabitants, become bone of their bone, aud flesh of their flesh; be tempted like as they are, live among them in fashion as a man, in poverty and in suffering for thirty years; be beaten, and reviled, and put to death by his creatures in this comparatively insignificant portion of his own creation, and finally wear their nature united to his own through the whole of his eternal existence :-now, such as this objection is, it manifestly applies only to Christianity in its Trinitarian form. No one who admits the being of a God, and that he continues to sustain the works of his hands, could ever make the vastness of the universe an objection to Divine revelation, except on the supposition that it taught the absolute Deity of Jesus. Surely it could excite no surprise that he, in whose hand are "the issues of life"without whose Providence not a spar

row falls, should provide for the moral as well as the natural wants of his intelligent creatures. It is not marvelJous that he who has implanted in our bosoms the desire of immortality, should give us some information of a life to come. Nor is it incredible that, for this purpose, he should confer a divine commission and miraculous powers on one of the most exalted of his children-or that he should employ some celestial being who was with him before all worlds, in a mission so important and so gracious. Indeed, it would have been more wonderful had no revelation of his will been vouchsafed-had we been created with powers" little lower than the angels," and yet been left ignorant of their immortal destiny; had we been amply supplied with all the delights which the senses can require, and no food had been provided to satisfy the cravings of the heart. This would have been a difficulty indeed, which might almost have led us to doubt the existence of our common Parent. It is not then, that he who made all worlds, should have found leisure to reveal his will to mortals; it is not that he should have regarded" this goodly frame, the earth," as worthy of attention, that can with any plausibility be objected. It is, that he should have himself died in our stead, and exist as "God and man in two distinct natures and one person for ever." Now, it is evident, this difficulty could not be raised even against the Arian hypothesis. If Christianity were regarded, as comprised in the formulary called the "Apostles' Creed," there would be no such objection to answer. But let us not be mistaken. We most sincerely disclaim all intention of urging the argument against our orthodox brethren. In its greatest force, it seems to us capable of a very simple reply. We think it would be sufficient to say, that we are wholly unacquainted with the nature of other worlds, and, therefore, can draw no inference from their existence; that we are ignorant of the plans of the Almighty, and therefore, cannot find him out unto perfection; that if we have a revelation, bearing on it the impress and mark of heaven, we are bound to receive all that it inculcates, though we may not be able to reconcile it to certain fancies of our own, respecting those works of God, of

the relations and nature of which we know nothing. In short, the line of Pope, "What can we reason but from what we know," seems to us a sufficient answer to such vague and presumptuous objections.

Dr. Chalmers is, however, of another opinion. He thinks fit to reply, in seven discourses, instead of seven lines; and we must, of course, attend him through the whole of this triumphant progress.

The first of these Sermons is entitled "A Sketch of the Modern Astronomy." So far from answering the objection, it is a statement of the grounds from which it has arisen. It is an elaborate defence of the plurality of worlds; which, we believe, no one disputes. It also contains a speculation that these worlds are not uninhabited, which we remember to have seen in every little book of astronomy for children. In addition, however, to these mighty discoveries, it anticipates such a progress in science as shall enable us to discern the cities, to watch the changing seasons, and to trace the arts, in the planets and the stars! Dr. Chalmers ought to have known, that such a result is not within the capabilities of science. There is an imperfection in the organs of sight, which must ever deprive us of so gratifying a prospect even were our telescopes a hundred times as large as that of Herschell. This discourse certainly presents us with an elaborate description of the universe; but it is all comprised in a single paragraph of the Spectator.

The second Discourse is entitled, "The Modesty of True Science." It opens with a long piece of declamation on the peculiarity of each man's private feelings to himself, which “prepares the way" for the observation, that the public are little able to comprehend the internal cares of the retired and studious; and thus, at last, the "way" is opened to a long panegyric on Sir Isaac Newton. The great features in his character which receive this applause from our author, are his determination, never to admit any hy pothesis without strict evidence; his resistance of "the meteors" of imagination; and his firm adherence to evidence, and evidence alone. These Dr. Chalmers thinks constitute the " Modesty of True Science;" what

contented with stigmatizing an objection as visionary, but he must give it a visionary answer. He is resolved to have a monopoly of phantoms: and he actually supposes that he can vanquish infidelity with the evershifting machinery of a dream!

The third Discourse entitled, "On the Extent of the Divine Condescension," is intended to support the second proposition, which we should have thought admitted of easy proof. Fortunately for the admirers of Dr. Chalmers, we were again mistaken. The Sermon consists of a continued series of declamations, intended to shew that the insignificance of our world only serves to display more strikingly the goodness of God in providing for the interests of those who inherit it. We are referred to the discoveries of the microscope, as evincing that his power is as clearly to be traced in the formation of the meanest insect, as in the most stupendous works of his hands: we are loaded with accumulative proof that an Almighty Being is not subject to weariness, and oppressed with illus trations of the newly discovered truth 'that benevolence to a whole, does not exclude attention to its most obscure parts. There is not a word in all this which can be disputed, and scarcely one that bears upon the question. The difficulty is not that we should be within the view of an all-seeing eye, not that we should be provided for by the goodness of the Universal Parent, not that the Maker of all worlds should be able to regulate the concerns and to watch over the happiness of each; but that he should unite himself to our nature, and die to redeem us. To this, amidst all his profusion of eloquence, Dr. Chalmers has given no answer. His tinsel degrades the noble subjects on which he touches. He tries to illustrate great first principles, which nature has stamped upon all our hearts, by the petty objects of time and sense. Why must we be perpetually taught by microscopes and microscopic reasoning, that the "tender mercies of God are over all his works"?

Our author has now, to his own satisfaction at least, demonstrated his two propositions; and yet it should seem that infidelity has not received

its mortal wound, for we are not arrived at the middle of the volume. His fourth Discourse, "On the Knowledge of Man's Moral History in the Distant Places of the Creation," exhibits a bolder flight into untried regions than any which precedes it. It, therefore, appropriately begins by rebuking all daring speculation, and exposing the folly of those who desire to be wise above that which is written. The author is resolved, at least, to start from solid ground; for he sets out with informing us that "while man keeps by the objects that are near how can be do otherwise?) he can get the knowledge of them conveyed into his mind through the ministry of the senses." This proposition which, "oft was thought but ne'er so well expressed," is briefly illustrated by reference to the uses of the touch, the smell, the taste and the ear; but the eye is reserved for a more magnificent encomium, since it is the most important "of all the tracts of conveyance which God has been pleased to open up between the mind of man and the theatre by which he is surrounded." We are told, however, that there is a limit be yond which it cannot penetrate; and, therefore, a due humility ought to check our inquiries. The philoso pher is exhorted "not to forget that he sees not the landscape of other worlds; that he knows not the moral system of any one of them; nor athwart the long and trackless va cancy that lies between, does there fall upon his listening ear the hum of their mighty populations."

All this, however ingenious, does not seem exactly to bear on the proposed thesis. At last we approach the mighty subject-but softly and by regular steps. After it is established that we cannot see what is taking place in other worlds, it is suggested that angels might, if so commissioned, supply this defect of our telescopes, The Bible too may have given us some hints respecting distant systems; though, as we are not directed to the precise chapter, we are unable to judge of their clearness. But possibilities are enough for our author, He surmises that perhaps the inhabitants of other worlds are yet sinless; that, if so, angels probably visit them as they did our first parents in Edeu ;

and, admitting this, it is not impossible that their heavenly visitants may give them intelligence of the condition of distant systems. By this golden chain he arrives at his grand conjecture, that "thus as we talk of the public mind of a city, or the public mind of an empire, by the well-frequented avenues of a free and ready circulation, a public mind might be formed throughout the whole extent of God's sinless and intelligent creation." All the rest of the Sermon is, of course, anti-climax after this. There are, however, passages on the probable view taken by angelic beings of the dispensations of God, which almost border on eloquence. For the third time, the peculiar good ness of God in bestowing his blessings on so small a portion of his universe, as the earth, is expatiated on at length, and illustrated by the glory an earthly sovereign would acquire from an act of benevolence performed on a private family. We cannot endure these petty sentimentalities, when applied to the character of the Almighty, or to those universal blessings which he delights to scatter over every part of his creation.

The fifth Discourse, entitled "On the Sympathy which is felt for Man in the distant places of the Creation," opens with the old topic with which the preceding Sermon closes. At length, after due preparation, we are introduced to the company of the angels. But, whether it be from the "wave of delighted sensibility" which Dr. Chalmers has sent among them, or the "flood of tenderness" he has made them" lavish," or the "tide of exuberancy" he has poured out every where, or from the dizziness of our own perceptions, we have acquired no distinct ideas of these celestial messengers. In point of fact, no description was ever half so wretched. The glorified spirit is only presented to us as a pure abstraction of all that is perfect; not arrayed in any ætherial beauty, or endowed with peculiar properties. He is Mr. Wilberforce with wings, and nothing more. Even this grand idea we are only permitted to attain, as Doctors do their honours by degrees. First we are to imagine a man who is an amiable private character, and thinks of nothing beyond his

** P. 169. + P. 179. P. 161.

immediate circle; secondly, one who goes a little further, and extends his benevolence to the town in which he lives; thirdly, one whose heart embraces his country; and fourthly, a philanthropist, such as the worthy gentleman just named, who not only unites all these good affections, but desires the welfare of the whole race of man. "At this point of his argument" Dr. Chalmers pauses to eulogize the charity of the present age, in one of the best passages of his work, but rather out of season, considering that we are still impatient to be introduced to the angel. After this celestial inhabitant has been described as surpassing the best of our fellow-men, we return once more to earth; not feeling dizzy as though we had been wafted on an aerial voyage, but wearied as from a journey in a lumbering family coach, which has stopped for a proper length of time at every stage.

The sixth Discourse bears a most appalling title. It is "On the Contest for an Ascendancy over Man amongst the higher Orders of Intelligence." Nor does it threaten in vain. It not only maintains the doctrine that satanic influence is yet permitted in the world; it not only intimates that strength from on high may be given to over come temptation, but it represents the armies of hell and heaven, of demons and of angels, as still arrayed against each other, and fighting for dominion over man! The idea of this warfare is evidently taken from Milton, but how has Dr. Chalmers improved on it! The author of Paradise Lost represented it as lasting only for a few hours, but he has made it at least six thousand years in duration. He has left it as a mighty field for future bards. He knows not, indeed, precisely its extent "if our rebellious world be the only strong-hold which Satan is possessed of, or if it be but the single post of an extended warfare, that is going on between the powers of light and darkness." But his ignorance on this point is more than compen. sated, by his nice and accurate information on the original designs of the fallen archangel. We must give this

§ This term seems to imply, that Satan is completely master of the field; and yet he is said to have been vanquished at the death of Christ!