To the Editor of the Spirit of the Pilgrims.—Sir,

THE following Reflections on the life and character of the late Lord Byron, written a short time after his death, may not, perhaps, be unsuitable or unprofitable at the present time. They are at your disposal.

It is easy, in this sinful world, to acquire celebrity by splendid perverted talents; but it is not easy to perpetuate that admiration through succeeding ages. If dazzled by the nearness of the luminary, cotemporaries worship it; but to succeeding generations, beholding it without passion, and secing it through the mists of its own pestilent atmosphere, it will seem rather a baleful comet than a genial sun. On the contrary, great talents, associated with moral worth, are magnified by the increase of distance, and shine more and more through succeeding generations.

This decline of evil greatness, and this increasing estimation of consecrated talent, is the result of a divine constitution, which none can set aside. It would seem, at times, as if powerful minds, in their eccentric flight, would bid defiance to the laws of the moral world; but as time passes, and distance increases, they blaze less fiercely, until they set at length, in the darkness of their own creation, leaving to the world the regret only that such "glory should be obscured."

There is an obvious allusion to such a constitution of things, in the Bible. Solomon, the inspired observer of men and things, as the result of his own observation, has made the following record :"The memory of the just is blessed; but the name of the wicked shall rot." The one becomes fragrant by age, the other putrifies.

If we appeal to facts furnished by history, or by our own observation, we shall find them confirming abundantly the operation of the same unrepealed law of the moral world. There may be a AUGUST, 1828.

50

limited immortality of estimation, in particular circles. On the turf, some worthies may be as immortal as their horses; and in the theatrical world, a few persons of perverted greatness may be always known, who have never been known in any other world. The musical world may have, also, its luminaries, which, in that hemisphere, never set, and were never seen in any other. But where the character is of universal notoriety, and the appeal is made to the common principles of our humanity, there is a feeling which awards honor to virtuous greatness, and pours contempt on perverted talent.

We here use the terms virtue, and moral worth, not as synonymous with holiness, but in their more extended, and not less common acceptation, to indicate the useful application of the human powers in accordance with the eternal principles of right in human actions,―actions, not as they are qualified by motives, but as they affect the interests of society in the present life.

In this view of consecrated greatness, how is the name of the good Alfred embalmed, while those of Henry VIII. and Charles II. are hung in gibbets, spectacles of shame and abhorrence through all generations!

The great conquerors of the earth, who kindled, in their day, a temporary lustre, are fast sinking amid the dense vapors which their cruelties and crimes have caused to ascend around them. The transcendent talents and successes of Buonaparte, will not exempt even him, from the common lot of perverted greatness; while the character of Washington, will expand and brighten as it goes down to other ages. Voltaire possessed a vivacity and versatility of talent, and power of execution, sufficient to make a library of books, and to turn the heads of a capricious and inconstant people. But the inspiration of his genius, and the spring of his industry were, hatred of Christianity. He charmed to destroy. The poison of his writings, circulating for half a century in the political body, produced, at length, convulsions and death. And already his sun has passed its meridian. Already human nature has begun to pronounce the sentence, which will render him soon a man of light estimation. Rosseau, a man of deleterious ingenuity, has received his award; and Hume and Gibbon are fast descending from the bad eminence to which their perverted talents, in an infidel age, had raised them. Swift, once a popular author, and really a man of talents, and a fine writer, has nearly exiled himself from respectable libraries, by his obscenity and irreligious levity. And if Shakspeare holds on his course, it is because his are more the faults of the age, than of the man. But even he, adored as he is in the theatrical, gravitates in the moral, world; and in spite of his powerful wing, sinks by the moral gravitation of his irreligion and his obscenity. Not such is the fame of Locke, and Howard, and Jenner. And Milton, too, will hold on his

course, with no 'middle flight,' to the end of time; and Cowper hath arisen also upon the earth, as "the light of the morning, when the sun ariseth, a morning without clouds."

But if the fact is undeniable, how shall we account for it? We should think that an evil world, would love always, and always eulogize its own. How is it, then, that the breath of cotemporaneous applause dies away with the death of the wicked, while it rises in full chorus over the grave of the righteous?

It may be accounted for, upon the principle of the natural fitness which there is in the overt duties of Christian morality, as God has constituted the various relations and duties of life. This tendency of the divine requirements, men see and feel, and in spite of the obliquity of their hearts, admire! Independent of personal obligation to be good, and of punishment for doing evil, men approve of good conduct in others, upon principles of mere selfishness. No man approves of pride in other men, or of selfishness, or of dishonesty, or of envy. It is only those that are, themselves, flagrantly immoral, who take pleasure in those that do the same things; and this, chiefly, on account of the countenance it gives them in their own evil way. Wicked men are cowards, and are, like children, afraid to go in the dark ways of sin alone. Conscience troubles them, and is quieted by the multitude who go with them to do evil. It is, of course, the example of the living wicked which belps men to sin fearlessly; and it is the example of living excellence that alarms and offends them. The example of the dead, good or evil, is too distant to aid or to irritate. When, therefore, another generation comes upon the stage, it judges with comparative impartiality, of departed greatness. This is the reason why the wicked, in works of fiction, take the side of virtue, and condemn vice. It has been inferred from this fact, that there is some innate virtue in all men; whereas it is the inherent difference between good and bad conduct, seen in such distance as brings no aid and no remorse to a guilty conscience. But let a preacher of righteousness come forward at the close of this goodnatured sympathy with afflicted virtue, and the heartless condemnation of crime, and press home upon the consciences of these self-complacent weepers at virtue in distress, their own obligations and sins, and by the terrors of the Lord, call them to repentance, and their tears would soon stop, and their applause be turned into hissing. A fire in the house would scarcely empty it sooner, than such an application of the obligations and sanctions of Christian morality.

By these remarks, we would apprize young men of promising talents, of the importance of moral worth. Too many confide in their talents and learning, exclusively. These may acquire money, and a momentary estimation; but like the gourd of Jonah, a worm is at the root, or like the mushroom which comes up in the night, it will wither before the sun. No hosannas of the living, to the

Even

living, can place disastrous greatness in permanent honor. in a man's lifetime, often, this law of posthumous efficacy commences its operation, and many are the instances, in which a man of great talents and bad morality, has outlived his ill earned fame. The admiration of perverted talents may corrupt the living, but it cannot avert the condemnation of the dead.

The preceding reflections have been suggested by the life and death of Lord Byron, one of the geniuses of the age. We do not profess a critical acquaintance with him or his writings, but from all we have read and learned, we give the following as the result of our judgment.

He seems to have possessed a mind of the first order; saw with intuition, almost, the properties and relations of things; saw with precision, and grasped and wielded what he saw, with a power seldom given to mortals. To this power of intellect, was added a vivid imagination, and in reference to literary propriety and beauty, a discriminating taste; and to all these, were added, strong passions. All his natural and all his moral affections, moved in a broad, deep, precipitous channel, and rolled, and dashed, and foamed, alike fearless and impatient of restraint.

Such was Lord Byron by nature; and though his intellectual powers had received from early life appropriate culture, his passions and affections had been abandoned to their impetuous career. He was never governed, it is presumed, from his childhood upward; and it is especially manifest, that he was not "trained up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." Born for high life, his will was never curbed, but was rendered more furious and inflexible by indulgence. His pride, fed to the full, would brook no insult; and this, coupled with his decision of character, made him reckless of consequences in any course he had taken, if it were only because he had taken it. He felt his superiority to most men, and despised their judgment, even when his own was in the wrong, and he knew it. He is one of the few literary despots who compelled both admiration and fear, and caused even his enemies to be at peace with him. His passions made powerful demands for gratification, and in his ample resources and unrestrained mind, found a ready and ample indulgence. He pushed his course early through all the mazes of criminal enjoyment, and found them to be vanity, and was ferocious at the disappointment, and cursed his Maker, for limiting his capacity of vicious enjoyment, and not allowing, with impunity, the perversion of his powers. With all his intellectual greatness, then, and capacities of moral worth, Byron set at nought his Maker, and trod under foot his Redeemer, and all his salutary laws. A star of the first magnitude, he refused to obey the central attraction, and to rejoice in the central light of the universe; but broke indignantly away, to wander, as we fear, in blackness of darkness for ever.

In saying these things of Byron, we have not set down aught in malice.' We have been among the thousands who have gazed upon him with admiration and regret, alleviated only by the hope, that prayer might yet prevail, and, in him, be given to the world, at length, a pattern of the long-suffering and patience of God. But the scene is closed, and we weep to think that we have no evidence that he repented of his wickedness, and found forgiveness through the blood of Jesus. But while we mourn, we cannot but indulge the reflection, What had Byron been, had he enjoyed a religious education, and his heart been touched with the love of Christ! What godly sorrow, what carefulness, what indignation, what vehement desire, what zeal, and O! what a harp had he strung, and what notes of admiration had he flung upon the ear of a listening world!

A POPULAR OBJECTION TO REVIVALS OF RELIGION, CONSIDERED AND REFUTED.

The more common objection to revivals of religion, is, that such seasons are not clearly distinguishable from cases of strong and prevalent excitement in regard to other things. It is admitted, that individuals are often very much excited, on the subject of religion. It is admitted, also, that whole parishes and districts are not unfrequently excited, in a similar way. Religious meetings are multiplied and thronged; religion assumes a new importance, and becomes the general topic of thought, of interest, and conversation. But it is contended, that such excitements are no exception to the common course of events, and that there is no need of supposing the special agency of the divine Spirit, in order to account for them. Very frequently, it is said, there are instances of great and general excitement in regard to other things. A town meeting, a law suit, a parish quarrel, or some incident of the like nature, is capable of producing an excitement, (on a different subject indeed,) but as great, as general, and as lasting, as any of those on religious subjects, which are dignified with the name of revivals of religion. Why, then, it is asked, shall we suppose an effusion of the Holy Spirit, in seasons of excitement on religious subjects, more than in similar seasons in regard to other subjects? If natural causes are sufficient to account for existing appearances in the one case, why not in the other?

It will be the object of this paper, to shew, by a recurrence to facts connected with revivals of religion, that this objection to them is unfounded; that they are widely and gloriously distinguished from all other cases of strong excitement; and that there is no way of accounting for them on philosophical principles, but by