and beauty, by the hand of St. John. The Scriptures are the native region of sublimity both natural and moral. The single volume of the Scriptures,' says Sir William Jones, one of the best judges whom the world has ever seen, · contains more and higher specimens of this excellence, than all the remains of Grecian and Roman antiquity united.' The God of the Scriptures is an object infinitely sublime; and wherever he appears, whether his character is exhibited, or his actions are recited, he appears with power, wisdom, and goodness, glory and majesty, to which nothing is equal, nothing second. The works of God, here recounted, are possessed of a splendour suited to his character. The creation; the deluge; the wonders of Egypt, the wilderness, and Canaan; the miracles attendant upon the death, resurrection, and ascension of the Saviour; the resurrection, the conflagration, the future judgment, and future existence of the righteous and the wicked, are objects compared with which all other events which have entered into the conceptions of man, shrink into nothing. In moral beauty, greatness, and glory, the Saviour stands alone."-"On this divine subject I have no room to expatiate, and shall only observe, that the Scriptures themselves have done more justice to it, than can within the same compass be done a second time; when they inform us that Christ is the light of heaven,' and 'the effulgence of the Divine glory. Not less distinguished is this science for the power which it possesses, and the means which it furnishes for refining the views and the taste of man. On the one hand, the Scriptures forbid every thing which is impure and licentious; and, on the other, effectually discourage every thing which is gross and grovelling. To accomplish this combined purpose, they commence their efforts in the only efficacious manner; namely, by purifying the affections of the heart. Wherever these are gross and debased, the imagination will be gross, and the taste debased. So universally is this true, that no advantages of education, no superiority of talents, no acquisition of learning, no refinement of society, hitherto have sufficient power to purify the fancy and the taste, where the affections had been y.elded to licentious indulgences. A gross heart will delight in gross objects; and on these objects so long as they are relished, the imagina. tion will love to dwell. Elegance of mind grows out of the refinement of the heart. It is hence, that the sentiments of Paul and John, of Peter and James, their images, and their language, are immeasurably removed from the gross efforts of heathen antiquity. Had Cicero's oration for Cœlius, or the third eclogue of the polite and elegant Virgil, formed a part of the sacred volume; either would have furnished an argument against its inspiration which all succeeding ages could never have refuted; and

infidelity would long since have gained a final triumph over the Gospel. In the Scriptures we are presented every where with those objects which, more incomparably than any other originate and establish refined affections, spotless views, and dignified excursions of the imagination. By a continual correspondence with the precepts of the Gospel, the affections are gradually, and in a sense instinctively, purified. By a frequent recurrence to its sentiments and imagery, the imagination is exalted, and the taste wrought into elegance as silver is beautified by the hand of the burnisher. By conversing with noble objects, the mind is ennobled in a manner and to a degree which will admit no parallel; is estranged from every thing low and little; assumes insensibly a portion of the celestial character, and directs its flight, unceasingly, towards heaven. On the variety and consequent novelty of objects every where presented by the Scriptures to the imagination, it is unnecessary here to expatiate. Both are unceasing, both are endless; and as they are successively unfolded to rational beings, will regularly enhance their enjoyments throughout the ages of eternity.There is another and very important view in which this subject demands our consideration. Theology spreads its influence over the creation and providence of God, and gives to both almost all their beauty and sublimity. Creation and providence, seen by the eye of theology, and elucidated by the glorious commentary on both furnished in the Scriptures, become new objects to the mind; immeasurably more noble, rich, and delightful, than they can appear to a worldly, sensual mind. The heavens and the earth, and the great as well as numberless events which result from the Divine administration, are in themselves vast, wonderful, frequently awful; in many instances solemn, in very many exquisitely beautiful, and in a great number eininently sublime. All these attributes, however, they possess, if considered only in the abstract in degrees very humble and diminutive, compared with the appearance which they make, when beheld as the works of Jehovah. Mountains, the ocean, and the heavens, are majestic and sublime. Hills and valleys, soft landscapes, trees, fruits, and flowers, and many objects in the animal and mineral kingdoms, are beautiful. But what is this beauty, what is this gran deur, compared with that agency of God to which they owe their being? Think what it is for the Almighty Hand to spread the plains, to heave the mountains, and to pour the ocean. Look at the verdure, flowers, and fruits which in the mild season adorn the surface of the earth; the uncreated Hand fashions their fine forms, paints their exquisite colours, and exhales their delightful perfumes. In the spring his life reanimates the world; in the summer and autumn his bounty is poured out upon

Steering a middle course between adulation and contumely, we cannot for a moment doubt that the United States are rapidly rising in the scale of civilization, science, general literature, and moral vigour. In naval architecture, in steam navigation, in certain branches of engraving, in amplifying the powers of machinery, in the construction and extent of canals, in the appointments both of their military and mercantile marine, and in various practical applications of art and science, they are already either our superiors or our rivals. Their diplomatists have contrived to meet the practised statesmen of Europe on tolerably equal terms; while Mr. Washington Irving occupies a conspicuous rank, even in our own cherished island, among the elegant, refined, and polished writers of the day. They regularly republish all our popular works, and, among these, the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews, and some other British periodical publications; our own, as we have stated, among the number. Some of their own periodical works also, especially of a scientific kind, are in good repute. We have therefore only to give our cousins a little time; and in their turn, they will perhaps produce a Bacon and Newton, a Locke and Butler, a Milton and Shakspeare; as they have already, in the emergency of the war of independence, shewn their Washington, and other chiefs of the armies, which, after a severe struggle with the disciplined veterans of Europe, established a

parent country feels itself vulnerable and feeble. The time was when Dr. Johnson himself, who was a good hater of the daughter, thus sung of his favourite metropolis;

"London, the needy villain's general home,

The common shore of Paris, and of

Rome!"

What the capital is become now, should, in justice, be left to the determination of its visitors from the banks of the Seine and Tiber; and, in default of their reports, to the wanderers from Philadelphia, Charleston, and Washington.

new empire. In the mean time, we are quite as fully aware, as Mr. Fearon, Mr. Howison, and Mr. Cobbett, (for even he felt the griev♣ ance,) of the frequent coarseness of American manners; and we are also conscious of the darkness overshadowing those divisions of the States which, with all their republican intolerance of despotism, continue to legalize slavery. This black spot must be expunged, before America can be selected as the only land of liberty on the surface of a bondaged world. But here we pause; as, on this perilous topic, it becomes us to beware of the recoil!

It is, however, chiefly to British Christians, that the increasing importance of the United States discloses the opening visions of future times. We have mentioned, in an early paragraph of this article, the identity of religious feeling which binds together the spiritual philanthropists of the two countries. The principle thus brought into exercise,' and receiving perpetual accessions of vigour, by the plans of co-operation constantly passing and repassing between us, will outlive all such international arrangements as terminate on this side the grave. Religion, pure, un-sectarian religion is the golden chain, reaching from heaven to earth, and extending itself throughout the communion of saints, wherever its members can be found, which, at this moment, reunites, and will hereafter retain in the most intimate combination, the followers of Jesus Christ scattered among the millions of Great Britain and America; and will, we are convinced, do more in effecting the continuance of a pacific system, than all the stratagems and elaborations of mere politicians. These wise men of the world have indeed very slender conceptions of the na tional utility of their Christian fellow-subjects and fellow-citizens. They are the salt of the earth, the means of preservation to a sinful world; although all the gratitude they receive, in return, may too ge

nerally be the same world's derision, scorn, and neglect. Such preservatives were, once, less than ten righteous persons in a city devoted to destruction; and to one of whom, at the moment of the impending storm of fire and brimstone, it was said, "Haste thee, escape; for I cannot do any thing till thou be come thither; that is, till he ceased to be, (if we may adopt the term,) the palladium of the guilty inhabitants, whom his presence protected. We well remember, during the late war, the solemnity of the appeal to his countrymen made by an eminent American minister (Dr. Morse), with regard to a contest at once so unnatural and peculiarly anti-Christian; when he considered the religious character and obligations of the belligerents, and the spiritual injuries each might sustain by the calamities incident to a state of hostility. Yet such was the elastic, irrepressible, invincible energy of religion, that the golden chain was never broken asunder. Our institutions for the diffusion of the Scriptures, of education, and of missions, pursued their uninterrupted course. There was tranquillity in the midst of the tempest. Surely this was a strong collateral proof of the reality of the religion of Jesus Christ; a sensible evidence of its greatness, and of its indestructible excellence and power. We have since seen, at the anniversaries of our own societies, our brethren, in the highest sense, from America, standing forward, and speaking in our own tongue, and in their's, the wonderful works of God. We have lately had the gratification of receiving two of their bishops, and assisting by our contributions in some of their plans of piety and benevolence; thus reviving a reciprocity of esteem and affection.

The great writer, for such he is, whose work primarily has given birth to these observations, was one who,

before he departed from this earthly scene, beheld the horizon already glow with the bright promises perhaps of millennial glory; or, if not of an era so supremely blessed, yet of one when God, as we trust, will visit the earth with an unmeasurable plenteousness of grace and truth. He was the cordial and efficient friend of the magnificent schemes of good, now in full action among all our religious communities.

He

He was also alive to the injuries intended against the moraland intellectual credit of his country; and repelled them, not with the irascible temper of a partizan, but with the strength of a warrior capable of resisting aggression, and, if necessary, of rolling back the tide of war upon the aggressor. He also discerned that, in proportion as every species of hostility was discountenanced, the two countries would obtain mutual benefit. identified their interests; and he scarcely wished his own America to possess any source of prosperity, unless the consequences could be equally shared by the land of his fathers. If this be not an enlarged and enlightened patriotism, let the word henceforth lapse into desuetude. He loves his country who loves mankind,—those of mankind, especially, in whom he can confide, as heirs of the same promises; and such as these, if to be found any where, are numbered among the inhabitants of our own island, and of her original colonies. We conclude, by citing, in reference to our kinsmen, dispersed or dispersing over the wide regions stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific, a passage, which also closes one of Mr. Washington Irving's conciliatory efforts,

"For my brethren and companion's sakes, I will now say, Peace be within thee. Because of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek thy good!"