churches-and create a religious feeling in favour of the object, on the true and proper ground, that it is connected with our most solemn obligations as disciples of Christ. This is no new doctrine. Dr. Owen has said,' remarks Mr. Morison, (and he was one of the fathers of Independency,) that

"No church is so independent as it can always, and in all cases, observe the duties it owes unto the Lord Christ and the church catholic, by all those powers which it is able to act in itself distinctly, without conjunction with others. And the church that confines its duty unto the acts of its own assemblies, cuts itself off from the external communion of the church catholic; nor will it be safe for any man to commit the conduct of his soul to such a church." Whenever our zeal for independency makes us feel as if we had no concern, or but little concern, in the spiritual prosperity of other similar societies; when we congratulate ourselves on the successful ministry, the crowded pews, the ample funds, the general harmony of our own sanctuary, and can at the same time witness, with obvious indifference, a declining, poor, or even dying church, at our very door, this argues a lamentable destitution of a primitive spirit. While we contend that there is nothing in the New Testament to warrant the erection of a national church, composed of so many dioceses, or of so many presbyteries; we at the same time feel satisfied, that there existed among all the apostolic churches, (though complete in themselves, in point of government), an unbroken sympathy of fellowship; such a sympathy as that if "one member suffered, all the members suffered with it; or, if one member was honoured, all the members rejoiced with it." It would be nothing short of an absolute libel upon the spirit and conduct of the first churches, to represent them as societies looking well to the state of religion among themselves, but indifferent to the principles, character, and general circumstances of their brethren-the members of other churches. Is it not palpable to the most cursory examiner of the Epistles, that all the churches felt an entire oneness of interest ?-that a common faith, a common order, and a common destiny, operated to the production of a feeling of mutual brotherhood-co-extensive with the limits of the churches? They deeply felt that the reason of the existence of one church was, at the same time, the reason of the existence of every other church; that there was not one Saviour and one code of discipline at Jerusalem, and another Saviour and another code of discipline at Antioch ; that the ends of Christian union could not be secured by a mere harmony within the churches, while it did not exist without them, in their actings towards each other; and that the legitimate principles of fellowship among brethren, worshipping in the same place, uniting in the same acts of worship, and surrounding the same communionboard, were unquestionably, in like manner, the principles which, as a magnet, should draw church to church, in the bonds of holy love, -and all to Christ in the exercise of everlasting dependence and adoring gratitude.' pp. 26-28.

We have said nothing as to such a union's having the effect

of checking the tendency to strife and division; because, though this has sometimes been made an argument for such a project, we do not see how it could have any such effect directly, without being connected with an authority which we should extremely deprecate. Indirectly, it might operate to lessen the frequency of such occurrences. But, if foreign advice is to be sought for, or if foreign interference of a friendly nature is requisite, local associations are the only proper means of adjusting the matter, and an appeal to London or elsewhere would be most mischievous. The frequency of such occurrences, (which is ever on the lips of Episcopalians, notwithstanding that they bear no proportion to tithe-quarrels,) is, we are persuaded, greatly magnified. But, granting the evil to be of a crying nature, the preventive remedies-the case admits of no otherappear to us to be these: education, discipline, and practical preaching. Ignorance and antinomianism have been by far the most fertile sources of these schisms; and in such cases, the evil has often begun with the pulpit. Crude notions on the subject of church-membership have been another cause, connected with very inadequate views of the pastoral office. This was the error of the old Baptists: they flew off from prelacy into a species of ecclesiastical radicalism; and the leaven has not yet spent itself. Boy-ministers have been another occasion of such disturbances: they had not learned Timothy's art of venting the people, by legitimate means, from despising their youth. Now, a congregational union could not directly prevent these things; and we are sure that it ought not to attempt, by authoritative interference with particular churches, to cure them. It was in the plenitude of Apostolic authority, that St. Paul threatened the refractory church at Corinth, "What will "ye? Shall I come unto you with a rod, or in love, and in the "spirit of meekness ?"

pre

Here we must take our leave of the subject, which has already led us a little out of our accustomed track as Reviewers, but the opportunity was not to be resisted. Mr. Morison's sermon, we are glad to find, is out of print. We recommend him to print a second edition in a small and cheap form, with such additions as either these hints or his own maturer reflections may suggest. The sale of his sermon shews that some attention has been excited by it, and the extensive circulation of such sentiments as he has advanced, may do much good,

Art. VII. Belshazzar:
Milman, Professor of

a dramatic Poem. By the Rev. H. H. Poetry in the University of Oxford. 8vo. pp. 162. Price 8s. 6d. London. 1822.

As we do not wish to retract any of the commendation we have formerly bestowed on Mr. Milman's poetical talents, we must say little about his Belshazzar. It is by far the least happily conceived, and the least vigorously executed of his poems, and has, we must confess, altogether failed to interest us. The only incident in the piece, except the appearance of the handwriting, is the seizure of Benina as a bride for the immortal arms of Bel; which reminds the reader too strongly of the situation of Kailyal in the Curse of Kehama,—an annihilating comparison. Mr. Milman has evidently trusted chiefly for success to the lyrical parts of the poem, which occupy a very unusual portion of it. The characters are, without an exception, insipid and feeble. Belshazzar is represented weak, vain, and childish to an imbecile degree. Daniel makes but one speech, his part being that which is usually assigned to a ghost. Adonijah is a brave young fellow-in words, though he suffers the priests to bear off his betrothed bride; but he afterwards summons courage enough to run the priest of Bel through for the offence. Kalassan is no character; Nitocris is not much better; but Benina is really a pert, bold jade who can stand up for herself so well, that one hardly pities her. She is far more of a man than either her father or her lover. She tells the Queen Mother to her face, that she wears

a woman's form,

But all the cold, relentless pride of man

Mightiest of queens!-would I might add, most graciousand she takes up the words of his Babylonian majesty in a strange tone of girlish defiance :

. Your gods!

Whom I disdain to honour with my dread.'

One would think that Mr. Milman had taken his idea of this haughty fair one from some servant girl whom he had seen resent a liberty taken with her in the presence of her sweetheart. Really, had we been in Adonijah's case, and heard the young lady say to the priests,

Fierce men! your care is vain ;

I will not stoop to fly'

and, after fetching up a story about having seen Daniel looking upon her, heard her tell her father, that fear and bashful

'shame' were gone, we should not have thought her any great loss. Appearances are certainly very much against her; and an ill-natured bystander would have thought, the girl has no great objection to be the god's bride, though she makes a modest fuss about it before her lover. But, supposing that it is not all a fetch about seeing Daniel, we are still at a loss to know how the lip-burning' seer managed to make his appearance just then, so as to be visible only to Benina; and why he should encourage her to go quietly along with the priests, merely for the sake of being frightened by the Arvalan' of the poem, and of narrowly escaping with her good name, by means of one of those very timely and fortunate arrivals which saved Miriam, under similar circumstances, in "The Siege of Jerusalem." We expected to find her playing the part of Judith or Kailyal, and making his godship, the pseudo Bel, find he had caught a Tartar. But Benina is no such heroine. She lectures Kalassan, indeed, yet, prettily affecting to be ignorant of what she is brought there for; and when he is unexpectedly summoned away from her to attend the monarch, she addresses him in this very provoking style of irony:

• Away!

Thou'lt pardon me my fond solicitude
Impatient of thy lingering.'

To which Kalassan politely replies-whether he takes her meaning or not seems uncertain

Till I return.'

Fare thee well

We shall not pursue the ungracious task of pointing out the other obvious defects in the management of the story, but shall try to find some extracts not unworthy of Mr. Milman. The following hymn is sung by old Imlah the Jew, Benina's father.

God of the Thunder! from whose cloudy seat
The fiery winds of Desolation flow :
Father of Vengeance! that with purple feet,
Like a full wine-press, tread'st the world below.
The embattled armies wait thy sign to slay,
Nor springs the beast of havoc on his prey,
Nor withering Famine walks his blasted way,
Till thou the guilty land hast seal'd for woe.

God of the Rainbow! at whose gracious sign
The billows of the proud their rage suppress:
Father of Mercies! at one word of thine

An Eden blooms in the waste wilderness!

And fountains sparkle in the arid sands,
And timbrels ring in maidens' glancing hands,
And marble cities crown the laughing lands,
And pillar'd temples rise thy name to bless.

O'er Judah's land thy thunders broke-oh, Lord!
The chariots rattled o'er her sunken gate,
Her sons were wasted by the Assyrian sword,
Even her foes wept to see her fallen state;
And heaps her ivory palaces became,
Her Princes wore the captive's garb of shame,
Her Temple sank amid the smouldering flame,
For thou didst ride the tempest cloud of fate.

O'er Judah's land thy rainbow, Lord, shall beam,
And the sad City lift her crownless head;
And songs shall wake, and dancing footsteps gleam,
Where broods o'er fallen streets the silence of the dead.

The sun shall shine on Salem's gilded towers,
On Carmel's side our maidens cull the flowers,
To deck, at blushing eve, their bridal bowers,
And angel feet the glittering Sion tread.

Thy vengeance gave us to the stranger's hand,
And Abraham's children were led forth for slaves;
With fetter'd steps we left our pleasant land,

Envying our fathers in their peaceful graves.
The stranger's bread with bitter tears we steep,
And when our weary eyes should sink to sleep,
'Neath the mute midnight we steal forth to weep,
Where the pale willows shade Euphrates' waves.
The born in sorrow shall bring forth in joy;
Thy mercy, Lord, shall lead thy children home;
He that went forth a tender yearling boy,

Yet, ere he die, to Salem's streets shall come.
And Canaan's vines for us their fruits shall bear,
And Hermon's bees their honied stores prepare;
And we shall kneel again in thankful prayer,

Where, o'er the cherub-seated God, full blaz'd th' irradiate dome.' pp. 36 39.

The next best thing in the volume, is the chorus of the procession which is conducting Benina to the Temple: it has much of the Anacreontic spirit.

'PRIESTS WITHIN.

Hark! what dancing footseps fall

Light before the Temple wall?

Who are ye that seek to pass

Through the burnish'd gate of brass?