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from what we know of human nature, to delegate such a power as it involves to persons in the precise state of the coloured population of the West Indies. We believe, however, that good, much good has arisen from recent discussions, and we now sincerely trust that all evangelical missionaries in the West Indies will be enabled to walk together in "brotherly love," and to "keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." A little less zeal on the subject of baptism, on the part of our Baptist brethren, will be no subtraction from their Christianity, either at home or abroad.

We sincerely thank Mr. Phillippo for a well-written and very instructive volume, and sincerely pray that its success may be a comfort to him, deprived as he is of the power of labouring for a cause to which he has devoted twenty of the best years of his active and useful life.

EVIDENCES and FACTS of the SCRIPTURE DELUGE. In a Course of Lectures adapted to the present advanced state of Biblical Criticism and Modern Science. By JAMES MONROE. Royal 18mo, pp.

156.

J. Manley, Darlington.

The well-informed author of this volume has been for some time past accustomed to deliver lectures on several branches of sacred literature, which have been well received by the public in various parts of the north of England. The five lectures before us, on the Noahic Deluge, were originally so delivered; and from the interest which they excited, the author has been encouraged to issue them from the press in their present form. He is not aware," he observes, "of any other claim on public attention, than what arises from the nature of the subject, and the state of the times; and that the price and form of the work will bring useful knowledge within the reach of many who have no access to more expensive and elaborate works; and, further, the views adopted and attempted to be vindicated are different in some respects from any late work on the subject of the deluge; being in a medium between the excessive effects attributed to the flood, by Dr. Young, of Whitby, and the very limited effects allowed to the event, by Dr. Pye Smith."

Without at all committing ourselves to the author's general theory, or to the more minute hypotheses of his work, we have great pleasure in bearing testimony to the extent of his reading and research, and to the uniform deference which he pays to the ascertained data of Scripture. In tracing," he observes, "the account of this most important event, as given by Moses, the great

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est caution is required, lest, by straining the words of Scripture, we lose the sense, and expose the writing to the attacks of unbelief; or, by endeavouring to find a meaning consonant with prevailing opinions, we neglect the proper bearing of the language, and cause the text to express the doctrines of the times, rather than the mind of the Divine Spirit.

"In attempting to prove the book of the revelation to be true, we must not reason as if the book of nature were false, nor pay court to science, as if the Scriptures could not be trusted. They have both the same author, and speak the same language, as far as they treat of the same subjects. Much injury has been done to the cause of true religion by those who bring the discoveries of true science and the dictates of revelation into collision. When vain philosophy and science, falsely so called,' are arrayed against Divine truth, the vanity and falsehood of such pretensions ought to be exposed and stigmatized; but where true science has been discovered by patient investigation and legitimate deduction, and placed in such light, as that all but the ignorant and the prejudiced must see, then to hold out and declaim against it as still false, is to discover the wrong bias of our own minds, and lead a certain class of persons, not indeed to conclude that we are wrong, but that the book vindicated by such arguments is unsound."

These are excellent cautions; and the author has duly regarded them in writing upon a subject of great and acknowledged difficulty.

"The Scripture," says he, "is not to be corrected and modified, to meet the growing intelligence of mankind; but science often discovers our misconstruction of the sacred records, and misapprehension of their design.

"On no subject connected with revela. tion has more been written and spoken unscripturally, in vindication of Scripture, and unphilosophically, in vindication of philosophy, than on the subject of the deluge; so that when any new theory has been proposed, mankind have expected some new absurdity; and the works which recorded these have been read, not because they were held true, but because they were curious and entertaining."

The mass of information collected in this volume, on the subject of the deluge, is truly surprising. In less than a hundred and fifty pages, the substance of many large works is condensed. We could have wished that the references to particular authors had been more accurately made; and that quotations had been more carefully separated from the text. In another edition, which ought, if possible, to be published in Lon

don, the plan of the work should be revised. The first lecture has no heading, while all the others have. There are, moreover, great inaccuracies of the press, which ought to be carefully avoided in a work on science. The punctuation is such, in some instances, as to obscure the sense; and one word is introduced for another, so as sometimes to make nonsense of a passage. We could enumerate many such things, but let the following suffice: In the preface, adapted" is printed for " adopted ;" and in the second lecture, "loose" for "lose."

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But the work, as a whole, is highly creditable to the author, and deserves a wide circulation, which we trust it will obtain.

HALLELUJAH; or, Devotional Psalmody: being a Selection of Classical and Congregational Tunes, of the most useful Metres, from the Works of Handel, Haydn, Purcell, Croft, Boyce, Wainwright, Harrington, and others; together with a few Chaunts: the whole arranged in Four Parts, with Organ and Piano-forte Accompaniments, and adapted for Use in Divine Worship, both in the Family and in the Sanctuary. To which are prefixed, Essays on Psalmody. By JOHN BURDER, A.M., and J. J. WAITE. Fourth Thousand.

J. Dinnis, Paternoster-row.

There are doubtless many reformations required in the mode and spirit of our religious worship, but in no department of the service of God's house is there a louder call for some great and sweeping revision, than in that of our psalmody. In many churches and chapels the use of organs and other musical instruments has well nigh supplanted the ordinance of congregational praise; so that the people at large have come to perform this part of worship by proxy, and think they have done their duty when they have listened with profound attention to the musical performers in the singing gallery. Can anything under the name of praise be more insulting to the Divine Majesty or is there a particle more religion in such psalmody than in the professional minstrelsy of an oratorio, or in the sentimental performances of an opera-house? We call this, wherever it is found, the sensualism of popery, which converts the music of the sanctuary into a pageant, having the form of praise, but denying the power thereof. It is high time, surely, that the piety of the church should exorcise this system of proxy in the worship of God, and that organs and choirs, if they are still to exist, should not be suffered to operate as a check upon the united praises of the assemblies of Zion.

But irrespective of this great and prevailing incongruity, which in some fashionable churches has gone so far as to make it lite

rally vulgar for the people to sing, there are other sad blots upon our psalmody, which need to be removed by the hand of a firm, but pious zeal. "Much of the music," observes Mr. Waite, in the valuable Essay which precedes this collection of Tunes, "which has been obtruded upon our churches, is unsuited to the purposes of devotion. The truth is, that many of the tunes in extensive use have been composed by men of very slender acquaintance with the principles of harmony, and who have either overlooked or been ignorant of the essential difference between the anthem and psalm tune. The anthem is a piece of music, composed expressly for certain words, and its chief excellence consists in its special adaptation to express the meaning of those words, and to awaken in the mind of the hearer suitable thoughts and feelings. When about to prepare an anthem, the skilful composer gives his first attention to the study of the passage of Scripture which he has selected for his purpose. A clear understanding and a correct feeling of its true import are alike essential to his success. He next conceives and determines the plan on which his anthem shall be constructed. Assigning to the several parts of the piece their due proportion, the greatest prominence is of course given to those passages which he designs most deeply to impress on the mind of the hearer. Having sketched the bold outline of his piece, he next considers how it shall be filled up, so as to give the greatest coherence and effect to the whole. Such ornaments as befit the subject are then judiciously added, so as to set off the composition to the greatest possible advantage, and make it in the highest degree subservient to its true design. Such an anthem is an impressive comment on the passage of Scripture for which it is written. In its construction, the solo, duet, trio, repeat, fuge, change of time, piano, and forte passages, &c., &c., may be legitimately employed. These things are not only admissible, but they may be absolutely necessary. Without them it may be impossible to give the best expression to the meaning of the text; and, as we have seen, special adaptation of the music to the words is the essential quality of the anthem. Now, if an anthem be specially adapted to express the meaning of a certain text, and to call up in the mind of the hearer such thoughts and feelings as are congruous to the subject, it must be manifest that its music cannot with propriety be sung to another text of different meaning.

"The very fact of its special adaptation to the one is a proof of its inadaptation to the other. No one who understood the matter would ever think of singing all the verses of a psalm or chapter to music which had been specially composed for one of them. Any

attempt to do so must be as unsuccessful as it would be absurd. Now, mark the difference of the psalm tune; so far from being composed expressly for a certain verse, it is intended to be sung to all the verses of a psalm or hymn, and even to several psalms of the same character and metre. The chief excellence of this species of music consists in its general adaptation to all the verses of the psalm. The judicious composer, when about to construct a piece of music of this description, confines not his attention to any particular verse of the psalm for which he writes, but considers the general character and import of the whole. When these are duly apprehended, he proceeds to prepare the measures of music which the metre of the psalm requires. If, for example, it is a long metre, he has to write four lines of four measures each, and to clothe them with harmonies suited to the subject. If the general subject of the psalm should be sorrow for sin, the music should of course be of a plaintive and penitential cast. If death and judgment are the subjects, a solemn and awful majesty should be stamped upon the tune. Music of a bold character would be suitable for the expression of confidence in God, while a psalm of thanksgiving would require a tune expressive of grateful joy. Thus, whatever be the subject of the hymn or psalm, it should be impressed in intelligible characters upon the tune composed for it."

We wish we could quote more largely from these judicious criticisms. One additional passage, however, we cannot withhold. "An examination," says Mr. Waite, "of the best models of the psalm tune will confirm the principle we have laid down, that general, and not special adaptation, is their essential property. Look, for example, at the old Hundredth, Hanover, St. Ann's, and all our best tunes, and you will find in them no solo, no duet, no trio, no repeat, of the words, no fuge, no change of time, no piano and forte passages, no trifling phrase,-in a word, nothing that would limit their general adaptation, or render them unbecoming the house or worship of God. The authors of these unexceptionably fine compositions well understood the nature of their task. They knew that the psalm tune should be of a grave and sacred character; that its melodies should be sweet, its harmonies rich and varied, and that its principal excellence would consist in its general adaptation to all the verses of the hymn or psalm. They could not have been guilty of the absurdity of writing a solo in a psalm tune. To them

it would have appeared supremely ridiculous to silence a whole congregation at a given line in each verse, while two or three persons were singing a trio or a duet. To construct a psalm tune, so as to compel a repeat of the whole or part of certain lines in

every verse, would have been in their esti mation an outrage upon common sense, and an insult to the understanding of the people for whom it was written. To direct a given line in every verse to be sung piano, and another given line to be sung forte, without any regard to the sense and meaning of the line, would, in their judgment, have been a disgrace even to a child. To have inserted a fuge in either of the lines in a psalm tune, would have been to necessitate such frequent and egregious absurdities as would to them have seemed nothing less than a desecration of the house of God."

After this powerful reasoning, well may Mr. Waite ask the question, "How comes it to pass that many of our modern tunes contain all those monstrous incongruities?" His answer is conclusive: "their authors have never studied the matter." The whole of Mr. Waite's Essay deserves to be printed in letters of gold. The adoption of its suggestions would cause a reformation in our psalmody, which would act powerfully on the interests of true religion. Mr. Burder's Essay, too, is an admirable companion to it. What he has said on the subject of instrumental music well deserves to be pondered. All must agree with Mr. Waite when he says, "that the music of the human voice is incomparably superior to that of every other instrument;" the reason is obvious-there is no musical instrument so perfectly delicate in all its parts, as the human voice. Only two things are required to the improvement of our church music, viz., 1st, that all badly constructed tunes be excluded from our books; and, 2nd, that every member of a congregation be taught to sing on scientific and correct principles. We cordially sympathize with Mr. Waite in his anticipations, when he says that "patient and persevering efforts cannot fail eventually to banish from our sanctuaries the light, frivolous, unsubstantial, and undevotional music which, of late years, has crept in. When the true character of such music is once understood by our churches, they will indignantly demand its removal from the house of God; and the wonder will then be that it could have been tolerated there so long."

This is the first book on church music we have ever seen, of which we could say, with truth, that it did not contain one bad or inferior tune; yet the number is upwards of a hundred.

THOUGHTS upon THOUGHT.

London: John Snow.

The very title of the work is sufficient to induce a perusal. When we contemplate the word thought, and then pass to what it symbolizes; when we consider that all that is around, all causes and agencies, pheno

REVIEW OF RELIGIOUS PUBLICATIONS.

mena and principles, art and nature, the material and immaterial creation have been, and are, the results of thought, either in the Divine or the human intellect, one cannot but feel interested in an author who essays to comment upon the thinking principle. Truly gratified are we when we find him equal to his task, and throwing a clear and steady light on all which he touches.

The work is especially addressed to young men of the present age; we confess they need it. The young men of the present day, as a class, are not genuine thinkers: they indeed are prone to bedeck themselves with the glittering tinsel of a superficial education; but they do not carefully and conscientiously cultivate the intellect; they do not build it up as with solid masonry, to form a durable temple for truth.

The work before us is intended to direct them in the art of self-culture, which does not consist in the hasty and indiscriminate acquirement of promiscuous knowledge; but in that silent and unceasing surveillance which, at an early period of the mind's history, is exercised, to consolidate its principles, repress its exuberances, and render even its passions subservient to its strength and dignity.

But, there is another culture to which the author directs our attention-the culture of the spiritual faculties, or religious training. We direct the reader to the following passage:

"The great Legislator determines, what are violations of his law. We learn that many sins are almost confined to the mind.

The thought of foolishness is sin.' Deceit, pride, ambition, malice, lust, uncharitableness, and some others, are sins chiefly committed by the thoughts and feelings; from their very odiousness, they are designedly kept from being embodied in word or deed, and their existence is found to be an undercurrent, rather than a surface stream. But the eye of the Lord observes the deepest current of the soul, the most secret flowings of thought."

The young man who has allowed his mind to reel and stagger through its course under the influence of intoxicating passions, though they may not have found their exponent in action, will here receive an admonitory lesson, and his eye will be open to the polluting nature of that under-current of guilt, which often runs parallel with an accomplished exterior and a religious mien; but which will ultimately triumph over the whole faculties of the soul.

Human life is a struggle. Evil is permitted in this creation, as a test of truth and virtue, and if a man delays his resistance to evil till a remote period of his mental history, should the desire ever arise, he will find the task almost beyond his power;

that absorbing passion, which at an early period might have been crushed by the influence of an antagonizing virtue, will, if allowed to gather strength, take possession of the whole mind, retaining it in a captivity whose chains neither reason nor philosophy can break asunder.

We entreat, therefore, the young men who are to form the character of the present and the future age, to call home their thoughts from those fruitless excursions to which the literature of the present day is the deluding and polluting guide-book; let them aim to give to their intellect solidity and power, rather than superficial ornament: but above all, let them carefully ascertain the nature of their moral principles; let the private judgment, now a right, be exercised with such discretion, that the result shall be an unanswerable argument against its enemies and contemners; and should they, in the vast variety of candidates for ethical teachership, be at a loss for an instructor, we most cordially recommend them to consult the intelligent and accomplished author of "Thoughts upon Thought."

ERRORS of the TIMES: a Series of Tracts. I. The Rise and Progress of Popery. II. The Fathers. III. Tradition would set aside the Bible. IV. The Rule of Faith. V. Tractarian Statements compared with the Word of God.

Religious Tract Society.

We are glad to find the Tract Society fully sustaining its title and character, by the publication of a series of valuable tracts, written for the express purpose of counteracting the dangerous "Errors of the Times."

Five of these tracts have already appeared, and, to the best of our judgment, they are well fitted to accomplish their object. The 1st contains a rapid, but careful sketch of "The Rise and Progress of Popery ;" and, though the picture is a terrible one, it is well sustained by the facts of history. The 2nd is devoted to "The Fathers," and proves abundantly, without any attempt to degrade them below their proper level, what unsafe guides they are in religion. The 3rd, entitled "Tradition would set aside the Bible," is a tract of considerable power, in which the folly and absurdity of relying on tradition is strikingly demonstrated. The 4th discusses "The Rule of Faith" ably and satisfactorily, and turns the tables on Romanists and Tractarians with great skill and dexterity. The 5th, which we regard as the best of them all, confronts "Tractarian Statements with the Word of God," and shows to demonstration that the Bible and the Oxford school are direct antagonists.

very

We recommend an immediate, combined,

and vigorous effort, on the part of all sincere, zealous, and conscientious Protestants, to give the widest possible circulation to these tracts. They are excellently adapted to meet the existing and wide-spreading evils of the times. The plan we would suggest is the following: that all auxiliaries and associations connected with the Tract Society, and all persons engaged in the distribution of tracts on the loan system, would forthwith hold special meetings, to consider the best means of giving effect to the laudable efforts of the Tract Society, in preparing weapons with which to combat Popish and Tractarian heresy. In districts where Popery prevails, let plans be adopted for getting these tracts generally in the hands of Romanists, particularly the one on the "Rule of Faith." But wherever there is a Puseyite teacher, let the effort to counteract his labours be in proportion to his zeal, and to the unfair advantage taken by him of teaching Popery under a Protestant mask. We hope to find our city missions alive to this object. Their agents might circulate hundreds of thousands of these seasonable tracts. But there must be vigorous combination, if the effect is to tell on the community.

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The subject of this elegant volume is precisely adapted to the genius of the fair author. She is a fervent lover of nature, and is well versed in the legendary history of her country; she knows, therefore, how to write about "ruins and old trees," so as to wake up from their long repose the actors and scenes of other times. There is something in her descriptions very enchanting to the mind, as the events of a darker age are associated, in all their gloomy grandeur, with ancient trees and mouldering ruins, the only existing memorials of the events portrayed. If our author has allowed considerable scope to an excursive fancy, and an exuberant imagination, she has never lost sight of the thread of pure history; and it is but justice to say, that she has seldom forgotten to suggest those moral and religious lessons which the times and events she describes, appropriately suggest. Some of Miss Roberts's lines are beautiful. We give the following as a spe

cimen :

"When the Holy One, the Glorious One, returns in might and power,

And the long-oppressed world emerges from out her darksome hour;

Her darksome hour of grief, and death, and bitter pain,

When the Holy One, the Blessed One, returns to earth again.

"Where the hosts of Satan trod, bright angels shall descend,

And loved ones, and vanished ones, their steps shall hither wend.

They come from the silent land, where they have waited long.

And sweet as mortals never heard shall be their choral song.

"We too shall sing with them, for the curse shall pass away,

And earth look brighter far than on her natal day;

When the Lord for whom we waited, in glory comes to reign,

And many whom we dearly love to follow in his train."

The pictorial embellishments of this work are executed in the highest style of art. Indeed the volume at large will be a very pleasing addition to the list of works adapt. ed to the libraries of young persons of taste combined with decidedly religious feelings.

A HELP to FAMILY and PRIVATE DEVOTION. By the Rev. HENRY ROGERS, Wolverhampton.

London: Whittaker and Co., Ave Maria-lane.

But

There are various grounds on which we might plead for an aid to devotion in the written compositions of holy men. this we deem unnecessary. It must be left to every individual Christian to determine for himself, whether his devotion would be best performed with such a "help," or without it. And to such as may require this auxiliary, we can conscientiously recom. mend the work now before us. It consists of fifty-six prayers, adapted for morning and evening worship in a family to which is added, 66 a variety of devotional exercises suitable for particular persons, circumstances and occasions." The prayers are simple in style, scriptural in sentiment, and enter deeply into that mental and religious experience which is common to the family of God.

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