men, preachers of the gospel, to possess this talent in a degree which they have acknowledged to be painful to themselves. They have complained, that, when in the midst of a serious discourse, they have sometimes felt a strong propensity to employ language, and give a shape to their thoughts, that would tend to excite a feeling of the ludicrous in their auditory; while, at the same time, they have felt themselves under sacred obligation to resist it. We do not suppose there is any thing wrong in the mere existence of this propensity, but we commend the conscientiousness by which it was restrained. We once knew a preacher who, when writing his sermons, would sometimes find, that he had introduced a thought, or given a cast to some idea, that might awake a feeling of the ridiculous; and it was his practice to erase, or so to alter, that nothing of this tendency should remain. We commend his piety, and do not doubt his wisdom.

The essayist, however, although his purpose may be a serious one, is at perfect liberty to employ ridicule. He may apply the Scourge of wit whenever he thinks it the fittest means of vanquishing any particular vice or folly. And herein consists one of his numerous advantages, as a censor of public sentiment in common matters, over the professed teacher of morals and religion.

Perhaps some may be disposed to torture our ideas of the "dignity of the pulpit" into a shape in which we should not like to see them. We therefore say, once for all, that we have no desire to clothe either the sacred desk, or the sacred office, with a factitious dignity; but we believe, that the common feelings of mankind do, or should, attach a dignity to them which belongs to no other place or office. All lawful employments are honorable, and so is every means by which a good influence is exerted in a community; but all are not equally sacred; and sacredness, as we use the term, is always accompanied with dignity. This is the dignity of the pulpit.

Another advantage enjoyed by the popular essayist above the man who seeks the same end in the more serious and dignified character of a methodical writer or preacher, is, that his papers, if they possess merit, will be read by many who would often sit down to a volume on any single topic, or attend upon the discourses of one who would teach them the same truths from the pulpit. The present age is not remarkable either for patience, or a love of complete and profound views of a subject. The great majority of modern readers love to have an author short. There are, also, many readers who, except by accident, are never hearers of what we deem the important truths of religion. Now both of these classes may be reached, to a greater or less extent, through popular essays, whether they appear in volumes, or in periodical numbers. The writer may be short when he knows, that the subject would

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weary, or the sight of a long paper alarm them. He may, also, serve up truth in a way to make it more grateful to them than, perhaps, it would be if presented in any other form. Every one looks upon the miscellaneous essay as tending to amuse as well as to instruct; and many in every community will make the sacrifice and endure the instruction for the sake of the amusement, who would not allow themselves to sit down to a treatise purely didactic. Let us then give them truth in the best way we can. A single ray darted by stealth into their minds, through a popular or unsuspected medium, may be more than they would get, were they compelled to search for it, in their whole lives.

In this connection we cannot refrain from asking the question, whether a few writers among us, well qualified for their work, might not render a valuable service to their country, by devoting themselves, like Addison and his illustrious successors, Johnson and Hawkesworth, to the observation of common life, and the correction of the lesser evils which exist in society on this side the Atlantic? As a people, the Americans have their excrescences of character, which need to be pruned off by a skillful and adequate hand. We have our local and national foibles, and we need the chastening influence of a few masters of propriety and external morality, who shall observe and correct little things. Great efforts are made to keep the public mind enlightened on the two chief subjects of religion and politics, but the current usages of common life, as it respects those things which are considered of minor importance to the well-being of a community, are not guarded by a sufficiently vigilant eye. The manners of the people, especially of the middle and lower classes of society, are left to regulate themselves, without the elevating influence which a few writers of the requisite talent might exert. The editors of our newspapers, it is true, do something towards adjusting the rules of decorum, and putting down the smaller vices and follies of the day; but their circumstances hardly allow them to be faithful and discerning monitors. Their avocations are too multifarious to permit them to exercise a suitable guardianship over such matters. Their zeal, in a majority of cases, is expended in party contests; the election of a town or city officer, even if he is nothing more than a constable, not unusually occupies more space in their columns than is given to editorial remarks on topics of permanent value in half a year.

Such men, as we should recommend to give themselves to such a work, would do much for the literature of our country. Their influence, in this respect, might be like that of the Spectator and Rambler. True, our circumstances are very different from those of the English nation at the time when those publications appeared; the talent and literature of our nation are not concentrated in any metropolis, as was the case in England at that day; but from

the facilities of intercourse between all parts of our country, the regular essayist, could he excite attention and obtain a name, might be read the land over. In evidence of this we may adduce the fact, that popular letter-writers, who write for particular publications, not unfrequently have the pleasure of seeing their hasty epistles in a large number of our most widely circulated journals in different parts of the country. Should difficulties be suggested, as to the compensation for such labor, we doubt not, that the proprietors of many of our weekly and daily papers would suitably reward such an appropriation of time and talent. Let any number of well qualified individuals pledge themselves to sustain a regular contribution of miscellaneous essays, skillfully executed, and adapted to the character of the times, and, our word for it, they would not lack for bread.

If we are not mistaken, there is, at the present day, a disposi tion in the religious public to disregard many minor evils in society, as they are considered, which, wherever they exist for any considerable time, become serious obstacles in the way of the moral and religious improvement of a community. If an existing opinion or practice is not seen to be directly opposed to the progress of morality and religion, it is passed by as unworthy the attention of one whose business it is to promote the religious welfare of his fellow-men. All, or nearly all, of our effort is expended upon what we consider great evils. We fix our eye upon some enormous sin, and leave every thing else to make war upon that. We regard direct effort as that in which we are to spend and be spent, if we would discharge our duty as christians. But it should be remembered, that the religious improvement of men is made to depend on many things which, taken in themselves, cannot be made the object of direct religious effort. These things lie without the pale of spiritual religion, and we cannot touch or correct then unless we are willing to extend our efforts beyond it. They are somewhere within the precincts of morality, or, perhaps, of common propriety, and we must search them out and correct them there, if we would arrest the hurtful influence which they are perpetually sending across the line into the territory of spiritual christianity. Something wrong in the ordinary habits of a people, though we may not call it a sin, may, like the imaginary influence of the dog-star on the body, impair the spiritual health of christians, and actually keep others out of the kingdom of God.

From the strong natural tendency of true religion, as it is found anong men, to merge itself, and lose its spiritual character in external forms, not a few have carried that aversion to forms so far as to have too little respect to any thing that is merely outward. Many are disposed to pass by whatever improprieties (we cannot find a better name) in external manner a man may practice, and

still be a christian. Though it is his custom to be careless or clownish in his religious deportment, or to allow himself in any outward practices which the spirit if not the letter of his religion ought to correct, still, if there is nothing which indicates a bad state of heart, the whole is passed over as not falling within the province of christian effort to reform. But while the inward, governing principle of the heart is that which we should be chiefly anxious to scrutinize and control, ought we to neglect any thing in the external deportment or practice of an individual or a community, that tends, in any way, to hinder the power or free course of religion in the heart? Are not many outward practices, which do not give evidence of any particular inward depravity, but which are, perhaps, wholly the result of education or custom, oftentimes, as we have said, great obstacles in the way of religious progress, both in individual christians, and in a community? Should they not, therefore, be corrected, and, as the minister of religion cannot, in all cases, correct them without transcending the established limits of professional propriety, and, of course, setting at nought the dictates of christian expediency, shall not the man who will perform this work for him render an essential service to religion? The periodical writer may here do what needs to be done, but what the public preacher cannot do in his official character.

Much has of late been said and written to vindicate the propriety of sending a class of men, termed evangelists, through the community, to wake up pastors and churches to their duty, and thus "promote" revivals of religion. But, for our own part, we should have greater hopes of permanent good from the labors of men who would curethose little deformities in ordinary character, which, while the minister cannot preach them down without making his discourses secular in the eyes of devout christians, are serious obstructions in the way of his professional usefulness. There are, in almost every community, certain follies, (Johnson calls them depravities,) which appear rather ridiculous than criminal, but which, if we calculate their consequences, are not unfrequently more fatal to the eternal good of men, than some other things which we pronounce great sins. We remember it was once said by one of the most distinguished preachers of this or any other country, that nothing gave him more pain, in a time of seriousness among the people of bis charge, than to hear of a fashionable tea-party. Not, that he was opposed to polite or friendly intercourse, or to the social enjoyment which such a company might properly derive from animated and well-regulated conversation; but he felt, that such a party, in that place, was usually attended with so many fashionable follies, not to call them by any harder name, that its influence must be entirely adverse to the interests of religion. We do not feel ourselves called upon either to espouse or to repudiate his feelVOL. VIII.

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ings; we merely mention the fact in illustration of our meaning i the above remarks.

Since the publication of the work which stands at the head c this article, and which is known to be from the pen of a clergyma of an evangelical denomination, we have heard the opinion mo than once expressed, that the author had dishonored the cleric character, and done an injury to the cause of religion. It may t so, but we are of a different opinion. The work is composed o Essays, critical, moral and miscellaneous; the object of which not so much directly to teach religion, as to discuss subjects whic ought to be, but could not be so appropriately discussed, either i the pulpit, or in the dignified and methodical volume. The autho writes, not as a clergyman, but as an essayist; sitting, not in hi bands and black coat, but in the lighter costume, and more careles posture of the literary gentleman. His title, for the time being, i not Reverend, but Esquire. Thus freed, as he seems to us justl to have felt himself, from the peculiar restraints of his professior he has not hesitated to mingle amusement with instruction. H evidently intended to convulse his reader, now and then, with a fi of irrepressible laughter. He seems to have labored to mingle not only the dulce and the utile, but the ridiculous and serious not often, however, in the same paper. Still, he does not often if ever, seem to have lost sight of a high moral aim. He tells us that Cotton Mather, quoting Basil, mentions an art of drawing ma ny doves, by anointing the wings of a few with a fragrant ointment and so sending them abroad, that, by the fragrancy of the ointment, they may allure others into the house. So, he says, there is a certain class of writers whose object it is to fill up men's minds, and spare hours, and to allure them to goodness, not merely by the ponderous truths of the day, but by the fragrance of those intellectual wings, with which they wake the fancy, and infold the heart. Such has evidently been his object. He plumed himself for his flight, and anointed his wings with the hope of leading some minds, which would not follow a more serious writer, into the calm and sunny region of religious truth. If now, he has studiously avoided every thing which is anti-religious, and has filled his pages with matter such as may improve the taste, the morals, the manners, and, especially, the habits of thinking among his readers, -and if, more than this, he has incorporated thoughts, and even whole essays into his volumes, the manifest tendency of which is, to vindicate and honor the religion of his fathers, to which the name of his book gives the reader a clue, why should we complain, though he is sometimes playful and sarcastic; amusing himself by throwing the darts of ridicule and satire, through some quaint story, or lively allegory, into the hearts of such as love to laugh, or, perhaps, of others who themselves need a little chastening in