I. PROSE OF BARROW. THERE is an eloquence of the reason as well as of the imagination and of the affections. Perhaps it is more firmly based than either, and produces in the end the surest effects. It is less captivating than the descriptive eloquence of Taylor; it has less hold on the taste than the sentimental passages of Rousseau or Hazlitt, less touching than the pathos of Sterne or Mackenzie, less brilliant than the declamation of Burke or Macaulay: but it is anchored in truth; it is founded in reality; it convinces the understanding. Finally, all eloquence must come to this. We may be captivated by the glittering flashes of a copious fancy, and charmed, for an hour, by the attractive graces of eloquence and manner; but the only true eloquence is that which is always such, which equally interests a future age and a foreign nation, and which is the pure essence of the noblest reason, couched in the clearest, the most forcible, and the richest expression. Those brilliant contemporary speakers, of whom we have only a traditional knowledge, such as Dean Kirwan, Patrick Henry, and Emmett, are rather to be regarded as consummate actors than solid orators. To give the praise of finished oratory to the sermons of 1 VOL. II. Barrow would be an extravagance of eulogy; and yet his fame is great, and his sermons most able. He possesses the utmost fulness (this side of extravagance) in point of thought and expression; yet we can hardly say as much of his style and manner. The characteristic trait of Barrow is his power of exhaustive analysis. He is a perfect mental chemist, analyzing every topic into as many parts as it is composed of, and precipitating (so to speak) all the falsehood in it, leaving a clear solution of truth. Our divine is one of the most liberal-minded of men. He has a wide range of thought, and mines, as it were, in the very depth of his argument. He gives you every side of every subject he handles. He knows all the false appearances sophistry may be made to wear, as disguises of the truth. He is thoroughly informed of all the bearings of his subject, and leaves no part of it untouched. Though without imagination, Barrow had such a fertility of intellect (so well cultivated was the soil), as to appear almost possessing invention in the way of topics and illustration. The secret of his invention lay in long and severe study, aided by a capacious and powerful and ready memory. Reason was the master faculty of Barrow's mind. He seems to have had but little fancy-no imagination; not much of an eye for nature-no humor-hardly anything like delicacy of sentiment. His understanding was a robust, hard-working faculty. His analysis was very acute and thorough his logic exceeding close, searching, and patient. He had much and varied erudition, and a memory that was not crushed by the weight of it. This is an argument for the original force of Barrow, as well as for most of the great old prose-writers, that their learning was not too much for them. No foreign acquisitions could ob scure the clear light of their own reason: learning served them for evidence, for illustration. But they never confounded knowledge and wisdom, and knew as well as the old dramatists, their grand compeers, that "The heart May give an useful lesson to the head." Hence, without vanity, they relied more on themselves than most scholars, who are too often mere pedants. It is worthy of remark, that most of Barrow's sermons are rather moral dissertations, than what we would call, at the present day, evangelical discourses. Barrow comes nearer to a teacher of moral philosophy, than the ordinary standard of modern preaching will allow. It was his practice to write a series of sermons on certain topics of practical ethics (none the less Christian, though some would have us think so); thus, he has four sermons on industry, eight on the tongue, &c., &c. He seldom wrote less than two, and frequently three, on a single text. These are complete moral treatises. Though, in one sense, this may be considered a defect, yet, in our view (perhaps mistaken), it is a merit. Preaching too often departs from the themes of daily importance-the offices of familiar duty. Most congregations require to be taught their moral, as well as their religious duties (both parts of the same great scheme, and essentially one). We have never heard the orthodoxy of Barrow questioned, and yet it is certain he is more of a moral teacher than an Evangelical Divine. There is a palpable defect in Barrow. He is uniformly copious. He is often tedious. He is too apt to discuss a |