Ephraim shall not be jealous of Judah;
Ând Judah shall not be at enmity with
Ephraim.

14. But they shall invade the western borders of the Philistines;

And they shall spoil the children of the east;

On Edom and Moab they shall lay their hand;

And the children of Ammon shall obey them.

15. And JEHOVAH shall smite the tongue of the Egyptian sea, f

And shake his hand over the river with

a vehement wind;

And he shall strike it into seven streams; And make them pass over it dry-shod. 16. And there shall be a highway for the remnant of his people.

Which shall remain from Assyria;
Like as it was to Israel,

In the day when he came up from the
land of Egypt. h

CRITICAL NOTICES OF BOOKS.

THE WOMAN OF SHUNEM, a Dramatic Sketch. PATMOS, a fragment, and other poems. By JAMES EDMESTON, Author of Sacred Lyrics, &c. London. Henry Goode and Co. 1829. pp. 124. Price 3s. 6d. THE character and tendency of Mr. Edmeston's poetry is too well known to nced any encomium from us. He has already attained a good reputation amongst the friends of piety, for his efforts to unite poetry and religion. In these, we think he has been eminently successful; for, although his muse makes no pretensions to the grand or sublime, yet there is to be found, in all his verses, tender and beautiful sentiments, clothed in elegant and appropriate language.

The Sacred Lyrics were distinguished by their devotional tone-the easy flow of their versification, and an abundance of truly poetical expressions and ideas. And, although not aiming at the higher range of subjects, they were sufficient to prove that the author possessed considerable talents, and had within him the seeds of true poetry. We are happy to say that the present volume will not disappoint the expectations raised by Mr. Edmeston's former works; it but tends to exalt his character as a poet, in the estimation of his friends. It is true, that as a whole, it is not equal, and this must always be the case where a volume is made up of so great a variety of pieces as the present; but there are, nevertheless, detached poems which would not discredit some of the first names of the age.

We think the woman of Shunem, although distinguished by several poetical and highly beautiful passages, is, on the whole, a failure. It may however, be the inimitable simplicity of the narrative in holy writ, which indisposes the mind to peruse any attempt to render the story more interesting, by the addition of poetical illustration, which induces us to draw this conclusion. Almost all attempts to dramatise scripture history have failed, and that, whether made by men of great poetical talents, or those of inferior genius. We can only account for this in the repugnance which the mind feels to any, the least alteration of the sacred word, and to those amiable prejudices which endear to the Christian the venerable expressions of the sacred volume.

Patmos is written in a more ambitious style, and, if the author could be persuaded to finish it, and correct some of its faults, it would be esteemed a poem of great merit. It certainly contains some sublime sentiments, and there is a religious fervour in it which warms and inte

rests the mind in its perusal. Our limits forbid us to make any extracts.

The remainder of the volume is filled by miscellaneous pieces, which afford us most delight. Several of them are exquisite morsels, and some of the sonnets are distinguished by the melody of their versification, and the beautiful thoughts with which they abound. We hesitate not to say that Mr. Edmeston has succeeded better in some of these sonnets, than most of the living poets of the age. We think (and this is no slight praise) that some of them are fully equal to any that Wordsworth has written: The following will enable our readers to judge for themselves.

"" A CROWN OF LIFE."

Life! matchless gift! thou gushest from thy springs

Of soft sensation and supreme delight; Feeling and passion, and the wondrous flight

Of fancy on her strong celestial wings; Thine is the melody sweet music rings, And beauty's graceful form and colours bright:

Yet all we know of life, is but the gleam That gilds the gray mist of the morning sky,

Ere yet the sun hath risen, and the eye Caught the full splendour of his cloudless beam.

Here life is mix'd with death, and like a dream

Compared with yonder immortalityPure perfect life, no death, nor gloom, nor pain,

All light, unmingled light, without a stain!

FAITH.

When on some lofty prospect hill I stand, And Faith's strong vision gazes o'er the

scene,

How short the vale appears which lies between

The pleasant summit and the promised land! The stream of Death, which rolls its gloomy

waves

Across the last rough portion of the way, Seems but a rippling brook which gently laves

The hither border of the land of day.Oh, to be ever in a frame like this!

It makes the heavenly future even now, And sheds a gleam of glory o'er the brow, Reflected from the radiancy of bliss! And immortality itself appears,

Already sprung from out the term of years.

There are who says that Grecian song Gave every stream and wood a tongue; And rock, or field, or hill, or dale, Had each its nymph and classic tale ;— But when stern christian truth had spread, # Each bright imagination fled,

And fields and streams were call'd to mourn The vanish'd nymph and broken urn.

What blindness! who could wander o'er
Or field, or wood, or sea, or shore,
Or sunny hill, or shady vale-

By noonday beam, or moonlight pale-
And not perceive, where'er he trod,
The print and footstep of a God;
And feel it paradisal ground,
To find his presence all around!

The great charms of Mr. Edmeston's poetry consists in the soul of piety which pervades it. There is not only nothing which can offend the purest mind, in this volume, but much that will delight and interest the reader.

THE LIBRARY OF RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE. -NATURAL THEOLOGY. Parts 1 and 2, pp. 82. Price 1s. London, Hessey, 1829. WE have ever been the advocates for the diffusion of knowledge amongst the people, not because we think there is a necessary, but because we believe there is an intimate connection between divine and human knowledge. It is true, that the latter unsanctified, is apt to puff up the mind, and render it averse to study

the truths of revelation; hence we should rather have desired to see the universal promulgation of divine truth precede the diffusion of literary and scientific knowledge. But, as this is now, in the very nature of things impossible, we do not wish to stay the education of the people, until they have been instructed in the mysteries of redemption; we do not like to reject a partial, because we cannot obtain a universal blessing; we are therefore content to approve every effort which is made to teach the people sound and practical knowledge, being assured, that even that is to them an essential benefit. Yet, we own that it has hitherto surprised us, that no body of learned divines, or Christian laymen, competent to the task, should have made any effort to meet the growing appetite of the people for mental food, or attempted in some more suitable mode, to impress upon them the all important things which belong to their salvation. The press teems with books of religious instruction, but there are but few which are adapted to the spirit and manners of the age.

Men now require novelty in the mode by which knowledge is to be acquired, and, that it should be communicated in popular a manner. It will not do to put into their hands the profound, learned, and argumentative works of Chillingworth, Barrow, Clarke, Cudworth, and a host of others: these may afford delight to a few master minds, but they are too deep, too long, and require too much time to understand and appreciate their value, to be of any use to the great bulk of the people. The knowledge which is to be found in these works must be condensed, their arguments rendered popular, and the whole reduced from the bulky folio, to the compass of a modern twelves. This change, which is absolutely necessary in the present state of society, has not been sufficiently attended to by our religious writers. When the great men enumerated above, wrote, their works were read only by those who had full leisure to digest their contents; but now that a taste for reading has become so general, and the pursuits of business allow but little time for profound study, men of genius must, in order to be useful, accommodate themselves to the people. This the projectors of the Library of Religious Knowledge have done, and they certainly deserve the thanks and support of the public forthe efforts they have already made.

We wish their work may be successful, as it will in some measure supply the deficiency we have noticed. The two parts before us are extremely well written, the argument is conducted in a plain and popular manner, and the illustrations which are to be found in the course of the treatise, are correctly and beautifully executed. The work is also got up in a neat style, and if the succeeding numbers are like the first two, we think there can be no doubt of their success. The prospectus embraces a great variety of subjects, which cannot fail to become extremely interesting, if treated with ability.

THE DIVINE PRESENCE.

GOD is especially present in the hearts of his people, by his Holy Spirit: and, indeed, the hearts of holy men are temples in the truth of things, and in type and shadow they are heaven itself. For God reigns in the hearts of his servants-there is his kingdom, the power of grace has subdued all his enemies-there is his power. They serve him night and day, and give him thanks and praise—that is his glory. This is the religion and worship of God in the temple. The temple itself is the heart of man, Christ is the high priest, who, from thence, sends up the incense of prayers, and joins them to his own intercession, and presents all together to his Father and the Holy Ghost; by his dwelling there, he has also consecrated it into a temple, and God dwells in our hearts by faith, and Christ by his Spirit, and the Spirit by his purities, so that we are also cabinets of the mysterious Trinity, And what is this short of heaven itself, but as infancy is short of manhood, and letters of words? The same state of life it is, but not the same age; it is heaven in a looking-glass (dark yet true) representing the beauties of the soul, and the graces of God, and the images of his eternal glory, by the reality of a special preserve.

JEREMY TAylor.

VARIETIES.

ENGLAND. In an oration before the Pilgrim Society of America, Professor Everett thus refers to England: how beautiful, how just!" I tread with reverence the spots, where I can retrace the footsteps of our suffering fathers; the pleasant land of their birth has a claim on my heart. It seems to me a classic, yea, a holy land, rich in the memories of the great and good; the martyrs of liberty; the exiled heralds of truth; and richer as the parent of this land of promise in the west. I am not-I need not say I am not the panegyrist of England. I am not dazzled by her riches, nor awed by her power. The sceptre, the mitre, and the coronet, stars, garters, and blue ribbons, seem to me poor things for great men to contend for. Nor is my admiration awakened by her armies, mustered for the battles of Europe; her navies overshadowing the ocean; nor her empire grasping the farthest east. It is these, and the price of guilt and blood by which they are maintained, which are the cause why no friend of liberty can salute her with undivided affections.

But

it is the refuge of free principles, though often persecuted; the school of religious liberty, the more precious for the struggles to which it has been called; the tombs of those who have reflected honour on all who speak the English tongue; it is the birth place of our fathers, the home of the pilgrims; it is these which I love and venerate in England. I should feel ashamed of an enthusiasm for Italy and Greece, did I not also feel it for a land like this. In an American it would seem to me degenerate and ungrateful, to hang with passion upon the traces of Homer and Virgil, and follow without emotion the nearer and plainer footsteps of Shakspeare and Milton; and I should think him cold in his love for his native land, who felt no melting in his heart for that other native land, which holds the ashes of his forefathers."

SPURIOUS GOSPELS.-It is no discredit to the apostolic writings that weak and dishonourable men, who had their own selfish ends to answer, attempted imitations of them, and used such artifices as they could to gain credit to their inventions; on the contrary, it is a circumstance which enhances the honour and aids the security of our Scriptures, for two reasons; first, the existence of counterfeits is an evidence of both the reality and the value of that which is true and genuine ; secondly, this fact excited the general body of the earliest christians to be so much the

more careful in separating true from false compositions. Indeed, the forgery of books under the names of great men, was anciently a very common practice. Suetonius complains of such supposititious writings, both prose and verse, circulated as the productions of Horace, though he lived less than a hundred years after the poet's death. Several orations and epistles were given to the world as Cicero's, and their spuriousness remained long without detection: and forged works published under the name of Orpheus, Hermes, Zoroaster, and many other revered names.-Dr. J. P. Smith.

WONDERS OF NATURE.-There is a very curious plant, termed dionaa muscipula, or fly trap, that secretes a sweetish fluid in its leaves, not unlike honey, by which flies are attracted; immediately on being touched, the leaf contracts, and being of a thorny prickly nature, the animal is crushed to death, as if for its temerity.

SPECIFICS.-The French Government, as well as our own, has in more than one instance, given large sums for the purchase of specifics, that their composition might be made known for the benefit of the community. In the reign of Charles II. Dr. Goddard obtained five thousand pounds for disclosing his secret for making a medicine called Guttæ Anglicanæ. And in 1732, the Parliament of England voted five thousand pounds to Mrs. Stevens, for a solvent for the stone. The celebrated David Hartly was very instrumental in procuring this grant. He also obtained a private subscription to the amount of one thousand threehundred and fifty six pounds; published one hundred-and-fifty-five successful cases;

and, to prove the sincerity of his own faith, after eating two hundred pounds weight of soap, died himself of stone. Who could believe that a philosopher would eat two hundred pounds weight of soap?—a bishop drink a butt of tar-water?-or that in a course of chemical neutralization, Mayer should swallow twelve hundred pounds weight of crabs' eyes?— Wadds' Mems.

MAKING GOOD A TITLE.-According to the Asiatic Researches, a very curious mode of trying the title of land is practised in Hindostan. Two holes are dug in the disputed spot, in each of which the plaintiff and defendant's lawyers put one of their legs, and remain there until one of them is tired, or complains of being stung by the insects, in which case his client is defeated. In this country, says a facetious writer, it is the client, and not the lawyer, who puts his foot into it.

No. 11.]

[PRICE 3d.

BY THE

I SHALL not delay your attention to the more immediate and interesting subject of this beautiful psalm, and the important truth contained in my text, by noticing the conflicting opinions as to its author; whether it was produced by David, by Asaph, or by Jeremiah. In the case of the two former, it must be considered as the language of prophecy; in the case of the latter, it must be regarded as the language of an eye-witness, deeply feeling the calamity he deplores, as well as the need of the blessing for which he devoutly intercedes. The object in both cases is the same: the writer deplores their present oppressed and sorrowful condition, expresses an ardent desire that they might be delivered from that condition, and entertains a hope that the time would arrive when they should be reinstated in the possession of the privileges they had lost.

There are, however, two particulars which well deserve our notice: the first is, that the writer viewed the hand of GoD in all that related to the nation and the church. He was not one of those philosophical geniuses who ascribe all that happens to chance, to accident, to fate, and to I know not what inferior agents: he rises above all second causes, and sees GOD in all the storms that gathered round the church, and in all the tremendous calamities inflicted on the people who had rebelled against him. And then, there is a second feature: he gave himelf to earnest PRAYER. While the council of Babylon sat in deliberation; while the troops were gathering to go to the people, among whom they were to be dispersed ; while infidelity and scepticism triumphed; while "the enemy reproached, and the foolish people blasphemed the name of the LORD," he enters into his closet; he

VOL. I.

shuts his door about him; he pens down his feelings amidst the agitated scene, and earnestly implores the blessing of the great Head of the church. "O GOD, why hast thou cast us off for ever? why dost thine anger smoke against the sheep of thy pasture? Remember thy congregation which thou hast purchased of old; the rod of thine inheritance, which thou hast redeemed. Arise, O GOD, plead thine own cause: remember how the foolish man reproacheth thee daily. Forget not the voice of thine enemies: the tumult of those that rise up against thee increaseth continually.'

"

PRAYER, my dear hearers, is the grand refuge of the people of GOD in times of public perturbation. Prayer is the means by which, while others are rocked and agitated by the storm, we may repose in perfect calm. How forcibly are we reminded of the words of the poet :

"Some angel guide my pencil, while I draw,
What nothing else than angel can exceed,
A man on earth, devoted to the skies;
Like ships at sea, while in, above the world.
With aspect mild, and elevated eye,
Behold him seated on a mount serene,
Above the fogs of sense, and passion's storm.
All the black cares and tumults of this life,
Like harmless thunders, breaking at his feet,
Excite his pity, not impair his peace."

"Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee; because he trusteth in thee."

But I will not detain you longer with introductory remarks: justice to the author of the psalm required these. I propose, First, to furnish you with some observations on the cause of GOD: And, Secondly, to shew you in what way an enlightened Christian desires his prayer may be fulfilled, when he says, "Arise, O GOD, plead thine own cause!"

M