THE GALLERY OF PORTRAITS. NO. VIII. THE REV. WATTS WILKINSON, A. M. "Meek as the chosen children of the just, Who o'er the earth with heaven's glad tidings ran; Mildly he bears his delegated trust, The messenger of God, the friend of man ! MERCER. PROVIDENCE has wisely ordained that conscience should approve or condemn us, according to our actions; hence there is always either a feeling of approbation or remorse on looking back upon the past. If we have mispent our time, or misused the opportunities presented to us for doing good to ourselves and to others, old age must bring with it feelings of a very painful description; but if, on the contrary, we have used every moment of our time to some good purpose, and improved every talent committed to our care, then conscience approves, and the mind enjoys a calm and uninterrupted serenity while reflecting upon the past. This serenity tends much to disarm death of its terrors, and make our passage across the flood easy and desirable. If we possess it, we shall hail the summons which calls us away from the perplexities and cares of earth, and be glad to "mount up, as on angel's wings," to the throne of God, there to abide in his presence for ever. Surely the feelings of the devout Simeon, and of the apostle Paul, when contemplating their dissolution, are desirable; and it is well for us, if we, like them, wish "to depart” in the full assurance of faith, knowing that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. There is, however, something peculiarly encouraging, not only to the aged Christian himself but to the younger disciple, when contemplating a long life spent in holy and useful exertion; more especially, when all the powers of the mind and body have been directed to the great object of preaching Jesus Christ and him crucified. It proves the truth and reality of the religion we profess-it adds another to the many inducements which already press upon us, "to be about our father's business." It speaks largely of the power of God, of the comfortings of the Holy Spirit, of an inward and spiritual strength communicated from on high, and is a lovely exhibition of the fruits of faith, and of the influence of Christianity, in forming the character and directing the energies of the mind, to the performance of "every good and perfect work." We therefore look upon an aged Christian, and an aged Christian minister, with reverence. We do not, however, pay homage to the man but to the divine principle which has made him what he is. We love to contemplate his character, but are ready, at all times, to give the glory to God. Still, it is a useful thing at all times to hold up such characters as ensamples. And, assuredly, the church flourishes most when old disciples abound, and when the young ones are found sitting at their feet, learning from their lips lessons of experience, and listening with devout attention while they recount the dealings of God with them, during their career. We believe that the work of sanctification is progressive, and that often the young Christian is perplexed with many doubts and fears; it is not always that he rests upon the mount, and enjoys uninterrupted felicity. There is many a hill of difficulty to ascend; many a dreary valley to cross, ere we arrive at the full assurance of faith, or become so instructed in the mysteries of redeeming love, as to be able to say with the great apostle " I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor heighth, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord." Is it not, then, encouraging for us to learn from aged Christians, that their way, like ours, has sometimes been difficult, dark, and dreary; but that, after a time, they have emerged into a beautiful and pleasant country, where their souls have been fed in the green pastures of the gospel, and made to repose by the still waters of peace. It is, for this reason, that we delight to listen to the ministrations of an aged servant of Christ, like the one before us. The appearance of Mr. Wilkinson in the pulpit is venerably pleasing; age has silvered over his head, and given him a crown of glory. His voice, although not good, retains even now something of the freshness of youth. He has but little action-that he has, is simple and appropriate. The sermons of Mr. Wilkinson, although neither distinguished for elegance of language, logical acuteness, methodical arrangement, nor deep and profound theological discussion are yet well adapted to inform, instruct, and comfort the Christian. Age has given him experience, and experience authority, so that he teaches without hesitation, the great truths of the Bible. Accurately acquainted with the workings of the human mind, and able to discover all the frivolous pretexts men make to avoid the inward reception of the truth, Mr. Wilkinson lays bare the source of their opposition; shews them their danger, and points out with earnestness and simplicity the one great sacrifice of the Redeemer, as the only atonement for sin. 1 It is, however, when discoursing of the privileges and enjoyments of the people of God that he is most at home. Here his heart is enlarged; his speech tells of heaven, and having himself “fed on angel's food" he is anxious to impart to his hearers the same celestial gift. Then it is, that, in strains as sweet As angels use, the gospel whispers peace, Sound in the faith, well versed in the scriptures and experienced in the christian life, Mr. Wilkinson touches upon most of the subjects which belong to the inward religion of the true Christian. He is a faithful and persuasive expounder of the word of God. Belonging to the old school of divines, his remarks have in them much truth, compressed into a small compass, while one of his sermons contains as much true divinity as is to be found in ten of a more modern cast. The deportment of Mr. Wilkinson in the desk and pulpit is solemn; and he seems impressed with awe at the recollection that God is present in the assemblies of his people. Mr. Wilkinson reads the prayers with a slow and impressive voice, and gives much effect to those venerable compositions. They appear imbued with new life, when coming from his lips, and although there may be many better readers than Mr. Wilkinson, none put "more of their heart" into the acts of devotion than he does. We have often wondered that a clergyman, who, like Mr. Wilkinson, has stood for years so high in the estimation of the religious world, should not have met with some better preferment than that which he at present holds. Is it because he disdains to court popularity? or that patient merit is not sought out? or that evangelical ministers are yet distasteful "to the powers that be?" Truly, we cannot divine which, or whether all of these reasons have combined to keep him stationary for so many years, but we do feel assured that those who have it in their power to advance his temporal interests ought not to overlook his claims. Mr. Wilkinson was formerly chaplaiu to the Haberdasher's Company. He has for years preached, and still preaches the "Golden Lecture" on the Tuesday morning at St. Bartholomew, near the Exchange; and is the afternoon Lecturer of St. Mary, Aldermary, Watling-street. CRITICAL NOTICES OF BOOCS. EIGHTEEN PRACTICAL DISCOURSES for Families and Young Persons; being Sketches of Sermons delivered at Bermondsey Chapel, Neckinger Road, Surrey. By JAMES CARTWRIGHT. London. Palmer, PaternosterRow. 1829. pp. 191. Price 3s. It has often been a matter of surprise to us, that although such numbers are engaged in the Christian ministry, and such opportunities abound in their profession for the display of impassioned eloquence and lofty sentiments, so few volumes of sermons that deserve to live in the recollection of posterity should issue from the press. It is true, however, that the present age can boast of a Chalmers, a Foster, and a Hall, men of the very greatest powers, and whose slightest sketches betray the hands of masters in their vocation. But, notwithstanding this, when we compare the numbers engaged with the very few who have attained the palm of excellence, we must confess either that eloquence is declining amongst us, or, that there is some cause which prevents its full exercise. We are unwilling to admit the former; and are, therefore, rather desirous to look for the causes of the declension of eloquence in the pulpit to the very taste and genius of the age. It has been said that this is an age of induction, and that those who teach Christianity should insist upon its evidences in the same mode as they would insist upon the evidence derivable from this species of proof, from a view of the works of nature. This is certainly calculated to destroy the exercise of fancy and imagination in the conveyance of divine truth, as few facts can be embellished with the tropes of rhetoric. Again, it is said that, this is a reasoning and reflecting age, and therefore men require truth to be delivered to them, not in the gay allurements of eloquence, but in the sober dress of unadorned language. If this be true it presents a still further reason to show, not that eloquence has declined, but that its exercise has been restrained. But is there not, we may enquire, something in the very sublimity and grandeur of the themes upon which the preacher dilates that is calculated in every rightly constituted mind, to prevent a display of mental power beyond that which is absolutely necessary. Life, death, eternity, heaven, hell, are things of such unutterable importance to the well-being of every one, that it may be supposed preachers are afraid to adorn them by eloquent and highly wrought descriptions lest their hearers should forget the import of the themes, and fix their attention only upon the beauty of the language or the propriety and variety of the figures and illustrations employed. We think some of these reasons may be fairly assigned, to shew that pulpit eloquence has not declined, but rather, that it has taken a new direction, and is employed in teaching truth in a mode less calculated to admit those sallies of imagination-those bursts of holy enthusiasm, and those luxuriant excursions of the fancy, which adorn some of the writings of our elder divines. Be this as it may, it is certain that the published labours of our divines do not, as a whole, exhibit that power of mind, and felicity of language, and exuberance of imagination, which we should naturally expect to find in their writings. There is a mediocrity both of thought and expression for which we cannot account, so that we turn almost instinctively from a volume of sermons, unless it bears the name of some celebrated man. The press is inundated with volumes, which ought never to have seen the light; but, from this censure, we must except the work before us. It is evidently the production of a young author, but it bears the stamp of a man, in thought and expression. The sketches are all on interesting subjects, and touch on the practical beauties of religion. The author thinks for himself. He has evidently studied the Bible well, and is experimentally acquainted with its divine truths, hence he writes with a force and vigour which reach the heart. His conceptions of truth are distinct, and his mode of expression at once terse and luminous, while sentiments of genuine piety adorn every page. The book is admirably adapted for family worship, and we trust it will find its way into many houses as an excellent assistant to private devotions. Like Jay, the author takes some beautiful passage as a text, and proceeds in a strain of unaffected eloquence to explain or enforce it. We have not room for many extracts, but we select the following as a specimen of our author's style. He is discoursing from the text, "But we have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us.' "When we consider the greatness of this treasure, and the consequences dependant on its proper application;-even a higher glory to God than what he had derived from any previous operations, and the recovery of man from the ruins of the fall, we are astonished to see it committed to such keeping. If mortals are to be entrusted with such a treasure, we might have been ready to exclaim, give it to the Greeks, who were then illustrious through the world for wisdom, that this patronage may soften the prejudices of men, and induce them to consider its heavenly institutions. Let the Romans also have part in the commission, that it may have the benefit of their guardian shields. But when we see him fixing, for this important office, upon a few obscure fishermen, drawn from the Lake of Galilee, we would have said, put the world in sackcloth, and proclaim a fast throughout the families of men; let there be wailing, and lamentation, and bitter mourning; let their head be waters, and their eyes a fountain of tears, for God has forgotten to be gracious; he hath repented of his merciful intentions to man; he hath in anger shut up his tender mercies, and will be favourable no more. "Yet if there was ever any thing calculated to astonish us, it is the hyperbole,—the vast exhibition, the excellency of power and influence displayed by the gospel, through this common and unpromising medium. Picture to yourselves the first marching of this feeble band of preachers, the circumstances in which they found mankind, and the glorious issue even of the first campaign. Christianity lives by priestcraft,-by the policy of statesmen, by adapting itself to the superstitions of the vulgar,' exclaims the infidel. But surely, if at that period it had no other support, it would have been immediately smothered, as all men accounted it a monstrous birth, and eagerly expected its end. The unknown, the powerless, and, with but one exception, the unlettered disciples of Jesus Christ proceed against the Pagan religion: a religion that, by its pompous rites and observances, fed all the vanity of the human mind, and by its licentious indulgences, feasted all the sinful appetites of the human heart! a religion which pleased men by nearly the total absence of vindictive sanctions, and was endeared to them by the associations which it ever brought along with it, being graced by the names of law-givers, heroes, and other celebrated men, whom they had been taught to imitate and reverence; its defects had been concealed, and its beauties heightened by all the rich and romantic fancies of the greatest poets; it had been the religion of their fathers and ancestors, and had grown up and mingled itself with all the institutions of their country. Was it likely that the Christian system would have prospered, if it had depended upon the popular vote, seeing Paganism had such hold upon the inhabitants of almost all countries. Yet the apostles, going out with the gospel as their only weapon, wrenched from its fastnesses the mighty fabric of heathenism, and scattered it in fragments through the earth. So far from receiving popular countenance, when the disciples first came and told mankind that they were sent to overturn their false theology by the foolishness of preaching, and exhorted them to believe on Jesus, who was crucified, and who, according to the flesh, was a Jew, the very name of which was odious to a Roman or a Greek, the world knew not whether to apply ridicule or punishment, and Festus cried, 'Paul, thou art beside thyself:' and certain philosophers of the Stoics and Epicureans encountered him, crying, what will this babbler say But, when the world beheld the banners of the Cross floating from new eminences, it rose in arms, and beat, and imprisoned, and banished, and beheaded, and burnt, and crucified, and threw to savage beasts, and persecuted to death in all its frightful shapes the ministers and disciples of Jesus Christ. Yet, amidst all, the cause advanced, and learned men, and wealthy men, and official men, and even some in Cæsar's household, embraced the faith; and thirty or forty years after Christ, there were churches in Asia Minor, Palestine, Greece, and Italy; seventy years after Christ, Christians were so numerous, that Pliny declares, the Pagan altars were, in some parts, quite forsaken; and so early as the fourth century the whole Roman power was professedly Christian. ?' "How, at the present day, has it ad vanced; what are its triumphs, or who can' tell? Its trophies are to be found in every part of the globe, even "In climes beyond the solar road Where shaggy forms o'er ice-built mountains roam, Its sun has broke the twilight gloom, ture. ་ To cheer the shivering native's dull abode." What is more remarkable than its influence on individual character? The depravity of man is so obvious, that very few have had the hardihood to deny he is a fallen creaSuffer us then to ask, what has been done by any other religion to remedy the evil? Human ethics and discipline have, indeed, sometimes drawn men from the open commission of some notorious sins, but they have left uncleansed the well-spring of the heart; they have merely changed the mode of sinning, but not weakened the principle: for, whilst they have lopped off some of the sins of the flesh; those of the spirit, as, selfrighteousness and pride have grown the faster. The gospel only produces a total renovation in the man, and of him only who has sincerely embraced it, can it be affirmed that, once he was darkness, but now light in the Lord,' that he is a new creature ;' that old things are passed away, and all things are become new.' Innumerable instances shew us where it has changed the whole course of life, and produced conduct in all respects unimpeachable; where it has made the most abandoned characters conspicuous in the paths of virtue; where it has made notoriously wicked men estimable in all the domestic and civil relations,-good subjects, good masters, good servants, good husbands, good wives, good parents, good children, good sisters, brothers, friends, and neighbours; overcoming the most inveterate propensities to evil, and rendering the licentious pure, the proud man humble, the rich man poor in spirit, the poor man contented with his lot; where in the language of Decourcy, 'It has brought the self-conceited rationalist to the feet of Jesus, in the hcaracter of a pupil, a novitiate, a fool; where it has made the resentful patient of injuries, and forgiving, even if sinned against ninety and nine times; where it has subdued the selfishness of the human breast, and strongly imbued it with a benevolence and a charity that esteems every man a brother, whom we are bound to serve in every possible way, and that considers it binding to love our neighbour as ourselves: finally, impelling. the individual to follow after whatsoever things are honest, and pure, and lovely, and of good report, and to furnish in his life an echo to that apostolic injunction, 'Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking be put away, with all malice, having your conversation in heaven, blameless and harmless, the sons of God without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, and shining as lights in the world." We hope this volume will meet with such a favourable reception as to induce its eloquent author again to devote his attention to some religious work which will be more likely to be read in a larger circle than a volume of sermons. He has talents, let him not hide them in a napkin. BIBLE HISTORIES; Illustrated by fifty-two Engravings, representing some of the most Remarkable Events recorded in the Old and New Testaments. London. Ackermann, Strand. 1829. pp. 180. Price 12s. THIS is a most beautifully illustrated and highly entertaining book-and is well adapted to awaken in the minds of the children of the higher classes of society, a love for the inimitable beauties of Scripture narrative. We can most cordially recommend it to the attention of our readers. It contains fifty-two narratives, founded upon and almost in the words of Scripture, and each subject is illustrated by a spirited engraving. The typographical part of the work has also been carefully attended to, as might have been expected, in a volume issuing from Mr. Ackermann's hands. He has many and great claims upon the public, for his endeavours to unite, as he has done on several occasions-the productions of mind, with the beauties of art; and, in the volume before us, he has laid the public under fresh obligations. Our limits will not allow us to make extracts, but we must remark, that the style of the author is chaste and simply elegant; and his general views of Scripture correct. We had marked one or two errors for correction, but think it unnecessary to mention them, as they appear so obvious as not to mislead. We hope, to use the words of the preface, “that the delineations, presented in the volume, may be the means of exciting in the mind of the juvenile reader in particular, a desire for a more extensive and more intimate acquaintance with the contents of the Sacred Volume. We do not know of a more elegant gift which could be presented to any young person, either as a reward-book or a birth-day testimonial, than the volume before us, combining, as it does, treasures both for the gratification of the eye, and the improvement of the mind. So much has the sentiment of the vast superiority of American piety gone forth, that attempts have been made to account for it, instead of first moving the question, whether such be really the case or not? Although that, I conceive, would have been the most proper point first to decide. But after all I have read or heard upon the subject, I would not barter the religion of England for that of America. In each country it is tinged by the character of the nation. In the Republic it has all the rude, unrestrained impetuosity of the republican character-every feeling has an outward visible mark, and an audible language; whatsoever is, is seen at once, and heard aloud: but, in England, religion flows a deep, continual, silent stream; felt by its possessor in the consolation which it affords; the restraints it imposes; the hope, the joy, the support of its influences: teaching, cherishing, chastening the spirit in secret; and causing it to bear many sorrows, and to pass through many difficulties known only to himself. Such an one neither seeks or desires public manifestation of his profession but in the retirement of the domestic circle, and the still deeper retirement of his own closet, lives and acts beneath its power. Is religion to be measured by the number of public meetings attended, to the evident neglect of many towards their own households ? Is not every Christian's first duty in his own family, of which he is appointed priest and instructor? Do Mothers show forth the duties of christian women, who leave their homes to attend female prayer-meetings? Is it any improvement in the character of English women, that they should (as has lately been the case with us, although I |