WE are not among the number of those who expect to make men good, merely by amusing them. The corruption of human nature lies too deep for any such superficial remedy. Nay, we have even heard of depraved individuals reading entertaining tracts, meant for their conversion, only with a view to learn more of the arts of wickedness. Black Giles and Tawny Rachel, for example, may have thus been made, as may some even of the narratives of Scripture itself, to minister to sin, "for to them that are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled." The dexterity of Mr. Bragwell (in the Two Farmers), in managing the sale of his land at the auction, so as to entrap unwary attendants, by a good dinner and the circulation of intoxicating liquors, into biddings far beyond the worth of his acres, may likewise have been faithfully copied by many, who would hoot down the whole Cheap-Repository system of instruction as fruitful in error and enthusiasm. Religious novels, so classified, may have done similar mischief; and we are not sure but that Celebs itself may have taught some of its fashionable readers to enter yet more extensively into the frauds and oppressive tactics practised upon defenceless trades men. But who is to be responsible for these ef fects? The reply is direct: They must answer for the consequence, who, by similar perversions of Christianity, would gladly take a lesson in the science of deception from the parable of the unjust steward; since, in that narrative also, the bane and the antidote are both set before them. In this relation, we might be justified in going even farther. We might plead, as already remarked, that a considerable portion of the sacred Scriptures themselves-of the book intended to purify us from the artifices, pollutions, and criminalities of the world-is occupied in describing processes of human depravity. Neither is this done in circumlocutory periods, and with the address of a modern fabulist, who hides the grossness of profligacy behind the mask of a cautious phraseology; but circumstances are told in the plainest and most undisguised terms. There is no effort at concealment. We are fully aware, also, of the fact, that the simplicity of scriptural narrative has become a source of infidel clamour; and we are farther conscious, that some of our recent "improvers" of the Bible, have judged it advisable, in their abridgments and digests, to omit what they regarded as objectionable; and thence have made very considerable concessions to the delicacy of unbelievers. This is not the place for rebutting accusations already answered, a thousand times, by eloquent and learned apologists. We introduce the matter, merely to remind the reader of the inexpediency of being jealous of those moral teachers who bring forward their remonstrances against sin, by first describing its malignity. Let no rustic clown justify his invasion of a neighbour's garden, or hen-roost, by pleading that he learned the arts of dishonesty school of Black Giles. Neither let th tised land-jobber defend his arrangem iniquity, by referring to the high exa Bragwell. And as to the patronesses of elegant department of crime-we tru no poor flower-girl, working sixteen day, in a stifling garret, by the bed-si sick mother, will labour on without p because some extravagant women of r read a parallel case in the pages of Must we also add, if the unjust stew commended because he had done wis be to that person who perverts this po the Scriptures to his own destruction; find here such practical heresy as may his progress to everlasting misery, bec Lord himself delivered a graphic exa the fraudulent policy of the world. But what have the authors of the ances first mentioned done, as well as i tales about the manners of men? W He who was Truth itself-spotless, pur filed, perfect; what did He do as well the most repulsive features of human ter? He described the guilt and mis fallen creature, in order to make that acquainted with his guilt and his mise this as a necessary preparation for the lessons he had in store, and was ready municate. He walked the vast infir the world, traversed its wide-extend crowded wards busy from couch to co to gather amusement, and to mock the ble by leaving them to perish; but might administer consolation, and mo consolation; a sovereign REMEDY-no ation, but a cure-perfectly adequate most wretched case, and offered to all pered and sin-sick souls, without re partiality. If Jesus Christ did this with a consc of his own entire ability and willing heal and bless the miserable, his discipl at all times, endeavoured to follow his whatever distance, and moving with v difficulty; and, in the connexion befor are bound to honour such instructors aspired to imitate a perfect example, sionally making fiction the vehicle of truth. We have the Pilgrim's Pro treasure of practical religion, though I the earthen vessel of an uninspired We since have had many treatises of t school; and in the passing day, it w ungrateful to forget certain popular who have done not a little towards re the spiritual movements of society, by something to attract their imagination monitory wisdom of the Gospel. This expression of our own grat quite consistent with the declaration never expect to convert bad men m diverting them-to crush vice by stre tertaining tracts in St. Giles's, and by exquisitely bound copies of Cœlebs to circles of fashion. No! neither do w least expect to demolish a well-known building in St. James's Street by a loa proprietor, of the Confessions of a G But this we venture to do, to thank th of the volume in question, for the se skill evidenced in the compilation of his narraivo. It is one of the happiest recent specimens of the art of making a trifler think. We do not ay, that a man already entangled in the toils of Newmarket, or the pandemonium of a gainbling house, will be delivered from his fetters by a perusal of these Confessions; but the book may be regarded as a powerful warning to such as are directly tempted to come within the banefully enchanted circle it so vividly describes. Both in medical and moral practice, it is more easy to prevent a disease than to cure it. Whether the book under consideration is all fiction or all fact, or a mixture of both, is, as we think, of no very serious importance to the public. Any work which tells what its writer, if he be competently acquainted with life and manners, supposes to be actually doing in the world, is practically true: and we no more doubt that the career run by the hero of this tale has been, and is now, pursued, or pursuing, by a fearful number of gamesters, than we doubt the past and present existence of the vulgar vices described by Fielding, or question the realities of the metaphysical wickedness which marked the literary society of Paris in the days of the Baron Grimm. imagination of bad men-may be attended with what have been called the compunctious visitings of nature; these things have sometimes darkly clouded the last days even of a gamester, and made him anticipate the terrors of an invisible state. But up to this dreary extremity of life he may have travelled with comparative quietness and freedom from alarm; and this is his very misery and ruin. Spiritual diseases are often as flattering as certain of those which affect only our physical frame. There is little pain. The fever itself-a mortal symptom-induces, as sometimes happens under the influence of opium, pleasurable and almost delicious feelings. But death-death-not to be ultimately shunned-not much longer to be contemplated at an indefinite distance-comes at last; and the veil of the eternal world hides the rest. The author, or editor, of these Confessions has, as we think, acted a most wise part in bringing the Gamester to his shroud-without hope, impenitent, and rejecting an offered salvation. Is this a cruel opinion? Shall we be blamed for almost rejoicing, that the narrative, supposing of course that it is fictitious, describes not a sinner that repenteth, but a sinner who perishes everlastingly? Let us explain. We The author, in the opinion of many readers, have long been much disgusted, but far more will have made his Gamester too successful, grieved, by reading, from time to time, narraand too hard-hearted. The first point we shall tives of the happy deaths of men who have not debate. The second admits of little hesi-lived protracted lives of deliberate wickedness. tation; because it appears to be all but impossible to set bounds to the degree of obduracy created in the human heart by the systematic pursuit of any given evil. In every instance, as Burns too exclusively says of a course of sin specified by himself, -it hardens all within, And petrifies the feeling! Gaming indeed is one of those departments of quilt which combine a certain exercise of the intellect with the indulgence of the baser passions. A devotee to the turf and the dice must be a man self-possessed, cool, collected, and capable of making complicated calculations. The tempter does not generally assault him by very sudden and perceptible attacks. In this respect, the sensualist-strange as it may sound has an advantage over the victims of avarice and the professors of play. If men die by their own suicidal hands, as bacchanalians, and as having given way to such animal lusts as war against the soul, their guilt is far more evident to themselves than is the case with the man who soberly retires to rest, with a head calm, though busy with the arithmetic and the computations of the succeeding day, and even when he foresees the ruin of his inexperienced dupes, who will come and flutter about his nets. He is wicked by rule and compass-by a kind of mathematical precision. His guilt is of the most malignant type-but its malignity is inferior. We therefore cannot wonder at hearing of gamblers who journey on to eternity itself without any very lasting remorse; Some of these die calmly in their beds, surrounded by weeping friends, and in the bosom of families brought to indigence and disgrace by their atrocities; but then comes the obituary, descriptive of their last days, as marked by an extraordinary change. This obituary circulates in magazines, and reprints, and tracts,and it is interesting; and all the friends of the dead are congratulated on the event; and so they wrap up the matter. But, on the very showing of many of these accounts, the report bears upon it the very impress of suspicion; and of apprehension, in all thoughtful minds, with regard to the state of the departed. Our clerical friends are too well aware of the difficulty of ascertaining, almost under any circumstances, the validity of recently formed pretensions to religion. The most sagacious among them, and those best acquainted with the mysterious and contradictory operations of their own minds, have been frequently puzzled and confounded in the attempt to estimate character; and in respect to death-bed scenes, we have known not a few clergymen of large experience confess the keenest bitterness of disappointment, in seeing many, many, persons totter back, even in the early stages of recovery from what was judged to be fatal indisposition, to the world, and to their former sins; and this, after hopeful symptoms of repentance; after decided acknowledgments of the peril they had incurred; and after as decided an assent by the lip to the doctrine and merciful offers of the Gospel! Instances such as these would do much, it might be sup question the soundness of cures performed by his brethren? We can indeed find an easy and honourable apology for their credulity. They take the merciful side; they hope against hope; they think other practitioners inore skilful than themselves: they would bid the apparent convert welcome to the fold; they would rejoice over any sinner that repenteth; they would exult in the high expectation of seeing another child of guilt and wretchedness rescued from the ruins of the fall. This is all well, and bespeaks the humility and meekness of heart possessed by these men. But they may not be quite aware, that thousands upon thousands will read the obituary with feelings of a very different character. And these are they who will quarrel with the author of the Gamester, for not having brightened the last days of a hoary profligate with the golden beams of hope. They will also look over the happy deaths of felons, without watching whether their contrition, self-abhorrence, particularity of confession, petitions for pardon addressed directly and importunately to those whom they have injured, whether these evidences of sincerity are, at least, equal to their expressions of hope, or, as is frequently the case, of high confidence. They will neglect to parallel the statement, in its just proportions, with the narrative of the thief on the cross; for though his case, under such circumstances, is a favourite reference, vet it is generally an abused one. What did the thief do? Far more than is stated to be done by some of our canonized felons! The leading characteristic in the penitent of Mount Calvary is self-abasement. The highest point of hope, in his example, is only discernible in an act of prayer. It is painful to note the diversity between the record of this man's dying moments, and the details of many a modern tract. ragraphs which appear in articles o gence on the day of an execution! There is also-and we state the mat in order to preserve the connexion of another most singular circumstance to our consideration in Newgate prac mean the custom, while leading felor gallows, of the Ordinary reading th service! How far he proceeds in it w aware. It cannot be that he actua "We give thee hearty thanks that pleased thee to deliver this our brothe the miseries of this sinful world.....be thee, that it may please thee, of thy goodness, shortly to accomplish the n thine elect, and to hasten thy kingdom if the service be curtailed, what parts a ted? If omitted, on what plea? who r the omission? There is such a mixtur incongruous with the awful, in askin questions, that we should have avoided sion to the subject, except that, as publ tion has been frequently and recently a to the religious ceremonies of our pris beg to contribute something on a passin sion, towards an inquiry into the prop the practices once more offered to our Delusion in some form must certainl and we wish, among other things, to whether it is the established routine chaplains of any gaol to administer, minately, the eucharist to all under s of death; and to thank God for their ance, by an executioner, from a wicked Several of our correspondents have alluded to the subject in our pages. We have mentioned the similarity b some well-meant and some Old-Bailey a of the last days of notorious offenders. instances, it is, practically, the tale of a conversion. A man is executed at the thirty-five, having consumed the last In reference to the point under discussion, it of his years in habits of fraud and vi is also observable, that there exists a strange and in the last fortnight of life becom and anomalous coincidence between these sus- cording to these statements," a new cr picious and premature accounts; for all along This is the essence of an account whi we are quite conscious of the distinction be- sometimes occupy two columns of a 1 tween the sincerity and insincerity connected per, drawn up and authenticated by N with stories of malefactors, as occasionally chroniclers; and which, under certain published by what are termed evangelical min- cal forms of religious phraseology, and p isters of religion, of various communions, and by a very different class of writers, will the ordinary newspaper articles communicated in the next number of some religious from Newgate. Had the writer of The Game-zine. Yet the chronicler and the m ster entrusted the completion of his story to a regular reporter for the periodical press, we imagine that the latter would too certainly have introduced into the chamber of the dying reprobate, a clergyman ready to administer the consolations of religion, and the solemn sacrament of the eucharist. We would be told of the devout behaviour of the recipient during the ceremony, his resignation, his last affecting interview with his family, his pious expressions; and we should probably be favoured with extracts from a letter written on the morning of his death to former companions, warning them against their infatuation and its consequences, and expressing the satisfaction he felt himself in having seen his errors, and having repented of them. The phrases in italics, as the reader must be well aware, may, alas! be ready stereotyped for most of the pa move in entirely opposite divisions of th tian world. The chronicler, on other oc would be the first to deride the doctrine den conversion; and would write many paragraph to expose the temerity and ness of a teacher who should counter system so perilous. He might also sea journals of the primitive Methodists fo ples to his purpose; and record, with t ant exultation, the ultimate confess Whitfield and Wesley, respecting the of many of their early converts. Ye is the definable distinction between me siently impressed by the sermon of preacher, and inen who repent, belie become happy, within sight of the These inconsistent divines seem to be p unconscious of their own practical adh "the dangerous delusions of sectariani We may reasonably complain, on the other hand, of some narrators, who ought to know better, when they virtually echo back the statements delivered by chroniclers whom they themselves would also, on other occasions, denounce as children of ignorance, and yet forming a junction with this very party on the platform of the gibbet. We know very well, that each party has meanings, expressions, inferences, cautions, and illustrations of its own: but we are only contending that, in point of fact, each arrives at the same conclusion, and tells the same tale: and here we leave this portion of the discussion. The writer of The Gamester, as we calculate, would support our remonstrances. It may be well, perhaps, to give a specimen of what has actually, and very recently, appeared in the newspapers, relative to the last days and deaths of criminals.-"John Orchard," says the Exeter Alfred of April 16, "was executed to-day at the new drop of the Devon County Gaol. His case excited very general attention, and, from his large family and respectable connexions, produced a considerable degree of sympathy in the public mind; so that motives of curiosity attracted a vast assemblage of persons to witness the awful spectacle of his death; and the more so, from the consideration that this unhappy victim to the laws of his country had for many years borne an irreproachable character, and was even instrumental, as an occasional preacher, in the Methodist connexion, of disseminating those important truths and precepts which, we lament to say, did not sufficiently impress his own heart with the real duty he owed to God and to his fellow men. In the moment of delusion he committed the act which rendered him amenable to the punishment he has undergone. "Since the sentence of condemnation was passed upon him, he became gradually more and more resigned to his fate; and in addition to the unremitting attention of the Rev. Mr. Chave, chaplain of the gaol, who daily visited him, he has been in the constant habit of also having religious advice given him by Mr. Burges, the Methodist minister officiating in this city. During the whole of the melancholy preparations, he was engaged in prayer, and on ascending the fatal ladder, and after the rope was adjusted round his neck, he still continued to supplicate for mercy, apparently unconscious of every thing around him. It was almost one o'clock when the drop fell, and his struggles were not violent, though several seconds elapsed before life was totally extinct. His wife and family, consisting of four small children, and a daughter by a former wife, have been constant in their visits to him; and yesterday his wife, daughter, with his wife's aunt, took their last and sad farewell. Every interest that could possibly be made was exerted the congregation at the gaol yesterday and to- No angry storms, no raging sea My faith a wreck can never be; And sing my hope, O Lord, in thee.'" Of the subject of this account, or even of his crimes, we have not the slightest knowledge, but have merely copied the statement from a provincial paper. But what will men think, In the same print we noticed the following anecdote: 6 "A Penitent.-At the last Salisbury Assizes, sentence of death was passed on Raymond Read, for horse-stealing; and from that moment, up to the time of his reprieve, no one could be more devout, or apparently penitent; but immediately on hearing that mercy had been obtained for him, he returned the Bible and Prayer Book which had been lent him, saying that he had now no further occasion for them.'"-What an example is this of the popular irony so perpetually furnished by the periodical press on serious subjects! Not one in a thousand loungers over a newspaper will read such a statement without thinking it an excellent jest. The circumstance of its being headed A PENITENT, bespeaks, and ensures, a laugh from every one who looks no further than amusement. Others may be awakened to the inquiry, whether the victims of the law, who now die so happily, and, as their biographers would persuade us, so secure from the terrors of eternity, would not, in many cases, dismiss their confessors and ministerial attendants as soon as they were released from the dread of an execution; and thus, John Orchard might have crossed over to the party of Raymond Read. A heathen poet said "Oderunt peccare mali, formidine pœnæ;" and in Christian countries, not only the same preventive of crime exists, but, we might add, bad men believe in the prospect of an ignominious death: let the executioner retire, and they believe no longer. We are reminded at this point of the embarrassment and distress often occasioned to pious clergymen, when re th bad mant who think at all, of a reporter who talks of a criminal having committed an act of felony, in the moment of delusion-and yet, by his own account, under circumstances of a nature too aggravated to entitle him to recommendation for mercy. All sin, it is true, is delusion; and we are warned to exhort one another, lest any one be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. But the climax of an atrocious crime is not reached by a process properly called delusion. Nemo repente fuit turpissimus, said a theologian of the pagan world, and so far he was certainly orthodox; for we cannot concede that, according to the general economy of the Divine government, any man is, as it were, so taken by surprise as to be instantaneously degraded into a reprobate. Extreme cases we do not touch. When it is asserted, in the example before us, that the party had for many years borne an irreproachable character, all that can be meant is, that his exterior was ostensibly respectable. But we know how easily the world is satisfied; and how negative may be the goodness which passes current in society. Many a person is irreproachable in general estimation, who, like the young ruler, goes away sorrowful from the requisitions of the Gospel, because he has great possessions. His treasures may not, indeed, be silver and gold, but things quite as dear to him, such as the love of fame or of money; or indulgence in any other occult and insidious passion, which may be always undermining his spiritual prosperity, though unseen by human eye. Had the Exeter Alfred delivered a detailed and faithful account of Orchard, telling of the individual all that he knew of himself, it is very possible that we should have had confessions on the part of the felon, of his having arrived at a capital crime at last, whether it was forgery, violation, murder, or treason-for we are quite ignorant on this point-as an overt act of sin, the first properly discernible by his fellow-creatures, but the result of concealed habits of guilt, such as he had contrived to hide from every witness, except from God and himself. It appears that he had once been a teacher of others. Perhaps he mistook a knowledge of religion for the possession of it; or he might have been dazzled by some degree of popularity into a persuasion of his own sincerity. Or he was, to a certain extent, successful, and assumed that he really valued the boon he communicated to others. But was he conscientious in private praverin the study of the Scriptures-in vigilance against the intrusions of animal appetite-in trying to keep himself unspotted from the world-in maintaining family religion-in pastoral fidelity, and simple adherence to the doctrines of the cross of Christ-and in so exercising himself unto godliness, as to be a living sermon of the truths he delivered from the pulpit? If the reply to these inquiries be conveyed in the form of a suspicious, hesitating, once indicates in what manner the ceremony is valued by the ignorant, and also the necessity of a mild firmness in refusing to administer the sacrament indiscriminately on the part of a pastor, whose senses are exercised to discern good and evil. Be not thou partaker of other men's sins. Keep thyself pure. half-consent; or if there be a dubious lifying negative, uttered with embar and blushes, we have a solution of t delusion. It was no surprise, but t fruit of a course of hypocrisy. He the flesh, and of the flesh reaped c and death. "We are surprised," Newton, in his table-talk with his bi "at the fall of a famous professor; b sight of God, the man was gone be only have now first discovered it. despiseth small things, shall fall by little." It is the same with persons o the lower, or lowest, walks of relig thus, individuals who pursue the ruin which, after numerous windings, term a scaffold, may have measured many on their downward path, before their has been perceived by human vision. B We feel the solemn importance of to these things, in order to disabuse rienced readers of the notion, that m by a kind of irresistible impulse, as they were stimulated onward by ur rude violence, and such as would dest moral responsibility. If this were r case, temptation would not appear in of allurement, but of compulsion; a would probably be no way of escape. tempted might be able to bear it. dealt with, in this relation, as creat may indeed have to struggle hard enemy, but with one who may be su "Resist the devil, and he will flee fro Take the instance of Judas: an observa er of his history will mark the trai proaches to his ultimate crime, and mark our Lord's consciousness of the ciple's character. There were the be affected compassion for the poor-h hood at the paschal supper, when his t was prophetically disclosed-and ot cumstances, indicative of something and suspicious-altogether a proof tha was premeditated, and only the overt man whose heart had long been es from his Master. Yet his character a ject were a profound secret to his bret When Jesus declared the presence of a the rest of the disciples wondered of spake. But to the divine prescience Lord he was already fallen. In the how many at Jerusalem did Judas pass for an irreproachable character, among the disciples themselves. We will farther illustrate our views serious question, by an easily supposal similar to what frequently occurs in th of domestic delinquency in our own The house steward of a nobleman, hi lord's confidence, is suddenly arrested veyed to prison, on a charge of forgery is an imitation of his patron's signatur family-and he has held a succession tions in the household for twenty y thrown into grief and consternation the rest of the domestics, and the inh of the village where the mansion is s are confounded as by the shock of a quake. Then come universal express surprise from the surrounding distric the accused party has borne "a most e |