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ferences in aid of the external evidences of our religion: where they are not examples to direct and animate us, yet, at the very worst, they are beacons to warn us, they are memorials of past generations which may throw light on the transactions of the present or of those yet to come; for many a heresy, and many a folly that has risen and set, will rise again. But I may seem chargeable myself with that ignorant and rash anticipation which I have been condemning. What the Fathers are, remains in a great measure to be proved: though not entirely, yet in a great degree they are a terra incognita: I therefore repeat the question, where shall we find the means of setting on foot a journey of discovery, in which principle and not profit must be the inciting cause, in which many a dreary desert must be passed with only here and there an oasis to relieve and refresh the weary traveller, and all the merit even of that discovery often be forestalled by an idle index student?

I pause before I proceed to answer this question, because I am aware that my suggestions may appear Utopian: however, if I were to form a conclusion upon this subject, it should be this, that since, as before remarked, all authors, whether ancient or modern, to be treated fairly, should be judged by those who really read them through, and collect their doctrines and principles from the whole of their works, and not from garbled extracts; and since, in the present instance, this is confessedly beyond the powers or inconsistent with the avocations of individuals, I would invite a sort of joint-stock company of Biblical students, to contribute their proportion of labour to this object, and to give the results occasionally to the public. Small efforts, like rays of light, feeble when scattered, might be of great power condensed to a focus. Such contributions, preserved and concentrated in your pages, would amount in time to a solution of many doubts and diffi

culties relating to the ancient Fathers, and afford frequent illustrations and valuable hints respecting the canonical Scriptures themselves; for the study of the canonical Scriptures in the original languages, the devout and diligent study of them, should be the paramount duty of every theologian; and it is in subordination to this great and leading object, that my remarks respecting the Fathers are to be understood. Had a very small department of your work, twenty years ago, been devoted to these voluminous and venerable authors, upon a discreet and regular plan, considerable progress might have been made, and many elucidations of the Fathers have been interspersed in your volumes, which would have been no discredit to their contents. It is one of the uses of a periodical publication, that it affords a repository for the labours of numerous students, who, though unequal to the task of instructing the public by a distinct work of their own, could, if their efforts were combined with others--the parts being judiciously distributed,-effect together, what no one could effect singly. The most obvious plan would be to proceed chronologically with the series; to translate the best pieces, to make an abridgment of inferior ones, and a very brief abstract or mere table of contents of the worst. Wake has translated some of the apostolic fathers; a revision of his work with the best of the notes of Cotelerius and Leclerc might be sufficient to begin with, adding a brief dissertation on the merits of the author, as compared with the canonical Scriptures.

S.

Tothe Editorofthe Christian Observer. YOUR amanuensis, in copying the appellation of one of the new churches in the parish of Mary-lebone, in the list of Ecclesiastical Preferments in your last Number, has written "All Saints" for "All Souls." His error was very natural;

and I wish the patrons, who fixed on the name, had made the same mistake; for it is a strange anomaly, that the founders of a Protestant church, in this "most enlightened age," and in the largest and most wealthy parish in the world, should have been able to find for it no better name than the most popish and superstitious of all dedications to which any church has been subjected in the darkest ages. The intention of our old churches known by the name of " All-Souls," was, as their muniments attest, for the repose of all Christian souls departed out of this world, with a view to their deliverance out of purgatory, by means of the prayers and masses there to be offered. All-Souls' college, at Oxford, founded by Archbishop Chichley, the persecutor of Wickliffe, is an imperishable record as well of gross superstition as of literary munificence.

If we are to have new "AllSouls'" churches, I see not why our church should have banished "All-Souls' Day" from the calendar, where it stands, in the popish prayer-book, on the second of November, as conspicuously as our own "All-Saints" does on the first. Let Wheatley tell the rationale of the commemoration.

"The second of November," he says, "is called [in the Romish calendar] All-Souls' Day, being observed in the Church of Rome upon the following occasion. A monk having visited Jerusalem, and passing through Sicily as he returned home, had a mind to see Mount Etna, which is continually belching out fire and smoke, and on that account by some is thought to be the mouth of hell. Being there he heard the devils within complain that many departed souls were taken out of their hands by the prayers of the Cluniac monks. This, when he came home, he related to his Abbot Odilo, as a true story; who thereupon appointed the second of November to be annually kept in his monastery, and prayers to be CHRIST. OBSERV. No, 288.

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made there for all departed souls; and in a little time afterwards the monks [finding the trade gainful] got it to be made a general holyday, by the appointment of the pope, till in ours and other reformed churches [excepting, I suppose, the new church in Langham place] it was deservedly abrogated."

At a time when so many new churches are being erected throughout the country, and some difficulty seems to be felt in giving them charac teristic designations, I trust these remarks on "the unfortunate church in Langham place" may not be deemed useless, if they excite a just degree of attention to this not unimportant subject.

I will only add, that no blame applies to that highly respectable clergyman Dr. George Chandler, whose appointment to the preferment your ecclesiastical list announces, for this unhappy dedication, any more than for the equally unhappy style of architecture which has called forth the most severe remarks, both in parliament and among all persons of taste who have visited the structure. It is strange, that in "this age of good taste "such miserable specimens of ecclesiastical architecture should be growing up on every side. But let this pass the architecture of this church cannot now be altered, nor, I presume, its name; but at least let it be understood that that name is meant only in its Protestant sense, and in that respect, if I could divest myself of purgatorian associations, I confess that it might be made to point out a very edifying lesson.

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tice, in attempting to deliver British slaves from the dark ignorance in which they have so long continued; and, by this proceeding, they will command the approbation of all who value the blessings of religion; but when I call to mind the innumerable evils which England has inflicted upon her slaves, that they are still in bondage, the most cruel and tyrannical the world ever witnessed, surely this attempt to shed light on their benighted minds is not the only aid that British ladies intend to bestow upon them? I entreat you, Mr. Editor, as a Christian observer, to let them know they are doing but little towards discharging the vast debt they owe the African race, by forming a society for the education of infant slaves; and that what they are doing, in the present state of our colonial system, will be of little avail. Place before them, Mr. Editor, those parts of Scripture which command us all to defend the poor-to rid them out of the hand of the wicked, and not to remain passive spectators of cruelty and oppression. Urge them to study the narrative of Esther; Prov. xxiv. 11, 12; Isaiah lviii; Psalm x, lxxxii; and Heb. xiii. 3; and then perhaps they will begin "to remember those in bonds as bound with them, and those that suffer adversity as being themselves also in the body:" they will then perhaps begin to see that they should follow the example of Queen Esther, and plead for those who cannot plead for themselves, for those who have been worn down with cruel bondage, to furnish them with luxuries.

I would beg you also to lay before them the following quotation, from the Cries of Africa; and may it teach them how much they have yet to perform, and what little chance of success awaits their labours, till they apply their whole strength to raise the fallen African, instead of merely stretching out, as it were a finger, to aid him to rise and say, "I am a man and a brother!"

"Of all countries in the world,

we should least think of a conversion to Christianity there." The author is speaking of our European colònies. "The hatred which the poor slaves must naturally bear towards their masters, must almost force them to despise the Christian religion. They are placed in an unnatural state of society-in a state which almost forbids moral improvement. You wish, for example, to teach them to be honest; but hunger calls upon them, perhaps at the same moment, to be thieves: you read them lessons of fidelity and submission; but, ground down by hard labour and severe punishments, they retain a sense of their injuries, and are perhaps at that very moment awakened to revenge. It is not, therefore, to be expected that they can make any great proficiency in religion, while their very condition forces them into crime.”

Can schools for our slaves teach chastity to females while our present system of slavery exists? If they are taught it, it must only add to their misery and anguish, when they are under the power of lawless overseers, who, as we see from the official accounts of the fiscals of Demerara and Berbice, printed by order of the House of Commons, may act towards them with impunity in the most licentious manner, and flog the wretched father who attempts to keep his child from prostitution. Englishwomen must know these things; for British female Negro slaves have to endure them in order to furnish us with luxuries. And shall Englishwomen leave them, as too many propose to do, in this state, polluted and debased by our colonial system, in order that we may educate them first? Let us indeed unite in educating them whereever we find an opening for so doing; and I rejoice that it is to be attempted; but let us not deceive ourselves by thinking that education is the first best gift we can at this time bestow; let us assist in delivering them from their cruel bondage, which reduces them to the

brutish and demoralized state in which we find them. Do not, I conjure you, Mr. Editor, join with those who think it is of no use to release them till they are first amendedwhile all the time, the same debasing and abominable system is creating the evils which education is to cure. The iniquity of the present tyrannical and degrading system takes away all time for education on most estates. God says, "Six days shalt thou labour:" the planter says, "Seven days shalt thou labour; if not for me, for thyself." God says, Keep holy the Sabbath-day: the planter says, "Profane the Sabbath-day; thou shalt not keep it holy." I know there are many honourable exceptions, but I am speaking of the system; a system which prevents all lawful marriages, causes Negro women to be lashed naked by men in public, and then it is said these women are without decency! and their

morals cannot be cured "by a mere cessation of slavery;" and thus the system is perpetuated, because education is to cure their faults! This kind of doctrine, which is too widely circulated, would paralyze the arm that is stretched out to redress their wrongs and give a fatal blow to the cause of Negro emancipation. It neutralizes the efforts of many otherwise noble-minded advocates; it prevents many a conscientious female from using the means which are in her power of assisting these unhappy women by diffusing information, and making their cause heard; and it prevents British ladies joining hand in hand to break their bonds. But what says the Almighty?. see Prov. xxiv. 11, 12, already al-, luded to. I entreat you, Mr. Editor, to shew British women their duty. B. T. W. L.

REVIEW OF NEW PUBLICATIONS.

De la Religion, considérée dans ses Rapports avec l'Ordre politique et civile. Par l'Abbé F. DE LA MENNAIS. Premiere Partie. Seconde edition. Paris. 1825.

THIS is a pamphlet which, we understand, has excited some attention upon the continent; nor should we be surprised were it to find many more readers in that quarter. The, subject of it is philosophically, as well as religiously, interesting and important. It may be supposed to speak the sentiments of a large party in France, who are unceasingly endeavouring to establish and augment their power. It supplies, also, abundant matter for reflection upon the probable destiny, religious and political, of that great and powerful empire. It is, in short, one of the most singular and spirited pamphlets which of late years have

issued from the presses of either France or England. When we call it spirited, we allude of course only to its tone and manner. When we term it singular, we refer to the doctrines which it promulgates, and to the reasoning by which those doctrines are attempted to be established. It is written in the characteristic style of French genius, with. great vivacity and great confidence, with some very eloquent declamation, but with little solid reasoning; not without vigour and acuteness, but with more of the appearance of those qualities than the reality. It has more pretension than power, and is calculated to impose on the simplicity of those readers (not a few in number) who are apt to mistake subtlety and adroitness for wisdom, and the boldness of parodox for the force of truth.

The subject of it is "Religion 5 D 2 3

considered under its civil and political Relations," with a close and direct reference to the present state of affairs in France. The author professes to have left his work incomplete, and promises a second part, should the reception of the first be such as to encourage him to proceed. The part, however, already published, presents a sufficiently distinct picture for the eye of the reflecting critic, and still more the reflecting Christian, to rest upon and examine. The pamphlet is divided into four chapters. The first is on the actual state of society in France. The second attempts to prove, that, in that country, religion is at present totally unconnected with the civil and political order of things, and that consequently the state is no better than atheistical. The third goes a step farther, to shew that atheism, concentrated in the government, has thence diffused itself throughout the walks of private and domestic life. The fourth and last shews that religion has come to be regarded, in the eye of the law, as only one of the many subjects that fall under the regulation of the executive power, being placed in the annual budget upon the same footing of rank and dignity with the fine arts, the gaming houses, the theatres, and the haunts of vice and infamy. This would be indeed an appalling picture, could it be deemed a perfectly correct one; and our author's statements would be calculated to beget great apprehension, did not some of the very circumstances which most excite his fears, give strength and encouragement to our hopes of better times.

We must begin with exposing one error or false principle which pervades this treatise, and forms the sole basis of much of the reasoning it exhibits. Whenever Mons. de la Mennais speaks of religion in the abstract, he annexes any thing but a liberal meaning to his words. By religion he understands, solely and exclusively, the Church of Rome

that one holy, undivided, catholic, apostolic see, out of whose boundaries no salvation is to be obtained: all other churches, all other sects and denominations of Christians go with him for nothing. Their tenets may be error and absurdity, under a thousand forms; but they are not entitled to be called religion. Thus he virtually places the whole of Protestant Europe (the Greek Church is accounted by the Latin as schismatical, but not heretical,) upon the same footing, and under the same ban of proscription, with the aggregate community (how many soever they be) of professed deists, sceptics, and atheists. He knows but of two distinctions, Religion and Atheism. The one comprises the Romish communion; the other all the rest of the world besides. This is we do not say the deliberate and intentional, but-certainly the real and virtual basis upon which much of his reasoning and most of his observations are built. Remove this prop, and many of his arguments and remarks fall to the ground, "like the baseless fabric of a vision," without leaving a wreck behind.

We shall not deem it necessary to follow the author minutely through the several chapters of his publication. The attention of our readers will be best rewarded, by our seizing upon and examining some of his main facts and positions. Whoever attentively peruses this pamphlet, of only one hundred pages, will find himself almost overwhelmed with the quantity of matter which it yields for reflection on topics historical, political, moral, and religious. If the author have not thrown much additional light on these topics by his own remarks, he has at least the merit of laying open within a small compass, a mine of inexhaustible speculation for the exercise of every reflecting mind. Statesmen, moralists, divines, and philanthropists may all glean some thing suited to their respective views and occupations, and derive, if they will, some profitable hints

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