"But oh! if vain of manors wide, He viewed the Cross with scorn, Pp. 119, 120. These pages contain many reminiscences of real life, and many traces of the writer's experience in his walks of professional usefulness. Perhaps the following touching recital of a young believer's death may remind some readers of similar narratives in prose; at least it reminded us of Johnny Ross. "The room was narrow, chill, and low; And from the casement small Scarce light enough was thrown, to show "Eight times the summer's breeze has fann'd But ah! the lank and icy hand Of death is on it now; And fast he journeys to the bourne, "His wasted limbs, his fevered cheek, Of deep decay and suffering speak ;- “His mother o'er his pillow bends, Dear mother,' says he, 'cease to weep; But oh my little brothers keep At that blest Sabbath school, "And when, by father's lowly bed, “O Lord! how oft do sucklings' lips How oft in faith do babes eclipse But such is Thine unerring will, Pp. 161-163. Yet there is Room,' are, to our taste, among the The verses, sweetest of the whole collection, and owe not a little additional interest to the circumstance which suggested them. "A poor but pious woman, whom the Author attended many years ago in his professional capacity, was confined to bed by an inveterate and painful malady; and, in addition to her bodily sufferings, was frequently afflicted with doubts of her interest in the Saviour. One night, in particular, she endured much distress from this cause; she could not sleep, but tossed and turned from side to side, unable to recollect one text of a consoling nature, while many crowded on her memory full of denunciations of the divine wrath against sin. She prayed earnestly for deliverance from her doubts and fears; and at length it came. Towards morning, the words, Yet there is room,' recurred as vividly to her recollection as if they had been spoken in her ear; all her doubts and apprehensions vanished; she felt that there was room in the ark of divine grace for all who sought refuge there; and she fell asleep, with the sweet feeling of being reconciled to God, through the merits of his Son. These circumstances she related to the Author at his next visit, and he composed the verses in commemoration of them, and gave her a copy. She appreciated them very highly, called them 'her hymn,' and constantly kept them under her pillow. "Yet there is room! My soul rejoice, And hail the gladsome sound; It is Emmanuel's sacred voice, Which spreads the news around! The feast is made; the Master calls In robes of white they crowd the halls, "Yet there is room!' He calls again, And lo! from every street and lane The poor, the maimed, the halt, the blind, With willing steps repair: And all a cheerful welcome find, And wedding garments there. "Yet there is room!' The highways yield An answer to the cry; And now the hedge, and now the field With grateful hearts they enter in, No wants their claims annul; And yet the feast may not begin, "Yet there is room!' But thou, my soul, Must make no more delay; Up, trim thy lamp, thy fears control, And gird thee for the way. Dear Lord, I ask no crown from Thee, No robe with rich perfume; The meanest place will do for me, Pp. 94-96. The neat exterior of the volume is in keeping with the elegant simplicity of its Sacred Lyrics; and it contains so much that is tender and true, so much kindness of spirit and elevation of thought, so much that is fitted to open the eye with new interest on the things around, and then to point it to the things above, and all conveyed in such melodious numbers, that we congratulate the Author on having thus beguiled laborious hours, and wish him now the farther comfort of edifying those who, enjoying the leisure which he has not, lack the pleasing talent which he possesses. 6 We were much inclined to make the fasciculus of hymns at the end of this volume a pretext for some remarks on hymns and collections of hymns. The New Testament Church is surely entitled to New Songs-is at least entitled to sing the songs of the New Testament. The prejudice against this sort of psalmody is chiefly occasioned by the indifferent compositions which are often employed in worship-doubtfully compensating by their poetry for their want of spirituality. But we do possess some spiritual songs-some in which faith and fancy mount on equal wing, and which the poet would love for their genius, did not the believer love them more for their sacredness. Attempts have often been made to compile the best of these; but after handling perhaps a hundred hymnbooks, we own that none has reached our beau ideal. The best selection, Montgomery's Christian Psalmist,' is, like his Christian Poet,' too much a book of specimens. He has very naturally given extracts from almost all those voluminous stores of religious poetry with which his wide reading in this department of literature had brought him acquainted; and though it is interesting to know the extent of consecrated talent, and to mark all its varying grades and developments, for purposes of psalmody such variety is too vast, and it becomes rather diversity of merit than of matter. Then, most denominational hymn-books, as well as collections designed for particular congregations, are necessarily overladen with hymns for special occasions-pieces of measured prose, so dull that it says much for the occasion' which can convert them into poetry. A very tiny compilation would probably contain all the English hymns yet extant, the singing of which, in congregations accustomed to the psalms of David, would not be felt as an abrupt descent. But why should there not be a selection containing these, and none but these? Although but fifty should be found to stand the test, let us have the fifty. There are that amazing anthem, "The God of Abraham,' and akin to it some of those adoring raptures in which Charles Wesley claps his wings of fire,'-fit for believers in their best frames, or, quickened by the Spirit, fit to put them into such a frame. There is the hymn in which Hart sings the wonders of Gethsemane, to which might per haps be added one or two others describing the 'doleful dark Gethsemane' within the believer's own soul. Who that has ever seen the Lord but is often singing to himself, Oh for a closer walk with God? and where shall the mourner in Zion find his feelings and anxieties more exactly anticipated than in the similar hymns of Cowper? There are some sweet and saintly lays of Doddridge with which we could not dispense, any more than with the comprehensive Morning and Evening Orisons' of Bishop Kenn. Some strains of Toplady are so empyrean, that were it not for the language of a sinner redeemed, they might have distilled from the harp of a seraph. And then-the great staple of all collections, as they are ever likely to be-there are the Divine Songs of Isaac Watts. Whether most majestic as he soars in sadness and wonder over the shadows of Golgotha-or as he skirts, on his upward way, the empurpled clouds of the Divine decrees-or as, on sun-steeped pinions, he floats on the effulgence of reconciled Perfections—or as, at last, he folds his wings on the fields where angels lie,' we cannot tell; but we know, that for purged eye-ball and strength of plume, there are few like him. To select from these and others the first-class hymns of our country-too few, alas! but on that account perhaps the more easily marked-would be the first step towards the enlargement of our psalmody. The fault of usual hymn-books is, that they are too bulky-too anxious to include something appropriate to each possible season. What is needed, is a rigid selection, which would rather leave a subject unsung than insert a second-rate hymn. ART. IV.-History of the Westminster Assembly of Divines. By the Rev. W. M. HETHERINGTON. Edin. 1843. The ambition of Laud, the brutality of Strafford, and the despotism of Charles, have triumphed over the Protestantism of Ireland; and emboldened by this success, it is next in contemplation to realize a similar design in regard to Scotland. With this view, a system of ecclesiastical canons that utterly subverted the framework of polity, hitherto enjoyed in the Scottish Church, along with a liturgy thoroughly impregnated with the superstitions of Popery, is prepared under sanction of the king, and without consent of either Church or Parliament, enjoined by royal proclamation. The blow went to the nation's heart; and renewing their ancient Covenant without delay, clergy, and nobles, and peasantry, arrayed themselves in solemn earnest to maintain their threatened liberties. The kingdom rose as a single man, and animated with that awful heroism which draws its sanction, its strength, its sinews, from the word of God, it demanded a free Convention, and a free Assembly, on peril of transferring its allegiance. The requisition was urged in too bold a tone, either to be denied, or left over, and both a Parliament and an Assembly are convoked. As all our readers know, the Assembly met at Glasgow in 1638, with Henderson as its directing spirit, as well as its official head, and in face of every attempt to browbeat, or embarrass it, carried through as sincere and systematic a work of reformation as the Church had witnessed since the great Master purged the temple at Jerusalem. Not merely, however, are Laud, the nuncio of Popery, and Charles, the incarnation of Erastianism, worsted on their chosen theatre, and at the very moment when they thought it won, deprived of a conquest which would have ended in the most despotic achievement of all their schemes. The very attempt which they now had made, to effect a compulsive uniformity between the Scottish Church, and the hierarchy of England, produced a recoil so violent, that well-nigh was the aristocratic episcopacy of the south permanently exchanged for the republican platform of Geneva. The proceedings of the Scottish Assembly were not limited to Scotland. Soon as the infatuated promoters of the revolution themselves, they crossed the Tweed, and ere the oppressive monarch, with his arrogant adviser, had time to pass a word of consolation, the principles of the Covenanted Reformation had become the watchword of the metropolis. Concession was now out of date;-apology was in vain;-promises, however unscrupulous, would not be listened to; -and amid the jubilee of the Scottish nation, who thought they could see in it not more the reaction of national sentiment, than the result of providential interposition, cordially echoed back by the people of England, Charles was fittingly doomed to witness, as the result of Laud's hatred and his own, to the truth and cause and people of God, the Long Parliament, and the Westminster Assembly. Nor was this all. On the other hand, as is well remarked by Mr Hetherington, the English had seen the Presbyterian Church putting forth its great powers in defence of religious liberty, and securing civil liberty at the same time, while they had experienced painfully that almost the entire force of their own Prelatic Church had been erected so directly, and strenuously against religious liberty, that civil liberty was almost destroyed in the ill-omened and formidable struggle. At the same time the Puritans had almost instinctively assumed the Presbyterian form of Church government, so far as their circumstances would permit, so that the natural progress of events irresistibly suggested the idea, that if civil liberty was to be secured it must be by first securing religi |