preacher thus commandingly and "To the latest hour of your lives, while memory remains a faculty of the mind, humanity will weep, and religion shudder, at the horrors that have been crowded into the short space of one season. I pass them over; may we live to atone for the share we have had in them! May they never rise in jndgment against us! I do most solemnly declare, the more I consider the natu ral effect of causes, the more I am induced to pardon the guilt (if I may say it) of the people, even white as snow, when compared to ours. I would almost say, they could not have acted otherwise than as they did. Minds so completely depraved, so entirely unoccupied by any restraining sentiment, were filled with matter too inflammable, possibly to resist those infernal principles that hovered around them. The knowledge of God, and the blessings of religion, (those infallible sources of subordination and virtue,) we had almost totally neglected to diffuse; the very little we had been goaded to in this way, served but to throw the eye over the immensity that remained to be done; and like spots of cultivation, to render the surrounding sterility more striking and apparent. "The great mass of our people continued still an untutored and unfortunate race, without interest in the public weal; with deep and hereditary animosity to the state and its institutions; ripe for destroying all above them; brutal in vice, brutal in ignorance; ferocious of soul, and panting for the signal of revolt and blood. "To this spectacle of degraded nature, of barbarism in the bosom of civilization, of mental darkness in the midst of revelation and light, we remained hardened and insensible. The great misfortune, the uncivilized condition of Ireland, became no uncommon theme of sarcasm, even to Irishmen. "Thus, did we live Christians with out zeal; citizens without public virtue; men without bowels of humanity; corrupt, venal, dissipated, and luxurious; our means were all devoted to the gra, 531 tification of our passions; and the pursuits of personal interests, and the secular. "The hour of retribution at length came; national iniquity provoked nawere destined, as they had long been tional judgments, and our own people trained, to become the ready and furious executioners of the sentence. "Let not the valour and loyalty we have displayed, or the laurels we wear, in our hearts, but for pride and exultadeceive us so far, as to leave no room tion; when we consider our omissions on the point I speak of, perhaps if there be hearts under heaven that should know neither pride nor peace, they are ours. tempest that burst on us; to have bled Respecting the growth of infi- "First, then, I ask if it can be fidelity is rapidly gaining ground? Can doubted, that the mortal poison of in truths of Christianity are, in too many it be doubted, that the most sacred instances, scouted without reserve, and delivered over to scorn? Is there scarcely a young man, at the present. day, in that class of the world which is who professes to believe any thing on honoured with the name of fashionable,' the score of religion? Is it not too! much the reigning tone among men, toc rise superior to the weakness and simplicity of believing Christians!、ax " H "What minister of religion can now venture to preach on the subject of our holy mysteries, or enforce their divine authority, without exciting a philosophic smile in these children of light? Who shall even glance at the doctrine of eternal punishment, or of future punishment at all, without being openly pitied for his credulity, or secretly arraigned for hypocrisy ? Is it not this predominating ela racter of the day that has forced, in a manner, the pulpit, in spite of itself, to slur over the awful and tremendous in religion, and recur to topics as suited to the portico, as to the temple of Jesus Christ? What does there too generally appear to be left of religion among many men, but a sentiment common to enlightened heathens, namely, a political respect for its influence in re straining the vulgar?" pp. 289, 200. Preachers of charity sermons labour under the temptation of representing works of charity as in themselves meritorious; nor, even in those who are aware of the radical fallacy of such a representation, is it always easy, amidst the fervour of an earnest pleading for the objects of benevolence, to avoid expressions that may seem to give it countenance. We do not feel sure that the language of Dean Kirwan is uniformly without objectiou on this score; and his opinions respecting the general efficacy of a good life, which are by no means stated clearly, do not seem to have been altogether correct; but he is express and distinct in representing Christian charity as part of the Christian life, and in denying the absurd doctrine of the meritorious efficacy of what is commonly called charity. "Tell me, is there a single Christian before me, who, if the offer were made him at this moment, would be satis fied to stake his salvation on the question of his charity? Oh not one! and yet, our consciences are at rest; we flatter ourselves we are merciful. Heavens! If there be any just ground for such a thought, why has it become ne cessary to prostitute, in some degree, the most sacred of all functions for the purpose of moving and inspiring us to the practice of this virtue? Why has the pulpit been obliged to descend to the very language of flattery, in order to extort from your vanity what it is hopeless of obtaining from a principle of religion? Why is it become necessary to hold out, on almost every occasion of this nature, the too dangerous doctrine, that charity covereth a mul titude of sins;' and thus ran the hazard of misleading you on the subject of your own salvation, in order to force you to become the instrument of salvation to others? Why are we obliged to use the arts and colouring of profane eloquence to make appeals to your pas sions? To search and probe the great body of human misery to the bone? To bring it, I may say, before your hearts, naked and expiring, quivering and disjointed? To expose all its miseries and horrors? To mingle our own tears with the tears of the unhappy objects that invoke us? And, after all, why do we often fail?" pp. 17, 18. "I fear, my friends, we need not go far to discover the true source of our torpor and indifference in this cause. Had we more of fervent, genuine relįgion in our breasts, it would not have been thus long and shamefully neg lected; but the truth is, that, with the exception of a chosen few, we have universally departed from the letter and spirit of our calling. We have sunk a religion, destined to elevate man to the sublimest virtue, into a system of vile accommodation with the passions and interests of this world. To the design once formed of extirpating Christianity by violence and persecution, has succeeded one more likely to effect that purpose, because less apparent. The great enemy of our salvation has not ceased to combat: he has but changed his weapons. "In the days of Christian fervour he went about like the roaring lion) seeking whom he should devour.' In these days of refinement and effeminacy, like the timid serpent, he creeps, and gives death under flowers. Vio lence is abandoned as a bad system? for, contrary to his hopes, it only tended to people the world with proselytes and heaven with martyrs. To seduc tion and insinuation he has therefore had recourse; crimes are stripped of their natural turpitude; they are em bellished and adorned; our reason is betrayed, our senses are fascinated; ho has left us the external exercise of our Review of Kirwan's Sermons. 533 1815:1 "What is the consequence? Why, his triumph is nearly complete; the mystery of iniquity has nearly absorbed the mystery of holiness! What the cruelty of tyrants could not accomplish, is rapidly accomplishing by softer means. Never did the earth contain such a number of Christians as at this hour; never did it contain so little Christianity." pp. 90-93. After describing what would have been the happy effects of a general sense of religion, he thus proceeds: «At the view of such a blessed We cannot resist the temptation had its martyrs, perhaps the greatest "Alas! my brethren, if religion has of all martyrs are to be found within the circle of the world's reputed enjoy. ments: but the truth, the awful truth I would impress is this, that he who suffers for reputation or the things of this earth, has to look for his recomhe may receive it, or he may not, that pence where he has placed his heart; is, the ambitious may have his power lents his name; but there is no crown and honour; the interested his gold; the soldier his laurels; the man of ta for the affliction of the Christian, in whatever state it may be found, or from whatever passion it may arise, if it be not ultimately sanctified by religion. "Though his life should be exposed to a thousand perils, and even his body service of his country, if his motives so mutilated as scarcely one half of the individual to survive the other, in the be not Christian, he will, with respect to his immortal prospects, have suffered in vain, for nothing but what is referred to God can return to God. "In the next place, it is necessary we should endure our portion of ills with profound resignation. The calling of a Christian is the imitation of Christ; sublime as such a destination may be, St. Paul expressly lays it down as indispensable. know, he also did predestinate to be For whom he did foreconformed to the image of his Son.' "It is not given to man to suspend the career of nature; to appease the to the grave. Jesus Christ did not save ocean and the storm, or give animation by the glorious demonstration of his power, but by his sufferings and bumili. ations. of the divine justice, we are required to "What was therefore the great example make the close and eager object of our imitations? It is not meant however, that to become a disciple of Jesus Christ which providence may not have designed we are to run in search of afflictions, spirit of evangelical detachment is suf us; since in defect of these, a true that divine model, but I say, for the ficient to establish our conformity to consolation of the afflicted Christian, most perfect; for Jesus Christ became that his conformity with that model is 32 not in theory but in practice the man of sorrow, and emptied the cup which his Father presented him, to the lees, for the salvation of mankind." pp. 393395. One more passage we subjoin, as a specimen of the author's pathetic style. It is from one of the ser mons in support of the Female Or phan House, which, if any, appears to have been his favourite charity, **I would not have you to do at this hour, what you would not do at the next, and the next. If sober and dispassionate reflection produce not the effect; I desire then, give the last blow to this godlike charity. You have shaken it already, let it sink; let its inmates go forth into a world of iniquity and woe; they are not yet without hope. They have still the great Father of the fatherless to supply your place; to shield them from the approaches of guilt, and feed them as he feeds the raven of the air. Alas, my friends, I had forgot that his ways are inscrutable! Who can answer for his special interference even here? They may fall, as thousands of deserted creatures have fallen before them. Those forms you now behold, may be blasted with loathsomeness and disease; that spotless purity be transformed into shameless and incorrigible vice; those humble comforts into naked ness and famine, and all the varieties of human wretchedness. "Candidates at this moment for a gone. The world has resumed its ascendency. We resemble the unsteady Israelites, who bowed and adored when they first saw that resplendent column of fire that led them by night through an untrodden, wilderness, but relapsed again into their former indocility, as soon as the august spectacle became familiar to their eyes.", pp. 118–120. Before we quit this part of our subject, we cannot help noticing two instances in which the Author has referred to Scripture 1 inaccurately. "Witness the widow of Zarepta, from whom the prophet of the Lord was directed to seek shelter and support, in a season of famine; from her whose whole property, under the sun, was an handful of meal in a barrel, and a drop of oil in a cruse,' and yet to him, at the first aspect of his extraordinary misery, did she sacrifice, without a mo ment's hesitation, the last morsel of herself and child." p. 59. "Think of the five thousand people that followed and invoked Jesus Christ, in the extremity of hunger and distress: did he refuse to succour them? did he spurn them? No: the Gospel tells us expressly, that his heart bled for them.” p. 22.jar to "sosit ta phot On reference to the sacred page (1 Kings xvii. 14) it will be found, that the widow of Zarepta did not divide her morsel with the prophet before she had received his assurance that the barrel of meal should not waste, nor the cruse of oil fail. Nor does it appear from the Gospels that the multitude who were miraculously fed had previously invok career of virtue and blessed futurity, they may live but to curse the hour they were born, through time and eternity. Such is the doom that too possibly may await them; can you think of consign ing them to it? Can you look up withouted our Lord in the extremity of trembling, or without a tear? are "I need press you no more. I, at feast, shall be guiltless of their blood. Deal the point with your God! you before him he sees you! he will judge you this hour, as he will judge you for ever! I have the authority of his word for saying it; for saying, that vain is our hope of mercy, should we appear before his awful tribunal chargeable with the perdition of any human creature. Oh, my friends, I recollect days when the cause I now plead could stir up mercy in glorious profusion; but like a tale too often told, we hear the perse vering appeal to ns with increased in difference. The attraction of novelty is hunger and distress; they seem to have followed him from better motives it was his own unsolicited compassion that prompted the miracle; and when, on the day following, those who had been fed again resorted to him, apparently with the hope of a repetition of his bounty, we are told that the reproached their worldliness, not that he gratified their wish. (John vi. 26.) We here close our remarks on the character of Dr. Kirwan's eloquence, which was the first of the two objects we originally proposed to ourselves. What remains, is to give some view of his doctrines; an undertaking which, in part, has been indirectly anticipated by the extracts already made. It will have been perceived, that the preacher sets forth in strong colours the vanity of earthly pursuits, the wretched senselessness of a care, less, a luxurious, and a selfish life, the self-mortifying and strictly practical nature of Christianity, the utter delusiveness of attempting to compromise between God and the world, and the obligation imposed on us of following the steps of a persecuted and crucified Leader. The plainness and warmth with which Dean Kirwan enforces these and similar topics, are such "as almost to disarm criticism. When, indeed, we behold this minister of Christ standing, as it were, in simple dignity, before assemblies composed of all the wealth and fashion of a splendid and dissipated metropolis,when we hear hin denouncing, with apostolic boldness of speech, principles and -practices the most fondly loved and most obstinately clung to by his audience, when, with all the authority of an ambassador from Heaven, he holds up to the insensate votaries of pleasure and vanity the cross of a bleeding Master, and awfully charges them that are rich in this world that they be not highminded nor trust in uncertain riches but in the living God, and that they be rich in good works, -ready to distribute, willing to communicate, we feel a reverence for the speaker which strongly disinclines us to a minute investigation of this theological accuracy. Norrines of the cross? can we help recollecting with emotion, that he who spoke is now at rest from these labours of love, and that his works have already, as we shumbly trust, followed him into the presence of his Lord. But we also feel that we are not at liberty to compliment away our functions; and, if objections can be made to any part of the doctrines here de livered, the authority of the preacher only renders it the more necessary to make them. We will venture to observe, therefore, that, excepting the powerful representa tions of the necessity of a Christian life, to which we have more than once referred, Dean Kirwan's expo sitions of Christian truth appear defective, both in the way of omis sion and in that of partial statement. It may perhaps be said, that these discourses were all composed, for particular and occasional purposes of beneficence; and that, if we look for doctrines in such works, we deserve to be disappointed. The answer is, that, if charity is to be recommended as a branch of Christian obedience, and Christian obedience is to flow from Christian belief, a charity sermon is precisely the place where we ought to look for doctrines with the best chance of success. The occasional nature of the discourse may perhaps exclude a very systematic or tech nical detail of truth; but not its substance; and the less so, in pro portion as the occasion is impor tant. We do not, indeed, believe, that the author himself would have accepted any defence of his works. founded on the principle that such compositions have no concern with doctrine. He uniformly and very properly represents the exercise of charity, not as an insulated or ins dependent virtue, but as an essen tial branch of Christian virtue in general. We ask no larger concession; for where can we find the springs and motives of Christian virtue in general, but in the doc . We will now cite miscellaneously from the volume a few passages which refer to the doctrines of Christianity, and, as we conceive, in an imperfect or inaccurate man ner, แ Through the whole course of his ministry, to require a belief in the s |