a- word needs be said about it. The saints in heaven, neither now, nor when their "spirits," already "made perfect," shall have received the accession of their "glorified bodies," shall retain any portion of their infirmities; but they may very possibly retain such a remembrance of them, as shall for ever add tenderness and fervency to all those sentiments and feelings which constitute their blessedness and perfection. And in somewhat of the same manner may our blessed Saviour's sympathies with us, and our delightful and blessed confidence in him, be heightened by his participation with us of one common nature. Scriptural representations lead to such a conclusion; and we may rely on them as the most useful and most just. No doubt

"the Father himself hath loved us,"

and has "feelings of kindness and commiseration for us;" but never was it, never can it be, said of Him, as of our glorified Saviour, "We have not a High Priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin;" and again, "In that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted *."

J. S-, II.

We have received various other complaints from time to time of heterodox statements, and rash, incorrect, or uncharitable assertions in the British Critic; some of which we might possibly have noticed had we had any good rea son to hope the exposure would have produced amendment. But what can the public expect from professed Christian critics, and vehement champions for orthodoxy and morality, who can deliberately write and print as follows.

"We have often fell during the heyday of electioneering licentiousness, the sentiment of an old gentleman whom Lady Hervey mentions; but we have never yet been able to express it so forcibly. He was passing through the streets of Westminster during the contest between Lord Trentham aud Sir George Vandeput; and when his coach was beset on both sides by the opposite mobs, bawlCHRIST. OBSERV. No. 252.

To the Editor of the Christian Observer. THE inconveniences of repeating the appointed form of words in the administration of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper separately to each individual of those crowded assemblies which now happily in at the altar, have been frequently many churches present themselves dwelt upon; and in consequence, in many instances, the practice of the clergy in such cases is to administer to two or three persons in conjunction, the minister continually repeating the address during the whole time. If, however, from the necessity of the case, any innovation be allowable, is it not for many reasons the best method, as is done in a few churches, to repeat the words once only for a whole row minister silently and deliberately to of communicants, and then to adeach individual, who may consider them as addressed personally to himself. The abridged method of administering the rite of Confirmation has been often, and I think justly, appealed to as a warrant and an example in the case in question. Persons are not perhaps generally aware that the one innovation is quite as modern as the other; both having been introduced in conse

ing out for the opposite candidates, he put his head out of the window and shouted, G―d d-n them both! One other bon mot must suffice to this department." (British Critic, 1822, p. 49.)

The bad taste of this "bon met," which the reviewer seems jealous that he "has never been able to equal," or "to express so forcibly,” is, in our view, scarcely less clear thau the flippant impiety of the exclamation. And, by the way, might it not be worth the while of another cotemporary work, the "Christian Remembrancer,” whose delinquencies several correspondents have called upon us more frequently to notice, to animadvert occasionally upon the censurable points of such works as the "British Critic," instead of wasting all its superfluous ammunition on the Christian Observer? Are the times so destitute of occasions for justly merited censure, 5 G

quence of those changes of circumstances in society, which have rendered the practice of our forefathers-much as it is to be preferred in all practicable cases for its solemnity and its regularity-in some instances extremely inconvenient. The following passage on this subject from the auto-biographical memoir of Dr. Thomas Newton, Bishop of Bristol, who was certainly no friend to " innovations," is interesting not only as conveying an historical fact, but for his reflections upon it, which are quite as applicable to the administration of the Lord's Supper in crowded churches as to the rite of Confirmation.

"There is a method of Confirmatiou," remarks the bishop, " which was first introduced by Archbishop Gilbert. He first proposed it to the clergy of Nottingham, at his primary visitation; and upon their unanimous approbation, he put it in practice. This was, instead of

that the Christian Remembrancer is obliged, in default of convincing arguments and urbane and scholarlike wea. pons, to descend to range the Christian Observer side by side with "Sherwin" and "Cobbett," and "the invectives of the Times and Chronicle," with three notes of admiration ("!!!") to make the resemblance more striking and all this merely, because in our notice of the debate in the honse of lords on the Peterborough Questions last June, which fell in the regular course of our View of Public Affairs, we stated, without aggravation, the simple facts of the case-namely, that several members of the house had expressed a strong opinion against his lordship's proceeding; that his lordship was constrained to become his own advocate; that not one of the bishops saw fit to support him, &c. Would the Chris tian Remembrancer have wished us to have reported, in spite of the facts of the case, the opposite of all this as the truth; that no disapprobation was ex

going round the rail of the communion table, and laying his hands upon the heads of two or four persons held close together, and in a low tone of voice repeating the form of prayer over them, he went round the whole rail at once, laid his hand upon the head of every person severally, and when he had gone through the whole, then he drew back to the communion table, and in as audible and solemn manner as he could, pronounced the prayer over them all. This bad a wonderful effect. The clergy and the people were struck with the decency as well as the novelty of the ceremony. The Confirmations were performed in less time, and with less trouble, with more silence and solemnity, and with more regularity and order. It commanded attention, it raised devotion, insomuch that several bishops since have adopted the same method."

A FRIEND TO CONFORMITY.

pressed; that his lordship was not his own sole defender; that several bishops spoke warmly in his favour, &c. And if not, what become of Sherwin and Cobbett, and the "invectives of the Times and Chronicle?" If any "invec tives" were uttered, it was in the house of lords, and not in our report of the proceedings, in which we wholly passed over many passages in the debate which might justly have given some uneasiness to the supporters of his lordship's mea

sures.

We did not intend to notice this offence of the Christian Remembrancer, had not the point incidentally obtruded itself; and our chief reason for doing it now, is as an apology to our readers and correspondents, who, we think, will not consider it binding on us very frequently to notice writers who, in default of argument, can thus descend to comparisons which we thought were wholly banished even from the "invectives" of polemics among gentlemen and Christians.

REMARKS DURING A JOURNEY THROUGH NORTH AMERICA. (Continued from p. 699.)

Natchez, State of Mississippi, 6th May, 1820.

I MENTIONED in my last letter, that, after crossing the bay on Sun. day morning to go to church, I was disappointed to find no Protestant place of worship. I had travelled hard to reach Blakeley or Mobile on Saturday night; and could I have supposed that I should find no Protestant church in so numerous a society of American Protestants, I should have preferred a solitary Sabbath in the woods to the melancholy prospect of a community where its solemnities are despised. I understood, however, that a Protestant clergyman from the Eastern States had for some Sundays preceding been officiating alternately at Mobile and Blakeley. These towns are situated on opposite sides of the bay, and are contending vehemently for the privilege of becoming that great emporium which must shortly spring up in the vicinity of this outlet for the produce of the young fertile State of Alabama. The surface drained by the rivers Tombigbee, Black Warrior, Alabama, Coosa Tallapoosa, and Cahawba, all of which fall into Mobile Bay, exceeds twenty-six millions of acres, possessing a very great diversity of soil and climate, and enjoying commercial and agricultural advantages, which are attracting towards them, with unprecedented rapidity, the wealth and enterprize of the older states.

Blakeley is a real American town of yesterday, with a fine range of warehouses; the stumps of the trees which have been felled to make room for this young city still standing in the streets. Mobile is an old Spanish town, with mingled traces of the manners and language o the

French and Spaniards, and with an old fort, called Fort Condé, which is to be superseded by fortifications in a more formidable position.

The change from the quiet homely cabins in which we were entertained in the woods, to the noisy dirty tavern of Mobile, was by no means an agreeable one. I sat down with about thirty or forty persons to every meal; but I saw much more of men than of manners, and was convinced that there was some truth in what I had been told, that in travelling westward in this country, you may take your longitude by observing the decrements of the time occupied at meals. At Mobile five or six minutes might possibly be the average, and yet we accuse the Americans of being indolent and prodigal of time! Generally speaking, the company at the taverns consists of agents and clerks, and the mass of the population is of a most miscellaneous kind. The aspect of society, as it presents itself to the superficial eye of a stranger, is such as might be expected where public worship is totally disregarded. Profaneness, licentionsness, and ferocity, seemed to be characteristic of the place; and the latter, as manifested in barbarity to the Negro servants, was beyond even what I had anticipated. You continually hear the lash upon their backs, with language which would shock you, even if applied to brutes; and the easy and intelligent expression which I had observed in the countenances of many of the Slaves in Carolina and Georgia, had here given place to the appearance of abject timidity or idiotic vacancy. I have seen men, after receiving a severe flogging, and uttering the most piercing cries, the moment their tyrant's back was turned, burst into a loud laugh, dancing about the room, and snapping their fingers, like a school