acknowledge the truth of these observations, and to embrace the remedy proposed, our age, however, lacketh one thing, which is repentance. It is true that judgment has become a fashionable topic for preaching, but it is a preaching of judgment without repentance, and mostly without charity. I have heard judgment preached against Catholics, against Unitarians, against Jews, against the Continental Churches, against the German Neologists, against the Dissenters, against the Arminian party of the Church of England; but never have I heard judgment and repentance preached to the Evangelical religious world against itself; and yet there it is, where judgment seems most imminent, and repentance most needed; inasmuch as there the greatest light has been diffused, so that out of their own mouths they will be condemned. They who know that Jesus Christ is the one and everlasting foundation, that he is all and in all, they who preach it on the housetops, they are, certainly, of all, the most guilty, if they lead the rising generation to the knowledge of Jesus Christ so, that he can be to them nothing but a mere name, and a mere shadow. To acknowledge that this is the case, they must humble themselves, and confess that in them the salt has lost its savour; and their unwillingness to do this, otherwise than in unmeaning phrases of ostentatious prayer meetings, is the reason why they are blind to the nameless injury which they inflict upon thousands of little children, regardless of the woes, which He, whose name they invoke, has denounced against whosoever shall offend one of these little ones. But, stiffnecked as the Lord's people among the Gentiles have generally become, there are yet amongst them those that use their ears for hearing, and their eyes for perceiving; and, for their sakes, to convince them, that the picture I have drawn of the present system of religious instruction, is not overcharged, it will, I think, not be amiss for me to notice here a publication, which has recently appeared on that subject, and which has been 258 MR. GALL'S SABBATH SCHOOL SYSTEM. received with the greatest approbation in some quarters; and, where it was objected to, it was only because it was found too great an improvement upon the old system. Its title is, "The End and Essence of Sabbath School Teaching, and Family Religious Instruction;" its author, Mr. Gall, from Edinburgh, in London a well-known man. Such a work, published within the last four years, and since spread in four editions over the whole kingdom, is certainly a document, to which an opponent may safely refer, without rendering himself liable to the accusation of having charged the system with defects which it never had. Without stopping to discuss the doctrinal part of Mr. Gall's book, I shall at once proceed to the practical lessons, which are recommended, and the mode of using which, is described at full length. In the chapter, "on the separating and proving of doctrines," (page 111) we find, among others, the following evidence of the reliance which is placed by our religious teachers upon a mere mechanical knowledge of words, and jingle of sounds. "When the "doctrines have been separated," says Mr. Gall, "the "children should be made to prove them by passages of 66 Scripture, the teacher taking care that these passages "themselves be thoroughly understood, and their connec"tion with the doctrine clearly perceived. It is here also "that the DOCTRINES IN RHYME' should be revised in "connection with the proofs, that they may be so fixed "in the memory, and so well understood, as to come "readily to the recollection at any future period. The "tenacity with which children retain stanzas in the me"mory, renders this recommendation of great importance, as, IF THESE BE NOW WELL LEARNED AND UNDERSTOOD, there will, at no period of life, be almost any "leading truth or duty, in the whole range of Christian "doctrine, which, when its nature is required to be known, "the child will not be able at once to give, WITH ALL ITS CONCOMITANTS, in its particular section, in the Doc"trines in Rhyme,' or by itself, in the stanza of that 66 66 66 DOCTRINES IN RHYME. 259 "section. He thus carries with him into life a small, but "well arranged body of divinity, in such a form as to be "always under his control, and which, though he be not "necessitated always to quote it in the poetic (!!) form, will "never fail to supply materials on any religious subject, "when it is requisite to give to any one a reason of the "hope that is in him.' The learning, or not, of these, "however, may be left entirely to the discretion of the 66 parent or teacher." The following may serve as a specimen of that powerful agent of religion, "the Doctrines in Rhyme,” and of their connexion with the "proofs." Having spoken of God being the creator of all things, the teacher asks, farther : -- "Teacher. For what purpose did God make all things ?” “Scholar. All things were made for the glory of God.” "Teacher. Repeat that doctrine in rhyme.” "Scholar. God for himself did all things form, The world, the saints, the wicked too, "Teacher. Prove that doctrine." 6 "Scholar. Prov. xvi. 4. The Lord made all things “for himself; yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.”” I will not speak of the profanation of clothing the word of God in such miserable rhymery, which equally offends against good taste, and against the reverence due to religious subjects; but I would call those, who recommend and practise such systems of religious instruction, to account for the blasphemous substitution of a vile jingle of dead sounds in the ear, to the spiritual implantation of the living word in the heart, through the power of the Holy Spirit. Shall we then suppose, that where God's spirit is ingrafting his holy word and will, inwardly, upon the soul of the creature, there is any need for such a “small " and well arranged body of divinity"—or if these rhymescribes shrink from such an assertion, what good can their 260 THE ASSEMBLY'S CATECHISM. stanzas do, when committed to the memory, but to give a false notion, and to produce a false appearance of religion, whereby the soul will become the habitation of every foul and unclean spirit? They intend to furnish man with religion, "in such a form as to be always under his con❝trol;" are they not aware, then, that unless man be under the control of his religion, his religion is worth nothing, and will only serve to make him "two-fold more "the child of hell?" But this is a favourite notion, now, to provide children with compendious systems of divinity. I know a public institution, in which the Assembly's Catechism is learned by rote, to the great annoyance both of teachers and pupils, to whom no more time is allowed for this purpose, than is necessary to run over the questions and answers, without ever entering upon any explanation, even if there were an inclination to do so. When I expressed my astonishment that such a practice should be continued, particularly as the teachers seemed to be aware of its pernicious tendency, I was informed, that there was no hope of the abuse being corrected, for that one of the committee, a man who ranks high in the lists of evangelical preachers, strongly insisted upon its being taught, because it was "an excellent and compendious system of divinity, for a boy to take with him into the world." What do these men mean, by talking of “ densed views of divine truth?" Is it their opinion, that God has been too prolix in the inspired record of his revelations, and that they will remedy the evil, by their compendious catechisms and rhyme-books? Who can read, without disgust, the following panegyric by which Mr. Gall introduces "the Shorter Catechism :" "The great "value of this excellent, perhaps best, of human productions, "lies in the condensed form in which it presents all the "leading doctrines of scripture, and the facility which it "affords even to youth, by means of its regular and syste"matic framework (sic! sic!) of referring, for information 66 upon almost any question of faith (!) or practice (!). con COMPENDIOUS SYSTEMS OF DIVINITY. 261 "This last property, in the shorter catechism, has been too "much overlooked by Christians: few of whom seem to know, "that every doctrine or duty in the Christian creed has its "specified and regular place in this admirable little compen dium." Condense the infinite and living truth of God, indeed, and shut up the Spirit of the Eternal in a nut-shell! Is it to be wondered at, that the life of religion evaporates, in proportion as their plans of abridgment and condensation succeed, and that, with a readiness to give a literal reason for the hope that is in them, their pupils combine an absence, or, at least, ignorance, of all internal foundation of that hope? Is that the proper object of religious instruction, to fit men, on all occasions, to give a satisfactory account of their creed, that they may appear Christians in the eyes of the professing world? Or is it, that they may be Christians in the sight of God? And if the latter, what have the "doctrines in rhyme" to do with it? Did man's fall consist in a shortening of his memory, that this remedy is offered for planting godliness in him? Or did it consist in a rebellion of the will, the guilt of which is only increased by a perfect recollection of the law, which it infringes, and still more by that sophistry, which substitutes an accurate knowledge of that law to a conformity with its injunctions? For let it be remembered, that, in religion, besides knowledge and practice, the state is to be considered, from which both knowledge and practice spring, as the fruits of it, and independently of which neither can be duly appreciated. Our criterion, then, for religious instruction, must be the question: "Whether it has a tendency to improve the state;" not "Whether it seems to convey or to preserve knowledge.”—And who will pretend that such rhymes as those can ever, without a miracle, affect the state of a child, otherwise than by imposing upon him the penance of the drudgery, which the mind must undergo to take in such stuff, and to retain it. But even using the discretion given to parents and teachers, at the end of the paragraph quoted, to omit the |