most vigorous exertions of human laws will often be defeated by divine interposition. Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain."

To produce then a return to social order and christian piety-to restore the alliance between national morals and government-to prevent a more general, desperate, and deeprooted disaffection-to stop the country's ruin, and to raise it to a still higher pitch of moral greatness, what method half so certain, simple, and direct, as to christianize the people? which it is abundantly obvious can only be effectually done by the erection of new churches, and the enlarging of old ones, throughout the different parts of the kingdom. It is solely to an influence of this description, so excellently adapted to its object, and so worthy of an enlightened age and country, as promising no confined temporary advantage, but a substantial permanent general good, that they who are to steer the vessel of the state safe through the midst of shoals and dangers, can

turn for the counteraction of an evil, far more to be dreaded for its effects upon the rising generation, than for its tendency to alienate the minds of those who may be but moderately imbued with true religion. In thus quickening the circulation of Christianity by the means just referred to, the Government must assuredly know that they are promoting the best interests of the people in a way of all others congenial to the views, principles, and feelings of the philanthropist and patriot. They indeed who really love and honour their country, (and who does not, that is sensible of its being blessed with a constitution which preserves all that is attainable in liberty, with the inestimable quality it is to be trusted of perpetuating itself?) cannot, while they wish to confide to the advisers of the crown, whoever they may be, the means of offence and defence, for opposing and putting down insurrection or rebellion, but also link with this wish the fervent hope, that they would regard it as their noblest triumph, to be enabled to

say, that they had crushed it by the soft, but piercing weapons of Christianity. These are the arms, and by no others can be enforced either within or without our Sacred Temples the principles of justice, faith, mercy, and kindness, and the duty of submission to superiors, obedience to magistrates, and loyalty to kings.

Now the revolutionary demagogue, as a remedy for a disease, which, though so prevalent and inveterate, God forbid should be incurable, exclaims, "Give the people their rights and privileges! give them annual parliaments and universal suffrage! (which is in other words to say, give so much liberty to every man, that there shall be no power to govern any man,) and they will soon become peaceable and happy ;"-whereas, he who is possessed of a ray of reason, or a spark of benevolence, will say, "Make them Christians *,

* It will be in the recollection of several of my readers, that five hundred radicals of Birmingham on a Sunday repaired to the Free Church, as it is called, in that town, from any motive, we know, but a good one. After the sermon was over, many of them, as it were by previous

give them in the place of that reform, which means nothing more or less than civil anarchy, religious instruction*; and then will the ties

concert and arrangement, immediately put on their hats; but on the following Sunday they again took, as it may be called, forcible possession of the pews, though not more than two hundred and fifty attended, and the behaviour of these, on quitting the church, was marked by the same decency and respect as that of the rest of the congregation. While the sequel of the statement is this, that the greater part of this deluded band, who went to church to scoff, now came to pray!! Let this plain fact carry conviction to those who deny the effects of that species of public instruction, denominated pulpit preaching, and who, instead of contemplating public order and public happiness, as the probable results of the erection of new churches, most perversely contend that you are doing nothing more than furnishing new dormitories, as Swift sarcastically called our churches, in reference to the then somnolescent style of preaching. For a more detailed narration of the above fact, see the British Critic, No. LXXII. p. 661-663, in which a very just encomium is passed upon Mr. Spry, the Minister of the Free Church, for the ability and firmness of mind displayed by him on this trying occasion.

* "Yes," he continued, kindling as he spake,
"Change wide and deep, and silently perform'd,
This Land shall witness; and as days roll on,
Earth's universal frame shall feel the effect,
Even till the smallest habitable rock,
Beaten by lonely billows, hear the songs

which bind men to earth, as well as to heaven, no longer be in danger of being torn asunder; then may we once more witness the delightful spectacle of the establishment of order, industry, tranquillity, and contentment *.'

Of humanized society; and bloom

With civil arts, and send their fragrance forth
A grateful tribute to all-ruling Heaven.
From culture universally bestowed

On Britain's noble race in freedom born;
From Education, from that humble source,
Expect these mighty issues; from the pains,
And quiet care of unambitious schools
Instructing simple childhood's ready ear:
Thence look for these magnificent results!"

See Wordsworth's Excursion, a poem to be surpassed by none of the present day for force and splendour of colouring, originality, and sublimity of sentiment.

*"It is not by instructing the people in geometry and arithmetic and philosophy and political economy, (though we certainly would not debar them from a ready access to liberal knowledge of any description,)—but by inculcating on their minds, according to the extent of our respective opportunities, a reverence for those sound and tried principles from which the virtues and the great achievements of their ancestors equally sprung,-that we can hope to render them thoroughly proof against the contagion of the disorganizing maxims of radicalism. All other defences against such an enemy are likely to prove unavailing. This kind goeth not out, but by the use

C