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entific attainments, and extraordinary talents, both in war and peace, all Europe has acknowledged ;-whose errors have at least been consistent, and redeemed, as far as such errors can be redeemed, by long and various persecutions;-whose principles, how much soever we may differ from him, we must admit he has acted on, and suffered for, with the coolness of a philosopher, and the zeal of a martyr.

"Of all the men of abilities who had figured upon the stage of the revolution, Carnot had been most steady in his opposition to Bonaparte. He had voted against his being appointed consul for life; and had declared his disapprobation of his assumption of the imperial dignity. His courage, however, had won the respect of Napoleon, who had suffered him to live in unmolested retirement. But when the allies had entered France, and Bonaparte was surrounded by difficulties, he addressed to him a letter, in which, after reminding him that, in the days of his splendour and prosperity, he had studiously kept aloof from him, he declared he was ready to render him his best services in the season of his distress. It is an instance of the decision of Bonaparte's character, that, in consequence of this letter, he entrusted the man who had been so long his declared enemy, with the defence of the important city of Antwerp." P. 242, 243.

Sermons, chiefly on Particular Occasions. By ARCHIBALD ALISON, LL. B. Prebendary of Sarum, Rector of Rodington, Vicar of High Ercal, and Senior Minister of the Episcopal Chapel, Cowgate, Edinburgh. 8vo. pp. 466. Edinburgh. 1814. The great beauty of the extracts from Alison's Sermons have induced us to republish this article, though we are far from agreeing with the reviewer in his opinion of the superior usefulness of that kind of preaching in which Mr. Alison excels. The first, though not the only duty of the preacher, is to teach the doctrines he professcs; but the divines of that school, which has received the sanction of the Edinburgh Review, aim merely at exciting the imagination, and gratifying the taste of their hearers. The concluding sneer at the labours of Horsley is unworthy the reviewer, and insulting to the memory of a great man.]

[From the Edinburgh Review.]

THE style of these sermons is something new, we think, in the literature of this country. It is more uniformly elevated, more profusely figured-and, above all, more curiously modulated, and balanced upon a more exact and delicate rythm, than any English composition in mere prose with which we are acquainted. In these, as well as in some more substantial characteristics, it reminds us more of the beautiful moral harangues that occur in the

Telemaque of Fenelon, or of the celebrated Oraisons Funèbres of Bossuet, than of any thing of British growth and manufacture ;Nor do we hesitate at all to set Mr. Alison fairly down by the side of the last named of those illustrious prelates. He is less lofty, perhaps; but more tender and more varied-less splendid, but less theatrical-and, with fewer striking reflections on particular occurrences, has unquestionably more of the broad light of philosophy, and the milder glow of religion. In polish and dignity we do not think him at all inferior-though he has not the advantage of enhancing the simple majesty of Christianity by appeals to listening monarchs, and apostrophes to departed princes.

From the very suggestion of this parallel, it will be understood, that the strain of the discourses before us is never careless, or even familiar perhaps not always quite natural-but uniformily graceful, engaging, and impressive; and at least as far removed from the parade of a frigid rhetoric, as from the rude energy of tempestuous passion or untutored enthusiasm. If they do not abound in those bursts and flashes of eloquence which constitute the sublime of such compositions, they have all the richness, and warmth, and softness, which make up their beauty; and are intimately felt to be the works of a mind at once delicate and ardent, guided by the purest taste and the most amiable feelings--and pleasing itself with bestowing a careful finish on its expressions, not more from an instinctive love of all that is beautiful and harmonious, than from an unfeigned affection and concern for the subjects on which it is em ployed.

We do not know, in fact, any sermons so pleasing-or so likely both to be popular, and to do good to those who are pleased with them. All the feelings are generous and gentle; all the senti ments liberal, and all the general views just and ennobling. They are calculated to lead us on to piety, through the purifica Lion of our taste, and the culture of our social affections-to found the love of God on the love of Nature and of Man--and to purge the visual orb of the soul for the contemplation of the infinite ma jesty of the Creator, by teaching it to recognise the unspeakable beauty and grandeur which reigns in all the aspects of his physical and moral creation. They are not, however, sermons for profound scholars or learned divines. They contain no display of erudition, nor profess to settle any knotty points in theology. Such labours have their value no doubt, and are entitled to their praise; nor is it a light praise to have consecrated the fruits of long study and scientific research to the illustration of what is dark, or the confirmation of what is doubtful, in the foundations of our faith but we have always thought that discussions such as these could be embodied in no form less suitable to their substance than that of sermons in the vulgar tongue-or, in other words, dis Vot. V. New Series.

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Courses orally delivered to a promiscuous audience, the greater part of which is necessarily incapable either of following or of appreciating the merits of the reasoning-and no part of which could presume to judge of it on a mere transient recitation of the positions and authorities. There are no subjects in fact that require so patient a collation of books, and so frequent a recurrence to the early steps of our argument, as the abstruse and weighty matters that form the topics of theological controversy-either with argumentative infidels, or the learned advocates of an erroneous faith. Such discussions, therefore, are most properly made the subject of books, or of academical instruction: but we conceive it to be nothing less than a perversion of the great purposes of ordinary preaching, to substitute them in the place of those weekly discourses by which the morals of a whole congregation are to be improved, or their devotion awakened.

It is not easy to overrate the importance of doing this effectually and well; and when we consider how great a proportion of readers are as careless-as impatient of long dissertations, and at the same time as vacant and open to all lively impressions as the mass of an ordinary congregation, it is not easy to calculate how much good may be effected, when a pastor, who has discovered the secret of doing this, is pleased to enlarge his audience by means of the press, and to extend the benefit of his exhortations to all who are enrolled in his flock by the mere act of becoming his readers. For one man whose understanding is perplexed by the false doctrines or false philosophy, which it is the object of a Stillingfleet, a Clarke, or a Horsley, to redargue and expose, we may be assured there are at least a thousand who stand in need of the excitement and suggestions which may be furnished by the volume before us--who want to be roused to a sense of the beauty and the good that exist in the universe around them--and who are only indifferent to the feelings of their fellow creatures, and negligent of the duties they impose, for want of some persuasive monitor to awake the dormant capacities of their nature, and to make them see and feel the delights which Providence has attached to their exercise. It is lamentable, indeed, to think how many pass through life, without tasting the highest gratification, or exerting the noblest functions of their being, from no other cause than the want of some such excitement: and how many of those who have been happily distinguished for both, are able to trace back the first dawnings of that moral and intellectual existence to the accidental perusal of some work, far less fitted to produce that effect than the least of the discourses of Mr. Alison.

We are not acquainted, indeed, with any work so well fitted for the purpose, or calculated to make so beneficial an impression on the minds of those to whom such topics have not hitherto been

familiar. The beauty of the style and the imagery is almost sure to attract the attention in the first place; and the mind must be dull and sullen indeed, that offers a long resistance to the stronger charm of that indulgent philanthropy-of that warm sensibility to goodness and beauty-that amiable sympathy with youth, and innocence, and enjoyment-and that holy hope and cheerful confidence in the ultimate and universal happiness of a creation proceeding from omnipotent love-which form the grand characteristics of these eloquent discourses.

Their faults-since there must be faults in every thing that passes through our hands are, in the first place, a little manner. ism and monotony-arising from the too uniform melody of the composition, and from that emphatic tone which prevails too universally, not to become, on some occasions, both wearisome and ineffective. The necessity which the author seems to have im. posed on himself, of always filling and satisfying the ear, some. times leaves the mind unsatisfied; and an harmonious close now and then conducts us to a weak or ordinary meaning. Another, and something of a kindred fault, may perhaps be ascribed to the necessary brevity of a modern sermon. Large and comprehensive views are sometimes just opened, and then deserted, or dismissed with very slight consideration;-a sort of philosophical grandeur and majestic wisdom in the beginning of a discourse now and then holds out a promise, where there is no space left for the performance. We ha scarcely admired the stateliness of the vestibule, when the door of the temple itself is closed against us: -and the lofty prelude has but just summoned us to attention, when the music is broken off, or passes to a differing measure. It is quite time, however, that we should permit our readers to judge of these defects and excellences for themselves.

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The sermons are mostly of an occasional nature. There is one on each of the four seasons; one on the century; one on scarcity; and six or seven on the national fasts. There are four or five without any such appropriate application. Those who have the good fortune to be familiar with the beautiful Essays in which this author has unfolded the true theory of material beauty and sublimity, by resolving them into symbols of mental loveliness or grandeur, will naturally turn with eagerness to the sermons on the Seasons, for the farther elucidation of this interesting doctrine; and they will be fully gratified ;--though we can afford to make but a few extracts from this portion of the volume. We begin with the sermon on Autumn, which was preached from the text of Isaac meditating at even-tide in the fields. After some introductory remarks, the preacher proceeds-

"There is an even-tide in the day--an hour when the sun retires, and the shadows fall, and when nature assumes the appearances of sobers

ness and silence. It is an hour from which everywhere the thoughtless fly, as peopled only in their imagination with images of gloom;-it is the hour, on the other hand, which, in every age, the wise have loved, as bringing with it sentiments and affections more valuable than all the splendours of the day.

"Its first impression is to still all the turbulence of thought or passion which the day may have brought forth. We follow, with our eye, the descending sun-we listen to the decaying sounds of labour and of toil-and, when all the fields are silent around us, we feel a kindred stillness to breathe upon our souls, and to calm them from the agitations of society. From this first impression, there is a second which naturally follows it ;-in the day we are living with men—in the even-tide we begin to live with nature; we see the world withdrawn from us-the shades of night darken over the habitations of men, and we feel ourselves alone. It is an hour, fitted, as it would seem, by Him who made us, to still, but with gentle hand, the throb of every unruly passion, and the ardour of every impure desire; and, while it veils for a time the world that misleads us, to awaken in our hearts those legitimate affections which the heat of the day may have dissolved. There is yet a farther scene it presents to us:-While the world withdraws from us, and while the shades of the evening darken upon our dwellings, the splendours of the firmament come forward to our view. In the moments when earth is overshadowed, heaven opens to our eyes the radiance of a sublimer being; our hearts follow the successive splendours of the scene; and while we forget, for a time, the obscurity of earthly concerns, we feel that there are yet greater things than these."

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"There is, in the second place, an "even-tide" in the year-a season, as we now witness, when the sun withdraws his propitious light-when the winds arise, and the leaves fall, and nature around us seems to sink into decay. It is said, in general, to be the season of melancholy; and if, by this word be meant that it is the time of solemn and of serious thought, it is undoubtedly the season of melancholy; -yet, it is a melancholy so soothing, so gentle in its approach, and so prophetic in its influence, that they who have known it feel, as instinctively, that it is the doing of God, and that the heart of man is not thus finely touched, but to fine issues.

"When we go out into the fields in the evening of the year, a different voice approaches us. We regard, even in spite of ourselves, the still but steady advances of time. A few days ago, and the summer of the year was grateful, and every element was filled with life, and the sun of heaven seemed to glory in his ascendant. He is now enfeebled in his power; the desert no more "blossoms like the rose;" the song of joy is no more heard among the branches; and the earth is strewed with that foliage which once bespoke the magnificence of summer. Whatever may be the passions which society has awakened, we pause amid this apparent desolation of nature. We sit down in the lodge "of the wayfaring man in the wilderness," and we feel that all we witness is the emblem of our own fate. Such, also, in a few years, will be our own condition. The blossoms of our spring, the pride of our summer, will also fade into decay;---and the pulse that

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