Who spread this verdure o'er the fields, who bade Hail, scene of beauty! scene of Sabbath calm! Hail, ye, that blend your silence with the soul ! Moves visible to faith: but unconfus'd With these, the works and wonders of his hand : In sunlight, and the glimmer of the moon ; But not HIMSELF: suspended by his breath This heathen's wisdom, and this poet's creed: Away from us the morbid sympathy That blends itself with rocks and trees; that stoops. To fellowship with brutes; that finds a soul In every bird that flits along the sky, A life in every leaf and every flower, Be thine the adoration; thine the praise, And love, and wonder, THOU, WHOSE NAME IS ONE ! It is impossible, however, not to be disgusted with the sneer at public worship. The pretence of reprobating superstition and fanaticism, is too poor, and too stale a trick, to protect Mr. Elton against the charge of irreligion. We are persuaded that among ten thousand who neglect public worship, there is not one that ever resorts to scenes of romantic privacy to indulge a spirit of devotion. And how can Mr. Elton, as a professed friend at least to some kind of piety, and a well-wisher to the interests of human nature, debase and prostitute his talents to so unworthy a task, as that of discouraging those exercises of religion, which are at once most consonant with the habits and tastes of our species, and which alone' can retain in their minds the impression of an All-seeing Spirit, and an Invisible World? There are two or three other passages in the volume which in our opinion lower its value, and will very probably obstruct its circulation. The Monodrama of Chioma ra, a Gaulish woman, who, with a far nobler vengeance than Lucretia's, had slain the Roman by whom she had been taken captive and offered violence, is not exactly the kind of poem for female readers and a still stronger objection applies to the glowing description of a dream. We will conclude these strictures with an elegant passage from one of the 'Musings.' And now at length the bliss of certain hope A second life, child of my youth, shall know ; And flocks; of winds, and rills, and whispering boughs; Of lonely joy. But never shall he find Vice in its naked horror. Wisdom thus The lessons of experience shall be found, That midst the woods and fields are sought in vain.' pp. 77, 78. The translations from Propertius are respectably executed, but are after all scarcely worth reading. Mr. Elton has only given us the substance of originals which had no value except the workmanship. Art. VIII. Sermons by the late Rev. Richard De Courcy, Vicar of St. Alkmond, Shrewsbury. To which is prefixed, an Essay on the Nature of pure and undefiled Religion. Second Edition. 8vo. [p. 420. Matthews and Leigh. 1810. WHEN we take up a second edition of this volume of Sermons, it can hardly be supposed we design to enter very minutely into its merits or defects;-although the circumstance of its having hitherto been confined to a limited circulation, seems to indicate the propriety of our giving some general notice of the nature of its contents. Besides an essay on pure and undefiled religion, (supposed to have been originally intended for the pulpit,) the volume before us includes ten Sermons on the following subjects evangelical truths stated, and the charge of novelty as a ground of prejudice against the gospel refuted: the nature and necessity of giving the heart to God, considered and enforced: an invitation to the gospel feast: the contrast (i. e. between the fruits of righteousness and of sin): an alarming view of God's desolating judgments: the nature and distinguishing marks of true conversion: the right knowledge of doctrine the fruit of obedience: Belshazzar's doom: the preparation requisite for the day of judgment: on the death of Mr. T. A. After this enuineration of titles, it is hardly necessary to say in express terms, that but little originality is to be expected from these Sermons in point of matter: nor will it be understood as implying any severe censure, when we add that but little novelty can be discovered in the mode in which the doctrines and precepts of religion are stated, the arguments by which they are enforced, the allusions by which they are illustrated, or the imagery with which they are adorned. To those who consider the number and the variety of works which occupy every department of theology, and particularly in what a multitude of volumes every article of sacred truth has been separately and minutely discussed,branched into a thousand ramifications, and improved in innumerable ways under the denomination of Sermons—it will probably appear, that a discourse, in which under a subject properly chosen, we meet with just views of evan gelical truth, correctness of division and arrangement, propriety in the choice of ornament, and a style possessing a competent degree of elegance and simplicity-is entitled to attention and approbation at least from its hearers ; and may, indeed, without greatly trespassing on the dignity of the public, prefer a claim to notice beyond the circle of the author's immediate friends and admirers. Of the sermons before us it is rather difficult to give a discriminating character, for they have no very unusual faults nor peculiar, excellences. Religious truth is for the most part clearly stated and enforced by just and cogent reasoning but in the subordinate particular of style wed have more to tolerate than admire. Though not uniformly un-? graceful, it is frequently obscured by affectation, and vitiated by false ornament; and these faults are unfortunately most prominent, in those parts in which the author attempts to rise by a display of his oratorical powers, where poverty of sentiment is sometimes, veiled by pomp of words, and a studied structure of sentences.-We select a specimen of these sermons from the sixth, on the nature and distinguishi ing marks of true conversion. 02 Conversion doth not consist in those things, which the blindness of some, the pride of others, and the pharisaical zeal of rot a few, would substitute in its stead. For instance; baptism is not conversion. - Iť is only the outward sign of it. And, to mistake the sign for the thing itself, is as absurd as to make a shadow equal to the substance. The thing signified in baptism is," a death unto sin, and a new birth unto righteousness" and this is conversion. But how many content themselves with having partaken of the outward ordinance; who do not understand the significancy of the institution, and know nothing of the blessings symbolically represented in it!" He is not a Jew who is one outwardly," (nor is he a Christian who is one no farther ;) "but he is a Jew," (and a Christian,) "who is one inwardly and circumcision," (or baptism) is that of the heart, in the spirit and not in the letter'; "whose praise is not of men, but of God." Rom. ii. 28, 29. Neither does the great change consist in a transient effect on the passions. These may often be mechanically wrought upon, and violent emotions excited in them, without, the least concomitant influence from the spirit of God. One man may be affected under a sermon, and another weep at a tragedy, and both be in the same predicament as to their state of heart towards God. When the passions are moved, because the affections are engaged, and the understanding enlightened in the subject, then the work is produced not by the pathos of eloquence, or the violent mechanism of bawling and unmeaning vociferation, but by the finger of God. A change of the latter kind will be permanent and abiding. But conversions, such as spring from a transient gust of passion, will always evaporate "like the morning cloud or the early dew, that passeth away." Hos. vi. 4. It would be equally absurd and dangerous to place true re : -a name ligion in an outward and partial reformation, often accompanied with |