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C. Dewey.

ART. I. Communicant's Manual. Devotional Exercises, Prayers, and Hymns, more particularly designed for the use of Communicants. With a short Introduction on the Origin, Nature, and Obligation of the Lord's Supper.

We have not yet quite done with the subject of religious institutions. We have given considerable space to this subject for a year or two past in our pages; but we have still some supplementary remarks to offer, before we can feel that we have fully discharged our humble duty to this important department of religious influences.

There are, in particular, certain mistakes which we wish to notice. The present is considered by many as the age of spirituality in religion; and it is somewhat too carelessly alleged, that the natural and necessary tendency of this spirit of the age, is to break away from what is called the bondage of forms and usages. It is true, indeed, that religious observances are justly held to be less essential in some respects, than they were in former days, and in less enlightened ages. That is to say, they are justly held to be, not the very essence of religion; not to possess any absolute and independent value as mere forms; not to be substitutes for practical virtue; not to be methods of appeasing a guilty conscience, or of procuring the favor of Heaven. But there

are respects, on the other hand, in which we undertake to say, that religious observances are not a whit less essential, than they were held to be in the most superstitious ages. They are not a whit less essential, as means of religious knowledge and impression. Their importance, as means, in

VOL. XIV. — -N. S. VOL. IX. NO. II.

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fact, was never overrated. Nay, it was the very error of former times to regard them too much as ends, and therefore too little as means. And if the spirituality of the present day is tending to whelm all ideas, good and bad, of religious usages, in undistinguishing reprobation, then is this spirituality not what it should be, a discreet and sound judgment, but a rash and blind impulse. The truth is, there is to be, and there must be, a growing appreciation of the utility of religious observances. The public mind is yet, to some degree, mystified about this matter, but it will yet come to see and estimate things more clearly and rationally. It confounds together, at present, things which it will yet see to be totally distinct. Superstition about forms is one thing; an intelligent use of them is another. But superstition, like a cloud, has overspread the whole field of religious institutions, so that many see nothing there but the cloud, no work to do, no soil to cultivate, no productions to be reared. When they do come to see distinctly, they will perceive that religious forms are not to be neglected, not to be shrunk from, or coldly passed by, as some of them now are, because too solemn or awful, not to be disused, in fine, but only to be used in a new manner, and that they are to be used,shall not hesitate to say it, more heartily and devoutly than they ever were before. A spiritual age, as we sometimes hear it said, outgrowing forms and usages! We might as well say, that an intelligent age is outgrowing books and reading, and all fixed times of study, all fixed application of mind.

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Indeed, a religious observance is but a form, mode, or season of attention to the subject of religion; and therefore has most especial claims upon an intelligent and spiritual age. A religious observance, we repeat, is a mode of attention; and although there are other views of its utility which might be urged, this seems to us to be the leading one, and it is, at any rate, the view which we wish at present to offer and illustrate.

The mistakes to be corrected by this view of the subject, ,-first, that which has been already adverted to, that an interest in forms must decline amidst the growing spirituality of the age; secondly, the idea closely analogous to the first, that forms are but poor and puerile things in religion, "weak and beggarly elements";-and thirdly, the notion that

the obligation to be constantly religious, to be religious at all times, conflicts with the obligation to devote particular times and seasons to the offices of piety. With this statement of the objects we have in view, let us proceed to the illustration of the particular argument, which we have advanced, for religious institutions.

Religious institutions or observances, then, are forms, modes, or seasons of attention to religion. The Sabbath is a time of attention to religion. It is not to be regarded as a day for being more religious, more conscientious, more under the guidance of a principle of duty than we are required to be on other days; but as a day for giving more attention to religion than we can give at other seasons of life. Religious worship, again, whether public or private, is an act of contemplation. It has other characteristics and uses indeed; it is prayer, and as prayer it may be answered; but it is, also, the contemplation of God, and it has its most obvious and direct use, as contemplation, impressing, as it naturally does, a deeper sense of the perfection and presence of God. So also the service of the Communion is a mode of attention. It is true, that it is likewise a commemorative act, and an act of avowal or profession; and in these views it has its advantages. But its greatest advantage, perhaps, lies in its direct effect upon the mind, and this is the effect of attention. It is a fixed and solemn meditation upon Jesus Christ, as a meek, patient, forgiving, redeeming, triumphant Sufferer. In the same manner infant baptism, with those who practise it, is designed to fix attention on the parental obligations and duties.

Now, attention is the grand instrument of impression. It is such in every thing else, as well as in religion. It is such by the very law of our nature. It is such by the appointment of God. All the means of grace, -consideration, meditation, reading, prayer, the ordinances of religion,—may be resolved into this one direction, "attend; give heed." There is no other conceivable method by which a rational being can attain to the knowledge or feeling of any truth, doctrine, or duty, but attention.

This attention to religion, then, it is a matter of the last consequence that men should give. They cannot be religious without it. And it is of this that they are most exposed to fail. "The cares of this life," the tasks of labor, the occu

pations of business, preclude, from the hours which they occupy, the necessary degree of attention. Worldly engagements, even when they are turned to the best moral account, when they are made a useful discipline for the soul, when they are made as they may and should be, to minister to all our virtues, still prevent, for the time being, that fixed attention to religion which is needful. We say, needful, — for no knowledge of whatever subject will be deep, no sentiment of whatever kind will be profound, unless it springs from intense contemplation. The business of this world cannot be thoroughly understood, the sciences and arts cannot be completely mastered, and, what is more to the purpose, their power and beauty cannot be deeply and habitually felt, but upon this condition. Religion exacts no less; and this is not an arbitrary demand, for, from the nature of things, it can exact no less. Whoever expects to be a confirmed, consistent, and happy Christian without devoted attention to the subject, without frequent and fixed contemplation of the virtues of Christianity, will as certainly fail of success, as the negligent artist, student, or man of business will fail. This, indeed, is the secret of the failure of thousands in religion. They think to go on, upon the strength of one grand season of attention at the commencement of their career; or they think that by the glare of spiritual beaconlights kindled up from time to time over the land, they shall be enabled to walk in the path that shineth brighter and brighter. Or, rejecting all impulses, paroxysms, and revivals in religion, they neglect to adopt in their place regular, appointed, and solemn weekly and daily meditations. They wonder that they cannot be happy in their religion, they wonder that they cannot habitually feel its power and reality, when they give not half the earnest heed to it that they give to every other interest of life. Would they understand a foreign language; they do not think it enough occasionally to turn over the leaves of a book written in that language, and carelessly to sigh, and wish that they understood it. They do not think it enough to employ teachers. But they take daily lessons and study them; and they keep up a regular attention to the subject for years. And yet they expect to understand the language of heaven, a language which treats of things far and widely foreign to their worldly apprehensions; a language whose sublime meanings eternity will be

for ever unfolding, they expect to understand it all by carelessly wishing that they understood it. The truth is, that there is a great, prevailing, public, and almost authorized mistake in this matter; and the result is, that the principle of religion, in its prevailing forms, has by no means come to its full strength, or to its full satisfaction. It is in the breasts of thousands a weak, wavering, hesitating, half painful, and more than half useless and unproductive principle. Oh! where are the Christians, where, in considerable numany bers, are they, who are cultivating the great science of religion, and the glorious art of holy living, with half the steadiness and zeal, with which artists are bodying forth the beautiful creations of genius, with which poets are laboring to perfect their immortal productions, with which the learned are sounding the depths of philosophy and science, or with which the industrious and enterprising are toiling to build up the splendid, but perishing fabrics of worldly fortune! Never, till we see labors like these in the service of religion, shall we see Christians, well and fully worthy of the name!

Here, then, comes in the needful ministry of religious forms and observances. They are not the only modes of attention to religion, but they are modes of attention, of which we should avail ourselves the more eagerly and gladly, and to which we should address ourselves the more earnestly and devotedly, just in proportion as the cares of this life are apt to draw away our thoughts from heavenly objects. Hours of deep religious meditation, not only create a deep sense of religion for the time which nothing else can create, but they spread a savour over the hours of business and pleasure, and they tend gradually in proportion as they are faithfully used, to hallow the whole scene of our daily labors and enjoyments. They are the cool, and silent, and shaded fountains, whose waters spread freshness and verdure as they flow onward through the vale of life. The traveller gains rest and refreshment in these still retreats; and such retreats should the traveller to eternity find, lest he grow weary in the way, or forget to press onward in the great moral pilgrimage. The Sabbath season should be joyfully welcomed and sacredly cherished, as a season for recollection, for prayer, for gathering up anew the energies of the spiritual life. Then is it sanctified indeed, and then only, when it is used not for its own sake, not for the sake of satisfying any super

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