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valleys of Aragua, one of the finest parts of Caracas, a considerable time before the Revolution, free labour had begun to supersede in many quarters the less productive labour of slaves. Humboldt instances the noble example of Count Tovar, who, with the double view of rendering slaves less necessary to the landholders, and of furnishing the freed men with the opportunity of becoming farmers, on departing for Europe, parcelled poor families out and let a part of his extensive estates to such as chose to apply themselves to the cultivation of cotton. On his return to America,' says Humboldt, four years after, he found on this spot, then in fine cultivation, a little hamlet of thirty or forty houses, which is called Punta Zamuro. The inhabitants are almost all Mulattoes, Zamboes, or free Blacks. This example of letting out land, has happily been followed by several other great proprietors. The rent is ten piastres for a vanega of ground, and is paid either in money or in cotton. I love to dwell on these details of colonial industry, because they prove to the inhabitants of Europe, what to the enlightened inhabitants of the colonies has long ceased to be doubtful, that the continent of Spanish America can produce sugar and indigo by free hands, and that the unhappy slaves are capable of becoming peasants, farmers, and landholders.**

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The suppression of the smaller monastic establishments and the reduction of the overgrown power of a corrupt and licentious priesthood, are another important result of the Revolution. The religion of Spanish America was essentially, as it is in Spain itself, pagan,-undisguised idolatry,-image-worship of the grossest kind. It is still exclusively Roman Catholic; but the grosser idolatry will not stand the light that is breaking in, nor will the priesthood long find it their interest to uphold it. The Romish religion is all-accommodating. As it can become heathenish to please the heathen, so, it can become, under some circumstances, tolerant to please the tolerant, and all but Christian to gain the more pious and intelligent. It can dominate and destroy, as in Spain; play the demagogue and clamour for liberty as in Ireland; turn dotard at Rome; act the Jesuit in France; give away Bibles in Germany; and trade in bulls, absolutions, and wonder-working virgins in America. Improve the minds of the people, and the Romish religion, bad as it is, must improve also. The Inquisition has been abolished; monkery is going down; and miracles must soon go out of fashion.

• Personal Narrative, vol. iv. p. 127.

Commerce has ever been the handmaid of Christianity. It breaks down at once a thousand prejudices by the introduction of a new set of feelings towards those who were before regarded with distrust and animosity as aliens and heretics. It gives a new impulse to the whole machinery of society, creates new objects of interest, opens fresh channels for the introduction of knowledge, and lessens the self-importance of the individual by enlarging his wants. Civilization, which for three centuries has been stationary throughout South America, must now advance with rapid steps; Education is already widely extending her benefits; and in relation both to the improved facilities of intercourse and the removal of every moral obstacle, the time, we trust, approaches, when the valleys shall be exalted, and the mighty Andes themselves be made low, and the crooked ways be made straight, and the rugged places a plain, and the glory of the Lord be revealed to the long benighted tribes of that vast portion of the New World.

Art. IV. Practical Sermons, by the late Rev. Joseph Milner, A.M. Vicar of the Holy Trinity Church, Kingston upon Hull. Vol. III. 8vo. pp. 498. Price 12s. London. 1825.

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HE former two volumes of these valuable remains of their inestimable Author, appeared as long ago as 1804 and 1809, and were briefly noticed in the Old Series of our Journal* as a valuable addition to our choice theology.' The sermons which they contain, were characterised as not, indeed, original, elegant, or profound, as neither theological orations, nor academical essays, but the plain, animated effusions of a heart glowing with compassion for immortal souls, and under the conduct of an enlightened and wellregulated mind. With this sentence, the opinion expressed by the Editor of the present volume, the Rev. Mr. Fawcett, in the preface, substantially coincides.

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As through the medium of several periodical works, it has been made known to the public, that the late Dean of Carlisle bequeathed his brother's MSS. to the Editor of the present volume, its appearance more than three years after the lamented death of that great man, may require explanation. Some may wonder that the publication has been so long deferred; while others may be disposed to ask, why, from a stock of sermons, out of which two

Vol. VII. Part I. p. 124. (1811.)

large volumes had been already selected, a third should now be produced.

• The fact is, that the Editor did not venture on this step without considerable hesitation. He was afraid lest, when his materials had been twice sifted, and each time what appeared the choicest taken away, he should not be able to furnish a volume equal in excellence to the former two, and at the same time affording a sufficient variety. These apprehensions he repeatedly expressed to friends who urged him to publish; and it was uniformly answered, that a volume of sermons from such a man as Joseph Milner must be acceptable, and must do good. To these representations he at length yielded; and the further he proceeded in his task, the more was he inclined to acquiesce in the judgement of those who made them.

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The great beauty of Milner is, that no one can read a sermon of his, without being convinced that he is in earnest. In every page we see a preacher concerned only to vindicate the ways of God to men, and to save the souls of his hearers. Engrossed by this object, he loses sight of every other. He cannot stay to trim his sentences or round his periods, for he is aiming at the souls of his audience, and therefore has not leisure to consult their taste. Perhaps, he may have carried this inattention to words to an extreme; nor does the Editor wish to recommend his Author's method to general imitation. But, in the negligence of Milner, combined with his strong sense and deep piety, there is a dignity which more laboured compositions do not often reach. His appeals to the conscience, though rough, are in a high degree forcible; and there is often an exquisite tenderness, with a natural eloquence which at once makes its way to the heart.'

Now, it is sermons of this kind that we most particularly want, -that our literature is so deficient in, that our pulpits so rarely yield. The Author's method, if by this Mr. Fawcett means his skeleton or his mode of handling his text, we deem a matter of trivial consideration. The method most natural to the individual, is so far the best. And as to the precise cast of his sentences, which are often exquisitely colloquial, we admit that it would be as indisrceet to imitate them, as to copy the tones and gestures of a speaker, which is not imitation, but mimicry. But the style of these sermons generally, we think not unworthy of being studied as a model of fervent simplicity. Not unfrequently, with all its homeliness, it rises to a grace and a power beyond the reach of art. We have not the former volumes at hand, and cannot therefore pronounce on the comparative merit of the two and thirty sermons in the present volume: they are of course unequal, but some of them strike us as coming nearer, in true eloquence, in a certain fervour, and unction, and occasional pathos, to the

sermons of Leighton and others of our elder divines, than any modern compositions that we have met with. The sermon on which we first opened, (the 13th,) may be taken as a specimen. The text is, Prov. xvi. 20. "Whoso trusteth in the Lord, happy is he."

Simple recipe of happiness! How singularly divine is the Scripture! You might look over all the volumes of human philosophy, all the creeds and systems of all religions besides, and you would not find such a sentiment as this, "Whoso trusteth in the Lord, happy is he." The Epicurean philosophers directed men to place their happiness in pleasure. The Stoic made the chief good of man to consist in virtue. But what did they mean by virtue? a proud selfconfidence. They directed a man to remove his confidence from all other objects, and to fix it-where? on himself! To trust himself was the way to make him happy! Man was to be a sort of god to himself, and in the resources of his own mind to find his bliss! Ah! wretched plan of happiness! Who, that knows his own weakness and blindness, can trust in himself? It required a very unwarrantable insolence of pride to bring a man to place his happiness in his own resources. The Academics, and other sects of pagan philosophy, content themselves with disputing against all other opinions, and establish nothing certain or solid in their room: and Mahometaus, Indian Bramins, Papists, Socinians, and all Christian formalists, in the account which they give of happiness, are all of one religion; they always send a man to self-dependence. Let a man attend to such and such things-ceremonies, morals, or something else, it matters not what it be, but let him depend on himself, and in the strength of his own mind, and for the merit of such and such good actions, he may work himself into happiness. So that, in this view, all religions and systems of morals may be reduced to one thing to trust in a man's self for happiness is the simple point of all. And such a plan is what it may be expected man would fall into, since he fell from God. For what was it that brought about the fall of man, and the first sin in paradise? was it not self-dependence? Did not man cease to put his trust in God; set up for self, in the spirit of independence; and contrive to be happy by his own strength? We know he thence became to himself only a region of misery and desolation! We all naturally walk in this way we trust to an arm of flesh: and all the religions, and plans to make men happy, which men have invented, are all constructed on this selfrighteous principle.

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But, behold, superior and alone, in a singular light, stands the religion of God. It teaches, as in the text, to trust in the Lord: that man is happy who does so. What Solomon thus briefly expresses, is the substance of the Bible. Would Would you be happy? mark what the Lord saith. Happiness is a great word; oh, we all pant after it! Here it is learn to trust in the Lord for it. And here you do nothing, you know nothing, you contrive nothing: you only know yourself wretched, and all that is vile and empty and helpless; and

you behold the Lord himself your supreme good; and you trust him as such; and as such you make him your own, when you trust him. It is not that you are called on to feel any happiness before you trust him, or to have any resources at all beforehand: only you trust him and it rests with his veracity to make you happy.' pp. 188-190.

But it is the close of this sermon, which has struck us as so peculiarly impressive and beautiful.

'We have seen how the Christian's plan operates in producing happiness in this life. How it will do so in the world to come, though this be far more important than the other, yet you will not expect I should undertake with any accuracy to describe. God grant us the experience of it only, and we shall feel happiness overflowing : "for it doth not yet appear what we shall be." Yet I will try to give you a faint idea of what is meant by that inconceivably blissful saying, "Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."

What is the joy of the Lord? Conceive it thus. Let a man set aside from his thoughts, all worldly and carnal enjoyments, as not worthy to be mentioned here; let the pleasures of human society and human literature be also set aside, for they are far too low. Let him ascend in his ideas above the air and sky, up to what St. Paul calls the third heaven. Let him cease to gaze on the most beautiful and glorious works of God; he has greater things still in view. Let him forget also himself-that busy, proud, important thing, a man's self, which creates for us here such a world of woe-and let him hear the Lord speak; the Lord, through the channel and medium of human nature; I mean, the Lord Jesus: for the glory of God lightens heaven, but "the Lamb is the light thereof." Let him hear and see Jesus, not now in parables, types, and figures; not in the glass of the Scriptures, as here, by reflection; but the Lord himself let him see, as he is, in all his beauty and glory. While he sees, he shall be changed into his likeness, and, awaking after his likeness, he shall be "satisfied" with it. The Lord is love, and he sees this love, and learns to love, to be full of love, all over love, at the sight. And this is to enter into the joy of the Lord. In the Divine presence is fuliness of joy, and at his right hand are pleasures for ever. Thus happy, brethren, is, and for ever will be, he who trusts in the Lord. It is in a very particular manner that God gives happiness. He sells it not for our works, as all religions but that of the Scriptures teach; he gives it to poor sinners who trust him for it. Learn you, brethren, to trust him in Jesus; and, however imperfect your conceptions be of happiness, you shall certainly have it. Your ignorance will be no bar to your happiness. He who hath said, "He that trusteth in the Lord, happy is he," will surely make it good.' pp. 204, 5,

The ninth sermon, entitled Christ's kingdom not of this 'world,' places the subject in a most striking light in reference to the worldly spirit of Christian professors. It is a word in season, eminently adapted to be useful under the existing

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