to answer my questions in its favor; and one of the denominations has exhibited a spirit so discordant with the spirit of the Gospel, as to compel you to answer my questions against it. It will require considerable reasoning and sophistry to induce you to hesitate in deciding against it. Which denomination, then, is it which is deficient in duty, and inferior in piety?

Now, my dear Sir, permit me, in conclusion, to request of you, in view of your leaving on your death-bed the recollection to your children, that you have preferred the cause of the self-denying Christian, to that of the self-pleasing opposer; in view of your reflecting, when in eternity, that you have preferred the prayerful to the prayerless; those who reverenced, to those who neglected God's institutions; those who discountenanced, to those who countenanced the immoral and the profligate; in view of the self-satisfaction arising from all this; in view of the utility, present and future, to yourself and connexions, of associating with the friends, rather than with the enemies of God; in view of your solemn, and weighty, and eternal obligations to defend and support truth, and to resist the encroachments of error; in view of all this, I request of you, to give yourself and your influence immediately to the true system of religion, to the best system, to God's system. And, through you, I make the same request to every person who, like yourself, has been hesitating on the all important controversy between the friends and enemies of truth.

Your affectionate Friend,

REVIEWS.

LETTERS OF AN ENGLISH TRAVELLER, TO HIS FRIEND IN ENGLAND, ON THE REVIVALS OF RELIGION IN AMerica. Boston, Bowles and Dearborn, 72, Washington Street. Press of Isaac R. Butts and Co. 1828. pp. 142. 18mo.

The utility of revivals of real religion, will be questioned by none whose opinions deserve the least regard. But when we inquire, what is real religion, and what is a revival of real religion, diverse and discordant answers will be given. So it has been in all ages. Men have not willingly, in any age, avowed themselves the enemies of God, and truth, and holiness; yet, as it regards the real character of God, and the results which may be expected to flow from an exhibition of his truth and holiness, opinions have been entertained, entirely at war with each other. In such a warfare of opinions and feelings, truth and holiness cannot, of course, be found on both sides. If, then, a diversity of opinions exists on any subject of great importance, and essentially connected with the eternal welfare of the community, the necessity of correct

sentiments becomes undeniable; for without these, how can we expect correct practice?

Such a subject is the one, which the author of the work under review, has selected for our consideration. However men may differ in opinion, as it regards the nature of religion, or of a revival of religion, but one opinion can exist relative to the importance of the subject. As eternity compared with time, and everlasting life compared with everlasting woe, so is this subject, in comparison with all others which can claim a careful and interested attention.

Such an attention it is likely to receive; for the events of God's providence are daily rendering it the imperious duty of every man, who wishes to retain even the name of a Christian, not to remain undecided on a subject of such consequence. Revivals are yearly increasing, not only in number, but also in power, and in various parts of our country. If they are indeed the work of God, who would wish to be found contending with his Maker? But if they are the result of priestly power and craft, and of overheated zeal, and indiscreet, and ungoverned, irrational passion, who would wish to ascribe them to the Father of lights, from whom cometh down nothing impure or imperfect?

But if

Nor let it be forgotten, that, not only is the honor of God concerned in the decision of this general question, but the salvation, it may be, of untold millions is at stake. If revivals are absurd and pernicious, truly no danger arises from opposing their progress, and ascribing them to human folly, or even to a worse cause. they are indeed the work of the Holy Spirit, and essential to the progress of God's kingdom on earth, those who oppose them are in danger, not only of excluding themselves from a participation of the joys of heaven, but of involving with themselves, in one common ruin, all who are so unhappy as incautiously and thoughtlessly to surrender themselves to be enchained, as the passive slaves of their flattering, delusive, and ruinous errors. Besides these immediate results, we are to remember that the public sentiment of the nation generally, and of coming generations, must be affected by the present discussions of the great subject of revivals of religion.

A man might well tremble at the thought of poisoning the fountain head of a mighty stream, causing it to diffuse desolation and death in its course through a vast population. But what is this compared with the conduct of the man, who sends forth from the fountain head of influence, in the centre of a vast reading community, a stream of moral poison, producing a death, not only more dreadful, in kind and degree, but eternal in duration; not annihilation, but that death of the soul, which consists in endless sin, and that endless punishment, which it will deservedly receive from the God of truth and justice.

The bare possibility that such may be the consequences of the diffusion of false sentiments on the subject of revivals of religion,

may well cause the man to tremble, who attempts to discuss a theme of such infinite moment. Nor can any thinking man, much less a Christian, be indifferent to the tendency and results of a discussion of this subject.

Such is the task assumed by the writer of the work under consideration; a work issued in the literary, political, and religious metropolis of New England, recommended by the leaders of a party, who assume the name of rational and liberal Christians, and circulated and read extensively by an inquisitive population, highly excited by the prevailing attention to religion, which is so striking a characteristic of the present day. If beneficial in its tendency, and regarded with complacency by God, how great will be his reward. If pernicious, nothing but repentance can save the author from the severest punishment; and nothing probably will, in fact, save from ruin many, of the multitudes, who have read his work, and imbibed the sentiments and feelings which it exhibits. If such are the responsibilities of the author of this work, and if such is the interest, with which the community ought to regard his efforts, it is natural to inquire,

I. Who is the author?

II. What is his object?

III. What means does he use to attain this object?
IV. What has he accomplished?

V. What is the general character and tendency of the work? If we shall be enabled to throw light on these points, our readers will find no difficulty in forming such a decision, as the nature of the case seems to demand.

I. In answer to the first inquiry, we remark, that it is necessary to consider two things; first, the real character of the author; and secondly, his assumed character. And since his name is not disclosed, we must rely chiefly on internal evidence.

We do not think that any attentive reader of this work, ever actually mistook it for the production of an English traveller; and, notwithstanding all the show of a pretended familiarity with the manners and religious peculiarities of old England, and of the Episcopal clergy of that country, and of surprise at the novelty of our American peculiarities, and the parade of notes in the margin, by the American editor, intended to elucidate more fully the language of his English friend, we cannot even suppose, that the author hoped, expected, or intended, to produce the impression that these Letters are the actual production of a foreigner.

If he did, we must say that the assumed character is managed in a very bungling way. He has made himself an Englishman in name, and in nothing else. No passing traveller could acquire such a thorough knowledge of the peculiarities of our religious character, and of minute facts, and secret springs of action, as would enable him to represent, or misrepresent them, as the case

may be, in the manner of this author. Nor do we suppose, that any considerate foreigner would have identified himself so completely with the interests of a party, as has the author of these Letters; so as to accommodate himself exactly to their wishes, prejudices, and hostilities, so as to be hailed with acclamation, as a fellow laborer in the common cause. And even, if he had been willing to do this, still he would be betrayed by his use of language. The religious controversies and excitements of New England, have produced local and peculiar usages of language; especially those relating to revivals, and to the question between Unitarians and the Orthodox. No learning or native ability, could enable a foreigner at once to clothe his sentiments in the peculiar language of any one of the opposing parties in a strange land; much less to acquire a perfect familiarity with the idiomatic expressions of two. But the author of these Letters indicates a familiar acquaintance with the phraseology of both of the existing religious parties in this country. If his early education had been in New England, and had been Orthodox; if he had been familiar with the revivals of the Orthodox; and if he had studied in one of their seminaries; could he have caricatured their peculiar phraseology more skilfully than he does? And if he were actually a leader of the Unitarian party here; nay more, if he were one of our Unitarian clergy, could he have adopted more exactly than he has, all the peculiar usages of language, by which that party is so easily distinguished? Rejecting, therefore, the idea that the author intended to hide his real character, we conclude, that he intended merely to assume the character of an English traveller. This he had, no - doubt, a right to do, if there was no intent to deceive. When Goldsmith wrote his Citizen of the World,' under the assumed character of a Chinese philosopher, he probably considered it merely as a pleasant way of exhibiting English peculiarities; and if our author chooses to assume a character, in order to exhibit our peculiarities, as they would strike a foreigner, we have no inclination to object. But we have a right to require, that he shall properly sustain the character, and not use it as a mask to cover his real purposes, or to give effect to the representations of a partisan.

What then is his assumed character? He presents himself to us, as a man of liberal education, trained up in the academic halls of Oxford, and a member of the Episcopal church. When caricaturing an Orthodox sermon, he says,

"The metaphysical part of this discourse, which was four fifths of it, was a piece of as chilling ratiocination, as I ever heard from the mathematical chair at Oxford. The preacher displayed his metaphysical apparatus," &c. p. 45.

Again: "I have just returned from attending two evening meetings-two in one evening! What will our good Bishop say?" p. 42.

Again: "I am in haste to finish with what the good Bishop calls, this transatlantic madness;'" [meaning the religion of revivals.] p. 106.

So, he speaks of "our own holy church." p. 9.

We see, then, a part of his assumed character. In addition to this, he presents himself to us as a philosopher, a man of candor, liberality, and enlarged views, a gentleman of refined manners, and a man of eminent piety. After a caricature of revivals, in his first letter, he says:

"In truth, these revivals are very extraordinary things, and I shall think it worth while to philosophize a little about them." p. 10.

Again, after remarking, p. 11, "I never knew a people, over whom the clergy had such influence, among whom such a towering spiritual hierarchy was built up, as the good and intelligent, but after all, very superstitious people of New England;" and endeavoring to give an example of it, in a stale anecdote of a descendant of Rogers, and remarking, p. 12, "the clergy still rule, though less ostentatiously than in former days," he proceeds:

"A revival usually commences with the direct and systematic exertion of the pastor. And to begin with the beginning, the first inquiry would be, what begins it with him? And here it is, that I shall philosophize a little." pp. 12, 13.

It is obvious, then, that our traveller is a philosopher. We hope not one of those, whom Berkely would call "minute philosophers," though he seems to be so fond of philosophizing "a little." Again, after exposing what he deems the enormities of revivals, he remarks:

"I must tell you one thing more, before I lay down my pen, and that is, what you may have already suspected, that I do not look upon these things altogether as you would have expected me to have done. In short, I must take the credit of being somewhat liberalized by travel. I find good men everywhere. I begin to think there is a mixture of good with evil, and evil with good, in everything; not even excepting our own holy church." p. 8.

We see, then, another part of his assumed character. He is a man of candor, liberality, and enlarged views.

His character as a gentleman is advantageously displayed in the following extract. After his candid statements as it regards a spiritual hierarchy, and after charitably calling the good and intelligent people of New England very superstitious, he proceeds to remark:

"In our church there is nothing like it. Our clergy, you know, treat us a good deal as other gentlemen of influence and respectability would. The ministers of New England are-gentlemen, some of them; and a good many are not. But, at any rate, they are almost all of them rulers." p. 11.