tradict myself: therefore, while the preacher and company sang the above foolish composition, I sang the following hasty amendment, as distinctly as possi

ble:

Make me useful and well known,
Loved of God, despised by none.

This, to be sure, was a great crime in the eyes of the sanctimonious; but I had the satisfaction of telling God my desires, and they the folly of presenting prayers, which, they must have inwardly hoped, would never be regarded by the Almighty. My mind has been my kingdom, over which I have maintained an absolute monarchy, yet not so as to excuse myself from the most abject and implicit obedience to its imperial dictates. Hence, I have never feared to follow nor to avow its convictions, both in morality and doctrine.

My language, in speaking and writing, has often been tart, and sometimes satirical: I have often been advised, by unthinking men, to avoid that manner; but it is my manner; and, if it cease, my identity is lost with it. Every man has his own character to act on the stage of time; and were he to perfectly mimic any other, his individuality, as part of God's design in creation, would be lost to the world. Besides, there never was an instance of a great Reformer, in the history of mankind, but combined in his discourse, more or less of the two foregoing characters of style. Among the Jews, may be particularized Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and others of the prophets: among the Christians, Jesus, Paul, Calvin, Luther, and Knox. I have been the patron and admirer of

science. My soul has loathed every thing that assumed the semblance of disguise or fiction; truth, sacred, eternal truth, I desired and loved. And I soon perceived that it lay concealed; the search must be long and persevering, whilst my days were as a shadow! The pleasures and follies of the world, could, therefore, attain no ascendency over my affections: my life has been habitually devotional."

Suspecting that our readers have now had enough of this true humility! we come to his charity, which, as we shall presently show, is much on a par with it. When he was at Calais, a young Catholic clergyman was in danger of losing life from pulmonary consumption, the disease having been induced, according to Mr. Thompson, by the excess of his spiritual exercises. On this, he exclaims, "a miserable religion indeed, which consists in the abuse of the body!" Now, it is curious enough, that, in a paragraph we have quoted, he represents himself as being in a similar danger from a similar cause. Yet, so far from designating his own as "a miserable religion," he describes it as capable of effecting his miraculous convalescence! Perhaps, however, he may be excused for his illiberal judgment concerning the Catholic religion, when we consider the circumstances of his situation, and the impressions made by his tuition in the Secession Church. In the north of Ireland, the baneful spirit of party politics was, at that time, identified with religious belief; hence its fierceness and bigotry. The Orange men were Protestants; the Ribbon men Catholics. In such a state, it needs not excite surprise, that the excesses of either party were imputed, by their opponents, to the religion they professed. In political harangues, and pulpit denunciations, they rivaled each other in abuse. We might give specimens of this mutual hostility, and show how by it the friendly intercourse that

ought to subsist in social life, was interrupted and changed to enmity; but it will be sufficient to quote the language of one party, after requesting the reader to bear in mind, that that of the other was equally malignant. In the fourth Annual Report, being that for 1823, of the Home Mission of Seceders, we find the following exhortation to their missionaries, who, it should be recollected, were to labour at home; that is, amongst the Catholics of Ireland.

"Discretion will teach you to guard against what would necessarily wound the feelings, or arouse the prejudices, of those among whom you may be placed. It will teach you to sacrifice passion, when ready to be aroused by reproach, to the cause of God and of souls; and, in the presence of the wicked, to keep in your mouth, as it were with a bit and a bridle: thus leaving the narrow-minded bigot to the paltry triumph of swelling the ranks of party."

After reading this pertinent charge, let us attend to their own exemplification of the manner in which it should be observed:

"Popery, the bane and curse of every country where it reigns, has gone abroad over our country, like a demon of the pit, blighting and withering with her infernal breath, all that was fair and lovely in the character of our countrymen; and, by that unholy alchemy, of which but too well does she know the secret, has she imparted to the hearts of Irishmen, the worst qualities of the tyger and the hyena,"

This language, it may be remarked, was not the hasty impulse of provocation; it was not uttered under political exacerbation; it was the deliberate language of the board of managers to the Society; of that very board that so emphatically recommended abstinence from abuse! It should seem, too, that they considered such language calculated to gain the approbation of their Lord; of him, "who, when he was reviled, reviled not again :" for, alluding to their departed friends, they say, "while they bend from their seats of glory to witness our conduct, let them see that we caught the mantle that fell from them as they ascended to the joy of their Lord!"

That a man educated as Mr. Thomson was, in such a society, should not perceive that he deviated from Christian charity, in calling the religion of the Church of Rome, "a miserable religion, which consists in the abuse of the body," may be readily supposed. If not an exculpation, it is, at the least, a palliation of his language. We shall therefore deduce our judgment of his charity, from his terms respecting the Methodists; a body mentioned respectfully in the document we have just cited, and with whom he was a fellow-labourer for many years. In a paragraph we have already given, containing an account of his reception by some Methodist preachers in London, he uses language sufficiently illiberal. They were unwilling to countenance him; and well they might be, when he, a stranger, was unable to produce vouchers of his belonging to their body: but, for this, they must come under his castigation. Passing that over, then, as a specimen of vulgarity, we shall proceed to lay before

our readers his deliberate character of them and their doctrines. When at Philadelphia, in 1822, he withdrew from their communion, informing them by letter of his decision on this point. He then proceeds :

"Since the day I wrote the above note, which surely was not calculated to give great offence, the conduct of the Methodists towards me, has been such as would disgrace any system of Paganism! No law, human or divine, no decency nor tie of humanity, has afforded any boundary to their malice, nor restriction to their persecution. Nor has any manly principle inspired their souls, to rise higher than the mire of slander, and stratagem of falsehood. So be it. By such means, they will more effectually teach mankind the barrenness of their souls, and the rottenness of their pretensions, than by any other method to which they could possibly resort.

"Methodism has had its good effects; partly on the ruder orders of society, and partly, in exciting others of more solid and efficient energies to greater activity. But were all the good and ill it has done in the world put in scales, it would not be easy to determine which would preponderate. Its tendency is manifestly to barbarism. It degrades the manners, stupifies the mind, and drowns the intellect in gloomy superstition! Its financial system out-generals that of the Church of Rome in the days of Luther; and is the most oppressive that ever disgraced Christianity. Oft have I known its subjects beg from the parish to put in the Methodist box, and wives defraud their husbands for the same purpose. The sale of tickets, is the sale of indulgences and passports under a new name: and the whole system calculated to enervate the order of society, the energies of intellect, the progress of science, and the happiness of mankind.”

After these two paragraphs, follows one, giving his ideas of true religion. One part of it is, "to exercise pity and forgiveness towards all men in all situations ;" and another, to manifest "that impartial equity to all men which we would that they should manifest unto us!" Truly, if Mr. Thompson is to be judged by his own judgment, he will sink very low in the esti

mate!

Our object is now fulfilled. We have shown that he is unworthy of being followed as a "Christian Guide," and this, without any reference to the doctrines he promulgates; the examination of them being foreign to our present purpose. We have done so, not because we attach any importance to his zealous labours, but from a conviction, that such a specimen of human character as is here given, might afford both amusement and instruction. Of this, Mr. Thompson cannot reasonably complain, as he has brought himself before the public, and invited them to examine his statements. As he is doubtless desirous that his Memoir should be circulated, he will have reason to thank us for bringing it more conspicuously into notice. Nothing is so mortifying to an author as neglect, when he is conscious of possessing merit.

But besides the amusement and instruction deducible from the Memoir, as an exhibition of character, there is another point in which it deserves regard. Whoever reads it, and considers that such a person as Mr. Thompson should be able to induce hundreds to espouse his cause, may conclude that any one, with

powers of eloquence, and unwearied fervency in urging his hearers to adopt his principles, may organize a sect, at the least, in this country. The recent case of Miss Wright, in NewYork, comes opportunely in illustration. Many worthy persons have, we know, taken alarm, from the supposition that such vacillation in public opinion, is ominous of the subversion of mo rality in connexion with both politics and religion. Perhaps they may dismiss their fears, when they reflect that the organizers of sects seldom hold long together, and that in a community where all opinions may be diffused, some that are bad counteract or neutralize others, while the good gain strength from the collision; just as from the conflict between anarchy and despotism, there has sometimes resulted a liberal constitution.

Before we dismiss the volume, we wish to advert to a paragraph or two, the notice of which, before, would have been a little out of place. He thus records his first impressions on entering Philadelphia :

"I was extremely disappointed in viewing the city. I had heard much of it; but on seeing a mass of plain, common, unadorned brick-buildings, I could not but suppose, that all the descriptions which I had read or heard, were taken from imagination and not from real scenery. It will be readily admitted, that the city is very regularly laid out, and the streets kept agreeably clean; but when this is said, all the truth is nearly exhausted. To the man of taste, there is little attraction in Philadelphia, and to social feelings there is almost one uniform repulse."

In another place, he says, that, in comparison with the new town of Edinburgh, it is "a motley huddle." No one who has visited Edinburgh can deny, that it is superlatively beautiful and picturesque. Built of stone, it has an air of grandeur which we in vain seek to find in a city built of brick. In some of the streets, the houses throughout are of uniform external appearance. George street, in particular, is conspicuous for its regularity, width, and splendour. Terminated at each extremity by a square area, and ornamented by two churches, it is, in its kind, unrivalled. Prince's street, too, commands admiration. As a promenade, it would, we believe, be generally preferred to the quays of Paris, since, though it has much fewer splendid edifi ces to exhibit, it displays a union of civic and rural grandeur perhaps unequalled in the world. The huge, irregular masses of the houses in the old town, terminated by a lofty, rocky pro montory, on which the castle is erected; the Firth of Forth covered with shipping, beyond which the Fifeshire hills are distinctly visible; Calton hill, Salisbury Craggs, and Arthur's Seat, eminences on the very verge of the city,-all these offer a magnificent combination. But when we are told, that Philadelphia is, in comparison, only "a motley huddle," and that it has "little attraction," we smile at the ignorance or prejudice of the describer.

In two places of his Memoir, he adopts the plural instead of the singular pronoun, when speaking of himself. This is curious in an auto-biographer. It would be better, like Julius Cæsar, or Bishop Newton, to use the third person instead of the first. We suppose, however, that he slid into it, from having done the like in the pulpit; a practice that seems becoming fashionable among preachers, though, in our judgment, at variance with gospel simplicity. The recorded sermons of our Lord and his Apostles offer no example for it; the most eminent divines of the French Church-Massillon, Bourdaloue, Fenelon-uniformly speak in the singular; so do those of the Anglican Church

Tillotson, South, and Butler. The use of the plural pronoun may accordingly be regarded as a recent innovation; but one which, we hope, will soon become obsolescent, if not obsolete. Dr. Chalmers, whose influence is deservedly great, has, we regret to notice, given his sanction to the modern practice; so, in another department of literature, has Sir Walter Scott, whose influence is still greater. But, though these are great names, they are not entitled to implicit deference. Both in theology and history, we could cite others amongst living authors, on the other side, of equal authority. In acquaintance with biblical criticism, Dr. Adam Clarke is surpassed by few, while, as a linguist, he stands almost alone. As a historian, Dr. Lingard has extorted praise from his opponents, for his diligence in research, and happy talent in illustration, while his impartiality has not been more contested than that of Sir Walter. The latter may have been led to use the plural pronoun, in his Life of Napoleon, from having been familiarized with it when writing for periodical works. But there is a manifest difference between what is published under an author's name, and what appears anonymously in a Review written by several. Besides, an article in a Review, generally speaks, to a certain extent, the sentiments of at least two persons, the author and the editor. We say to a certain extent, for it cannot be supposed that the editor. approves of every opinion and view to which he gives publicity. If an article contains nothing outrageously at variance with the professed object of the journal for which it is designed, it may obtain a place in it, though some parts of it be not quite in accordance with the editor's desires. Hence, the use of the plural pronoun may be proper in one case, though not in the other. We hope to see it banished from the pulpit.

In concluding our notice of Mr. Thompson's volume, we can scarcely forbear remarking, that the place of its publication deserves attention. Twenty years ago, what was Utica in NewYork? A few log houses! Now it contains numerous streets, filled with spacious, substantial brick houses; and taverns, at which may be obtained not only comforts but luxuries. Instead