upon the event; if the most eminent counsel were employed on both sides; and if we had heard from our infancy of this yet-undetermined trial, would you not all sit with due attention, and warm expectation, to the pleadings on each side? Would not all your hopes and fears be hinged on the final decision? and yet, let me tell you, have this moment a cause of much greater importance before you; a cause where not one nation, but all the world, are spectators; tried not before a fallible tribunal, but the awful throne of Heaven; where not your temporal and transitory interests are the subject of debate, but your eternal happiness or misery; where the cause is still undetermined, but, perhaps, the very moment I am speaking may fix the irrevocable decree that shall last forever and yet, notwithstanding all this, you can hardly sit with patience to hear the tidings of your own salvation; I plead the cause of Heaven, and yet I am scarcely attended to," etc.

:

The style, the abruptness of a beginning like this, in the closet would appear absurd; but in the pulpit it is attended with the most lasting impressions: that style which, in the closet, might justly be called flimsy, seems the true mode of eloquence here. I never read a fine composition under the title of a sermon, that I do not think the author has miscalled his piece; for the talents to be used in writing well entirely differ from those of speaking well. The qualifications for speaking, as has been already observed, are easily acquired; they are accomplishments which may be taken up by every candidate who will be at the pains of stooping. Impressed with a sense of the truths he is about to deliver, a preach

er disregards the applause or the contempt of his audience, and he insensibly assumes a just and manly sincerity. With this talent alone we see what crowds are drawn around enthusiasts, even destitute of common sense; what numbers converted to Christianity.

Folly may sometimes set an example for wisdom to practise; and our regular divines may borrow instruction from even Methodists, who go their circuits, and preach prizes among the populace. Even Whitefield may be placed as a model to some of our young divines; let them join to their own good sense his earnest manner of delivery.

It will be perhaps objected, that by confining the excellences of a preacher to proper assurance, earnestness, and openness of style, I make the qualifications too trifling for estimation; there will be something called oratory brought up on this occasion; action, attitude, grace, elocution, may be repeated as absolutely necessary to complete the character; but let us not be deceived; common sense is seldom swayed by fine tones, musical periods, just attitudes, or the display of a white handkerchief; oratorial behavior, except in very able hands indeed, generally sinks into awkward and paltry affectation.

It must be observed, however, that these rules are calculated only for him who would instruct the vulgar, who stand in most need of instruction; to address philosophers, and to obtain the character of a polite preacher among the polite a much more useless, though more soughtfor character — requires a different method of proceeding. All I shall observe on this head is, to entreat the polemic divine, in his controversy with the deist, to act rather offensively than to defend; to push home the grounds of

his belief, and the impracticability of theirs, rather than to spend time in solving the objections of every opponent. “It is ten to one," says a late writer on the art of war, "but that the assailant who attacks the enemy in his trenches is always victorious."

Yet upon the whole, our clergy might employ themselves more to the benefit of society, by declining all controversy, than by exhibiting even the profoundest skill in polemic disputes; their contests with each other often turn on speculative trifles; and their disputes with the deist are almost at an end, since they can have no more than victory; and that they are already possessed of, as their antagonists have been driven into a confession of the necessity of revelation, or an open avowal of atheism. To continue the dispute longer would only endanger it; the sceptic is ever expert at puzzling a debate which he finds himself unable to continue," and, like an Olympic boxer, generally fights best when undermost."

ON THE

ADVANTAGES TO BE DERIVED FROM SENDING A JUDICIOUS TRAVELLER INTO ASIA.

I HAVE frequently been amazed at the ignorance of almost all the European travellers, who have penetrated any considerable way eastward into Asia. They have all been influenced either by motives of commerce or piety, and their accounts are such as might reasonably be expected from men of a very narrow or very prejudiced education the dictates of superstition, or the result of

ignorance. Is it not surprising, that, of such a variety of adventurers, not one single philosopher should be found among the number? For, as to the travels of Gemelli, the learned are long agreed that the whole is but an imposture.

There is scarce any country, how rude or uncultivated soever, where the inhabitants are not possessed of some peculiar secrets, either in nature or art, which might be transplanted with success; thus, for instance, in Siberian Tartary, the natives extract a strong spirit from milk, which is a secret probably unknown to the chemists in Europe. In the most savage parts of India they are possessed of the secret of dying vegetable substances scarlet, and likewise that of refining lead into a metal, which, for hardness and color, is little inferior to silver; not one of which secrets but would, in Europe, make a man's fortune. The power of the Asiatics in producing winds, or bringing down rain, the Europeans are apt to treat as fabulous, because they have no instances of the like nature among themselves: but they would have treated the secrets of gunpowder, and the mariner's compass, in the same manner, had they been told the Chinese used such arts before the invention was common with themselves at home.

Of all the English philosophers, I most reverence Bacon, that great and hardy genius; he it is, who, undaunted by the seeming difficulties that oppose, prompts human curiosity to examine every part of nature; and even exhorts man to try whether he cannot subject the tempest, the thunder, and even earthquakes, to human control. Oh! had a man of his daring spirit, of his genius, pene

tration, and learning, travelled to those countries which have been visited only by the superstitious and mercenary, what might not mankind expect! How would he enlighten the regions to which he travelled! and what a variety of knowledge and useful improvement would he not bring back in exchange!

There is probably no country so barbarous, that would not disclose all it knew, if it received equivalent information; and I am apt to think, that a person who was ready to give more knowledge than he received, would be welcome wherever he came. All his care in travelling should only be, to suit his intellectual banquet to the people with whom he conversed; he should not attempt to teach the unlettered Tartar astronomy, nor yet instruct the polite Chinese in the arts of subsistence; he should endeavor to improve the barbarian in the secrets of living comfortably; and the inhabitants of a more refined country, in the speculative pleasures of science. How much more nobly would a philosopher, thus employed, spend his time, than by sitting at home, earnestly intent upon adding one star more to his catalogue, or one monster more to his collection; or still, if possible, more triflingly sedulous, in the incatenation of fleas, or the sculpture of cherry-stones.

I never consider this subject without being surprised that none of those societies so laudably established in England for the promotion of arts and learning, have ever thought of sending one of their members into the most eastern parts of Asia, to make what discoveries he was able. To be convinced of the utility of such an undertaking, let them but read the relations of their own travellers. It will there be found, that they are as often