1. Presuming that the reader, therefore, bears in mind the definitions of the scale of the animal faculties, he will perceive that Sentimentality in the rational scale, is analogous to sensation or feeling in the irrational; in as much as, though it be excited by external abstract truths, it gives us no information regarding the formal nature of these truths; but merely that we think of them; which faculty of thinking distinguishes us from the brutes.

2. Taste or Tact, in the rational scale, corresponds with perception in the irrational, in as much as it conveys, through the medium of sentiment, a distinct knowledge of the necessary or formal natures of those external abstract truths, about which it was excited to think, as above.

3. Fancy, in the rational scale, corresponds with conception in the irrational; but it will be recollected that our definition of this step differed materially from that of our author, on account of our different views respecting cerebral impressions. By turning to the place, it will be seen, that we considered conception as implying only an inferior kind of memory, relating to objects which had been perceived; and that in this sense it corresponds better than our author's definition, with the fifth of the scale, which is memory in a more perfect sense.

the imagination, to solid practical judgment, must be obvious at first sight.

use

5. Practical Judgment, in the rational scale, corresponds with memory in the irrational, as it is a kind of voluntary memory, whereby we efforts to recollect whatever abstract truths have been impressed upon the mind, whether by the faculty of sentiment, taste, or fancy; and our success in thus recollecting such abstract truths previously impressed upon our mind, will always be in proportion to the degree of consideration which we bestowed upon them when they actually occurred. But the suggestions of practical judgment can have no place where there has been no previous consideration. Without consideration, the truths about which practical judgment is exercised, must remain in the condition of mere visions of fancy, like its correspondent third step. And, alas! in what a great proportion of the human kind, does truth never get further hold of the intellect? Unstable, dissipated, and visionary, are they, therefore, in all their plans, and advanced but a few removes from the brute. But as we discover by this arrangement, that their error lies in the want of consideration, they ought, by all the means in their power, to cultivate this faculty; without which, we will venture to predict, though no prophets, that all the painful experience it is possible for them to meet with, will never teach them wisdom.

count.

Such is the doctrine which our Saviour taught. And it presents us, when spiritual and natural things are connected together, with the following beautiful threefold gradation. 1. In the mere animal scale, there is a gradual procedure from simple sensation or feeling, in the first step, to something which leads to imitation in the last. 2. In the intellectual scale, there is likewise a gradual procedure from the mere consciousness that we think, and can distinguish, and reason, till we arrive at a point that strongly inclines us to pursue something as a chief end. But here we stop, and, by the effort of our natural faculties, can proceed no further; for never was there a question which agitated and divided mankind more than this"What constitutes the chief end of human actions?" 3. Here, therefore, in the children of the regeneration, who are to be considered as yet a higher order of beings than mere men as they are born into the world, the twilight of faith begins. And, as in the first scale, animation was necessary in order to sensation; and in the second, thought in order to reason; so in the third, is docility and humility in order to faith.

This last, therefore, of all the intellectual faculties, is the most important to mankind; not indeed in respect of genius, or depth of the reasoning faculty, but in respect of its being the point that connects present actions with eternal consequen

the first, we would say, that not few but many, even all shall be saved, who humbly and cordially receive the truth in the love of it. And in answer to the second, the rich, whatever his riches may consist of, must become poor; he must, in his own apprehension, have no more to recommend him to a place in that kingdom, than the meanest, the most ignorant, the most vile and worthless that ever breathed.

But ah! exclaim pride and obstinacy, what a hard saying is this? It may be so; but wherein, pray, does the difficulty lie? Thou callest thyself a philosopher, that is to say, a lover of wisdom, an investigator into the reason and cause of things; now what is the cause, and what will be the consequence, of thy spurning at principles which are founded, not only on the revelation of God, but on the nature of things?

What is there then, in the nature of things, that startles men so much at the reception of this doctrine? Is it because these profound investigators have discovered it to be founded in error? This, we may be certain, is not the cause; for the difference here between the philosopher and the Christian, is not a difference that respects truth and error, but a reality and its counterfeit. Upon the principle itself, they may be said to meet each other half way; for though the grace of humility neither does nor can exist in the mind of an unregenerate philosopher, yet it is always counterfeited by him; though swelling with the pride of exalted talents, he affects a modest humility, as if retiring from the applause of the world. Now, philosopher as he is, had he only that principle existing in him in reality, which he pretends to have; there is nothing in the world that would keep him from being a Christian; for then he would be in the state of a little child, sitting at the feet of a divine teacher, drinking in his instructions, without any pretensions to the smallest superiority above others.

To such a line of conduct would this last and highest faculty of our intellect lead, were it only true and genuine; but, alas! this is what it is not, in consequence of the perversion It therefore, on the contrary, leads to pride and false glory; and disputes every principle, though founded in

the nature of things, which gives the Creator a right over the creature; so that it comes ultimately to this, as a dictate both of scripture and reason, whether men will hear or forbear, "that they must be born again," -"that they must be converted, and become as little children," otherwise it is impossible they can enter into the kingdom of heaven.

To conclude. To such a pitch of superiority does this method of treating the philosophy of the mind, raise the person who avails himself of it, that it is impossible for him to imitate the mere philosopher, who plods on in the path of nature's darkness, surrounded with his doubts and his difficulties, his obscurities, contradictions, and his dissatisfaction with his own system. It is, on the contrary, as a light shining in a dark place; making manifest objects which would never otherwise appear. It affords a firm and immoveable footing on which to rest; a basis which has existed from the very beginning, but has been woefully overlooked; and which can never be overturned by any future system whatever. For it is a system, which, of itself, bears characters of perfection; and explains all the phenomena of the human intellect as they exist in real life. It seems to be involved in no doubt; but dissipates all the doubts which hang over all other systems. Nor is it founded upon phantoms of the imagination, supported by a train of abstruse and subtle reasoning, which only pretended adepts can comprehend; but upon facts which must be apparent to all, and adapted to the meanest capacity. Nor does it, as all other systems do, regard man merely as a creature of this world, but as a being destined for a future state. To say all in one word, What is it that essentially concerns him, that it does not include, and account for, and urge upon him, by motives the most powerful that can be conceived? Instead of addressing him in the feeble language of, Thus saith this and the other philosopher,-its language is, Thus saith GOD, and thus saith NATURE, that things are and must be so and so; and that it is his bounden duty, and the highest interest of his being, to listen to what these infallible instructors say.

(To be continued.)

RELIGION IN DEMERARA.

THE following opinion entertained in Demerara, respecting the missions established among the negroes, is taken from the Guiana Chronicle or Demerara Gazette.

"We have had occasion repeatedly to express our opinion of the Sectarian Propagandists, who send forth their missionaries to our colonies out of pure zeal for the salvation of souls. In respect of their wild jargon, their capricious interpretations of the Bible, and the doctrines they inculcate, although in themselves they are to be despised and slighted, yet in point of the pernicious tendency they may have upon the minds of their hearers, we do think that no caution can be too great to be used against them, no diligence too strict.

"The influence they possess over the negroes is more widely ramified than would be readily believed. It is no longer proper to say they are insignificant. In the common acceptation of the word, they are truly so; but from their calling and canting, they have acquired a degree of importance in this colony, not attainable otherwise. Let them be looked after now more strictly than ever; and we pledge ourselves to do for them in proper colours, whenever we may be furnished with the authentic particulars of any immoral or illegal wanderings from the paths of their duty."

How frequently does wickedness defeat its own purposes! With all this tide of invective, the writer of the preceding paragraphs virtually declares, that the missionaries, against whom this venom is discharged, have not been charged with any immoral or illegal wanderings, because his threat to do for them, is suspended upon his making the discovery. Should this remark ever reach this Guiana Chronicler, we would ask-In what do the crimes of those men consist, who have not been guilty of any immoral or illegal wanderings?

ESSAYS MORAL AND LITERARY.

No. 4.-On Literary Pretenders.

IT is to be regretted, that in every profession in which the intellect is concerned, there should exist so many

silly pretenders to knowledge which they do not possess. In the science of medicine, for instance, this fact is notorious; and the influence which unqualified men have upon society, is, in this art, always dangerous. The mere name of surgeon or physician is, with the majority, synonymous with knowledge, and acts as a passport for the power of working evil. Literature also has its pretenders, and it may be, perhaps, not an unamusing speculation to notice some of them, although the limits of this article will not permit many. I shall therefore instance a few of those that are the least objectionable, who, if they cannot perform any thing good, have not the power to do much harm.

The first, and certainly the most inoffensive of this class, is the dull retailer of tedious commonplace. He will scribble you over half-a-dozen pages upon any given subject, and think no more of it than he would of walking so many yards. While others rack their brains for a few sentences, he goes smoothly on, and is never delayed by an obstacle, for this plain reason, that he never meets with one. He delights to write pieces upon Love, Hope, Friendship, &c. and to think that they will be read by the learned and the wise. He is the most comfortable of all authors, for you cannot give him a subject but he will begin and finish it entirely to his own satisfaction. He will shew you his portfolio-it is filled with Sonnets to the Moon, with Elegies over dead Bulfinches, and with Songs to Julia, besides a goodly number of Essays, Sketches, and Fragments, all ready for publication the instant he requires them. He knows by heart all the most approved lines from the poets, and these he scatters so sweetly and profusely amongst his eloquent prose, that any one who does not instantly perceive their effect, must be dull indeed. You cannot quarrel with his ideas, for in reality there is nothing you ought to quarrel about ;-besides, he tells you all he knows, and it is a species of injustice in you to call for more. He gives you as much in four sentences as in four pages-he tells you that happiness is not misery, that virtue is not vice, and that the sole reason why a man does right, is simply because he does not do wrong. If he be an author by trade, and the world

treat his essays as dull compositions, he nevertheless lowers not his good opinion of himself, and, as a salvo to his own sorrows, very truly concludes that mankind have not as yet sufficient penetration to discover his excellences. You would be as likely to succeed in deterring him from going onwards, by telling him that what he writes will never be read, as you would in convincing a certain foolish lord of his mistake, when he affirmed that Cowper was no poet.

The next I shall notice, is a sort of literary quack, one who deals in all things in the heavens above, and in the earth beneath;—a dabbler in poetry, politics, and religion, a kind of prating harlequin-an eternal arguer about subjects of which he really knows nothing, and one upon whose brain, as some one says, a ray of true reason never shines, but through a crack of the skull. He walks along the streets with pens and paper in his hand, and a proof sheet dangling out of his pocket ;-his name is puffed in newspapers, and on the covers of magazines; he thinks himself a man of genius, and expects others to do the same. This is a creature too, who, like the foolish bird which put feathers in its tail, has always charity enough to become sponsor for the thoughts of others. If he is a poet, he will feed upon all of that motley tribe who have gone before him;-if he has a church benefice, he will give his hearers a weekly portion of that "spiritual food" which Saurin or Blair have left; and if he be a regular maker up of books, he will gain admittance to the library in the British Museum, and, provided with all “appliances and means to boot," will pocket the remains of half-a-dozen authors. holds up his head gaily, and goes on seizing upon all original thoughts, or new turns of expression, and hunts them down until the writers to whom they belong, as the only excuse for their staleness, are compelled to say, as Goldsmith did of his Essays, that they were new when he wrote them. He is the miserable counterpart of an echo.

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A very different character, and one who perhaps ought not to be classed with literary pretenders, yet who is as useless to literature as the foregoing, is, the learned pedant. This man will tolerate no writer who is unacquainted