inns of court, and who aspire to eminence at the bar. There they dwell, away from their families, away from all the endearing influences of domestic life, their whole soul intent, with all its powers, upon professional advancement. The knowledge of the true nature of Christianity possessed by these candidates for forensic honours and emoluments more especially their knowledge of the Bible, we apprehend to be often very limited. We mean to say that, with all their store of general information, on those points which to them and to all men are of infinitely greater importance than all besides, many of them are grossly ignorant. Yet among them, there may be some who know just enough of religion to feel an interest of some sort about their eternal destiny, though not so much as to prevent them from thinking that they may compromise the controversy between God and their souls, by giving an hour or two in the week to the offices of public worship. Such persons, 'then, though they are much above praying in private, and though they are ignorant of the contents of their Bibles, may still deem it expedient to attend some church or chapel once upon a Sunday. And, we should not wonder, if some of them may now and then find their way by mistake, and for want of some religious friend to direct them better, to the place of resort in Essex-street, (Sunday being the day on which it is open.) Nay, when they have been once, we think it not impossible that they may be tempted to go again and so at length become regular frequenters of the building: for doubtless they are likely to hear many things that will sooth their self-complacency, and few things that will disturb their consciences; and, moreover, they may have an opportunity of enlarging their political views. We ask then: What is Mr. Belsham's usual style of address to such hearers? Does he ever strive to alarm their consciences? Does he ever reason with them of righteousness, temperance, and judgment 'to come, and make them tremble while he reasons? Does he ever talk to them of death and eternity, of heaven and hell? Does he ever tell them of such things as everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power? Does he ever speak to them of the worm that dieth not, and the fire that is not quenched? Does he ever call on them to look into their own condition, and to know and see how evil and how bitter a thing it is to have forsaken their God? Does he ever send them home to their chambers thoughtful, and uncomfortable, and dissatisfied with themselves, and with no stomach for the study of the law, and the low ambition and miserable solicitudes of this perishing world? O the ministers of God's word have a serious charge and an awful respon

sibility, but above all in addressing the worldly and sensual heart, case-hardened in unbelief, and dead in trespasses and sins! Such is often, in these days of depravity, even the heart of youth: hard as a flint, and polluted by sensuality to the core: now corroded with the rancour of political malignity, now cankered with early cares, now grovelling in the periodical allowances of sedate and sober-minded voluptuousness. Already such a being, perhaps, has tasted the pangs of disappointment; and disgusted, but not satiated with life, already has learnt to mistrust the world, without being brought nearer to God. And when at length quite beaten down, when now advanced in years and driven in mere despair and weariness to seek those sources of comfort from above which earth cannot yield, what has he in return to offer? A frame worn down with anxiety, and blighted by criminal indulgence; a heart withered and inactive; feelings long ago stimulated to exhaustion by a rapid succession of varied and intense excitements; the dregs of early passion; the wreck, perhaps, of shattered expectations; the phantom of departed honour! And how is the minister of the gospel to deal with such a case? Let him come as with a message from a God of vengeance and mercy to the guilty sufferer. Let him carry terror into the inmost recesses of his heart, and lodge it there, and leave it there to do its salutary work. But let him point, withal, to the atoning efficacy of a Saviour's blood, and the inexhaustible riches of his restoring and sanctifying grace. Let him say, "Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light." But no. We must not ask this of a Unitarian. He may exalt his hearers in idolatrous admiration of their own intellectual resources; but he will never lead them to the foot of the cross. He may pander to their itching ears with the sarcasm, and the sneer, and the political allusion; but never, never will his voice direct them to follow in the ways of life, whither the Son of God is gone before.

Nor, with those, probably, who regularly frequent his Sunday meetings, would it answer. They must know well enough what kind of food they are to expect, and no doubt they love it, No doubt they sit listening, with eager attention, for the next stab at orthodoxy; the next innuendo against bishops; the next generous tribute to the Catholic cause.

We have met with many strange things in the present production of Mr. Belsham, but certainly with nothing that more struck us than the following passage:

"Upon the whole, nothing can be more evident, to all who study the New Testament with attention, than that the only allowable way

of propagating the Christian religion, is by teaching its sublime and glorious truths to high and low, to all indeed who are willing to hear, in the most explicit and unambiguous language; and by patiently enduring all hardships, insults, and injuries which may be inflicted by the enemies of the gospel, being faithful unto death. To teach all truth, to do all good, and to bear all evil, is the true character of the genuine missionary of Jesus: upon no consideration whatever to return evil for evil; but, on the contrary, to love those that hate, to bless those that curse, and to overcome evil with good.” (P. 79, 80.)

When we came to this short paragraph it actually refreshed us; and we have since more than once turned to it with pleasure. O si sic omnia! We should then experience, in taking up the works of Mr. Belsham, the pleasure which we now feel in closing them.

ART. XVII,-PRESENT STATE OF COMMERCE, &c. IN FRANCE.

1. De l'Industrie Françoise. Par M le Comte Chaptal, ancien Ministre de l'Interior, &c. 2 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1819. 2. Rapport presentu à son Excellence le Ministre Secretaire d'Etat des Finances, par Hennet, le Commissaire royal du Cadastre. 4to. Paris, 1817.

3. Statistique General et Particuliere de la France et de ses Colonies. Par une Societié de Gens de Lettres et Savans. 8 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1804.

4. D l'Etat de la Culture en France, et des Ameliorations dont elle est susceptible. Par Depradt, Membre de l'Assemblée Constituante. 2 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1802.

5. France as it is, not Lady Morgan's France. By William Playfair. 2 vols. 8vo. London, 1820.

EXPERIMENTS in politics should neither be rashly made, nor prematurely judged of; the wisest projects may at first be attended with disappointment, and yet ultimately produce the desired effect. The first operations may be impeded by incidental and temporary obstacles which longer practice may remove, By them the whole operation may be taken out of the hands of the contriver for a long period, or perhaps altogether, and he who has examined, and weighed carefully, the good and evil which may be ultimately expected from his project, may cease to have any influence on its direction, long before any determinate effect has been produced.

Those experiments are the most to be dreaded, and should be

approached with the greatest awe and timidity, in which the feelings of the principal actors, and the mode of action they may adopt, is the most problematical; and only, perhaps, to be known when arrived at such a state of effervescent activity as forbids all reflection on consequences.

When political projectors lay the foundation of their plan, as was done in France, in the will of the people, taken in the abstract, and not arranged into any ranks or classes, they rely on actors that cannot be depended upon for any continued course of reflection, and yet who must be the efficient, and indeed the sole operators. At the very first moment of operation, the plan is taken out of the directing power of the contriver, and often receives a direction very different, and probably in opposition to that course which was necessary to a beneficial issue.

The revolution in this country in 1688, was planned, executed, and completed by men who never depended on the will of the people, taken in that collective mass to which the leaders of the revolution in France trusted for support and co-operation. It was contrived and executed with a reliance on the constituted estates of the country, who to preserve their own existence, felt it necessary to preserve that of the monarchy by securing its prerogatives. They clearly saw that the preservation of themselves in their corporate capacities, depended on the security given to the power of the crown; and they rested their hopes of success on the deeply rooted habit of submission to legal authority, and not on abstract rights which are perpetually subject to variation in their application to practice.

The revolution of England was founded on the habits of the people to be governed, and was therefore effected without destroying any of those habits; that of France was founded on principles assumed to be true, but whether true or false inapplicable to practice, till the habits of the people were destroyed and the guidance of affairs was given up to interest, or passion coupled with power.

Attempts have been made in many periods in different countries, to overturn the established orders of society, by loosening the populace from all the restraints which in civilized states bind mankind together. Though history has given us no account of the prompters in the insurrection, during the early part of the reign of our Richard II. except of John Ball, and the names, probably fictitious, of Tyler, Shaw, Carter, and others; yet so large a body as was then collected could not have been drawn together, without a degree of inflammation having been communicated by some more able chiefs than those who assumed the command. The first instigators most probably were early put aside, and those of less skill, but of more violence, soon

obtained the superiority, and, with injustice far greater than had been exercised on themselves, threatened for a short time the existence of society itself, till the insurrection had become exhausted by its own virulence.

We pass over the proceedings of Cade in the year 1450, because, though the man was an adventurer, he probably was encouraged and supported more by the rivalry that subsisted between the houses of York and Lancaster, than by any of those pretensions to an equal division of the land which had caused the more extensive insurrection of the disciples of John Ball.

The insurrection in France denominated the Jacquerie, in the year 1357, headed by Caillet, was that of the poor against the rich, and though the disorders occasioned by the absence of their king, then a prisoner in England, and the privations which a wasting war had occasioned, might have been powerful accessories, yet the great incentive was the prospect held out of an equal distribution of privileges and property. The promise brought together thousands in tumultuous array who could agree in nothing but in the general purpose of plunder; their leaders were deposed in quick succession, Martel, one of them, being killed by his own party; and, after inflicting and enduring tremendous sufferings, they were defeated, dispersed, and more severely oppressed than before. The peasantry of Germany, in like manner instigated by Muncer, whose pretensions were founded on perverted religion, were principally incited by the flattering assurance, that the privileges of the nobles should be destroyed, and the poor be made rich by the division of their estates.

These various attempts at revolution, like the servile and social wars of ancient Rome, were all grounded on the abstract principle of the equality of man, a principle only true, if true at all, in the very rudest condition of human beings, and which is necessarily abandoned on the first step towards the formation of societies.

The successful revolt of the British colonies in North America, had nothing in common with the various attempts at revolution which we have noticed. The inhabitants of that continent were not roused to action by any prospect of plundering their rich neighbours, or depriving of power any of their rulers. The judges, the legislatures, the corporations, whether civil or ecclesiastical, were not attacked, the laws were not changed, nor any other alteration made than that of investing one of their own countrymen with that portion of the executive power, which had been previously exercised by a delegate from the country whence their ancestors had expatriated themselves. It was founded on the habitual practices of the people, it vio