pulse; it inflicts no pain.' It is only when religious opinion touches the affections, excites the imagination, creates a movement among the moral and active powers, that is to say, in the language of modern times, when it generates enthusiasm,' that it becomes dangerous. Every false opinion,' says he, ⚫ especially on such subjects, is pernicious; but if any affection of the mind be joined with it, it then becomes most hurtful (Moxonporεpov). For (in such case) every movement or affection of the mind is like disease with inflammation,-like wounds with dislocation of the joints: so dangerous are errors of opinion when accompanied with any movement of the soul.' With such views, then, what would the placid and philosophical Plutarch have thought and said, had he been admitted to witness some nocturnal assembly of the Christians; a vault or ' upper chamber,' a cavern or cemetery, dimly lighted, and crowded to suffocation with women, children, slaves, and artizans? What frightful excesses would he not certainly have anticipated to result from this promiscuous assemblage! And what if he had heard the portentous dogmas announced, the exclusive discipline enjoined by the leaders! And then, the exercise protracted even till midnight,' the wine, the prayers, the songs, the declamation! Or, suppose him to have followed the Christians into the domestic circle, and there have seen the daughter set against her mother,'* the father rising up against the son, the son against the father; thus bringing, not peace, but a sword upon earth.' What he might have thought, or said, or written, we know not; but, at any rate, he would not have been left to the regret uttered, on a similar occasion, by the Writer whose volumes are before us, that no authority existed capable of restraining extravagances and indecencies like these. In the days of Plutarch, and almost from that time down to this, magistrates, instigated by priests and philosophers, have done all that force could do, to crush the hide'ous fanaticism.'

But to return for a moment to the treatise "Concerning Su66 perstition." The scope of the argument seems to be, that the excesses attendant upon religious belief, are more to be feared than the total absence of religious principle; that is to say, than absolute Atheism. And yet, Plutarch is not the explicit advocate of irreligion. He concedes the truth, and thence, the importance of a calm belief in the existence of supernal powers. But religious excitement, he thinks, may well be balanced against theoretic impiety; and he leaves his readers to infer, that, if a choice must be made between the two, he would give

* See Life of Wesley, Vol. I. p. 358. II. 88 and 519.

the preference to the latter. There is, certainly, in the Tract alluded to, an apparent vacillation of opinion, and an indistinctness of intention, which excite a suspicion in regard to the writer's real design and secret convictions. It contains traces of that universal and yet decent scepticism in which almost all men of letters had taken refuge, from the days of Socrates down to the time of Julian, when the spirit of opposition to Christianity seemed, for a moment, to resuscitate the faith in the host of gods and goddesses. But yet, there are reasons which might support a more favourable opinion of the intelligent Baotian. Destitute of the means of resting troubled thought upon settled principles, and yet constitutionally too susceptible of the impression of moral sentiments to find comfort in an atheistical induration of mind, he wrote, perhaps, more with the hope of fortifying his own imagination against its lurking fears, than with any deliberate purpose to bring the religious principle into contempt. This supposition is corroborated by the fact, that, while he derides the self inflicted pains of those who, when they awake, dare not contemn their dreams, nor are able to laugh or rejoice in finding that the phantasies of sleep are unreal,' he is known to have been himself tortured by his credulity in such matters. The philosophical reprover of enthusiasm, and fanaticism, and voracious credulity,' in other men, would sometimes himself be the retailer of long tales of dreams, and prodigies, and, perhaps, of haunted houses! Nor is it difficult to fancy that we discern in this unfixedness and inconsistency of mind, the symptoms of that moral incongruity which ordinarily attends tergiversation in opinion, when the change has resulted from the accidental direction given to wayward prejudices, rather than from the force of evidence operating upon a strong understanding. We imagine, then, that we perceive in this Writer-Plutarch, the sceptical tone and dialect acquired in the wanton season of boyish disbelief, ill according with that revulsion towards religious feeling, which, independently of any moral change, will take place, in proportion as the elasticity of youth gives way before a constitutional melancholy of temperament. But we shall too long forget Mr. Southey, and his Life of Wesley.

This is not the day for scurrilous infidelity. We are aware, indeed, that it has at all times been more calm, more intellectual, and more gentleman-like in England than in France: but even in this country, a very observable change has taken place. within the last ten or twelve years. Perhaps, we might name a much later date, since which the force of public opinion has imposed a fresh reserve upon the expression of disbelief. The wretched attempt to drive a trade in Deism, which lately occasioned a momentary agitation, if it be at all worthy of mention,

we consider as tending to support our remark, rather than as forming an exception to it. As one criterion of the change to which we allude, we might mention the altered tone and veering opinions of those persons who, while they pretend to be the leaders of the public mind, have too much tact, and far too much regard to their solid interests, not to follow its variations with very respectful caution. Why, then, does not the Edinburgh Review now admit into its pages the foul and shameless Deism, by means of which, in a great measure, it acquired its. first popularity? Plainly and simply, because its Conductors feel and know that a change has taken place, assuredly not wrought by them, to which it is indispensible to conform; and that, whereas, when they commenced their labours, they believed themselves free to use almost the license of the French republican press, now, it is safest even to talk about their solicitude for the immortal' as well as the temporal interests of the people.

But whether it be more or less diffused, and whether it be, or be not, open to observation, a stream of scepticism will always be found somewhere running through the flats of a country in which there is much refinement and freedom of opinion. At the present moment, the great body of these waters gurgles its way unseen beneath the sands of our National Christianity. It has been well said, that when men can no longer publish, they will cease to think: now, as it is found not to suit the opinion, or the taste, or the fashion of the day, to publish Deism, it has very naturally happened to many individuals sceptically disposed, who perhaps a few years ago were, and who, under different circumstances, would again be, bold disbelievers,-that their Deism, from mere disuse, has become mouldy, and has fairly crumbled away out of its place in their thoughts; so that, without any dissimulation, they have come, they hardly know how, to think and call themselves Christians.

So wide has been this (no doubt favourable) revolution, that there are now persons every where to be met with, who would hardly be more chagrined and offended if suspected of being themselves tainted with Methodisin, than if supposed incapable of exercising that philosophical discrimination which is ready to appreciate and acknowledge the sincerity and efficient merits of many of the estimable fanatics' to whom the appellation avowedly belongs. A great mass, therefore, of the fine and curious speculation which was lately directed against Christianity, is now employed about it. This sort of retroverted free thinking has also been promoted by incidental circumstances, which have operated to bring over to the support of Religion, much of that unfixed weight which always rolls from side to side of the vessel at every heaving of the sea. Not only

in the metropolis, and in the larger cities of the kingdom, (where, of course, liberality and illumination are at all times to be found,) but almost in every provincial town, we may meet with enlightened and patriotic' individuals, who carry the patronage' with which they are pleased to honour' Christianity so far, that they are ready to incur the hazard of sheltering a little rank fanaticism beneath their fostering wing, rather than leave the 'good cause' to want their vote and interest.' But then, they are not sorry that we should hear from them, in private, those saving and sagacious maxims,-founded upon long-sighted views into political economy, sober theology, and human nature,--by which they would reconcile the forwardness of their zeal with the credit of their understandings. Hence it is, and we think the circumstance really worthy of a moment's attention, that there is, just now, an express demand for pithy apophthegms on the subject of Methodism, so constructed as to contain the essence of Deism, under the cant of a condescending acquiescence in the truth of Christianity.

Now, the "Life of Wesley" will supply a most seasonable furniture of phrases, and of neat and specious common-places, to gentlemen in the circumstances above described. It may safely be anticipated, that this treasury both of pleasantries and of speculations on the subject of Methodism, will be long and abundantly retailed by our philosophers of high and low degree. To the latter, Mr. Southey will render the service of flavouring their vapid pertness with some grains of common sense, and of correcting their utter ignorance by genuine information. With respect to the former, we mean men of liberal education, liberal habits of thinking, and sound understanding, we cannot but indulge the hope, that the mass of facts, hitherto little familiar to their thoughts, which Mr. Southey has brought together, may communicate its proper impression to their minds; producing, at once, disgust at the Writer's flippancy, levity, and prejudices, a conviction of the utter inadequacy of his attempts to solve the moral phenomena before him, and an inclination to give a degree of attention to the subject which may issue in the highest advantage to themselves.

It would not be difficult to fill the few pages allotted to this article with quotations, so selected and broken off from their immediate connexion, as to give our readers unmixed pleasure. Mr. Southey seems at times heartily and seriously interested in the greatness of his subject. Here and there, the vast ideas of a future life appear to give him the inspiration of a worthy and sincere conviction. Sometimes, an impression of the great and ultimate interests of mankind, as involved in their belief of Christianity, disperses the evil humours of a sectarian spirit. We give him, heartily and joyfully, the utmost credit for these

better morsels of his work, sincerely hoping that they are the passages which most truly represent his habitual sentiments and feelings.

But we are obliged to declare our opinion, that this "Life "of Wesley," estimated by its more prevailing character, is sectarian in its spirit, sinister in its design, and sceptical in its tendency; that its philosophy is extremely puerile; and that wherever the prejudices of the Writer are implicated, his representations of fact are artful, often palpably distorted, and sometimes grossly dishonest. It is evident, that he has thought to execute a work which should stand as the image and representative of enlightened opinion on the subject he has adopted; but the ill-poised mass will totter back upon the artist. Unless his ambition has been confined to the intention of writing two pleasant volumes which must sell, he will learn that he has failed. His want of calm intention, historical impartiality, and sound judgement; bis striking deficiencies in theological knowledge; and above all, his destitution of a principlelof sympathy with the spiritual world, in which he has attempted to be conversant, rendering him unable to apprehend the true motive of that conduct which he is perpetually perplexing himself to explain on principles within his own range; these, altogether, give a character of crudeness, and incongruity, and inefficiency to the work, (viewed in any other light than as a mere narrative of facts,) which will not escape the observation of his intelligent readers, even though they may be as much averse as the Author to the tenets and practices of Methodism. Persons habituated to correct thinking, whatever their religious principles may be, will presently detect in Mr. Southey's performance, the particularity of style invariably attendant upon the stale sophism which attempts to explain effects exclusively by their concomitant and incidental causes. They will perceive a desultory, anxious, and incomplete recurrence to the adopted hypothesis, on all the separate occasions that seem to demand its aid, in that incidental way which appears, in each instance, to cover and excuse an inconclusiveness in the reasoning which must be apparent in any formal statement of it. We appeal to the readers of " the Life of Wesley," if this be not the marked and particular feature of Mr. Southey's nanner. It will be well if the detection of this pervading sophism should be followed, in the minds of some individuals who hitherto have thought too little on the subject of religion, by a conviction, that the faith of Wesley and of Whitefield, like that of Paul and of Peter, generated a system of motives which Mr. Southey has utterly failed to comprehend, and with which themselves are conscious of having no sympathy.

But even viewed on lower ground, Mr. Southey's qualifica