in heart, and soul, and mind, and hopes, a follower of Jesus. How he became regenerated, the confessionalist, has, as already observed, most elaborately described. But it is not very much in the manner of Confessions to write a volume, abounding in little more than quotations from poems and poets, now in every body's hands, or, if not, that are quoted so as to afford hardly a grain of instruction or entertainment to the unlearned reader: an estimable class, ambitious of instruction, but who must be instructed (if instructed at all, and most certainly they ought to be;) by other modes. The influence of antichristian doctrines the confessionalist has well traced. In particular, he is of opinion that the contagion of these doctrines has been widely spread by gentlemen's servants. These, learning from their masters their notions, only quit the back of the chair in town, the wider to diffuse infidelity in the country. Besides, Paine's Age of Reason, which has been handed from cottage to cottage, has infected the lower orders so, that it may be apprehended, that, but for such writings as those of Paley and Watson, infidelity would have overrun the land. As it is, the confessionalist is under alarms for the religious interests of the state; nay, for the loyalty of the people; from the diffusion of infidel and atheistic notions. Hence, recommendations are largely given to carefully examine the gospels; authors mentioned whose writings tend to establish the truth of Christianity; the doctrine of re wards and punishments explained and enforced; Mr. Hall's Cambridge sermon is quoted; Polybius introduced; and Hooker, who has truly written on divine topics in a pious, noble, and even sublime strain, is mentioned with the utmost approbation. Hooker is great authority. On the superior influence of the Christian doctrine, as a doctrine to restrain from sin, Hooker has written learnedly; and his comparison of this with that of the doctrine of heathenism; a doctrine which he owns was founded on no little share of sound reason; is a bold, vigorous essay of polemical criticism. With so many beside, with indeed all judicious men, Hooker is of opionion, that upon religion depends the safety of all states; that it opens the heart; that it enlarges the understanding; that it qualifies for all exalted bliss, or all dignified station, here or hereafter. Even Voltaire held some such an opinion. Both he and Hooker were apprehensive, however, that many talk of religion, nay, perform its higher offices, incurring its more solemn obligations, with none of the fear of God before their eyes; with deceit in their hearts, and falsehood on their tongues. Other authors have thought the same. The confessionalist himself has met with instances. One is remarkable; though, but for its great publicity, from the obvious evil tendency of all such anecdotes, it should not have found a place in this our narrative. The story is of a grocer, who has been detected, within living memory, in scandalous frauds on his customers, and wicked perversions of the minds of his shopmen and servants. Here is the anecdote itself: A grocer, a most religious man, as he pretended, used on a Sunday evening to call his shopman, and ad "Have dress him thus: "John, have you put the dried berries with the currants?" "Yes, Sir." "Have you put the ash leaves with the tea?" "Yes, Sir." you put the sand with the moist sugar?" "Yes, Sir." "Then John, come to prayer." More flagrant impostures still have occurred. It is very well known that young men who were of the ministry have been infidels. Against these frauds and villanies the confessionalist would take measures of Christian rigor where they were discovered, and of precaution where they were suspected. True Christianity would unroot the whole. Gilpin has forcibly insisted on this in his sermons. Gilpin is a respectable writer. He desires men to examine themselves well, and if they are under the influence of self-deceit; contrasting with the joys of heaven the vain things of this world; he entreats them to purge their natures, and disabuse their immortal souls. Cumberland has passages in his Calvary to the same effect. Dick Thrifty and the confessionalist have several interviews to examine into the truth of revelation, and the grand doctrines of Christianity. Mutual quotations from the Night Thoughts and other alike pious books are cited by the enquirers, and with a character of Jack Jolly (who was in his youth a diligent reader of odd volumes and imperfect editions, of such like romances as the delightful history of Montillion, Don Ballance of Greece, Jane Shore, and so forth) the principal interviews between Dick and the confessionalist are made to terminate. Jack was a person of great natural talents, which he had much improved by reading. As he grew into circumstances, which he did soon, subsequent to his marriage (he married one of the holy women) Jack purchased good English books, or translations of the esteemed authors of other nations ancient and modern. The works of Chaucer, Spenser, Cowley, Waller, Milton, and their successors of the distinguished poets of Britain, the historians, and romance and novel writers; for example, Hume and Smollet, the Greek and Latin historians, philosophers and poets, Cervantes, Le Sage, and various other books, now formed Jack's library. Jack died an Infidel. Amongst the vast variety of occurrences in the Confessions, which have no sort of business there, we meet with that of a lady, whose profession was that, from fear of the displeasure of God, and other general consequences which she apprehended, if there was another life, she would prefer annihilation to the consciousness of eternal existence. To chase these fears and apprehensions from her mind, they cite the poets, especially Young. But she remains obdurate, notwithstanding that she is charmed with the accounts of heaven, its delights and joys. Nothing is so estimable in this author, as his constant reference to the works of pious and eminent writers. Dr. Scott's Christian's Life, Mrs. Rowe's Works, Archdeacon Paley, Llandaff; these are his favourites: and most extraordinary it is, that the two first of those authors, with whom she had been recommended to join Sherlock, operated not the conversion of the lady, who has astonished us by the pre ference she gave to the idea of eternal annihilation over that of eternal life. "But miracles have not ceased;" "Man, obdurate, inflexible in wrong, Studies, and reads, and thinks, and studies on; With all his might, his soul to death and hell." Escaping none of the writers, used to charm and entertain the public in recent periods, the author of this book has engaged of his party the ingenious and exquisite versifier of the Farmer's Boy. The poet of Suffolk holds in the Confessions a distinction as illustrious as Young, or Milton, or Cowper: nothing to excite wonder; Bloomfield is delightfully harmonious; or, when he reams it is with uncommon power. Bloomfield is a poet of much and natural simplicity-a genius of whose merits no one, being a competent judge, will ever presume to speak but with reverence. His pastorals are all elegiac-all for the glory of God. The confessionalist knew this;-the confessionalist quotes Bloomfield. Never was any thing more natural. The poet and the confessionalist were both of a trade. What Mr. Lackington justly believed was, that, if he might, without violence, quote the pastoralist of Bury in his cause, the strength of modern song was rallied to espouse his notions. He had not erred. Bloomfield had in his poems, surrounded with charms until his age not imagined, the whole of the regions of simple song. Thus, in every line in which the verse of Bloomfield occurs, we have the delightful, the pious, or the ejaculatory. We have religion freed from every incident of |