facts are to be met with, our position is not affected by them. We say that some of the efforts were in accordance with the laws of the system-to this is the success attributable, and not to the improper efforts by which they were attended. God is under no obligation to hold success from such efforts as are in obedience to law, because they are accompanied by others in violation of law. Suppose this were the case and that it behooved him to withhold success from right efforts when attended by wrong ones. This withholding success is certainly a departure from his usual mode of operation, and a suspension of his laws. It follows then that the folly and wickedness of men may oblige Him to suspend his laws at any and every moment. Is this reasonable? By no means. We may be sure that God will follow his own wise laws, and not turn aside from them, on account of the folly of men.

We are now prepared to perceive the unreasonableness of the opinion (not unfrequently entertained) that God sanctions extravagances, because conversions follow efforts with which extravagances are mixed. We wish the reader to bestow thought on this point, and apply the principles above explained.

If their principles are correct, it follows that effects, however sincere, zealous and long continued, if not in strict accordance with the principles of the Gospel and the laws of the human mind, are no more likely to result in the conversion of men, than a water-wheel, however carefully constructed, is likely to revolve when it is not placed in contact with falling water. From want of clear views on this subject, there is, as it strikes us, a lamentable misapplication of power in the ministry. How much effort is the result of habit, imitation, or authority! Would not the habitual acting on the principles above noticed, save much useless effort, and especially the wear and tear of uncertainty and experiment? And is it right to make experiments on so costly a subject as the immortal soul?. Let experiments be made on the costliest portions of matter, if destroyed, they can be replaced or their loss can be borne; but let us act in relation to the immortal soul in the way that God has laid down in his word. If there are principles laid down for our guidance, fearfully guilty is he who neglects them to wander in the perilous regions of experiment in search of new and improved methods.

The minister should carefully study the principles of the gospel, and act rigidly in accordance with them. One of the wisest and holiest of men once said, "There are two things necessary to render a man a good preacher-the one is to understand the Gospel,-the other to feel it." Let the minister then study to be familiar with the principles of the Gospel, and let him govern all his proceedings by them. Let it be settled in his mind that the laws of no part of God's universe can be broken with advantage or even with impunity, when he is sure that he is following these principles, let him dismiss all undue anxiety and perturbation of mind. He is then filling his place in God's system, and he may rest assured that not a blow that he strikes will be lost.

ART. VI. REVIEW OF THE CHRISTIAN PSALMIST.

THE CHRISTIAN PSALMIST, or Watts' Psalms and Hymns, with copious selec tions from other sources, the whole carefully revised and arranged: with directions for MUSICAL EXPRESSIONS.-By T. HASTINGS and W. PATTON.

"To speak the glories of God in religious song, or to breathe out the joys of our own spirits to God with the melody of our own voice, is an exalted part of divine worship." These are the words of Dr. Watts, but the sentiment they contain is common to devout persons in every age.— Accordingly Christians have always discovered a strong partiality to this mode of expressing their pious feelings. Often times when alone, they beguile the labours, or soothe the sorrows of life with the cheerful voice of praise; and both in the friendly circle and in the house of prayer, they are wont to occupy a portion of their time in this animating and delightful exercise. Its natural influence is, to refresh, to stimulate, to ennoble the mind. When the heart is in harmony with the voice, and the sacred and sweet modulations of the music are instinct, as it were, with the very affections of the soul; we seem to rise in the scale of enjoyment and approximate to the state of the blessed above. Music is the language of feeling, and generally of elevated and joyous feel

ing; and when connected with divine worship, when giving utterance to the high praises of God, is calculated in a very eminent degree to lift us above all mean associations and inspire us with emotions which are felt in their full intensity only where He is worshipped in the "beauty of holiness." Devotion derives important aid from it. A very intimate connexion indeed subsists between them; a connexion not arising out of any arbitrary appointment, nor depending upon our own will, but resulting from an original law of our nature. Hence when we are more than is common, under a heavenly influence; when our thoughts are more than usually devout; when we realize with a more distinct and spiritual perception, the sweet and holy Majesty of God, and identify His presence and his love with every object around us;-when we have been reflecting with serene pleasure on his wisdom, his beneficence, his purity, and above and beyond all, "His unspeakable gift;" nothing appears so natural to us, as to give a melodious expression to our feelings, and to breathe them forth in a song of praise. When the heart is dilated with a sense of God's mercy, the voice is never long in tuning itself to a sweet melody.

That singing should constitute a part of public worship, seems therefore to be a necessary result of the associations and tendencies established by the Great Being who gave us at once our susceptibility of pleasure, and our capacity for praise. Accordingly he has always sanctioned its use in the solemn assemblies of his people. Under the ancient dispensation, it was cultivated and practised with the greatest care. Nor did either David or Solomon, the two most illustrious monarchs that ever sat upon the Jewish throne, deem it beneath their kingly dignity to take it under their personal management. The Spirit of inspiration seems to have rested upon the "Sweet Psalmist of Israel," for the purpose of leading him to compose those divine poems in which the ancient Church celebrated the perfections and glory of God; and many of which are still felt to be the most grand, and solemn, and appropriate songs in which assembled Christians can lift up their voices in adoration of the Most High.

With the introduction of the new economy most of the ancient forms of divine worship were abolished, but this part of it, though greatly simplified and cast in a new mould, was still retained. Our Saviour gave it the sanction of his

authority in circumstances peculiarly tender and interesting. In the large upper room, which must have been to him like a dying chamber, (for when he once left it, he entered no other till his death :) he united with the infant Church in this consolatory office of devotion, and thus composed his troubled feelings, before he went out to agonize in the garden, and expire on the cross.

After the Pentecostal effusion of the Spirit, the infant Church is seen daily in the temple praising God.-A little onward, we hear the Apostle Paul exhorting the Corinthian Church "to sing with the Spirit and with the understanding," and the Church at Ephesus "to be filled with the Spirit, speaking to themselves in Psalms and Hymns and Spiritual Songs, singing and making melody in their hearts unto the Lord."

Though we have no specimens of the Hymns and Spiritual Songs to which the Apostle alludes, except the occasional doxologies of the redeemed, in the book of Revelation, it cannot be doubted that they used, not only the Psalms of the Old Testament, literally, or accommodated to the circumstances of a new and rising Church, but that they had original lays of their own, in which they celebrated the praises of Christ, as the Saviour of the world. In the middle ages, the Roman Catholic and Greek Churches adopted singing as an essential part of public worship; but this, like the reading of the Scriptures, was too frequently in an unknown tongue, by an affectation of wisdom, to excite the veneration of ignorance, when the learned in their craftiness, taught that "Ignorance is the mother of Devotion;" and ignorance was very willing to believe it.

At the era of the Reformation, Psalms and Hymns in the vernacular tongue were revived in Germany, England and elsewhere, among the other means of grace, of which Christendom had been for centuries defrauded. But as Montgomery very justly observes, without disparagement to the living or the dead, "the harp of David yet hangs upon the willow, disdaining the touch of any hand less skilful than his own." Why so few of our most eminent poets have delighted in sacred song, it is not difficult to see. Just in proportion as the religion of Christ is understood and taught in primitive purity, those who either believe not in its spirituality, or have not proved its converting influence, are careful to avoid meddling with it; so that if its sacred mysteries VOL. IV.

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have been less frequently and ostentatiously honoured by the homage of our poets within the last one hundred and fifty years than formerly, they have been less disgraced and violated by absurd and impious associations. The offence of the cross has not ceased-nay, it exists, perhaps most inveterately, though less apparently, where religion has been refined from the gross superstition of the dark ages; for there the humbling doctrines of the gospel are as of old, a stumbling block to the self-righteous, and foolishness to the wise in their own esteem. Many of our eminent poets have belonged to one or the other of these classes; it cannot be surprising then that they either knew not or contemned the truth as it is in Jesus. The peculiar language of devotion, whether in prose or rhyme, cannot be relished, because it is not understood by any but those who have experienced the power of the Gospel as bringing salvation to them that believe; for the same reason that the Bible itself is neither acceptable nor intelligible to those who are not taught by the Spirit of God. To those on the other hand, who have tasted the good word of God, and felt the powers of the world to come, it will be easy to comprehend that poetry and piety may be as surely united on earth, as they are in heaven before the throne, in the song of angels and "the spirits of just men made perfect." Perhaps it may not be irrelevant here, to hint at the principles, so to speak, upon which hymns should be composed-which we do in the words of one of the best lyric poets of the present day.* "A Hymn," says he, "ought to be as regular in its structure as any other poem: it should have a distinct subject, and that subject should be simple, not complicated, so that whatever skill or labour might be required in the author to develope his plan, there should be little or none required on the part of the reader to understand it. Consequently, a hymn must have a beginning, a middle, and end. There should be a manifest gradation in the thoughts, and their mutual dependance should be so perceptible, that they could not be transposed without injuring the unity of the piece, every line carrying forward the connection, and every verse adding a well-proportioned limb to a symmetrical body. The reader should know when the strain is complete, and be satisfied, as at the close of an air in music-while defects and superfluities should be felt by

* Montgomery.