supplanting it, is much obscured by this circumstance. The grave puritanism (may we so apply the term ?) which fascinates so many ardent minds, is, although it dates itself from a remote age, in this age quite new, and it possesses all that freshness and animation which is characteristic of a recent religious impulse; or, as we might take the liberty to call it, of a "revival." Meantime the evangelic principle had, at the moment of the birth of its antagonist, spent itself; or had become in a degree languid. Its interior force had been dissipated by many and distracting occupations - commendable in themselves, but not easily made to consist with profound sentiments, of any kind. At the same time an almost unprecedented outburst of political and ecclesiastical strife (must we not say of hatred?) had produced its inevitable-its own effects, in vitiating the religious sentiments of thousands, in all communions. At such a moment, an austere pietism, exempted from every admixture of vulgarity by issuing from hails of learning, and graced with the undefined (and alas! unexamined) recommendations of antiquity, and offering to young and ambitious spirits a course of glory-if not heavenly, yet not earthly in the ordinary sense-such a system, thus graced, comes into comparison with what was already exhausted-divided -distracted-with what had ceased, for some long time, to be under the guidance of powerful and deeply moved minds. The consequence was such as might have been supposed, and such as has invariably resulted from similar oppositions of a spent energy, with an energy renovated. If at this moment there be reason to anticipate a better issue of this collision than the usual course of human affairs would warrant us in expecting, such a hope must be drawn, chiefly, from the now obvious fact, that the restorers of "Catholic" superstitions are, like many other leaders of sects, gifted with more zeal than discretion. But it will be demanded-what we mean by speaking of the evangelic principle as having been lately, or as still being, in a state of some exhaustion or collapse. Certainly not, that evangelical doctrine has ceased to be professed with explicitness, or taught scripturally. Certainly not, that it has so fallen into decay as to fail of producing its proper and happy effects in very many instances, and on all sides. Certainly not, that any dogmatic apostasy from the faith has taken place among us. On the contrary, it should be acknowledged with gratitude, that those frightful delusions which were the fruit of an absurd system of metaphysics, more absurdly applied to the simplicity of scripture, and which at one time extensively disgraced evangelic communions, have nearly disappeared; and that, partly as scattered by argument, partly as extinguished by their own fumes, these false fires are almost gone out. What then do we complain of? not of False Doctrine; but rather of faintness at the heart; as a man may be labouring under no assignable malady, whose pulse yet is feeble, whose appetite is wayward, whose waking hours are listless, and whose repose is unquiet. If it be our part to speak of Spiritual Christianity, we are bound to take its characteristics as we find them in the apostolic writings;-not as they may happen to be presented to the eye in the momentary aspects of this or that favoured religious body. What does impartiality mean, if, while loudly denouncing superstition, or any other antichristian error; we allow it, by our discreet silence and delicate reserve, to be gathered, that the body from the bosom of which we are supposed to come is, in our esteem, no sharer in those ever changing alternations of health and sickness which attach to whatever is human! Good reason is there to hope that, after the now spreading "Catholic" puritanism shall have freely exhibited its inner qualities, and shall have honestly avowed its ulterior purposes, the deep movement of which it has been the immediate cause, may, through the divine goodness, take a happier course, and extensively promote genuine piety. "It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps;"-and certainly there does not belong to the religious commonwealth any such individual directive wisdom as might avail for the conduct of the whole, in its dubious progress toward truth and virtue. This overruling power it is not in man to exercise. Our part is, while humbly we implore |