a wife; let the care and tenderness of a husband bring back its peace to your mind, and its bloom to your cheek. We will leave for awhile the wonder and the envy of the fashionable circle here. We will restore your father to his native home under that roof I shall once more be happy-happy without alloy, because I shall deserve my happiness. Again shall the pipe and the dance gladden the valley, and innocence and peace beam on the cottage of Venoni!"

[THE succeeding extract is from a work bearing the following title: The Unconditional Freeness of the Gospel; in Three Essays.' By Thomas Erskine, Esq., Advocate: Author of 'Remarks on the Internal Evidence for the Truth of Revealed Religion.' Our edition is the second, Edinburgh, 1828. There are passages of singular force in this little volume; and the whole argument is conducted with that union of logical precision and fervid piety, which convinces the understanding and warms the heart.]

What is the Gospel? It is nothing and can be nothing else, than a manifestation of God in relation to sinners. If our hearts were attracted to any thing else than God, even though it were a pardon, we should still be out of our place in the spiritual system. For God is the centre of that system, and nothing but God. The pardon of the Gospel, then, is just a manifestation of the character of God in relation to sinners. And that character is holy compassion. In relation to his sinless and happy creatures, his character is holy complacency; but, in relation to those who are sinful, and weak, and miserable, it is holy compassion. This is at least the prominent feature in the manifestation, but it contains all. It is God in Christ reconciling the world unto himself. This pardon, then, is an unchangeable thing, like God himself. Man neither makes it, nor merits it. God reveals it, or rather reveals himself in it. God, manifest in the flesh, becomes the representative of sinners. He takes upon himself their nature and the consequences of their rebellion; that he might show himself just, even when justifying the ungodly; and that he might show himself gracious, even when punishing sin. His sufferings and death give the solemn and appalling measure of the divine condemnation of sin, and of the divine compassion for the sinner.

When the Spirit of God reveals this to the heart, all self-pleasing thoughts of personal merit are extinguished. What have we done to him, or for him who hath done this for us? We have paid him by preferring the least of his gifts before himself by turning a deaf ear to his condescending invitations of fatherly kindness, and by offering him the base and reluctant service of our hands, and ceremonial of our tongues, as an adequate return for his heart's love. If we know this love, we shall feel annihilated by it—we have nothing to give in return, which is not despicable when considered as a payment. But he asks no payment. He asks but the love of the spirit which he hath made,—as that in which he delights,—and as that in which the good and the happiness of the creature consist. He hath dearly earned our gratitude and our confidence,-and these feelings, when wrought into the heart, put us in our proper place towards God,-affectionate dependence. Affectionate dependence on the Creator is the spiritual health of the creature-as averseness and independence are the spiritual disease of the creature.

Men are very apt to consider sin as consisting merely in this or that particular action. The old philosophers taught that virtue is the mean between two extremes, —thus, the virtue of generosity is the mean between prodigality and avarice,— courage is the mean between rashness and timidity, and so of the rest. On this system, the difference between virtue and vice lies merely in the degree, not in the kind. But the Word of God teaches another sort of morals. According to it, sin consists in the absence of the love of God from the heart, as the dominant principle

So sin is not so much an action as a manner of existence. It is not necessary to go to the expense of an action in order to sin,-the habitual state of most mindsof all minds indeed naturally-even in their most quiet form,—is sin,—that is to say, the love of God is not dominant in them. The centripetal force constitutes an element in every line which the planet moves in its orbit. Were the influence of

this force to be suspended, we should not think of reckoning the number of aberrations which the planet might make in its ungoverned career, we should say that its whole manner of being, severed from the solar influence, was a continued and radical aberration. In like manner, the soul ought to feel the love of God as a growing element along the whole course of its existence, every movement of thought, and feeling, and desire, ought to contain it, as an essential part of its nature. And when this principle is awanting, we need not count the moral aberrations which the spirit makes; its whole existence is an aberration, it is an outlaw from the spiritual system of the universe, it has lost its gravitation.

In such a state of things it is evident that a pardon which did not bring back the wanderer, and restore his lost gravitation, would be of no use to him,—until his gravitation is recovered, he is a blot on the creation. Love to God is the gravitation of the soul, and it is restored by the operation of the Spirit, who takes of the things of Christ and shows them to the soul. Faith is the receiving of the Spirit's instruction. A faith which does not restore spiritual gravitation is useless; and that only is true gravitation which keeps the soul in its orbit.

The movement of the soul along the path of duty, under the influence of holy love to God, constitutes what are called good works. Good works are works which proceed from good principles. The external form of an action cannot alone determine whether it be a good work or not. Its usefulness to others may be determined by its external form, but its moral worth depends on the moral spring from which it flows. Good works, then, are properly healthy works, or works of a healthy mind. Healthy bodily actions can only proceed from healthy bodily principles: and healthy spiritual actions can proceed only from healthy spiritual principles. A man who has lost his health, does not recover it again by the performance of healthy bodily actions, for of these his bad health renders him incapable, and in that incapacity, indeed, his bad health consists; but by the use of some remedial system, and, as health returns, its proper and natural actions return along with it. His health is not produced by these actions, but it is followed by them, and strengthened by them. The enjoyment of the body consists in these healthful actions, they are the spontaneous language of health. They constitute the music, as it were, which results from the organs being well tuned. It is the same thing with the actions of the soul. Spiritual health is not acquired by good actions, it is followed by them, and strengthened by them. They are also music, sweet music. And oh, were these spirits of ours, with their thousand strings, but rightly tuned, what a swell of high and lovely song would issue from them,-a song of holy joy and praise, commencing even here, and still rising upwards, until it mixed with the full harmony of that choir which surrounds the throne of God.

Good works, then, are not undervalued by those who hold the doctrine of unconditional pardon in its highest sense. On the contrary, they have a more elevated place in their system than in the system of those who regard them as the price paid for pardon. For, according to the unconditional system, good works are the perfection and expression of holy principles, the very end and object of all religion, the very substance of happiness, the very element of heaven. Whereas, on the conditional system, they are only the way to happiness, or rather the price paid for it. There is surely more honour paid to them, in making them the end than the means, the building than the scaffolding,—and in attributing to them an intrinsic than a conventional value.

GUESS, Reader, where I once saw a full-sized figure of Fame, erect, tip-toe, in the act of springing to take flight and soar aloft, her neck extended, her head raised, the trumpet at her lips, and her cheeks inflated, as if about to send forth a blast which the whole city of London was to hear? Perhaps thou mayest have seen this very figure thyself, and surely if thou hast, thou wilt not have forgotten it. It was in the Borough Road, placed above a shop-board which announced that Mr. Somebody fitted up water-closets upon a new and improved principle.

But it would be well for mankind if Fame were never employed in trumpeting anything worse. There is a certain stage of depravity in which men derive an unnatural satisfaction from the notoriety of their wickedness, and seek for celebrity ob magnitudinem infamiæ, cujus apud prodigos novissima voluptas est*. Ils veulent faire parler d'eux, says Bayle, et leur vanité ne serait pas satisfuite s'il n'y avait quelque chose de superlatif et d'éminent dans leur mauvaise réputation. Le plus haut degré de l'infamie est le but de leurs souhaits, et il y a des choses qu'ils ne feraient pas se elles n'étaient extraordinairement odieuses.t

Plutarch has preserved the name of Chorephanes, who was notorious among the ancients for having painted such subjects as Julio Romano has the everlasting infamy of having designed for the flagitious Aretine. He has also transmitted to posterity the name of Parmeno, famous for grunting like a pig; and of Theodorus, not less famous for the more difficult accomplishment of mimicking the sound of a creaking cart-wheel. Who would wish to have his name preserved for his beggarliness, like Pauson, the painter, and Codrus, the poet? or for his rascality and wickedness, like Phrynondas? or like Callianax, the physician, for callous brutality? Our doctor used to instance these examples when he talked of "the bubble reputation," which is sometimes to be had so cheaply, and yet for which so dear a price has often been paid in vain. It amused him to think by what odd or pitiful accidents that bubble might be raised. "Whether the regular practitioner may sneer at Mr. Ching," says the historian of Cornwall, "I know not; but the Patent Worm Lozenges have gained our Launceston apothecary a large fortune, and secured to him perpetual fame."

Would not John Dory's name have died with him, and so been long ago dead as a door-nail, if a grotesque likeness for him had not been discovered in the fish, which, being called after him, has immortalised him and his ugliness? But if John Dory could have anticipated this sort of immortality when he saw his own face in * Tacitus. "On account of the extent of their infamy, from which prodigals derive the greatest pleasure."

"They wish to be talked of, and their vanity is not satisfied unless they had a reputation for something very striking, and most uncommon. To attain the highest degree of infamy is tite end of their desires, and there are certain things, which if they did not bring upon them the greatest odium, they would refuse to perform."

VOL. II.

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the glass, he might very well have "blushed to find it fame." There would have been no other memorial of Richard Jaquett at this day, than the letters of his name in an old dead and obsolete hand, now well nigh rendered illegible by time, if he had not, in the reign of Edward VI., been lord of the manor of Tyburn, with its appurtenances, wherein the gallows was included, wherefore, from the said Jaquett, it is presumed by antiquaries that the hangman hath been ever since corruptly I called Jack Ketch. A certain William Dowsing, who, during the great Rebellion, was one of the Parliamentary Visitors for demolishing superstitious pictures and ornaments of churches, is supposed by a learned critic to have given rise to an expression in common use among school-boys and blackguards. For this worshipful commissioner broke so many "mighty great angels" in glass, knocked so many apostles and cherubims to pieces, demolished so many pictures and stone crosses, and boasted with so much puritanical rancour of what he had done, that it is conjectured the threat of giving any one a dowsing preserves his rascally name. So, too, while Bracton and Fleta rest on the shelves of some public library, Nokes and Stiles are living names in the courts of law and for John Doe and Richard Roe, were there ever two litigious fellows so universally known as these eternal antagonists?

Johnson tells a story of a man who was standing in an inn kitchen with his back to the fire, and thus accosted a traveller who stood next to him, "Do you know, sir, who I am?" "No, sir,” replied the traveller, "I have not that advantage." "Sir," said the man, "I am the great Twalmley, who invented the new flood-gate iron." Who but for Johnson would have heard of the great Twalmley now? Reader, I will answer the question which thou hast already asked, and tell thee that his invention consisted in applying a sliding-door, like a flood-gate, to an ironing-box, flat irons having till then been used, or box-irons with a door and a bolt.

Who was Tom Long, the Carrier? when did he flourish? what road did he travel? did he drive carts, or waggons, or was it in the age of pack-horses? Who was Jack Robinson? not the once well-known Jack Robinson of the Treasury, (for his celebrity is now like a tale that is told,) but the one whose name is in every body's mouth, because it is so easily and so soon said. Who was Magg? and what was his diversion? was it brutal, or merely boorish? the boisterous exuberance of rude and unruly mirth, or the gratification of a tyrannical temper and a cruel disposition? Who was Crop the Conjurer, famous in trivial speech as Merlin in romantic lore, or Doctor Faustus in the school of German extravagance ? What is remembered now of Bully Dawson ? all I have read of him is, that he lived three weeks on the credit of a brass shilling, because nobody would take it of him. "There goes a story of Queen Elizabeth," says Ray, "that being presented with a collection of English proverbs, and told by the Author that it contained them all, 'Nay,' replied she, 'Bate me an ace, quoth Bolton!' which proverb being instantly looked for, happened to be wanting in his collection." "Who this Bolton was," Ray says, "I know not, neither is it worth inquiring." Nevertheless, I ask who was Bolton? and when Echo answers "who?" say in my heart, Vanitas Vanitatum, omnia Vanitas. And having said this, conscience smites me with the recollection of what Pascal has said, Ceux qui écrivent contre la gloire, veulent avoir la gloire d'avoir bien écrit; et ceux qui le lisent, voulent avoir la gloire de l'avoir lu; et moi qui écris ceci, j'ai peut être cette envie, et peut être que ceux qui le lirent, l'aurent aussi.*

"Those who write against Glory wish to have the glory of having written well; ant those who read their composition wish to have the glory of having read it; and I who write this, I too perhaps have this desire, and perhaps those who will read it will have the desire also."

Who was old Ross of Potern, who lived till all the world was weary of him? All the world has forgotten him now. Who was Jack Raker, once so well known that he was named proverbially as a scape-grace by Skelton, and in the Ralph Roister Doister of Nicholas Udall, that Udall, who, on poor Tom Tusser's account, ought always to be called the bloody schoolmaster ? Who was William Dickins, whose wooden dishes were sold so badly, that when any one lost by the sale of his wares, the said Dickins and his dishes were brought up in scornful comparison ? Out-roaring Dick was a strolling singer of such repute that he got twenty shillings a day by singing at Braintree Fair: but who was that desperate Dick that was such a terrible cutter at a chine of beef, and devoured more meat at ordinaries in discoursing of his frays and deep acting, of his flashing and hewing, than would serve half a dozen brewers' draymen? It is at this day doubtful whether it was Jack Drum, or Tim Drum, whose mode of entertainment no one wishes to receive ;-for it was to haul a man in by the head and thrust him out by the neck and shoulders. Who was that other Dick who wore so queer a hat-band, that it has ever since served as a standing comparison for all queer things? By what name besides Bichard was he known? Where did he live, and when? His birth, parentage, education, life, character and behaviour, who can tell? "Nothing," said the doctor, "is remembered of aim, except that he was familiarly called Dick, and that his queer hat-band went nine times round and would not tie."

"O vain world's glory and unstedfast state

Of all that lives on face of sinful earth!"*

Who was Betty Martin, and wherefore should she so often be mentioned in connection with my precious eye or yours? Who was Ludlam, whose dog was so lazy that he leant his head against a wall to bark? And who was Old Cole, whose dog was so proud that he took the wall of a dung-cart, and got squeezed to death by the wheel? Was he the same person of whom the song says:—

And was his dog

"Old King Cole

Was a merry old soul,

And a merry old soul was he?"

because his master was called king? Here are questions to be proposed in the examination papers of some Australian Cambridge, two thousand years hence, when the people of that part of the world shall be as reasonably inquisitive concerning our affairs, as we are now concerning those of the Greeks. But the Burneys, the Parrs, and the Porsons, the Elmsleys, Monks, and Blomfields of that age, will puzzle over them in vain, for we cannot answer them now.

"Who was the Vicar of Bray? I have had a long chase after him," said Mr. Brome to Mr. Rawlins, in 1735. "Simon Aleyn, or Allen, was his name; he was Vicar of Bray, about 1540, and died in 1588; so he held the living near fifty years. You now partake of the sport that has cost me some pains to take. And if the pursuit after such game seems mean, one Mr. Vernon followed a butterfly nine miles before he could catch him." Reader, do not refuse your belief of this fact, when I can state to you, on my own recollection, that the late Dr. Shaw, the celebrated naturalist, a librarian of the British Museum, and known by the name of the learned Shavius, from the facility and abundance of his Latin compositions, pointed out to my notice there, many years ago, two volumes written by a Dutchman upon the wings of a butterfly. "The dissertation is rather voluminous, sir, perhaps you will think," said the Doctor, with somewhat of that apologetio air, which modest science is wont occasionally to assume in her communications with Spenser,