New Testament, with Explanatory Notes, remarkable for their spirituality, spirituality, terseness, and point. A similar work, but less original in its character, he published on the Old Testament, in three quarto volumes. We hazard nothing in saying, that no man ever lived who placed a larger mass of evangelical and useful literature within the reach of the common people. works which he published were not merely harmless, but beneficial; calculated and intended to make men wise and holy.

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Mr. Charles Wesley was an elegant scholar, and possessed a fine classical taste; but as a literary man, he engaged in a kind of service very different from that which occupied the more versatile genius of his brother. Prose composition he almost entirely neglected; except that he wrote two sermons for the press,-one “Awake thou that sleepest," and the other on Earthquakes,-and for many years kept a daily record of passing occurrences. Above almost all men that ever lived, he was the child of feeling; and from the time of his conversion till his fires were quenched in death, he thought and breathed in sacred verse. His was not "made poetry," but "poetry that made itself." It flowed from the depth of his heart in a perennial

was

stream, as clear as it full and strong. He supplied the Methodists with hymns suited to every occasion, and on all possible subjects connected with their spiritual concerns, and that with an energy, a purity, and a copiousness of diction, and with a richness of evangelical sentiment, of which the Christian church had perhaps never before seen an equal example. There is scarcely a feeling of the heart in the entire process of salvation, from the first dawn of light upon the understanding, and the inci pient sorrows of penitence, to the joys of pardon, the entire sanctification of the soul, and its triumphant entrance into paradise, which he has not expressed in genuine poetry. All that he and his brother taught from the pulpit, of the evil of sin, the glory of Christ, the efficacy of the atonement, the power and grace of the Holy Spirit, "the good fight of faith," the peace and joy of believing, and the ecstatic anticipations of hope, he enabled the people to sing in strains worthy of the brightest days of the primitive church, when she had received the pentecostal baptism of fire. Never were people so favoured with respect to the substance of their psalmody as the Wesleyan Connexion has always been.

To some persons it may perhaps appear incre

dible, but it is, nevertheless, a fact, that, independently of his own original works, which occupy fourteen large octavo volumes, Mr. John Wesley abridged, revised, and printed no fewer than one hundred and seventeen distinct publications, reckoning his Christian Library, his Histories, and his Philosophy, as only one each; and that the brothers, separately and unitedly, published forty-seven poetical tracts and volumes, most of which were the compositions of Mr. Charles Wesley, and adapted to the use of public, domestic, and private devotion; besides a large number of psalms, which were inserted in the "Arminian Magazine." Apparently without design, Mr. Charles Wesley has anticipated every want of the Connexion, so far as devotional poetry is concerned. Notwithstanding the difference between his times and the present, there is not a religious service, whether relating to Missions, the Christian sacraments, or the ordination of Ministers, for which he has not most appropriately provided.

Mr. Charles Wesley was critically acquainted with the holy Scriptures, and had a profound knowledge of theology, as must appear to every attentive reader of his poetry. To a great extent, it forms a beautiful commentary on the Bible.

THE ADOPTION OF A SIMPLE AND IMPRESSIVE MODE OF PREACHING.

WHEN Messrs. John and Charles Wesley, having found what they had long sought,-the peace and holiness which are consequent upon the true Christian faith,-began to exert themselves to effect a revival of religion in the nation, they adopted a mode of preaching adapted to this end. They laid aside the practice of reading their sermons, and addressed the people from the fulness of their hearts; yet without the slightest approach to rhapsody. The subjects of their ministry were, at first, comparatively few, but immensely important. True religion, they strenuously maintained, does not consist in right opinions, nor in correct morals, nor in harmlessness of conduct, nor in attendance upon Christian ordinances, necessary as these things are in their several places; but is the life of God in the soul of man; a conformity to the divine image; the love of God and of all mankind for his sake, constantly expressing itself in acts of piety, benevolence, and righteousness. They contended, that of this all mankind are naturally destitute; and that they can attain it in no other way than by believing

in Christ.

Love to God, which they described as the root and principle of all holiness, they declared to be a grateful affection, arising, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, from an assurance of God's love to us; so that justification, and the inward witness of our adoption, precede sanctification, though they are inseparably conneeted with it. This happiness and purity they declared to be attainable by all men, and attainable now; and hence they offered to the most unworthy of mankind, as the free gift of God, a present salvation from the guilt, the power, and the misery of sin. All believers they exhorted to go on unto perfection; assuring them, upon the testimony of holy Scripture, that they might be saved in this life from all inward as well as all outward sin; and love God with all their heart, and mind, and soul, and strength. The necessity of a holy life, as the fruit of faith, and as emanating from the principle of divine love, they enforced with unceasing earnestness, and with a constant reference to the strict account which every one must soon render to the Judge of quick and dead. The offices of Christ, and the work of the Holy Spirit, in their direct connexion with the present and everlasting salvation of mankind, formed the prominent subjects of their ministrations. In Chris