the society of faithful men of the Thirty-nine Articles.

There are some few good things in the book, but they are lost amidst masses of most unreadable trashy prosing. He has said nothing new upon the subject of congregational singing. And, as to all he says in vindication of chaunts, anthems, canticles, &c. &c. it is fitter for the meridian of Rome than of England. He counts the cathedral service the very perfection of church music, and quite to his heart's content-and we know not how potently fitted to inspire devotion, and so on. Now, we think the cathedral services more injurious to the Church of England than any other part of her public worship. If the incomes of the cathedrals were employed for educational purposes, or for the promotion of the gospel-that joyful sound, for lack of which thousands within the Church of England are perishing, we would be content, and so ought he, to see every choir in Great Britain abandoned to-morrow. We love anthems, we can relish the chaunt, and we are no strangers to the harmonic art - but Christian congregations are better without them. Every thing in public assemblies, whether it be the building, the preacher, the pictures, the images of saints, or the music, may divert attention from the great object of worship, and the high end of religious assemblies; the moment they do so, they become pernicious to the souls of men-and however innocent in themselves, should be discarded, or so far modified, as to be lost or overlooked in the ascent of the mind through them to the divine Master of assemblies. There is a limit within which all the circumstances of public worship must be kept. Carry them out to their perfection, and they become

matters of human taste, human art, and skill; man becomes more prominent than God; the mind reposes almost necessarily in the sensitive or simply intellectual gratification. It is so pre-eminently with music. Mr. La Trobe may say, 'but we ought to make its highest perfection still subservient to devotion.' Ah, Mr. La Trobe, You may do so-but you cannot alter human nature. The fine music of your cathedrals has driven out devotion, for it has driven away the worshippers; and you know it. We maintain that the cathedral worship is, in the eye of the nation, one of the foulest and darkest blots upon the face of the Establishment. The subject is too wide for our present space; but we would remind Mr. La Trobe of one momentous, insurmountable, humbling fact to the Church of England-there are no towns in England where, cæteris paribus, there is less genuine piety, more worldly vanity, and so much infidelity, as in our cathedral towns! He would, it seems, have a cathedral, with its appendages, in every town in the kingdom if he could. Such is his passion for these services, that he would spread them through every parish to improve the piety of the rustics; but he must allow us to say it, and we speak from an extensive knowledge of the state of our cities, that no greater evil could be inflicted upon the cause of Christianity, than the multiplication of such services, and no greater benefit of a liturgical nature, at least upon the Church of England, than their abolition. They arose with popery, and they ought to have disappeared with it for ever; and we believe the best friends of the Established Church are of our mind.

The singing is susceptible of

much improvement, and so is the preaching and the praying. In fact, the gospel must more generally prevail before there will be devotional music; and as to improving the singing and the music, in places where the joyful sound is never heard, it may produce a sickly sentimentality and a religion of the senses, but will only prove a snare to souls, and a hindrance to the gospel. If the people have not the sound of the Gospel, it is of very little moment what other sounds they have. Music will never convert sinners. Mr. La Trobe may be a man of taste and science, but his affectation of fine feeling, his extravagant ideas of the importance of chaunting, music, and the tedious repetitions, as well as inconsistencies of his book, have convinced us, that he is a very incompetent person to legislate upon this subject. He is probably an enthusiast in church-music, a composer and an amateur-performer-his taste may be correct, but we are quite sure his standard cannot be reached, and if it could, it would be extensively prejudicial to the interests of the gospel. He would have all young clergymen examined before they proceed B. A., as to their knowledge of music; we beg to pronounce this utterly ridiculous, while the great mass of them, even when they come for ordination, are grossly ignorant of Christian theology. Mr. La Trobe would have every clergyman interfere officially with the singers-we say, they had better let them alone, provided they do not err greatly from the rule of propriety. Again, Mr. La Trobe advocates a most pernicious error; at p. 410, he says, "But how is an individual to act, who has an nternal passionate energy for musical strains, with a most trea

cherous want of self-command? Had he not better cast aside the art altogether, than retain it, a continued and daily source of temptation? If, in reply, we argue upon mere worldly principles, an affirmative might be returned; if upon religious, a decided negative. We are indeed warned in Scripture to flee temptations, but they are evidently classed with things in their own nature sinful, -Satan, and worldly lusts. When, therefore, an object of temptation is directly and inherently sinful, it is our duty to cut it off, even though it be as dear to us as a right hand or a right eye. If it be sinful only through excessive indulgence, we have no more authority to pluck it up by the roots, than we have to starve ourselves because food is in its abuse an evil, and therefore may become a source of temptation. In fact, without this distinction, no gift of God can be received-no blessing enjoyed; the child that is born may proceed from its mother's womb to the grave, for though there is spread around it a table of bounties, there is engraved in large characters upon its leaves, "touch not, taste not, handle not."

After this specimen of Mr. La Trobe's casuistry, we think none of our readers will have much confidence in his discrimination, and as to his theology, we fear it is of very sickly growth. If we understand any thing of our Lord's command, in Matt. xviii. 8, 9, this advice is in direct contravention of it. Indeed, music is one of those naturally indifferent enjoyments, which, if liable in any way to become a snare to the soul, ought to be wholly abandoned, It may be an evil, a sacrifice to give it up, but of two evils it is the least. This surely is the case

God, created anew in Christ Jesus, appears more bright and lovely to the eye from being contemplated in contrast with the terrific forms which are cast in pagan mould, and in comparison with the offspring of a sceptical philosophy, which, though they have no wings to carry them to distant lands on messages of mercy, would yet persuade us that they are the only "angels of light."

We still think, however, that the press owes to the religious public, and the world, a class of publications which shall open more clearly and fully to the view the comprehensive and immutable principles of missionary obligation, and exhibit their connection with every part of the Christian economy, and all the vital elements of the spiritual life. The field here is wide, and might furnish useful occupation for several labourers. Mr. Stowell has driven a somewhat light, but burning ploughshare into it. The preface commends it to our regard, by giving us a glimpse of the circumstances to which may be attributed the excellency of its temper, and which sufficiently excuse the comparative slightness of its form.

"When I began to prepare this little work for the press, it was in the expectation of having much leisure for that purpose. But it was scarcely undertaken, when it pleased God to visit the place of my residence with that mysterious dis ease which has awakened so much just and salutary alarm throughout our country. I may be allowed to express my decided belief, not only that this dispensation has been the means of urging many persons to an immediate application to Christ for salvation, but also, that it has been accompanied by a special effusion of the Holy Spirit. I trust I can say with many brethren, ministers, and others, of all denominations, that we have realized this solemn fact in our own experience. The labours of many ministers of the Gospel, in this town and neighbourhood, have been very abundant, and greatly more blessed than at any former time. For

three months, we have assembled every Monday morning in each other's places of worship for social prayer and ministerial exhortation; on which occasions the largest places have been filled, though at a most inconvenient time, with serious, absorbed, impressed worshippers. but a faint conception of the great in

"Persons living at a distance can have

crease of exertion devolving on Christian ministers in such circumstances -- the uneffort called forth, even in the ordinary wonted pressure of mind, and of bodily service of the Gospel. This necessary increase of pastoral solicitude and devotion, in addition to the Catholic engagements already referred to, have certainly deprived me of the leisure I had anticipated for the present volume. That deprivation I ought not to regret--nor do I. But having commenced, I was un willing to delay or relinquish a publication to which I was pledged, and which, I would fain hope, imperfect as it is, will be useful in every circle to which it may find its way."

We believe this hope will be realized, and shall be happy if our recommendation should facilitate its entrance into the circle of the readers of the Congregational Magazine. The principles of the work, however, belong exclusively to no denomination. Both in their statement and illustration, they are designed to extend beyond any of the sectional departments of Christianity, and to include the "Israel

of God."

The table of contents is as follows:

The special Relation of the Church to the World-The Warrant of the Church for Missionary Undertakings-Missionary Efforts of the Primitive Christians-The Progressive Decline of the Missionary Spirit-Revival of Missionary Effort in the Church-Present Obstructions to the Progress of Missionary Effort in the Church -Evils resulting from defect of the Missionary Spirit-Arguments and Motives for increased Devotion to Missionary Objects.

In estimating the relation of the Church to the world, it would ap

pear desirable clearly to define the meaning which is attached to the words employed, and the consequent boundary line between the objects related and compared;

and on the correctness of this

pre

liminary part of the process would depend much of the order, force, and conclusiveness of the whole work. In the absence of any formal definition of terms, which we are far from thinking is in case required, we gather following passage the accepta.on in which Mr. Stowell employs the term Church.

"It will not be doubted that the church was composed of converted men. Each of these was converted not for his own sake merely, but for the sake of others. Any association of men so converted, and so evincing their conversion, must have been a missionary association. The spread of the Gospel, proved by their own experience to be the designed instruments of human salvation, must have been a constant object of devout anxiety and strenuous effort. To them it must have

a

appeared as the main purpose of their union. To them it conld never have presented itself as, chiefly, an affair of charity and compassion towards their deluded and suffering fellow-creatures, but as the proper business of the church, a business to which the church was bound by her allegiance to God, and by her special relation to the world. The gifts of the church-the prayers of the church -the officers of the church -- the visible profession of the church-her baptism-her holy supper--her preaching of the Gospel-all these were the tokens and seals of her character as the evangelizer of the earth. Each believer was witness for truth against error, for holiness against sin; and the collection of believers constituting the church was 'a cloud of witnesses,' a confederate band brought together by their Celestial Leader, to denounce the usurpation of the grand deceiver, to tear away the veil of delusion which he had spread over the face of the nations, and to draw their fellow-men of every rank and climate to the belief of the truth, and to the enjoyment of the common salvation. Such is the true character and the perpetual office of the church of Christ, put in trust' with the Gospel for the nations, that they may be saved. He who refuses to embrace the Gospel for his own sal

vation, is not only his own enemy and the enemy of the Saviour, he is an alien from the church, and takes his part in opposition to the best interests of the world. While he who professes to receive the Gospel for his own salvation, and yet, from narrow views, from worldly selfishness, or unbelieving timidity, declines to share the efforts of the church for the

salvation of the world, is a stranger to the sympathies of the body of Christ. Religion is life. Christianity is a religion of movement. The CHURCH IS A MISSIONARY INSTITUTION."-- pp. 13 --15.

This is a lucid and interesting description of what the Church should be, and of what it actually would be, were not the principles of Christianity modified in their operation on individual characters and collective communities by the manifold imperfections of our fallen nature, with which they have perpetually to contend. Still those imperfections which modify Christianity in the experience of the individual, and which restrict its expansive force, do not, in the slightest degree, affect the standard of duty; and the writer, whose laudable object it is to elevate our conceptions of duty, and apply the corrective stimulus to the sluggishness of our minds, must present vividly to the view the perfect model which God designed, and not the imperfect imitation which man has produced; and must, sometimes, disentangle himself from the icy fetters of a cold and critical accuracy, and speak of things which should be as though they were. We can assure our readers that we do not occupy, with any satisfaction to ourselves, the judicial chair while the present work is before us. It makes us feel that the region of criticism is too near the frigid zone; that whatever it may be able to boast in reference to the clearness of its atmosphere, the soil is barren, and the wind often withering to the generous productions of more fervid climes. We would rather