Saturday Evening. By the Author of the Natural History of Enthusiasm. Holdsworth and Ball. 8vo.

THE allegorical, we might almost say the Caballistic application of the phrase "Saturday Evening," to designate this volume, has, we have no doubt, been one of the impediments to its success. With the infelicity of the title we have, however, no inclination further to quarrel. It is an infelicity, but there we leave it. The subject, or rather the numerous subjects discussed in the volume are of the highest interest. The author proceeds, from the assumption that the present is an important crisis in the divine dispensations with mankind, to illustrate and enforce with much ability, the sentiments which seemed to connect themselves with that particular opinion. The present is an era that will in a great measure involve the decay and removal of most of the systems which degrade and enslave mankind. It is, in reference to the moral and spiritual Sabbath which is dawning, a time of preparation, and it will issue in the bright and balmy influences of a sabbatical rest. This is the general idea of the volume, but it is not very strictly adhered to, and sometimes it requires an effort, which every reader cannot make, to perceive the pertinency of the several sections to the unity of the one grand topic. The restoration, however, of our suffering and fallen nature to a high state of moral excellence and happiness, is a theme pregnant with deep and stirring thoughts, and can hardly be touched upon in

any of its bearings, especially by so prolific and acute a mind as that of our author, without arresting at tention.

Human nature, as it may at present be contemplated, appears to have deteriorated from a higher and purer state. It does not seem to comport with that order, harmony, and beauty which characterize the other, and even the inferior, departments of the divine works. It has all the appearance of disorganization and ruin. There are the traces of a beauty which has disappeared, and the vestiges of a workmanship which is now broken and out of joint. Such indeed as human nature now is, both as to external condition and internal consciousness, we cannot persuade ourselves it could have been at first, nor reconcile ourselves to believe it will be to the end. Beauty, harmony, and perfection are all from the divine hand, whatever is contrary to these comes from other causes. Deformity, disorder, and abortion are not even the accidental attendants upon om❤ nipotence, as such, but wherever they appear, and in whatever degree, either connect themselves directly with second causes, or, as emanating from the first cause, have their reasons in another and a higher system of moral causation, and become punitive or correc tive.

We cannot rationally resist the proposition that all the perfection of the universe, including whatever portion pertains to man, is from a Being of infinite excellency. All that is lovely to the eye, harmo

nious to the ear, and sweet to the soul, is originally and essentially derived or imparted from God; and is but an emanation from his in. finite perfection and infinite efficiency. Even that beauty which consists in mere external form, and which is so frail and fleeting a thing that it melts away like the colours of the rainbow, or is exhaled like the dew of the morning, is nevertheless his gift, whether it be displayed in the wing of an insect, in the decking of a weed, or in the human face divine." It is as if the impress of the same fingers should be left on all the works of the Most High, and so left as to bid effectual and perpetual defiance to rivalry and to counterfeits. The highest kind of beauty was imparted to the soul of man. It consisted in what the Scripture denominates the Image of God. It stands out in bold contrast, or in transcendant superiority to every other kind of excellence. It rises immeasurably above all that is fair in nature, all that is beautiful in forms and colours, all that is great in science, all that is fascinating in genius, and all that is flattered and honoured by a worldly and vitiated taste. One feature, one linea ment, one sparkle of this divine moral beauty, this image of image of the supreme perfection upon us, is more estimable and more blissful, than the concentrated perfection of the whole visible and intellectual creation. What is now so fervently desired was once possessed, was the primitive endowment of mankind. eager wishes of all philanthropists and Christians point to an age when it will be restored. It may not be out of place to glance at the original possession as an index to those expectations which attach to the notion of a millennial state, as

The

about to break upon the long night of darkness and suffering which has passed over the world.

After God had scattered abroad through the universe innumerable proofs of his wisdom, goodness, and perfection, and had reflected an outline of his own excellence on animate and inanimate nature, he embodied the attributes of the parts, the harmony of the whole in his last work-in that creature for whose conservation and joy all the rest were intended, and who was to be not more properly the summing up of the whole, the miniature of the rest, than the epitome and image of him who made the universe, and a reflection of that moral beauty which adorned its author. This perfection then consisted in the wisdom and knowledge imparted to the mind of man, partly through the exercise of those faculties which were given him in the most mature and vigorous state, but chiefly and primarily by direct communication with God.. Wisdom was not then an acquisition of laborious and slow attainment, not a feeble taper lit with difficulty at first, and with still more difficulty kept burning; but it was a bright and full fountain of light, shining from within, and irradiating the objects it contemplated by its own light, and not the result of protracted research and an assiduous winnowing of truth from error. It was a bright and healthful atmosphere, in which the soul saw reflected from every quarter upon itself the lustre of the divine wisdom. It saw all things in the same light, if not in the same relations, in which God sees them, and it saw God as he is, and that not by anxious inquiry, not by shadowy reflections, not by fragments of his greatness, but by direct communications with himself.— Further, this wisdom and know

ledge was connected with moral purity, an accordance with the nature of God. The human will was the echo of the divine will, and its authority stood both undisputed and efficient to command the obedience of inferior powers.— There was the hue of health over the whole mental and moral constitution. The soul's native element was purity; and all its imaginations, and desires, and aspirations, were as exempt from defilement as from weakness and irregularity. The understanding and the judgment were as free from rebellion as from imbecility and obscurity. Sin had brought no forbidden object within the sphere of man's desires, and Satan had breathed no defiling vapour, no fatal contagion around or over his favoured abode. But the sinless soul dwelt in the perfect and healthful body as in its proper temple, reared and beautified for its special habitation, while the soul itself was the temple of the supreme divinity, and exhibited a still higher and nobler beauty than the body.

But in this high state the mind was not a mere machine of thought and action. It possessed power in combination with the passions. It had the nerve of spiritual strength, the wing of spiritual desire. It was characterized by an ardour of mind and heart, which especially flowed forth in the emanations of love and activities of obedience. The strength of the entire mental and moral man was not then impaired by sin the sickly and debilitating contact of Satan had not then been felt-the mortal poison of intellectual pride and self-will had not been instilled into the soul. But mental vigour was accompanied by moral health, and the only fire that burned in the soul was the fire of love to God; and that incessantly flamed on the

altar of the heart, while our nature was still in its youth, and yet that youth mature and manly. Its vigour of affection to God was supreme and seraphic. The whole ardour of the higher nature flamed up towards him under the direc tion of elevated conceptions, and through the medium of exalted sentiments. Its objects were worthy of the energies put forth, and it was felt to be the chief good to serve God. The idea of obligation was absorbed in that of privilege. Man obeyed more from the impulse of desire than of command, and found his own pleasure and his Creator's authority identified in all the exercises of thought, and feeling, and conscience. The will of God was then done on earth as it is done in heaven. By the will, and heart, and active energies of man, it was done as perfectly as by the scraphic ardour, and flaming love, and vigorous volitions of the angelic hosts.

Such a state of the active and

moral powers of the soul of man could not fail to yield happiness. While the eye of God rested complacently upon his work, man himself derived felicity, perfect felicity, from the harmonious working of every faculty, and from the connexion of himself and of all things with God. Every object of nature yielded a pure delight. Every sensation and every thought of his heart was peace and bliss. Every fountain was pure, and every fountain was full. Every feeling was joyous, and every drop of joy was sincere. All things were so constituted as to subserve human happiness. There was an adaptation on the one side to impart, and on the other to receive felicity, while God himself filled the whole sum, and crowned each separate portion of pleasure. This was the felicity of man's primæval state, of which in

deed we can now very inadequate ly conceive-one of the fairest flowers of Paradise-but a flower that first faded and is last revivedand one which still awaits the freshness of that sabbatic dawn, which Saturday Evening foreshows, to restore it to its lustre and fragrance. Joy of the highest kind and amplest measure-joy that was unmingled with a single drop of grief-unclouded by a single shadow, and incapable of increase but by progression, is what cannot now be known even under the influence of grace, till we are translated to the celestial paradise. Then, however, it was of this nature, and depended upon no fugitive sensations, no sinful objects. It lighted upon man's heart, fresh from the heaven of heavens, and freely, as the effulgence of the sun is poured out over the whole visible creation. It was in the light of God's countenance that man stood, it was in his presence that he lived, and in his presence then there was found fulness of joy.

But add to all this the consideration of immortality. No seed of sin was yet sown in the heart, consequently no taint of death had yet reached our nature. Man lived in God, and partook of his immortality. His soul was an immediate emanation from the Deity. It is described as the breath of God, and bespeaks a higher origination than the body. The natural endowment of the soul, its very substance was life, essential, immortal life-continued, happy, interminable existence. Man was, by creation, a member, and one of the most distinguished, of the happy family of immortals, set over a beautiful and ample region of his own, replete with every thing adapted to make him for ever joyful, yet kept for his own sake in strict and entire dependance upon

the will of the supreme Legislator, and in unbroken communion with him.

How beauteous, how sublime then was this great work of the divine Artificer! How fair, how amply endowed, when it left his hand, and how worthy a resemblance did it thus present of him who intended it to be purity unsullied by sin, joy unmixed with grief, knowledge free from error, and life impassive to the stroke of death! But all the glory that now remains to man fallen, is eclipsed and lost before the perfection of man sinless, as the faint splendour and pride of secular royalty would fade or flee before the presence of an angel of God. The glory of true wisdom, which we toil for through many years of painful discipline, and acquire but in smallest grains, the glory of moral purity which the Christian wrestles to obtain by agonizing prayer-the bliss which we sigh after, but mostly in vain-the spiritual strength which we derive, but by slow degrees and small measures from above the immortality which we hope for as prisoners, and receive as beggars, were all the first man's native rights yet unforfeit-his primary endowments yet unsullied—the gifts of his munificent Creator yet unabused and inviolate. We look up from our debasement, from our poverty, and cry out-O the height and the glory of the blessedness which heaven in the plentitude of its benignity bestowed upon its favourite man! That it is gone-is too obvious to need proof-that it will be restored is too certain to admit a doubt. Even now the note of preparation sounds. The earth shall hear the word of the Lord, and a renovating energy shall come down upon it. All the glory of sinless man must not indeed be expected. We cannot reach the perfection of human nature as

when it drew forth the complacent approbation of the Almighty Creator: that height is reserved for the heavenly paradise; but the incipient restoration is to be effected on the very theatre of our disasters. Even here, where human nature has fallen, it must rise again; here, where it has sinned and suffered, it must repent and be reconciled to God. The Christian religion not only inspires such a hope, but supplies rational ground for expecting, we will not say a universal, but at least a general restoration of mankind. We see it actually restored in the human nature of Jesus Christ: the doctrine of the Divine Spirit fully justifies the expectation of personal renovation; prophecy expressly foretels and describes it; the plenary official power of Christ, as mediator, provides amply for it, and the experience of multitudes evinces the possibility of such a renovation upon a larger scale, the divine ability and purpose being pre-supposed.

The present volume consists of a number of vigorous and eloquent essays, all connected, more or less, with the renovation of mankind, through the medium of Christianity, and the final consummation of felicity which awaits all the subjects of the Mediator's dominion. It is scarcely necessary for us to describe the manner in which the author of the Natural History of Enthusiasm writes. He is always vigorous and eloquent, but not always severe and continuous in his thinking. He is both too copious and too discursive. It is not, how ever, to be denied that this volume, though in all respects inferior to the former, is the effort of a powerful and highly cultivated mind. For want of unity, however, it is, in a great measure, powerless upon the mind of the reader. The effect

is similar to that of passing along a gallery of fine portraits, or fine landscapes: we bring no very distinct impression away. We are not, however, to be understood as denying very high excellence to the present volume, and very sure we are, that no intelligent reader can rise from the perusal of it without receiving both pleasure and profit. The following extract contains a part of the author's estimate of the present state of sacred science among us. It is in the main true, too true, we admit, but somewhat over-stated perhaps.

the Christian temper are preserved, what "While the modesty and meekness of is so becoming to the public advocate of religion as the highest tone of confidence and fervour?-If other men are entangled in endless surmises, or deluded by futile theories, he knows on what ground his faith rests. He knows whom he serves:-his calculations are all formed on a clear foresight of futurity. On the present scene of things-its eager frivolities--its childish impetuosities, and its turbulence and its virulence, he looks with a feeling hard to designate; for it is not contempt; not petulance; not indifference; not misanthropic scorn; but yet gathers something from each of these emotions; and has the force of all, without the poison of any.--Of whom should the public and well-instructed advocate of the Gospel be afraid? He has the hastening on (with all around him, coadhighest truths in his possession; and is jutors and opponents) to the hour which shall well vindicate the part he has chosen, and well conclude the course he

has run !

"It is the want of a fearless and aggressive energy which, at the present moment, emboldens infidelity, staggers the wavering, and leaves the ground open to the wantonness and the impudence of visionaries. How great a revolution in favour of Christianity might, under the conduct of the Divine Spirit, be now effected by the intrepidity of even a single champion, whose courage, firm as that of the apostles, should be sustained by piety and wisdom like theirs!

"Partly in obedience to the law of mediocrity, which rules the age, and partly in uneasiness from the publicity that attaches to religious literature, those