tions of children, so that they Truth," are to the following purshould choose the society of their port:parents, and enter into habits of cheerful and unreserved intercourse with them; and concluded by advising that every thing should be done to promote among the members of the same family union and cordiality. Such seem to have been the rules by which he regulated his own conduct, and which, in his old age, he recommended to his descendants.

We shall not lengthen out this already extended article by any minute examination of Mr. Scott's works. They are before the public, and the very extensive sale of some of them shews the estimation in which they are widely held. The characteristic excellencies of his writings, as Mr. Wilson observes, are a calm, argumentative tone of scriptural truth; a clear separation of one set of principles from another; a detection of plausible errors; an exhibition, in short, of sound, comprehensive, adequate view of Christianity; such as go to form the really solid divine. His motto may be conceived to have been, "Knowing that I am set for the defence of the Gospel."

The justice of this statement would be admitted, with certain unimportant limitations, by many who did not exactly concur with him in all his views upon subjects of doctrine. His principles, as the readers of his "Force of Truth" must soon discover, were Calvinistic; and, during the whole time which intervened from the date of that publication to the last hour of his life, he continued to entertain the same opinions.

But so far was he from laying any unwarrantable stress upon the peculiarities of Calvinistic theology, that from an early period he distinguishes pointedly and expressly, between those truths which are essential to salvation and those opinions which are properly termed Calvinistic. His own declarations on these points, in the "Force of

"However, I would observe, that though I assuredly believe these doctrines, as far as here expressed; (for I am not willing to trace them any higher, by reasonings or consequences, into the unrevealed things of God;) and though I exceedingly need them in my view of religion, both for my own consolation, and security against the consequences of my own deceitful heart, an ensnaring world, and a subtle tempter; as also for the due exercise of my pastoral office; yet I would not be understood to place the acknowledgment of them upon a level with the belief of the doctrines that have before been spoken of. I can readily conceive the character of an humble, pious, spiritual Christian, who either is an utter stranger to these Calvinistical doctrines, or, through misapprehension or fear of abuse, cannot receive them. But I own, that I find a difficulty in conceiving an humble, pious, spiritual Christian, who is a stranger to his own utterly lost condition, to the deceitfulness and depravity of his heart, to the natural alienation of his affections from God, and to the defilements of his best duties; who trusts, either in whole or in part, allowedly, to any thing, for pardon and justification, but the blood and righteousness of a crucified Saviour, who is God manifested in the flesh; or who expects to be made meet for the inheritance of the saints in light, in any other way than by being born again, new created, converted, and sanctified by the Divine power of the Holy Ghost,

"As to men of another spirit, who appear sincere, humble, and willing to be taught of God, in their inquiry after truth, but do not entirely agree with what has been laid down as my view of the truth, I would only wish them to observe the distinction established between some and others of these doctrines. Such persons do not, I dare say,

to observe, this was intolerable, downright Arminianism-sheer legality-a bondage not to be borne among Christian people. How could a man expect to be heard with common patience, who forgot so deplorably the character and claims of the privileged orders!

We dwell the longer upon this point, because it serves to shew how worthless and contemptible a thing is vulgar popularity. It may generally be affirmed, that where a preacher is really in earnest and faithfully presses the essential truths of the Gospel, the people will hear him gladly: but this will depend materially upon the simplicity of their minds. Let a congregation be under the influence of party spirit; let them be violent Calvinists, or contentious Arminians; let them, in the pride of spiritual discernment and the arrogant assumption of superior wisdom, sit in judgment upon their ministers; and there is no teacher so unworthy of his post as not to be the very oracle of his doctrinal faction; and no man so well qualified to divide rightly the word of truth as not to be greeted with the salutation, that he is a dumb dog, and a blind leader of the blind-that his presence is weak, and his speech contemptible. We have already seen that Mr. Scott, when expounding the Epistle to the Ephesians, was soon reported to have abandoned his principles.

His steady and uniform perseverance, under all his discouragements, in what he deemed conscientiously to be the path of duty, is an admirable trait in his character, and bespeaks great uprightness and integrity of heart. A man of more flexible disposition might have been tempted to yield to the obvious wishes of his audience, and to take the tone of his doctrine from those whose duty it is not to teach and command, but to hear and to obey. It is a snare, into which ministers of weak minds, who either have no stability of princi

ple or have too great love of popularity, are very apt to be betrayed. To all such persons we would recommend, without hesitation, the example of Mr. Scott. He considered himself responsible to God, and to God alone; and by going straight forward, to use his own expression, he preserved that which is far better than a vulgar and fleeting popularity,-a conscience void of offence toward God and toward man.

The publication of this "Life" will not have been without service, if it should only tend to convince a minister of Christ how much may be done by a right use of his talents, even in a situation of comparative obscurity, for the cause of truth. Mr. Scott had to struggle with pecuniary difficulties almost through the whole course of his ministry: he had apparently as little leisure as any other clergyman who is engaged in public and official duties: his health was so infirm, that Cowper thought even bishoprics would stand vacant if the condition of accepting them were to entail the personal afflictions and troubles by which he was assailed: he had no advantages of education; no benefit from family connexions; and had he lived to the age of Methusaleh, the dispensers of preferment would have passed him by. Yet under all these discouraging circumstances, how much was he enabled, by the Divine blessing upon his abundant labours, to effect for the glory of God and the benefit of mankind. To say that he has acquired a name, which will be remembered in distant generations and in remote quarters of the globe, would sound like an appeal to worldly motives: the point, to which we would advert, is the benefit which his works will convey to thousands and tens of thousands, who never beheld his face in the flesh. "Posthumous reputation!" he exclaimed in his last illness; "the veriest bubble with which the devil ever deluded a wretched mor

LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL INTELLIGENCE,

&c. &c.

sure, that I have not on ten occasions witnessed a lunatic visited by either a relative or a friend, till within the few last years.

"Whenever I have of late years gone through the wards of our hospital, I have been much pleased with every thing I have observed in them. Very little personal restraint is now imposed upon the patients; and when it has been unavoidably applied, it has been only for a short time no unfortunate sufferers are now chained without clothes to our walls, as formerly; no wretched patient is encaged in iron; and the strait waistcoat is now so much out of use in our hospital, that there was this day no one of the two hundred and twenty-three patients in the honse so confined. I think it my duty upon every occasion to deprecate this horrible instrument of restraint as being highly unfavourable to respiration and health. I never pass through the female galleries of the bospital without being struck with the marked calmness, tranquillity, and cheerfulness, which prevail amongst the patients, and which are greatly attributable to the needle-work which is put into their hands by our humane and valuable matron. It is matter of deep regret, that means have not yet been devised of giving, with safety, work to our male patients, as is the practice of several well-regulated country asylums. Experience has proved that bodily labour is a powerful means of abating that unnatural activity of mind, which is the usual characteristic of insanity. This principle is strongly illustrated in the case of a very interesting young woman, now in the hospital, whom I saw some months ago quite unemployed, talking rapidly and incessantly, and much confused in her ideas; when I asked the matron why she had not given to her needle-work, who told me that she never attempted to force any work on a patient, and that this woman had repeatedly objected to all work when offered to her. Soon after this, the young woman, complaining much of her confinement, earnestly requested that I would obtain her enlargement, which I andertook to endeavour to do, on two conditions; the first was, that she should talk less; and the second, that she should work more; to these she immediately agreed, and some coarse needle work was put into her hands, which was done by her with manifest indifference and carelessness; but it did CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 251.

not abate her incessant talking, or produce the slightest difference in her manner. It was then judged expedient by the matron, that some more nice and difficult work should be given to her, which was done; and this employed her for some weeks, at the end of which time I again saw her, and was much struck by her composure and reserve. I asked her whether she was not much better. She answered, that she did not know how it was, but the difficult work she had lately done had certainly done good to her head. This passed last week; and I was much pleased to see her this day brought up by the physician, who recommended her going out on trial for a mouth."

His lordship strongly congratulated the Governors on the remarkable improvement which has been of late effected, both in the moral and medical management of the insane, laying particular stress upon the former. INDIA.

The

The Calcutta newspapers state, that during the last festival of Juggernaut, there were so few pilgrims present that they were unable to drag the car. Brahmins called in other aid, but no devotee could be persuaded to sacrifice himself to the idol. It is added, "They now talk of removing the Rath to a more central situation. The Brahmins have sagacity enough to perceive that they must remove the theatre of their sanguinary superstition beyond the sphere of a free press, [the writer should have added, and of the exertions of Christian missionaries and instructors,] or that the bigotry of thirty centuries will disappear. To the glory of our Indian administration, a large por tion of the population of Bengal are receiving the rudiments of an improved system of education, while thousands of elementary works are circulating throughout our empire. Even Hindoo women, against whom widowhood and consequent burning alive are denounced for learning the alphabet, and who must not read the Veda under pain of death, have placed their daughters at the public schools."

An application was made, some time since, to the Court of Directors of the East India Company, by the Governor General, when reporting on the state of regimental schools, to obtain a certain number of books adapted to the formation of soldiers' libraries; the formation of which, his lordship considered, 5 C