meant, or to try the reconstruction of it, puzzling the brain to extort the sense or connexion out of it. His manner in the pulpit is dignified and impressive; his action graceful and appropriate. There is no straining at effect, no torturing of the body into hideous postures, or still more hideous grins, disfiguring the countenance. All is unstudied and natural. His voice is strong, clear, and regular, without being injured by that affected, disgusting drawl, or twang, which so many preachers seem to think adds a degree of sanctity to speech. He possesses complete command of it, even at its highest pitchand we have heard it ringing through the largest churches in Scotland, till the hearts of the hearers thrilled within them-it is completely under his mastery. Save when delivering controversial discourses, he rarely or never reads, seldom even employs notes; yet one never finds him stumbling or breaking down, or employing inappropriate language. His voice, as he commences, is at first low; it gradually rises with the development of his subject; his action increases till he reaches a climax-a very torrent of words thundered forth eloquently, and at times awfully. Fire baptized sentences' roll at the heels of each other in quick succession-every eye is riveted, every heart trembling, every sound hushed; the tear is trickling down his own cheek, it is rolling over the face of many a hearer; quick, low sobs may be detected in the silence, deep-drawn from some touched conscience: the preacher's voice still rises-rises with the language of inspiration; some sofemn Bible passage crowns the whole-a deep amen-and he is silent. Often have we sat under such passages as these, with breath suspended, waiting for the close. All the time he preaches, his eye is never off his congregation. It flashes forth sternly at them, pew by pew. No sleeper, inattentive or disorderly hearer, escapes notice; and we believe it is no unusual thing to hear him stop abruptly, and order that man or woman to be wakened up, or mark out a restless individual."-Pp. 218, 219.

There are several other men of distinction whom we would gladly introduce to our readers, did our space permit; such as the Rev. John Forbes, D. D., LL. D., who, among other works, has published one on the Differential and Integral Calculus, derived synthetically from an original principle, which proves him to be a master of the exact sciences; the Rev. Dr. Henderson, the distinguished pastor of St. Enoch's, Glasgow; the Rev. Thomas Guthrie, a sort of Scottish Rowland Hill; and the Rev. J. G. Lorimer, an historical writer, well known and highly esteemed in this country; but our limits forbid.

The only additional minister of the Free Church we can quote, is the Rev. JOHN ROXBURGH, successor to the lamented Brown and Chalmers, in St. John's, Glasgow, of whom the author says, (uninfluenced by any personal partialities, since he does not know him personally,) that he considers him one of the best preachers of his time. We can quote but a single paragraph descriptive of him :—

"Few men are better qualified for the ministry than the pastor of Free St. John's. When he ascends the pulpit his countenance is the emblem of tranquillity. He takes his seat as one fit to occupy it, and instead of the timid glance around on his audience, he leisurely surveys them. On rising he begins to speak so low as to be imperfectly heard. Like all natural orators,

he begins calmly, and rises with his voice as he proceeds. On the historic and the didactic he discourses slowly and coolly; but as he reaches the pathetic or the sublime, his eye kindles, his hands are raised, his voice swells, and his every attitude and gesture sympathize with the conceptions he utters. When he reaches his loftiest heights, however, he never abandons the dignity of his manner. He rises from the earth only to soar aloft like the eagle. The gestures become more animated, but not so much so as the subject. His manner follows the matter, and the matter has still the pre-eminence. We have seldom seen a pulpit manner so unexceptionable. The preacher is utterly free of affectation, and other similar vices which prey upon inferior minds. He appears what he is, and is what he appears. It is utterly impos sible for any one to personate a manner so natural as this preacher, unless possessed of natural dignity.”—P. 255.

The space we have already occupied will preclude any extended reflections in conclusion. It will be seen, however, from this rapid sketch of the Scottish Pulpit, that it is an engine of prodigious power. When it is remembered that of these fifty-two ministers, three-fourths are from the single city of Glasgow, and that not a metropolitan city, nor a centre of ecclesiastical influence; it will be seen that the ministry of Scotland embodies a large amount of talent and learning. Its influence, therefore, must be felt throughout the entire country. As it also appears that the decided majority of the ministers in all churches are pious, evangelical, and laborious men, their influence must be salutary and elevating. Our hopes, then, for the advancing civilization of Scotland are strongly confirmed by this brief glance at her clergy.

Another remarkable fact apparent is, the decided ascendency of Dissent in Scotland. Without referring to precise data, we believe that the proportion of ministers and people between Dissenters and the Establishment is not less than three to one; and if intellectual character and standing are thrown into the scale, the preponderance will be still greater. The influence of this fact on the great question of Church and State, which must soon be met in Great Britain in a most formidable shape, will be readily perceived.

Connected with this is another fact worthy of remark. It will be observed that all the Dissenting bodies which have sprung from the Establishment, have had their origin in disputes on the question of patronage, and in assertions of the spiritual rights of the people. In these feelings most of the other Dissenting Churches can unite, even though they may not have been directly subjected to the action of the law of patronage. We have, then, this remarkable fact, that the great mass of the piety and intellect of Scotland is directly arrayed, by origin and history as well as position, against the existing order of things; and engaged in discussions and fostering principles that tend to develop and establish the rights of the

masses. In other words, the great body of the Scottish Church is essentially reforming, or, if the term be taken in a good sense, revolutionary, and acting in accordance with the great law of progress. The effect of such an element on the social, political, and religious condition of the British empire, would afford interesting matter for speculation, could we enter upon it. If the next great struggle in England be one that shall involve the religious element; if the ominous strides that Popery is making in all parts of the empire towards its ancient arrogance and power, be seconded by the yet more ominous advances that are made in the English Church to meet it; if that restless, sleepless, and unscrupulous system, that has never regarded any laws, human or divine, that lay in its way to absolute dominion, and that has ever followed its designs with the most relentless and unyielding tenacity, should be encouraged, by the truckling spirit of the government, to make a grasp at that brightest jewel that was ever plucked from the triple tiara; then it may be seen why God, through these troubled centuries, has been schooling a hardy and manly race among the hills and floods of Scotland; and, as the spirit of Bannockburn and Drumclog flames out into a loftier blaze of heroism than that which appalled the usurping Edward or the bloody Claverhouse, the blue banner of the Crown and Covenant will be seen floating over the hottest and deadliest field of that terrible conflict.

ART. VII-NOEL ON CHRISTIAN BAPTISM.

Essay on Christian Baptism. By BAPTIST W. NOEL, M. A. New-York: Harper & Brothers. 1850.

THERE are perhaps few among the eminent living divines of the Church of England who have been more widely known, or more highly esteemed, at home and abroad, than the Hon. and Rev. Baptist Wriothesley Noel, M. A. Allied to the nobility of his native country, where ancestry is so highly estimated, his early practical piety and ardent zeal in the cause of Christ, superadded to his learning, ability, and eloquence as a preacher, rendered him an illustrious, popular, and useful minister, whom the Anglican Church delighted to honour. His spacious church was ever thronged with admiring and devout worshippers; and there were few American travellers who, if a single Sabbath were allowed them in London, did not seek

an opportunity to listen to Mr. Noel, especially if they had learned to prize evangelical truth, by which his ministrations were reputed to be pre-eminently characterized.

When it was announced, some months ago, that this able and distinguished minister of the Establishment had renounced his relation to "the Church," and sacrificed the elevated and enviable position which he had so long and so reputably filled, the fact was heralded and accompanied by an "Essay on the Union of Church and State" from his pen, which served to create the impression, that his conscientious convictions adverse to the State Prelacy had prompted him thus to abandon the Establishment. No sooner, however, had the book reached this country, than it was perceived, even from his preface, and still more clearly from the volume itself, that he had other reasons for his defection than those of State Prelacy, or the controversy between his evangelical and non-evangelical brethren in the ministry of the Establishment.

These ominous givings out may be found in the preface to that work, (p. vii,) where he expresses his apology for leaving the church of which he had been pastor for twenty-two years, and in which he had hoped to spend the remainder of his days, in the following language, viz.: "Sterner duties, which the study of the Word of God has forced upon my attention, have to be fulfilled." These "sterner duties," then nameless, could be inferred, to some extent at least, from numerous passages in relation to "Christian Baptism" in the body of the "Essay on Church and State;" and soon after, it was proclaimed that the author had been rebaptized by immersion, and had become a minister of the Baptist Church. This step has been followed by the publication of the work before us.

The precipitancy with which the book has been issued, is unworthy at once of the author and of his chosen theme. His former work bears the date of December 14th, 1848, until near which very recent period he continued to be the pastor of the Anglican Church to which he had been so long attached. In less than nine months afterwards this second volume appeared, and from its preface the following extract is cited, viz. :

"During my ministry in the Establishment, [twenty-two years,] an indefinite fear of the conclusions to which I might arrive, led me to avoid the study of the question of baptism!"

This extraordinary confession, of itself, is enough to warrant the conclusion that the intellectual character of the author has been greatly overrated. If not, he presents a melancholy example of infidelity to the vows of a Christian minister, of which it is hoped.

there have been few parallels. Deterred during his whole ministerial career of twenty-two years from studying the subject of baptism, and this avowedly by an "indefinite fear of the conclusions" to which such study might lead him! Nor, as he affirms, did he enter upon it until he had "settled his mind upon the union of the churches with the State," and resolved to quit the Establishment: for then first he "turned his attention to this question" of baptism.

Here, then, we have a Christian minister, the pastor of a large congregation in the greatest city in the world, continuing for nearly a quarter of a century to preach and baptize according to the formularies of his Church, administering this sacrament to both infants and adults; and all the while afraid to study the subject of that ordinance of Christianity which he was ever teaching and practising as one of the important sacraments of religion; and this lest he should be convicted of radical error, amounting, as he now professes to regard it, to heresy. Let us charitably hope, that those whom he has left in the Establishment, especially his "evangelical" compeers, are not so lamentably ignorant, nor so sadly negligent of their duty. We cannot refrain from admonishing our Baptist brethren to “rejoice with trembling" over this new recruit, for verily there is a cause. After baptizing infants for more than a score of years, and all the while deterred from studying the subject by "indefinite fears,” what assurance can they have that he has not in like manner avoided the study of other subjects no less important? May he not have had similar "indefinite fears" in relation to the Divinity of Christ, or in reference to the eternity of future punishment, and avoided the study of these and kindred topics even until now? Is this caution uncalled for with a Christian minister who for so long a period had so neglected his Bible;-a neglect which we may infer from his own assertion, that it was the recent "study of the Word of God" that constrained the "sterner duties" of which he speaks? Moreover, what confidence can be placed in the steadfastness of a man who, from a few months' "study of the Scriptures, and of the advocates of infant baptism alone," could be led not only to renounce his own former baptism, but to consent to the repetition of the solemn ordinance by which he had been “ consecrated unto the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost," with water, according to the command of Christ, and by one whose call and qualifications as a valid administrator he does not even now presume to question? We confess to an involuntary shudder at what we regard to be a profanation of a holy sacrament; having long looked upon "rebaptism," under such circumstances, as being next door to impiety, for which nothing but a morbid conscience, created by perverted religious