once as melancholy and grotesque as it is possible to conceive. So eager did the people appear to be to pour out the full current of their sympathies, that shoes, hats, and other articles of urgent necessity, were presented to several of the officers and men, before they had even quitted the point of disembarkation. And in the course of the day, many of the officers and soldiers, and almost all the females, were partaking, in the private houses of individuals, of the most liberal and needful hospitality. But this flow of compassion and kindness did not cease with the impulse of the more immediate occasion that had called it forth. For a meeting of the inhabitants was afterwards held, where subscriptions in clothes and money, to a large amount, were collected for the relief of the numerous sufferers. The women and children, whose wants seemed to demand their first care, were speedily furnished with comfortable clothing, and the poor widows and orphans with decent mourning. Depositories of shirts, shoes, stockings, &c. were formed for the supply of the officers and private passengers; and the sick and wounded in the hospital were made the recipients, not only of all those kindly attentions, and medical assistance, that could tend to remove or sooth their temporal suffering, but were also invited to partake freely of the most judicious spiritual consolation and instruction. On the first Sunday after the arrival, Col. Fearon, followed by all his officers and men, and accompanied by Capt. Cobb, and the officers and private passengers of his late ship, hastened to prostrate themselves before the throne of the heavenly Grace, to pour out the public expression of their thanksgiving to their Almighty Preserver. The scene was deeply impressive; and it is earnestly to be hoped, that many a poor fellow who listened, perhaps for the first time in his life with unquestionable sincerity and humility, to the voice of instruction, will be found steadily prosecuting, in the strength of God, the good resolutions that he may on that solemn occasion have formed, until he be able to say, that "it was good for him to have been afflicted; for before he was afflicted he went astray, but that afterwards he was not ashamed to keep God's word." OBEDIENCE. OBEY your master in all honest things. This is a command of God. Justice and truth require it, and your interest demands it. The anger of God rests upon the obstinate and disobedient. And if God be against us, by our sin against him, who can be for us, to do us good on the whole? Your master's age, and experience, and knowledge of the world and of his business, entitle him to your esteem and confidence, and to your obedience to his directions. If you rebel against his authority, you are depriving yourself of his goodwill, and of his endeavours to be your friend, and you may have to be sorry for it as long as you live! Willingly, therefore, obey his directions. Modest, civil, cheerful, and obedient conduct will be sure to be attended with God's blessing, and most likely with worldly prosperity. You have contracted with your master to give him all your time, and a ready attention to his instructions; and, except you, in these cases, fulfil your promise, you cannot reasonably expect, that he will be so kind in his manner to you, as he is to those who are obedient to his will; or that you will improve in the knowledge of your business, or leave him at the end of your service with a high character. Avoid being self-sufficient, or proud of your knowledge. Do not be impatient at being reproved; or, when instructed in any thing, do not appear unthankful, or say rudely, that "you knew it before," -for remember you bound yourself to be a learner. The surest way to keep us ignorant, is to pretend to more knowledge than we have; and even if we happen to know something before, that another informs us of, we should be thankful for his kindness, and receive his instructions with meekness, for he may have many more things to shew us, that may be very good and profitable to us to know, and that we are now perfectly ignorant of. REVIEW OF BOOKS. Sacred Poetry. Third Edition. Edinburgh: Oliphant. Pp. xii. and 352. The Sabbath Harp. A Selection of Sacred Poetry. By the Rev. J. East, M. A. Bristol. Pp. iv. & 452. Select Poetry, chiefly on Subjects connected with Religion. Seeley. Pp. xii. and 160. Nouveaux Cantiques Chrétiens pour les Assemblées de Dieu, composés par César Malan. Nisbet. Pp. 142. THESE publications, though varying in form and price, have all the same grand object in view, the improvement of poetry as the handmaid of religion. They form therefore suitable and agreeable presents to the rising generation, though by no means exclusively adapted to their use. The Edinburgh selection possesses more the character of a Hymn Book than either Mr. East's or the Select Poetry, though it contains several extracts from the writings of Cowper, Dale, Montgomery, Millman, &c. of a different description. The sentiments and poetry in general deserve commendation, though the editor appears rather too fond of the effusions of Kelly, and we could wish that some modern sing-song alexandrines had been omitted. This stanza appears absolutely irreconcileable with serious poetry. The following poem on the death of a Christian, by the present Bishop of Calcutta, appears to have escaped the notice of Mr. East and the editor of the London Selection. Thou art gone to the grave, but we will not deplore thee, Tho' sorrows and darkness encompass the tomb, The Saviour has pass'd through its portals before thee, And the lamp of his love is thy guide through the gloom. Thou art gone to the grave,-we no longer behold thee, Nor tread the rough path of the world by thy side; But the wide arms of mercy are spread to enfold thee, nd sinners may hope, since the Sinless has died. Where death hath no sting, since the Saviour has died. With this extract the following, by Caroline Fry, may be connected. The grave is not a place of rest, As unbelievers teach, Where grief can never win a tear, Nor sorrow ever reach. The eye that shed the tear is closed, Mr. East's selection is rather fancifully entitled The Sabbath Harp, and is divided into the Sabbath Eve; the Sabbath; the Sabbath Morning -Services-Festival Retirement Evening and Night; the Millennial, and the Celestial Sabbath. The poems are arranged in alphabetical order under these heads, and the first lines appear alphabetically in a table of contents. It will be more convenient for his readers, if in future editions Mr. E. will change this table of contents for an alphabetical index of first lines. The volume contains much good poetry, some of which is original and deserving of no mean praise. The following is part of a poem on 2 Chron. vi. 18. Oh! wilt Thou dwell with men on earth— With beings of so mean a birth? The heaven of heavens, where thou dost reign, Cannot thy majesty contain: There are-oh! spare my feeble sight, Cherub and mighty Seraph found→→→ Thou High and Lofty One, afar, Am not I sunk too low, for Thee Death is dead-no more to rise; Write the changeless truth-'Tis done!” Highly, however, as we commend Mr. East's Sabbath Harp, we feel the Select Poetry deserving To stoop to visit, and to dwell with me? of still higher praise. It is a small 66 No: A still small whisper answers, Of all the multitudes that meet O Saviour! when, admitted there, And, through the ages all along' The following, from Mr. Grinfield's pen, on Rev. xxi. deserves notice: Then it burst, the glorious view, In the Spirit as I lay ; For the first were pass'd away: Forth from heaven and God descending, New Jerusalem her name! Hark! a voice from heaven" Our God "God's own hand from all their eyes, but sweet selection, and will, no doubt, meet with a very extended circulation *. The following, by the Princess Amelia, is far too little known: Unthinking, idle, wild, and young, I laughed, and talked, and danced, and sung: And proud of health, of freedom vain, Dreamed not of sorrow, care, or pain; Concluding in those hours of glee, That all the world was made for me, But when the days of trial came, When sickness shook this trembling frame When folly's gay pursuits were o'er, And I could dance and sing no more, It then occurred, how sad 'twould be, Were this world only made for me! An extract from Burns's Cotter's Saturday Night is common to this selection and the former: we rather wish the whole poem had been inserted. The cheerful supper done, with serious face, They round the ingle form a circle wide; The sire turns o'er, with patriarchal grace, The big Ha'-Bible, once his father's pride: His bonnet reverently is laid aside, Those strains that once did sweet in Zion His lyart haffets wearing thin and bare; glide, He wales a portion with judicious care; And "Let us worship God!" he says with solemn air. They chaunt their artless notes in simple guise; They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim: Or noble Elgin's beats the heaven-ward tiousness, and shorten his days by flame, The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays. Compared with these, Italian trills are tame : The tickled ears no heart-felt raptures raise; No unison have they with our Creator's praise. The priest-like father reads the sacred page, Or, Moses bade eternal warfare wage ire; Or, Job's pathetic plaint and wailing cry; Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme, How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed; How He, who bore in heaven the second name, Had not on earth whereon to lay his head; How he, who lone in Patmos banished, The saint, the father, and the husband, Hope "springs exulting on triumphant wings," That thus they all shall meet in future days, There ever bask in uncreated rays, No more to sigh, nor shed the bitter tear, Together hymning their Creator's praise, In such society, yet still more dear, While circling time moves round in an eternal sphere. Compared with this, how poor religion's pride, In all the pomp of method and of art, When men display, to congregations wide,. Devotion's every grace except the heart! The Power, incensed, the pageant will desert, The pompous train, the sacerdotal stole ; But haply, in some cottage far apart May hear, well pleased, the language of the soul, And in his book of life the inmates poor enrol. Alas, poor Burns! the man who could thus write in the most serious strain at one moment, and then defile his pen with the vilest licen sensuality and intemperance. Millman appears a great favourite with the editor, who, in common with Mr. East, has inserted in his selection that beautiful hymn which in one of our former · appears Numbers *; For thou did❜st die for me, O Son of God! -a poem on which we linger every time our eye glances upon the page, and which we read again and again with increasing delight. The following is in common to the Select Poetry and the Edinburgh Selection: For thou wert born of woman! thou didst come, O Holiest to this world of sin and gloom, Not in thy dread omnipotent array; And not by thunders strew'd was thy tempestuous road; Nor indignation burst before thee on thy way. But thee, a soft and naked child, Thy mother undefiled, In the rude manger laid to rest From off her virgin breast. The heavens were not commanded to Nor visible angels mourn'd with droop ing plumes: Nor didst thou mount on high from fatal Calvary With all thine own redeem'd outbursting from their tombs. For thou didst bear away from earth Nor o'er thy cross the clouds of ven- A little while the conscious earth did shake At that foul deed by her fierce children done; A few dim hours of day the world in darkness lay; Then bask'd in bright repose beneath the cloudless sun, While thou didst sleep beneath the tomb, Consenting to thy doom: Ere yet the white-robed angel shone And when thou didst arise, thou didst not stand With devastation in thy red right hand, Plaguing the guilty city's murtherous Shall we whose souls are lighted It spreads from pole to pole: The production of Mr. Malan may safely be recommended to those of our readers who are acquainted with the French language. It may be a little too ardent, but the warmth of our Christian brethren on the continent may well shame our coldness. We do not insert extracts for obvious reasons; but an idea of the sentiments may be formed by a translation of one of those poems, transmitted us by a valuable correspondent, and which is inserted in the present Number, at page 260. Affectionate Advice to Apprentices, and other young Persons engaged in Trades or Professions. By Henry George Watkins, M. Å. Rector of St. Swithin's. Seeley. Pp. 56. THIS small publication contains much important and excellent advice, arranged in short chapters, and written in a very plain and intelligible style. We recommend it to parents and masters, as a very suitable book to be put into the hands of their children and apprentices. Few persons, indeed, in the middling and lower walks of life, can read this small work without deriving so much instruction from it as will well repay the trifling sum of sixpence, at which the pious author has published it. An extract is inserted in our present Number, page 269, which may afford a specimen of the author's style and sentiments. 2 N |