soul, trying through the flexible countenance and open eye to discover the heart which lies below. "Wesley had a heart to be studied, as well as a head," he cries; and after that heart he goes. Nor will any one follow his search without feeling, every now and then, that his own breast is heaved by sympathy with the beating of one of the most marvellous hearts which ever the hand of the Creator fashioned, or the Spirit of the Redeemer warmed. Dr. Dobbin is not a disciple; but he does not, and, in fact, he could not, hide that he is a friend and lover. He lays bare to the cold eye of the critic a heart burning with noble emotions, which the study of Wesley has kindled; and, pointing to his man, only asks the same close study before you say whether his love is excessive or just. It is not necessary to enter into an estimate of Dr. Dobbin's delineation: he may admire too much or too little; he may hurt one preconception, and indulge another; he may not meet the exact views of Methodist, Churchman, or Dissenter; but he tells them all, in warm language, what an honest man has seen in John Wesley's genius, principles, and mission; and none of them will listen to him without being the better. It is a fervent study of a great head, a great heart, and a great life, calculated to bless the least of us with some great impulses. Methodists are well accustomed to be misunderstood. Their theology, their polity, even their religious meetings, are often described by serious men with ludicrous incorrectness. A recent description of a class-meeting, for instance, is as like the reality as if Methodism were all in Japan, and its observer in Essex. Nor is any point more misconceived than the position Methodism holds to other Churches. It is a position which naturally pleases none, but it is capable of being understood by all; yet none will understand it. The author of the leading paper in this volume, and his collaborateur, the Rev. Charles Adams, find its true reason in the remarkable catholicity of Wesley; and once in sight of its source, they understand the rest, and give a just view of it. Nor is there one portion of this book more calculated to profit all parties than that in which is brought out the unsectarian spirit which Wesley ever breathed, and which enforces upon all especially on those who bear Wesley's name-the duty of cherishing a like temper. The Editor has in this Work made a valuable contribution towards the spread of a catholic spirit; and that is manifestly his aim. He does not want to spread Methodism, Dissent, or Episcopacy, but to breathe into all systems more of that charity which life ever engenders, and from which fellowship springs. Nor will he have laboured in vain. The Master whom he serves will not withhold a blessing from his work, but will make it the medium of conveying life to many who are languishing, and love who are narrow. to many WESLEY THE WORTHY. THE length of time which has elapsed since the death of the founder of Methodism, together with the unusually full details of his personal history we possess, and a century's experience of the working of his system, puts us in a fairer position than those who lived at an earlier period to pass an equitable judgment upon the merits of that extraordinary man. This opening remark is a key-note to the strain of the observations that will follow upon John Wesley. We are not blind to his faults, but even these will be found to have sprung from the sincerity, openness, and native simplicity of his character. Southey evidently did not understand him, although not wanting in a due share of admiration for the subject of his memoir; while in all those qualities which make the expert craftsman he claims an eminence exclusively his own. Neither Hampson nor Whitehead, nor Coke and More, nor Watson himself, the rival and castigator of the more recent biographer, have produced anything comparable for enchaining interest to the work of the late accomplished Laureate. It stands alone, a Life by which Wesley will be known to B a wider extent and a more distant day than by any besides. Sectarian sensitiveness may be ruffled at the defectiveness of the representation; yet we know not where, out of the circle of the Wesleyan body, the choice of a biographer could have more happily fallen than on Robert Southey. His Wesley has all the essentials of a good Life. It is full and genial; brings out the best points with consummate skill, and cannot fail to leave the impression upon the mind of every unbiassed reader, that a general appreciation of the great English Reformer animated his task, and shed a tolerably friendly hue over his delineation. We regret that we cannot extend our encomium to the notes of Coleridge, more damaging certainly to their author from their coarsely and studiously depreciating strain than to Wesley. Familiar as we are with the incidents of a career that was notorious for unmanfully shirking all life's "purposes sublime," and for wasting in inglorious inaction the extraordinary powers with which he was endowed, we confess that nevertheless we never contemplated anything he has done or left undone with such pain as these discreditable annotations. Coleridge is the last man from whom the public will tolerate the censure of a life spent in self-denying labour and devotion to the cause of the poor, to which England, humanity, and religion, are so greatly indebted. We own that we are desirous to give Wesley the benefit of a fresh review of his career. We think there is one way of doing him justice, in which we have not been preceded by any critic. We would fain examine the philosophy of his history on his own principles, sum up the results, and thus take the measure of the man. There are salient points, as we conceive, in his belief, motives, publications, and actions, looming out from the general tenor of his course, on which it were well to take our stand for a while, as affording an advantageous survey of the whole. Could we hope to carry our readers with us in our selection of these, we might promise ourselves something like a general agreement in our conclusions. We should be sanguine, however, beyond all warrant of history and precedent, did we anticipate an issue in our own case undisturbed by the passions of the present or reflections of the past. The premises will be denied, the processes vitiated by rampant prejudice on the part of others, even where the light of calm contemplation is not disturbed or dimmed by the presence of our own. We will to our task notwithstanding, pleasant but difficult, applying to it in all its breadth the poet's creed,― "Full hard it is to read aright The course of heavenly cause, or understand That rules men's waies, and rules the thoughts of living wight." The POSITIVE merits of John Wesley were of a distinguished order, and will come in for discussion when we sum up his character; meanwhile we shall take occasion to dwell upon his COMPARATIVE great ness. The incidents of history and the objects of nature derive much of their impressiveness from the circumstances surrounding both. Contrast is essential to grand effects. The massacre at Bethlehem gathers blackness from the infant age of the victims; and the |