his features, indeed, are rather homely than otherwise in their conformation, but they are all well defined, massy, and full of power. His eyes are quick, and firmly set-his lips are bold, and nervous in their motions, no less than in their quiescence-his nose is well carved, and joins firmly with a forehead of unquestionably very fine and commanding structure, expanded broadly below in sinuses of most iron projection, and swelling above in a square compact form, which harmonizes well with a strong and curled texture of hair. His attitude has no great pretensions to grace, but it conveys the notion of inflexible vigour and decision. His voice sounds somewhat harshly at first, but as he goes on one feels that it possesses a large compass, and that he wields its energies with the mastery of a musician.

operation of his intellect. Most of would be an absurdity--and cannot be explained in any sense, without involving the severest of satires upon those to whom the discussion is addressed. But it is, after all, a very wonderful thing how seldom one does find a man carrying with him into the pulpit the perfect knowledge of the world as it is a complete acquaintance with all the evanescent manifestations of folly existing, for the moment, in the thoughts and feelings of "the great vulgar and the small," and it is no less wonderful, and far more pitiable to observe, with what readiness the cosmopolites of the day take up with the want of this sort of knowledge on the part of their clergyman, as a sufficient apology for slighting and neglecting the weight of his opinion in regard to matters, their own intense ignorance and non-comprehension of which is so much less excusable, or, I should rather say, is so entirely unaccountable and absurd, Till the fine gentlemen of the present day perceive that you understand all that they themselves do, their selflove will not permit them to give you credit for understanding any thing which they themselves do not understand-nay-not even for thinking that things are important, about the importance or non-importance of which they themselves have never had the fortune to occupy any portion of their surpassing acumen and discernment. In a word, in order to preach with effect to the people of the world, as they are educated now-adays, it is necessary to show that you have gone through all their own little track,-and then they may perhaps be persuaded that you have gone beyond it. Now, Mr Andrew Thomson strikes me to be, without exception, one of the most complete masters of this world's knowledge I ever heard preach on either side of the Tweed; and therefore it is that he produces a most powerful effect, by showing himself to be entirely and utterly its despiser. The person who hears him preach has none of the usual resources to which many are accustomed to retreat, when something is said from the pulpit that displeases their prejudices. They cannot pretend, even to themselves, that this is a secluded enthusiast who knows no better, and would not talk so, had he seen a little more of life. It is clear,

In his mode of preaching he displays less play of fancy than Dr Inglis; and he never rises into any such broad and over-mastering bursts of pure passion as I admired in the conclusion of Sir Henry Moncreiff's sermon. But throughout he sustains more skilfully than either the tenor of his whole argument, and he mixes with it all throughout a thread of feeling which is enough, and more than enough, to keep the interest alive and awake. But the chief origin of the power he has obtained must be sought for, I doubt not, in the choice of his topics-the bold and unfearing manner in which he has dared to fix the attention of his audience, not upon matters best calculated to favour the display of his own ingenuity, or to flatter their vanity, by calling upon them to be ingenious in their listening, but upon plain points of radical importance in doctrine and practice, of which, as treated by preachers less acquainted with the actual ways of the world, it is probable most of them had become in a great measure weary, but which their own innate value and innate truth could not fail to render imperiously and decisively interesting, the moment they began to be handled by one possessed of the thorough manliness of tact and purpose, which Mr Thomson cannot utter five sentences without displaying. To talk, indeed, of exhausting the interest of any such topics by any method of treating them

sublimity as they passed through his lips, could not fail to refresh and elevate my mind, after it had been wearied with the loose and extemporaneous, and not unfrequently, as I thought, irreverent supplications of the Presbyterian divines. In his preaching, the effect of his voice is no less striking; and, indeed, much as you have read and admired his Sermons, I am sure you would confess, after once hearing him, that they cannot produce their full effect, without the accompaniment of that delightful music. Hereafter, in reading them, I shall always have the memory of that music ringing faintly in my ears

had suffused itself over every sound that vibrates through the stillness of a more placid æther. Nothing can be more touching than the paternal affection with which it is plain this good man regards his flock; it every now and then gives a gushing richness of power to his naturally feeble voiceand a no less beautiful richness to his usually chaste and modest style of language. There is a quiet elegance about his whole appearance, which I suspect is well nigh incompatible with the Geneva cloak of Calvin, and I should have judged, from his exterior alone, (which is indeed the truth,) that he is a man of much accomplishment and learning. He has the cha--and recal, with every grand, and racter here, and, as Wevery gentle close, the image of that serene and solemn countenance which Nature designed to be the best commentary on the meanings of Alison.

says, at Oxford, where he was educated, also, of being at once a fine scholar and a deep divine. He preaches, however, in a very simple, unaffected, and pleasing manner-without any kind of display beyond what the subject seems to render absolutely necessary.

Mr Alison has a much larger chapel, and a more numerous congregation, and he possesses, no doubt, much more largely the qualifications of a popular orator. He has also about him a certain pensiveness of aspect, which I should almost suspect to have been inherited from the afflicted priests of this church of the preceding generation. He has a noble serenity of countenance, however, which is not disturbed but improved by its tinge of melancholy-large grey eyes, beaming with gentle lambent fire, and set dark and hollow in the head, like those which Rembrandt used to draw-lips full of delicacy and composure and a tall, pale forehead sprinkled loosely with a few thin, grey, monastic ringlets. His voice harmonizes perfectly with this exterior-clear-calm-mellow-like that far-off mournful melody with which the great poet of Italy has broken the repose of his autumnal evening,

-Squilla di lontano

Che paja il giorno pianger che si muore.

In spite of his accent, which has a good deal of his country in it, I have never heard any man read the service of our church in so fine and impressive a style as Mr Alison. The grave antique majesty of those inimitable prayers, acquiring new beauty and

As to the peculiar views of the subjects of religion which are most commonly presented by the Sermons of this elegant preacher, I need not say any thing on that head to one so much better acquainted with all his works than I can pretend to be. There is one point, however, in which I could not but remark a very great difference between him and all the other preachers I have ever heard in Scotland. He is the only man among them who seems to be alive as he should be to the meaning and power of the external world, and who draws the illustrations of his discourses from minute and poetical habits of observing Nature. A truly poetical air of gentleness is breathed over all that he says, proceeding, as it were, from the very heart of that benevolent All, which he has so delightedly and so intelligently surveyed. And, indeed, from what precious stores of thought, and feelings impregnated and enriched with thought, do they shut themselves out, who neglect this beautiful field, and address Christian auditors almost as if God had not given them eyes to drink in a sense of his greatness and his goodness from every thing that is around them-who speak to the rich as if there were nothing to soften, and to the poor as if there were nothing to elevate, in the contemplation of the glorious handiworks of God—as if it were in vain that Nature had preparel her magnificent consolation for all the sick hearts and weary spirits of the earth

For you each evening hath its shining star,
And every Sabbath-day its golden sun.
It is singular, I think, that the other
distinguished preachers of whom I
have spoken should so needlessly de-
bar themselves from all this rich range
of sentiment and of true religion. A-
bove all, in the Presbyterian divines,
I was not prepared to find such bar
renness-having, I believe, too hastily
interpreted, in my own way, a certain
beautiful passage in Wordsworth,
when the ancient Scottish Wanderer,
the same on whom

The Scottish Church had from his boyhood

laid

The strong arm of her purity

where the Wanderer is made to speak
of the style of thought prevalent a-
mong the old persecuted Covenanters,
and says proudly,

-Ye have turned my thoughts
Upon our brave progenitors, who rose
Against idolaters with warlike mind,
And shrunk from vain observances, to lurk
In caves and woods, and under dismal
rocks,

Deprived of shelter, covering, fire, and
food;

Why? For the very reason that they felt And did acknowledge, wheresoe'er they moved,

A spiritual Presence-oft-times miscon-
ceived,

But still a high dependence, a divine
Bounty and government, that filled their

hearts

With joy and gratitude, and fear and love: And from their fervent lips drew hymns of praise.

With which the deserts rang-Though fa

voured less

Were those bewildered Pagans of old time,
Beyond their own poor nature, and above
They looked; were humbly thankful for

the good

Which the warm sun solicited--and earth
Bestowed were gladsome-and their mo-

ral sense

They fortified with reverence for the Gods:
And they had hopes which overstepped the

grave.

trated, and it is no wonder that his tongue should overflow with the calma eloquence of Nature.

You have read Dr Chalmers's Sermons, and therefore I need not say any thing about the subject and style of the one I heard, because it was in have been printed. all respects very similar to those which But of all human compositions, there is none surely which loses so much as a sermon does, when it is made to address itself to the eye of a solitary student in his closet, and not to the thrilling ears of a mighty mingled congregation, through the very voice which Nature has enriched with notes more expressive than words can ever be of the meanings and feelings of its author. Neither, perhaps, did the world ever possess any crator, whose minutest peculiarities of gesture and voice have more power in increasing the effect of what he sayswhose delivery, in other words, is the first, and the second, and the third excellence of his oratory, more truly than is that of Dr Chalmers. And yet, were the spirit of the man less gifted than it is, there is no question these his lesser peculiarities would never have been numbered among his points of excellence. His voice is neither strong nor melodious. gestures are neither easy nor graceful, but, on the contrary, extremely rude and awkward; his pronunciation is not only broadly national, but broadly provincial, distorting almost every

His

word he utters into some barbarous novelty, which, had his hearer leisure to think of such things, might be productive of an effect at once ludicrous and offensive in a singular degree.

But of a truth these are things which no listener can attend to while this great preacher stands before him, armed with all the weapons of the most commanding eloquence, and swaying all around him with its imperial rule. At first, indeed, there is nothing to make one suspect what riches are in store. He commences in a low drawling key, which has not even the merit of being solemn-and advances from sentence to sentence, and from paragraph to paragraph, while you seek in vain to catch a single echo that gives promise of that It which is to come. There is, on the contrary, an appearance of constraint

Of all the Sermons of Alison, those which I love the most are the four on the Seasons-they are by far, in my mind, the most original and the most delightful he has ever produced. But something of the same amiable inspiration may be observed mingling itself in every discourse he utters. is easy to see that his heart is pene

about him, that affects and distresses you; you are afraid that his breast is weak, and that even the slight exertion he makes may be too much for it. But then with what tenfold richness does this dim preliminary curtain make the glories of his eloquence to shine forth, when the heated spirit at length shakes from it its chill confining fetters, and bursts out elate and rejoicing in the full splendour of its dis-imprisoned wings!

Φαίης μεν ζάκοπον τινα εμμεναι, άφρονα

Αλλ' ότε δη ο όπα τε μεγάλην εκ
στηθεος δει

Και επία νιφάδεσσιν εοικότα χειμερίησιν
Ουκ αν επειτ' Οδυσης γ' ερίσσεις βροτος

άλλος.

Never was any proof more distinct and speaking, how impossible it is for any lesser disfavours to diminish the value of the truer and higher bounties of Nature. Never was any better example of that noble privilege of real genius, in virtue of which even disadvantages are converted into advantages and things which would be sufficient to nip the opening buds of any plant of inferior promise, are made to add only new beauty and power to its uncontrollably expanding bloom.

I have heard many men deliver sermons far better arranged in regard to argument, and have heard very many deliver sermons far more uniform in elegance both of conception and of style; but most unquestionably I have never heard, either in England or Scotland, or in any other country, any preacher whose eloquence is capable of producing an effect so strong and irresistible as his. He does all this, too, without having recourse for a moment to the vulgar arts of comon pulpit-enthusiasm. He does it entirely and proudly, by the sheer pith of his most original mind, clothing itself in a bold magnificence of language, as original in its structure, as nervous in the midst of its overflowing richness as itself. He has the very noblest of his weapons, and most nobly does he wield them. He has a wonderful talent for ratiocination, and possesses, besides, an imagination both fertile and distinct, which gives all richness of colour to his style, and supplies his argument with every diversity of illustration. In presence of

such a spirit subjection is a triumph

and I was proud to feel my hardened nerves creep and vibrate, and my blood freeze and boil while he spake -as they were wont to do in the early innocent years, when unquestioning enthusiasm had as yet caught no lessons of chillness from the jealousies of discernment, the delights of comparison, and the example of the unimaginative world.

I trust his eloquence produces daily upon those who hear it effects more precious than the mere delights of intellectual excitement and admiring transports. I trust that, after the first tide has gone by, there is left no trivial richness of sediment on the souls over which its course has been. I trust the hearers of this good man do not go there only because he is a great one-that their hearts are as open to his sway as their minds are-and that the Minister of Christ is not a mere Orator in their eyes. Were that the case, they might seek the species of delight most to their taste in a theatre, with more propriety than in a church. I speak, I confess, from feeling my own feebleness in the presence of this man-I speak from my own experience of the difficulty there is in being able, amidst the human luxury such a sermon affords, to remember with sufficient earnestness the nature of its object-nd the proper nature What is of its more lasting effects. perhaps impossible, however, on a first hearing, may, no doubt, become easy after many repetitions-so I hope it is

Indeed, why should I doubt it?The tone of serious deep-felt veneration in which I hear this great preacher talked of by all about him, is a sufficient proof that mere human admiration is not the only element in the feelings with which they regard him

that with the homage paid to his genius there is mingled a nobler homage of gratitude to the kind affectionate warmth with which he renders this high genius subservient to the best interests of those in whose presence its triumphs are exhibited.

The very delightful and amiable warmth of the preacher-the paternal and apostolic kindness which beamed in his uplifted eyes, and gave sweetness now and then to his voice, more precious than if he had " robbed the Hybla bees"-the affectionateness of the pastor was assuredly one of the