the poet, whose object it was to explore all by which suffering humanity could be agonized on the one hand, and comforted on the other, to show us in what relation uttermost affliction and true religion stood to each other in the soul's dark hour of trouble. Has Christ, in the opinion of Wordsworth, borne our sorrows?' Is He touched with a fellow-feeling of our infirmities ? Does He send the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, to pour the balm of consolation into the wounded heart? If such be indeed the poet's belief, how could he trace the tale of Margaret's sufferings and death, and leave us in any doubt whether she had sought and found a Saviour's help or not? There are, indeed, some faint allusions to some such theme of consolation, but oh, how faint, vague, and unsatisfactory!

"I hope, said she, that heaven

Will give me patience to endure the things
Which I behold at home."—

.“I exhorted her to place her trust

In God's good love, and seek his help by prayer!"

And this is all,-all of Christianity which Wordsworth has thought proper to introduce into this elaborate part of his chief poem! Nay, not quite all. We are again told, that "in yon

arbour oftentimes she sate

"Alone, through half the vacant Sabbath-day."

The vacant Sabbath day—was then the house of prayer no place of resort and comfort to this heart-stricken mourner? And can this most dismal fact be stated by the poet, and passed by without further remark ? Such is indeed the case. And yet the poet is a native of a land styled Christian; and Margaret is professedly a Christian, and had before her, or ought to have had, at least, the speculative knowledge of the consolations which Christianity offers to the soul when the heart and the flesh faint and fail. A just estimate of what Christianity is, and what it can accomplish, would have led a Christian poet and philosopher to describe the manner in which it came to Margaret's relief in her hour of utmost need and veriest weakness, enabled her to cast her burden on the Lord, dried up her tears, and poured into her wounded heart not merely a subdued and chastened resignation to the will of Him who afflicteth not willingly, but for our profit, but even a calm and holy joy and peace, • the peace of God which passeth all understanding. But no such glorious triumph over extreme suffering, through the help of a gracious. Redeemer, was conceived, or is described by Wordsworth. She pines away,-wasted by a torturing hope fast rooted at her heart,' and dies in broken-hearted wretchedness. And this is all that the religion of nature,—a religion transcending even Christianity,—a

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religion to explain which required that its poet should breathe in worlds to whichthe heaven of heavens is but a vail,' and ' pass, unalarmed, Jehovah, with his thunder, and the choirs of shouting angels,'-this is all that the religion of nature, with its consolations administered by its priest and interpreter, the dreamer of the woods,' could do for Margaret! oh, how vain, how weak, how worthless is any religion of man's own invention, even by his own. showing, when the religion which God has given is neglected or despised! And we feel constrained to say, that in what ought to have been the mightiest element of his greatest poem, Wordsworth appears vague, erring, and powerless.

Let us not be misunderstood. We do not charge Wordsworth with intending to cast discredit on revealed religion; on the contrary, we believe nothing is more distant from his thoughts. We do not accuse him of direct pantheism; for we do not think he has even fully mastered what that term implies. We do not regard him as other than a Christian, so far as he knows what true Christianity is, although we certainly think that, in this respect, his views are exceedingly cold and defective. But we think that in his earnest desire to avoid one extreme, he has undesignedly fallen into the other;-in his dislike of the merely artificial, he has degenerated into the affectedly simple, and even occasionally into the childish; -in his love of nature he has at least approached to a deification of nature, a species of half-Christianized pantheism; and in his desire to magnify the vast inherent powers and capacities of the human mind, he has ascribed to it attributes which belong to God alone. Instances of all these kinds of perversion may be found in all his volumes of poetry, though in many of his single poems they scarcely appear. And in his greatest and most ambitious poem, the Excursion,' the pervading error reigns supreme. No poet has more beautifully traced the minute characteristics of nature in all its aspects;-no one has with equal skill and felicity shown the wondrous harmony existing between nature and the human mind ;-and to

the

pages of none could we more safely betake ourselves for poetry to teach and to display the pure, the tender, the merciful, and the benignant,-often, too, the generous, the patriotic, and the sublime, both in description and in sentiment, in feeling and in thought. But when he endeavours to carry his poetical theory into the higher heavens of true religion, into which, if it were thoroughly true, it ought to be able to soar, then, indeed, does his power of wing forsake him, and he falls plumb down a thousand fathoms deep ;'when he seeks to array his genius in a light more radiant than inspiration has emitted,-then is he indeed shorn of his beams,' and in dim eclipse he sheds disastrous twilight.'

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It is certainly much more in sorrow than in anger' that we

write in this strain respecting one whom we have so long and so ardently admired. But we have also long regarded it a duty which we owed to the youthful mind to warn the young, warm-hearted, and unwary readers of Wordsworth, against what we regard as a most melancholy and very dangerous tendency of his poetry, so far as it relates to religion. And as his poems are somewhat slowly, but steadily increasing in popularity, that duty has become all the more urgent. It is not our wish, if we had the power, to check the growth of that popularity; but we deny not that it is our wish, so far as we can, to furnish an antidote to counteract the baneful influence which might be insensibly imbibed. Had time and space permitted, we would willingly have followed the poet still farther in his Excursion,' both for the purpose of more thoroughly proving by examples the justness of our censure, and also for the purpose of discharging the more pleasing duty of extracting some noble and magnificent passages of thought and description with which it abounds. Hoping, however, that we have said enough in the way of warning and censure, wishing to testify our sincere admiration of Wordsworth's poetry, in other respects, especially when he forgets his theory, and allows his genius its free scope, and desirous to leave a pleasing impression on the minds of our readers, we shall conclude with one or two additional extracts, which cannot fail to delight.

DESCRIPTION OF AN OPTICAL ILLUSION AMONG THE MOUNTAINS.

"I following, when a step,

A single step that freed me from the skirts
Of the blind vapour, opened to my view
Glory beyond all glory ever seen

By waking sense, or by the dreaming soul.
The appearance, instantaneously disclosed,
Was of a mighty city-boldly say
A wilderness of building, sinking far
And self-withdrawn into a wondrous depth,
Far sinking into splendour-without end;
Fabric it seemed of diamonds and of gold,
With alabaster domes and silver spires,
And blazing terrace upon terrace, high
Uplifted; here, serene pavilions bright,
In avenues disposed; there, towers begirt
With battlements, that on their restless fronts
Bore stars,-illumination of all gems!
By earthly nature had the effect been wrought
Upon the dark materials of the storm
Now pacified; on them, and on the coves,
And mountain-steeps, and summits, whereunto
The vapours had receded, taking there

Their station under a cerulean sky.

O, 'twas an unimaginable sight!

Clouds, mists, streams, watery rocks, and emerald turf,
Clouds of all tincture, rocks and sapphire sky,

Confused, commingled, mutually inflamed,

Molten together, and composing there,
Each lost in each, that marvellous array
Of temple, palace, citadel, and huge
Fantastic pomps of structure without name,
In fleecy folds voluminous enwrapped.

SONNET. ON MILTON.

"Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour;
England hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;
Oh! raise us up, return to us again;
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.
Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart;

Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea:
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,
So didst thou travel on life's common way,
To cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart
The lowliest duties on herself did lay."

SONNET. THE COVENANTERS.

"When Alpine vales threw forth a suppliant cry,
The majesty of England interposed,

And the sword stopped; the bleeding wounds were closed,
And faith preserved her ancient purity;

How little boots that precedent of good,

Learned or forgotten, thou canst testify,

For England's shame, O, sister realm! from wood,

Mountain, and moor, and crowded street, where lie

The headless martyrs of the covenant,

Slain by compatriot-protestants that draw

From councils, senseless as intolerant,

Their warrant. Bodies fall by wild sword-laws;
But who would force the soul, tilts with a straw
Against a champion cased in adamant."

Many specimens not inferior to these might easily be given, did our limits permit, but we content ourselves with these, as furnishing sufficient proof that Wordsworth is in reality one of Britain's best and greatest poets. We rejoice in his growing popularity, and reminding our readers of the warning and the censure which we have

given and explained, we recommend the studious perusal of Wordsworth's poetry, especially to poets and the young, as being, with the exceptions pointed out, an admirable method of cultivating taste, feeling, judgment, and the knowledge and the love of nature.

ART. VI.—The Monthly Statement, published by authority of the Sustentation Committee of the Free Church of Scotland. No. 1 to 15.

WE are far from underrating the generosity which has been evinced in support of our Church through every one of its departments, since first it embarked upon the gigantic course it is still pursuing. At the same time, when we consider first, that God is manifestly teaching us at present, an art, which had long fallen into desuetude among us, the art of GIVING-that upon the maintenance and increase of our liberality, in the next place, the cause of Jesus both at home and abroad is dependent to an extent incalculable; and, lastly, that as yet we have not reached our maximum even in effort, far less aimed at anything approaching to a costly, emptying, martyr-like sacrifice, it strikes us forcibly, that, as reviewers, we have been too much restrained by motives of prudential delicacy, from urging the subject hitherto, with all the earnestness it merits, and we would now desire to remedy in some little measure past neglect.

The Monthly Statements' of the Free Church furnish ample evidence, we admit, of the sincerity, and zeal, and munificence of her adherents, and show incontestibly with what efficiency the interests of truth may be promoted, even though nothing that can be called either retrenchment or economy has been practised. Their value, however, appears to us chiefly to lie in this, as evincing the will, rather than ascertaining the resources of our people; and what accordingly is required now, is just to bring forth, and circulate, and rivet those sentiments which may best foster, and govern the magnanimous liberality which has been developed. Evident it must be, that what enthusiasm has achieved, enthusiasm, from its very nature, can neither sustain nor perpetuate. In a little while, and even all the more in proportion to its original intensity, its impetus will have vastly abated, and unless, therefore, we follow it up, and supply its place with the abiding strength of principle and law, our present advantages may be greatly reduced at no very remote period.

Men, indeed, like much better to be told that the whole subject of giving, is a subject of choice and privilege. Even though not reluctant to part with their substance, they hate an idea that we should pay court to their liberality, and are rather uneasy if you