forgets to renew the inscription upon their tombs. To them belong, pre-eminently, the fountains of consolation; to their hands seems to been trusted, with peculiar abundance, the Balm of Gilead. Whenever the traveller in his journey through life falls among thieves, or becomes the victim of some sad calamity, it is to them-as to the temporal physicians of the soul—that he most frequently turns for wine and oil. What voices, except the holy spirit of inspiration, breathe a sweeter repose over the house of mourning? How full of kind admonition, of touching expostulation, of tenderest sympathy. We turn to drink at their streams of wisdom, and find them always fed from the brook of Sion. They were, moreover, among the earliest. architects of our language; they raised the first temples of sacred eloquence. To each of them may we exclaim, with infinitely greater truth than Lucretius said of the philosophy of Epicurus, or a modern flatterer of the poetry of Waller : "Tu Pater et rerum inventor; Tu patria nobis Yet it cannot be denied that Taylor and Hall are occasionally overcome by the tide of inspiration. The remark applies especially to the first. It was said of Dryden, by his most eminent biographer, that he delighted in wild and daring sallies of sentiment, in the irregular and eccentric violence of wit; that he was fond of hanging over the very "brink of meaning," and that he sometimes approached even to the "precipice of absurdity." We know not that these resounding sentences can, with perfect aptitude, be transferred to Taylor; and yet there may, without doubt, be found in his voluminous works many passages in which the object of the writer is somewhat clouded by the superfluity of ornament; where a thought is weighed down by its costly drapery; carried away by the joyfulness of his heart, this bird of Paradise seems to sing out of our sight, and to confuse us by the very luxury of his music. From these perplexing circles of fancy, the severer discipline of Barrow usually preserved him; although he may indulge in a few embellishments of the theme. Boileau has asserted that a cold author is always detestable; and we think so too. But that glow of language, which the French call la chaleur du style, should proceed from a healthy and vigorous circulation of the mental blood. In many writers it is the heat of a fever. Never, then, let us say to the youthful student of theologynever, we beseech you, forget the name of Barrow. We would urge this devotion upon him in the language of a most eloquent admirer, who beholds in Barrow "the greatest man of our Church, the express image of her doctrines and spirit, the model without a fault, a perfect master of the art of reasoning, yet aware of the limits to which reason should be confined; now wielding it with the authority of an angel, and now again stooping it before the deep things of God with the humility of a child; alike removed from the puritan of his own generation, and the rationalist of the generation which succeeded him; no precisian or latitudinarian; full of faith, yet free from superstition; a steadfast believer in a particular Providence, in the efficacy of human prayers, in the active influence of God's spirit, but without one touch of the visionary; conscious of the deep corruption of our nature, though still thinking he could discover in it some traces of God's image in ruins; and under a lively sense of the consequences of his corruption, casting himself altogether upon God's mercy through the sufferings of a Saviour, for the consummation of that day which he desired to attain unto, when his mind purged and his eye clear, he should be permitted to behold and understand without the labour and intervention of slow and successive thought, not this our system alone, but more and more excellent things than this." The To this glowing eulogy what shall we add? A word of caution, perhaps, against the ardour of its praise--but we rather abstain. In those fields of eloquence and learning the reader cannot begin to wander too soon, nor can he wander there too long; and even though the service of the altar may not demand of him familiar acquaintance with the eloquence of the pulpit, yet in every situation in life the practical wisdom of Barrow will be more useful to him, than the sweetest strain of philosophy that ever sounded in the Academy or the Porch. copiousness of Barrow is almost unrivalled: and it is always genuine and always pure; but copious as he is, he is rarely diffuse. Sometimes, indeed, we are tempted to cry out of him, as of other famous men, Si ingenio temperare quám indulgere maluisset, quid vir iste præstare non potuisset ! But the feeling of disappointment subsides at the next word that falls from his lips. Once more, then-hail, and farewell! What we have said has been uttered in a spirit of love and sincerity. The writer of these pages may take to himself the words of Parr, in his character of Warburton, and say that he praises Barrow from no vain and presumptuous confidence in his own abilities, but in obedience.to the fervent impulses of his own mind-a mind which that illustrious man, in the language of Parr, has enlightened, enchanted, and improved : "His saltem accumulem donis, et fungar inani Munere." 111 ART. VI.-The State of Religion and Education in New South Wales. By WILLIAM WESTBROOKE BURTON, Esq., One of the Judges of the Supreme Court in the Colony. London: Cross; and Simpkin and Marshall. 1840. THIS is a valuable and well-timed publication. The station of the author, his opportunities of obtaining information, his manifest impartiality, and his freedom from anything like party prejudices or party purposes, concur in rendering his work one of the most trustworthy which we have seen. Mr. Justice Burton writes as a man who is desirous of telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth, be the consequences what they may, or light the condemnation on what it will. His language is remarkable for its simplicity, and the absence of meretricious ornament and “ad captandum" phrases to stir the feelings and work on the prepossessions of his readers. He writes not for effect; his sole object appears to be to lay before the public a correct statement of the religious condition of the colony in which he has exercised the functions of a judge for a period of six years. His work is not, in the common sense of the word, a popular one-it will not interest that numerous class of readers to whom thought is irksome and reflection unknown. We could, indeed, alınost have wished that he had spared us in some instances the minuteness of detail in which he enters: but when we consider the nature of his object, and how desirable it is that every statement which is made should be clearly substantiated, we feel that Mr. Burton has pursued the most fitting course, and that his fullness and particularity on every point form one of the main excellencies of his work. We rise from its perusal with the conviction that we have the whole case before us, and that we are able to form a correct judgment upon the state of religion and education in New South Wales, without having recourse to any other quarter. The colony of New South Wales comes under our notice in a peculiar point of view. Founded about fifty-two years ago with the principal, if not sole, object of receiving our convict population, and affording them an opportunity of regaining, in a distant land, the character which their crimes had forfeited in this country, we should have imagined that the benevolent devisers of the scheme would have made religion the basis of their plan, and not have looked for the reformation of the criminal, without providing him with the means whereby that reformation could be most surely worked out. We are far from saying that this consideration did not, to a certain extent, enter into their design: but that it was not the foundation of the system, the whole history of the colony up to the present moment clearly proves. It was by the merest accident that the first expedition did not sail without a minister of religion. This extraordinary circumstance must probably be regarded as an oversight on the part of those who were engaged in carrying into effect the objects of the Government. It was still a singular omission, and shows conclusively that religion was not in all the thoughts of its projectors. The first settlers, includ ing nearly seven hundred convicts, amounted to more than one thousand persons. The territory was taken possession of and the British standard erected with the customary honours. Mr. Burton makes some pious and appropriate reflections on the solemnities of that day, of which religious worship seems to have formed no part. "For six years the clergyman had to celebrate divine worship in the open air, subject to all the disadvantages and interruptions consequent upon such an arrangement in a changeable climate; at length he built a temporary place of worship at his own expence, which was opened for divine service on the 25th of August, 1795." p. 6. "In 1794, the population had been increased by the addition of a few free settlers, with their families, and upwards of 4,000 convicts; and in March of that year the Rev. Samuel Marsden arrived in the colony, and divided with Mr. Johnston the labours of the ministry until the year 1800, when Mr. Johnston quitted the colony, and its spiritual concerns were again left under the superintendence of one Clergyman for seven years more of its infant state." p. 6. The colony went on increasing. In 1810 the population amounted to 10,452 souls; in 1817 to 17,214, of whom 6,777 were convicts. During this interval one chaplain was added to the establishment. Between 1818 and 1824 the number of chaplains remained the same. "There must also be noted the indifference of those in authority to religious matters, so remarkable in the single fact, that one of the earliest Governors had to be informed by the clergyman, that five or six persons only attended divine service; and that it was then that he determined to go to church himself, and stated that 'he expected that his example would be followed by the people.'” p. 10. "Notwithstanding urgent and frequent appeals to every quarter for increased spiritual means, this state of things continued with so little alleviation, that in September, 1833, (the population then amounting to 60,794 souls, of whom 16,151 were convicts, 43,095 being Protestants and 17,238 Roman Catholics), his Excellency the Governor, in representing the religious means of the community to the Right Honourable the Secretary for the Colonies, could only enumerate an archdeacon, fifteen chaplains, and four catechists, as belonging to the Church of England; and that with respect to places of worship, the Church of England possessed at that time in Sydney, and within forty miles of it, seven stone or brick churches of moderate size and respectable appearance, besides two others of the same description in more remote parts of the colony, and several less permanent buildings in various places." The foregoing statements will show the difficulties with which the clergy had to contend, and the parsimoniousness with ·which religious means were grudged to the colony. Entreaties and remonstrances seem alike to have been disregarded: and religious instructors were doled out to the population—a scattered, convict, and for the most part an adult population—in just sufficient numbers to take away the stigma that religion was wholly uncared for, but not in sufficient numbers to bring the great mass of the people under the influence of religious principles and feelings. In 1833 the working of another, we wish that we could add a better, order of things is found in active operation. Care for the religious culture of the people seems no longer to have been unheeded; a religious impulse of some kind makes itself felt in high places and that impulse produces, as its effect, a considerable addition to the religious means of New South Wales. In a word, the spirit of popery traverses the Pacific, and erects its idolatrous standard on the shores of Australia. An immediate stop is put to the increase of the clergy of the Church; though, as it were, to counteract in some measure the evils of Romanism, Presbyterianism and Dissent are encouraged, and advance pari passu to influence and power. "The Church of England (says Mr. Burton), as to the number of its clergymen, continued the same in 1837 as it was in 1829, the population having in the meanwhile been doubled." But not so with the rival and now favoured establishment of Scotland and of Rome. "Meanwhile, however, provision was made in the estimates thus referred to, as stated by the governor, for 'considerable additions to the ministers of the Scotch Church and to the Roman Catholic clergy.' "The estimate for those of the former communion being onethird in amount greater for 1833 than it had been in the previous year, and for those of the latter more than double; whilst provision was made in the estimate for 1834 for four ministers of the Established Church of Scotland, and for a Roman Catholic vicar-general and six Roman Catholic chaplains; and the amount for Roman Catholic schools was increased fourfold; in the estimate for 1835, provision was made for the same number of Presbyterian clergy and Roman Catholic clergy; and in the estimate for 1836, provision was made for eight ministers of the Established Church of Scotland, and for a Bishop of the Church of Rome, a vicar-general and six Roman Catholic chaplains; whilst no addition was made to the number of the clergymen of VOL. VIII.—I |