was by no means, however, without moral greatness; but he possessed it in a very low degree, and at times its operations in him were more than obscured by contrary qualities. Still Bacon is to be numbered among the most extensive secular benefactors of mankind, though, in such benefaction, there is little that is in the highest sense moral. Difficulty, labour, danger, and sacrifice were wanting to his work, which was very much an affair of safe and solitary meditation. The moral greatness of such men as John Williams infinitely surpasses that of the philosophical Lord Chancellor of England! Man and his misery, Christ and his cross, the destruction of idolatry in all lands, and the recovery of man to the favour and service of God, the tuition of the whole human race in knowledge, saving, useful, and ornamental, and the conversion of all nations into one wise and peaceful, one holy and happy community of friends, are objects not contemplated by the Baconian philosophy. The devout and zealous superintendent of an English Sunday-school is a superior character, and occupies a higher station than the author of the "Novum Organon.” The Martyr of Erromanga, in moral glory, transcends this great ornament of human science as far as the heavens transcend the earth!

Having spoken of the patriarch, I shall now proceed, with all deference, to offer some observations respecting the heads of tribes. In doing this, I shall confine the selection principally to England and to France, and shall commence with Bayle. Concerning the mental powers of this remarkable man, there are not two opinions. It will be allowed by all, that they were of the first class, and that his ability was not greater than his diligence. In his own nation he was the principal literary character of his age; but his power did not so much consist in the discovery of new facts and doctrines as in new arrangements, in fresh exhibitions of the materials which were ready prepared. At his death he left the boun

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daries of knowledge nearly as he found them. He was born with the genius of a great critic; cold, keen, fearless, reckless, merciless, often unjust. His great gift lay in unsettling every thing, while he built up nothing. In logical quickness, and metaphysical subtlety," as Dugald Stewart observes, " Bayle has never been surpassed." He was an unbeliever in Revelation, and a promoter of unbelief. God was not in all his thoughts; and hence he had neither faith, hope, nor charity. possessed not a single quality of moral greatness. Had he never existed, morals would have sustained no loss, religion would have been a great gainer. Had his works been entombed with him, the cause of real humanity would have had no reason for lamentation. He had no benevolence, no philanthropy. The humblest native teacher of Christianity in Polynesia, infinitely excels him in moral worth. In the day when all secrets shall be revealed, who of the human race will embrace him as a benefactor?

In looking at the leading literary characters of England, Addison presents himself as one who is entitled to special notice. His mind was not one of great power; but it certainly was one of unusual perfection. It was absolutely deficient in nothing. His judgment was singularly sound; his wit incomparable; his imagination that of a poet of the highest order; his taste worthy of Athens; his style the perfection of beauty. Such were his natural powers; and they had received a high degree of cultivation. His abilities were greater than his attainments: but if his information was limited in its range, it was accurate in its character. The elegance, purity, and ease of his style, combined with the brevity of his productions, have contributed to deceive us into the notion that he was merely a polished, pretty trifler; whereas nothing was wanting to place him in the first class of writers, but the stimulus of hunger, ambition, or controversy. His very excellence has been

confounded with defect; his ease and nature, by the vulgar eye, have been mistaken for imbecility; but the "Spectator" will remain through all ages a monument of wit, sagacity, and sense. Such was Addison. He did much in his day to improve taste and manners, and something to elevate mind and morals. He was, therefore, at least in a temporal sense, a benefactor to his country, and to mankind. As a mere man of letters, he was doubtless great; but of moral greatness, he possessed little. He had no understanding of the gospel, although in life and death he professed to be a Christian. Of the unfavourable reports concerning his habits and practices at Button's Coffee-house, I say nothing; it is unnecessary. When all is granted that can be justly claimed for him, still he cannot be classed even with the least of little men distinguished for moral greatness. It is true, when dying, he sent for his sonin-law, Lord Warwick, to whom, grasping his hand, he said, I have sent for you that you may see how a Christian can die;" but this act was equivocal. Infidels, in multitudes, have died with as much composure as Addison. On a death-bed, ignorance and unbelief have often produced the same appearances as the knowledge and faith of the gospel. This act, perhaps, savoured as much of boasting as of piety. At any rate, the exhibition was not calculated to make any lasting impression on the profligate peer; nor was time allowed for the proof, for he speedily followed Addison to the tomb. In all that he ever wrote, there is not one statement of gospel truth. He never understood it. The conflagration of all that he ever wrote, while it would be a calamity to our literature, would involve but little loss to British theology. Amid all his doing, he never turned one sinner to righteousness.

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The greatest name of the following age is Johnson, whose intellectual vigour has become a proverb. pure force, his understanding was never equalled. It

would be difficult, I think, to cite from ancient or modern literature a name, with which, in respect of this quality, it would be safe to compare his. Nor is it the least remarkable circumstance in the character of this extraordinary man, that the comprehensiveness of his mind was equal to its force. Never did mind uninspired, so thoroughly sound the depths of morality, or so penetrate the recesses of human nature. His vision

He was

was bounded only by the limits of our world. not deceived by its summer suns, and sylvan scenes; he was intimately conversant with its winter storms, its wastes, its wildernesses, and the wide dominion of its wretchedness, its distractions, its distresses, its broken hearts, its sorrowful homes, and its thickening sepulchres-from the rising of the sun, to its going down, all were spread out before him. His sentiments accorded with his knowledge. British soil never yielded to the footsteps of a man of greater mental independence, or more alive to the unsatisfying and unsubstantial nature of earthly good. Never did English scholar unite such poverty with such dignity! The accidents of penury and opulence were lost sight of amid the splendour of his powers; the former could not sink, the latter could not elevate him. His majestic mind, his lofty spirit, raised him far superior to the influence of the motives which ordinarily govern even the more cultivated and reputable of mankind. Gold had no power to tempt him; he was indifferent, if not absolutely dead to the praise of the world; he never felt the fires of political ambition. He was, in a word, superior to most of the frailties of humanity. He was the greatest of mere moralists, and the undoubted chief of modern men of letters. Nor is this all; he exhibited a vast amount of moral greatness, but it was of a mixed and imperfect character. The words of our Master in relation to the comparative merits of John the Baptist and the subjects of the New Dispensation, are remarkably appro

priate to Johnson.

Of those that were devoted to the study of morals, there had not arisen a greater than the author of "The Rambler," but the least among the missionaries of the cross is greater than he. His inferiority arose mainly from his ignorance of gospel doctrine. In your own published views respecting the anti-evangelical character of his writings, and his "capital fault" of omission, I entirely concur. Oh! had his noble mind been duly enlightened by the Spirit of God, and his vigorous pages been pervaded by evangelical truth, what a contribution would have been rendered by his writings to our theological literature! As it is, he could scarcely have been greater without becoming experimentally acquainted with the system of revealed truth, and cordially embracing it. Men and things are great, in the highest sense, only as they partake of Christ, and promote his glory. Tried by this test,“ Rasselas," "The Rambler," and the "Lives of the Poets," are comparatively worthless as writings, and powerless as organs of human reformation. Who has heard that they ever converted a soul, or that they ever comforted a mourner? Those tiny tracts, Fuller's “Great Question Answered,” and Scott's "Force of Truth" possess a value and a power infinitely superior to all the writings of the great moralist. His achievements in literature were, in their own line, prodigious, incomparable, immortal; but, compared with the infant Christian literature of the South Seas, and other heathen lands, they are only as a taper before the sun.

If, then, even Samuel Johnson is so diminutive a person in the presence of the missionaries of the cross, it is surely preposterous to seek for any other who may better abide the test of comparison. I should, nevertheless, did my limits permit, very much like to extend the list, and to place in the balance a Burke, a Butler, a Paley, and a multitude of moralists besides,-all men of noble natures, of vast attainments, and varied accom