mercial risk to issue a volume of sermons from from theology at the very outset by the unthe press, that recourse had been often had in seemly garb in which she is presented to them. such cases to publication by subscription. Dr. If there be room for the display of eloquence in Chalmers's publisher, Mr. Smith, had hinted urgent and pathetic exhortation, in masterly disthat perhaps this method ought in this instance cussion, in elevating greatness of conception, also to be tried. "It is far more agreeable to does not theology embrace all these, and will my feelings," Dr. Chalmers wrote to him a few not the language that is clearly and approdays before the day of publication, "that the priately expressive of them possess many of the book should be introduced to the general market, constituents and varieties of good writing? If and sell on the public estimation of it, than that theology, then, can command such an advantage, the neighborhood here should be plied in all the on what principle should it be kept back from shops with subscription papers, and as much as her? . . . . . . În the subject itself there is a possible wrung out of their partialities for the grandeur which it were vain to look for in the author." Neither author nor publisher had at ordinary themes of eloquence or poetry. Let this time the least idea of the extraordinary writers arise, then, to do it justice. Let success which was awaiting their forthcoming them be all things to all men, that they may volume. It was published on the 28th of gain some; and if a single proselyte can be January, 1817. In ten weeks 6000 copies had thereby drawn from the ranks of literature, let been disposed of, the demand showing no symp- all the embellishments of genius and fancy be tom of decline. Nine editions were called for thrown around the subject. One man has alwithin a year, and nearly 20,000 copies were in ready done much. Others are rising around circulation. Never previously, nor ever since, him, and with the advantage of a higher subhas any volume of sermons met with such im- ject, they will in time rival the unchristian mediate and general acceptance. The "Tales moralists of the day, and overmatch them." of my Landlord' had a month's start in the date He was one of the first to answer to his own of publication, and even with such a competitor call, to fulfill his own prediction. No single it ran an almost equal race. Not a few curious writer of our age has done so much to present observers were struck with the novel competi- the truths of Christianity in new forms, and to tion, and watched with lively curiosity how the invest them with all the attractions of a fascigreat Scottish preacher and the great Scottish nating eloquence; nor could a single volume be novelist kept for a whole year so nearly abreast named which has done more than this very of one another. It was, besides, the first volume volume of "Astronomical Discourses" to soften of Sermons which fairly broke the lines which and subdue those prejudices which the infidelity had separated too long the literary from the of natural science engenders. religious public. Its secondary merits won audience for it in quarters where evangelical Christianity was nauseated and despised. It disarmed even the keen hostility of Hazlitt, and kept him for a whole forenoon spell-bound beneath its power. "These sermons," he says, "ran like wild-fire through the country, were the darlings of watering-places, were laid in the windows of inns, and were to be met with in all places of public resort. . . . . . . We remember finding the volume in the orchard of the inn at Burford Bridge, near Boxhill, and passing a whole and very delightful morning in reading it without quitting the shade of an apple tree." The attractive volume stole an hour or two from the occupations of the greatest statesman and orator of the day. "Canning," says Sir James Mackintosh, "told me that he was entirely converted to admiration of Chalmers; so is Bobus, whose conversion is thought the greatest proof of victory. Canning says there are most magnificent passages in his Astronomical Sermons. "Four years before this time, through the pages of the "Edinburgh Christian Instructor," Dr. Chalmers had said, Men of tasteful and cultivated literature are repelled

Memoirs of the Life of the Right Hon. Sir James Mackintosh, vol. ii. p. 343. The person known among his particular friends by the name of " Bobus" was Robert Smith, who had held the office of Advocate-General in Bengal, and who is not to be confounded with his nameBake, the brother of the Rev. Sydney Smith.

EFFECT OF HIS ELOQUENCE.-SERMON ON DISSIPATION IN LARGE CITIES.-Dr. Chalmers returned to Glasgow on Saturday, the 27th December, and on the following day found a prodigious crowd awaiting his appearance in the Tron Church pulpit. His popularity as a preacher was now at its very highest summit, and judging merely by the amount of physical energy displayed by the preacher, and by the palpable and visible effects produced upon his hearers, we conclude that it was about this period, and within the walls of the Tron Church, that by far the most wonderful exhibitions of his power as a pulpit orator were witnessed. The Tron Church contains, if I mistake not," says the Rev. Dr. Wardlaw, who, as frequently as he could, was a hearer in it, “about 1400 hearers, according to the ordinary allowance of seat-room; when crowded of course proportionally more. And, though I can not attempt any pictorial sketch of the place, I may, in a sentence or two, present you with a few touches of the scene which I have, more than once or twice, witnessed within its walls; not that it was at all peculiar, for it resembled every other scene where the doctor in those days, when his eloquence was in the prime of its vehemence and splendor, was called to preach. There was one particular, indeed, which rendered such a scene, in a city like Glasgow, peculiarly striking. I refer to the time of it.

To see a place of worship, of the size mention-house of God not to worship, but simply to ed, crammed above and below, on a Thursday enjoy the fascination of human eloquence. Even forenoon, during the busiest hours of the day, this much it was a great thing for eloquence to with fifteen or sixteen hundred hearers, and accomplish. And how diversified soever the these of all descriptions of persons, in all de- motives which drew so many together, and the scriptions of professional occupation, the busiest emotions awakened and impressions produced as well as those who had most leisure on their by what was heard-though, in the terms of the hands, those who had least to spare taking care text of one of his most overpoweringly stirring so to arrange their business engagements pre- and faithful appeals, he was to not a few as viously as to make time for the purpose, all one that had a pleasant voice and could play pouring in through the wide entrance at the well on an instrument,' yet there is abundant side of the Tron steeple, half an hour before the proof that, in the highest sense, 'his labor was time of service, to secure a seat, or content if not in vain in the Lord; that the truths whieb, too late for this to occupy, as many did, standing with so much fearless fidelity and impassioned room-this was, indeed, a novel and strange earnestness, he delivered, went in many instances sight. Nor was it once merely, or twice, but farther than the ear, or even the intellect-that month after month the day was calculated when they reached the heart, and, by the power of his turn to preach again was to come round, the Spirit, turned it to God." and anticipated, with even impatient longing, by multitudes.

"On Thursday, the 12th February, 1818,"I now quote from a manuscript of the Rev. Mr. "Suppose the congregation thus assembled Fraser, minister of Kilchrennan, "Dr. Chalmers pews filled with sitters, and aisles, to a great preached in the Tron Church before the Direcextent, with standers. They wait in eager ex- tors of the Magdalene Asylum. The sermon pectation. The preacher appears. The devo- delivered on this occasion was that 'On the tional exercises of praise and prayer having been Dissipation of Large Cities.' Long before the gone through with unaffected simplicity and service commenced every seat and passage was earnestness, the entire assembly set themselves crowded to excess, with the exception of the for the treat, with feelings very diverse in kind, front pew of the gallery, which was reserved but all eager and intent. There is a hush of for the magistrates. A vast number of students dead silence. The text is announced, and he deserted their classes at the University and begins. Every countenance is up-every eye were present. This was very particularly the bent, with fixed intentness, on the speaker. As case in regard to the Moral Philosophy Class, he kindles the interest grows. Every breath is which I attended that session, as appeared on held-every cough is suppressed-every fidgety the following day when the list of absentees was movement is settled—every one, riveted him- given in by the person who had called the cataself by the spell of the impassioned and entranc- logue, and at the same time a petition from ing eloquence, knows how sensitively his neigh- several of themselves was handed in to the bor will resent the very slightest disturbance. professor, praying for a remission of the fine for Then, by-and-by, there is a pause. The speaker non-attendance, on the ground that they had stops-to gather breath-to wipe his forehead been hearing Dr. Chalmers. The doctor's man-to adjust his gown, and purposely too, and ner during the whole delivery of that magnificent wisely, to give the audience, as well as himself, discourse was strikingly animated, while the a moment or two of relaxation. The moment enthusiasm and energy which he threw into is embraced-there is free breathing-suppress- some of its bursts rendered them quite overed coughs get vent-postures are changed-powering. One expression which he used, tothere is a universal stir, as of persons who could not have endured the constraint much longerthe preacher bends forward-his hand is raised -all is again hushed. The same stillness and strain of unrelaxed attention is repeated, more intent still, it may be, than before, as the interest of the subject and of the speaker advance. And so, for perhaps four or five times in the course of a sermon, there is the relaxation and the 'at it again' till the final winding up.

"And then, the moment the last word was uttered, and followed by the-let us pray,' there was a scene for which no excuse or palliation can be pleaded but the fact of its having been to many a matter of difficulty, in the morning of a week-day, to accomplish the abstraction of even so much of their time from business-the closing prayer completely drowned by the hurried rush of large numbers from the aisles and pews to the door; an unseemly scene, without doubt, as if so many had come to the

gether with his action, his look, and the very tones of his voice when it came forth, made a most vivid and indelible impression upon my memory: We, at the same time,' he said, have our eye perfectly open to that great external improvement which has taken place, of late years, in the manners of society. There is not the same grossness of conversation. There is not the same impatience for the withdrawment of him who, asked to grace the outset of an assembled party, is compelled, at a certain step in the process of conviviality, by the obligations of professional decency, to retire from it. There is not so frequent an exaction of this as one of the established proprieties of social or of fashionable life. And if such an exaction was ever laid by the omnipotence of custom on a minister of Christianity, it is such an exaction as ought never, never to be complied with. It is not for him to lend the sanction of his presence to a meeting with which he could not sit to its final

who reads that discourse, and who had the privilege of listening to Dr. Chalmers during the prime and freshness of his public eloquence, will readily imagine the effect of some passages in it, when delivered with even more than the preacher's characteristic vehemence.

termination. It is not for him to stand associated, for a single hour, with an assemblage of men who begin with hypocrisy, and end with downright blackguardism. It is not for him to watch the progress of the coming ribaldry, and to hit the well-selected moment when talk and turbulence and boisterous merriment are on the eve of bursting forth upon the company, and carrying them forward to the full acme and up- THE OLD MAN'S BEQUEST; A STORY roar of their enjoyment. It is quite in vain to say, that he has only sanctioned one part of such

an entertainment. He has as good as given his

connivance to the whole of it, and left behind him a discharge in full of all its abominations; and, therefore, be they who they may, whether they rank among the proudest aristocracy of our land, or are charioted in splendor along, as the wealthiest of our citizens, or flounce in the robes of magistracy, it is his part to keep as purely and indignantly aloof from such society as this, as he would from the vilest and most debasing associations of profligacy.'

"The words which I have underlined do not appear in the sermon as printed. While uttering them, which he did with peculiar emphasis, accompanying them with a flash from his eye and a stamp of his foot, he threw his right arm with elenched hand right across the book-board, and brandished it full in the face of the Town Council, sitting in array and in state before him. Many eyes were in a moment directed toward the magistrates. The words evidently fell upon them like a thunderbolt, and seemed to startle like an electric shock the whole audience."

[From the Dublin University Magazine.]

OF GOLD.

THROUGH the ornamental grounds of a hand

some country residence, at a little distance from a large town in Ireland, a man of about fifty years of age was walking, with a bent head, and the impress of sorrow on his face.

66

'Och, yer honor, give me one sixpence, or one penny, for God's sake," cried a voice from the other side of a fancy paling which separated the grounds in that quarter from a thoroughfare. "For heaven's sake, Mr. Lawson, help me as ye helped me before. I know you've the heart and hand to do it."

The person addressed as Mr. Lawson looked up and saw a woman whom he knew to be in most destitute circumstances, burdened with a large and sickly family, whom she had struggled to support until her own health was ruined.

"I have no money-not one farthing," answered John Lawson.

"No money!" reiterated the woman in surprise; "isn't it all yours, then? isn't this garden yours, and that house, and all the grand things that are in it yours? ay, and grand things they are—them pictures, and them bright shinin' things in that drawing-room of yours; and sure you deserve them well, and may God preserve them long to you, for riches hasn't hardened your heart, though there's many a one, and heaven knows the gold turns their feelin's to iron."

"It all belongs to my son, Henry Lawson, and Mrs. Lawson, and their children—it is all theirs;" he sighed heavily, and deep emotion was visible in every lineament of his thin and wrinkled face.

The poor woman raised her bloodshot eyes to his face, as if she was puzzled by his words. She saw that he was suffering, and with intuitive delicacy, she desisted from pressing her wants, though her need was great.

Another interesting memorial of this sermon is supplied by Dr. Wardlaw, who was present at its delivery. The eloquence of that discourse was absolutely overpowering. The subject was one eminently fitted to awaken and summon to their utmost energy all his extraordinary powers; especially when, after having cleared his ground by a luminously scriptural exhibition of that supreme authority by which the evils he was about to portray were interdicted, in contradistinction to the prevailing maxims and practices of a worldly morality, he came forward to the announcement and illustration of his main subject-the origin, the progress, and the effects of a life of dissipation.' His moral portraitures were so graphically and vividly delineated-his warnings and entreaties, especially to youth, so impassioned and earnest -his admonitions so faithful, and his denunciations so fearless and so fearful—and his exhortations to preventive and remedial appliances so pointed and so urgent to all among his auditors who had either the charge of youth, or the supervision of dependents! It was thrilling, overwhelming. His whole soul seemed in every utterance. Although saying to myself all the while, 'Oh! that this were in the hands of every father, and master, and guardian, and young some relief. man in the land!' I yet could not spare an eye; He walked rapidly toward the house and from the preacher to mark how his appeal was proceeded to the drawing-room. It was a large telling upon others. The breathless, the ap- and airy apartment, and furnished with evident palling silence told me of that. Any person profusion: the sunlight of the bright summer

"Well, well, yer honor, many's the good penny ye have given me and the childer, and maybe the next time I see you you'll have more change."

She was turning sadly away, when John Lawson requested her to remain, and he made inquiries into the state of her family; the report he heard seemed to touch him even to the forgetfulness of his own sorrows; he bade her stop for a few moments and he would give her

day, admitted partially through the amply- the lucrative business I had carried on to my draperied windows, lighted up a variety of son, partly because my health was failing, and sparkling gilding in picture-frames, and vases, I longed to live with nature, away from the and mirrors, and cornices; but John Lawson scenes of traffic; but more especially, because looked round on the gay scene with a kind of I loved my son with no common love, and I shudder; he had neither gold, silver, nor even trusted to him as to a second self. I was not copper in his pocket, or in his possession. disappointed-we had one purse and one heart before he married you; he never questioned me concerning what I spent in charity-he never asked to limit in any way my expenditure—he loved you, and I made no conditions concerning what amount of income I was to receive, but still I left him in entire possession of my business when he married you. I trusted to your fair, young face, that you would not controvert my wishes-that you would join me in my schemes of charity."

one shilling, and I shall not think of the face had a mild and passive expression, which bitter words you have just said ?"

was a true index of his yielding and easily-gov. Law-erned nature. His features were small, delicate, and almost effeminately handsome; and in every lineament a want of decision and force of character was visible.