This delectable and veracious history, thus indispu tably authenticated, asserts that a man who had lost the use of his limbs from a weakness in the loins, was suddenly cured by Loutherbourg looking at him—and, that he walked back to London from Hammersmith, where Mr. L. lived, without any inconvenience! We do not mean to deny that the mind has great influence on the physical frame-but a full belief of that fact is perfectly consonant with laughing at such trash as this. It may, perhaps, seem mere waste of time to have noticed such a production at all;-but when a statement is made public, in the shape of a medical case, with the name of the physician at full length, it acquires from that fact alone some little importance. It is strange that medical men, who have so much experience among the saddest realities of life, should have so often been duped in this manner. It was a physician, if we recollect, who first introduced Miss Caraboo to the world; -more than one physician believed the practical bull of a blind woman seeing, in the case of Miss M'Evoyand more than one also attested that Anne Moore (the Fasting Woman of Tutbury) lived without food. We hope we shall not be mistaken as wishing to say any thing harsh, or even sarcastic, with reference to the Catholic part of this business, as such. We are the very last persons in the world to hurt the feelings of any one on the score of his religious belief-but the Catholic religion does not involve in its creed that a mad German prince can cure a sick English nun-any more than the church of England enjoins that Johanna Southcott will yet give birth to Shiloh, or that Huntington received his leather-breeches ready made from Heaven*. *The case of Johanna Southcott furnishes another extraordinary instance of medical credulity. The Connexion of Christianity with Human Happiness; being the substance of the Boyle Lectures for 1821. By the Rev. WILLIAM HARNESS, A.M., Christ Church College, Cambridge. 2 vols. London, Murray. 1823. It is very generally known that, by the will of the Honourable Robert Boyle, there is provision made for the annual production of eight sermons, to the confutation of infidelity and the proving of Christianity against all new objections which have not already received good answers. No subject in the world has been so extensively discussed as the Christian religion. Its greatest enemies, its most bitter contemners, must acknowledge the magnificence and importance of the theme. Religion is the strongest instinct of man after that of sustaining his life ;-it is, indeed, sometimes far stronger. It occupies him in his lowest condition, and it absorbs his faculties in their proudest state of cultivation and knowledge. But the Christian religion, far more than all others, has been a subject of consideration, learning, and dispute. No other religion has received such strong and lasting opposition- none other has been so eloquently maintained, or produced so many examples of inspiring constancy and virtuenone has gained such distinguished success over the evil passions of men. It presents a theme as curious to the cold philosopher, to the lover of abstract reasoning, as to the breast glowing with humble piety. A religion which runs counter to all the natural impulses of animal man, which tells him he is to disregard this life, and every thing his senses make him acquainted with, when put in competition with things that to conceive almost transcends his power,-such a religion, offering happiness in an eternity beyond all our present conceptions, must attract the deep attention of all reflecting men. Those who are penetrated with its belief unite in the desire of exhibiting to the world the truth they have found, and each according to his particular views brings forward a scheme of proof. We do not mean to enter into any discussion of the various methods taken by the numerous divines who have been chosen to fulfil the injunctions of the pious Boyle. The lectures published are various, and present all modes of argument. Mr. Harness has, we think, wisely chosen the most popular plan. He has not attempted the metaphysical and reasoning demonstration of the truth of Religion and Christianity, which, after the profound work of Dr. Samuel Clarke would be unnecessary, and which in this day of indolence, and neglect of laborious investigation, would be disregarded if offered to the public;-but, he has made it his aim to prove against our present infidels, that Christianity is the source of happiness, even in this world,-that Christian principles are essential to all human happiness,that they could not have been established by the powers of unaided reason,-and that, in their deficiency, reason could not have supplied any substitutes. This he has aimed to do in a form that shall not deter the young or indolent reader from following his course of thought; and, by adding a popular interest to objects of everlasting importance, he has still farther brought inducements to the careless lovers of amusement to enter on a subject, that if given but a fair hearing, before the heart loses its young feelings in the endless pleasures that the present age rushes into so prematurely, will be received with the affection which man feels for truth, even when he is too corrupted to follow its, precepts. We think Mr. Harness has been judicious in this method of handling his subject. Few who are not designed for the church, are now at the trouble of investigating the evidences of the truth of Christianity, and, ungrounded in steady principles or knowledge of the faith by which they denominate themselves, they are exposed to all the doubts and false lights that general or worldly pursuits will throw across their path. But as man, to use the words of Mr. Harness—“ cultivates his intellectual faculties, he learns to mistrust his instincts. The original impressions of his mind appear to him as prepossessions to be eradicated, rather than as intimations to be religiously respected."-Vol. ii. p. 245. While he will not submit to the investigation of that long chain of evidence which it requires much attention and study to follow correctly in all its links, in order to demonstrate its irresistible force, he is struck by objections to which, if taken singly, it is not easy, if possible, to give perfect refutation. "He distrusts the inspirations of nature, he endeavours to investigate their secret and mysterious movements by the light of a philosophy before which they shrink and perish. He imitates the crime, and he is visited with the punishment of Psyche."-Vol. ii. p. 246. It is wise, then, to hold out to observation the worldly happiness for which men are indebted to Christianity; to shew that all the freedom and advantages which the most liberal can desire, are offered and secured by the Gospel; that all which we do enjoy is owing to its partial adoption, and would encrease in exact proportion with its more true and general reception,-while the best theories of infidelity must end in the destruction of social life, and throw men back into a worse condiVOL. II. PART. II. 2 G Mr. Harness's first tion than that of savage nature. proposition is to demonstrate that Christian principles are essential to the happiness of society, from their influence on the public mind. The inequality of man, which is inherent in society, and which, from his nature, it is evident must always remain, forms a natural occasion of hostile dispositions,-" greatness delighting to shew itself by effects of power, and baseness to help itself by shifts of malice." Since it is an irreversible decree of Providence that man must either exercise authority, or submit to it; and, that authority is what all desire, submission what all try to avoid,-it is plain that although men must live in society, they carry within them the seeds of its destruction; and without some principle to mediate between the contending inequalities, which may restrain authority, calm the restlessness of subjection, and promote mutual forbearance among the many provocations to mutual malignity, society would only be the cause of encreased turmoil, misery, and disunion. The bond of society must be religion. Society could not exist without a base, and what other foundation can be found? Mr. Harness has treated this portion of his subject with much ability, and demonstrated very forcibly the dependance of society and civilization upon the knowledge of religion. He has quoted and combated Hume with success, and shewn from the admissions and reasonings of that author, that without religion there can exist nothing but tyranny, hatred, and universal anarchy. The ancient heathen atheistical philosophers, and the modern infidel writers are all marshalled, and such a painful and tremendous picture is given of the state to which their tenets must conduce, and which the strictest investigation cannot deny, as makes us shudder. But, |