algebra, to a certain formula. Whatever the subject, political or religious, there are the innovators and conservatives, and these again are subdivided into divisions more or less developed, according to circumstances. There is your headlong innovators, root and branch men, radicals, enthusiasts, jacobins, or whatsoever name they assume, and the moderate innovators. So on the other side, the conservators are subdivided into two orders, more or less tenacious. Now the rectitude of these principles depends on circumstances. Our blessed Saviour was an innovator; but then we know from Josephus and other sources, it was in opposition to the phariseeism of the Jewish religion. Cicero was a conservative, but then it was in opposition to the corruptions of Rome, and the ambition of Cæsar. On understanding this formula, depends almost all the light we derive from history. One of the strongest proofs of the truths of the gospel, historically speaking, is seen by viewing this very question correctly. But however this may be, in this age monarchy and all its appendages fall into the favor and custody of the conservatives. Republicanism was born in innovation, and loves innovation. Innovation in politics; innovation in morals; innovation in principle; innovation in practice. We are on a whirling stream, sure to go fast, and not very sure whither we go. It is the spirit of this age that nothing is fixed. Every foundation totters, and every fundamental principle is disputed. Now, if you were to see a great fleet, spreading all their canvass, throwing over their ballast and committing themselves to the wildest winds, you would see in visibles the invisible spirit of our times. We cannot entirely prevent it. But we may counteract it by a spirit of moral conservation. Let us lay the injunction on our youth; let us teach it to our children, that old principles tried by experience, are not lightly to be shaken. We have something to keep as well as to gain. Some excellent men, in giving exhortations on this subject, have been deceived by the value of their object. They seem to think that by exhorting the young men in our colleges to cast off the chains of authority, they shall stimulate their powers, and make them original geniuses. One eminent writer has said, "that the chief object of past ages has been to rear prison walls around the human mind." I accept his metaphor, and would observe that these walls never imprisoned one original genius; they only serve as a test of his strength, by showing how easily he can leap over them; and, as to the majority of students, they were not born to expand the horizon of human knowledge. But, whatever we want in these days, we do not want less reverence for, authority. There are too many who, with the unjust judge's moral character, have his dangerous intrepidity-I FEAR NOT GOD, NEITHER regard man. THE PURITAN. No. 58. O gracious God! how far have we Dryden. A SOUND and healthful literature is so necessary to the good morals of a country, that it should be supported by all the dictates of a just criticism; and by literature, I mean not the elaborate volumes, which please a few in their closets, but those light and readable pages which fly, like scattered blossoms, to every part of our land. The number is very few who form their opinions from deep examination. Some phantom of fancy, some spark, blown on the winds of chance, strikes the vacant and youthful mind, awakes the imagination, combines with their passions, and ripens into a confirmed belief. There are thousands of vain girls, who have extracted their theology from novels, and equally vain gentlemen, who have received their whole code of ethics from the mouth of a player. For this reason, I have always thought it a matter of gratitude that the English language has so much excellent poetry. Perhaps there is no tongue under heaven, in which so much solid truth is arrayed in such attractive verse. Spenser has dressed all the moral virtues in pleasing allegories; Fletcher sung the mysteries of redemption; Sir John Davis proves to us the immortality of the soul, in better arguments (it must be confessed) than poetry. Drummond and Crashaw give us the raptures of mystic and meditative devotion. And to come to later times, who ever united so much devotion with so much poetry, as Dr. Watts for I must dissent from the criticism of Dr. Johnson on the great man-great he certainly was; great as a Christian, and great as a poet; to prove which, I would only propose this one test-the difficulties which his genius overcame. When a poet sings of love and rapture; of moonlight walks and bright eyes; of smelling flowers and gushing streams; of the tender meeting and the parting agony, he touches a sensual chord, and his very subject does half his work for him. His very terms intoxicate the host of youths and virgins that gather around his song. Not so the poet that touches on the solemn themes of devotion. There the bent of nature is against him, and he must kindle his fire with green wood on the frozen wilds of the forest. We owe much to those authors, who have employed melody on the side of virtue and religion. They had a hard task to execute; they had to disjoin ideas long associated, and to awaken the cold admiration of reluctant readers. They cultivated frankincense in Green land. The fashionable poetry of the present day, is what may be denominated morbid poetry; and as it is, or at least has been, (for there are some symptoms of the dawning of a better day,) infatuating the sensitive youth of our land, let me give its characteristics. Now the mark of morbid poetry is not that it is drawn from the depths of nature, as some of its manufacturers pretend, nor that it is the result of strong feeling; but that it comes from a mind introspective and inverted; a mind nervous and moody; that dwells among its own musings; a mind in as unnatural a state as can be imagined. Hence in morbid poetry you will find strong feelings produced by no adequate cause. I am no enemy to strong feeling; the author may touch the deepest tones of the heart; he may pour forth his strains of rapture and agony, if he will only assign a sufficient cause for them, and make his hero feel as most other people would feel in similar circumstances. This is the aim of wisdom, and the triumph of real genius. But when he introduces a moody gentleman, such as God never made |