learner is pained when he fails to comprehend the explanations which he supposes to be clear in the mind of his instructer; and if, by failing often, his faith is not shaken in the teacher or the thing taught, his hopes are baffled and his efforts restrained.

We should be carried too far for our limits, were we here to give our views of the facilities and improvements which are still to be desired in various branches of study; and must content ourselves with the expression of our good wishes to the author of the little books before us, and of our hopes that they may operate a change in our common schools, as salutary as his most sanguine desires and expectations may lead him to predict.

ART. VIII.-Sabbath Recreations; or Select Poetry of a Religious Kind, chiefly taken from the Works of Modern Poets; with Original Pieces never before published. By Miss EMILY TAYLOR. First American Edition; in which many Pieces have been withdrawn from the English_Copy, and others substituted, by JOHN PIERPONT. Boston. Bowles and Dearborn. 1829. 18mo. pp. 278.

Not having seen the English edition of Sabbath Recreations, we cannot judge of the merit of those alterations from it which have been effected by Mr Pierpont in the book before us, and which make it in some measure a different work. We are as willing however to confide in his taste, as we are, on the other hand, to regard with approbation any poetical selection from the hands of a lady, whom we know as the author of several beautiful poems and hymns, and as a member of a family which has long been distinguished for a remarkable share of genius and talent. This is indeed a book which we would gladly recommend to all, as a pleasing, soothing, and instructive companion. Happy is the family, happy the individual, who needs no more noisy or secular recreations for the day of rest, than may be furnished them by this volume.

Several of the selections are in the memory of every reader of poetry; but a large proportion of them possess the claim, not only of beauty and sweetness, but of freshness and novelty.

For the most part they harmonize in character and spirit with the peaceful day on which they were intended to be read. There are a few which strike us as not being so appropriate. "The Song of Saul before his last Battle,' for instance, and "The Destruction of Sennacherib,' but more particularly the former, are not such selections as we should have expected from the Hebrew Melodies, even though it may be said in their defence that the subjects are scriptural. There are others, however, from the same work which are more suitable.

The volume contains some pieces, which we know to be from American authors, but which are not marked as such in the table of contents. The Widow of Nain' first appeared in the Christian Disciple, New Series, and was written, we believe we may be permitted to say, by the Rev. Mr Furness of Philadelphia. "The Autumn Evening,' which follows it, is by the Rev. Mr Peabody of Springfield, and first appeared in the author's Poetical Catechism for Children. On the Sabbath,' 'God is good,' and 'All things to be changed,' were written by a lady, then of Boston, whose initials will be recognised by many. The lines entitled 'God is good,' were first printed, and with some alterations from the piece as it now appears, in one of the volumes of the Unitarian Miscellany. There may be other pieces of American authorship, in a like unacknowledged condition, but these are all with which we are acquainted. And we mention these, not because we are so unjust as to require from the American editor a perfect knowledge of all the little fugitives which find their way to England, and there become naturalized, but merely because we wished to restore them to their right owners and parents, and let people know to whom they belonged.

We should be happy to learn that the edition goes off rapidly from the hands of its publishers. Hardly any better evidence could be given or required of the good taste and religious feeling of the community. A love of pure and holy poetry intimates a love of everything else which is pure and holy.

THE CHRISTIAN EXAMINER.

NO. XXXII.

NEW SERIES-NO. II.

MAY, 1829.

ART. I.-Remains of the late Rev. Charles Wolfe, A. B. Curate of Donoughmore, Diocess of Armagh. With a brief Memoir of his Life. By the Rev. JOHN A. RusSELL, M. A. Archdeacon of Clogher. Third Edition. London. 1827. 8vo. pp. 473.

THOUGH We have observed no notice of this volume in our reviews or magazines, the publication of an American edition of it shows that it has not been altogether neglected among us. We presume, however, that few of our readers have met with it, and on that presumption, we will lay a short account of it before them.

The title of the book fairly expresses the nature of its contents. It is a collection of remains only; but they are the remains of a pure and beautiful mind, graceful fragments of a temple, which must have been a worthy sanctuary of the spirit of God.

It might be supposed that the author of the Ode on the Death of Sir John Moore, must have left something else behind him, which would partake in some measure of its spirit, and at least repay the trouble of perusal. If he had exercised and cultivated with assiduity the poetic talent which that piece so remarkably evinces, and with which in truth his soul was running over, we have no manner of doubt that he would have taken a high place in the ranks of British bards, and poured

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forth many a strain on which the world would have hung with rapture. But he did not cultivate that talent; and the cause why he did not, only increases our respect for him. He was a minister of the gospel; and to the duties of his station he gave up his genius and his time. Full of enthusiasm, the burning enthusiasm of an Irishman; conscious as he must have been of the possession of superior intellect; imaginative, tender, tasteful, he followed what he believed to be a call of duty to a remote country parish, and there spent and at last consumed his energies in the task of enlightening, affecting, and converting an ignorant, rude, and vicious population. He was a clergyman of the Church of England. He was what is called Orthodox in his faith. But we will pay all our readers the compliment of believing, that we have already secured him a place in their good opinion.

Before we offer any specimens of these Remains, we will just give the outlines of their author's biography.

His

Charles Wolfe was born in Dublin, in the year 1791. family was highly respectable, and numbers among its names the distinguished one of the conqueror of Quebec. His early instruction was principally received at Winchester school. In 1809 he entered the University of Dublin, where he obtained a high rank as a scholar, and was rewarded by many literary honors. In 1814 he took his degree of Bachelor of Arts. In 1817 he was ordained, and appointed to a remote country curacy in the north of Ireland, where he could not hope to meet one individual to enter into his feelings, or to hold communion with him upon the accustomed subjects of his former pursuits.' Here he labored like an apostle, and lived with all the simplicity of one, till he was obliged to suspend his labors by the attacks of a consumptive disorder, which first excited the apprehensions of his friends, in the spring of 1821. He passed a winter in Devonshire, near Exeter, and in the summer of 1822 made a voyage to Bourdeaux, and back. But the disease would not be defeated, and he grew constantly weaker. His last place of residence was the Cove of Cork, where he died on the 21st of February, 1823, in the thirtysecond year of his age.

The following paragraphs from the Memoir, describe some incidents of his last hours. They cannot be read, we think, without emotion.

'It is natural for a religious mind to feel a lively interest in every record of the last illness and death of any eminent servant of God-to expect some happy evidences of triumphant faith and holy resignation in such a trying state-at the awful moment when all the vast realities of an eternal world are about to be disclosed to the disembodied spirit. There are some persons who perhaps look for such evidences chiefly in ardent ejaculations, in affecting expressions of self-humiliation, in palpable impressions of present comfort, or raptures of joyful anticipation; but these may not be, after all, unequivocal or indispensable tests of the presence and power of true faith. It should not be forgotten how much depends upon the state of the animal system at such times, upon the nature of the complaint, or even on the peculiar constitution of the mind itself. As in the case of the steadfast and holy Christian here recorded, the disease may be such as to encumber the faculties of the soul by a peculiar pressure upon the body; the corruptible part may "weigh down the mind which museth on many things," and thus incapacitate it for any energetic manifestation of its feelings. It was the nature of his particular malady to bring on an oppressive lassitude of spirits; and he was also afflicted with a raking cough, which for some time before his death disabled him from speaking a single sentence without incurring a violent paroxysm.

'One interesting fact, however, may prove, with more certainty than a thousand rapturous expressions, the ascendency of his faith in the midst of these depressing circumstances.

'On the day before his dissolution, the medical gentleman who attended him felt it his duty to apprise him of his immediate danger, and expressed himself thus: "Your mind, sir, seems to be so raised above this world, that I need not fear to communicate to you my candid opinion of your state." "Yes, sir," replied he, "I trust I have been learning to live above the world ;" and he then made some impressive observations on the ground of his own hopes; and having afterwards heard that they had a favorable effect, he entered more fully into the subject with him on his next visit, and continued speaking for an hour, in such a convincing, affecting, and solemn strain, (and this at a time when he seemed incapable of uttering a single sentence,) that the physician, off retiring to the adjoining room, threw himself on the sofa, in tears, exclaiming, "There is something superhuman about that man: it is astonishing to see such a mind in a body so wasted; such mental vigor in a poor frame dropping into the grave!" pp. 205-207.

During the last few days of his life, when his sufferings became more distressing, his constant expression was, “This