to be too scrupulous.-But let me not be misunderstood. I charge her not with gross hypocrisy. We all have our sins and infirmities, and we all have our excuses. I mean to remark, that the excuses of Theodosia seem always to be perversely derived from the very orthodoxy of her opinions. This observation suggests the propriety of adding a few words on the true nature of orthodoxy. Theodosia would be more truly orthodox, were she to mix more practice with her doctrine, and to accustom herself to try the soundness of a sentiment by its tendency to give discouragement to sin. She seems to consider the acknowledgment of the Christian doctrines, as more important than the possession of that Christian spirit which they are intended to produce. She does not enough perceive, that doctrinal truth, when rightly understood, is itself a practical thing; that it even is not believed, according to the scriptural meaning of that term, unless the belief is manifested to be real by a correspondent temper and practice.

This remark shall be exemplified. Theodosia is very sound on the doctriual point of justification, in respect to which multitudes err, as she but too justly observes, by representing man's own obedience as in part, at least, the ground of his acceptance with God. The ancient Pharisees, as she often remarks, trusted, like many moderns, in their own righteousness, and, on this account, fell under condemnation; "They being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, did not submit themselves to the righteousness of God; for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth."

Theodosia, therefore, gives the ap pellation of Pharisees to all who now, according to her own conception, doctrinally err on the point in question, and she builds much on her superiority over them in this respect. Now I apprehend, that the ancient Pharisees were chiefly distinguishable for a very self-righteous temper and spirit; and, moreover, that there may be many moderns, who possess a humble disposition, though, in some degree, clouded in their views of this article

of their faith.

When our Saviour related the story of the Pharisee and Publican, his ob

ject, evidently, was to shew the contrariety between the dispositions of the two men, still more even than between their doctrinal opinions. In order, therefore, to judge whether a person more nearly resembles the one, or the other, we ought to enquire, chiefly, which temper of mind he pos sesses; for is it not possible, that a man may engraft self-preference and self-conceit, which were leading sins of the Pharisee, on the very consciousness of being free from his doctrinal fault? Theodosia, for example, knows something of Amanda, and, judging too highly of herself, regards her with rather too little respect; may not Theodosia, therefore, be too much disposed to say, God, I thank thee that I am not as others are, dark, ignorant of Gospel-truth, or even as this Amanda.

Let me not be suspected of overlooking or undervaluing the general tendency of the great doctrine of which I have spoken. It naturally disposes to humility: though it may be so received into the mind as to contribute to the indulgence of self-conceit. There is a knowledge even of sound tenets which "puffeth up." Never let that saying of the Apostle be forgotten. "He that thinketh he knoweth any thing knoweth nothing yet as he ought."

It is observable, that while Theo dosia deems Amanda to be pharisaical, Amanda has learned to give to Theodosia the very same appellation; partly from discovering in her repeat ed symptoms of spiritual pride; but partly also from observing some of her religious strictnesses, which have been too readily construed into pharisaical scrupulosity.

The disposition of Theodosia to dwell too much on doctrine, evinces itself also in another manner. In speaking of Amanda, it was observed that she preferred the Gospels to the Epistles, and the Sermon on the Mount to any other portion of the Gospels. Theodosia and Amanda may be said to divide the Bible between them. I am persuaded, that the New Testament of the one would open, of itself, in those parts to which the other has scarcely given any attention; for Theodosia prefers the Epistles to the Gospels, perhaps with the exception of the Epistle of St. James; and she dwells chiefly on the doctrinal pas sages in them. Nor is this all; she

has a habit of construing practical texts so doctrinally, as often to offend against the plainest rules of interpretation. When she reads, for example, that our righteousness must exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, she assumes this saying of Christ to mean; not that we must carry our religious practice farther than the Scribes and Pharisees, and must attain to a higher degree of righ teousness than they; but that we must be clothed with the imputed righteousness of Christ. And in perusing the last verses of our Saviour's Sermon on the Mount, in which he likens the man who heareth his sayings, and doeth them, to one who built his house upon a rock, she e vades the important practical caution, which is intended to be conveyed to such persons as herself, by construing the word rock to mean Christ himself, on whose merits alone the believer builds his salvation.

Both Amanda and Theodosia read the prophetic parts of the Old Testament; the former complains of their obscurity; but she admires the beauty of the imagery, and gratifies her taste by the perusal. The latter delights in the difficult parts, for she is occupied in spiritualizing them; and she finds exactly her own doctrinal opinions in many a hard passage which has perplexed the understand ings of the learned.

Your readers, Mr. Editor, may by this time be impatient to know to what Sect or Church the lady, who has been thus amply characterised, belongs. I confess, that I find some difficulty in answering this question. Strictly speaking, she is neither a Churchwoman nor a Dissenter, and yet there is a sense in which she is both Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Independent, and Baptist. I mean that she pursues "the truth," and I am afraid I must add, pursues a little entertainment at the same time, by repairing indifferently either to Church, or Chapel, or Meeting-house, or Conventicle, as she deems expedient. It is clear, however, that she is not a Papist, since she most freely uses her Protestant right of exercising her own judgment on the doctrines of her teachers. She is quick to discern the unsoundness of a sermon; and the preacher, who, while he reasserts her tenets, can most amuse her fancy, is the object of her preference. She loves,

I admit, to have her mind vehemently affected, but no great practical good seems to result from these impressions. She likes to be alarmed by tremendous threatenings, transported with extatic joys, entertained also by familiar anecdotes, and surprised by new modes of spiritualizing and allegorizing the Scriptures. She comes, indeed, in the way of much practical, animated, and sound divinity; but, though professing herself a Churchwoman, she approves not of the sobriety which is generally thought to become our pulpits, and she has a wonderful faculty of separating doctrine from practice, however closely joined by the preacher. She receives, and even contends for the one, but almost dismisses the other from her recollection.

She is not sufficiently aware of the proneness of man to self-conceit, and of the danger lest the true Gospel of Christ should ultimately be discredited, and hindered, through the competition of a multitude of superficial and self-appointed instructors.

But I cannot conclude my account of Theodosia, without presenting the reader with a short history of her life. She was born of parents who were rich, though of middling rank; and her education, in no respect very good, was shamefully defective in point of religion. Having been baptized in her infancy, she was confirmed at the usual age, almost without even a superficial examination of her proficiency in religious knowledge, and soon afterwards she received the sacrament. On these grounds alone she was taught to consider herself a very good and sufficient Christian, unless indeed some enormous crime should be perpetrated by her. She was plunged into the vanities of the world: she was accustomed, after the example of her parents, continually to take in vain the name of God in her ordinary discourse; not indeed with what is deemed intentional profaneness, but by that light and irreverend mention of the name of the Supreme Being, against which, though so common among those who are not without religion, the third commandment is pointedly and expressly levelled. She never looked into a Bible; she indulged much vanity; she despised serious piety in her heart, and was most grossly ignorant of many of the leading doctrines of Christianity. It

is true, that she went once in a week to Church, and did not formally disbelieve the Scriptures. But she owed her faith in thein, if faith it may be called, to her ignorance of their contents; for while she admitted their general truth, her mind accorded scarcely with one individual doctrine or precept which they contain; yet, though her right to the honourable appellation of a Christian rested on such slight foundations, neither her parents, nor her friends, I repeat it, infused into her any doubt of her being a Christian.

Theodosia being visited by a religious friend during a state of severe illness, she became superficially acquainted with many great doctrines of Christianity, which had before escaped her observation. She experienced, at this season,extreme distress of mind,for she had a strong expectation of dying, and sometimes deemed herself on the brink of everlasting-destruction. On her recovery, being more eager to obtain spiritual comfort than to make her calling and election sure, she was inclined to pacify her conscience, without laying the foundation of deep repentance, and without much attend ing to the necessity and nature of that change in the dispositions of the heart, which the Scriptures represent as necessary to the true Christian. She, indeed, partly adopted the views of some of the religious persons among whom she fell, persons whose object seems to have been to multiply converts to a party, and to a scheme of doctrine, rather than to establish them in every good word and work. She now began to live in this circle.

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Theodosia, during the period when she was acquiring her doctrinal knowledge, had the appearance of being extremely humble, a circumstance which contributed to the establishment of her religious credit even with some discerning people. She soon, however, began to feel much complacency in the idea of her superior proficiency, and having always had some turn both to disputation and self-conceit, she now made use of the doctrines of religion as her means of indulging freely her old dispositions. Not that Theodosia is to be regarded as a mere hypocrite. She deceives herself much more than other persons. I do not even affirm, that she has in no respect benefited by her change; any state is preferable to that of total

indifference to religion. Moreover, I admit that she does not now take in vain the name of God as heretofore. She has a little enlarged her almsgiving. She subscribes towards the propagation of the Gospel among the heathen, and when she attends at a charity sermon, she now drops half a guinea into the plate, instead of her former shilling or halfcrown. She has separated herself from a number of dissipated friends, and she seems to have renounced the more fashionable kind of life for ever.

I should have deemed the last mentioned change a far better evidence of her piety, if she had possessed much natural taste for the society and employments which she has abandoned.

Amanda once hinted to me, that Theodosia never was remarkably well received among the higher circles, and added, that she remembers to have been present in a select company, when Theodosia seemed to experience much mortification, under the consciousness of being unable to bear her part in the conversation. I have heard, on the other hand, that when the new convert was thought to be passing over to the persons whom she has since joined, she experienced a degree of attention and respect, as well as of Christian kindness, which must have been very gratifying to one not accustomed to find herself the object of peculiar notice. Motives, therefore, of a nature not clearly religious, might lead her to cross over to a new party; to which, if we suppose her to be joined, it is obvious that she would naturally adopt some of their strictnesses. The habit which we all have of accommodating our practice to that of those by whom we are surrounded, together with the disposition which we feel to act up to the general expectations which are formed concerning us, seem to me to be very nearly sufficient to account for as much improvement in Theodosia as I can clearly perceive to have taken place.

I would, however, merely suggest my doubts respecting her character, and would do it with a view of urging her to some very serious self-examination. I admit, indeed, that there are not only strong and thriving Christians, but such as are less vigorous and flourishing. I allow it to be possible to build on the right foundation, though the superstructure may not be so spacious or so lofty as were to be wished.

I admit the scripture speaks even of those who are to be saved as by fire, But let Theodosia seriously consider, that without holiness no man shall see the Lord, that if any man be in Christ he is a new creature: that if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. Then let her look into her conduct; and still more, let her scrutinize her heart. The tree is to be known by its fruits: let her carefully examine whether the fruits of the spirit are to be recognized in her, and let her suspect that the marks and evidences, on which she places her chief reliance, may be little or nothing more than the result of party spirit, of a regard for her character among her religious friends, or her favourite ministers. I understand that the stricter part of her new acquaintances entertain the same apprehensions of the unsoundness of her principles, which I have ventured to express, and are becoming less and less cordial in their attachment to her. A few of the more faithful and discerning among the body, having found some well-intentioned hints offered by them to be not very kindly, or patiently received, and to be construed into indications of their own defect of light, or want of grace, are now retiring silently, but with regret, and are giving place either to more obsequious and accommodating persons, or to those who largely participate in her religious errors. She nevertheless assumes her present friends to be a most select body. She even deems them to be of the highest order of Christians, and their views of doctrine to be orthodoxy itself. It is, however, rumoured, that some small doctrinal, and chiefly metaphysical, differences, as well as a few other circumstances, are beginning to produce private feuds and subdivisions even in this little set. Christian unity and charity seem to be ill understood among them; zeal in their eyes is set at variance with love, and a few important tenets, in some degree perverted, and urged in a bad spirit, are put for Christianity itself.

These persons, it is true, have escaped from the kind of corruption which is nost general in our days; but they have not been on their guard against the dangers impending from another quarter. They have not been aware, that amidst much freedom from dissipation, much separation from indiscriminate society, much hearing of

sermons, and much zeal for doctrines, there may subsist censoriousness, uncharitableness, unsubdued tempers, the love of disputation, a habit of pronouncing rashly on the spiritual state of others, a disdain of order, disrespect for superiors civil and ecclesiastical, religious vanity and egotism, pride and self-conceit; in short, that a whole class of sins may be practised by us, and our religious credit be, nevertheless, maintained in our own estimation, and in our own little world. (The Character of EUSEBIA in our next.}

To the Editor of the Christian Observer. I AM a man of very considerable consequence in my own neighbourhood, and, whatever your incredulity may suggest to the contrary, have been long known and admired by many respectable characters in the metropolis itself. An affected modesty might have restrained me from giving you this introductory information; but I deemed it necessary, in order that my expostulation on a subject, very mortitying to your editorial importance, may be treated with that deference to which, on the score of my talents and attainments, I am so justly entitled.

Censure is painful even to him who bestows it, when, as in the present case, tenderness for the feelings of its victim, and a strong sense of duty existing in the censor's breast, struggle for the mastery. I would willingly spare you the painful consciousness of guilt, were such mercy consistent with my ideas of right and wrong, or favourable to your moral improvement. The silent monitor within will tell you, Sir, that I allude to that suicidal department of your undertaking, strangely miscalled "Answers to Correspondents," which, with far more justice might be entitled "Effusions of Selfishness,"" Editorial Spleen," "Specimens of Hypercriticism," "Moral Dissections." Do not start at these assertions. I propose the following questions to you and your colleagues.

1. Why do you not admit every paper, of every correspondent, on every subject, and on every occasion?

2. Who is the most impartial and disinterested judge of what is proper to be admitted, the correspondent, or you, the Editor?

3. If the contributions be not worthy of admission, can any reasonable

man explain why they are sent? Could any one be so infatuated as to send them?

4. Are papers communicated to promote the object of your undertak ing, or for the private satisfaction and entertainment of the individuals who send them? If for the latter, how can they be rejected?

5. Is the refusal to admit a correspondent's favours, a specimen either of gratitude or good-breeding?

Sir, I pause for a reply to these five enquiries. Remember, that the conductors of periodical publications, are at the mercy of their corre spondents; as the Editor of a certain miscellany, who in an evil hour once thrust me into his Index Indicatorius, knows to his cost. But I must conclude. My wife, whose intellectual powers are (to use her own lively expression)" only inferior to those of her beloved partner," commends this spirited remonstrance; and deter mines, in common with myself, and all the friends of injured excellence, to discountenance your work altogether, unless you immediately reform your editorial conduct, and from henceforward exercise enough modesty to allow every writer to be the best judge of his own production; and enough complaisance, to insert, without examination or scruple, whatever any benevolent author may condescend to contribute to your heretofore narrow-minded publication. I remain,

man. What! does a public teacher of youth dare to publish his systematic breach of the Sabbath, and to let all the world know, that he intends to habituate our youth to that which will first cause them to neglect the public worship of God, then to think lightly of religion; and, lastly, to turn a vowed Deists. Consider, Sir, that young men, educating for the medi cal profession, are hereafter to be dispersed over the country, and to hold a conspicuous place in the towns in which they settle. Will not their irreligious example have a great effect amongst their neighbours and will not the bad habits and principles which they imbibed by attending Anatomical Converzationes on Sunday mornings, indispose and totally disqualify them, for more edifying conversa tion, with the sick and afflicted, to whom they are admitted at seasons when the heart is tender, and more susceptible of religious impressions, than when in health ?

CHIRURGUS.

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adviser,

X. Y. Z.

To the Editor of the Christian Observer. I MUST beg you to make your Chrisfian Observations on an advertisement of Mr. Brooke's Anatomical Lectures, which has appeared on the cover of the last, and many preceding numbers of the Medical and Physical Journal; a work which, probably, does not come under your immediate notice. At the bottom of the advertisement, we find the following paragraph Anatomical Conversationes will be held every Sunday morning, at eight o'clock, in the Museum, in which the different subjects treated of, the preceding week, will be discussed familiarly.

This, Sir, I apprehend to be a gross violation of the laws both of God and CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 14.

extract from the "Morning Herald, of the 23d of December last; it is taken verbatim from their Brighton Correspondent's Letter.

"On SUNDAY, His Royal Highness's private and military band were fully employed, with the addition of the following amateur performers of rank; the Prince, the REVEREND Mr. Bloomburgh," &c.

Now, Sir, you and your co-adjutors profess to regard, with a watchful and a jealous eye, the destructive opinions, and the destructive practices, which in any way affect the Christian Religion: can there be any thing more detrimental to the interests of that religion, than for the Reverend Members of the Established Church, thus to waste their Sabbath evenings in company with a band of military musicians, even though invited and tioned by a Prince. I am a private M

sanc