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instead of a conscience; and, as to others, a spirit of genial and sympathetic kindness occupied the place of charity. He felt a lively interest in the joys and sorrows of all about him. This forms a prominent object in his personal history, and has given its impress to most of his works. His associations, during the time while his character was taking its form, were with the poor. The son of a poor clergyman, he had gone through college as a sizar; and for years afterward was the constant companion of want, and of the strange associations to which want often drives its victims. His sympathies were accordingly with the poor. Hence, we have his touching views of society, his suggestions of social reforms, his pleas in behalf of the helpless debtor, and the novice in crime, who may have fallen victims to unequal laws, and capricious administrations of law. To this tendency of his mind, thus circumstantially directed, are we indebted for all that is most valuable in his writings.

In closing, we cannot but repeat the expression of our surprise, that, while many inferior productions of the English press have been promptly re-issued in this country, none of our enterprising publishers have given us an American edition of this work of Mr. Forster. Had it been a book of five hundred pages instead of seven hundred, it would no doubt have been more inviting to the trade, as well as more pleasing to the reader. The work has many very valuable qualities, and some defects;-among which, literary criticism chiefly condemns that just named. But a graver charge may be made against the defectiveness of its moral tone. Its morals are of the free and easy kind, that commonly prevail among the gay and wealthy in large cities. The stage is elaborately and insidiously defended and praised, as a school of morals and polite refinement. The dissipations of the vain and dissolute are recorded with seeming pleasure, and passed by unreproved. The faults of his admired subject, when they amount to more than foibles, are pleaded for as venial, or even as undeserving of censure. These are blemishes upon the fair qualities of the work, which, however, has very much to commend it; and will, doubtless, long remain a monument to both the subject and the biographer.

ART. II.-CHARLES WESLEY AND HIS POETRY.

1. Life of Charles Wesley: comprising a Review of his Poetry, Sketches of the Rise and Progress of Methodism, with Notices of Contemporary Events and Characters. By Rev. THOMAS JACKSON. With a Portrait. 8vo., pp. 797. New-York: Lane & Scott. 1848.

2. Methodist Hymnology: comprehending Notices of the Poetical Works of John and Charles Wesley. Showing the Origin of their Hymns in the Methodist Episcopal, Methodist Episcopal South, and Wesleyan Collections; also, of such other Hymns as are not Wesleyan, in the Methodist Episcopal Hymn-Book, and some Account of the Authors; Critical and Historical Observations. By DAVID CREAMER. 12mo., pp. 470. NewYork: Published for the Author. 1848.

with

NOTHING proves the completeness of the movement called Methodism more than the varied talents of its leaders. The legislative sagacity of John Wesley found an able auxiliary in the poetic genius of his brother Charles. Divergent from them, yet owning a common impulse, Whitefield brought to the mighty labour the aid of his stirring oratory. Coke scoured the seas, and from England, as an island centre, carried this earnest Christianity to the Western and Eastern ends of the earth. And like a spirit that dwelt apart, as if rising to a purer than mortal sphere, Fletcher shed around him. the consecration of his matchless holiness. The Legislator, the Poet, the Orator, the Missionary, the Saint, toiled together to spread this religion of faith and love. From such harmonious co-working of varied powers, the movement derived breadth, as well as energy.

We should do injustice to the memory of these noble men, did we not remember that, however each was gifted in his peculiar sphere, they all excelled in that indispensable part of their calling-preaching. Neither the administrative power of John Wesley, nor the poetic fervour of Charles, interfered with the toil of the Evangelist. Nor were their associates less eminent in this respect. They all lived to preach; at morning dawn they rose up to preach, and the task of every day was many sermons. And such preaching, too! the drowsy hum of the parish priest, drawling out what he never felt, was not for them; they were not afraid of that word which the regular clergy dreaded-enthusiasm.* To this charge they were

* Goldsmith, no enemy of the Established Church, surely, thus speaks of its ministers in 1759:-"A great part of their ignorance" (the common people's) "may be chiefly ascribed to their teachers, who, with the most gentleman-like serenity, deliver their cool discourses, and address the reason of men, who never reasoned in their lives. They are told of cause and effect, of beings self-existent, and the universal scale of beings. They are informed of the excellence of the Fangorian con

always ready to answer, in the language of Paul, "Whether we be beside ourselves, it is to God; or whether we be sober, it is for your cause. For the love of Christ constraineth us." Hence, their appeals were quick, pungent, sending the truth home to every man's

conscience.

It would be gratifying to dwell upon the combined activity of these our fathers, and, tracing out that spirit of unity in which they laboured, to describe the part which each contributed to the great whole. They deserve to be viewed not only apart, but together. A perfect history of Methodism must group the chief actors, and show them in the light which they throw upon each other. At present, we have the simpler task of noticing Charles Wesley's poetry.

Charles Wesley was a poet, in all that makes the poet's soul. He was one of a family of whom nearly all were remarkably endowed with "the faculty divine;" his father, his brothers Samuel and John, as well as himself, have written hymns which men will "not willingly let die;" and his sister Mrs. Wright's "Lines to her Dying Child," have an irresistible tenderness and beauty. There is no reason to believe that Charles excelled the rest in the quality of his poetic gift, but he improved it by a more assiduous culture. In him, however, the stream of song seems to have been more copious; his mind was more entirely pervaded with the inspiring feeling; not full occasionally, but always. His were the thoughts "that voluntary move harmonious numbers;" and it was natural for him to chronicle in sweet harmonies the epochs of his life. His hymns are his biography, and need but connecting notes to form a complete history of his inward and outward being. The events of a busy life, his conversion, his preaching, his journeys and voyages, his persecutions, his family cares, his own and his brother's success in their life-long work, his love for living and departed friends, are all commemorated in his lofty verse.

In order to a full appreciation of his productions, we must first know the man; a man's work is the image of his spirit. Charles Wesley's character was eminently religious. His whole life was spent in seeking after God; he was ever reaching "forth unto those things which are before." He wrote to record his progress, and to encourage his brethren to the same earnest aims. Many of his hymns are poetic prayers. He did not look "through nature up to nature's God;" for with nature he had little to do: he could

troversy, and the absurdity of an intermediate state. The spruce preacher reads his lucubration without lifting his nose from the text, and never ventures to earn the shame of an enthusiast."-Bee, No. vii.

not be long delayed by the outward vesture, beautiful and varied though it be. The God he sought was the God revealed in Christ. The kingdom of heaven was the world to him. This was the nature he loved; here he ever dwelt; these visions of beauty, these groves immortal, these generous fruits, he could never cease to praise; and to dwell near them, if possible, "quite on the verge of heaven," was the only life with which he could be

content.

Charles Wesley was thus emphatically the poet of religion. His eye glanced not "from heaven to earth," but "from earth to heaven." His topics are such as come home to the Christian heart; the power of faith, the joy in believing, the love of Christ, the communion with God, the hope of the resurrection, are themes which he most loves to celebrate. The general truths of religion are more or less included in all poetry; for poetry leads us evermore to the infinite and invisible. Never was there true bard whose thoughts did not "wander through eternity." But Charles Wesley believed the special verities of the Gospel. After the pain of an ascetic life, he had found that justification was by faith; his experience proved to him that they who are justified "have peace with God;" and that peace at last was his. Then commenced the career of preaching, which (save by his associates) is unparalleled in modern history. He had been led to that heart-religion, which is the best religion. His words were uttered with unction and power; there was no resisting the fervour with which the poet-preacher proclaimed the tidings of redemption. Equally wonderful was the effect of his experience on his poetry. From this time it became rapt, soaring, impassioned. Before, in his ascetic exhaustion and weariness of life, he had sung,

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Now, commemorating the epoch when he had found the truth, he

holds quite another strain :

""Twas then my soul beheld from far

The glimm'ring of an orient star,

That pierced and cheer'd my nature's night:
Sweetly it dawn'd, and promised day,
Sorrow and sin it chased away,

And open'd into glorious light.

"With other eyes I now could see
The Father reconciled to me,
Jesus, the Just, had satisfied;
Jesus had made my suff'rings his,

Jesus was now my righteousness,

Jesus for me had lived and died."-P. 108.

From this stand-point must his poetry be judged; with the worldly mind he has nothing in common. They only who have deep religious feeling can understand what he says; for it is everywhere true, that "we receive but what we give." We can hold no converse with a poet, unless we readily sympathize with the subject which forms the staple of his song; but then, if he be truly inspired, he will give us back our own with thousand-fold beauty and power. He who has not sighed for an escape from the power of sin, may be assured that much that Charles Wesley has written is not for him. On the artistic execution, however, the coldest critics may decide; and the flexible verse of Charles Wesley will not suffer if submitted to the severest tests. The facile movement everywhere shows a conscious power over the difficulties of the art. We do not say that he never wrote badly; his brother John speaks of some of his verses as mean;" "* and the very facility with which he wrote was often fatal to his success. But what of this? The strongest pinion will sometimes weary; even Milton has written hard, crabbed lines. Wesley's verse is not all perfect; but there is in it a sweetness, a grace, an energy, which will always rank him among the most skilful “builders of the lofty rhyme."

We are not ambitious of venturing a disquisition on the question, What constitutes true poetry?" We would not step off of terra firma; and this is debatable ground-rather, enchanted land, skirted here and there with golden mists. The atmosphere is sweet and soft, but hazy withal; we cannot see as well as is our wont, for the gay illusions blind us. Perhaps, however, we may be able to descry some of the boundaries and outlines from afar.

Not that poem," says Coleridge, “which we have read, but that to which we return with the greatest pleasure, possesses the genuine power, and claims the name of essential poetry." The Poem may be defined; for it is known by its object, (the voluntary prolongation

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* Jackson's Life of C. Wesley, p. 771.

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