world to our own day, might make a strong case in favour of parental shrewdness. But to return, though only for a moment: with Handel, however hindered at first, musical talent was early encouraged, owing to the potent arguments of a German duke, who all but forced the father to indulge his son's propensity; and consequently, we are the richer by some pieces composed in actual childhood. The works of Handel, among which the Messiah may be well accounted his great masterpiece, occupy many volumes, and abound with the most exquisite symphonies, the most triumphant hymns, and with choruses that reach the true sublime. The name of our thesis so naturally suggests Psalmody, that it is difficult to escape from so obvious a subject. After what has gone before, we can now however hazard but one observation. It is a great pity that in cases not infrequent so little judgment is shown in the matter of selecting hymns and psalms for congregational worship: take, as a fair example, Bishop Kenn's morning and evening hymns: their apt and good season of use is for an individual on his first awaking, and latest lying down: and yet how frequently is not "my first spring of thought and will" called upon to be filled with pious feelings at eleven o'clock in the day, how often do we not hear a congregation, invoking" and with sweet sleep mine eyelids close" just before the sermon of a three o'clock service. No spiritualizing can clear up this absurdity. Many other such things there be, equally unwise; and as the smallest exercise of right judgment would set matters right, there is little excuse for the existence of evils which, though trifling in themselves, are often pernicious in their consequences on "those that are without." If music be indeed an aid to religion, it ought to be more congregationally cultivated; at present, the charity-school in our towns, and the discordant orchestra in our villages, are the great and injurious monopolists of Psalmody. No cause, but lack of culture, operates to prevent the national ear of England from being as musical as that of Germany: and a well-directed attention in those who have authority over the church is alone requisite in order to convert what is now so often the dissonant exhibition of a few, into the harmonized devotion of the many. WES LE D. HENCE, ye profane: and thou, mine honest muse, High honour to withhold, or to refuse Were folly, if not sin; we hail thee then Glad bearer of good tidings unto men, Zealous and noble, worthy of the phrase In which thy Lord, and our's, hath greeted thee, Well done, thou faithful servant, thine be praise! To think, the cloisters thy pure feet have trod Mine have trod too; grace grant it,—ev'n to me, That like a Wesley I may walk with God. The word Methodist signifies' orderly,' and was the name of a learned society at Rome: it was applied to the young Wesley when at Oxford, on account of his regular habits, and adopted by his followers in his honour. John Wesley, God's witness for the truth in an age more than commonly immoral, was born in 1703. He was educated,—as is alluded to in the concluding lines, at Charter-house and Christ Church. He is believed to have travelled 300,000 miles, and to have preached nearly 50,000 sermons in the cause of religion. It would be little short of ridiculous to insist upon any thing in praise of his character and conduct. The followers of Wesley are commonly reported to dissent very little, if at all, in matters of religious truth from the Church of England. Surely the differences of a body so respectable, and so pious, might be arranged: a mother should not cast off her children, nor should children abjure their mother, for a matter of little moment: schism, however lightly regarded in these days of licence, is not so venial an error, that it can be committed with impunity for a slight cause. If the established Church, in times less enlightened and perhaps less religious, cast the Wesleyans from her, she ought now, like the rulers of Philippi, "to go, and beseech them, and bring them in :" if, on the contrary, they cut themselves from the parent tree, it is their duty in conference to agree to a reconciliation, now that many causes of dissent have in the lapse of time worn away. No institution of man has ever been, nor can ever be, immaculate: but we may fairly challenge the world to frame a system more beneficent, more true, and with more of the elements of durability, than the National Church offers to us. Her adversaries owe to her all their good; and the evils superadded as the effects of schism have, in many cases if not all, far outweighed those which originally caused the separation. There is such a thing as mutual forbearance, without the slightest compromise of individual convictions: we ought by this time to be able to act upon this difference: let us be reconciled. |