nor influence behind. He laboured, therefore, so to expound to his audiences (whether of the learned or the common people) the things concerning Christ, that he ought to have suffered and to enter into his glory,'-that, at parting, they should be constrained to break forth into the lan

guage of the disciples at Emmaus, Did not our hearts burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the Scriptures? Nor did he so labour in vain; many of his sermons, which have been published, while they show that he preached not himself, but Christ Jesus the Lord,' will long continue to warm, exhort, instruct, comfort, and encourage readers of all classes, into whose hands they may fall; while they may serve as models to future ministers of the gospel, to deliver their own souls, in their endeavours to save the souls of others. By watching seasons, opportunities, local circumstances, and temporary occurrences, he acquired a peculiar felicity of adapting his subjects of discourse to these, and thereby rendering the doctrines, duties, and illustrations which he educed, personally interesting to his hearers. In this respect, as in every other, he tried to tread in the steps of his Lord and Master, who, wherever He was, thus suited his addresses to his disciples, to the mixed multitude, to publicans and sinners, to the Scribes, Pharisees, and Sadducees, the righteous in their own esteem,-in the

open fields, on the sea-shore, or the mountain-slope; by the highway-side, in the streets of the city, within the walls of the temple, or under the roof of hospitality; so that, from the matter of each, the time, the place, and the character of his auditors might, in many cases, be gathered without historical record.

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Of all Mr. Horne's controversial writings, his masterpiece undoubtedly is the little volume of Letters on Infidelity." These were drawn forth by the revival of Hume's comfortless doctrines, by one of his anonymous disciples, after the death of their author, and the frigidly ostentatious betrayal of his drivelling, during his last hours, by his friend Dr. Adam Smith. The end of that philosopher, who had sought truth as a man would sally out to seek mountains, with a pair of microscopic spectacles on his nose, so magnifying the minutest objects, that he could not distinguish an horizon of more than an inch diameter at once, nor in less than twelve months scrutinize the length, breadth, thickness, colour, shape, weight, superficies, and solid contents, to say nothing of the number of component atoms, of the first molehill in his way, the end of that philosopher, we say, produced as much uncertainty respecting the true nature, and even the true circumstances of it, as he himself had ever entertained of the plainest matter of fact in the world, concerning

which he might never have been able to go beyond the point of ascertaining the objections against the probabilities of its existence; having carried scepticism to such exquisite perfection, that he was almost sure of nothing except that he doubted of every thing. Statements very contradictory to each other were circulated, respecting the petty magnanimity of which his disciples boasted, and the bitter misgivings which others, better acquainted with the deceitfulness of the human heart, suspected to be betrayed by the levity with which he met his last enemy. The former, however, exulted over it as the triumph of philosophy, to enjoy rather than to suffer death,-not with firmness and composure, not with resignation and hope, as the veriest infidel would if he could,-but with the sportiveness of an infant playing with its mother till it falls asleep in her arms. Alas! the philosopher's forced gaiety, in a situation so awful, was far more like the ghastly merriment of the poor girl, whose mischievous companions had contrived to get a skeleton placed in her bed before she retired to rest; and who, when they stole into her chamber to witness the pleasant effects of the joke, saw her dandling the bundle of dry bones upon her lap, and laughing at their rude clattering and grotesque motions, in hysterical insanity. They, silly creatures, fled, shrieking with horror and amazement from the spectacle. The others, the

sage philosophers, joined their infatuated master in his hideous hilarity, and prolonged the melancholy contagion, by blazoning the secrets of the chamber where he met his fate, after he had disappeared in that darkness, (happily impermeable to living eyes,) which veils alike the light of the beatific vision, and the blackness of darkness for ever,—into one or the other of which we believe that every spirit, when it leaves the body, is introduced, and thenceforward lost to mortals till the day of resurrection. Without laying any stress upon contemporary and even recent statements of the circumstances of these "last days of a philosopher," (grievously at variance with the fooleries attested by Dr. Adam Smith,) it may be safely affirmed upon the authenticity of these alone, that Hume was one of the veriest triflers that ever deceived himself or imposed upon the world.

Horne's "Letters on Infidelity," may be pronounced unique in their kind; and they are specimens of what polemical writings ought to be in their spirit, if not in their manner; yet, both in their manner and their spirit, just what it became the learned, the facetious, the gentle, the devout, and the zealous-minded author, to make them on such an occasion. In their spirit they are manly, candid, discriminating, and courteous, mighty in argument, and splendid in illustration. As to the manner, (without disparagement,) that should

be restricted to cases which will admit the free use of lighter, keener, and more brilliant weapons than are commonly brought into such fields. It should be confined also to those combatants (for with them alone may such perilous edge-tools be safely entrusted) who have equal self-controul, kindly feeling, and conscientious principle with Mr. Horne, added to the same accomplishments of fine wit, delicate humour, lively fancy, varied knowledge, critical acumen, and profound penetration, with which he was so eminently both armed and adorned. If Elijah, whom he quotes as an authority, for employing ironical language on a very awful occasion, could be thus merry and wise at the expense of fanatics, who were neither the one nor the other,—our Christian advocate, contending with cold-blooded sceptics, as malignant, if not as furious, and as impotent, if not as self-denying as the priests of Baal, when they leaped upon the altars, and cut themselves with knives till the blood gushed out,our Christian advocate, thus contending for the faith of the gospel, might be allowed, at intervals, to use satire as harmless and beautiful as summer lightnings, playing in sunset-clouds, without audible thunders; as surely as it was lawful for him, in his zeal for the Lord of Hosts against the enemies of his Christ, to ride on the whirlwind, and direct the storm in the more vehement and energetic exercise of those greater powers which he brought to bear