destroying all the vines of the country, imprisonment, whipping, cutting off the ears of those found intoxicated, were successively resorted to, but with little effect towards arresting the evil. The age of Louis XIV., by creating a taste for intellectual, and more refined pleasures, did more to arrest intemperance in France, than all the laws of former rulers.

"It is to the influence which a taste for intellectual pursuits exerts, that we must look to effect and perpetuate a reform from sensuality. It was, in fact, increased intelligence and a growing love for intellectual enjoyment that enabled the people of this country to produce the reform they have produced, in the use of intoxicating drink. Temperance Societies, to be sure, did much good, but they were an effect themselves, of the more general diffusion and love of knowledge, and could not have been sustained thirty years ago, nor by a people less intelligent." pp. 86-89.

In the eighth Section Dr. Brigham advances the doctrine, that mental cultivation, when it irritates the brain, is a cause of dyspepsia; and, in fact, that irritation of the brain is the most frequent cause of that common and formidable disease. There is much truth, and conveyed in a pleasantly satirical manner, which will make the most careful dyspeptic smile, in the following paragraph; and yet it requires much modification in order to make it unexceptionable.

"Good living is said to cause dyspepsia, but the most healthy people I have ever known have been among those who lived well, who eat freely several times a day of the most nutritious food. By some it is said that tobacco, snuff, tea, coffee, butter, and even bread, cause this complaint; but whoever will make inquiries on this subject throughout the community, will find that this is seldom true. In fact, dyspepsia prevails, according to my experience, altogether the most among the very temperate and careful, among those who are temperate and careful as regards what they eat and drink, and the labor they put upon the stomach; but exceedingly careless how much labor they put upon that more delicate organ, the brain. Such people often eat nothing but by the advice of the Doctor, or some Treatise on Dyspepsia, or by weight; nor drink any thing that is not certainly harmless; they chew every mouthful until they are confident, on mature reflection, that it cannot hurt the stomach. Why then are they dyspeptics? Because, with all their carefulness, they pay no regard to the excitation of the brain. They continue to write two or three sermons or essays in a week, besides reading a volume or two, and magazines,

reviews, newspapers, &c., and attending to much other business calculated to excite the mind."—pp. 104, 105.

It is very true that anxiety and over-application of mind, such as the perpetual production of sermons, joined with other perpetual occupations of a sedentary and thoughtful nature, tend to produce dyspepsia, in some of its varieties, nay, do almost infallibly produce it; and let ministers and parishioners look to this well;-but is not carelessness of living, eating too much and of too many things, a frequent concomitant cause? And after a man has made himself ill of dyspepsia by studying too much and eating too much and exercising too little, is it not better that he should live carefully than carelessly, in order to bring himself back to a healthy state? We agree with Dr. Brigham, however, entirely, that if the patient does not leave off his excessive study, abstinence from food will avail him nothing. He never will get well, unless he gives due rest to his brain and nerves as well as to his stomach. Let such a patient hear the experience of our author.

"The most instances of cure which I recollect, have been in those individuals whose minds have been permitted to rest from accustomed labors, or have been directed to new pursuits, or relieved from anxiety and care. Some have travelled far, and have recovered; voyages have restored others. Some have become husbands and forgotten their stomach complaints; some have succeeded in business and are well; some are in, or out of office, and thus their minds are freed from long-continued anxiety; while others remain as they were several years since, having just discovered, for the twentieth time, some new, and as they believe, an effectual remedy for their indigestion; but which will assuredly disappoint them, if they do not cease from mental toil, and for a while let the excited brain be quiet." p. 109.

We presume that our readers have been entertained and instructed by the extracts which we have set before them from this book; and will agree with us, that the interesting style in which its author presents and illustrates his views, is well calculated to obtain for them a favourable consideration.

THE

CHRISTIAN EXAMINER

ART. I.

No. LVI.

NEW SERIES - No. XXVI.

MAY, 1833.

Communicant's Manual. Devotional Exercises, Prayers, and Hymns, more particularly designed for the use of Communicants. With a short Introduction on the Origin, Nature, and Obligation of the Lord's Supper.

We have not yet quite done with the subject of religious institutions. We have given considerable space to this subject for a year or two past in our pages; but we have still some supplementary remarks to offer, before we can feel that we have fully discharged our humble duty to this important department of religious influences.

There are, in particular, certain mistakes which we wish to notice. The present is considered by many as the age of spirituality in religion; and it is somewhat too carelessly alleged, that the natural and necessary tendency of this spirit of the age, is to break away from what is called the bondage of forms and usages. It is true, indeed, that religious observances are justly held to be less essential in some respects, than they were in former days, and in less enlightened ages. That is to say, they are justly held to be, not the very essence of religion; not to possess any absolute and independent value as mere forms; not to be substitutes for practical virtue; not to be methods of appeasing a guilty conscience, or of procuring the favor of Heaven. But there are respects, on the other hand, in which we undertake to say, that religious observances are not a whit less essential, than they were held to be in the most superstitious ages. They are not a whit less essential, as means of religious knowledge and impression. Their importance, as means, in

VOL. XIV. -N. S. VOL. IX. NO. II.

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fact, was never overrated. Nay, it was the very error of former times to regard them too much as ends, and therefore too little as means. And if the spirituality of the present day is tending to whelm all ideas, good and bad, of religious usages, in undistinguishing reprobation, then is this spirituality not what it should be, a discreet and sound judgment, but a rash and blind impulse. The truth is, there is to be, and there must be, a growing appreciation of the utility of religious observances. The public mind is yet, to some degree, mystified about this matter, but it will yet come to see and estimate things more clearly and rationally. It confounds. together, at present, things which it will yet see to be totally distinct. Superstition about forms is one thing; an intelligent use of them is another. But superstition, like a cloud, has overspread the whole field of religious institutions, so that many see nothing there but the cloud, no work to do, no soil to cultivate, no productions to be reared. When they do come to see distinctly, they will perceive that religious forms are not to be neglected, not to be shrunk from, or coldly passed by, as some of them now are, because too solemn or awful, not to be disused, in fine, but only to be used in a new manner, and that they are to be used, — wę shall not hesitate to say it, more heartily and devoutly than they ever were before. A spiritual age, as we sometimes hear it said, outgrowing forms and usages! We might as well say, that an intelligent age is outgrowing books and reading, and all fixed times of study, all fixed application of mind.

Indeed, a religious observance is but a form, mode, or season of attention to the subject of religion; and therefore has most especial claims upon an intelligent and spiritual age. A religious observance, we repeat, is a mode of attention; and although there are other views of its utility which might be urged, this seems to us to be the leading one, and it is, at any rate, the view which we wish at present to offer and illustrate.

The mistakes to be corrected by this view of the subject, are, first, that which has been already adverted to, that an interest in forms must decline amidst the growing spirituality of the age; secondly, the idea closely analogous to the first, that forms are but poor and puerile things in religion, "weak and beggarly elements";-and thirdly, the notion that

the obligation to be constantly religious, to be religious at all times, conflicts with the obligation to devote particular times and seasons to the offices of piety. With this statement of the objects we have in view, let us proceed to the illustration of the particular argument, which we have advanced, for religious institutions.

Religious institutions or observances, then, are forms, modes, or seasons of attention to religion. The Sabbath is a time of attention to religion. It is not to be regarded as a day for being more religious, more conscientious, more under the guidance of a principle of duty than we are required to be on other days; but as a day for giving more attention to religion than we can give at other seasons of life. Religious worship, again, whether public or private, is an act of contemplation. It has other characteristics and uses indeed; it is prayer, and as prayer it may be answered; but it is, also, the contemplation of God, and it has its most obvious and direct use, as contemplation, impressing, as it naturally does, a deeper sense of the perfection and presence of God. So also the service of the Communion is a mode of attention. It is true, that it is likewise a commemorative act, and an act of avowal or profession; and in these views it has its advantages. But its greatest advantage, perhaps, lies in its direct effect upon the mind, and this is the effect of attention. It is a fixed and solemn meditation upon Jesus Christ, as a meek, patient, forgiving, redeeming, triumphant Sufferer. In the same manner infant baptism, with those who practise it, is designed to fix attention on the parental obligations and duties.

Now, attention is the grand instrument of impression. It is such in every thing else, as well as in religion. It is such by the very law of our nature. It is such by the appointment of God. All the means of grace,-consideration, meditation, reading, prayer, the ordinances of religion, may be resolved into this one direction, "attend; give heed." There is no other conceivable method by which a rational being can attain to the knowledge or feeling of any truth, doctrine, or duty, but attention.

This attention to religion, then, it is a matter of the last consequence that men should give. They cannot be religious without it. And it is of this that they are most exposed to fail.

"The cares of this life," the tasks of labor, the occu