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masters and school-mistresses who admit dancing-masters into their schools, and those parents who employ them for their children, are for that offence excluded from the society. Snuff-taking is condemned as a sensual pleasure; and Joshua Silvester himself, when he planted his battery against tobacco, and poured his volley of holy shot from mount Helicon' against the pipes, was not more inveterate than Wesley against smoaking. The editors of the Methodist Magazine (which is the official publication of the sett inform us that God prohibited Noah and his posterity from eating the blood of animals, and that the prohibition has been same tioned and enforced anew in the New Testament, Acts xv. 20.-I a professor therefore will eat black puddings, he does it at his peril. 'A custom,' they say, 'has long prevailed in this country of drinking wine while at dinner; this is downright pampering: it vitiates the taste, and destroys healthful appetite. The custom ought to be proscribed among all religious people immediately. As it has been suggested,' said the Conference of 1807, that our rule re specting the exclusion of barbers who shave or dress their cus tomers on the Lord's Day, is not sufficiently explicit and posi tive, what is the decision of the Conference on this important point?' And the important point is decided in these words, Let it be fully understood that no such person is to be suffered to remain in any of our societies. We charge all our superintendants to execute this rule in every place without partiality and without delay.' The sisters are exhorted to dress as becometh those who profess to walk with God, and their husbands are charged to use all i the influences of love and piety in that behalf.' But what if the husband should wish his wife to dress like the vain women of the world?' Whom is she then to study to please, and which is she then to obey, her husband or the helper?-Wesley has answered the question, and left directions that band tickets are not to be given to mar. ried women who dress in the fashion, and plead that they do it in conformity to their husbands' wish. The theatre is an abomination, and though Te Deum was not actually sung in any of the Taberna cles for the destruction of Covent Garden and Drury Lane, many a triumphant hint was given that those conflagrations were to be considered as divine judgments. Singing indeed, when restricted to hymns and psalms, is highly encouraged; but an anathema is pronounced against complex tunes and anthems. The repeating of the same words so often, they say, and especially while another is repeating other words, (the horrid abuse which runs through the modern church music,) as it shocks all common sense, so it necessarily brings on dead formality, and has no religion in it. Besides, it is a flat contradiction to our Lord's command, use not vain repetitions; for what is a vain repetition if this is not ??

This is a curious point, for it exemplifies the attention paid by the lawgivers of this formidable sect to the minutest circumstances which can strengthen their hold upon the minds of the people.Accordingly, a doctor of music has published a collection of sacred music under the patronage, and by the recommendation, of the Methodist conference; and he states in his advertisement, that he has always kept in view the sound principle, that all the congregation shall join in praises to their Creator, and therefore he has intro. duced few tunes but what may quickly be caught by the ear. The 1. Conference also give directions concerning this subject. They tell their preachers to preach frequently on singing, to recommend their tune book every where, often to stop the people short in their hymns, and ask them, 'Now, do you know what you said last? Do you speak no more than you feel?'-They are not to suffer them to zsing too slow, and the women are constantly to sing their parts alone, no man being permitted to sing with them, unless he understands the notes and sings the base. These things have no little Es effect in extending and confirming the influence of Methodism.But the most singular instance of their attention to the minutest circumstances, is their receipt for the posture of private prayer. Wesley always insisted that his preachers when they prayed should kneel upright. These, says Adam Clarke, (who is the most learned man the society has yet produced, and unquestionably possesses great and various erudition,) these may appear little things to many, but their effects are neither little nor unimportant. Kneeling down, and then leaning the body forward so as to rest on a bed or chair, may be profitable to meditation, but is often prejudicial to the genuine spirit of prayer. Besides, he adds, it is a posture in which many are apt to fall asleep. Be these men children of light, or children of the world, they are assuredly wise in their generation; they possess the wisdom of the serpent, though they may not be harmless as doves.

In fact, the Methodists already form a distinct people in the state, and the main object of their rulers is to keep up and strengthen the distinction. Hence all marriages out of the pale of the connexion are forbidden; all members are exhorted to take no step in so weighty a matter without first advising with the most serious of their brethren; and the preachers are directed to enforce the caution of the apostle, Be ye not unequally yoked with unbelievers; the meaning of the appellation is unequivocal, marriages with Turk, Jew, or Gentile, not being ordinary in this country; and when we call to mind the judgment of the Conference respecting unbelievers, as expressed by Jonathan Reeves, no other proof of the uncharitableness of the sect can be required. All who are not Methodists are unbelievers, and all who are unbelievers are in a state of damnation. Especial pains are taken to keep up this exclusive spirit. If

the Inquisition has been more successful in keeping out prohibited books from its dominion, (which may justly be doubted,) it has never exerted half the zeal in dispersing those which are in favour of its own tenets. The Conference are extensive publishers; and the Ballantynes do not wet down more paper in a week than is consumed in their printing office. Every chapel (and they have little less than 1000 in the United Kingdom) serves them as a shop; every preacher seils for them upon commission. He is bound therefore by his interest, as well as his rules, to recommend » every society, and frequently and that earnestly, the reading of the books which Wesley and the Conference have published, perferably to any other.' When any new book is sent to any place, he is to speak of it in the public congregation. Carry books with you through every round,' said Wesley. Exert yourselves in this. Be not ashamed, be not weary: leave no stone unturned.' The Conference in some late minutes express a hope, that the members of their society and their other friends will not purchase any of their books which are not printed for the book-room, and disposed of by the preachers.'

This powerful body act as censors as well as publishers. In 1796, it was asked whether any thing could be done to stop the abuse of printing and publishing in the connexion; and this gave occasion to several debates, the liberty of the press,' they say, being considered as our undoubted privilege.'-They proved their love for the liberty of the press something in the manner that Joseph Buonaparte did in his mock constitution for Spain. It was determined, that as the preachers are eminently one body, nothing should be done by any individual which could be prejudicial to the whole, or to any part thereof. Therefore no preachers | shall publish any thing but what is given to the Conference, and printed in our own press. The book committee to determine what is proper to be printed; and, as a reward for his labours, the author shall have a hundred copies out of every thousand.' At an after meeting the law was so far modified, that the preacher was allowed to print a rejected manuscript provided he did not sell it at the chapel, nor advertise it from the pulpit. An Index Expurgatorius cannot be published in England; but as their people read nothing but what is recommended to them, an Index Commendatorius answers the same purpose.

Among those poets who may not only improve our taste but our piety,' a writer in the Methodist Magazine recommends Black, more and Prior. To say nothing of this critic's taste in commending the one poet, it is plain that he never can have read the other.Dryden and Pope,' he says, 'may amuse, but will rarely edify, and frequently pollute. Shakspeare is still more dangerous; whatever advantages may be derived from perusing him, I suppose

ew of them will appear in the great day of final account.' Poor Shakspeare indeed is an object of especial abhorrence to some of our worst bigots; there is a passage in the Eclectic Review which describes his soul in hell, suffering for the evil which his works continue to do in the world. The fiercer part of these professors would no doubt consign those works to the flames as piously as they have in imagination consigned the author: some among them, however, are of milder mood, and have remedied the alleged evil by publishing a family Shakspeare. But even the family Shakspeare has little chance of admission among the thorough-bred members of the sect. There is a pithy and profitable tale in the Methodist Magazine of the converstion of Mr. G Burton, effected by seeing the Tempest; the last effect we will venture to say that either author or actors dreamt of producing. He was so struck with the wickedness of the players in mimicking the works of the Almighty, in causing thunder and lightning, that he was afraid lest, in the just judgment of God, the house should fall upon them and crush their bodies to atoms, and send their souls to hell; and he was determined if the Lord would spare him to get out of the place alive, he would dedicate his all to his service.' The stage being held in such utter abhorrence, it cannot be supposed that Shakspeare will be tolerated. Indeed the whole race of poets, except such as are actually within the pale of the society, have little mercy to expect when the new code of fanatical criticism is applied to their works. The editors of the Magazine 'agree with Mr. Toogood, that the frequent use of that heathenish word Muse in poetry cannot be justified on Christian principles.' And even when this heathenish word is not in the way, some professors make it their boast that they'relish no poetry above the pitch of a tabernacle hymn.' What then must be the effect of a confederated and indefatigable priesthood, who barely tolerate literature, and actually hate it, upon all those classes over whom literature has any influence! To those classes Methodism is not less injurious than it is beneficial to the rude and uncivilized orders: it acts upon them as a mildewing superstition, blasting all genius in the bud, and withering every flower of loveliness and of innocent enjoyment. And here it should be observed, that though it is the Wesleyan or Arminian branch of the organization of Methodists which has been described, whatever relates to the influence of Methodism upon the mind and manners of the people, applies equally to the great Calvinistic branch, and to those who now call themselves the Orthodox Dissenters. However they may differ upon predestination, or in their notions of church discipline, the effect which they produce upon the character of their members is the same. No works in this country are so widely circulated, and studied by so many thousand readers, as the Evan

gelical and Methodist Magazines, and the bigotry, fanaticism, and uncharitableness of these publications are melancholy proofs of human weakness. Of these publications, we have no hesitation in saying that they produce evil-great evil, nothing but evil: that they tend to narrow the judgment, debase the intellect, and harden the heart. It is no light evil to bring back into the world the baneful faith in dreams, tokens, apparitions, and witchcraft. It is no light evil that they give the Roman Catholics cause to reproach us in our turn with the miracles of our modern saints, and to retort upon us the imputation of gross credulity, or of gross deception. The Methodist Magazine informs us that when the King recovered from his illness in 1788, it was by virtue of the prayers of Mr. John Pawson and his congregation; that the itinerant preachers have a special gift at obtaining rain in dry seasons, and that when they prayed against a plague of caterpillars, an army of crows came and cleared the country. They tell us of devils hovering about the death-bed of an unbeliever, and record the ravings of delirium as actual and terrific truths: they number up miraculous cures worthy to vie with Dr. Milner's story of St. Winifred's well; and in one instance, not indeed in direct terms, but in expressions that unambiguously are intended so to be understood, they lay claim to the miracle of having raised the dead!* Their uncharitableness is

The account is in the Methodist Magazine for October 1804, and may thus be abridged in its own words. The child faintly groaned and rattled in his throat, which indeed was all the appearance of life that was left; for he was cold as death, and in every other respect like a person expired. My wife burst into tears and wished me, without delay, to go for a doctor; but there appeared no symptom of life remaining. There was no pulse, nothing to be seen of his eyes but the white; his jaws were locked so that the united strength of us both could not open them, and every part was ex tremely cold. In short he was in all respects apparently a perfect corpse. I then was constrained to say, you see the child is dead, and it is of no use to fetch the doctor to a dead person. My wife, however, being still solicitious that I would hasten for the doctor, I told her I certainly would go. But I thought we had better use the best help first, for it came strongly to my mind although we have no prophet's staff to put upon the child, nor a prophet himself to restore him to life, yet the God of prophets is now present. Of this I was assured, because I felt him within, and an unusual power immediately came upon me to wrestle with him in behalf of the child. After 1 we had unitedly beseeched the Lord, I rose from my knees, in order to go for the doctor; but before I opened the door to go out, I stood up and again urged my request to him who has all power in heaven and on earth: and while I was praying my wife called out to me saying there are signs of life in the child.' However I went, but we did not see the doctor for four hours afterwards. When I returned, the child looked ghastly, but had asked for something to eat, and in about an hour and balf began running and playing about as if nothing had happened. He had been quite indisposed for some time previous to this occurrence, and he has been remarkably well / ever since. The above is the simple fact, and persons are at full liberty to put their own construction upon it. Yet that the child was actually dead I do not assert, but that he was so to all appearance, I make no doubt but that every person would have concluded who had seen and examined him, and that he was restored from that state! in answer to our joint prayers, I am fully persuaded in my own mind. That is, Mr.