towards the top than those of the second, which is thought to be the least ancient of the three. The origin of all, however, is so remote, that it is said they were visited as venerable antiquities by Augustus! The temple of Neptune is thought to be the oldest edifice in Europe. Few works of man's making, rival it in grandeur, and very few of them have lasted so long. The people who raised it, their conquerors, and the other nations which here in long succession were first victors and then vanquished, have been mingled with their kindred clay, but its firm columns still stand erect, braving the assaults of the elements. Generations after generations of the human race-mere bubbles on the stream of time-have passed by and been forgotten, while this rude work of infant art remains unmoved, though the earth has trembled under its base, and the thunder-bolt descended on its head. Most of the elegant structures of later times, have been broken into atoms, but these massive pillars endure like their native rock. The habitations about them, and the cities of their vicinage, have mouldered away, and left them secure and immoveable amid surrounding ruins. They decay, indeed, but they decay by slow and gradual progress, like the everlasting mountains; they are crumbling, but they crumble like the globe! Rome, April 9th. On the 5th, with a heavy heart, I left Naples. The six weeks that we spent there had passed most pleasantly. The delightful climate had improved my health, and the innumerable beautiful and interesting objects in the city and vicinity had gratified my curiosity and given most agreeable occupation. There is something so cheering and entrancing in the balmy air, bright sky, and magnificent scenery of this region, that one may well excuse the extravagance of the people of Naples, when they say it is "un' pezzo di Cielo caduto in Terra," a piece of Heaven fallen to the Earth. We travelled in a vettura-the most common mode in Italy-too slow for the impatient, and too slow for an uninteresting country, but pleasant enough for those who wish to make a leisurely survey of so celebrated and beautiful a one as this. Our fellow travellers were an English and a Scotch gentleman, in the body of the carriage, and two young Neapolitans in the front, or cabriolet. We went over a very rich plain to Capua, which is near the ruins of the ancient city of the same name. We had purposed to visit them, but were prevented by bad weather, which confined us, during our short stay, too much to allow of our examining, particularly, even the modern town. The begging part of the population, however, sent a committee to welcome us on our arrival, and among them a fellow who, for a while, pretended to be deaf and dumb, but recovered his speech before we departed. We lodged at St. Agatha, where we found decent accommodations, at the inn adjoining the post, at the entrance of the town. After riding some distance the next morning, we came within sight of the beautiful promontory, town, and bay of Gaeta. This city is thought to have been founded by Eneas, in honour of his nurse Caieta, and a passage in the seventh Eneid seems to countenance the opinion. In this neighbourhood, as on the shores of Baiae, the luxurious Romans sought for rural enjoyments. Cicero had a villa not far from this bay. Here he was murdered, and a magnificent monument, which we saw near our road, is believed to have been erected to his memory, by his freed-men, at the spot where he was killed. Our second night was spent at Terracina, within the Papal territory, at the foot of the hill on which the ancient Anxur was built. One of the late saxis candentibus, at the entrance of the modern town, is so high and steep, and at the same time so divided from the rest of the mountain as to appear like an immense tower. Before we reached the town we had occasion to observe the sickly hue of the people who live in the vicinity. On the 7th, about a mile from Terracina, we entered on the famous Pontine marshes, which we crossed on the Via Pia, or as some have called it, Via Impia, constructed by Pius VI., principally over the old Appian Way. A large canal runs by its side, which must carry off a great quantity of water, as the current within it is rapid. Forsyth finds fault with the Pope for extending the road through in a right line, and mentions the great quantity of water which lay upon it, but we found it only wet from the rain, and excellent throughout. It may have been an injudicious work, but it is certainly a grand one. The effect of the Pope's labours, however, in draining the marsh, was not so great as he expected. He planted a colony of monks near the western extremity of his road, but so many of them died, that the place was abandoned. An inn is now kept in the building. We stopped there to breakfast, and while one of the servants was setting our table, she was seized with a fit of the ague. After we had passed the marshes, we came to a very pleasant country. In some places we observed great numbers of cork trees. They are evergreens, with leaves resembling those of the evergreen oak, which is common near Naples. We found comfortable lodgings at Velletri. On the 8th we passed through Gensano, celebrated for its wine, and La Riccia, mentioned by Horace in the journey to Brundusium, under the name of Aricia. Near the entrance of Albano stands a large ancient monument, which is called the tomb of the Curiatii, but it is said without foundation. Some suppose it was erected in honour of Pompey. While our mules rested at Albano, we visited its lake, a fine sheet of water, entirely surrounded by high banks, like those of Avernus. Our road to it was along a beautiful avenue of a mile or two in length, conducting to Castel Gandolfo, a summer residence of the Popes. This avenue affords an extensive view of the Campagna di Roma, across which, in the distance, the "Eternal City" is distinctly visible. Near the town and the road to Rome, stands a grand old monument, which is called the tomb of Ascanius, the son of Eneas, who is said to have founded Albano, anciently called Alba Lunga. When we had descended the hill, on which this town stands, we entered upon the Campagna. Most of it is now a mere waste; but it is strewed with the remains of buildings, and with tombs. Of these we had observed many on the preceding day. It would seem that the dwellings of the dead possess a perpetuity which has not been granted to those of the living; as if inanimate matter had been brought into accordance with the immortality of the one, and the perishableness of the other; so that even brick and stone proclaim with mute but powerful eloquence, that the days of man upon earth are but as a tale that is told, and yet that the departed shall endure forever. The tombs in the Papal territory afford a contrast, not only with the houses of the ancients, which have perished while their sepulchres remain; but also with the hovels, which now barely shelter from the inclemency of the weather the descendants of the men to whose memory these magnificent monuments were raised. Some of these huts are in the shape of tents, and some of haystacks. They are composed of thatch, and have no windows, and but one door. We met a few of them on our journey to Pæstum, but have seen more in the neighbourhood of the Imperial City. This region is volcanick. In the Campagna we saw volcanick ashes, and in one place, perceived a strong smell of sulphur. As we approached the city, three or four aqueducts, stretching over the plain, came into view. We entered by the gate of St. John, and passed the church dedicated to that Apostle, which is now the second in Rome, St. Paul's having been burnt. Soon after we came to the Coliseum; but of this wonderful pile I cannot now write. The examination of our trunks, at the custom-house, was slight; and by the kind assistance of our friend, Signor P, we were soon settled in furnished apartments. Translated from Pictet's Christian Theo logy. HOW WE ARE JUSTIFIED BY FAITH. we are covered from the curse of the law; but faith is the flight of the soul to this refuge. The righteousness of Christ is the robe with which we are invested, and which covers our deformity; but faith is the act of the soul by which we put on this precious robe. The righteousness of Christ is the shield by which we are covered from the wrath of God; and faith is the hand, by which, as it were, we hold this shield. Jesus Christ is the sacred victim that has been substituted in our place, and when we put forth the acts of a living faith, we lay our hands upon this victim, and we discharge upon it all our sins, and we are regarded as having expiated them by the victim's blood. We ought not to think it strange that our justification is attributed to faith, rather than to other graces. It is by faith that it might be by grace, says St. Paul, Rom. iv. 16. The Scripture in this way intends to take away from man all ground of glorying in himself; for it could not more effectually humble a man, than by saying that he cannot be justified except by faith, because faith does nothing more than receive, and apply to itself that which it receives. This is the remark of a learned author See then the method in which of the church of Rome. In as faith justifies us— 1. It unites us to Jesus Christ, who is the cause of our justification and our righteousness. 2. Faith receives and accepts the gift which God proffers us of his Son, and makes an application of his righteousness to us, and assures us of his favour. God proposes to us his Son, as the only means of obtaining the remission of our sins and a right to eternal life; faith receives this unspeakable gift. God presents to us let ters of grace; faith is the hand which takes them. The blood of Jesus Christ is our refuge from the wrath of God, and by his blood signing a reason why the Scripture attributes our justification to faith alone, he says "it is because that in faith it appears most clearly, that man is not justified by his own goodness, but by the merit of Christ." Faith then justifies us, not as a work (although, as it is an act of our mind, it may be called a work, and indeed is so called in the Scripture) that is to say, it does not justify us by its dignity, or by its merit. All the merit comes from the blood of Jesus Christ, which our faith embraces, and thus faith justifies us as receiving the merit of the death of our Sa viour. Hence the Scripture joins the blood of Jesus Christ with faith, when it opposes faith to works, Rom. iii. 24. It may appear strange that we should say that faith is a work, and nevertheless that it does not justify as a work. Yet the thing is easily understood. When a beggar stretches out his hand to take an alms which you give him, he performs a work, or an action; yet you do not say that this work or action of the beggar enriches him; it is the gift that enriches him, and not the action of his hand. If faith could justify us as a work, St. Paul would not have distinguished it so particularly and strongly from works. Still, it is necessary to observe, that the faith which justifies us, is always accompanied by repentance, and always works by love. It not only embraces Jesus Christ as our Priest, who has expiated our sins, and merited salvation for us; or our Prophet, who has taught us the mysteries of the will of God; but likewise as our King, who guides and governs us. We ought farther to consider, that God never assures a sinner of the pardon of his sins, unless the sinner exercises both faith and a true repentance for all his sins; and unless he forins a firm resolution to live in future according to the precepts of the gospel, and to perform good works: and he imposes this condition of a living conformity to his high vocation, because no one is to imagine that God in pardoning our sins leaves us at liberty to offend himself Such a thought is most impious. SIMPLICITY IN SERMONS. The following short article from the Christian Observer, though written for the benefit of clergymen in the Episcopal Church of Britain, may not be without its use, if duly regarded, to some of the Presbyterian clergy of the United States. To the Editor of the Christian Observer. It is my lot to have for a pastor a pious and diligent young man, who preaches very sound and scriptural sermons, but unhappily in a style which greatly offends every person of right feeling, for its want of simplicity. Instead of stating a plain truth in plain words, and proving it by a plain text, he attempts to Chalmerise; and having nothing in common with Ulysses but his armour, without either skill or strength to wield it, he makes sad work of his attempted evolutions. He preached on Good Friday a sermon on the atonement, in which there was not a single idea that was not familiar to every child in our Sunday school; but he so clothed his meaning in highsounding words; he discoursed so pompously and mathematically of premises and inferences, of deductions and demonstrations, of incorrect translations, which he corrected by the aid of Dawson's Lexicon, and "the successive stages of our argument," whereas there was no more connexion in the links of the chain than in so many bird's eggs, or rather egg-shells, on a string; that an ignorant villager might have concluded there was something wonderfully profound and original in the discussion which he could not understand; whereas there was nothing in the ideas, stripped of their tunicks, but what was proverbially trite and common-place. I do not blame my young friend for the poverty of his conceptions; but why affect riches? I could be quite content, yea, should rejoice, in the simplest exhibition of Christian truth; but why pretend to metaphysics, and go through the whole series of Scriptural doctrines with an air of research and novelty which only renders the discourse unintelligi ble to the uneducated, and almost ludicrous to those who can fathom its emptiness? Our good divine lately essayed to show that a revelation was necessary; which he did, bating a little paradox, by means of the very same arguments which a national school-boy would have used. I wished for no better, and was willing to hear those once more; but, then, to have them arrayed in the aforesaid form, and spun out into two sermons; and to see my young friend looking down upon us with all the consciousness of superior intellect! How mournful is it that young men of piety should thus fall into the snare of their spiritual enemy, who clothes himself as an angel of light, and persuades them they are setting out a delectable treat for "their intellectual hearers." I think-or, to use my young friend's style, "it is our most decided opinion" we must be permitted to state our unalterable conviction"-that those of the younger clergy who are seriously impressed with the blessed truths which they are commissioned to proclaim, have done wisely in breaking through the long accredited and still common practice of servilely preaching other men's sermons-for I cannot believe that any man whose heart is in his work can do so;-but if, in place of giving us their own discourses in a plain fashion, and studying to improve them by a diligent use of every source of theological information, they affect to imitate the style or the cast of thought of some eminent preacher, I would they would take another man's sermon at once, and give us something better than their own laboured nothings. When a clergyman sets himself to preach Jesus Christ and him crucified, including all the doctrines, privileges, and duties which flow from that inexhaustible fountain of Scriptural suasion, I could listen with pleasure beyond the time usually allot ted to a sermon; but when he tells me of all the fine things he is going to "deduce," while the whole matter at least his conception of it-lies on the surface, and it is no more necessary to effect this process of elaborate deduction—than to deduce coals from the Land's End to New-Castle; I always get weary, and am sometimes, I fear, disgusted. And why? Besides, it savours of affectation; and affectation is the offspring of vanity-it does not rise to what a man of the world would call the dignity of pride; for vanity is a sin which is hateful even to sinners. I should not, however, have said so much, if my good friend had not whispered an intention of printing two volumes of his discourses under the title of "a congeries of pulpit theological demonstrations;" which title our Rural Dean suggested to him in malicious playfulness, when he mysteriously hinted his intention after dinner at the last visitation; but which he took up in good earnest, and will, I fear, adopt, if these remarks should not reach his eye in time to deter him from perpetrating the deed. A Lover of Simple Sermons. FOSTER'S CHARACTER OF Hall. The above is the running title of a Review, in the Eclectic Review of "the Works of Robert Hall, A. M.," in the number of that periodical for June last. It was peculiarly proper that John Foster should delineate the character of Robert Hall; not only because these two distinguished ministers of the Baptist communion were intimate friends, but because it required the high powers of the former, justly to exhibit those of the latter. It may be proper to observe, that it is Mr. Hall's character as a preacher to which alone, or at least chiefly, the following extracts re |