JOHN HEWLETT, B.D.

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CHAPELS are now too numerous. thers, acting upon elevated conceptions of divine worship, bequeathed to us temples not unworthy of national devotion; monuments of the august piety of past ages, which still excite admiration, without influencing conduct. Money can be found for any thing except the promotion of our established religion. Many people talk of despoiling the church, and conventicles spring up among us like exhalations. but there is scarcely the man who thinks of raising new national edifices for divine worship. Churches, not chapels, are nevertheless wanted: -churches, on an enlarged and devotional plan, where high and low, rich and poor, may fully mingle in the worship of their common Creator, in the way to their common Heaven! Theological affairs seem lamentably reversed.

Those to whom the Gospel was first preached, are now the last in ecclesiastical consideration. It is for the rich, and not the poor, that places

of religious instruction are erected; and it is to the rich, instead of the poor, that many popular pastors ambitiously address their labours.

However inelegant the assertion may appear, whatever deficiency of taste it may discover, I must unequivocally object to the mode of conducting divine worshsip in the Foundling Chapel. It is theatrical in the extreme. Survey the audience, particularly the female portion of it, hanging on the extatic warblings, delightful thrillings, and electrifying shakes of two practised singers.- Charming!' softly exclaims one lady:- Beautiful! divine!' rapturously adds her friend: while a third, unable to suppress her emotions, heaves the sigh of deleetation, and scarcely restrains her applauding hands!!! Are these divine extacies? Is this the enthusiasm of devotion? Every thing studiously aids this sense of temporal fascina tion. The lightness of the building itself, and,

at other times, the brilliancy of its illumination; the youth and gaiety of the greater part of the assembly, not to call it an audience, composed of coquetting lasses and ogling lovers and (what, however, is of secondary effect) a most accomplished, and fashionably captivating, style of preaching. Religion, of course, ventures rarely to intrude herself among such splendid worshippers of melody and oratory.

Addison, in one of his admirable essays, describes the gratification he felt in accidentally hearing the Ritual of the Church of England seriously and emphatically read. The performance of this portion of our Divine Service ought to be considered of the highest importance; since, in the opinion of many, it would admit of judicious curtailments; and its present length, together with the frequency of its repetitions, must be rendered acceptable principally by the manner in which it is delivered. There is, however, much to complain of on this head. Either the ministers of religion do not rightly estimate the nature of this part of their duty,

or they are too generally incompetent to the discharge of it. Cowper, among his accusations against the clergy, complains of sculls that cannot teach;' but of tongues that cannot read, painful and numerous as they are, he makes no mention. Incapacity and indevotion on the part of the reader, naturally generate inattention and indifference in the minds of his hearers what he performs as a task, they feel as a toil; and, instead of entering into the spirit of its liturgy, many members of the established church, otherwise heartily attached to it, merely endure the routine of its rites and ceremonies. What aggravates this evil, is the cause to which chiefly it may be traced. It is not the want of a volume of voice; it is not the absence of imperative looks and authoritative tones, arranged gestures and studied emphases; these are not the deficiencies which I should specify in a clerical reader. Tremulousness of supplication, and distinctness of enunciation, are the qualifications he should most cultivate. If his heart be but serious, it will give light to

his understanding, and to his manner an awful dignity. His situation is holy; and the sacredness of the office confers sanctity on him who officiates. His deportment, indeed, may dissipate this divine illusion; but, what shall extenuate his offence!

Pleased am I to observe, however, of the Rev. John Hewlett, that his pulpit labours are eminently calculated to impress the understandings, and improve the dispositions, of the numerous audiences to which they are continually addressed. He is the Morning Preacher at the Foundling Hospital; and his hearers, being chiefly those who attend morning service, are necessarily less promiscuous, and consequently more reputable, than numbers of such persons as are seen thronging to the devotion of the evening.

Of the individual history of Mr. Hewlett, I am enabled to state, that he kept a school, for some years, at Shacklewell; with which, however, he has parted, rather advantageously.. He is of Magdalene College, Cambridge. Mr.