to contemplate the beauties of the surrounding scenery; while Burns is wandering among his native mountains, and making their vast solitudes resound with the name of liberty.'

Many travellers are at a loss in determining what to say at their several stations. Let them be so no longer! This Philosophy of Nature' will always supply some adapted remark, and may serve as a tourist's common-place book, — as the pilgrim's wallet of erudition, to be unpacked and employed any where. It will suffice to look into the index for the word cathedral, castle, cascade, canal, or whatever be the lion of the place, to find an enumeration of the principal objects of that class, accompanied by some curious anecdote, or lively reflection, or poetical motto, or learned reference to writers who have treated concerning them. Thus all the marvels of geography, and all the wonders of the world, may be pressed, by association of idea at least, into the decoration and illustration of a saunter round our native village.

These pages, the author tells us, were the result of hours stolen from application to higher interests, and from the severity of graver subjects; and he praises the periods of tranquil enjoyment during which they were composed. With out this declaration, we should not have inferred that the work had been produced thus casually, since the number of writers consulted, even about little things, is often considerable. They are lively pages, breathing and communicating the bounding elastic spirits of a delighted traveller; and seeming to admit the fresh mountain-air into the musty recesses of the book-room. Though they do not exhibit harmony of taste, nor coincidence of judgment, we have still been pleased with the author's delight, and amused by the very excentricities of his excursion.

ART. IV. Dr. Cook's History of the Reformation in Scotland. [Article concluded from page 296.]

WHILE the church lost a main pillar in the Cardinal of

St. Andrew's, an engine was coming into play in the person of the celebrated John Knox, which was destined to level the majestic fabric with the ground. His labours were beginning to excite attention, his connections were known, and his friendship with the martyr Wishart had attracted notice. Knox, although not in orders, followed the pursuits of a divine. He had been for some time engaged in propagating the reformed tenets: he had composed a catechism in which they were inculcated; and he taught them himself to

young persons, to whom he also explained the Gospel of St. John, and regularly repeated his explanations in a chapel. The friends of the new doctrines were not slow to recognize, in this lay-teacher, such a person as their cause and the times required; which made them earnestly urge him to undertake the discharge of the ministerial duties: but, when the proposal was made to Knox, he pointed out the objections to it which pressed with the greatest force upon his own mind; and, sensible of the necessity of order in the adminis tration of religion, he explicitly declared that he would not run where God had not called him, that he would not without a lawful vocation intrude as a teacher into the church." In order to remove his scruples, a sermon was delivered before him on the election of ministers: in which the preacher

Inculcated that every church had the power to nominate, as teachers or pastors, those whose faith and zeal were approved; and he represented the will of the church, thus expressed, as imposing an obligation to comply with it, which should not be lightly disregarded. The obvious meaning of the preacher was, that when the ordinary mode of providing pastors was necessarily suspended, when a separation, dictated by conscience, had taken place, from the society which had long been revered as the visible church of Christ, and which had established the mode in which admission to the sacred office was to be obtained, it belonged to the infant church to fix upon a new method of procuring ministers, which method was afterwards to be observed by all who entered into its communion.'

After a degree of hesitation which, from his character, we should not have expected in him, Knox at length complied with the intreaties of his friends, and made his appearance in the pulpit.

That appearance confirmed his friends in the wisdom of their choice, struck consternation into the advocates of the established faith, and shewed how rapidly the protestant doctrines had gained ground in Scotland. The object of his discourse was to prove that the pope was antichrist; that the church of Rome was corrupted; that its laws and doctrines were repugnant to those of the Gospel; and that the appellations given to the pontiffs were inconsistent with just views of the nature of religion, and might be considered even as blasphemous.

Such decided language, impressed upon the mind by his fervent eloquence, deeply agitated those who heard it. Many listened to it with the most enthusiastic admiration; declared, that while others had hewn down the branches of popery, he had struck at the root; and all perceived how much the power of the church was weakened, when tenets, infinitely more offensive and dangerous to it than those for which Wishart had so lately been condemned to the stake, were stated and enforced in the presence of the most faithful partizans of Rome.'

Dr. Cook

1

Dr. Cook is laudably zealous for the honour of the churchestablishment of which he is a member; and, as its model was taken from Calvin, he pronounces a warm panegyric on that celebrated person, and shews how much more favourable his circumstances were to the discovery and pursuit of truth than those of Luther. If for Luther we substitute Cranmer, the comparison will be still more in Calvin's favour.

The manner in which Knox was introduced into the ministerial office will account for the obloquy which has usually been connected with his name in this part of the island. If he had happened to have taken orders, even though they had been conferred on him by the profligate and persecuting Beaton, or some equally decorous prelate of the antient church, the reflections cast on him by certain writers would have been spared, and his name would have been mentioned with the same respect which is allotted to those of the other Reformers. In order to give our readers some idea of the state of the human mind at this time, and of the progress which it has since effected, we are induced to make extracts from Dr. Cook's account of a very trivial and ridiculous controversy, in which the ancestors of our present highly enlightened fellow-subjects were engaged:.

Richard Marshal, prior of the Blackfriars at Newcastle, had been in St. Andrew's, and had maintained, in a sermon, the very obvious doctrine, that the Lord's prayer should be addressed only to God, and not to saints. This position, harmless as it was true, excited the pious indignation of some of the doctors of the university, and they very idly employed another friar to confute it. They were as injudicious in the choice of their advocate, as they had been of the cause for which they wished him to contend. He was ignorant, but full of confidence in his own talents and attainments; and he delivered a defence of the tenet espoused by the university, which, more strongly than any reasoning, exposed its absurdity. He affirmed that the Lord's prayer might be said to saints, because all the petitions in it had a relation to them. This strange assertion he thus illustrated: If we meet an old man in the streets, we say to him, Goodmorrow, father; much more then may we say to one of the saints, Our father: We admit that they are in heaven, consequently we may address any of them, Our father in heaven: God hath made their names holy, we may, therefore, in praying to one of them, use the expression, Hallowed be thy name: As they are in the kingdom of heaven, that kingdom is theirs by possession, and we may justly say to each of them, in the language of the petition, Thy kingdom come. In this manner he attempted to shew the propriety of addressing to the saints all the petitions. But the people, although they were only beginning to emerge from the gloominess of ignorance, listened to him with contempt; they were even unable to preserve the gravity becoming a place of worship, and the children, amused with what had

excited

excited so much ridicule, denominated the unlucky priest Friar Pater Noster.

It is from such anecdotes, ludicrous as they are, that we can often, most satisfactorily determine the state of sentiment, and of intellectual' improvement, at the period when they happened.'

The clergy and the doctors of the University did not choose to let the matter rest here, but judged this a worthy occasion. for applying the quibbling and subtile distinctions of their ridiculous logic:

• Some of them maintained that the Lord's prayer was said to God formaliter, and to the saints materialiter; others held that it was said to God principaliter, and to the saints minus principaliter but after fully discussing the merit of these and some other explanations, the greater number concluded, that it should be said to God capiendo stricte, to the saints capiendo largè. Upon such intricate speculations, however, the learned members of the university did not wish to trust altogether to their own judgment, and they modestly referred the decision of the point to a provincial synod, which had been sum moned to meet on the following January.'

Dr. Cook next mentions a tale which is apparently very insignificant, but which, in our opinion, strongly shews the turn which things at this time were taking.

The numerous and long-protracted meetings of the doctors naturally excited the curiosity of the people, and a confidential servant of the sub-prior presumed to ask what had occasioned them. His master, with great good humour, told him the subject of debate, and the servant, guided by the dictates of common sense, with some surprize asked, To whom should the Lord's prayer be said but unto God? The sub-prior replied, What should be done with the saints? The answer very strikingly shews that the popular reverence for the popish faith was beginning to be shaken, Give them ave's and credo's enow, in the devil's name, for that may suffice them.'

At the same synod which had been convened to settle this controversy, the good fathers, in order that the merits of instructing the people should not exclusively belong to those whom they denounced as heretics, resolved

That they would themselves now, in some measure, open to the Catholic church that sacred volume, which, for ages, they had buried in obscurity. They accordingly published a catechism, containing a short but clear explanation of the ten commandments, the apostle's creed, and the Lord's prayer. The officiating priests were enjoined to read a part of it when there was no sermon; and it was circulated through the country with a diligence which was the most severe satire upon the former conduct of the clergy;

It is commonly supposed that this catechism was composed by the archbishop. It is written with great moderation, and does much credit to his talents and to his theological attainments. There is not much pointed allusion to subjects of controversy; and had it derived REV. DEC. 1814.

Bb

its

its origin from an unfeigned desire to enlighten mankind, it would have reflected upon the primate the most deserved reputation. It was sold for twopence of Scots money; a sum so inconsiderable, that, even in these days, when the value of money was so much higher than at present, it could not have defrayed the expence of printing. It was, in fact, printed at the expence of the archbishop, and this small charge was probably intended to compensate for the trouble of spreading the book through the kingdom. The greater part of the inhabitants of Scotland received, however, with little gratitude, what they considered as an extorted gift; undervalued the merit which it really possessed, and with derision termed it the Twopenny Faith.'

This statement evinces in a striking manner that measures, which if seasonably adopted, would prove salutary, lose all their efficacy by delay. With just exultation, it is here observed,

It is pleasant to dwell upon this interesting step to improvement. It shews, in the most striking light, the admirable tendency of the Reformation, which not only directly contributed to the intellectual and moral advancement of those who embraced it, but imparted a portion of its beneficent influence even to the system which it opposed; correcting its most flagrant abuses, and vindicating the sacred right of human beings to the blessings derived from religious instruction.'

Indeed, previously to this time, the friends of the antient church

• Adopted a resolution, much more in harmony with the mild spirit of Christianity than their attempts to renew persecution; a resolution which, had it been at an earlier period formed and carried into execution, would have probably saved the wealth, and preserved the respectability of the church. They agreed to preach in succession every Lord's day; and instead of irritating the passions, or rousing the innovating zeal of their audience, by discoursing upon the controverted points which had been so keenly agitated, to enlighten the people by explaining those fundamental doctrines of the Gospel, which all denominations of believers with reverence embraced. Even Knox was compelled to admit, not only that this had the appearance of godliness, but that the design was faithfully executed; and although he insinuates, what perhaps was the case, that the desire of excluding him from the pulpit, which had before been open to him, suggested the resolution, he honestly confesses, that Christ Jesus was preached, and prays that so great a blessing might be continued.'

These modes of resisting the Reformation were, as far as we recollect, if not peculiar to Scotland, very rare in other countries.

Knox had not long commenced his ministerial career, before the clergy became fully sensible of the mighty effects which resulted from his labours, and desirous of putting out of the way so powerful an enemy to their cause. For this purpose,

they