"I stretched out my hands towards the regions of existence, and implored the Lord of creation to change my punishment if it were but to the torments of the damned, that I might escape that frightful solitude; but my horror was too dreadful for a moment's endurance, and I awoke. I adore the goodness of the great Father who has thus taught me the value of society, while he allows me time to taste the pleasures of doing good."

I am not about to improve this story by recommending it to my reader to dream for the sake of reformation. Indeed, I would hope there are no Carazans in the city; and yet I cannot but fear there are some to whom so pungent a dream would be very useful. Dreams will come when they will, and I am not certain I shall not have a paroxysm of dreaming before I get through these numbers. But there is a mode of gaining information at the option of every person, and that I am about to recommend-I mean reading. Every person, it is well known, has not leisure for general reading, but every person can read enough to answer the purpose of the present recommendation. The unhappy prejudice subsisting in this city against New-England sentiments would infallibly yield, and be completely dissipated by a proper acquaintance with the books in which those sentiments are contained. These prejudices have not been planted so deep, and cherished with such vigour, by the perusal of books, but by deriving an account of their books and tenets through a medium which has given them a stain foreign to their nature. It has been done by perversion.

True, indeed, a mind already prepossessed, and strongly opinionated in error, may not be convinced by reading a book wherein the truth is stated. But even this will not hold good as a general rule, and in application to great bodies of people. The public mind, depraved as men are, will, generally, soon get right where the proper means of information are afforded.

I earnestly recommend to the people of the city to direct their attention to some of the books I shall hereafter name. They may rest assured that, even provided they should begin to read them with prejudice and disgust, they will end with pleasure and conviction; will rise up from the perusal acknow

ledging themselves instructed and cured of their antipathy. They may be assured that those persons whom they hear daily condemning those writings, have never read them. They are imposed upon in this business, and their credulity is shamefully abused. They are exactly like the man I have heard of within a day or two, who was strongly condemning the Triangle, and a person present asked him if he had read it; he said no, but had his account from Mr. Honeygall: well, but had Mr. Honeygall read it? Why no, he had not read it, because he would not read so huge a thing; it would be wicked to read it. (Aside.) He never reads any thing.

So, reader, it is just as wicked for these sage censors of books to read the New-England books; and my word for it, they have not that sin to answer for. I ask the great and learned Dr. Buckram, (not that there is any such man in reality, I only use that name in a kind of allegorical or metaphysical sense ;) I ask him whether he has ever read "Edwards on the Will?" Hah! he must think of it.

I must here let the good people into a secret of us bookmen which, perhaps, they don't know. It is the practice of some great readers, when they have read the title of a book and its contents, and cut into a paragraph here and there, to say they have read it; nor do they think it lying. Some, I believe, venture so far as to say they have read a book, when they have only read the letters on the back side: but that is going too far: I never do that.

A powerful appeal lies from this subject to the patriotic feelings of every American. Were any of us in France or England, and should hear them commending the writers of our own country, we should feel a secret gratification arising from our national attachment; we should feel it an honour done to ourselves; and so it would be. We feel a pleasure in hearing the greatness of Washington, the talents of Franklin and Rittenhouse, extolled. Every American is gratified at hearing the eloquent Chatham declare, in the British parliament, the American Congress to be one of the noblest bodies of men ever as

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sembled.* We are not backward to assert the equality, if not the ascendency, of our naval and military character. We boast of our inventions in the arts-of our success in manufactures.

And with such varied excellence of talent, would it not be extraordinary if, in the theological department, something important and respectable had not been achieved? The fame of exhibiting to the world the first perfect experiment of religious freedom and toleration cannot be denied us; and Europe herself has enrolled and immortalized the name of our first theological writer. Is the thought incredible that such a man as Edwards should kindle the genius and rouse the talents of his countrymen? He did it; and has been followed by a constellation of divines and writers on theology, to whom, if the immaturity of our seminaries denied the most perfect classical excellence, nature had not denied intellectual powers of the first order, and posterity will not deny the honour of the first grade of usefulness and importance in their profession.

The perusal of their writings, by the people of this city, will be attended with several good effects which I shall particularly distinguish.

1. It will diminish, if not exterminate, their prejudices against New Divinity. For they will be surprised to find their great and leading doctrines, such as a general atonement, &c., to be the same as taught by the ablest and most orthodox divines since the reformation. The notion of moral inability was never a fabrication of the New-England divines; they will find, in the clearest and best writers of England, the same idea.

2. They will find themselves instructed and pleased. Books and Essays written, and Sermons delivered, in places where the work of God is carried on, cannot but derive an unction, a life and spirit, from the occasions that gave them birth. As the face of Moses shone when he descended from Sinai's glorious vision, so men greatly employed and honoured in the work of God, will transfuse through their writings the spirit of that work.

* At the commencement of the revolution.

It is a mournful fact, and will one day be as deeply deplored by those who have done it, as by those against whom it has been done, that the standard of opposition against those men and their writings should be lifted in New-York: that this highly-favoured city should be made the opposing bulwark-the breastwork of opposition. I rejoice to think that such walls as men build are not high, nor their foundations deep. I have no fear for the ultimate success of truth; but I fear for those who are opposing its progress-especially for those who are held in darkness by the craft and ambition of others. The chariot of salvation will not be impeded; it is guided by one who can save and can destroy.

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It shall be the object of this Number to state to the good people of this city, and of the country and nation, wherever these presents shall come, what documents, and books, and writings-in short, what resources may be resorted to, in order to discover what those sentiments are which are falsely called new divinity, and, very unappropriately, Hopkinsianism. To this I now solicit the reader's attention.

Jonathan Edwards, I have elsewhere said, was the great master spirit of his day. Perhaps no man ever evinced more capaciousness of understanding and strength of intellect than he. This is the opinion of very competent judges, and probably will not be denied. His writings are numerous, among which his Inquiry concerning the Will was his greatest production, and may be considered as forming the basis of the distinguishing tenets of New-England divinity, as far as it contains any distinctive features. Of this. I have spoken in the former series. After this, his work on Religious Affections may perhaps be next in point of importance. Had this been the only book he published, it would have rendered his name immortal. On this ground, explored by thousands of writers, he was often original, generally interesting, and always unanswerable. His History of Redemption, a work left immature, was sufficient to show the force and splendour of his talents. Various other important works were also published by him, which brevity forbids me to enumerate; but his numerous sermons, as many of them were delivered in periods of religious revival, and were more blessed

Else why do I see these asylums for the sons and daughters of affliction-these grand and extensive hospitals, alms-houses, and receptacles for every class of the wretched from the keen and blighting storm of misfortune, whose extended and lofty walls might vie with the palace of a monarch? whose numerous apartments, and ample provisions, seem to promise repose and comfort to all that need? Else why do I see long ranks of poor children, of helpless orphans, enfilading the streets, to be instructed on the sabbath; and that by gentlemen, and even ladies, of rank and fortune, whose only remuneration is the pleasing consciousness of benefiting such as, by their tender and helpless years, can have no knowledge of the extent of the benefit intended?

There is a nobleness of soul, a grandeur of sentiment, a disinterestedness of heart, which soars as far above all consideration of self as the heavens are above the earth. An hour's enjoyment of that sublime pleasure is worth more than a Roman triumph-more than all the years through which ambition toils and climbs, even though it gain the summit. There is such a thing as doing good for the sake of the pleasure it brings; and he who knows not what that means is a stranger to pleasure. Let me here, for the sake of those who have never read it, repeat the story of Carazan; and which, though I cannot reach the style of its author, and may give it but imperfectly, (having no book before me,) may furnish a useful lesson to some who may read it.

Carazan was the richest merchant in Bagdat, with no children or dependants; his expenses had been small, and, with a prosperous run of business in the silk and diamond trade of India for many years, he had amassed immense treasures. He met with no losses, his caravans were expeditious, traded with success, and returned in safety. One enterprise made way for another; every successive project was formed on a greater scale, and all were terminated with success. Business was swayed by his influence; merchants depended on his will; nobles and princes envied his magnificence, and even the caliph feared his power.