es of Dialogues and Letters on the most
important points of personal religion, in which, after the example of
Cicero, solid instruction is conveyed amidst the charms of landscape,
and the amenities of friendly intercourse. This latter work is
memorable as one of the first attempts to popularize systematic
divinity; and it should undeceive those who deem dulness the test of
truth, when they find the theology of Vitringa and Witsius enshrined in
one of our finest prose poems. It was hailed with especial rapture by
the Seceders of Scotland, who recognized "the Marrow" in this lordly
dish, and were justly proud of their unexpected apostle. Many of them,
that is, many of the few who achieved the feat of a London journey,
arranged to take Weston on their way, and eschewing the Ram Inn and the
adjacent Academy, they turned in to Aspasio's lowly parsonage. Here they
found a "reed shaking in the wind:"--a panting invalid nursed by his
tender mother and sister; and when the Sabbath came, James Erskine, or
Dr. Pattison, or whoever the pilgrim might be, saw a great contrast to
his own teeming meeting-house in the little flock that assembled in the
little church of Weston Favel. But that flock hung with up-looking
affection on the moveless attitude and faint accents of their emaciated
pastor, and with Scotch-like alacrity turned up and marked in their
Bibles every text which he quoted; and though they could not report the
usual accessories of clerical fame--the melodious voice, and graceful
elocution, and gazing throng--the visitors carried away "a thread of the
mantle," and long cherished as a sacred remembrance, the hours spent
with this Elijah before he went over Jordan. Others paid him the
compliment of copying his style; and both among the Evangelical
preachers of the Scotch Establishment and its Secession, the
"Meditations" became a frequent model. A few imitators were very
successful; for their spirit and genius were kindred; but the tendency
of most of them was to make the world despise themselves, and weary of
their unoffending idol. Little children prefer red sugar-plums to white,
and always think it the best "content" which is drunk from a painted
cup; but when the dispensation of content and sugar-plums has yielded to
maturer age, the man takes his coffee and his cracknel without observing
the pattern of the pottery. And, unfortunately, it was to this that the
Herveyites directed their chief attention, and hungry people ha