mosque; but as all entrance is strictly forbidden to Christians, he had of course no opportunity of verifying the information. The following account was given of this mosque, in the year 1796, by the mufti of Jerusalem to an European, who conversed with him in Arabic at the house of the governor of Jerusalem, called by the Christians Pilate's house. This European is now in England, and from him we had the following account. "Hearing me speak in Arabic, he entered into conversation with me, and I took the liberty of asking him why the Mohammedans would not permit the Christians to see the celebrated mosque of the rock. Upon which he opened a window which overlooks the mosque and all the ground on which it is raised, and permitted me to look at it as much as I pleased. He then said, "We cannot permit the Christians to tread upon that ground, of which every spot is marked by the step of some holy prophet; still less upon the sakhra, or upon the interior of the mosque."

"But there are thirty-two large columns which support the great arches, and many other small columns for the support of the smaller arches; there are many lamps that are lighted on our festivals. There is a mihrab of marble with architectural ornaments, and a staircase to it with steps of the same material. The walls are incrusted with marble like the great mosque at Damascus, and ornamented with painted tiles. The name of God (Allah!) is written in large characters in several parts of the mosque, as well as the names of Mohammed and his first successors. We believe that if an infidel should walk between the columns they would meet and crush him to death.

"The mosque on account of its peculiar sanctity was once the place towards which the mussulmen of north-western Asia were to turn their faces in their prayers; but this commandment was altered by God's especial order, and the Bait Allah (house of God) at Mecca was appointed for the only Kiblah. On the sakhra or rock were fixed iron rings, at which to tie the the prophets horses when they came to worship in the mosque. The mosque is called by many names by the Mohammedans to denote its superiority over other temples, as al aksa, the whole world, al masgid al aksa, or al giarmiâ al aksa, templum extremum. The origin of its importance seems to have been this: the kalif Abd-al-Malik al Merwan was jealous of Abdallah the son of Zobeîr, the ruler of Arabia, and in order to prevent his subjects in Syria from going in pilgrimage to Mecca, and thus enriching his rival; and probably also with a view to attract the profitable concern of receiving pilgrims from other countries to his own capital, he set up this mosque in opposition to that of Mecca. He adorned and beautified it in the year 685 of the

Christian era, employing the whole revenue of Egypt for nine years for the accomplishment of his design. It is believed on the faith of tradition, that the sakhra or rock is the same from which God spake to the patriarch Jacob, and that the sanctum sanctorum was built where the mosque now stands."

Upon the whole it is impossible to contemplate the holy city in its desolate condition without the deepest interest. Jews, Mahometans, and Christians of all sects and denominations unite in acknowledging the existence of something extraordinary and supernatural about her awful ruins. They raise their heads from the dust, and from among them is heard a voice to warn and instruct mankind, and to proclaim to all ages and nations of the world, THIS HATH GOD DONE.

There is nothing very original, though much that is amusing in M. de Chateaubriand's account of his passage through Egypt. His praise of the French renegadoes, who were left in the country by the army of Egygt, is rather disgusting; and when he proceeds to extol their bravery in that country above that of other uations, we could not help recollecting the answer of the Duke of Marlborough to Marshal Tallard after the battle of Blenheim. M. de Chateaubriand's Abstract of the History of Carthage is very entertaining, though a little too prolix for a mere digression in a book of travels. The account of its ports too, which is one of the three points on which he claims the merit of originality, (see advertisement, p. ix.) may very possibly be correct; but before we read it, we happened to know a little circumstance that called up a smile upon our countenance in every page. M. de Chateaubriand, as we have been informed by an Englishman, who happened to be at Tunis during his residence there, was unfortunately never out of that town till the day before his departure for Europe. He did then take one ride to the ruins of Carthage, and verified by a rapid coup-d'œil what he had previously picked up in conversation at Tunis. Our readers will probably agree with us, that this is a mode of research extremely convenient to valetudinarian travellers.

In taking leave of M. de Chateaubriand, we feel disposed upon the whole to recommend his work to the attention of those who may wish, with little exertion, to obtain a general ideaof the interesting countries through which he passed. We thought the hours spent by us in its first perusal very agreeably employed. Making allowance for national vanity, and the rapidity of his motions and of his ideas, there appears to be no serious or important deviation from truth. His historical researches and quotations from other travellers have been in general made with judgment, and even in those passages where we differ

from his opinions, we are ready to allow him considerable ingenuity. His sense of religion distinguishes him very honourably from many of his countrymen, who, knowing nothing of genuine religion as derived from the scriptures, and judging of it only according to the gross superstitions of their national church, have fallen either into a criminal and pernicious infidelity, or into a state of absolute indifference.

ART. V. Christian Liberty; a Sermon, preached at St. Mary's, before his Royal Highness the Duke of Gloucester, Chancellor of the University, and the University of Cambridge, at the Installation, June 30, 1811. By Samuel Butler, D. D. late Fellow of St. John's College; and Head Master of Shrewsbury School. Shrewsbury. Evans, Pall Mall.

1811.

It is a characteristic of Christianity that " to the poor the gospel is preached." But indeed preaching may be considered as a means scarcely less revealed than the truths themselves which it is appointed to disseminate. For this instrument of propagating truth is peculiar to the true religion, in its different stages, under the distinct modifications of Judaism and Christianity. A good account may certainly be given why the heathen governments did not employ this organ for establishing their various superstitions. A religion of mere form is best taught by the mere exhibition of the form. They had little to teach but the importance of certain feasts and ceremonies, which were too agreeable to the popular taste to need any extrinsic recommendation. Nor was preaching, by which is meant a public and popular enunciation of the truths of religion by its accredited ministers, better suited to those philosophers, who, abandoning the religion of the state, taught an exoteric creed of their own. Not regarding man as an immortal being, the unlettered multitude occupied but a small space in their eyes. Not conceiving that a creed of any kind would affect the condition of man through all eternity, they concerned themselves more with abstract truths than those which respect. our duty On the one hand, therefore, they were little interested in addressing the multitude, and on the other, if they had, the lessons they taught were not such as to excite their attention. Accordingly they suffered the mob to grope on amidst the thick clouds of their own superstition, and taught their particular

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system only to a small circle of scholars. They spoke to the initiated, and only from behind the veil. Even Socrates, who is characterised as having brought down truth from heaven to earth, as having reduced philosophy to the service of man, through fear of disturbing the popular superstition, or letting in the rays of philosophy through the casements of the poor, sacrificed in his dying moments a cock to Esculapius. Of the systems of some other philosophers the mass of the people could scarcely be said to hear even the faintest reports. The mysteries of Dionysia and Eleusis are buried in the caverns in which they were taught and practised. They were the freemasonry of antiquity; or, rather, if we may judge by the outward rites of profligacy which sometimes accompanied the festivities of these religionists, they resembled those anti-christian conspirators described by Barruel, who devised, in the cells of their philosophical retreats, systems and schemes which were to disorganize a world.

But to return. As preaching, in the sense in which we have employed the term, was never used as a part of the machinery, by which it was endeavoured to give effect or circulation to the systems of heathenism, so also it was scantily employed in the Jewish dispensation. The chief objects of that dispensation sufficiently explain why the outward rites were so numerous. It was designed, for instance, to sever one people from all the rest of the world, for which purpose peculiar, costly, and laborious rites were well calculated. It was designed also to typify the sacrifice of the Messiah, which could be accomplished only by ceremonial sacrifices. Now the forms of religion were, as we before observed, best taught by the display of these forms. Nor did the large body of truth connected with these rites in that partial dispensation demand the aid of public and popular instruction to the extent now required. God then preached by miracles, by immediate revelation, by temporal rewards to the good, and temporal punishments to the bad. This instructs us

why the priests and Levites were not appointed to preach, and why the daily reading of the law, and the occasional and scanty ministry of the prophets, supplied the place of the heralds who now proclaim to listening millions the joyful tidings of salvation. When Christianity appeared, the scheme of Divine Providence assumed a new aspect. The barriers were to be thrown down between all nations. The floodgates of mercy were to be opened, and truth to be poured out upon the world.

A highway was to be made in the desert, by which men of all nations and languages might approach to heaven. The people of God were no longer to be a single nation, but the whole

world. Then it was that God seemed, as it were, to consecrate this new instrument as being suited to the vastness of the new dispensation.

Wherever christianity gained an entrance, she entrenched herself behind her established ministers; and to this moment it is chiefly by her preachers, under the Divine blessing, that she retains her old conquests, and carries her standard mto every quarter of the globe. Preaching being thus the right hand by which Christianity does her work, its progress cannot but be watched with anxiety by all the friends of genuine religion and of the establishment.

As self constituted, and therefore more responsible, guardians of the public, we feel it right to keep our eye fixed upon the pulpits of the country; and when any particular sermon by the reputation of its author, by the peculiarity of its subject, or by the circumstances of its delivery, is calculated to influence the public mind, we shall think it right to step in with our scales in our hand, and to estimate the effect of this influence upon the cause of real religion. These observations may serve as a key to some future reviews, and supply an apology for a somewhat extended examination of the single sermon before us.

Dr. Butler, the author of this sermon, is the master of the free school at Shrewsbury. He had, earlier in life, received the stamp of university approbation, by an appointment to edite, we believe, certain plays of Eschylus; and was lately appointed to preach in the university pulpit at the installation of the new chancellor. Such being the case, much was expected from him. It was hoped that when half the fashion and levity of the nation was thus drawn to a point by the university festivities, the preacher might profit from his mechanical advantage, and bring some force to act which might move the mass; that, (if we may pursue a species of metaphor borrowed from his own university,) he would expose those disturbing forces by which men are drawn from their proper orbits, and endeavour to bring them back to the paths traced out for them by the hand of the great mechanist. It will be seen how far the

preacher has fulfilled this hope.

The subject of the sermon is the "liberty wherewith Christ has made us free;" and its chief topics are the distinction as to liberty between the Jewish and Christian dispensation; the nature of the liberty of conduct sanctioned by the example of Christ; the invasion of this liberty by the papists, whom nevertheless he wishes (as it is termed) to emancipate; and the still more formidable and despotic assaults upon it by that body of men, whom he and others persist in naming, with no very