In the 349th Hymn,-Watts wrote, (we believe,) 'Some fresh memorial of His grace,'-some one, to make that line rhyme, has changed 'grace,' senselessly, to '] raise.' A change of the matching word days' to 'race,' would have kept the sense. In that delightful thing, 'Jerusalem, my happy home,' why need hard hands have been laid upon this touching verse, "Oh! when, thou city of our God,

Shall I thy courts ascend,

Where congregations ne'er break up,

And Sabbaths have no end?"

The Committee have left faults that ought to have been corrected. The paltry bustle of the first verse of the 79th,

"Come, let us anew, &c.,

Roll round with the year,

And never stand still, till our Master appear,"

reminding one of some girls' game, ought to be changed, or the verse abolished. The other verses are excellent.

In the 106th, (by Lyte, who writes excellently,) are these words, at which, because of their connection, we will not ask the reader to smile:

"Could crush His murderers with a word,

If such had been His aim !

In reading such a line as, 'O Lord, how vile am I!' (Hymn 240th,) or its parallel, in another collection,

"Lord! what a feeble piece,

Is this our mortal frame!"

how can one help smiling, when he thinks that the least irreverent way of understanding it is as an oath? What an absurdity is this to be sung, (383d Hymn :)

"Feel as if now my feet

Were slipping o'er the brink;
For I may now be nearer home,

Much nearer than I think!

The accent in the 3d verse of the 7th, is wrong: let 'perfect made' be read for 'perfected,' and it is right. In the 24th, the waves divide,

And land us all in heaven,"

is bad. In the 31st, 2d line, the accent, again; 'Perfecting the saints below;' in the 69th, 2d, 'When He came, the angels sung,' the Grammar: in the 137th, the same fault: And sung the triumph; in the 217th, 3d,

"With saints enthroned on high,
Thou dost the Lord proclaim,"

the doctrine is not quite safe. In the 308th, (Luther's,) why not change the awkward 'That Thou'lt repel him not, O Lord ?'

We have no room (if there were need) for recording all the slight blemishes that might, possibly, be found: we have not attempted it; and we have done enough, we think, to show that a later edition may be bettered. So, too, we have not room to mention, by first lines-from the Hymns that our rich language will yet furnish, freely, though our Committees' vintage is done, a twentieth part of those that seem to us much better than a great many to be found in this book. We will suggest a few of these:

Mrs. Barbauld's, in which are the verses,

"Sleep, sleep to-day tormenting cares,
Of earth and folly born, &c.,

Watt's 'Unveil thy bosom, sacred tomb;' his 'Almighty Maker, God!' Keep silence, all created things;' 'Great God, how infinite art Thou !' 'My God, my Portion and my Love!' Thy hand, unseen, sustains the poles;' Up to the fields where angels lie;' With songs and honors sounding loud;' Doddridge's 'O ye immortal throng;' his 'Amazing, beauteous change!' these are all uncommonly good. Less known, but very beautiful, are Taylor's

"There is a green hill, far away," and so on, snatching at random from many that we have marked, we would suggest that there is much that is as good as the very good, and, evidently, altogether superior to a good many of the Committee's Hymns.

Near the outset we mentioned special and peculiar classes of men as specially needing to be provided for; let us end with showing how easily this may be done and others gratified at the same time.

Sailors and fishermen belong, by the ten thousand, to our Church, or are open to its influence; fine, manly fellows, many of them, with hearts and voices; some of them pious; all of them needing as much love and help as the most tempted of landsmen. The Book of Common Prayer has one hymn (Heber's) specially for them. Why can we not take into our books such a stirring piece as "Homeward bound," beginning:

"Out on an ocean all boundless we ride;

We're homeward-bound,-homeward-bound!
Wildly the storm sweeps us on as it roars;
We're homeward-bound,-homeward-bound.
Look, yonder lie the bright heavenly shores :
We're homeward-bound,-homeward-bound:
Steady, O pilot! stand firm at the wheel;
Steady! we soon shall outweather the gale.
Oh! how we fly, 'neath the loud creaking sail!
We're homeward-bound,-homeward-bound.'

Our Committee have wisely not pushed out a Hymn for being popular and effective; why not such as this? and could none of us sing such a thing heartily beside sailors? The Star of Bethlehem is admirable:

"When marshalled on the nightly plain,

The glittering host bestud the sky,

One star alone of all the train

Can fix the sinner's wandering eye.

"Hark! hark! to God a chorus breaks
From all the host, from every gem:
But one, alone, the Saviour speaks;

It is the Star of Bethlehem."

In this, as in others, slight touches might be wanted; but no Compilers were ever bashful on that point, and our Committee have better warrant than the common run of Compilers.

One little piece more we give in full, and print at length; we think it will make, for the moment, sailors of almost all of us:

"At anchor laid, remote from home,
Toiling I cry, sweet Spirit, come!
Celestial breeze, no longer stay,

But swell my sails and speed my way!

Fain would I feel that fair breeze blow,

And heave my anchor from below:

But I can only spread my sail;

Thou, Thou must breathe the auspicious gale!"

Providing for classes by no means necessarily deprives others. Feeling deeply and acknowledging gladly, how much we all owe to the Compilers of this excellent book, we have, in what we have written of it, wished to secure its being kept open, to be made far richer yet; and to be weeded out by the rule, that not what is correct enough in doctrine, and grammar, and versification, has a claim to stand in our Hymn-book; but only what is decidedly excellent.

ART. III.-JOHN WESLEY ON SEPARATION FROM THE CHURCH.

The Works of the Reverend JOHN WESLEY, A. M., Sometime Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford. First American, from the latest London Edition, &c. In Seven Volumes. New York: Waugh & Mason. 1832.

In the present divided state of the Methodist Society in this country, there are many persons, including, not unlikely, not a few of the Preachers in that denomination, who will be interested in knowing what the real opinions of John Wesley were, as to the character of the great movement which he was mainly instrumental in inaugurating. The prevailing religious apathy of the age in which he lived, his own deep convictions as to the reality and power of the Life of God in the soul of man, and some peculiar views which he held as to the nature of that Life, led him, though, as he says, regarded as a "High Churchman," to institute a system of certain extraordinary and temporary means to accomplish certain extraordinary ends. But John Wesley had no idea of establishing a "New Church," or of being the founder of a religious body which would separate from the Church of England, of which he was a Minister. To this he was opposed, not on grounds of prudence or expediency, but, as he said again and again, “as a point of conscience." All the reasons, which weighed with him then, have ten-fold greater weight now, for those who call themselves his disciples, and profess to be his followers.

We have gathered out of the Works of Mr. Wesley a few extracts from his writings, which, though comparatively brief, are enough to show how radically different the opinions of John Wesley were from the popular notions of multitudes of those who now bear his name. The increasing number of those who are leaving that sect and returning to the Church of which John Wesley was a Minister, and to which, even to the last, he