Oh! think the darlings of thy love,
Divested of this earthly clod,
Amid unnumber'd saints above,

Bask in the bosom of their God.
Of their short pilgrimage on earth
Still tender images remain;

Still, still they bless thee for their birth,
Still, filial gratitude retain.

The days of pain, the nights of care,
The bosom's agonizing strife,

The pangs which thou for them didst bear,
No! they forgot them not with life.
Scarce could their germing thought conceive,
While in this vale of tears they dwelt,
Scarce their fond sympathy relieve

The suff'rance thou for them hast felt.
But there the soul's perennial flow'r
Expands in never-fading bloom,
Spurns at the grave's poor transient hour,
And shoots immortal from the tomb.

No weak, unform'd idea, there

Toils, the mere promise of a mind;

The tide of intellect flows clear,

Strong, full, unchanging and refin'd.
Each anxious care, each rending sigh,
That wrung for them the parent's breast,
Dwells on remembrance in the sky,
Amid the raptures of the blest.
O'er thee with looks of love they bend,
For thee the Lord of life implore;
And oft from sainted bliss descend,
Thy wounded quiet to restore.
Oft in the stillness of the night
They smooth the pillow for thy bed;

Oft, till the morn's returning light,

Still watchful hover o'er thy head.
Hark! in such strains as saints employ,
They whisper to thy bosom, Peace;
Calm the perturbed heart to joy,

And bid the streaming sorrow cease.
Then dry henceforth the bitter tear,
Their part and thine inverted see;
Thou wert their guardian angel here,
They guardian angels now to thee.

January 12, 1807.

Review.

ART. I.-A Careful and Free Inquiry into the true Nature and Tendency of the Religious Principles of the Society of Friends, commonly called Quakers. In two Parts. By WILLIAM CRAIG BROWNLEE, A. M. Minister of the Gospel. Philadelphia. John Mortimer. 1824.

It would seem that Mr. Brownlee was predestined to write this book; for that is all we can gather from what he quaintly denominates the proem' to his work. This proem,-and proem let it be, for it is not an introduction, nor a preface, nor any thing else, that has relation to the business of the book, but apparently a mere fancy piece, to grace the author's pedigree, or, perchance, to account for his being an author ;this proem, we say, occupies a fair eighth part of the volume in the outset, with an account of a certain Thomas, laird of Torfoot, (Mr. B.'s ancestor, he lets us know,)-of some of the leading Scotch Covenanters, with whom, it appears, that he was acquainted,-and of the battles of Drumclog and Bothwell-bridge, in which he had a share. This is a pretty strange opening to a history of the peaceful sect of Quakers. Nor can these forty pages have the apology, as has been still more strangely said, of being an account of the author's own early life, since the events they commemorate happened a century and a half ago. But, not to be detained too long in this vestibule, singular as it is;-the laird of Torfoot, it seems, was possessed with an inveterate hostility to the Quakers. He even went so far as to vent his displeasure in sundry manuscripts, which he bequeathed to his family, in the following style: Let them gae doon as ane heir-loom in the feemily, till sum ane o' me bairns, sall, under God, compleet the wark, out o' the rich materials to be had in the toon of that singulair and graite mann, Maister William Pen, in the Province of Pennsylvania,'-for he prophesied that his family would emigrate to this country.

Mr. Brownlee has fulfilled the destiny, that was left to be accomplished in his family. He has written a book against

the Quakers. He has written with a spirit worthy of the polemicks of the solemn League and Covenant. We are almost ready to retract the charge of inappositeness, which we have brought against his proem. The battles of Drumclog and Bothwell-bridge are but a prelude to the war of words he has waged against the peaceable Society of Friends. We can hardly help asking, as we read his pages, 'what have these people done to Mr. Brownlee?' He writes, as if he had a personal quarrel, or pique, against them. We scarcely know how otherwise to account for the spirit of his work; unless, indeed, it is hereditary, and his ancestor of Torfoot is answerable. At any rate, we feel bound to express our conviction, that such a style of reviewing religious sects, in this age, is deserving of signal rebuke. It would better become the days of which Mr. B.'s proem treats. For the Puritan, the Quaker, and the Covenanter, there was some apology. They were persecuted. They were struggling for their just rights. The hand that wielded the pen for truth and justice, oftentimes for the same truth and justice had wielded the sword; or else had been chained down in the loathsome prison. These men, moreover, lived two hundred years ago. But for a man, in this age and country, sitting in his easy chair, with none to hurt or make him afraid, and with so many better examples before his eyes,-we say not, to vent such railing and abuse ;-but to vent such railing and abuse, and call it history- a careful inquiry'-is inexcusable. And no less impolitick; for admitting that Mr. Brownlee were right in his estimate of Quakerism, no candid man will confide in his statements. No man, who understands the difficulty of the task he has undertaken to execute; who is aware that passion and prejudice can make any thing out of old religious documents; who comprehends the need there is in such a work of singular discrimination, impartiality, and calmness, will rely upon a witness, who spreads out, upon every page, such abundant proof of his deficiency in these qualifications. It seems to us, that every fair-minded man would say, on reading the book,- this may be right, or wrong; but at any rate it is totally unsatisfactory.'

We are not complaining of Mr. B.'s creed. We say nothing of his sweeping dogmatism; though we have been so much accustomed, of late, to greater urbanity of religious dis

cussion, that his book comes to us as a sort of novelty. He appears, indeed, to hold just that sort of crude undistinguishing, voracious Calvinism, which makes a man a stout-hearted dogmatist and railer. But this matters not. Mr. Brownlee, we hope, has kept a good conscience, though we are not quite sure of it; but we are sure that he has sacrificed catholicism, and candour, and good sense; that he has sacrificed those claims to credit, which neither the plea of a good conscience nor a good creed can recover for him. He never appears once in his book, as a calm inquirer, but every where as a fierce champion. Every investigation, if such his declamations can be called, begins with dogmatical assertions of what is true, proceeds with an evident determination to find fault, and ends with bitter sarcasms or pathetick efforts at lamentation. The margin of the book is filled with a show of references it is true, but in the text, we have little more of the Quaker writers than scraps and snatches of sentences, with a liberal running commentary of Mr. Brownlee's, which gives to his author, of course, the complexion that suits his purpose. It is not a love of truth, we fear, which supplies the main impulse, for he appears about as eager to put the Friends in the wrong, in the matter of the hat, as he is on the subject of the Trinity.

The book every where abounds with the grossest personalities. It is not an attack upon principles, but upon men. It is little that he brings down upon them the charges of infidelity and deism; but he constantly denies, even to such men as Penn and Barclay, the credit of common honesty, in the maintenance and defence of their opinions. From slander,and all the world will pronounce it such, he proceeds to coarse banter, and coarser indelicacy. The man who listens to a female preacher, is a 'hen-pecked sufferer,' yea, ‘martyr;' who is subjected to 'dominion of the petticoat;' and he addresses such in the dignified strain-Oh! hen-pecked, and far from peace,' &c.; and the woman who exhorts, is 'the petticoated preacher.' If this is the 'banter,' to which we have alluded, we presume our readers will excuse us from citing the instances of 'indelicacy.'

There has been a growing feeling, in the Christian world, and there is now a very prevalent feeling of respect and good will towards the society of Friends. We suppose it is having

caught something of this Jax and wicked feeling of charity, that the less prepared us for the pages of Mr. Brownlee. For really we should have been scarcely more surprised at the actual incursion of a military force upon a peaceful settlement of Friends, than we have been at the noise of his declamation, the parade of his exclamations, and the firm assaults of his hostility. We have seen one or two redeeming paragraphs pointed out, which it is said present Mr. Brownlee in a more amiable character. With one of these precious morceaux, we will close this part of our criticism on the spirit and intention of his work. He is representing the Quaker in the pilgrimage of his life and portraying his prospects.

'There lovely_nature ceases to smile; a withering blast has passed over the face of the land; the herbs have perished; the flowers have faded; the forest has shed its leaves; the whirlwind has swept them away; the pestilence has walked in secret, and spent its energies on animated nature; desolation scowls from his throne of darkness-For oh! the sun has set over that world.'

And so he goes on. We know this 'dreadful pother' of words will fall on sounder heads than poor Lear's, or we might fear for the equanimity of some of our brethren of the society of Friends. If any one suppose this appeal to be actually made, and the 'pilgrim' Quaker to be overtaken with this stormy visitation,-let him imagine the thees and thous' that would pass on such an occasion; and he may relish the passage in a very different way from what Brownlee intended. We have spoken of the spirit and apparent intention of this work, as they present themselves to a reader, unacquainted with the subject of which it treats. We were ourselves in this situation, some months ago, when we read this volume, and we then decidedly felt, from the evidence, which the book itself afforded, that we could not trust such a writer, in the fulfilment of such a task. We have since taken the trouble to consult some of the early authors of principal note and reputation among the society of Friends, and we have risen with a conviction, that he has done them and their advocates great injustice. We do not say that he has misrepresented the facts of their history, though he has given them a false colouring. But we do say that he has done injustice to their opinions, and to their religious character.