SIR,

To the Editor of the Christian Observer.

I HAVE seldom found any reason to dissent from your decisions with respect to the different works which have passed under your review: they have, in general, appeared to me to be impartial and judicious. In an article, however, in your number for October, I mean the review of Mr. Jay's Sermons, I doubt whether you have manifested your usual discrimination. I do not deny the general justness of your animadversions on the defects of that work, but then I think that you have thrown its merits somewhat too much into the shade. You allow, indeed, that the

in the gospel is not discerned at once. From the day when it was written to the present time every age has found out something new. During the two last centuries, how many important discoveries have been made of latent truths which are now as clear as the light of day." (p. 61.)

We were at some loss to discover the precise meaning of the author in this passage until we compared it with another, (p. 81,) where he tells us that "there are principles now budding in the minds of men, especially of the disciples of Christ, which, when the fruit is brought to maturity, will change the face of the world, and introduce the reign of reason and of love, and give happiness to mankind, because they introduce the reign of God and of his Christ over the souls of men."

But does Mr. Bogue mean to argue, that we, of the present day, understand the Gospel better than the writers of the New Testament and their contemporaries-than the Apostles Peter, and Paul, and James, and John? We had, perhaps ignorantly, conceived that a divine revelation, unlike those sciences which are the result of human investigation, admitted of no improvement from human invention. We had also conceived, that during those ages, emphatically called the dark ages, the light of divine truth, instead of becoming clearer, had been gradually becoming more and more obscure; and, although it has now emerged from the thick cloud of popish inventions, that the highest praise which can be ascribed to the reformation is, its having brought men back to the primitive sense of the scriptures. To attain to farther discoveries of latent truth, whether of a religious or moral kind, we should have deemed a hopeless expectation; and as Mr. Bogue has not specified the particulars of modern improve. ment in these sciences, we are at a loss for the ground on which he has asserted it. Neither has he specified what those principles are, which are now budding in the minds of men: but may we not ask, Have not the principles

sermons are calculated, in a high degree, to promote holiness of heart and life, and to recommend genuine and practical piety; but still it appears to me, that your review has been so constructed, that none of your readers would be induced, by what you have said, to give them an attentive perusal, but on the contrary would be led to overlook them as inferior productions.* But surely, Sir, they deserve a less equivocal tribute of commendation, for they seem to me, with all their faults, to abound with original remarks; spirited expostulations, and affecting appeals to the conscience, all tending to the promotion of solid piety. I have subjoined

of Christianity been always the same? and · have not these budded and brought forth fruit in every true believer, from the first promulgation of the Gospel to the present time? Wherein then consists the superiority with respect to Christian principles of this boasted age of reason? We must confess, that, at least, in the sound of this language, if not in its sense, there appears to us to be too near an affinity to the jargon of the new philosophy, and to the sentiments of the Godwinian school, respecting the perfectability of man.

Before we conclude our remarks, we would repeat our approbation of the general plan and execution of this Essay. Impressed with a persuasion of its probable usefulness, we earnestly hope that the author will be induced to qualify the passages on which we have commented. If not, we would recommend it to the Missionary Society maturely to consider, whether it will be right to give their sanction to propositions of, at least, so questionable a nature. The circumstances of the times require caution; and we shall greatly regret to see those propositions placed, in their present form, in the front of a large edition of the French Testament, published under the direction, and at the expense, of that society.

* We shall leave it to our readers to determine, whether the remark of our correspondent is well founded. We have inserted his letter (valeat quantum valere potest,) and one of the extracts which accompanied it, because we are willing to rectify any unfair impression which we may have unconsciously given respecting Mr. Jay's Sermons. These sermons certainly contain many striking lessons of practical piety, many valuable helps to self-examination and self knowledge, and many impressive reproofs of the evils most prevalent among persons who assume a religious profes. sion: and these circumstances, notwithstanding their faults, which we have already freely noticed, ought doubtless to procure for them general attention.

The same author, Mr. Henley, announces for publication, " A Disquisition on the date assigned by Fourrier, Commissioner of the Sciences and Arts in Egypt, to the ancient zodiac there found; whence the extraordinary darkness recorded by Phlegon, and by the historians of China, in the reign of Quamvu, are identified with the darkness at our Lord's Crucifixion; the discordance between the eclipse noted by Ptolemy, as seen at Arbela and Carthage is accounted for; the further desideratum for ascertaining the longitude, required by the board at Paris, in their report on Burg's Tables, supplied; and thence, in reference to the Prophecy of Balaam, the Birth of Christ fixed."

A Sketch of the present State of Ireland, Statistical and Picturesque, with maps and engravings, in 2 vols. 4to. is announced by Dr. Beaufort

Mr. Sharpe, of Piccadilly, is about to commence a publication, in parts, of the English Classics, on a superb scale in point of embel. lishments, and on a new and elegant type, by Whittingham; yet at an expense so moderate, as nothing but the expectation of extensive encouragement would justify. Essays, Biographical and Critical, by Dr. Drake, author of Literary Hours, &c. will be given as illustrative of the different classics comprised in the plan.

A loom has been invented by a gentleman for weaving fishing nets, which, it is said, has fully accomplished the wishes of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce.

A composition lately noticed by Mr. Davy, as fit for tinging oak or pear wood of a mahogany colour, is made by boiling together Brazil-wood and Roman-alum; to which, before it is applied to the wood, a little pot-ash is to be added. A durable varnish is formed, he says, from a solution of amber in oil of turpentine, mixed with a little linseed oil.

Three ounces and a half of charcoal, purified by incandescence, mixed with twenty four drops of sulphuric acid, will purify three pounds and a half of putrid water, without communicating any sensible acidity. The process consists in pouring the water upon this mixture, and afterwards filtering it. It destroys the astringent principle: it absorbs fatty matters: it dissipates all fætid smells; and may be used with advantage in cleansing musty casks. It has no effect on the smell of camphor, essences, ethereal oils, essence of orange, bark, &c : it renders vinous liquors colourless it diminishes scorbutic affections,

and is said to sweeten bad breath.

Common shores, drains, &c. are occasion. ally subject to emit noxious and offensive air. Whenever such air is generated in or near a dwelling-house, it will find its way

into those apartments, where the air is most rarified by the fires kept therein; so that those rooms which are most inhabited, and where every means ought to be used to preserve a successon of pure air, are continually filling with a putrid atmosphere, destructive to health. This air also oxidates or tarnishes the surface of bright metallic bodies, such as fire-irons, kitchen utensils, &c. and particularly silver plate. Mr. Thomas Salmon, of Canterbury, has suggested the most effectual and least expensive method of expelling this air, which is as follows: an airtight metallic tube, one inch and a half in its diameter, should open by its lower end into the uppermost part of the vault, &c. where the foul air is generated. This pipe should be continued by the nearest way, and with an assent, towards the kitchen or other chimney where fire is most frequently kept, and should be carried up the back of the fire, or in such situation as to be heated by it, and from the fire should be continued to the nearest place of discharge into the open air. By the action of the fire, the air within that part of the tube which passes through or near the fire is rarified, and is deprived of its gravity; and the external air pressing with its usual weight at the bottom of the tube, the equilibrium is destroyed, and a succession of noxious air passes up through the tube, till the whole quantity is carried off. By this means the holds of ships may be ventilated without labour or expense, by passing the metal pipe through the cabin or other fire; and that destruction of grain prevented, which was experienced in the late scarcities. By the same method a much larger portion of heat may be produced in dwelling-houses by the same quantity of fire; for, if instead of a current of cold air, a current of hot air were introduced, to supply the partial vacuum made by the ascending air through the chimney, apartments would be better warmed with a smaller quantity of fuel. Repert. of Arts, vol. I. Second Series, art. 84. A method of applying the same principle to the clearing of noxious air from wells, instead of the usual apparatus of a forge-bellows and a leather pipe, may be seen in the Repertory, vol. IX. First Series, art. 32.

Mr. William Bullock, of Portland Street, Soho, has invented a new and improved drawback lock for house-doors. The improvement consists in latching the door, by letting the bolt shoot into the staple immediately when the door closes, and not before; and the reliever works with so much ease, that the door is made fast with the twenty-fourth part of the force required by locks upon the common constructions.

A person of the name of Roberts, of Portsmouth, has lately contrived a new method of preventing the accidents frequently occasioned by borses running away with carriages. It consists in disengaging the horses instantaneously from the carriage, without their harness, either entirely, or so as to be retained only by the head; and, at the same time, the driver, or a

person in the inside, or behind, is enabled to block the hinder wheels, or to direct the course of the carriage.

Professor Pictet has presented to the Royal Institution a specimen of strong flat iron chain, which was made in his presence with a machine invented by Vaucanson, and of which one man may easily make seventy-two feet per day.

A vessel of a new construction, built agree. ably to a patent granted to P. Miller, Esq. of Dalswinton, was lately launched at Kingholm, near Dumfries. The vessels to be built under this patent are intended for carrying passengers only, and will be named Life Packets, as they cannot sink. They afford much better accommodation than ships of any other construction, of the same length, can give. They are built entirely of fir wood, and draw very little water. When under sail they are wrought and kept to windward by means of sliders. They are moved through the water in calms, and against light winds, by wheels; and these wheels are so contrived as to be rigged and unrigged in a short time.

James G. Durham, of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, A B proposes to print, by subscription, in the ensuing winter, a Vindi. cation of Christianity, in which he designs to shew that the felicity of the world at large is materially promoted by it.

FRANCE.

M. Bernardin de St. Pierre has published some information important to navigators. He observes, that a letter or despatches, enclosed in a bottle, well corked, and thrown into the sea, will, sooner or later, arrive at some shore, where they may be picked up. M Lescallier, Colonial Prefect at Guadaloupe, sent to M St. Pierre a copy of a letter, which had arrived in this manner, on the 10th of March, at Guadaloupe, after having been two months and seven days in going two hundred leagues. This is the fourth circumstance of the kind. The first letter enclosed in a bottle was thrown overboard at the entrance of the Bay of Biscay, on Aug. 17th, 1786, and was taken up May 9th, 1787, on the coast of Normandy. The second bottle was abandoned to the waves, June 15th, 1797, about forty-two degrees twenty-two minutes N. latitude, to the cast of the meridian of Teneriffe. A soldier found it, on the 6th of the following month, on the strand at Cape Prior. It had gone above one hundred and twenty leagues in less than three weeks. It contained a letter, addressed to M. St. Pierre; which was forwarded to him by the French Consul at Ferrol. The third bottle traversed upwards of nine hundred leagues in a direct line. It was thrown into the sea two hundred leagues to the North of the Isle of France, by a French captain going to India It landed at the Cape of Good Hope, and contained an oiled letter, which the Go. vernor of the Cape forwarded to the Governor of the Isle of France. It may be of utility to

make these circumstances known, as the suc. cess of these trials may afford some hope of relief to persons shipwrecked on desert shores.

The brothers Piranesi have established in the College of Navarre, at Paris, granted to them by the Government, an Academy of fine Arts, which is in full activity. It is divided into several classes. In the first are executed all kinds of oil paintings; historical pictures, copies of the great masters, &c. In the second class are executed all kinds of sculpture, both in marble and models in baked earths, monuments, groups, statues, copies from Grecian and Roman antiques, bas reliefs, ornaments, &c. In the third are performed all kinds of architecture, interior decorations, models of the finest ancient and modern monuments, &c. The fourth class is occupied with natural history and landscapes. In the fifth are executed all sorts of engravings, prints, designs, &c. In the sixth, the interior and exterior decorations of houses, chimneypieces, friezes, &c. The seventh is devoted to engraving cameos, and stones of every description. Three hundred pupils are employed in the different classes, and a yearly distribution of three medals in each class will take place to excite emulation. At the same time there will be a general exhibition.

The Venus de Medicis, the master-piece of ancient sculpture, is on its way to the National Museum at Paris. The First Consul obtained it from the King of Etruria, on conditions, it is said, that he should recover for the king of Etruria the objects carried away by the Neapolitans during the war Paris will then possess the two first statues in the world, the Venus de Medicis, and the Apollo Belvidere.

Another statue, although certainly inferior in value to the Venus, yet placed by artists in the first rank, the Pallas of Velletri, is also brought to France. It was discovered in 1799, in consequence of the excavations made at Velletri, by order of the French commission

ers.

This statue is in the finest preservation. These statues, together with some valuable MSS. from Herculaneum, are arrived at Marseilles. A rich collection of Etruscan vases are on their way to the same port.

Aldini, the nephew of the late Dr Galvini, now at Paris, still persists in asserting the peculiarity of the Galvanic fluid, and obstinately denies it to be, as Volta seemed to have demonstrated, merely a modification of electricity He had made a series of experiments before the Galvanic Society at Paris, which they have witnessed with great satisfaction, and from which he strenuously infers, that Galvanism is a fluid sui generis, existing in the animal economy alone

M Chausier employs a solution of oxygenated muriate of mercury, kept constantly in a state of saturation, for preserving animal substances from putrefaction The preparations are to remain immersed in the solution for

several days, and then dried by exposure to light and air. After this process they are no longer susceptible of being easily decomposed: they preserve their form, and become possess ed of a great degree of hardness, and are not subject to the attacks of insects

A large telescope, of twenty-two French feet in length, and twenty-two inches in diameter, is nearly finished. Its mechanism is such, that it will turn completely round with great ease, nor will it require to be exposed to the open air. The mirror, of twenty-two inches in diameter, is of extraordinary clearness and purity: it is, however, not wholly of platina, as was first proposed, the platina sent by the king of Spain not being sufficient for the purpose.

Among the visionary schemes of the French, the following is not the least singular. A Frenchman, named Botineau, died some time since at Pondicherry, in great want. He is said to have discovered the means of ascertaining the approach of vessels at sea at the distance of two bundred leagues M Leroy, professor in the Special School of Medicine at Paris, has announced that he is in possession of many of Botineau's data, and hopes by their assistance, to discover the secret, and form from them a regular science, which he proposes to call Nauscopy. He says that the celebrated M. de Suffrein laid the greatest stress on this discovery, spoke of it with admiration, and was indignant at the contempt with which it was treated He affirms that he can prove this art to have been known to the ancients; but that the exercise of it requires an apprentice. ship.

It has been resolved to institute, at Paris, a kind of continuation of the celebrated Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences, under the title of Annals of the National Museum of Natural History One of the leading objects of this undertaking is, to explain, for the benefit of students, the immense collection of natural history, &c. which this singularly extensive museum contains, and to develop the true principles of science. It is not intended to wait for such a collection of papers as would be necessary to constitute a volume, but to publish with greater despatch in the form of numbers; and, for this purpose, the professors have agreed to meet once in a week, to communicate to one another the result of their observations and labours in their respective departments, and to decide on the papers which are to be given to the world. These numbers are to appear regularly on the fif teenth of every month, and the first was issued on the fifteenth of October. The Professors of the Museum, who have engaged in this undertaking, are Messrs. Hauy, Fourcroy, Brougniard, Desfontaines, Jussieu, Goeffroy, Lacepede, Lamarck, Portal, Mertrud, Thouin, Faujas, Vanspaendonck, and Cuvier.

In the spring of the present year, the Consuls, upon the report of the Minister of the Interior, decreed the establishment of Two practical schools, for the working of mines and the Christ. Observ. No. 11.

treatment of mineral substances: one is placed in the department of Mont Blanc, in the Canton of Moutiers, near the lead mines of Pezay, and will afford, from its vicinity to mines and works of different kinds, the most extensive and varied means of instruction; the other school is in the department of La Sarre, at the founderies of Geislautern, near Sarrebruck, and is also admirably situated within a short distance of mines or works of almost every description which are important in these pursuits, as of iron, steel, tin, mercury, lead, copper, brass, salt, coal, &c.

GERMANY.

M. Bockman, a German optician, recommends for viewing the sun, an eye-glass composed of four pieces, a light violet, a light green, a dark green, and a dark blue.

M. Campe, junior, has lately established, at Hamburgh, a museum or repository; in which are to be found, not only the principal German, English, French, and Dutch journals, to the number of nearly 150; but likewise the most interesting new works, and copies, &c. sent thither by artists, to whom this establishment affords a convenient and eligible method of making known their abilities. The subscribers amount to above 400; amongst whom are some of the most distinguished names. This museum is said to be the most complete of its kind existing in that, or perhaps in any other city. It is open the whole day, and is frequented by a great number of readers, among whom are many foreigners.

An establishment has been formed at Vienna, under the direction of Mr. Schreyvogel, called the REPOSITORY OF ARTS AND INDUSTRY, embracing the art of design, mechanics, music, and, in part, literature. Some of the most eminent engravers of that capital have, for the last year, been employed for this undertaking. The Society is about to publish a series of views in the Tyrol, taken by artists, at the expense of the Society, during last summer. A geographical department has been added to this repository. The first grand work proposed to be published, is an Atlas of the Austrian Dominions, in 48 sheets, with statistical tables in French and German. In these, and similar undertakings, the Society has already expended 50,000 florins, and it has still a like sum at its disposal.

A gentleman of Moravia has proposed a prize of 1000 florins for the best work, calculated to extend the love of humanity; 100 ducats for the second; and an honorary premium for the third. A second prize of 50 ducats, for the best solution of the following questions: What are the diseases, the accidents, and the secret causes, which contribute to diminish the population of the Austrian provinces? What are their real causes, and the best means of preventing them? A third prize, of 50 ducats, for the best work on the question, of what importance to the state is the life and welfare of every individual, con5 C