1825. 
“Mr, ,Hodgson’s picture of the state of 
religion in America, is, on the whole, dis- 
couraging.’’—“‘ His description of the pro- 
gress of Unitaniarism, indicates the approach 
of a period, when it will require all the 
vigour of the orthodor church to withstand 
the torrent.” [Mr. Wyndham’s vigour be- 
yond the law, perhaps!!!]__“* They have no 
Established Cnurch,—no bishops in their 
stalls,—no prohibitory law on piety!” es 
, Doleful state} doleful prospect ! The 
‘people of Americavare:left at liberty to 
worship God according to. the dictates 
of their own reason, or their own con- 
sciences! and the Universal Reviewer 
‘apprehends. ‘that, wherever this is the 
casé, theprogress of reason and con- 
science will be too strong for orthodoxy, 
and overthrow the Universal Church!!! 
“America is, on the one hand, the very 
sanctuary of the Shakers, the Jumpers, the 
Tremblers, the’ Meminonites, the Divers, 
the Swedenborgians, the Dunkers,’’ &c. 
* On the other hand, in the high places of 
America, the fashion is FREETHINKING! a 
well-behaved civility to Christianity, and 
as well-behaved a rejection of all its charac- 
teristic doctrines; a frigid alienation from 
its life, and knowledge, and hope. Who 
does not know, that the first University of 
America, the Oxford of the New World, 
is all but professedly Unirartan? And 
who, but the little rotund personage, that 
sits in all, his sacred swathes, in the front 
of his own caricature of the Epistles of St. 
Paul, as proud as any Episcopus that ever 
sat within his cathedral, will venture to call 
Unitarianism, Christianity ?” 
_ Now, in our_apprehension (to say 
nothing of the degrading buffoonery and 
personality of the concluding sentence), 
this, instead of analytical criticism, is 
neither more nor less than downright 
dogmatical bigotry. We say nothing of 
the truth or the delusion of Unitarian- 
ism, or of Trinitarianism. But the par- 
tizans.of both, we conceive, draw their 
opinions (according to the degrees and 
sources of their information, and their 
own comprehension of the evidence) 
from what they consider.as the true his- 
tory, and understand to have been the 
actual doctrines of Christ. If the his- 
torical evidence which satisfies the rea- 
son.of one party, as to the authenticity 
of certain chapters or passages, convinces 
the reason of the other that they are 
interpolations; or.if certain passages’ 
appear to the understandings of these 
AILS j a 
Philosophy of Contemporary Criticism.—No. XL. 
523 
to bear one signification, and to those 
another, still each is Christian, according 
‘to his own apprehension of the religion 
taught by Christ; and, if either has a 
right to deny to his opponent the Chris- 
tian appellation, the right of retort re-- 
verts to the opponent, also; and every 
sect has an equal claim to the doamatical 
assumption of exclusive infallibility; and 
may anathematize, a8 anti-christian, ‘all’ 
who do not understand, or, perhaps, ' 
without any understanding at all) be- 
lieve, just as much, and just in the same 
manner, as the anathematizers them- 
selves believe. 
It would ‘be unjust’ to take leave of 
the Universal Review without admitting 
that it has articles, unstained’ by theo- 
logical or political digression, ~which 
manifest correctness of taste, ‘and ele: 
gance of erudition— 
“ High, ina purer sphere, they shine afar !’” 
With the review of Wirrrn’s Jerusalem: 
Delivered, in particular, we were much 
gratified. The vindication of the Ita- 
lian poets (of the first order) fromthe 
charge of attachment to tinsel’ conceit, 
brought upon them by the interpolated 
conceits of their English translators, 
appears to us as just as it is liberal; 
and, indeed, the whole article is a beati- 
tiful specimen of acute and tasteful cri- 
ticism. We were sorry, however, to 
meet, in such an article, an: instance, 
though but a single one, of that new- 
fangled affectation of disjunctive con- 
struction, of late so frequent among the. 
sickly secondaries of tasteful refinement , 
and fine writing; and which mars the 
conclusion of the ensuing sentence. 
“ We do not disguise from Mr. W. that 
these defects are extremely serious, and 
that to persist in them, in his second vo- 
lume, will be to utterly extinguish the value 
of his work.”” i 
Why not “utterly to, extinguish,”’ or 
“ to extinguish utterly.” . This affecta- 
tion of separating the sign of the infi- 
nitive mood from its verb, of which it 
is in fact a syllable, was first introduced, 
we believe, or at least first popularised, 
by Dr. Drake, in his “ Literary Hours,” 
and has since been rapidly gaining 
ground; but cannot be too strongly 
reprobated, or too cautiously avoided. 
3X2 be 
ORIGINAL 
