Tothe Editorofthe Christian Observer.

YOUR correspondent P. M. M., in your Number for January, objects to the use of voluntaries upon the organ at the conclusion of the church service. I would ask, how- ever, is not this the least exception able mode of dismissing a congregation, with a view to counteract the noise and confusion unavoidably attendant upon the dispersing of a large assembly? and may it not operate as a means of silencing those unseemly whispers so justly complained of by your correspondent? In some churches the difficulty is attempted to be obviated by a method which appears highly exceptionable; namely, by ordering a Psalm to be sung while the congregation are dispersing. By this mode of proceeding, persons are obliged either to remain in church, against their inclinations, after the service is concluded, or to shew disrespect and be guilty of irreverence by departing while others are employed in singing the praises of God.

As a matter of personal feeling, my experience differs entirely from

that of your correspondent. I conceive that the solemn tones of the organ, introduced at that particular moment, so far from disturbing the thoughts, or unfitting the mind for the continuance of devout speculations, rather assist it in the attainment of that desirable object, and elevate still more the pious affections which may have been raised by the preceding service. Much, doubtless, will depend on the skill and judgment of the performer, and the selection of pieces; but these ought always to be under proper regulations.

With regard to the introduction of a voluntary after the sermon, when the sacrament of the Lord's Supper is to be administered, it should doubtless be dispensed with, if it should prove to be in reality a source of disturbance to those who remain for the purpose of communicating. This, however, I conceive, needs not be the case; or, at all events, there will not arise from this quarter a greater interruption than would necessarily take place if there were no voluntary. It must also be remembered, that to the larger part of the congregation, the service is then actually concluded; since, even in these days of increased attendance at the table of the Lord, it is to be feared that those who remain for the purpose of performing that sacred duty will still be found a minority in the congregation.

P. S. O.

The Crisis; or, an Attempt to shew from Prophecy, illustrated by the Signs of the Times, the Prospects and Duties of the Church of Christ at the present Period; with an Inquiry into the probable Destiny of England during the predicted Desolations of the Papal

Kingdoms. By the Rev. E. COOPER, Rector of Hamstall Ridware and Yoxall. 7s. 1825.

London.

WE began our critical intercourse with Mr. Cooper in the very first year of our literary existence; when his

emancipated from bondage, shall make a rapid advance to millenial glory.. Daniel tells us by implication, that the period in question will occupy a space of seventy-five years: for blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days.' (Daniel xii. 12.) This period, thus defined, the prophet farther calls the time of the end; a name descriptive of the nature of those events by which it will be distinguished: for it is within this period, that God will gradually put an end to the triumphs of his enemies, to the sufferings of his church, and to the disperson of the Jews."-The writer" fully concurs in sentiment with those who date the beginning of this period" that is, the first of 1260 years, "from the year A. D. 533; when the Emperor Justinian, by his memorable edict, formally delivered the saints into the hands of the little (papal) horn; and who, consequently, following the usual mode of scriptural interpretation, (by incomplete and current time, and not by time complete and past,) assign the termination of the period in question-an event which synchronises with the sounding of the

seventh trumpet in the Revelation of St. John-to the year 1792. The arguments in favour of this interpretation, adduced by Mr. Cuninghame, appear to the writer conclusive on the subject. It is with this interpretation that the views exhibited in the following pages are intimately connected; and should they be established, they will place it beyond dispute." pp. 1-3, and xiv. xv.

On the assumption, therefore, of the accuracy of these dates, a point on which we do not pretend to decide, Mr. Cooper places the chronological corner-stone of his interpretation. And if the year 1792 was indeed the close of the great prophetic period, and if the "wilful king" was really then to commence his mighty career, the most sceptical and severe student of prophecy would of course pause, before he ventured to pronounce the author's hypothesis visionary. It is no part of our plan to revive the controversies involved in these preliminaries of Mr. Cooper's perform ance. We shall proceed directly to state, that, in his view, the eleventh chapter of Daniel, from the thirtysixth to the forty-fifth verses inclusive, is a prediction of the character, exploits, and end of Napoleon. For the illustration of this opinion, the reader must be referred to the

work itself. What may be the effect on his mind of a careful examination of the validity of the author's argument, we know not. For our own parts, however plausible may be his elucidation of the verses under his consideration, we cannot regard it as altogether satisfactory. We do not deny, indeed, that, darkly as the character of Bonaparte has been painted in the progress of Mr. Cooper's parallelisms, the shades might have been even deepened without exposing the artist to any charge of exaggeration or malignity. The character of the late Emperor of France may be contemplated under two aspects. Individually he deserves to be a forgotten man. But, as a being, if not actually brought within the awful sphere of prophecy, yet certainly acting as a scourge in the hand of God, to punish a guilty world; and, as such, occupying a distinguished station among the executioners of the Divine wrath; he may already be too much forgotten. He fixed and retained the attention, and kept alive the fears, of the world for the long space of more than twenty years; and almost every year a season of bloodshed and despondency. He was the king-maker of Christendom; and it is not always now recollected, that four monarchies of this adventurer's own founding yet remain, and are recognised among the legitimate thrones of Europe! We mean those of Saxony, Bavaria, and Wirtemburg, (the princes of which were elevated, by his arrangements, from the inferior rank of electors,) and the new dynasty which holds the sceptre of Sweden. In the fulness of his power, Napoleon married the near relation of the consort of Louis XVI.; and, like her, a descendant of the Cæsars; and he allied his family to other royal houses of Europe. Neither did he seem to confine his ambition to be the Emperor of the West; but, as many sagacious observers believed, he aspired to be also the western prophet. Being all this, and more than

this, he was doubtless a king who for a time at least was permitted " to do according to his will!" "The Revolution," says Mr.Southey, "had given the government absolute command over the whole physical force of France; and this prodigious power was at the disposal of an individual unchecked by any restraint, and subject to no responsibility. Perhaps it would not have been possible to have selected, among the whole human race, any other man to whom it would have been so dangerous to commit this awful charge. Napoleon Bonaparte possessed all the qualities which are required to form a perfect tyrant. His military genius was of the highest order; his talents were of the most imposing kind; his ambition was insati able; his heart impenetrable; he was without honour, without veracity, without conscience; looking for no world beyond the present, and determined to make this world his own at whatever cost....He regarded his fellow-creatures merely as instruments for gratifying his lust of empire,-pieces with which he played the game of war: in the presumptuousness of his power he set man at defiance, and in his philosophy God was left out of the account *." These reminiscences

See Southey's History of the Peninsular War, pp. 15-18. In a subsequent passage, Mr. Southey, referring to the Jewish Sanhedrim held at Paris, in 1807, writes," When in their hall of meeting they placed the Imperial Eagle over the Ark of the Covenant, and blended the cyphers of Napoleon and Josephine with the unutterable name of God: impious as this was, it was only French flattery in Jewish costume. But when they applied to him the prophecies of Isaiah and Daniel; when they called him, the Lord's anointed Cyrus-'the living image of the Divinity,' the only mortal according to God's own heart, to whom he has entrusted the fate of nations, because he alone could govern them with wisdom;" these things resembled the abominable language of his bishops, and of his own proclamations, too much to escape notice. And when they reminded him, that he had subdued the ancient land of the eternal pyramids, the land wherein their ancestors had been held in bondage; that he had

of this extraordinary man tend, we admit, rather to confirm Mr.Cooper's estimate of the external splendour of his name, exploits, and pretensions. He certainly gathered around him, in his day, the applause or the dread of a vast portion of the inhabitants of the earth. Little minds vainly endeavoured to sustain against him feelings of contempt: their efforts of this kind, in despite of themselves, were perpetually absorbed into fear. At the same time, wise men, while they detected the inherent vileness of his character, were also awed by its power, which, in a human sense, was irresistible, devising and executing his mighty projects with an almost superhuman energy. But his own forced pleasantry, when a fugitive from the climate and armies of Russia, "From the sublime to the ridiculous there is but a step," was marvellously realized in his deposition and deportation. The god was rapidly changed into the worm. The Exile of St. Helena, (such was he called in the sentimental phraseology of his adherents,) sank almost to a deeper degradation than would have been prepared for him by his bitterest enemies. His last days were sadly

appeared on the banks of the once-sacred Jordan; and fought in the valley of Sichem, in the plains of Palestine; such language seemed to indicate a project for resettling them in the Holy Land, as connected with his views concerning Egypt. Nay, as he had successively imitated Hannibal, and Alexander, and Charlemagne, just as the chance of circumstances reminded him of each, was it improbable that Mohammed might be the next object of his imitation? that he might breathe in incense, till he fancied himself divine; that adulation, and success, and vanity, utterly unchecked as they were, having destroyed all moral feeling and all conscience, should affect his intellect next; and that, from being the Cyrus of the Lord, he would take the hint which his own clergy had given him, and proclaim himself the temporal Messiah? Nothing was too impious for this man, nothing too frantic ;-and, alas! such was the degradation of Europe, and of the world, England alone excepted, that scarcely any thing seemed to be impracticable for him." pp. 63, 64.

disgraced; and chiefly by the indulgence of a certain sordid querulousness on matters of mere personal inconvenience. He became the politician of the kitchen, the cellar, the bath, the larder, and the laundry; so that, instead of performing the last act of the drama in the costume and attitudes of philosophy or of heroism, he expired all but a driveller and a shew. "He came to his end, and there was none to help him!"

Mr. Cooper is quite aware of some of the objections which may be raised against his theory; and he has attempted to anticipate, and rebut them. But, leaving this portion of the work in our rear, we march forward to the results from Mr. Cooper's interpretation. He writes,

66

As the 1260 years expired in the year 1792, so the 1290 years (a period prolong ed from the former by the intervention of Bonaparte's career) were concluded in the year 1822; and consequently this was the precise year which the angel predicted. Michael then stood up (Daniel xii. 1.) for

the children of the Jews. And, how remarkably does this hypothesis accord with the statement already given! It was in the year 1821 that Napoleon came to his end... in the year immediately preceding that in which the 1290 years terminated. pp. 78, 79.

It is then argued, that two events took place in 1822-namely, the proceedings of the congress at Verona, and the matured state of the Greek insurrection-which may be severally instrumental in effecting great changes in relation to the papal king doms, and also to the restoration of the Jews. A second result refers to

what the angel says (Daniel xii. 1.) respecting the then coming days of unprecedented trouble. On this subject Mr. Cooper speaks a language which, whatever may be its prophetic accuracy, will seem to many much more gloomy than is warranted by the political appearances of the current period. He remarks,—

"There is indeed, at present, an apparent calm upon the face of the earth; but it is only a deceitful calm, the earnest and precursor of the more dreadful storm. The peace which seems to reign, is merely superficial. Beneath the surface, the most hostile feelings are at work; the most

hostile preparations are at hand. Never were there so many disposing causes to conjecture and exaggeration. Those perconfusion. This is not the language of sons who possess the most efficient means and opportunities of ascertaining the real political state of Europe know, that the view here given of it is correct. The parliamentary declarations of senators, and even of statesmen, are continually confirming this representation. Nay, every attentive observer must be aware, that the three great principles of Infidelity, Despotism, and Popery, those three unclean spirits which, about this time, like frogs coming out of the mouth of the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet, are to go forth unto world, to gather them to the battle of that the kings of the earth and of the whole great day of God Almighty, are now busily at work throughout the papal kingdoms, and preparing the materials for some prodigious explosion." pp. 91, 92.

66

These are certainly strong unconpromising assertions, and they shew at least the unhesitating confidence of our author in his own views of prophecy; but, except in a single point, we cannot see that his delineation would not have been more strictly and strikingly applicable to the first years of the French Revolution than to the present day. The single point to which we allude is the difference between the depressed state of the Roman-Catholic Church at the former period, and its recent restoration to power and influence. At the close of something like a profound and lengthened repose, the Roman-Catholic system appears now to be rising, as a giant refreshed with wine." One cause of this renovation of its energies may be found in the correspondent spirit of exertion, which of late years has developed itself in the rival communion of the Protestant Church. As long as the two grand opposing divisions of Christianity, though in different degrees, slumbered and slept, the pontiff and his cardinals, with their prelates in partibus infidelium, were content to perform the ancient routine of rite and ceremony, unobserved and unmolested. For, as their yet surviving sagacity taught them, Protestantism was troublesome only when it ceased to be formal. The Reformed congregations