Part 2

In 1754 was published his "Hymn to the Supreme Being," written on his recovery from a dangerous fit of illness _brought on by intemperance_. This illness continued through 1755, and part of 1756. Who can think of the benumbing and debasing effect of spirits, and not shudder at the apathy with which the practice is viewed? He could write a Hymn of Gratitude to the Supreme Being, and yet not discover the cause of his illness, and depart from the practice. The constitution of Mr. Smart required the utmost care. His mind was easily excited. His disposition was naturally amiable and placid, but the use of spirits created so much mental irritability upon an imagination uncommonly fervid, that his powers gave way, and produced strange alienation of mind; and ignorant that the use of spirits thus withered and morbidly inflamed his powers, he sought assistance from the destroying enemy, and at last his paroxysms became so violent and continued, as to render confinement necessary. In this melancholy state, his family (for he had now two children) must have been much embarrassed in their circumstances, but for the kind friendship and assistance of Mr. Newbery. Many others were forward to assist; and particularly Dr. Samuel Johnson.

Your readers, Mr. Editor, after perusing this sketch of Mr. Smart's history, will doubtless be gratified by the account which Mr. Boswell narrates of a conversation with Dr. Johnson on the case of Smart. The Doctor observes:

"Madness frequently discovers itself merely by unnecessary deviation from the usual modes of the world. My poor friend Smart showed the disturbance of his mind by falling upon his knees, and saying his prayers, in the street, or in any other unusual place. Now although, rationally speaking, it is greater madness not to pray at all, than to pray as Smart did, I am afraid there are so many who do not pray, that their understanding is not called in question. Concerning this unfortunate poet, Christopher Smart, who was confined in a madhouse, he had, at another time, the following conversation with Dr. Burney: Burney--'How does poor Smart do, Sir? is he likely to recover?' Johnson--'It seems as if his mind had ceased to struggle with the disease; for he grows fat upon it.' Burney--'Perhaps, Sir, that may be from want of exercise?' Johnson--'No, Sir; he has partly as much exercise as he used to have; for he digs in the garden. Indeed, before his confinement, he used for exercise to walk to the alehouse; but he was carried back again. I did not think he ought to be shut up. His infirmities were not noxious to society. He insisted on people praying with him; and I'd as lief pray with Kit Smart as any one else.'"--_Boswell's Life of Johnson_, Page 349, vol. i., Edit. 1822, 8vo.

After his recovery, which was, as it appears by his conduct, not quite complete, he joined with Rolt, to write for a Magazine published by Gardner,[A] which continued only two years. The contract was for ninety-nine years, and Smart and Rolt were to have a third of the profits. Dr. Johnson, with a friendly feeling, wrote some articles.

[Footnote A: Mr. Henry Gardner, whom the writer of this note knew well, lived at the corner of Melford Lane, in the Strand. He was a shrewd man, and probably made the contract for ninety-nine years to bind the services of two irregular men.]

Smart's madness, according to Dr. Johnson's account, discovered itself chiefly in unnecessary deviations from the usual modes of the world, in things that are not improper in themselves. He would fall upon his knees and say his prayers in the street, or in any unusual place, and insisted on people praying with him. These were regarded as the vagaries of an eccentric man, and not hallucinations of the mind arising from the effects of stimulating drinks; but some were wiser, and placed him in confinement, "to give his constitution a chance of recovering from the effects of intemperance." When his mind appeared to be in some measure restored, he took a pleasant lodging near St. James's Park, and conducted his affairs for some time with prudence. He was maintained partly by his literary occupations, and partly by the generosity of his friends, receiving, among other benefactions, £50 a year from the treasury, but by whose interest this favour was obtained is not known.

In 1757 he published "A Prose Translation of the Works of Horace." From this performance he could derive but little fame. He thought that such a translation could be useful to those who are desirous of acquiring or recovering a competent knowledge of the Latin tongue. The good or the evil of literal translations is yet a problem, and each side of the question has its advocates. Though our poet was engaged on the one hand in translating the Odes of Horace into prose, on the other he successfully translated Pope's Ode to St. Cecilia into Latin verse, and thereby obtained the notice of Mr. Pope, with whom a correspondence ensued, of which Mr. Smart was not a little vain.

In what manner he lived for some time after this, we are not told; but Garrick, finding him in pecuniary distress, gave him the profits of a benefit at his theatre.

In 1763, he published "A Song to David," in which there are some passages greatly to be admired, and which, Mr. Editor, as a man of taste, you have introduced to your readers; but there are some to be found of even more majestic animation; and it will surprise the reader when he is told that this piece was composed by him during his confinement; when he was debarred the use of pen, ink, and paper, and was obliged to indent his lines, with the end of a key, upon the wainscot. In the same year he published "Poems," and at the conclusion betrays that irritability and self-conceit which are frequently observed to precede, and generally to accompany, derangement of mind.

In all these poems his imagination, although occasionally fine, went often into wild excesses, and evinced that his mind had never recovered its _sober_ tone. In his intervals of health and regularity, he still continued to write. His "Translation of the Psalms of David" afford a melancholy proof of want of judgment and decay of powers. We find him at length an inmate of the King's Bench prison. Here he died after a short illness, occasioned by a disorder in his liver, May 18th, 1770, leaving two daughters, who, with his widow, were long settled at Reading, and by their prudent management of the bookselling trade, transferred to them by Mr. John Newbery, were enabled to maintain a very respectable rank in life.

Of his personal character, the following particulars yet remain to be added from the memoirs: "His piety was exemplary and fervent; it may not be uninteresting to the reader to be told, that Mr. Smart, in composing the religious poems, was frequently so impressed with the sentiment of devotion, as to write particular passages on his knees. He was friendly, affectionate, and liberal to excess; so as often to give that to others of which he was in the utmost want himself."

In his religious poems on the Supreme Deity, written for the Seatonian prize, the fault was perhaps in the expectation that such subjects can be treated with advantage. In the preface to Pope's Ode to St. Cecilia, he allows that, "the choosing too high subjects has been the ruin of many a tolerable genius;" and Dr. Johnson, with majestic energy, remarks, that "whatever is great, desirable, or tremendous, is comprised in the name of the Supreme Being. Omnipotence cannot be exalted; infinity cannot be amplified; perfection cannot be improved."

=Leumas.=

A CANDID APPEAL TO CONGREGATIONAL CHRISTIANS.

_To the Editor of the Baptist Magazine._

=Of= all the divisions existing among the real servants of Christ, there is none, I think, so remarkable, nor more injurious, than the separation of congregationalists into the two parties of Pædobaptists and Antipædobaptists. Perfectly agreed as they are respecting the character of the New Testament church, and occupying exactly the same position with regard to the ecclesiastical establishments of this country, it appears truly surprising that they should yet entirely disagree as to the qualifications entitling an individual to the sacred initiatory ordinance of the Christian dispensation; and that, after the lapse of centuries, during which the finest talents on each side have been employed in the discussion of the subject, that they should yet remain as decidedly opposed upon it as at the first. Perhaps both parties are equally culpable with regard to the spirit in which their respective positions may have been maintained; but it is evident that only one of them can be wrong with regard to the letter. Christians of all parties are now entertaining the hope, that the day is drawing nigh when the spiritual vision of the members of Christ shall be so improved as to enable them to avail themselves of the full light of the gospel to subdue their respective prejudices and antipathies; and when the love of Christ shall be so shed abroad in all hearts, as to lead them into that blessed state of union, into which it is predicted the church is to be brought. And here I beg to ask, considering how simple is the nature of the question which divides the congregationalists into two parties, if this blessed movement ought not to begin with them? And what an honour it would be, to be the first in this glorious movement! And surely it may well animate us earnestly to desire this goodly precedence, when we consider how powerfully and influentially the example would act on all other Christian parties, so as probably to lead all rapidly forward to the happy, long-desired consummation. In the meantime we may well bear with the errors of other parties, considering how many causes concur to keep them under the dominion of their prejudices, and that all of them are heightened by the spectacle of our own unnatural division, while we are calling upon them to submit themselves to the laws of the New Testament. O that all controversial argumentation might for the future be conducted only in the spirit of love! that all might be prepared to lay aside censoriousness, and all appearances of contempt, to avoid all unseemly confidence, and sedulously to watch against a spirit of self exaltation, desiring that the Lord alone may be exalted in the display and in the triumph of his truth! When the Spirit of the Lord shall be so poured upon his church, that the truth shall be sought in this way, errors will soon be detected, and the blessed union of saints be quickly accomplished. The church is not without the means. The cause of our differences is not the want of sufficient spiritual light.

I have remarked above, that _one_ of the parties only on the subject of infant baptism can be wrong with regard to the letter; and here it is with real grief that I must appear in the character of a partisan; but I humbly submit to the candid consideration of my Pædobaptist brethren whether what follows be not a fair representation of the principal grounds on which the advocates of the practice of baptizing infants found their arguments in support of the practice: _The covenant of grace, as it was revealed to Abraham, discovers it to be the will of God, that the infants of believers in Christ should be dedicated to God by baptism. That the practice was sanctioned by the apostles, and designed to be a blessing to children, and serviceable to the cause of the gospel._

The following queries are, with great Christian respect and affection, offered for the consideration of the Pædobaptist servants of Christ.

1. Does it not appear to be a fundamental principle in the New Testament, and designed to have been constantly kept in view, that the churches of Christ should, as far as human judgment and Christian charity would allow, be exclusively voluntary associations of persons brought to desire the salvation of Christ, and to be numbered as his servants?

2. Is there any part of the New Testament which will justify a church in recognizing any persons as the children of the promise, unless they appear to be partakers of the faith of Abraham? On the contrary, does it not plainly appear that the New Testament children of the father of the faithful should receive baptism as Abraham received circumcision, a seal of the grace which they had being yet unbaptized?

3. Were not circumcisions under the Abrahamic covenant more extensive and indiscriminate than the circumcisions under the Mosaic economy, and therefore more unlike New Testament baptisms than the latter? Wherefore, then, is the former covenant represented as affording the archetype of Christian baptism?

4. Under the Old Testament covenant the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were by natural birth--whether partakers of spiritual faith or not--equal members of the commonwealth of Israel. But is not the New Testament covenant, in this respect, essentially different, the principles of the gospel not recognizing unions of the holy and the unholy, and the New Testament containing no provisions for the government of such communities?

5. Is not the New Testament covenant peculiarly distinguished from the Jewish, whether considered as Abrahamic or Mosaic (was the latter any thing more than a development of the former?) by its _unveiled_ spirituality, and by its respect for individual moral character?

6. Does the New Testament, in any part, appear to recognize the people of Christ in a corporate capacity, except as they appear to be united by the spiritual principles of the gospel?

7. Is not the remarkable fact, that Pædobaptism obliges its advocates to retire back to the book of Genesis in search of a covenant to justify them in their use of the _New Testament_ ordinance of baptism, of itself nearly sufficient to evince that their practice is inconsistent with _the covenant of grace, as it is revealed in the gospel?_ and does it not become a certainty, when it appears that circumcision under _the Abrahamic covenant_ was, in some important respects, an institution of a perfectly contrary character to the ordinance of baptism; the former exhibiting a _compulsory_ character, which rendered it imperative upon Abraham to circumcise Ishmael, and to _enforce_ it upon his whole household, whether bond or free; and to enjoin it for all their posterity, under the awful threatening of utter exclusion from the covenant and family of God? Is there not here _a most striking contrast_ with the inspired records of the institution and administration of the ordinance of baptism?

8. If the views of the apostles on this subject had been coincident with those of Antipædobaptist divines, could they have refrained from declaring them, when the conduct of the teachers of circumcision was such as to create continual occasions which called for a plain statement of the gospel doctrine of baptism? Did not the state into which the infant church at Antioch had been brought by these teachers particularly require that such statements should be made? Would not a declaration on the part of the apostles, in their assembly at Jerusalem, of the doctrine of Pædobaptism, have tended at once to terminate the controversy? Is it imaginable that they should have refrained, on this occasion, from informing the Gentile converts that, by the substitution of baptism for circumcision, they and their children were exempted for ever from the claims of the circumcisers?

9. What law of the gospel is broken by those parents who, without baptism, prayerfully devote their children to Christ?

10. Are the children of Antipædobaptists, if brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, less likely to become living members of Christ than the children of Pædobaptists; and is there any spiritual benefit conferred on these by the rite, of which those to whom it is not administered are deprived?

11. Whenever a pious Jew might have been asked the question, What benefits are secured to the children and nation of Israel by the rite of circumcision? he could at once, by a reference to the appointment, and to the promises and threatenings connected with it, have given a clear and satisfactory answer to the question; but when a similar question is proposed to Pædobaptists respecting their practice, are they able to give to it a like satisfactory answer? Is there any agreement on the subject? Is not every thing here vague, mystical, and incongruous? And wherefore is this? Is it not simply because that, unlike the Jew, they canot refer to "the law and to the testimony?"

12. Is not the distinction existing in Pædobaptist churches, between persons who are entitled to one only of the sacraments of the gospel, and those who are entitled to both; between unconsciously initiated members, and professed voluntary members, entirely without countenance from the New Testament?

13. Was not baptism in the apostles' days a special means of grace in the church; and was it not always designed to be so? But if it is not a means of grace to infants, does not the baptizing them plainly tend to nullify a gospel ordinance, depriving both them and the church of its benefits?

14. Has not the practice of infant baptism, in all ages of the church, been a pernicious source of delusion? And is there any way of avoiding its injurious influence on the world, and regaining the benefit of the ordinance to the church, but by following up the principles of the New Testament, and abandoning the practice of infant baptism?

Let these inquiries be seriously, impartially, and prayerfully considered, by all who are concerned for the purity and efficiency of the church, the unity of its members, and the glory of its Author.

=Antipædobaptist.=

ON A MISSIONARY SPIRIT.

_To the Editor of the Baptist Magazine._

No period of the rolling year, perhaps, is received with more cordial feelings of joy than the one on which we have now entered. To the admirer of the works of nature--its smiling face--its verdant mantle--the exchange of the chilly blast of winter for etherial mildness and softer gales, cannot but afford pleasure and delight; for "lo, winter is past; the rain is over and gone; and the time of the singing of birds is come."

To those that love to contemplate God, not only in the works of nature, but also in those of grace, the approach of this month cannot but be hailed with feelings of joy, on account of those delightful opportunities which are then afforded of hearing our missionary brethren, who have come from the east and the west to rehearse all that the Lord has done for them, and how he has opened the door of faith unto the Gentiles (heathen).

It is, however, to be feared that, with many, the pleasure that is felt in attending these public meetings arises from the mere excitement of passion, not based upon or guided by any fixed principle; and therefore, like the morning cloud and early dew, soon passes away. If it be asked, What is the true spirit which every Christian should possess in reference to the publication of the truth? it may be replied, _A missionary spirit_; which includes,

1. _A spirit of importunate prayer._ What single employment is there in which we may be engaged, or what enterprise can we undertake, that does not depend upon our Maker for success? The merchant may freight his bark for a distant shore; but for its safe arrival into port, he must look to Him who holds the waters in the hollow of his hand, and whom the winds and sea obey. The husbandman may prepare the soil, and implant the seed but from God alone can he expect the gentle showers of rain, and the congenial sunshine. And if the blessing of God is absolutely necessary for the success of undertakings relating to temporal affairs, how much more so in things that are spiritual! Here, especially, Paul may plant, and Apollos water; but it is God alone that can give the increase. And in what way are we to seek it but by prayer? It is prayer that will open the windows of heaven, and cause the Almighty to pour us out a blessing, so that there shall not be room to receive it. It will come down like rain on the new-mown grass--as showers that water the earth.

In all the dwellings of Jacob may prayer be heard ascending to the Most High, for blessings to attend our meetings!

2. _A spirit of thanksgiving._ It is the distinguishing feature in a worldly man's disposition or character, that, however he may be inclined to pray for worldly prosperity, he is always backward in acknowledging the blessing bestowed; yea, the more God lavishes his favours upon him, the less does he recognize the hand of the Giver. Let us act as becometh Christians. Let our hearts overflow with gratitude for mercies received. Let past mercies excite us to gratitude, and encourage us in our future labours.

3. _A spirit of rejoicing._ Let not the interesting intelligence that may be afforded be read with cold indifference. What is the Christian's joy and crown of rejoicing? Is it not the salvation of the soul through his instrumentality? If there is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, shall it not produce joy in our bosoms when we hear, not of one, but of many being brought to the knowledge of the truth?

4. _A spirit of active benevolence._ Here is the test of our love to Jesus. What is more diffusive or expanding, or constraining in its nature, than the principle of love? It has for the object of its aim the glory of God, and seeks in every way to promote it. The desire of such a soul is, that Christ may be magnified in his body, whether it be by life or by death.

May a _missionary spirit_ be the one which animates every reader!

X. Y.

UNION IS STRENGTH.

_To the Editor of the Baptist Magazine._

=I have= seen a circular respecting the "Baptist Union." It is a very common remark, that "the Independents and the Wesleyan Methodists are more united than the Baptists." How is this, or why should it be? They are probably more numerous, and this may be owing to unity. Let us look at the counties of Surrey and Sussex. Is there any Baptist interest between Clapham and Horsham? At the latter place there are some general Baptists. Again: are there any Baptists between Croydon and East Grinstead? At Brighton there are some; but take the road from Brighton to Portsmouth, and where will you find any? Not at Worthing, nor Arundel, nor Chichester, nor Emsworth, nor Havant. How is this? Either the funds of the Baptist Home Mission are deficient; or there is a want of exertion. Again: from Wandsworth to Guildford, Godalming, and onward to Portsmouth, are there any Baptists? If there are, it is unknown to me. Again; if you could describe a circle of twenty miles circumference, making Findon, near Worthing, the centre of the circle, where will you find any Baptists, if you except Brighton and Horsham?

Some twenty years since there were a few general Baptists at Chichester; but they have long been extinct. Now, Sir, if there really was that union of heart, of mental energy, of exertion, and of purse, _which there ought to be_, I might have been spared putting the questions which I have just asked.

Again: at Leeds there is a population of nearly 130,000, and, properly speaking, but _one_ Baptist interest. There is ample room there for several; there is no lack of Independents and Methodists at Leeds. I fear, Sir, that this is only a very small sample of what might be given. I do not think that we so much lack preachers, _as funds to support them_.