almost every page, and from which we might learn so much." The last posthumous work of Mr. Coleridge, published September, 1840, is entitled _Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit_, and consists of seven letters on the Inspiration of the Scriptures. It should be understood that this work is intended _not to undermine the belief that the Bible is the Word of God_, or in any degree to lessen the deep reverence with which it is regarded by Christians, but to put that belief on a better foundation than it commonly rests upon. "Let it be distinctly understood," the author says, "that my arguments and objections apply exclusively to the following Doctrine or Dogma. To the opinions which individual divines have advanced in lieu of this doctrine,"--for instance, I suppose, the strange fancy that the _words_ of the Bible are not divinely dictated, that the language is human and yet exempt, by divine power, from any possible admixture of human error,--"my only objection, as far as I object, is--that I do not understand them.--I said that in the Bible there is more that _finds_ me than I have experienced in all other books put together; that the words of the Bible find me at greater depths of my being; and that whatever finds me brings with it an irresistible evidence of its having proceeded from the Holy Spirit. But the Doctrine in question requires me to believe, that not only what finds me, but that all that exists in the sacred volume, which I am bound to find therein, was not alone inspired by, that is, composed by men under the actuating influence of the Holy Spirit, but likewise--dictated by an infallible intelligence;--that the writers, each and all, were divinely informed as well as inspired.----I can conceive no softenings here which would not nullify the Doctrine, and convert it to a cloud for each man's fancy to shape and shift at will. And this doctrine, I confess, plants the vineyard of the word with thorns for me, and places snares in its pathways." He proceeds to shew how the doctrine in question injures the true idea of the spirituality and divinity of the sacred volume, and directly or indirectly tends to alienate men from the outward Revelation. A second edition of this little work will soon be prepared.