but nevertheless the fact, I fear, is but clear, that Knowles does not shine in the pulpit as he did on the stage, which he has now renounced some years. Of course he has a crowd to hear him, for a player turned parson is a nine days’ wonder, and run after as such. The question is not, can he read well? not, can he convey his thoughts in elegant language? not, can he compose a lecture which, to his own satisfaction, at least, can demolish insolent popes and self-conceited Unitarians, against which classes he principally labours; but can he preach—preach so that men are awe-struck—acknowledge a divine influence, and shudder as they look back on the buried past? I fear this question must be answered in the negative. Let us imagine ourselves in one of the numerous Baptist chapels of the metropolis—for to that denomination of Christians does Mr. Knowles belong—while he is preaching in the pulpit. You see a shrewd, sharp-looking old gentleman, dressed in black, with a black silk-handkerchief around his neck, and with a voice clear and forcible as the conventional old sea-captain of the stage. He takes a text but remotely connected with his discourse, and begins. You listen with great interest at first. The preacher is lively and animated, and is apparently very argumentative, and nods his head at the conclusion of each sentence in a most decided manner, as if to intimate that he had very considerably the best of the argument. Now, this is all very well for five minutes, or even ten; but when you find this lasting for an hour—with no heads for you to remember—you naturally grow very weary. Knowles, I imagine from his preaching, seems to think argument is his forte; never was a man more mistaken in his life. His sermons are bundles of little bits of arguments tied up together as a heap of old sticks, and just as dry. He seems an honest, dogmatic man, certainly not a great one, and clearly but a moderate preacher after all. A man may eschew the conventionalities of the stage, and the conventionalities of the pulpit, and yet fail. Mr. Knowles is a case in point. As a lecturer, I am told he has been very successful in Scotland. He seems to suit the Scotch better than the English. He lectures against Popery, and the Scotch will always listen with kindly feelings to the man who does that. I don’t imagine that in London Mr. Knowles will do much. He is very controversial. Theology is to him a new study, and he rushes into it with all the zeal of a juvenile enthusiast. This suits the Scotch, but not the English. We are a more tolerant folk. We are all orthodox, of course, but our orthodoxy takes a milder form. We tolerate a clever George Dawson, an infliction against which Scotland rigidly rebels. We may be one nation, but we are far from being one people. We yet live on different fare.