The history of Robert Walker, however, is calculated to teach a much more important lesson than this; although it be one which seems so obvious to _reason_, that it could hardly have been expected that any example should be required, even to _enforce_ it. It appears quite evident, at the first glance, that as Faith can only be illustrated, proved, and confirmed by good works, so Doctrine can only be impressed, ingrafted, and made practical by discipline. It is true that it may be conveyed into the mind, and painted on the imagination, by distinct and impressive oral teaching alone; but it can only become useful and even intelligible to the great masses of men, by their being required to show, by some outward act of their own, that they understand its utility, and make a personal application of the truths which it conveys. When our SAVIOUR Himself combined—never to be separated—outward acts and observances with inward graces in the two holy Sacraments of His religion, He taught us, at once by precept and example, that even the most solemn and mysterious doctrines of His Church can only be properly impressed on the heart and understanding by the observance of some corresponding and outward act, as at once a sign of obedience, and a channel of further grace. This is the system on which our Prayer Book is constructed. Are men to pray?—it tells them when and how. Are they to believe certain _facts_ in their religion?—it impresses them on the heart and memory by periodical commemorations. Are they to believe certain _doctrines_?—it brings these prominently forth at fixed times and seasons. And so on. Doctrine and discipline, with the Church, go hand in hand, like faith and practice, the result of both. Now all this seems so _reasonable_, that it might hardly appear to require the test of experience to give it further sanction; yet to that test we may fairly appeal; and the author has, in his own mind, been constantly in the habit of doing so by the cheering history of Robert Walker. Let us first look at the opposite side of the picture, in the illustrious instance of NEWTON, the pious, laborious, and eloquent minister of OLNEY. Here is a favourable specimen of the system of spreading the Gospel by instructing the mind, and sanctifying the feelings of the hearer, principally by oral teaching, without laying much stress upon the necessity for prescribed outward observances. Yet what is the result? No one can read COWPER’S beautiful letters with regard to that place and time, and not be painfully convinced of the evanescent nature of all impressions which are merely made by individual teaching on individual minds, without some external bond of union by which a religious society may be held together when the hand that first combined it has been withdrawn; and some supply of fuel to rouse and rekindle the slumbering embers, when the first light has been extinguished or removed.