furnish no plea for such a course. If it be said, that religion promotes the welfare of States, and ought therefore to be fostered by them, we remark, that marriage has the same tendency, and yet, a law compelling people to marry, would be deemed extremely ridiculous. We, as Americans, have tried the voluntary principle, and found it to answer. The experiment in religious liberty has been as successful as the experiment in political liberty. No wonder that it has so eventuated. The spirit of liberty is one and the same, in every thing. Its philosophy,-its impulses,-its sacrifices,its toils, its triumphs,-bear an exactly similar impress. Socrates, Galileo, Sydney and Hampden, Huss and Wickliffe, belong to an undivided brotherhood.

Book Fifth is devoted to the American church and pulpit. We have a few observations to offer on the latter. If the first requisite of Christianity be a written literature, its second is an appropriate ministry. The range of literature is so narrow, that it is unfitted for powerful and general impression. The advantages of such a medium as literature, are not so much in the direct application of what is conveyed to the mind, as in arousing and informing those who operate on others. It is not usually the ultimate, but the secondary, instrumentality. Agreeably to this fact, the literature of Christianity contemplates the intellectual and spiritual exercises of its ministry, and places its announcements in their hands. If its doctrines are therein exhibited in a singular form, if modes of expression, and manner of address, be peculiar, if its very figures often need explanation, the ministry are to remould them in more palpable human forms, and bring them into immediate contact with the world. The sacredness of heaven rests on all its truths, but their style of presentation and mutual relation may become a matter of personal arrangement, so far as just philosophy requires. If the ministry were not divinely delegated to employ their own wisdom, sanctified by the gracious Spirit, in the mode of exhibiting scriptural truth, leaving all the doctrines and precepts undisturbed, we could not see the utility of such an office. The plain philosophy, therefore, on which this institution is founded, demands the entire conformity of its exhibitions to the laws of nature. Men are to be reasoned with and appealed to, as men. The same general principles are to be recognized, that govern appeals to intellect, under other circumstances. So far from the sublimities and solem

nities of Christianity presenting any hostility to this style of pulpit address, they offer additional reasons for it. If, in ordinary appeal, we pursue this form of speech, how much more necessary is it, when the dignity of the subject obviously places it out of the easy reach of common minds? The system of Christianity seems to have been so arranged as to suit this familiar plan of instruction. Its themes are indeed grand. Whatever is august in the character of God, and whatever is great in the destinies of eternity, are contained in it; but they are susceptible of an entire conformity to the most common trains of reflection. The profundities of abstract thought are rendered available, and the deepest mysteries are made subservient to impression. Happily for Christianity, it has a material universe on which to depend. Every possible form of thought,-every shade of feeling,all the riches of its treasury,-may be illustrated by the natural objects that surround us. Infinity may be taught by the extent of the universe. Though not absolutely infinite, yet it is practically infinite to us, so that our feeble intellects are as much overcome by the vast planetary systems, as by infinity itself. The beauties of creation Christianity emphatically claims, not to adorn its revelations, but to give them a passport to the unthinking world. The advantage of such figures is derived from the fact, that they are in nearer contact with the mind than any isolated thoughts can be, and from their connexion with the senses, tend to produce instantaneous emotion. We know of nothing, in which the elaborate processes of the reasoning faculty are so utterly valueless, as in the popular presentations of Christianity; we know of nothing, in which the vivid displays of imagination are more effective. The poetry of eloquence may be largely drawn from its revelations. The great difficulty in the display of eloquence, is, in so completely blending the various aspects of a subject, as to make them contribute to the production of fine thought and intense feeling. Where this harmony can be effected, eloquence must be the fruit. To think and to feel with one and the same intensity, to bring thought and emotion to operate upon an audience, this is eloquence. The nature of Christianity may be said to compel this union. No separate working of intellect can grasp it. No mere power of sentiment can embrace it. The two must combine and act together. If VOL. VII.--NO. 14.

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this be done, Christianity comes within the scope of the human mind, and invites unreserved communion.

The pulpit is divided between two classes of speakers,viz: the cold intellectualist and the man of passion. Neither can be truly eloquent. The one gives all to the intellect: the other gives all to the passions. The hearers of the former leave their hearts at home: the hearers of the latter forget to take their reasons with them. If the two be associated, it is not common, and hence the rareness of elevated pulpit eloquence. Did the preacher of the Gospel resign himself to his subject, and follow the natural instincts of his constitution as controlled by the Holy Ghost, what a potent sway he would exert over his audiences! So far as his understanding is concerned, Divine truth would pass through it to his hearers, as light through a clear glass; so far as his sensibilities are involved, Divine love would flow through them, as through a channel, to all around him.

It strikes us, from all we can gather, that the pulpit eloquence of the United States equals any in the world. Taking published sermons as a guide, we certainly have no superior. The discourses of Dr. Dwight, Davies and Mason, can hardly be excelled. The monthly issues of the "National Preacher" demonstrate the same fact. If we turn to our pulpit, as now filled, may we not justly be proud of Beecher, Barnes, Cheever, Kirk, Cone, Williams, Bascom, Olin, Durbin, Maffitt, Snethen, Stockton, Duncan, McIlvaine, Johns, Doane, Tyng, Pise, Moriarty, Bethune and Wayland?

We feel that it is now time to close this article. We cannot, however, dismiss the subject, without remarking, that Dr. Baird has not shown his usual discrimination in the chapter on slavery. His object is to prove, that Southern slavery is an obstacle in the way of the voluntary principle. His first argument is founded on the unwillingness of slaves to worship with their masters. We call this no argument. The free blacks of Pennsylvania, and other States north of us, are unwilling to worship with the whites, but does this prevent the spread of the Gospel among them? The prime necessity is to give them the Gospel. Association with us is certainly not essential. His premises, however, are not sound. Slaves do meet with the whites, in hundreds of instances. We have witnessed large assemblies of them, to hear the same truths, and rejoice in the same promises. If

their taste lead them to desire separate services, it is what the black man universally prefers, so long as he is unbiassed by extraneous influence. Is it fair to make slave-holders responsible for the nature of the negro? The Doctor's second argument is based on the thinness of the population in slave-holding States. Congregations cannot be readily collected. Large land-owners may grudge a minister his support. So he reasons. All this is fallacy. If the Doctor knew the South as well as some know it, he would not, we believe, have made such assertions. The regions of the South are generally well supplied with faithful preaching. Slave-holders feel it to be their duty and interest to support the Gospel. Nowhere is there more liberality, than among them. Had the Doctor paused here, we might have smiled at the mistakes into which he has fallen, but we must acknowledge that our face-muscles grew rigid over this sentiment, viz:

"Contemplating these difficulties, we shall come to the conclusion, that if, in any part of the United States, the support of the Gospel by taxation enforced by law, is better adapted to the circumstances of the people, than the voluntary plan, it is in the seaboard counties of Maryland, Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia." See page 41.

We think this very unfortunate language. If the Doctor meant to imply, (as we conceive he did,) that Southerners have not sufficient conscience or sufficient impulse to induce them to support the Gospel, he has committed as egregious a blunder of the intellect, as he has violated the laws of courtesy. We thought the world were agreed, that parsimony belonged to the North. Whatever sins have been charged to the South, we never before heard the sin of illiberality fastened on us, nor did we know that the most fiery abolitionist desired the aid of the civil law to make us attend church. We have ever honored the Gospel for its own sake, we have honored it for our own sakes. We love and cherish it. We are willing to live by it and to be judged by it. If taxation prevailed in the South, few would have to give half as much for the support of the Gospel, as is now given cheerfully and unconstrainedly. Strange that the Doctor should have forgotten, that the voluntary system is a Southern system by birth and maintenance! Strange that prejudice should have blinded him to one of the elementary facts involved in his subject! If the Doctor were near enough to us, we should like to whisper in his ear, that the

state of religion in the South is, in many points, purer than in the North, that the unevangelical denominations, as he terms them, are not near so extensive, in the ratio of population, and, finally, that the morbid exhibition of the religious sentiment, as seen in Millerism and kindred doctrines, are the Northern fungi, that disfigure the Tree of Life.

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L.

ART. V.-UNITY OF THE RACES.

1. Twelve Lectures on the Connexion between Science and Revealed Religion. Delivered in Rome, by NICHOLAS WISEMAN, D.D., Principal of the English College, and Professor in the University of Rome. Andover and NewYork. 1837. 8vo., pp. 404.

2. Two Lectures on the Natural History of the Caucasian and Negro Races. By JOSIAH C. NOTT, M. D. Mobile. 1844. pp. 53.

THE Lectures of Dr. Wiseman were originally prepared for private instruction in the College of which he was then Principal. At the request of friends, they were subsequently delivered, with some modifications, before a public audience in Rome, and were received with so much favor, that he consented to their publication. He has since been elevated to the Episcopate, and now resides in England, with the title of Bishop of Melipotamus. Although he has published several works of a polemical character, upon the distinctive tenets of the Roman church, the reader will hardly find in these Lectures an expression which would raise a suspicion that the author was a subject of the Roman obedience. The purpose of the Lectures being to furnish evidences of the truth of Divine Revelation from the discoveries of modern science, he had no occasion to leave the ground occupied by Protestant and Romanist in common, and discuss the subjects which divide them. The topics he has discussed, are of equal interest and concern to Christians of every name. We can go hand in hand with him about the walls which enclose the august Temple of the one God of Nature and of Revelation, and "tell the towers thereof;" or, entering with uncovered heads the sacred precincts, can visit crypt