institutions, that efficiency of government, and those habits of subordination, so indispensable to qualify us for spontaneous obedience to law, are fast failing; and the law is called to disclose its impotency to control a population from abroad and at home, furious in passion, haughty in pride, and indomitable in will. The result is, that in the absence of the power, and in contempt of the dignity of law, brawls and assaults and batteries, in high places and low, and duels and assassinations, and robberies, and conflagrations, and murders, and mobs, and treasons, and all the symptoms of a fast approaching dissolution, begin to appear.

The truth is, we are fast going down stream, with all the accelerating power of passion, wind, and tide ; AND UNLESS THE NATION CAN BE AWAKENED, WE SHALL GO DOWN.' pp. 41, 43.

To what extent should colleges be multiplied? We answer, they should be multiplied just so far as is necessary in order to all the benefits of competition. The competition among rival institutions, is not only, as we have already hinted, the great stimulus to improvement, but also the great security against deterioration and corruption. But beyond that point at which the benefits of free competition are made sure, it is not good economy on the part of the christian public to endow new colleges. Nay, it is a positive evil, when the multiplication of colleges prevents that concentration of endowments and of public interest and affection, which is necessary in order that each may be adequately furnished and sustained. A multitude of starveling institutions, without apparatus, without libraries, without funds, without students in such numbers as to permit a proper division of labor among the instructors, must operate only to bring down the standard of liberal education. Yet peculiar circumstances may sometimes make it necessary to endow a college on a territory which is already nominally supplied. The institution which pre-occupies the ground may be incurably defective in its constitution,-it may be a State institution, forever in the hands of intriguing politicians, it may be an institution from which evangelical influence is hopelessly excluded. Such an institution it may be good economy to supplant rather than to endure; and commonly such an institution is easily supplanted, or at least paralized. But when such is the object, let the object be plainly and manfully avowed. Let not the new institution be got up under the plea of reforming the whole system of education. Let it involve no preposterous and perilous project of a self-supporting institute, which demands aid because it can support itself; or of a great miscellaneous combination of things, the infant school and the theological seminary, the college and the female institute, men and babes, youths and maidens, all dwelling together in love, a beautiful spectacle of mutual instruction and mutual refinement. Let the great and satisfactory reason for getting up the supernumerary institutution be openly avowed. VOL. VIII.

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Let it be said out, The college on this ground is too corrupt, too hopeless of reform to be endured; and we intend to put it down. Then, if the case can be made out to the satisfaction of the christian public, the requisite funds will be given intelligently and cheerfully.

Our remarks thus far have taken no notice of that which we regard as the ablest and most valuable portion of Dr. Beecher's discourse, and it is now too late to dwell upon what we have passed by. We will only say, that the few pages which he occupies with a discussion of the proper design and end of liberal education, are worthy to be studied once a month by every young man who enjoys the privilege of cultivating his mind for future action on the minds of his fellow-men. Through that discussion, and indeed throughout the whole discourse, are thickly scattered those gems of brilliant and solid thought,-diamonds carelessly thrown from the mine,-which so characterize all the writings of this author. No writer of this age so abounds in striking apothegms, strikingly expressed, each of which might be the theme of a volume. We have marked a few specimens; and with these we dismiss the subject.

ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES.

The depths and the accuracy of science are but the development of his handy work, whose wisdom is in all, and over all; and no man can understand any science, or any thing, who cannot lay his hand on the elementary principles, and by the light of these, trace out the relations and dependences of the whole.' p. 9.

IMPORTANCE OF PRECISION OF THOUGHT.

It is this precision of knowledge which it is the business of literary and theological institutions to communicate, and of their inmates to acquire-and without it not only are the blessings of an education lost, but the multiplied evils of undisciplined minds-of indefinite conceptions and fallacious reasonings-and the bewilderment of a declamatory flippancy of specious words is poured out upon society with an overflowing flood, sweeping away the landmarks of truth and principles, and covering the surface with brush, and leaves and gravel.' p. 10.

CONDENSATION OF THOUGHT.

Thought must have light and power to produce effect--and this can be accomplished only by condensation-and this, only by close and clear thinking, and careful and reiterated revision.' p. 13.

NATIVE ELOQUENCE.

There is no native eloquence, more than there is native running races or fighting battles. It is the result of the best order of mind, with all sorts of the best training.' p. 15.

VALUE OF KNOWLEDGE ACQUIRED BY INVESTIGATION.

That which is committed to the memory may be forgotten; but that which is seen and handled of truth is inseparable from the mind's being, and is the ground of its future and eternal progress.' p. 19.

WHENCE COMES ELOQUENCE?

It is not the dilatory precision of thought and words, stored up in memory, which qualifies mind for its high action in victorious elocution; but the electric flash of thought, and the broad circumference of illuminated vision, filled with words for perspicuity, precision, strength or beauty, and familiar by use, offering every where and constantly their willing aid-a body-guard clustering by affinity and affection unseen around the orator, as guardian spirits attend the saints-auxiliaries which no art can enlist, no mercenary motive secure, and which come only by long and oft-repeated communings with the mighty dead of other tongues and other days. It is not memory, it is not art; it is the babit of the soul,-its quick perceptions, refined taste and feeling, around which the symbols of thought rally when its high inspirations come on, and it goes forth in its victorious career. Like spirits from the vasty deep, they come clustering about its path on flaming wing, offering their welcome aid.' p. 30.

ART. V.-CHARACTERISTICS OF OUR LORD'S MINISTRY.

The Great Teacher; Characteristics of our Lord's Ministry. By the Rev. JOHN HARRIS. With an introductory essay, by HKMAN HUMPHREYS, D. D., Presi dent of Amherst College. Amherst: J. S. & C. Adams. 1836.

THIS is a volume of 430 pages, recently reprinted at Amherst, Mass., from the original English work, also of recent date, with an introduction from the pen of the president of Amherst College. From this introduction of president Humphrey, we will copy a short extract, designed to give a compendious view of the contents and character of the book before us.

"The author of the present work, is the pastor of an independent church, in Epsom, Eng.; and is well reported of by the brethren.' It being his object in this volume, to bring us directly to Christ, for divine instruction, he entitles it, THE GREAT TEACHER. The book contains five Essays, of considerable length, and on the following important topics. I. The authority of our Lord's teaching. II. The originality of our Lord's teaching, under seven distinct heads. III. The spirituality of our Lord's teaching. IV. On the tenderness and benevolence of our Lord's teaching. V. The practicalness of our Lord's teaching. In reading these Essays, I have been exceedingly interested, as I am sure every person must be, who is pleased to find weighty and well-digested thoughts, imbued with deep christian feeling, and clothed in perspicuous and polished language. Mr. Harris is a writer of much more than ordinary intellectual powers and cultivation.

He writes like one who has long been accustomed to sit at the feet of Jesus,' and has eminently profited under his teaching. Instead of asking what other men have thought of The Great Teacher, and borrowing their opinions to help make out a respectable volume, he has evidently heard for himself; and he gives us his own impressions vividly and forcibly, just as he received them. Such a book as this is not often writen before the meridian of life, and never either before or after, without deep and protracted meditation.' pp. xvi. xvii.

We have certainly not read this book without interest, nor, as we trust, without some degree of profit; but, perhaps, owing to some fault in ourselves, we must confess, that we have not experienced quite all that interest or profit which the nature of the theme, and the strength of the commendation bestowed upon the work, led us to anticipate. The work is indeed original, and contains many new and striking thoughts. It is the production of a vigorous mind. It is in the main correct in point of orthodoxy; and its subject matter will of course insure for it among the pious an extended circulation. But we did not ourselves feel all that intensity of interest, in the reading of it, which we had expected to feel. There are intrinsic and very serious difficulties in handling such a theme. The imagination of the writer is apt to become so warmed by dwelling upon our Lord's character, (where all is so wonderful and so captivating,) as to leave the mind in a measure unfitted for that calm, collected, and minute contemplation of particulars in our Lord's life and actions, which is so essential to a distinct and powerful impression. A splendor and a redundancy of imagery is apt to be employed by the writer to express the struggling conceptions and emotions of his soul, the effect of which is to prevent, still further, definiteness and clearness of apprehension respecting the things of which he treats. And besides all this, in contemplating our Lord's character, we feel that we are not contemplating simply an exhibition of human actions and human propensities, but that there is mysteriously combined with them something which is infinitely superior to what appropriately belongs to human nature. This very fact, tends still farther to embarrass the mind in respect to the clearness of its perceptions, and to beget confusion and fatigue in the mind of others, where it attempts to transfer its own impressions to them. These remarks are designed to explain, and we think they do so, at least in part, the leading defects of the work before us. The mind of the author was evidently and strongly excited by the very nature of his subject. His imagination was kindled to the highest pitch. As he dwelt upon the inspiring theme, he found his thoughts instinctively borne away into a region of comparative obscurity, where all is vast and sublime, unearthly and incomprehensible; and here images, rather than distinct and sober views of reality, crowd

ed upon him in rapid succession and irresistible power; and he has spread them out before us, or rather poured them out, in the wild confusion and vagueness in which they offered themselves to his own mind. A paragraph or two will illustrate our meaning, and at the same time exhibit the author's bold and fervid manner of writing. For this purpose we have selected the following from the section on "Satanic agency."

For ages previous to the divine advent, the world seemed almost entirely his own. His contest for earthly supremacy, so long disputed by heaven, seemed crowned with success. His vice-regencies and powers sat in the quiet and unchallenged possession of their thrones. No prophet smote them on their lofty seat, or denounced their usurpations; no miracle reminded them of an omnipotent antagonist. The world appeared to be as completely theirs, to portion out and rule at pleasure, as if they held it by grant and seal from God himself, and were appointed to reign in his name. Nor did Judea itself form an exception to this wide infernal sway; for (short of formal idolatry) it belonged to the universal confederacy, and formed one of the fairest and most faithful provinces of the Satanic empire. And, as if to exact a terrible compensation, even for this slight nominal deduction from full allegiance, many of its inhabitants were held as hostages to hell, by a terrible system of demoniacal possession. Satan had become the prince of this world.' Wherever he looked the expanse was his own; the teeming population were his subjects; the invisible rulers were his selected agents; temptation in his hands had become a science, and sin was taught by rule; the world was one storehouse of temptation; an armory in which every object and event ranked as a weapon, and all classed and kept ready for service: every human heart was a fortified place every demon power was at its post: he beheld the complicated machinery of evil, which his mighty malignity had constructed, in full and efficient operation; no heart unoccupied, no spot unvisited, no agency unemployed; and the whole resulting in a vast, organized and consolidated empire. No sooner, therefore, did Jesus begin to attract the attention of Judea, as the Sent of God,' than he became obnoxious to the tyrant's hate. In the usurped capacity of the sovereign of the world the tempter went forth and met him, asking him only to own that sovereignty, and all the kingdoms of the world should be his, and the glory of them.'

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'Now, as Satan possesses on earth official ubiquity, as he is every where present through the medium of his agent, it was not to be supposed that an event so signalized as the advent of Christ would escape his knowledge; or, that being known, it would fail to call forth his jealous vigilance and utmost opposition. Knowing, indeed, as we do, the essential dignity of Christ, we might have hoped that, in deference to his purity and majesty, temptation would have retired from his presence, or have laid its baneful activity to sleep; that the powers of darkness would have left him a free and open passage through the world: and that his disciples would have found in his hallowed presence a certain shelter from the persecutions of hell. But, so far from this, his