and degrading, is in our view indicative of a narrow mind. They are usually sought by the young with eagerness, and pursued with an interest bordering on enthusiasm. While they admit the repose of the wearied intellect, they give the stimulus of action to the very organs, and faculties, and feelings, which need it. They are not circumscribed in their influence, like those species of exercise which do not excite the pleasureable emotions, or like those sedentary amusements and indulgences which do not require bodily ac tion. Their effects upon the economy are universal-are felt ev ery where. A glow of pleasure, as indescribable as it is exquisite, diffuses itself over all the organs. Man is renovated in all his nature, and becomes himself again. The vigor of the intellect is revived, and study once more becomes easy and successful. An hour spent in the chase or at a game of ball, (if such a thing is relished,) we are confident will be productive of more relaxationwill do more towards preserving the health of the student, than thrice the time, devoted to the same object, spent in a different way, in an employment, for instance, which exerts only a limited influence upon the human powers. If the student is compelled, through poverty, to provide for his own support, he should, if pos sible, enjoy the means of making his exercise subservient to this end. But even in this case, we would not urge it upon him as a duty, to take his exercise in this way. Much less would we give our countenance to the notion, that it is wise or safe to insist on labor as the only proper exercise of students at large. To make it useful it must be voluntary. While we would recommend play where it is relished, we would also advise agriculture, horticulture, mechanical pursuits, botanical excursions, etc. respectively, where these were preferred. It is true, we should feel bound to give a preference of productive to unproductive employments in the abstract, but we ought never to sacrifice the real interests of the student, for pecuniary profit. We are here considering the eligibility of different modes of exercise, as the means of health. Considered in this light, relaxation is the great criterion of useful exercise; and we ought to make no selection which does not regard this purpose as the supreme object. We would be contented to see health secured; and would not be over scrupulous about the means, provi ded they are harmless. The student's direct object, let it be recollected, is scholarship. He is not sent to college to learn trades, or the manual part of agriculture. To him, exercise is only important as it renders the attainment of intellectual excellence practicable. We would urge only so much as is necessary to this end. More than this would be rather injurious to high intellectual culture. Not only would it consume time, but it would concentrate too much the vital energy upon the muscles, thus abstracting it unduly from the brain. For this reason, we would rather discour ge bodily activity beyond what is requisite to preserve the tegrity of the functions, as unfavorable to intellectual develope ent. The business of the student is study. This is his occupation. e is sent to a literary institution to pursue it. Other occupations e has no concern with, except as they involve or stand related to is main design. Study is labor, as truly so, as severe in kind, and as xhausting in its effects, as the employment of any mechanic. It is aken for granted that this labor is as much in amount as the system an sustain without injury. This amount is imposed as a task. Now s it not right, after this task has been finished, that the student hould be allowed a short space of time which he may call his own? We have already shown that health demands it. Shall he then be asked still, forced into the corn-field, (the moment his lesson has been recited,) there again to earn his bread by another species of abor? Why should students fare so much worse than any other description of laborers? Suppose each can earn another shilling a day, by devoting all his leisure time to brick-making, (health out of the account ;) where is the justice of urging it upon him as a duty, when the farmer is permitted to enjoy his "noon spell" unmolested, though he might in the mean time, add a few pence to the general stock of national wealth, by occupying himself in some handicraft employment? Why this distinction? Why should the young student have a harder master than the mechanic boy? The latter always has a leisure hour for play, and nobody complains of it. General opinion has given its sanction to its propriety and even necessity; and general opinion in such cases is always right. Why not, then, allow the the same liberty to the student, when, weary of labor, he has finished his daily task? In either case in our opinion, it would be cruel to barter this liberty for the miserable consideration of pecuniary profit. We see it bartered in the case of the wretched English operative, and are satisfied with the result of the experiment. We hope the sordid spirit, which so grinds to the dust the inmates of the manufactories of Britain, may never find a place in this coun try. Our views of manual labor institutions may be gathered from what has been said. We approve highly of such institutions, when they are designed, and it is distinctly understood, that one of their primary objects is to prepare youth for mechanical trades, or practical farming. We should rejoice too to see the means thus opened, for those who must support themselves, while preparing for college. But we should object to their incorporation with institutions which have a very different design. We have given our reasons for believing that manual labor, as a stated and prescribed duty, cannot, to any great extent, be made to answer the ends of that relaxation which all agree the student needs. Indeed, we cannot look upon such labor as relaxation at all. On this ground more particularly, we would not make it a requisition. The report of Mr. Weld, however, is a document of great value. It contains the fruits, evidently, of much inquiry and reflection. It is written with great spirit—a zeal almost enthusiastic. It contains some specimens of eloquent writing, mingled, however, with more sarcasm than we should judge expedient in such a production. Mr. W. can have no patience with the miserable effeminacy of the times. "Those nauseous specimens of diluted manhood, scribbling sentimentality in albums, and lisping insipidity," which unfortunately are so common among the stronger sex in "this age of degeneracy," excite in him an indignation which he is at no pains to conceal. ART. IV.-FOSTER'S GLORY OF THE AGE. The Glory of the Age: an Essay on the spirit of Missions, being the substance of a Discourse delivered before the Baptist Missionary Society, Bristol, Eng. By JOHN FOSTER. Boston: Published by James Loring. 1833. year EXACTLY a century has elapsed, since those pioneers of modern missions, the single hearted Moravians, first conceived the project of evangelizing the world. The first three missionaries of the United Brethren, to the heathen, Matthew Stack, Christian Stack, and Christian David, embarked for Greenland in the 1733. From the distance of a hundred years, and amidst the lights of christianity, now burning brightly in so many parts of the globe, it is difficult for us to appreciate fully the faith and zeal of this devoted sect. The practicability of converting the heathen, like some of the simplest facts in physics, is now so obvious, that it is difficult to see how it could ever have been overlooked. Every tyro in natural philosophy has marveled that the principle involved in the fall of an apple, should ever have been a mystery, and has been ready to deny to the author of the Principia, the honor of the famed discovery; and now that almost every breeze is bearing on its wings some herald of christianity and civilization, to his home among the heathen, we can but faintly realize the feelings of the obscure villagers of Herrnhut, when they consecrated their first missionary. Composing but a small fraction of the christian church, with no star of example to guide them, to the Moravians belongs the honor of having originated an enterprise, which is truly, in the emphatic language of Mr. Foster, "the Glory of the Age;" and which is destined to change the whole face of the globe. The king of Denmark had indeed, through *The society of Jesuits had indeed been formed two centuries before, and the govermental policy, sent out two missionaries to Tranquebar in the East Indies, as early as 1705. In 1721, too, Mr. Egede had embarked for Greenland, under royal patronage, to seek out and preach to the long lost colony of Danes, who had relapsed, it was supposed, into heathenism. But we no where find the theory of modern missions, as the distinct and peculiar enterprise of the church, conceived and developed anterior to the year 1733. The Moravians, the descendants of the ancient Bohemian church, which before the Reformation had maintained the doctrines of the bible in some purity, and produced two illustrious martyrs, John Huss and Jerome of Prague, and which had waded to a pure faith through seas of their own blood, the Moravians, we repeat, gave the first example of the theory of modern missions. It is to the "paitence of hope and the labor of love," which these modern apostles exhibited, amidst perils as various and abundant as ever Paul endured, if to any thing human, that the church owes her existing zeal, and prospective success in missions. If that incipient effort had failed, if after five years of unremitted toil and suffering, amidst the rocks and snows of Greenland, without a solitary instance of conversion, the brethren had abandoned their enterprise, who can tell how many more centuries of torpor and gloom would have shrouded the church, and gathered deeper blackness round the prospects of the benightened heathen. But they did not abandon it. Amidst frost and famine, nakedness and disease, they resolved to "bind themselves to the work, come life, come death; to believe, when there was nothing to be seen; to hope when nothing was to be expected." The annals of the world do not furnish a brighter example of the moral sublime, of elevated heroism, of enduring fortitude, than is presented in the history of the Greenland Mission. Our purpose, however, is not to eulogize the Moravians. They need not our praise. Their record is on high. But in introducing some remarks which we wish to make on the missionary enterprise, we could not but pay a passing tribute of grateful remembrance to the self-denying and holy men, who were its original projectors. The spark of benevolence which was then lighted up in their breasts, and which has continued to burn there since with such an unremitted and kindly glow, unfanned by the breezes of sectarian zeal, has communicated its genial light and heat to other hearts. Other denominations have caught their spirit and practiced upon their example. Our Baptist brethren nobly led the way in Eastern missions, and from that time associations have arisen in rapid succession, Propaganda one, these were rather political than christian institutions, and instead of resting for support upon the inherent, vital energies of christianity her self, were sustained by the whole power and wealth of the Roman See till nearly every considerable sect is embarked in the enterprise, and it has become emphatically the enterprise of christendom. We have selected the work before us, which was originally a sermon in behalf of the Baptist Missionary Society, not so much for the purpose of review or criticism, as to furnish an introduction to some remarks which we wish to make on the general subject of missions. It is due, however to the character of the author, and the intrinsic merits of the work, to give some account of its contents. On Mr. Foster's style and manner it is unnecessary for us to dwell. Whenever his writings are spoken of hereafter, Robert Hall's "lumbering wagon loaded with gold," will at once rise up to view. None of his productions is more strongly marked with the impress of his genius, than the one before us. It has a depth of philosophical analysis, an originality of remark, a boldness of imagination, a cogency of reasoning, and often a felicity of expres sion, which would do honor to the brightest names in English literature. But while thus admirable in its parts, it wants as a whole, the crowning excellence of literary composition, that comprehensive simplicity of genius which molds great thoughts into one harmonious system, and aims throughout at making a single distinct and vivid impression upon the mind. After a few introductory remarks, Mr. Foster enters on a glowing exhibition of the low and inadequate conceptions entertained by most christians, respecting the " great conflict with moral evil," to which they are called in virtue of their profession. ravage Sometimes we contemplate, perhaps, the mighty progress of destruction, as carried over a large tract of the earth by some of the memora ble instruments of divine wrath, such as Attila, Zengis Khan, or Timour. We behold a wide spreading terror preceding, to be soon followed by the realization of every alarming presage, in resistless and extermination. Numberless crouds come tumultuously to our view, in all the varieties of dismay, and vain effort, and suffering, and death; a world of ghastly countenances, desperate struggles, lamentable cries, streaming blood, and expiring agonies; with the corresponding circumstances of fury and triumph, and the appropriate scenery of habitations burning, and the land made a desert. And while one general charac ter of horror is spread over the immensity of the scene, the imagined forms and aspects of individual victims, frequently marked forth from the confused aggregate, and presented to the mind in momentary glimpses, as vivid points of impression, give an effect of reality to the visionary spectacle of misery and destruction. When a man of ardent imagination has dwelt upon such a scene till it almost glows into actual existence in his view, let him be assured it is the language of truth and soberness that affirms this spectacle to form but a faint and inadequate image, for representing that other invasion which is made upon the spirits of all mankind; that invasion of which, indeed, all these horrors are themselves but a few of the exterior circum |