companied with flaming and licentious embellishments, but they must be seasoned with slander, and be made captivating by calumny and vituperation. From these remarks, it is very obvious that all who are connected with the press, should be men of sterling principle. Accurate knowledge, great enterprise and energy, intelligence, and general excellence of character, are not sufficient. These men ought to be worthy of filling a high place in society. Upon no individuals is the advance of mankind in knowledge and happiness more essentially depending. They should be eminently conscientious. They should have that regard to the public welfare, which will cause them to make sacrifices for its promotion. They should attach a much higher importance, than they are accustomed to do, to their profession as a part of that great array of force, which is to renovate the world. They should not adapt their publications to the demand of the community, indiscriminately, but they should determine what ought to be the public taste. That which an author preeminently needs is a foresight of the condition and needs of the community-such as Edmund Burke possessed of the results of the French revolution—so that he can control what is to be the current of public thought and action, by making the fountain sweet and healthful. The character of a national literature is frequently depending on very insignificant but still palpable causes.

The intelligent and christian public have a plain and most important duty to perform in relation to this matter. They should bestow an efficient patronage on such men as are disposed to publish only useful works.

This whole subject is not regarded by the community as of that high importance, which it really possesses. A good book or periodical is one of the greatest blessings of civilized society. But we have no reason to complain that the community are deluged with worthless publications, till we have done all in our power to put into circulation such as are really valuable.

A periodical work, possessing intellectual power, written with purity of taste, and circulating among ten thousand of the leading clergymen and laymen of the United States, would have a weight of authority, and an extent of influence, which would illuminate the conscience, and arouse and direct the mind of the whole country. It would concentrate a great amount of talent and influence which is now lost. It would look abroad upon the relations which we sustain to other portions of the world,

and to the duties resulting therefrom. It would not fear to suggest the deficiencies which exist in many of our systems of mental and moral philosophy-in not looking at man as he is, in building noble structures on baseless foundations. It would show to the people of this generation, that a belief in the deity and atonement of Jesus Christ is not in essential connection with a perverted taste or a feeble intellect; and that a belief in the existence of a renovating agency in the world of mind, is no more a proof of insanity, than a belief in the operations of Almighty power in the world of matter. But in order to create a christian literature, we must seize on the sources of literature. It does no good for us to complain that the current literature is antichristian or negative. The discussion of important topics, or the communication of valuable thoughts, has no beneficial effect on a large number of minds in this country, if that discussion or those thoughts are found to be associated with contracted views, or with an uncultivated taste. The question is: Shall a heavenly influence pervade all the fountains of knowledge? Shall good taste and vital religion be united? Shall our scholars be compelled to abide by the decisions of a literature founded on the truth of God?* Upon Christians and upon christian scholars, this great result is depending. They can form and cherish a literature, vigorous, pure, with its influence flowing every where. With them are lodged not simply the thoughts of the nation, but the moulds of the thoughts; not the conceptions merely, but the patterns, the archetypes of the conceptions; not simply the regulation of their own minds, but the fashioning of ten thousand minds besides. An influence can be here exerted such as Rome never comprehended; such as the scholars of Alexandria never reached. Let our scholars then come up to their great and most interesting work. Let them lift up their eyes on the fields, boundless in extent, and white already to the harvest. Let the tide of ignorance be stayed, and human nature here assume her renovated and primeval form. Let us have such a literature as shall be in unison with the better day which is coming, such as the spirits of just men made perfect might contemplate with delight.

3. Mental and Moral Science. An intelligent observer cannot but be impressed with the vaccillating opinions and militant

One or two of the above paragraphs were published by the writer, a few years since, with some modifications, in another publication

theories which are constantly started in this department of knowledge. One writer boldly asserts that the peculiar doctrines of the gospel cannot justly be excluded from the philosophical treatise. Another writer, equally a believer in the gospel, maintains that morals and mental science stand on ground perfectly independent of revealed religion. One theory is occupied with speculations on the mysteries of the human soul; another is confined to the external phenomena; a third endeavors to sustain the character of an eclectic philosopher; a fourth multiplies the original powers of the soul; a fifth strives, by the most subtle analysis, to reduce the whole to one or two simple principles. Theory succeeds theory. The scholar has scarcely time to peruse the current volume before an ambitious rival presents its claims. Confused by this endless shifting of the scene, he is tempted to renounce all thought upon the subject, or else to betake himself to some old author, whose errors even have a charm which is not found in the mazes of more recent speculations.

When such is the predicament in which this science is involved, it may be presumption in us to offer any suggestions. There are, however, certain desiderata which it may not be indecorous for us to name.

One half the errors which prevail in relation to this subject may be traced to indefiniteness in the use of language. Two writers use the same term in different senses. The same writer, not unfrequently, attaches opposite significations to the same word in different portions of his treatise. Misconception follows. His opinions are attacked. He sends out a rejoinder. In the heat of battle, he loses his self-command, and becomes involved along with his speculations, in learned confusion. Thus what began in misapprehension of a word, ends in jarring opinion, heretical doctrine, or thoroughly alienated feeling. Now, is it wholly impracticable to effect a general, if not unanimous agreement, in respect to the use of certain words-such as idea, subject, object, subjective, objective, reason, motive and others in the vocabulary of mental science? Might not our principal periodical publications contribute something to such a result?

Again, is there not a point of view in which the essays of various philosophers may all be in conformity with truth? Not that there are no fixed principles in the science; not that erroneous or crude notions may not be broached. But are we, to a proper degree, in the habit of putting ourselves in the position

of a particular author, and of contemplating a subject in the aspects which he intended that we should contemplate it? On the contrary, do we not hasten to compare him with some preceding or contemporary writer, in order to bring them into collision, and affix upon one or the other the seal of condemnation? A more christian mode of procedure would be to put a charitable construction upon the language of both, and not charge heresy or absurdity upon either because their minds happened to be differently constituted, or their object in appearing before the public not identical.

Some students of mental philosophy impose on themselves by requiring a uniform style of writing in all treatises on the subject in question. They are warm advocates of simplicity, plainness, perspicuity, or, in other words, of Saxon monosyllables. The only criterion of the worth of a book is its instant and perfect intelligibility to them to them, in all states of their minds and of their bodies. It is not easy to see how they would grapple with Paul's epistle to the Romans. He deals in sounding polysyllables, as well as in particles of three letters. Yet, if he employed the latter alone, it would not follow that his reasoning would have been any better than it is now. Long words were made to be used. A due mixture of them is indispensable to a philosophical writer. There are trains of thought which cannot be enunciated without them. We are not aware that bishop Butler's language could be much altered for the better. In sitting down to a writer of any pretensions on philosophical subjects, we need patience, reverence for his understanding, and a desire, on our part, to listen, to digest, to be instructed. He may utter truth, awful and everlasting truth, which may be nearly unintelligible to us, because our minds are unformed and dark.

No thorough philosopher, no accurate observer of mental phenomena can for a moment doubt that human depravity has in some way affected the intellectual faculties of man. A candid observer must be as far from maintaining the dogma that these faculties have not been influenced by the fall of Adam, as he must be from asserting that they are themselves, in the strict sense, depraved. Do not debased affections, unworthy motives, vicious habits act at all on the intellect? Was Adam in Paradise and Adam in his apostasy precisely the same being intellectually considered? Certainly the human intellect is, in some sense, in a darkened and degraded state. It has lost something of its

End

original brightness. Ought not this fact, therefore, to be taken into the account both by the mental and moral philosopher? Otherwise, can he accurately and fully discourse of the mind of man? We do not vindicate the mode in which this subject has been sometimes treated. Christian morals and mental philosophy have been handled not with the most consummate judgment and taste. But the great truth that human depravity has seriously affected the mind, and that he must not overlook this fact, who would give a complete view of the physiology of man, no reasonable person can deny. May we not hope that the boundaries of mental, moral and theological science will be defined with more discrimination; that the influence which moral causes exert on the intellectual nature and faculties will be more clearly pointed out; and that a spirit of more entire self-diffidence and candor, in connection with enlarged conceptions and comprehensive views, will be hereafter characteristic of the researches and studies connected with the great department of mind and morals? If the periodical press can be made auxiliary to the effecting of such a result, its labors will not have been in vain.

4. Political Economy. The student of this unsettled, yet fascinating and important study, should lay down, it is conceived, the following general principles, among others, for the guidance of his studies.

Divine revelation furnishes rules and maxims of the greatest value in this science. The book of Proverbs is the best statesman's manual which was ever written. An adherence to the political economy and spirit of that collection of apothegms and essays would do more to eradicate from a people the causes of extravagance, debasement, and ruin than all the contributions to political economy of Say, Smith, Malthus, and Chalmers together.

The utmost magnanimity should characterize the doctrines and measures of the political economist. A selfish policy among nations is no more to be countenanced than the same thing in individuals. All men ought to love all men. Every part of the world ought to desire and promote, according to its opportunities, the highest well-being of every other part. Europe has no reason to say to America; I have no need of thee. Even the unseemly parts - the burning realms of Africa—are not to be shut out from the great fraternity of nations. The various parts and organs of the human body are not dependent