ble branches of natural science which now necessarily form so large a departinent in every course of education.

To the results which we have given in this hurried sketch we are well aware that many exceptions might be stated. There might be frequent failures in realizing all the benefits which have been imagined; but we do firmly believe, that on a fair trial these consequences would generally follow. Every thing would depend on the plan of the first year, or the first two years being patiently and rigidly adhered to. It is in this part of the course that temptations would most powerfully beset the teacher to depart from the line marked out; but if these temptations are perseveringly resisted, and the student, however reluctant, is given to understand that the whole grammar, and nothing less than the whole grammar, is expected to be thoroughly mastered, it does seem to us that, with ordinary minds, the results must be such as have been described, and that with extraordinary minds, they may be such as to exceed our most sanguine anticpation.

The most formidable objection seems to lie against this method of studying the grammar. Memoriter instruction has been so long neglected, and more easy methods so much resorted to, that the faculty of memory seems every where weakened and incapable of those efforts which in former times, and under more rigid discipline, it has been known to put forth. In consequence of this the idea of committing to memory whole grammars, including exceptions, observations, irregular forms and lists of irregular verbs, appears frightful both to the scholar and the teacher. A greater difficulty still seems connected with the thought of retaining such a mass in the memory, after its various parts have been once committed. It may be admitted, that if the scholar can acquire two pages one day he may do the same the next, and so on as long as the exercise is continued; but how shall all this be retained? is the great question. The answer brings us to another very simple process in the art of teaching, which solves the difficulty at once. It is the process of constant daily repetition, or of repeating every day from the beginning of the book until the space passed over renders it too long for one recitation, and then beginning back and going over the same process, until in each review the class is brought up to the point of present advancement. Nor will this require the

time at recitation which would

at first seem necessary.

Great patience and perseverance might be demanded for a few first lessons, but after this each repetition will produce such a familiarity with the language, and such a readiness and rapidity of utterance, that a great amount of space may be passed over in a very short time; and this readiness would be increased at every similar trial. With a class well exercised in this manner from the beginning, the whole Greek verb might be distinctly pronounced in less than ten minutes, and the half, if not the whole of one of our larger grammars might be repeated in one Saturday forenoon, or some other time specially devoted to the object. By this means the grammar is learned in that manner which some affect so much to condemn, viz. by rote. It becomes (if we may repeat an expression which we have several times used) stereotyped in the memory; or rather it passes beyond the domain of memory, and enters into the habitual associations of thought. It is by this severe exercise of the memory at first, that it is afterwards actually relieved from that heavy burthen which other modes of instruction throw upon it. The forms and rules no longer require the painful effort of recollection, or the still more toilsome process of constant recurrence to the book. They are no longer remembered, but like the, forms and peculiarities of our own language, become a part of the inner property of the mind. A wrong inflection or construction is no longer simply remembered but is felt, to be wrong. Bad grammar in Greek or Latin (if we may use a common expression) sounds bad as well as in English. It is thus we claim by this process, however paradoxical it may appear, actually to relieve the memory in all the subsequent part of the student's course.

It may also be objected, that many parts of the grammar must remain unintelligible until after a considerable progress in reading. This difficulty has been greatly overrated, and it may be wholly obviated by the continual parsing of appropriate examples under every rule. This, although involving to a certain degree the knowledge of words, may be legitimately included in the study of the grammar. Admitting, however, that after all some parts may not be fully understood, there is a great advantage in having them stored in the memory. When the time comes for their more perfect application, such parts will be much more likely to be intelligible, than though this process had been neglected; and perhaps a great cause of the confusion and perplexity of

those who have taken an opposite course, arises from the mind not having been familiarized, by constant verbal repetition, to the logical language of grammar. There is a spirit in words, however much their value may be underrated in this age of things. There is a power in well arranged and logical formulas of expression, tending to produce thought, and at the first impulse from the presentation of the subject to which they are applicable, to manifest their own fitness and render themselves intelligible. Perhaps there is no greater fallacy, in some of our present modes of education, than that practice which directs youth to reject the use of well made formulas as slavish and parrot-like, and makes it a merit that they should express their ideas in their own language. Their ideas! What ideas will they have if this mode of instruction is followed out in all its consequences? And what will their own language be but unmeaning jargon, producing, as a necessary consequence, utter confusion of thought, and imbecility of mind, if they are taught to reject those forms of sound words, which have cost the labor and study of more experienced intellects? Authority is the first lesson, as well for the intellectual as the moral nature of man, and previous submission to it is the surest guaranty of subsequent mental independence. We have already made this present article longer than was at first intended. We would therefore close abruptly by the expression of the conviction, that although some of our expectations may be unfounded, and some of our calculations may appear extravagant, there are at all events a few thoughts which are worthy the attentive consideration of teachers and taught. We may appear to have indulged in unnecessary repetitions, but if so, it has arisen from a strong desire to mpress upon the mind, by every means in our power, the importance of a simple, yet exceedingly valuable principle of common sense, which is too much overlooked in most of our modern modes of instruction.

ART. IX.-REVIEW OF DR. OWEN ON THE CHURCH.

By REV. LYMAN H. ATWATER, Fairfield, Conn.

Con

The works of John Owen, D. D., Edited by Thomas Russel, A. M. with Memoirs of his Life and Writings, by William Owen. Vol. xx. taining an Inquiry into the Original Nature, Institution, Power, and Communion of Evangelical Churches: an answer to Dr. Stillingfleet's book on the Unreasonableness of Separation; and the True Nature of a Gospel Church and its Government. London, 1826.

OUR conversation and reading, for some time past, have led us to the conviction, that multitudes are in a state of mind in regard to Church government, which differs little from unbelief or skepticism. By this we mean that they are either undecided, whether the great Head of the Church has appointed any definite Church state, or mode of mutual association and rule for his people; or that, if such as are satisfied that there is a divinely appointed Church constitution, many are avowedly doubtful or ignorant what it is; and others do not believe it to be of binding and immutable authority, but rather as designed by its Author to be varied and accommodated to our present views of convenience and expediency. We are far from saying this in a spirit of severity; for we confess that we have sinned ignorantly and in unbelief; and it becomes him that is guiltless to cast the first stone. Nor was it till after repeated attempts to learn from others of riper knowledge and experience, the right way of the Lord, and thus obtain a sure foot-hold of rest to the soul, that we became aware of the fact we have declared. But of its truth, we think there can be no dispute.

As the inevitable consequence, we see the most discordant and heterogeneous views of Church polity every where advanced. As it ever falls out in things pertaining to the worship of God, when men cast off his wisdom to lean to their own understanding, their own projects for erecting the most stupendous frame-work on which they may ascend to heaven, are baffled as soon as undertaken, by a Babel confusion of tongues. In the order and constitution of the visible Church, we meet with every diversity of opinion among respectable men. From that deluded bigotry which conceives an outward participation of the ordinances from the ministers of a particular communion,

to be the way and the only way to heaven; that a Church, no matter how far it is from conformity to the platform laid down by the apostles, becomes the only apostolic Church, by the supposed derivation of the ordination of its ministers in an unbroken succession from the apostles; that the sacraments administered by a ministry thus derived, whatever be their character, of themselves confer saving grace irrespective of the state of the recipient; that all ordinances dispensed by any other ministry, no matter how truly apostolic its character, are irregular and invalid; and that the receivers of them, however manifest their holiness of life, are consigned to the uncovenanted mercies of God: from this pinnacle of arrogant pretensions we have every grade in the scale of descent, till we find the opposite extreme in the lowest pitch of laxness; and it is more than intimated, on the gravest authority, that the existing ecclesiastical associations of the different denominations of Christians are so many voluntary societies, of human origin and institution.

A natural attendant of this chaos of opinions, both as cause and effect, is the habit of speaking and acting in regard to different forms of faith and worship, rather as matters of taste, in which every one may guide his choice by his own fancy, feelings, convenience and ease, than as things appointed of God, in which we are bound to learn and obey his will. It is not uncommon to hear persons say, that they choose to be Episcopalians because they discern a beauty in the liturgy and forms of worship, and an efficiency in the government to repress disorder, fanaticism and contention; and others again, that they will be Congregationalists because they love simplicity and freedom from the constraints of forms and prelatical rule. Ministers often speak of different forms of Church government, as best suited to the temper and habits of the people who adopt them, and assign this as a sufficient warrant for their adoption, without proceeding to inquire whether any of them are according to the New Testament pattern. We think that we offend not against charity in saying, that even ministers have gone from one denomination to another not in communion with that to which they belonged, impelled not so much by their convictions of the conformity of their newly adopted church to the commands of God, as by the prospect of a more easy, flattering or congenial situation, or of shunning troubles for which they have an especial disrelish, albeit, as it usually