century. They are sufficient, however, to show that an established faith is not necessary. Without it, religion loses none of its vigor and expansiveness, none of its sympathy for the forlorn and destitute in our own limits or on foreign shores. At no time, has the spirit of benevolence been more wakeful, searching, discriminating, than at the present moment. The great argument that an established religion is needed to hold out its compassionate arms to the feeble and to the needy, has here no pertinency. A well contrived system of voluntary supply has long been in active operation, throughout this State, embracing in its range not only the Anglo-American population, but the swarming numbers, who are drawn or driven hither from the lands of monarchy and of established religion. On the whole, so far as Massachusetts is concerned, we regard the experiment as decisive. Evils will, doubtless, attach to voluntary systems as they will to all human things. There is a tendency to extreme democracy which needs to be guarded and balanced by checks. These checks and safeguards are in the gospel of Jesus Christ, in the value and permanence of its fundamental doctrines, in the authoritative establishment of the Christian ministry, and of a competent support for that ministry. The gospel faithfully and fully received has a striking tendency to produce that coinmon sense, and those habits of sound judgment, which, prevailing extensively in the lay community, constitute one of the strongest supports of religious order, and one of the surest dependencies for the propagation of the gospel itself.

While penning these thoughts, we received the Spiritual Despotism of Mr. Isaac Taylor of Ongar. The ground taken by this vigorous writer in favor of church-establishments, is not altogether unexpected. In his previous volumes, there are hints, obscure references, casual remarks, which have at length a satisfactory solution. "Spiritual Despotism" is a well-wrought and sturdy defence of the union of the civil and the ecclesiastical powers. We are not sorry at its appearance. We have no sympathy with those persons who cry out against every attack on the doctrines of civil and of religious liberty as insincere, heretical, and worthy of execration. We wish for no, damnatory edict against free discussion-for no index expurgatorius in protestant Christendom. We are desirous to listen candidly to every thing which the advocates of high church power may say

in opposition to our own views, which we believe to be bottomed on the spirit of the gospel, and on the doctrines of sound common sense. Of such an antagonist as Mr. Taylor, no one can reasonably complain. His object in writing is, unquestionably, the highest welfare of the church of Christ. The defects of the congregational system in his own country may have blinded his eyes. The impetuous cannonade which the radical reformers have kept up on the venerable institutions of England might very easily alarm a meditative and Christian mind. The friends of moderate and salutary changes in the church and in the commonwealth are, in these days, put too much on the defensive. They are compelled to oppose violent and indiscriminate attacks on existing institutions, which may be, in many respects defective, and which must ultimately be abandoned.

We willingly accord to Mr. Taylor not only honesty of motive, but powers of reasoning and of literary research, which are altogether above the ordinary standard. We have read his previous publications with much satisfaction and advantage. That they have been inordinately commended we have no doubt. A portion of their popularity is owing to their hitherto anony, mous character, and to the vigor and confidence of the style. We do not, however, deny the great value of many of his thoughts, nor their occasional originality.

But our object is not, at the present time, to offer a literary criticism, nor to undertake a formal refutation of the doctrines of the Spiritual Despotism. Our limits forbid us to do either. A few miscellaneous observations is all which we shall now attempt.

The style is one which we cannot praise. It is incurably Latin. On a short page there are sometimes fifty long Roman words.* In some cases, the selection is obviously unnecessary, and not in very good taste. We refer to such words as mundane and pristine. The excessive use of sounding polysyllables gives the impression, that Saxon-English is incompetent to bear up the weight and power of the author's thoughts. We have no objection to Latin words used in their proportion. There are classes of ideas which can be conveyed by them in a clearer manner than by words derived from any other language. The

* An instance occurs in the following: "It is a common occurrence for perverse intentions to bring into conjunction the most opposite parties," etc. The author has adopted what we hoped was a mere provincialism—“ It is being tried."

ear soon grows weary of exclusive Norman, or Greek, or German. The best style is not monosyllabic exclusively, as some men would seem to think; neither like our author, would we choose the language of Cicero and Sallust. The mind and the voice rebel against the custom.

A difficulty, which we have experienced in reading the volume may be owing, but not altogether, to the brevity of the discussions. The book appears to us to be a mixture of facts concisely or imperfectly presented, and of argument professedly built on those facts, but which is not sufficiently drawn out to be satisfactory. Assertions occur where we want the proof. Inferences are made when the facts are not clear. We seen to be passing along the borders of a forest at night-fall. We cannot entirely reject the conclusion, neither can we see precisely the amount of the data. The following remarks we quote as an illustration: "The people of the United States exist in agitation and act from momentary excitement. The people of England are jealous of excitement; and though susceptible of agitation, gladly and quickly return to a state of rest. The love of order is as strong on this side of the Atlantic, as is the disregard of it on the other." Now, these misstatements are the foundation of some wide inferences, and if the remainder of the book were as destitute of value as the page from which this extract was taken, we should throw it by in utter disgust: but Mr. Taylor is evidently better acquainted with the Old World than he is with the New. He has read the Latin and Greek fathers more than he has Dr. Dwight's Travels. He manifestly makes his comparison between the two countries on the authority of some of the veracious English travellers. Yet the same fault, in a less degree, runs through the volume. The quotations, references, and full statements of facts are few and comparatively unimportant. We are not disposed to receive the dicta of any man, on such subjects, however well versed he may be in church history. It may be said that the limits of his volume were not compatible with greater detail. Then, we reply, write a volume on each of the sections contained in this. It is a subject which will not admit of the compactness of logic, nor of the abbreviations of algebra. The Christian world are not ready for a manual on church and State prerogative.

The author has evidently taken his notions of Congregationalism from certain defects which belong to it as known in England, but which have no existence in this country. "It is not

without amazement," he remarks, " that we find a congregational church, on the modern scheme, proceeding in the momentous act of creating, or of electing to itself a pastor and teacher, without being able to allege from the New Testament, any law or license to that effect, or any example of an unambiguous and satisfactory kind." Whatever may be the fact in England, the congregational churches in this country do not create the ministry. Men are not permitted to preach the gospel without a formal examination and licensure by a body of men, who are exclusively ministers. They are not set apart to their work nor dismissed from it without the concurrence of a council composed in part, (generally a majority) of ministers. The directions of Paul to Timothy and Titus in respect to the creation and ordination of elders are universally regarded by the congregational churches in this country as addressed, not to laymen, but to the ministry. Our author then is guilty of selecting a defect in the congregational system, a defect which does not exist in the United States, and of building upon that an argument against the theory of Congregationalism. Certain other ill-contrived practices exist among the British dissenters, which are not found in this country, democratic and inflammable as Mr. Taylor represents us to be.

It seems to be taken as an admitted fact by the author, and by others on both sides of the question, that the system of the Jews in respect to the temporal maintenance of the priests and Levites was enforced by legal enactment-that failures to pay the required tithe were visited by fine, confiscation of goods, inprisonment, or some penalty of the sort. But where is the evidence? That God expressly required the payment of tithes, and that it was a great moral offence in the people to neglect that payment, no one doubts. But was the tithe collectible legally? We do not affirm that it was not, but where is the proof that it was? In case of non-payment, who prosecuted? In whose name were writs issued? Were the Levites or priests a legal corporation? Or was the magistrate of a particular city or tribe authorized to proceed in the premises? We think that the enforcement of the duty was intended to be placed mainly, if not entirely, on moral grounds. Delinquents would be visited with the tremendous temporal judgments of the Most High. Those, who promptly paid the required amount, were sure that their own basket would be filled, through the special blessing of the great Proprietor. Here we are inclined to think the

matter was left. If so, a corner-stone of the advocates of the union of church and State is removed. One great principle, at least, of the Jewish dispensation is secured in favor of a voluntary support of morality and piety. That such is the main scope and intention of the Christian economy, we cannot for a moment doubt. On this subject, men are addressed as having a natural sense of justice, and feelings of compassion and good will, as being able to perceive by the common principles of honesty that a laborer is worthy of his hire, and to understand and feel that religion is absolutely necessary to the well being of the community. On the voluntary plan, all which is noble and generous in the heart of man is addressed, and the most powerful motives are brought to bear on the ministry itself, as into its hands, and not into that of the law, are entrusted destinies the most precious for time and eternity.

ARTICLE VII.

THE COLLEGES OF THE United States.

By the Editor.

WE are not among those who are ready to denounce the colleges and higher seminaries of learning in our land. Imperfect as many of them undoubtedly are, both in the means and plans of education, we still think them worthy of protection and support. The indirect influences, which flow from them, are of great importance. These institutions stand up in the midst of our large towns and country villages, as intellectual bulwarks against the progress of commercial speculation and of mere pecuniary interests, and of an untoward political excitement. They are enduring memorials of the existence of the human mind and of the importance of its cultivation. Almost every other thing is changing. Inferior schools of various kinds arise, and after a feverish existence, disappear. Forms of government seem to have as feeble a hold on life as the persons who administer them. Society, literature, some of the sciences, are nearly as evanescent as the fashions of a luxurious metropolis.