priests, we are told, are seldom without their mistresses. Will it be a consummation not to be wished, to diffuse freemen, liberty, perfect freedom of worship, and the healthful and spirit-stirring influence of the competition and concurrence of our institutions over this wide country? Or is our notion of liberty such, that whoever enjoys it, must have it in the measures, and in the extent, and under the circumstances, that the original contracting parties in our confederation see fit to deal out to them? Country is a proud word, and is associated with the idea of authority, lictors, badges, and claims upon allegiance. But LIBERTY, and the right to pur sue happiness are still prouder words. The former must always be subservient to the latter, and not the latter to the former.

A few words upon the last objection. This acquisition will give the south an ascendency over the north. For the balance of the north, we must proceed, pari passu, in the acquisition of Canada. Be it so. If we continue, as we have done, Canada, and we may add, Cuba will fall, in due time, naturally, and as fruit detached by maturity, into our domain. Could we acquire them, as the supposition admits we can acquire Texas, we should have no regret to see our institutions extended over the whole North American continent, to the Rio del Norte, or the Mexican mountains, where Nature has erected the barriers of another country and another government. We should alike deprecate a spirit of conquest, and a spirit of selfish and cold blooded want of sympathy with the ignorant and the oppressed on our immediate confines.

Shall the question, whether liberty shall be extended over a great country, be suspended on the jealousy of the north, or the south, mutually exercised? Will it be said at the north, that the south has been the first to set the example? Be it so. It is a bad example. Let the north have the magnanimity not to follow it. It is childish and unworthy, to bring these narrow and degrading and ruinous calculations, as watch words, into our discussions, operating to create that of which they speak, as cause and effect, action and re-action, with a terrible energy in our national councils. Further; the northern interest, if such hateful phrases must occur, affirms, that the country is weakened by these dropsical accessions. Indeed! Then the south experiences this debilitating influence almost exclusively. The north retains her compactness, her concentered physical energy of dense population, while the south, with a population, compared with the more populous districts of the north and the medial regions, already in the ratio of only one twelfth, will be weakened still farther, by having the disproportion extended to an eighteenth, by diffusing that population over the surface of Texas.

On the showing of the opposition, the debilitating influence will not operate equally upon all portions of the Union, but must act indirectly on the north, through and by the south. Hence, the south will experience the direct and first mischief, and will be weakened in an undue proportion, compared with the effect upon the whole Union.

But the south will gain an undue influence in the Senate, by the erection of eight or nine new states. All writers and travellers seem to have agreed, that but a small number of states could be carved out of the territory. The probability is, that in process of time, there would be northern and southern states there, with sectional interests, and differences of

climate at least as great as between Maine and Louisiana. Such at least is the difference between Santa Fe and Matamoras. We are reluctant to discuss a subject intrinsically odious to us. We would wish, that the tongue, that gives utterance to the note of disunion, and the hand, that harps the key of northern and southern difference of interests, and the pen, that blazons this palpable appeal to the vilest prejudices of our nature, were furnished with better employment.

The last objection has two parts-southern preponderance, the creation of a great number of slave states, and the remoter perpetuation of slavery. We shall give our views of this part of the objection in very few words. There are but few slaves at present in the country. A country rather fitted for miners, shepherds, and small planters, than great slave establishments, we are of opinion, that it would never be covered with a dense slave population. The northern and mountainous division, with a climate of considerable severity, would probably reject involuntary servitude. The only mode, in which the great evil of slavery can be finally eradicated, seems to us to be a mode, which the proposed acquisition would directly facilitate. It is to distribute the slaves over a greater surface. It is to increase the ratio of the white population, and render the slaves sparse, distributed in smaller numbers and fewer in individual hands. The evil is already wearing out in two or three states, that we could name, in this way. To us it is clear, if the slaves in the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiania, the only states, where slavery is not decreasing, were distributed in twice as many states, and in twice as many hands, the interest for the perpetuation of slavery would not be increased. A country, where the slaves are as numerous as the whites, has too great an interest in the perpetuation of slavery to merge it. It could not dis pose of such a proportion of its property. Neither could it emancipate such a number of slaves, if it would.

It seems to us, therefore, that no evil need be apprehended to our liberties and to our union, no danger of an ascendency of the south over the north, no tendency to increase the power of the slave states, or perpetuate the evils of slavery, would arise from the acquisition of Texas; but various and great advantages to the U. S. which we shall not at present weary the patience of our reader by rehearsing.

But while such are our views, in relation to this subject, we impugn not the motives, nor question the integrity of those, who maintain the contrary opinions. There are those among the wisest and best of our citizens, most tried in our councils, and proved in the confidence of the country, who thought adversely to the purchase of Louisiana in the same way. We shall have, eventually, to learn the great lesson of charity, and while we hold firmly to our own judgments, allow, that others may be equally honest in diametrically opposite opinions.

An exposition of the Old and New Testament, containing the whole of the sacred text, and practical comments upon it. By MATTHEW HENFirst American edition, to which is prefixed a preface by Archibald Alexander, D. D., Professor of Theology in the Seminary at Princeton, N. J. Philadelphia. Published by Towar & Hogan. 1828.

RY.

To mild and kind hearted orthodoxy we have no objections; for it is our deepest conviction, that religion has its domicile much more in the heart, than the head, and receives far more influence from the prevalent tempers, than the theoretical speculations. Henry's exposition was the comment upon the scriptures almost solely in use in the churches in New England in our young days. This voluminous work is thus identified in our mind with the ministers and worship of those happier religious days of the golden age-the period of flowing wigs, when ministers aiming at no other, were allowed to exercise an unquestioned paternal authority. One village had but one church, and he who occupied it, was as an angel in the golden candlestick, a man of real and deep reverence, living in the hearts and affections of the people, his goings out and comings in noted, not for calumnious scrutiny, but from filial veneration. Those were not the days of the reign of a hundred angry and polemic sects. Religion was understood to be a matter of practice and good feeling; and the theories by which good men became religious were little investigated, the people being more concerned to gather good fruit, than to search out the elemen ary principles of its origin and development. We have not a doubt, that the influence of religion in our land was more real and efficient, than it has been, since men have diverged toto cælo, and become the antipodes of each other. The same village has now its rival spires of temples dedicated in form to the Prince of peace; but really showing as hostile fortifications of a party with a distinctive flag-an Ebal and Gerizzim-where the people entrench themselves, with each their little history of hostility, gossip, scandal and incident, out of which grow fixed and perennial feuds and family divisions, and society altercations, and ultimately wrath, confusion and every evil work.

These immense mischiefs, so ominous in our view to the future influence and extension of religion, seem to us to have grown out of the universal error of the day, that people in religion, both as regards theory and practice, are much influenced by speculations, called Calvinism, Arminianism, Hopkinsianism, Liberalism, Unitarianism, and the like. The impression is, that people, who inscribe these names on their banners, must of course exhibit the full influence of their speculations in corresponding conduct. We expect no such thing. We have not so studied human nature. We meet with men every day, whose actions are continually at war with their professions. One man is fierce and persecuting, with mo deration and meekness on his tongue. Another contends forregenerated renewal, with the palpable evidence of a most unrenewed spirit; while the mild and kind dispositions, the self government and the subdued spirit of another, who denies the doctrine of his neighbor, touching regeneration, show, that he has felt the reality, of which the other arrogantly assumes the name.

The congregational churches of New England, fifty years since, as it Vol. III.-No. 7.

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regarded doctrinal matters, were chiefly fed from such writers as Watts, Doddridge, Baxter, and more than all, Matthew Henry, men of a spirit, of which our world was not worthy; men whose names should be consecrated to immortal renown, men whose piety consisted not in the wisdom or excellency of their theories, but in the evangelical sanctity of their lives. We may affirm of all of them, that while they were what is now called orthodox in theory, so far as regarded consistency with their theories, they were heretical in practice-that is, if the phrase and term of their creed was Calvinistic, their life and practice were Arminian. We find very little speculation among them, touching the Athanasian doctrines of the Trinity. When the requirement of affirmation or negation comes in their way, they affirm as Trinitarians. The question had not been agita ted in their days, as in ours. But with us there is no question, what these excellent men would have answered, had they been obliged categorically to reply to the question, do you believe in the simple, strict unity of the Divinity? If we were to put down a whole volume of words to explain our thoughts, we could not better declare our views of the character and spirit of Henry's exposition, than by saying, it is orthodox in term and phrase, but evangelical and liberal in temper and spirit. A class of ministers and christians sprung up moulded by their writings to the same spirit, with the form of what they called 'sound" words, and a mild spirit of suavity and liberality, which measured professors entirely by their lives, and not at all by their speculations.

It is to us matter of regret, that those days cannot be expected to return. All professors have since arranged themselves resolutely under their banners; and ministers, who used formerly to interchange labors and pulpits, preaching unconsciously and substantially the same truths, when brought up to the term of their creed, have unfortunately found, or imagined they have found, that their sentiments are so heretically diverse, that they can no longer exchange ministerial courtesies, or the one admit that the other is a christian. Scott, meanwhile, has almost superseded Henry, possessing much learning, much labor, much piety, but unfortunately rigid, unbending Calvinism in the letter and in the spirit, which is made the sine qua non of christian life and character.

Princeton, with its noble endowments, its learned professors, its central advantages, has adopted one standard of presbyterian orthodoxy. Andover, physically nearer the warm crater of 'notions,' with more books, more such models as Edwards, Hopkins, Emmons, and Worcester, with indefatigable and eccentric professors, is well known by the initiated, to have raised almost as much question between these two great Divinity schools, touching each other's orthodoxy, as exists between either of them and the Unitarians.

We rejoice in the publication of an American edition of this great work, for a number of reasons. It is auspicious to the great and general cause of charity among us. Henry is, as we remarked, orthodox in theory, but catholic in spirit. The great scope of this work is not to elicit theory and speculation, but practical Godliness. This excellent man never aspired to be the leader of a party, or to institute an exclusive theoretical badge. We rejoice in it, because the ranks of orthodoxy embrace, and probably will for a long season to come embrace, a great and respectable religious

community, who do exercise, and will exercise a prodigious influence upon the religious public. So long as such a community exists, it is much more desirable, at least to us, that ministers and people should drink into the spirit of an author so mild, so evangelical in temper, rather than such decided and polemic works, as those of Scott and the more fierce and vehement orthodox commentators.

The best English editions of Henry are in a number of folio volumes a work of very great expense-and of course rare, and growing into disuse in our country, owing at once to its scarcity, and its price. Great numbers of the milder spirits among the orthodox have always thought, that no commentaries, yet published, are in all respects worthy of superseding Henry. To furnish the requisite supply, and to introduce this catholic work once more to common use in the orthodox churches, the spirited American publishers have undertaken a beautiful sterotype edition of this great work, in six octavo volumes, of so large and full a page, as might well pass for quarto. The whole work cannot comprise much less than six thousand pages. We have been informed, that the plates would amount to nearly ten tons, and we presume that the expense cannot fall much short of $50,000. So far as we have examined the work, it is of great beauty and excellence of paper and printing, and exactness of execution. They have shown the most unlimited reliance upon the patronage of the orthodox churches; and we will not allow ourselves to believe, that they will be. disappointed in that reliance. We have had the satisfaction to hear, that, so far as calculation can be based on the patronage, compared with the time for its manifestation, they have every reason to hope, that their great enterprise will be crowned with success.

Instead of attempting any analysis of the contents of this great work, which could not be thought of within our limits, we shall compound with the reader, by offering a very brief sketch of the life and character of the prince and patriarch of English orthodox commentators on the scriptures, Matthew Henry.

His father, Philip Henry, was ejected, by the act of conformity, from his living in the parish of Warthembury in Flintshire. Our author was born the same year of his father's ejection, 1662. In his early years he was of feeble health, and was not expected to survive to maturity. His abiding impressions of religion arose from a sermon of his father's, which fastened upon his mind at the age of ten. He was remarkably quick in learn, ing, retentive in memory, and close in application. He was exceedingly attached to his father, and remained under his instruction, until he was eighteen. His academic training was at Islington, under the care of Thomas Doolittle, where many young men were trained, as dissenters, for the ministry.

At twenty one he was highly improved in learning, and eminently pious. But the times were dark and discouraging for dissenting ministers; and he entered in Gray's Inn, 1685, for the study of law. Various circumstances, apparently providential, proved that his endowment, his impulse and his prospects of success pointed alike to the ministry. The court beginning to relax its severity, in regard to interdicting dissenters from ordination, he received a kind of informal call to settle at Chester. He obtained also a sort of equivocal presbyterian ordination, on which oc