therefore becomes important, that our minds should be set right as to your meaning. But if, instead of explaining your meaning, you continue in a loose, ambiguous manner to apply the word voluntary to moral affection; what will be the result, but that our minds will remain in doubt as to what you mean to assert, and will suffer all the inconvenience of not being able to find out the sense of your words, when you speak on the most momentous subjects? Why then will any one continue to make use of a word in such a way, that we may understand it to mean this thing or that, just as we please, or may not understand it in any sense? Is this consistent with frankness? Is it consistent with a just regard to the truth? Surely no man who has the habit of plain, honest dealing, will willingly suffer others to be in doubt as to his meaning; much less will he continue to use an ambiguous word for the purpose of seeming to favour a popular opinion, which he himself does not believe.

It is not within my present design to enquire whether love to God, or any other moral affection, is or is not voluntary, in the prevailing and proper sense of the word. I have directed my remarks to one point; that is, the importance of classifying the different exercises of the mind, and of marking each class by an appropriate word. The great importance of this I have endeavoured to illustrate, by showing what consequences flow from the practice of treating a particular part of our mental exercises in too general a manner, and using the words will, volition, and voluntary in an ambiguous, vague sense. We cannot pursue the course of honesty and plain dealing, if we refuse to do what we are able, by intelligible and definite words and phrases, to convey to others the very meaning which we have in our own minds. If for example we declare, without any explanation, that love to God is a voluntary affection, while we do not believe the opinion to be true, which we suppose others will derive from the expression; do we not violate the principle of Christian simplicity and uprightness? If indeed we do believe in our hearts, that love to God, or any other moral affection, is under the controul of the will, and rises in the mind as the effect of a previous volition; (and this is the thing commonly implied in the word voluntary;) then surely it is right that we should declare such belief. I may give another example, to illustrate the same thing. The obvious

meaning conveyed by the phrase sometimes used, that sinners can love God if they will, is, that their loving God will flow as an effect from a previous volition, or that it will take place in consequence of an act of the will. Now if it is verily the opinion of any man, that love to God is produced in this way, it is just and right for him to say so. But if this is not his opinion, how can he consistently make use of a phrase, which will certainly be understood in this sense? Whether the opinion is true or not, will be considered in another place.

The uncertainty and mistake which will be sure to result from such an ambiguous, indeterminate use of the word voluntary, as I have pointed out, may be avoided by making a distinct class of those actions, bodily and mental, which flow from a previous choice, or are the consequence of volition, and distinguishing them by the word voluntary. The evil may be easily and effectually avoided in this way, and in this way only. The sense I have given to the word voluntary, is the sense which Locke and other writers generally give, and which it prevailingly has in common discourse. So that when it is applied, as it not unfrequently is, to the affections, the meaning is generally supposed to be, that the affections are under the power of volition, or move in obedience to the will. Let the word uniformly have this sense; and then, if a man affirms any action, either corporeal or mental, to be voluntary, we shall know what his meaning is. And if we doubt the truth of his affirmation, we shall readily see what is the question at issue between him and us, and can enter at once on the discussion of it, with a prospect of arriving at a right conclusion. But what good will it do to discuss the question, whether a particular affection is voluntary, while the meaning of the word is unsettled, and altogether ambiguous? In all sciences, and in none more than in the philosophy of the mind, the phenomena which are contemplated, should be carefully classified, and words should be used in a definite, fixed, uniform sense. If this were done, we should be rid of a great part of the obscurity, misapprehension, and controversy, usually occasioned by an ambiguous, vague manner of thinking and writing. The fact that words are often used loosely and variously in common discourse, and in books written for practical purposes, is no reason why we should not aim at something more definite and exact, especially in metaphysi

cal discourse. Why should those who pretend to treat theoretically of the nature of the mind, be content with less clearness, definiteness and uniformity in language, than are found in the physical sciences? Those who write on these sciences have to contend, as really as we, with an indefinite, loose way of thinking and speaking among the common people. But this does not hinder them either from carefully classifying the facts which occur in the natural world, or from applying words in a well defined and uniform manner to the different classes which are thus formed. When a new set of facts is discovered, of a different nature or different relations from those before known; they agree upon some particular term by which it shall be expressed. Nor is it ever made a matter of complaint, if they take a word from common discourse, and employ it in a new and peculiar sense, provided they do it judiciously and aptly. And after they have given proper notice of the sense which they affix to particular words; that sense is always put upon those words by others. This is notoriously the case in the different branches of Natural Philosophy. Why should it not be so in mental science? There is surely no science in which it is more important to avoid all looseness and indeterminateness in our language, and to speak with the greatest clearness and definiteness, and the greatest uniformity in the sense of our words.

It is also evidently necessary, that we should carry the classification of the intellectual operations and powers farther than has commonly been done, and more definitely mark the different classes by appropriate words. The mind perceives things in the natural world, and is conscious of its own actions; has ideas of the relations of things, such as cause and effect, etc.; and of general abstract truths, such as the principles of mathematical, metaphysical, and moral science. Now it seems desirable that we should have a single word for the former class of these mental acts, and another for the latter; and that we should have distinct words for the different mental faculties developed in these different classes of mental acts. The word understanding might be used to denote the faculty to which the former class are referable, and reason, the faculty to which the latter are referable. Indeed this, or something like this, is already, to some extent, the prevailing sense of these words. It would manifestly do much towards clearing mental sci

ence of the doubts and difficulties which have generally cleaved to it, if the operations of the mind to be classed under the word understanding, and those to be classed under reason, should be exactly defined and settled; so that we could distinguish as well between what is meant by acts of understanding and acts of reason, as we now do between what is meant by seeing and what by hearing.

It is unnecessary in this place to extend these remarks to the other operations of the mind. My object is to expose the unsoundness of the opinion sometimes advanced, that there are and must be just so many faculties of the mind, and no more; and to show that if we would cultivate in ourselves and others a just and accurate habit of thinking and speaking, we must carefully notice the smaller as well as larger differences among the operations of the mind, and must make new and more particular classifications, and employ new and appropriate terms to express them, as occasion requires; and that we must proceed in this way, till all the important relations among our mental acts, whether more minute and recondite, or more obvious, are distinctly and clearly marked. All this, which is desirable and necessary in regard to the operations of the mind generally, is specially so in regard to those which are of a moral nature, and stand in direct relation to God and his law. Here the want of a just and careful discrimination will expose us to dangerous mistakes respecting our character, and our eternal welfare. It is with an ultimate reference to the affections which we exercise as moral and accountable beings, and to the general interests involved in them, that I have entered on the consideration of the present subject.

ART. VI. THE ECONOMY OF CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AS

DEVELOPED IN THE APOSTOLIC AGE.

By Rev. HORATIO Bardwell, formerly Missionary to India. THAT the religion of the gospel will eventually triumph over all false religions, and that its promulgation is to be effected by the labours and prayers of the church, are positions which no intelligent Christian will deny. Indeed in every age of the Christian dispensation the church has, in some sort, acknowledged it her duty to labour for this great

object; and though her efforts have been comparatively few and feeble, yet something has been done, as the record of every past century will testify.

But

Within the last fifty years a new impulse has been given to this work of Christian benevolence; and through the blessing of God, success has attended the exertions of the church, which has frustrated the predictions of her enemies, and greatly strengthened the hopes of her friends. The missionary enterprise is taking deeper and deeper hold of the affections of the Christian community, and is becoming intimately associated with their fondest hopes and most joyful expectations of the reign of truth on earth. while this is the fact, and while we are bound most devoutly to render thanks to God, for the degree of success with which he crowns our exertions; it cannot be denied that this success is far less than that which attended the labours of the church in the apostolic age. Unarmed and unprotected, except by divine power; possessing neither learning nor worldly influence; with all the opposition of infidelity, paganism and sin combined against her; she went onward with the most rapid and astonishing progress. In that age, the word of God grew mightily and prevailed, not only over the magical arts and sorceries of Ephesus; but every where, in all parts of the Roman empire, the labours of the church were crowned with immediate and most remarkable suc

cess.

It may not be unprofitable to contemplate 'more minutely this interesting fact ;—and then enquire into the reasons of this early progress of the gospel.

The Acts of the Apostles, which must be our chief guide in ascertaing the progress of the gospel in the apostolic age, does not profess to give a full and connected view of the early triumphs of Christianity. We learn its rapid and extensive progress, rather by incidental occurrences and remarks, than any minute detail.

A few days after the ascension of our Lord, we find an assembly of about one hundred and twenty disciples. This number, so far as appears, embraced all in Jerusalem, who were then willing to be called by that name. At this time, they had but very imperfect views of the nature of Christ's kingdom, and of the means to be employed for its promotion; they seem, too, to have been timid and dispirited.

The day of Pentecost found the apostles with their fel