it. Let us do this, and if there be truth in the promises of piety, our success will certainly be the greater.

In saying this, we are saying nothing inconsistent with the fact, that irreligious persons, profane persons, infidels, atheists, deniers, not only of God's superintending care of the universe, but of his existence even, have been often times prodigies of intellect, eminent for all those mental gifts, which that Being whom they disown, bestows upon the most favoured mortals. We do wrong to infer from such cases, that study may be divorced from prayer without putting its success at all to the hazard. It is a very different reflection which the examples of infidel wit and infidel learning should awaken. If men of this class have risen to such eminence, without the aid of a prayful reliance on God, how much higher a rank might they have taken, we would say, had they been equally studious, but more devout!

Perhaps the correct view of the matter, however, is still a different one. Mankind ought to be better apprised than the mass of them, we suspect, are, that very few of those great efforts of mind, which have been of real service to the world, have been made by men utterly regardless of their relations to God. To make no account of any thing which Christianity might gain, how little would be lost even to the cause of sound learning and human improvement, were we at this moment deprived of every contribution to our stores of knowledge, for which we are indebted to such men as Volney, Diderot, Voltaire, Shaftsbury, Bolingbroke, Godwin, Paine, Hume, or any other of the champions of infidelity! How few books, to which we attach any very high value even as scholars, would disappear from our libraries! What single one among all the important arts of life should we cease to enjoy! Extinguish, on the contrary, the light, which such minds as those of Bacon, Newton, Boyle, Locke, Hale, Milton, and a host of others of similar fame, have shed upon the subjects of human study, and what darkness spreads instantly over the whole firmament of science! What have we left that deserves the name even of philosophy, or literature, or arts! But these men, be it remembered, whom our whole race revere, and should revere, as their ornaments and benefactors, felt that intellectually, as well as physically, they lived, and moved, and had their being

in God. We have not only their recorded assent to the truth of Christianity in general, but pleasing evidence, as to many of them at least, that they experienced its power. It is to this cause we refer it, that with an ability not superior perhaps to what many of the enemies of religion possessed, they yet laboured to so much better purpose. We see sufficient reason for the difference of their success in the difference of their piety. We believe the illustrious Bacon has discovered to us his most efficient instrument of study, the real Novum Organum,-not so much in his peculiar rules of investigation as a philosopher, as in those prayers which we find among his writings, composed by him for his use, as a student and an author,-full of the most lowly selfdistrust, on the one hand, and of the most devout reliance upon God for aid, on the other. Milton too felt, that if he ever composed a work, which posterity should not "willingly let die," he must not only exert strenuously his own powers, but look also for assistance to that "Eternal Spirit, who can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and send out his seraphim with the hallowed fire of his altar, to touch and purify the lips of whomsoever he pleases." From a feeling like this, says Johnson, so rational and devout, we might have expected the Paradise Lost. The thing which Johnson here approves, he himself practised. After conceiving the plan of the Rambler, we read, that he composed and offered up the following prayer: "Almighty God, the giver of all good things, without whose help all labour is ineffectual, and without whose grace all wisdom is folly grant I beseech thee, that in this my undertaking, thy Holy Spirit may not be withheld from me, but that I may promote thy glory, and the salvation both of myself and others: grant this, O Lord, for the sake of Jesus Christ!" But we need not multiply examples. Although the charge of a great deficiency on this subject lies against Christian students in general, yet many exceptions, too many for enumeration, have been furnished by literary men of the very first class, whether you regard the vigour of their minds, or the success of their application.

"Learning has borne such fruit in other days

On all her branches: piety has found

Friends in the friends of science, and true prayer
Has flowed from lips wet with Castalian dews."

These scholars, whether we are students of God's word, or his works, these are the men whom we should take as our guides. An example, which minds of this lofty order felt it to be no weakness for them to exhibit, it surely can be no weakness in us to follow. We cannot have less occasion certainly, than they, to avail ourselves of the truth, that it is the "Lord, who giveth wisdom; that out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding." It is an exhortation, which addresses itself to those, who seek an acquaintance with human, as well as divine things, that if they "cry after knowledge, and lift up their voice for understanding, they shall find the knowledge of God." It is a promise which it requires but a weak faith to believe; for surely he, who permits us to ask him for our daily bread, will not be unmindful of the intellectual wants of his creatures.

ART. V. REVIEW OF THE WORKS OF REV. JOHN ANGELL JAMES.

By Rev. WILLIAM B. SPRAGUE, D. D. Albany, N. Y.

1. Christian Fellowship, or the Church Members' Guide.

II. The Christian Father's Present to his Children.

III. Christian Charity explained, or the Influence of Religion upon Temper stated, in an Exposition of the thirteenth chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians.

IV. The Family Monitor, or a Help to Domestic Happiness.

V. The Anxious Inquirer after Salvation, directed and encouraged.

THERE is scarcely any thing in connexion with the progress of the Gospel in these latter years, which strikes the mind of the Christian more impressively or delightfully, than the increased amount of intercourse it has involved between the disciples of Christ, not only of different communions, but especially of different countries. Within less than half a century past, the mass of Christian professors in this country were almost entirely ignorant of the condition and prospects of the church, in any other land than their own; and the same remark would no doubt equally apply to nearly every other country in which Christianity has been the prevailing religion. It is true indeed that a few of our most distinguished divines were in habits of correspondence with some of the learned theologians of Europe, but the intelligence which came hither through this channel, was limited to a few; for there were no religious newspapers or periodicals by which it could be borne, as on the wings of the morning, to the most obscure and distant hamlet in the land. But since the modern era of Christian benevolence has opened upon the world, the church has been learning the secret that she is substantially one body; that though mountains may rise, and oceans may roll, to separate her members from one another, yet they can still maintain, in various ways, a delightful communion; and, what is more, that in that spirit of charity which has begun so signally to control her movements, there is a celestial energy by which she can scale the still more formidable barriers that have been erected by a cold and sectarian jealousy. In most of the great religious movements of the present day, we may see unequivocal evidence that the church as a body is losing VOL. I.

75

sight comparatively of the less in her increased regard for the greater; that she is becoming more willing to sacrifice local and party considerations, to her own spiritual interests and the honour of her Head; and that even Christians who dwell on opposite sides of the earth, and who hold different denominational peculiarities, and who have never seen, and have not the prospect of seeing each other in the flesh, can enter into a cordial co-operation for the advancement of the great cause of truth and righteousness.

As it cannot be questioned that the more intimate fellowship which exists among Christians in different countries results, in a great degree, from the spirit of benevolent action which has been poured out upon the church, so it is easy to see how the one has operated to the production of the other. The spirit of Christian benevolence is social and expansive in its very nature; and it were impossible that it should operate in any community of Christians without purifying them in a greater or less degree from a grovelling selfishness, and leading them to look abroad, not only for objects of charity, but also for a fraternal co-operation. And this is just what has been realized in the recent benevolent movements of the church. The true disciples of Christ all over the world have begun to feel, that they are labouring for the same great object; and while they are naturally attracted to each other by the spirit of Christian affection, they understand that union is strength; and that the church may be expected to labour the most efficiently when she labours the most harmoniously. Hence the necessity for an extended intercourse between Christians of different countries with a view to sustain and direct to the best advantage their various benevolent operations. Not only have numerous individuals in our country corresponded extensively with those who have been most active in the benevolent enterprize abroad, but not a small number of our charitable institutions have been in the habit of a constant interchange of views with kindred institutions in various parts of the world, and especially in Great Britain, which has the honour of taking the lead in these glorious achievements of Christian charity. And then in connexion with these institutions, or in consequence of them, there have been established a multitude of periodicals, by means of which the intelligence which is received and communicated, becomes almost instantly the common property of an extensive Christian community;