are persecuted; for there is none but an arbitrary connexion between the religious faith and the secular advantages. A case in point is the exclusion of Dissenters from our universities, or their honors, because they cannot subscribe the articles of the church. There is no more real connexion between the studies of the university and the faith of the church, than between the weaving of broadcloth and belief in the thirty-nine articles and it would be just as liberal to make subscription a condition of apprenticeship to that art, as of studying science and the classics in our universities. There is no explaining away this matter. It matters not that other universities may be established on a more liberal principle for the use of Dissenters. It matters not what apprehensions any son of the church may have of the effect of mixing heretics with true believers in the train of philosophy and science. It is no matter who founded these universities, and who are willing or unwilling that this restriction should be maintained. Our complaint is against the church which has imposed bonds on conscience, and set up differences between man and man, which the gospel does not sanction, and to which there was nothing analogous in the dealings of the primitive Christians with Jews and Pagans, and other adversaries, by whom the gospel has long ceased to be opposed. Dr. Whately tells us of an atheist who was deprived of justice because he was too conscientious to take an oath which he did not regard as binding. The case before us is as full of injustice as his. He could not take the oath because that which sanctifies it was absent; and the consequent denial of justice is a proof of the evil of connecting things which do not belong to each other,—namely a belief in God and an enjoyment of the rights of man. Dissenters cannot subscribe faithfully, because that which makes good the subscription is wanting in them; and then they feel the hardship of a similar arbi

trary connexion between a belief in certain doctrines, and their share of the advantages of learning. Let all prescriptions of faith be done away, and there will be an end of such arbitrary connexion for ever and the evil disposition which our author discerns springing up in the heart of man I will be deprived of the outlet through which it has poured its most baleful and devastating force.

As to the concluding chapter of the work before us, it is very clear that the best way of obviating the danger of "Trust in Names and Privileges," is to have but one name and no privileges. Science is only partially revealed, and under conditions which are at present necessarily confined to a certain proportion of society. Let the followers of science, then, have their ranks and orders and privileges, if the value of the object and the facilities of attaining it become enhanced thereby. The arts are so far from being in a state of maturity, that it may be well to aid the division of labor, and stimulate individual exertion, by arbitrary rules of incorporation and precedence. The same may be said of literature; but never, never, of Christianity, in its relation to the heart of man. Let biblical science, the art of preaching, theological literature, be placed under the same rule as other science, art, and literature, if you will; but these things are not Christianity. Christianity is a concern of the spirit; and the things of the spirit cannot be measured, and proportioned, and rewarded by man like the embodied attainments of the intellect. It is for God alone to institute this charter, for Christ to offer it, for man to accept and enjoy it. Man has nothing to do with the administration of it, or with any body's share in it but his own, except so far as to rejoice in the universality of so rich a blessing. Those who are wise do well to explain what they think the terms of this charter, and to point out the wisdom and benignity of its frame and provisions, and

to influence as far as they may to a fulfilment of its conditions; but all this entitles them to no rank where no distinctions of rank can enter, - to no privilege where equality is the prime attribute of the constitution. Their reward is of a totally different, and far higher kind. It is between God and themselves; and though it may bring after it, in the way of natural consequence, the benefits resulting from the esteem and love of men, such results are totally unconnected with the name of an exclusive, and the privi leges of an incorporated class of society. Paul gloried in a name above the rulers who persecuted him, because in that name resided benefits which they knew not of. He gloried in his privileges, because they transcended any that could be obtained out of a spiritual region; but that region being once entered, that name once adopted, all distinctions cease, and the prelate who stands up in his stall is of precisely the same rank as the beggar who kneels in the aisle. There is no occasion to remind Dr. Whately of this; for no bearing can be more free from assumption than his, if we may judge from the spirit of his book; but we would ask him respecting the righteousness of establishments which directly tend to foster the error he so well understands, and to destroy in those less clear-sighted than himself the impression which it is of surpassing importance to deepen and strengthen, — that the origin of Christianity is spiritual, that its aim is to spiritualize, that spirituality is its essence. If the people see men legislating, growing learned, getting rich, mounting from one dignity to another, by virtue of their Christianity, there is small use in telling them that Christianity is independent of all these things. It is far more easy, far more rational, far more honest to show them that it is so. As long as there must be privileges, and honors, and wealth, let them be conferred in reward of qualifications to which they are more appropriate; and then

such men as Whately will be spared the vain and ridiculous labor of guarding individuals against errors which are hourly cherished in millions by the influence of institutions. This is like damming up a tributary brook, while the main stream rushes on with a perpetually swelling tide. — Dr. Whately cannot be spared for so idle a work. He has done much in searching out the source, and ascertaining that it is too ample to be dried up at present. His next labor should be to divert its course from the fair fields of promise which lie beneath its devastation.

It is a glorious office to teach Christianity at all; but the work is not invested with its full glory till that which is spiritual is wholly severed from its arbitrary connexion with the temporal adjuncts with which man is prone to combine it, through a clear perception of the reasons for such a disunion. Precedence settled by this rule is somewhat different from that which the heraldic science of modern Christendom has decreed. By this rule, the cotter, leading the Saturday night's devotions of his family, is greater in his office than the archbishop preaching amidst the state of his thronged cathedral; and the enlightened dissenting minister is more exalted than either. He has gratefully learned-it may be from the archbishop - the origin of the evils with which he would wage war, while he adopts whatever there is of rectitude in the practice of the cotter, with a clearer perception than his that it is rectitude. He has the privilege, with the prelate, of looking back into the records of all religions, and tracing the common source of all their abuses, while he is as free as his humble coadjutor from the entanglement of institutions which perpetually reproduce the evils he labors to destroy. In entering upon the high office of Christian instruction, the first prayer should be for spiritual requisites ;the next, for accomplishment in the lore of the gospel and

of the human heart; and the third, for deliverance from factitious difficulties and self-created impediments. When these prayers are put up universally, with due sincerity of soul and energy of purpose, we shall hear no more of the Church of Rome, or the Church of England, with their distinctive errors and assumptions. Their peculiar claims, at any rate, and, we trust, their common vices, will merge in the prevalence of the church of Christ.

EXPOSITION OF PROFESSOR JACOTOT'S SYSTEM OF

EDUCATION.*

THE first thing to be examined into in considering the pretensions of any new system of education is its harmony with the whole constitution of the beings who are to be subjected to it. Nothing is easier than to discover methods by which separate portions of the human creature may be brought to a very high degree of perfection, provided other portions are left out of consideration; and a partial system may promise great things, and perform all its promises, without being at all fit for general adoption. Many an idiot with a marvellous memory has been made an idiot by the education of his memory. Many a dyspeptic mathematician would willingly give up some of his scientific attainment, if his dyspepsia would go with it.. Many a man, the workings of whose intellect are unusually true, sighs for that

* A Compendious Exposition of the Principles and Practice of Professor Jacotot's celebrated System of Education. By Joseph Payne. London. 1830.

Epitome Historiæ Sacræ, adapted, by a literal Translation, to Jacotot's Method. By Joseph Payne. London. 1831.