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though feebly, to dispute the despotism of winter. It mained all night to watch his repose. His intellect had was a cold, blustering night in the end of March, when, often before seemed disordered: this dreadful catastroas I was sitting in the bar-room at the inn, after return-phe had overthrown the tottering citadel of reason. ing from my usual evening visit to Briar Hill, with a "Poor Harry! now is thy despair madness!" small circle of the neighbors, who had gathered close round the fire, that news was brought, by a trembling Harry was never brought to trial. He had drawn messenger, that an awful tragedy had just been acted his weapon only in self-defence, and, besides, his insaniat the Black Bear, the tavern before mentioned. He ty was too fearfully manifest to be called in question. could not tell us all the particulars, but only that there It was not until after the dreadful event which I have had been a fight, and that he had seen Bill Davis lying narrated, that I told Alice of his devoted but despairing upon the floor, weltering in blood. In an instant it love. His father's circumstances were too narrow to flashed upon me that Harry Bowne had been the other admit of his providing a suitable place of confinement for combatant, and, while the rest waited to extract some-him; and Mr. Richmond, at his own expense, placed thing farther from the boy who had brought the intelli-him at the most comfortable private asylum which gence, I hurried off to the scene of horror. When I ar- could be found. His case was pronounced incurable— rived, the whole inn was still in commotion, and on the he is still a raving maniac! bar-room floor was stretched the lifeless form of poor Davis, stripped almost naked, for examination by the coroner's inquest, that was just about to sit, and cover-ther anything has yet been heard of James Elliott. I did ed with blood from a ghastly wound, inflicted by a knife: the weapon had cloven its way through his heart. I was afraid to inquire who had perpetrated the deed, lest my surmise should prove correct; but the answer to a question asked by some one near, told me that I was not mistaken. The particulars I then learned from one who had witnessed the affray.

Bill Davis had been drinking before Harry came in, and, almost as soon as he entered, had begun as usual to taunt him with his love for Alice Richmond. A quarrel ensued, blows followed words; and Harry, pressed into a corner by his powerful antagonist, had at last drawn a long-bladed knife from his bosom, and, before his hand could be arrested, plunged it into Davis's breast. The latter fell almost without a groan, and instantly expired. I asked where Harry was, and was directed to a house in the neighborhood whither he had been taken for security. I followed the direction, and on reaching the house, found a crowd before the door, which was guarded by two or three men, who refused me admittance.

"He is gone raving mad," said one of them, " and attempts to tear in pieces every one that approaches. They have been obliged to tie his hands and feet, to prevent his doing injury to himself or some one else."

I begged that they would let me see him, and after some entreaty prevailed upon one of them, with whom I was well acquainted, to admit me. Two more guarded the door of the chamber in which he was confined: they allowed me to pass without hesitation, and I stood in the presence of the wretched prisoner. He was tied down upon a bed, and four men stood near to watch his movements, and, as far as possible, relieve his wants. When I entered he was quiet, having exhausted himself by his ravings and vain exertions to release his hands and feet. One of the men mentioned my name to him he repeated it slowly, but without any sign of feeling. At that moment, however, his eye turned to wards me, and he uttered a cry of frantic joy that pierced to my very heart.

"O save me! save me! You will save me! I killed him-I know I killed him; but I was mad! And I am mad still! Yes, mad! O save-do save me!"

I sat down by his side upon the bed, and bathed his bursting temples and brow with cold water. At length I succeeded in soothing him into a quiet slumber, but re

The reader will, no doubt, be anxious to learn whe

hear of him, about a year after his flight from justice, as a poor wandering vagabond: his friends had cast him upon the world even before his visit to Briar Hill. Subsequently, I was informed that he had gone to Texas. Nothing more can I tell, excepting that James Elliott was the name of one of those who fell in the bloody massacre of the Alamo.

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III.

And, with a like intent, he careless came-
With fishing-line, maybe, seeking the brook;
O! how they spoke of the deep-nurtured flame!
And when they parted, how he loved to look
After that form that brightened so the wood!
And when, alas! 'twas gone, how sad the solitude.

IV.

Years pass'd-unwished, yet by a master power, Their vows were broken, and they met by chance Beneath that tree in summer's twilight hour:

Each started, as they met each other's glance, And strangely to their minds uprose their youth, The tree, the graven name, the oft-vowed pledge of truth!

V.

Their names had been cut out from the tree's side;
It's silky greenness showed how deep the scar-
He looked upon her with a sullen pride,

And she turned from him hurrying afar.
He did not watch her as she homeward went,
But left, with a dark brow, upon the past intent.

VI.

No other name can ever be graved there,

In the first freshness of that beechen tree; And she may listen to another's prayer,

And he to other maids may bow the knee; Yet in their hearts abides, for aye, the token Of the first vows they made, now miserably broken.

AMERICAN ALMANAC FOR 1839.

The tenth number, or volume, of this capital work, is on the counters of the principal bookstores. Its 314 closely printed pages contain, as usual, many things, statistic, geographic, historical, and philosophical, which it is gratifying to know now, and which will be yet more pleasing to remember, hereafter. As a small and very inadequate sample of the kind of information which this almanac imparts, we extract a page and a half from its article on "FRANCE;" adding, that a correspondingly clear account is given of the government, &c. of each state or kingdom in Europe, and of each one in America. There are also foreign and domestic obituaries, of distinguished persons-a chronological table of remarkable events in the year ending with August last-an ephemeris of the sun, moon, and tides, calculated for several prominent points in the United States-lists of the American Congress, and the British Parliament-and in short, more valuable things than we care now to specify. Let us proceed to the

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necessary for executing the laws, without having power either to suspend the laws themselves, or dispense with their execution. The person of the King is inviolable and sacred; but his min. isters are responsible.

Chamber of Peers.

The rights of the Peers were formerly hereditary; but, in 1831, their hereditary rights were abolished; and they are now nominated for life by the King, who can select them only from among those men who have held, for a certain time, high public offices, such as those of ministers, generals, counsellors of state, prefects, mayors of cities of 30,000 inhabitants or more, presidents of royal courts, members of the Institute, members of general councils, or of councils of commerce, &c.

The Chamber of Peers participates the legislative power with that of the Deputies and with the King. It is convoked at the same time as the Chamber of Deputies, and it can hold no ses

sion at any time when the Chamber of Deputies is not also in session. Nevertheless, as it has cognizance of the crimes of high treason and of outrages against the safety of the state, it may, in this case only, and for the exercise exclusively of its judicial functions, form itself into a court of justice, even at a time when the Chamber of Deputies is not in session. The Chamber of Peers occupies the Palace of the Luxembourg, which has been successively the residence of Maria de Medicis, of the family of Orleans, of the Directory, of the First Consul Bonaparte, of the Conservatory Senate, &c. Its sessions are public.

The number of members of the Chamber of Peers is about 200. Baron Pasquier, Speaker.

The names of the Peers may be seen in the American Almanac for 1836.

Chamber of Deputies.

This body is composed of Deputies elected, every five years, by 439 colleges, distributed among the departments in proportion to their population; and to these colleges all Frenchmen, who perform certain conditions specified by one of the fundamental laws, are summoned. In order to be eligible as a deputy, a Frenchman must be thirty years of age and pay a direct tax of 500 francs; and, in order to be an elector, he must pay a direct tax of 200 francs. To the King pertains the right of convoking the Chamber of Deputies; he may also prorogue or dissolve it; but in this last case he must convoke a new one within three months. The Chamber of Deputies meets at Paris in the palace sessions are public.

which formerly belonged to the family of Bourbon-Condé. Its

All the power of the Chamber of Deputies consists in deliberating and voting respecting laws, which must also obtain the assent of the other two branches; but, with respect to the execu. nomination or the dismission of functionaries of any class, it tion of them, it takes no part. Taking no part either in the exercises, in relation to the government of the country, only an oversight and control. Every year, the law relating to the finan ces or budget, which gives authority for collecting the taxes, and for disposing, under certain restrictions, of the revenue which examination in the other Chamber. It is then by giving its they afford, is submitted to its vote, before it undergoes an assent, or rather its refusal, that it can make known to the country whether it approves or disapproves of the proceedings of the executive power.

The present Chamber of Deputies was elected in 1837. Number, 459. Charles Dupin, Speaker.

ACROSTIC

On a famous belle, who had just completed a "stuff shoe," of questionable utility.

Careless she is, every one must allow-
And oh! how bewitching, we all must avow ;
There's a great deal of nature and a little of art,-
Howe'er, she finds way direct to the heart:
And though she has faults-has not many a belle ?
Reason, in time, will her vanity quell-
In fine, she's kind-hearted, virtuous and true;
Never willing to work-except on a stuff shoe;
Ever ready to do good-and-evil loo.

MR. ADAMS'S LETTER,

TO CERTAIN YOUNG MEN IN BALTIMORE.

your time and inclination will permit. Give one hour of mental application,-for you must not read without thinking, or you will read to little purpose,--give an hour of joint reading and thought to the chronology, and one to the geography of there. Even for those two hours, you will ever after read the the Bible, and if it introduces you to too hard a study, stop Bible, and any other history, with more fruit-more intelligence-more satisfaction. But, if those two hours excite your curiosity, and tempt you to devote part of an hour every day for a year or years, to study thoroughly the chronology and far-geography of the Bible, it will not only lead you far deeper than you will otherwise ever penetrate into the knowledge of the book, but it will spread floods of light upon every step you shall ever afterwards take in acquiring the knowledge of profane history, and upon the local habitation of every tribe of man, and upon the name of every nation into which the children of Adam have been divided.

Mr. White,-One of the readers of your Messenger, has a reason for desiring the insertion in your next number, the following letter of Mr. Adams to the young men of the Franklin Association in Baltimore, in reference to the selection of a young men's library. It is desired also to append some observations ther, on the same subject, which, if worthy of a place at all in the Messenger, the admirable thoughts of the learned ex-president may happily introduce.

Washington, 22d June, 1838. Gentlemen:-I have no words to express my gratitude for the kind feelings and more than friendly estimate of my character, contained in your letter of the 9th inst., and am not less at a loss for language to utter the humiliation of a deep conviction how little your panegyric has been deserved.

Were it even so far deserved that I could feel myself qualified to give you the advice which you desire, it would afford me the most heartfelt pleasure to give it ; but situated in life as you represent yourselves to be, I could scarcely name any list of books, or of authors which I could recommend as equally worthy of attention to you all. The first, and almost the only book deserving such universal recommendation, is the Bible and in recommending that, I fear that some of you will think I am performing a superfluous and others a very unnecessary office-yet such is my deliberate opinion. The Bible is the book of all others to be read at all ages and in all conditions of human life;-not to be read once or twice or thrice through, and then to be laid aside; but to be read in small portions of one or two chapters, every day, and never to be intermitted, unless by some overruling necessity.

There are many other subsidiary studies, to which you may devote more or less of time, for the express purpose of making your Bible reading more intelligible to yourselves. It is a book which neither the most ignorant and weakest, nor the most learned and intelligent mind can read without improvement.

There are other books of great worth and of easy acquisition, which I suppose will be accessible to you all. The libraries of useful and of entertaining knowledge-the Family Library, the Monthly and Quarterly Reviews and Magazines, which are in a continual succession of publication in this country, as well as in England, will furnish you a constant supply of profitable reading; for the selection of which, time, inclination and opportunity will be your wisest counsellors. As citizens of a free country, taking an interest in its public concerns, I am sure I need not remind you, how strong your impulse should be to seek an intimate knowledge of the history of America, from the voyage of Columbus, and even of his supposed predecessors, Prince Madloc of Wales, and the North men, down to the Olympiads of Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren. The American hemisphere--the continent of North America--the United States of America, before and since the acquisition of Louisiana, and every separate state of this union, is a series of historical problems of which you should systematically seek the solution. Read the constitution of the United States--the commentary of the Federalist--the constitution and history of

This attentive and repeated reading of the Bible, in small portions every day, leads the mind to habitual meditation upon subjects of the highest interest to the welfare of the individual in this world, as well as to prepare him for that hereafter, to which we are all destined. It furnishes rules of conduct for our conduct towards others in our social relations. In the command-your own state---biographies, beginning with Langhorne's Pluments delivered from Sinai, in the inimitable sublimity of the Psalms and of the prophets, in the profound and concentrated observations upon human life and manners, embodied in the Proverbs of Solomon, in the philosophical allegory so beautifully set forth in the narrative of facts, whether real or imaginary, of the Book of Job, an active mind cannot peruse a single chapter and lay the book aside to think, and take it up again to-morrow, without finding in it advice for our own conduct, which we may turn to useful account in the progress of our daily pilgrimage upon earth--and when we pass from the Old Testament to the New, we meet at once a system of universal morality, founded upon one precept of universal application, pointing us to peace and good will towards the whole race of man for this life and to peace with God, and an ever blessed existence hereafter.

My friends, if all or any of you have spiritual pastors to guide you in the paths of salvation, do not imagine that I am encroaching upon the field of their appropriate services: I speak as a man of the world to men of the world, and I say to you search the scriptures! If ever you tire of them in seeking for a rule of faith and a standard of morals, search them as records of A story. General and compendious history is one of the fountains of human knowledge, to which you should all resort with steady and persevering pursuit. The Bible contains the only authentic introduction to the history of the world; and in storing your minds with the facts of this history, you will immediately perceive the need of assistance from geography and

tarch, and thence proceeding to the history of John Smith; to the American biographers of Belknap and Sparks; to Washington Irving's Life of Columbus; and to the articles of Penn, and Calvert, and Locke, and Oglethorpe, which will lead you on to others in the Encyclopedia Americana or Conversations' Lexi. con. Then the fashionable novels and poetry of the present times: Scott, Byron, Moore, Rogers, Coleridge, Southey, Wordsworth, two Montgomerys, Cooper, Paulding, Willis, Mrs. Hemans and Lady Blessington, Mrs. Sigourney and Miss Gould, and worth them all, Miss Edgeworth-and lastly, the reports of your countrymen, travellers in foreign lands-Dr. Dwight, Dr. Sprague, Mr. Bigelow, Lieutenant Slidell, and Dr. Fisk; with many others whose names do not at this moment occur to me. But I have given you more than enough, and after all, hardly know whether the catalogue will meet your inquiries, or satisfy your expectations. After all I must conclude with the advice of the serving man to the young student in Shakspeare-" Study, what you most affect."

And I remain your friend and fellow student for life,

J. Q. ADAMS.

As a farther and succinct exhibition of the rich contents of that wonderful volume, which Mr. Adams So justly recommends, allow me here to insert an extract from the charge given a few years ago, by the late lamented Rev. James W. Douglass to his ministering brother, the Rev. Stephen Taylor, then inauchronology. These assistances you may find in many of the Bibles published with commentaries, and you can have no diffigurated a professor in the Presbyterian seminary of culty in procuring them. Acquaint yourselves with the chro- our own state. The charge before me, speaks of the nology and geography of the Bible-that will lead you to a church and the Bible in the following graphic and just general knowledge of chronology and of geography, ancient and modern, and these will open to you an inexhaustible foun. tain of knowledge respecting the globe which you inhabit, and respecting the race of man, its inhabitant, to which you yourselves belong. You may pursue these inquiries just so far as

language.

1. "Your office supposes a church. Your duties will soon discover and describe it in its origin and progress from remote time. You will find it in the knowledge VOL. V.-11

and true holiness of unfallen Adam; in the believing and instructions, which accompanied them, all which worship of Abel; in the holy walk of Enoch; in the would be reported among the nations, and would prove godly fear of Noah; in the faith of Abraham; and that there was a God in Israel. (5.) The last expedient in the visible organization and endowments which it is the universal publication of the gospel of Christ, achath ever since enjoyed. companied by the Holy Spirit. If this fail, there remaineth no superior, no equal, no other device. There remaineth only fiery indignation to consume an incorrigible race. But this will not fail. Under this dispensation, our weapons are not natural, not ceremonial, but spiritual and mighty through God. In the first age the church advanced and triumphed; like Cæsar-came, saw, and overcame. But although the truth took strong hold of the memory, the conscience, the heart, the life of a moiety of those of our race, depraved man speedily disengaged himself, and returned to dark and indulgent heathenism. The church has at length resolved to republish the gospel in all the world."

2. "For the first two thousand years, you will find it without a Bible, or a standing ministry; possessing only the Sabbath, the simplest forms of sacrifice, and guided by nature and tradition. In the next two thousand years, you will find it furnished with a few sacred books, to preserve the history which tradition was beginning to forget; to teach accurately the rules of moral conduct, which nature did not know, or could not enforce; and to put the church under such an organization, as suited its existing relations to the Saviour yet to come. You will find it again fully endowed with the Saviour's finished work; with the Bible complete; with a preaching ministry, commissioned to all the world; and with the promise of the Holy Spirit's presence and power always. Here it is advanced from Jewish types; disburdened of Jewish ceremonies; and loaded, to the Gentiles with only light, and constrained by love, it moves and is moving on to universal conquest. And finally, having described its conflicts, as the seals were opened, and as the trumpets were sounded, or the vials poured out, to our own times, you may venture into unfulfilled prophesy and show the church in its millennial glory.

Such is the nucleus of knowledge gotten from the Bible, and the history of the Bible alone. Definite and comprehensive as it is, it is the merest abstract, capable of indefinite, endless expansion, from the same source.

I am satisfied that Mr. Adams is right in teaching that the Bible is properly the sun and centre of the system of useful human knowledge, for this life as well as the next. All the lights of this world, while in their proper orbit, revolve around it.

will not serve Him shall perish." "The wicked shall be turned into 'hades,'" (the grave,) (or shall be capitally executed by decree of the great sovereign of the world,) and so shall "all the nations that forget God."

This is the true theory of history. Every nation is subject, in its organized or political capacity, to the general government of Providence. Willingly or unwillingly, they are so. There are no reserved (independent) rights. The government of God is one grand consolidated monarchy. Not a despotism-but a righteous government, perfect in itself." God over all, blessed forever."

Ist. Let us instance history. Not only is it true, as the letter observes, that the Bible contains the only au3. "Under all these dispensations you will not fail to thentic introduction to the history of the world, but it mark the strong and devoted affinities of the human is equally true that in the Bible alone, or gotten from mind for error and sin, and the remarkable expedients it, is the true theory of human history. "The Most High which infinite wisdom successively adopted to counter-ruleth among the kingdoms of men." "That nation that act and restrain them, and to withhold miserable man from the depths of ignorance, error, vice, misery, and hell, towards which he is ever sinking. (1.) During its first dispensation, the church, unprovided with a Bible, unrestrained by a written law, a standing ministry, or the fear of early death, became at once corrupt. The earth was filled with violence-behold it was corrupt. And as the church possessed no means adequate to sustain, much less to restore religion, that generation was abandoned to the deluge, the earth carefully cleans. ed of their corruption, and the race started anew in the person of Noah, who thus became the second Adam. (2.) The next expedient was to shorten human life from seven or eight hundred to seventy or eighty years; giving just a tithe and no more of the former probation. (3.) The third expedient was to separate men into small communities, by confounding their language, that they might not corrupt one-another. But still, though they knew God, they liked not to retain him in their knowledge. These distinct tribes-one and all-became idolatrous; and then (4.) God, as if weary of resisting the general current, set off a part, in the person of Abram and his descendants, for special training, and abandoned the rest to walk in their own ways. As their cup of iniquity became full, they were successively destroyed, and Abram stood to the true faith and worship of God as the third Adam. The general depravity, meantime, was powerfully held in check by the miraculous destruction of Sodom, and other cities, for their exceeding wickedness; by the plagues and ruin of Egypt, for resisting God; by the detail of law at Sinai; and by those peculiar dispensations in the wilderness, and in after ages, together with the prophetic warnings

Remember this, and then read the history of ancient kingdoms-Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia, Medo-Persia, the empire of Alexander, and of the Cæsars; or of more obscure Philistia, Idumea, Moab, Ammon, and the rest; or of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, Tyre, Sidon, Ninevah, Babylon, Petra, Palmyra, or Thebes; or even of the still partially extant cities of Alexandria, Smyrna, Constantinople, Athens, Corinth, and Rome. The Bible, here in the hands of the student of history, or of the traveller in ancient lands, is an instructive, perfect and necessary guide-book. It is the measuring line of the whole subject. The very best key to human history is the Bible. The very best commentary upon the Bible is the actual history of the world.

As the first map in the atlas is the round world—as the first plate in a perfect treatise on anatomy is the dry skeleton, (for the reader had often seen the living man,)— so the Bible is most appropriately the first book in history, and in a sense the compend of all. The commentary, in explaining the Bible, is obliged to tell you the history of the world; and this, as Mr. Adams says, is properly the

2d. To a hasty notice of another instance, in illus

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next book; and then turn to the most full and perfect his- | of Isaac Taylor-Natural History of Enthusiasm, Fatory of the kingdoms and countries in succession, with naticism, Spiritual Despotism-Saturday Evening, &c. all that Moses and the prophets say about them, before Of a somewhat kindred intellectual order are the Asyou, as the text. In this succession, Egypt naturally tronomical Lectures of Dr. Chalmers, and his book on comes first-"the mother of kingdoms," as she is in Natural Theology, &c. Let us passhistory-" the basest of kingdoms,” as she is in fact, up to the letter of prophesy. Then Assyria, with Nine-tration of the point in hand. It is Natural Theology. vah, that "exceeding great city," her capital-until for If an individual of inquiring mind were to visit the her crimes she has a master given her, and thus sinks wonderful temple of Jupiter Ammon at THEBES, he into the common grave of the nations that forget God. would ask, if he had an opportunity, and ascertain, if Then Babylon-in her day "the golden city," ," "the he could, the name and history of the architect. Well, lady of kingdoms," "the glory of kingdoms," and "the the Bible has told us who is the architect of the much hammer of the whole earth,"--with her wall three hun-more wonderful temple of nature, with all its appropri dred feet high, and her temple of Belus surmounting ate and interminable furniture. By him (Jehovah) the hanging gardens and overlooking those lofty walls with her hundred brazen gates, and her hundred and twenty provinces, ruling over the kingdoms around her, till the maturity of her rebellion against the Author of the Bible, and head of the church, and father of the race, and sovereign of all-then her glory and her sceptre depart from her. Let the Bible and truthful history together tell it. In the same way peruse and ponder the annals of her successor, Medo-Persia-and then of the rising and the setting sun of Macedonia-and then of old Rome, down till the days of her miserable decrepitude. "The lone mother of dead empires, there she sits, childless and crownless in her voiceless woe." The Bible told it all hundreds of years

"Ere Romulus and Remus had been suckled."

were all things created." Now the proof of this, found in the workmanship of nature itself, marks out the subject of natural theology. And in the general light of the true religion and the particular light of this definite Bible statement, is this vast subject explored-from the orbit of Jupiter down to the mechanism of a woodpecker's tongue, or a fly's foot, or a musquito's stomach. The work of Dr. Chalmers on this subject has already been mentioned-Dr. Paley's work on the same subject is inimitable; and the Treatise of Ferguson of Dunfarmline, is simple, beautiful and satisfactory, and I know not how many others. But I am going beyond my intentions, and perhaps trespassing upon the editor's space and the reader's patience.

The observation is most just-that after a young man will take the trouble to make himself as familiar with Now thus balanced in the centre of the system, the Bi- the geography of our globe as A, B, C, and with the ble appears, in its perfectness, the light and the warmth outlines of chronology, and with the simple Bible, the of the whole subject. And the dark and intricate wind-profit then of all his reading will be in a ten-fold ratio. ings of human history are traced under an open sky. light.

A most valuable advantage in the acquisition of geographical knowledge is had in the missionary publications of our day. A most important help to an acquaintance with the Bible is enjoyed in the house of God every Sabbath. And a conscience at peace with the Bible is profitable unto all things-having the promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come.

LECTURE

Every biography he reads from Plutarch, or whoever else-every book of travels-every review or journalThe imperfectness of every historic work, written by every weekly or daily newspaper will naturally and uninspired man, is the complaint of every minute seho-almost without intention enlarge and perfect his store lar. Some of them are written by infidels, and full of of knowledge. hollow-hearted and somewhat hollow-headed infidelity. But for the Bible, they would wofully mislead us. The Bible out of the question, they actually do. But it is peculiarly gratifying to find even Gibbon, and a score of such, with their hatred of the Bible plain enough upon their page, (about as plain as their ignorance of it,) yet writing out at immense labor and expense the literal proof and fulfilment of Bible prophesy. Perhaps this was the design of Providence, in having so much of the world's history written by enemies of the Bible. An intelligent and independent mind, enlightened in the serene and elevated principles of the Book of books, can safely enough accept the service of even infidel historians, in tracing out its wonderful predictions; and in such case will find himself richly stored in this great subject, from the pages in succession of Rollin, Gibbon, Hume, as also from Robinson, Watson, and others. A great deal of historic knowledge, both comprehensive and detailed, is gotten indirectly in the study of other subjects. Thus in reading the lights of the deistical controversy, such as Lardner or Paley, Watson, Wilson, Keith, McElvaine, Alexander, and others; and inferior to hardly anything of the sort, is, "Letters to Voltaire by certain Jews of the German and Polish synagogue." And minds of a certain order, will find themselves feasted beyond the comprehension of the mutltiude, in stduying (not merely reading,) the works

ON THE STUDY OF THE CLASSICS. Delivered in Washington College, Va., September 10th, 1838: By George E. Dabney, A. M. Published by request of the students.

This is a pamphlet very neatly done up, in which Professor Dabney sets forth "the nature, the object, and the utility of this branch of education."

The author very modestly disclaims the purpose or expectation of being very original; and, indeed, how could he be, in proving "that ancient literature is not mere useless lumber?" An exceedingly conclusive argument that he is right on this point, is found in the fact that successive ages and generations, from antiquity down, have, without exception, given their practical testimony to the truth of his position.

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