There was a period when learning arrayed itself, with a bold front, against sacred truth; and ungratefully raised an impious hand against religion, its heavenly patron and benefactor. But it was a learning rather affected, than real. At some times, to borrow the representation of Cowper, it has "bored the solid earth," that it might

Extract a register by which we learn

That He who made it, and revealed its date
To Moses, was mistaken in its age.

At other times, it has ransacked the histories of Egypt, of Hindoostan, and China, in the hope of establishing the same shrewd conclusion. But more recently, philosophers and historians of the first reputation have completely put to flight these wretched dreams. They have demonstrated, so far as the point is capable of demonstration, that neither the globe itself, nor authentic history, gives testimony against the Mosaic account of the creation; but that each, on the contrary, strengthens and confirms it. It cannot, however, be denied, that many admired writers, especially in the department of polite literature, have impugned the truth of revelation, and given strength to the cause of infidelity. Such men have been the opprobrium of learning, and the malefactors of their species. How much better had it been for themselves; how much better for the world; and especially, how much better for the wretched victims of their prostituted. genius, had they never been born. Where, in all this universe, can there be found a more fearful, unphilosophical compound, than a man of splendid talents, and of a cold, impure, atheistic heart; a man polluting the very air which, by divine sufferance, he breathes; and imparting poison and death wherever his influence is felt. It cannot be sufficiently regretted that many British writings much perused in our country, and not professedly of the infidel school, exhibit a spirit and turn of thought which is any thing rather than Christian. Perhaps it is by writings of this description that the contagion of infidelity is most successfully propagated. The malady, coming unannounced, is admitted without suspicion; nor is even an alarm excited, till the work of death is done.

Faithfulness requires me to notice another form or modification of infidelity. I refer to that which professedly admits the truth of Scripture, while it denies its proper inspiration.

To say nothing of the inconsistency of this view of things, (for the Bible, be it remembered, is either properly inspired, or it is the basest and the boldest of all forgeries,) we cannot but remark, that the Bible, on this construction, has lost its authority; and by losing its authority, has lost its value. For on this principle, in what sentence of the whole volume, can we be absolutely sure that God himself addresses us? In what sentence of the whole volume, can we be absolutely sure that we find the truth? If the Bible is such a bookthe production, not of God, but of fallible, erring man-who will believe its declarations? Who will rely on its promises? Who will be alarmed by its threatenings? And who will obey its commands? Who sees not that we are left to all the uncertainty of deism-to all its gloom-to all its wanderings-to all its agony-to all its despair?

The literature, then, which the age demands, and which will truly bless our country, is a literature which bows, with unquestioning submission, to the Bible-which, perceiving on its front the stamp of DIVINITY, receives, with childlike confidence, all its announcements, as so many axioms of infallible truth. Let it not be, for a moment, imagined that this is degrading. Newton thought not so. "We account," says this master mind, "the Scriptures of God, the most sublime philosophy." In consonance with this declaration of the first of philosophers, we may fearlessly assert, that the most exalted exercise of the most exalted intellect is implicit submission to ETERNAL WISDOM AND TRUTH. And when this spirit shall prevail; when it shall pervade the mind of every favorite author, and thoroughly imbue his writings; when it shall become an essential passport to public favor; when the whole. reading community shall be daily familiarized to the views and sentiments of HEAVEN, the effect will be most auspicious. Truth and virtue will stand forth in all their majesty, and in all their loveliness. Error and vice will shrink away abashed. The standard of public morals will be elevated. The public taste will be corrected and refined. And the whole tribe of immoral, infidel, atheistic writers, the opprobrium and bane of their species, will sink into merited contempt.

Nor is even this all. While the public heart is purified, the public intellect will be expanded and improved. The discoveries of Revelation, like the rays of the sun, irradiate and warm and quicken every thing on which they fall. They have a grandeur, an interest, a power, which rouses and

strengthens all the faculties of the soul. Let the truths of the Bible be not merely conned, but illustrated and impressed, in our schools; and millions of young minds, torpid or trifling before, will spring into healthful and vigorous action. Let the beauties and sublimities of the sacred volume be familiarized in our colleges; and it will be seen and felt how tame, comparatively, is all the boasted eloquence and poetry of Greece and Rome. Let the Scriptures be the Hippocrene of our poets; and their pages will cease to be invitations to slumber. Let the great and soul-thrilling verities of inspiration be uttered in all their simplicity, and richness, and variety, from our pulpits; and it will be seen at once, that while they purify the heart, and prepare man for heaven, they awaken trains of thought, rouse the dormant faculties, and invigorate the mind to action-incomparably more than all the forms of logic, or the dull and heartless discipline of the schools.

In giving utterance to these thoughts on the importance of learning to our country and its destinies; and in glancing at some principal characteristics of that learning which is our great desideratum; our aim is practical. We would impress on our fellow-citizens at large; especially would we impress on the members of the literary community, a sense of their high and solemn trusts.

Behold the rising glories of our country-the profusion of blessings which indulgent Providence has poured around her -the grand, decisive experiment she is making for liberty and self-government-the destinies of her unborn millions, and of mankind, staked on the issue the eyes of Europe, of the world, of Heaven itself, intensely fastened on the crisis. If she is saved, a new era of unknown brightness and glory dawns on the world. If she sinks, the hopes of man perish with her; and the blackness of despair rests on the whole

scene.

Her refuge we repeat it, and with profound reverence, mingled with trembling hope-is in God. If He, the Sovereign of the world, give quietness, who can make trouble? And if He hide his face, who then can behold him ?—Under GOD, our country's safety must arise from the intelligence and wisdom of her sons. Nor is it possible to calculate the amount of evil which may be averted, or of positive good which may be secured, if those whom Heaven has qualified and destined to mould and sway the public mind, shall rightly employ all their energies, and all their means.

Mere knowledge-never let it be forgotten-will not, cannot save us. No. The best things become, in their corruption and abuse, the worst, and most pernicious. An unsound, degenerate, prostituted learning, is one of the greatest curses which can afflict any country; and most emphatically, a republican community, like our own.

If, then, there is a spirit abroad in the land, which is corrupting our literature; which would exchange its solid strength for a feeble and meretricious splendor; which regards its surface more than its depth; which through the medium of poetry, of romance, of history itself, is conveying poison to the public mind; tainting the virgin purity of the female heart, and seducing our young men into the paths that lead to death-let us resist it.

If there is a spirit which is corrupting our politics; arraying itself in hostility against the first principles of social order, and civil government; of public justice, and national faith; and of the constitution itself; summoning to its aid the ignorance, the prejudices and the passions of the people, with their sectional jealousies, antipathies, emulations, and imaginary interests; and aiming to merge our fair and harmonious republic in a chaos of divided and conflicting communities let us resist it.

If there is a spirit which is corrupting morality, aiming to subvert its long established and well understood principles; and to substitute in the place of a pure, dignified, unbending morality, a morality the mere creature of convenience, or convention, or caprice, or fashion, or false honor-let us resist it.

And if corruption directs its attacks against religion itself, let us resolutely stand in its defence. If numbers in the community would divest the sacred volume of its inspiration; that is to say, of all that renders it truly sacred and precious; let us indignantly frown on the attempt. If numbers, not professedly denying the divine authority of the Bible, discard, or explain away its most obvious and vital truths, let us bind these truths more closely than ever, to our hearts. If an arrogant and false philosophy would instamp its own features on the doctrines of Christianity, let us dare adhere to the simple and divine beauty, the sublime and unbending majesty, of scripture truth.

In fine: let us, in the various stations which Providence has assigned us; and in our respective spheres of duty, and

of influence, approve ourselves the undeviating, active friends. of sound religion, and sound literature. In an age of too much glitter and ostentation, let us aim at nothing better or higher, than solid knowledge, genuine wisdom, unostentatious goodness, and substantial usefulness. In an age of unexampled excitement, let us claim the modest privilege of remaining cool. In an age of ceaseless revolution, let us remember that to innovate is not always to reform; and that old truth is somewhat preferable to new error. At a period when the cause of God and truth is both assailed and defended with a zeal and vigor almost unparalleled, let us consecrate to this high and holy cause, all our faculties and resources, all our energies and efforts.

But we forbear. We have made perhaps but too large a draught on the reader's time and patience. It has afforded us, however, something of relief, and something of gratification, to present thus publicly a few views on subjects of profound, and almost distressing interest. Our free suggestions we cheerfully submit to Christians and patriots; to minds that can think, and to hearts that can feel. May that Almighty Being with whom are the destinies of our country and mankind, mercifully disappoint all our fears, and more than realize our best and brightest hopes.*

*The preceding article was originally delivered as an address, before the Associated Alumni of Dartmouth college.

ARTICLE VI.

CHARACTER OF ANDREW FULLER.

The Complete Works of the Rev. Andrew Fuller, with a Memoir of his Life. By Andrew Gunton Fuller. In two volumes. Boston: Lincoln, Edmands & Co. 1833.

A FEELING of alarm has occasionally been expressed, at the rapidity with which books multiply.-They increase, it has been said, faster than the most industrious reader, with the greatest pecuniary resources and the amplest leisure,