nected with some department of the college, and, he adds, that " among them all scarcely one who has been with us long enough to imbibe the spirit of the place, has left us a dogmatiser or a bigot." In other words, he had been, in a good degree, successful in sowing in the "open, receptive, and mouldable" minds of more than a thousand young men and maidens of the West, "a religionism, from whose features the young would not turn away."

In the spring of 1858, the financial embarrassments which had before threatened to bring about the utter failure of the enterprise, ended in the advertisement of all the college property for sale at public auction. Mr Mann felt that precious interests of "liberal religion," as well as of education, were in imminent peril. It would seem that some root of bitterness had already sprung up among those who had the government, or at least the purse-strings, in their hands. "Men who had pretended enthusiasm for him and for learning at first, fell away and became hostile when the failing fortunes of the college disappointed their desire to coin gold out of their unsold lands." Indeed, the picture which is given us of the state of affairs at that juncture, would lead us to doubt whether the fruit of the new philosophy, though raised on that free virgin soil, was much to be preferred to that which is found in evangelical or "orthodox" enclosures. But its zealous cultivator was not to be deterred by difficulties, and with a fearless spirit he addressed himself to new efforts for averting the impending catastrophe. was in vain, however. Difficulties arose in the college family, fomented, as we are told, by "outside women's-rights women." Heart-burnings were revealed in the Board of Directors. It was clear that the institution had been bankrupt from the outset, though the accounts were so kept as to conceal the fact. A new organisation was attempted on a new basis and capital, "but under the same moral and religious auspices." It succeeded so far that temporary provision was made for current expenses, and a class graduated, receiving from Mr Mann a baccalaureate address full of fervour and sympathy, but, alas! for human nature, exceedingly "bigoted."* In this address to a company of young persons, just entering upon the stern realities of life, and needing the plainest and simplest rules of conduct, the distinguished educator, now past sixty years of age, presents the following picture :

It

* Bigot, a man devoted unreasonably to a certain party, or prejudiced in favour of certain opinions.-Johnson.

"In philosophy and religion the bigots of all parties are generally the most positive."-Watts

"We are created with numerous appetences, all like so many eyes to desire, and like so many hands to seize their related objects in the external world. The external world superabounds with objects fitted to gratify and influence those internal appetences. And now these beings, fervid and aflame with these desires, are turned loose among these objects without any knowledge of what kind, in what quan tity, at what time, they are to be taken and enjoyed, but with free agency to take what, when, and as much as they please. Bring these few elements into juxtaposition-the thousand objects around, the inward desire for them, the free will to take them, and complete ignorance of consequences, and how is it possible to avoid mistakes, injuries, errors, crimes?" The apostasy of man, of which John Milton says,

"Earth felt the wound; and Nature, from her seat
Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe,
That all was lost-"

he describes to these young people as "what my very much respected but unfortunate great-grandparents, Adam and Eve, did in the garden of Eden at the time of the interview with a distinguished stranger in disguise."

He tells them that "the descendants of the Puritans" (that is, a considerable proportion of the Christian people of New England) "are disposed to believe in the doctrine of vicarious atonement, because this getting everything and giving nothing is such a sharp bargain-very much the same plan on which the Puritan treated the Indians." And he sums up his instructions and exhortations by saying, “You have only to set your head right by knowledge, and your heart right by obedience, and forces, stronger than streams, or winds, or gravitation, will bear you up to celestial blessedness, Elijah-like, by means as visible and palpable as though they were horses of fire, and chariots of fire."

But our space is overrun. Mr Mann's memory has many and warm eulogists. By those who adopt his theories he is regarded as the pioneer of a mighty moral revolution. "He was," in their view, "one of a body of far-seeing men who for nearly fifteen years have determined that there should be in the very heart of this country an institution which should not be second in ability to Harvard or to Yale,--and should, in the liberality of its system, and its freedom from sectional or sectarian restrictions, be able indeed to educate all comers. Biding their time in difficulties, working hard at the oar when the tide was in their favour, they have at last succeeded in obtaining a charter absolutely free from blemish, college buildings now ready for several hundred students, and a

His Career awakens Sorrow and Surprise. 331

prestige of the first value through the whole western country, and an endowment in real estate of 150,000 dollars, and in invested stocks a quarter of a million more."

The full direction of the college thus chartered and endowed was recently offered to the present Governor of Massachusetts, whose distinguished public career, not less than his strong sympathy with Mr Mann's views and projects, naturally suggested the selection. To induce him to accept" the post his friends say "they do not expect him to teach arithmetic to schoolboys, or to oversee the police of a boarding-school. They do expect him to appoint the fifteen or twenty professors whom the income of the college will at once sustain; to hold toward it the position which the vice-chancellor of an English university holds; to contrive the plans for its widest usefulness; to direct the efforts of the professors; to encourage and stimulate the pupils; and in general to advise the friends of the enterprise everywhere. They expect yet more,-that the energy of his character and the distinctness of his plans will make him one of the leaders of the education of the West; that not in that college only, but at every point where public opinion can be touched, his influence shall be found; and that this institution in its training of professional men, of men of active affairs, and of the teachers of the people, will introduce him to the large western world." *

This was the glowing picture which riveted Mr Mann's eyes, and to realise it he counted not even his life dear to him. Would that a spirit, alike brave, enduring, and enthusiastic, animated the friends of a better and safer theory of educating the teeming millions of the West!

No one can read without deep emotion the few pages that record the giving way of his physical nature. However thorough our dissent from his opinions and plans, we cannot but admire his self-denial and public spirit, nor can we doubt the strength of his conviction that the system he so strenuously advocated had all the virtue he claimed for it. The failure of his imposing structure must be ascribed to the inherent weakness of the foundation. In dealing with the intellectual and moral nature of man, it will not do to reject inspiration, + nor to regard the great Teacher sent from God as only an "unspoiled human being."

We lay aside the volume with a mingled feeling of sorrow and surprise-sorrow that one capable of exerting so power

*Boston Daily Advertiser, September 28. 1865.

"If inspiration be claimed for any one, was not Dr Channing inspired?" -Mr Mann's letter to Mr Combe, April 1849.

ful an influence upon the interests of popular education, should have been led so far astray respecting its essential principles and ends-and with surprise, that the advocate and propagator of such radical errors in philosophy and religion should have received such unusual posthumous honours in the Old Bay State.

What more fitting inscription than the following could have been placed on the monument, erected, as it has been said, by the contributions of school children, and occupying a place in the State House enclosure, opposite a statue of the renowned Webster

"HE DID WHAT HE COULD TO OBLITERATE FROM THE YOUTHFUL MIND THE NOTION OF THE PROVIDENTIAL GOVERNMENT OF THE WORLD, AND TO BRING INTO EXERCISE THE NOBLE BUT NEGLECTED FACULTY OF CAUSALITY."

ART. VI.-Literature of the Sabbath Question.

he Literature of the Sabbath Question. By ROBERT Cox, F.S.A., Scot. In two volumes. Edinburgh: Maclachlan & Stewart; and Simpkin, Marshall, & Co., London. 1865.

THE

HE author of the above named work has forwarded a copy for notice in The British and Foreign Evangelical Review. On meeting with this announcement, many of our readers, who are aware that the views of Mr Cox differ in various essential respects from those advocated in this periodical, may leap at once to the conclusion that his work is one of a bitterly polemic character, and that it has been sent simply by way of bravado. It is only doing him an act of justice to state that there is no proper foundation for such an idea. His ability is so great, his research so amazing, and the language he employs in regard to those who differ from him in opinion is as a rule so gentlemanly,* that

* One becomes better fitted to appreciate the courtesy of Mr Cox, after reading the concluding paragraphs of an article entitled "Sabbaths," reprinted from The Westminster Review; the author of which, though evidently a scholar, allows himself to write after such a fashion as this of his Sabbatarian opponents: "The days of sanguinary codes have gone by. Opinion is in favour of the total abolition of the penalty of death, excepting for murder, which we call the greatest of all crimes. But the crime of depriving a fellow. creature of life is not the offence of greatest magnitude of which any human being can be guilty. If capital punishments be allowable for that, then would death without mercy,- the death of the Mosaic law, death by stoning,-be the appropriate penalty, not of Sabbath-breaking, but of trafficking in superstition, trading in man's weakness, and with his loftiest aspirations, converting his instincts of awe and reverence for the wonderful and admirable into abject

he was clearly entitled, without a blush, to send his volumes in any direction. We are thoroughly satisfied that Mr Cox is conscientious in holding the opinions which he so zealously advocates, though we think that in certain cases it is not difficult to trace the influence of foregone conclusions in warping his judgment. We have learned much from his volumes, but, after having carefully studied them in every part, we still feel constrained to defend that view of Sabbath obligation which he has done his best to render untenable. To be more specific, Mr Cox holds that the Sabbath was instituted, not at the creation, but after the Israelites had left Egypt; that it was solely a Jewish institution; that the obligation to observe the Lord's day rests rather on natural law than on positive injunction, and that it best fulfils its beneficent purpose when spent partly in divine worship and partly in ordinary recreation. We, on the contrary, believe the Sabbath to have been instituted at the creation; the ten commandments we regard as having been designed, not simply for the Jews, but for mankind generally; we, consequently, are of opinion that direction with respect to the mode in which the Lord's day should be spent is to be sought, not so much through investigation into natural law, as by the study of the fourth commandment, with such comments upon it as the pen of inspiration may afford. In the present article we shall attempt to establish these positions, while in a second a review will be given of Mr Cox's history of opinion on the subject from the apostolic times down to a very recent period.

It will tend to clear up certain difficulties, if, at the very outset, an understanding be come to, as to the logical principles on which the decision of the question must turn. As is well known, while the propositions of mathematics are susceptible of strict demonstration, it is part of the moral probation to which man is subject in this world, that all the truths on the reception of which his temporal and eternal welfare turns, rest only on probable evidence. In other words, one is as if he operated by means of a pair of balances, into one scale of which he cast all arguments in

terrors; his most sacred emotions of grief, his solemn moments of parting on the confines of eternity, his very hopes of immortality into implements of a craft, a source of income, a miserable instrument of popularity and power; and the object attained, endeavouring to perpetuate it by proclaiming the infallibility of creeds and canons, persecuting those who question it as infidels to God, resisting the extension of knowledge among the masses, or rendering it exclusive and nominal, and thus seeking to crush the human mind under the wheels of the modern Juggernaut of conventional idolatry."-P. 51. " DEATH WITHOUT MERCY!"-" DEATH BY STONING!" Of others besides the apostles it may be said, "Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of."

VOL. XV.-NO. LVI.

Y