Of the author's opinions concerning what the Christian Scriptures do or do not teach, in regard to marriage, and to the institution of the Sabbath, we shall not speak particularly. It is enough to say, that while Christians are divided into an infinite variety of sects on other subjects, they are sufficiently well united on these. The usage in each particular might have been well understood by the immediate disciples of Christ, and have been sanctioned by his authority, and yet not have been subjects of express instruction, or of historical record. And if we advert, in this connexion, to the immemorial practice of the Christian Church, it seems to us that all grounds of scepticism concerning marriage, and the observance of a stated Sabbath, as both are now regarded, are sufficiently removed. If Christianity was intended to serve the highest moral purposes, which no true believer can doubt, it could never have sanctioned polygamy, so destructive as it would be of all the purest virtues that grow out of the domestic relations. And if it was intended for a perpetual religion, which is alike unquestionable, it would not have overlooked a principal means of its own preservation. There is one other subject to which we shall advert for a moment, before we close our remarks, and that is to the author's opinions concerning Death. The death of the body is the loss or extinction of life. The common definition, which supposes it to consist in the separation of soul and body, is inadmissible. For what part of man is it, that dies when this separation takes place ? Is it the soul? This will not be admitted by the supporters of the above definition. it then the body? But how can that be said to die, which never had any life of itself? Therefore the separation of soul and body cannot be called the death of man.' Vol. 1. pp. 362, 363. Is After discussing the subject, and examining the texts of Scripture relating to it at considerable length, he concludes with the explicit declaration of his belief in the death of the whole man, and his remaining in unconscious rest to the day of the resurrection and final judgment. In all this there is the same tincture of materialism, that we have noticed before. But while we have not room to follow him in the arguments, which he deduces from Scripture and philosophy, till he comes to the fearful result of all his reasoning; yet we think there are instances enough in the New Testament to encourage us in the belief, that when the frail body returns to the dust from whence it came, the spirit will return to God who gave doctrine maintained by Milton is not, indeed, so overw as that of total annihilation; but it reminds us of that in his Paradise Lost, in which even infernal spirits can template the extinction of being without horror. And the greatest afflictions of our mixed condition, when whe missive to the will of God, we should be with difficult ciled to the loss of existence, for we know not how man To be no more; sad cure! for who would lose Though we are aware, that we have distorted this p from its intended application, yet it is so far applicable case before us, that it presented itself to us uncalled for such a solemn subject we are not disposed to dogmatiz since death is not the final extinction of being, we cannot b without being expressly taught so, that it is a long suspen existence, limited only by the remote (we know not how re consummation of all things here upon the earth. We have seen some contemptuous expressions concerni Treatise of Milton; much more contemptuous than, fro examination of the work, it seems to deserve. The mer lical critic may not value it highly; the mere metaphysiciar not value it highly; but one who is fond of comparing ture with Scripture, and finding what is taught by its g tenor, rather than what seems to be taught in a few deta passages, will have no inconsiderable respect for it. For every subject is cited a great collection of texts, as proofs indeed always apposite, but in general so many texts, an much that is apposite, as, one would think, almost to exhaus species of proof. This will save the theologian, who is exa ing the same subjects, much expense of time, in turning the leaves of his concordance, and present to him in a train that he would seek for. In applying and weighing the valu texts, he may often have occasion to differ from the author this makes no greater deduction from the merits of the w than is to be expected in such a mass of extracts, under various subjects. In reasoning from Scripture, or from the 1 gestions of his own mind, he seems for the most part free from a contentious spirit, and an overweening fondness for his own opinions. If we are disappointed, on the whole, that so great a man in the poetical world, and one so distinguished by his political writings, is not also first among theologians, it is a disappointment arising from the unreasonableness of our expecta tions. : ART. VI.-Memoir of the Life of Richard Henry Lee, and his Correspondence with the most distinguished Men in America and Europe, illustrative of their Characters, and of the Events of the American Revolution. By his Grandson, RICHARD H. LEE, of Leesburg, Virginia. Philadelphia. 1825. It has been said, that we of the North are prone to laud our own men and things. This is probably true, since, if we had not this disposition, we should form an exception to one of the most general laws of human society. Beginning with the first natural combination, the family (the only natural one according to Rousseau), and ascending to kingdoms and empires, a disposition to boast may always be traced, where it is not controlled by some stronger passion. In this country, our peculiar political organization has set two forms of this vanity in occasional opposition to each other. The disposition to laud certain things, which we might cherish simply as Americans, is controlled and modified by our State partialities. We are sometimes afraid to speak in unqualified terms of those, who are only our countrymen, lest we should do injustice to the paramount claims of those, whose reputation may be the pride of the individual State to which we belong. For ourselves, we are not inclined to censure the operation of the latter feeling. We are disposed to be very indulgent, not only to the New Englander, who derives all that there is valuable, in American institutions, from the principles of the Pilgrims, and to the Pennsylvanian, who proposes the founder of his commonwealth as the perfect model of a legislator; but also to the Virginian, who believes that but for Patrick Henry the spark of the Revolution would never have been struck out, and to the VOL. XXII. NO. 51. 48 Bostonian, who is equally confident, that when James Ot his argument against writs of assistance, American liberty to be. We esteem all this both honorable and natural. I worth while to take any distinctions on this subject, as w probably not be suspected of any factious intention, we wou that the State feeling is one of deeper growth in this countr any which connects itself with our general existence as a Some of our politicians, as it has suited either their imm interests, or has been dictated by their general views, have that the State feeling should be repressed as pernicious.* doubt this extremely, either as possible or desirable. It i that our national existence is every day gaining in that vene which time alone confers; but it is equally true, that, at pr our strongest historic recollections belong to us as States when we boast of our great revolutionary characters, we of them, not so much as Americans, but as citizens of the monwealth to which we belong. Destroy the local tie, binds together the people of each State, and the Union not survive a day. We repeat, that, in enthusiastic attachm our happy Union, we are exceeded by none who enjoy its ings. But so far is it from being true, as was urged in the of debate, in the federal Convention, by the advocates of a perfectly consolidated system, that the States are metaphy ideal existences, that we should rather maintain the cont The Union, comparatively speaking, is the metaphysical theoretical thing. Like the illimitable city, where its ce point is fixed, it yet looks raw and new. Its operation is o sionally sharp and harsh; it wants the feeling of age. But States, at least the thirteen States, come home in a different to the hearts of their citizens. They are not metaphysical, are historical beings. The family feeling binds their parts gether. The seat of power is in their bosom. Every vil sends its representative to the council fire, which is thus conn ed by a living tie to the firesides of the people. But for the very reason, that the State feeling has this four tion in nature, it is becoming the philosophic patriot to be re to apply the proper corrective to its excess. Nothing ough be a more constant object of attention to him, than to prom *Every thing that tends to strengthen the peculiar and exclu feelings of State pride and sectional prejudice inevitably weakens bonds of the Union.' - Report of a Select Committee for Amending Constitution, December 22, 1823. with fond care, the harmonious action upon each other of the parts of that most curiously complicated machine, which is formed out of the combination of our State and national institutions, and which constitutes the most extraordinary phenomenon in the political history of man. For this reason, we esteem it the duty of every true friend of his country's welfare among us to be most prompt and cordial in doing justice to the reputation of the distinguished characters of every State in the confederacy. However natural and however commendable the zeal of bearing testimony to the worth of which our own State has been the cradle and the stage, we ought to study with delight the honorable annals of our sister communities, and pay a hearty tribute to all we find in them of heroism and wisdom, in the field and in the cabinet. This is the dictate not less of justice than of magnanimity; for, after all, the great deeds and the great men of earlier or later years, to which the United States are indebted for their present prosperity, are not so confined to any one quarter, that the aid of all others could, in any degree, have been dispensed with. In regard to revolutionary merits, a great and honorable controversy has been waged between Virginia and Massachusettsnow both of them somewhat declined from their former preeminence in numbers and power-then the leading States of the Union. But it ought, we think, to be conceded on both hands, that in the stern struggle for our liberties, the contest at the time was not so light and promising, that the voice or the arm of one of our champions could have been spared. Every man was essential. Every one, who served his country, did it precious service. There was no such superabundance of power, on our side, that it is fair to divide services into those, which were essential, and those which were subsidiary; into those, with which the cause could have dispensed, and those, without which it would have suffered shipwreck. The humble sexton, who lighted the lamps in Christ Church steeple, on the night of the eighteenth of April; and the honest rustics, who defeated the treacherous project for the surrender of West Point, may, in the series of events, have rendered services as important, as those of Brooks when he leaped the entrenchments at Saratoga, or Lafayette when he stormed the lines at Yorktown. It is one of the characteristics of a crisis like our Revolution, that it produces an astonishing developement of talent and resource, among all classes of the community. It not only stimu |