national destiny, but we do alledge that the flow of so vast and turbid a stream into the current of our national life must tinge and affect it, to an extent that it is now difficult to calculate.

Another danger that is increased by these events, is, that of internal convulsion and external war. As our territory swells in extent and increases in population, its interests grow in number and importance. Causes, which, when operating in narrower bounds and a sparser population, were trifling, now, by the wider range they take, become vastly more important. Interests that were once like the little fountain that a child's hand might direct, swell until they become a torrent which defies all control. It cannot be concealed that causes are growing yearly in exasperation that threaten, without the utmost prudence and forbearance, to rend the bonds that hold us together as a nation, and array section against section in mutual opposition, if not mutual hate and bloodshed. As this mass of foreign population is precipitated upon our shores, frenzied with crude and agrarian notions of freedom, incapable of comprehending the checks and balances of our political system, and ignorant of its history and workings, it may be easy for the designing demagogue, by some specious ad captandum watchword, to arouse them to a blind crusade against some evil, real or imaginary, and plunge the government into difficulties from which we cannot come forth without injury.

The danger of external war must also be greatly increased by the complication of international relations, and the suspension of international guaranties, that must follow a state of confusion like the present.

These considerations clearly show that we stand, as a nation, in a most intricate and perilous relation of connection to the European revolutions of 1848.

V. We turn finally to some of the duties devolving on the American nation and American church in this crisis of the world.

It is more than ever our duty to seek that righteousness which we are told exalts a nation, and avoid that sin which is the reproach and ruin of any people. The ordinary considerations by which this position is made manifest, drawn from the word of God and right reason, receive powerful corroboration in the events under discussion. Why have these ancient and powerful thrones thus fallen before the upheaving swell of an indignant people? Why are these convulsions racking every old and cherished institution to its base? It is because these thrones and institutions were not supported by righteousness. The turrets and domes of regal power

were gilded and adorned with the splendor of art and the glitter of arms-the blazonry of a titled nobility, and the pomp of a haughty aristocracy but the deep foundations were neglected; vice and ignorance were allowed to cat out the sturdy virtues of the nation, until it was incapable of bearing the weight of the superincumbent throne, with its gorgeous and massive relics of feudal pride; and in an unexpected hour, the earth yawned, the foundations of society were shivered, and from the lurid smoke and flame of this gap arose the horrid form of revolution, with its gorgon head and gory locks; at whose fearful aspect throne, nobility, and all, were swallowed up in the abyss. If these strong and iron-bound governments were incapable of enduring the swelling tide of vice, can we? If the time is coming when the judgment shall sit, and when sin, that once was passed by unvisited, shall bring on its perpetrators swift destruction, is it safe for us to allow the growth of so perilous an element in our midst? And if God has given us the means of conferring a richer blessing on the world than has ever been given to king or noble, shall we not for the neglect of these means be called to a sterner reckoning? It becomes us, then, to be timely wise, and when the judgments of God are abroad in the earth to learn righteousness.

It is also the duty of this nation, at every hazard, to seek for peace, and sedulously avoid all hostility with other nations. War is at all times and to any nation a horrible evil. As a mere question of political economy it is most unwise, unless inevitable, to withdraw thousands of men from the production of capital, and engage them in its consumption and destruction; to unfit them for the pursuits of peaceful industry, and either leave them mangled corpses on the field of battle, or return them with mutilated bodies and tainted morals to burden and corrupt society. But when we remember the horrors of the battle-field, the siege, the sack, the ravaged country, the burned villages, the deserted farms, the sorrow that enters a thousand houses and pierces the hearts of childless, bereaved, and orphaned sufferers; and remember the hundreds of souls hurried unprepared into the presence of God; it is a most fiendish and horrible thing. In a republic, however, young and growing, with a scattered population and millions of unoccupied acres, it is suicidal and insane. Every man that falls in battle is a league of barrenness added to her soil. There is no country on earth that has more to fear and more to lose by war, than our own. And the more brilliant the success, and the more glorious the victory, the more fatal the peril. A military republic, by the law of national existence, must glide rapidly into a military VOL. VIII.-35

despotism. A free and brave people will naturally be a victorious people; but if they be enticed by the glare and splendor of military glory to chase the phantom, they may seize it, but it will be at the price of their ruin. The light of glory may illumine their path, but they shall find too late that the hour of military splendor in a republic may be a gorgeous hour, but only because it is the red hour of the setting sun. The history of Athens, Sparta, Carthage, Rome, Venice, and France, utter but one voice on this point-it is the warning voice of ruin.

O! if the treasure, talent, and blood, that even this young and comparatively peaceful republic has poured out at the greedy shrine of war, had been spent in clearing our forests, improving our harbors, extending our internal improvements, building schools and colleges, and developing the magnificent heritage that God has given us, the wildest dreams of the poet had been rendered tame and common-place ere this, by the actual verity of our greatness.

It is also our duty to remove every cause of evil, and every source of danger, from our midst, with honest perseverance. Neither our limits nor our purpose will permit us to enter into a minute specification of these things, as we would likely in doing so trench on debateable grounds. But there are certain sources of evil and danger about which there can be no doubt or discussion. Popular ignorance and popular depravity are the two formidable evils which we have to dread, and the causes of which we must seek to remove. A degraded press, pandering to the lowest passions of the lowest class of society; a corrupt literature, if that trash can be termed by so reputable a name, that is dealing out damnation by driblets, and retailing the very wickedness of hell by the pennyworth; and an organized system of temptations to sabbath-breaking, intemperance, gambling, and licentiousness; are among the agencies which we must seek to counteract. In a word, whatever degrades any part of the population, and prevents them from rising in the scale of social existence; whatever inflames party spirit, and sectional jealousy; whatever tends to array class against class in social hostility, and excite heart-burnings between labor and capital; should be sedulously removed, or counteracted in its influence, before the evil becomes gigantic and unmanageable. We must destroy some of these evils or they will destroy us.

The last duty we mention is, that of extending the influence of Christianity throughout the world, and especially throughout those parts of the world that are now convulsed.

If it is to Christianity that we owe our national greatness, and if one condition af either receiving or retaining that Christianity is

the extension of its influence to others, both which positions we believe susceptible of the amplest proof, we owe it to ourselves to engage in this work. But if nothing, except this form of religion, can calm these agitations and restore order, we owe it to Europe to return the benefits we have received from her in the form of a pure religion as well as a rational liberty. In addition to this, however, this national obligation seems to be distinctly taught in the word of God. When Isaiah was looking forward to the times on which we are probably verging, he declared, (lx, 12,) "The nation and the kingdom that will not serve thee shall utterly perish, yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted." This language is addressed to the church. It cannot mean actual subservience of the civil to the ecclesiastical power, for this is one of the most monstrous claims of Antichrist. It must refer to some such co-operation with the church in her great work, as nations can make in aiding to spread the gospel.

We would not rashly interpret the providence of God, but we cannot but recollect, in connection with this thought, that the only nation in Europe that has firmly resisted these shocks, is the Protestant missionary nation of England; and the throne that first fell before the storm, was that whose escutcheon was stained by the persecution of Protestant missions in the South Sea Islands, and on the Gaboon in Africa; and the other nations that have reeled most heavily, and are threatened most menacingly by this storm, are the Papal powers of Austria and Italy, which have set themselves most steadily heretofore, in the Society for Propagating the Faith, to retard the advance of the truth, and promote the extension of error. Is it fanciful to alledge that there is some significance in these facts? Is it anything more than a recognition of the great fact predicted by Daniel, in the relations of the stone cut out without hands, to every other form of authority, and the kingdom that the God of heaven would set up, to all other kingdoms? If not, then comes a voice of warning to us mingled with the crash of falling thrones and dissolving dynasties. It admonishes us, that if we also are faithless to our high trust; if, instead of extending the influence of the truth, we shall be found treading in the bloody path of subjugation and conquest; if, instead of preparing the way for the Ancient of days, we are found struggling side by side with the nations on whom the judgment shall sit; the decree shall go forth against us, and just as high toward heaven as we have been exalted in our privileges, so deep toward hell shall we be thrust down in our punishment. Our destiny can be no ordinary one, however it may be unfolded; we shall either be gigantic in the might

of our spreading greatness, or gigantic in the magnitude of our desolating ruin; and on this generation, perhaps, mainly depends the determination of the alternative.

Let each individual, however, honestly do his duty; and though our pride should be brought low and our starry greatness dimmed; though the grass should grow in the crevices of our ruined capitol, yet he shall "see the King in his beauty, and behold the land afar off;" and be gathered to that city where the shock of revolution is never felt, but where peace and purity enfold "the rest that remaineth for the people of God." But we fondly hope that all may gird themselves for their high duties, so that "the wall of fire and munition of rocks" shall ever surround us; and when Europe shall have been swept by the wave of desolating change, the tree that our fathers planted in prayer and faith, and watered with tears and blood, shall be green in its enduring beauty, and rich in its generous fruitage, and our children's children shall come and sit beneath its shade, with none to molest them or make them afraid.

ART. V.-1. The Witness of the Spirit. A Treatise on the Evidence of the Believer's Adoption. By DANIEL WALTON, Author of "The Mature Christian." New-York: Lane & Tippett,

1847.

2. The Witness of the Spirit with our Spirit. Illustrated from the Eighth Chapter of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans; and the Heresies of Montanus, Pelagius, &c., &c. In Eight Sermons, preached before the University of Oxford, in 1846, at the Lecture founded by the late Rev. John Bampton, M. A., Canon of Salisbury. By REV. AUGUSTUS SHORT, M. A., Vicar of Ravensthorpe, Northamptonshire, Rural Dean, and late Student of Christ Church. Oxford: J. U. Parker. London: F. & J. Rivington. 1846.

3. Edwards' Treatise on the Religious Affections.

4. Wesley's Sermons, and Watson's Theological Institutes.

It is a most important question to the Christian whether an assurance of his adoption into the divine family, of his acceptance with God, can be gained in this life. The attainableness of this assurance has been maintained, with more or less distinctness, in all ages of the church. This was one of the prominent doctrines characterizing the great revival of religion, a century ago, under the ministry of the Wesleys and Whitefield. "John Wesley was