the exhaustless capabilities of the invisible universe, which encompasses us? Physiology has yet perhaps many secrets to unfold, which will throw light on the nature and distinction of man. What it has already made known exhibits him, as fitted by his bodily structure, to bend material objects to his will, to convert them into forms of beauty, or to wield them as the instruments of a high intelligence, as endowed with an organisation superior to that of every other animal, with which we are acquainted, and as thus constituting a link between the world that we see, and that higher world, which we are only permitted to conceive. Here then the voices of science and religion are in harmony. Man's bodily frame indicates his destination. That subtile and mysterious spirit, which is developed with its growth, acquires, in its progress through life, a ripeness and a power, which fit it for a purer vehicle. At the appointed hour, it passes away; and the body moulders, as the husk of an immortal seed. With the moral sciences, it must be obvious to every one, that Christianity sustains a most intimate relation. We shall say, therefore, but a few words on this head. We have spoken of Christianity, as the medium of refined civilisation, and as deserving, in this respect, of a careful study in the history of the past. But it can act on the condition of the race, only through its previous influence on the character of individuals; and its fitness for exercising that influence, and the mode, in which we should seek to apply it, we must ascertain by studying the mental, moral and social constitution of man. In some of the continental states, every teacher of youth, as well as every minister of religion, is required, in his preparatory education, to go through a complete course of psychology and anthropology, or, as we should very nearly express the same ideas, of metaphysics and moral philosophy. One great proof of the divine origin of Christianity, is the exactness of its adaptation to the spiritual wants and capacities of man. But of the full force of that proof we can never be aware, till we have obtained a clear insight into the working of the nature, on which it is designed to operate. Though Christianity is strictly a popular religion in its outward form and character, yet many of the doctrines and principles, which it enunciates, border closely on some of the deepest questions of metaphysics, and involve obscure and intricate discussions, on will and conscience and moral obligation, on the nature of the soul and the efficacy of prayer and the agency of the divine spirit on the heart. Christianity carries us far into the spiritual world; it ascends to the invisible source of all power and action; and where it strongly possesses the soul, it furnishes perpetual matter for profound thought and lofty speculation. Even in practical morals, as Christianity only gives us general principles, we must trace the limits and distributions of human duty, and contemplate man in the various relations of life, to be able to apply them with advantage. Nor will theoretical morality alone suffice. The living world of manners must claim our observation. We must study man, as he exists in the world around us, or as we can catch the varying aspects of his character in the transient intercourses of society or the more permanent unions of friendship. Self-examination must afford its contributions to our stock of moral knowledge; and the vivid portraitures of the actor, the novelist and the poet, must not be disdained, as beneath the calm and serious meditation of one, who would survey human nature on every side, and fling all the mingling lights of art and literature and observation on the hidden riches of a nature, which must be precious in the sight of God, since he has deemed it worthy of immortality. Lastly, politics and political economy have their affinities-and those neither few nor obscure-with Christianity. Politics will never become the science of human happiness on a large scale, or a worthy object of pursuit for noble and generous minds-till it is impregnated with the spirit of Christianity-till the same principles, which are universally admitted as honourable in private life, shall be carried into the more extended transactions of the state-till its maxims shall be founded, as they have been occasionally in the public conduct of a few great and good men, of a Fox, a Romilly and a Grey, on the eternal principles of the right, the just and the true. Political economy, to describe it in one word, is nothing more than the application of Christianity to the intercourses of the market; and Adam Smith's inestimable work, which contains more of the spirit of the gospel than many volumes of sermons, is only an expanded exposition of the glorious text- All things whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye also unto them.' Christianity has no obscure relation with the cultivation of the fine arts. History proves it; and the monuments of their intimacy are still conspicuous in every European land. Look at the magnificent piles, which the intense spirit of a fervent, though unenlightened, piety reared in the darkest ages to the worship of the everlasting Jehovah surpassing in their massive grandeur and varied decoration and colossal proportionsand in the richness and sublimity of the mingled associations, which they excite, all that the elegant fancy of the Greeks ever devised in honour of the various objects of their superstitious adoration. The stern spirit of Puritanism, which accompanied the Reformation, rejected with abhorrence, as an approach to idolatry, those outward aids to devotion, in solemn and pathetic appeals to the eye and ear, on which the earlier efforts of art had been so successfully exerted. Yet are all such aids, when under the guidance of a pure and elevated faith, to be absolutely scorned? Is the fire, that burns on the altar, less pure, or the incense, that rises from the heart, less sweet, because it has been kindled by a ray from a holy and chaste imagination? What diviner office for the sister arts of poetry and music, than that of lifting up the soul, above the low and sordid thoughts of earth, to the purest contemplation of the unseen God, and the remembrance of the Saviour's love, and the rapt imagination of heavenly felicity! Why should not the edifice, which is separated from secular use, and consecrated to the worship of the eternal spirit, by its very aspect and structure, looking tranquillity,' predispose the mind to those solemn and quiet thoughts, which its appropriate services are designed to minister? cold and unimpassioned forms of marble be best adapted for embodying the faultless symmetry and material beauty of Grecian hero or deity-yet what can be more admirably fitted than the deep and awful shades the broad contrasted lights-the solemn grouping the rich and mellow hues the beaming intelligence of the canvas-to set forth with pathos and sublimity all the labour and the love and the suffering and the miracle of sacred story-the Saviour's patience and benignity-the zeal of apostles and the constancy of martyrs the struggles of a victorious faith, and the triumph of an immortal spirit over the pangs of bodily torture and all the terrors of the world!— Unfortunately the poetry of religion lingers most in the forms of an old and declining faith, and invests with a pensive beauty the last relics of an expiring superstition. Reason goes forth to the work of Reformation plain and unadorned; and, as its peculiar office is to war with the figments of a superstitious imagination, it passes, by a natural re-action, to the remotest distance from the antiquated system, which it labours to subvert. Still we are inclined to believe, that the spirit of Christianity has a natural and proper alliance with the noblest expressions of art; and, perhaps, a time may come, though yet far distant, when we may see them, under the influence of intelligence, refinement and piety, combined in forms and applied to objects, with which the purest heart may sympathise, and in harmony with the highest aims and noblest tendencies of our spiritual nature. We have thus attempted to trace some of the affinities of Christian theology with the general world of literature, science and art, and to exhibit it as a common centre of moral light and heat around which their various phenomena harmoniously revolve. We enter heartily into the spirit of the following remark of Coleridge (Biographia Literaria, vol. 1, p. 229,) that there is scarce a department of human knowledge without some bearing on the various critical, historical, philosophical and moral truths, in which the scholar must be interested as a clergyman; and that to give the history of the Bible as a book, would be little less than to relate the origin or first excitement of all the literature and science, that we now possess.' It has ever been our favourite idea, to look upon Christianity as the natural friend and ally of all intellectual improvement, and to consider its teachers, as fitted, by the peculiar functions of their office, to become the guardians and depositories of all the higher influences of civilisation; and we earnestly desire to see a state of things arise, in which men should be drawn by the purest of motives, and with all the aids of a complete education, to cultivate theology in this enlarged and elevated spirit, and to consecrate the noblest endowments of the understanding and the heart to the unbiassed pursuit of truth and to the promotion of the best interests of humanity. Whether such a state is most likely to be brought about, in the present temper of the public mind, by a very great reform, or by the total suppression of our established provisions for the support of religion-is a question, upon which the best minds are divided, and the solution of which either way is attended with great difficulties. For ourselves, we should prefer, if it be possible, a gradual transition to a sudden change. But who can forestall the unsearchable decrees of Providence! We await their evolution, with interest indeed, but without anxiety. Tracing these lines at a distance from the loved and venerated soil of England, we look with all the tenderness of filial affection on the great movements which are passing over the face of her people; nor can we suppress a fervent prayer, that they may all issue in the preservation of her peace, in the firmer establishment of her liberties, and in the wider extension of her intellectual light and her moral and Christian civilisation. The whole of her past history is a guarantee, that with her brave and enlightened citizens, the sternest conflict will be one of virtue and public principle, and not a struggle of selfishness and crime. Whatever may be the disquietudes and embarrassments of the present generation, our trust is unabated in the onward march of humanity; and from the seed, which is now being sown in men's minds, we anticipate for our children and our children's children, when we shall be gathered to our fathers, a richer harvest of knowledge and freedom and every social good. Göttingen, Nov. 10th, 1834. T. A CHAPTER FOR CHILDREN. THE LOCUSTS. Now stir the fire and close the shutters fast, - CoWPER. THUS the winter evenings were always ushered and welcomed in at the Manse, or Parsonage-house, of an intelligent and amiable clergyman, residing in the North of England, who, though he discharged all the active duties of his profession with great punctuality and visited daily the cottages of the poor, carrying with him relief for the sick and consolation for the afflicted, did not forget that he had a little flock at home who required his care and attention. This worthy minister himself superintended the education of his children, assisted by his wife, a woman of superior mind and attainments, whose chief happiness was to co-operate with her husband in all his plans for the benefit of his parishioners or his family. It was their custom to communicate to their children as much information as they could in conversation, which, generally directing to subjects of importance, they contrived to render amusing by the detail of interesting facts, remarkable incidents, and striking illustrations, always using simple and perspicuous language, accommodated to the youthful understanding, and encouraging their little folks to enquire the meaning of what they did not fully comprehend. The time in which both parents were most disengaged was the evening, when, at the social hour of tea, the family assembled in the parlour, and formed a happy circle around the cheerful board, or blazing hearth : the evening, therefore, afforded the best opportunity for instructive communication, and the hours after tea were consequently devoted to the mental and moral improvement of their offspring by Mr. and Mrs. Darcourt, the master and mistress of the Manse. A few of these evening conversations may be both useful and acceptable to our young readers, and we shall, therefore, occasionally draw upon our memory for their amusement, having been a frequent visitor at the Manse in happier days and brighter hours.' It was Sunday evening, in the autumn of and a very stormy evening too, when Mr. Darcourt, with his good lady and children assembled, after service in their commodious parlour. The minister threw himself on the sofa, as if fatigued with the exertions of the day, the children crowded around the |