THE MONTREAL WITNESS.

WE step aside from our wonted path to salute "the Montreal Witness, Weekly Review, and Family Newspaper," a very able journal lately established in Montreal, Canada, under Protestant auspices, and devoted to all good enterprises and useful knowledge. Foreign and Canadian news are supplied by it more copiously and judiciously than in any of our own papers. The cause of religious freedom is ably advocated, and the superstitions and tyrannies of Popery nobly resisted. It abounds also with articles and items of practical utility to the farmer, the housewife, and the man of business, and withal has a sprinkling of facts for scientific gleaners. We should be glad to know that the merits of the paper are duly appreciated this side of the St. Lawrence. Price $3 50 per annum.

A Plea for Stability and Permanence in Institutions of Learning; delivered before the Trustees, Officers and Students of the Cleveland Medical College, Feb. 26, 1845. By GEORGE E. PIERCE, D. D., President of Western Reserve College.

THIS Address is characterized by the sound practical sense of the author, by force of thought and elegance of style. We are glad to read such passages as the following, of which there are many.

"The worthy men who are devoting themselves to the infant institutions of our western country, and toiling to lay the foundations of collegiate and professional schools, are not sustained in their labors and sacrifices and self-denials, by a regard merely to immediate and apparent results. They are prompted by higher and stronger motives. They look forward to the period when these institutions shall have acquired the strength and stability of mature age, and shall pour unnumbered blessings upon the millions of people, by which our country shall then be inhabited. They regard the institutions of the older states. They look at our honored

Yale, striking deep its roots and throwing up its branches, with abundance of green leaves and rich fruits, after a growth of more than a hundred years. They admire its steadily increasing stability and energy for great and good results, during the long administration of its present venerated head, and that of the no less venerable man by whom he was prece ded. And they indulge the fond antici pation that the day will come-not that their eyes will behold it, but that it will arise to greet posterity-when the institutions which they now cherish, will be alike influential, in sending out their healing waters, their heavenly radiance among mankind. These are the things that inspire hope, and prompt to patient

endurance."

Addresses of Rev. L. BACON, D. D., and Rev. E. N. KIRK, at the Annual Meeting of the Christian Alliance, held in New York, May 8, 1845. With the Address of the Society, and the Bull of the Pope against it.

WE could, with pleasure, transfer these eloquent Addresses to our columns, if we were not pressed with the manuscripts of our own writers. We can find room only for a single paragraph on the subject of religious freedom.

"What is religious freedom? What is that doctrine, the assertion and universal reception of which, among a people, works such changes? What is it? It is simply the development and application of that great principle which lies at the foundation of the Gospel-the principle of the right, nay, let me rather say the duty, of private judgment. This is Protestantism-this is Christianity. There can be no Christianity without it. There is no Christianity but the recognition of the Gospel as a revelation—aye, a recela tion, from God to man, a revelation which every individual man to whom it comes must receive, and believe, and obey, under his individual responsibility to God, in the exercise of his own faculties. The Gospel bids men repent, under its call, and in view of the great truths from eternity which it presents as motives to repentance. It bids men believe what it reveals. It bids them obey what it enjoins; and the obedience it requires is not mechanical and formal, but the obedience of the intelligent and spiritual nature. Thus it bids men think, reflect, discrimi nate; and that not by proxy, but in per

son. Thus it calls men to the exercise of their minds, and makes them partakers of a spiritual freedom. Every religion which is not essentially a religion of unthinking and unmeaning performances, must rest upon the assumption of the sacred right, the high and awful duty, of private judgment. The duty of thought and reflection about God and the soul, and the soul's relation to eternity-the duty of inquiring what God reveals, and of believing and obeying all his revelations-is the right to think, to inquire after truth, and to receive truth as it manifests itself to the soul; and this right, recognized and honored as a right, is religious freedom."

The Preacher and Pastor, by Fenelon, Herbert, Baxter, Campbell; edited and accompanied by an Introductory Essay. By EDWARDS A. PARK, Bartlett Professor in Andover Theological Seminary. Andover: Allen, Morrill & Wardwell. New York: Mark H. Newman. 1845.

EDITORS are often embarrassed by the difficulty of commending new works, even of high merit, in unmeasured terms of approbation, without incurring the suspicion of extravagant eulogy. We are, in the present case, relieved of anxiety on this point. The authors of this volume are not novi homines, unknown to fame. Their writings are among the classics of the church. This particular selection from them relates, as the title imports, to the work of the Christian ministry; and embraces" Fenelon's Dialogues concerning Eloquence," "Herbert's Country Parson," "Baxter's Reformed Pastor," and "Campbell's Lectures on Pulpit Eloquence." The editor deserves the warm acknowledgments of ministers and candidates for the ministry, for furnishing them with these treatises in a single volume, and at a moderate expense. His own introductory essay is rich in historical facts and in practical suggestions, and can hardly fail of inspiring in the minds of young ministers aspirations after the

greatest professional excellence and usefulness. We confidently recommend the work to the attention of

every member of the sacred profession.

The Union of the Holy Spirit and the Church in the Conversion of the World. By THOMAS W. JENKYN, D. D. Boston: Gould, Kendall & Lincoln. 1846.

DR. JENKYN is a New England divine in his theology and spirit. Unless he has had his views molded by familiarity with our standard writers, we do not know how to account for his close accordance with them, except on the supposition that they both draw their sentiments from a Book which unfolds the same system to all honest interpreters. We are not so well pleased with this volume as with the previous work of the author on the Atonement, owing to the cumbrousness of the style and some other matters of mere taste. So far as our examination has extended, the writer is strictly evangelical in his teaching. He gives due prominence to the agency of the Holy Spirit in renovating the fallen nature of man; and at the same time recognizes the value of truth, and the necessity of human efforts.

Church Union. A Discourse delivered in St. John's Church, Brooklyn, New York, on the second Sunday after the Epiphany, (Jan. 18,) A. D. 1846. By EVAN M. JOHNSON, Rector. Brooklyn,

1846.

WHATEVER proceeds from the pen of Mr. Johnson is well worth reading, at least as a psychological curiosity. He is incontrovertibly the highest of all high churchmen; the most honest, open-hearted and uncompromising of Puseyites. There is not a particle of Jesuitism about him. He speaks right out whatever he thinks; and he thinks-in spite

of himself-exactly according to his private judgment. It would undoubtedly be a great pleasure to him to contradict his own private judgment for the sake of putting honor on the church, but his judgment and the church's are so infallibly identical that he finds no opportunity for so saintly a self-denial. We like him much. We have more than once been greatly instructed by his honest and good-humored communicativeness; and we hope to hear from him often in time to come.

Thoughts of Blaise Pascal, translated from the French, preceded by a sketch of his Life. Andover: Allen, Morrill and Wardwell. New York: Mark H. New

man.

BLAISE PASCAL, who has accomplished more for the cause of truth than most men; a genius of won. derful versatility, with few rivals in learning, in logic, in wit and tastean honored name! His publishers

have done a service to the business of thinking, for his Thoughts arouse the faculties of the reader, and suggest materials for reflection. Our recommendation to the work can add nothing to its reputation. We can only announce its appearance in this new edition.

The Duty of American Women to their Country. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1845.

IT has been in our heart to make Miss Beecher's appeal, in this book, to her country women, the subject of an extended article. We may yet find it in our power to do so. At present we can only commend it, very heartily, to the attention of all our readers, and especially of those to whom it is addressed. The book, and the enterprise which it proposes, may be reckoned among "the signs of the times."

Theopneusty, or the Plenary Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures. By S. R. L. GAUSSEN, Professor of Theology in Geneva and Switzerland. Translated by Edward Norris Kirk. Third American from the second French edition, enlarged and improved by the author. New York: Baker & Scribner, 1846.

THE character of this work is too well established in popular favor to need any new recommendation from

us.

A History of Colonization on the Western Coast of Africa. By ARCHIBALD ALEXANDER, D. D., Professor in the Theological Seminary at Princeton, New Jersey. Philadelphia and New York: William S. Martien. 602 PP. 8vo. 1846.

WE must take an opportunity to notice this work when we are favored with more leisure and space than we can now command.

THE SAILOR'S HOME, NEW YORK.

WE find that the communication from the Secretary of the American Seamen's Friend Society, respecting the management of the Sailor's Home in New York, published in our last number, is as far from being satisfactory to all the parties concerned, as was the former article. Two communications have been sent us in explanation and reply. We must be excused from meddling farther with this matter. Our friends and the friends of the seaman in New York, must settle the controversy among themselves; and when it is settled, say so to the public through some channel of communication better suited to such uses. The Sailor's Home in New York, ought to be supported and managed as a local institution.

ligious sentiments of love, and fear, of invisible powers-priestcraft, superstition, enthusiasm, fanaticism, bigotry-all go to swell the influence of traditionary law over the human mind.

It can not be denied, that mankind are indebted to unwritten law for many of their most valuable ideas respecting government and judicial proceedings and ecclesiastical polity Many of the most precious principles of civil law, have been ascertained and settled by observing their application to a great variety of cases through a long series of years. Many of the most interesting traits in the character of communities and individuals, are produced and cherished in the same way. But while this is admitted, it is also true that it produces and fosters the worst abuses in the church and the state, and the worst features in the character of individuals and communities. Through its influence the most iron despotisms have been established and cemented, and the most odious forms of religious imposture and fanaticism and intolerance, have been imposed upon men. It is thus that the best forms of government have degenerated either into anarchy or despotism, and the purest principles of religion have been corrupted and perverted.

Here let it be observed, that the idea of civil government is beyond doubt of divine origin. It is founded in the nature and condition of man. There can be no such thing as society, or large masses of men, existing without an organized government. But as civil government was made for man, and not man for civil government, it is plain that its design is to protect and not to confer rights-to punish crimes and not to oppress innocence and helplessness. Man, by entering into society, gives up rights, but he has none conferred upon him unless by the consent of all, and for the good of all, which were not originally his own. The

civil law can not rightfully confer any privileges upon individuals which are not equally the common property of all, and which may not be secured by all in the way of honest industry and fair competition. It is on this ground that every system of slavery is radically and essentially unjust. Hence, in its early stages, government must exist only by will of the governed. Despotism is never its primary form. The power of the magistrate is always limited at first. He is the man of the people's choice, whether he is a patriarch, or a chief, or a president, or a monarch. He governs more by affection than by fear. His influence depends in a great measure upon his personal popularity. By degrees the government is strengthened by tradition, custom, usage, precedent, till at length the will of the monarch becomes the law of the state. Hence the arrogant declaration of Louis XIV. of France, "I am the state," is the language of every despot. It was by the slow accretions of centuries that such huge fabrics of despotism as those of Nineveh, and Persia, and Egypt, were reared upon the necks of downtrodden and abject slaves. All that there now is of despotism in European governments is of the same family. The old chieftains of the Scandinavian and Gothic and Celtic tribes, were almost on an equality with their meanest followers. But by tradition, custom, usage, the petty chief has become a monarchabuses have become sacred by time, so that in the view of a mistaken loyalty, it is maintained that kings rule by divine right, and their persons are held inviolable, whose power, conceded to them by their meek and credulous followers, had no higher origin than tradition, usage, custom. The whole feudal system, much of which still exists in European countries, with its hereditary monarchy, its nobility and privileged orders, sprung up under the influ