avail themselves of the happiest verbal amendments wherever they could be found. In such instances, the work before us claims to have respected the rights of property.

The hymns in this volume, as distinguished from the Psalms, are 706 in number, and as various in regard to the subject, occasion, length, and metre, as "Christian use and worship" are supposed to require. Besides the characteristics common to them and the Psalms, they differ somewhat from any other collection in their arrangement. This part of such compilations is known to be difficult, often perplexing and unsatisfactory. In some instances, indeed, all attempt at method has been given up in despair, for the hymns in Pratt's (English) collection, and in Dr. Alexander's, of Princeton, are arranged only in the alphabetical order of their first lines. And it should be observed that any arrangement whatever, in order to be available, must be marked and understood by those who use the book. The worst method, if fairly comprehended, may be better than none, and the best can be of little value till it is ascertained and remembered. Ministers who now confine themselves to a few favorite pieces, to which they can turn at once-to which their pulpit copy, by dint of use, opens of itself-will find this or any other collection to be richer than they imagine, if they will only explore its contents, and learn where to look for what they want. An arrangement of hymns may be determined by either of three methods: one is topical, relating to the subject or matter of a hymn; another is formal, or depends on the manner in which the subject is treated, as whether it is adoration, confession, or supplication*; the

*This is mainly the method of Conder's (English) "Congregational Hymn

Book.'

on the use to be made of a hymn, or the occasion to which it belongs. The last is the method adopted in this collection, though the first is of course subordinately included. All the hymns are classed as belonging either to ordinary public worship, and hence appropriate to every Lord's day; or exclusively to some special public occasion, such as the sacra ments, or missionary meetings; or most properly to private or family worship. Among those for ordinary worship, more than forty hymns are classed as introductory, some of which belong to the Lord's day only, and others to evening worship. This part of the arrangement, it is believed, will be found particularly convenient. The great body of hymns, which are of course appropriate to ordinary occasions, are arranged by their subjects, in the order which was believed to be as simple, clear and available, as any other. And in order that the Psalms may not be overlooked in selections from the pulpit, they are referred to in the index under their appropriate heads in the arrangement of the hymns. Ministers and others who would use the book to the utmost advantage, will of course trace out its method for themselves more fully than it can be indicated here.

Another edition of these same hymns by themselves, or separate from the Psalms, has been more recently published under the name of "Chapel Hymns," making a smaller volume, for the convenience of those who wish to use it in the lecture room, on various occasions, or in domestic worship. There was a call for it in some congregations, and it will probably be wanted in many places for such uses, as well as for the sanctuary.

Besides the metrical Psalms and Hymns, this collection contains fifty two selections from the received prose version of the Scriptures, mostly from the Psalms, designed

tions, with the accompanying music prepared by Lowell Mason, give the volume before us a seasonable and important advantage among all the compilations now in use.

It is proper to add that the mechanical appearance of this book, as also of the Chapel Hymns, is altogether creditable to the publish

As we seem to be fully in for a war with the powers of Mexico, and the minds of the nation to be turning in that direction, it may be well to pause an instant in the new position we assume before the earth, and attempt to ascertain the degree of credit due to us if Providence shall succeed our arms, and also what will be the estimate put upon us by our children and posterity. It is of little moment indeed to those bodily engaged in the fight, since, being in, they will probably fight it out right or wrong; but as those who care for what the rest of the earth will say of us, and also for what will be our heart's language in hours of silence, it is well to take some survey of our position.

The two nations, then, arrayed against each other, are the United States and Mexico. Mexico is a country of about twelve hundred thousand square miles in extent, presenting a pleasing variety of hill, plain, wood and river, and supporting over eight millions of inhabitants. The United States is a country of about twenty three hundred thousand square miles in its extended area, possessing superior advantages, yea, the very highest, in geographical construction and position, and nourishing over seventeen millions of

people. Mexico is moreover a Roman Catholic country;-favoredor cursed, as some might feel-by a religion which we as a people not only neither commend nor defend, but feel bound to exert every legitimate influence to do away. The United States, on the other hand, is a nation of Protestants-we will say the noblest in the world; where the Protestant religion is better understood and more rationally adopted than in any other; where the Christian church is more generally recog nized among the people, and where it exerts a more practical power, than in any other; and where that church recognizes it, beyond perhaps any other branch of the same church-save one-in the world, as one of its divinest, earth-convincing duties, to look out of itself over the whole earth, as on the great harvest field and the appropriate end for Christian effort. It may be said still farther, that Mexico is a poor distracted country, cursed with a miserable government, and enslaved by her own age-inherited vices and the dreams of an inherited superstition; having much indeed in her first civilized stock-the old Castilianthat was noble and stern, but from the admixture of that early stock with the effeminate sons and daugh

ters of the land, now presenting us with a curious compound of pride and self-contempt, idleness and ambition, parsimony with the silliest prodigality, and foul passion with some of the sterner virtues yet remaining. The United States on the other hand again, sprang from the noblest stock on earth's face, either of past or present times;-a stock the most intellectual, as well as moral, and a stock which in physical qualities had at the time the nation was founded, and yet has, no equal. The very best of the nation of this best stock, founded the United States. In a time of civil commotion, and when the rocking of society sifted the good from the bad, the good came away from the land that seemed disposed to cast them from her bosom for their goodness, and in hardships yet in silence, in destitution and yet in profusion of faith, in solitude and yet favored with the presence of One whom to know is no solitude" life everlasting," they came over the seas and peopled the land. From the earliest period of the country to this day, the noble stock that first came to these shores has been widening and strengthen ing in its principles, and though modified by the thousand other causes that must be at work in so large a people and one so situated, it is destined to perpetuate, as we fondly have believed, its wisdom and worth to the latest generation. Perhaps it ought to be added, that the government of these United States, is believed by the far-judging of the whole world, to be the model government-in the earth; and to be thought therefore worthy at least of being held up before other nationscertainly those on this continent as a sort of guide, by which they may direct their own steps in the cause of general progression of the human race. Other particulars might be mentioned as entering into the character and position of the two countries; yet these may be

sufficient; and these two nations it is who at this day, and on the American continent, are at WAR!

What right had the United States of America to declare war, or to be in a state of actual hostility, with the powers of the republic in the south?

Mexico in the year 1825, belonged to the monarchy of Spain. We as a nation of Republicans looked on Mexico (as indeed on any other land so situated) as by that fact, wronged. It was a matter of interest thus to the good people of this country, that Mexico should be freed from her connexion with, and bondage to, her parent power;-and when the moment came in the good providence of God for this thing to take place, and the powers of Mexico rose in their strength, and divested themselves of the tyrannical harness Spain had affixed to her shoulders, the United States shouted to her in joy, and bade her stand up as one of the republics of America-the country that was to modify by her example and teachings, and even make over again, the governments of the earth.

This Mexican nation, however, had great wealth, both in her bosom, and on the surface of her soil. She had a province also on her eastern boundaries, and contiguous to us, rather restless from an early period, and frequently giving indications in her conduct towards the central government farther west, that she might at a future day, like a restless and over-confident child, attempt to break prematurely from parental restraint, and stand up and do for herself in the world. This and other circumstances calculated to arouse the spirit of cupidity in another nation, seemed to catch the eye of some of the baser sort of the people of the American Union ;and it is now among the plainest things that are ever made plain by the succeeding developments of time, that some in our nation yet living, laid a far off, yet most cunning plan, to dispoil at a future day

this sister republic of Mexico, of one of the best in some respects of all her provinces. All the steps by which this thing was brought about, need not be enumerated here. It is sufficient that Mexico was persuaded, by an official act of her government, to make offers to United States and other citizens, to induce them to come and settle on some of her lands, (whether by a stroke of policy on the part of certain conspirators need not be said;) and soon after this the people of this northern province that belonged to Mexico began to be disturbed, they revolted from their allegiance, and determined to stand alone! They entered into a war with their parent power -that power claiming the right of nations, and attempting to win back the revolted province; yet while this very strife was unsettled, we, the United States, negotiate with this eastern province, Texas, to become a part of our government, thus violating an express treaty which was made by us with Mexico on her severance from Spain, by which as in all treaties with foreign powers we guaranteed the solemn word and faith of our nation, to observe sacredly all her, Mexico's, rights. The charge that we violated no treaty with Mexico, in taking Texas, on the ground that Texas was free, it is believed is fully met by the remark, that a revolted province is never according to the law of nations considered free, till so acknowledged by the parent power, or at least so long as that parent power is in the attempt to resubjugate the revolting province. The remark also, that Texas was mostly or greatly peopled by American-born citizens, gives us no sort of moral right to take her, unless we may go first and people a rich province of any country, and then take that province as ours, by such act. The fact also, that Texas wished to become part and parcel of our land, has as little to do with the stern justice of this

act, since all revolted children are supposed by and in the fact of revolt, to possess the disposition to get away from the parent power. It is believed no sort of good reason on earth can be given, for the act of taking Texas from Mexico; but that it was an act on the part of our gov. ernment justly designated, by calling it one of base rapacity and Goddefying wrong.

But in taking Texas from Mexico, the act plainly which has induced the war now pending betwixt Mexico and us, there are one or two other things not to be passed over, if we would form any just estimate of our conduct and present position. There was a motive far down out of the way somewhere for the action, and there was a way of taking Texas from Mexico and into our confederacy, which perhaps will not bear the light of day. What was the motive by which our government was in reality induced to take the step which she has taken, and which has eventuated in the admission of Texas into the Union? There is an atrocious system of foul wrong in this land, closely intertwined into the very life of a part of it, living in and eating out the better soul of some of our people; fastened on us to be sure, by the act of our fathers, yet certainly not reprobated as it deserves to be, by the children; the curse at home, the hiss abroad; the cause of intestine strife, back-biting, slander and reproach; rending churches and rending families; depopulating where it promises to spread a lively population and diffuse plenty; binding up soul and body on earth, and sending to eternal doom millions on millions. This system must have a foul spirit. This certainly, must have a gigantic spirit. The system is vast, and the soul of it must be commensurate; and we think it no slander to say, that its very life and soul are the life and soul of the evil Genius, that in the morning of the universe was cast

from Heaven, and which has been since that period trying to reënthrone itself in God's dominions on the earth. This spirit, true to itself, wished a wider sphere for its exercise; and this it was, openly acknowledged by some and covertly by many, which first devised the Texas scheme, marked the path when the current began to move, and finally consummated the iniquity by making this new area-designed for a land of chains-part of the blessed land of the free!

We have not yet reached the point, where it may be proper to inquire into the bearings of this. Let us now look for an instant, at the mode by which, as an authoritative governmental act, Texas became a part of the Union. Laws and constitutions, if they exist, create duties as truly as any distinct command of God; and governments existing with certain rights and powers defined, may not act contrary to such defined rights, but in violation of moral rights. What moral right then, had the government of the United States to annex Texas to itself in the manner it did? Was it because we once before this violated the same Constitution, in the case of Louisiana?-but one murder begets not the right, though it may the disposition, to commit another; and the violation of the Constitution of the land under which we live once, is hardly reason enough to go down with the sons of the Pilgrims, for another violation of the same. Grant the act a violation of law, and the act was evil, contemned by God as truly as any grosser act, and as likely to receive his curse.

We had no right whatever, to annex Texas to us as we did. The Constitution of the country gives Congress the power to take of our own unoccupied territory, and out of this make new States; but never was it given by that sacred instrument, nor was it contemplated by those who drew it up, that Congress could buy,

beg or steal land from other nations, and join it to our own. If foreign states are to be received at all as a part of our confederacy, they are to be treated with as foreign independent nations; that power belongs to the President, with the Senate; and it is as truly an act of rebellion against the land we live in and the constitution we live under, for Congress to usurp that power, as for any ten thousand men to rise up in any part of the country, and wantonly trample on any other law. Both violate law, both are rebellion; and though the first be the more respectable in men's eyes from the position of the actors, God must equally denounce them both. They both forget the high reverence due to the majesty of law-government-as such, whether in a single magistrate's arm, or in a Congress wielding a power equal to that of half the globe; and both are insensible to the evils—the same in kind, though not in degree

which must grow out of justice outraged in any and every land.

But how came the governments of the two nations of Mexico and the United States, openly at war? Was the act of the United States more moderate, or did it seem dictated by a more correct moral spirit than the rest of her conduct? We will not charge it on the United States gov. ernment as being directly in the wrong, in the act of forwarding our troops, considering things had come to the pass at which they stood, up to the point where the contest began. The boundaries of Texas, it may be admitted, were not accurately defined, or at least so defined, as to leave no necessity for re-examination and settlement. A disputed section of land there was, and on that disputed section, or quite up to it, either party might be allowed to have the right to come, though the act might be inexpedient; and the fact that our troops were marched where they were by positive orders from the government, should only