to find the disease, which honestly, though blindly, it wishes to cure; -in all this company, is there one, who did not bring with him into life noble faculties of thought capabilities of judgment, and prudence, and skill that might have been cultivated into a knowledge, an appreciation, and a wise and loving guardianship, of all human interests and human rights? The wickedness and blindness of the subject are the judgments of heaven for the neglect of the sovereign; for, to this end, and to no other, was superiority given to a few, and the souls of all men preadapted to pay spontaneous homage to strength and talent and exalted station, that, through the benignant and attractive influence of their possessors, the whole race might be won to wisdom and virtue. "Let those, then, whose wealth is lost or jeoparded by fraud or misgovernment; let those who quake with apprehension for the fate of all they hold dear; let those who behold and lament the desecration of all that is holy; let rulers whose counsels are perplexed, whose plans are baffled, whose laws defied or evaded; - let them all know, that whatever ills they feel or fear, are but the just retributions of a righteous heaven for neglected childhood. "Remember, then, the child whose voice first lisps to-day, before that voice shall whisper sedition in secret, or thunder treason at the head of an armed band. Remember the child whose hand, to-day, first lifts its tiny bauble, before that hand shall scatter firebrands, arrows, and death. Remember those sportive groups of youth in whose halcyon bosoms there sleeps an ocean, as yet scarcely ruffled by the passions, which soon shall heave it as with the tempest's strength. Remember, that whatever station in life you may fill, these mortals — these immortals, are your care. Devote, expend, consecrate yourselves to the holy work of their improvement. Pour out light and truth, as God pours sunshine and rain. No longer seek knowledge as the luxury of a few, but dispense it amongst all as the bread of life. Learn only how the ignorant may learn; how the innocent may be preserved; the vicious reclaimed. Call down the astronomer from the skies; call up the geologist from his subterranean explorations; summon, if need be, the mightiest intellects from the Council Chamber of the nation; enter cloistered halls, where the scholiast muses over superfluous annotations; dissolve conclave and synod, where subtle polemics are vainly discussing their barren dogmas; collect whatever of talent, or erudition, or eloquence, or authority, the broad land can supply, and go forth, AND TEACH THIS PEOPLE. For, in the name of the living God, it must be proclaimed, that licenciousness shall be the liberty; and violence and chicanery shall be the law; and superstition and craft shall be the religion; and the self-destructive indulgence of all sensual and unhallowed passions shall be the only happiness of that people, who neglect the education of their children.” — pp. 23, 24. Half Century Sermon, delivered on Sunday Morning, April 24, 1842, at Jamaica Plain. By THOMAS GRAY, D. D. Minister of the Congregational Church there. Boston: 1842. SUCH ministries as this of Dr. Gray are nowadays rare enough. In proportion to their rarity they strike the mind and excite our ready sympathies. We cannot help offering our congratulations to both a pastor and a parish, who have remained in faithful, harmonious union for so long a period. Most honorable testimony is borne by this simple fact to the character of both. There must have been many of the best virtues of the Christian character in their best exercise, on the part of both minister and people, for a connexion involving so many chances of alienation and discord, to have lasted so peaceably through so many years. The quiet beauty of this protracted Christian friendship agrees with the quiet beauty of the lovely spot, that has been the scene of its duties and enjoyments. We utter a common sentiment when we express a hope that the present venerable incumbent by so sudden a providence deprived, a few months since, of his colleague-may again be associated with one, who shall have the happiness to bind to himself the hearts of a united people in a bond not soon to be broken. The present discourse is chiefly historical in its interest, the greater part being devoted to a narrative of events from the first formation of the society a sketch of great value to the antiquarian and the historian. The preacher, however, in addition to this describes at length the kind of intercourse, which for so many years has subsisted between him and his people, and the character of the preaching to which they have listened; presenting to the reader one of the most agreeable pictures we know of, the life and labors of the village pastor. Dr. Gray's description of the manners prevailing at the time he took up his residence at Jamaica Plain possesses a very pleasant interest. "What traces of change in society, likewise, have the past fifty years left behind them! "When I first came amongst you, this was a quiet, retired, moral little village, and there was not a single allurement, either to physical, moral, or religious intemperance or excess to be found within its limits. The simplicity of manners, too, reminds me of Goldsmith's Deserted Village, 'Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain, Where health and virtue cheered the laboring train.' "Fashionable manners, in all their endless forms and fickleness, were unknown here then. The good dames' visits were made at an early hour in the afternoon, (sometimes by two o'clock,) each with her knit ting work' still going on, while engaged in social converse; and at dusk rolling up their work, and returning home, refreshed from their social intercourse, to their domestic enjoyments and duties, which they wisely and justly considered as paramount to all others. Their firesides never tired them, nor did they wish or want any other winter evenings' entertainments, than they found around their own happy hearths. Sweet homes, indeed! filled with well behaved, rosy, industrious boys, and lively, healthy, blooming girls, as full of godly sincerity as they were of godly simplicity, all of whom more than supplied the want of any other amusement. There was godliness with contentment, which is great gain; and there was more, too, of true happiness in those humble dwellings, than all the modern refinement of art, of wealth, or fashion combined, can now boast, or ever impart. Sweet days, indeed, in the recollection as they were in the enjoyment! But these happy hours must return no more. They are numbered with the years before the flood. 'These were thy charms, sweet village, joys like these, The character of Dr. Gray's preaching and of his general ministrations may be readily inferred from the principles affirmed in the following paragraph. "The design of true religion is to repress the passions, not to excite them; for excited passions are by thousands often mistaken for solid principles, and mere animal impulse for sacred truth; and under their blinding and bewildering influence you find men setting up for teachers where they ought only to be learners. And it requires no prophetic eye to see, and no prophetic tongue to foretell, that everything in science, or religion, or politics, carried to excess, must ere long produce reaction, and finally give way to the very opposite extreme; and then the marble insensibility of death succeeds. Whatever is got up in excess, (be it what it may,) reason and common sense, whenever they return, will finally put down. Mere animal excitement in everything must soon exhaust itself; and, if there be not strong principle behind it, the end will be worse than the beginning. These are truths which every observing man must often have witnessed; and when you who are now young shall see these things come to pass, as you all certainly sooner or later will, then will you understand ‘that a prophet has been among you.' "We serve God as truly in the virtues of a good life, in correct morals, exemplary manners, and honest, honorable, upright conduct in our transactions with our fellow-men, as when we bow in God's temple. Fidelity to our trusts, and punctuality in our engagements, industry in our business, from motives of Christian faith and obedience, domestic economy, an old-fashioned virtue, indeed, (but not the less valuable for that,) the punctual discharge of our DEBTS, and guarding men from the miseries and delusions of wild fanaticism, and teaching them a truly Christian rational faith, and a holy practice, these are genuine religion. And whoever would separate these duties, would sever in sunder what God and Christ, reason and virtue, have joined together. He lives most in accordance with his immortal destination, and is after all the best Christian, who has proved himself the most virtuous man; who lives the best life of piety to God, and of truth, and justice, and honesty to men." THE CHRISTIAN EXAMINER. JANUARY, 1843. THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION IN PARIS.* THE religious history of France, during the last half century, furnishes matter of much profound meditation. Or, not to go back so far, the change which, within the few years last past, has come over the spirit of the nation; the character of its reigning philosophy, much misunderstood by some; the movement of the old religious party- the representative of Catholicism present inquiries on which our thoughts might be long busy, without perhaps being able to arrive at anything more than the most vague conjectures, as to what is to be the result of the present activity of the French mind and present chaos of opinions. The field is too broad to be at present entered upon by us. Whatever comes to us from the religious philosophical party, as we suppose it claims to be called, is read with no little interest by many among us. Nor are the steps taken by the old religious party, and the condition of theological science in it, destitute of all claim to the attention, whether of the devout or the curious mind. The Catholics profited greatly by the reformation under Luther, and it would have been strange if they had not profited by more recent events so disastrous, in many respects, to the old *Lettre Pastorale de Monseigneur L'Archevêque de Paris sur les Études Ecclésiastiques, a L'Occasion du Rétablissement des conferences ǝt de la Faculté de Théologie. [Paris, 1841. pp. 104.] VOL. XXXIII. 3D S. VOL. XV. NO. III. 34 faith. They must meet the demands of the age; they must revise their systems of theological education and discipline; they must infuse new life into their ancient forms; or they must forever abandon the field of the world. Of this none are more fully convinced than they are, especially the Gallic branch of the church. The latest information of any particular value, which has fallen under our notice, relating to the affairs of this branch of the church, is contained in the Pastoral Letter of the archbishop of Paris on ecclesiastical studies, issued on occasion of the reëstablishment of the Conferences, and of the Faculty of Theology, in the Diocese of Paris. The Letter, which bears date, the eighth of April, 1841, is altogether a noteworthy docu ment. It is interesting in more respects than one; interesting for the many sound views and very just trains of thought, which we find scattered over its pages; interesting also as showing what the French Catholic party is meditating and doing, and the measures it is taking to combat the errors and counteract the sinister influences of the times, as they are deemed, and to reëstablish the reign of piety and virtue in the hearts of the community, chiefly by elevating the standard of character and theological attainments in the clergy. We do not assent to all the views contained in the Letter. They necessarily take a coloring from the writer's position and the communion to which he belongs. They contain many hints, however, by which Protestants may profit; many which, in spirit, though not perhaps in letter, are applicable to other meridians than that of Paris. And we are compelled to acknowledge that the whole performance breathes an earnest and pure spirit, full of Christian love and devotion, worthy of the Fenelons of former days, and the Matignons and Cheveruses of more recent times. Taken altogether, the Letter is quite a manly production, and is no less creditable to the talents and discernment of the archbishop, than to his piety. It would too far extend our article to stop to point out every minute particular in which we differ from the writer, nor does our present purpose require it. Leaving the reader, therefore, to discriminate and judge for himself, we beg leave to say, once for all, that in what follows to the end of the article, we give the views of the Archbishop, and not our own. We enter at present into no discussion, no refutation, no panegyric. The views of the writer we shall |