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schools are not to be reduced to the same level. Plato was nearer to the mind and doctrine of Christ than was Aristotle or Epicurus or Zeno. True, Platonism made its disciples, in many instances, proud, but it was a pride more worthy of man than the humility of the Epicureans, or the indifference of the Aristotelians, or the sourness of the Stoics. Platonism taught man to believe in the soul, in immortality, in divine things. It incited him to aspire for something immense and infinite: the "aliquid immensum infinitumque" of Cicero. And all this was very good. For then, as now:

"Unless erect himself above himself he can,
How mean a thing is man!"

Briefly, then, Platonism prepared man for Christianity; leď to it, both by persuading him of the reality of Divine things, and by its own inability either to reveal them in particular and definite forms, or to raise man up to a communion with them. The consequence was, thousands passed from Platonism to Christianity, who without the impetus imparted by that would never have cared to consider the claims of this. As it was then, so it has been since, now is, and will ever be. Philosophy is but the sum of human thinking. Men will think as long as possessed of the faculty of thinking. Their thinking will have different results. But it is an error to say that these results are equally necessary. No less dangerous is it to declare that the spiritual or transcendental philosophy is as baseless as the sensational or skeptical.

Locke, though a Christian himself, led others, both in England and France, to the skepticism of Pyrrho or to the sty of Epicurus. His was the reigning philosophy of the eighteenth century, and the eighteenth century was the least Christian of all centuries since Christ. With all our faults, the nineteenth century is incomparably more believing than the last, and is daily increasing in faith. This is owing to a combination of causes, of which the revival of the philosophy which traces its descent from Plato is not the least. And wo be the day, and wo be to the Church that lends its influence to undermine

our confidence in the fundamental principles of this philosophy. We may be wrong in fearing that this will prove the tendency of Sir William Hamilton's system. We hope we are. We take pleasure in acknowledging the learning and ability of both the philosopher and the professor. Their works are before the public, American as well as British. Read with discrimination they can not but be useful, by exciting interest in, and awakening thought on these great subjects. It is due to Professor Mansel to add that he has proved himself a disciple worthy of the great man whom he calls his master in philosophy. His lectures, too, are admirably adapted to expose the inconsistencies and absurdities of those theologians who think they can dispense with the Bible. For such sciolists we have as little admiration as he. All we desire is to suggest, that great as are the evils of rationalism and transcendentalism in religion, the dangers of empiricism, sensationalism, skepticism, and pantheism are still greater, and far more degrading both to the individual man and the community which embraces them. Witness the history and moral status of England and France in the eighteenth, compared with that of New-England and Germany in the first half of the nineteenth, (the eras and countries of these systems.) By "transcendental" we mean that philosophy which goes beyond the senses for the evidences. of its conclusions. By "spiritual," that which assumes that there is a spirit in man and in the universe, to which—one or the other of which, the finite or the infinite-we must refer all changes in nature, all natural phenomena, and finally the creation of matter; albeit Sir William Hamilton's principles would lead to the conclusion that matter is not only as ancient as spirit, but substantially the same. Hence, he denies the possibility of our conceiving either an original creation of matter, or that it should cease to exist. Surely, in this position alone we have seed which, if duly sown, will spring up and bear fruit so plentifully as to secure a generation of pantheists or atheists. Now we hold with Plato that spirit is before matter, and the cause of all its phenomena; and with the Bible and the Church, that God only is eternal, (hath immortality,) while matter is temporal. He is the Creator, in the sense of

the Originator of all other existences. The series of antecedents and consequents is not endless or infinite; but in thought is traceable to a First Cause, or original cause of all that exists. The necessity for this conclusion is absolute. There is no escape from it but in atheism, and that is professedly excluded by Sir William Hamilton. Of the Deity alone is it essential for the mind to form the idea that he is uncaused, eternal, absolute, and infinite. To say that our apprehension of Him is not knowledge, because "the finite can not comprehend the infinite," is to say that there is, and can be no knowledge of God in the universe; for all God's creatures are finite, angels no less than men. Perfectly to know Him is of course impossible even to the highest created intelligence. But here, no less than in heaven, we may have such an assurance of His existence, and such an apprehension of His attributes, as excludes pantheism and atheism as alike degrading and delusive. We therefore declare for that philosophy which gives man assurance of the reality of Divine things, though he can not perfectly know them, in the philosophical sense, either in this world or the next. It is true that we shall then "know as we are known;" but being then finite as truly as now, it will be as true then as now, that "the finite can not (philosophically) comprehend the infinite."

MISCELLANEOUS DEPARTMENT.

SLIGHT FOOTPRINTS OF GOOD MEN.

REV. GREGORY TOWNSEND BEDELL, D.D.

As I endeavor to recall some special memories of this dear friend of mine, and devoted servant of God, the images which rise before me, are both shadowy and ethereal; shadowy from distance of time and dimness of recollection; and ethereal, since there was about him such a noiseless tread, and languid eye, and quiet manner, and subdued and gentle spirit, that he seemed to walk amongst men, more as a denizen of a calmer and holier sphere, just on a short visit to our more tumultuous abode, than as a partaker with us of the same flesh and blood, the same hopes and fears, the same joys and sorrows!

It strikes me, for instance, that, upon one of his summer excursions, in pursuit of relaxation and health, either in 1827 or 1828, he must have stolen noiselessly into the quiet of my humble parsonage, in Middlebury, Vt. Certain it is, either in consequence of my having been the favored guest of the Rev. Benjamin Allen, Rector of St. Paul's Church, Philadelphia, · on occasion of the General Convention of 1826, or of the too favorable notice which had been drawn to my editorial labors, as conductor of a small monthly in Vermont, that, about this time we were drawn towards each other in that powerful manner which exercised, more than any other event in life, perhaps, the greatest influence over my future work and destiny.

Or, it might have been through letters only, that about this time he brought to my notice the case of a sailor-boy, a son of genius and a votary of the muses, who, at the time, was winning the meed of some local and ephemeral applause on account of his poetical contributions to one of the Philadelphia secular papers, over the signature of "The Jersey Bard." It furnished an attractive and beautiful instance of the dear Doctor's intense

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interest in the struggles of genius and worth, under peculiar difficulties, and led, by partial pecuniary aid derived from St. Andrew's Church, to placing the young man at Middlebury College, and to his becoming one of the most highly-educated, accomplished, and useful ministers in a western diocese, where he is now superintending the erection of a second and very fine church edifice, in a place where, twenty years ago, he was the instrument of the erection of a much more humble and unpretending frame building.

But it was not until October, 1828, that becoming so intimately associated with this excellent man, I also became fully aware of the vastness of the work which had naturally fallen upon his hands, when the Rev. Benjamin Allen had yielded up his passionate and devoted life in the cause; or which, subsequently, he had himself been induced or constrained to un⚫ dertake. It was, indeed, to ease him of a portion of this insupportable burden, that the position, in part, had been wrought out, which I had been called from Vermont to occupy. Nearly the whole work of editing the Recorder was to fall upon me. For a portion of the year my Sunday night service at the little Grace Church, upon Eleventh street, was so almost exclusively attended by St. Andrew's people, as to subserve, in part, the purposes of a lecture for their benefit. And chiefly to add a considerable and needed item to my income, a Bible class was instituted and collected for me, partially, indeed, from nearly all the churches in the city, but chiefly from St. Andrew's, by whose bounty, not only was a liberal purse made up for me, but when designated to the sacred position which I now hold, the robes of office which I have worn for nearly twenty-seven years, and still wear, were presented to me.

Incidentally and gratefully I mention these things, chiefly for this purpose, however, to show the opportunities I enjoyed of judging how quietly and softly he glided along that elevated path of duty, dispensing precious gifts far and wide around him, when, at the same time, he was actually performing an amount of intellectual, social, and sacred labor, under which many strong men would have groaned, and many less elastic natures would sooner have given way.

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