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degeneracy is, not to improve education, but to interrupt its progress, to pervert or neutralize its influence, and finally to banish it from all common use.

It is important to recall, in order to keep in mind, the remark, that there is strong ground for believing that our race has never been wholly unenlightened by alleged revelation. The first communications from God reached and were held by Noah; and, from him, at the dispersion of mankind, were carried, in more or less faint remembrances, wherever the race wandered; so that the heathen world has been indebted, for the little light which it has enjoyed, in relation to God, to religious truth, and to man's future destiny-not to the discoveries of unaided reason; but to the faint traces, yet remaining on it, of an alleged early revelation. Probably the human mind has never been without something of divine light; or, if it have, in any tribes of men, on the far outskirts of our system, wholly lost that light, it is there that we see our nature sunk most nearly to a level with the brute; wallowing in filth, and lust, and cannibalism, and demonstrating what human beings are likely to become when left with no knowledge of divine things beyond what mere nature can impart.

We pause on the conclusion, which we think the argument supports, that a revelation from God is indispensable, in order that, as rational beings, we may attain to right-to adequately clear and full views of God, of religious truth, and of our future destiny; and that these views may have their needed effect in the formation of human character, in the regulation of human conduct, and in the control of human affairs.

From this conclusion we are entitled to the full force of the following inquiries: Is it reasonable to suppose that God, the great Creator and Governor of the universe, would have formed man, so capable, under right culture, of all that is great and good, of knowing and serving his Maker when revealed, and of appreciating and obeying religious truth when disclosed; so noble, under right influences, in his spiritual aspirations, in his practical attainments, and in his longing after the perfect; and that He would have placed man, thus constituted and thus capable, in such a world as this, so full of wonders and mys

teries, yet so full of snares and dangers, to the benighted soul; is it reasonable to suppose that God would have done all this without giving man any sure and certain light by which to trace the way of truth, to settle on fixed and certain rules of duty, and to realize operatively the destiny that awaits him? Is it not fearfully absurd to suppose that God would have appointed to man any future destiny, without also informing him distinctly of its nature, and showing him how to make it forever blessed? Undoubtedly. Whatever reason we have to believe that there is a God, that He has created man, and that He has made man immortal, the same reason we have to believe that He has made a sufficient revelation of His will and of our own duty and destiny, and that we have that revelation in our own blessed Bible!

ARTICLE II.

Nature and the Supernatural, as together constituting the One System of God. By HORACE BUSHNELL. New-York: Charles Scribner. 1858.

Nor the least remarkable in the chapters of the work before us is that in which Dr. Bushnell, with even more than his usual raciness of style and energy of thought, maintains the present existence of miracles and supernatural gifts. He starts with the presumption that what once existed still continues, and he applies this to the miracles of the gospel era. He then meets the argument that miracles, being adapted to the special purpose of authenticating Christianity, may be a priori presumed to cease when that authentication is complete. Next he takes up and replies to the objections that the present alleged supernatural phenomena "make so bad a figure in the end," are so mixed up with shams and fraud. And then he seeks to prove by induction that these miraculous or supernatural gifts still continue.

Now we do not propose to examine the first three of these points. Each affords the material for a distinct treatise. Neither could be adequately discussed within the space we have now at command. We now confine ourselves to the

question of fact. Do such supernatural gifts really exist? That they do subjectively, no Christian denies. That God deals with the human soul by the special and direct intervention of grace, all symbols, Romish as well as Reformed, unite in maintaining. Other portions of the vast fleet of creation He governs by subalterns, who act under the stress of fixed and pre-communicated laws. But in the human soul He resides as admiral, directing it by specific orders given to it in person. Even the skeptical psychologist admits this. "If statistics are true, when applied to size and quantity," says Max Simon, "they are not so when relating to life and strength." And Brierre de Brismont, in his work on hallucinations, tells us that this is still more strikingly the case " as we advance in the consideration of the nervous system."

But have we proof of an objective supernaturalism? This question we now propose to consider in reference to one question alone. Can the great body of the phenomena appealed to by Dr. Bushnell and those who agree with him be accounted for on other than supernatural grounds? To facilitate this inquiry, we propose to subject these and kindred phenomena to an analysis, by which, if correct in point of fact, the great body of them will be disposed of. As to this correctness our readers must judge.

1st. Legerdemain and fraud.

None of Dr. Bushnell's cases, we are confident, fall under this head, but how is it with others?

Double appearances are among the most insoluble of alleged supernatural phenomena. Yet observe the following:

Dr. Monsey, who was the medical adviser of Garrick, was called upon to pay a professional visit to that great actor. "Garrick," as his biographer, Taylor, tells us, "was announced for King Lear on that night, and when Monsey saw him in bed he expressed his surprise, and asked him if the play was

to be changed. Garrick was dressed, but had his night-cap on, and the quilt was drawn over him to give him the appearance of being too ill to rise. Dr. M. expressed his surprise, as it was time for Garrick to be at the theatre to dress for King Lear. Garrick, in a languid and whining tone, told him that he was too much indisposed to perform himself, but that there was an actor named Marr, so like him in figure, face, and voice, and so admirable a mimic, that he had ventured to trust the part to him, and was sure the audience would not perceive the difference. Pretending that he began to feel worse, he requested Monsey to leave the room in order that he might get a little sleep, but desired him to attend the theatre and let him know the result. As soon as the Doctor quitted the room, Garrick jumped out of bed and hastened to the theatre. Monsey attended the performance. Having left Garrick in bed, he was bewildered by the scene before him, sometimes doubting, and sometimes being astonished at the resemblance between Garrick and Marr. At length, finding that the audience were convinced of Garrick's identity, Monsey began to suspect a trick had been practised upon him, and instantly hurried to Garrick's house at the end of the play; but Garrick was too quick for him, and was found by Monsey in the same state of illness."

A writer in the London Christian Observer, for 1813, tells us that in the middle of the last century, a small club of convivial personages was assembled at supper in Manchester. A chair at the bottom of the table was left empty by the absence of a member, who was known to be at the time confined upon a dying-bed. The waiters had quitted the room, and the members were speaking of their dying friend, when on a sudden the door opened, and his apparition, as was supposed, entered, shrouded in white, and pale and ghastly as an inhabitant of the tomb. It stalked to the unoccupied chair, sat down, looked around upon the company, rose again, and with slow and solemn step quitted the room. Overcome with awe, ill-prepared by their habits of life to resist the terrors of superstition, no one followed him. When all was over, however, they sent to the house of the sick man, and learned from the

nurse that he had died a few minutes before they had seen his apparition. Could a ghost-story be more strongly authenticated; and could it be wondered at that this club should be dissolved, and that each member should thenceforward remain a firm believer in spectral appearances? Thus matters continued for nearly ten years; when the nurse, on her dyingbed, confessed to the clergyman of the parish, that her fear of discredit for an act of negligence had led to this misapprehension of the facts of the case. She confessed that while the dying man was in a paroxysm of fever, she had quitted his chamber; that on her return, a few minutes after, she found that, with the strength not unusually attendant upon the last moments of life, he had fled; but that after a few minutes he returned with his sheet wrapped around him, lay down in his bed and died. The fact seems to have been, that, by force of custom he had thought of his club at the appointed day and hour, had crossed the street to the club-door, which joined the street, and thus terrified the society.

Take also the following, given in the same journal. It was the object, some fifty odd years ago, of a certain party in the kingdom of Prussia, to separate the successor of Frederic the Great of Prussia from the interests of that wary and ambitious prince. Weary of the wars in which he engaged the country, these persons were desirous of robbing him not merely of his throne, but of his life. It chanced, however, that the young prince was not to be seduced, except by a peculiar process, to any such nefarious attempt. He was neither ambitious nor sanguinary; and, unless when stimulated by peculiar feelings, was of a cold and phlegmatic temperament. When once, however, those feelings were roused, his ardor became very great. He was superstitious, credulous, and sensual. On these yielding points of his nature, then, the conspirators resolved to practice. Accordingly, jugglers of all sorts were set to work and among others, an infamous fellow of the name of Gustfragog. The "Ghost Seer" of Schiller gives a pretty accurate picture of one of the scenes exhibited to the prince, and by which even a firmer mind than his might have been deeply affected. It is unnecessary to state the political result of the

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