interest, as well as of solid and of permanent importance.

Both these objects have hither. to been answered by the Intelli. gencer; and the high and well

established reputation of the editor gives assurance to its patrons of its continuance to merit their support.

Died in Edinburgh, on the 9th of February, the Rev. Dr. ANDREW THOMPSON, under circumstances peculiarly sudden and unexpected. On Wednesday morning he attended the meeting of the presbytery, apparently in his usual health, where, after assisting at the ordination of the Rev. Mr. Ritchie, to be pastor of St. Luke's, Demerara, he took a part in the discussion on the case of Mr. McCraig, which he treated with his customary tact and energy, in a speech of nearly a quarter of an hour's duration. About 5 o'clock he left the hall to return home, and on his way to his house in Melville street, met a friend, Mr. Burn Murdoch, who accompanied him to his own door. They were just separating, when he suddenly turned round to Mr. Murdoch, as wishing to say something he had forgotten; and, in the act of making an effort to speak, fell down on the pavement. He was carried into the house in a state of insensibility, and Dr. Sibbald, of Hope street, was instantly sent for, who tried to bleed him in the arm and jugular vein, but without effect, very little blood following the operation. Drs. McWhirter, Newbigging, and Abercromby were also promptly in attendance, but their exer.

tions to restore animation proved equally unavailing; the rev. gen. tleman never spoke after he had fallen, and expired in about an hour. The immediate cause of his death has not transpired, but from a report having been current two or three years ago, when he made a journey southward in search of health, that he was threatened with ossification of the heart, it is probable that it has been occasioned by some fatal affection of that organ. It is almost unnecessary to add, that the death of an individual so distinguished for his natural talents, his professional eminence, and his great influence on society, in matters of a polemical description, has excited a profound sensation throughout the community. Dr. Thompson was unquestionably the

most energetic, the most intrepid, the most resolute, and the most indefatigable minister of our national church; and at this moment we know no man belonging to it who is qualified in every respect to fill the vacuum which his death has made. In eloquence he was unmatched, and his talents as a debater will long be missed in the venerable assemblies of which he was one of the most distinguished and most useful members. The ardency of his zeal as a public disputant often carried him farther

than the world generally admired, but the bold and manly way in which he invariably kept his ground, and his unaffected good temper, and benevolence in private life, secured for him on all occasions a degree of sufferage which a less gifted though more guarded controversialist could

never have obtained.

Edinburgh Observer.

Well acquainted with the theory and practice of his own profession he did not affect liberality, nor fear the charge of bigotry. He adhered with scrupulous exactness to the standards of the church of Scotland: but while he maintained with fidelity his own consistent course, he dealt with brethren who differed from him in the most honorable manner, and defended often, with the shield of his own great reputation, Christians of integrity, who happened not to be in favor with the constituted authorities of the land. 'His personal friend, Brougham, Lord Chancellor of the United Kingdom, said truly, to his majesty William IV., that Andrew Thompson had effected more, in bringing back the church of Scotland to her original standing, than any other one man, since the days of John Knox. Touched by a sense of his worth, the king settled a pension on his family.

ORDINATION.

the presbytery of Pittsburgh OROn Tuesday, the 19th of April, DAINED to the office of the holy ministry, Mr. George Scott, and installed him as pastor of the Reformed Presbyterian congregations of Little Beaver and Austen.. town, Pennsylvania.

INSTALLATION.

The

the Rev. Robert Gibson was INOn Tuesday the 18th of May, STALLED by the Northern Presbytery, to the pastoral charge of the Second Reformed Presbyte. rian Church, New York. Jno. Niel McLeod, from Rom. sermon was preached by Rev. x. 14, 15. "How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe on him whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? and how shall they preach except they be sent ?" The Rev. Wm. Gibson presided on the occasion, and delivered the charges to the pastor and people.

MEETING OF SYNOD.

The Synod of the Reformed Presbyterian Church meet in Philadelphia, on Wednesday, 4th of August, 1831, at 7 o'clock P. M.

VOL. I.

ENNUI.

This word, though an exotic, is now become naturalized to the English language. There is need of it in order to express our ideas: and it has obtained the sanction of literary men. It is of French extraction; but the state of being which it represents, is more common in South Britain than it is on the otherside of St. George's chan. nel, although it is there the word was invented. We have no word in our language which answers as a synonym, to denote this complicated and powerful passion of the

human heart.

In the American Quarterly Review, for March, 1831, there is an article under this title, which will amply repay the reader for his trouble in perusing it. Indeed the whole work is an honor to American literature. The reviewer justly observes, that the pursuit of a noble object is itself a pleasure; perhaps he might have admitted, that the exercise of any faculty whatever, is in itself salutary, and the means of enjoyment. Such is the divine benevolence displayed in the constitution of our nature that action is not only useful, and even ne. cessary to our being; but always directly, as well as in its consequences, promotes the happiness of man. When the object of exertion is noble, the principles of the agent honorable, and the method pursued righteous, then, VOL. I. JULY, 1831.

NO. 3.

except where there are powerful counteracting causes, happiness must be in proportion to the intellectual force employed in the exertion. The man, however, who feels inherent energy, but desirous to employ it, is precluded by circumstances, is reduced to the suf fering condition of involuntary inertness. Like a strong man, armed, but in bonds, the spirit within him is a prey to itself; and to escape the torment, the man will act out the principles of his own unchastened-unsanctified passions. This is Ennui. It is not indolence; for he is disposed to labor. It is not lassitude; for he is fit for exertion. It is not rest; for he takes no refreshment. It is not apathy; for he is self-tormented. It is indeed a state of idleness, yet of disquiet-of inertness, yet discontent. There exists a state of craving mobility, without any good purpose, or commensurate object. The Christian, in his listlessness, has the best guaranty from despair, and by divine grace is preserved from a course of wretchedness. Yet even he must feel uneasiness-yea, vexation and sorrow, in such a state as this.

"Then said I in my heart, As it happeneth to the fool, soit happeneth even to me; and why was I then more wise? Then I said in my heart, that this also is vanity. For there is no remembrance of the

wise more than of the fool for ever; seeing that which how is in the days to come shall all be for. gotten. And how dieth the wise man? as the fool. Therefore I hated life; because the work that is wrought under the sun is grievous unto me: for all is vanity and vexation of spirit. Yea, I hated all my labor which I had taken under the sun because I should leave it unto the man that shall be after me. For what hath man of all his la. bor, and of the vexation of his heart, wherein he hath labored under the sun? For all his days are sorrows, and his travail grief; yea, his heart taketh not rest in the night. This is also vanity.

The reviewer, referred to above, illustrates the state of feeling denoted by the term ennui, by the history of Greece and Rome and selects many happy specimens for his purpose from names well known to the classic and scientific reader. We come down to a more recent date, and give his own words:

"Wisdom is no security against ennui. The man who made Europe ring with his eloquence, and largely contributed to the spirit of republican enthusiasm, wasted away for months in a state of the most foolish languor, under the idea that he was dying of a polypus at his heart.† Nay, this philosopher, who presumed to believe himself skilled in the ways of man, and an adept in the character of women, who dared to expound religion and proposed to reform Christianity,

* Ecclesiastes, il. 15-18. 22, 23. Jean Jacques Rousseau. Confessions, p. 1 J. vi.

who committed and confessed the meanest actions,—and yet, as if in the presence of the Supreme Arbiter of life, and before the tribunal of Eternal Justice, arrogated to himself an equality with the purest in the innumerable crowd of immortal souls,-he, the proud one, would so far yield to ennui, as to put the final and eternal welfare of his soul at issue on the throw of a stone. La Harpe, no correct writer, nor sound critic, affirms, that Rousseau undertook to decide the question of a Superintending Providence by throwing stones at a tree. That would have been not merely an imbecile but a blasphemous act. As the case stood, Jean Jacques must be acquitted of any charge worse than that of excessive and even ridiculous weakness. 'Je m'en vais,' he says to himself, je m'en vais jeter cette pierre contre l'arbre qui est vis-à-vis de moi : si je le touche, signe de salut; si je le manque, signe de damnation.

"But Jean Jacques passes for an inspired madman. What shall we say to the temperate Spinoza, whose life was not variegated by the brightness of domestic scenes, and who, being cut off from active life and from social love, necessarily encountered a void within himself. It was his fa. vorite resource against the visits of ennui, to catch spiders and teach them to fight; and when he had so far made himself master of the nature of these animals, that he could get them as angry as game cocks, he would, all thin and feeble as he was, break out into a roar of laughter, and

chuckle to see his champions engage, as if they too, were fight ing for honor.

"Poor Spinoza! It may indeed be questioned, whether his whole philosophy was not a sort of pastime with him. It may be, that after all he was ingenious because he could not be quiet, and wrote his attacks on religion from a want of something to do. At any rate it has fared strangely with his works. The world had well nigh become persuaded, that Spinoza was but a name for a degraded atheism, and now we have him zealously defended, and in fact we have seen him deno. minated a saint.* So near are extremes the ridiculous borders on the sublime; and the same man is denounced as a paracide of society, and again extolled as a model of sanctity.

"But we have a stronger example than either of these. The very philosopher, who first de. clared experience to be the basis of knowledge, and found his way to truth through the safe places of observation, gives in his own character some evidences of participation in the common infir. mity. He said very truly, that there is a foolish corner even in the wise man's brain. Yet, if there has ever appeared on earth, a man possessed of reason in its highest perfection, it was Aristotle. He had the gift of seeing the forms of things, undis. turbed by the confusing splendor of colors; his mind, like the art of sculpture, represented ob

*We remember perfectly well the beginning of an apostrophe to the Jewish philosopher; "Du heiliger Spinoza." Herder, too, has a good deal to say in defense of him."

jects with the most precise outlines and exact images; but the world in his mind was a colorless world. He understood and has explained the secrets of the human heart, the workings of the human passions; but he performs all these moral dissections with the coolness of an anatomist, engaged in a delicate operation. The nicety of his distinctions, and his deep insight into the nature of man, are displayed without passion, while his constant effort after the discovery of new truth, never for one moment betrays him into mysticism, or tempts him to substitute shadows for realities. One would think, that such a philosopher was the personification of self-possession ; that his unruffled mind would always dwell in the serene regions of intelligence; that his step would be on the firm ground of experience; that his progress to the sublime temple of truth and of fame, would have been ever secure and progressive; that happiness itself would have blessed him for his tranquil and dispassionate devotedness to exalted pursuits.

"But perhaps the clear perception of the realities of life is not the secret source of contentment. Many a scholar has shrunk from the contest of transient interests, and sought happiness rather in the world of contemplation; and perhaps the studies of antiquity derive a part of their charm, from their affording us a place of refuge against the cla. mors and persecutions which belong to present rivalries. If the view of human nature, adopted by a large portion of our theolo.