abundance. All those which our author has mentioned, and a great many more, might reasonably be expected from them. But the assumption has no foundation in truth. It is not true, in either of its parts. It is not true, as has been shown, that the voluntary societies of which we speak are properly separate from the church. They are of the church, and in it, and sustain in reference to it a most intimate and important relation. They are instruments, which the church has adopted, if not created, by means of which to operate in blessing the world. Nor is it true that these voluntary societies are in no way responsible to the church. They are responsible to it in more ways than one. They are responsible to it, because almost the entire body of their members are also church members, and subject, in reference to their whole public character, to the watch and discipline of the church. They are They are moreover responsible to the church, because they subsist upon the approbation and patronage of the church, and should these be at any time withdrawn, their days would at once be numbered and finished. Nor is it true that the societies under consideration are endeavouring or wishing to exercise a legislative control over the church. Never was an idea conceived or uttered, more purely imaginary, more thoroughly false and unfounded than this. Legislate for the church!! When? Where? The directors of our great benevolent societies are accustomed to make the churches acquainted with their plans and prospects; and so they should. Certainly there would be loud complaints against them, if they did not. But is it not competent to the church, or to any branch of it, to approve and adopt these plans, or to reject them? Our author must be a man of less courage than we take him to be, if he dare not dissent from a recommendation of the Directors of any of our voluntary societies; and dare not express his dissent, and assign his reasons, in a meeting of his brethren.

The other class of "dangers and mischiefs," of which our author speaks, do not attach to voluntary societies, more than to any other mode of benevolent operation. They are such as may grow out of the perversion and abuse of any principle, and would be quite as likely to result-some of them, we think, more so-from the operation of ecclesiasti cal boards, than from that of voluntary associations.

The voluntary principle is certainly one of great power,

whether for good, or for evil. It is one susceptible, not only of beneficial use, but also of perversion. When adopted by professing Christians and applied to the purposes of religion, it needs the watchful care of the church. And this, under God, is all it needs. The church is fully competent to take care of it on the one hand, to give it scope and efficiency, and on the other to curb and restrain it, at will. If the church does not exercise this power-if she chooses to close her eyes, and fold her hands, and suffer evils to grow up under her own banner, and in connexion with her own institutions, the sin lies at her own door.

The practical influence of the article before us-and of others of a like nature which have recently been thrown upon the public-we have great reason to fear will be unhappy. They will tend to divide the friends of religion, and in this way to enfeeble and diminish their efforts. They will tend to bring our great benevolent societies into suspicion, and thus to curtail their resources and their usefulness. To the miserly and covetous they will furnish an apologysuch a one as they have long desired-for retrenching, if not withholding their contributions. We half suspected these Societies were wrong,' they will say, and now we are sure of it. They are "at war with the spirit and letter of the gospel." They are full of danger and mischief to the church, and from motives of conscience-from a pious regard to the interests of religion, we can listen to their calls no longer. We can patronize them no more.' Our author tells us that he shall not withhold his contributions; but many who read his article will be more consistent--or less benevolent. It needs no strong argument to convince some men, that any claim upon their purse is unscriptural and injurious.

This effect of the discussion, which is certainly a very probable one, is specially to be dreaded at the present moment, when, by the reverses of the times, the benevolent enterprises of the church are brought comparatively to a stand, and the greatest exertion is necessary in order to sustain them. At such a day as this, for the church itself to become divided, and a portion of its members to decry. and denounce the common modes of charitable operation, as wrong in principle, and dangerous in practice, is peculiarly unhappy, and can scarcely fail to have a pernicious influence.

The questions at issue in the foregoing discussion are obviously of the greatest practical importance. They respect, not some abstruse point of doctrine or discipline, which may be decided either way, without much affecting the interests of the church. They respect a principle of wide reaching practical influence, on which the church has been operating, more or less, ever since her first organization on which have been based her greatest and noblest movements, for the last forty years-and on the correctness of which the highest interests of the church and world seem now, under God, to be suspended. They respect a principle, the abandonment of which would dissolve some of the noblest institutions, that the world ever saw-would scatter their treasures, and cut off their resources, and dry up their means of moral influence, and roll back the streams of the water of life, which is now flowing out in a thousand channels, to gladden the church, and to bless and save the world. The question to be decided is, in short, this; whether the Bible Societies, with their thousand presses, shall continue to multiply and send forth copies of the word of life; and the Tract Societies shall continue to scatter abroad, by millions, their winged messengers of truth; and the Sabbath School Societies shall proceed with their efforts to instruct and save the rising generation; and the Education Societies shall sustain their thousands of beneficiaries, and multiply labourers for the great field of the world; and the Missionary Societies shall persevere in their efforts to dispense the bread of life to the needy in our own land, and to the perishing among the heathen;-or whether all these great institutions are to be given up-abandoned, as "at war with the Spirit and letter of the Gospel," and fraught with "dangers and mischiefs" to the church, and the attempt be made to bring forward something else, at present not explained, and perhaps not understood, and substitute it in their place. A greater question, if it must be a question, was never submitted to the church to decide.* A more important subject, one connected with higher interests and more momentous consequences, was never presented for discussion before a Christian community.

We hear not a little, at the present day, of the danger of "experiments," in the political world. Possibly the church may learn from this a lesson of wisdom, and not forsake the path of treasured and happy experience, for any theories, however splendid-for any "experiments," however flattering in promise and in hope.

In conclusion, let it be repeated and remembered, that, friends as we are to the voluntary societies, we do not contend for them exclusively. We do not insist that there can be no other lawful mode of doing good. We act purely on the defensive. Our institutions are assailed, and we are contending focis et aris-for their life. We hear it urged, that the voluntary societies are wrong in principle, and injurious in practice, and of course that they ought, with the least. possible delay, to be removed, and ecclesiastical organizations, of some sort, to be substituted in their place. On the contrary, we insist, that they are not wrong in principlethat Christians have a natural and scriptural right to form them ;—that having the right to form them, their organization is in many cases (we do not say in all) expedient: and that, so far from deserting those great religious societies, to which allusion has been made, which have been for years in existence, and have deserved so well of the religious public, we should rally round them with renewed confidence and interest, should give them a cordial and increased support, and should never suffer them to falter in their course, or be disheartened in their operations, till the necessity for these operations ceases, and the entire world is brought, in sweet subjection, to a Saviour's feet.

Whether these positions have been satisfactorily sus tained, it remains for an enlightened public to decide. If they have not been, the difficulty, I am persuaded, is not in the positions themselves, but in the feebleness of the agent who, in the silence of others, has felt himself called upon to appear in their defence.

ART. VI. ON THE STUDY OF THE OLDer English

WRITERS.

By Rev. JOSEPH ALDEN Professor of Rhetoric and Political Economy in Williams College.

WE are not one of those who esteem a thing merely because the dust of antiquity may have settled upon it, neither do we sympathize with the radical spirit which would banish the reverence for antiquity from the mind. This reverence is natural, and when properly regulated, is productive of beneficial results. That a spirit hostile to this feeling is unhappily prevalent is evident, and that means should be taken to correct its excess is equally plain. Perhaps a consideration of the advantages resulting from the study of the older writers may have a not improbable bearing on this subject. By the older writers we mean the Charnocks, Owen, Howe, Flavel, Baxter, Henry, Bates, and other giants that were upon the earth in those days.

1. They furnish examples of intellectual toil that will stimulate to vigorous and patient exertion. It is difficult for one to devote himself to severe labour and to widely extended and long continued research, alone. It is still more difficult to do so, when all around him are engaged in different pursuits. These opposite examples are worse than solitude. To have those around him pursuing the same objects, would sweeten and facilitate his toil. To be intimate with those who are far advanced in the course on which he has entered, would be still more stimulating. When the ardent and laborious student has met with his superiour in labour and attainment, has marked his higher standard of exertion, his wider field of observation, he has devoted himself to aug. mented effort, has enlarged the limits within which he had at first purposed to confine his labours.

An influence similar to this results from the study of the English Fathers. We then feel that we are communing with men who shrunk not from toil. We have a far higher standard of intellectual labour set before us, than is often erected in these degenerate days. The varied and recondite reading shown by their citations and allusions, the long continued thought with which their works are stamped, must, if the love of knowledge be within us, lead to a new