Kossuth in New England.

John P. Jewett & Co. have issued an octavo volume of 343 pages, including all the important speeches of the eloquent Hungarian, from the time of his arrival in New England till his final departure from the country. This firm seem to understand how to meet the demands of popular feeling. They have here given the public a permanent and handsome record of the oratorical triumphs of the man who is, in some respects, the

most marvellous speaker of the modern ages. The frontispiece is an admirable, engraved, full-length likeness of the orator. It renews one's regret that he did not, while in America, adopt the dress of the people.

Memoir of George Dana Boardman. By Rev. ALONZO KING. Published by Gould & Lincoln. The great moral and dramatic interest of the life of this devoted missionary to Burmah is here enhanced by an extended introduction from the pen of Rev. W. R. Williams, of New York, whose learning, genius, and piety are brought to adorn a worthy subject.

Romance of American History.— Gould & Lincoln continue this series of instructive and entertaining works for the young, by Rev. JOSEPH BANVARD. The present volume relates to early events connected with the French settlement at Fort Carolina, the Spanish colony at St. Augustine, and the English plantation at Jamestown. We can testify that one boy finds a daily excitement in Mr. Banvard's stories.

Questions on the Gospels. Crosby, Nichols, & Co. publish a new Sabbath-school Manual under this title, prepared by a teacher whose experience, thoughtfulness, culture, and earnest faith, we know qualify her pre-eminently for this kind of authorship. These Questions take up the contents of the four Gospels, and present them lucidly to the pupil's mind, recommending them at the same time to the heart. There is other valuable information in an Appendix, and a map of Palestine at the beginning.

The Opal.-Under proper supervision by sane and responsible persons, we can conceive the publication of a literary journal by the inmates of a Lunatic Asylum to be an innocent amusement to them, and a means of sustaining the sympathy and respect of the community towards that saddest of all classes of the diseased. We have hitherto commended the "Opal," which comes from the State Asylum at Utica. Owing to some neglect, probably, the September No. is allowed to go forth with pages that not only betray the wildest ravings of delirium, and contain the most absurd nonsense, but are stained with what, save for the pity felt for disordered minds, must be pronounced indecency and profanity.

Dr. Gilman's graceful and touching Class Poems, in their rare and exquisite binding, realize the image of "apples of gold in pictures of silver."

ERRATUM.- Page 447, line fourth from the bottom, read senses instead of "lenses."

THE

MONTHLY RELIGIOUS MAGAZINE.

VOL. IX.

NOVEMBER, 1852.

No. 11.

THE CHRISTIAN SECRET IN THE KEEPING OF THE CHRISTIAN HEART.

In our last number, a few pages were occupied with a discussion of the internal or experimental evidence for the heavenly origin of the gospel. It will be found in practice, we are persuaded, that where the Word is traditionally held; where it is supposed to form but a meagre collection of truths, already almost known to natural religion; where it rouses no profound and hearty emotions of wonder, joy, and love, its divine character is liable to be lost sight of. There seems to be no sufficient reason for the interposition of Deity. We find no effects which demand so stupendous a cause; and, since the voice from heaven comes only from the past, and is not heard in the living heart of to-day, we have only an opinion when we need an earnest conviction. And now we ask again, "What is this divine Christianity, this word which has been given to us from heaven?"

The discouragements that have so often attended this inquiry, in the common directions, may perhaps be turned to a good account by suggesting another direction as more likely to reward the patient and truth-loving inquirer. May it not be, that in this, as in so many other cases, we ask and receive not, "because we ask amiss"? Are not many sincere Christians, of all sects, steadily, if not rapidly, approaching the conclusion, that the conscience and the heart, the spiritual and moral nature of man, and not the

mere intellect, must write the articles of a generally satisfactory and credible and operative faith, gathering them from Scripture, and fusing them into a living whole? There is much in the history and structure and contents of revelation, much in the experience of the church, much in the best thoughts of the most earnest Christians, to encourage one in looking at Christianity, first and chiefly from the stand-point of the heart. Unquestionably, there may be a science of religion; and yet it must be preceded by an experience of religion. The Scriptures, and the nature of man, afford abundant materials for patient thought; and yet, to the merely speculative intellect, they remain profoundly mysterious; whilst plain minds, guided by warm, living hearts, find them very intelligible and significant. We shall all say that our Saviour did not speak as a philosopher to philosophers, or as a Rabbi to Rabbis, but as the Son of man, the Teacher of a practical wisdom and righteousness to men. The explanations of Christianity which the prevailing views compelled the apostles to make, have, indeed, become somewhat obscure in the lapse of time, and require for their elucidation the resources of scholarship; but, even here, scholarship is no substitute for the wisdom of an earnest moral nature. Christianity was not cradled in the University. It found no home there. Its first words were spoken to those who had little learning, or none. Its pulpits were erected in the streets; and its early disciples mainly relied upon the wisdom that is sought of God in prayer. And it has generally been found, that, when the gospel falls exclusively into the hands of scholars, and is treated as an argument, a reaction is produced, which largely consigns its ministrations to illiterate enthusiasts, until the voice of the heart has been heard, and its lessons duly regarded. In one way or another, the conventicle is sure to rise by the cathedral, the meeting-house by the church; and, if there be any thing profound in the Christian doctrine, it is more likely to find earnest and profitable acceptance with the people than with the merely scholastic.

This same lesson is taught by the fact, that, when Christians become devoted to their great profession, when they press doctrinal considerations on their practical side, when their zeal for truth is prompted and conditioned by their zeal for righteousness, their doctrinal differences drop much out of sight. Believers are very much at one about what can be felt and used, — that which

kindles the heart, and braces the sinews of the mind. Is not this, indeed, our great consolation as we look out upon a divided church of Christ? Is it not this which justifies the hope, that these divisions are of the surface, — only the forms of realities; and that they do not reach down into these great living depths, whence spring the rivers of spiritual and moral life? Some such unity there must be amongst Christians; and we should not feel that we had the gospel at all, if we were not satisfied that we hold truth, which must commend itself to the great multitude of believers, the few almost hopeless sectarians excepted. The undue influence which these few are suffered to exercise is one of the most disastrous signs of the times.

We shall not hesitate, then, to look for an explanation of Christianity, in its essential meaning, to its grand religious and moral purpose, that purpose which includes within its sweep every human soul. This great purpose, steadily regarded and viewed in connection with all the inferences justly to be deduced from it, will supply all the essential elements of Christian truth. As we read the New Testament, it is expressed in that saying, faithful and worthy of all acceptation, that "Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners." Give to the word salvation its largest possible meaning; understand sin in no restricted and merely theological sense; gather up its numberless varieties of signification from every quarter, from the heart of man, from the words of human lips, from the life of the world; let it include every form of transgression against God and man, and the transgressor's own soul, — and you have opened a vast domain, vast enough to include all that is really vital and usable of the great body of Christian divinity. You have, moreover, struck a vein which shall yield up its wealth alike freely to all classes of earnest laborers. "Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners." The great fact which the gospel keeps steadily in view is this fact of man's moral life, that in every way, and to a desperate extent, he is a wrong-doer; that he is wrong within and wrong without, in the thoughts of his heart, in the course of his life, in the great world which he has created about him. Christ came into the world, not primarily and chiefly because the human mind wanted more knowledge, and he had it to impart; not to gratify even a laudable intellectual curiosity, or help forward by direct efforts the progress of mere science; but rather because man was in