lies. Many portions of our country furnish the most abundant and delightful facilities for the promotion of these domestic arts, for such they were of old, and such they may be still. The innumerable springs that burst from our 'thousand hills,' and form perennial streams, might afford a sufficient water power, though not for large establishments, yet for the little machinery that is necessary.*

With the same view we look upon the manufacture of silk in this country, as an object of immense importance. It can be carried on almost entirely by female hands, and at home. There are thousands and millions of acres of land in the country, that will support the mulberry tree, and are scarcely fit for any thing else. If they were all covered with this growth, no very material effects need be feared in depressing the price of the manufactured article: A small depression below the present price, would enable silk, as an economical article of wearing apparel, to hold competition with our cheapest fabrics.

But we must return to more general views of the subject which has led us into these details. We have been saying,

*The country,' says a letter from England, - we may make some allowance for the writer's exaggerations, 'the country in the neighbourhood of Leeds and Huddersfield is full of villages, and every cottage is a manufactory for spinning and weaving. The cloths are carried to market in their gray or white state, just as they come from the loom for these little manufacturers have no conveniences for dyeing and finishing; but the main thing is done at a very cheap rate, without any capital of consequence invested, either in buildings or machinery, and therefore without the loss of interest. It is chiefly labor that is mixed with the wool, and not capital, and that labor is of their own household.

'Now this is precisely what I think may be done in any part and in every part of New England, with this immensely important advantage, that the abundance of cheap building materials, and the multitude of natural waterfalls, will enable the enterprising, at a very moderate expense, to card and spin, by machinery, on their own premises, with the aid of their own family labor. Nothing, in the ordinary course of things, can prevent the success of such an establishment, but an attempt on the part of the manufacturer to carry on a business beyond his means. "That the profits of the small manufacturer are reduced by a competition with capital and machinery, is no doubt true. But it is a singular fact, that after the wool is carded and stubbed, which is spinning, if coarse and lax, in threads nearly the size of one's finger, in large mills, still it can then be put out to families, to be spun fine by hand jennies, cheaper than it can be done in large mills.'

that the condition of civil equality has been one of the causes of pecuniary embarrassment in the country. There are wider views of the subject, that must occupy our attention a moment, before we close.

The principle of equality, the claim which men are putting forward to be respected as men, threatens to assume dangerous forms, in the creation of parties among us. If ever the wealthy and powerful shall, by proud assumption, or unrighteous oppression, array the mass of the people against them, they will be answerable for that anarchy, which may sweep every thing before it, and their own prosperity and pretensions with the rest. If ever the numerical strength of the country, without that apology, ay, or with it, rise and combine against property and talent, to level them in the dust, they will have the poor consolation of reflecting that they have destroyed the only system that gives them any liberty, or makes them of any account. We have, however, only to ask of any Middling-interest, or Working-men's party, that they will respect the true principle of equality, that they will respect themselves as men; and we shall feel that from this quarter all is safe.

For the safe operation of this great principle of Republicanism, we are bound to be the more anxious, because it is the principle that is now going forth to do its work among the nations; and every people looks to us, to keep bright and clear the beacon-light, by which they are guided.

It is impossible not to hope every thing, and we had almost said, to fear every thing, from that contest for human rights among the nations of Europe, which has for some time been as evidently approaching, as it is now evidently begun. Men are demanding to be respected as men. Who does not feel that they must at length succeed?-that the strongest claim of human nature must prevail, if it once arise in its true character and its sovereign majesty? But when this great claim is no longer the meditation of philosophers alone, when it is no longer a fair and beautiful theory, but has become a feeling, and a universal feeling; when human nature is awaking with indignant might, from long ages of oppression; when entire nations are stirred throughout by the spirit of Revolution, and the popular impulse heaves from its whole oceanbed, it is impossible not to look with trembling to the issue. We fearfully ask, and the fear is not a vague one, will there

be enough courage and wisdom and sobriety and moderation, successfully to work out the great reform? Or, according to the prediction of one of our own Sages, must the civilized world wade through oceans of blood to a state of freedom and happiness?

In this great contest, far as we are from it, much is to depend on us. Let it not be said with boasting, but in all humility and fear and trembling. The spectacle of disorder, disunion, and failure among us, will dishearten the friends, and embolden the foes of liberty, all over the world. It will be a dark cloud in the West, that will spread blackness and fear upon the paths of coming generations.

Let it be said, then, and let it be repeated, that this united Republic owes to itself, and to the world, a mighty duty. Every member of this vast and favored community is bound to consider it, and to act upon that deep and sober consideration. The world has hitherto been working out its way to virtue and happiness, under the weight of burdensome and oppressive institutions. The great relations of government and society, indeed, have been improving since the feudal age; in Germany, in France, and in England, they have made considerable advances; but in this country, they have a free course; and here, to adopt the language of Scripture, prophetic of moral progress, here, if any where on earth, they must be glorified. The hope of the world's improvement, the noblest and most sublime of all hopes, that are limited to this world, associated with philanthropy and with piety, with the love of human kind and the loftiest contemplations of Providence, that hope must, if any where, have its fulfilment here.

This is no vague declamation. It is in the homes of human affection; it is in human hearts overshadowed and darkened till now; it is in the souls of men, degraded and borne down by ecclesiastical, by political, and social error and folly; it is in the children of our bosoms, and in our children's children, that we wish to see this blessed improvement.

We say, then, and repeat, that this country, where a new theatre is opened by Heaven for human improvement, owes to the world, to humanity, to suffering and sorrowing human nature, a solemn and stupendous duty;-a duty, vast as its empire, its spreading population, and its yet unproved resources. It owes that duty to the thousands who have sighed

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for so happy a condition, and so noble an opportunity; owes it to the sages of old philosophy, to the suffering apostles of religion, to the martyrs of liberty; owes it to the Ciceros and the Senecas, to the Hampdens and the Sidneys, to the noble spirits all over the world, that, struggling against oppression, have fallen in sacrifice on the very altars which their virtues had builded! And if we fail of this duty, if we are unfaithful to this great trust, if we prove recreant and false to the great behest that is laid upon us, the blood of the scaffold and the stake will make inquisition for the tremendous default; the groans of a thousand battle-fields will rise against us; the sorrows of an hundred generations will reproach the base desertion of our trust; our memory will live in the accusing voice of all coming ages, our epitaph will be the lamentation of the world!

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No. I. January.

ART. V. — The Biblical Repository. No. I. 1831. Conducted by EDWARD ROBINSON, Professor Extraordinary in the Theological Seminary at Andover. 8vo. pp. 198.

THE editor tells us in his introduction, that the work is designed to promote a spirit of ardent and judicious inquiry in the wide field of Biblical literature.' To judge from this first Number, it is the German part of the field to which he means to conduct our steps, and evidently by a most orthodox path. The German Theology, it seems, is to be used, as far as it can in any way be reconciled with the peculiar views of the Andover theologians. But we must be content with the path for the sake of the prospect; and no doubt much useful information will be afforded by this journal, conducted, as it is, by one so well qualified for the undertaking.

The article on the Universities and Literary Men of Germany, with which the work commences, is very valuable for the judicious view it takes of the literary life of German scholars, and the accuracy of its statistical details. It would be difficult to find a more complete and correct account of the arrangement and government of the universities, of the

libraries, the habits of the students, and the names and characters of the professors. The whole is exceedingly clear, and seems successfully to combine and harmonize the various extravagant features, which other accounts have set in such bold relief. In the details we notice but one error, which regards the number of the Prussian universities. According to the Biblical Repository, there are but six, whilst the Allgemeine Literatur Zeitung, for February, 1829, gives

seven.

The other articles are on the Interpretation of Psalm XVI; on the Principles of Interpretation; on the Grammatical Accuracy of the New Testament; and on Italian Theological Literature. The principles of Interpretation laid down in these various articles are certainly just, although not new to any one at all conversant with the subject. To those who are not, they are well deserving of notice. Such principles, as that the right interpretation is one, which deduces from the Holy Scriptures the very sense which the writers of them intended to convey,' and the rejection of the double sense in the prophecies, will very readily be admitted by all, we suppose; though certainly they will lead different minds to very different conclusions. Nor should we be inclined to differ from Professor Stuart in thinking (p. 148) that men inspired are so far from being divested of rationality, and understanding, and free agency, that they possess all these in a higher degree than ever.' The truth is, that these are principles, which the orthodox of Germany have adopted in common with their contemporaries. And this is the great benefit we expect from the publication before us, that we shall have here the results, which the inquiring and active spirit of the liberal German theologians have produced on their more orthodox brethren.

The article on Italian theological literature is valuable as throwing some light on a subject, of which so little is known. On page 179 we read, that a theologian of learning, who undertook some years ago to demonstrate in a speculative manner, that the doctrine of the Trinity is consonant with reason, was suspected of a disordered intellect'; a proof of good sense, which we should hardly have expected from the church of Rome.

The literary notices are necessarily imperfect, nor do they pretend to be complete. We observe, that the expected