hence, if the arm of his strength is to be paralyzed, and mind enters upon the higher walks of existence, under an oblivion of the greater part or all of its guilty stores, there would seem to be no adaptation between the nature of man and the wonderful provision which God has made for his restoration to a state of innocence.

But, once admit that our earthly accumulations of thought and experience are inseparable from our future consciousness, and that all our exercises of choice, with the motives which determined them, will go with us into eternity, and there would seem to be a reason for some great provision, to purify the sources of memory and to annihilate the consequences of guilt. If there is poison mingled largely with the sources of a river, great contrivance would be necessary to prevent its flow throughout the whole extent of its current. Now, such appears to be the design of the remedial system. It does not aim at bringing an oblivion over the guilty stores of depraved minds,-for Paul, doubtless, remembers in heaven that he once persecuted the Christians; but its object is to effect such a change in their character and condition, that they can remember all the evil they ever did, or ever thought, not merely without guilt, but with everlasting thanksgiving and praise for a final acquittal, and for positive innocence.

To effect a change like this, to leave the mental and moral history deeply and indelibly written in the tablet of the soul, and yet to render it innoxious to the guilty, was the great desideratum to be secured in the redemption of the human family. To supply this, the sacrifice of God's Son was devised, that the believer might remember, in connection with his guilt, the ample satisfaction thus made to the government, at whose bar he stands as a culprit condemned. But apart from the immortality of thought, all this stupendous provision would seem to be an unmeaning and uncalled for transaction.

Finally, if we admit into our argument the doctrine of future retribution, as taught in the Scriptures, it will amount to demonstration, that thought is immortal. This doctrine involves the fact, that God will bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good or evil,that he will judge the secrets of men by Christ Jesus,-and that there is nothing secret which shall not be made manifest, and nothing hid, which shall not be known, and come abroad.

Actions will not be judged in the mass, nor characters in the aggregate; but in all the particularity of detail, and in all the minuteness of their connecting links and relations.

But, how is it possible for such a process of judgment to be instituted, without bringing to view all the stores of thought and sentiment, which are elementary to the character of those who are to be its subjects? Can a forgotten crime awaken guilt? Can a soul account for a thought, or a purpose, or a mental or moral state, which it cannot recall? Can the merit or demerit of actions be determined, without taking into account the states of mind, the governing motives, and the actual circumstances in which it had its foundation? The books, containing the chronicled events of this world, will be opened, in the mighty action of moral and intellectual natures, prompted by the Infinite Mind, in resuscitating from the ashes of forgetfulness all the buried treasures of thought, incidence, and circumstance, which had a bearing upon the guilt or innocence of man in the present world.

We see on this point, as well as many others, how nicely the doctrines of the Bible and the philosophy of human nature are suited to each other. What the results of education,-what the analogy of the perpetuity of matter,-what the facts of present recollection,-what the phenomena of diseased action,-what all these teach us to regard as true, the Scriptures pointedly affirm, on the independent basis of express revelation. Hence, the case in hand is like the doctrine of the soul's immortality, which, though a thousand things concur to establish it, nevertheless, is not fully proved, till we come to Joseph's new tomb, and find it vacated of its mighty tenant, coming up from its impregnable fastnesses, travelling in the greatness of his strength.

In conclusion, it may be seen, that this subject presents the most exalted views of our own nature. Our proudest doings on this footstool are the mere nestlings of a giant in his cradle. What, then, must be the strength and exaltation of our manhood's prime? We think, purpose, live, act for eternity. We open our eyes upon a physical universe, replete with wonders. We read in the granite ledges, in the teeming population of the vegetable and animal kingdoms, in the bony frame-work in which life is manufactured, in the starry firmament, and even in those portions of organized and unorganized nature, which are too minute to be detected

without the most powerful microscopes,—in all these, we read the inscriptions of a mighty hand.

And when we turn from these grosser objects, to the department of mind and morals, we find still more to amaze and confound us. We see in ourselves the beginning of a thread of existence, which is to run on in the endless track of eternity, conveying to the most distant points of our vast career the moral and intellectual vibrations that we produce as we pass along. Truly, we are fearfully and wonderfully made.

ARTICLE V.

ALISON'S HISTORY OF EUROPE.

History of Europe, from the Commencement of the French Revolution to the Restoration in 1815. In ten volumes. By ARCHIBALD ALISON, F. R. S. E. American edition. Nos. 1, 2 and 3. Harpers. New York. 1842-3.

THE appearance of the first numbers of the American reprint of the History of Europe furnishes us a fitting opportunity to call the attention of our readers to its character and contents. We do not attempt a review of the work; but seek only to set forth some of its features, particularly of those portions contained in the numbers already published in this country. The English and French editions have been extensively sold here, but they are exceedingly expensive,especially the English; and are, of necessity, limited to few. The cheapness of the American edition, however, places the work within the reach of nearly all American readers. But cheapness, we feel bound to say, is almost the only merit of this edition. The type is exceedingly small, the paper poor, and the whole dress far from such as becomes the greatest historical work of our times.

The period described by Mr. Alison in the history of Europe, is certainly the most remarkable of modern times,alike for its exalted virtues, and its shameless crimes,—for its sublime feats of intellect in every sphere of its exertion,

for the great men it produced and displayed at the helm of states, in the chambers of senates, in the arts of diplomacy, and in the contests of war,-for the amazing development of national resources and of popular energy it every where exhibited, and, last and most important of all, for the sublime and awful lessons it teaches of human nature,-of the terrific consequences of revolutionary ambition and national crimes, and of the workings of that high Providence, which rules the destiny of men and empires, and, amidst the wildest confusion of human affairs, still asserts its laws, and vindicates its eternal sovereignty. Indeed, over the whole range of history, there can scarcely be found an epoch, in which have been grouped together so great a number of magnificent characters, or of stirring events, all pervaded by the same fearful unity of action, and the same fierce intensity of passion. Considered as a theme for history, the period, which is perhaps most nearly parallel, is that of the decline and fall of the Roman empire,-a period which Gibbon, as he closes the last page of its gloomy annals, pronounces "the most awful scene in the annals of mankind."

The two periods, as they lie pictured before us, each by the hand of a master historian,-while they agree in being alike disheartening to the hopes of philanthropy, and revolting to the feelings of piety, yet very widely differ in the features they present, and in the social and political lessons they are fitted to teach. The dismemberment of the empire of the Cæsars began amidst the thickest night of pagan antiquity, and was consummated only in the early twilight of Christianity. Its worst scenes are those of imperial tyranny and of barbarian war. Its most solemn lessons are of the evils of luxury, and of military ambition, of the blighting influences of despotic power, and of the utter instability even of the most gorgeous fabrics of civilization, unsupported by the principles of Christianity. The bursting forth of the long-pent fires of French enthusiasm, on the contrary, happened in the full meridian of European civilization, after Christianity had been preached in France for twelve centuries; and had scattered its ministers, and reared its institutions, in every portion of the land. Its darkest crimes are not those of the government, but of the people. Its most sanguinary scenes are those of revolutionary frenzy and popular tumult, -scenes in which the vilest of mankind seemed, like vultures,

to fatten upon the blood of all the wise and noble, the chivalrous, the patriotic, and the pious, among the sons and the daughters of France. Its most affecting and valuable lessons are its teachings of human wickedness, the admonitions it thunders out to demagogues and their deluded followers, to all the advocates of reckless liberty, who pander to the popular passion for power, and the warnings it has left, with which to chasten our hopes, and direct our exertions for the social and civil advancement of mankind.

Gibbon, with a power which has never been surpassed, of grouping together events the most heterogeneous and remote, opens to us the mighty fabric of Roman greatness, which, in its day overshadowed the world,—and over the vast tract which extends from the walls of China to the Atlantic, and from the forests of northern Europe to the deserts of Africa, he traces through the lapse of fourteen centuries, the long and slow decline of the imperial power, and leads us down the descending pathway of ancient civilization, till we seem to see the light of the world go out in utter darkness, and barbarism usurp the consecrated dwelling-places of literature, science and art. But the period, through which he conducts us, is one only of decline and decay, in which the gigantic and ill-proportioned frame-work of the Roman empire was falling to pieces by its own unwieldy weight, in which civilization was constantly yielding, and. barbarism constantly extending its sway over the world,—a period illustrated by few lights of genius or learning,-by no great achievements of statesmanship or diplomacy, and by only here and there the brilliant display of splendid military talents.

Far different is the epoch embraced in the work before us. During the twenty-five years, which elapsed between the convocation of the States-General and the restoration of the Bourbons in 1815, society was making its most rapid strides in all the interests of civilized life. Science was unlocking, with her best success, the mysterious stores of nature, and art, with her noblest inventions, was furnishing forth her treasures for the uses of man. The hereditary thrones of Europe were then occupied by some of the most gifted and illustrious of the royal races to whom they belong; and were supported, in some instances, at least, by an array of able and far-sighted ministers and statesmen, such as no other age, either of ancient or modern times, has ever produced. It is