A WATCHWORD FOR CHRISTIAN FRIENDS PAKTED FOR A SEASON. 145

I. The words suggest that the Lord will be between Christian friends, when they are absent one from another. The middle space between them, however far they may be separated, will be filled by the presence of the Lord. And thus, though separated, they will be united still, united by means of the Lord,-united "in the Lord." The Lord, with his one hand, will be touching and holding the one, and with his other he will be touching and holding the other, and thus they will be united still,-linked together, gloriously linked "in the Lord."

II. The words suggest, again, that the Lord, who is between parted Christian friends, will be beholding them. If he watch between them, he must be beholding them. In the only other passage in which the same form of the original verb is found, it is translated behold:-" His eyes,”- we read in Psalm lxvi. 7,"behold the nations." The Lord, then, will be beholding parted friends when they are absent one from another. He will be looking at them. His eyes are bright. That is the original meaning of the word. They see clearly. They penetrate through all mists and veils. They flash their own light into all the nooks and corners of created being. The Lord is looking wherever men are, and he beholds them whatever they do. If they are in the fields, he sees them. If they are by the sea-shore, he sees them. If they are in company, he sees them. If they are alone, he sees them. The darkness and the light are alike to him. Nothing is hid from his eyes. We may not behold one another, but the Lord, who is between us, beholds us.

III. The words suggest that the Lord will not only look at parted friends: he will also look after them. He will watch between them. He will be on the out-look. He will be in an

attitude of wistful expectancy, longing to find all things well, and ready to stretch forth a helping hand the moment that it is required; but ready too, if his helping hand should be pushed aside, to bring it round in another way, and to lay it firmly, if men's folly should require it, on some tender part. The Lord watching between, it is out of men's power to neglect their duty to one another with impunity, even as it is out of the power of any enemies, spiritual or unspiritual, to steal a march upon us, if we, on our part, be watching too and looking to the Lord. "Unto Thee," says the Psalmist, "lift I up mine eyes;" "behold, as the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress, so our eyes wait upon the Lord our God."

IV. The words suggest once more that it is the wish and will

of all true believers that the Lord should watch between them, not only when they are present with one another, but also when they are absent one from another. "The Lord watch between us," they say. It is their wish and will to be dutiful in their relations to one another, when they are absent one from another. Are they parents? It is their wish and will to be dutiful to their children, and to seek their true weal, even while absent from them. "The Lord," say they, "watch between us." Are they children? It is their wish and will to be dutiful to their parents, and to act just as if their parents were present. "The Lord," they say, "watch between us." Are they husbands? It is their wish and will to be dutiful to their wives, just as much so as if they were together. "The Lord," they say, "watch between me and thee, when we are absent one from another." Are they wives? It is their wish and will to be dutiful to their husbands, as much so as they would be if beside them. "The Lord," they say, "watch between me and thee, when we are absent one from another." Whatever the relationship that binds the parted, it is realized as sacred, because linked on to the ever-present and ever-watchful Lord.

BOOKS.

Freedom of Mind in Willing; or every being that wills a creative first cause. By Rowland G. Hazard. New York:-Appleton & Co.

1864.

A RIGHT noble effort, of a right noble mind, to grapple with and to master a right noble subject,-one of the great problems of our moral being.

Mr. Hazard is emphatically an original thinker. His engagements outside the sphere of his psychological and metaphysical studies, have been so numerous, important, and pressing, that he has not had leisure to make himself acquainted with the history of the controversies that have been agitated on the subject of the freedom of the will. In these circumstances he has wisely abstained from making any detailed reference to the vastly extended literature which has been accumulated around the theme of his contemplation. He contents himself with bringing his own fresh and eminently vigorous and comprehensive mind into contact with Jonathan Edwards's famous Treatise, and working his way, in the light of his own unbiassed cogitations,-along the whole length and breadth of the topic in dispute. The result of this independent investigation has been a firmly rooted conviction that the mind is free in willing, or,—as with a grain, perhaps, of phraseological impropriety, he expresses it, that every being that wills is a creative first cause. If he had contented himself with saying that every being that wills is a creative cause, we should have had no difficulty in

entirely acquiescing in his expression. But as the word first suggests a relation of priority in time, we apprehend that it is God only that is First Cause, the First Creative Cause, and consequently the Creative First Cause.

This trifling impropriety apart, however, we fully accord with Mr. Hazard's grand idea, that every being that (freely) wills is a creative cause. Every man living is an originator. His activity goes forth into new modes of existence, and thus results in what was formerly nonexistent.

Mr. Hazard divides his work into two parts. The first part exhibits, in a positive form, the development of his own theory of freedom in willing. And the second is a Review of Edwards on the Will. In both departments he is equally at home, and evinces a remarkable ability to lay his hands in a masterly manner on some of the subtlest objects of introspective thought. The topics discussed in the first part of the volume are the following:-The existence of spirit;-the existence of matter;— mind;- liberty or freedom;— cause ;—— -the will;-want ;— matter as cause;-spirit as cause ;- freedom of intelligence ;— instinct and habit;— illustration from chess; want of effort in various orders of intelligence; effort for internal change;-conclusion. In the second department of his book,-that in which he directly criticises the treatise of Jonathan Edwards, he has chapters on the following subjects:Edwards's definition of will;— liberty as defined by Edwards;-natural and moral necssity ;- self-determination;- no event without a cause; the will's determining in things indifferent;- relation of indifference to freedom in willing;-contingence;-connection of the will with the understanding;—motive;-cause and effect;-God's foreknowledge;—conclusion. It is not to be supposed that within so wide a circumference of topics, we should be able to see eye to eye with Mr. Hazard in all things. We cannot, for instance, agree with him in thinking that God's foreknowledge is bounded by the freedom of created free agents. (p. 384, &c.) Neither do we think that "choice is knowledge and not will." (p. 175.) Nor are we prepared to believe that "a man cannot do any moral wrong in doing what he believes to be right," (p. 149), though we rest assured that at the basis of all wrong-doing there is an element of unconscientiousness. We are likewise unprepared to admit that "a man, habitually holy, who has eradicated the conflicting wants, loses the power to will what is unholy," (p. 158). There are, besides, other lines of thought which do not run parallel with our ideas. we gladly bear testimony to the singular vigour, comprehensiveness, and acuteness of Mr. Hazard as a thinker, and to his high endowments as a controvertist. His spirit, in this latter respect, approaches as nearly as may be, to our ideal of a perfect development.

But

We will gratify our readers, we believe, by subjoining a few specimens of Mr. Hazard's reasonings. He refers in the following manner to that idea of the late Robert Owen and his adherents, that man is the creature of his circumstances. Mr. Owen in this opinion merely brought to a tangible, practical, and obtrusive point, the theory of Jonathan Edwards. Mr. Hazard says:

“There are vague notions, in the popular mind, in regard to the influence of circumstances upon us, often bordering on fatalism, if not really involving it, and which

find expression in such phrases as “man is the sport," or "he is the creature" "of circumstances." One reason for this is, that we are liable to be frustrated by circumstances in the execution of what we will. This, it will be observed, is such an effect, after the act of willing, as can have no influence backward upon it. I will to walk in a certain direction, but am obstructed by a rushing torrent, which God has caused to flow there, or by a wall erected through human agency. The circumstance prevents my doing what I intended, and what, from want of sufficient knowledge, I decided to do. The new knowledge thus acquired, leads me to alter my course, and I may never again fall into the same track that I would otherwise have pursued. I go on to produce some change, but what that change will be depends upon the use which my mind makes of this new, combined with its previous, knowledge, in directing its subsequent action. Though I cannot, as now ascertained, go in the direction intended, there are still an infinite number of ways in which I can go; and among these my mind, in virtue of its intelligence, judges which is best. It may do this by a preliminary free act, and then, being free, conform its final action to its judgment; and hence, this influence of circumstances does not argue that the mind does not act freely in willing, but only that it cannot always execute its decrees; not that it does not freely try, or make effort, but that its power is not always adequate to the effect designed, or its knowledge sufficient to direct its efforts most wisely, and the want of freedom, if such this want of power may be termed, is just where Edwards asserts the only freedom of man exists.”—pp. 352, 353.

This is hitting the nail on the head. On a somewhat kindred subject, that which is expressed in the apophthegm, that the same causes necessarily produce the same effects,-an apophthegm that has some considerable bearing on the controversy regarding Prayer and Providence, Mr. Hazard says :—

"If, as at least appears probable, spirit is the only real cause, and postulating that the finite mind is not co-eternal with the Infinite, there was a time when only one cause existed; and if the same causes necessarily produce the same effects, this one cause never could have produced but one effect, or, at farthest, but duplications of the same effect. If it be said that the fact of this cause having once acted and produced one effect, makes such a variation of the circumstances under which it acts, that its subsequent action may differ from the first merely from the fact that it is the second, and not the first causative action; then, we say that this entirely destroys the rule and makes it a nullity; for the same cause cannot act a second time, without having acted a first; and if, from the fact of its having acted once, the effect of the second act may be different, there can be no such necessary uniformity of effect as the law supposes. "There must be something to determine if there shall be a difference between the effects of the first and second action, and, if so, what difference. That difference in circumstances, which has arisen from the cause having once acted, cannot itself determine the different action the second time.

"We have already shown that the mere existence of the thing created cannot influence the mind that created it, except as a circumstance to be considered by it in determining its next creative act, and as, by the hypothesis, there is nothing else in existence when this second action is to be determined, it must be determined by the cause-by the Infinite Mind-in view of the result of its first action, and of what it wants to do in the future; and hence, as before shown, the Infinite Intelligence is not only an originating creative cause, but, in virtue of its intelligence, can produce different effects by successive acts of volition, and determine what the difference in each of these successive acts shall be."-pp. 369, 370.

"If, to obtain a continuing causative power, and yet retain the law of necessity in cause and effect, we suppose the effect of the first cause to have been the creation of another cause, then, this other cause, too, must have immediately produced all its necessary effects; and so of any number of duplicate causes, and there would be an end of the power to produce changes. All, being simultaneous, would have no existence in time, and no subsequent changes could be produced. So that the application of this rule to intelligence as cause, denies any continuing power to produce changes in the universe; which, being contrary to the fact, proves the rule untrue, and shows the necessity and the fact of the existence of a cause which is not subject to this law of necessity, or of uniformity of effects, but which has a faculty of producing different

effects, or, at least, so far adapting itself to circumstances, that, from the fact that it has once exerted its causative power, and produced an effect, it may, by a subsequent exertion, produce a different effect. This freedom must be an attribute of the Infinite Intelligence, and uniformity of cause and effect' in regard to It, means nothing more than the uniform modes of willing, or the modes which It voluntarily adopts for Its own government; which is but an expression of Its freedom; for this is controlling Its own action; and that it does this in conformity to a law of its own creation, or which It voluntarily adopts, cannot lessen this freedom.

"With regard to the finite mind, experience indicates that, after having, under any given circumstances, acted in one way, it may, on a recurrence of them, elect, and frequently does elect, to try another way; the fact that it has already tried one way with certain effects, having, by increasing its knowledge, led to a belief that some other way may be productive of more desirable effects, or, at least, again add to its knowledge by practical experience in the new mode. It is enabled to design or conceive these new modes of action, to examine and judge of their expediency, and to execute them in virtue of its being an intelligent, originating cause, with a faculty of adapting its action to its view of the circumstances in which it is placed, and by which it is surrounded, which itself can only do.

"It may be said, that this change in the view, or knowledge and want of the mind, makes it, in fact, a different cause. This is merely a question of identity, which it is useless now to discuss, further than to say that, if it be the same cause, producing different effects, it disproves the rule; and if it be a different cause, it cannot logically be inferred from different causes producing different effects, that the same causes must produce the same effects. I may, however, further observe, that this difference in the mind's knowledge in the second case, grows directly out of its experience in the first; and if, as a consequence of intelligent cause or causes having once acted, their recurring action may be different, the rule as to them becomes a nullity; for there is then no necessity that the subsequent action of the same causes shall produce the same effect as they did when they first acted. If it be said, in asserting this necessary uniformity, the phrase "same causes" includes not only the efficient, or active power, but all the co-existing objects and circumstances having any relation whatever to the action of this power, still the rule can never have any application to intelligent beings acting as cause, for in mind the same circumstances cannot thus occur twice, because, to it, the fact of having occurred a first time, itself makes a difference in the second. It varies the knowledge, which is one of its essential elements as cause. The nearest approach to it is when the mind has forgotten that they have before occurred. In such cases we determine as if they never had before occurred, and the common experience is that we sometimes realize afterward that, from not recalling their previous occurrence, we, in the second case, acted differently without being aware of it, and when, but for this forgetting, we probably would have repeated the first action.-pp. 371–373.

There is something of moment lying on the line of these argumentations. There is, in another direction, something that indicates delicate and profound psychological investigation, in the cluster of observations that is contained in the following sentences :—

"A being, with no other wants than those which spring from the appetites, would be lower than most brutes, for they evince wants for superiority of some kinds.

"The gratification of some of the physical wants, however, being essential to our present form of existence, they are most imperative; but they are, in their nature, limited and temporary, when gratified ceasing to exist; and, if there were no other wants, there would be an end of all active energy till they again recurred, as seems to be the case in some animals.

"The influence of these temporal wants is, however, made less inconstant by the secondary want of acquisition, or the want to provide, in advance, the means of gratifying the primary wants, when they shall recur. To this acquisitiveness, even when gratification of the temporal wants is the sole object, there seems to be no limit, and it may permanently become the habitual object of effort.

"The physical wants in their normal condition seem to be only preliminary, to teach, or form habits of persevering effort, and thus fit the mind to exert its powers in the gratification of those nobler wants which the soul's progress demands.