were subordinate to the superior judges, or, those who judged a larger number; and difficult cases went up from the inferior to the superior judges: very difficult cases were appealed to Moses himself, and in some cases from Moses to the high priest. Here, when the efforts of human reason and judgment failed, they asked and obtained the interference of Heaven."

The various civil officers were dispersed, as a matter of course, into different parts of the country. Those of them, accordingly, who dwelt in the same city, or the same neighborhood, formed the comitia, senate or legislative assembly of their immediate vicinity. Deut. xix, 12; xxv, 8, 9; Judges viii, 14; ix, 3-46; xi, 5; 1 Sam. viii, 4; xvi, 4. When all that dwelt in any particular tribe were convened, they formed the legislative assembly of the tribe; and when they were convened in one body from all the tribes, they formed the legislative assembly of the nation, and were the representatives of all the people. Josh. xxiii, 1, 2; xxiv, 1.

These were the leading features of the Jewish constitution prior to the introduction of monarchy. We see each tribe existing as a separate civil community, independent of the other tribes: here is the idea of our separate independent states. But although in many things each tribe existed by itself, and acted separately, yet in others the tribes were united, and formed one national community. If any affair concerned the whole, or many of the tribes, it was considered, and determined in the legislative assembly of the nation. Here is the idea of our national congress, in which each state is represented. And in the assembly of the magistrates of any particular city forming the comitia or senate of the city, we have the idea of our municipal corporations. And in the creation of these magistrates by election, we have seen that the sovereignty resided in the people. Indeed, so many elements of popular freedom are found in the Jewish constitution, that Lowman and Michaelis are in favor of considering it a democracy. Yet this constitution was developed under the divine direction, and esta

* How natural is this application of religion to the development of society! It will explain the great fact, well attested in every nation, that divine interference in human affairs was more frequent in the early periods of the world than in later, when education and experience were sufficient to guide man in all the ordinary, and most of the momentous affairs of life.

+ See Watson's Dictionary. Article, Government of the Hebrews.

lished under the divine sanction. How passing strange is it then that kings should claim to reign jure divino! What an outrage upon religion and comon sense, for mortal man to proclaim himself king, by the grace of God! (Rex Dei gratia.)

The introduction of monarchy into the Jewish constitution was expressly against the declaration of the divine will, and was demanded by the people, in the days of Samuel, when they had become unworthy of liberty.

The history of this transaction is recited with such simplicity and force, that we need do no more than read it to you, from the eighth chapter of first Samuel, in order that you may feel that God is against monarchy :-" And they said unto Samuel, Behold thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways: now make us a king to judge us like all the nations. But the thing displeased Samuel, when they said, Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed unto the Lord. And the Lord said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all they say unto thee for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them. According to all the works which they have done, since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt, even unto this day, wherewith they have forsaken me, and served other gods; so do they also unto thee. Now, therefore, hearken unto their voice howbeit yet protest solemnly unto them, and show them the manner of the king that shall reign over them. And Samuel told all the words of the Lord unto the people that asked of him a king. And he said, This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you: he will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen; and some shall run before his chariots. And he will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains over fifties, and will set them to ear his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots. And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers. And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your oliveyards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants. And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers and to his servants. And he will take your men-servants, and your maid-servants, and your goodliest young men, and your asses, and put them to his work. He will take the tenth of your sheep:

and ye shall be his servants. And ye shall cry out in that day, because of your king which ye shall have chosen you; and the Lord will not hear you in that day. Nevertheless, the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel: and they said, Nay; but we will have a king over us."

We have further said that the Scriptures were opposed to hereditary political power. The proof of this we see everywhere in the Jewish constitution to the time of Saul, the first king; and upon his acting wickedly, the declaration of God, by the mouth of his prophet, was, 1 Sam. xv, 28, "The Lord has rent the kingdom of Israel from thee this day, and has given it to a neighbor of thine, that is better than thou."

From what has been said above, taken from the Scripture, we see that the declaration of God is in favor of a confederated republican government, and directly opposed to monarchy, and to all hereditary political power. And this declaration is further confirmed by the prosperity of the Jewish people during sixteen ages prior to their kings, and their general distressed situation ever after, until their final overthrow by the Romans, in the reigns of Vespasian and Titus.

It would extend this article to too great a length to mention the many divine precepts and exhortations which prescribe and enforce the social and domestic duties. We shall pass them over and mention but one other general injunction of Christianity, that is, universal love to mankind, which tends to a community of feeling and of nations. This is the only religion which has ever overleaped the limits of country, with respect to fraternal feeling, and has claimed as members of its family every people, and kindred, and tongue. This injunction of universal love, worthy of a heavenly religion, is enforced by the three following high considerations :— "God hath made of one blood all nations, to dwell upon the face of the earth." All these nations sprung from one blood, are redeemed to one common worship by one Lord Jesus Christ. Hence we are required, not to live unto ourselves, but unto others, in order to promote the supreme happiness of man. Under the influence of these injunctions the Christian church becomes missionary, and her warrant runs in these words: "Go ye into all nations, and preach my gospel to every creature." We challenge the world to show in her history that any other religion was missionary, employ

ing only moral and peaceful means. Did the philosophers of Greece go abroad at the expense of fortune and life, preaching their doctrines, collecting their disciples into societies, and reducing them to order, and subjecting them to regular rules. Never: nor any other philosophers. Here is the specific difference between all other religions and systems of morals, and the Christian system. In its missionary warrant and spirit consists mainly its conservative and assimilating power, which has gradually wrought out the law of nations, established upon reason and morality, a law unknown to ancient or modern paganism or Mohammedanism. These are not and cannot be parties to this law, only so far as they are influenced by Christian policy. This modern law of nations, acknowledged now in Christendom, applies the principles of morals to the conduct of states, and holds them responsible for their policy, and that delicate and almost indefinable thing we call balance of power in Europe, is the instrument of enforcing obedience. Hence the dogs of war have been chained up since the peace of 1815, and though they may occasionally growl, as now between France and the four great powers, or even bark, now and then, as recently at Beyroot, in the Mediterranean, yet they will not be let slip again in Europe, to cause her cities to be wrapped in flames, or her plains to be desolated. Christianity has muzzled them, and she will continue to soften the obdurate, soothe the excited, illuminate the ignorant, and refine the barbarous, until, in the language of Scripture, "the wolf shall dwell with the lamb; the leopard lie down with the kid; the calf with the young lion, and a little child shall lead them."

Dickinson College, Dec., 1840.

ART. IV. Obligations to sustain our Literary Institutions.

"Suos cultores scientia coronat."

It is the work of time to repair the ruins of the fall. If man had never sinned, a degree of intelligence, indefinitely exceeding that of the noblest mind in the present state, might have been the privilege of all. But an intellectual as well as moral paralysis has seized the mind, enfeebled its powers, and shrouded it in darkness.

And now Heaven has decreed that man shall know by his own exertions, or remain for ever in ignorance. In defiance of all disabilities, mind has asserted its original right, and aspired to its first designed perfection. It has devised its own means of accomplishing its noble designs, and entered extensively upon their application. Among the most influential of these are seminaries of learning. With the view of presenting their claims to the fostering care of an enlightened community, we shall attempt an amplification of the following proposition:

IT IS THE DUTY OF EVERY PHILANTHROPIST, PATRIOT, AND CHRISTIAN, TO EXTEND LIBERAL PATRONAGE TO LITERARY IN

STITUTIONS.

In support of this sentiment, we urge in the first place, the bearing of education upon human happiness. We would not fail carefully to honor the Christian doctrine, that there is no true happiness apart from the supreme devotion of the soul to its Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. But education, in a popular sense, includes all that moral, as well as intellectual and physical training, necessary to the development of the man. It infringes no claims; it supercedes no work of evangelical religion. But it is mind that enjoys, consequently the limit of the mental capacity must be the limit of enjoyment.

The arcana of nature may be stored with the purest luxuries of intellect, but mental power must reach their depths, and develop their treasures. Mind may be the appropriate scene of mental revel, but it reveals its mysteries, and opens its riches to none but cultivated minds. Truth is the food of intellect. Without it, the mind of loftiest original famishes and dwindles to nothing. But in this world truth and error commingle with chaotic confusion. How then, without mature abstraction and corrected reason, is this wild irregularity to yield to order's law, and present a scene of chastened loveliness to the mind? Of all there is of human life, none but the stinted present lives for our enjoyment till governed memory brings back the past, and educated association assembles kindred facts from ocean, earth, and air. The sensations and perceptions of other days, though crowded with unrevealed elements of happiness, die away in the distance, until a true conception makes them live again. The materials of thinking float uncontrolled in dreaming wildness till a purified imagination summons them to the gathering,