ness, are concerned. It does not depend on the will whether we perceive the difference between a square, circle and triangle, but it may depend on the will whether we understand the properties of each, so as to be able to describe all the points of difference. It does not depend on the will whether we perceive the difference between truth and error, but it may depend on the will whether we discover truth under certain circumstances of obscurity and difficulty.

Another use of the will is to manifest the character of the heart. It is through the medium of the will as the servant of the heart, that we become acquainted with each other's characters. We judge of men by their external actions; in doing this, we proceed upon the principle that those actions are voluntary, and that they express the feelings of the heart. Through the operations of this faculty, we learn how we ought to treat others with whom we have intercourse, and give others to understand how they should treat us; all that we do in this world for the melioration of man's condition, is through its agency. Every enterprise of good or evil, of benevolence or wickedness, is under the conduct of the will, and shows the disposition of the heart. The affections are in no case under the control of the will, except so far as directing the understanding to the investigation of truth, or objects calculated to affect the heart, the will may indirectly exert an influence over the feelings; but as we have before stated, it does not depend on the will, whether we shall be pleased or displeased with any given object. Volition cannot change the heart: the will cannot bring the carnal heart under subjection to God's law, nor turn it to love Christ. It must be, according to the gospel, the medium by which the heart displays itself. The understanding is the medium by which objects affect the heart,

and the will is that by which the affections are manifested, and objects attained for the heart's gratification. The will is also necessary in performing the duties enjoined by the second table of the law; indeed all the duties of an external character, and those which pertain to the government and direction of the understanding, involve the agency of the will. There is an obvious distinction between those commands which respect the heart and its affections exclusively, and those which respect other mental_exercises and external actions. In the former there is no agency of the will, except in the indirect influence before stated. The heart loves or hates in obedience to another law, not the will. But in every other duty, the volitions are essential. In searching the Scriptures, prayer, observing the Sabbath, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, sending the gospel to the destitute, and doing good to all men as we have opportunity, the agency of the will, as well as the affections of the heart, is involved. A destitution of this faculty, would be a want of physical qualification to obey the commands of God which respect human conduct.

What will be the use of this faculty after the soul is separated from the body, we are not distinctly informed; but even in this inquiry we can apply, to a certain extent, the principles of induction. We are furnished in the revelation of God, with information concerning the employments of redeemed souls in heaven, which communications, fairly and on philological principles interpreted, are to be taken as facts. From these facts it will be easily perceived, that the will is to be employed in praise, however that may be expressed, in doing the will of God, and in conveying the spirit wherever it is to be sent. What missions of good the souls of the redeemed are to execute in heaven, or in any part

of God's universe, we do not know, and therefore we say not in what agencies this faculty may be employed. How spirits communicate with kindred spirits, we do not know and do not affirm; but for aught that we can say, there may be use for volition. When the bodies shall be raised and reunited to their spirits, it is likely they will be under the control of the wills which have before controlled them. In heaven, we may suppose that this faculty will be employed to bring every power into holy subjection to heavenly laws and principles. In the world of misery, we affirm not the precise agency of the will; but we can conceive of its employment to execute a torturing influence upon the associates in misery, as well as in uttering blasphemies

actions. These constitute man a complete moral being, and qualify him to be a moral agent. By these he is qualified to be placed under responsibility, and made accountable to God for all his character. By these he is qualified to be employed, under all the weight of obligation, in effecting the purposes of God, and promoting his declarative glory. By these faculties he is qualified to receive his Maker's law, to feel responsible, to act with reference to the judgment to come, and according to the moral estimate of his character, to be rewarded or punished. What more is necessary to constitute man a proper subject of moral government? We answer nothing.

F.

It would seem as if there would be a restraint upon this faculty, as there always is in confinement; and that while in the voluntary expression of the heart's malignity, the will shall not be employed, as here on earth, to procure the heart's gratification. Its instrumentality will be self-infliction of misery upon the soul for ever. In this case, therefore the use of will is fearful beyond description; to blaspheme God, self-infliction of torture, and a malignant agency in augmenting the wretchedness of associates in misery. But in heavenly blessedness and glory, its employment will be desirable, elevated and dignifying, beyond expression.

In concluding this article let it be observed, that we know of no phenomena of mental exercises, incapable of being classed according to the principles we have recognised, in one or the other of these three-apprehending, feeling, will ing. We may make secondary and sub-classes, but all mental phenomena belong to those three; and the faculties of understanding, heart and will, are sufficient to account for all mental exercises and VOL. IX.-Ch. Adv.

BYTERIAN CHURCH.

No. III.

The presiding individual of a large deliberative body-whether the individual be denominated president, speaker, chairman, or moderator-has always a difficult office to perform; and for this reason his official acts ought certainly to be viewed with some indulgence, and to receive, so far as they will fairly admit of it, a favourable construction. On this principle, as well as because small errors, left uncorrected, are a less evil than much delay and frequent interruption in business, appeals from the chair to the house are seldom sustained in deliberative assemblies, except where there is palpable evidence of error, or partiality.

În cases, moreover, in which parties confessedly exist, and are in ardent conflict with each other, a presiding officer is always expected to favour, in some measure, the views of the party by whom he has been elected to office. It is understood that he has been chosen for this purpose, and there would be disappointment on all sides, if he 30

showed it no regard. Still, there are certain limits to his prerogatives and partialities, which every presiding officer is expected sacredly to regard-limits which, if he transgress, he is always considered as highly censurable; and within which, if he carefully confine himself, he is regarded by every candid member of the body, as having honourably discharged the duties of his station. There have been instances, if we mistake not, in the House of Representatives of the Congress of the United States, and at periods too when parties ran high, in which the Speaker, at the close of a session, has received a vote of thanks, nearly if not quite unanimous, for the fair, and able, and dignified manner, in which he has discharged his high official duties.

It is chiefly in the appointment of committees, that the occupant of the chair of a deliberative assembly is expected to favour his party. On all important committees, especially those in which party questions are to be discussed, a decided majority of the ascendant party is expected to appear; and we think such a majority ought to appear, without any murmur of the adverse party, under two provisos-namely, that the members forming the majority are those generally regarded as respectable, for temper as well as for talents; and that the minority are allowed a representation consisting of their best and ablest men, to the amount of a fourth, or a third part, of every such committee. It is in committees that all important business is prepared for the consideration and sanction of the house; and we believe it is understood that they ought commonly to be constituted in the manner we have indicated, that each committee may be, as it were, the house in miniature, and hence its report be likely to be adopted, without much change or amendment; and thus that a great abridgment of discussion, and a great saving of time may be effected

-Both parties being satisfied that their opinions have been fully stated and urged in committee, and that every obtainable concession or modification has already been made, will, it is supposed, perceive that it would be useless to prolong debate, without any prospect of a more favourable result. That such are the principles on which committees are usually and properly appointed in deliberative assemblies, will not, we think, be denied. That their reports, even when made with ability, do not always prevent long and ardent discussions in the house, is to be attributed to the irrepressible love of speechifying, which some members possess, and the desire which they and others feel, to speak to the galleries rather than to the chair.

But however or wherever else, a speaker, or a moderator, may manifest his partiality, he certainly ought never to discover it, nor if possible to feel it, while he presides over the debates of the deliberating body. Then he ought to act and feel like a chief magistrate in a court of justice-the debaters are the attorneys, he is the judge on the bench. He may, and often must, have his opinion on the subject discussed, but he ought never to manifest it in the moderator's seat. During a debate, he ought most cautiously and impartially to watch over the rights and privileges of the members severally, that each may be fairly and seasonably heard, according to the established rules of order. He ought especially to consider himself as the protector of the rights of the minority-for a minority have rights as sacred as those of the majority-and the weaker party are always in danger of being unduly overborne by the stronger, if they have not a protector in the common president of both.

We have made the preceding remarks, on the station and duties of the presiding officer of a deliberative assembly, that our readers

might see our views and estimate of them, before we should speak of them as sustained and performed by the last Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church. We wished it should be seen that in speaking of him, we were sensible that some allowance ought to be made for the difficulties always to be encountered in the office which he held; and we particularly desired that when we should point out his errors, it might be clearly seen that they were strictly official errors, and that their magnitude might be judged of readily and justly.

We now feel ourselves prepared and constrained, after making every just allowance, to say, that although we have had numerous opportunities, through a pretty long life, to witness the proceedings of deliberative bodies, both civil and eccesiastical, and to observe attentively the manner in which presidents, speakers, chairmen and moderators, acted their parts, we never did witness any thing which, in our judgment, even approximated to the partiality and party feeling, glaringly manifested by the last Moderator of our General Assembly. We are aware that it may be said that this is with us merely a matter of opinion, and that we are a party equally with the moderator. But admitting that we are a party, we have still to say, that the opinion we have expressed is not that of ourselves only, but that also, we verily believe, of every individual who was not of the moderator's party-perhaps of some who were-and that we do by no means admit that an impression so extensively felt, is as likely to be the effect of mere prejudice, as that the moderator should have given just cause for complaint. We do not assert that all his acts and decisions were offensive or erroneous. Where party was out of the question, we think he generally acted correctly. But there was

much of the business of the Assembly, and that too of the most important kind, in which party feeling was deeply involved; and whenever this was the case, the violation by him of official propriety was witnessed, we think, in every form in which it could appear. One was, in the appointment of committees. Of this we shall give two instances. The first was, the committee on the reference and complaint from the Presbytery of Philadelphia, in the case of Mr. Barnes. On this committee, (to the members of which in general, we make no exceptions) the Moderator placed one of the delegates from Connecticut, a resident, when at home, of the city of New Haven. We hesitate not to say, that on the part of the Moderator, this was an appointment in a high degree improper, if not absolutely unlawful; and that there was, to say the least, great indelicacy in an acceptance of the appointment and consenting to serve on the committee, by the delegate concerned. That delegate, by a recent arrangement, had lost all right to a vote in the house; but whoever is acquainted with the usual course of business knows, that a vote in a committee, on an important and interesting concern, is of more ultimate influence than two votes in the house. Yet here, an individual gives his vote where it has the greater influence, when it is denied him where it has the less. The subjects, moreover, referred to this committee, involved several constitutional questions, as well_of doctrine as of ecclesiastical order in the Presbyterian Church, and of vital importance in both cases. Was it proper that a professed Congregationalist should be appointed and consent to examine and decide on these?-especially when it was fully understood on all sides, that so far as the case of Mr. Barnes was in question, the strongest predilections, not to say predeterminations, in his favour, were cherished by

this individual. We say deliberately, that being concerned in the report of this committee, we would have preferred that Mr. Barnes himself should have been a member of it, rather than the delegate from New Haven.*

The second appointment of a committee which we shall notice, and in which the partiality of the Moderator was apparent, was that to which was assigned the nomination of a new Board of Missions. The hostility of the American Home Missionary Society to this board, and the publickly avowed purpose of changing it, and of displacing its Corresponding Secretary and General Agent, was shown in our last number. Yet on this committee, which was a large one, not an individual was placed, who was likely to act the part of a friend and advocate of the inculpated board-the board of the preceding year. Whether the committee on the case of Mr. Barnes had not proved sufficiently subservient to the wishes of the moderator and the majority of the house, or from whatever other motive the nomination was made, is unknown to us; but so it was, this most important committee was entirely composed of those who were disposed to report, and actually did report, a nomination of a new board, most decidedly friendly to the American Home Missionary Society, and hostile to the existing Board of the General Assembly. A few, and but a few of the members of the existing board were not displaced on the expectation, we doubt not,

• The Editors of the Christian Spectator, published at New Haven, in the superabounding of their concern to enlighten the citizens of Philadelphia, and the members of the General Assembly,

on the merits of the case of Mr. Barnes, had inserted in their work a review of that case, and published and forwarded the number which contained this review, a whole month before the regular period for its appearance. We purpose, before long, Deo juvante, to review this review.

that they would voluntarily resign, as we are confident they would have done, when they should see the complexion of the board entirely changed, and rendered subservient to the American Home Missionary Society. It was the report of this committee which led to those scenes of disorder and confusion which disgraced the Assembly, and grieved every friend to religion and the Presbyterian Church. The report was so flagrantly and intolerably at war with all equity and propriety, that it produced criminations and recriminations, which issued in a complete disregard of the Moderator and of all order; and rendered a hasty recess, the only expedient left, to bring the members into a temper that would admit of their proceeding in business.

But beside the particular acts which we have now specified, and some others of a like character which we altogether omit, the party feelings of the Moderator were visible in every case, (we believe without an exception) when a party question was under discussion. They were manifested by giving the precedence in speaking to those of his own party, when it equitably and fairly belonged to their opponents; by arresting a speaker who was pressing an argument which he saw to be adverse and perhaps fatal to his wishes-arresting the speaker on some suggestion or pretence of a point of order, and thus breaking the train and force of his reasoning; by throwing out to the speakers on his side of a question, hints and intimations, which they might employ with advantage to their cause; and by numerous other acts, sensibly felt, but scarcely capable of description, by which an advantage was given to his friends over their opponents.*

The Moderator once requested to be allowed to leave the chair, and speak to a subject under debate. The request was opposed, and he withdrew it. The