stroyed, it seems strange and inexplicable that such records should be made.

We have thus considered the unity of the Church from the days of Abraham to the present time. God's call to Abraham was, "Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house-and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed." (Gen. xii. 1, 3). And his voice to the Church in all ages has been, "Come out from among them, and be ye separate and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty." (2 Cor. vi. 17, 18). The Apostle makes the Church, whether composed of Jews or Gentiles, Abrahamic or Christian, One Church, having the same root and the same stock, though with different branches.

We have examined the Covenant which God made with Abraham, and find its terms identical with those of the new Covenant, under the Gospel dispensation. We have found two leading ordinances under the old dispensation, Circumcision and the Passover, the feast of the Jews. The paschal lamb, as the first offering enjoined by God for the Israelites, was the germ of all other offerings, and combined in itself collectively their peculiarities. In this combination arises its typicality of the offering of Christ, in the most impressive manner. (Olshausen on Mat. xxvi. 17). It prefigured Christ our Passover, sacrificed for us. (1 Cor. v. 7); and the Lord's Supper now serves in its stead, a memorial ordinance of the death of Christ. The other of these ordinances, Circumcision, was the rite initiatory into the Church; a seal of the righteousness of faith; teaching the native impurity of the heart, and emblematical of the sanctifying grace of God. Precisely the same ends are now effected by the Christian rite of Baptism. The Church is the same, the Eucharist takes the place of the Passover, and Baptism the place of Circumcision. The Lord's Supper is coextensive with the Passover-not more restricted. Neither is Baptism more restricted than Circumcision. It is applied to females as well as males, and should, like Circumcision, be applied to believers and their infant children. We have as much authority-and of the same kind-for infant

baptism, as for observing the first day of the week as a holy day, and as for admitting females to the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper. The Lord has commanded that his people should be marked-children as well as adults; and on changing the mark, he has not forbidden it to be applied to the lambs of his flock. He ever deals with men largely by families, and we see traces of the same method under the Gospel dispensation. Wherefore we conclude that baptism should be administered to believers and to their infant seed.

ARTICLE IV.-HANNAH THURSTON.

Hannah Thurston. A Story of American Life. By BAYARD

TAYLOR. pp. 464.

New York: G. "P.

Putnam.

1864. 12mo.

BAYARD TAYLOR has acquired a world-wide reputation, as an enterprising traveler, and a writer of sprightly narratives, all the more acceptable to many, because he is never profound, aud exacts no thought from his reader, but only requires him to be a good listener to one who is fond of talking, and wants hearers. The books of travels which he has published, possessing this merit-no more-have been eagerly read by thousands, and brought wealth and fame to their author. They have been far more successful with the public than they could have been, if their author had been a profound observer of men, and of social institutions.

But in the work, the title of which stands at the head of this Article, he has attempted a department of literature, which requires very different and far higher mental endowments. It is not merely because, in the department of fiction, he has such men as Thackeray and Dickens and Bulwer for competi tors, but because a "story of American life" cannot be successfully done, without such habits of analysis and philosophical insight, as we find few traces of in his previous writings. He tells us himself, in his prefatory letter, that he does not "rest the interest of the book on its slender plot, but on the fidelity with which it represents certain types of character and phases of society." That is to say, this book is to be approved or condemned by the critic and by the public, according as it depicts truly or not such peculiarities of American society, as Women's rights, Total abstinence, Revivals, Spirit-rappings, and Socialism; for these are the leading peculiarities of development in "American life," of which the author treats, and for the faithful portraiture of which he thus acknowledges himself responsible. No superficial observer, no man who is

not in thorough sympathy with that profound religious earnestness, which has been a most striking American characteristic from the landing of the Pilgrims to the present time, can do justice to the themes thus indicated. He must appreciate such religious earnestness as a moral force acting, not upon a single isolated individual, but upon seven successive generations of men, enjoying to an extent never before permitted to any people, freedom of thought, speech, and action. It is surely quite obvious that, to succeed in such an undertaking, the author needs far other intellectual and moral endowments, than those which fitted him to write a sprightly and highly entertaining narrative of the scenes and incidents of his world-wide travels in foreign lands.

We must also confess to our fears, that there is much in our author's life, spent to so great an extent in foreign countries, to disqualify him for a true insight of the social condition of this his native land. With that religious earnestness which forms so prominent a feature in American character, we suspect Bayard Taylor never had much sympathy, and we are not sure that he has even learned to this day, that in this respect he is not a true American. And in that old world, in which so large a portion of his mature life has been spent, and with which he has united himself by the strong ties of family alliance, he everywhere finds the names, and forms, and language of the Christian religion, but the religious zeal and fervor of his own country, nowhere. A man with truly American ideas of religion finds the religious aspects of his own country wanting, quite as much as the peculiarities of its climate, and natural scenery. Instead, he finds a religion, called Christian indeed, but which Dr. Paley has most truly characterized by saying, “a Christian's chief care being to pass quietly through this world to a better." This is very much the impression which the religion of the old world makes on the mind of a devout American traveler. It is a religion which is quite satisfied with such frames of mind, and such religious emotions as may be naturally enough excited by the liturgy, the high ceremonial and the artistic decorations, which are so liberally employed in the Roman Catholic Church, and the English Establish

ment, but which makes no earnest and imperative claim to an entire control of the life of the individual man, and to subjugate to its laws all civil and political institutions, and all the rules and usages of social and practical life. It is just such a religion as the English Establishment will nurture wherever it thrives; and it and all its offshoots will thrive, just as long as they continue to be surrounded only by this easy, quiet, unpractical religion of the emotions and of poetic sentiment.

When an American, who is without sympathy with the intenser religious development of his own country, falls in with the religious aspects of the old world, he readily accepts them, and comes to estimate the more practical religion of his own country, just as it is estimated by a large class of foreign travelers in the United States, who find nothing so much amiss in America, as its religion. Very many Americans are drawn by taste or business, or the pursuit of pleasure, while yet in their youth, to Europe, and after many years spent in foreign lands return quite divested of the most striking characteristic of an American. They are just such men as Mr. Woodbury of the story before us. With religion, as it manifests itself here for the most part, they have no sympathy. Our author says in his prefatory letter, that he is neither "Mr. Woodbury, nor Mr. Waldo, nor Seth Wattles." And yet in respect to religion, we are forced to believe he is Mr. Woodbury. His whole life is exactly suited to make him just such a man; and we are com pelled to accept the portrait as genuine, though he denies that he sat for it. We must add that no Mr. Woodbury can fairly represent these "certain types of character and phases of society." Precisely to this extent we believe Bayard Taylor is disqualified for the task he has undertaken.

In the execution of his work, we find but too abundant proof of this disqualification. Throughout the book "total absti nence from intoxicating drinks," from conscientious motives, is treated as an absurd and contemptible fanaticism, the offspring and the characteristic mark of narrow and illiberal minds. We cannot call to mind a single instance, in which it is treated as worthy of the smallest respect. Its advocates are made the most intolerant of bigots, and sourest of fanatics. It is as