belief of man for its own truth? Let not, then, this mode of argument be rejected as unsatisfactory

The mode of argumentation is by a statement of facts and truths, and the common sentiments of mankind, rather than by a strict logical sequence of premise and conclusion. Lord Brougham remarks, that the most splendid passages of the great oration of Demosthenes, consist of nothing but mere statements. But it is deserving of consideration, whether this is not just what they should be. All argumentation is made up of premises which involve the conclusion, but which are themselves, or at least a part of them, assumed as being held by the hearer or reader for truths. As a philosopher, a man is bound to prove every premise which is not in itself evident, but as an orator who is to persuade an audience, he is only to prove such as that audience may doubt of. He surely may take as true what they hold to be such. Now a statement as distinct from a logical process, is such a combination of admitted truths, motives of human conduct, and principles of action, as of itself to give plausibility to the general conclusion. When Demosthenes states the causes which led to the peace with Philip, the statement is so natural, that is, the universal principles of human conduct are so connected as causes with the event, that we can not doubt it gives the exact truth. This may seem an easy matter, but it requires the most comprehensive understanding of human nature, and the most intimate sympathy with the workings of the human heart. Indeed, is it not the very province of genius to know, as it were, by a kind of birthright, what is held to as real and true, in the very secret recesses of man's nature? And what is a work of genius, but an appeal to the deeper sentiments and

the surest means of success; let it not be set down as unphilosophical-that is the soundest philosophy which knows what is true and proves only what is doubtful; let it not be sneered at as weak-it is the highest effort of power to wake up the human mind to the consciousness of what it knows of itself to be true. We have dwelt the longer upon this point, because it is the great oversight of many speakers, not to know what to state and what to prove, and because, in our estimation, this manner of argument is strikingly characteristic of Mr. Clay.

These speeches are also distinguished by the simplicity and singleness of purpose, the entire sincerity of design which is conspicuous in them. The orator has but one single object in view, and that is to satisfy the present audience. He cares more for their sympathy and agreement with him than for any thing else. For the time being they are every thing to him and he to them. If we were to select any one thing which the orator is to forget, it would be himself, or if any one thing which he is to keep constantly before him, it would be his audience. The cause-and not self in any of the Protean forms of vanity-is to be set forth. Mr. Clay excels in this respect. As we listen to him, we are certain that he does not know that he is an orator; we are sure that he is not looking beyond us to the future renown of the speech he is making-we know that he is not thinking of himself but of his cause; and when our suspicions are unawakened upon any of these points, we yield ourselves up in confidence to the orator.

But Mr. Clay, single and sincere as he is in the cause which he espouses, does yet make us unconsciously take a deep interest in him

self. We sympathize with him as

a man.

We not only listen to him as the advocate of important meas ures, as the patriotic statesman, and accomplished orator, but we feel a personal interest in him as an individual, and share in his hopes and fears and anxieties. There are orators who convince us by the strength of their arguments, or delight us with the felicity of their rhetoric, without exciting within us any sympathy for themselves. Upon the skill and power of Cicero, the well-adapted opening, the clear arrangement, the full-flowing stream of narrative and argument, we dwell with delight, but we are not very anxious for the man whether he succeed or fail. We are constantly reminded, it is true, of the orator, but we can not help suspecting that much of this splendid oratory is to set forth Cicero for our admiration, and no man has yet appeared in history great enough to place his own individual glory above the interests of the age in which he lives. We are astonished at the magnificence of Burke, but we do not draw ncar into close intimacy with the exalted genius which creates these splendors. We can not resist the calm argumentation of Pitt, but we read his speeches as state-papers and cabinet manifestoes. But there are other orators who besides their cause impress themselves upon us -whose own personal feelings are so naturally infused into into their speeches that we feel for them. We make the public cause, theirs, and their cause, ours. It is the personal feelings which they express that thus opens our hearts towards them-but then, personal feelings, not exhibited but only not restrained-personal feelings, not brought forth to make an impression, but uttered because they are in the

heart and must needs come out. Such was Demosthenes. He not only inflames us with his own burning zeal for the freedom of Greece, he not only animates us with his own unflinching confidence that Athens will not tarnish the honor of her ancestors, he not only hurries us along with him in the rapidity of his eloquence to the field of battle, but, so earnest is he, so deeply interested are his own feelings in the result, so wholly is his heart in it, we feel for him as well as for Greece. Such was Fox. He struggles not alone, we struggle with him, we stand by his side-our feelings rise and sink with his. Such, we do not scruple to add as worthy to be named with these great masters, is Mr. Clay. These speeches are an autobiography of his feelings; they reveal the heart of the orator, beating with honor and patriotism, and our own hearts beat with his.

We took up these speeches as a part of the literature of the day which fairly came under our notice. We determined to examine them thoroughly, and to judge of them impartially. We have stated the impression which they made upon

us.

We did not intend to discuss the various subjects of which they treat, upon some of which we should have disagreed with the opinions they maintain, but to speak of their excellences as speeches. We are aware that we have spoken in high terms of praise, but we must do this if we would speak truly our sentiments. We have not done it, however, as partisans, we have no political object in view, but as American citizens, we delight to speak well where we can of our orators and statesmen; and we can give no indulgence to the prejudice which is blind to the merits of such a man as Henry Clay.

It is from no desire to intermed. dle with the internal affairs of an other denomination of Christians, that we introduce to our readers the subject which we have placed at the head of this article. Nor is it from any wish to take advantage of the present troubles and growing dissensions of the Episcopal church to make converts to our better faith, or to make reprisals for the acces. sions which they have sought to gain from the disputes and divisions of other denominations. We have listened in calmer times with proper interest to their proclamations of their own unity, while other churches have been rent into factions, or threatened with schism. We have seen a few from other churches, charmed with this proclamation of unity, and professedly won by the hope of peace, leave the connections in which they were trained, and attach themselves to Episcopacy. But they have not been men whose departure the churches have had occasion to regard as a serious calamity, or whose recovery would be worth any very serious effort. We are content that they should minister in their new connection, we hope with greater success than was promised in their former relations, and with all the peace and comfort which it may be possible for them now to obtain.

We feel that we have a right to advert to this subject only so far as it pertains to the cause of our common Christianity. In their internal affairs; their questions of precedency and order; their family affections or alienations; their domestic difficulties, troubles or joys; their questions about the relative rights and powers of bishops, priests, deacons, or laymen; we claim no right and have no disposition to interfere. Vol. II.

15

The limits of courtesy and propriety on such matters are settled. With the domestic concerns of a neigh bor-the family jars, loves, alienations, modes of living, style of dress or intercourse, we have no right to intermeddle. It is their own concern, and they have a right to manage it in their own way. We are not to be busy-bodies in other men's matters.' We are not to attempt to foment divisions; or to aggravate a family quarrel; or to utter the note of triumph over their dissensions-though it should be to meet and ward off reproaches on account of our own; nor are we to interfere with a view of encouraging a feebler party against a stronger in order to prolong the strife and rend the fam ily asunder, or to make needless proclamation of what we may hap pen to know of the family jar. We go even farther than this. We should not feel ourselves at liberty in such a domestic difficulty to lend our aid or to give our counsel to one of the parties that we regarded as indubitably right, and that held opinions in accordance with our own, in order to prolong the diffi culties there or to prevent a reconciliation in any way which they might regard as proper.

But there is a sense in which this becomes a matter of common interest, and in reference to which there is common ground. If the community is to be affected by this difference, we have a right to express our views. If there are common interests pertaining to the good order of society that are in danger of suffering, we have a right to lift up the voice in their defense. If principles are advanced by either party which may affect the welfare of the community, we are not at liberty to be silent. If the difficulty is the regu

lar and inevitable result of certain views which both parties publicly proclaim that they hold, we have a right to say so. And if one party is aiming at an impracticable thing; endeavoring, though in the most peaceful manner, and with the purest motives, to maintain principles and to accomplish objects which are in their nature wholly at variance with those on which the family has been uniformly administered, and to which that party also has solemn ly expressed its assent, we do not suppose that we are forbidden by any law of courtesy to express our convictions on these points, and to endeavor to derive from this inevitable want of harmony lessons that shall be of value to the common

cause.

Such we consider to be the present condition of the Episcopal church. A crisis has occurred in that communion such as it could have been foreseen by a moderate measure of sagacity must sooner or later occur, and which, however it may be for a time suppressed, we venture to foretell will in some form continue to break out, until the church' is thoroughly reformed and prelacy abandoned.

In the controversy now waging there, the great interests of our common Christianity are affected. There are momentous questions at Istake in which all who love the religion of the Savior are interested. There are points of much more importance than any which can be raised about the qualifications of Mr. Arthur Carey for the deaconate.' There are questions respecting the working of the system; its fitness to promote unity; the measures which are adopted to secure harmony; the effect of those measures in suppressing the truth, preventing free discussion, and fostering error, and above all the general effect of the system of Episcopacy on evangelical religion, which it is the duty of every man who conceives

it possible-as it may be-that he or his friends should be invited to become an Episcopalian, to examine, and which the present out. break furnishes an appropriate opportunity to examine. We have never had any sympathy for prela cy. We have never believed that it was the form of religion prescribed in the New Testament. We have always regarded it as a system adapted to cramp and crush the free spirit of the gospel. But we have had no doubt that there were many of the intelligent and the good among the followers of the Lord Jesus, who regarded it conscientiously as the system prescribed in the Bible; and we have supposed that there were minds so formed that they would be better edified in connection with that form of religion than under a different method of organization. We think the time now has come to examine the influence of that system on evangelical religion; and in order to make our inquiry definite, we propose to inquire into the present position of the evangelical, or as it is often called, the low church party in the Episcopal church. We shall inquire whether the objects at which they aim can be secured in that communion, or whether they do not necessarily meet with obstructions in the organization of the Episcopal church which will certainly prevent the accomplishment of those objects; whether there are not in their forms of worship things which will inevi tably cramp and crush the free spirit of religion; and whether the Episcopal church is not so organized as effectually to secure the ultimate ascendency of the objects aimed at by the high church party. In other words the question is, whether Tractarianism is not a fair development of the system, and whether those views, if the present organization of that church should be continued, are not destined to be ultimately triumphant.

It is well known that there have been, perhaps from the commencement of its existence in this country, two parties in the Episcopal church. These parties are generally known by the names of the high and the low church-or as the latter prefer, we believe, to be called, the evangelical party. These parties have grown up, not from the nature of prelacy, or by any tendency in the Episcopal church to foster the aims sought by the evangelical party, but from the contact of Episcopacy with the spirit of our age, and with the free developments of Christianity among the other denominations with whom Episcopalians come necessarily in contact. It is possible that the germs of these parties existed in the Episcopal church in its incipient state in this country, but that which has now grown up into the evangelical party, we suppose would have been suppressed by the overshadowing of the religion of forms if it had not been excited and kindled by the reflected influence on the Episcopal church of the views and objects of evangelical Christians in other denominations. It has been apparent that other denominations greatly surpassed the Episcopal communion in zeal for those things specially commended in the New Testament; that they sought a more spiritual religion than had been common in the Episcopal communion; that they aimed more to convert and save the souls of men; and that they sought in methods that had the undoubted sanction of the New Testament to spread the gospel around the globe. The question arose whether these objects could not be grafted on Episcopacy, and whether without producing schism, and with the maintenance of the highest respect for prelacy and for the forms of religion, it was not possible to introduce the evangelical spirit into the bosom of the Episcopal church, and to what was regarded as the nobleness, venera

bleness, and authority of her ancient forms, add the life and vigor and elastic energy which reigns with such power in other denominations. If so, it seems to have been supposed, there might be urged in favor of prelacy all that is now urged from the necessity of the apostolic succession;' all the authority of the Fathers; all its boasted power to preserve the unity of the church; and all the advantages derived from a staid and regular organizaton, united with all that commends evangelical religion to the hearts and consciences of men. It is not to be denied that there have been and are still in the bosom of the Episcopal church, men who strive sincerely and with a zeal not surpassed by those of other denominations, for the conversion of souls. They are men who would do honor to any cause, and whose life and labors would be a blessing to any communion. It is this party which have endeavored to engraft the spirit of evangelical religion on the forms of prelacy; and it is to their holy and devoted efforts that the result has already more than once occurred that the Episcopal church has been in danger of being rent in twain. It is not that they have aimed at such a disruption, but it has been that kind of danger which would exist in a colossal statue of marble that a fissure would be caused by applying intense heat to one portion and not to the other. It has required all the power of numbers, influ ence, and prelatical authority on the part of the high church party, united with all the veneration of the low church party for the church and her forms, to prevent such a rupture. Thus far this has been successful, and in every controversy of this kind the high church party have secured the victory, and the unity of the church has been preserved. We think the history thus far furnishes an omen of most portentous character in regard to the issue of