fills large spaces with minute details, and there it leaves wide blanks in the narrative. It follows the clew from land to land; to Egypt, to Canaan, to Babylon, and back to Palestine; from century to century also, through the run of four thousand years. It admits what is pertinent to its grand design, though in itself otherwise uninstructive as the genealogies; it excludes rigorously what is not relevant to that end, though otherwise most captivating as the early life of Jesus.

Here there are found two laws in force; both laws of the kingdom; the first showing how its subjects are obtained, by the method, namely, of personal election; and the second exhibiting the mode of its development, the mode, namely, of historical progress. These two laws working together on the sacred record, prescribe one of them the materials which are, in a large measure, biographical; and the other, the form into which these materials shall be cast, which is the historical. The result is a coherent consecutive narrative, wrought out of personal memoirs. It may be styled a biographico-history; the first term pointing to the primal law of personal election from eternity; the last pointing to the primal law of the evolution of the kingdom in time. By virtue of these controlling principles, the Pentateuch lifts up into the light twenty-five years of Abraham's life, and leaves in obscurity the seventy-five years which went before, and the seventy-five which followed after the historical period of his career. They admit to record the calling and training of the apostles, and exclude their birthdates, their early lives, and, excepting Peter, their apostolic labors, and, excepting James, the manner of their death. The first part of the Acts of the Apostles, relates minutely the planting of the Christian Church among the Jews by the labors of Peter, and then Peter himself is relegated into obscurity. One chapter describes the mission of Philip among the Samaritans, and then Philip disappears. Eighteen chapters are occupied with the planting of the Church among the Gentiles in the great cities of the empire, by the ministry of Paul, and so soon as he has gotten as far as Rome in his work, the history is finished, and the curtain falls upon the great Apostle. His conversion is related three times, but not a line is added respecting his death. The laws of the composition of the book are perpetually enforced, excluding this, admitting that.

Its very reserve is not less instructive than its utterances, or, to quote a fine remark of Boyle: "There is such fullness in that book, that oftentimes it says much by saying nothing; and not only its expressions, but its silences are teaching, like a dial in which the shadow, as well as the light, informs us." The final product of inspiration is a series of historical Scriptures, which combine the charm of personal incident with the majestic movement of history; a narrative full of graphic power, adorned with surpassing and surprising beauties, laden with unsearchable riches, and instinct with life and salvation.

In the work of redemption, an everlasting kingdom is established, an irresistible power is evolved, and a supreme glory floods the firmament. But the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, are all of God. Patriarch, prophet, apostle, martyr, all these are nothing. God, the uncreated, unchanging, unending one, is All and in All. Herodotus composed a history, so he himself declares, in order that the deeds done by man might not be forgotten, and that the great and wonderful exploits of the Greeks and the barbarians might not pass into oblivion. His plan was faithfully executed, and the product of his industry is an agreeable and gossiping narrative. But so humbling was the impression left on the mind of Daniel by the perusal of the historical Scriptures, that he exclaimed: "O Lord, to us belongeth confusion of face, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against thee. To the Lord our God belong mercies and forgiveness." Such is the radical and thorough difference between the sacred school of ancient history and the profane.

ART. II.-The Secession Conspiracy in Kentucky, and its Overthrow: with the Relations of both to the General Revolt.

A Memoir of Civil and Political Events, public and private, in Kentucky: To serve as a History of the Secession Conspiracy which had its Center in Kentucky: Commencing in 1859, and extending to the Overthrow of the Conspiracy, and the breaking out of the Civil War in that State in 1861.

PART SECOND.-Preparations, secret and public, of the Conspirators for the seizure and subjugation of Kentucky, after their final Political Overthrow, in August, 1861; up to the Conference of Loyal Citizens at Camp Dick Robinson, which provided for the sudden and unexpected Defeat of the Conspiracy.

I-1. President Buchanan-President Lincoln-Vice President Breckinridge: Extra Session of the Senate of the United States: Called Session of Congress. 2, Concerted Movement of the Conspirators in Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri: Governor Harris, of Tennessee-Governor Magoffin, of Kentucky: Traitorous Negotiations-Invasion of Kentucky.

1. On the 4th of March, 1861, the presidential term of Mr. Buchanan expired, and that of Mr. Lincoln commenced. History furnishes little, more worthy the contempt of every true and firm spirit, and the disgust and scorn of every sincere and loyal heart, than the conduct of President Buchanan, toward the close of his administration. No one ever reached the supreme executive power, among a free people, and by the due course of their political institutions, who had need of the highest principles, the noblest endowments, and the grandest character, in a higher degree than President Lincoln. His nomination was a surprise to all parties; his election was a great shock to the nation. It remains for him, if he is capable of doing so, to make for himself one of the greatest names in the annals of mankind. At the moment of this great periodical change of the National Government, Vice President Breckinridge ceased to be the presiding officer in the Senate, and became a member of the body. A little while before, he had been Vice President, Senator elect, and candidate for the Presidency, all at once: a state of case all the more remarkable, and indicating a course all the more illustrious, that he had then hardly attained the prime of life. The events of the

preceding half year had, no doubt, shaken his position, and clouded his future: but he still occupied an immense elevation, and was just entering upon a long term of one of the highest offices on earth. When he took his seat as a Senator from Kentucky, at the usual extra session of that body, immediately after the inauguration of the new President, a great career was once more open before him. The public well knew that he was in no way answerable for the conduct of President Buchanan, or for the policy of his administration. For Mr. Buchanan, with the mean jealousy of an ignoble nature, hated the superiority of the Vice President, and was ostentatious in slighting him; while, on his part, the Vice President, with a reserve and manliness that were natural to him, accepted and was even profited by a position so unusual. Moreover, the Vice President, up to the period of his own nomination for the Presidency, had been for some years the warm supporter of Mr. Douglas for that office. And the tenor of his conduct and declarations, both public and private, during the presidential canvass just passed, was more that of Western than Southern Democracy: and whether as a great statesman, or as an ambitious politician, or as a disinterested patriot, it appeared impossible that he should not see, that the fate of the nation was necessarily in the hands of the great central section, to which he belonged, and not in the hands either of the extreme northern or southern section of it. If any thing was needed to add conclusive force to such considerations, that would be found in the unquestionable former patriotism of the Vice President, and in the great and notorious fact, that he had it in his power, by a prompt and decided lead of his party in Kentucky in opposition to Secession, to have made that State well-nigh unanimous for the Union. It was a national calamity that he was not equal to his destiny: alas! how few are. His course during the short extra session of the Senate, was completely reserved. When that session was over, he returned to Kentucky in the spring of 1861, and found every thing there in a state of intense agitation-the decisive election of August, 1861, occupying all parties. Before that election came on, the President had called for 75,000 volunteers, after the bombardment of Fort Sumter, and had also called Congress together to make provision for the safety of the nation

and the preservation of the Union; and the disastrous battle of Bull Run had been fought. During that memorable session of Congress, Senator Breckinridge took such a course, as seemed to show that his previous reserve had not been produced by any uncertainty in his own mind, as to the part he intended to act: which is, to a certain extent, confirmed by the course he had previously marked out for his party in Kentucky, as has been explained in the First Part of this memoir. His opposition in the Senate became open, unqualified, constant, to every kind of action on the part of the nation, that looked to the armed preservation of its existence, or to the suppression by force of the immense military organization of traitors, avowedly seeking its conquest and destruction. The conquest of his own State by arms, was one of the points in this atrocious scheme, to the defense of which the Kentucky Senator lent himself, at Washington, in his vehement opposition to the Federal Administration; and in the support of which, on his return to that State in August, 1861, the conspirator became a refugee, and the refugee a general in the army of traitors, and the general an invader of the land to whose defense he owed every drop of his blood. His expulsion, as a traitor to the nation, from the Senate of the United States, a few months later, was the just and natural result. He had not even the poor excuse that he was loyal to Kentucky. He was traitor to her also: and that with a treason aggravated almost beyond historic example, and destitute of every pretext ever plead by traitor before.

2. On his way from this called session of Congress, Major Breckinridge spent about a week in Baltimore, early in August, 1861. The opportunity was thus afforded-or made-to concert more perfectly with the Secessionists of Maryland, their share of the plan for rousing the people and organizing the movement in the Border Slave States, not only in concert with each other, but in concert with the general plan to make the rebellion triumph. It is now well known that the whole conspiracy was conducted by the body of Southern Senators at Washington, and that State after State was hurried into Secession, according to the schedule furnished by them. The attempt to initiate this movement in Maryland with great eclat, by a seditious speech from Major Breckinridge himself, to a night