1 ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1845, BY JOHN HOLMES AGNEW, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New-York. J. F. TROW & Co. Printers, 33 Ann-street. THE BIBLICAL REPOSITORY AND CLASSICAL REVIEW. THIRD SERIES, NO. I.—WHOLE NUMBER LVII. JANUARY, 1845. 500 (RECAP) 183 3ser, V.I 58987 CONTENTS OF NO 1. VOL. I. THIRD SERIES. By Rev. SAMUEL H. Cox, D. D., Brooklyn, N. Y. By Rev. T. M. HOPKINS, Pastor of the Presb. Church, Westfield, N. Y. 7. Buck's Sublime and Beautiful. Alison's Essays on Taste. 8. The Works of the Rev. William Jay. 9. Notes, Critical, Illustrative, and Practical, on Job. 12. Mary Lundie Duncan. Hervey's Meditations. Luther and 13. The Works of Charlotte Elizabeth. 14. The Deserter. By Charlotte Elizabeth. 16. The Book of the Indians of North America. 17. The Poor Man's Morning Portion. THE BIBLICAL REPOSITORY AND CLASSICAL REVIEW. THIRD SERIES, NO. I.—WHOLE NUMBER LVII. JANUARY, 1845. ARTICLE I. THREE PROGRESSIVE EXPERIMENTS IN HUMAN GOVERNMENT. By JOSEPH F. TUTTLE, Marietta College, Ohio. OURS is a world of experiment. Oft repeated experiment, and as oft repeated failure, are necessary to secure even an approximation to perfection. Art has its infancy, its uncultivated youth, and then the ripe beauties of manhood. Science at first shoots out rays dimmer than starlight, then come the long and joyous beams of light, flashing from beneath the horizon, then the sun itself emerges, and careers upward to the full blaze of noonday. Literature at first stammers with harsh utterance, experiment converts this into the mellow tones of luxuriant but undisciplined manhood, and finally chastens this unpruned luxuriance into the angelic strains which flow. from the lips of a Shakspeare and a Milton. The Creator has not enthroned his creatures on the pinnacle of perfection. Effort must be expended, mind developed, genius waked up, energies fired, to realize the ideal perfection which burns so brightly in the human soul. Wheresoever the creature may rank, or whatever his original THIRD SERIES, VOL. I. NO. I. 1 power, he will behold reared above him mountains which his spirit will strive to scale, and when these have been attained, still other and mightier mountains will greet his eye, and arouse the godlike energies of his soul. Progress is a law of the rational universe. It was never intended that the soul, the offspring and image of Deity, should remain the passive recipient of blessings conferred by Omnipotence. That were an unworthy destiny. Thought, ceaseless and pleasurable, was destined to range over an infinite field, forever winging a bolder flight, and exploring the beautiful and grand so munificently scattered throughout infinity. In a word, it was the design of God that mind should revel in the delicious joys of activity, of progress, of eagerly reaching forward to its ideal perfection, and yet forever realize that such an idea of perfection is only consummated in God. With these thoughts in mind, it will not seem strange that men were left to experiment on the different modes of national government. For ages this world has been one vast workshop, and the genius of man the indefatigable statuary. At one time he has chiselled, from the rough marble of society, a form beautiful as ever greeted the eye of an artist, and his heart has throbbed wildly, as he fancied his hope fulfilled. But this form was as the lifelike statue of Pygmalion. As the artist gazed on the delicate image, he became enamoured with its bewitching loveliness, but with all its delicate beauty and bewitching loveliness, it was cold marble. No ethereal fire warmed it into immortality, and it soon perished. Again the statuary toils for the desired end. At length his breath is almost suspended with joy, as he beholds another form moulded into full proportion, not so symmetrical as the former, yet not destitute of symmetry. Its magnificent bust, its brawny limbs, its iron sinews, gave token of extraordinary power. It moved and breathed, but its lustreless eye gave no evidence of immortal fire kindled at the seat of life. Its countenance was stern, and its hand swayed an inexorable sceptre. As the elated artist gazed upon this child of his genius, he thought that beauty, power, life, were here combined in per |