the population becomes dense, even if it lasts so long. Aristocracy is natural to man; proscription only increases the temptation to pluck the forbidden fruit. How can it be otherwise, when, putting the advantages of birth out of the question, men are equal in nothing; health, strength, opportunities, body or mind. Travellers give abundant proofs of the fondness of the Americans for such titular distinctions as their system permits. A class has begun to appear which votes politics vulgar, and abandons them with a certain contempt, which in time will make itself felt, to its shoemakers and tailors. Advances may be made gradually, social distinctions may be set off against political, thus the many may cease to value what the few affect to despise, and in some moment of national apathy aristocracy may rise like "a giant refreshed with wine." Aristocracy we suspect is less hated in America than in France; the Americans have not smarted under its lash like the French; their law of inheritance does not enforce the division of property; it leaves the parent the power of devising the whole as he pleases, and only provides for its equal distribution among all the children in the absence of a will.

No single individual since Luther has exercised so great and extensive a moral influence on mankind as Jefferson. His object, which he pursued through life with a relentless energy which gives him a dis

tinguished place among the worthies of history, was the establishment of a pure democracy in the United States. Eminently favoured by circumstances, he was completely successful in his design. His sagacity may be questioned, his political honesty cannot. The American Revolution introduced a new era: as the first in the order of time, it may be termed the parent of the revolutions of our revolutionary age; and America still stands, a living, and to a certain extent a successful precedent, an inexhaustible theme for the declamations of all the advocates of change. It is most desirable that so grand an experiment should be fairly tried, and it is to Jefferson, more than to any other man, that we are indebted for the trial. They who expect much from mankind, who maintain that their vices are the result of unfavourable circumstances, misgovernment, delusion or ignorance, may look for the day when the bright sun of human regeneration shall rise in the west; generous minds, whose candour has not been fettered by systems, will acknowledge that hitherto their dreams have not been realised, that increased civilisation and increased liberty have sometimes introduced new moral diseases, while they did not always destroy the old; and that though progressive improvement appear to be on the whole the law of our social existence, contemplating the

future, not only through the dark register of the past, but through our own more impressive experience, we are not justified in auguring any thing peculiarly brilliant from the selfish and base nature of man.

43

OF RELIGION.

Das Zeichen sieht er prächtig aufgerichtet,
Das aller Welt zu Trost und Hoffnung steht,
Zu dem viel tausend Geister sich verpflichtet,
Zu dem viel tausend Herzen warm gefleht,
Das die Gewalt des bittern Tods vernichtet,
Das in so mancher Siegesfahne weht:

Ein Labequell durchdringt die matten Glieder,
Er sieht das Kreuz und schlägt die Augen nieder.
Goethe's Geheimnisse.

As the present is comparatively a religious age, and as science seems more popular than literature, it is not surprising that there should be a redundance of works on natural theology. the link between religion and science. It is an interesting question, which each man will probably answer according to the peculiar character of his mind, whether natural theology has been of service to Christianity. Works on this subject are particularly addressed to atheists, did they ever convert one? Are they not based upon the vain fancy that the source of infidelity is the understanding, and not the heart? They do not profess to make men Christians, but to prepare the way for Christianity, often, it is to be feared, inducing

them to linger so long on the threshold, that they never enter the temple.

But the great objection to most books on Natural Theology is their want of candour; they are eminently one-sided. They tell us that there are in every thing marks of design, and design must have had a designer; and from these premises they seem tacitly to assume that the design is benevolent. Large classes of animals must from their physical organization subsist by devouring other animals ; can this be effected without inflicting pain, and is not pain an evil, and is not evil then designed? Paley speaks of the happiness of flies sporting in the sunshine; are the same flies less happy when settled on the raw of a galled horse? What would a heathen think, who, lulled for a time by the smooth periods of some of these declamations on supposititious benevolence into forgetfulness of his own experience, turned at length for the first time to the Bible, and there found that the majority of mankind would be miserable for ever? What harmony could he discover between the two systems, and would not so fearful a discovery most probably drive him into despair and total unbelief?

The argument from analogy that "it is not so clear a case that there is nothing in it," is a presumption, a strong presumption it may be, but no

* Butler.