dual faith, is consequently in their eyes risking everything for the sake of only a possible result, endangering the eternal salvation of souls, by allowing in the child a freedom of conviction, which in the end, perhaps, may attach itself to some fatal heresy, instead of to the only saving Creed. Intending to exalt their essential doctrines by this protection and favouritism, they disparage and insult them, manifesting a distrust of the only qualities that can ennoble principles, their power to subsist without protection, to combat all error in a fair field of controversy, and to hold their place, by their own claims, on the love and reverence of all honest and good minds.

And yet, we must confess, that such being the dogmatical nature of the Nation's idea of Christianity and of Salvation, we cannot wonder at the faithfulness with which they pursue it to its practical consequences; nor however much we revolt from their first principles, must we deny that in acting upon them as they have done, even in their late war with knowledge, they are only manifesting that stern consistency, with which a narrow principle when once adopted is generally worked out. Grant them their first position, and recollect that the Unitarians are the only representatives of Christianity who deny the position, that the CREED, however introduced into the mind, is the only saving instrument, and we shall regard as only a consequence, the violent usurpation, by which the Nation's Religion demands that the Nation's children should be delivered up to it, that the only instrument of their salvation may as soon as possible be rivetted upon their minds.

There are other motives at work of a more worldly and selfish kind, but these it would be less profitable and more painful to expose. Dogmatism is, however, the root of the evil, engendering all the corruptions that may belong to the administration and outward interests of Religion, the original stock on which these practical ills can prosperously be engrafted.

For ourselves, we must look upon it as our noblest distinction that our idea of Christianity is one which comes into collision with none of the higher interests of society, and can by no possibility become an element of hostile interference with the benign agencies of Instruction. Ours is the only form of Christianity that is not at this hour, more or less directly opposing the best hopes of the country, the Education of the People. It is not to our peculiar theological opinions, which may be right or may be wrong, that we owe this distinction, but to our fundamental views of the essential spirit of Religion,— not to the correctness of our dogmatical Creed, but to our freedom from the spirit of all dogmatism. We place Religion in

the earnest faith of the pure heart, drawn to God by the love of goodness, and, in the strength of that love, making preparation upon earth, in dimness and much weakness, to be admitted hereafter to behold heavenly goodness face to face. We place religion in the sentiments of the soul-in the spirit of reverence, -in our sense of spiritual accountability to the Holy Spirit of God, in that sympathy with our Heavenly Father's love, which breathes into our lives, and all our intercourse with our fellowbeings, the temper of mercy, holiness, and charity we have derived from Him. With whatever doctrinal ideas these heavenly sentiments may combine, we recognize in them the soul of religion, the spirit of Christ, the affections of men moving in harmony with the holy and loving mind of God. This is to us the sole test of truth in Religion,—and whether our Unitarianism is right or wrong, we are sure that our Catholic Spirit which makes no account of our dogmatical Creed in presence of the blessed spirit of love for God and man, and of thirst for higher goodness and higher knowledge, is of the very essence of Christ's religion, and the teeming fountain of all the blessings, which the prevalence of another spirit, honest we doubt not, but technical and dogmatical, will not permit it to bring forth.

We must regard it as our high mission, in this age of the world, not to preach Unitarianism only, but in a yet higher spirit, to preach that religion of love, that devotion of the soul to undying goodness, that Christianity of the affections baptized into a fervent desire after perfection, which may be found united with all varieties of creeds, and which makes every creed that ministers to such a condition of the heart, an instrument of Christ, and a power of God unto Salvation. Ours is the noble position in the religious world, from which is to spread abroad this Catholic and healing spirit. Let us not unfit ourselves for the functions of this our place by any infusion of the sectarian element into our own temper: by attaching any overweening importance to our mere opinions. We must be Apostles of that larger and more Christ-like spirit which seeks only to breathe the love of God and Goodness over men's hearts, and to make that heavenly affection their strong and everlasting bond of union. It is clear that more of religious enlightenment must precede and prepare the way for the perfecting of our civil institutions, that more generous ideas of the spirit and essence of Religion must "take out of the way" the strange difficulties that make the Nation's Christianity the resolute Enemy of the Nation's Education. Ours is the position from which this Catholic Christianity must proceed-for we alone profess the principle—and ours the scattered few who must unite in this gentle and good work,—the ex

hibition of an unsectarian Church. Ours it must be to manifest a Christian Zeal, without a party spirit-to find union and inspiration in our simple love for Christ's goodness and Christ's God. A higher mission cannot be conceived: to gather anew beneath one standard the divided bands of Christ's followersto turn them from warring against one another to war, together, against Ignorance and Sin, the common Enemies, and to quell the petty jealousies and rivalries of contending sects by a wider recognition of the true principles of Christian Union, and by a more copious descent upon us all of the healing spirit of the common Christ.

J. H. T.

ART. II.—REMARKS ON SOME OF THE PECULIARITIES WHICH DISTINGUISH THE ELOHIM AND JEHOVAH DOCUMENTS IN GENESIS FROM EACH OTHER.

It is too obvious a fact to be denied that the book of Genesis is composed of different memoirs, and these have therefore received in accordance with their most characteristic mark of difference, respectively the names of the Elohim and the Jehovah document. But it is not alone in mere verbal distinctions that the difference rests, there are most important variations in the mode in which each relates the same facts, there is a different view of antiquity presented by each, and therefore it is desirable that we should attend to their differences, in order that we may be better able to attach a proportionate value to each.

Commencing our examination with the Elohim or Original Document, we find that it contains a regularly-planned and selfconsistent history. Its object is to show how, from the very beginning of the creation, God watched over his chosen people, and was induced by the moral excellence of their great ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, more especially to reveal himself, and to promise to them the eternal possession of the Land of Canaan. The history of these patriarchs is properly the object of this book, because it shows how that peculiar relation was established, between being their lineal descendants and the rightful heirs of Canaan, which could not be abrogated although it had apparently been lost by four hundred years' residence in Egypt. But it was not possible to commence from this point because the question immediately suggests itself, Who was Abraham? and if we reply, The tenth lineal descendant of the wonderfully-saved and righteous Noah-again returns the query, Who was Noah? and the history can then first attain a commencement when we behold him as the tenth lineal descendant of the first created man, who is represented as the crowning glory of the creation; and hence Abraham appears not as selected by chance, but as the principal man in the human race chosen by God to be the peculiar ancestor of his people, and hence the Hebrew people are the grand result of the world's history, from which we perceive the peculiar appropriateness of representing God as hallowing their sabbath at the very creation of the universe.

To those who boasted their unbroken descent from eldest son to eldest son, from the creation until their first great ancestor,

(for in this document no mention is made of Cain or Abel,) it must have appeared at first an unfortunate circumstance, that they were now obliged for two generations, to continue it in the younger branch; but even this was found to be a glorious distinction, for owing to the long delay of Isaac's birth, the circumstances which attended it were miraculous, and also he was able to receive the rite of circumcision on the eighth day; but other circumstances concurred to give him a prior claim, his mother was his father's half-sister, and consequently no foreign blood flowed in his veins; and again he married into his father's family in Mesopotamia: while Ismael, by his descent from an Egyptian, and subsequent marriage with one, became unworthy of any participation in the promises.

Originally a greater difficulty existed in putting aside the claims of Esau to the birthright; but he himself sold it, and having thus first despised it, he proceeded to make himself entirely unworthy, by two intermarriages with the hated race of the Canaanites; this was a heavy grief to his parents, and induced them to send Jacob to his own relations in Mesopotamia, where he married, and at last returned with his family to Canaan; and though he was eventually induced by famine to settle in Egypt, yet he was buried by his forefather in Canaan; and his son Joseph exacted a promise from his brethren, that when God should lead them to return to Canaan, as he certainly would do, they should take his bones with them, and deposit them there. We see how the historian ever hastens on to demonstrate the problem before him, that the Hebrews were the appointed heirs of Canaan, and consequently his work forms the fittest introduction possible to the other books of the Pentateuch, of which it has ever formed a part.

This document extends chapters i.-ii. 3; v.; vi. 9-22; vii. 11-viii. 19; ix. 1-17, 28, 29; xi. 10-32; xvii.; xix. 29; xx. 1-17; xxi. 2—32; xxii. 1—13, 19—24; xxv. 1—20, 24-34; xxvi. 34, 35; xxvii. 46; xxviii. 1-10; xxix.; xxx. 1, 13, 17-23; xxxi. 4-48, 50, 55; xxxii. 1-8, 13-32; xxxiii.—xxxviii. ; xxxix. 7—20; xl.-1.; with the exception that occasionally half a verse is interpolated from the Jehovah document, either as connecting the two accounts, or adding some unimportant circumstance. We will now consider some of those ideas which are peculiar to this author; and here we find strikingly dwelt upon, that man is made in the image of God. This indeed he assigns as the reason why murder should be punished by the death of the murderer. The enmity between man and animals has not always existed, and it is not until after the flood that animal food is allowed to man, and even then, under