Mr. Bruen was particularly qualified to exert a wide and powerful influence through the press. He printed one sermon while at Paris, and another, a thanksgiving sermon, reviewed in our volume for 1822, soon after his return to this country. His "Essay's descriptive and moral," published in Scotland in 1822, constitute a volume of a highly original character, which few can read without finding the mind and the heart made better. He was a frequent and highly valued contributer to our pages. Whatever came from him, whether under his name or anonymously, bore the striking impress of his peculiar mind, and was sure to be read with a general interest. Looking over our former volumes, we make out the following catalogue of articles from his pen. In the volume for 1822, Geneva, pp. 412, 419; San Paolo alle tre fontane, pp. 589, 592; and Men insensible to their spiritual danger, pp. 632, 634.* In the volume for 1823, the review of " Orme's Memoirs of Owen, pp. 480, 485,-594, 613. In the volume for 1824, the review of Irving's Orations, pp. 150, 167,—199, 218; and the sketch of the life of Zuingle, pp. 246, 259. In the volume for 1828, the review on Unitarian persecutions at Geneva, pp. 86, 98; Religious considerations on the appeal from Greece, pp. 235, 239; the review of Douglas on the Advancement of Society, pp. 301, 317; and a note in reply to the Christian Examiner, pp. 291, 292. In the volume for 1829, the review of Chancellor Kent's discourse, pp. 339, 341. At the time of his death he left unfinished an article, designed for this journal, in which the christian and missionary character of Bishop Heber was to have been compared with that of Henry Martyn.

Another particular in his usefulness, was the influence connected with his extensive foreign travels and correspondence. In this respect his place will not easily be made good. We have indeed not a few traveled ministers; but generally their travels are more profitable to themselves as invalids, than to the churches either here or abroad. A man who, after a few years' service in a parish, finds himself growing dyspeptic either by hard study, or by indolence and high living, or in any other way, and goes abroad for six months or a year to recruit ;-who just wets his umbrella in the humid atmosphere of England, spends an hour with John Foster, and fifteen minutes with Dr. Chalmers, hears Edward Irving in the Caledonian Church, and Rowland Hill in Surrey Chapel, and attends some of the London anniversaries; then posts over the continent, with perhaps not a word of any language at command save his own mother tongue, but with a zealous determination to make the most of his time, and to see for himself all that is to be seen;-may

These three articles were republished in the Volume of his Essays.

come home in very good health, and may publish his journal of stage coach occurrences, and his memoranda of visits and private conversations, and his anecdotes of distinguished individuals; but how little has he learned about Europe, which he might not have learned in less time without traveling out of his own parish. We have only to read the book of any post-haste traveler through our own country, to find out how unprofitable such traveling must necessarily be. Perhaps he has done something towards promoting a mutual good understanding for common christian feeling between the two continents of christendom. Perhaps he has done something to make the evangelical christians of Great Britain, France, and Switzerland, better acquainted with us, and us with them. But after all, how trifling is the effect produced by ever so many such travelers.

Mr. Bruen's acquaintance with Europe was of another sort. He went abroad simply to learn. Having finished his academical and theological courses of study, he visited England and Scotland, in the summer of 1816, as the pupil, friend, and companion, of one of the most eminent preachers of the age, one who was himself no stranger on those shores, who had studied there, and whose genius had awakened there perhaps even more admiration than in his native country. After a short summer tour in Great Britain, he went with his distinguished friend to Paris; and their winter seems to have been divided between Paris and Geneva. In the spring they returned to England, and after the period of the anniversaries at London, Mr. Bruen left his companion, and traveled slowly to the borders of Scotland, where, in the hospitable dwelling which he ever afterwards designated as his Scottish home, he waited six weeks for Dr. Mason to overtake him. Then having parted with his preceptor, who was about to embark for home, he returned to London and to Paris, and spent another winter in traveling on the continent, especially in Switzerland and Italy. We find him again in London about midsummer, and traveling over different parts of England till November, when having been invited to take the temporary oversight of a little American church then just formed at Paris, and having been ordained at London with reference to that work, he went over and there spent his third European winter in public evangelical labors. In the following spring, 1817, he came home, after an absence of three years. He visited England once more in 1821, and spent three months almost continuously at his favorite retreat in Scotland. For year after year he maintained with his friends abroad a most voluminous and confidential correspondence. Thus he kept himself acquainted with every thing in England and Scotland that could be of any religious interest; and knowing exactly what sort of information respecting this coun

try was most needed and most desired by christians abroad, he was able to keep his friends advised of every event and movement here that could interest or profit them. If we had more men who had become thus naturalized in both continents, what an electric chain would they constitute between the old world of christendom and the new, communicating and re-communicating as with an instantaneous connection, every generous sympathy, every noble impulse, every influence coming down from above.

It is somewhat unusual for a man of Mr. Bruen's education and literary habits, to be at the same time efficient in the despatch of business. Yet this was true of him. Indeed his other qualifications for usefulness, various and valuable as they were, would have been of comparatively little worth to the world, had he not been an active working man. It was his labors, first as secretary of the United Domestic Missionary Society, and afterwards as one of the executive committee of the Home Missionary Society, and as connected with the management of many other important public institutions, which first and most fully brought out to the knowledge of the public, and indeed to his own consciousness, the true value of his various and singular qualities. What is called a talent for business, is frequently undervalued because misunderstood. With him it was not, what it is sometimes thought to be, a mere acquaintance with the forms and necessary technicalities of ecclesiastical and public proceedings, but something of a far higher character; something which, as he became better known, made his co-operation the more earnestly sought for by the friends of every important benevolent undertaking. He took wide and christian views, and considered every effort in its bearings on the conversion of the world; and thus his mind was habitually elevated above the influence of party jealousy or sectarian zeal. He made it a law of action, to be prompt for every good work; and he always applied himself earnestly to whatever he undertook. Where deliberation was necessary, he took time to deliberate; but having surveyed the question, he was soon ready to pronounce a bold and decided judgment. He never yielded to the temptations of an indolent temper; but redeemed the time, as if foreknowing his early death. Nor did he indulge, as too many men of advantages like his are wont to do, that speculative disposition, that sort of literary luxuriousness, which is so unprofitable to all the world; he conscientiously regarded the cui bono of every employment. Thus he effectually cultivated the most strictly practical habits of thinking and acting; and thus his accomplished faculties, and all his varied attainments, were brought to bear on the great cause of the world's salvation. Instead of dreaming away his life-as many an accomplished man has done, under the idea that his faculties are VOL. III. 62

too refined, and his sensibilities too exquisite for the rough everyday business of this world, he set himself to work at just what offered itself to be done; he did with his might what his hand found to do; and now the wave of his influence is still going forward, and still contributing its impulse to bear the church on towards her millennial glory.

As "his character is now the property of the churches," so be "his memory a grateful Mentor of duty and of truth."*

ART. IX.-REVIEW OF LETTERS ON PRACTICAL SUBJECTS.

Letters on Practical Subjects, to a Daughter. By WILLIAM B. SPRAGUE, D. D. One Vol. 12mo. New York.

On taking up this small and unpretending volume, our first thought was the natural enquiry, whether such a book can be wanted in this age? For many years there has been a flood of works on education, and on all moral subjects. Much has been written very sensibly, and much very absurdly on the formation of female character. But we were surprised to find, on reflection, that we could not name a single book, which could be placed in the hands of a young woman, as a general Vade Mecum for education, manners, and the social, moral, and religious conduct of life. There was wanted a practical monitor, containing not merely lessons of wisdom for all classes, but rather the appropriate advice to guide the young and timid female adventurer into life, to furnish useful counsel on the most important topics as they occur, and to aid in forming female character in its highest attainable excellence. Such a monitor should furnish lessons of conduct for the school-for friendship-books-manners-society-christian character and conduct-settlement for life-and preparation for death. This desideratum we think has been well supplied in the work before us; which was first intended for a daughter whom the father expected to leave an orphan. To whatever extent they could be useful to his child, they can be useful to others; and those lessons of parental wisdom and affection which are adapted to perfect the character and guide the life of a single girl, are fitted for all female youth, and therefore for half the human family.

And yet the labors which are to form the character of future generations, attract but little attention among the events which are called great. But the time may come, when, if all events could be traced to their causes, and to each cause should be assigned its just

* Sermon at Mr. Bruen's funeral, by Dr. Cox.

proportion of influence, it would appear that Raikes and the early Sunday school teachers, did as much to change the face of the earth as Alexander-that the establishment of common schools has produced as great changes as the feudal system. Without seeking to magnify the importance of our present subject, we may be allowed to say, that all those taken collectively, who at different times, but especially within the last thirty or forty years, have labored to put female character in the right train of improvement, will in the end appear to have co-operated in producing a great and happy change in the moral condition of mankind, and therefore a great change in the uses and value of the planet on which we live.

It is wonderful indeed to observe how an embryo event, small, obscure, and unobserved, at first, is gradually unfolded and matured, until at length we find that the most momentous transactions of our world have grown up from it. Thus in an early age there lived on the banks of the Tigris a prosperous shepherd, who went forth to seek "a country" far off and very good; though neither so far nor so good, in a temporal sense, as when an inhabitant of Maine seeks a milder climate and happier plains in Michigan or Arkansaw. But taking its source from the peculiar temperament of the migrating patriarch, the institution which is to restore the ruins of the fall, has been ever since in progress. It began and was nursed as an exceedingly small particle of moral life;-it expanded and became more beautiful in the progress of ages, and at the distance of four thousand years, we find that it is planting moral verdure on the islands of the Pacific. It is about to restore intellectual culture to the desert plains and stagnant pools, where Babylon and Nineveh stood. The spiritual seed of the son of Nahor are soon, we trust, to feed their flocks on the same plains where their father first wandered.

It is thus with the whole moral, intellectual, and physical creation;—all is progressive, and progressive from beginnings either small, or which if not small, are shapeless and inanimate" without form or void." When God spake there came up vegetation upon the barren mass; and it is equally His word and His only, that brings forth moral culture and fruits of righteousness upon the savage soil of the heart of man.

This last cultivation and improvement-the moral improvement of intelligent beings-is, so far as we can discover, the final end and object of this part of the creation. For what could be the object of a world of unbounded productiveness and beauty, if there were no intelligent mind to enjoy it? The solid earth therefore, and the elements teeming with life and the sustenance of life, and the whole operations of the terrestrial creation, are, so far as we can perceive,