ating, is, the well known fact that this mighty destroyer—this "abomination of desolation," has for a long period, been making havoc in our christian communities-casting down many who once seemed to be pillars in Zion-pouring disgrace upon the christian name and cause, and threatening to lay waste this fair heritage of our fathers and our God. The records of our churches for the last twenty years, were they consulted, would as we verily believe, show that more than half of all the cases of discipline which have occurred, during that period, have originated in the abuse of strong drink, So far as facts are before us, they would warrant a much stronger statement than this. And yet many christians appear altogether unconcerned about the disgrace which is brought, by this means, on the cause of Christ. Professors of religion are still found furnishing the materials from which this "poison of dragons," is extracted; professors of religion are engaged in its manufacture; professors of religion sell it, and still greater numbers drink it. And when the church attempts to purge this foul stain upon her cause, and to come up to the work of reformation, she finds she is without strength. The plague of her iniquity has struck deep its poisonous influence, and withered her vital energies. Could the church ever have reached such a point of depression in respect to christian morals, if she had not prepared the way by first suffering a lamentable decline in the life and power of godliness?

Such, according to our views, are some of the obvious deficiencies of the church,-some of the unequivocal indications, that notwithstanding the increased efficiency which characterizes her movements, the pulse of her piety is still low. Even her present benevolent efforts, auspicious as they must be acknowledged to be, are yet so irregular, as to resemble more the action of feverish excitement than that of vigorous life. We have made these painful statements, because we have thought that as deeply interested christian spectators they were demanded of us: but it will be observed, that we have not said, neither do we believe, that vital piety is at present on the descending scale. We do not think it even stationary. It is gradually rising. But the church is in danger of having her eyes too much directed to the brighter features. of her spiritual state, and losing sight of those darker shades, the faithful delineation of which, may serve to check pride, promote self-denial, and lead to increased holiness.

It was our intention to have offered a few suggestions in regard to the best means of raising the standard of piety in the church, a branch of our subject certainly of the highest interest; but any attempt of this sort would carry us far beyond our assigned limits. We hope, however, soon to see it taken up, and discussed in a manner befitting its transcendent importance. In the mean time,

we may be permitted to say, that among the means of increasing the piety and holy zeal of the professed disciples of Christ, we regard the following as not the least prominent. First, greater faithfulness in instructing young converts. Second, greater cau tion in the admission of members to the communion. Third, a more thorough system for imparting to the church scriptural knowledge, especially in regard to the leading doctrines and duties of religion. Fourth, increased fidelity in mutual watchfulness and admonition, and in the exercise of church discipline. Fifth, augmented holiness and zeal in the ministers of Christ-(a consummation infinitely desirable)-and last, but not least, the invention of new means or a more efficient use of those already employed, by which all the visible disciples of Jesus may be brought into actual service, and made steadily to labor for him. We believe that whatever advance in piety has been made by the church, within the last twenty years, is, in no slight degree, attributable to the increased facilities and demands for christian activity. God grant that these facilities may be yet further multiplied, and these demands become more and more urgent, until to enlist under the banner of Christ, shall be felt to be an enlistment, not for bounty, but for service-not for the ease and luxuries of the camp, but for the conflicts and honors of the field. Then shall the church appear in her native beauty-fairest of the daughters of heaven, the joy of the whole earth. Then shall she ascend and take her stand upon that high vantage ground, which her Redeemer has marked out for her. Then her moral influence will under God become a life-giving, all-pervading and mighty influence, breaking over the narrow limits within which it has hitherto been confined, and speedily filling this guilty world with the blessings of the divine salvation. For this happy, this glorious issue, let God be sought unto continually; for this, let the church universal daily bow the knee in fervent supplication, and each of her members say, "For Zion's sake I will not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem's sake will I not rest, until the righteousness thereof go forth as brightness, and the salvation thereof as a lamp that burneth."

ART. IV.-REVIEW OF THOUGHTS ON THE ORIGINAL UNITY OF THE HUMAN RACE.

Thoughts on the Original Unity of the Human Race. By CHARLES CALDWELL, M. D. New-York, 1830.

To a believer in revelation, the inquiry whether all mankind are of one species would seem to be superfluous, if not irreverent. The statement of the apostle, that God "hath made

of one blood all nations of men," is sufficient to silence every doubt on this subject, even without the additional evidence furnished by the history of the creation, that we are all descended from a single pair. When this fact, therefore, is called in question by men of science, the tendency of their speculations is to create an utter disbelief in the sacred scriptures, whose declarations are controverted on so plain a point.

In the work before us, Dr. Caldwell, a lecturer in the Medical Institution at Lexington Ky., has openly taken this ground. He professes, indeed, to have a high respect for religion, and disclaims, in the strongest terms, any intention to bring discredit on its doctrines or duties. And yet he coolly sets aside the most explicit and repeated declarations of the word of God, under the shallow pretense that the bible was not designed to instruct us in natural science! But surely we need not say to a man of ordinary capacity, that the statements in question are not given as the results of science, but as plain historical facts. The object of science is to classify phenomena, and deduce general principles from individual occurrences. Nothing of this kind, certainly do we meet with in the scriptures. They consist of history and poetry, of doctrines and precepts. In the case before us, the only question is, whether the history which they contain is true or false. To evade this question, by saying that the bible was not intended to guide us in natural science, is quite as absurd as to set aside the histories of modern Europe, on the question whether the reigning monarchs of the continent are most of them descendants of a single family, because those histories were not designed to teach us physiology or obstetrics.

These remarks may serve to show, how utterly Dr. Caldwell is in the wrong, when he charges his opponents with reasoning on this subject under the influence of theory. It is not theory but a recorded FACT, that all men are descended from a single pair. There is no room here, as in the geological question, to inquire whether we perfectly understand the record. The evening and morning referred to by Moses, may have constituted a longer period than our present day of twenty four hours, for they are spoken of as existing before the creation of the sun. But we must abandon the whole record, if we hesitate to admit, that, in one of these periods called "days," a single pair was created, that their children peopled the earth, that all mankind with the exception of a single family were destroyed by a deluge, and that from this family "were the nations divided in the earth." Whole pages are filled with the genealogy of the descendants of Noah, and with an account of their apportionment to the different quarters of the globe. If we refuse, then, to admit these statements as the basis of all our VOL. III.

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reasonings respecting the unity of our species, we must reject the whole record, and abandon the ground of revealed religion.

Now it would have been manly dealing in Dr. Caldwell, to have done this openly and at once. But he was aware, that, in that case, he would have difficulties to encounter of no ordinary magnitude. Nothing is more unphilosophical than to reject generally admitted testimony in support of a given fact, without showing that the men who offer it are either deceivers or deceived. But the writers of the scriptures claimed to speak by inspiration from on high; and Dr. Caldwell knows, that such men as Bacon and Newton and Boyle and Locke have acknowledged the validity of these claims, and reposed their eternal hopes on these records as being truly the word of God. It was incumbent upon him, therefore, to prove them false to explain away the long series of miracles by which they are supported-to account for the exact fulfilment of prophecies contained in books extant hundreds of years before the events took place, to which they referred-to show us what motive could induce the apostles to deceive mankind, when they acted against all their preconceived opinions, sacrificed every thing dear to them on earth, and (on the principles of their religion as Jews,) were bringing down eternal vengeance on their own heads, by deliberate falschood-to account for the extraordinary rapidity with which their self-denying doctrines, spread over the whole Roman empire, in the face of the bitterest persecution—and to explain the fact, that a system of falsehood and imposture should be productive of all the improvement in human society, the enlargement of intellect, the purity of feeling, and the warm charities of social and domestic life, which confessedly distinguish christian communities from all others on the globe. We say, as a fair reasoner he was bound to meet the question here; and not to join with Robert Owen and Frances Wright, in a senseless outcry about bigotry and superstition. If it was difficult for him to conceive how all men can be of one species, he ought candidly to have considered the difficulties on the other side, in rejecting the testimony on which this fact rests. To shape our reasonings to the facts, and not the facts to our reasonings, is the first principle of all true philosophy.

But we are perfectly willing to meet Dr. Caldwell on his own ground. There is as much proof from natural history of the unity of our species, as the nature of so intricate a subject admits. The whole current of the testimony on this subject, as far as it goes, confirms the Mosaic account; and adds another instance to the long catalogue which already exists, of the coincidence of the scripture writings with facts in nature.

It is not the design of this article to give the subject before us that full consideration which its importance in natural history, reli

gion, and morals demands; but merely to sketch to the reader a brief outline of the present state of the question, with a view rather to stimulate and direct inquiry, than to give a fair and complete exposition of the whole case.

The actual diversities of the human race have been much magnified by the fertile imaginations of credulous navigators and travelers. Sir Walter Raleigh tells us, in his history of Guiana," of "men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders," and whose single and only eye is found in the middle of the breast. The Patagonians were described by those who first visited them, as huge giants, sustaining the relation to other men that the mastodon does to the lower animals. The wonderful stories of wild men and wild women found in the woods of France and Germany, which have been introduced by Linnæus, as the connecting link between the human race and the monkey-tribe, have turned out to be mostly ingenious fictions, designed to impose on the lovers of the wonderful and extravagant. These tales of romance have now passed away. The more correct philosophy of the moderns has substituted observation and facts for idle trash and empty fable.

The human family is generally divided into five varieties or classes. I. The Caucasian or European; characterized by a fair, white or brownish white skin, soft, black or brown hair, with the higher and anterior region particularly developed, straight, oval face, distinct features, perpendicular teeth, full and rounded chin. In this variety, the intellectual and moral faculty is most strikingly displayed. It includes all the Europeans, except the Laplanders, and the Finnish race, the western inhabitants of Asia and the northern Africans.

II. The Mongolian or Asiatic; known by an olive color, black, straight hair, square head, low forehead, broad, flat face, and confused features. This variety comprehends the natives of Lapland and Finland, the population in the northern and central parts of Asia, and the Esquimaux in America.

III. The Ethiopian or African; distinguished by black skin, black woolly hair, low, narrow forehead, prominent cheek bones, projecting jaws, oblique, front upper teeth, broad, flat nose, thick lips. All the natives of Africa, not included in the first variety, belong here; together with the negro race inhabiting New Holland, Van Dieman's Land, New Guinea, etc. This variety exhibits human nature in the lowest state of degradation and misery. IV. The American; characterized by a dark reddish or cinnamon colored skin, black, straight hair, thin beard. The features and the shape of the skull bear a close resemblance to the Mongolian. This variety comprehends the aboriginal Americans, with the exexception of the Esquimaux.