does this agree with their doctrine, who assert that God never exerts any direct influence in renewing the mind, but ever confines himself to the mere moral influence of the truth which he presents? Do they not make regeneration such a kind of change as infants are incapable of experiencing? They seem, therefore, to be necessarily driven into the belief, that infants are not depraved. For if they are depraved, they must need, in common with others, the washing of regeneration, to prepare them for heaven. But in their case there can be no way to effect a change of nature, except by a direct influence on the heart. And rather than acknowledge a direct influence, they reject the doctrine of infant depravity; leaving us at perfect uncertainty as to the time when our children shall stand in need of the benefit of our intercessions in their behalf, that they may be washed in the laver of regeneration.

Fifthly. The saints' perseverance, one of the pillars of the fabric of grace, is very much shaken by a denial of the Spirit's direct influence. I conclude there are none among those who believe that the Divine Spirit exerts an influence on the rebellious mind, in regeneration, adequate to the disarming it of its rebellion, who do not also believe that he will, in every instance, carry to perfection the work which he then begins. They believe that he begins this work with a full purpose to bring it to such a termination; and that what he purposes, he is infinitely able to perform. But the greater part of those who reject the doctrine of the Spirit's direct influence, reject also the doctrine of the certain perseverance of the saints. And their disbelief of the one is legitimately connected with their disbelief of the other. For if it appears to any to be inconsistent for God to put forth an influence to renew the mind, which shall, without fail, secure its renovation, it must also appear inconsistent that he should exert an influence on the renewed mind, which shall necessarily secure

its perseverance in holiness. But if God has power to quicken whom he will, he doubtless has power to preserve his saints from falling. "Unto him who is able to keep you from falling." Yea, "Unto him who is able to do exceeding

abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us."

Lastly. I am inclined to believe that the moral suasion system does not operate as favorably as the other, to promote a life of faith and humility. It is the office of faith to relinquish self-confidence, and to put its trust in God. Faith not only goes out of its own righteousness, to trust in that which was wrought out by the obedience and sufferings of Christ; it also renounces its own strength, and depends on the Spirit's influence to preserve in the heart that holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. An impressive sense of dependence in both these particulars, namely, for a Saviour's justifying righteousness, and the Spirit's sanctifying influence, are the grand means of promoting an humble walk with God. But a disbelief of the Spirit's direct and immediate influence upon the heart, tends to diminish a conviction of dependence on his agency to preserve spiritual life. What was it kept Paul so humble amid a series of splendid and successful labors in the cause of Christ? It was not merely a retrospect of the past. He had a deep conviction of remaining depravity, accompanied with a lively sense of his entire dependence on new incomes of the Spirit to sustain his renovated life. After saying "I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live," he hastens to add, "Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." At another time, when he had spoken of his laboring more abundantly than his fellow servants, he is careful to give all the glory to the grace of God: "Yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me." And again, "Whereunto I labor, striving according to his working which worketh in me mightily."

In the diary of President Edwards for January 2, 1723, he gives us the view which he then had of his entire dependence on the quickening influences of the Holy Spirit to preserve life in his soul. After acknowledging that his mind was dull, he says: "I find by experience that let me make resolutions and do what I will, with never so many inventions, it is all nothing, and to no purpose at all, without the motions.

of the Spirit of God: for if the Spirit of God should be as much withdrawn from me always as for the week past, notwithstanding all I do, I should not grow, but should languish and miserably fade away. There is no dependence on myself." Is it not one important use, which God designs to make of such a case of dereliction as that which is here stated, to teach us, by our own experience, that we need the continual operation of the Spirit of God to keep us in the way of his commandments? By such means he teaches us, that we never run in the way of his commandments except when he enlarges our hearts; and that when he holds us up, and then only, we are safe.

It is not easy to see how it can be, that they who believe in a self-determining power of the will, and who restrict the agency of God to a mere moral influence, such as one man exerts on the mind of another; and such as God exerts on mankind promiscuously; it is not easy to see, how they can have as much foundation for a life of humility and self-emptiness, and a life of entire dependence on God, as those who believe that without the Spirit's immediate agency, to begin and perfect their deliverance from sin, there would be no hope of their salvation.

She who is the fairest among women, the bride, the Lamb's wife, is described as coming up from the wilderness leaning upon her beloved. She walks, yet she leans. Her faith does not destroy her activity; nor does her activity weaken her faith. Divest her of either of these characteristics, and you despoil her of her beauty. Her activity would lose all its holy lustre, were it self-sufficient; and if her faith did not produce correspondent works, it would be as devoid of moral excellence as the faith of devils.

ARTICLE VII.

A CRITICAL REVIEW OF AMERICAN COMMON SCHOOL HIS

TORIES:

As embraced in a Report submitted to the "New Jersey Society of Teachers and Friends of Education," at a quarterly meeting held March 7, 1845.

By M. WILLSON, N. Y.

THE Report, from which the following article is abridged, was prepared for the New Jersey Education Society, by its request; and in accordance with a resolution of the Society, the same is now submitted to the public.

The importance of the subject announced will be manifest, when it is remembered that it is from our common school histories, those unassuming companions of the school-room, and not from those more elaborate writings which grace the libraries of the men of wealth and the professional scholar, that the great mass of our citizens must ever derive their knowledge of the character, toils, and privations of our fathers, and of the origin and nature of our free institutions.

It is the object of the following article, to give our prominent school histories such a review, as will enable all who feel an interest in the subject, to judge more understandingly of their comparative merits, and of their relative claims to the confidence and the patronage of the public. The task that we have undertaken is, of itself, a delicate one; and the more so, from the circumstance, that the reviewer exposes himself to become the reviewed. The spirit of searching criticism, however, has already gone abroad among teachers and friends of education; and who shall check its progress? It is the ordeal through which every important school book must hereafter pass to public favor. The able and critical discussions upon the merits of school-books, recently called forth in the Educational Society of New Jersey, are indications of the same spirit; and we begin to have some confidence, that the

popularity of a school-book will, at no distant day, depend upon its intrinsic merits; and not, as heretofore, upon the favor of popular names, the wealth and enterprise of publishers, and the chance condition of getting it into certain fortunate channels of trade.

The subject of school histories will be examined under four heads Arrangement, Anachronisms, Accuracy, and Literary Merits.

1. Arrangement. Two different plans of arrangement have been adopted by American historians, in treating of our early colonial history. One plan is that of particular or individual history; the other, that of common, or general history. The former, technically speaking, is history ethnographically arranged, or, according to nations and tribes: the latter is history chronographically arranged, in which events in different nations are brought together and given in the order of time in which they occurred. The first of these methods, as applied to our own country, pursues the history of each colony separately down to the period of the French and Indian War, in 1754, after which, the separate and individual history of each colony is abandoned, and all are united in one common history. This arrangement has been adopted by Hale and Olney; and by Frost, with respect to all the colonies except those of New England.

The other plan of arrangement carries along together the contemporary events which happened in different colonies, and thus, as far as possible, blends the whole in one common history. This latter plan has been adopted by Goodrich, Grimshaw, Mrs. Willard, and in the pictorial history of S. G. Goodrich, the author of Peter Parley's Tales.

It is obvious that the history of a colony may be learned much more readily where the events are narrated in one unbroken series, and in one chapter, than where the series is frequently interrupted and the events are found dispersed through a dozen chapters. Let any one search for the colonial history of Virginia in the volumes of Bancroft, and he will find a little here, and a little there; and unless he