is known to have been open and virulent. The General was a regular attendant on the publick worship of God; he showed the utmost respect to all the Christian institutions of his country; he recognised all the great principles of natural religion, repeatedly, publickly, and emphatically; he called the whole nation, by a publick proclamation, to solemn acts of devotion; he inculcated, in opposition to the false philosophy of the day, the impossibility of preserving pure morals without the aid of religion; he had once publickly and explicitly avowed his belief in divine revelation; he had constantly acted as infidels never act; and even in his answer to the clergy, he wrote as neither Mr. J., nor any of his unbelieving fraternity would have written. Perhaps he thought that this was going as far as the proprieties of his station, in the peculiar circumstances in which he was placed, required or permitted him to go. Nor are we unapprized that there are men, of whose belief of Christianity no doubt exists, who think that President Washington acted, in the matter here contemplated, exactly right; and that it must be attributed to our clerical views and feelings that we should wish him to have gone farther. Be it so-We do wish he had gone farther; we give it as our decided opinion, that every Christian man, whatever be his station or his circumstances, ought so frequently and explicitly to recognise his Christian faith and character, as not to leave to the enemies of his Saviour, any plausible opening for their false surmises and suggestions. But because we so think and speak, are we to be represented as saying, or insinuating, that every man, or any man, who thinks otherwise-and above all, that President Washington, because he differed from us in this opinion, must be set down as an unbeliever in divine revelation? The absurdity and injustice of such a representation is too

monstrous to need further exposure.

We think we ought not to close our review of these volumes, without a distinct notice of the great solicitude manifested by Mr. J. to keep his opinions and feelings on the subject of religion from the publick, while he lived; and yet that he should take effectual measures, that those opinions and feelings should be known and have their influence, after his death. It is clear that he dreaded to meet the consequences of a publick avowal of his sentiments, on this side the grave; and yet that he possessed such an inveterate hatred to revealed truth, that he could not be content to leave it unassailed, when he should be secure from the just resentment of its friends. This was, in our estimation, a combination of cowardice and malignity; and it has strongly reminded us of the caustick remarks uttered by Dr. Johnson, when Lord Bolingbroke's posthumous works made their appearance, by exactly the same course of procedure. We shall not repeat the remarks; they may be seen in Boswell's Life of Johnson. But as Mr. J.'s ruling passion was manifestly the desire of reputation and the love of fame, why did he not recollect that these might be lost after his decease, as well as before it? Or did he expect that the speedy and universal prevalence of Unitarianism, which he predicted, would save him from reproach? Whatever were his calculations, he has left a monument of his blasphemous impiety, which we are satisfied will cause his memory to be held in abhorrence by every American Christian, to the end of time. The love of their Saviour by all his genuine disciples is supreme-it can have no rival. The Christian can neither resign it, nor modify it, from a regard to a political party or a patriotick favourite: and after the publication of these papers, the Christians of our land (comprising, be

yond a question, a majority of its talent and influence) will never hear the name of Jefferson, without such an association of it with his hatred of Christianity, as will sink him immeasurably in their estimation. In the close of a letter to Mr. Madison (vol. iv. p. 426) he says "To myself you have been a pillar of support through life. Take care of me when dead." We verily think Mr. J. has left a hard and impracticable task to his friend. Not all the talents of Mr. Madison, great as we admit them to be; nor all the learning and eloquence of Unitarians, imposing as they certainly are; nor all the lauding and birth day celebrations of party politicians, however eminent in station, will be able to form "a pillar of support," which will durably sus tain the reputation of the reviler of Christ and his cause-"The memory of the just is blessed; but the name of the wicked shall rot."

In the first part of our review, we expressed the opinion that the reputation of Mr. J. would have been consulted, by the suppression of more than a fourth part of this publication. We have since had opportunity more carefully to inspect and consider the work in its general spirit and tendency, and to hear the opinions relative to it of a number of Mr. J.'s decided political friends. That opinion is-and it coincides with our own-that more than one half of these papers ought to have been destroyed by his grandson, out of regard to the memory of his progenitor; even on the supposition that he had received from that progenitor a command to publish the whole. We are not bound to do an irreparable injury to the character, any more than to the person, or property, of those we love, because they command it. Real affection, in every such case, is best demonstrated by a firm refusal. One gentleman, of no inferior station or erudition, while he avowed to us his attachment to the political party of

Mr. J., gave it as his unequivocal opinion, that not more than one volume of these papers ought ever to have seen the light-in place of the four, which his legatee has published. Besides all that is offensive on the topicks of religion and morals, there is such a manifestation of irritable feeling against his political rivals and opponents, leading him to misrepresentations of character and motives, and the notice and magnifying of trifling incidents, as is altogether unworthy of a philosopher and statesman-unworthy indeed of any man of conscious integrity, and of a firm and liberal mind. But the book as it is, we know is calculated to favour the infidel efforts and combinations of the day. against the institutions, plans and operations of the friends of true religion; and we fear that the publisher had no reluctance that such should be its effect, especially as this circumstance would ensure for it a more immediate and extensive sale. It only remains, therefore, that so far as christian influence prevails, the book should be excluded from every library both publick and private. It contains a mass of moral pestilence, which, if it has come unknowingly and unexpectedly, as we doubt not it often has, into the hands of Christians, they ought, without regard to pecuniary loss, to consign to the flames; and not leave it to poison fatally the minds of their children, or other unsuspecting and unguarded youth. If no Christian would, for the universe, take the responsibility of being the author of such a work, surely no one can be innocent who gives it circulation-nay, who does not use all lawful and practicable means to prevent the inconceivable injury which it is calculated to produce-to produce both to the temporal and eternal interests of every reader whose mind is not previously established in the love of sound principles, and the belief of revealed truth.

that at each step the weight of the body would be lifted through a considerable height, and therefore the labour of walking would be much increased.—Cabinet Cyclopædia.

Thickness of a Soap Bubble.-Newton succeeded in determining the thickness of a very thin lamine of transparent substances, by observing the colours which they reflect. A soap bubble is a thin shell of water, and is observed to reflect different colours from different parts of its surface. Immediately before the bubble bursts, a black spot may be observed near the top. At this part the thickness has been proved not to exceed the 2,500,000th of an inch.-Dr. Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopædia.

Ingredients which form Water.-If the two æriform fluids, called oxygen and bydrogen, be mixed together in a certain proportion, the compound will be water. In this case, the components are different from the compound, not merely in the one being air and the other liquid, but in other respects not less striking. The compound water extinguishes fire, and yet of the components hydrogen is one of the most inflammable substances in nature, and the presence of oxygen is indispensably necessary to sustain the phenomenon of combustion.

The annual report of the Lunatick Asylum of St. Petersburgh, for the last year, presents, among many other interesting matters, the following particulars: The number of male patients in proportion to females, was 3 to 2; the greater portion of lunaticks were above 35 years of age; the men were for the most part rav ing mad, and the women subject to a more tranquil species of mania. The most general cause for madness in the men was

drunkenness, and in the women, disappointment in love.

The Bible.-The English Court Journal mentions that the Duke of Sussex, whose passion for collecting copies of the different editions of the Scriptures is known, has in his library no fewer than 4,000 volumes of Bibles, comprising a copy of alThis collection is intended to be bequeathmost every edition issued from the press. ed to Trinity College, Cambridge.

It is stated in the London Literary Gazette, that the gold medals, given by the king, and annually awarded by the Royal Society of Literature, have this year been given to Hallam and Washington Irving.

Wings of Insects.--The transparent wings of certain insects are so attenuated in their structure, that 50,000 of them placed over each other would not form a pile a quarter of an inch in height.

The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States convened in the First Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia, on Thursday, the 20th of the last month, at 11 o'clock, A. M., and was opened with a sermon by the Rev. Benjamin H. Rice, the Moderator of the last year, from John xviii. 36, 37. In the afternoon of the same day, after the commissions of the members had been examined, the Rev. Ezra Fisk, D. D. was chosen Moderator for the current year, and the Rev. Sylvester Eaton, Temporary Clerk.

The whole number of members that appeared and took their seats in this Assembly, was 185-a greater number, by about twentyfive, than has attended any preceding Assembly. The sessions of

the Assembly continued till the 4th of June at 1 o'clock, P. M, when it was dissolved. Much business was transacted; and not a little of it such as deeply to interest the feelings of the members, and considerably to divide their opinions. Yet never have we seen a General Assembly, and we have seen the most that have met, in which there was apparently so much brotherly love, so much mutual concession, and so little in the speeches that were made, to give offence to opponents in argument. This, we doubt not, ought to be attributed to the divine blessing on the devotional exercises in which the members of the Assembly collectively engaged; and which seemed to give to the minds of all a tone of seriousness-to keep up a

recollection of the divine presence, and of the responsibility of every one to his Maker, and to cherish in all a fraternal spirit. The prayers which were made at the beginning and close of each sitting were peculiarly appropriate, solemn, and impressive; the members of the Assembly, in the afternoon of the first Lord's day after they met, communed together in the church in which their sittings were held, in concert with a large number of the communicants of that and of other churches in the city. It was a season long to be remembered. The Wednesday following was a day wholly devoted to devotional exercises; and on the morning of that day, when the members of the Assembly met chiefly by themselves, in the lecture room where their sessions were held, there seemed to be a felt sense of the divine presence, in the prayers and praises offered, the portions of scripture read, and the short exhortations given-such as at once penetrated with a solemn awe, and elevated and delighted the spirits of the brethren, in a very uncommon manner. We heard one affirm, that his mind had never before been so deeply and delightfully exercised. We believe that it admits not of a question, that these devotional exercises, besides all their other be neficial effects, were the means of saving much time to the Assembly -More than all that they occupied, was saved by the order, and harmony, and sense of responsibility for what each should say and do, which evidently flowed from them as their proper source. In the intervals of the several sittings, many meetings of the members were held for a variety of important purposes, of which our want of space forbids the detail.-Those in which the cause of Sabbath schools was urged, were exceed ingly interesting, and very generalVOL. VIII.-Ch. Adv.

ly attended. A resolution having been passed by the Sunday School Union, to place a Sabbath school within two years, in every part and spot of the valley of the Mississippi, that will admit of the formation of such a school-the subject was taken up and discussed by the members of the Assembly and such citizens as chose to meet with them, on several evenings. We attended two of these meetings, and we certainly never witnessed before such a display of zeal and liberality in behalf of any benevolent enterprise. The speeches were short but animated. We think the amount of donations of money, made or pledged at the several meetings, was not less than twenty-five thousand dollars. But beside these, there were engagements made of personal services in the formation of schools, probably of more value than all the money we have mentioned. The extensive region of country called "the Valley of the Mississippi," is computed to contain a space about equal to twelve hundred miles square. Yet we think there is a flattering prospect that the pledge which has been given to cover it with Sabbath schools, will be fully redeemed, in the period contemplated-if the same spirit that animated the meetings we witnessed, shall appear as we earnestly pray that it may-and provided the other cities and towns on our sea-board shall imitate what has been witnessed in Philadelphia; and if the numerous friends of the Sunday School Institution throughout our land, shall also do their part. We could wish to say more, but our limits restrain us. On the important subjects of Missions and Education, some interesting communications will be found in our Reporter and Register for the present month, and others will appear hereafter. We subjoin the Narrative on the State of Religion.

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