complish them at so small an expense; and, if they should prove successful, to present so imposing and impressive a spectacle to the nation, as the American Sunday School Union. And even if the first experiment should not prove successful, they might, as often happens in analogous cases, suggest improvements of the most important kind. Having indulged our inclination to throw out these hints-not as mature plans-but as a sort of "raw material" for such plans, when sanctioned by experience we return to the report before us, from which we take an interesting extract, which may serve to show, at one view, the superiority of the Sunday School system to that of our common schools.

"A word then as to the cheapness of education. The popular effort is to bring a good education within the reach of every child, and to this end every thing about it must be cheap.

"A common school involves several items of unavoidable expense. A house must be built, fitted up, and kept in repair, in every school-district; instructors must be employed and paid, some twenty, some fifty, and some one hundred dollars per month; fuel must be provided; writing, reading, spelling, and text books must be procured, and when worn out or improved must be replaced; the child's whole time must be given to the school while it is open; all the evils and risks of a continual change of instructors and modes of instruction must be endured; all the hazards of bad example, pernicious influence and unhappy associations must be run, that the child may obtain some knowledge of reading, writing, and arithmetic. The value of a knowledge of reading and writing alone, cannot be estimated; nor is it our design to diminish its importance; but comparing the time spent by a child in the most favoured parts of the country, in obtaining a common-school education, with the expense of time and money which other systems involve, and the results they produce, we shall be able to judge of their respective claims to preference, on the score of cheapness.

"Probably ninety-nine of a hundred Sunday Schools are kept in places which would be provided if Sunday Schools were unknown. The place of holding them need to cost nothing. A church, a hall, a public or private room, or even a barn, have often answered, and will still answer every purpose. This is a feature of the system which renders it exceedingly valuable in places but recently settled, and where the population is sparse and unable to establish permanent daily instruction. Ours is the system of all others, which literally brings education to every man's door.

"The teaching is gratuitous; and though in some instances it may be very weak, imperfect, and erroneous, in others it is of a most exalted character. There are teachers in our Sunday Schools, of both sexes, whose services the wealth of the Indies could not purchase nor compensate. In no possible form can a Sunday School teacher be governed by mercenary motives; and the employment is now so common, that the pursuit of it certainly confers no distinction in the world's view. At any rate, the teaching costs nothing. The text books are supplied gratuítously to all the children in many schools, and in all schools to as many of the children as cannot supply themselves. Christians are pledged to

furnish the whole community with the principal text-book, THE BIBLE; and it is not like an arithmetic or grammar, which none but the schoolgoing members of the family want; it is the text-book of the whole family-the text book of the whole world.

We find, then, that the room, the teacher, and the requisites in the Sunday School system of education, are gratuitous, or the expense, (if any) is defrayed by voluntary contribution; and these are the only wants which Sunday and daily schools have in common. But in addition to this there is attached to the Sunday School system of education, a library, prepared, selected, and arranged for the use of the pupils, presenting to the mind, in every grade of life, and in every variety of character, its immortal relations and destinies, and urging it by motives of of divine origin to press toward the mark for the prize of its high calling. These books are gratuitously loaned to teachers and pupils, and constitute, in effect, a parish circulating library; of the advantages of which every individual, who is disposed, can avail himself. The value of such a library may be estimated more justly, when it is considered how few parents can incur the expense of a sufficient variety of books for their children. And what scheme of public education, we would ask, surpasses that which, while it plants and cultivates a taste for reading and mental improvement, provides the means of gratifying it without personal expense, and from a collection of books which has been not only selected, but written or compiled, with special reference to the wants of children and young persons, and with special care to exclude whatever might prove, in any degree, injurious.

"Beyond all this, in a well regulated Sunday School there is the kind influence of a teacher over a child, and his friendship, secured perhaps for life. The very fact that a teacher, on our system, has but eight or ten pupils to regard and follow, gives him a prodigious advantage over the common teacher; indeed almost enough to compensate for the difference of time allotted to each for instruction.

"It cannot be that an affectionate teacher, in whose tongue is the law of kindness; whose eye is upon the child in all his course, with deep solicitude, and who seeks him during the week, at his home, amidst his domestic associations, that he may know the influence under which his character is forming there; it cannot be, that such a teacher should fail to possess an advantage which no daily teacher seeks or expects, and if he shall use this advantage discreetly, he will form in the pupil a taste for reading and conversation; so that he will love the Sunday School and its exercises and object; he will love his teacher and seek his counsel, and yield to his suggestions; and it will soon be seen, as it often has been seen, that in a course of instruction of three or four hours a week, under these advantages, the moral and intellectual powers of a child are more rapidly and auspiciously developed, and he is gaining incomparably more as an intellectual and moral being, than another child, of like capacity, who is punctually coaxed or whipped into submission to the training of some daily school.

"With such a system of supervision, then, over the moral, intellectual, and social character as the Sunday School provides-with the free use of a library, judiciously selected and circulated through the neighbourhood-in the study of a text book, gratuitously furnished, of such universal interest and value as the Bible-under the tuition of those whose services are entirely voluntary and uncompensated, and rendered, in the judgment of charity, from the most benevolent and honourable motivesin a room which is built and furnished for other purposes, with which

the Sunday School does not interfere-and on a day when neither teacher nor pupils could be prosecuting worldly business without a violation of human and divine law-and all designed and calculated to qualify them to serve their generation in the fear of God, in all the relations of life, and to prepare them for perfect and endless glory, when all these things shall be dissolved-we venture to declare the Sunday School the cheapest, the most efficient, and the most rational system of education which the wit of man has ever devised."

The

With respect to the proposition made by this noble society, more than a year since, "To establish a Sunday School whereever it should be practicable, throughout the Valley of the Mississippi," nothing more can be reported, as yet, than that "it has been, thus far, most liberally sustained by the friends of the measure." We are gratified to receive this assurance. proposition was so unexpected, so grand, so honourable to the society from which it emanated, and so full of promise, and, if executed, of blessing to the western country, that we first heard of it with a thrill of delight, and have followed it, ever since its annunciation, with our best wishes and fervent prayers. If carried into efficient execution, as we hope and trust it will be, it will be a source of more extended and rich benefit to that interesting part of the United States, than the most sanguine calculator can compute. We feel a deep anxiety that the plan should be pursued wisely and surely. And, in the spirit of most cordial solicitude for its accomplishment, may we be allowed to suggest a thought respecting the best plan of proceeding? Our greatest fear has a respect to one point. The most serious difficulty, if we mistake not, will not be to ORGANIZE Sunday Schools, throughout the Valley of the Mississippi, in every neighbourhood where there is a sufficient population placed in circumstances which admit of its being convened and acted upon; but to MAINTAIN THEM, from year to year, after being established. The sparseness of the settlements, in many parts of the country; the paucity of well qualified teachers resident in the country; and the want of steady, patient Christian activity on the part of many whose intelligence and enterprise may recommend them to the service, and sustain them for a short time in its pursuit, will present the great practical difficulties here. Will not many of the schools set up at first with the most sanguine confidence, soon decline, and in a few months, perish for want of persevering zeal? We hope not. Yet we have many fears. And we are inclined to think, that the execution of the second plan, suggested on a foregoing page, (and also alluded to in a preceding article,) by means of

enterprising, zealous young Christians, already raised up in that country, or who may be prevailed upon to go and reside there for a time, for this purpose, would be likely to furnish, under the Divine blessing, the best security against such an undesirable result as we have apprehended might otherwise be possible. If two or three hundred stations could be fixed upon in some of the least populous parts of that country, and in each of these stations a pious and judicious young man located, with something of the spirit of an embryo missionary, who should move, at regular times, round a little circle of schools, guiding, sustaining, animating and gradually enlarging each, and devoting himself to the work; incalculable good might be done; one of the best pledges for the stability of the system would be obtained; and, what is by no means of least importance, most of these young men might be training up to be the best Christian Missionaries that could be sent into that country, after enjoying the experience of such a service as we have supposed.

We take leave of this report, with stating, that we have read it with cordial pleasure and approbation; and that we especially concur in the spirit and sentiments of the following extract:

"But education cannot implant religious principle; it cannot abate a hand's-breadth of the distance between God and the sinner. It may invigorate and enlarge the powers of the new-born soul, quicken the current of its life, and present to the unclouded eyes, scenes of unearthly and transporting joy; but its power is exerted in vain upon one dead in trespasses and sins; it cannot impart the flush of health to the leprous man, nor enable one who was born blind, to feast his eyes on the sublimest glories of creation.

"When we speak of religious education, therefore, we mean EDUCATION FOR GOD; and this implies not merely an education in the science of religion, but the feeling and experience of its transforming power upon the heart. A religious man must necessarily be a moral man, and a moral man cannot be a bad citizen. We mean then, in the whole course of a Sunday School education, to present continually to the pupil's mind, the obligations and relations he sustains as a creature of God, and a subject of his moral government; but more especially the new relations and obligations which rest upon him under the dispensation of mercy through Jesus Christ.

"We are willing to avow that our grand object is, with God's blessing, to make every child-while he is a child-a believer in the Bible, the whole Bible, and (so far as religion is concerned) nothing but the Bible. Knowing that snares are spread all around his feet, and that he is to wrestle not only against flesh and blood, but against principalities— against powers-against the rulers of the darkness of this world-against spiritual wickedness in high places,' we wish to arm him for the conflict in his childhood, that he may grow up in his armour,—and then, when the contest begins with his own lusts-with the adversary of his soul— with the world, the flesh and the devil-he will turn from the narrow way, neither to the right hand nor to the left-his countenance will not

blanch, nor his strength forsake him-clad in the armour of God-his loins girt about with truth-the breast-plate of righteousness and the shield of faith glittering upon him-his feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace-the helmet of salvation upon his head, and the sword of the Spirit (which is the word of God) in his hand,-we can look upon his advancing course with exulting joy. A thousand shall fall at the side of such a child, and ten thousand at his right hand, but he shall not be dismayed, neither shall defeat nor destruction come nigh him. This is one who has been educated for the God of Israel, and the God of Israel is his strength, and will be his everlasting portion."

ART. IX.--THE CHRISTIAN SPECTATOR ON THE DOCTRINE OF IMPUTATION.

In the Christian Spectator for March last, there are two articles, in reply to our remarks on "A Protestant's Inquiries respecting the doctrine of Imputation." One is from the Protestant himself, the other from the editors, who, not having concluded all they wished to say on the subject in that number, resumed and completed their task in the one for June, which has just been received.

In discussions, conducted in periodical works appearing at distant intervals, it is often necessary to subject the reader to the irksomeness of occasional repetitions, that he may have distinctly before him the state of the question. We would, therefore, remind our readers that, in the History of Pelagianism, which called forth this discussion, we stated, "That Adam's first transgression was not strictly and properly that of his descendants (for those not yet born could not perform an act) but interpretatively or by imputation;" and secondly, that imputation does not imply the transfer of moral acts or moral character." The mere declaration of our belief of this doctrine, and conviction of its importance, led to the first communication of the Protestant on the subject. He made no objection to the correctness of our exhibition of the subject; his inquiries were directed against the doctrine itself. His article was written, as he now informs us, "to lead the author of that piece (the History of Pelagianism) to see and feel, that one who undertook the office of a corrector with severity, should weigh well whether he had any faux pas of his own to correct." This accounts for the schooling manner so obvious in his communication, and which seems to have escaped his observation. We think it right to turn his attention to this subVOL. III. No. III.-3 F