tons, is full of chivalrous and isolated achievments.

"The intrepid defenders of Missofonghi, perceiving that they are on the point of being attacked by sea and land, have resolved to sacrifice their lives for their country, and have taken a last farewell of the world, amidst religious and military ceremonies, after a general review, in which each chief embraced the soldiers, at the same time the Bishop giving them his benediction, sprinkling the holy water on their standards, which were decorated with crowns of laurel. At the same time were embarked for Zante and Cephalonia, the archives of the Government, as well as the old men, women, and children. The separation caused the greatest grief. All communication is still open with Missolonghi, by sea and land, and numerous bodies of troops have entered, as well as a great quantity of provisions. They will defend the batteries inch by inch, as there is no hope of retreating."

ASIA.-Private letters from Batavia, dated in September, state that the Javanese were in a general state of insurrection; particularly in the southern and middle districts. Several thousands of the natives had assembled in this quarter and were unchecked by the Dutch government. An expedition which had gone against the insurgents from Samarang had been repulsed with loss. At Padang the Malays were rising in all directions and the military were insufficient to suppress them. Every European resident had been ordered out on duty; a general panic existed at the principal European settlements. and the general opinion was that, without a timely supply of troops, the European population would be "driven into the ocean."

Intelligence respecting the war in Burmah is infrequent, vague, and contradictory. From the best of our information we have reason to believe, notwithstanding reports to the contrary, that the war still proceeds heavily, from the taking of one unimportant stockade to another, without any very flattering prospects of its immediate termination.

BRAZIL AND BUENOS AYRES.-The late insurrectionary movements in the Banda Oriental, which Don Pedro seems to have regarded, from the first,

as being secretly favoured by the government of Buenos Ayres, have at length resulted in open hostilities be tween the two countries. By a decree, dated Rio de Janeiro, December 10, the emperor regent,' as Don Pedro is styled in his late treaty with the king of Portugal, publishes a formal declaration of war, in the following terms.

"The Government of the United Provinces of Rio de la Plata having committed acts of hostility against this Empire without provocation, or previous formal declaration of war, rejecting thus the forms established among civilized nations, it is required by the dignity of the Brazilian people and the rank which belongs to us among powers, that I, having heard my Council of State, should Declare, as I now do, WAR against the said Provinces and their Government; directing that by sea and land, all possible hostilities be waged upon them; authorizing such armaments as my subjects may please to use against that nation; declaring that all captures or prizes of whatever nature, shall accrue entirely to the captors, without any deduction in fa vour of the public treasury."

Both parties have been for some months preparing for this issue, and both seem to have commenced operations with alacrity and vigour. Private letters accompanying the intelligence of the war, state that the Brazilian government was pressing men for the land and sea service, and that Buenos Ayres was blockaded by a strong naval force. On the other hand, privateers from Buenos Ayres were beginning to cluster on the coasts of Brazil.

We are not accustomed to political prophesying, yet little is hazarded in predicting that Don Pedro has adventured in an affair from the issue of which he has less to hope for than to fear. If his suspicions were just, that the late rebellious conduct of some of his southern provinces originated in their natural attachment to the provinces of La Plata, with which they were formerly associated under the same government, and to which they are still assimilated in language, manners, and prejudices, he cannot reasonably expect that his hands will be strengthen ed from that quarter. How popular Don Pedro or his measures may be with the genuine home-born Brazil

ians, we cannot undertake to say; yet it will not be very strange if even they should manifest no great enthusiasm for a government which fills its most important offices with foreigners, to the exclusion of themselves, and which by a late treaty has virtually reduced them to a state of colonial dependence on a foreign kingdom from which they had once revolted. The emperor regent' should reflect, also, in calculating the consequences of his undertaking, that since republicanism has, on every side of him, gained an ascendancy in the popular feeling, over royalty with all its dependent gradations of rank and privilege, the war can scarcely fail to be regarded as in some degree a war of principle, and that therefore the policy and political sympathies of the nations which surround him will be with his republican adversaries.

amounting to six or eight thousand, besides six frigates. Different opinions exist as to the result of the inva sion if it should take place.

DOMESTIC.-Congress does not yet seem to have got through with what has been called the talking season.' Various subjects are undergoing a protracted discussion, but no measure of importance has received a final decision. The proposed mission to Panama has met with an opposition unlocked for, if we mistake not, by the public generally, and not very consonant to their wishes. We do not learn that it has yet been conclusively acted upon.

The President has ratified a treaty with the Ricaree Indians, the unfortunate tribe which about two years since received such a violent chastisement,' as it was officially called, in consequence of their quarrel with general Ashley. The treaty resembles other Indian treaties; the Aborigines acknowledging the supremacy of the United States, and receiving a promise of protection from their father the President.

THE apostle Peter says there are some things in the epistles of Paul, hard to be understood. He intimates that the same is true of the other scriptures. If Peter, a Jew, and an apostle living in Palestine, said this nearly two thousand years ago, no wonder if there are many things hard to be understood by us, who live in these last days, and in these ends of the world. How indeed can it be otherwise? Should an American write a book abounding in imagery, in illustrations, and arguments, drawn from the magnificent scenery of our own country; from our free institutions, our domestic society, in short, from every thing around us, and should a Chinese, who knew nothing of America but the name, read it, how many things would he find hard to be understood? What this book would be to this Chinese, in relation to its obscurity, the Bible is to us. The business of the biblical interpreter is to explain such obscurities, by making us acquainted with every thing to which the sacred writers allude. When he has helped us to draw from the words of the author the very ideas which he meant to convey, his work, as an interpreter, 1826-No. 4.

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is done. Considered simply as an interpreter, he has nothing to do with the correctness of his author's opinions, their good or bad tendency; he has only to tell us what they are. This species of interpretation is called historical and grammatical, chiefly to denote the sources to which the interpreter goes for help.

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I well know there is another species of interpretation more mon among us. I mean that which consists, not so much in an explanation of the difficult passages of scripture, as in a series of pious remarks on the plain ones. This kind of interpretation is well adapted to the object for which it was designed.

This is, to affect the heart rather than enlighten the understanding. It answers a valuable purpose for the unlearned reader, and therefore has claims to our regard. This is the kind of interpretation in which the English commentators abound.

Some very able interpreters have appeared of late, on the continent of Europe, and have intermingled with their learned and valuable criticisms, some lax notions on subjects of theology. Their works are well adapted to enlighten the understanding, but not to warm the heart. They teach us the sentiments of the sacred writers, but do not impart to us their spirit. The picture which they draw on the

canvass, is true to the original in every respect but one ; the coldness of death is on it, instead of the warmth and glow of life. Such helps however must be used for purposes of instruction, till interpreters, of equal ability and more piety, furnish commentaries more in accordance with the spirit of the gospel. Hume and Gibbon were infidels, and missed no fair opportunity to give a thrust at Christianity. But who cannot easily distinguish between this wanton expression of their infidelity, and the information which they convey as historians? and what scholar, who seeks a deep and thorough acquaintance with Roman or English history, will be so foolish as to reject their aid, at least till other histories of equal ability are furnished?

The science and business of biblical interpretation, as they now exist, are of somewhat recent origin, though the interpretation of the scriptures is no new thing. It commenced with the return of the Jews from the Babylonish captivity. The Hebrew was then no longer their vernacular tongue. Many were ignorant of their history, their religion, their country; and when Ezra stood on a pulpit of wood, and read in the book of the law of God distinctly, others stood on his right hand and on his left, and gave the sense, and caused the people to understand the reading. After the captivity, the learned Jews began to apply themselves to the study of their sacred books. At length there arose a class of men, called Masorites, who devoted themselves chiefly to these studies. They wrote out copies of the scriptures for the use of the synagogues, taught the true method of reading them, and commented on the sacred books. These Masorites invented the vowel points, and thereby settled finally the reading of the Hebrew text. The result of all their labours on the scriptures has been collected and

published in series of critical observations written in Chaldaic Hebrew, and entitled the Masora. From this book interpreters have derived some aid respecting Hebrew idioms and customs.

Christ, and his apostles by divine illumination, understood the scriptures, and taught them in simplicity and truth. The same was true, though in a less extent, of the immediate successors of the apostles, through whose instruction the people were taught the pure principles and doctrines of Christianity, till the beginning of the third century. Then arose Origen, a native of Alexandria, a man of learning and piety; but unhappily for the cause of sacred interpretation, he gave currency to an erroneous method of explaining the scriptures, the influence of which is still felt. If the sacred books were to be explained according to the real import of the words, Origen thought it would be found difficult to defend every thing they contained against the cavils of skeptics. cavils of skeptics. Being himself deeply imbued with the Platonic philosophy, and being pressed with these cavils, Origen's inventive imagination suggested the thought, that the scriptures were to be explained in the same allegorical manner as the Platonists explained the fabulous history of their gods. The thought was fanciful in the extreme, and better becoming the dark ages than the times of Origen. Still he embraced it, and gave currency to the notion, that though certain ideas may be contained in the words of scripture, taken literally, yet this is not the true meaning of the sacred writers. This he said is hidden under the veil of allegory. Hence arose the multiplication of allegories; the notion of double sense and mystical meanings, by which interpreters have been led in almost every way but the right one.

From the third to the sixth century, Eusebius, Chrysostom, and

Theodoret, in the Greek church, together with Augustine and some of less note in the Latin, applied themselves to the interpretation of the scriptures. But, with the exception of the distinguished Jerom, they were not sufficiently learned, especially in the Hebrew language and Jewish antiquities; they were not guided by good rules, for interpretation had not yet become a science; they followed too much in the allegorizing and mystical path of Origen, and their critical works are comparatively of small value to the biblical scholar.

From the sixth to the sixteenth century, few vestiges of sound interpretation can be found. The Bible during this period was neglected, nay even proscribed, and the faith of the church was settled by the decisions of councils and the authority of the Pope. About the commencement of the sixteenth century, the study of the Bible was somewhat revived in Germany, and some better specimens of interpretation were sent abroad by Erasmus and others. Near the middle of this century, Luther translated and published the Bible in German, together with some commentaries. These were attacked on every side by the supporters of papal domination. To defend his Bible and stop the mouths of his opponents, Luther systematized and published the rules by which he guided himself in the interpretation of the sacred books. This treatise, written by Luther while involved in the conflicts of the reformation, laid the foundation of the modern science of interpretation. From that time it has gradually advanced among the biblical scholars of protestant Europe.

A new and far greater impulse was given to the study of the scriptures in Germany about the middle of the last century, by the publication of Bishop Lowth's Lectures on Hebrew Poetry. These were de-, livered at Oxford in England.

Since that time, some of their most distinguished scholars have devoted themselves chiefly to the study of the Bible, and the advances made in the science of interpretation have been truly great. It has been founded on the principles of language and common sense. The civil and religious history of the Jews, their geography and scenery, indeed every thing that pertained to the Jewish people or their country, has been made to reflect light on the sacred pages. While the biblical scholars of the Continent have done this, England has moved on in the beaten track of mere moralizing interpretation. She has given us commentaries distinguished indeed for their piety, but not at all for their learning.

Commentaries which unite great learning with great piety are yet a desideratum in the church. The Pilgrims left every thing dear in home and country, to plant civil liberty and the religion of the Bible on these western shores. God reserved it for them to teach the world true notions of liberty and free institutions. Whether he has reserved it for their descendants to unite great biblical learning with much piety, and thereby teach the world the true method of interpreting the scriptures, I cannot tell. I only know that every thing urges those devoted to the sacred profession in this country to study the Bible. It is demanded by the intelligence of American Christians, their desire to understand the simple meaning of the scripturestheir sound piety, which demands instruction drawn directly from the word of God—all unite in requiring of those who minister in holy things a thorough knowledge of the word and doctrine which they teach. Here too no set of doctrines is supported by civil authority, but the Bible is regarded as the foundation of our faith; so that the preacher's most important qualification is, as it always should