incarnation, death and mediation of the Son of God, and to the expiation which he has made for sin; and those which relate to the process of the soul's renovation and actual reconciliation to God by the work of the Holy Spirit-take away that reve led way of salvation for sinners, that "new and living way," that manifestation of God as 'just and yet justifying the sinner that believ⚫ eth, which makes Christianity a Gospel; and the intellectual instinct that demands congruity, will feel, sooner or later, that to contend for the miracles by which Christianity is supposed to be authenticated, is like contending for the shell when the kernel is gone, or like keeping up a smoke and roar of artillery over the outworks, after the citadel has been surrendered. The fact then that such a work as the Christian Examiner, with so many claims to attention, is published at the metropolis of New England, is in every point of view a reason, why the evangelical faith of New England should find for itself fit organs of communication with the reading and inquiring public.

Shall we say any thing here of the DIAL?-the Dial, with the mystic symbols on its face, looking up not to the sun, but to the everlasting fog in which it has its being? Who reads the Dial for any other purpose than to laugh at its baby poetry or at the solemn fooleries of its misty prose? Yet the Dial is worth adverting to in this connection, not because of any influence which it is actually exerting, or which it is likely to exert, but because it is itself one of the symptoms or manifestations of a morbid influence widely diffused, which may by and by manifest itself with greater power and with disastrous results. Who does not see in the literature of the day many traces of such an influence? Not all the worshippers of Goethe-not all those who bow down before Carlyle, are so moon

struck as to assist in editing the Dial. Many there are who having common sense enough to attend to ordinary business, are the conductors through which this influence is diffusing itself among the uninitiated. The infidelity of the last age was, for the most part, the infidelity of materialism, which knew nothing and believed nothing but what is reported by the outward senses. The infidelity with which the coming age is threatened, is the infidelity of a self-styled spiritualism, which believes nothing that is true and substantial, for the reason that, under the pretense of seeing through this outward show of things, it believes every thing that is unsubstantial, untrue, and absurd. That this mystical infidelity is likely to be in any way less fanatical or mischievous than that which in France adored the goddess of Reason, no man, acquainted with history or with human nature, will easily admit.

A few years ago, the Christian Spectator, published at New Haven, the Literary and Theological Review, published at New York, but designed chiefly for New England, and the American Quarterly Observer, published at Boston, were in the field at once, each with its peculiar aim and merits, and each offering itself as an organ through which New England men of the evangelical faith were uttering their opinions. The Quarterly Observer, after the issue of a short series of volumes, was merged in the Biblical Repository, the editorship of that elder and more widely circulated work having been transferred to the editor of the Observer. The conductors of the Christian Spectator, judging that the discussions with which that work was identified had been pursued far enough to answer their purpose, advised the proprietor to accept the proposals which the proprietor of the Repository had made for the purchase of the estab lishment. The Literary and Theo

logical Review, which during the administration of its first editor at tained a high reputation, underwent a change after it passed into other hands; and in the end its subscribers were served with the Biblical Repertory. Thus, where there there were three quarterly magazines for religious and general literature, we now find none. Admitting that there was not room enough for three-admitting even that they crowded each other from the field -it does not follow that in the absence of them all, there is not room for our undertaking. The New Englander does not offer itself as the successor of all the periodicals which have been named, or of any one of them. It cannot expect to please all of all parties. It does not pledge itself to please any party. Its conductors will utter their own opinions at their own discretion. And if the circulation of the work, conducted on such principles, does not show that there is a demand for it on the part of the public, the undertaking will of course be abandoned. Neither our pride of authorship, nor our estimation of the value of our lucubrations to the community, will induce us to make pecuniary sacrifices for the support of a work which cannot support itself. And to speak plain truth, we have no money to expend in that kind of charity. What we are able to give for public uses, we will give in some other way, rather than in supporting a periodical which the public will not buy. Nor have we any party resources on which to fall back when our own resources fail. The work must be supported by finding a sufficient number of purchasers, or it will not be supported at all. If any individual after purchasing a copy for himself, thinks

he can do good by purchasing another copy for some home missionary in the West, or for some poor minister or schoolmaster or student, let him do it, and we will do likewise so far as we are able; but let him not therefore suppose that he is our Mecenas, or a "life director" of our enterprise.

Of

The conductors of the New Englander, we have said, will express their own opinions at their own discretion. They do not propose to be at the expense of publishing for other people who may have a disposition, however laudable, to contradict them and dispute with them. course it is not to be expected that among so many individuals, there will be in every thing a perfect identity of opinion. On questions of taste, of political science, of historical inquiry, of philosophy, not every writer of our company is to be held responsible for the opinions of every other writer. One of us may say to another, 'I am not so sanguine a democrat as you are,'—or, 'you are more zealous for Congregationalism than I can be,'-or, 'I have less faith in the doctrines of political economy than you have.' One may hold in philosophy with Locke, another with Brown, and another may have a philosophy of his own. If therefore some diversity of opinion as well as of style shall appear on our pages, let it be understood that to the extent of that diversity we have among ourselves agreed to differ. Still the influence of the New Englander will be found steadily setting in one direction. It will be found on the side of order, of freedom, of progress, of simple and spiritual Christianity, and of the Bible as the infallible, sufficient and only authority in religion.

THE power of holding communication with those at a distance with whom we are connected in relations of business or friendship, and of making such communications as exact, infallible, and direct, as the nature of human language will admit, is, to a savage, one of the most wonderful of all the mysterious powers of civilized man. When Captain John Smith, the founder of Virginia, a prisoner for the time among the Indians, sent by the hands of one of his captors, a written message to Jamestown, and the message, without a word from the messenger that bore it, was accurately complied with, the exactness of that silent communication seemed to the wild men of the woods the operation of some supernatural power. "The paper," they said, "could talk." In our own time, a Sandwich Island chief who had learned from American missionaries the art of writing, expressed himself to this effect-Formerly, when I wanted to send words to a chief on another island, I told my words to a messenger. One half, perhaps, he would forget. The other half perhaps he would misunderstand. Now, I put my words on a paperjust what I mean. I shut up the

Third Report from the Select Committee on Postage. Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, August 18, 1838. [Reprinted in Supplement to the London Spectator, March 9, 1839.]

Message of the President of the United States to the two houses of Congress, at the commencement of the Second Session

of the twenty-sixth Congress. [With the accompanying documents.] Washington, 1840.

Message of the President of the United States to the two houses of Congress, at

the commencement of the Second Session

of the twenty-seventh Congress. [With the documents.] Washington, 1841. Vol. I.

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paper and seal it, and nobody can see what is in it. My messenger carries the paper, and if he knows not what message he carries, no matter. My friend opens the paper, and there my words are, just as I wrote them."

But the mere power of writing letters is of course worth little, unless there be given the power of sending what is written to the person for whom it is designed. In an uncivilized or partially civilized country-in all countries save those which partake in the civilization of modern Christendom-the only means of epistolary communication are special messengers and accidental opportunities. No ancient government, even of the most cultivated or powerful nations, had any such thing as what we call a postoffice department. Neither Egypt when her Pharaohs built the pyramids, or when her Ptolemies made Alexandria the emporium of the world-nor Greece when her artists adorned her hills with structures and statues which to this day all kindred genius only seeks to imitate, or faintly hopes to rival-nor Rome when her arch of empire overshadowed every nation-had any such thing as a mail for the ac commodation of the public. era of the first propagation of Christianity-the era of the New Testament Scriptures-was that of "the most high and palmy state" of Roman civilization; yet the Apostles and primitive missionaries, in their communications with each other and with their converts, never enjoyed the convenience of a post-office-a convenience which is only next to the printing-office among the essential things of modern civilization. Thus, in almost every one of the Apostolic epistles, we find some

The

very natural reference, more or less explicit, to the messenger by whom the epistle was to be conveyed to its destination. In the epistle to the Romans, for example, Paul formally introduces to his Roman friends (xvi: 1) Phebe, a servant of the church at Cenchrea, whom we may therefore presume to have been the bearer of the document. The first epistle to the Corinthians appears to have been forwarded by Stephanus, Fortunatus, and Achaicus, (xvi: 17, 18,) who had come from Corinth to Paul as the bearers of a communication to him from the Corinthian church. The second to the Corinthians appears to have been sent by the hands of Titus and another person not named, but described as "the brother whose praise is in all the churches," (viii: 6, 18.) In the epistle to the Ephesians, Tychicus is named as the messenger, (vi: 21, 22.) The epistle to the Philip pians was forwarded from Rome by Epaphroditus, (ii: 25,) a messenger whom Paul's friends at Philippi had sent to him for the purpose of bringing their kind contributions for his relief in his imprisonment, (iv: 18.) And Paul says (ii: 25-28) that he sends him the earlier, because they had heard of his having been sick. The illustration here is a copious Epaphroditus had been sick at Rome; and to relieve the anxiety of his friends at Philippi, who by some accident had heard of his illness, Paul finds it necessary to send him back sooner than he would otherwise have chosen to do. Why did not Paul during the illness of Epaphroditus, drop a letter daily into the post-office at Rome, informing the disciples at Philippi of the state of their friend's health? Why did not Epaphroditus do this for himself when he had recovered? Nay, why did the Philippian church send Epaphroditus at all? When they had made up their contribution for the imprisoned Apostle, why did they not procure a bill of exchange,

a draft on Rome, or a certificate of deposite in a bank, to the amount of the contribution, and enclosing it in a letter, send it by mail more safely and expeditiously than it could possibly be sent by any single messenger? The answer is that all these conveniences-post-offices, mails, bank-deposites, and bills of exchange, were as unknown to Roman civilization, as newspapers, steamboats, and railroads.

The earliest germ of a post-office system, which finds a place in written history, is the arrangement which was made by Darius I, king of Persia. That wise and energetic monarch established a system of royal couriers, stationed at regular distances with horses always ready for a start, to convey reports by express from the provinces to the seat of government, and of course to convey despatches in return from the seat of government to the provinces. So under Augustus, a similar arrangement was established in the Roman empire. So when the Spaniards discovered Peru, they found messengers stationed at short intervals upon the road from Cusco to Quito, for the purpose of conveying with speed the orders of the sovereign. Indeed something of this kind, more or less definitely arranged, is essential to the action of a strong government over an extended territory. Every centralized government must have some means of conveying its will to distant functionaries, and of receiving reports from them in return. This, however, is a mere government arrangement, maintained only for government purposes.

Another rudiment of what we understand by a post-office system, began to exist a little more than six hundred years ago. When commerce had begun to revive in Europe, after the universal wreck in which the ancient civilization perished, the larger commercial cities, particularly in Germany, began to