1. Capt. Allen and Dr. Thompson on the Niger Expedition, Spectator, 2. Capt. Mercer (U. S. Navy) on Liberia, 3. Poems by James Gregor Grant, 4. Panslavism and Germanism, 5. Government of Ireland,-Trial by Jury in Ireland, 6. Ruin of the Duke of Buckingham, 7. Small Pox in Sheep, 8. The Cholera, 9. Monckton Milnes' Life of Keats, 10. Discipline of Life, 11. Kate Walsingham, 12. Story of a Family, Chap. VIII. 13. European Correspondence 14. How Revolutions are Managed, 15. Italy, Colonization Herald, Sundry Journals, Morning Chronicle, Sharpe's Magazine, 47 16. List of Three Months' Births of Paris Newspapers, POETRY.-To a Child First Walking, 32,-Give Place you Ladies all. 38. SHORT ARTICLES.-What London is, 8-Oxford and Cambridge; Unity of Race Movement, 17.-New York and Cincinnati, 31-New Books. 31.-Hurricane: Tooth-Ache; Piano Forte, 32.- Varieties of Milk; Anglo-Saxon Dictionary; The Demerara Martyr, 46. Complete sets, in fifteen volumes. to the end of 1847, hanascinely bound, and packed in neat boxes, are for sale at thirty dollars. Any volume may he had separately at two dollars, bound, or a dollar and a half in numbers. Any number may be had for 12 cents; and it may De worth while for subscribers or purchasers to complete any broken volumes they may have, and thus greatly enhance their value. Postage. When sent with the cover on, the Living Age consists of three sheets, and is rated as a pamphlet, at 4 cents. But when sent without the cover, it comes within the definition of a newspaper given in the law and cannot legally be charged with more than newspaper postage, (1 cts.) We add the definition alluded to: A newspaper is "any printed publication, issued in numbers, consisting of not more than two sheets, and published at short, stated intervals of not more than one month, conveying intelligence of passing events." Monthly parts.--For such as prefer it in that form, the Living Age is put up in monthly parts, containing four o five weekly numbers. In this shape it shows to great advantage in comparison with other works, containing in Binding. We bind the work in a uniform, strong, and each part double the matter of any of the quarterlies. good style; and where customers bring their numbers in But we recommend the weekly numbers, as fresher and good order, can generally give them bound volumes in ex-fuller of life. Postage on the monthly parts is about 14 change without any delay. The price of the binding is cents. The volumes are published quarterly, each volume 50 cents a volume. As they are always bound to one containing as much matter as a quarterly review gives in pattern, there will be no difficulty in matching the future eighteen months. volumes. WASHINGTON, 27 DEC., 1845. Or all the Periodical Journals devoted to literature and science which abound in Europe and in this country, this has appeared to me to be the most useful. It contains indeed the exposition only of the current literature of the English language, but this by its immense extent and comprehension includes a portraiture of the human mind the utmost expansion of the prosert age. J. Q. ADAMS LITTELL'S LIVING AGE.-No. 230.-14 OCTOBER, 1848. [About twenty years ago we received from England a volume of Sermons, by the author of the work reviewed in the following article. It stood on the shelves for a year or two unread; but when read, we deeply lamented the loss of the time in which we might have profited by it, and determined to read it once a year ever after. This, alas! we have not done; but it will not seem light praise of such a volume to say that we have reperused it several times. The title is, "The Church of God." It is so delightful a book, that we shall lose no time in sending to England for a new work of the same author.-LIV. AGE.] From the Church of England Quarterly Review. The Ministry of the Body. By the REV. ROBERT the materials of which our globe is constituted. Unless, therefore, the writer of the book of Genesis can be supposed to have been master of such a chemical analysis as has enabled subsequent physiologists to prove that this is the actual constitution of the human body, it must be granted that he was taught it in some other way; and, as we deem it quite incredible that there was any dePpository of higher earthly knowledge of his times than the writer of this book, we conclude confidently that the authority which made the discovery and emboldened him to put it forth-not as an hypothesis, but as a certain truth-that man's body is made of the "dust of the ground," was God. Hence, then, as scientific investigations have proved that the first part-the only one within the limits of science—of this description of humanity has not been advanced by any subsequent investigations. The achievements of science have proved that these words of an unscientific writer concerning the human body express a perfect truth; and the most careful experiences of all subsequent generations-the only mode of testing its truthconfirm the latter. This simple division of man into body and soul seems in the best manner to serve all those practical views which regard the past, present, and future of individual history. It regards him as consisting of the perishable (popularly speaking) substance, body, and of the imperishable ens, soul; each being considered as a whole, divisible into its elementary functions, and to be dealt with, in the contemplation of certain revealed final issues, as separate wholes. The deductions from these facts supply the only reasonable solution of some of the most interesting problems of human life. THE only credible account of the origin and formation of man is to be found in one of the earli-viz., that man's entire body is substantially made est extant literary records :-"The Lord God of the "dust of the ground," is true, and could not, formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed in those early times, have been a scientific discovinto his nostrils the breath of life, and man became ery; therefore, we conclude that the latter part a living soul." (Genesis ii. 7.) The primû facie of this description-which, being beyond the limits evidence that this descriptive account is authorita- of science, must have been revealed-is also true tire seems to us to be irresistible, as no competent-namely, that the invisible ons which vitalizes reader of the Mosaic records will believe that they this compound of earthly materials is what is called were composed under the lights of human science. the soul, or spirit; so that the highest generalIndeed, the attacks made upon their author by in-ization of man is still that put forth by Moses, and fidels, on the ground of his ignorance of physical science, save us the trouble of endeavoring to establish this point; and yet we offer the alternative that this account of the origin of man must have been discovered either by a divine revelation or by scientific investigations; for we cannot persuade ourselves to regard it as possible that any superficial examination of the human body, before the dawn of formal science, could have suggested the fact that all its parts were composed of the same | materials as the surrounding earthly objects. The discovery that the body is a part of the great system of external nature-the same mechanically and chemically, living and decaying like all other living things must surely be assigned to revelation or higher science. The mere observation of a dead body, which had been left to the action of the elements, would conduct to the discovery that its bones would ere long moulder away, and become hardly distinguishable from the surrounding portions of earth. But that all the component parts of a human body-flesh, nerves, bones, blood, &c. —should, according to proved natural laws, become decomposed into terrestrial elements, could not, it seems self-evident, be so determined by an unscientific observer in the primitive ages of the world as to lead to such a confident affirmation of its elementary composition as that formally put forth by Moses. Chemical analysis could alone prove that the human body in all its parts is made up of For our own immediate purpose, we think this simple division less encumbered with difficulties than the one adopted by Mr. Evans and others, as if St. Paul intended to give a perfect definition of man in the terms "spirit, soul, and body." (1 Thess. v. 2, 3.) This, as is well known, was the doctrine of the Pythagoreans, Platonists, and Stoics, and may find respectable support from metaphysics and word-criticism. Macknight's solution, however, of this kind of phraseology is so frequently used in defence of similar modes of speaking in the sacred writers that it may be quoted in defence pertinent inquiry now, as of old, is, "How are the of the popular view:-"The apostle's design was dead raised up, and with what body do they to teach mankind religion, and not philosophy; he come?" It is not long since a difficulty was sugmight use the popular language to which the Thes-gested to us, from no unfriendly quarter, as to the salonians were accustomed, without adopting the impossibility of any popular or reasonable interphilosophy on which that language was founded; pretation of the term resurrection, by pointing out consequently, that his prayer means no more but the fact that human bodies are imported from forthat they might be thoroughly sanctified, of how eign graveyards into England to be ground into many constituent parts howsoever their nature con- bone-dust for agricultural purposes. We were sisted." It is no part, however, of our purpose to told that this difficulty presses heavily upon the discuss the question whether men and animals alike minds of some thinking, serious persons who have consist of body and soul, the highest difference be- observed this fact, and drawn their own conclusions ing constituted by the addition to the former of from it. For how, it is asked, can any distinction spirit. We remark only, that we do not lay much be made under such circumstances? Indeed, our stress upon the criticism which extracts definitions churchyards and cemeteries seem not unnaturally from Gen. i. 26, and ii. 7, as it might tend to the to suggest the idea of ownership; and we ourselves conclusion that, for however brief a period, man knew a pious lady, of family rank, who expressed was created without spirit—that is, he was merely a desire that her coffin might be deposited in the an animal. We fear, moreover, that it would re- grave with its lid unscrewed, that no impediment quire much profitless trouble to attempt to make might exist in the way of her instant obedience to clear to our people this elementary piece of meta- the summons of the archangel's trump! If this physics as explained by Mr. Evans, and still more marks a state of ignorance not unmixed with irrevto purge our best theology of the old nomenclature. erence, yet does it also exhibit that popular notion For our own practical purposes, of putting forth of ownership at the resurrection, which, we fear, some remarks upon the relative importance of the makes many secret doubters or unbelievers. To component parts of man, the old division, therefore, the friend who suggested to us the above popular seems sufficient. Moreover, we shall thus escape difficulty, we replied at the time by pointing out the inconvenient inquiry as to whether the soul and the gross absurdity of predicating the limits of time spirit are of the same nature or not. When looking and space of Him who fabricated those rolling orbs upon a human skeleton, we see the fate of one of over our own heads, and of presenting the apparent these three component parts-the body. Of another, difficulties of a paltry sheet of salt water before we only know by revelation that the spirit is gone Him "who hath measured the waters in the holto God that gave it. But what has become to the low of his hand, and meted out heaven with a span, ' , the yuz, the soul? How shall we and comprehended the dust of the earth in a explain the doctrine of this verse: "Who know-measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, eth the spirit (7) of a man that goeth upward, and the spirit (7) of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?" (Eccles. iii. 21.) This must be of the nature either of the body or the spirit. If it belongs to the former, it must perish with it; and if it belongs to the latter, it still survives; and then does not that of animalculæ, &c., also ? We would, therefore, still retain the old division, in endeavoring to assign the relative positions of the bodily and the spiritual during their earthly probation, though we are very far from regarding the question as unimportant, or from insinuating that Mr. Evans has not written ably upon it. and the hills in a balance." (Isaiah xl. 12.) But there is another solution which may help to free the subject from all such literal difficulties. Amongst other purposes which the materials of our globe are designed to serve, one is for the fabrication of the human body. We have shown it to be a point of revelation that Adam's body was made of these preexisting materials; nor can we believe that, chemically speaking, none but those identical portions which were actually made use of could have produced that organized frame with all its constitutional peculiarities. We cannot bring ourselves to imagine that any peculiarity exists in the decomposed materials of any two In examining the ulterior grounds of the necessity human bodies to constitute essential identity—that for the sanctification of the body, it seems requisite, is, that there is something essentially peculiar in in limine, to allude to the popular difficulties pre- the "dust" of one which there is not in that of sented by the doctrine of its future resurrection. the other. The actual and distinctive framework It must be acknowledged that there seems to be a of Adam and of every human being is something degree of impertinence, so to speak, in demanding real, and altogether arbitrary of any parental arthe literalities of this doctrine, which conscious ig-rangements; but we do not suppose that the norance usually foregoes in speaking of the future"dust" of one might not serve the purpose of the destinies of the soul. Fools, to be sure, rush in reörganization of another, if reänimation were where angels fear to tread; but whilst it is useless required. Certainly, this hypothesis presents no to notice their exceptions, the rule is to believe practical difficulties to the reason, though the pethat after death the soul exists somewhere separately from the body, waiting the arrival of the period appointed for their reunion, by what is called the resurrection of the latter. But the im culiarities of individual physical organization present such as might be fairly used to show abstractedly the limits of even guessing. The color of the complexion and the hair, and those nameless dif tion implies. For though it is contrary to any laws with which we are now acquainted, yet, upon our introduction at death into new departments of the universe, the circumstances of the resurrection will appear then as natural as the conception, birth, and growth to manhood of individuals does now. Indeed, such we are sure will be the case; for it is certain that the laws under which the inhabitants of this globe are to exist hereafter have not now to be enacted, or changed, or repealed. His laws are, like himself, unchangeable. One of these laws experience has established that the spirit of man should be clothed for a definite period in a material dress, which shall be capable of certain functions, and then be dissolved into the "dust" from whence it was taken. Another law has been revealed concerning the future, that after a period of separation the soul shall be again united to an earthly body, on which divine power shall effect such transforming changes as shall qualify it for some new definite position and duties in the universe, which, though clearly alluded to, are yet veiled under negations and images. ferences where even the strongest family likeness | present laws) powers which the general resurrecbetween brother and brother is seen upon close investigation being but superficial, manifest a contriving power that rules with perfect mastery a complicated and subtle machinery, which, though limited to our knowledge, is yet thus proved to be unlimited in its appliances; but still, it is beyond the power of human science to prove that these differences and varieties depend in any way upon the qualities of such definite earthly materials as could be replaced, in individual cases, by no others. Personal identity, we think, may depend more upon the filling up of that peculiar mould, which is an universal differentia of individuals, than upon any native difference between the "dust" which may be taken up in one hand from a church-yard in England, and in the other from a burial-ground in any country across the seas. We should judge it to be far more likely that it is the original and distinctive mould, constituting, as has been said, an universal differentia, which determines such definite characteristics of individuals, as the relative quantity of blood, the disposition of the nerves, &c., than any distinguishing qualities of the mere earthly materials which fill out these moulds. So far as this theory is probable, so far are we justi- | fied in rejecting the popular difficulties raised upon the doctrine of the resurrection, on the ground of the apparent impossibility of restoring to each that identical body he laid down at death; for, until it can be proved that the individual's bodily identity depends upon the inherent qualities, and not, as we judge, upon the disposition only of the earthly materials of which it is composed, the popular difficulty rests upon no foundation. We deem it quite enough to say that, as the human frame is composed of earthly materials in general, when the soul of each requires for its body that exact quantity which shall suffice to constitute its former identity, according to the original mould, not a single difficulty will exist on the ground of ownership, unless it can be proved that one portion of earth, or air, or water, is generically different from, and better or worse than another. We may further illustrate this view by asking whether it is supposable that the physical organization of an individual, who had been reared from infancy to manhood in one locality, would have been in any way different, if he had been reared in a locality twenty miles distant? And yet it is certain that the precise earthly materials of which the body would have been formed in the one case would be different from those of which it would have been formed in the other. Our conclusion from this is the same as before-that personal identity does not depend upon the quality of earthly materials, but rather, as we are led to suppose, upon some definite quantity taken according to no rule of what we call ownership, and the composition of it into wholes after given moulds. As to the physical difficulties which are presented to some minds by what are deemed mechanical impossibilities, the whole must disappear before sober views of the miraculous (according to our Attempts have been made to get rid of the physical difficulties suggested by the apparent impossibility of a restoration to each soul of the identical body actually laid down at death, by supposing some germ to exist in it, which, like other seeds, would contain within itself the miniature body to be enlarged by growth or some other unknown means. If, however, this idea were received and carried out, it would tend to a result similar to our own, only encumbered with the difficulty of conceiving how that germ, and myriads of others, could be preserved from sharing the fate of their kindred dust. We would fain hope that the theory we have sketched might be made use of for allaying those painful doubts about the possibility of the future resurrection which have arisen in certain minds from the proved fact that portions of earth, which belonged to one human body, must have been converted by the processes of nature into materials appropriated by another; and, as these processes can be carried on without assignable limit, ownership must be out of the question. Our hypothesis tends to set aside all such difficulties, by showing that they are unfounded in nature. But upon this view, that sacred regard for our own body, which is the main purpose of Mr. Evans' book to inculcate, may seem unnecessary, as it is to be manifested towards materials none of which may fall to our share at the resurrection. We might at once cut this knot by a reference to our former remark upon the impertinence of demanding the literalities of a fact, which has been revealed without its modes. But a similar objection belongs to personal identity after the lapse of years; for, as Bishop Butler observes of "large quantities of matter in which we are very nearly interested," they " may be alienated, and actually are in the course of succession, and changing their owners, whilst we are assured that each what is called the soul. We cannot, as we write living agent remains one and the same permanent | the religious views of the compound man presentbeing.' But one remark (it is impossible to dis-ed by our popular theology are mainly limited to cuss such a subject in the pages of a Review) may suffice. In demanding peculiar veneration either for soul or body, the true foundation of the respect must be made to rest upon their divine origin and revealed destiny. When, therefore, we urge the solemn duty of using our bodies as "vessels of sanctification and honor," we imply that they are a specific kind of divine workmanship, which, after its earthly destiny has been fulfilled, we believe will, to all intents and purposes, be restored identically at the resurrection; for if the entire change of substance, which occurs after the lapse of many years, during the earthly existence, does not destroy the peculiarities of identity, why should any such entire changes at the resurrection destroy it? The body of our blessed Lord was certainly raised with the peculiarities which had marked it during his former life, otherwise his disciples and friends would have been unable to establish his identity. Indeed, we know it bore even the scars of the crucifixion; nor can we believe that that sacred body presented after its resurrection its former emaciated appearance, occasioned by such sufferings in life and on the cross as must have reduced it to the minimum of size compatible with existence. We speak with reverence; but there can be no doubt that this view is true. In like manner, as Christ's resurrection is to be Monstro quod ipsi tibi possis dare: semita certe The Stagyrite teaches us that prudence is the progenitor of all the virtues; and, with comparatively few exceptions, it will be found that imprudence in earlier years in overtaxing the body, whether as students or as pursuers of gain or clog and a wearying burden, instead of a perpetual source of boundless gratitude. The joy with which a body in perfect health responds at times to the appeals of nature abroad is known to none but such as have carefully used it according to the divine laws. It is said by the biographer of the poet Crabbe that he could never read steadily those lines of Shakspeare's good old Adam :— the pattern of ours, so we conclude will each individual body, of whatever materials it is composed, exhibit after its resurrection those natural and original peculiarities which distinguished it from the myriads of others scattered over all the gener-pleasure, is the sole cause of its being felt to be a ations of time; and, to our apprehension, this characteristic physical reörganization appears to be altogether independent of the popular requirement that the materials of the heavenly body should be taken from the burial-ground of the earthly body. The potter hath power over the clay of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor and another to dishonor; but the same clay which was used to make the vessel unto dishonor would have served equally well to make the vessel unto honor. Just, then, as the sameness of the materials of two vessels made from clay of the same lump does not constitute their identity, no more, as it appears to us, will the sameness of the materials be required to constitute personal identity at the resurrection. This has already received an illustration from the consideration that the sameness of the materials does not constitute the personal identity of an individual at any two consecutive periods, since, by the ceaseless natural processs of rejection and addition, which are going on in all human bodies, interchanges must occur periodically. Hence this objection to especial sanctification of the earthly body, on the ground of (possibly) total changes in the materials of the heavenly body, is without force. But it is time to pass on from principles to their application. There can be no doubt that *Analogy, part i., chap. i., sect. ii. Though I look old, yet am I strong and lusty; Such as these can never miscall the body a clog and an encumbrance. It is impossible, however, to say how much evil has been and is wrought by such utterly erroneous views of the mystical union of the body and soul, and of the separate claims of each. Perhaps, therefore, we are justified in attributing great importance to Mr. Evans' contribution to our theological literature, though we are far from coinciding with all his theories and their application. We think the time has arrived when the real errors and the imperfect views which have so long made certain portions of our popular theology a stumbling block to the thoughtful should * Juvenal, Sat. x., 356. |