had required it; and scarcely might even the unconscious babe wear his accustomed smile, or the brother and sister speak lovingly, one to the other, lest it should be a violation. of the proprieties of holy time. Then the day was lived over again, as in a miniature exhibition. Memory was summoned to recall its pious services. The conversation turned upon the sermons of the morning and afternoon, and their main views were repeated and impressed upon old and young. Then the good old catechism was recited, perhaps for the thousandth time; the older children mastering the most knotty answers, and the younger, lisping the easier and shorter ones, drinking in, here and there, a conception of the great truths they were uttering, and laying up with patient attention the weighty sentences, which were to them the veil of truths to be afterwards revealed. Then came the chapters of the word of God, and the hymns which had been treasured up in the young hearts around the fireside, the testimonies of maternal interest and affection. Afterwards, the parents and older members of the household discussed together the doctrines of revelation, or gave their views of difficult passages, or talked over the hallowed record of Christian experience, till the firelight grew dim, and gathering night reminded the circle of their repose. Those were days, in which piety had no need to be nourished by continual excitement. Impulses had not assumed the place of principle. Christian growth was promoted, as the growth of plants, and of trees by the watercourses; silently, but steadily, believers grew on, till they came to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. Rooted and grounded in the truths of the gospel, no winds of doctrine could shake their steadfastness. If error came in a garb of light, seeking for abettors, it was compelled to look for them among the ignorant and the neglected. Then revivals of religion occurred, as the fruit of the stated ministrations of the gospel; and their duration was long and cheering, as their fruits were abundant and genuine. The pastor, from youth to reverend age, dwelt in the same house, led the devotions of the same temple, and guided successively the parents and children in the right ways of the Lord. Many that were welcomed by him in blooming youth to the sacramental table, in hoary age received from the same hand the sacred symbols; and he stood beside their graves, a sincere mourner, when earth was consigned to its kindred earth, ashes to ashes, dust

to dust. The countless benefits of home religious instruction, language cannot describe, nor thought compute. We suspect that the Westminster Assembly's Catechism has held the front rank among the instrumentalities by which it has been promoted. It served as the basis of those lessons of truth from the living oracles, with which many parents, too modest to interpret the word of God for themselves, imbued the minds of their children. It laid the foundation for that strength of piety, and doctrinal clearness and noble endurance in the cause of sound orthodoxy, which the world has often seen and whose influence it has felt, within the last two centuries. Many of our church-members and ministers experience its benefits. The orthodoxy of New England failed, more than a quarter of a century since, doubtless, as the result, in part, of a defection in the habit of parental religious teaching. The notion came suddenly into vogue, that it was an infringement of mental liberty for parents to teach their children a system of doctrinal truth. Hence catechetical instruction fell into disuse; the Westminster Catechism was laid aside, and public sentiment declined the use, for any long space of time, of any substitute. With the development of the scheme of Sabbath schools, the parent, in many instances, transferred his responsibility to the weekly teacher. New manuals of instruction were adopted. That which savored of the past, or was cherished in past ages, as if almost for that reason, came to be esteemed inferior. And in the change which has followed, it is a problem, whether more of good or evil has ensued. If, in some respects, we have gained, we are persuaded, that, in others, much has been lost. How great an achievement it would be, to unite the past with the present, that we might enjoy the knowledge, the confirmation, the piety, the solid growth, the sterling worth of them both! What gain it would be, could our children add to the familiarity with the principles of biblical interpretation, which abounds. in the present age, the treasure of a system of Christian doctrine, distinctly apprehended by the understanding, cleared from the objections of opposers, seen in its own symmetry and excellence and its relative fitness, and laid up in the memory, clothed in simple and easy words, fitly chosen by master minds, and married for ever, by an indissoluble union, to the views of truth which they are appointed to express ! The work of Mr. Hetherington possesses much value.

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gives, apparently, an honest account of the Assembly and its proceedings; but still we regret the absence of minute reports of their sessions, which, though less important in a contemporaneous age, would now possess immense interest. The deficiency, however, Mr. H. assures us, is inevitable, and can never be made up. Full notes were taken by several members of the Assembly, besides the manuscripts kept by the clerks; but in the period that has intervened, they are irrecoverably lost. One account states that the original journal was burned in the great fire in London, in 1666; and some aver that a copy of it, placed temporarily in the building occupied by the House of Commons, was consumed with that edifice, in 1834. Hence, in many respects, we are forced to be contented with general statements, where we earnestly desire that which is full and specific. We are constrained, moreover, to say, that, in many respects, the account of the Assembly given by Neal in his "History of the Puritans " (Vol. III, Toulmin's edition), is much more satisfactory than the work of Hetherington.* The latter seems to have had access to few, if any, sources of information, which were not known to the former. Neal, in his text and his Appendices, furnishes many items, extremely valuable in themselves, and necessary to a complete history of the Westminster Assembly, but which Hetherington wholly omits. A complete history of the Assembly ought not to presume too much on the previous knowledge of its readers. It should state every thing with as much minuteness as if they knew nothing. It is lawful, in such a work, to ask not only who took part in the deliberations, and by what means they came to their results, but what the results were, to which they came. We wish for the documents which they constructed. Hence we take special pleasure in examining the Thirty-nine Articles, as they amended them, printed in columns parallel with the articles in their original form, as we find them in Neal's Appendix.

*Mr. Hetherington, being a warm Presbyterian, as appears from many passages in his work, evidently takes pains to set every act and remark of his own people in a not unfavorable light. Neal being an Independent, gives all diligence that the Independents should have due honor. The Independents and Presbyterians, however, harmonized in so many points, both being Nonconformists, that justice to one is, in most cases, justice to both. But Neal was, probably, not entirely free from sectarian partiality. Crosby complains bitterly of his unjust treatment of the Baptists in England, of whom he professes to give a history in Vol. III, chap. 4. See Crosby's History of the English Baptists, Vol. 1, pp. 2-8, 153, 227. London, 1739.

We like even to see the Scripture references appended to the Confession of Faith by their united authority. We can infer from them the Assembly's interpretation of many difficult or doubtful passages, and gain some important light on the state of Biblical criticism among them. Their directory for public worship, we regard as a most interesting document. The same may be said of their paper in respect to the government of the church. All these, Hetherington omits; perhaps, because he thought them sufficiently familiar to his readers. But, if they are familiar in Scotland, they are not in this country. And, the American publisher should have secured the aid of some competent scholar to re-edit the work, with illustrations and additions from Neal, Baxter, Clarendon, Milton, Burnet, Lightfoot and others. There is a vast difference between a foreign book, properly edited, and sent forth from the press, enlarged, elucidated and confirmed, and a mere bookseller's reprint. We deem it no assumption to say, that we have American scholars, who are competent to improve many of the English books which come to our shores. We may have accidentally fallen in with materials which were overlooked by able men, perhaps abler men, beyond the sea. Our own mental demands may be a fit exponent of the demands of many others of our countrymen; and of such demands, the foreign author may have been utterly unconscious. The addition of a few pages, which would increase but little the expense of a book, would often add immensely to its value. And items of knowledge, brought, in this manner, out of store-houses not easily accessible, or not commonly known to exist, and placed in new relations, may increase vastly the fund of general information, wake new trains of thought over which otherwise men would have slumbered, quicken into life dormant energies, and perhaps prove, in the end, benefactions to the world, calling forth lasting gratitude, and blessing both earth and heaven.

The first chapter of the volume before us, comprising 95 pages, equal to nearly one-third of the book, is occupied with an account of the state of things in Britain previous to the calling of the Westminster Assembly, and out of which the necessity for such a convocation arose. It is a valuable introduction to the main topic of the work. With the aid of a very minute and valuable table of contents, having the years, in which the successive events recorded took place, noted in the

margin, we can refer at once to any point which we desire to investigate. The introductory chapter contains a condensed statement of occurrences for nearly a hundred years before the meeting of the Assembly, from A. D. 1531 to A. D. 1642. Here we have an account of that deeply interesting period in England, which succeeded the development of the Reformation in Germany, and in other parts of the continent, the vexation of Romanism, under the breaking in of gospel light,-the efforts of darkness to recover its ancient dominion,-the mistake of the people in still giving heed, in some points, to tradition, instead of carrying out the great maxim, "The Bible, and the Bible alone, is the religion of Protestants,"—and the troubles attendant on the new state of ecclesiastical affairs,-a popery, in which the king assumed to be pope in his own nation; the disseverment of the religious administration from foreign control, only that it might be bound in an equally disastrous union, by the establishment of a church-and-state policy at home; the restlessness among the more pious of the English nation, who were unable quietly to submit to a worship whose imposing forms still reeked with the spirit of papal grandeur, and manifested little more of the ardor of true religion than the pomp, and mincing forms, and senseless mummeries, and "idolatrous gear," of the system which they had left; the cruel laws, passed against those who could not, for conscientious reasons, conform to the state religion; the actual execution of those laws, in fines, stripes, imprisonment and death, inflicted on many, " of whom the world. was not worthy ;" and the growing discontent and dissension, consuming the vitals of the established church, and gradually separating the choicest spirits from her communion, till the calling of the Westminster Assembly was submitted to by Parliament as a last resort,-a resort, through which it was hoped that peace might be restored to the nation, and the various parties drawn together under one spiritual banner.

The history of the Westminster Assembly furnishes an additional illustration of the evils attendant on the union of church and state. It derived its existence from the fact of such a union. It was held together, and kept in action by it. It was prevented by it from accomplishing all the good which might have sprung from such a convocation. It was shackled by it in its discussions and decisions. And, though its judgments might be according to truth and righteousness, they