As the op

“ The Columbiad," a name essen- mankind that his hero in the above tial to the work as the principal recited lines had been unknown founder of the American Republic, also except as the vindicator of and of the happiness of its citizens. American freedom. Omitting the name of Mr. Paine pugner of divine Revelation, his in the history of America, and name is associated with whatever is where the amelioration of the hu- infamous, and Barlow, however his man race is so much concerned, consistency may be affected, has is like omitting the name of New- wisely omitted the task of eulogiton in writing the history of his zing Paine. philosophy, or that of God, when The Columbiad, you know, is creation is the subject; yet this published in our country in quarto Joel Barlow has done, and done with plates, and sells in guilt calf 80, lest the name of Paine com- binding at twenty-five dollars. It bined with his theological opinions, is the most expensive original should injure the sale of the poem. work ever brought before the AmerMean and unhandsome conduct! ican public; and I believe was unTo remedy this opinion, though profitable both to the author and not in the fine style of Barlow, the publisher. A copyright was obfollowing lines are suggested to be tained which prevented it from applaced at the close of the 425th pearing in any cheaper form, unless line in the 5th book of his Colum- by the sanction of the author ; and biad.

he was unwilling to have his poem

dresssed in any humbler garb, than A man who honoured Albion by his birth, a splendid quarto. Little, you are The wisest, brightest, humblest son of aware, is now said concerning the earth;

work. Is it the circumstance of A man in every sense that word can

its dearness, or its want of merit, mcan, Now started angel-like upon the scene,

or both that have consigned it to

Barlow, Drew forth his pen of reason, truth, and comparative oblivion ? fire,

doubtless intended that like the IlThe land to animate, the troops inspire; iad and Æneid, it should be handAnd call d that independent spirit forth, ed down to posterity, and give him Which gives all bliss to man, and constitutes his worth.

a name as imperishable as that of 'Twas he suggested first, 'twas he who Homer or Virgil! One thing is plann`d,

certain, if American authors would A separation from the mother land.

be known and read they must conHis “common sense,” his “crisis” lead

sent to have their thoughts appear be To great Columbia's happy, perfect day, fore the public in a form which will And all she has of good, or ever may - suit the purses of the poor as well as As Eucild clear his various writings the rich. It is the high price of our shone,

Irving's works, that has confined His pen inspired by glorious truth alone, them to a comparatively narrow O'er all the earth diffusing light and life circle of readers. My country, Subduing error, ignorance, and strife; Rased man to just pursuits, to thinking men are a reading community, and right;

fond of literature, but they do not And yet will free the world from woe and like to pay much for it. I have

falsehood's night; To this immortai inan, to Paine 'twas giv- biad in octavo printed in Paris, as

seen a plain copy of the ColumnTo metamorphose earth from hell to the title page said, but it was most heaven."

probably done in America, and the

copyright evaded. The London This closes the manuscript. The edition in my possession is beautiauthor of it is of course unknown ; ' fully executed, .both as to paper and it would have been well for and the typographical part. This

the way,

en,

is more than enough perhaps, for a from the mass of periodicals, of all heavy poem ; but it relates to my sorts, with which the liberality of country, and that circumstance the proprietors loads their ample must be my apology for saying thus tables. Among the rest, perad much.

venture, some one takes up your own Spectator, and to him let me

say, in reference to the employTo the Editor of the ristian Spectator.

ment above described ;-Is this

making the holy of the Lord, honSINCE your correspondents have ourable, not doing our own ways, taken in hand latterly to speak of nor finding our own pleasure ? Sabbath-breaking, suffer me a word In no city in the Union is a more or two on that subject. --One of the enlightened spirit of freedom cher“by-laws and regulations of the ished than in Boston. Of this its Boston Atheneum” is the follow- more than two hundred schools and ing “ The Reading Room is more than ten thousand pupils are opened on Sunday afternoon after the best evidence. And with no divine service, and closed at the gentlemen in the world would it be same hour as on other evenings.". more superfluous to argue that our I have no knowledge of the fact; nation's safety depends on the pres. but I suppose it not improbable ervation of its morals than with the that the reading room is more re- two hundred and five most respectsorted to on that day than on any able proprietors of the Boston other. Indeed there must be a Athenæum. None are more aware strong inclination to such a prac- ' than they, that the corruption of tice, or the above regulation, so the people is the rottennes of a free uncongenial to the religious habits state. And are they not equally of New England, would not have aware that the Sabbath is the great been admitted. Probably, how- means of preserving the public ever the proprietors of the Athe- morals? Do they not know that, næum do not allow that the prac- under a government like ours, the tice is a violation of the Sabbath.- restraints of law are gossamer with“Where is the impropriety of out it? In a word, the Sabbath spending an hour or two, after the lost, all is lost. It is the Sabbath tedium of divine service, in a qui. with all its salutary influences that et reading room ?”—Jehovah's own must sustain the tone of moral feelcommentary on his law is in the

ing in this great and free communifollowing words :—“ If thou shalt ty; and those who treat it with call the Sabbath a delight, the ho- neglect, and by their example ly of the Lord, honourable; and “ teach men so," are pulling down shalt honour him, not doing thine the strongest bulwark which God own ways, nor finding thine own has given us for the safety of our pleasure, nor speaking thine own civil institutions. It is devoutly to words:"-Let us then look into be hoped therefore, that the patrithe reading room, and see how we otism-if a more religious motive are employed there. You shall cannot influence them, will induce find one poring over the late pamph- the Boston gentlemen to do away lets respecting the “Greek frig. the above regulation, and that the ates ;” another is reading the low doors of that conspicuous instituwit of Blackwood; another the tion will be suffered to remain clonews of the day ; and, in short, sed till the sacred hours are past. each selects, as humour prompts him,

Ξένος.

FOR THE CHRISTIAN SPECTATOR.

a

Among the more remarkable phenomena, that have been observed to happen in the celestial system, that of a star seen by Tycho Brahe and another philosopher in 1572 deserves especial notice. Its magnitude and brightness, during most of the time of its appearance, exceeded those of the largest stars: it even equalled Venus “when nearest the earth, and was seen in fair day-light. It continued sixteen months : at length it began to dwindle ; and at last, in March 1573, totally disappeared, without any change of place in all that time.”-See Ree's Cyc. Art. Stars.

'Tis thought, while earth is subject to decay,
The distant suns in their unchanging spheres
Wheel round, unconscious of the waste of time,
Most like their author. Yet the wise have told,
How miracles, arising in the sky,
From astronomic sight and skill obtain
No just solution. To the amazed eye
Of Tycho, from amid the smallest lights,
Where, since the framing of the universe,
It dwelt in distant majesty unknown,-
A star shone forth, beyond the ruddy glow
Of old Arcturus, or the dreaded blaze
Of Sirius, brightest of the distant suns.
With undiminished lustre, for a time
Measured on earth by months and fleeting days,
Fit match of Jupiter, it shot its beams
Across the boundless passage to our world.
From his star-tower amid the waves, the Dane
Watched its effulgence; and with earnest eye,
Gazed, as it languished, faded, and retired
Amid the undistinguished throng, whose beams
Fill their own empyrean in the vast
Expanse, where sight and sound of earth are lost.

O for some message from the highest heaven
To explain the wonder : Publish, who can tell,
What news this beacon, speaking from afar,
Spread through the realm of God; what warlike hosts,
From many a shining, many a loyal world,
It called to battle ; or what fiery doom
O’ertook some orb invisible before,
But blazing at its dread catastrophe.
Perhaps some wandering comet missed its

way ;
Or sun,-the heavenly ordinance transgressid, -
Fell from its sphere : perhaps some guilty world ;
Its day of doom arrived, its countless sons
Sentenced ; and at the Almighty's voice, received
The fires to spoil and purify its face,
To melt away the dross of grosser things,
And mould it for a dwelling-place of saints,
Perhaps--but here I hold, for 'tis in vain

i
To pluck unripe conjecture, when ere long
Upon the records of the heavenly years

That mark the passage of eternity, 1826.--No. 12.

81

I may find written by the hand of God
The story of his reign : what counsels past
Have imaged him in all material things;
And at his order what new scenes shall rise,
Scenes of surpassing glory, such as earth
And heaven in their young being ne'er have known.
So all things tend towards God; until at last
His glory, as a visible sun, shall shine
Before his saints, and he be all in all.

HEX

Reviews.

Letters to a friend, on the Eviden- deserves the thanks of its friends ;

ces, Doctrines, and Duties of the for besides that, from his acquaintChristian Religion. By OLIN- ance with other subjects of knowThus GREGORY, LL. D., Profes- ledge, and his peculiar habits of insor of Mathematics in the Royal vestigation, he may bring to the Military Academy at Woolwich, Christian doctrines new methods &c. &c. First American, from of illustration and defence, he de. the fourth London edition. N. prives the infidel of a favorite weapYork : G. & C. Carvill. 1826. on of attack : it cannot be objected 2 vols. 12mo. pp. 300 and 302. to his performance, as has been

done to the similar works of clerWe were unwilling that this Amer- gymen, that it is a clerical view of ican edition of a valuable foreign the subject—written in the way of work should leave the press, and the author's profession, and theremingle with the great community fore from motives of interest or of authors, without bestowing on prejudice. it some notice. There is such a Å book which treats of the "ermultitude of books published at the idences, doctrines, and duties, of present day, and it is so much the the Christian religion,” must of nefashion to recommend them by their cessity embrace a great variety of newness, that even valuable works topics, and a multitude of particular soon lose, in a great measure, the facts and arguments ; and it has distinction which their merits claim. been remarked that if there is any They make their appearance like work more difficult to be produced one in a great train of strangers : than a book of this description, it is the last that enter attract the most a critique on such a book. For as attention, while others have passed the original performance is a selecon and become lost in the common tion from a mass of materials, rather mass.

than a work of invention, to review In respect to the work before it in all its parts is to compile a sepus, if there is any circumstance, arate work ; and as a main difficulty apart from the merits of its execu- in the execution of the former contion, which should commend it to sisted in bringing it within convenspecial favour, it is the circum- ient limits, the labour is proportionstance of its being written by a lay- ably enhanced when an attempt is

A man of learning who steps made to embrace the same field of aside from his own profession, like inquiry within the still narrowercomBacon, and Locke, and Newton, pass of a review. Our remarks on Dr. to write for the Christian religion, Gregory's book, therefore, will be

scattered and immethodical; some from one depth of vice to anof its topics may engage our atten- other, and groping from one shade tion more particularly, but others of darkness to another; and put will elicit only a few passing reflec- forth no hand to lift them from the tions, while others must be omitted miry clay, nor shed one beam of altogether. We will here remark light upon them to guide them to however, that the work is interest- himself? The light of nature was ing in every part. The reader will indeed sufficient, the apostle tells everywhere perceive in it a manly, us, to render the idolatry of the disciplined, and wellinstructedmind, heathens inexcusable ; for the inviand what is of greater consequence sible things of God from the creain a religious treatise, a benevolent tion of the world are clearly seen : and candid temper.

and they to whom the revealed will Our author commences with the of God was not imputed, were not " folly and absurdity of Deism,” guiltless in their errors ; for having as contrasted with Christianity; and not the law, they were a law unto treating it with a mixture of argu- themselves. But having once lost ment and irony, he sets it in a light the knowledge of the true God, as humbling to the reason of its ad- they continually wandered farther vocate, as it must be cheerless to from the light. Their wisest spechis heart. He proceeds then, in ulations about religion and a fuhis second letter, to consider the ture state tended only to greater necessity of a divine revelation. darkness and perplexity; while the That such a revelation would be religious rites they practised only made was probable from the char- made them the more impure and acter of God; that it was ne- grovelling. The great masters of cessary was evident from the con- antiquity left behind them models dition of mankind. It is a part of in every department of human genthe teaching even of natural reli- ius, but left no lights to the theologion, that the invisible Creator ex- gian. They pushed their progress, ercises a providential care over his with admirable success, in every creatures. “ He left himself not direction save in that one which without witness,” said an apostle might lead them to a knowledge of to the worshippers of Jupiter, " in Jehovah, and of their relations to that he did good, and gave us rain him and to their fellow-men. But out from heaven, and fruitful seasons, of all their wisdom what one docfilling our hearts with food and trine in theology, or what one rule gladness.” This even the philos- in morals, may be gathered, conophers and wise ones who set at cerning which it can be said, this naught the scriptures, or treat them so far rendered a divine revelation with indifference, do admit. They needless. But though the fact have seen that the Creator's paths were otherwise, a revelation had drop fatness in the present world; still been indispensible. For adand it is from this experience of his mitting that some great inquirer goodness here, that they affect to among the heathen had discovered, look for the same kind treatment and taught to others, all that the hereafter. Was it then to be ex- light of nature teaches ; in other pected, deists themselves being words, had embodied in a system judges, that the beneficent Be- of natural religion, all the truths ing who had so abundantly re- which may be known without a revgarded the physical necessities of elation-his system would still his children, would make no pro- have been without authority, and vision for their moral wants? Was consequently without any reformit probable that he would see them ing power. It would have been resinking, through successive ages, garded at the best as only a beau.