all. He is perpetually called upon for admiration at the success with which this labor has been crowned. It seems hardly credible that so much has been done, when the nature of the evil to be removed, and the simplicity of the means, are placed side by side. The past thus comes to us full of promise, and encourages every friend of the reform to go on with his labors, and holds out a prospect full of brightness and hope.

But with all this encouragement, our retrospects furnish some highly useful lessons in regard to the future. The reform at first, as we have seen, moved slowly. At length it acquired a prodigious momentum, and now it is full of zeal, of wise and commanding energy. It keeps its way amidst a thousand private troubles, and public depressions. The public press every where has taken its part, and thousands of publications are almost daily coming forth in aid of its progress. Eloquent men have brought their peculiar gift into its service-have penetrated into the depths, the sources of human feeling and human action-have awakened the conscience and left impressions too deep to be effaced by time, or lost when that which made them is withdrawn.

Now under the operation of these and many kindred causes, a great deal has been done. This amount of good has been produced too in a short time. This is an important fact in its bearings on our present subject. How shall this good be continued and added to?—to what shall this cause look for its future support, and uninterrupted progress? It must look for both these to that great principle with which we begun, the remedial moral power which has been provided for moral evil. This principle cannot be destroyed, and while it is made, or as far as it becomes a spring of action, that action must be permanent. It is this which lies at the foundation of all the lasting institutions of society. It is this which declares to us the evil of ignorance; and education, or its means, as a remedy, is the natural growth, if I may so say, of its declarations. We feel so sure of the evil here, of ignorance, have so deep an interest in its removal, that we estimate the means by which to remove it, as above price, and cheerfully contribute all of money and of talent within our circumstances. So it is with the temperance reform. It must be universally regarded as it has already become, one of the permanent necessary institutions of society, and so is allied after the closest manner with every other social and domestic

means, for the religious, the moral, and the intellectual progress of man. Its interests have been hitherto in some sense felt to be committed to a few-to individuals forming societies for the express purpose of publishing its doctrines, and showing by example its happy effects. It has been by this direct agency of societies, that the reform has made progress, and it must from the nature of things continue for a longer or shorter time to go on in a similar way. Its complete success, its permanent operation, however, must be looked for in the universality of the sentiment, that the personal interest of the individual, and of every individual in this cause, is the paramount concern among men. It must be felt that every man who practises entire abstinence, whether from a fixed principle, or merely from or for example sake, as truly belongs to this cause as if he were formally enrolled among its friends. As this becomes more and more the case, and how rapid is its progress, excitement in regard to the cause will be less. The timid, or the narrow thinker, may find in this, cause for alarm-he may see, in the quiet of a wide spread sobriety, a decay of principle. But his apprehension will be groundless. The only cause to which we should look as adequate to the destruction of much of the good which has been done, or what is equivalent to this, the checking the progress of the reform, is forgetfulness, or neglect of the great truths on which it so surely depends. Until this takes place, the cause has all the permanency, and certainty of progress, that belongs to physical science. For what truths

are more emphatically such than moral truths? Of these we have the sure testimony of our whole moral and intellectual nature. We do not appeal to the senses to confirm themtheir proof is ultimate and complete, the stern and solemn convictions of our own minds.

With so much to encourage its friends, the prospects of reform are to be, after all, gathered from the use of the principles which have so much engaged us. They will operate always; but the extent of the operation may be limited, and the progress retarded, by any and all misuse or misapplication of the means. Men are not to be forced into right conduct, either by their fears or their interests. Goodness must be short-lived, and very feebly operative, which comes of such means. It is not by general or municipal regulations that we are to call men from evil habits. We must go deeper than conduct; we must go deeply into that

whole moral state whence human action proceeds. In this matter we must not appeal to a majority of men for the measure or the kind of conduct of the smaller number. The majority may be wholly right in their doctrines and practice; but a vote has no charm to infuse either, into those who are wrong in both. Let us teach men where the evil they do lies, what are its sources, and all of them. Let us show every side of virtue, and with what felicity it is blessed. Let it be made to all men a personal concern, to think and act well. Let the moral principle be awakened from its long and profound slumber, and it will be to them in all its revelations and doings, the fast friend of their happiness, their sure guide to good. By such means, and by such means only, can we secure to this cause the permanency it claims of its friends. And proceeding on its true principles, we must secure to it all of progress that the nature of man allows us to hope for. To pursue an opposite course will be sure to create enemies. We shall find parties rising in this matter, and in this way one of the purest, one of the dearest of causes to the philanthropist, will come to be polluted by low and vulgar passions, presenting themselves in their most odious aspects. Suppose for a moment that it should be mixed up with what are called politics, and great or small questions of a public nature should be made to turn by the power of this reform. Nothing could be so fatal to it. Its great and distinguishing characteristic, its purely moral nature, would be taken away from it. It would itself soon again be lost sight of, in the jarrings and miserable strifes which now make Christianity mourn. The respon

sibleness then, which rests with those who have an active agency in this matter, is not a light one. Making every allowance, however, for human infirmity, if the true principles of the temperance reform be steadily kept in sight, the interruptions to its progress will not be great, and its present bright prospects will be covered by no impenetrable cloud.

ARTICLE IV.

THE WORKS OF THE REV. ROBERT HALL.

THE individual whose name is at the head of this article, has been long and widely known, and warmly admired. Of course our design is not an attempt to raise up into notice, one, whose genius and talents have no intrinsic force to secure ascendency and attention. Reputation like Hall's, sustained by powers so vast and noble, will always take care of itself. It asks not the adventitious help of critical eulogy or purchased praise. The assumed arbiter of literary destiny can neither augment nor diminish, by his judgments and decrees, the lustre and elevation of his fame. Our object, in this article, is to give a candid estimate of the literary and professional character of Mr. Hall and of the probable influence of his works and name. As incipient and introductory to this design, it may be profitable to glance at the process of training, and the application by which he grew to greatness; for whatever our theories of the equality or inequality of native endowments, it must be conceded, that education has a chief influence in the structure, strength and symmetry of the mind.

Robert Hall was born at Arnsby, near Leicester, on the 2d of May, 1764; the youngest of fourteen children. Like Doddridge, his infancy was one of extreme and precarious feebleness. In the infantile stage, there were no remarkable intellectual indications. It was not till he was two years of age, that he could either talk or walk. No attempts were made, as sometimes are made, in the first dawn of being, to force knowledge upon him, or to decoy to inadequate mental exertion attempts, in consequence of which, many minds that might have shone with peculiar brightness, have set in sad and premature gloom. He was not taught, till he seemed to solicit instruction. It was in a burial ground, situated near his father's house, that he first learned to read and spell; his nurse was his instructor, a grave-stone the textbook. After he began to learn, his progress was rapid, and he soon became a surprising instance of intellectual precocity. The following facts are related of him when attending an elementary school in a neighboring village. "On starting from home on the Monday, it was his practice to take with

6

him two or three books from his father's library, that he might read them in the intervals between the school hours. The books he selected, were not those of mere amusement, but such as required deep and serious thought. The works of Jonathan Edwards, for example, were among his favorites; and it is an ascertained fact, that before he was nine years of age, he had perused and reperused with intense interest, the treatises of that profound and extraordinary thinker, on the Affections' and on the Will.' About the same time he read, with a like interest, Butler's Analogy.' At the age of eleven, Mr. Simmons, his instructor, informed Mr. Hall that he must remove Robert from the school, for he was not able to keep pace with him, without sitting up all night to study; a practice to which his strength was inadequate. Young Hall then passed into the family of a valued friend of his father, Mr. Wallis, of Kettering, who was so much struck with the wonderful precocity of the lad, that he would frequently request him to deliver short religious addresses, before select companies invited for the purpose. Mr. Hall in subsequent life, occasionally alluded to this treatment with warmth, as palpably indiscreet and injurious." "I never call the circumstances to mind," he said, "without grief at the vanity it inspired; nor, when I think of such mistakes of good men, am I inclined to question the correctness of Baxter's language, strong as it is, where he says, 'Nor should men turn preachers as the river Nilus breeds frogs (saith Herodotus), when one half moveth before the other is made, and while it is yet but plain mud.'”

We have been thus particular in detailing circumstances of Hall's early development and training, as it is interesting to know something of the original movements of a great mind. In this instance, we behold the exhibitions of remarkable strength and comprehension in childhood. But it is not always thus with individuals who attain ultimate eminence. Indeed, we are inclined to the opinion, that ordinarily, precocity is an unfavorable symptom. At least, remarkable boys do not always make remarkable men. Greatness is generally of slow and arduous growth. "It has been observed by long experience," says Dr. Johnson on this very point, "that late springs produce the greatest plenty." This much we may safely affirm; great intellectual power is invariably the result of great and protracted intellectual exertion. On this account it may be, that many whose early promise was rather dim and dubious, transcend expectation, and astonish by the