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Now a college, as far as the question before us is concerned, is a public conveyance, carrying its burden four years forward from childhood into life. Nor is it only, nor mainly, the length of the opportunity afforded by it, to those whom it conveys, to mature a mutual interest, which causes it to give a peculiar relish to the feeling thus inspired. The intercourse, for which it affords occasion, is connected with common occupation in engaging studies, and with the rapid, and happy, and intense experience of youth. The college journey, in a word, is a journey towards fairy-land, over a region attractive enough to deserve to lie in such a line of way; a journey made by a party in high spirits, of quick perceptions, full of wit, of unoccupied hearts, of like age, and with many other points of sympathy. And no wonder, that the travellers should find it pleasant, and from the very beginning feel very kindly towards one another. But after all that can be said on that side, still we cannot get so far as to say on the other, that a man is to feel himself bound, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, for well-behaved or roguish, to whosoever, unseen by him till then, has happened to vault or blunder into college on the same Midsummer day with himself. We cannot find so much as a goodly seeming pedestal of moon-shine to uphold the fancy, that an obligation created by that accident, an accident, it may well be, and often is, which neither of the parties particularly rejoices in, is to supersede obligations which devoted years of a mother's love have been establishing, and anxious years of a father's sturdy toil. We submit, that that notion will not stand the looking at. It trembles and sways under a beam of light, like a balanced needle in an exhausted receiver. It is soon going to be in the limbo of "things lost on earth." At all events, it will not do for our climate and manners." It is quite too sublimated; too exquisite; too German, we would say, but that national reflections are illiberal; at least, too German after the manner of Professor Pottingen's daughter in Canning's play in the Antijacobin, who accosts another fair traveller, whom she encounters in the common room of an inn, with the proposal; "A sudden thought strikes me; let us swear eternal friendship." And then to go on, and in this summary offensive and defensive alliance, do battle, as soon as the uncertain trumpet sounds, at the hazard of much that is interesting to one's hopes, and important in

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the view of one's good sense, why, this does seem to us a most incoherent centaur-composition of excessive amenity and exaggerated manliness. It is Captain Mac Turk grouped with Damon and Pythias. Rather, it is the bravery of that worthy, engrafted on the devotion of Araminta Vavasour, and her gentle boarding-school friend;

"We walked hand in hand to the road, love,
We looked arm in arm to the sky;
And I said, when a foreign postillion
Shall hurry me off to the Po,

Don't forget your Medora Trevilian," &c.

We do not mean to leave any body at liberty here to misapprehend us. We are not of those, if any such there be, who think lightly of the interest of the relation of classmate at college. Perchance we know about its interest, as well as younger men. Perchance we have had, in our day, as much of the good of that relation as others, and have as much reason as others to know the worth of permanent friendships, there formed and nurtured. But we hope we never saw the time, when we looked upon it as the great dispensing relation of life; if we ever did, that time is so distant, though we are not octogenarians, as to have quite faded from our memory. And in these few words we have not designedly said one, to wound the feelings of any, who have been implicated in recent transactions. Quite a different sentiment from any which would dictate this, is excited in every observer of tolerable rectitude of mind and heart. Those youth are our sons, or sons of our kindred, neighbours, and friends. They are bone of the community's best bone, and flesh of its dearest flesh. We love every man and boy of them. We could not spare so much as one from the good public service, which we hope they are destined to render. We would trust them to-morrow with any thing, in which uprightness of mind and heart was alone concerned; and with many things which called for clear judgment, provided the case was one, in which that college idiopathy, we have been commenting on, was out of the way. There is sense and excellence among them, which ensures that their errors, if they err, shall be viewed much more “in sorrow than in anger.' We do not expect Alcibiades to have Socrates' grey hairs, though as often as he harms him

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self, he makes us wish that he had, for his protection, more of the philosophy he is studying. Indeed, they must be much more than commonly wise men, if, at twice their present age, they never make great mistakes. And they must be very much more than commonly good ones, if their mistakes have never a worse source, than an ill-defined and

exaggerated feeling of honor. And they must be very much more than commonly fortunate ones, if they are always told of their mistakes as good-naturedly, as we have desired to comment on what we account such now.

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For our glorious Alma Mater, we admit not a thought of apprehension. It is not by so light a touch, that her agegathered honors are to be brushed away. Hers is a proud and solemn mien, ready to frown, but that it is too calm and Jove-like, on any thing like fear;-a radiant presence, that shines away every shade of gloom. We have no doubt how her destiny is written. We wait in cheerful trust till it be fully read. It is, in Milton's words, to "lead and draw" her sons "in willing obedience, inflamed with the study of learning, and the admiration of virtue; stirred up with high hopes of living to be brave men and worthy patriots, dear to God, and famous to all ages."

NOTICES AND INTELLIGENCE.

Review of Hengstenberg. -- The review of Hengstenburg, in the last number of this journal, has been misapprehended for several reasons. One is, the brevity which the writer studied, and the consequently imperfect manner in which some parts of the subject were illustrated. His references to a former volume of the Christian Examiner, and some other references, which he regards as very important, do not appear to have been examined by some who have spoken of his labors with considerable freedom and confidence.

But the principal cause of misapprehension is, we think, a want of acquaintance with the true state of the subject, and with what has been written upon it in foreign countries. The article was designed to meet the wants of the community in reference to the increasing use of the works of the German theo

logians in our country. While the Reviewer admitted the conclusions to which the learned of that country have almost universally arrived in regard to the representations given by the Hebrew prophets of the character and offices of their expected Messiah, conclusions which are admitted to be correct to a considerable extent by the advocates of a double sense, and by those who adopt the theory of Hengstenberg, provided the true meaning is that single sense, which we have reason to suppose the prophets assigned to their own language, he sought to reconcile these conclusions with the divine authority of Christ. In other words, it was his aim to reconcile with the truth of Christianity what appear to be facts, and what, on common principles of interpretation which are applied to all other books, have been admitted to be facts by the learned of different persuasions, countries, and ages, in regard to the meaning of the language of the Old Testament. It was to remove an obstacle to the universal reception of the Christian religion, which has had great influence for the last hundred years. It was because he believed that some such view as that which he has given was highly important to the defence of Christian truth, that he prepared the article, foreseeing its present unpopularity, as the editors of the Examiner can testify. He has no confidence in his speculations any farther than they are entirely consistent with the divine authority of our Saviour, which will stand, though we should find no mode of explaining the difficulties of prophecy. He admits that he has labored in vain, unless he has contributed to remove an obstacle to the universal acknowledgment of this authority. But he cannot admit that they are competent judges of the value of his labors, who have not gone far enough into the subject to feel its difficulties. He can appeal to God for the sincerity of his endeavours to advance the cause of Christian truth, and he cheerfully leaves it to time to show, whether he has in fact done a service or an injury to that cause.

Indeed the author would not have consented to the publication of the article, unless he had believed that the cause of truth would have been advanced by it, whether his sentiments be right or wrong. Let his views be regarded in the light of a statement of difficulties which occur to a lover of truth in the investigation of the subject. Such a statement shows to the friends of truth, to those who think they have better views, to what point they should direct their labors. We trust that those, who are confident that they can give a better exposition of the subject, will lose no time in doing it. To none will it be more welcome than to the Reviewer. If it can be done in the com

pass of a small tract, so much the better for the reader and the more honorable for the writer.*

It may be asked, Where is the necessity of innovation? Why is a new exposition of the subject needed? I answer, On account of the progress of the art of interpretation in modern times, particularly on account of the rejection of the theory of a double sense, the former method by which difficulties in relation to the subject were solved. I repeat it; the prevailing and ultimate design of the Reviewer was to establish the divine authority of Christ, - to reconcile with it what have the appearance of being facts. If he has not succeeded, the work re

mains to be done by some happier inquirer after truth.

A distinguishing characteristic of the review is, that it aims. to reconcile the representations of the Hebrew prophets, not only with the divine authority, but with the infallibility of our Saviour in his instructions. This design appears from the drift of the argument, as well as from the explanation of the language of Jesus in a former number of the Examiner, to which reference is expressly made. In this respect, the review differs from a work which is announced as about to be translated and published in Scotland, apparently under Orthodox patronage. I allude to the work mentioned on the last page of the last number of the Christian Examiner, "The Hermeneutics of the Authors of the New Testament," by Döpke. This writer maintains that Jesus, as well as the Apostles, adopted and used the allegorical mode of interpretation, which prevailed at that time, and that it is only in an allegorical sense that they apply passages of the Old Testament to persons and events mentioned in the New. At the same time he holds, in common with almost all enlightened interpreters of modern times, that the allegorical sense is imaginary.

* "Within a short time," says Prof. Pusey, of Oxford, in his work on the theology of Germany, "after Bretschneider's collection of objections or difficulties relating to the genuineness of St. John's Gospel appeared, no less than fourteen answers were published; and the point is now established to the satisfaction of Bretschneider himself, in common with the rest of Germany; it would, however, be very unjustifiable to ascribe to Bretschneider any other motive than that which he assigns in his original work, the wish to bring the question to an issue; where doubts have acquired a general prevalence, it is an unquestionable service to collect those doubts as strongly as they are capable of being put; the only result of the desultory answers with which, till this is done, vindicators often content themselves, is to produce an unjustified and unconvinced conviction."

† See pp. 52, 53, and 125.

VOL. XVII. -N. S. VOL. XII. NO. I.

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