said one of the city journals of the next morning, such unearthly, inhuman, strange, uncouth, hideous noises, in all our born days. One would have thought Babel was let loose, and all the black fiends of the lower region out on a frolic.' Another journal, equally in favor of this dastardly outrage, testified as follows: 'Rings were formed in the

centre of the floor, in which individual and general fights took place; hats were smashed, and ivory-headed canes flew briskly; then came a series of dances, with Indian warhoop accompaniments. IT WAS HELL LET LOOSE, AND NO MISTAKE!'

For whom did these miscreants send up cheer after cheer, throughout the entire evening? Who was the recreant and fallen man whom, on that occasion, they were proud to recognise and eager to applaud, as one with him in spirit and fellowship? DANIEL WEBSTER!

Where shall we look in history for a more melancholy instance of human degradation?

The Crisis.

SOUTHERN AGGRESSIONS UPON NORTHERN RIGHTS THE EXPULSION OF HON. SAMUEL HOAR FROM SOUTH CAROLINA THE IMPRISONMENT OF WALKER IN FLORIDA, AND TORREY IN MARYLAND ETC.

I.

WHY, like a sluggard, sleeps the BAY STATE now,
As lost to hope, and dead to scorn and shame?
A blot is on th' escutcheon of her fame;
Dishonor stamps its brand upon her brow;
Forgotten is her old and solemn vow,

To keep for ever burning FREEDOM's flame,
Maintain her rights, and vindicate her name,
And never at the shrine of SLAVERY bow.
Insensate as the shaft on Bunker's Hill,

And harder than its granite, seems her breast;

The tyrannous South her sons enslave and kill,

Yet moves she not to have their wrongs redressed :—

Then let her of oppression have her fill,

And be, henceforth, the Southron's mock and jest!

II.

Hold! give not up, as lost, this free-born State !
For Pilgrim blood yet courses in her veins ;
The Pilgrim spirit brooks no servile chains,
As they shall find, her rights who violate!
Slow unto wrath, magnanimously great,

Nor fear, nor lack of might, her hand restrains;
Cool, firm, resolved - to bluster she disdains;
But when she acts, 'tis with the force of fate!
In this great trial-hour she will not blench,

But, single-handed, should all others flee,
The ruffian hosts of SLAVERY meet, and wrench
All chains asunder, and th' oppressed set free:
Nought shall her courage daunt, her ardor quench,
In battling for thy cause, O LIBERTY!

Divine Authority of the Bible.

It cannot be denied, that the question of the divine authority of the Bible is one of grave importance, and therefore worthy of searching investigation. The right of private judgment is, theoretically, the cardinal doctrine of Protestantism; and it is a doctrine fatal to every form of spiritual infallibility. It allows no man, no conclave of men, to determine arbitrarily, whether the Bible is of heaven or of men; how much of it is in accordance with the truth, or how much mixed with error; what portion of it is genuine, or what spurious; how this precept is to be understood, or that declaration interpreted. It leaves the human mind (as it should be left) free to judge of the origin, authenticity, inspiration, authority, value of the Bible, according to its own perception of right, its own conviction of duty. The natural result is, a wide diversity of opinions respecting the book, and the duties it inculcates. Men equally sincere arrive at diametrically opposite views as to its teachings. Some find in it the doctrine of the trinity, of total depravity, of the atonement, of eternal reprobation, in the Calvinistic Others find no such doctrines. Some derive from it divine sanctions for polygamy, war, slavery, wine-bibbing, capital punishment, the lex talionis, governments upheld by military and naval power, aristocracy, monarchy, autocracy. Others construe it in direct opposition to all such views. Some believe in its plenary, some in its partial inspiration; others reject the popular notion of inspiration, whether plenary or partial. Some reverence the volume as holy and divine, and with superstitious awe; others esteem it as of incomparable worth; while others treat it with contempt, and pronounce it a pernicious book. A multitude of rival sects find in its pages any quantity of proof-texts in support

sense.

of their own peculiar faith, and each one makes out at least a plausible case for itself. In this Babel confusion of tongues, the questions arise - Who is right? what is truth? who is it that believes in the Bible? Is it the Episcopalian, or the Presbyterian, or the Baptist, or the Methodist, or the Swedenborgian, or the Unitarian, or the Universalist, or the Quaker? If any of these, which- and how do you prove it? If all of them, who, then, rejects the Bible? To what does it all amount, in the last analysis, except that the Bible is variously interpreted by the various readers of it? But whose interpretation is to be oracular, absolute, final, in this matter? Who shall play the Pope among us? or coolly accuse another of rejecting the Bible, merely because of a difference of opinion respecting some particular passages? There are plenty of such, and a very ludicrous and contemptible appearance they make, in the guise of Protestants. They are swollen with conceit, stultified through superstition, contracted by ignorance. For one, I shall not heed their fulminations, nor submit to their rule, for one moment. When I am prepared to give up my own independent judgment, and to pin my faith upon any man's sleeve, I will repudiate Protestantism, turn Catholic, and do homage to the genuine, unadulterated Pope at Rome.

It is to use language in a very loose sense to talk of any one rejecting the Bible, for there is an immense amount of truth in it, which no one has ever sought to invalidate. It is true, some parts of it are deemed incongruous, inaccurate, spurious, or doubtful; other parts clearly impossible to understand or interpret; other parts obsolete, exclusive, Jewish deemed so by eminent theologians, devout scholars, enlightened Christians. They neither accept nor reject the book, as such; but they study it as a compilation of books, written in different ages of the world; and each one claims and exercises the right to decide for himself what

he finds therein compatible with his sense of justice, humanity, and right. True, they often accuse each other of rejecting the Bible; but it amounts only to this, that, in some of their interpretations of Scriptural language, they differ very widely.

Much of this confusion arises from the common error of regarding the Bible as a unit-a work prepared by one mind, (and that a divine one,) consecutively, for the guidance of all mankind; instead of realizing the fact, that it is a compilation of Jewish and Christian manuscripts, written in different parts of the world, in ages more or less remote from each other-written nobody knows by whom, beyond what supposition and probability may suggest. As it is not one production, but many productions as it is neither exclusively Jewish nor wholly Christian, but a mixture of both — as it relates to different people, under different laws and usages, possessing various degrees of light and knowledge it is easy to see why it is that, treating it as a unit, and every portion of it as alike sacred, so many jarring sentiments and so many conflicting practices are attempted to be justified from its pages. A dexterous theologian, having full liberty to range, in the name of God, from Genesis to Revelation, finds it an easy matter to cull out such passages as seem to substantiate the doctrine, or defend the practice, that he is zealous to maintain. It is true, he may be beaten with his own weapons, and yet neither the victor nor the vanquished be enlightened as to the truth.

The Bible, then, is the product of many minds, and was never designed to be a single volume, to be received as of infallible authority or divine origin. The Jewish portion of it is supposed to have been collated by Ezra. The Christian portion was decreed to be canonical by the Council of Nice. 'What is writ, is writ,' and it must stand or fall by the test of just criticism, by its reasonableness and utility, by the