world, the command was, in fact, in his being; and the obstacles to obeying it, arising from the difficulty of searching out truth and overcoming irregularities of climate, seasons, soil, and whatever might be noxious, were calculated to excite his energy and prompt to effort. It is also necessáry, before pronouncing on any particular obstacle, to examine into its uses. The excessive extremes of the earth's climates, how shall we decide whether they are not essential to the best development of the perfect man? Alpine mountains may seem to be an undoubted mark of the curse. Yet they are a storehouse of waters, and thereby of fertility, for continents; India, China, the Americas and other lands owe a vast debt to their snowy hights, for they redeem great territories from barrenness. Such a fact as this naturally makes us slow in pointing the finger at any one spot as stamped with the curse more than another, or as being so far retributive in aim that its highest purpose would not have been accomplished if man had not sinned. Another seeming mark of sin is the barrenness of many regions, owing to the drift stones and gravel that cover them. Yet the process which sent this drift material over the continents was but the prelude to that which filled the valleys with their alluvial plains. The exhibition, also, of a complete system of sentiments and passions in forms in nature, (see p. 331, § 8,) responds, as has been shown, to a necessity in the perfect as well as imperfect man. These forms are a deep fund of imagery to language, poetry and art-a display of mental and moral ideas in symbols-a manifestation through nature of Infinite Mind in sympathy with the finite.

But while doubting over particular facts, we still have to admit that in the general arrangement of the earth's surfacethe subdivisions and form of the land-barren and fertile fields-its noxious productions, whether plant or animal, man, in his present state, was distinctively in view; and that these orderings were intended in part to guide him in his mental, social and political development, and in part to deepen the necessity of labor for a being whose evil propensities would disincline him to serious effort. But even in these marks of the fall, there is little that mars the external beauty of nature. There

is beauty in the mountains, and their valleys and streams, and beauty even in the vexatious weeds. Man is the diseased species of the animal kingdom; and the thousand ills that are ever near to prey upon his vitals, proclaim that he has left his first estate and incurred the frown of his Maker.

Moses, recounting the events of creation, writes under a profound sense that the system of nature is a perfect work. The account of the first day ends with that word which means much when expressing the approbation of omniscience"And God saw that it was good;" that of the second, again, was pronounced "good;" the third, "good," "good;" the fourth, "good" the fifth, "good;" the sixth, "good,” “very good"! Then he describes the beautiful garden of Eden, and Adam and Eve in their paradise. Now comes the first sin, and earth and man felt the shock as the curse went forth "Cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life: thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee, and thou shalt eat the herb of the field: in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it was thou taken; for dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return." All things, according to the sacred historian, are good and beautiful until sin enters: the mar of sin comes after the sin. And what was then the curse of the ground? "In sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee." This is the whole!

The history does not exclude all anticipations of sin in the appointments before Adam. Those arrangements of the earth's surface features which, in the view presented, had prospective reference to the development of fallen man, are no blot on her beauty of form, fitness, or character. They look towards man's need, not his retribution, and cannot be regarded as out of harmony with the narrative. But to make earthquakes and thunderings, uncouth shapes and beastly appetite, pain and death, the mar of sin, is surely contravening the spirit, if not the words, of the sacred record.

ARTICLE II.-CHICAGO THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY.*

Proceedings of the Triennial Convention of Ministers and Delegates of the Congregational Churches in the Northwest, held in connection with the Chicago Theological Seminary, at Chicago, Oct. 20th and 21st, 1858; with the Inaugural Addresses of Profs. Haven and Bartlett. Chicago. 1858.

THE reading public have not been unadvised of the movement which has been in progress during the last few years, under the direction of Congregationalists, for the establishment of a Theological Seminary at the West. The pamphlet before us, issued by its directors and giving, among other things of importance, the inaugural addresses of two of its professors at the recent opening of the institution, warrants us in calling the attention of our readers more distinctly to this new school of Christian learning. This we shall do chiefly in the way of a brief historic sketch of the proceedings connected with it, rather than by undertaking, to any great extent, the discussion of principles and politics involved.

The first formal movement in connection with the establishment of the Seminary at Chicago was made in the year 1853, although some scheme of theological education had been embraced in their plans, from the first, by the founders of many of the western colleges. This was almost a matter of course, as it was in the case of the founders of most, if not all of the colleges of New England. Founded as these institutions, both at the East and the West, were, on the best impulses of a true and living Christianity, those who were instrumental in their organization could hardly have stopped short, in their

The best method of organizing theological institutions in this country is still an important subject of inquiry. We submit, in this Article, without comment, the views entertained by the friends of the new seminary at Chicago. These views, we doubt not, will be read with interest, notwithstanding the diversity of opinion which there will be in respect to what is said with regard to the deficiencies in the organization of the older theological institutions of the country, and the system of training there established.-ED. NEw Englander.

measures of education, of such a plan as would find its crown in the equipment of their students for the calling of the ministry. Yale College was, in fact, at the outset, more a Theological Seminary than a College, as the latter term has come now to be understood. Subsequently the revival of its somewhat lost character in this respect led to the formal creation of a theological department in its university equipment. Our western colleges have not yet developed a distinct theological organization, except, we believe, in the case of that at Oberlin, though many of them have had the theological idea in them, and this has more or less distinctly appeared, at times, in the title of their professorships, as, for instance, in Illinois College, where a professorship of theology has lain dormant these many years. The Christian men, both those who had looked out upon the growing West from a distance with solicitous eye, anxious that it should be built up on the basis of true Christian virtue, and those who had gone thither to do what they might as wise builders for Christ, could not fail, with any tolerable conception of the magnitude and importance of the field, and its relations to the future of the country and of the world, to embrace in their schemes of education the requisite means for the training up, sooner or later, the ministry there to be needed. But, as we have said, it was not until so late as the year 1853 that the thoughts and feelings of those who were exercised in this direction began to take visible and effective shape. Up to that time they had borne with the necessity of relying upon theological institutions already established at the East for the supply of those needed for the preaching and pastoral office in the newer portions of the land. Now, however, the inadequacy of this source had become so manifest that it was felt to be a duty to supply its deficiency.

And this deficiency was two-fold; not only in men but in training. The East could hardly draw from the bosom of its churches men enough to supply its own wants and those of the missionary service abroad, much less to meet the added demands of the fast-peopling trans-alleghanic region. And it was, at the same time, a difficult matter to draw young men a thousand miles from home to be educated for a work to be done finally at home. There was too great expense involved,

to say nothing of the fact that institutions so remote did not appeal to the western churches with the force needed in order to inspire their young men with desire to furnish themselves for the work of the ministry. Ten thousand avenues, not only of gain but of usefulness also, opened their gates between them and those far-off schools of sacred learning rendered almost mythical by their distance.

But then, if these difficulties had not belonged to the existing state of things, there was another, greater and more nearly insuperable. It was the system of training established in all the older theological institutions of the land. It is not to be denied that with all the fine mental discipline furnished by our colleges and seminaries, there is yet a lack of practicalness and of practical acquaintance with the plans and proper pursuits of life, on the part of those sent forth from them, which puts those thus trained at a great disadvantage oftentimes, in comparison with others who have not had the benefit of the more complete and classical tuition. There is too much of truth in the remark made by one of our most distinguished living men, himself also a graduate of one of our foremost colleges, that "the first thing one has to do when he has left the college is to unlearn what he has there learned."

We do not intend to discuss the best methods of education, and shall, therefore, only advert to the fact that our cloistered system of training does, in some sense, educate us away from the masses around us, with whom, nevertheless, most of us must live in after life in bonds of closest contact. And nowhere is this evil effect of education more felt than in the case of those who are training for the sacred ministry. In the professions of law and medicine, the system of education in the professional schools themselves is such as to counteract largely the scholastic tendencies. The student at law, however closely engaged with his books, is all the while, whether in the professional school or the office of the practising attorney, brought into daily contact with men, and is directly conversant with their modes and habits. of thought and action, their individualities of character. The same is true of the student of medicine. Along with his training in the Medical College, or perhaps without its benefits, he puts himself in the way of seeing, by daily companionship