enough to complain that missionaries cannot be found in sufficient numbers. For our own part, we should anticipate no difficulty of this sort.

But then the " economy of the system." What then is the comparative economy of the system? The average annual cost of a colporteur to the Tract Society is as follows, viz.: salary $150; books, gratuitously distributed, average $175; travelling expenses, which we estimate at $75. These sums added together show the total annual average expense of a colporteur to the Society that employs him, to be about $400. This is fully twice the annual average cost to the Home Missionary Society of each of its missionaries. Where then is the peculiar economy of this system? It seems to lie simply in this, that it costs as much to sustain one colporteur in the field as to sustain two missionaries. And even this result is on the assumption that the American Tract Society can obtain as valuable services for $150 as the Home Missionary Society can for $200, with the addition of whatever may be contributed by the people with whom the missionary labors. The question of economy, as compared with Home Missions, is therefore reduced to this-Is one colporteur worth two missionaries? To this question we think a satisfactory answer has already been given.

We have already extended our remarks to what will perhaps be considered a very unreasonable length. But there is yet another view of the subject, which we feel constrained to examine before we close. It is found in the following paragraph: "There is another respect in which the colporteur system has special adaptation to our country, viz., the ease and rapidity with which it can be indefinitely extended. The population, already numbering 18,000,000, is increasing with a rapidity which outstrips all present efforts to give it the Gospel. The supply of well qualified ministers is altogether inadequate; and even if the men and the means for their education were now provided, nearly one-half of the present generation would pass into eternity, and the character of the next generation be essentially moulded, and perhaps the destiny of the country forever decided, before they could be brought into effective service. But to rely alone on an educated ministry, leaving undeveloped and unemployed the energies of the followers of Christ-not merely in giving but in doing-not as a thing by the way, but, if need be, in an exclusive consecration of their time and talents to works of benevolence, is not only an error which may be fatal, but it is econom

ically as unwise as it would be to leave a great battle to be fought by the generals in command on one side, against a mighty opposing force." Am. Col. Sys., p. 19.

We have never been of the number of those who are in favor of leaving the "battle to be fought by the generals in command on one side, against a mighty opposing force." If by generals be meant, as would seem from the connexion, educated ministers, the providence of God has placed this matter far beyond human control. A pious and intelligent layınan was employed, in the year 1843, to inquire into the moral and religious condition of a district of country embracing some twenty counties, in one of the Northwestern States, and that a district in which there are probably as few "educated ministers" as in any other portion of the non-slaveholding States. In that district he found a minister of some sort, professing to preach the Gospel, for every three hundred souls, and about every fifth person, in a population of 112,000, a professor of religion. An examination equally thorough, we suppose, would disclose a very similar state of things in other portions of the West. Surely then there is no great danger that the whole battle will be left to "the generals." God has not (and we recognize the fact, we trust, with something of gratitude)-God has not left it dependent, either on the colporteur or the educated ministry, whether or not the great mass of our population shall in some sort have the Gospel. They have it, and they will have it. There is, indeed, a mighty work to be done, if we would fill the present and coming millions of our population with the knowledge of God, turn back the thick hosts of error and infidelity, and organize over all our vast territory a free, enlightened, and Christian community. So great indeed is this work, that we have long been accustomed to regard every true Christian, whose lot God has cast here, as being a missionary; as truly such as though he had been sent by the American Board to India or China. But God has in his good providence introduced into this work a division of labor. It is not needful to provide through our organized systems of effort, for sending a messenger to every cabin in the land, lest its inmates should never hear of a Saviour. God has provided instrumentalities which will with comparatively few exceptions carry the first lessons of the Gospel there before This is not the work to which our benevolent societies are mainly called. Their work is chiefly that of religious enlightenment and religious organization; to found those permanent

us.

Christian institutions, which may be the fountains of religious knowledge, and the bulwarks of religious truth to a great and free people. In such a work we should undoubtedly aim mainly to employ the resources which God gives us, in thoroughly qualifying men for such a service, sustaining those who are thus qualified in the field, and furnishing them with all the munitions of moral warfare. Among these munitions, doubtless, religious books and tracts occupy an important place.

If it be objected that this system of effort is too slow, we answer, first, that if it is slow, the fault is not ours, but belongs to the providence of God; second, that it is more efficient in immediate results than any other which has been or can be devised; and third, that, taken in connexion with the other great moral causes with which it is to co-operate, the ubiquity of the Bible and of some sort of preaching, as well as of other kindred influences, and especially with the intense activity of the public mind on religious questions, it will not be slow, unless it is prosecuted without energy and without prayer. Never was a system better devised for speedily accomplishing a given moral result in given circumstances. We are well aware that it will effect no sudden revolutions, and that its results will be very hard to represent in statistical tables. But limited as our efforts have been through this system in times past, it is even now an every where present moral force, constantly bearing society upward in the scale of knowledge and piety. And he who supposes it possible to do any thing better for western society, than to place it on such an ascending inclined plane of progressive improvement, knows not whereof he affirms.

We are indeed tired of hearing and writing, as we have done in the foregoing pages, about the" emergency" and the "crisis." We deceive ourselves if we imagine that any such convulsive and superficial efforts for immediate effect, as the great Sabbath school effort of 1830 and 1831, or as the colporteur system in the attitude which it is now assuming, designed to save our country from impending ruin by a single skilful manœuvre, can ever succeed. They cannot; they are founded on erroneous views of our character and condition. In such a sense as they assume, we never can be in a crisis or an emergency. Our safety depends on great permanent moral causes, as unchangeable in their general course as the father of waters. And we can cooperate with God, in providing for the spiritual welfare of this people, only by a patient effort to render these established moral 16

SECOND SERIES, VOL. XII. NO. 1.

currents subservient to the Gospel, by making them waft on their bosom the saving influences of evangelical truth.

As we admitted, in the outset of this discussion, the propriety, within certain limits, of a system of colportage, we may reasonably be asked to define what those limits are. In reply to such an inquiry we should say, let it cease entirely to talk of emergencies and crises. Let it cease to represent schools and seminaries of learning and an educated ministry as too slow in their operation to accomplish, in season, a deliverance for our country, which itself is adapted to work out immediately. Let it acknowledge that the only difficulty which hinders the establishment of schools and academies and seminaries of learning and an educated ministry every where, is precisely the same which hinders the American Tract Society from sending colporteurs "every where❞—the want of means; and, therefore, that the question is not which of the two can be done, but which really meets, not the emergency, but the great permanent wants of society. Let it cease to urge the destitution of our country, of the permanent institutions of education and religion, not as an argument for founding them immediately and every where, but for a superficial and spasmodic effort, which can never supply their place, or do their work. We shall then cease to have any controversy with it: nay, we shall most cordially welcome it to a place in the great brotherhood of Christian benevolence. There is a noble field for it to occupy, in seeking out the neglected, the ignorant, and the ungodly; impressing on them the first lessons of Christian truth, leading the father and the mother to the long-neglected sanctuary, and their children to the day school and the Sabbath school, and calling the attention of the thoughtless, the worldling, and the skeptic, to the writings of those gifted servants of God, whether living or dead, who have been guided by the divine Spirit, to present the Christian argument with unwonted convincing power, or to pour forth the pure stream of evangelical devotion with unwonted purity and fervor.

We shall here submit the subject to the candid judgment of the Christian public. We have spoken plainly and freely, because we believe the principles involved in this discussion to be of infinite importance to our country. We have no personal acquaintance with the great and good men who guide the operations of the American Tract Society. But we have much respect and much kindly affection for them; and are sincerely sorry to dissent from their views. We entreat them, however,

not to indulge the thought, that any thing we have said can do a real injury to the cause in which we are all engaged. If our reasonings are fallacious, it will be easy to detect and expose the fallacy if sound, it is surely time they were spread before the public.

ARTICLE X.

CRITICAL NOTICES.

1.-The Gorgias of Plato, with Notes, by Theodore D. Woolsey, Professor of Greek in Yale College. Boston: James Munroe & Co.

THIS beautiful edition, with its excellent notes, has tempted us to reperuse the Gorgias, and we cannot forbear a word in its praise. It is one of the most scholarlike editions of the Greek classics that has appeared in our country, whether we speak of the accuracy and learning of the notes, the precision and terseness of the style, or the elucidation of the text by a comparison of parallel passages. The editor has prepared himself for his task, with characteristic zeal and industry. He has compassed the whole circle of Greek literature, and read the entire works of Plato, with reference to the illustration of this dialogue. Plato is thus made to interpret himself. His meaning is often happily explained by a citation of kindred passages, collected with much care from the other dialogues. The advantages of this plan are obvious. Mutual light is cast by a comparison of parallel expressions. Especially is this true of a philosophical writer like Plato, who analyzes and defines with microscopic acuteness, and whose nice distinctions will often fail to be apprehended, unless explained by similar clauses in other connexions. Plato evinces remarkable power of discrimination between things that differ, and it is by this analytic definition that he continually detects the fallacy of his opponent.

The text of Stallbaum is the basis of this edition, with some emendations of the editor, adopted after a revision of the various readings, as given by Ast, and a comparison of the standard German editions. The introduction contains a lucid