the earlier and more distinguished among the Fathers, regarded apostolic precedent, so far as it bears upon this point. They did not esteem it authoritative; and from the singular pains they took in instructing converts from heathenism, before admitting them to membership in the church, it may fairly be presumed that in their day, the evils of a more hasty and less cautious course were apparent.

We have thus extended our remarks on the point in debate, because, as already suggested, we feel it to be one of great moment; and one which has not been as fully considered as its importance demands. We shall feel ourselves happy, if the considerations which we have here brought forward, shall shed light on the path of christian duty, and be instrumental in correcting erroneous views.

What can be of deeper interest to the christian cause, than the character of our churches? This character depends on that of the individual members. We speak not without opportunities of observation, when we say, that the practice of speedy admission to church privileges, is sure to corrupt the church by filling it with false professors, and men of doubtful piety. It does indeed add to the church, but it is an addition of weakness, and not of strength. The numerical power of the body is augmented, but its moral influence is, in a far greater ratio, diminished. In times of revival, ministers are strongly tempted from various sources, speedily to gather in the fruits of their labors. They are prone to regard the strength of the church, as depending chiefly on its numbers. A vain ambition of swelling the list of their converts, and multiplying the number of their communicants, may also insidiously steal its way into the heart, and exert an undue bias. But let them beware. If they make too great haste in this matter, the joy of to-day will be turned into mourning to-morrow. They will find, in the day of trial, that many will openly apostatize, or what is perhaps worse for the cause of Christ, sink down to the level of a decent morality, and there remain as immoveable, as cold, and as barren, as the rocks of our mountains. They indulge in no sins, perhaps, which subject them to discipline: but they continue in the church, a standing occasion of taunt and reproach with the man of the world, a grief to the pious,-the heaviest burden of the pastor, and the most fatal of all hinderances, to the success of his labors. This is not speculation. We testify what we have seen, and known, and deplored.

We have alluded to the importance of elevating the standard of piety in the christian church. The subject is one of transcendent interest; and we had intended to close this article, with some remarks upon it. But our limits compel us to defer, for the present, the consideration of a topic, at once so copious and so momentous.

ART. IV.-REVIEW OF GRAHAME'S HISTORY OF EARLY SETTLEMENTS IN AMERICA.

Pitkin.

The History of the Rise and Progress of the United States of North America, till the British Revolution in 1688. By JAMES GRAHAME, Esq. London: 1827. 2 Vols. pp. 531 and 527.

THE two volumes whose title we have placed at the head of this article, have lately appeared from a London press; and are, as the author informs us, "the first of a threefold series of works, which, when completed, will form "The History of the United States of North America, from the plantation of the English Colonies, to the establishment of their Independence.

The plan of the author embraces those British provinces, which at the era of the American revolution, formed the confederacy of the United States; "the illustration," to use his own expression, "of the rise and formation of this great republic, being the end of his labors."

The volumes before us, contain the American colonial history, to the time of the British revolution, or to about the close of the seventeenth century. In the two succeeding volumes, we are promised a continuation of our colonial history, to the commencement of the American revolution; and the two last volumes, making six in the whole, are to embrace the history of the revolution itself, and the establishment of the North American republic.

The author has undertaken a task of no ordinary difficulty as well as magnitude; a task, which no individual either in Europe or America, has yet fully accomplished. The materials necessary for a complete and faithful execution of a plan so extensive, as that contemplated by the author of the two volumes before us, are not only very numerous, but are widely scattered in the two worlds. In the collection and examination of these materials, much time as well as expense, is requisite. Nor do these materials consist merely of printed documents, but of innumerable manuscripts and records to be sought in different States of the Union, and in various countries of Europe, particularly Great Britain, France, Holland, and Spain.

When a foreigner presents us with a history of our own country, the first and most natural inquiry is, from what sources he has derived his information;" and the second, not perhaps less important, 'what are his qualifications, for a faithful execution of the task he has undertaken? We wish to be acquainted with his political, and even religious opinions, biasses, and prepossessions. Whether he is so wedded to the habits and manners, as well as to the political and religious institutions of the old world, as to be unable

to form a just and proper estimate of those of the new. Whether he comes among us, like some modern traveler, under the mask of impartiality, and with a professed desire of ascertaining the truth, but in reality to confirm his own preconceived and self-sufficient opinions; to exggerate, to misrepresent, and to make a false report.

"We know little of Mr. Grahame, who has thus commenced a series of American history, except from his own account in the volumes under consideration. From his name, and the dedication of his work to his father of Whitehall, Lanarkshire, Scotland, we conclude, he is by birth a Scotsman.

With respect to the sources of his information, Mr. Grahame states, that he found the public libraries of Great Britain very imperfectly provided with the materials of American history. After obtaining by loan or purchase all the additional works which he could procure in that country, he was compelled to resort to the library of Göttengen, where he "found an ampler collection of North American literature than any, and indeed than all the libraries of Britian could supply." That this admirable repository should be richer in the materials of European history than any similar establishment in Great Britain, would not excite our surprise. But that Englishmen should be compelled to resort to Germany for the history of their own early settlements, in a country which is distant more than three thousand miles from the continent of Europe, is certainly a remarkable fact. In addition to these means of information, Mr. Grahame has had access to the library and papers of the late George Chalmers, for many years clerk of the Board of Trade, and author of that well-known work, the Political Annals. Mr. Chalmers first commenced his acquaintance with colonial history, in this country. Prior to the American revolution, as Mr. Grahame inform us, he emigrated to the colonies, and settled as a lawyer at Baltimore; but adhering to the royal cause, he returned to England, and was rewarded by an appointment from the Board of Trade. His Political Annals were written while he was clerk of this board; and as they are often referred to, in this country, as well as in England, we shall here subjoin what Mr. Grahame says of the author, as well as of the work itself.

Perhaps no other writer has combined such elaborate research of facts, with such temerity of opinion, and such glaring inconsistency of sentiment, as the "Political Annals" of this writer display. The American provinces, though little indebted to his favorable opinion, owe the most important illustration of their history to his industrious researches. Some of the particulars of his own early history may perhaps account for the peculiarities of his American politics. A Scotsman by birth, he had emigrated to Maryland, and settled at Baltimore as a lawyer, when the revo

lutionary contest in which he adhered to the royal cause, blasted all his prospects, and compelled him to take refuge in England, where his unfortunate loyalty and distinguished attainments, procured him an honorable appointment from the board of trade. The first (and only) volume of his Annals was composed while he hoped that the royal cause would yet prevail in America, and was intended as an apology for his party. His labors were discontinued when the cause and party to which they were devoted, had evidently perished. Though a strong vein of toryism pervades all his pages, he is at times unable to restrain an expression of indignant contempt, at particular instances of the conduct of the kings and ministers, whose general policy he labors to vindicate.

In the facts relative to the early history of our country, Mr. Grahame, as appears by his reference to authors, has relied principally on the historical accounts of the different colonies, which, have been published both in Europe and America; and with most of which the American reader will find himself already acquainted. He has referred, however, to some works of an early date, not so generally known in this country. Among these we notice Archdale's statistical and historical description of Carolina, 'a work' says Mr. Grahame,replete with so much good sense, benevolence and piety, that it is surprising it should never have been reprinted'; -Dunton's travels in New-England ;-Denton's New-York;Alsop's Maryland ;-Blome's account of the American provinces, and Gabriel Thomas' history of Pennsylvania and New-Jersey.

Mr. Grahame very frankly avows his strong predilections in favor of America and the colonial side, in the controversies between the colonists and the British government; and in entering on the history of our early settlements, he pays a just tribute of praise to the character of our fathers, and to the wisdom of their institutions. This tribute from a foreigner, cannot fail to be read with pleasure, by every American, who reveres the memory of his ancestors, and cherishes a love for their principles.

"History," says the author in his preface," addresses her lessons to all mankind: but when she records the fortunes of an existing people, it is to them that her admonitions are specially directed. There has never been a people on whose character their own historical recollections were calculated to exert a more animating and salutary influence, than the nation whose history I have undertaken to relate.

"In national societies established after the manner of the United States of North America, history does not begin with obscure or fabulous legends. The origin of the nation, and the rise and progress of all its institutions, may be distinctly known. The people may obtain an accurate and familiar acquaintance with the character of their earliest national ancestry, and of every succeeding generation through which the inheritance of the national name and fortunes, has devolved to themselves. When this interesting knowledge is blended with the information that their existence as a people originated in the noblest efforts of wisdom, fortitude and magnanimity, and that every successive acquisition, by which their liberty and happiness have been extended and secured, has arisen from the

exercise of the same qualities, and evinced their faithful preservation and unimpaired efficacy-respect for antiquity becomes the motive and pledge of virtue; the whole nation feels itself ennobled by ancestors, whose renown will continue to the end of time, the honor or reproach of their successors; and the love of virtue is so interwoven with patriotism and with national glory, as to prevent the one from becoming a selfish principle, and the other a splendid or mischievous illusion. If an inspired apostle might with complacency proclaim himself a citizen of no mean city, a North American may feel a grateful exultation in avowing himself the native of no ignoble land, but of a land that has yielded as great an increase of glory to God and of happiness to man, as any other portion of the world, since the first syllable of recorded time, has ever had the honor of producing. A nobler model of human character could hardly be proposed to the inhabitants of New-England, Pennsylvania and others of the North American states, than that which their own early history supplies. It is, at once their interest and their honor to preserve with sacred care a model so richly fraught with the instructions of wisdom and the incitements of duty. The memory of the saints and heroes whom they claim as their natural and national ancestors will bless all those who account it blessed, and the ashes of their fathers will give forth a nobler influence than the bones of the prophet of Israel, in reviving piety and invigorating virtue. So much, at the same time, of human weakness and imperfection is discernible in the conduct or is attested by the avowals of these eminent men, and so steady and explicit was their reference to heavenly aid, of all the good they were enabled to perform or attain, that the admiration they so strongly claim never exceeds a just subordination to the glory of the most High, and enforces the scriptural testimony to the riches of divine grace, and the reflected lustre of human virtue.

The volumes under consideration are divided into seven books, embracing the separate history of Virginia, New-England, Maryland, North and South Carolina, New-York, New-Jersey and Pennyslvania.

In this compendious history of the first settlement of these colonies, and the causes which led to it, the American reader who is conversant with our early colonial histories, will find little that is new. They have the advantage, however, of presenting a condensed and separate statement of the early transactions in each colony; and on this account, may be read with profit by all, who have not had access to the original sources of information, and with pleasure by those who wish briefly to review scenes, with which they are in no small degree familiar. We cannot too often bring to our recollection the noble daring of our ancestors, and the virtuous motives, which led them to forsake their native homes, and to found an empire in the new world. These, together with their unprecedented situation and peculiar feelings on leaving forever their native shores, (particularly those destined for New-England,) are happily as well as justly described by the author of these volumes.

"The regret," says Mr. Grahame," which an eternal farewell to their native land was calculated to inspire, the distressing inconveniences of a long voyage, to persons unaccustomed to the sea, and for the formidable