ture must help to open a world of new susceptibilities in the child, and invite the maturer mind into one of the richest and most beautiful regions of healthy activity. And if these productions of mind fulfil the conditions required of them in order to their being truly eminent; if they stand in proper separation from the world and in fit relation to religion; can it be doubted, again, that the influence which they exert has some connexion with man's highest interests? And, finally, if the Christian ought never to be indifferent to any fit means of improving the condition and character of man, although such means belong confessedly to a subordinate sphere; if he is interested, as a Christian, in the provisions for education and for the mental improvement of himself and his particular circle; can he take credit to himself for indifference to the agencies of culture which are taken into the closest connexion even with the public worship of God and the preaching of His Gospel?

And thus, as we bring our argument to a close, we are able to show, as we proposed, on what grounds we consider Rituals a worthy and even necessary object of study, especially to the minister of the Church. It will now have been seen, that we do not aim simply at a minister's being able so to conduct public services as to make a decent show for the show's sake, or to induce his people to build a church in purer style, either in order to expend so much money as they are bound to devote to religious uses, or to have matter of boasting over others, or out of that esprit du corps of doing things for the honor of the Church. Neither do we urge this study, chiefly in order that champions may be endued with the requisite qualifications for standing more doggedly upon mere grounds of "authority;" for as much as reasons have ever been more to our taste than bare precedents, however binding. If Rituals are indeed such agencies as we claim them to be, no more words are needed to show them to be a worthy object of study. We cannot but be aware, however, that we expose ourselves to the suspicion of requiring for such study a disproportionate importance and space. Let us be judged by the relation in which we place these agencies to the supernatural agency of Religion. If we have most carefully preserved the essential distinction between them, if we have referred the subordinate power of culture to an inferior source, and have uniformly made the end, at which they aim, secondary, we could not be supposed now to claim for the study of Rituals an equal or like importance or proportion of time, with that which is demanded for the vital truths of the Gospel.

There are those, indeed, we dare say, who like a celebrated functionary, will not "like the looks" of our theory, for ascribing any kind of influence, connected with religion in the remotest degree, to the mode and accompaniments of public worship. Such of them as doubt with concern and charity we would simply refer again to the limits, not only of degree but of kind also, within which we confine that influence; and then, though they may see our doctrine to be idle, they cannot find it heretical or dangerous. But others of that number, it is very likely, may turn according to their wont, when the "looks" of a theological argument do not please them, to their polemic repository, and out of its ample store draw forth, without deliberation, the stereotyped label, lettered POPERY, and hang it upon our discussion, especially if, by taking a word or clause here or there, apart from its connexion and from the spirit of the whole, they can find a seeming hook for their label. To that decisive argument there can be no answer. Such kind of men would judge of a diamond by the accidental grain of dust that clouded its surface. If we do not lay down our arms, we at least retire from the contest.

But the feeling with which many may meet our argument, is one which is far more discouraging, namely: All this we knew and believed before. This may be said by some indeed with perfect truth; but not by all of those to whose lips it will rise. It is one thing to have been led, by some occasion, to see glimpses of a truth, and then to let the matter die, and another to detect in it the life and power of a principle. Yet when it has happened to some to bring forward such principle, those who had seen it before, as nothing but a tolerable notion or maxim, are always ready to protest it is nothing new to them. Truth cannot breathe such air. An ocean of mighty principles might set in upon such minds, but the moment the rushing waves touch its outmost limit, they turn into vapor, and only add new shades to a land of shadows. If the great principles of culture are indeed recognised as principles by all those who have "known them long ago," why, in all their dealings with the spirit of man, is mind treated like matter, and power made synonymous with tangible machinery? Why, instead of calling on high power to develop high power, is the dry sand of Useful Knowledge laid upon the dry sand of the Understanding-a fertilizing process truly! Why, in estimating the means of culture which we possess as a nation, is it boasted that we already have the "useful," and as to the "ornamental," we can do without it. [O! let it

be remembered that within that useless" ornamental" are contained nearly every product of all that is divine in the spirit of man.] Why all this excessive and fanatical confidence in Reforming Associations, appealing chiefly to motives and principles that vulgarize and debase humanity? Why, to come nearer to our particular topic, is the doctrine of an educated clergy so often made to mean nothing? Why are "Theological Students" invited to think "College education" useless for them, and promoted from the workshop to a seat in judgment over Calvin and Arminius, within a brief year or two-Greek and Hebrew [and Theology?] being dispensed with? Why are the qualifications of "laborers for the West" so accurately measured by those of an athlete, as though a Backwoodsman were to be fought withal for his soul's health —as though men on the Missouri were not men? And why, finally, are the peculiarities of the Church objected to and defended amongst ourselves, as though bits of Greek out of Gregory or bits of Latin out of Jerome were all the reason there could be in the matter-as though a dozen yards of linen displayed in a shop window, or worn by the minister in holy services, would be all the same thing in worth and significancy, but for such "authority?" When these questions shall have been satisfactorily answered, we will believe that the principles of culture are familiar as household words to every man in our utilitarian generation.

But we shall be well satisfied, if those who really "knew all this before," shall see, in our attempt to apply the principles of culture to a single subject, (of which the interest is, indeed, somewhat limited,) a disposition to co-operate with them according to our ability, in the noble work of casting corrective and enlivening truths into the disturbed and divided currents of our country's intellectual activity.

"So build we up the Being that we are;

Thus deeply drinking-in the soul of Things,
We shall be wise perforce...

.....

Whate'er we see,

Whate'er we feel, by agency direct,
Or indirect, shall tend to feed and nurse
Our faculties, shall fix in calmer seats
Of moral strength, and raise to loftier heights.
Of love divine, our intellectual soul."

WORDSWORTH.

ART. IV.- Origin, Progress, and Prospects of Steam Navigation across the Atlantic, etc. New York: 1838. Wiley and Putnam.

THE sensation produced in April last, by the arrival of two large steam ships in our harbor from British ports, has scarcely yet subsided; and if it has not been actually increased, it has from time to time been renewed by the reappearance of the GREAT WESTERN, with as much regularity in proportion to the distance, as the steam passage boats upon the Hudson river, or Long Island Sound. The day on which that magnificent vessel followed the SIRIUS into this port at the interval of a few hours, and after a shorter passage, was hailed as the commencement of a new era in steam navigation; and in the excitement of the moment, the merit of originality was claimed and seemed to have been tacitly allowed in favor of those who had conducted these successful enterprises.

-

The publication of which the title or one of its many titles -stands at the head of this article, was apparently put forth to refute this claim : with what success in our opinion our readers have already been enabled to judge, both from the "notice" of this pamphlet, and from our article on Atlantic steam navigation, in a former number of our journal.

Although the voyage across the Atlantic had been performed, as detailed in this publication, by our countryman, Captain Rogers, in the steam ship The Savannah, many years before the appearance of the Sirius and the Great Western in our waters, and the establishment, prior to that event, of the Robert Fulton as a steam packet between this port and New Orleans, as well as of several other steamers, as packets, plying coastwise between New York and Charleston, South Carolina, it was nevertheless admitted by us, on the occasion referred to, and will not, we presume, be hereafter denied, that Great Britain has preceded us in demonstrating both the practicability and advantage of a regular communication between the two continents by means of steam navigation, and in the actual establishment of such a line of communication. In our former article we enumerated some of the causes which enabled her thus to anticipate the proverbially adventurous and sagacious enterprise of our navigators.

But, besides her superiority in capital, and those peculiar geographical and other physical differences which induce a correspondent difference in the application and use of steam navigation in the two countries-another powerful cause operated, for a long time, to prevent even an experiment from being made here for ascertaining the benefit and safety of navigating the ocean with vessels propelled by steam, unless by those whose interest it was to prevent its success.

So long as the ingenuity, enterprise, and capital of Messrs. Livingston and Fulton, and their associates, were successfully and fully engaged in the internal navigation by means of steam, of those waters within our jurisdiction which communicate with the ocean, under the exclusive right vested in them by the state, they had no sufficient inducement to incur the hazards of the Atlantic voyage and no other persons, whether natives or foreigners, without their license, could enter into any harbor of this state, or venture to depart from it, in a steamer, without incurring severe penalties and subjecting their vessels to immediate seizure and eventual forfeiture.

Although this cause was local in its operation, and has for some years ceased to exist, yet, as it furnishes an instructive chapter in the history of steam navigation, we shall devote the present article to an account of the origin and character of this exclusive privilege, and of the cause and mode of its extinction. And, we trust, we shall the more readily be excused for this attempt, as the retrospect we propose to take may revive the memory of a subject, too interesting to be forgotten, and throw additional light upon the respective and relative pretensions of several individuals, who have claimed the merit of original discoveries or important improvements in steam navigation.

Notwithstanding it has been incontestibly established that the first successful application of the power of steam engines to vessels for any practical or enduring purpose was made in America, it has been shown as conclusively, that nearly a century before the first experiment in this country, a patent was granted in England, to Jonathan Hull, "for a machine by him invented, for carrying vessels or ships out of any harbor, port, or river, against wind or tide, or in a calm." This machine, as appears from the specifications and drawings published at the time, consisted of a boat with a water wheel on each quarter, moved by means of the atmospheric steam engine then in use -- and experiments were made with it in Plymouth harbor. But to whatever extent

*See Quarterly Review for December, 1818.